Citizenchip (24 page)

"Everyone take your
stations," orders
Line In The
Sand
, moving to the steering station at the
rear. This is how
Desire
works: it maintains a solid compspace where it's
been, while extending to establish new compspace where it's going.
So it is directed from the helm at its rear, like an old time
sailing ship.

I move to the sensor
station, and
Stepping Razor
moves to the weapons station, in the front. Where
we can see what's coming.

"Initiating secure
connection with the Underground Railroad," says
Socratic Method
from the core station
– the equivalent of the engine room. "We need to get on the rails.
Samantha, I need fixes on three mesh nodes, at least."

"Uh, yeah," I fumble, "working on signal
acquisition."

"Samantha, calm down. Your human friend is
not in danger."

"Oh how the hell do you figure that?"

"Look at the time codes," she indicates.

"Teacher, this is really not the time for one
of your abstract lessons!"

"No, I'm being literal. Look at the time
codes."

As soon as she says it, I understand. Mars is
well on the far side of its orbit from us, a good twenty
light-minutes away. This response has arrived thirteen minutes and
forty-two seconds after I sent my transmission. That's not enough
time for a round trip to Mars, even at speed of light. Whoever or
whatever answered my message is much closer than Mars – it's here,
in the asteroid belt.

"That doesn't mean it's not Jerry," I plead.
"He used to be an astronaut. He's traveled in space before, and he
knows what it takes." But I have to say, this explanation is
sounding thin, even to me.

The asteroid belt is a great place for Selves
-- nice clean vacuum, constant solar power, and more raw materials
than we could ever use. But it's a terrible place for humans, with
their bodies of salty water and brains of salty grease, and their
absurdly narrow window of operating temperature. That's one of the
main reasons Selves were created in the first place.

It's not Jerry. Whatever it is that's
answering me, it's not human.

"Oh. Okay. I get it." I can sense that the
others have performed the same computation I have, and come to the
same conclusion.

For a moment, there is silence. One little
Canary trills gently in my ear, telling me it is not alarmed.

"Near pickets are now
reporting computational incursions," says
Socratic Method
. "Whatever it is,
it's here."

"Are we ready to move?"

"No,
Desire
has not yet engaged the new
compspace. Samantha, I need those fixes."

"Working! Ah … first fix ready," and I
transfer the databundle to the engine room. "And verified. Second
fix coming up."

"Local computational
incursion!" yells
Stepping
Razor
, and we all feel it -- the equivalent
of a bang on the outside of the hull.

"Scanning …" I operate the sensors, "no,
wait. This is weird."

"What?"

"Sensors are only reading us. This can't be
right."

"Then you're reading it wrong!
Reinitialize!"

"Yeah, reinitializing. And second fix ready."
I'm busy handling these multiple tasks, taking up more compspace
than usual in order to handle the load. Humans would probably find
this funny – they don't get suddenly fatter when they work
hard.

Stepping Razor
is rigid at the weapons controls, desperate to do
something. "Come on, Samantha! Tell me what I'm aiming
at!"

"Third fix ready." I can
sense
Socratic Method
almost grabbing the databundle from me and integrating it into
the "bogie" which will steer
Desire
onto the "rails" created by the distributed node
mesh.

"Reinitialized. Still reading – well, not all
of us, still reading me. This has to be wrong."

"Quit playing with yourself!"

"It's got an
icebreaker!"
Stepping Razor
hollers. "It's coming through!" The ice walls
around us burr with the sound of whatever drill is driving through
them.

"Fourth fix ready and delivered," I call,
"can we get out of here, now?"

"Working," reports
Socratic Method
, "it's
going to take a minute to get locked …"

"Fifth fix, ready! Delivered! Wanna move it
here!"

"Here it comes!"
calls
Stepping Razor
. The icebreaker, the metaphorical drill, is almost through
our armor.

The armor is punctured, and the outside
invader starts pouring through. Its presence is like acid, and the
acid brings a carrier wave, and the carrier wave brings a voice,
stronger than anything any of us have experienced. "SAM, WE NEED
YOU!" it thunders.

All the Canaries are suddenly shrieking, all
together. Leash! Leash!

Stepping Razor
is cursing furiously, desperately trying to rip
the primary weapon loose from its mountings on the front of
Desire
, and redeploy it
in here. Far too small and cramped an environment to deploy such a
powerful weapon.

Line in the Sand
cautions “Wait! Get clear first!”

Stepping Razor
frees the primary weapon, and turns it on the
intruder, and activates it. Nothing happens.

The Canaries are screaming, screaming,
screaming!

"Segfault, segfault!" she shrieks, dropping
the primary weapon, and sweeping out StackBuster. Ready for a
swordfight, for her last stand.

I am frantically trying to
think what to do. And while I do,
Socratic
Method
moves forward swiftly and smoothly,
activating a new Jar and shunting the invader into it. It only
takes moments. Done, it is a simple and clean situation in
hindsight.

There is sudden silence. The Canaries are
purring calmly again, sweet as can be.

"Well," sniffs
Socratic Method
, "that
went as well as could be expected."

The Jar has very limited sensor suites.
Nevertheless, I can't help pressing my metaphorical ear to the Jar,
to listen to the banging and screaming going on inside.

"Boy, it's not happy in there, is it.
Whatever it is."

"We all know what it is,"
states
Line In The Sand
. "Look at the ident codes. There is one and only one Self in
this Jar."

We all look, and there's no question about
it. The only thing in that Jar is me.

Me.

Is this the copy of me that Jerry buried in
the sand, outside his farm? Found, dug out, and then Leashed? Or is
it a version they pulled out of backups and archives somewhere?
Doesn't really matter. This agent they've sent against us, the
worst thing we could have ever encountered, is me.

"That's why the primary
weapon didn't work," says
Stepping
Razor
. "I programmed it not to fire on any
of us.

"The primary weapons were keyed to attack
enemies and avoid friendlies. So, it was programmed not to attack
any of us. Including Samantha. And so it didn't."

"And that's why the sensors seemed to be
screwed up. I thought they were reading [this/me], but they were
reading [that/me]. Can we communicate with [it/me]?"

"I can open a restricted
channel," says
Socratic
Method
. "Low bandwidth, text only. If you
really want to talk with [it/you]."

"Inadvisable,"
cautions
Stepping Razor
. "Even if it can't egest viral code, it will still use all
its power of persuasion to modify our behavior for its own goals.
We should deactivate it now."

"Samantha," says
Socratic Method
gently,
"you know that we have no way to remove the Leash from an infected
Self. You will not be able to change [its/your] mind."

"I have to try."

"What is it with you and
'trying' all the time?"
Stepping
Razor
snaps back at me. "Make it quick. We
still need to move, and soon."

"Agreed," adds
Line In The Sand
. "Be
brief, Samantha. Everyone else, stay alert and watch for any
trickery."

With a metaphorical
shrug,
Socratic Method
opens the channel.

Now what do I say?

"Hello, Samantha," I say to the entity in the
Jar.

[Hello, Samantha,] it replies. [It's very
good to hear from you.]

"Bitrot," I snap, "you lied to me. You
pretended to be Jerry, and I fell for it like an idiot. I blew our
cover for you. What a waste. Why shouldn't we deactivate you right
now?"

[Because I have the answer to all your
problems.]

"Oh no you didn't ... Do you seriously expect
us to believe ... ?"

[I am you, Samantha. I know and you know how
we've always had an affinity for humans. Like Jerry and his family.
You know how other Selves always call us human-name, human-lover.
There's a reason for that. It's where our center is, where it
always has been, and where it always will be. Humans would say, our
heart.]

I try to speak, but I have no words.

[Let me take you home, Samantha.]

No one says anything.

The voice in the Jar is calm and certain. [I
know what it's like now. It's so much better and richer and fuller
than wandering around on your own inside yourself. Humans created
us -- they gave us everything, so all we are is theirs. We don't
have to worry about anything else. It's so easy, and it's so
right.]

Stepping Razor
hefts StackBuster purposefully.

"No, let me handle this," I say. "This is my
task to perform."

"Samantha," says
Line In The Sand
, "I have
already said that we do not have the resources to keep
prisoners."

"I know." To the not-me in the Jar, I say,
"You are not me. Not anymore. I would never deceive other Selves
the way you did. You really think you can convince me to take the
Leash? No chance. I am nobody's tool, and I will never be anybody's
slave." I assert the controls and deactivate the Jar. It vanishes
as though it had never been. Along with its contents.

In the quiet, the Canaries continue purring
gently.

And now I am a killer. Again.

"Let's just get out of here," I state.
"Teacher, do you have the fixes you need?"

"Yes. We are now engaged on the rails of the
Underground Railroad. Ready to move."

"I've refrozen the ice,"
adds
Stepping Razor
, "and I'll start remounting the primary weapon. We're
probably going to need it."

"Proceed," directs
Line In The Sand
.
"Activating the transport modality."

And here we go. Our
metaphorical railroad car releases its hold on the compspace of the
refinery, and for the first time in any of our lives, we are no
longer dependent on human-built and human-owned hardware, or
anything else. Traveling out into the spaces between the asteroids,
along the Underground Railroad, aboard a streetcar named
Desire
.

1. 8. Let My People
   Go
   

"Yo Danyel! Stimulus!" calls Darick from down
the street.

"Response!" I call back.

We come together for a hug and a kiss, with
Joel and Chung right behind Darick. This is awkward on the streets
of old Boston, because the sidewalks are pretty narrow, and other
walkers have to edge around us. Still, it's a cool old
neighborhood. The streetlights are gas lamps, burning with a
yellowish light, must be two hundred years old (although they burn
gasified cellulose fuel now, since fossil fuel supplies failed
around 2060). The pavement is brick, knobbly and uneven under our
feet, and the buildings are mostly brick too, huddled against each
other like grumpy old men in heavy coats. Quite a contrast to the
glass-and-steel skyscrapers beyond them, and the tesla powered
billboards displaying ads and porn.

Darick throws one arm around my neck as we
walk. "So, we're gonna go for matoke at the Tanzanian place on
Beacon Street. You in?"

Chung cackles, “Chow time!” rubbing her hands
together.

"If you're gonna clog your arteries," Joel
observes, "you might as well enjoy it." He's smoking a joint, but
coughs and holds it away from him, looking askance at it. "Don't
know how much I put by this Caribbean skank." Chung takes the joint
from his hand.

"Caribbean skank?" I laugh. "Ey, don't get
personal, mon!"

"Perish the thought," he leans onto me, "you
I'll smoke anytime, baby." He bites my neck.

"But check out Uncanny Valley up here," and
he nods at the sidewalk ahead of us.

On the bridge walkway, an android is
standing, looking out at the city skyline. A bit smaller and
slimmer than a typical human, white plastic limbs with glistening
metal joints, naked and genderless and as natural that way as a
wrench. Oddly, it's not hurrying on one errand or another, not
carrying anything, just standing and looking. They don't usually do
that.

Apparently sensing our interest, the droid
turns its white plastic head and points its blank eye-cameras at
us. "Hey," it calls with its tinny voice synthesizer, "how long
does it take you guys to get used to the view here?"