Divergence (37 page)

“Edward wants us to go somewhere else.” Maurice tried to keep the smug triumph from his voice. Saskia could hear it. He was getting his own back, she knew. Getting his own back for the times they had all deferred to Edward against Maurice’s wishes.

“But where, Maurice?” Judy asked. “Where do we go?”

Her lips continued moving. She was muttering to herself under her breath, trying to figure out what to do next.

“Leave her alone, Maurice,” scolded Saskia. “Look at her. She doesn’t
know
what to do.”

“None of us does,” Maurice said. “That doesn’t mean that we should just stand here in the middle of an empty square, being watched by the Watcher.”

The wind gusted and Saskia sneezed. Her eyes were watering. Maurice felt cold too, even within the controlled environment of his passive suit. It was something to do with the huge emptiness of the square. In his mind, the looming tower was sucking all the available warmth and life into itself, discarding the chaff of the elements and picking over the grist of the humans’ emotions.

He frowned as a line of text appeared on his console screen.

Hello, Maurice.

Maurice looked up, looked around the empty square, looked towards the tower. The bristles along one side of it rippled in the wind with a whistling sigh. There was no one else to be seen. Maurice tapped at the keyboard.

—Hello. Who are you?

A friend. What is Judy doing?

What was Judy doing? She was gazing at Edward, who had folded his arms around himself and was gazing around the square, shivering. Her mouth hung slackly open as she gazed up at the tall man. An expression of something like horror crossed her face.

“What’s the matter, Judy?” asked Maurice.

She looked at him, dark eyes wide open, then she looked back to Edward.

“Judy, what’s the matter?” Saskia put her arm around her shoulders, but Judy hurriedly shrugged it off.

“I think I understand,” she said. “I think I finally understand. The Watcher…Chris was right all along. Or half right anyway. It’s the Watcher who is wrong.”

Speak to me, Maurice. What is Judy doing?

—I don’t know. She looks horrified. Tell me, who are you? How are you accessing my console?

Who am I? My name is Chris. And as to how I am accessing your console…well, when you are one of the most powerful AIs in existence, these things are easily done. I think you had better tell Judy that I am here.

“Judy,” said Maurice, “there is an AI called Chris…he wants to talk to you.”

Judy froze, and then ever so slowly she composed herself. Her arms fell to her side, her head rose slightly, her face assumed an impassive expression.

“Tell him I have nothing to say to him,” she said.

—She doesn’t want to speak to you.

Tell her she has no choice. I had her brought here.

“He says you have no choice. He had you brought here.”

“Give me that.” Judy took Maurice’s console from him. “Set it so it will accept my voice,” she demanded.

“As she requested,” Maurice instructed.

Judy held the console in front of her. Maurice stood just by her shoulder to read the words that Chris sent. Saskia was comforting Edward. Constantine gazed into the middle distance. Maurice wasn’t fooled. Constantine had robot senses. He could look where he liked, regardless of the orientation of his head. He was reading the console.

“You didn’t have me brought here, Chris,” Judy said. “Don’t try to bluff me. I was returned here by DIANA. I am their property, apparently.”

That is also true, Judy, but, with regard to FE, debts and obligations may run in many directions. I paid for your delivery to me.

Maurice had to hand it to Judy: her composure remained undisturbed. She didn’t even ask the obvious question,
why?

There was a touch of amusement in her tone when she asked, “What did it cost you, Chris?”

It cost me far more than I expected, Judy. I don’t think that any of us have fully grasped the implications of FE, not least the Watcher. Does that surprise you?

“No. But I knew it
would
cost you a lot. You have disturbed my life significantly in order to get me here. You must have encountered an equivalent disturbance to your life in order to restore the balance. Did you not realize that would happen before you initiated the FE?”

No—or rather, I thought I could defeat the effect. But I was wrong. FE is far more powerful than even I.

“Surely not.”

Don’t be sarcastic, Judy.

“But I don’t understand,” Maurice interjected. “What is all of this about FE? Surely it’s just a trading mechanism?”

“No, it isn’t,” said Judy. “To quote the Watcher, I think that FE is what keeps us here in the first place.”

I think you’re right, Judy. FE creates fair, unbreakable contracts, but their effects can be surprisingly deep and subtle.

“
Unbreakable
contracts?” asked Judy. “I thought anyone could walk away from them?”

Only once.

The watchtower listened to the ensuing silence in the square. Then more text appeared on Maurice’s console.

Judy, I can get you into the DIANA building, but you will have to do something for me in return.

“Get me in? The building is long gone, Chris.”

Don’t you believe me, Judy? You
know
I can do it.

But you will have to help me.

“Chris, I told you long ago, I will
never
work for you. Why should I do anything for you? Why should I trust you?”

Why indeed? You don’t have to trust me, of course. I can give you something that you want, but I wish to be paid for the service. Why don’t we use FE?

The answer was obvious once he said it.

“That’s a good idea,” said Edward. He had brightened up considerably at the suggestion. Of course he had, thought Judy. With FE he was safe; no one could take advantage of him. In an unfair universe, FE put him on a level playing field.

The wind was cold. Judy’s stomach rumbled. It was a long time since she had eaten, and they couldn’t stay in this square forever. She wanted to know who she was and why she had been brought here.

“Okay,” she said, feeling a crushing sensation in her stomach. What was Chris going to ask of her? “Okay, let’s do a deal. Maurice, begin the exchange.”

He tapped at his console.

“You’ll need to give me some sort of handle on you, Chris. All I can see is a line of text. Where are you?”

I’m here, Maurice. I’m all around you. Nearly everything you see in this city is built of my body, and yet my intelligence is virtually nothing now. Such was the deal I made through FE, but that is irrelevant for the moment. Here is your handle.

A blinking object appeared on Maurice’s console, and he dragged it into the golden region representing the FE software running in the processing systems of the
Eva Rye
.

“Uploading parameters now,” he said.

This won’t take long. Aleph has this all planned out.

“Aleph? The systems repair robot?”

Do you know any other Alephs? The space around Earth is now overrun with Dark Seeds. Systems repair robots are converging on this region in order to correct the anomaly.

“What anomaly?”

The Watcher, of course. Only an intelligence such as the Watcher’s would attract so many seeds. Haven’t you realized that? The Dark Seeds are everywhere. The Watcher is trying to find a solution to a problem of its own making! If it were to leave, if the Earth were to be emptied of AI minds tomorrow, then there would be nothing to fix the seeds in position here. There would be no problem. Ah, here we are!

Maurice’s console chimed. “Fair Exchange completed,” he said. Saskia was looking at him questioningly, and he understood what she was silently asking. He reached out and took Judy’s hand, a gesture of support.

“Here comes the contract.” Judy was already reading the lines of text that appeared on the screen.

“Oh,” she said, “you want me to enter the building. That is the exchange? You help me to enter the building, and in return I have to enter the building? That doesn’t make sense!”

It is the end of the correction process, Judy. To be honest, I just wanted the link through to the
Eva Rye
that Maurice’s console has provided. You see, long ago, when the DIANA building stood here, it too contained a processing space on which FE software ran. Remember what happened to the
Eva Rye
after Kevin destroyed it? As you have seen, FE is very persistent.

Saskia suddenly stumbled. She grabbed hold of Maurice for support.

“Hey,” she said in surprise.

Edward was dancing on the white cobbles.

“What’s going on?” he yelled in alarm.

And now Maurice felt it, too. He looked down to see that the white cobbles were climbing out of their sockets and growing long silver legs.

“We’ve seen this before,” he said, and his eyes were wide with excitement. “It’s what happened to the
Eva Rye
!”

The walls of the watchtower had erupted in a tangle of movement, Von Neumann Machines forming themselves out of the material composing it, scuttling up and down, crossing over themselves to create new shapes. Edward had shut his eyes and was screaming, his hands over his ears. Saskia took him by the arm and began pulling him across the moving cobbles of the square to the safety of the city beyond. Constantine simply stepped from patch to patch of white movement, keeping his place amidst the ordered turbulence.

But Maurice and Judy were rocked back and forth as waves of machinery swept up, under and around them; they overbalanced, scrambled back to their feet, and tried to concentrate on the shape that was forming before them. Judy felt a mix of terror and delight that her long journey was over. Maurice could only feel wonder.

Hardware and software, medium and message—somehow, FE combined the two in one. FE was its container, and the container was FE. Once FE had been introduced, the watchtower was the DIANA building, and the DIANA building was the watchtower. Just like the
Eva Rye,
the materials that formed the DIANA building would always remember their original shape, no matter what happened to them.

“Oh,” Maurice said. “Oh!” He was filled with a tremendous sense of wonder. Could a thought really take on physical form? Could his thoughts do the same? Could his body be re-formed in the same way even after his death?

The motion of the ground threw Judy and Maurice together, and they took hold of each other for comfort and support. Maurice’s suit was still set to allow body contact, and Judy’s fingertips were icy cold. A metal wave, a breaker, reared up above them and froze, and suddenly Judy’s suit interfaced properly with Maurice’s, and he felt her bare skin through his gloves. It was warm and smooth. He could feel the play of the muscles in her flesh as they shifted under the relentless onslaught of moving machinery. They held on to each other for sheer comfort, their vision filled with bars of light and darkness.

“Are you okay? Are you okay?”

Judy didn’t know if it was she or Maurice who had called the words. She didn’t know why she had set her suit open, but the touch of his flesh was comforting for the moment.

“I think it’s slowing down now.”

A slow rhythm had set up in the continually churning movement, and Maurice and Judy were able to disengage themselves. Just before they did, Maurice felt Judy’s active suit shut him out again. He rubbed the tips of his fingers together, remembering the soft feel of her flesh.

A descending scale of brittle cracking and chiming sounded, ringing through the cold air. Pale winter sunlight ran fingers across their faces, and the metallic waves that had surrounded them gradually subsided.

The square had gone. The white sea of cobbles had drained away completely and something grey had emerged from the depths. A low building of glass and metal had surfaced from the past, yellow waves of sunlight spilling across its windows, a light mist of evaporating ice hanging over the metal sills and frames that decorated its facades.

The DIANA building.

Judy was trying not to cry. Maurice didn’t know what to do.

“No,” she said, flinching from the arm that he hesitantly offered. “Don’t touch me.” She sniffed and took a deep breath. “Where are Saskia and Edward? Where is Constantine?”

“I don’t know,” Maurice replied. “Look, Judy, you don’t have to go in there.”

“I do. That’s why I’ve been brought here. Hah! I even made a deal with Chris. I’m doing his bidding after all.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“No, I have to go in. I can’t not do that now.”

Maurice took a deep breath. “Then I’m coming in with you.”

They followed a neat yellow path that wound its way through empty garden beds towards the main entrance of the building. The soil in the beds was newly turned but empty of seeds or life. Back in the heyday of DIANA, they would have sprouted dwarf poplars and box; now they looked bleak and depressing under the winter sky.

“Constantine!” exclaimed Judy. “He’s up on the roof. What’s he doing up there?”

“What roof?”

“He looks like he’s climbing in that way. Why not use the door, like us?”

They came to the main entrance.

Judy took a breath. “Shall we go in?”

“I don’t think I can,” Maurice said. “I couldn’t actually see the roof. I can’t really see the building. I can’t make out where I am properly.”

“What are you talking about?”

Maurice rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. “Stealth technology, I think. The building doesn’t want me in there. It’s hiding itself away from me.”

“It’s right here in front of you.”

“It should be. I know it should be. But I can’t get the idea in my head. Judy, I think that you’re on your own, now.”