Beautiful Intelligence (6 page)

He only used cash in the village, buying food and drink. Untraceable.

He sighed again. His loyalty was to the AIteam.

He got to work. Through his wristbands he sent a packet of info to the naval base at Valletta, buying a four-seater Skud-Fli and enough jet fuel to get it to France. He had it kitted out with gecko pads so nobody could steal it and a chameleon coat so nobody could see it. He set the drop point to a hillside fifteen kilometres north west of Valletta, on the coast, in sight of Camino and Gozo. Now he would have to ride naked on his solbike to that point then fly the thing to the valley.

He walked back along the village street to the bar where he had made lewd suggestions to the serving girl. The place was tourist notable because of the stables at the rear housing the riding club, and he liked the look of those horses. It was easy enough to scout out routes, check the security of the stables, eye up some horses, then leave, an escape plan in mind.

But he was going to need good luck to get through this scare.

He rode the solbike along dusty, rock-strewn paths, the vehicle bouncing fit to smash his spine. At least that marked him out as a local. At the coastal hillside he vizzed the plane, but decided not to approach until night. He ate olives, feta cheese and bread as the sun dipped scarlet into the sea; he drank lime water.

At midnight he crept up to the plane and located the belly switch that activated the cockpit. This now was the most risky part. Flying the plane would create a thermal trace that could be spotted by satellite eyes. Inside, he stashed his bike then activated the autofly. A twenty minute flight: nothing happened, except his nerves were shot to pieces.

Valleyside, he secured the plane then pushed the solbike – batts empty – back to its hide. Then he walked to the village and strode into the only bar still open; swift costume change, and he was out.

~

Yuri and Leonora watched Zeug as he paced around the theatre pod.

“The nexus is a complete model of the real world,” Yuri said, “created by Pacific Rim programmers to supersede the internet. Similarly, the model inside Zeug’s brain is a model of the world, but it is far from complete, and requires much educating.”

“Are you suggesting that we spoonfeed him? Just because Hound thinks we are in peril?”

“By no means!” Yuri paused, then continued, “If we are to find ourselves trekking across Libya on the ships of the desert, then Zeug will need to speak. What do you imagine we would do – pretend perhaps that he is a mute, and an idiot? The idea does not commend itself to me, and if I am correct in my thinking, it does not commend itself to you either.”

“I would not deny that,” Leonora sighed. “But...”

“Please allow me to activate the language centres. Mr Ngma has mapped them, and assured me that they are ready – and I trust his assessment. There is nothing more to do other than to let nature...” Yuri chuckled, a sound like a dog gargling, “... or I should say,
artifice
take its course.”

“Very well.” Leonora nodded. “Let’s give him speech. He possesses every other gift after all.”

Leonora stood in silence for some minutes, pondering the events of the day. Yuri remained silent also, watching Zeug with almost inhuman intensity. Leonora repressed a shiver. It was like watching a symbiotic pair. Yuri must be borderline Asperger’s: he had that quality of social nuance bouncing off him. Or he was a typical man. One of the two.

“You spoke about the nexus,” she said.

“Yes, Ms Klee?”

“Did they design it to bring the West down, do you think?”

Yuri shook his head. “Assuredly not, though it was an invention of the Eastern mind, which is different to the Western mind. You Europeans see the world as one thing or another, mutually exclusive – either/or, if you like – whereas the Eastern mind sees the world inclusively – neither/and, as it were. The fundamentals of Chinese societies are different to European equivalents for this reason, amongst others. Capitalism for instance would never have risen in the East because it presumes the existence of individuals in a way no Oriental would, though of course it was taken up with enthusiasm along the Pacific Rim once it had been invented, not least because everyone is selfish. Why do you ask?”

Leonora said, “I want Zeug to be a Westerner.”

“Zeug will be a citizen of the world,” Yuri declared. “This was your original plan, which we should not deviate from. You must understand, when Zeug becomes all he can be, he will be subject to the laws of the world like a human being – for he will have no nationality.”

Reluctantly, Leonora nodded.

Yuri grinned – an event almost unheard of. “Delicate quantum states can be preserved,” he told her, “and this was my pivotal innovation, finding a method of decoupling interactions between the elements of quantum circuits. My father was so pleased! But so long ago now...
so
long ago. The innumerable quantum states in Zeug’s brain will be manipulated, moved, and stored without destruction. And now we are here, before the man himself, waiting for that unparalleled architecture to organise itself into consciousness... for it was only a matter of processing power, as ever it is in this world.”

Leonora sidled away from Yuri, horrified to realise that he was excited. He looked like a cat about to catch a mouse.

~

Dirk and Yuri stood at the pod window, looking into Zeug’s quarters. The operating table had long since been replaced by chairs and a couch – not required by Zeug, yet essential if he was to function in human society. But the place was cluttered, filled with boxes, tools, computers, and too much dust.

Dirk said, “So you will teach him da English?”

Yuri replied, “We do not have time now to teach him, but in my opinion there was no need to anyway, for the inputting of language will have the same result as the learning of it. It is the result I am interested in, not the methods. Zeug is beginning to understand the world around him, transferring it as a model into his brain. Soon he will need to tell us about it. He may even be conscious at that point.”

“What if he ain’t?”

Yuri looked at Dirk, scorn clear on his face. “You are the technologist of the AIteam,” he said, “not the psychologist. There are trillions of connections in a human brain, which we simulate in Zeug’s brain. How could a brain like that not become conscious?”

Dirk shrugged. “I was only saying.”

“Please do not say, Mr Ngma.”

“I put a little helper in his place,” Dirk said, nodding at a small figure on the floor, like a white doll. “A Nippa. Dey can talk to each–”

Yuri struck Dirk in the face with his fist then sprang to the pod doorway, opening the door and hurrying inside. In a single motion he bent to the floor and grasped the Nippa, standing upright, examining it for a moment, then twisting the head off. Braided neurowires oozing transparent oil squeezed out; fatty globules dropping to the floor.

Zeug ran to the doorway before Yuri could stop him, hastening through. Yuri flung the Nippa torso to the floor and followed. But Zeug stopped at Dirk – on the floor – and in a motion so human it made Yuri gasp knelt to touch Dirk’s shoulder with one hand.

Dirk struggled to his feet. Zeug had never been allowed out of his chamber before. “He... he outside... you hit me.”

“Be silent,” Yuri said. “You polluted the pod. But did you see what Zeug did? He interfaced with you like a human would, in a gesture entirely natural.”

Dirk rubbed his cheek where Yuri’s fist had struck, anger in the face he preferred to keep calm. “I telling Leonora what you did.”

“No you will not,” Yuri replied. “I believe your neuromaps are working Mr Ngma, for Zeug has seen us interacting with each other, has remembered that interplay and applied it to you in a single, marvellous human gesture.”

Zeug stood up and looked at them both. Yuri reached out, took his hand and led him into his chamber. A minute later the door was shut, Zeug inside.

Dirk glared at Yuri. “You know nothing,” he said. “You not know the difference between real and simulate. Dat no proof. Dat just Zeug acting.”

Yuri seemed too elated to reply. “The plan is working,” he said, “just as I thought it would. The brain is acquiring input through your interfaces. I offer credit where credit is due, Mr Ngma, you were the correct man for the task.”

Frustrated, Dirk waved a hand at the pod window and said, “But no language! He is a mute.”

“Not for long.” And Yuri pressed a single switch on the pod console.

“What?”

Yuri turned to Dirk and said, “It takes a human child years to acquire grammar, vocabulary and, oh, all the rest of it. With Zeug, and with the subsequent artificial intelligences which we shall sell to the world – acquisition in less than a second. But why not? The quantum brain is better than the human brain. Why not...”

“What you
done?
”

“Leonora and I agreed to activate the language centres. Zeug is ready for the world.”

Dirk turned to see Zeug staring at them through the pod window. The artificial mouth moved and he heard a faint voice, a single word. “Hello.”

~

Five figures sat around a table at the cave mouth: four of them human.

Evening, and orange light bathed the valley. Zeug’s energy sources were bioelectric, but the others ate and drank; bread and olives, baked cheese and tomatoes, water and wine. Dirk smoked a chocolate brown cheroot.

Yuri said, “Zeug, what do you know of Turkey?”

“A large country in the Near East. Many old cultures. Timid crane, but religious and secular in parallel.”

Yuri leaned over to Leonora and said, “The language centre is balancing itself in a heuristic process, or so I believe – and perhaps these strange sentences mean something to him. We must talk to him as much as we can, so that, through conversation, the errors fade and grammar is improved.”

Leonora nodded, then said, “What do you know of lions, Zeug?”

“Cats of large, with two eyes and a social system of proud. Cats normally not social, so unique.”

Leonora nodded, smiling.

Hound said, “I’m amazed. We did it!”

Dirk said, “Zeug, how do you feel?”

“Sensors of external skin like human, but of different type. Many tiny, individual fronds act in concerto, create touch.”

Dirk nodded, but said nothing more.

“Zeug,” Leonora said, “what is the nearest capital city to us here?”

“Palermo in Sicily.”

“Palermo... not Bizerte?”

Zeug replied, “Bizerte is not capital of Tunisia, that is to Tunis.”

Yuri leaned forward and said, “Zeug, what was the underlying cause of the Depression?”

“Do you mean first or to second?”

Yuri glanced around the table, triumph clear on his face. “The second.”

“The rapid dissemination through West populations by the media of emptying oil reserves, and the result, it was confidence, no confidence. Crashes of markets and mass panic. Spill.”

Yuri sat back. “Incredible,” he breathed.

Dirk took a puff of his cheroot and said, “Zeug, d’you see what Yuri means?”

“Yes, I do see him.”

Dirk raised his eyebrows, took another puff and said, “Leonora, you did good.” He stroked the bruise on his face. “Da speaking is good, it all good.”

“And Zeug can walk and run like a man,” Yuri said, “and talk like a man, and he can see and hear and touch – and recharge himself, and understand
why
he needs to recharge. We have made history here, and we shall never be forgotten!”

Dirk glanced at Yuri and said, “You got dat right.” He turned to Zeug and said, “You forget anything, paleface?”

Yuri interrupted, telling Zeug, “Mr Ngma is asking you whether your memory has the capacity to forget.”

“I forget very little,” Zeug replied. “My goal is to forget nothing.”

And then Zeug sat upright, as if alerted by an inaudible alarm.

Hound too sat up and turned his head. “I feel something, man,” he said.

Leonora put her hand on the table. “An earthquake?”

Hound jumped to his feet. “Copters. Evacuate!”

Tsuneko June sat in a public caf with a mug of coffee before her. Despite an extensive search, she had found nothing in and around Valletta. Had that location been faked during the secret conversations?

An Oriental man sat opposite her, appearing, it seemed, out of lemon-scented night. She jumped.

“Who are you?”

He nodded. “I am your contact for tonight.”

“From...?”

He nodded again. “Tortoiseshell is pleased with your work so far, but speed is essential. If the AIteam suspect you are here they will vanish.”

“But I don’t know what any of them look like! I
told
you.”

“We know. When we monitor your jaunts, we look at the responses of those around you, hoping to see an expression of shock. Such an expression would mark out, for instance, Hound.”

“Hound was my contact, but I don’t know anything about him. He could be a Martian.”

“Do not worry about that aspect of our search. We know Hound must be one of a limited number of nexus witch doctors because of the exceptionally high quality of the AIteam’s security work. We have all the likely faces and physiques on file. Even if Hound has had plastic surgery, dyed his hair, taken to wearing contact lenses, we will locate him. Our computers see through all disguises.”

Tsuneko shuddered. “They’ll have left Malta by now.”

“Possibly – if they are here at all. There is much doubt. But they will depart only if they have seen
you.
Keep travelling, keep moving. Let as many local people see you as possible. We believe we will see the facial reaction we seek.”

Tsuneko glanced out into the solbike-infested night. LED strings shone from posts that once carried telegraph wires. “Why haven’t you paid me yet?” She thrust her duocard in the direction of the Oriental.

“Half at the beginning, half when we find the AIteam. That was the deal.”

She put the duocard into her pocket. “I don’t trust you.”

“Nobody trusts
us,
” came the reply. The man’s face remained impassive. “But this is not a question of trust. Our relationship is financial. If we succeed, Tortoiseshell may well induct you into his team.”