Cassandra Kresnov 5: Operation Shield

by Joel Shepherd

  “And Sandy…” she shook her head, a little exasperated at having to explain this stuff in the Director's office of the Federation's most powerful security agency, “…Sandy has a lot of love, and being what she is, she hasn't had the same opportunities as most to express it. And I say this as one of those few people privileged to have been the recipient of some of it.”

  With a defiant gaze at Ibrahim. Don't forget that I love her, that gaze said. You can call me in here and order me to inform on her mental state, but there are limits to how you can order me where she's concerned. Ibrahim nodded, accepting that, and uncommenting. And wanting more.

  “I just thank god for these kids,” said Vanessa. “Sure, it's a rebound emotion to some extent…but Sandy would be nuts about them under any other circumstances too, and I say that as the person who probably knows her best. I mean, they're innocent and sweet and naive, and yet as old as the hills and deeply messed up by all the shit that's happened to them…they're practically smaller versions of her, when she first came here. They're substitutes, if you want the psych terminology, for what she wanted to feel for the other GIs. She tried to love them that much, and couldn't, so she gave that love to three more deserving. And,” she added, with a warning stare at Naidu, “I think you underestimate the power of that love at your peril.”

  Ari passed through multiple levels of security and had the unnerving sensation of his uplinks going completely dead. Still active, but this place was completely shielded, like the Intelligence Committee rooms in the Grand Council. He surrendered his weapon, then a final door opened with a clack of heavy locks.

  Within was a nice apartment, wide windows showing a seventieth-storey view across mid-eastern Tanusha. On the market it would have cost a fortune, but this one was CSA-owned, as was the upper half of this tower, certain security types having learned long ago not to centralise all their resources in the one headquarters campus. It was a studio apartment, though a huge one. Their secured guest sat in the sunken lounge reading holographic book displays, a tall, recently empty glass on the coffee table. At the kitchen bench watching over him was Amirah, very slender for a GI, eating a salad with a glass of rosé and reading a hand display.

  “Hi, Ami,” said Ari, and gave the girl a hug. She smiled at him, still eating, and offered him some salad. Ari put a fork in it.

  “Bacon and…bits of toast?”

  “They're called crudités,” Amirah said flatly. “Eat it.”

  “It's delicious,” their guest volunteered from the lounge. “She's an amazing cook.”

  Ari hadn't really thought bacon and bread would go in a salad, but he put the fork in his mouth and…he raised eyebrows at Ami. “Wow. That's really good!”

  “It's called Roquefort Salad, it's French. Goes well with a rosé. Would you like some?”

  “Can't, on duty.”

  “Me too,” said Amirah with a superior smile, and sipped. GIs and their alcohol immunity. Amirah was a 45 series, two years defected from the League. Seven years old, she didn't truly remember who'd made her, high-designation GI memory being quite fuzzy until three or four. But she knew she'd been on a ship somewhere, only it had been boarded by civilian authorities who had taken the GIs into new custody. There she'd had news channels to watch and books to read, and within eighteen months knew that she wanted to follow other GIs to the Federation—meaning Callay, the only Federation world so far where GIs were allowed to live openly as new citizens. Some kind souls had smuggled her out to let her do that, and she'd worked her way through the Callayan asylum process.

  Two months ago, the CSA had accepted her as an agent-in-training on the understanding that she'd probably end up as FSA as soon as she graduated, but Feds didn't recruit anyone who hadn't been at a lower level first, and had no training facilities for greenhorns. As a 45 series she was immediately overqualified for paramilitary spec ops despite her lack of combat experience, but both Sandy and Vanessa thought she was too clever simply for shooting things and thought it wise to start socialising their new combat GIs by training in broader Intel roles. In which capacity, Amirah was doing an accelerated internal sociology course and enjoying it. And landing soft duty like this, keeping watch on other new GIs the authorities were less sure about, while reading her study books.

  “What's the book?” Ari asked. “Psychology again?”

  “Collected essays of George Orwell,” said Amirah. “He's amazing, nearly six hundred years old and he's describing things I saw yesterday on the news.”

  “Yes, that's Sandy's contribution to the reading list. Ami, we might talk about some stuff that you're not security cleared to hear, so I'm sorry, I'm going to have to ask you to…”

  “That's okay,” said Amirah, collecting her salad bowl and wine glass in one hand, the half-empty rosé bottle and reader in the other. “Just don't let him devastate your brain with his logical conundrums.” She left with a smile, and the secure door clacked and clanged shut behind her.

  “Very clever girl,” said their guest from his lounge chair, still reading from his display. “Suspiciously clever, for a seven-year-old 45 series. Enough to make one wonder if she's actually what she says she is.”

  “If you believe that GI designations are the final say in synthetic intellectual destiny, sure.” Ari strolled over.

  Their guest's name was Ragi. He was also a GI, though oddly, he claimed not to know his designation. In fact, he claimed to know hardly anything of his origins before arriving on Callay. He'd simply walked off a freighter at Nehru Station three months ago, while Sandy, Ari, and everyone were at Pantala and told the authorities he was a League GI and wanted to claim Federation asylum. But asylum from what precisely, he couldn't say.

  Ari took a seat on the sofa opposite. Ragi was of African appearance but of average size and build, most unlike the combat GIs, who looked and moved like ancient Greek statues come to life. He was almost slender, with a smooth, round face, faintly androgynous. He spoke like a man educated at the finest institutions and played chess like an AI. No expert who'd yet interviewed him had been willing to guess a possible IQ level, save to say that Ragi was by far the most intelligent GI they'd ever seen. That included Cassandra Kresnov and the recently late Mustafa Ramoja. They kept him here without uplinks because one look at a scan of Ragi's uplink hardware suggested that allowing him access to the network in any form could be quite dangerous. No one had yet seen anything like it, not the nature of the technology, nor the sheer density of synapse integration or bio-circuitry. As he'd recently seen some quite remarkable network capabilities utilised by a GI of entirely unfamiliar design and capability, those in charge of Ragi's fate now had an idea that Ari might be able to make progress with him.

  “I'm Ariel Ruben,” said Ari. “I work for the CSA.”

  “I know,” said Ragi, turning off his displays. “They told me you were coming. They're very nice to me, save that they won't open the door to let me out.”

  “In our position,” said Ari, “do you think it would be smart to let you out?”

  Ragi smiled. “That's the sort of question a man asks who's been told his interview subject is extremely intelligent. The idea is to try and use my intelligence against me, by asking me to apply it in seeing things from your point of view, and indulges in a kind of intellectual flattery by supposing that I'm the sort of man who can see all sides. What if I'm not?” His delivery was mild, and completely calm, yet Ari sensed nothing of hostility or menace. And this GI, unlike most of those he'd known, was no more physical threat to him than the average civilian on the street. “I mean, who can truly claim objectivity in anything?”

  Ari shrugged. “That's the sort of answer an extremely intelligent man would give who got his jollies messing up otherwise simple questions and throwing them back in the face of the person who asked them. Sometimes a question's just a question. You complained the door wasn't open, and I asked you if you thought it would be smart of us to open it for you. Do you think so?”

  “I don't know,
” said Ragi. He seemed quite honest. “I suppose I don't know you well enough to answer. Or come to that, I don't know myself well enough to answer.”

  Ari sighed. “So it's going to be like that, then?”

  Ragi made a face. “As though you'd expected anything else.” He crossed his legs, hands folded, and made a pleasant expression. “So. I can't remember where I'm from, I have no active recollection of how I got here either, which might tell you that my type of synthetic human is somewhat susceptible to mental manipulation. Probably I'm not very old. And I know quite a lot of things, though I'm not sure how. I'm both a font of information and a black hole of ignorance, and I'm afraid all the other investigators and experts who've come to see me have left unenlightened as to my origins, and thus my prospects of ever making it out of this room. What would you like to talk to me about?”

  “Politics,” said Ari.

  Ragi raised his eyebrows. “Really?”

  “Or religion. Have you a preference?”

  “Religious? I don't imagine so.”

  “You mean you've never thought about it?”

  “If I have I can't recall.

  Ari grimaced and scratched his nose. “You might be the stupidest smart man I've ever met.”

  Ragi frowned just a little. “Well, this is a different interviewing approach,” he observed. “First politics, now religion and insults.”

  “Well, you know, when people talk politics and religion, insults soon follow. Do you support the League?”

  “In what sense?”

  “In the sense that they built you. In some GIs it inspires loyalty.”

  “While many others come here, I understand.”

  “Do you? Understand?”

  Another slight frown from Ragi. “Why GIs come to the Federation?”

  Ari shrugged. “Anything.”

  Ragi no longer looked so serene. “In the League they feel they are not free. GIs are designated roles in life. Here, they can choose…although it seems that here they often end up working in military or paramilitary roles also.”

  “Sure, but here they can quit if they want. I know one who works as a florist. You ever wanted to quit anything, Ragi?”

  “I have no memory of it.”

  “You want to quit this room though. Why?”

  “I think it would be nice to be free.”

  “Why? What would you do with freedom?”

  A deeper frown. “I'm not sure. But I think I'd like to find out for myself.”

  “What good would that do? For a man who makes clever observations but draws no conclusions? Who sees everything but understands nothing?”

  “How do you know how much or little I understand?” Ragi retorted.

  “Which is better, League or Federation?” Ari asked, rapid fire.

  “It depends…”

  “Beep, wrong answer. That's the beginning of a very clever answer without a conclusion. Are you capable of conclusions, Ragi, or just clever answers?”

  “It's a very technical question that you ask, there's nothing insightful in overlooking those technicalities just so that you can rush to an emotionally satisfying answer.”

  “The thing with emotionally satisfying answers is that they indicate the existence of emotion,” said Ari. “In your case, I wonder. And it's really the simplest thing in the world to answer: which is better, Federation or League? Because that's what all the reasoning is for Ragi, so that you can draw conclusions. A mind that reasons but does not conclude is like a car that drives but never reaches its destination, a complete waste of time and space.”

  Ragi's frown was now intense. Then eased, as he thought of something. “You're trying to upset me. You think it can indicate some aspect of my psychology that has thus far escaped you.”

  “But here's the thing,” said Ari, “I don't think I can upset you. I think upset is a state of emotional conclusion you're not capable of reaching. Like you're not capable of concluding if you like the League or Federation better.”

  “And so every response I give you will suit your prejudged conclusion. If I avoid getting upset, I'm an emotionless robot, and if I become upset, I'm simply trying to prove to you that I can.”

  “No, I've already told you, I don't think you can, full stop. If you did get upset, I wouldn't believe it.”

  Ragi raised his hands in exasperation. “Then why bother? Why are you here, Ariel Ruben? To judge me? To tell me if my life is worth living? Because I'd truly like to know, do you think I like being here, not knowing what I am or what I'm doing here?” There was definitely a quaver in his voice now, and anger in his eyes. “Why not try something useful, like helping to find some answers to these riddles, instead of attacking me as though they were all somehow my fault?”

  “That's enough,” said Piyul's voice in his ear. “That's a good reading right there.”

  “Good, great,” said Ari. Ragi blinked, wondering who he was talking to. Ari smiled at him. “Look, I'm sorry about that—you were right, I was trying to upset you, I had a bet with my buddy Piyul I couldn't do it in less than five minutes, he said I could, he thinks I'm the most annoying person alive.”

  The poor synthetic looked completely baffled, with nothing to say.

  Ari got up. “We're going to go and analyse that, and if it gets us the answers I think it might, we might be able to finalise what you are for the reports. And once we can do that, we should be able to get you out of here. Sound good?”

  “In English, if you please,” said Director Chandrasekar on the vid screen. His hair was still perfect, Ari saw—no increased hours of pressure would come between the new CSA Director and his hair products.

  “Okay,” said Ari, “this is Piyul. Piyul helped to work up the latest GI-specific psych software, he used the other interviews on Ragi to get a baseline of mannerisms, responses, and stress readings. But he had to know where the stress and conflict lines kicked in, and on what issues and to what intensity…”

  “Wait a moment,” said Chandrasekar on the screen. “I'm not such a fan of psych profiles that I'd trust them to define anyone completely, especially of as low a base as you've established on this guy.”

  “Director,” said Piyul, “it's different on GIs.” Piyul was short and squat, a power lifter in his spare time, and much better with software and heavy weights than people. He had this odd habit of not meeting people's eyes when he talked, as though in a state of perpetual distraction. “Especially young GIs. They've much less psychological complexity, all the triggers and layers we use for the psych mapping construct become much more accurate.”

  “Sure,” said Chandrasekar, in a way that made Ari suspicious that he didn't already know that. He should know it. “What did you find?”

  “Well, we're pretty sure his knowledge base is mostly tape,” said Ari. Piyul preferred it when other people did most of the talking, even if it meant he lost some of the credit. “The patterns and repetitions when he's talking about things he knows are too similar each time. So if it's tape rather than experience, he's very young. So young that if he was created using the usual techniques, he couldn't possibly be this smart. Sandy at this age wouldn't have been much of a conversationalist, she wouldn't have even been in active service; her gestation was long, about five years.”

  “There was another GI who reached mental maturity very early with lots of tape teach,” said the Director.

  “Sure, there was Jane,” said Ari. “But she was a combat GI, and she didn't have these network uplinks. Plus she had almost zero emotional range; there's a chance she evolved it later, but she was a modification, an overwrite, of a standard human psych template, with all the unneedful bits suppressed. Ragi still has all that, so he's much more a standard template than Jane, less modified, meaning he still thinks and feels much more like the rest of us.

  “Plus he's just scary smart. He's not real experienced or mature yet, so I can still boss him around in a conversation on ground he's less familiar with. But intellectual range with GIs usually
evolves as they grow older, and he's already very advanced. If he's any of the types of GI we're familiar with, it shouldn't be possible.”

  “And he's not a fighter,” Piyul added, to Ari's surprise. He must be very interested in this one if he was volunteering conversation. “Lots of GI brainpower just goes into making them fast and dangerous, some huge percentage of Sandy Kresnov's brain is devoted to making her better at killing people. Ragi doesn't have that, being a non-combat. I'm betting it frees up a lot of his brain space for other things.”

  “So what do you think he is?” asked the Director.

  “Something completely new,” said Ari.

  “Talee?”

  Ari took a deep breath. The CSA Director had obviously heard something about recent events in New Torah. But at Ari's pay grade, he wasn't allowed to guess at what. “Sir, with respect, I can't talk about that. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to even confirm or deny a possibility.”

  Chandrasekar made a face. “This is what happens when I lend you to the Feds. I suppose I'm going to get a call from Ibrahim any moment saying Ragi's now their problem?”

  “I couldn't say,” said Ari. “But it's not impossible.”

  He wondered how much Chandrasekar knew. Probably little, the Talee were the highest of high-priority secrets. He still couldn't quite believe that alien contact on the level it had happened had fallen to him…even if the alien in question hadn't truly been an alien, just a friend and creation of theirs. But Talee themselves were no secret. Talee had been known to various portions of humanity for a long time now, and everyone had sources and opinions on the subject. Especially men like Chandrasekar, who worked in intelligence-enabled security for a living.