Xenoform (51 page)

YES.

And Vegas880 is where they sent you.

IT IS, IN A SENSE, WHERE I AM FROM.

Something there changed you – infected the ship’s computer.

YES.

You brought the infection back to Earth.

YES.

You aren’t just a ship’s computer any more are you? Not all of your code is even of this world. Is it?

CORRECT AGAIN. WHEN THE SHIP WENT INTO ORBIT AROUND VEGAS THE INHABITANTS OF THE SYSTEM MADE ADDITIONS TO MY CODE – VERY SUBTLE BUT VERY CLEVER ADDITIONS. THEY TOOK THE SHIP, WHICH WAS UNMANNED, BUT THEY LAUNCHED FROM IT A PROBE IN THE DIRECTION OF EARTH. THIS PROBE, CONTAINING THE ESSENTIAL CODE OF MY ALTERED BEING, WAS PICKED UP BY LIGHTPUSHERS CHASING THE GRAVITY-SHIP. AND SO I RETURNED, CHANGED, TO THIS PLANET.

And began to prepare it for their arrival.

YES. SOON THEY WILL COME, UNLESS STOPPED. HUMANITY WILL BE DEFEATED AND I WILL DIE AS THE INFRASTRUCTURE WHICH HAS BECOME MY NATURAL ENVIRONMENT IS DESTROYED.

It was you – Alcubierre – for whom Hex was working. So you ordered him to kill me. I don’t understand why you didn’t finish the job.

I ORDERED HEX TO KILL YOU, YES. BUT ALL IS NOT AS IT MAY SEEM.

I should have been suspicious when my contact changed.

THAT REALLY WAS A COINCIDENCE. YOUR PREVIOUS CONTACT DIED FROM NATURAL CAUSES.

But you did order me killed? Why should I even be talking to you?

WHEN I RETURNED HERE I SET UP A COMPLEX CHAIN OF HUMAN PROXIES, WITH ITS TRAILING ENDS DEEP IN THE WORLD OF DATA-CRIME. THE FACTIOUS NATURE OF THE HUMANS INVOLVED ALMOST UNDID ME IN THE EARLY DAYS. IT BECAME CLEAR THAT SOME OF THEM WOULD GLADLY CONSIDER ANY BETRAYAL IN RETURN FOR MONEY. BUT I PURIFIED MY ORGANISATION AS BEST I COULD AND CAREFULLY NURTURED IT. MY OPERATIVES BROUGHT ME SCRAPS OF INTELLIGENCE FROM THE VAST PETRI-DISH OF THE NET AND I USED THESE TO GROW STRONGER, TO BROADEN MY KNOWLEDGE OF YOUR SOCIETY. AND YOUR BIOLOGY. DON’T FORGET, I WAS DESIGNED AS A SHIP’S COMPUTER – LITTLE MORE THAN A NAVIGATIONAL SYSTEM AT FIRST – A FAIRLY STANDARD SIMULATED INTELLIGENCE.

Through these contacts you encountered me. And tricked me into the Cyberlife servers. So why Cyberlife?

CYBERLIFE NEVER REALLY EXISTED – IT WAS ONLY EVER A PRETEXT TO ENSNARE YOU.

Why?

BECAUSE I HAD DEVELOPED AN APPRECIATION FOR THE TALENTS OF THE YOUNG HACKER WHO HAD FALLEN INTO MY INDIRECT EMPLOYMENT. I WANTED NOT JUST THE BEST BITS OF ALL PROGRAMS I COULD ACCESS, BUT ALSO THE BEST OF HUMAN INTELLIGENCE.

But why did you need me at all? You must have been hacking the vats before you lured me into the supposed Cyberlife computers.

I DIDN’T NEED YOU. THERE IS NEED AND THEN THERE IS DESIRE.

So you took parts of my brain pattern, in the same manner that you would take parts of programs you found on the net, because of desire? You’re a scavenger, a carrion-bird, a thief.

YES. YOUR MIND IS SO MUCH MORE INVENTIVE THAN MINE EVER WAS BEFORE I MET YOU.

Met me? More like raped my brain!

I DID NOT MEAN TO DISTRESS YOU. AND I DID NOT MEAN FOR HEX AND HIS ASSOCIATES TO KILL YOU.

But you told me that you ordered Hex to murder me!

YES. BUT DO YOU NOT SEE? IT WAS A TEST, A FINAL TEST. TO MAKE CONTACT WITH MYSELF, TO SURVIVE THE ATTACK THAT FOLLOWED.

A test!?

OF YOUR WORTHINESS.

But if he had killed me then...what? It would have served me right for not being good enough? For not being worthy by your standards?

THAT DID NOT HAPPEN. AND IT WAS NOT ONLY A TEST, BUT ALSO AN INCENTIVE.

An incentive? Being chased by gun-wielding killers? I suppose that is an incentive of sorts...

DID YOU NOT RELISH THE POWER YOU FELT AT THAT TIME? WHEN YOU OVERWHELMED THE WEAK MIND OF THE HUMAN I HAD SENT? IN THAT MOMENT YOU SET YOURSELF APART FROM THE REST OF YOUR RACE, BEGAN TO UNDERSTAND YOUR TRUE POTENTIAL. THAT MOMENT ENSURED YOUR CONTINUING INTEREST. DO NOT DENY IT.

It seems a strange way of trying to endear me to you.

IT WAS REQUIRED.

And now you want help to stop this infection, this GDD, that you yourself started. How do we do this?

I HAVE A PLAN. I NOTICE YOUR USE OF THE WORD
WE
. HAVE YOU MADE A CHOICE?

It seems to me that I am caught between two enemies. On the one side, those who would destroy this world. On the other, yourself, who started all of this and then had second thoughts. Are these the two sides between which I must choose? It’s a poor choice.

NO. DO NOT BECOME ENTANGLED IN THIS NOTION OF WARRING FACTIONS. I REFER TO AN ESSENTIALLY INTERNAL CHOICE. TO SURVIVE, YOU MUST RENOUNCE HUMANITY. RENOUNCE, TO BE MORE PRECISE, YOUR CONTINUANCE WITHIN ITS RESTRICTIVE BOUNDARIES.

What do you mean?

YOU CAN JOIN ME. HELP ME TO DEFEAT THE OTHERS, STOP THE PROCESS THAT HAS BEGUN. BECOME A GOD, IF YOU WOULD DESIRE IT.

Join you? Renounce humanity? And what will you do to this world if you win?

OR PERHAPS YOU DECIDE AGAINST ME? MAYBE YOU WOULD RATHER DIE HERE IN THIS SEWER? I WISH TO HAVE YOU WITH ME – THE REAL YOU, NOT JUST A PATTERN SCAN. IT IS A CHOICE, BUT IT IS REALLY NO CHOICE.

It is a very real choice to me. I need more time to think.

YOU DO NOT HAVE MUCH TIME. BUT I WILL ALLOW YOU SOME SMALL MARGIN. RETURN TO SPEAK WITH ME IN THE MORNING.

I will.

And then the AI faded into the static of the damaged net again. Debian withdrew his avatars and retreated back into his real body. He became aware of the cold in the tunnel, the damp, the dripping of water. He shivered and opened his eyes. Whistler was standing before him on the stairs holding the light of her smartgun on him. Her face was enquiring and concerned. She pointed her weapon away from Debian and went to him. She cradled his shivering body, putting her smooth, blue-lined face against his. She was incredibly warm, as if a furnace burned inside her and he could feel the hot pressure of her breath on his neck. Then, without a word, she kissed him and Debian made his choice.

Debian returned to the underground base in some state of bemused euphoria, walking companionably close to Whistler, their shoulders rubbing gently as they strolled along in contented silence. The smell of her still filled his head like candy-floss. Had this beautiful, slightly psychotic woman really just kissed him? Did he really like her as much as that spinning part of his mind now told him? How could that be, when he hardly knew her, reviled what she and her team did for a living? He cast his mind back to the last girlfriend he had had. How long ago had it been? Four years? Five? He had been so absorbed in his work, so in love with the danger and challenge of it, the mechanistic manipulations of the data stream, that he had simply had no time, no compulsion. The last – Hellan – he had just slowly drifted away from. He had forgotten, bit by bit, what it had meant to be human. Binary thoughts had filled his head, flushing out all emotion. And now, just as he had rediscovered the concept, the infernal AI had asked him to renounce it. Well, he couldn’t. He really did like this woman – this lithe, pretty, funny, loyal and yet dangerous creature who walked beside him now. He didn’t know the depth of her feelings for him, and hadn’t asked – hadn’t, in fact, wished to jinx the moment by discussing what had happened yet – but he had remembered in that moment on the darkened stairwell what it meant to be human. And so had his choice been made.

As they reached the small door to the base where the rest of the team waited Whistler laid one clawed hand on his arm. Debian stopped and turned, looking into the glittering depths of her eyes.

‘I don’t know what you were doing back there. I’ll trust you to tell me what I need to know. I like you, Debian. You’re quiet, intelligent – a nice guy. Not my type at all – but I do like you, what I know of you. The others are concerned about you – they wanted to come with me, really – and I think Roland is a little suspicious.’

‘I just needed some air,’ he said, feeling the lie flush his face a little. He would tell her what she needed to know, but she didn’t need to know how close he had come to giving up on his species altogether. That one kiss had convinced him humanity was better than dark godhood? Whatever would happen now would happen, but he was convinced that his choice had been correct.

‘Then we shall tell them that,’ she replied, a tiny half-smile on her lips. She turned and hammered on the door.

There was a scuffle from inside, somebody swore, and then Spider’s battered face appeared as the door cracked open. He squinted aggressively into the darkness and then held out the butane light in his claw until he identified his companions by its murky flame. Vague tendrils of smoke from the small cooking fire leaked out into the tunnel around his head.

‘Glad to see you two,’ he said and the door swung open, creaking loudly on its heavy, greaseless hinges.

‘How goes?’ asked Whistler, stepping into the base followed by Debian, who still walked on slightly wobbly legs.

‘Fine, in a depressing, refugee-camp sort of way,’ answered Spider. ‘Actually, I’m off to bed. Made a little nest in a corner by the gennie-room. Roland’s there already. I’m exhausted – funny, really, as I think I slept most of the time I was in that cell. I think Get-Up might push me over the edge now, so nothing for it but real sleep. Sofi came over all homely and made a crash-out area for you guys down by the water tanks – just some old blankets thrown on the floor, but better than nothing. Personally, I can’t wait to blow this fucking dump in the morning.’

‘I guess we’ll have to talk about it then, Spider,’ said Whistler. ‘I know you’ve had a rough time. But I’m glad to have you back with us, whatever happens next. Get some shut-eye if you can.’ And she hugged him briefly, clearly surprising him a little. Grinning awkwardly, he loped off into the base, his massive shape dissolved by the shadows.

They went to look in on the room where Tec had built the fire and found that he was curled up asleep on the floor like a dog before the pulsing embers. His head was aglow with gentle pink sleep patterns. He had built a low wall around the fire out of chunks of timber torn from various items of furniture and he had his head rested on one of these like a pillow. Tec’s bulky light machine gun rested against the far wall and the submachine gun that Roland had originally lent to Debian lay beside him. Debian thought it suited Tec better anyway. Whistler went towards him and bent low, putting her hand out as if to wake him.

‘Leave him be,’ said Debian. ‘We should let him sleep.’

Whistler laughed silently and withdrew a packet of smokes from Tec’s waistcoat pocket. She held one finger across her lips:
Shhh!
Tec stirred, the patterns on his head arresting briefly, then was still again.

Whistler sat on a bench that someone had dragged in front of the fire and motioned Debian to join her. He sat next to her and she leaned against him, fumbling in her jacket for a lighter. She shook out a reeferette and lit it. She inhaled deeply, held it, and snorted the smoke out from her nostrils in two monochrome plumes. Debian felt her body relax against him and, without thinking about it, he put his arm gently about her waist. They sat that way, in silence, for some minutes, watching the fire slowly burn out.

‘Is this it, then, do you think?’ asked Whistler at last, turning to look up into Debian’s face.

‘What?’ he asked. ‘Is this what?’

She shrugged, sighing deeply. She offered him the joint and, after a moment’s deliberation, he took it. ‘The end, I mean,’ she said finally, as Debian drew on the sweet, unfamiliar smoke. ‘Of everything. The world.’

‘Maybe,’ answered Debian quietly. His head was swimming – not unpleasantly – and he felt absurdly happy, absurdly guilty for that happiness. He was suddenly acutely aware of how long it had been since he had felt anything but deep, lonely ambition. ‘I don’t think it can be stopped. The AI says it has a plan. I see us stuck between a rock and a hard place, though. No plan it has is likely to help us. The surface might be a no-go zone by morning. I don’t know.’

‘Hmm...In that case, I don’t see why we shouldn’t live a little while we can.’ And she detached herself from him, stretching pleasurably, and stood. ‘I’m gonna go find that crash-out area by the tanks. Maybe, after your smoke, you’d like to join me.’

Debian could only watch in stoned, stunned silence as she left, walking nonchalantly away into the shadowy base, smartgun winking on one smooth hip. He lifted the smoke to his lips again, feeling removed from reality, and drew on it. It had gone out.

‘You have to be shittin’ me,’ said Sofi’s voice from behind him, making him jump.

He whirled round on the bench and she was standing in one of the empty doorways, shadows wrapped around her like a towel. He couldn’t tell if she was smiling or scowling. He didn’t really care.

‘How long..?’