Unnatural

by Anthony DiGiovanni

  * * * *

  “So you are Marshall,” said Zolnerowich slowly with a nod to the Organic in the room, “and you are the reason Mr. Uriah is late to the meeting. Just why have you allowed us to believe that Mr. Ivanov was responsible for all this?”

  Uriah was more concerned with why Marshall was so willingly admitting his crimes, but he afforded himself the opportunity to keep quiet and see where the guy was taking this. Marshall had told the same story to Zolnerowich that he had to Uriah, answering some queries the latter hadn’t thought of at the time. In response to the governess’s most recent, he took full blame for slanderous deceit on that matter, explaining it as a means to the end of delivering unorthodox justice to Uriah.

  “I figured it would serve his conscience well to come to the discovery of Livingston’s innocence gradually, after struggling to vindicate himself in your eyes. I don’t expect you to sympathize with me when I say I did this largely because Mr. Uriah had usurped Jane’s faithful love from me, but I tell you this if only so you may understand my motives.”

  Yeah, like it’s Jane’s “faithful love” you want by this point, Machiavelli. Uriah fought hard against the impulse to call Marshall’s B.S. True, he really was to blame for Livingston’s illicit death, but the claim that he’d crossed some line with Jane was without any merit.

  All the same, he found it painfully difficult to focus on the matter at hand when I am a murderer.

  “Mr. Patterson, because of your dishonesty, an innocent man’s mind has been irreversibly altered.”

  Zolnerowich wasn’t helping.

  “I never expected you to resort to such measures so soon.”

  “We only did so because Mr. Ivanov was so willing to confess without much interrogation. Did you coerce him into doing that?”

  “Yes.” He said this without a trace of remorse or hesitation.

  “Now will you grant me the liberty of asking how you have not only survived what has killed all Earth-bounds besides Mr. Uriah, but also concealed yourself from the public eye for nearly six days?”

  “I saw him days ago. In that body, I mean,” interjected Jane with a point at Uriah’s Libertas. “He was definitely dead.”

  “If I were to guess,” said Uriah, “I’d say the answer to that mystery has something to do with what you probably called me here to talk about in the first place, Governess.”

  Marshall glared at him for his interruption, but said nonetheless, “He’s right. Legally, Jane, I was dead, but my brain was suspended in such a state as to be easily revived to consciousness with reverse-vitrification. In the event of an accident like that caused by Mr. Uriah last Thursday night, I programmed some nanobots to restore me.”

  “You have the means to return these people to life, right now?” said Zolnerowich with unprecedented attention to the conversation. “And you’ve withheld it from us all this time, when you’ve undoubtedly been able to inform us based on your nigh omniscience?”

  Uriah was acquiring a fondness for the governess.

  “Nigh omniscience that makes it quite easy to extort from you immunity to the law, yes.”

  “What happened to your pretense of the moral high ground back when you were talking to me, Marshall?” said Uriah. “I mean, I’m not above, er, questionable negotiations myself, but you’re trying to cover up something that could’ve risked lives around the world.”

  “I’m still claiming the moral high ground, but the law and my ethics don’t overlap fully. Not that I would change that, as I’ve never put my idea of ideal laws through thorough peer review, but I regret nothing I’ve done in the past week. The vitrified people will be fine, provided everybody cooperates with my wishes.”

  “You think you scare us?”

  “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  “Mr. Patterson,” said Zolnerowich, “are you under the delusion that you are the only person alive who can revive the vitrified?”

  “I am the only person who can do that, because I was the one who put them in their current state. Even if I weren’t, I don’t think you understand what you’re up against, Governess – or the rest of you, for that matter. Throw me in the slammer all you want, hell, modify my brain so that I’m a total vegetable. It doesn’t matter, because all those robots you thought were in Livingston’s, Jane’s, or Ivanov’s hands are in mine. They’ll still do what I want them to do even if tomorrow I wake up thinking I’m the reincarnation of Kurt Cobain.”

  “Will they if you die?” said Uriah.

  Zolnerowich shot him a glare. “Let us not find that out. No one is executing anyone, especially not while we have no idea if Mr. Patterson is bluffing.”

  “I can answer both of those,” said Marshall with a satisfied smirk. “Yes, the bots will still do as I’ve programmed them to do after I die irreversibly. Governess, if you need proof that this is no bluff, I must say I find it ironic that you would disapprove of capital punishment, in light of what you said to Sabrina Lockhart at precisely 5:32 P.M. Greenwich Mean Time on Saturday, April 8, 2062.

  “And I quote: ‘If I may imitate your earnest manner, destructive as the Dethroning was, I cannot say I do not appreciate its near elimination of the threat of the Singularity.’ Your associates can fact-check me on that, as well as on Exhibit B, a plaque reading in Latin, ‘Evil ideas die with evil people.’”

  The governess’s face was grave, but not yet resigned. “Have you hijacked every robot on Earth?”

  “More or less. All I had to do was plant the nanobots on them, like some sort of global pollination.” Uriah figured this must’ve been the same way he’d infected all Earth-bound humans. Perhaps a few nanos were supposed to hitch a ride on the next shuttle to Luna, but their detonation came ahead of schedule.

  “It took a nuclear holocaust’s worth of preparation, months before doomsday, but after that it took just a signal – and radiation travels wicked fast, mind you. The reason it seemed like a slow process to your eyes was that you only saw the abnormal migration and communication loss, which I had to do in real-time. And as you guessed, I managed to achieve global robot manipulation within a minor number of hours.”

  “Just why were you moving the androids?”

  “In my defense, that was so I could hurry the more vulnerable Organics to vacant cryo-preservative chambers. Most people probably could’ve stayed safe for revival without it, which is why I gave priority to the outliers I couldn’t optimize my cryoprotectants for.”

  Of course he did. The cognitive dissonance was killing Uriah. “Okay, Marshall, before you declare yourself Ruler of the Free World, I need to know, Governess – what the hell has happened to Sabrina?”

  “Would you like to tell him, your All-Knowingness?”

  Marshall seemed uncomfortable for the first time, although only slightly so. “No, I wouldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I plead the Fifth.”

  Uriah punched Marshall square in the face, sending his own body tumbling. “You –!”

  A sensation not more pleasant than a dozen brain freezes at once stung his head, compelling his hands to clench it and refrain from further blows to Marshall. All that existed was his artificial body, the throbbing pain, and Jane’s distant cry: “Oh my God, he’s dead!”