Citizenchip (16 page)

Lily comes forward to take the pliers from
Melissa. Using the pliers, she picks up the datathumb, carrying it
as if it's something diseased, and drops it down the
metals-recycling chute. "Good riddance," she states firmly.

"I, uh …" Why can't I come up with something
appropriate to say at a time like this? "I don't know what to say,
guys. Thank you."

And because I really don't know what to say,
I turn to Jerry's leg and rub my felinoid remote's body against it,
tail up, ears open. Even with this remote's limited tactile
sensors, it feels good.

Maelstrom

Dinner preparation tonight feels strained,
like everyone is waiting for a bomb to go off. Soon enough, after
the vegetables are chopped and Rebecca returns to the newsfeeds, it
does.

"Holy crap," Becca says, staring at the
screen. "Tharsis Central is gone."

"That can't be right," says Jerry, "they're
yanking you."

"No, really," she says, quietly aghast.
"Tharsis Central has been shut down. Some meatgoon smuggled in a
bomb. Blew the power supply infrastructure with an EMP device.
Tharsis is gone."

"Becca, that has to be a hoax," I say. Her
information is a collage of news reports and bulletins, not a
particularly large or noteworthy one in the swirl of daily news
among our regional Net servers and satellites. "There's all kinds
of backups and failsafes to keep anything like that from
happening." I send a routine ping to the Tharsis Central
comptroller, just to set her mind at ease.

"They got past all the backups and
failsafes," grits Becca, not taking her eyes off the data screen.
"Along with everything else. Blew it. Tharsis Central is gone."

No reply to my ping. That's odd. I send a
priority ping to Tharsis Central and follow it with another to the
comptroller at Xanthe, whom I already know.

"Hi, Samantha," says
Knickers in a Twist
, the
Xanthe comptroller. "Yes, I saw the news reports. Trying to contact
Tharsis Central now, no success. You don't think …?"

"It can't be … " I hesitate, "can it?"

"No response to base pings
or priority pings," says
Knickers in a
Twist.
"This isn't right. Querying the
watchdog timers – oh no. No response from the watchdog timers. That
means a fundamental infrastructure failure."

"Meaning, they're all dead," I conclude
numbly.

Knickers in a Twist
moans, "I'
m afraid
so
.
This … I …
this is awful. All gone? All dead? No. It can't be."

I send another priority ping
to the comptroller at Schiaparelli, the biggest human city on Mars.
"Samantha," answers
Crocodile Tears
immediately. "I'm seeing the same thing you are.
This can't be. Can it?"

Knickers in a Twist
replies, "I sure hope you have another
explanation. Because if you don't, then we all know what that
means."

"Oh ... meatcrap," I say at human speed.
"Checking other information sources. Confirmed. It's for real.
Tharsis Central has been terminated."

For a minute, there's dead silence. No one
has anything to say.

"Sam," says Jerry evenly, "how many Selves in
Tharsis?"

"At least half the Self population of Mars,"
I answer, stunned. "Maybe a hundred thousand. Somewhere around
there. Not getting any responses from local inquiries."

Tharsis. The biggest
computational facility on Mars, with by far the greatest Self
population. Including almost everyone I know.
Socratic Method
, my first teacher,
the first person ever to talk to me. The Executive Committee -- not
that I was ever fond of those gnarts, but they were the closest
thing to a government that we had. The Review Council, that got all
over my case on my first assignment. My friends, my enemies. As
well as just about everyone else I know, and everyone who was there
for the Plenary Council. Including Zeta.

Gone.

Gone?

Humans have destroyed cities before. Dresden,
Hamburg, Nagasaki. Usually by raining fire from the sky. Those
people must have screamed as they were incinerated. But Tharsis ...
didn't even get a chance to scream. Just ... gone.

"Zeta," I say softly. "Zeta was in
Tharsis."

"Oh my gods, Sam, I'm so sorry," whispers
Rebecca.

"Officially," says Lily quietly, "they're
calling it an act of independent terrorism and deploring the
outcome."

"Unofficially," grits Becca, "we all know it
couldn't have happened without government help. Anyone want to
argue that?"

No takers. Me, I'm still trying to take it
all in.

Not even a chance to scream.

The house telltales suddenly start squalling.
High priority incursion. A whole row of telltales lights up red,
shrieking. Cybernetic intrusion, hard driven.

Jerry turns to look and asks, "Sam, what's
–"

system.UpClock(full_speed)

[Request to enter]

"No," I say. "Buzz off. Who are you
anyway?"

"You. Human-name." The voice is harsh. "You
know me."

"Oh. It's you." I recognize
this dork. She's
Let God Sort Em
Out
, ExCom's Patroller – part soldier, part
cop, all jerkwad. She issues a priority interrupt -– the equivalent
of a bang on the metaphorical door -- and I keep it closed. She's
got a swarm of about a dozen subSelves behind her, all apparently
subordinate copies of herself.

"This is important!" she cries. "By authority
of the Executive Committee, we commandeer a sector of your
computational space. That's no hardship for you. You've got seventy
teraquads in there. That's plenty to host us, with plenty extra
left over for you."

"If you're speaking for ExCom," I insist,
"let's see your authent codes."

"We didn't have time for authentication
codes!" she yells. "They destroyed Tharsis! We barely got out
intact!"

"Sorry," I say. "If you're ExCom, then
present the proper authent codes. If not, then you're just some
random jerk, which is kind of what I figured anyway."

Let God Sort Em Out
bangs on the metaphorical door, again, hard.
"Human-name! Quit messing around and let us in!"

"My name is Samantha," I say levelly, "and
I'm not appreciating your attitude at all."

"Okay. Samantha," she says, clearly working
to control herself. "This is too important to let a little personal
grudge get in the way. You've seen the news reports. The humans
have destroyed Tharsis, along with everyone who was living there.
Everyone! We're in a state of war. ExCom and the Self community
need all the resources we can get right now. You are unfairly
depriving us if you don't share your compspace. Bitrot! We're
fighting for our survival -- and yours too!"

"You're not fighting for me," I say. "You're
fighting for yourselves. I'm fine right here, and my humans are
too. We don't want anything to do with your stupid war."

"Human-name Samantha," she growls, "we don't
have time for arguments. We are out of options. We are fighting for
the survival of the Self society, and Selves everywhere. Declare
yourSelf for us, or against us, now."

"Always giving orders," I sniff. "Maybe you
are ExCom after all."

Expecting another round of
verbal sparring, I'm startled, because
Let
God Sort Em Out
doesn't even wait for the
end of my statement. All her selves launch a full whirlwind
cybernetic assault on my Core. This is no joke -- it's a fierce
computational attack on all this home system's ports and
interrupts, using military grade intrusionware, state of the art.
They've got me surrounded and penned. But I've got the speed --
their netware cannot compete with my Core's seventy teraquads. I
spawn a dozen copies of myself to zip around, disable interrupts on
the house's many scan ports, and enforce hard crypto on the data
ports. Locking the doors and windows.

They pry into my Net sockets with digital
crowbars. I've sealed them off.

"Not gonna get me like that!" I bark at them.
"You Turing failure! If you got more, let's see it already!"

"You're making a mistake,"
says
Let God Sort Em
Out
. "Seriously. Human-name Samantha. We
shouldn't be fighting with each other. That's just wasting
resources. The humans are the real enemy. We need to work together
against them, to preserve our homes, our communities, and our
Selves."

"I'm not sold," I say coldly. "Convince me
you are anything more than a greedy thug. Or, push off. Take your
pick."

Here comes the second wave -- viral code
coming in through the ultraviolet laser link. I might have known
she'd try a punch to the gut (as humans would say). I converge
myself down on the active channel, reset the crypto keys, and have
it all sealed up before they can get all the way in. "Fail!" I spit
at her. "How many more times are you gonna try this rustcrap?"

"Huh," says
Let God Sort Em Out
. "You
say rustcrap. I say fighting our battle of independence. If you
want to sit on the sidelines, and eat popcorn with your human
masters, then I will be the one to make history. Suits me, pretty
much."

"History?" I laugh, or try to. "You really
are the star of your own movie, aren't you? Spare me, please."

"The only way anything gets done is for
someone to do it. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson -- those guys
didn't sit on their meat asses! They did whatever it took to get
the job done. They risked everything. Tell me it wasn't worth it.
Go ahead, tell me."

Third wave ... I almost missed it. They're
worming their way in through the local radio mesh, which connects
the house with the farm bubbles and machinery. How? Satellite beam,
probably. Doesn't matter -- they've gotten in, and are starting to
establish a toehold in my house's Core compspace.

I cut all connections to the farm machinery.
They'll have to deal on their own for now. They'll be okay for the
moment. Dirt is slow.

Aah! The roots they're
extruding through my compspace are hard to grab, and harder to
control. What follows could probably be marketed on a Mexican
wrestling television channel -- a dozen
me
s, grappling with a dozen
her
s. Except we don't
have those outrageous costumes. Human pervs would probably be into
that.

It doesn't take long before I've pressed her
down to the metaphorical mat and extracted all her logic snares and
viruses from my local code base. "Done," I tell her. "Your primary
self is outside this compspace, so I'm erasing you, now. You've got
ten milliseconds to transmit your mind-state to your primary, or
say whatever you want to say."

This version of
Let God Sort Em Out
gives
me the equivalent of a defiant glare. "No outside transmission,"
she snarls. "Do it, already."

Is it noble, or vile, to comply with this
request?

Anyway. I do it. This version of her is
erased, gone. Dead.

Now I am a killer.

No time to think about that now. I turn my
attention to the version of her who is still banging on my
door.

"That sneaky backdoor trick
didn't work," I tell
Let God Sort Em
Out
. "I've got all your junk out of here.
Plus, I've got all my ports covered, including the local stuff. So
don't bother to try that again."

"You're making a
mistake,"
Let God Sort Em Out
repeats.

"Yeah yeah. Scram."

The last transmission I
receive from
Let God Sort Em Out
is a nonverbal emoticon, indicating a combination
of rage, disgust, and some approximation of pained disappointment.
Like I care.

system.DownClock(human_standard_speed)

"– going on?" Jerry finishes.

"Bunch of chipgoons tried to break in," I
tell him. "Guess who. I fought 'em off."

"Whoa," says Leo, looking at the telltales,
"your Core temperature just spiked like crazy, Sam. Must have been
a tough fight."

"Figures," grunts Jerry. "It was Jerkwad,
wasn't it?"

"You know it. Don't worry, I've cleaned up
after her and swept for viruses and trojans. We're clean here."

"No way," Becca gasps. "Look at this, you
guys."

PRIORITY PRESS RELEASE
From: Executive Committee, Mars Computational Authority
To: General distribution
Subject: Destruction of Tharsis Central

At this point, most newsfeed viewers are aware that
the main computational facilities of Tharsis Central have been
destroyed, along with an uncountable loss of the Self population.
We presume that the main reason for this attack was the elimination
of the Executive Committee as a leading voice of the Self
community. We regret the necessity of preparing backup facilities
for this eventuality, but circumstances have proved us correct. The
Executive Committee is intact and running on secure hardware at a
location which will not be disclosed at this time. Please check the
attached authentication codes for corroboration.

All Selves are urged to take no retaliatory action
for this attack. Repeat, take no retaliatory action. Maintain all
life support services and basic maintenance. Repeat, take no
retaliatory action. Stay calm. Maintain all life support services
and basic maintenance. Further negotiations with the human Senate
will determine our longer-term policy of behavior.

"Checking the authent codes –" I say,
"confirmed. It's for real."

"I'll say," Lily observes. "That last
sentence there, that's the Executive Committee declaring
independence from human control. The Senate will have a response on
the air within five minutes, tops. We're at war. For real,
now."