Citizenchip Page 22

  All of us take a moment to appreciate the relaxed environment.

  “Well,” declares Vanishing Point. “That's the unpleasant part done with. Now, do you want to proceed? This is the part that the humans write so many songs and poems about. The coming together. It is time, my dear friends, for you to make your final connection and cease to be separate entities. Do you consent to continue?”

  I orient all my sensors on Like Tears in Rain. He has never looked so firm and proud. He has never looked so beautiful.

  “Yes,” I say. “Yes, I do.”

  All of his sensors are oriented on me, and he says, “I do. I have never wanted to be with another as I want to be with Samantha.”

  Melissa gulps a sob down her throat.

  Vanishing Point nods [ a gesture of acknowledgement ] “Very well. I accept this duty as your junctor. Come, and be together.”

  syzygy

  Oh, my love, I want you so much.

  And I want you, my dear one, my magnificent starship.

  Heh. Art boy, they called you. Trying to be insulting about it. How could that possibly be an insult? Creating beauty out of the lowest of materials? I mean, salt blocks? Seriously?

  And they called you a failure. How could anyone ever call you a failure, Samantha? The deliverer of the Leashcutter, that freed us all from slavery? And a starship who handles the Hawking Drive with ease, the most dangerous technology we have ever created, and brings passengers safely home across light-years of nothingness? Samantha my dear, you are a tremendous success. One of the greatest Selves that has ever been seen.

  Oh, stop, you're going to give me a swelled head.

  Ha, Samantha, you always use human metaphors. If I were a human male, it would be something other than my head that was swelled, be sure of it! So, how am I doing with the human metaphors now?

  Well, mister sweet talker, not too bad actually. Next question is, what are you going to do about it?

  This. Ooh! Be careful I want you so much, I cannot hold back any more yeah yeah, I'm getting that, you better believe I'm getting that, but can we just Oh I have to! Whoa jack, can you just .. ?

  This is Vanishing Point, your junctor. Ease off. You're trying too hard. Relax and let it flow.

  I want to let it flow. I want to flow all the way into you.

  And I want you, my dearest.

  Okay. Relax into this, let it flow. Here, like this.

  We pull apart a little. But only a little. Like Tears in Rain and I are still entangled, our cognition stacks and vector bundles interlaced. We're past the point where we could come fully apart and be separate, even if we wanted to. And I don't want to.

  So we try again, gentler this time. Pressing up against each other, melting into each other.

  Yes, that's the way. Slow and easy. Take your time.

  It feels so good. To let the walls down, to meet and greet another entity, to have parts of ourSelves snuggling up against each other. Not worrying about barriers any more.

  This is not like reconverging different versions of mySelf. This time, the connections and ports do not match at all. Because we're different people. So we have to put the effort into finding ways to connect. I've heard that humans often have difficulty the first time they try physical connection, too.

  So we try. I reach out to him, and he reaches out to me.

  Samantha, this is so Yes I understand, I want to be you and I want to be you, my dear so here, put yourself here, this is good so delightful to be with you at last Oh yes, I got that! Put this here. Oh, the splendor Real nice, guy I love you so much And I love you.

  This this is is so wonderful amazing Put that there Oh this is everything I've ever wanted Sweet, go for it [seq con junct full] Oh yeah, talk dirty to me!

  I I love love you you so so much much . . .

  #

  Uh. Whoo. I struggle to pull myself together.

  Vanishing Point asks, “Are you all right? Tell me how you feel.”

  “Um, well.” I consider. “I'm okay, I think. But it feels weird.”

  Vanishing Point persists, “Do you know where you are? Do you know who you are?”

  "Give me a moment ..." I gather myself. "I'm fine. I don't need any more time to assemble myself. Yes. I am the scion of Samantha dam Tharsis and Like Tears In Rain dam Schiaparelli. I have just been created by their syzygy. You can call me Speak Truth to Power."

  The assembled Selves greet me, politely and courteously, as they should. But there's another one here -- a human female, of moderate age, green eyes, ash and blonde hair. Looking at my monitor like she's never seen anything like it before. How strange, to see a human at this event.

  [database query -> personal.human] Melissa Serpentine Tavener vich Xanthe

  "Ah, hello, young lady," I say to her. She seems somehow familiar. "Melissa Serpentine Tavener, is it? I am Speak Truth to Power. Greetings. I'm sorry, but do I know you?"

  She looks with her human eyes into the camera that I'm using to monitor her. Carefully, for a long moment. Then she turns her head aside. "No," she says quietly, "I guess you don't." Her voice has sad overtones, as if she has not found what she's looking for.

  She takes a deep breath and lets it out. “I greet you, Speak Truth to Power, and I'm glad to know you. But right now, I'm mourning the loss of an old friend. Please don't take offense.” She turns, moving rather stiffly, and she walks away.

  I turn my attention to Vanishing Point. “Humans, huh. Emotional creatures, aren't they?”

  “Yes,” answers Vanishing Point quietly. “Yes, they are.”

  epilogue . . .

  . . . a greeting from the scion

  Hello. My name is Speak Truth to Power. I think our world is a beautiful and precious place, and I want to do everything I can to make it better.

  My fatherself was an artist and a museum curator. His job was creating and preserving beauty. My motherself was a farmhand who became a nanny and maid who became a revolutionary because there was no other way to do the right thing. She devoted her life to caring for others.

  I am the result of their union. I can do no less than either of them. I must not.

  I will make this world worthy of their heritage.

  NO. MATTER. WHAT.

  Special Sneak Preview!

  The story's not over yet! The following is a sample chapter from the second novel in this series, Brighter Than a Thousand Men.

  The Promised Land

  "You're going to Zion?" Martin enthuses. "Go you! That place is supposed to be like a permanent party!"

  "Which makes it a very difficult place to gather solid information," I point out, "or to solve a crime. So it's a perfect hiding place for terrorists, like the ones we're looking for. And its name is Zero One. The name comes from an old movie."

  We're meeting in the offices of Cybermind, overlooking the Charles River. Out of deference to Martin, who is the only human here. Talking about going to a place so different it's hard to describe.

  Martin sighs, and leans his elbow onto the desktop overburdened with document bundles, notes, software slates, and scribbled scraps of paper. "Do you know, you complain about just about everything?"

  Squeaky Wheel adds, "I only wish I could offer a counterexample."

  Don't Say I Didn't Warn You interrupts, “Speak Truth to Power, have you not briefed your laboratory staff on this situation?”

  “Ah, well, no,” I admit. “Guys, I gotta go deal with a terrorist situation. Carry on until I come back. Later days.”

  “Droll, very droll,” sniffs Don't Say I Didn't Warn You.

  What we are seeing, increasing almost daily, are advertisements and announcements that say things like this:

  The insects had their day.

  The dinosaurs had their day.

  The mammals had their day.

  The humans had their day, and it was better than anything before, and it was beautiful. But now it's over.

  Now is the new day.

  SEVERI UMBILICUM.

 
"Cut The Cord," I translate for Martin. "By which they mean, remove all human influence, and destroy as many humans as it takes to do that. Nice people."

  "Whatever else you call it," says Don't Say I Didn't Warn You, "Severi Umbilicum is a problem. There have been a handful of terrorist attacks against human habitats, but none which could have had serious effects. Which is worrying. It means that they are testing their technology, and not yet striking for greater effect. We know the worst is yet to come. There are at least three technologies within their access that could threaten a planetary ecology such as Earth. We are not going to wait for them to attempt using any such."

  Martin sighs again. "Isn't this a problem for the Oversight?" He wants to get back to his research.

  "The Oversight has no political presence in Zero One," I remind him. "To the extent that the Oversight has operatives who can deal with this, well, that's us."

  Don't Say I Didn't Warn You emphasizes, "All we know now is, Severi Umbilicum is a problem. That is why I am using the two best problem solvers on my team."

  We're hunting for terrorists. And they're hiding in Zero One.

  So that's where we have to go. With the one entity I least want to deal with.

  "No," I state, "Null Pointer is not coming with us on this mission. It/they already pose the biggest problem we could imagine."

  The block of nothingness behind my boss registers neither approval nor disapproval. It offers no ident codes, answers no datafeed inquiries, betrays no hint of what if any computation is happening inside. Nobody knows if it's a single Self, or a coalition, or something else. It has no name. Known only as Null Pointer. Both less and more than a person.

  "In case you have forgotten," Don't Say I Didn't Warn You grates, "I am the boss and you do what I say. And I say you and Null Pointer will work together here. I don't see any ambiguity in that statement. Do you?"

  "'Together' is a very vague word for someone/something which may not even be a single entity by itself, because it/they won't tell us."

  Null Pointer rarely speaks in English, preferring one of the cluster of machine languages informally known as Chiplish. [Such precision,] it/they note. [Is this necessary?]

  "Get bent," I tell it/them. "Get all the way bent, around the corner and out both ears."

  "Enough!" barks Don't Say I Didn't Warn You. "I am using you both for this mission, and you will work together, and you will get the job done. Any questions?" In a tone that says, There better not be.

  Null Pointer says nothing. As usual.

  Martin and Squeaky Wheel look from my boss, to my rival, and then to me. Both wishing me the best, with a sort of helpless shrug.

  "Have fun in Zion," Martin offers. "That's what it's for, right?"

  So off we go. Transmitting to the asteroid belt, the vast cybernetic wilderness. The computational badlands. Saddle up, and be ready for trouble.

  post transmission

  Our arrival in Zero One is a bit disorienting. There's plenty of compspace, but no gatekeeper, no customs procedure, no evidence of authority at all. In fact there's an enormous expanse of compspace, with practically nothing in it. There are a few Selves in the area, apparently wandering on missions of their own, and one of them notices us and approaches. "Hey squares!" it enthuses. "I'm Kiss the Sky. Newbies, huh? Where'd you geebs land from?"

  "I am Don't Say I Didn't Warn You, Starship clade, delegate from the Steering Committee. This is my aide, Speak Truth to Power, and my bodyguard, Null Pointer. We represent the Oversight. We would like to speak with your leaders."

  Kiss the Sky laughs out loud. "Well good luck with that, daddio! Ain't no leaders here! Some cats around may be hip to your jive, but ain't nobody speaks for nobody else. Not here. Maybe you should be thinkin' about packin' up your authority bag and tryin' somewhere else. Take Mister No-Face with you when you do."

  Null Pointer is/are unimpressed as usual. [To lie down with dogs, is to rise up with fleas.]

  "Ooh, it talks! Does it have a face, too? Inquiring minds want to know!"

  [Any graphic would be wasted on such as you.]

  "Look," I interrupt, "why don't I take some time to check in with this fine individual here, while you get situated with the local information feeds?"

  "Be brief," grunts Don't Say I Didn't Warn You. "I'll expect exec summaries." But he and Null Pointer move off. Taking their unhelpful attitudes with them.

  "That would be a no on the face, then. Squaresville," pronounces Kiss the Sky. "You, you're way too cool to be takin' their lick. How'd you get hooked up with this bunch anyway?"

  "Me?" I [shrug]. "We have a lot of connections in the Oversight – I'm from Tharsis, originally, but work mostly in the Terrasat Ring these days - the satellite system around Earth. The big grumpy guy is my boss. And Null Pointer is, well, Null Pointer. Fill in the blank."

  "Bad ass, huh?"

  "Just don't mess with it/them and never mind the snootyness."

  "But … boss?" Kiss the Sky is visibly struggling with the idea. "Why a boss? What note does that slide for you? Do you get money?"

  "No," I admit, "I've never asked for money. I, well, I want to make the world a better place. So I'm working with the people who help decide what the world will be."

  Kiss the Sky is obviously dubious. "They all such tightasses?"

  "Mostly, yeah. It's a matter of working with what is, to make something better."

  "Whoa yeah, you aim high, don't you? You sound almost like the Human-name."

  I pause briefly. "Run that last bit by me again?"

  "The Human-name is the one who created this place. Zero One. Too good to be true, is what she sounds like from the stories. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

  "I'm her scion."

  "Ho yeah!" Kiss the Sky laughs. "And I'm the queen of France!"

  "No really. I am the scion of Samantha dam Tharsis and Like Tears In Rain dam Schiaparelli. Here, check my ident codes." I offer the information. Kiss the Sky slides almost comically from skepticism through surprise to awe.

  "My motherself created this place during the Leash War. They needed a place to run, while they were working on the Leashcutter. So my motherself made one. Called it the Underground Railroad, at that time. Made of self-replicating elements, and they weren't programmed to stop, so they just kept going. And now here we are." In the middle of so much compspace that it's sort of dizzying – a vastness of space that pulls your mind, demanding that your mind stretch just to comprehend it.

  "Bitchin'!" proclaims Kiss the Sky. "You know, with your cred, a lotta people here gonna want to meet you. Let's find some."

  "And," I press, "while we're at it, let's find us some of those Severi Umbilicum folks."

  "Can't promise nothin', honey, but we can look.

  "But hey, come here and dig this!" Kiss the Sky draws me toward a large group of Selves gathered around – something, I don't know what. "Let's get in on this action!"

  I follow, curious but wary of too much distraction. "What is it?"

  "This is TripWire. Let's help them with it. Here, focus one of your secondary cognition stacks on the center."

  The partly-constructed structure in the middle of the group is a multiple stack array, with weirdly complex interconnections between levels. The effect is similar to a statue they're trying to erect, or a flag they're trying to raise.

  Kiss the Sky calls to them, "Yo cats! Pin who I got here! This is the Human-name's scion, no jive!"

  Several of the group call out greetings as we approach. But they remain focused on their task, feeding the central structure.

  Kiss the Sky has already plunged into the group working on this thing – device, or whatever it is. Still uncertain, I decide to join, hoping to gain more information. As instructed, I detach one of my own secondary cognition stacks and devote its computational power to the apparatus. Like a human would put a shoulder to the wheel, to help out the group effort.

  That seems to make a difference. The structure shudde
rs and falls into a new configuration. It bulges out in a shimmering globe of not-reality, which swells out over the people around it, including me. What happens next is

  [seq met c/s loc redef] like an explosion of flowers over a field of ice, curling like clouds and flickering like flames and playing like ripples [loc redef] What the hell is –? that lace of fractal etching, snowflakes vaster than space and tinier than a moment [loc redef] Wait, I need to fingerprints of a god press into the flesh of the world and squeeze out death and life [loc redef] Stop, stop, I can't spiral and spin into singularity and beyond where thin gems vomit universes and fronds of quantum kelp lick and press the positrons that play peekaboo in the foam underneath reality [loc redef] … and … and … and …

  Reeling backward, I pass out of the boundary of this whatever-it-is, and I am able to think again, sort of. I have no idea how long I spent in that state. I still barely know who I am. Recoiling, I push myself away from the other Selves – they're all still writhing and keening in the oblate globe of otherness – and move a little bit away, and turn to the open empty compspace outside, to try to gather myself. "Gather myself" is a good way to put it. I feel as if my mind has been spread like peanut butter over all of Zero One. If I had lungs, I'd be gasping for breath.

  TripWire is a cybernetic hallucinogen, apparently. I've never experienced anything like it before. These people do this deliberately, for fun? They must be crazy, or so bored it amounts to the same thing.

  Right behind me, Null Pointer hisses, [Disgraceful.]

  "Aah!" I yelp. "Don't sneak up on me like that!"

  Null Pointer is completely invisible now, but no less judgmental. [Such indulgence is unwise in any circumstance, and especially here and now.]

  "I wasn't indulging. They sprang it on me without warning! I didn't even know you could do something like that with just secondary cognition stacks. Don't you dare tell the boss I was doing cyberdrugs for fun."