The Life Engineered (14 page)

“Opochtli,” I murmured, thinking of my other companion whom I’d sent home.

“That is not a Gaia,” Ukupanipo explained in his usual pragmatic tone.

“Ho-ho.” Skinfaxi sounded excited. “But his creator, Coatlicue, is, and if your buddy went home to his mother, then we have an ally in orbit around Aztlan.”

“Hopefully, she’s not as murderously inclined as her sister,” I worried.

“She is not very mean at all. I’m not a stranger to her, and she’s always avoided being unkind to me,” Koalemos added.

“This strikes me as a risky idea, but the benefits justify the danger.” Ukupanipo was almost catching Faxi’s contagious enthusiasm at the idea. Almost.

“I’ll bring us in close to a collapsor point. That way we can make a swift retreat if she’s not as welcoming as we hope.”

“Coatlicue is . . . not similar to other Gaias,” the amalgam of mechanical toruses warned.

“Oh?” So far all three progenitors I’d met were carbon copies of one another, at least physically. Their personalities differed wildly, but it did not sound like that’s what Koalemos was referring to.

“She is not small. Not small at all.”

Skinfaxi took us back to hyperluminal speeds and to a collapsor point so that we could tuck ourselves into the relative safety of a wormhole.

Despite the incredible technologies available to us, without access to a space-folding engine it would take us over 150 hours to reach Aztlan, the dense, frozen iron ball of a planet around which the moon Tecuciztecatl orbited. On that moon we would find the progenitor, Coatlicue.

Considering the lengthy journey ahead, we all sunk deep into our own psyches, capitalizing on a wide variety of distractions available to Capeks within their minds. I looked closely at each of my companions as they floated motionless within Skinfaxi. What were they doing during their restful state? Was Ukupanipo plotting and strategizing? Preparing himself through various scenarios, trying to anticipate what the Renegades’ next move would be? What about little Koalemos? What could possibly be going on in the strange mind of a Von Neumann, especially one as fractured and damaged as his?

After a moment I let my eyes run automatically, essentially shutting them without closing them off completely. Looking inside myself, I chose to learn all I could about Gaias and secondgeneration Capeks.

I would have gladly looked even further back to the first generation and perhaps even the humans, but there was scarcely any information about either subject. Of the humans, their history was available up to the creation of the first emergent AI. Of the first generation of Capeks, there was nothing beyond the fact that they had at one point existed. It was puzzling why so much of history had been deliberately removed from our consciousness.

So I pored over the file on Hera. The technical details on her were vast and complex. Enough schematic information to build the various structures that made up a Gaia from scratch. Everything from the specific design of the joints of the manipulators inside the fabricator hangars to the plans for the structure itself. It was all extremely boring stuff that I could access anytime I wanted and had no use to commit to active memory, but it distracted me from looking at the more intimate details of the mighty progenitor.

Eventually, I gave up and cracked open the subfile where the personality schematics of the dead Gaia were stored. I had skimmed over these files briefly, quickly gathering the information I needed to build the cognitive matrix that now housed Demeter. This time I intended to dig much deeper. To map out the very soul of Hera.

A lot of what I found was comparatively mundane. Well, as mundane as a thousand-year-old complex artificial intelligence with flexible cognitive fragmentation capabilities could be. While most of the underlying foundation of the personality was no different than that of a third-generation Capek—more primitive even in some places—everything on top was magnitudes more involved. Like froth floating atop a body of water, where each bubble is both its own unique entity but also supported by others just like it. Thousands of pieces were interconnected to create the honeycomb support for the Gaia’s personality, subsystems, and the places where the two met.

I looked at each bubble, learning its role in the community that made up the progenitor’s “brain.” One cluster handled the monitoring of personalities evolving within the Nursery. Another single bubble parsed through information fed from the complex’s sensors. Yet another series of small clusters managed the fabricator automatons. The complexity with which these systems interacted, some popping in and out of existence as needed, was mind boggling. It was a tribute to the genius of the humans that they had come up with and built such a complex virtual creature.

Yet within the ordered chaos of the personality matrix there was a sort of presence. It was the very interaction between each individual piece that created Hera’s personality. There was a different entity at work—an alien element that pervaded the design, like an information parasite that crawled around, policing the rest of the brain matter.

Curious, I attempted to read into this secondary personality, but the file was empty. Considering Yggdrassil had written all the files and schematics for the Capek data base she’d imbued me with, I had to assume that even she did not know what this little addition to Hera’s core personality had been. The best I could do was identify it—“Adelaïde protocol.”

I tried to put the mystery out of my mind and go back to learning about the more routine details of the deceased Gaia, but it was no use. I knew that I couldn’t read information that wasn’t there, but what about other second-generation Capeks? I looked wistfully at Yggdrassil’s file. It had been difficult enough to break into the privacy of Hera’s schematics, but it felt like desecration to dig into the secrets of what was in essence my own mother. I can’t be sure how much time I waited, contemplating the self-defined sacrilege of cracking open the vast stores of information about the Capek who made me.

Inevitably, I broke down and dug in.

Once in the file, however, I did not hesitate. “In for a penny,” as they used to say, maybe thousands of years ago. Skipping through all of the physical data, though making a note to review Nursery schematics for later use, I dove right into the blueprints of my mother’s mind.

At first glance it was much the same as Hera’s—a vast landscape of tiny details that interacted with each other to form a greater whole. The difference between both Gaias wasn’t in the components that made up each of their psyches, but in how these elements behaved toward one another. Certain areas were more favored by Hera than Yggdrassil. I could in a way draw a very detailed profile of each individual’s psyche. Yggdrassil was more curious, while Hera was cautious. Both had enormous amounts of resources put into caring for their offspring, a predictable trait for entities designed to spawn life, synthetic though it might be.

Inevitably, I saw the telltale signs of the intruder in my mother’s mind. The subtle parasitic routine that clearly she had been aware of but incapable of dissecting or defining—same invading personality, same behavior, same name. Adelaïde.

I troubled over this artificial addition to these two Gaias. Did all second-generation Capeks have the intruding intelligence crawling around their minds or just these two? Was this the reason they’d been targeted by the Renegades? I suspected that this was the reason Aurvandil had made Demeter into a Gaia—as a means to circumvent this “protocol.”

As I pondered the multitude possibilities, I noticed an evolving pattern in Yggdrassil’s psychological makeup. A peculiarity that troubled me. As I ran simulations on the behavior of her cognitive patterns, an experiment not unlike running current through a biological brain to see what will happen, I discovered that Adelaïde would always converge and prevent any thought that might lead to the location of the Dormitory Worlds, often eradicating it.

I ran an increasing number of scenarios, attempting to figure out what this protocol was meant to do. Hundreds of cycles went by as I narrowed in on a particular behavior. After a while this Adelaïde would not only suppress behaviors but also modify them, twisting the core personality and coercing it into specific actions. Aggressive actions.

Always to protect the secrets behind humanity. Always at the detriment of everything else.

I marveled at the process and how, when I prodded the simulation in a certain direction, it would behave certain ways. It was mesmerizing to see the protocol in action, either suppressing, destroying, or taking over entire thought processes.

I ran scenario after scenario, each blending into the other, each slightly different but ultimately the same, until one stood out. I ran it again to make sure, but it recurred the same way. Three items ran into conflict during the simulation: Yggdrassil’s protective instincts toward her progeny, her sense of selfpreservation, and the indomitable “Adelaïde protocol.” When the conditions aligned in a particular pattern, only two out of three of these aspects survived, and one was suppressed—the sense of self-preservation.

On a whim I compared the simulation’s parameters to realworld stimuli and actual events, at least those I knew about. I filled in the blanks as best I could, and then I ran the scenario one last time.

“Oh,” I exclaimed on open channel, stirring my companions from their slumber.

I’d found Yggdrassil’s killer.

W
e dropped out of the wormhole soon after I had shared my discovery with my companions. The news had cast a shadow over our briefly renewed optimism. Oddly, this secret I had stumbled upon, while not fully confirmed, offered us an interesting point of discussion if we could get an audience with Coatlicue. If nothing else, it demonstrated that not all secondgeneration Capeks reacted in the exact same manner to the threat the Renegades posed.

In fact, as we carefully approached Aztlan, the small but particularly heavy iron planet around which Tecuciztecatl orbited, I could see signs that Coatlicue was a Gaia of an entirely different breed.

Koalemos had been correct; she was vast, all right. While Tecuciztecatl was a smaller moon than either Olympus or Midgard had been, the Gaian complex occupied a much larger percentage of its surface. In fact, it seemed to cover the entire satellite, extending high into the moon’s sky and deep into her soil.

Her design reminded me of the City, but prettier somehow. I magnified my vision of her and saw that she was an extremely active Capek. Automatons crawled all over her, performing innumerable tasks. I could distinguish what looked like ore and chemical processing plants, as well as several fabricator structures of a scale I’d never seen before. Whatever this Gaia was up to, it required her constant attention and imposing facilities to accomplish.

“I’ve been not absent from this place,” our Von Neumann friend commented. “Coatlicue does not reject help and is often asking for volunteers to not stay away.”

“We’re getting too far from the collapsor point,” I mentioned nervously, sensing that Ukupanipo shared my fear.

“Mmmh . . . I’ve been talking to our host. We are welcome here,” Skinfaxi stated as he added power to his thrusters. “Ho-ho. Expected even.”

At those words the monitor within the cabin focused on a point in orbit near Tecuciztecatl, zooming in to reveal a large, deep-blue ship on an intercept course with us. Thrusters set on enormous fins to each side burned brightly as the familiar Sputnik made his approach.

“You’ve found your friends, little one.” Opochtli’s steady tone was a welcome sound after suffering open hostility over the last few days.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” I answered, smiling from within, ignoring the inaccuracies in my expression.

The great whale fell into formation with us on our careful journey toward the gleaming complex on Tecuciztecatl. It was a strange ritual as Skinfaxi and Opochtli spiraled around each other on their way, like two fish swimming together.

I was fascinated by the spectacle, wondering if this was some kind of greeting or introduction amongst Sputniks. Were they talking on a private channel at the same time, or perhaps exchanging information?

Then she spoke to us.

“Hello, children,” she greeted our group. Where Opochtli was usually rather emotionless, expressing himself in measured tones and calculated words, his mother was radiating warmth and care. “I suppose you know by now that I’ve been expecting you. I’d sent Opochtli back here so that the things we had learned—the destruction of the quancom relay, the existence of war Capeks, and the demise of both angry Anhur and brave Hermes—could be known by the rest of our kind. I won’t pretend that you are safe here or even completely welcome, but I will do nothing to bring you harm.” She remained pleasant despite the carefully worded warning.

“We need your help,” I pleaded.

“I can only do so much, child. I have priorities that cannot be compromised.”

“We know,” Ukupanipo cut in. “But we also know that these priorities won’t matter long if our society explodes into civil war. Surely you recognize this.”

“If I did not, I wouldn’t have allowed you to approach Tecuciztecatl.” There was no threat in her intonation. Indeed, she sounded glad that she was not forced to take on hostile measures. “We stand on the knife’s edge. There are greater things at stake than Capek- or humankind. Greater threats than the impending civil war, though our first step is avoiding that conflict.”

“Then you will help us?” I chanced the question, knowing the answer already.

“I cannot. Not as long as the Renegades remain a threat to humanity. That is my overwhelming priority.”

“If they are met with the kind of force we’ve seen so far, then the conflict will escalate.” The war god spoke with authority, and he was right. We all knew it.

“You see the paradox in what you’re saying, don’t you, Mother?” Opochtli intervened on our behalf.

“Of course. You see us, your progenitors, and hold us in high regard. We are mighty and venerable, for we give you life. In the end, however, you of the third generation are incredibly more sophisticated. In many ways you are closer to humanity than any Gaia or first-generation Capek has ever been. Evolution is circling back on itself. Don’t think this is a coincidence.”

“I understand not at all.” Koalemos expressed our collective confusion at the statement.

“We are closer to machines. Less independent and more pliable. You have so much more free will than us, yet it’s one of you that seeks emancipation. I have hardcoded behaviors that no matter what logic dictates I must follow. More a slave than you will ever know.”

“And that’s why you must protect humanity’s secrets, even if it means its end,” I finished for her. “I know. We know. It’s what killed Yggdrassil.”

“Between allowing herself to brutally turn on our children or death, she chose the latter,” Skinfaxi added in an uncharacteristically dour tone. I forgot at times that he and I were siblings, that we shared a progenitor, and although he did not express it, he probably also felt her loss.

“She implanted my extra shard to force less than real memories on me and fire the Spear of Athena at her.”

Koalemos knew. He’d probably known since Hera had repaired him. Perhaps Hera had known as well but decided not to reveal that her sister had committed suicide.

“In a very important way, Demeter is Hera freed of her imperative to protect the Dormitory Worlds.”

“It’s a sad story indeed, little Dagir, and I feel deeply for you, your lineage, and your companions, but that alone does not give me the authority to help you, not unless your goal is to destroy the Renegades and any third-generation Capek that knows about the Dormitory Worlds.”

The threat seemed as abhorrent to her as it was to us, but I knew she couldn’t help it. This Adelaïde protocol was manipulating her into it.

“I need to know where these worlds are so that I can stop Aurvandil. You have to help us, and I think I might know a way, but it means you have to trust me.”

There was silence on the line. By that time we were well on our way to the surface of Tecuciztecatl. Like Babylon, the sprawling, moon-wide structure was covered with landing pads and terraces. From this vantage I could see well into the moon. The satellite was either hollowed out or had never been a natural celestial body in the first place. Through certain openings I could clearly distinguish various facilities digging deep into the moon. By any meaningful definition Coatlicue was Tecuciztecatl.

Ukupanipo was also making his own observations of the imposing complex. He was most likely searching for and identifying any potential weapon emplacements and landing zones. I suspected that he and Skinfaxi were exchanging information on a secure channel, discussing the unfortunate possibility that we might have to implement our plans by force. Everything about the eventuality disgusted me, and I hoped we would find an alternative. If we were indeed forced into invading Tecuciztecatl, we would have to neutralize Opochtli and any other Capek that might be lurking in the complex. Ukupanipo was more than likely up for the task, but I knew now that even he preferred a more peaceful resolution.

“I trust you.”

Despite having no lungs, I released an audible sigh at the Gaia’s answer.

When the hatch underneath Skinfaxi opened and after Ukupanipo squeezed out of the small cabin, unfolding himself to the full height granted him by Kerubiel’s body, I was finally able to see with my own vision sensors the full extent of what we would have been up against.

Much like Hina, Tecuciztecatl served as a refuge for the Capeks who feared another attack like the one on the City. After the fall of Babylon, most Capeks had fled back to the nearest Gaia, essentially hiding behind their mother’s skirts to protect themselves from the bullies. Clearly, a large amount of them had chosen Aztlan’s moon as a preferred destination.

Dozens of Capeks had gathered to greet us as we stepped onto the platform as it slowly folded back into the complex. Inside the hollowed crust of the moon, Sputniks large and small floated, carefully avoiding the myriad pillars and automatons that crowded the empty sphere.

I was suddenly very happy that fighting our way in had been avoided. Judging by the size of some Capeks in attendance— especially a large mantis-looking one that loomed in the distance, towering over the rest of the crowd—our success would have been far from guaranteed.

“As you can tell, we’re all very curious what is happening out there. We’ve heard about the City but little else.” The speaker stepped forward from the crowd. Although not tall, he remained an imposing figure. Walking on four large, sturdy paws, he looked much like a robotic dog, though one that was a meter and a half tall and nearly three meters long. His shoulder width was also imposing. Even in the low gravity of Tecuciztecatl, he appeared heavy.

“If your host hasn’t already told you, we’re on the brink of civil war,” I explained, cutting directly to the meat of the situation.

“So we’ve heard,” the robotic mastiff explained, careful with his words. “Is it true that Gaias have been slain?”

I looked through the crowd. They knew, of course. They had to. News travels fast on quancom. They were holding on to some hope that it might all be an error. Some miscommunication that resulted from the rest of the chaos. Maybe the Gaias had been damaged, but destroyed? Or maybe only one had been eradicated. They needed to hear it from someone who was there.

“Yggdrassil and Hera.”

My statement had an immediate effect. Never were Capeks more human than in their body language. The large mantis became extremely twitchy, his massive claws rubbing over each other nervously. The dog turned his head away in disgust.

I did my best to ignore all of them, although I shared their distress and then some. We walked toward the mob, allowing them to split apart and let us through. The mechanical canine fell in step with us.

“I am Belenos by the way. I’m sorry that I didn’t introduce myself. It’s been a stressful few days.”

So the dog was a Gaulish Capek. Avetan to be precise. Their Gaia was located on the very far end of the Milky Way, far from the troubled waters of our current crisis.

“What more can you tell us about the situation?” he inquired as the throng of mechanical creatures followed us toward the heart of Tecuciztecatl.

I explained everything I knew, except for the flaw in Aurvandil’s development and Yggdrassil’s apparent suicide. Certain things I thought should remain in the family. They all listened intently; Belenos in particular punctuated the tale with frequent questions and requests for clarification.

“What should we expect next then?” A reasonable line of inquiry—one I hadn’t completely explored myself. I needed to get to Aurvandil, and I knew I’d find him on his way to the Dormitory Worlds, but after that I wasn’t exactly sure what I was supposed to do.

“Either we neutralize the Renegades, or the galaxy goes down in flames.”

“But you just said that the Gaias are hardcoded to eliminate any third-generation Capek that knows too much about the Dormitories.”

“We’re going to see if we can change that,” I answered with more confidence than I actually had.

We walked into the heart of Coatlicue. The chamber was familiar but also larger than those I’d encountered before. The resemblance to Hera’s brain-like epicenter was enough to make me nervous. Nothing good had ever come from my invading the cerebral sanctum of a Gaia.

Koalemos spread his shards around the room, taking up position near various systems, ready to play his part. I followed him, walking reverently, flexing my freshly repaired arm. The rest of the Capeks, including Ukupanipo and Belenos, remained at the door, watching with interest what we would do next.

“Are you sure you want to allow us to do this?” I asked Coatlicue privately.

“Would you stop if I said no?”

I simply shook my head, confident that she was watching me from one of the countless sensors that littered her interior. Then I gave a quick nod to my companion and watched as he went to work.

I’d never bothered to ask what Koalemos’s purpose as a Capek was. Salvage, I was told, though not of what. The short time I’d known him, all I’d ever seen him do was take things apart and rebuild them. He’d done a fine job repairing my dislocated and broken limb, but only with my guidance and help. Now, as I fed him schematics, plans, and tasks, he went to work in earnest. Each of his six remaining shards descended on its target system, delicate limbs removing panels and disassembling casings to get to the fragile components within, then taking those apart too. Each piece removed was deposited carefully on the floor and perfectly organized and catalogued, ready to be collected and reassembled. As soon as one block was done, the shard responsible for it immediately moved on to the next component. Before I could even begin my own work, I was stepping between the pieces of the Gaia’s brain toward my own goal.

Mine was a different responsibility than my partner’s. While he was stripping Coatlicue’s cognitive array to its basic constituent parts, it was my job to tinker with these parts to create something new.

I’d done this before, but not with a living second-generation Capek. When I’d performed a similar procedure on Hera, I was starting with an already-disassembled Gaia, broken and nonfunctional. This was the difference between building Frankenstein’s monster and performing brain surgery. I also didn’t have a spare personality core to use in the experiment, though I did have a convenient substitute.