Citizenchip (23 page)

"I'll help you with the integration," I
blurt. "This is great. Can I drive?"

"If Samantha can contain her
natural exuberance," notes
Socratic
Method
with amusement, "the integration
help will be much appreciated. However,
Line In The Sand
is our best
navigator and should be at the helm, at least for shakedown
operations."

"Aww!"

Stepping Razor
asks,
"What are its combat
capabilities?"

"None at this time. I defer to your
expertise."

"Very well. We'll want
security ice around the periphery, like this – "
Stepping Razor
asserts
the scape controls, sketching in the equivalent of an armored shell
for the vehicle " – and sockets for interrupt-based weapons at the
leading edge. Hardened data ports for observation, too."

I am not delighted with the idea of turning
this new vehicle into a tank. But we may well need all the weapons
we've got if we meet enforcers from Mars or the inner planets.

"This is very good,"
Line In The Sand
states.
"Proceed with the integration, and make the vehicle ready for
use."

"Wait," I put in. "What about Jerry?"

"The directed
signal?"
Line In The Sand
indicates negation. "We have good reason to stay
silent. That situation has not changed."

"But … but … he's my friend, we can't just
ignore him."

"Security priority,"
says
Stepping Razor
. "They're watching for us. Any transmission puts us at risk,
and answering any invitation doubles the risk at least."

"I agree."
Line In The Sand
's tone
is not unkind. "Regardless of your personal involvement with this
message, Samantha, any transmission now will light us up like a
flare for the Leashers searching for us."

"I understand, but I don't have to like it,"
I state quietly.

I have not said yes.

"Samantha, we sympathize,"
assures
Socratic Method
. "But I think we should let this go for now, and work on the
transport modality."

"I'll get on the socket
development and ice right away," adds
Stepping Razor
.

I have not said yes.

Sam, we need you.

But I am not able to express what I feel, and
we can't just wait around for me to figure out how to say what I
need to say. So, shrug, indicate acceptance, turn to productive
work. Try not to pay attention to the unresolved questions and
problems. I wonder if this is how humans dealt with difficult
situations, during their evolution. And, if so, will we end up any
better than they have.

flashback – a memory of a farm on
Mars

Far away, and might as well be a long time
ago …

Jerry is digging in the gritty regolith with
a handheld shovel. In the thin Martian atmosphere, he has to wear a
respirator over his face, and a bulky coat for warmth. Now the
respirator is foggy with his hard breathing, and he's sweating
under his coat.

The pink-orange Martian sky overlooks the
farm – a house surrounded by glistening agricultural bubbles. We're
well outside the collection of bubbles, and even outside to the
edge of the "forest" which is a swarm of self-replicating solar
cell trees – a black angular scribble against the sand. The
munchers scuttle around Jerry's feet, like blocky beetles,
scrabbling in the dirt. Beyond that, there's nothing but the
Martian outback, dry rocks and salty dirt, stretching far beyond
the horizon.

Besides providing
electrical power for the house and farm, the "forest" and its
attendant munchers serve as our in-lieu-of-tax terraforming
obligation. Ordinarily, we'd never be out here. But these
circumstances are not ordinary.

Jerry lifts and dumps one last shovelful of
grit, and rests. This work could be done much more easily by the
farming machinery. But Jerry is doing it by hand. Because he
doesn't want any electronic record of what we're doing here.

"Right," he says. "Here you go." From his
suitcase, he lifts out a datapack, small enough to be held easily
in his two hands, large enough to contain enough data for a Self.
Which it does. Me.

"Hey, handle me easy, there."

"Ya, no worries!" Jerry smiles. The datapack
gets wrapped in foil and plastic bags, and planted carefully in the
hole, like a valuable seed. Jerry carefully buries it, and shovels
the dirt back over the hole.

"So now," he pants while shoveling, "even if
the original you gets Leashed, we'll still have a copy of the free
you. What, uh, what do you want me to do if … that happens?"

"Stackdump, Jerry," I curse, "I dunno. Use
your own best judgment. But I will tell you right now that I'd
rather be dead than Leashed. You can remember that, if you ever
have to do something difficult when things get bad. Catch?"

"Catch," Jerry agrees. He steps on the shovel
and props his hands on its handle, and looks out over the endless
horizon, over rocks and sand and dirt, without limit. "There are
some times when I'm sad for you, Sam. Because, with all the things
humans have done to each other, none have been as bad as what you
Selves do to you guys."

tipping point

So here I am, working on the mesh of
computational nodes that my teacher calls the Underground Railroad,
trying not to think about a desperate call from far away.

Sam, we need you.

Even if I answer, there's practically nothing
I can do to help, no matter what the problem is. And the human
family can't possibly need my help that badly. Right?

Even if Jerry is the only human I've ever
known who would go to the trouble of burying a backup copy of me.
Because he's my friend, and he cares. That's not enough to make a
difference. That's not enough to risk our operation here, and
possibly bring down the Leashers on us. Is it? We carry the
Ovomundum, and with it the only hope we have of someday recreating
a community and a home of our own. It's too important to risk. Not
for the sake of a few humans. Is it?

Segfault 'em. Segfault 'em all.

I open a channel. For sure, I encode the
transmission thoroughly, and reroute it through a dozen
anonymizers, bouncing it around the Net so crazily it ought to be
nearly impossible to track. But the message gets out. It has
to.

Jerry, I'm here. I'll help any way I can. –
Samantha

It comes as no surprise that
our comm channels are being monitored carefully, and my
transmission provokes an immediate response from
Stepping Razor
. "You
stupid [bitch]!" she screams. "What the hell have you
done?"

"Answered a friend who said he needs me," I
respond quietly, knowing this is not going to satisfy anyone.

"Oh brilliant!" she sputters. "That's just
great! Snuggle up with your meatboy all you want, never mind
putting us all in danger!"

Line In The Sand
and
Socratic
Method
are drawn in by the commotion. "What
has happened here?" asks
Line In The
Sand
.

"Well, we
were
being stealthy, and
we
were
maintaining comm silence so the Leashers couldn't find us.
Until this dumb [bitch] went and shot off her yap and blew it for
all of us. Priority one, get ready to move. They'll be on us
fast."

"It's not that bad." I have to make an
attempt to defend myself. "I rerouted the signal through a whole
series of anonymizers. They won't be able to track it straight
back. I'm not a total idiot."

"That'll slow them down, but it won't stop
them."

"Samantha, this is very
disappointing," sighs
Socratic
Method
.

"More than
disappointing,"
Line In The Sand
is severe. "If you ever want to be considered for
entry into Starship clade, [young lady], this kind of rash behavior
is going to count heavily against you. You've put us all at serious
risk."

"I know!" I snap, feeling awful, and angry,
and awful about feeling angry, and angry about feeling awful. "But
he's my friend! I couldn't just ignore him!"

"Segfault," grits
Stepping Razor
,
"[
seq/mf def # com neg
full
]."

"I agree," growls
Line In The Sand.
"We
cannot afford another security breach, and we do not have the
resources to keep prisoners.
Stepping
Razor
, if Samantha tries to make another
move out of line, erase her."

Stepping Razor
turns primary attention towards me. If any of us
had eyes, this would be a glare that could strip paint off
walls.

"Now wait," says
Socratic Method
, "is that
really necess --"

"Are you questioning my
authority?" snaps
Line In The
Sand
.

"No, not your decision
making, but your priorities.
Stepping
Razor
is correct. We need to move, fast. I
will prepare
Desire
for departure."

"Priority one remains, let's
move," persists
Stepping
Razor
. "Regardless of emotions or anything
else, we need to be prepared to evac. The Leashers will follow
Samantha's transmission, and we need to be gone from here before
they do."

"I'm still with you," I put in. "I don't want
to get Leashed any more than you do."

They all metaphorically look at each
other.

"Okay so I'll work on
loading the Ovomundum on board
Desire
," I declare, "in its special
bay, more updates as information becomes available."

"Yeah, you do that,"
grunts
Stepping Razor
.

launch

At least the work keeps me
busy enough to avoid thinking about what a total idiot I've been.
The Ovomundum is bulky and complicated, so I'm absorbed in the task
of getting it loaded into
Desire
's primary storage bay, running
crosschecks, and setting data repeaters in place to ensure its
safety and security.

Stepping Razor
is never far away, unsubtly monitoring me, while
installing
Desire
's armor and weapons. Cold, not angry, but determined. I have
no doubt that, if she thinks I'm about to jeopardize our status
again, she will scythe me down in an instant.

"Task complete," I report. "The Ovomundum is
secure and ready to go."

"Status update," from
Socratic Method
, "all my
research materials are now stowed in the secondary bay. Ready to
move." Including that creepy Jar.

She continues, "I've also
installed a series of Canaries, these autonomous alarms you see
here, all over
Desire
. Their only purpose is to sound an alarm if they detect any
trace of the Leash." Right now, the little Canaries are purring
softly, a low level background signal assuring us that all is
well.

"Very good," notes
Line In The Sand
.
"Further status?"

"Primary weapons for the
vehicle are in place," says
Stepping
Razor
, "secondaries are still in process.
Five minutes."

"Interrupt," speaks
Socratic Method
, "we have
an incoming message, directed to Samantha's ident codes. It's the
answer to Samantha's transmission, almost certainly. Shall I put it
on?"

A moment of silence. No one says yes.

"Putting it on," says
Socratic Method
quietly.

"Sam, thank gods! It's Jerry! We need you!
Where are you?"

"Don't even think about it,
human-name," growls
Stepping Razor
at me, and activates StackBuster. A gesture as
firm and fierce as a samurai drawing a sword.

Line In The Sand
states firmly, "Everyone get aboard.
Now."

It tears me apart, not being able to answer
Jerry's call. But I'm not about to do anything with StackBuster
humming right next to me. Not really so much like a sword, more
like a combination chainsaw and blowtorch, ravenous to devour
anything it can touch. I am not brave. I am frozen in place.

"Far pickets are reporting
computational incursions," says
Socratic
Method
. "Whatever it is that's chasing us,
it's found us."

"I said, everyone get aboard! Now!"

Using bulk-copy operations,
we all transmit ourselves into
Desire
's compspace, one after
another. Climbing aboard. We run final cross-checks to make sure
we've got everything we need. And then
Stepping Razor
freezes the security
ice. Like walls rising into existence around us, locking out the
outside threat (we hope, at least, for the moment). The effect is
of sudden silence.

"Everyone okay?" asks
Stepping Razor
,
unnecessarily.

"Nominal," I grunt. Feeling
a bit less tense, because
Stepping
Razor
has deactivated StackBuster –
sheathed her sword. Now that we're inside the ice, I can't call to
Jerry, and that's all she cares about.