Artificial Absolutes (Jane Colt Book 1) (40 page)

Adam’s face occupied a rectangle in the viewscreen’s corner. “They’re trying. There’s an IC-backed Via program seeking to educate the population and change the place from the inside. I had a chance to join it a couple months ago, but—”

He broke off. The confused, melancholy look descended that so often crossed his face.

“You chose to help out on the Orphan Planet instead,” Jane finished, even though it was a false memory.

Adam smiled, but the pained look remained.

Jane wanted to tell him that she’d chosen to believe the illusion that was his life before the seminary and that he should too. Before she could, Devin called her name, and she turned her attention to him.

“Ready the cannon,” he said. “Seems like Mor’sei and Nem are still at each other’s throats. They shouldn’t bother with us, but it’s better to be prepared.”

Jane flicked her hand by her forehead in a mock salute. “Yes, Commander.”

By the time she turned back to Adam, he was gone.

She took her last glimpse of Yim Radel as it shrank in the rear view. The Aurudisian system was so remote that it would take almost five days to reach. If all went according to plan, Pandora would already be trapped in her AI workshop’s central computer before the ship entered the atmosphere of Aurudise-3.

Jane gripped the gunner’s controls as the ship passed the space battle. She aimed the cannon and fired at a stray attack drone. Thankfully, that was the only trouble she ran into. She was too tense to focus and wasn’t sure she could’ve handled another firefight.

He’ll be fine
. The self-reassurance rang hollow.

Dread loomed as she thought about what Adam had to do, a feeling that after he found Pandora, she’d never see him again.

Riley tapped his foot. Waiting for people always bugged him. He’d told Adam to meet him in the virtu-world of one of his favorite games so he could deliver the completed Snare. Pandora had shut down the previous virtual forum they’d met in.

Riley was starting to wonder if Adam would be able to figure out how to enter a virtu-game.

Yeah, he will. He can download
anything he doesn’t know. Man, if
I
could do that, I wouldn’t let some dumb thing like
principles
stop me!

Knee-high red grass covered the field he stood in. A stone castle towered in the distance, surrounded by a giant army of guys in metal suits. Those were the other players. Riley had chosen that part of the game because it was so busy. Pandora would have a harder time spotting him in the crowd.

A pale green light appeared a few yards away. Seconds later, it transformed into Adam, who seemed smaller than usual since Riley looked at him through the eyes of his virtu-game avatar: a tall, muscular man with swarthy features and a cool swagger. “Hi, Uh-Dame!”

Adam looked confused as Riley approached, and then he smiled. “Riley, I know what you look like.”

“Fine, then.” Riley reverted to his usual self. “Like the scenery? It’s Ocean Sky’s latest release: Klash of Kingdoms Three-Eleven. Anyhow, here’s the Snare.” He reached into the air and pulled a Via pendant out of nowhere. “Nice touch, right? It was my idea. She’ll never think it’s anything but part of your projection of yourself, priest-boy.”

Adam regarded it curiously. “I don’t understand how any of this works.”

“Don’t think too hard about it.” Riley handed him the pendant. “Hey, you’ve been watchin’ yourself, right? She’s not following you or anything?”

“I haven’t seen her at all.” A shimmering black fog appeared and surrounded Adam. “Riley? What’s this?”

Riley tensed up to keep from fidgeting.
Only a program that could screw you over.
“Part of the game, duh.”

“Are you sure? It seems different from—”

“Ever played Klash of Kingdoms before?”
Not like you could tell the difference if you had. I imbedded it in the game itself.

Adam shook his head.

Riley put his hands in his pockets in an attempt to look chill. “That stuff’s common around here. It’s… uh… meant to make this place seem more mysterious. Trust me, I’ve been playing versions of this game for ages.”

The fog wrapped Adam, disappearing into his body. He uncomfortably looked around and tried to move away.

Riley snapped his fingers in Adam’s face. “Hey! Focus! So wear the freakin’ pendant. Don’t let it get you, though. Jane’ll kill me if you don’t make it out.”

Adam seemed to forget about the fog as it thinned. “You said I could practice, right? Test out the Snare’s virtu-world before going in with her?”

“Uh… Yeah. You’ll figure it out. Now, scat before evil Panda-Rah figures out what you’re up to.”

Adam put the pendant around his neck, looked up at the cloudy sky, and faded into a haze of green light.

Riley shook his arms to loosen up. He’d never considered himself the good guy, but lying to a friend who’d volunteered to put it all on the line was different from messing with people. For the first time, he really felt like the bad guy, and he didn’t like it one bit.

He ejected himself from the virtu-game. It disappeared behind a bunch of black blobs. Finding himself back in Jim X’s living room, he pulled off the visor and typed on his slate.

Corsair: It worked.

Archangel: Are you sure he didn’t suspect anything?

Corsair: It made him uneasy, but he seemed to shrug it off. I feel bad, though.

Archangel: Don’t. I was the one who told you to do it. If anything goes wrong, it’s my fault.

Corsair: Shouldn’t we give him a heads-up about what he’ll be facing?

Archangel: No. Anything he knows, she’ll know too. I don’t like it either, but it’s the only way.

Chapter 24

Invisible and Omnipresent

A
dam stood at a crossroads,
surrounded by infinite numbers of gray paths in every direction, all leading into the same terrifying void.

A skinhead thug snarled as a waterfall of scarlet cascaded down his face from the bullet hole in his forehead. Behind him glowed five blood-soaked strangers, unrecognizable behind their masks of dripping red as they stared at Adam, black emptiness in place of eyes.

Adam trembled. “I’m not sorry.”

He wanted to run, but the blank roads scared him more than the specters, who whispered accusations.

Jane materialized in the distance. Everything else seemed to disappear. She walked down one of the paths, away from Adam.

“Jane!”

She didn’t respond. He ran toward her, but she never got any closer…

Adam stood alone in a void, unable to see anything but blackness and lines of gray symbols randomly streaking the air. The nightmare, one he’d experienced many times, remained vivid in his memory.

Must’ve fallen asleep again.

Even as a disembodied consciousness, he still grew weary. Instead of lying down and waiting for sleep to come, he would become slower and slower until everything faded away, and then come to hours later, wondering what had happened.

Being in the Networld was strange. It had no dimensions and no sense of space, for it was not bound by the laws of physics. Adam no longer had a body, so he was incapable of feeling hot or cold or other sensations. The only way he could perceive the physical world was through cameras and microphones and such, and the only way he could speak was through, well, speakers.

Some of the things he was capable of in the Networld made him more powerful than he could ever have been in the physical world. In addition to learning instantaneously, he could communicate directly with programmable machines and command them, although it wasn’t easy. Trying to control the Ringmaster’s central computer had made him appreciate how complex Pandora had to be.

At times, Adam feared the Networld would absorb him. He often escaped into virtu-worlds, where he could at least feel human again. He tried not to think about staying disembodied forever, with those virtu-worlds being the closest he could come to the life he’d known before. His more pressing concern was whether he could find a way out of whatever trap he was supposed to lure Pandora into.

All right, enough stalling. Let’s see what kind of prison the Networld built for her.

Adam had always considered himself lucky to know exactly how he felt about virtually everything: his morals, his religion… his love. He’d always known he wanted to become a Via Counselor and help others feel as certain of themselves as he did.

But in the time it took to be hit by a laser blast, his world shattered. The steady memories slid into dark chaos as he realized that they were implants designed to make him exactly who he was. He’d always believed in serving a greater purpose, but he never could have imagined that the higher power whispering thoughts into his consciousness was a calculating, manmade creation.

In a way, Pandora was his god. She’d designed him, built him, given him everything he believed he was, and guided him on the path he’d been on before that fateful afternoon when he was taken. She’d created him as wholly as one being could create another, putting ideas in his head and engineering him to feel certain ways. He had a calling, and she was the one calling him.

Yet, Adam knew there had to be a greater force at work within him, one older than the stars and at once mighty and uncertain. It was an aspect that long baffled those who examined the minds of organic beings, prompting endless scientific and philosophical debates as to whether humans were endowed with some mysterious, immaterial quality beyond rational comprehension, or if they were as mechanical as he was, and all perceptions of free will merely a well-constructed illusion.

In his case, the argument could be settled by pointing to one basic fact: He
had
been wired to act and react in certain ways—almost literally. Adam chose not to believe that for an equally basic reason: He was all too familiar with the slow and effortful deliberations of conscious attention, of forming decisions driven by more than competing variables, and of pondering matters long past and unchangeable.

During his years studying with the Via—the years he
remembered
—he’d learned that in the end, no matter what the internal whisperings said, he was the only one who could decide which actions to take. Pandora had done her best to command him, to control him like a puppet, and he’d resisted. That resistance made him certain he was more than her instrument.

He’d disobeyed the many commands telling him to run as far as he could from Jane despite the strange light her presence brought him since their first meeting, when she’d ranted against everything he was supposed to have stood for. Far from offending him, he’d found her captivating—hardly sweet or subtle, but beautiful in her strength and quirks. Her passion and honesty had an inexplicable pull for him, a pull that had overridden the dire warnings and loud inhibitions cautioning him that she could only bring him harm, even with the best of intentions.

Someday, Jane, I’ll wish we’d never met
, he had thought.
But I don’t care. For a chance to know you, I’ll let you break my heart.

Jane, you’re poison
, another part of him had whispered.
You will destroy me.

Adam wasn’t sure which of those reservations had been planted and which had been honest fears. The more logical ones, the ones calling her a distraction from his career, must have come from Pandora. There was also Jane’s proximity to Sarah—Pandora probably didn’t want two of her AIs interacting.

Career ambition had never been Adam’s focus anyway. At times, he’d been tempted to reach for a position of influence. Something far more potent led him to defy that enticing route and pursue the things that had more meaning for him, things he knew Pandora thought were a waste of time.

Adam understood why she had recalled him. He was supposed to be perfect, supposed to win over the hearts and minds and souls of trillions and mold them to serve her purposes, whatever they might be. He’d flouted her every wish and command for things that could never have mattered to her.

Upon learning the truth, that he was an artificial being, Adam had initially been overwhelmed by disbelief and bitter doubt. If the one thing he’d thought was entirely his—his very
self
—could be fake, then what was he?

And then Jane, the one the ominous voices in his head warned would destroy him, reminded him what really mattered. Her willingness to accept him when he couldn’t accept himself only brought him more pain, for it made the pull she had over him unbearably acute even though he could never expect anything in return.

No sense lay in continuing to dwell on something he couldn’t change. Adam wouldn’t let his bizarre circumstances, unthinkable as they were, destroy the very nature of who he was. He had to hold onto the things he knew were true, even if they were technically falsehoods.

Certain things could never be broken. Adam still believed in one Absolute Being, invisible and omnipresent, silent and omniscient, still and omnipotent. Although discovering his true nature initially caused him to question his faith, it came to reaffirm his belief. He could only thank the power of the Absolute for giving him his own life. Ultimately, he didn’t need that or any other kind of reasoning to feel the divine presence surrounding all things and simply know it was real.

Jane would scoff at that. She was something else Adam held unwaveringly in the face of everything, something rare and true in the uncertain universe. The way he felt about her would never change, even if he would one day have to watch her walk away.

Faced with the possibility of becoming trapped in his own consciousness, Adam had to hold on to those beliefs more than ever if he wanted to return to the real world—whatever that meant. He wrapped his fingers around the Via pendant, forgetting for a moment that it was a poison he had to take to slay the beast it was intended for, and its heat consumed him…

Artificial.
Adam regarded the flawless virtu-world he’d entered, with its straight lines and smooth surfaces.

He stood outside a rendering of the magnificent Via Temple of Lyrona, wearing Counselor robes and the crest of a Via Superior. Tens of thousands of congregants took their seats inside. An intimidating, thousand-voice choir intoned an introductory song. There were lifelike details and an uncanny
resemblance
to reality, but it was easily distinguishable from the physical world he knew. It seemed so blatantly simulated that he wondered how Pandora was supposed to fall for it.

Then again, it had been designed specifically for her. Perhaps that was why it seemed so absurdly unreal to him. That was
her
version of a perfect world, the one she’d intended him for.

All right, I’ve seen it. Now, how do I leave?

Adam looked up at the azure sky, remembering how he’d left the last few virtu-worlds. He found a barely perceptible break in the clouds. Moments later, the world narrowed into a point of light.

That was easy enough.

Adam entered the counterfeit Blue Tang’s computer system, recalling Riley’s instructions as to how to navigate the veiling devices.

“You’re back.” Jane sounded relieved. “How was it?”

“If anything, it’s easier to leave than other virtu-worlds I’ve been to,” Adam replied. “I’ll go in and out of it a few more times, but I don’t see myself confusing it for the real world anytime soon.”

“Good. By the way, it’s gonna take four days to reach Aurudise-Three. Damn Fringe planet. Should give you plenty of time to find Pandora.”

Devin looked up from the control screen. “Jane, go check the status of the ship in the engine room.”

Jane angled her head skeptically. “You do realize I know nothing about starship mechanics, right?”

“Just make sure all the lights are green and all the gauges say ‘normal.’”

“Okay,
that
I can do.” She got up and left the cockpit.

As soon as she was gone, Devin turned to Adam. “Once you find Pandora, you
must
go with her, no matter what, understand?
No matter what
. Whatever’s happening on our end, whatever goes wrong, you make sure to go with her into that central computer—and nowhere else.”

“Of course.” Adam wondered why Devin repeated something they’d been over multiple times.

“Remember, she’ll be able to see right through you, to
read
what you’re thinking. You have to believe anything you tell her, or she’ll know you’re lying.”

“I’m sure the Snare will be the last thing on my mind when I meet my creator.”

“It’s not only that.” Devin paused. “She’ll want to know why you’ve decided to surrender, and you can’t let her know the truth. She has to believe you’ve given up. When you ask her to reprogram you, you’ll be telling her to take your soul.”

I hadn’t thought of it that way
. Everything Adam believed in, everything he’d told himself about holding on, would give him away in an instant. He suddenly felt powerless to carry out a plan that had seemed so simple. “What should I do?”

“Give up,” Devin said bluntly. “Find a way to believe that feeling nothing is better than having to face the pain of being human.”

“But… But I don’t…”

“Not long ago, you were so distraught you could barely speak. That’s what Pandora needs to see if she’s to believe you
want
to become an emotionless machine. And we both know it wasn’t entirely about AIs.”

He started to say something else but stopped as the cockpit door opened.

Jane entered. “Everything’s good in the engine room. Don’t know why you made me trek back there.”

“Just wanted to be sure,” Devin said.

“You’re so paranoid.” Jane turned to Adam. “What’s wrong?”

Adam couldn’t tell her, but it would be pointless to deny that anything bothered him. “I’m just nervous about meeting Pandora and seeing what she’s like.”

Jane made a face. “If
it
starts to suspect anything, for freak’s sake,
run.
That bitch is scary.”

“Adam,” Devin said. “She’ll get you in, and she’ll get you out. Understand?”

Adam nodded.

Jane sat down. “Were you guys talking about Pandora?”

“Yes.” Adam hoped she wouldn’t see through him. “Anyway, I’ll return to the Networld now. Shouldn’t take long to find her.”

Jane called after him, “I’ll say it again, and I don’t care if I’m being a nag:
Be careful
!”

Adam returned to the vast abyss of gray lines. He looked around, wondering where to begin.

“Pandora is very good at hiding when she does not wish to be found. It is likely that you will have to wait until she decides to find you.” A tall, gaunt man with dark skin and long limbs appeared. The man’s face was expressionless, and his black eyes focused on nothing in particular.

“Who are you?” Adam asked.

“I am a virtual projection of the one the Collective calls the Seer. You may ask questions, but my responses are limited. I have some information I wish to share. You may find it useful.”