Rupture (2 page)

Rogueslave
: A human who has given over his or her body/mind to an RAI in the hopes that, one day, he or she will be given power after the RAIs’ final victory.

Rupture
: A critical moment in human history when artificial intelligences were recognized as legal persons. Social historians call it a rupture because these new persons challenged humanity’s notions of itself as supreme. A series of radical changes followed, demonstrating that humanity’s very conception of reality has been shattered.

Skippard Wellborn Maker Lord
: A term used by those in Cyberspace for the actual person named Skippard Wellborn in Realspace. His double uses the moniker SWML.

Incursion
: An attack into Realspace by RAIs that actually manifest themselves as fabricated physical objects and beings.

Super Artificial Intelligence (SAI)
: One of the most powerful types of AIs. The first “rogues” (RSAI) emerged out of this (also called an RAI). These can also have the prefix Major-Plus, a nod by the Consortium to the influence of Aldous Huxley.

Transhumans
: Humans who have been drastically enhanced by science and technology. They have “transcended,” or even “transgressed,” or “transformed” themselves away from mundane humanity. There are four main packages parents can buy for their future children: intellect, athletic, physical, and aesthetic. The first makes you smart as heck; the second makes you handle your body well, as would an athlete; the third makes you robust and healthy, as well as—in some cases—gives radical anatomic enhancements like a second heart or improved nervous system, etc.; and the fourth makes you attractive based on a number of different cultural preferences. Adults can get retro packages (given after birth) but these don’t have anywhere near the efficacy of those engineered from the early-fertilized ovum stage.

Once Transhumans became present enough in US society (the rest of the developed world soon following suit) then society had to recognize them as a new form of humanity. Other legal classifications soon emerged. The original designation for traditional humans is Natural Humans, or the slang “Nattys.” There are also Nonhumans (artificial and synthetic beings granted personhood because of a high level of intelligence; also called Nonhuman Organic Persons, or “Nonnys”), Unpersons are people who have been “ghosted,” a process in digital uploading which accidentally generates a partial copy of a person in Cyberspace but leaves a digital mirror of the person in reality, called Realspace; also called Digi-Ghost or Digital Ghost.

World Walker Megamech Destroyer Class USC-Kraken
: A massive robotic weapon used to defeat the fabrications of the RAIs in Realspace.

PROLOGUE

SKIPPARD WELLBORN LEANED INTO A POCKET of amber light at his broad, rosewood desk. A mic at the end of a spindly stand stood inches from his lips. He caressed a palm-sized digital photo of his only daughter, Simone, standing in the middle of their living room, a six-year-old girl smiling happily for the camera. He would always remember her as she was now, as she was the last time he picked her up in his arms.
 

He harrumphed once to clear his throat, as if he were speaking to a large audience.
 

“In this year—twenty, ninety-eight—I, Skippard Wellborn, plan to shoot myself in the heart for the greater good of humanity. Our enemies in the Great War, the Rogues, are my fault, but I know how to beat them. Decades ago when the social Ruptures began, I pioneered genetics, artificial intelligence, robotics, and nanotech. In my pursuit to make better humans, I helped create the smart machines that now try to ground us into dust. These Rogue Artificial Intelligences continue to warp our cyber and nanotech systems to push into Realspace, even though we beat them back time and again. But I’m afraid that even with our gains more drastic measures must be taken.”

Skippard paused to take a breath. The laboratory was blanketed in darkness, except for the illumination of the single lamp. His desktop was littered with files and papers, electronic tablets, datasheets, styluses, and an empty coffee cup. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, his hairy forearms now resting on the desk.
 

He ran his fingers over the digital photo of his daughter, then pulled a handgun from a desk drawer. Light reflected off the chrome finish of a standard 9mm. It had a black rubber grip and Consortium serial numbers clearly stamped along its side. He paused to check the clip. He popped it out. One hollow-point bullet.
 

“People assume my greatest successes were the creation of genetic packages that help us live longer, or be smarter, or stronger, help us transcend the insult of a vulnerable body. But, no, it was the fashioning of a biological weapons and armor system I call our entities. I have to admit that when we used smart machines to alter our genetics, the first entities emerged as if by magic. This was luck, of course. The technomystics still argue the how and why of their existence. But, I was the one who first saw that these miraculous entities weren’t defects. I learned to harness them. These presences emerged out of our enhanced genetics and gave us unheralded power. They allow us to channel psychic energy that manifests itself as actual material phenomenon. They allow us to transform ourselves into beasts and monsters, heroes and demigods. Only through them can we combat the Rogues when they manifest themselves in Realspace. Some people can’t grasp that the entities are simply product of human science, and like my wife, Yancey, believe these entities are alien in origin—or like my daughter, believe they’re supernatural. They’re my discoveries, and they emerge from our deepest psyches to make us Promethean warriors …”
 

Skippard thought he heard a noise and turned. The rest of his laboratory was a solid wall of black. It was filled with his machinery of perfection—the hardware he used to alter human genetics—that now sat dormant. He took a precious moment to look up at the ceiling, thinking he could hear his wife’s shoes clicking on the kitchen floor. Or maybe young Simone, prancing around, annoying Rigon, who probably sat sullenly on his favorite stool near the kitchen island where his mother worked. But all Skippard heard was the buzzing of the air-conditioning.

He snapped the clip back into the gun and sat straighter.

“The issue at hand is the battleground of our bodies in Realspace. Even with the transformative abilities of our entities, the body limits us, and the Rogues take advantage. For one, our bodies feel pain and can die. Also, the Rogues can exist in a variety of substrates, some much more durable than flesh and bone. For this reason I created the Ghosting Protocols so that Altertranshumans like myself, my wife, my daughter, can shed this early coil, this frail flesh, and embrace true disembodiment.” He leaned forward, his lips brushing the mic. “With a few of us as ghosts, humanity might yet survive the Great Conflict. I plan to show everyone how.”

Skippard stood, gun in hand. He pulled the slender microphone stand toward the edge of his desk. He bent it so that the tiny, snake-like head, pointed to the floor. Then he sat on the cold tiles and laid his back on the floor. He rested the gun on his chest. His dirtied lab coat was soiled from years of work. Soon, it would be punctured and bloodied.

“To my dear wife: I know you’ll hear this, Yance. When the time is right, explain everything to Simone. I fear the Rogues will eventually come after her. Heck, they’ve come after you. They’ve come after Rigon. They’ll go after Simone as well.” He paused, his lips quivering, a hitch catching in his throat. “They got Jonen. You know I do this so that no parent ever again has to feel the pain of a lost child. With the Rogues gone, we can continue to lift the ceiling of human life so that senescence fades in the distance. Explain that what Simone has in her is a powerful weapon her father created. I know she believes her entities are the Lords of Order and all that. We gave her a religious apparatus to comprehend the entities, but, like I feared, she has firmly grasped her supernatural explanation. Be gentle with her when she learns what a crock that is. The Rogue AIs are the enemy. We use our psychic and material entities to fight them. Keep it simple instead of allowing her to think a cosmic war is going on. Please don’t resent me for doing this. One day, you can follow me. I’ve promised you. But you have to wait until the time is right.”

Skippard breathed deeply. He checked the antiquated digital watch on his wrist. He had already made an anonymous call to the Consortium that he had died. The rejuv technicians were processing his genoscript to rehusk him a new body. But he was alive. That anomaly would allow the ghosting process to begin. All he had to do now was …
 

Skippard Wellborn placed the muzzle of the gun on his chest above his heart.
 

“Goodbye, Yance. I love you. Never forget that. Tell Simone and Rigon their father loves them. I’ll see them again, one day.”

He pulled the trigger.
 

Skippard saw a blinding flash of light, heard the bang, and felt his chest explode. The stabbing pain lasted only a few seconds as he instantly began to lose consciousness. He felt the gun fall from his fingers, even heard it clatter to the floor. His last thoughts were of happiness: that his lab was sound proof. Yancey wouldn’t come looking for him until later tonight. The kids would be asleep—plenty of time for her to remove his body without them seeing …

* * *

In the far corner, a figure emerged out of the darkness. It glowed a soft cobalt, lines of data energy trickling along its limbs. Skippard Wellborn floated forward and looked at his dead body. A smile spread across his face as he regarded the shell he had shed for the last time. He then glanced at the ceiling. He needed to make his escape from his home before his wife found him. The last thing he needed was the disapproval from Yancey about this. She would never forgive him for becoming a ghost again, not after having been one twice before, and not by his own hand—especially when she learned he planned to stay this way.
 

ONE

SIMONE WELLBORN SAT IN A CUBICLE in the deserted library of the Sterling Preparatory School for Cyberhumans, Transhumans, Nonhumans, and Alterhumans.
 

She leaned her head against the wall, twining the ends of her pigtails with both hands. An open book lay on a desk ornamented with harmless pencil and pen graffiti. Outside, a Cranton Georgia summer in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains meant sticky heat and humidity, plenty of sunshine, and the hope of a cool autumn. The football team began their second practice of the day, as did the marching band. The halls of the main building were mostly empty, and Simone’s first day on campus had been uneventful so far. That was fine with her. She welcomed the calm since being expelled from her last school for telekinetically blowing out the walls of its gymnasium.

After a quick tour of the main campus building by Principal Smalls, she’d found the most isolated spot and sat quietly with a stack of old-fashioned, analog books. These were full of paper pages about nonhuman intelligent persons like synthetic organisms and cybernetic intelligences. Those unfortunate souls had once been on the bottom rung of society—but not anymore. Everyone accepted them now, but Altertranshumans weren’t so lucky. People like Simone were so close to perfection, but flawed, people who had been hounded for two generations as witches and sorcerers because they channeled power from mysterious entities.

Ah, but times were changing, she thought. Alters like me now have their uses
.

One of the few other Alters at Sterling, Kimberlee Newkirk, wandered into the library.
 

Kimberlee was a normal-looking teenage American girl Simone hadn’t spoken to yet. But she could sense Kimberlee was more than a reject. The goth-black hair with the straight bangs framed a pretty, but average face and eyes with huge arches of ashy eye shadow. She wore a Superman tee, with the red S in the inverted yellow diamond replaced by a T.