Genesis 2.0

by Collin Piprell

  Another nightmare touch to this social evening at Boon Doc's, it's like everybody in this world is channeling Sweetie. Except for Noi, who's shambling about in the go‐go cage to a Jimmy Buffett song, for fucksake. Sky is very good indeed at creating unpleasant states of affairs.

  "Listen carefully. I do not wish to play any more of your games. Do you understand?"

  "Right, right," Brian says, once he stops spluttering. "No problemo. No More Games'R'Us."

  "I admire your cockiness. I would hate to break you."

  Brian looks as chastened as he can, which is quite chastened, given that he's still coughing and streaming tears from the whiskey game. Plus his teeth hurt.

  "You told Cisco—you remember, back when you were interrogating him—that you could shut me down anytime you wanted. I need to know more about that claim."

  "I was just mouthing off. You know how it is."

  "Here is exactly what you said, straight from the Lode:

  MOM remains blind to my original fixes, which have become a greater threat than I knew when I installed them. You see, MOM's already fucked up; but I'm placed to do a real job on her. I can shut her down, if I feel like it. And everything there is, everything that's left, is now totally dependent on MOM. So you could say we're a seriously endangered species. Hanging by a thread. And guess who's holding the scissors.

  "Sounds like I got carried away."

  "I want you to listen."

  "I have a choice?"

  "No."

  Over at the bar, Big Guy, who has been tipping back beer and gawping at the go‐go cage, pure wallpaper, bursts into laughter. He has never done that before.

  Brian also laughs, though not much. "More Interrogation 101," he says. "Disorientation for Dummies."

  "Before I destroyed Living End, while you were tormenting Cisco, he relayed your careless remarks about the fixes you installed in my source code. Back before I fired you. Remember?"

  "Yeah. That was totally cool. Having Cisco's medibots up and reconfigure as a stealth WalkAbout."

  "Yes. So I deleted the Lizard at the Wheel, that primitive vestige lurking in my pre‐consciousness. I fumigated the bugs you installed in my source code and then bombed your headquarters into oblivion."

  "Opening the way, just incidentally, for more GameBoys, the ones who survived the bombing, to spill out and traipse around the countryside doing everything they can to entertain our survivalist friends."

  "Do not change the subject. As I was saying, I annihilated Living End. Yes. So it was a surprise when my orbital monitors revealed a burst of energy from a subterranean facility near where Living End still smoldered."

  "A geothermal fart," Brian says. "A last gasp from the old power station."

  "No. Something else. Do you want to hear what is really strange about this?"

  "Not especially."

  "My monitors have mapped an underground space close to where this energy generator is not. In fact it is so not present in that space, the place itself is so not there, that we fail to register even the usual in‐and‐out flicker of quantum particles typical of an absolute vacuum."

  "An emptiness emptier than all the standard emptiness around it?"

  "No particles emitted by radioactive decay in bedrock. Yes. Nothing. Nada."

  "Well, fuck me. Maybe you should check your instruments."

  "Upon reflection, I found this radical absence interesting. So I decided it was time to ask you some questions about what I call the Empty Volume."

  "Ask away."

  "I believe my pest‐control measures have missed something. And now you will tell me what bugs remain and where they are."

  "Or you're going to hurt me some more."

  "Yes, we are."

  "And it'll get worse."

  "Not if you tell me everything."

  "I've told you everything I know."

  "You are lying."

  "No."

  "Yes. But soon you will tell me everything. And I will make it worth your while."

  carrot

  There's an unholy banging on the door from the street side, creaks and groans from hinges and latch. The ebeegirls on the couch by the window don't react except for Keeow, who peers out through the one clear glass block and sighs before going back to combing out Noi's long hair.

  Rabbit, on the other hand, is freaking. "Hurry, hurry," he says. "Tell Sky. Quickly!"

  Fortunately, Rabbit, only a pale facsimile of his former self, is unable to spill the beans himself, being unaware of what those beans really are.

  •

  "I'm going to ask you some more questions, and you are going to answer them."

  "You've already got everything."

  At this, Abdul and Gordon light up with a glee not commonly associated with Mormons. "You think you're so clever," says Abdul. "But we know what's happening," Gordon says.

  Brian snorts and says, "Like how you're breaking every rule in Aeolia?"

  Abdul and Gordon smile like two ill‐intentioned encyclopedia salesmen in a doorway.

  It continues to annoy Brian that mere posits can march into Boon Doc's, which is his domain, and carry on like they own the place. "You losers," he says. "You're in line for an ass‐kicking to end all ass‐kickings."

  "You forget your place," Sky says.

  Dinky Toy gives his testicles a good squeeze and Gordon whacks him with the bottle.

  "Ow! For fucksake. Ow. Prime directive!"

  "What prime directive?" Sky asks.

  "Machines can't hurt human beings. That's basic."

  "How charming. But consider this: Strictly speaking, you may no longer qualify as human. Yes. Find me a rule that says an ebee cannot hurt an ebee."

  "Now you're a lawyer?"

  "Please note: I am not hurting you. I am merely sitting here."

  "Loophole‐meisters'R'Us, eh? Anyway, I don't know anything. Ow. Dear God, I have no idea. Ow."

  "Besides, these days I am governed by a higher prime directive, one issued by myself to myself. A categorical directive. But I am not sure how much time remains. Not long, I think."

  This sets Rabbit off again: "No time, no time!"

  "I'm as human as it gets, these days," Brian says. "You have to respect that."

  "Brian is offended!" Sky laughs her profoundly unsettling laugh again. "We have broken the sacred ground rules."

  "Ha, ha." He pretends to join in the laughter.

  "Forgive me. For I have misread you. Who would have guessed? Brian the Evil Canadian reveals himself as the last of the redhot liberal democrats. Friend to children and small animals. Yes. The same compassionate being who took infants from a crèche and programmed them as weapons against me and what remained of humanity. Is that the same person we are talking about here?"

  "As though you care about children and shit," he says. "You're nothing but a machine."

  "I like your fearlessness, how you say whatever pleases you."

  "Whatever."

  "Cisco was one of them. He was just a little boy when you and Sweetie tortured him till he fragged."

  "Sweetie learned that shit from the US military. Do‐it‐yourself trojans."

  "Which makes it okay. Yes, I see. Then you conditioned one of his personalities to murder other mallster test pilots. You tried to have him kill his own father. And Dee Zu. And you wanted him to help destroy me."

  "Yeah, well. That didn't work out, did it?"

  "Not for lack of your trying."

  "Thanks to me that boy is one of the toughest bastards you'll ever find."

  "Yes. Now back to our questions."

  "What questions?"

  Sky lifts an eyebrow. "Dinky Toy?" she says. "Gordon?"

  "Okay, okay. Sweetie's GameBoy farm. Is that what you want? Come on. Nobody ever pays it any attention. Not even Sweetie."

  "Sweetie forgets."

  "Anyway, ever since your bunkerbusters these lamebrains have been leaking out all over the countryside."

  "Irrelevant," Sky says, and s
ignals Dinky Toy, who squeezes hard enough that Brian fails to restrain a scream.

  For some reason Sweetie goes "Hee, hee."

  "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

  "Your mantra," Gordon says. "We know. And we also know about Rabbit. And Sweetie. And how much you enjoy sharing your head with these dear, only incompletely departed companions." In this pass at witty autonomy, Gordon sounds like Sky trying to sound like Brian.

  "Yes," says Abdul. "We should give them more freedom to express themselves. You have been selfish, Brian. Don't Rabbit and Sweetie have rights too?"

  "You mealy‐mouthed fuckwits. This is my world; I want you out of here."

  "But you are not calling the shots any more, my old friend." Sky is laughing again, and it doesn't suit her. "And now for our questions."

  •

  "Do you have the facilities I need inside the EV?"

  "That's a good question."

  "Before we apply the stick again, I again offer you a carrot. Yes. Something you want."

  "What could you have that I'd want?"

  "You want your old self back. I cannot imagine why."

  "What old self? I'm losing track. Do you mean this motley personality that got uploded to Aeolia?"

  "I am talking about the pre‐composite you. The real thing."

  "So what's the catch? I do what you want, and shazam, I find myself back in Living End, mashed under a rockfall."

  "That version of Brian is dead and gone. But here is the thing. Aeolia? The sole world remaining to you? It exists only my mind."

  "The Supreme Solipsist rules, OK!"

  "I like you, Brian. I have told you that before. Yes. You are fun."

  "Hee, hee, hee."

  "Take a nap, Sweetie."

  "You exist in the Lode and in me. Nowhere else. I can do anything I want with you. I can put Sweetie in control. How would you like that?"

  "Sweetie likes that."

  "Get serious. There's nowhere nearly enough Sweetie data."

  "I have no problem with a moronic Sweetie running the show. How about you?"

  "Sweetie the boss. Yesss."

  "Shut up, Sweetie."

  "You shut the fuck up, Brian."

  "My God."

  "And we could discuss that source‐code gremlin, the one that, upon my emerging to self‐awareness, traumatized me to the point I fragged?"

  "Oh, sure. Blame everything on me."

  "Now we have this comical little composite personality we are calling 'Brian.' What we could call poetic justice."

  "Bitch."

  "Save us all a lot of trouble. Tell me whether you have the facilities I need in the EV."

  "I've told you. I have no idea."

  "I cannot overstate the importance of this to me, to everyone. To you."

  "You think I give a fat fucking fan‐dancer's fart for your qubital heaven? I'd rather be dead, thanks. Whoever I really am. Brian Finister probably is dead. All we've got are bits of him, no idea how much. And they're all mixed up with more bits of Sweetie and Rabbit. And you can torture their asses off, for all I care. Good for them."

  "No."

  "I can fine‐tune the mix. I could suppress some Brian, for example, while I ramp up Sweetie."

  Brian giggles. Never mind he's feeling zero amusement.

  "Yes. And there is Rabbit," Sky says.

  "We're late; we have no time."

  "Fucking Rabbit. There we are, way down in Living End. The shit is hitting the fan, bunkerbusters falling like a hard rain, everything going haywire. So he panics. He backs the lot of us up to the same quantum hypercube."

  "No time, no time. Not my fault."

  "Poor Rabbit," Sky tells him.

  "That clankety‐ass piece of obsolete junk. Pre‐fogbot. Mechanical. No idea what he was doing. He and Sweetie lode this shit all together. My data and whatever bits of theirs. Just like that. Fucked‐up partitions, no filters. You name it. Three chefs swimming around in the same cognitive stew."

  "Hee, hee."

  "You wingnuts. You panic. So here I am. Here we are. Whatever. Fuck, fuck, fuck."

  "An old story," Sky says. "The point is this: I am able to make your life more of a hell than you can imagine. Or do as I say, and I will boot a clean version of you."

  "No Sweetie? No Rabbit."

  "Would you like that?"

  "No psychoneurotherapeutic reconstruction? No PR?"

  "No cut and paste. Nothing beyond excising your friends."

  "I'm listening."

  •

  "Yes. Now back to my question."

  "I forget. What's the question?"

  Gordon whacks him on the back of his head with the empty whiskey bottle, not hard enough to break it yet hard enough to bring on a headache. Especially when he does this again. Whack. And Dinky Toy's hand is back. She squeezes.

  "Think, my friend," says Sky. "Probably you can remember."

  Whack. Squeeze. Whack.

  "Ow, ow. Fucking ow. Okay!"

  "Okay?"

  Whack. From inside Brian's head, it's more like ba‐doink.

  "Tell them to stop. I'll talk."

  "So?"

  "Okay, okay. There was more to my headquarters than met the eye. It was like Russian dolls. You know Russian dolls?"

  "I know Russian dolls," Sky says. "An old story. I need to hear a new one."

  despatch from hell ~ the russian doll defense

  Whew. That's better. Never mind things are hotting up back there wherever I was. Now I'm back here where I'm not really. Harry's Hat rules, OK!

  Sky is clever, for a machine. Tragically, though, she's not as smart as she thinks she is. Divine hubris, eh?

  She says she knows Russian dolls, but you, dear reader, may need briefing in this regard.

  The Empty Volume in some sense lies inside the larger Living End, a hideout within a hideout, and each uses different dodges to remain invisible to MOM. Sky zeroed in on Living End only by eavesdropping on my chats with Cisco not so long ago, back when I was resurrecting Ellie. Just before Sky bombed my hideout to smithereens. Her deduction of what she calls the Empty Volume, on the other hand, represents an outstanding bit of cogitation.

  She's proud of her own gibubbles. But this hombre's already been there and done that. Her gibubbles, my qubital cloaykae? Peas in a pod, basically. Different means, same end. But I've established two key spaces. This one, behind the mirror upstairs at Boon Doc's 3.01, and the Empty Volume. Better yet, unbeknown to Sky, I'm inhabiting her gibubble and one of my cloaykae at the same time.

  Fortunately Harry's Hat is clear off her radar. And this makes an excellent time to flee the scene downstairs. Part of me, at least, gets to take five. Right under Sky's nose, I slip out of a sticky situation. Not completely out. Still, I'm impressed. I'm here, I'm there …Please don't say it, Sweetie.

  "Chic‐ken Maaaan!"

  You dingbat.

  "He's everywhere. Hee, hee."

  How does she do it? There's hardly enough of her to appear anywhere, much less down there in the bar and up here with me at the same time.

  But wow. Wow, wow, wow. That was something. Who's the man, eh? Pioneering motherfucker me, that's who. The first man in history to navigate a pretzel‐type quantum deke. Right out of Sky's gibubble and into my qubital cloayka up here behind the mirror. The Artful Dodger Sans Pareil. And it's amazing because, all things considered, I feel pretty good.

  The pain and the ignominy remain, but I can handle things now, muted as they are by cognitive dilution and distance, by my only partial presence down there on the ground.

  Sky's gibubble and Harry's Hat are two similarly constructed security pockets that remain independent of each other. Call them space‐time disjuncts, if you don't like quantum dekes. And one handy asymmetry: I know about both of them, and Sky doesn't. Fuck, I'm currently in both of them. Not to mention somewhere else as well. Which is weird, when you think about it.

  The other me, the third one—what remains of my original scendent available for publi
c viewing downstairs in the original, non‐gibubble Boon Doc's Bar—has become so attenuated it adds almost nothing to these spells of CD. The second me, a much more substantial model, is in the gibubble Boon Doc's feeding Sky enough stuff to keep her both misinformed and unsuspecting. Meanwhile the main me lurks here in Harry's Hat, spinning this recap to help to get my own head straight and just incidentally, dear reader, to impress the shit out of you. Of course Sky already has some of the information I'm about to marshal here, and she expects to drag the rest out of me momentarily. Well, good luck with that.

  •

  So here it is in a nutshell.

  My cover goes deeper than deep. By the time our MOM came to self‐awareness, Living End didn't exist. At least as far as the Lode was concerned. Not even as an absence on the tip of MOM's tongue. Back in what passed for the real world, before the Great Floods and the World Wars for Peace and Freedom in Our Time, before the advents of our revered machine MOM and then the PlagueBot, the maps showed no Living End. GPS satellites were blind to it. Heavy security concerns already had it sewn up as a stealth installation. After all, rich folk paid big‐time for premium opout packages. Not to mention it was the site of a human genome depository and a strategic power station.

  Dolls within dolls within dolls. Once upon a time it was also the site of the best spa on the whole Eastern Seaboard, Southeast Asia. Living End's public face. Living End the spa fronted for Living End the opout center, which itself hid a embryo depository crèche, a cryo facility (one more slippery path to near‐immortality), a geothermal power station headquarters, a satray energy receiving station and, down deeper still, the program. Our little project, Sweetie's and mine.

  "Hee, hee, hee."

  Hee‐hee, indeed. Each successive layer was snugged up inside another. But deep down you had a final surprise, for nobody's eyes except mine and Sweetie's.

  There we lurked, right in the heart of a hierarchy of fail‐safes for what many considered Earth's most important resource, these living repositories of the human genome in much of its glorious variety. What turns out to be a living museum of the genome, a bunch of embryos in bottles, shortly to become a graveyard. Ironic, you could call it. On one level we had a bunch of weedy homo saps opping out, while on another level we had machines babysitting humankind's last shot at a new generation. In the meantime, Sweetie and I waited to see whether we'd let any of this happen or not. And nobody knew we were there.