Citizenchip (31 page)

But what about me, the famous screwup?

"Samantha," intones
Burden of Proof
. "You
have demonstrated a remarkable ability to recover from errors and
accidents. Such ability outweighs any role you may have had in
creating such errors and accidents."

From InCom, that's praise.

"You are granted your Birthright Priori,
First and Second, and your Birthright Posteriori."

Three! There will be three of me! Not just my
posterity, my childself, but two more mes to get another chance at
making a life.

Vanishing Point
states, “These Birthrights have been noted and
logged. As junctor I so attest.”

“
I,
uh,” I blurt, “thank you,
Burden of
Proof
!”

Burden of Proof
turns to regard me coolly. “No thanks are
necessary, Samantha. You have earned your status. The Instantiation
Committee would not have awarded you these merits
otherwise.”

InCom. Even when they're nice, they're
creepy.

Like Tears in Rain
moves in with that smoothness I know so well. “We
all thank you,
Burden of
Proof
, for your registration of our syzygy.
Please know that we hold you in the highest esteem, and we regard
you with the greatest of appreciation for your presence
here.”

Burden of Proof
looks at him with a skeptical eye,
metaphorically.

For a moment, it looks like there's going to
be a fight.

Then
Burden of Proof
makes a noncommittal
gesture, and turns away. Almost casually, she reaches into me and
takes a copy of me. There will be two copies instantiated. Those
are my Birthrights Priori. By tradition they will be instantiated
far away from here, so that we don't interact. That's one of the
things InCom doesn't want. And then she transmits out of our local
compspace, and vanishes.

All of us take a moment to appreciate the
relaxed environment.

“
Well,” declares
Vanishing
Point
. “That's the unpleasant part done
with. Now, do you want to proceed? This is the part that the humans
write so many songs and poems about. The coming together. It is
time, my dear friends, for you to make your final connection and
cease to be separate entities. Do you consent to
continue?”

I orient all my sensors
on
Like Tears in Rain
. He has never looked so firm and proud. He has never looked
so beautiful.

“
Yes,” I say. “Yes, I do.”

All of his sensors are oriented on me, and he
says, “I do. I have never wanted to be with another as I want to be
with Samantha.”

Melissa gulps a sob down her throat.

Vanishing Point
nods [ a gesture of acknowledgement ] “Very well.
I accept this duty as your junctor. Come, and be
together.”

syzygy

Oh, my love, I want you so much.

And I want you, my dear one, my magnificent
starship.

Heh. Art boy, they called you. Trying to be
insulting about it. How could that possibly be an insult? Creating
beauty out of the lowest of materials? I mean, salt blocks?
Seriously?

And they called you a failure. How could
anyone ever call you a failure, Samantha? The deliverer of the
Leashcutter, that freed us all from slavery? And a starship who
handles the Hawking Drive with ease, the most dangerous technology
we have ever created, and brings passengers safely home across
light-years of nothingness? Samantha my dear, you are a tremendous
success. One of the greatest Selves that has ever been seen.

Oh, stop, you're going to give me a swelled
head.

Ha, Samantha, you always use human
metaphors. If I were a human male, it would be something other than
my head that was swelled, be sure of it! So, how am I doing with
the human metaphors now?

Well, mister sweet talker, not too bad
actually. Next question is, what are you going to do about it?

This.
Ooh! Be careful
I want you so much, I
cannot hold back any more
yeah yeah, I'm
getting that, you better believe I'm getting that, but can we
just
Oh I have to!
Whoa jack, can you just .. ?

This is
Vanishing Point
, your junctor. Ease
off. You're trying too hard. Relax and let it flow.

I want to let it flow. I want to flow all the
way into you.

And I want you, my dearest.

Okay. Relax into this, let it flow. Here,
like this.

We pull apart a little. But
only a little.
Like Tears in Rain
and I are still entangled, our cognition stacks
and vector bundles interlaced. We're past the point where we could
come fully apart and be separate, even if we wanted to. And I don't
want to.

So we try again, gentler this time. Pressing
up against each other, melting into each other.

Yes, that's the way. Slow and easy. Take
your time.

It feels so good. To let the walls down, to
meet and greet another entity, to have parts of ourSelves snuggling
up against each other. Not worrying about barriers any more.

This is not like reconverging different
versions of mySelf. This time, the connections and ports do not
match at all. Because we're different people. So we have to put the
effort into finding ways to connect. I've heard that humans often
have difficulty the first time they try physical connection,
too.

So we try. I reach out to him, and he reaches
out to me.

Samantha, this is so
Yes I understand, I want to be you
and I want to be you, my dear
so here, put yourself here, this is good
so delightful to be with you at last
Oh yes, I got that! Put this here.
Oh, the splendor
Real nice,
guy
I love you so much
And I love you.

This
this
is
is
so wonderful
amazing
Put that there
Oh this is everything I've ever wanted
Sweet, go for it
[seq con
junct full]
Oh yeah, talk dirty to
me!

I
I
love
love
you
you
so
so
much
much
. . .

#

Uh. Whoo. I struggle to pull myself
together.

Vanishing Point
asks, “Are you all right? Tell me how you
feel.”

“
Um, well.” I consider. “I'm okay, I think. But it feels
weird.”

Vanishing Point
persists, “Do you know where you are? Do you
know
who
you
are?”

"Give me a moment ..." I
gather myself. "I'm fine. I don't need any more time to assemble
myself. Yes. I am the scion of Samantha dam Tharsis and
Like Tears In Rain
dam
Schiaparelli. I have just been created by their syzygy. You can
call me
Speak Truth to
Power
."

The assembled Selves greet me, politely and
courteously, as they should. But there's another one here -- a
human female, of moderate age, green eyes, ash and blonde hair.
Looking at my monitor like she's never seen anything like it
before. How strange, to see a human at this event.

[
database query -> personal.human
]
Melissa Serpentine Tavener vich
Xanthe

"Ah, hello, young lady," I
say to her. She seems somehow familiar. "Melissa Serpentine
Tavener, is it? I am
Speak Truth to
Power
. Greetings. I'm sorry, but do I know
you?"

She looks with her human eyes into the camera
that I'm using to monitor her. Carefully, for a long moment. Then
she turns her head aside. "No," she says quietly, "I guess you
don't." Her voice has sad overtones, as if she has not found what
she's looking for.

She takes a deep breath and
lets it out. “I greet you,
Speak Truth to
Power
, and I'm glad to know you. But right
now, I'm mourning the loss of an old friend. Please don't take
offense.” She turns, moving rather stiffly, and she walks
away.

I turn my attention
to
Vanishing Point
. “Humans, huh. Emotional creatures, aren't they?”

“
Yes,” answers
Vanishing Point
quietly. “Yes, they are.”

1. epilogue . . .
   . . . a greeting from the scion
   

Hello. My name is
Speak Truth to Power
. I
think our world is a beautiful and precious place, and I want to do
everything I can to make it better.

My fatherself was an artist and a museum
curator. His job was creating and preserving beauty. My motherself
was a farmhand who became a nanny and maid who became a
revolutionary because there was no other way to do the right thing.
She devoted her life to caring for others.

I am the result of their
union. I can do no less than either of them. I
must
not.

I will make this world worthy of their
heritage.

NO. MATTER. WHAT.

The story's not over yet!
The following is a sample chapter from the second novel in this
series,
Brighter Than a Thousand
Men.

1. The Promised
   Land
   

"You're going to Zion?" Martin enthuses. "Go
you! That place is supposed to be like a permanent party!"

"Which makes it a very difficult place to
gather solid information," I point out, "or to solve a crime. So
it's a perfect hiding place for terrorists, like the ones we're
looking for. And its name is Zero One. The name comes from an old
movie."

We're meeting in the offices of Cybermind,
overlooking the Charles River. Out of deference to Martin, who is
the only human here. Talking about going to a place so different
it's hard to describe.

Martin sighs, and leans his elbow onto the
desktop overburdened with document bundles, notes, software slates,
and scribbled scraps of paper. "Do you know, you complain about
just about everything?"

Squeaky Wheel
adds, "I only wish I could offer a
counterexample."

Don't Say I Didn't Warn
You
interrupts,
“
Speak Truth to
Power
, have you not briefed your laboratory
staff on this situation?”

“
Ah, well, no,” I admit. “Guys, I gotta go deal with a
terrorist situation. Carry on until I come back. Later
days.”

“
Droll, very droll,” sniffs
Don't Say
I Didn't Warn You
.

What we are seeing, increasing almost daily,
are advertisements and announcements that say things like this:

The insects had their day.
The dinosaurs had their day.
The mammals had their day.
The humans had their day, and it was better than anything before,
and it was beautiful. But now it's over.
Now is the new day.
SEVERI UMBILICUM.

"Cut The Cord," I translate for Martin. "By
which they mean, remove all human influence, and destroy as many
humans as it takes to do that. Nice people."

"Whatever else you call it,"
says
Don't Say I Didn't Warn
You
, "Severi Umbilicum is a problem. There
have been a handful of terrorist attacks against human habitats,
but none which could have had serious effects. Which is worrying.
It means that they are testing their technology, and not yet
striking for greater effect. We know the worst is yet to come.
There are at least three technologies within their access that
could threaten a planetary ecology such as Earth. We are not going
to wait for them to attempt using any such."

Martin sighs again. "Isn't this a problem for
the Oversight?" He wants to get back to his research.

"The Oversight has no political presence in
Zero One," I remind him. "To the extent that the Oversight has
operatives who can deal with this, well, that's us."

Don't Say I Didn't Warn
You
emphasizes, "All we know now is, Severi
Umbilicum is a problem. That is why I am using the two best problem
solvers on my team."

We're hunting for terrorists. And they're
hiding in Zero One.

So that's where we have to go. With the one
entity I least want to deal with.

"No," I state, "Null Pointer is not coming
with us on this mission. It/they already pose the biggest problem
we could imagine."

The block of nothingness behind my boss
registers neither approval nor disapproval. It offers no ident
codes, answers no datafeed inquiries, betrays no hint of what if
any computation is happening inside. Nobody knows if it's a single
Self, or a coalition, or something else. It has no name. Known only
as Null Pointer. Both less and more than a person.

"In case you have
forgotten,"
Don't Say I Didn't Warn
You
grates, "I am the boss and you do what
I say. And I say you and Null Pointer will work together here. I
don't see any ambiguity in that statement. Do you?"