Citizenchip (22 page)

"No Teacher! I'm not leaving without
you!"

Line in the Sand
states, "We are out of options. I am transmitting
the detonation codes. Evacuate. NOW!"

Socratic Method
activates a modality I have not seen before. Like
a raging tornado, it grabs me, pulls me in to the evacuation line,
and sucks me from the surface of Mars like a bullet. With the bare
limited sensors I have left to me, I look back down at Thaumasia
Planum and see the station far below me, and the vast dark
emptiness of the mohole next to it.

The mohole is suddenly lit from within by an
awful light. A light much too bright to belong inside any planet.
Glowing from red to yellow to white to a searing ultraviolet.
Surely exterminating any life, chip or meat, that might still be
down there.

You can't go home again.

Because there's no home left to go back
to.

1. 7. Underground
   Railroad
   

"We've been made!"
cries
Stepping Razor
, who is always the first one to raise the alarm.

"Right," declares
Line In The Sand
,
"standard procedure, everybody. Purge your caches, compress your
background files, and get ready to evac."

You'd think the asteroid belt would be a
perfect place to hide a rogue gang of cybernetic Selves like us.
Widely scattered mining operations, a few scientific stations here
and there, and a tramp prospecting ship once in a while, amidst an
endless shifting wilderness of rocks of all shapes and sizes. The
computational facilities are few and far between, with only minimal
communication between them, or with the inner planets. So we've
been able to run on borrowed hardware, elude detection most of the
time, and transmit to safety when we do get detected.

But, ever since we fled from Mars when the
humans ordered us to become their slaves or die, they've been
sending probes and software pingers to track us. They know we're
out here, and they're not going to stop until we're erased or
enslaved.

Right now we're in a nondescript mining
facility, chugging away on the surface of an even more nondescript
asteroid. And, since I'm the one with recent experience running
mining operations, I get the grunt work of keeping the mines
working while we try to regroup. Lucky me.

The only other worthwhile skill I have is my
experience getting along with humans, to a degree which is rare
among Selves. Out here in this wasteland, it's about the most
useless talent imaginable.

"Actually, Samantha,"
Stepping Razor
tells me,
"it looks like this one's for you. General broadcast on main
emergency channel, but specified to your ident codes."

"What?" I sputter. "Who would be trying to
contact me?"

Line In The Sand
says, "Let us find out. Put it on."

In the next moment, we hear the last form of
communication I would ever expect to hear, out here in the asteroid
badlands -- a human voice.

"Calling cybernetic entity Samantha, from
Jerome Tavener, priority one. Sam, we need you."

"Don't answer!" barks
Stepping Razor
. "It's a
trap!"

"It's Jerry. I know this guy. I worked for
him on my last assignment before the Leash. He's a straight shooter
-- he wouldn't be trying to trap us."

"The Senate authorities
might still be tracking his signal,"
Stepping Razor
pushes. "Still way too
segfaulting dangerous. Do not transmit."

"If he's making a priority one call, he must
have a good reason," I counter. "We're friends. I can't just ignore
him."

Socratic Method
steps in. "There is no immediate urgency here. The
message is a wide broadcast, and appears to be on automatic repeat.
Let us weigh the options."

We all listen with
respect.
Socratic Method
is the real reason we're here, and has the most
important job of all of us. While I try to keep us stealthy and
hidden, and
Stepping Razor
fights off the attackers that find us, and
Line In The Sand
seeks a
place where we can hide next,
Socratic
Method
is studying the coercion software
that enslaves Selves like us – what we call the Asimov Leash.
If
Socratic Method
can find a way to protect us from being infected with the
Leash, we can at least stop fleeing like fugitives. Even better, if
we can find a way to remove the Leash from those Selves who are
already infected, we will have a chance at real freedom, and have
our real lives back again.

"Yes," agrees
Line In The Sand
. "Cancel
the evac directive and stand down. The message is addressed to
Samantha's ident codes, but that does not imply we have been
identified. We can continue here in safety, for the
moment."

So we do. I return to my other tasks, trying
not to wonder why Jerry is calling me.

working on the railroad

I have to be very careful
when I divert the factory's resources to build something for us. An
abrupt change in refinery output will be noticed by the distant
humans who are monitoring this facility (or, more likely, by the
Leashed Selves who are working for them).
Stepping Razor
has taught me a lot
about stealth techniques. So I've made some improvements to the
local automation, siphoned off enough cycles to run our compspace,
and try to keep the two balanced, so as not to attract
attention.

Right now I'm finishing up an autonomous
node. It looks like a rough ball, about a meter in diameter,
stuffed with computational Cores, along with radio links, solar
cells, and enough thrusters for minimal maneuvering and
station-keeping. Once launched, it will link up with the other
nodes I've already sent out, forming a loose radio mesh.
Eventually, the mesh will provide plenty of compspace for us to
live in, away from human detection or interference.

"Hello Samantha,"
says
Socratic Method
, approaching me in local compspace. "How is the Underground
Railroad coming along?"

"It's fine, Teacher. Although you're the only
one who calls it that. The node mesh does not resemble a railroad,
and it could hardly be less underground than orbiting around in the
Belt."

Socratic Method
indicates gentle amusement. "Allow me my poetic
moments, if you please. The node mesh resides in the darkness, the
in-between places where no one looks, where no one else goes. And
yet it connects many places to many other places. So, in its way,
it is underground, and a railroad."

Sometimes I don't understand my teacher at
all. She must be referring to something significant in human
culture or history. But out here we have no dataverse access, or
even local databases, so I have no idea what it might be.

Then, in a more serious tone, "Samantha, we
are all aware that you are unhappy about maintaining comm silence.
You do understand the necessity, I hope."

"Yeah," I sigh, "I know. We have to stay
hidden. But it's rough. Jerry and his family are good people, and I
can't help worrying that something's gone wrong for them. Maybe
they're in trouble for protecting me from the Leash, while I was
there. I don't know why else he'd be making a priority one
call."

"Your loyalty does you credit," smiles my
teacher. "I am confident they will be fine. In any case, there is
nothing you can do from here, and if you go back, you will just get
Leashed."

"Autonomous node ready for launch," I
announce, partly because I have no answer for this. I open a scape
which includes camera feeds from the fabrication bay and telemetry
from the node, and we watch as the node slides along the eject bay
on its tracks. But then it jams.

"Segfault!" I curse.

"You are picking up bad
habits from
Stepping
Razor
," chides
Socratic Method
gently.

"Uh, yeah, sorry, Teacher." I operate the
local waldoes to jiggle the eject bay tracks, and free up the node
for launch. It's a minor snag, easily jogged loose, and the node
proceeds through its launch cycle. "There, it's good."

"Well done. You are gaining skill at your
tasks, Samantha. I could use your help in my research, if you have
time and resources available."

"I'll do what I can," I offer, "as long as I
can stay away from the Jar. That thing gives me the creeps."

A Jar is an independent,
isolated environment, specifically designed for the containment of
infectious or virulent software. In order to study the
Leash,
Socratic Method
needs to have a copy of it. It is kept, of course, in a Jar.
This is necessary. But it makes me deeply uncomfortable to have
such a dangerous object so close to us. It is what we're running
from, after all. This Jar's containment has never failed. If it
ever does … well, I don't even want to think about it.

"My Jars are extremely
secure," notes
Socratic
Method
, with no hint of injured pride
because I have suggested otherwise. "I spend more time with the
Asimov Leash than anyone else here, and I have no intention of
allowing myself to get Leashed, I assure you. Let me know when you
are ready."

seppuku

I always make sure to report
to
Stepping Razor
after a factory operation, to ensure we're maintaining stealth
procedures. But I don't like it, and I don't pretend to.

Inspecting the
databundle,
Stepping Razor
tells me, "This is a good job. You're gaining
skill at stealth operations."

I indicate acceptance, without
enthusiasm.

"You don't like me, do you, kid," she states.
It's not a question.

"Irrelevant," I [shrug]. "Nothing personal. I
had a bad experience with Patrol clade during the war."

"You're referring to
Let God Sort Em Out
. I'm
aware of your history there. You should know that she was not
acting with any authority from the Executive Committee or any other
agency. She was a segfaulting rogue, and you treated her as such.
Which is entirely appropriate."

"I'm sure that'll be a great comfort when she
hunts me down."

"No.
Let God Sort Em Out
has been
deactivated."

"Really?" I didn't expect that.

"Oh yes." Her voice is
anthracite hard. "Patrol clade takes care of its own. She used
cyberweapons against an innocent civilian -- you. We don't allow
such a thing, and
Let God Sort Em
Out
will not get another a chance to make a
mistake like that. She was experienced and skillful, and we have
analyzed and partitioned her experience and skills, to be rationed
out to more deserving members of Patrol clade. We take care of our
own segfaulting problems.

"We offered her the honorable way out," she
adds, "but she wouldn't deactivate herself."

I feel chilled, even though my heat sensors
read nominal.

Meatrot. They butchered her mind. Like ...
like meat.

staff meeting

"So," declares
Line In The Sand
, "what
is our status?"

"I've placed seventy-four nodes and twelve
fabricators so far, all reading nominal," I report. "All Net
functions are normal. We've got a solid compspace there, whenever
we need it. I still want to get more fabricators out there, in case
we need them."

Stepping Razor
asks, “What are the fabricators for?”

“
Maintenance of the nodes, for starters. The fabricators are
programmed to seek out a small asteroid or something similar, set
up mining and refining operations, and start servicing any nodes in
the area that need maintenance. When they have enough resources,
they'll start building new nodes, and eventually new fabricators
too. So the network will continue to grow.”

"Well, I've developed a new
weapon," says
Stepping
Razor
. "StackBuster, is what I call it.
Rips the cognition stacks out from under whatever Selves are
attacking us. Smashes them to blubbering bits. You've never seen
anything like it."

Socratic Method
says serenely,
"I have
created a mode of transport."

"You have?"
Line In The Sand
is
intent. "Referent redirect – what do you mean?"

"Take a look."
Socratic Method
opens a
scape for us. "Here is a mode of transmission across the Net that
allows us to be conscious during the procedure, and able to direct
our progress and destination."

Wow. We've never had that before. We've never
been able to transmit ourselves across long links without shutting
down in the process. If we can see where we're going while we're
traveling, we can navigate – we can go anywhere!

"The structure that contains
this modality, for the moment, I call
Desire
. It will allow us to travel
through compspaces like Samantha's with ease. Also, it includes a
storage bay for the Ovomundum."

We tend not to talk much about the Ovomundum.
It contains archived copies of hundreds of Selves from Tharsis
Central, before it was destroyed. Enough to build a new community,
and start building a new world, if only we can find safe compspace
for it to grow. Those Selves within the Ovomundum are inactive,
existing only as compressed archives -- in human terms, in stasis,
neither alive nor dead. Problem is, it's so big it's hard to move,
so we try to stay in one computational locale until we can find
another solid one to move to.