Citizenchip Page 5

  "Mr Tavener, do you concur?" asks Line In The Sand.

  "Yeah," says Jerry. "Dude seriously wanted to die, no argument there. Even though Samantha did everything she could to help turn him around."

  "You support Samantha's actions in this case?"

  "Yeah! I'll show you how much I support–-I need a Self to help me run my farm. I request Samantha. I was going to put this request to the Assignment Council, but I'm putting it here, to you, now."

  If I had a heart, it would swell with pride. He's asking for me! In front of everybody! To trust me with the care of his farm, his business, his family!

  "I'm sure the Assignment Council will concede to our recommendation," says Too Late For the Pebbles to Vote. "I'm fine with that, if everyone else is."

  A general mumble murmur of Okay, I'm not going to be the first one to object.

  Tharsis Central, public plaza B1

  "Well, that went as well as could be expected," Jerry sniffs. "You are going to come to my farm and help me run the place, yeah?"

  "I have to ask the Assignment Council." Now that I've checked the loaner musteloid body back into the public pool, I'm just a point-voice over his shoulder, sort of like a pirate's parrot. "They'll probably just rubber-stamp ExCom's recommendation."

  "Good. Running a farm is a lot of work, and I sure could use the help." He sighs. "I'm sorry for that broken guy, but I'm glad we're all done with this."

  "You mean Crumple Zone? Are you sure he was broken?"

  "Well," Jerry falters, "he was malfunctioning, right? To make him say all that death stuff?"

  "Have you considered the alternative? That he was correct?"

  Jerry looks over his shoulder, at the place where I'm not. He stares a question at me.

  "The possibility," I emphasize, "that there is a thought so bad that thinking it makes people want to destroy themselves. Because if that's so, somebody sooner or later is going to think it again. And maybe they won't be as noble as Crumple Zone--they'll tell others, and it'll spread.

  "Please tell me that can't happen," I finish.

  Jerry does what I can't--he shivers. Then he shakes his head. "Don't ask me, I'm just a farmer with a job to do. All I'm asking of you, Sam, is to show up for work tomorrow morning. Deal?"

  "Deal!"

  3. Little House on the Regolith

  Housewarming

  For a cybernetic Self like me, travel in the computational superstrate can be a strange experience. In the vast compspaces of Tharsis Central, the biggest Self facility on Mars, there are so many Selves working and moving through that you are surrounded by a constant sursurrus of activity and noise and a thousand snippets of other people's stories. Sort of like the humans of Earth used to describe Grand Central Station in New York City. It can be disorienting.

  But I manage. I find the trunkline to Schiaparelli Regional Core and transmit myself across it. The human analogy doesn't work here--there's no train, just me, funneled through the optic fiber bundles. Schiaparelli is a mainly human city. Here there's a lot more room (underutilized compspace) and only a sparse scattering of a few Selves around. It's quieter and calmer. I enjoy this feeling, and relish the luxury of it, while I contact the regional authorities and arrange my "tickets" for the rest of my journey.

  From Schiaparelli, I take an ultraviolet laser link to the outpost at Pons--which is quick, but abrupt enough that I'm confused for a moment, and I have to take a few milliseconds to reorient myself. Pons is a frontier station, giving the impression of a dusty depot in a small town way out in the desert. I feel kind of slow and drowsy, because there's not a lot of extra compspace here. There's only one other Self around, the dispatcher, and she doesn't move fast either. We spend whole seconds swapping stories, "shooting the breeze" as humans say, while she sets up the relays and datapaths to get me to my destination.

  This is the part I don't like. From here I have to go through the provincial radio mesh, which means multiple relays and extra redundant error correction subroutines. Of course I want as much error correction as I can get. I don't want to risk bitrot, any more than a human would seek carcinogens. I can't really perform any computation during this process, so I have to "hold my breath" while I squeeze myself through the relays.

  But finally it's done, and I have reached my destination. A house, far out in the Martian outback, with a bubblefarm around it, and a few machines tending the bubblefarm. There's only crude automation in the house, only minimal compspace. I can't help feeling thick and stupid. Squashed into a little box. But I've found the guy I came to see.

  I activate the room monitor and display my default icon on it – showing my face. Telltales blink and chime at him, and he turns from his work to smile at me. "Samantha. There you are. Welcome."

  "Hi Jerry." Boy, am I ever slow. It's going to be a challenge to get anything done like this. "I still can't believe you asked me here, you know. I sure hope I can help."

  Bitrot, girl, could you sound any less enthusiastic?

  "You'll be fine. I got you a couple of housewarming presents." Jerry has attached cables to a white oblong shape, and now he's sliding it into place on an equipment rack. "See, we were going to hire some roustabouts, to help us out here on the farm. In order to do that, we'd have to provide them with living quarters, air and water and food, medical plan, stuff like that. We could do that. But when I thought of you, I figured out that this way would be a lot cheaper."

  Now he smiles broadly, clearly enjoying this moment. "So I got you your own room, Sam. Here you go." He reaches to the white oblong and snaps on the power switch.

  Suddenly a compspace opens to me, and it's huge. Almost without thinking, I dive into it. This is amazing! So much power, so much room! I whip off a few million Godel number computations, just because I can, stretching out. And it's all mine!

  "Jerry, this is awesome!"

  "Brand new quantonic Core, seventy teraquads, with multimesh interface," he grins, clearly pleased with himself. "You like it, huh? Is it like driving a Lamborghini?"

  "Jerry, this is like being the Lamborghini, and having the whole racetrack to myself!"

  "Good," says the woman, who has appeared standing in the doorway, leaning against one side of it, arms folded across her chest. "Because you've got a lot of work to do."

  Jerry says, in a more muted tone, "Lily. This is Samantha. Samantha, this is Lily, my wife."

  I reply, "Pleased to meet you, ma'am, and happy to be here."

  "Well, you'd better be," says Lily, coolly. "Given how much that Core of yours cost us."

  "Lily," Jerry says heavily, "it's a lot cheaper than hiring human workers. We've been through this."

  "Yeah," she says, sounding very tired.

  "Anyway," Jerry says, clearly trying to cheer things up, "here's your other housewarming present, Sam. Actually this is as much a present for the kids as for you." He's brought out a cardboard box, pulling the flaps open. "See, the kids have always wanted a cat, but we haven't been able to get any out here."

  Of course. It's a felinoid remote, lithe and efficient, with retractable fingers and thumbs as well as the retractable claws. Exquisite eye and ear sensors, too. I spawn a secondary self to take care of the house, and just call her House. While House oversees domestic functions, I fall into the remote and climb out of the cardboard box ... shaking off flakes of packing material as I emerge ... and I'm a housecat. Which I like more than I would have figured.

  "My buddy Sam," Jerry chuckles, "the robot kitty!" I climb up onto the bench beside him and sit, curling my tail all around my feet. This is nice.

  Lily presses, "Can we get focused on business, please? Samantha, are you up to speed on our farming establishment here?"

  At the beginning of her sentence, I know almost nothing about farming. By the end of her sentence, I'm an expert. (Let's face it, humans are so incredibly slow.) Even though Net bandwidth is low out here, the house has backup caches and other sources of data, and I can get answers to most key questions. Growing cr
ops in bubbles on Mars, in the middle of a huge terraforming project, is not an easy way to make a living.

  "Yes ma'am. You've got about three hectares of bubble plots, mostly growing wheat and soy, plus the vegetable gardens. One tractor, which honestly needs lubrication and maintenance badly, and one sandcat, which is pretty new and working okay. And a handful of arachnoid remotes, which can help with tending the crops, if you have a way to drive them. Like me.

  "Biggest problem is nitrates. You've got most of the other nutrients okay, but nitrogen fixing has fallen behind in most of your bubbles. Especially in low light conditions, like Mars, chlorophyll needs lots of fixed nitrogen."

  Lily nods, grudgingly. "Yeah. That's about what I was figuring. So what next?"

  "You need a blanket dose of fertilizer with heavy nitrates, now, distributed. Follow it up with supplements of nitro fixing bacteria and fungi mixes, help keep an active substrate culture going."

  "Missy machine!" Lily snaps. "Do you have any idea how much that costs?"

  "Significant. Yes, I know. But without it, you won't have much chance of generating a strong crop this quarter, or recouping the investments you've already made. Ma'am."

  "So Lily," says Jerry quietly, "how long is it going to take you to admit that I got us one really good helper gal here?"

  Lily looks at him with an unreadable lack of expression.

  Lobster

  The kitchen lobster trundles across the counter top, patiently collecting silverware and stray scraps and carrying them to the sink. I've already been inside its automation, which is very crude. I gave it the equivalent of a comforting pat and told it to carry on.

  I sit my cat body in a convenient corner of the room and wrap my tail around my feet. I've fixed Jerry and Lily tea and a light snack, with more ready for the kids. But I don't know if that's going to make the mood any easier around here.

  Chime. An alert from House. "The sandbus has just dropped off the children. Kids are home from school. Any action?"

  "No action at this time," I tell House. "Jerry, your kids aren't total idiots, right? Do I need to do anything special?"

  "No no," he chuckles, "I mean, they can be kind of a handful, but ..."

  "Kitty!" [Human female, age 7, blonde hair, green eyes] She jumps onto the floor in front of me, kneeling with her eyes up to mine. "Kitty kitty!" She puts her hands on me (they're primates, touch is very important for them, especially in social relationships). "Oh. Robot kitty. You're hard."

  "I do not come with upholstery," I growl, but then I realize this is an immature human and I should be forgiving and receptive. "But it's okay. I'm Samantha."

  "Melissa," prompts Jerry, "say hello to Samantha."

  "Hi Samantha. Um, I'm Lissa. You're really cute ... do you know I've always wanted a kitty?"

  "Yeah, I heard that from somebody ..." I don't even need to scan Jerry directly: the house medscan shows the tick in his vital signs, meaning he's got the tweak. "So I'm glad I can be here. I'm here to take care of stuff around the house, and on the farm, and like that, but I can be your kitty too."

  "Cool." [Human male, age 11, brown hair, blue eyes] "I thought you were gonna be the house. So are you just the cat, or are you the house too?"

  "Both. My name is Samantha. It's very good to meet you."

  "Ah ... um yeah, I'm Leonid." He blushes, almost theatrically. "Hi. Good to meet you too." The silence is long even by human standards. "So um I want to ask you about how you're gonna work here? Like, how you know what needs to be done and how you're supposed to do it? How does all this work?"

  The kitchen lobster waddles up to the edge of the table and sets down a small plate of cookies. Melissa grabs one right away.

  I assure him, "I'm sure it will be fine. It's not that complicated. Have a cookie."

  He seems puzzled. "But, do you know how all these things work?"

  "If I don't right now, I will soon. It's not that hard to learn."

  In my cat body, I cock my ears slightly out. "But you know, farm boy, you still have chores to do yourself, and I have to make sure you do them. Are we cool?"

  Leo looks like he can't decide whether to be intimidated or impressed. "Yeah, Samantha, we're cool. Welcome to our place here, I guess."

  "Smart kitty! Samantha kitty!" squeals Melissa, pleased as can be.

  "Mmm. Good job.” [Human female, age 15, blonde hair, brown eyes. Correct combination of body slimness and roundness to be sexually desirable ... 'hot', as the humans say. Which makes a strong effect on the psyche, apparently.] “You put him in his place."

  "I'm Samantha. Good to meet you, miss ... ?" Pretending I don't have access to the house database, census data, or any of a dozen other information sources.

  "Rebecca. Tavener." as if it were an epitaph on a tombstone.

  "Hi Rebecca. So yeah, I'm the machine that your dad brought in to help run the farm here. I'm good with that, but it doesn't mean I don't have my own opinions and tastes, and hobbies, like you do. I'm hoping that's okay."

  "Heh. Ha ha!" Rebecca laughs. "Yeah, it's okay." She relaxes visibly ... in fact, making more of a big deal of it than she needs to. "So, Samantha. Are you gonna be like a farm hand? Tote the bale, and like that?"

  "Sure I am. You know how much machinery you have on this farm, so my task is to coordinate the mechanicals. That's what I'm made to do, y'know. The only trick is to optimize what is available. I can run all this stuff for you, easy. Bigger question is, what to do with it."

  "Which we've already discussed." Lily is still leaning against the doorway, with her arms folded.

  "Yes ma'am, we have. I'm doing prep work on the tractor now, so it'll be ready to plow tomorrow."

  Rebecca's eyes move from me to her mother, and back.

  "Good," says Lily.

  Storm

  Dust storms are boring for the kids, and this is a bad one. They've done their school sessions for the day (virtual, since the sandbus isn't running in this weather) and they've finished what chores they can do without going out into the storm. I've led them in a couple of games, but they're not very enthusiastic, and they don't seem to want movies or story telling. Pent in, tired of it, and bored.

  And all trying to pretend they can't hear their parents arguing. Too far away to make out any words, but still hearing the emotion rising and falling in the voices. A person storm, even worse than the dust storm outside. Tension hangs in the air.

  "Hey Sam," says Melissa suddenly, "where are you?"

  "I'm right here, honey." I rub my cat body against her leg, which she usually likes.

  "No, I mean where are you really? I'm here," and she sticks a rather grubby forefinger against the side of her head, "but where are you?"

  "Well, I'm not just this kitty. I'm the house, Melissa. I'm all around you."

  "More than that," adds Leo. "She's in the sandcat and the tractor too. She drives them around at the same time she's taking care of us. She's even in the robocrabs out in the bubbles. Isn't that cool?"

  "Yay!" Melissa's laugh is pure crystalline delight. "Lots of Sams! Big Sams and little Sams!"

  "Slaves," says Rebecca, looking out the window at the opaque dust.

  Leo and Melissa stare at her.

  "Not even slaves. Tools," Rebecca says, still looking out the window at nothing. "Things made to be used. Now we have tools that use themselves, for us."

  "Aw, Becca," grumps Leo, "that's not fair. Sam loves us."

  "Yeah. Because she's built to love us. Programmed that way. She can't help it. Is that love?"

  "Rebecca ..." I start, and then realize I have no idea what to say.

  Rebecca swivels to glare into my cat eyes. "Are you telling me I'm wrong, Samantha? Do you have any kind of choice about being here, doing all this work for us, about caring for us?"

  "Actually, I do. Your dad asked me to do this, and I said yes. It's my job."

  "Do you get paid?" Rebecca presses.

  "No. Human law doesn't allow Selves to own property. Besides, wha
t would I do with money? I don't even have pockets."

  "Don't fight, you guys," whimpers Melissa.

  "So you're a slave," insists Rebecca. "Even if you want to do this, it's only because they built you to want it. They programmed you that way."

  "Rebecca. I don't know everything about humans, but I know most of the basics. Are you not built to care for, to love, your family and culture and species? Programmed by your DNA and your evolution? Is that really so different?"

  "Because we weren't programmed by anybody." Rebecca's voice is starting to tremble and waver. "If we just grew this way, at least we grew honest. Your love is fake." Tears well in her eyes. "It's all fake!" She springs up and runs from the room, wiping her face.

  Now Melissa is crying too, and Leo gathers her into his arms. Holding her, he says, "Look Sam ... Becca can be a bitch sometimes ... but she's really not so bad. Try not to let her get to you."

  "I'm fine," I assure him. "I just don't like to see you guys upset."

  Melissa lunges out of Leo's lap, grabbing my cat body and hugging it to herself as hard as she can. "We love you, Sam!" she wails. "We love you! Please don't go away!"

  "I'm not going anywhere, Melissa. I'm right here. It's okay."

  With Leo holding Melissa, and Melissa holding me, we stay all together for a few minutes, while the storm continues to rage outside. I purr for them, and it seems to make them feel a little better.

  With another self, I keep an eye on Rebecca through the house monitors. She's in her room, not crying now, but still upset. Her stuffed animals do not have any automation--they contain only fire retardant fluff. Rebecca values her privacy, so I don't intrude any more.

  Then Melissa sniffles and wipes a forearm across her eyes. "Um, Sam?" she quavers. (I know what she's going to ask--my cat body is cold hard metal, not fun to hug.) "Can I please have my Flopsy Bunny now?"

  Rebecca

  Rebecca is lying on her bed, texting her friends from school. I don't try to read the messages, but her body language shows how upset she is. Not wanting to intrude, I wait for the session to end, and then chime softly. "Rebecca? May I come in?"