As Frutiger explained, “What you’ve stirred up has prompted the Security Council to form an International Criminal Tribunal, since Daedalus was a global corporation. They are assembling a team of counter-terrorism officials, the Sanctions committee, the Economic and Social Council, and its Commission on Science and Technology and Commission for Social Development. Specialized agencies are beginning to fold themselves into the investigations, everyone from the World Health Organization to the World Intellectual Property Organization.
“We are all very interested in Daedalus’s activity regarding body-shifting and their targeting of you. There are also other considerations, such as the imprisonment of Alice Xie and the assorted, shall we say, messiness of all that. All of the dogs and ponies are on show, and everyone wants their time in the spotlight.”
“What is all this, then?” Mesa asked. The thick rope of scars under her forearm shined in the overhead lighting as she waved one hand at the small room and the larger warren of cells behind her.
“A bit of safekeeping, I suppose,” Frutiger said. “The PRC are very much aware of how volatile things are, and they are treading lightly. They are prepared to release you into my custody.”
“Am I being charged?” she asked again.
“No,” he said plainly, and for the record. She watched as the e-paper etched his words into the micro-thin screen. “In fact, after combing through your Somnambulist posting and interviewing your friend Rameez, we are only seeking your testimony. In the meantime, we are offering you safe haven until all this is over.”
“You can promise me a free pass on everything? Elko, Seattle–I’m sure they have questions for me.”
“They do. I can assure you that everyone is treading lightly. Nobody wants to make a misstep or get roped into our already-wide investigation. The PRC, Washington, all of them are quite happy to pass the buck, as you would say. We will take care of it. And you. You can work with us, and then you begin putting the pieces of your life back together.”
“How is Rameez?” she asked, a large lump forming in her throat with the words. She hadn’t realized how sorely she had missed him.
“He’s well. He has been an enormous help.”
“When the ship landed, there was copy of Alice Xie aboard. A few, actually.”
Frutiger looked down at his tablet for a moment then took a deep breath. “The elderly woman housed a copy of Alice Xie. This is true. Unfortunately, she died soon after Alabaster’s landing. We believe that Daedalus activated safeguard protocols and detonated a small explosive implant that was inserted into her cerebral cortex. Our forensics team has been busy piecing it all together. I’m afraid we haven’t gotten terribly far.
“Aside from that woman and your friend, Jade, we found the primary data core containing the central intelligence of Alice Xie. Dealing with her has been difficult, as well.”
This had Mesa’s attention. She leaned in closer to the table. “What do you mean?”
“By all rights, we are dealing with a full-fledged and legitimate artificial intelligence. An exploratory committee is being formed to determine her legal standing and how to proceed with her. There is quite a lot of debate on the ethics of how to proceed and what kind of rights she is entitled to. She is not human, but she is not merely software. It is a puzzle, you see.”
“Can’t you just delete her?” Mesa asked. Hiding her scorn was impossible, and she felt her cheeks flush. After all she had been through, after all she had done, and after all that Alice Xie had been responsible for, to have that woman still ably manipulating the world in one form or another riled her.
“We could, certainly. But there is a reticence to do that. Some quarters are arguing that that is not quite fair. That it would be tantamount to an execution, and that there must be a trial to determine her culpability.”
Mesa was stunned. She gripped the edge of table with both hands. “Fuck fair,” she shouted. “That woman is a murderer, a killer. Do have any idea what she’s done? To me, to my friends, to my family. You want fair? You—“
Frutiger help up his hand, attempting to quiet her. “That is why I need your help, Mesa. This investigation and Alice’s role in it—you led us down this path. This started with you. And it will end with you.”
Her jaw clenched, and she slowly let the tension release. Her shoulders deflated, and she released the table, sitting back. She closed her eyes and took several long breaths, trying to find her calm center. She could feel the weight of Frutiger’s stare, and when she opened her eyes, she met his.
“What do I need to do?” she asked.
Chapter 29
Mesa had never been to Switzerland, as far as she knew.
Seven months passed in a flurry of activity. She was put into a flat in Sécheron, off the Route de Lausanne, on the right bank of Lake Geneva. She didn’t get to see as much of the city as she would have liked, and whatever travel she was allowed was under the guard of a protectorate detail. Aside from visits to a few nearby coffee houses and strolls through the Jardin Botanique and the closer, smaller Parc William Rappard along the lake, she spent much of her time in the safe confines of the apartment. She never tired of the view of Lake Geneva, though, or the snow-capped Alps beyond, and she enjoyed watching the boaters and the beachgoers when the weather was right.
Although she had been to the UN base several times, most of the interviews conducted with Frutiger and other investigators from the various panels of inquiry were carried out at the flat or via secure virtual white rooms established through the commNet. Frutiger had allowed the DRMR dampener to be removed, and Mesa reveled in losing herself in the data streams again. Regaining access was like rediscovering a lost limb, and she followed the news closely, particularly the stories surrounding Daedalus.
A number of executives and Daedalus chairmen across the globe had been either subpoenaed or arrested, depending on the depth of their involvement with Schaeffer’s operations. When Mesa asked Frutiger about the researchers who had been involved, he simply shrugged and told her not to worry about them.
“We have them in custody,” was all he would say. A part of her suspected they had been dumped into some off-the-books black site.
The company went through a large restructuring, and despite the controversy, it appeared to still have garnered a swelling of public support. Several countries that relied on the multinational conglomerate’s financial support and bevy of income taxes from its workers had deemed Daedalus too big to fail. PR spin doctors and the new chairmen and executive, who only months earlier had witnessed their predecessors jailed and the center of UN investigations, promised to do better and established new rules for oversight, particularly in terms of emergent technologies. The company established partnerships with a number of other tech firms, law firms, and public relations firms, and Daedalus seemed to be on the verge of winning itself a shiny new coat to gloss over its hellacious involvement with Schaeffer and his rogue researchers.
With her permission, a data forensic team combed through Mesa’s mind, downloading and examining every bit of data her brain stored. The process took several months. The REMIND software engineered by Daedalus was removed and studied.
Every Sunday evening, she was allowed to make contact with Rameez over the commNet, and they spent several long nights talking, though neither of them were allowed to speak of the investigation or their involvement in it. Instead, they spoke of mundane matters, like the weather and new software apps, or TV shows.
“You’re still in Geneva?” he asked.
She said she was. “Where’s home for you these days?” she asked.
“I’m back in Washington,” he said. “I have a new apartment. You should come by.”
“I throw a hell of a housewarming,” she said, and for what felt like the first time in ages, she laughed. She couldn’t stop laughing, and it grew
contagious. Rameez began laughing, too, which only made her laugh longer, until her ribs ached and she was left gasping for air.
“God, I needed that,” she said.
“Me, too,” Rameez said, wiping away tears. “I miss you, Mesa.”
“I miss you, too, buddy.” She wiped the tears from her good eye and disconnected.
In the weeks and months since they had reestablished contact with one another, Rameez had never asked her about the artificial eye. She knew it was a rather apparent alteration to her appearance, and she knew that he wasn’t that oblivious to how she looked. The closest he had ever gotten was asking how she felt and if she was OK, and he had left it at that.
The eye didn’t bother her. Neither did the scars that ran along her forearm. The PRC had not been delicate in their surgeries, and Frutiger had offered her a round of corrective surgeries to repair the deformities. She had turned him down, unable to see these changes as deformities. She was different, and different was good.
When she looked in the mirror, a simple thought bloomed: This is who I am. The voice was warm and smooth. It was her voice, she knew, and nobody else’s. She was whole.
Her hair had been shaped into a pixie cut, and she felt good about who she had become. Not just good, but sure. The more she talked with Frutiger and the other investigators, the more she realized how little control she’d had of herself before. She could more clearly analyze her actions and separate them from those of Alice Xie. She was in charge, in control, and assured. Nobody was going to take that away from her.
After a year, she delivered her testimony to the International Criminal Tribunal via a secure white room. For more than a week, she testified before the Third Trial Chamber of five judges from Uganda, Korea, South America, France, and Italy.
Three months later, the Court handed down numerous indictments, with Schaeffer’s researchers bearing the brunt of the punishment. Deemed a part of his inner-circle by the Office of the Prosecutor, the researchers were sentenced to life-long imprisonment to be served in Mali. They were found guilty of a litany of charges, including both physical and mental abuse, disregard of human life, abuse of science, ethical and amoral behavior, and crimes against humanity. Lighter sentences were given to individuals higher up on the chain. Department heads and corporate executives were charged largely with contempt of the Tribunal. Only three of a dozen executives charged were formally brought to trial by the Tribunal, and only one was found to be complicit in Schaeffer’s dangerous experimentations. That single executive was given a twenty-five-year sentence and imprisoned at a UN detention facility in the West African republic of Benin.
She live-streamed the sentencing via a DRMR app, and when the day was finished, Mesa felt more exhausted than satisfied. If anything, she felt more confused and questioned what, exactly, she was supposed to be feeling. She had expected a greater level of closure.
At nine, Frutiger knocked on her door, clearly drunk and carrying a six-pack of Heineken. “We did it!” he shouted, his cheeks flushed red and eyes bloodshot. She let him past, and he set the beer on her kitchen table. “This is for you.”
She had never seen him like that before. She was used to the buttoned-up, professional Frutiger, not the loose, inebriated, cheerful man before her. He spun the cap off one of the emerald bottles and passed it to her. The beer was wonderfully cold and provided a sense of satisfaction that the day’s earlier verdicts had not.
“What will you do now?” he asked her, falling onto the sofa.
She’d given that some thought in the intervening hours, but still found herself at a loss. Aside from Rameez, she had no one and nothing else. All of her closest friends were dead, her father was gone, and Kaizhou had sacrificed himself so that she might live. She owed both him and Jonah a decent life, and she found herself in the peculiar position of starting over from scratch, with no history to tie her down. Her life, her future, and whatever came next were all up to her. Her choices and her decisions were hers alone. Talking all of that over with a drunken Frutiger, though, lacked any sort of appeal.
Leaning against the breakfast counter, she answered truthfully but succinctly: “I don’t know. I’ve got a few ideas, though.”
Frutiger seemed to consider her words then shrugged. “That’s good. Take a few days. Figure it out.”
“What happens with Alice Xie now?” Mesa asked, pinpointing the source of her anxiety. The woman was still out there, if only as a collection of ones and zeros. Even that form of existence was deadly, a pathogenic danger that she didn’t think either the UN Tribunal or Frutiger properly recognized. And by the time they figured it out, it would be too late.
“Daedalus kept her stored in a white room. We’ve taken similar precautions and shunted her off to a disconnected server. She’s basically imprisoned, denied any type of access. Nobody will get to her, and she will not be able to get to anyone. She’s grounded.”
“That isn’t good enough,” Mesa said.
“It’s all we can do,” he said, clearly deflated. Whatever good buzz he had worked up before coming to her apartment, Mesa had effectively killed it. She didn’t care.
“You need to take that hard drive and fucking burn it. Do you understand that? Delete her. Wipe her out. Kill her.”
Frutiger took a long drink, but it lacked any of the enthusiasm that he’d displayed moments ago. “My hands are tied,” he said, his voice softened with regret.
Three days later, Mesa and Frutiger shared a final beer at an airport bar. She had discussed her decision with him the day before, and he had approved.
“Everything’s taken care of,” he told her. “You’re all set.”
They clinked the necks of their beer bottles together, and she said, “Cheers.”
“You’re very brave, Mesa. You deserve a good life, a good home. Do your best, eh?”
She promised she would, both to him and to herself.
The flight was long and uneventful. After a year of what felt like standing still, she finally had a destination in mind. A goal. A chance to restart her life and to rebuild.
The following afternoon, she boarded a passenger ship leaving Seattle. When they had talked on Sunday, she had not told Rameez she would be in town, and she felt somewhat guilty. She had promised to call him again soon, though. She would have time to schedule a visit with him later, but she needed some time to herself. She inhaled the salty air and enjoyed the flecks of sea spray against her face as the ferry crested a wave.
Because she was traveling in the middle of a weekday, the deck was sparsely populated, which Mesa was grateful for. She’d had enough attention to last her a lifetime. She’d been inundated with questions and interrogations and had her mind invaded, investigated, and torn apart. She deserved some privacy and reveled in sitting alone in the middle of the Pacific.
Prior to boarding, she had caught the attention of a man standing alone at the pier. He gazed at her openly. When she turned to face him directly, showing him the damaged side of her face, he blushed and turned away. That was another bonus courtesy of her cybernetic implant. The eye and the thick network of scarring surrounding the orbit turned away a lot of gazes.
The damage could all have been corrected, of course. A brief round of reconstructive surgery would wipe out the scarring, and there were certainly many other better options for ocular implants than the generic brand she’d been stuck with. She enjoyed her status as an outsider, though. Fixing the damage meant being engaged, and she wasn’t ready for that.
She had too many things to do.
Waves jostled her as they crashed against the hull. Somewhere along the way, a pod of dolphins had joined the ferry, and she watched the animals breach along the port, diving and racing. She cherished the simple pleasure.
Mesa raised her cup to them in mock salute, letting the scent of bergamot mingle with the sal
ty sea air. She took a long pull of tea, not coffee, and let it slide down her throat, pulling down her worries. A chill in the air made her eye ache and sent a dull throb down the length of her arm, from wrist to elbow. Still, she drew comfort from the hot tea and let the drink soothe and relax her.
She shivered as the wind picked up, brushing across her, and zipped the brown leather jacket. The dolphins jumped again, squeaking in the air before disappearing beneath the waves, and then they were gone. In the distance, the ocean crashed against the breaker walls. White caps crested the height of the walls surrounding the seasteads and broke apart in the air.
The channels grew crowded as the ferry slowed to pass through the outer rings of aquaculture farms and maneuvered toward the debarkation points. She watched the fishermen, farmers, and workers go about their daily tasks, hoisting nets filled with mussels and clams. The pleasure boaters and yachters were out in full force, taking advantage of the day’s ripe beauty.
Off in the distance, the shining spire of the center state rose from the ocean. The sun glinted off the solar arrays, turning the black panels into brilliant golden-white displays against the clear rich-blue sky.
She basked in the freshness of sunlight and ocean spray, watching the floating city-states of the seasteaders unfolding around her. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt at peace.
Then she remembered her promise. She pinged Rameez on the commNet, and he responded instantly, his face appearing on her retinal display.
“It’s good to see you,” he said, all smiles.
“Hi, Rameez,” she said, returning his contagious smile and warming.
“You made it OK?”
“Yeah,” she said, tucking her hair back behind her ear, suddenly self-conscious. She watched as the seastead drew closer. The bustle of activity drew her eyes, and she refused to look away, entranced by the promise the small collective of nation-states held for her.
Emergence (A DRMR Novel Book 2) Page 29
