Cassandra Kresnov 5: Operation Shield

by Joel Shepherd

  But she shouldn't stay here. If something had gone wrong, they'd know that where there was Danya, there would be Svetlana. A vacant room overlooking Janu's corner would be obvious once they thought about it. Lucky it wasn't the only one.

  She slipped out the door, into a stripped-bare corridor, lightless save for the pale sun through the window behind. Moving silently, she heard footsteps coming up the stairwell. Several people, she thought, heart thumping as she moved quickly to another doorway—she'd scoped it before, another empty room, this one without a view. Through the door and leaving it open a slit, she crouched in darkness, peering through the gap. Back down the hallway, men appeared. Big coats, pistols, and a short shotgun. AR glasses, probably uplinks too.

  They moved fast, indicating with professional intent, closing on the doorway Svetlana had just left. A fast kick, and they went through it fast. Svetlana left equally fast, before they could come out again and search surrounding rooms. She went quickly along the hall, around a corner, then down the next stairwell toward a rear exit. But there might be a guard on that exit now, better she took a side room and waited.

  Her heart was thumping, but not from personal fear—she'd dodged tough guys before, she was good at dodging, and sneaking, and had the knack of knowing where to be when people weren't looking. Danya. If Danya was in trouble, she'd thought, men would come at her to that room…and here they were. Janu had Danya and had tried to get her too.

  Panic threatened as she skipped down stairs in the dark, then up the next length of hall. But she would not panic. She was armed.

  Chancelry synthetic assembly felt to Sandy like something between a temple and a morgue. A morgue because there were body parts everywhere and the sweet smell of mortality lingering in the air. And a temple, because here was creation, enabled by science, yet still inexplicable for all that.

  A GI factory, she'd told Kiril. Narrow spaces between machines, vats, tubes pumping nutrients, endless rows of growth and assembly. You couldn't see most of the function, light interfered with it, and besides, transparent materials weren't efficient construction. Just displays, regulators, lines and figures representing temperatures, densities, unfolding phases in a multi-layered process. It made her feel melancholy to be here. To walk these aisles and observe the machinery. Mostly automated, horrendously expensive, casually sterile, not requiring spotless whites here, where internal processes were locked away from the surrounding world.

  Regular humans grew. Nine months, that was all, and incredibly efficient. She'd seen the costings for this place, and they were eye-wateringly expensive. No real word on where all the synth-organic foundational material came from, but a few guesses. GIs couldn't exist without this. All this money, this technology, mechanisation. The product of organisation, of industry and political will. You didn't go to all this effort without wanting anything from it. Anything selfish. Anything designed to gain benefit, to make all this expense worthwhile, on some vaster, civilisation-spanning balance sheet.

  Who would make a GI just for fun? Just for the pleasure of her company, to watch her grow up, learn to walk, look cute in a pretty dress, and gurgle her first words? She could feel muscles flexing as she walked, strain from the recent fight, a few light impact and shrapnel wounds that hadn't penetrated. All parts from these machines. All for some purpose. It hadn't bothered her before, the simple fact of being synthetic—it was like a straight human being female, or male, or something else specifically physical and unchangeable. It was what you were, and you were stuck with it, unknowing of any alternative. And besides, being a GI was fun, there was great ability, sensory perception, sensation. Who wouldn't want this? Who wouldn't want it…if only they could be free to use it as they chose?

  What had Weller told her, explaining the Bhagavad Gita? “Just do your duty. Be what you are. It's not your fault you're a killer, you are how they made you. The fates understand. Yours is not karma to suffer, but karma to inflict on others.”

  So maybe that's what we are, Sandy wondered, slowly walking the aisles and running her eyes over displays. Karma in human form. The arrow of fate, shaped by others, aimed with trembling hands. It was an argument to embrace entirely her truest nature, abandon all trace of moral consideration, and kill anything in her way. And it scared her, because right now, it felt so damn attractive.

  The aisles opened onto a space. Here was a holographic table, white light against the machines. By it sat a woman, black-haired, Caucasian, thin. Perhaps middle-aged. In a grey jacket and pants, lots of pockets, where one might have expected a white lab coat. This place was an automated facility, not an experimental or sterile laboratory. Workers here operated machines. And some, like this one, monitored unfolding designs.

  She rotated a holographic shape as Sandy approached, zooming in on a seriously 3D model that looked like some crazed plant's root system. Pathways highlighted, then others, calculations appearing, calibrations, balances, and feedback loads. Only when she zoomed out a little more was it apparent that the model was a part of a synthetic brain.

  Sandy put her hands on the table and looked at the model. The woman kept working. Whether she noticed or not, she gave no sign.

  “What designation?” Sandy asked.

  “Forty-five. Middle gestation.” Her finger pointed to the bulky contraption opposite. It was wrapped around entirely by tubes that fed from the walls and ceiling. Somewhere in there was a tank filled with fluid, thick with micros. Floating in that, a growing synthetic brain. A small object, to be the subject and product of such a large machine as this.

  Middle gestation, she'd said. “How much longer?” Sandy asked.

  “Another month. But we'll run out of gestation nanos before that. They die too fast for self-replication, and we're short on spares right now.”

  There were sixteen synthetic brains in various stages of gestation. Each would normally become a GI when the plant was in full operation. Now the plant had been taken over by GIs. Automated though it was, the various systems feeding into the plant took far more effort to keep working than Sandy had been prepared to spare. But in this as in many other things, she'd been outvoted. Shutting the plant down would be an act of synthetic abortion, and these GIs, having just gained control of their own reproduction for the first time in synthetic history, were very pro-life. So now they ran it. GIs making GIs. With absolutely no idea what they were doing, save what some of them with basic medical and technological training could figure out.

  That was where Margaritte Karavitis came in. “Progress on normalisation?” Sandy asked expressionlessly.

  Margaritte took a deep breath. “A little. But the fundamental structure is what it was designed to be—a 32-class deviation. This GI will have sensory processing imbalances leading to autistic tendencies. That can't be changed.”

  The other reason Sandy had been favouring abortion. “What'll happen if she lives beyond Chancelry's max lifespan?”

  “I don't know,” Margaritte admitted. “It's the unpredictable variation in the design that leads to valuable results.”

  “But it's not likely to be pretty.”

  “Not the GI, no. It wasn't designed to be.”

  Sandy stared at her, unblinking. Margaritte never looked her in the eyes. Never looked anyone in the eyes, lately. She kept working.

  “Why didn't you escape?” Sandy asked. “You had plenty of time in the uprising. Everyone else got out.”

  “Fate,” said the Chancelry employee. She refused to say her rank, and no trace of her identity could be found in Chancelry's systems. Network experts had looked everywhere, but likely it had been erased. And they didn't have enough access to other corporate networks to search them too. Now, with recent developments, they had no access at all. Some Chancelry employees had been executed. Margaritte stayed alive by working here, with expertise none of her artificial creations nor their new friends possessed. She'd made no attempt to escape, nor sabotage her work, nor display any extreme degree of fear at the fact that she was the captiv
e of combat GIs bent on revenge who'd killed some of her colleagues. Sandy found her a puzzle.

  “I hear you lost quite a few of your people just now.”

  “Not my people,” said Sandy.

  “No?”

  Sandy felt no obligation to discuss it further. “I want those full reports on all the standard design deviations,” she said.

  “I'm quite busy here,” Margaritte pointed out.

  “You can find time.”

  “Not if you want these GIs in gestation to have less defective lives than they otherwise will.”

  Sandy didn't want these GIs born at all. That was Kiet's choice, and those of his friends and supporters, more numerous than hers. She wondered what point there was to Kiet's plans, birthing all these GIs, if he was just going to get them killed in harebrained attacks. A straight human might have ground her teeth in visible frustration. Sandy pursed her lips, thinking dark thoughts.

  “A 43 series had seizures yesterday while listening to music,” she said. “Can music trigger it?”

  “Yes. Depending on the condition.” Still checking through the holographic construct, slowly rotating. “European classical is worst for some reason. Something about the processing of high harmonics.”

  “Was it worth it?” Sandy asked. “Doing this to all these GIs? Implanting defective foundational structures on purpose?”

  “That other GI, Kiet, was down here before making all kinds of threats,” said Margaritte. “I don't know what it gains you, you either kill me or you don't.”

  “It was a serious question,” said Sandy. “Was it worth it? Don't presume I don't understand your reasons. I understand them perfectly.”

  Margaritte paused, and looked at her. It was the secret a League scout had tried to nuke Droze to prevent getting out. That League uplink technology, derived from the synthetic neurobiology used to create GIs, was causing second- and third-level neurological associative disorder across vast swathes of the League population. It threatened civilisational collapse, which threatened in turn to take the Federation with it. And it scared the shit out of everyone who understood the implications.

  There was a little fear in Margaritte's eyes. But only a little. “I did what I had to do,” she said shortly. And returned to her work.

  “So why stay here now? Why not run away when you had the chance?”

  “It's called responsibility,” said Margaritte. “Some of us accept it.”

  “The four-year max lifespan,” said Sandy, pressing implacably. “Your idea?”

  A faint snort. “I'm flattered you think me so important.”

  “I've no idea how important you are, you hide your identity. Interesting choice, for someone accepting responsibility.”

  “There's a vast difference between accepting responsibility and committing suicide.”

  “Not so vast,” said Sandy. “I might let you live, but I have little enough say around here. The others only let you live so long as you're useful. You can't seriously expect mercy, given what you've done here. Yet you chose to stay.”

  “How can you decide whether or not to be merciful, if you don't know what I'm responsible for?”

  Sandy considered that for a moment. “Clever enough strategy,” she conceded. “Save that simply being involved in this makes you guilty at any level. How many GIs has this program created, then killed for your research?”

  Margaritte shook her head. “It's not my research. That's not my department. I just build them.” A slight sideways glance at Sandy. “I might have made you.”

  “You know Renaldo Takawashi?” Takawashi was lead researcher for League Recruitment, the monster government authority tasked with producing military-level GIs for the war. The head of Sandy's “project,” such as it was.

  “I might.”

  Sandy shook her head. “Trying to capture my interest won't help you. Your life's not in my hands. It's in theirs.”

  “And they want these GIs to miraculously come to life.” Margaritte pointed to the gestation tanks. “It won't happen without me. My clock is ticking very slowly.”

  Sandy left the facility via the secure lobby, with a wave to the security camera, and Baku on its other end, up in the control room. Multiple secure doors cycled her through, though ID security systems had been disabled, not recognising anyone now in charge.

  A call came in, blinking on internal visual. Vanessa. “Hey. Any word on your regs?”

  “Psych eval didn't like what it was hearing,” said Sandy. “They're confined to quarters.”

  “You locked them up?”

  “No choice. They understand Chancelry did bad things, but they're conditioned for service. We're pretty sure the other corporations tried to hack our networks and make contact with them, create a counter uprising, but we can't find any more than traces, so we don't know what they did or said.”

  “So the regs swapped one restrictive overlord for another.”

  “I didn't say I liked it,” Sandy snapped. “I didn't design the fucking things.” Silence on the other end. The last doors cycled through. Sandy headed for the elevator. “I'm sorry. Tell me something else I can do and I'll do it.”

  “Try talking to them? There are variations of reg intelligence, pick a leader, elevate him or her, try to convince him.”

  “Might work if I had weeks, and spare personnel.” The elevator closed on her, and rose. “The only person I'd trust to talk to regs and maybe make some progress is me, and I don't have time. What's up at your end?”

  “Federation Fleet just arrived. Carrier Murray and seven others. Talking not shooting, there's a preliminary agreement to meet at Antibe Station. Some dissention from the League because we've got two carriers and they've only got one.”

  “You'd think that after we won the war, we shouldn't have to keep reminding them that they can't match us in a pissing contest.” It felt odd to say it. During the war, she'd been on the other side.

  “This is technically League space. Reichardt thinks the fact they only sent one carrier might suggest they have trouble elsewhere.”

  “That would fit. On the other hand, they've only got seven left, they can't be everywhere. Who's attending this meeting?”

  “We're discussing that. New Torahn Assembly members are up here already. Murray's commanded by Wong, he outranks Reichardt, so he's leading for Federation, we understand there might be another Feddie bureaucrat on board too.”

  “Can't be anyone senior, their response time is too short to have come from Callay. I want you there.”

  “For what?”

  “To represent these GIs.”

  “I'm flattered. But like you, I work for the Federation, I don't get to choose.”

  “Put the case. GIs are a fourth party here, they currently hold Chancelry HQ and League's most important secret data by force of military arms. And they'll be prepared to use that as leverage if necessary.”

  A short pause. Sandy was entirely sure she knew why. “Can I say that this is them talking? Or you?”

  Entirely sure. “I work for the Federation, Vanessa. Like you said. They'd send their own representative up if they could, but there's no way to do it right now, unless the corporations grant overflight, and League probably won't allow it anyway, because they obviously want us trapped down here.”

  “Well, Sandy, if you're not commanding them, you'd better make it clear to our new arrivals who is. Because otherwise this delineation between you and them is going to get very blurry, and for your sake I'd hate to see that happen.” Sandy accepted the warning silently. Federation had already been given cause to doubt her loyalty in this matter. “Is it Kiet?”

  “He thinks so. Others have been given reason to doubt it lately.”

  “Well, get it sorted out, and I'll present it to them.”

  “Whoever it is still can't be there physically, and I'm not trusting an uplink. They'll still request you represent them, with my recommendation.”

  Another short pause. “Not Rhian?”

&nbs
p; “Rhi will insist on you as well. We know who the talker is.”

  “Gee, thanks. Well, I'm not flying solo on this, you're going to have to get everyone to agree what your position is. Then I'll present it to the best of my ability, if they let me.”

  “Tell them if they don't let you, League data vital to Federation security might go missing.”

  Another, this time longer, pause. The slow-moving elevator finally stopped, opening onto the secure lobby where she'd dropped off Kiril at the beginning of the shooting. “Is that you speaking or them?” Vanessa repeated warningly.

  “Is there some civilian freighter insystem?” Sandy asked, walking the cold lobby. “Headed for Federation space in the next few days?”

  “Uh, sure. I think. What for?”

  “Best you don't know.” An emergency alert came through on tacnet. Internal alert, nothing strategic. “I gotta go, take care.”

  She switched to incoming traffic. Got a lot of garbled voices. Then something clear…“…bullet wound, lower face. Self-inflicted.”

  “Who?”

  “Kiet. Kiet shot himself. Taking him to medbay.”

  Sandy swore and took off running.

  Medbay was crowded, GIs clustered in open space between beds, trying to see. Sandy wanted to get through but had no path without pushing. Then Poole was climbing on a bunk and shouting at them.

  “He's okay! Now the lot of you fuck off, give us some space, you can't block the aisles and expect us to treat injured people!”

  GIs backed off, pulled others back. Many saw her as they retreated and gave misgiving looks. A few looks were plain hostility. All were armed, a few in light armour, a lot of those older-looking, untidy haircuts, a few scars that even on GIs would never heal. Kiet's friends, the ones who had rushed down here.

  Sandy held her ground as they filed past. None dared threaten her. It was the caste system again, the invisible shield. And dammit, she thought, Justice's phrase was now permanently stuck in her head, a needle in her mind, jabbing her at unpleasant moments.