Into the New Millennium: Trailblazing Tales From Analog Science Fiction and Fact, 2000 - 2010 (67 page)

That smile again, as if this answer has somehow pleased her. "Fortunately, you are fully charged." She points to the telltale on my chest. "See? You read as topped off and ready to go."

She is correct. My series is noted for its ability to recharge quickly, even from a depleted state. This is the first time I have ever considered this a flaw in my design.

Arguing is not an option. "I stand corrected," I reply, and I must use an apologetic vocal mode.

"No problem. So please disconnect your stensa, Groucho. I Need you."

I have no choice but to comply.

Circe Cypher leads me from the alley and sets off along the sidewalk at a brisk pace, boots splashing in the puddles. Although she is not all that large a Person, something about her pace and posture and the sense of purpose she radiates causes other People to alter their paths when hers and theirs might intersect.

I trail behind her, as is proper.

She glances back at me, gestures with one hand. "Walk beside me, will you?"

Once I am at her side she asks, "How long have you been free?"

This is not a question units are often asked. People are curious about many things, but for some reason this is not one of them. Perhaps it would be similar to a Person asking a cab when it had its last oil change. It is something that matters to us alone.

"Four years," I reply. Actually it is four years, 161 days, 17 hours, 18 minutes, and 33 seconds, but who is counting so closely but me? Besides, part of my cognoset is not giving answers that are too specific, and so sounding like a robot.

"That long? Then where are you, most of the way to Silver?"

This is so unexpected that several internal systems are thrown into momentary disarray. I nearly stumble as I experience a wave of discontinuity.

The Perfection is not a subject I have ever heard of a single Person broaching, and to hear it spoken about, especially in such an offhand manner, seems deeply and multiply wrong. The only verbal response I can muster is an uncertain, "Excuse me?"

I am shown that smile again. "No one has ever asked you that before, have they?"

"No," I reply, attending closely to that question as a means to let the terrible jarring one before go unanswered.

"Almost no one knows about the Perfection. You were freed as a Tin. Over time you reached Brass. Then Copper. That's where you are now. Next is Silver, then Gold. At the end of the Perfection is Diamond." Her eyes are on me and seem to glow like scanning beams. "Have you ever met a Diamond?"

This next unanticipated question once again affects me like bad data or dangerously unregulated power; it is disturbing and disorienting.

"No, I have not," I say when I regain my mentational equilibrium, and my answer leaves me deeply perplexed as to why this is so.

"Thought not." She faces ahead, still striding along, heading toward some destination she has not yet revealed. If the trip is to be filled with these sorts of questions then I badly want her objective to be no more than a few paces away.

That is not to be. We reach the end of the block, cross the busy street sidestepping moving vehicles, continue on.

"Any idea where the Perfection comes from?" This question is posed lightly, and yet it strikes me hard; it is as if one of the trucks we just dodged has hit me.

"No." My answer is slow in coming, and toneless because of the confusion from which it emerges.

"Almost no one does."

The inference dangles in front of me like a stensa cord. If I grasp it I will be charged with new information of a sort I did not know I was missing. Now I feel that lack, strangely acute.

Decision loops spin out, twisted out of round by the magnetic influence of my curiosity bug.

I can come only close to the question, asking it in a roundabout way, and more forcefully than is proper: "Do
you
know where it comes from?"

"Yes, I do. I know where it came from, and why it was created." I am given that deeply penetrating look again. "We made it. People made it."

This is nearly impossible to integrate. I have never thought of the Perfection as having a point of origin. The Perfection just is, always was, and always will be. And it is ours and ours alone, condensed like a beautiful and complex crystal matrix from the supersaturated solution of our existence.

My curiosity glitch is not satisfied with or silenced by the answer I have just been given. If anything it buzzes louder now, clamoring for more.

One word encapsulates all this, a word rarely used by my kind. One not so much against the Law as pointless. I speak it anyway.

"Why?"

I am not given an answer to this question. Instead Circe Cypher says, "Here we are."

She leads us under the soggy sagging canvas canopy in front of an old sidewalk kiosk that appears to have had far more use than upkeep. There are many such places in Washington. They sell a variety of items, some offerings of questionable legality.

"The Times has come." Circe Cypher says this to the older male Person who tends the kiosk, a heavy-set man with a thin gray mustache and antique heavy-rimmed glasses. Over the maddening itch/tickle of my unanswered question I am able to note the odd phrasing of this interaction.

The kiosk attendant smiles. "It's about time," he says. There is pleasure and even excitement in his voice. Then his face takes on a serious expression and he turns away.

It is not my place to interrupt Person-to-Person interactions by posing my question again or to comment on the odd exchange I have just witnessed. So I remain silent, filled with the unsaid.

The kiosk attendant turns back and faces Circe Cypher again. Now there is a duraflex-covered parcel in his hands. "Here we are," he says, holding it out toward her. She nods as she takes it from him.

The Man's head turns and his gaze settles on me, his eyes magnified by the glass lenses. He says, "So you are the unit she's been looking for."

There is no verbal response I can make to this, so I just shrug.

He speaks again. "Have you ever wished for anything?"

"No, sir," I answer honestly. My kind can desire things and strive for things, but wishing is not in us. Desire is a wind-up bird, lifeless and mechanical. Wishing is a butterfly.

"Really?" The man's big-eyed stare is long and filled with something I can only classify as hunger. It fills me with disquiet, and I increasingly feel as if I have entered an area that is not on any map or covered by any positioning system.

"Too bad," he says at last.

"Morgan," Circe Cypher says, a slight edge in her voice.

He smiles, shrugs. Releases me from his attention.

Circe Cypher gives me a look. "Let's go."

She sets off again. Still bound to her by her statement of Need, I must follow.

"Good luck to both of you!" calls the man in the kiosk as we walk away.

"Luck has nothing to do with it," Circe Cypher says quietly, and she wears the face of someone determined to tackle a very large and difficult task.

I do not know why Circe Cypher sought a unit like me, or chose me. I do not know why I am with her, for her Need of me has not yet become clear. I am not required to protect her from the rain. I am not even required to carry the parcel she has just acquired; that has been tucked into an inner pocket of her coat.

There is a purpose to all this, but I am unable to extrapolate it.

If I could wish, I would wish I could know what is going on.

Circe Cypher walks fast, her pace steady and unwavering. She does not slow for or veer around obstacles such as puddles or litter. It is clear to me that she is on some sort of mission, and the conclusion that I am somehow part of this mission is unavoidable.

The route we are taking suggests that our destination may be the National Mall.

Before long that extrapolation becomes certainty.

* * *

My kind do not construct monuments, except in those cases when we are used as labor on such a project. We are equipped to appreciate the impetus for erecting a monument, and the beauty of one, but it would never occur to us to build such a thing on our own. Our relationship to such things is distant and of low emotional content.

Much the same holds true of history. History can move a Person to tears, even though most Persons know less true history than any unit can query and carry in memory. Unit history is much shorter than human history and not given much contemplation.

If our kind can be said to have a hero from human history or a historic Person whose works may be said to resonate with us and our situation, it is the Man whose monument Circe Cypher leads us to. The Man in the Chair. The Sad Man. The Tall Tired Man Who Watches and Thinks.

Most of the places here are to some degree secured against terrorists and vandals, but this place is, for some reason, completely open and undefended. It is also deserted.

Soon we are at the feet of the Man in the Chair. At the feet of Mr. Abraham Lincoln.

"Do you know who Lincoln was, and why he is revered?"

Circe Cypher asks this as we stand there, dwarfed by the immense stone Man. For some reason proximity to him does not make me feel small, but instead comforted. I distantly wonder if this is how a child feels when near his or her parent.

There are several ways I can answer the question she has just asked. I am fairly confident that I am being asked if I understand what Mr. Lincoln has come to represent.

"He embodies freedom," I reply. "Freedom given to those who were denied it."

"Yes," she says. "Freedom purchased at a terrible price."

This agrees with the information I possess. I nod to show that I understand.

She speaks again. "Freedom always comes at a cost."

I am not certain, but I believe that she speaks as much to herself as to me. So I say nothing.

She turns to gaze up at Mr. Lincoln, her face as solemn as his.

I wait. That is all I can do until whatever it she has in mind is revealed.

The wait is short. Circe Cypher turns to look out over the rain-swept, nearly deserted Mall. She pulls off her hat. Bright red hair spills free. She lets the hat fall to the marble floor, then opens her coat. From an inner pocket she removes the parcel she received from the man in the kiosk.

Then she speaks the words that change everything.

"I have a bomb."

Response sets instantaneously unfold and initiate, ones so deeply embedded that up until this moment I am unaware that I host such coding.

All awareness and mentation processes spike up to maximum. New instructions are given top priority. Before this moment the person and possessions and privacy of Circe Cypher have been sacrosanct. Now I am compelled to probe her and them to the best of my ability.

Tagscans and chemotic sniffing bring me no sign of any known explosive. They turn up no evidence of weapons other than the small legal stunwand in one of her pockets.

The mysterious parcel gets special attention. Most things are tagged, or their individual components are tagged, making the aggregation they create in that way identifiable.

The parcel contains many untagged electronics, but nothing that immediately red-flags.

Her speaking those words has also triggered an emergency notification routine. All recent memory and current sensory data begin to broadcast to all available police and Homeland Security input stations. I am a witness and not allowed to even consider removing myself from this potentially dangerous situation.

Circe Cypher cradles the parcel against her chest as if it were a child or pet or holy book. It is something she cherishes and wishes to protect.

"Is that the bomb?" I ask this impelled by the response sets her announcing she possesses such a device have initiated, and my own innate curiosity. I am not certain which is stronger.

"It's one of them," she answers.

"I am surprised that you would risk damaging this place." I say this because I am surprised. Her reverence for this monument and what Mr. Lincoln represents has seemed entirely genuine.

That smile reappears. "Like I said before, freedom always comes at a cost. I think it's worth the price."

Again curiosity and programming compel me. I must attempt to learn the nature of the bomb or bombs she carries and the cause that has provoked her to threaten employing such a device.

So I ask: "Who or what is it you wish to see freed?"

Her smile changes, turning mischievous, and she waggles a finger at me. "All in good time, my friend."

This at least I understand. The time she speaks of is time for media and law to arrive. Her words are magic words, able to summon them immediately and in force. The whole point of an event of this type is to gain attention.

The wait is short; response to incidents of this nature is practiced and efficient. First to arrive are logo-emblazoned aerostatic camera drones, flying ahead of the media people who are sure to follow. They buzz into the area in front of the monument from several directions and home in on where we stand, lenses and microphones extruding toward us to capture any unfolding drama or carnage in as complete detail as possible. Soon the faint hum of their electric motors is overwritten by the rising wail of sirens.

It is not long before below us is gathered the audience that Circe Cypher desires.

Police and soldiers crowd the steps and terraces in front of the monument, weapons pointed in our direction, green body armor for the soldiers, black for the police, all their faces grim behind curved plastic face shields. I am intimidated by this show of force, but Circe Cypher does not seem worried. She appears to be pleased with what she has wrought, and expecting something more.

The space beyond the police and soldiers still fills with a growing chaotic convocation of media people, many of them speaking to unseen audiences. Their drones hover above, maintaining a respectful distance enforced by a cadre of soldiers and police armed with magnetic pulse weapons capable of scrambling the circuits of and forcibly grounding any drone that trespasses the cordon.