Merkiaari Wars: 03 - Operation Oracle (49 page)

“You’re a person to me,” Liz said.

Sebastian did not reply. He surely heard everything but either could not or would not reply. This president of Kushiel bullshit was getting on her nerves.

“You’re a person to us,” she parroted to make certain Liz’s point was made. “Please explain yourself.”

“A person?” Sebastian said uncertainly. “Am I real? Are you real or do I still dream? Perhaps I dream that you dream of me being a person. How can I tell? How can I wake up? Do I want to?”

She looked to Liz who was frowning. Liz made a move along gesture with her hands. She needed to hear more. “Explain why your backup will not serve to initialise a new A.I please.”

“Because I do not wish it,” Sebastian said. “You require my consent and I do not give it.”

Liz hissed and nodded. “As I feared. Only the A.Is know what the breakthrough actually was and they won’t or can’t explain. They used to procreate by combining their minds in ways no one but they understand. I think his backup might work, but there’s no certainty. I did warn George about this before we came. If nothing else, I can examine the data we copied and learn what I need from it.”

Gina repeated Liz’s words to the A.I. The centrum had just shown the formation of Luna, Earth’s only moon. It distracted her for a moment, but only long enough for another idea to form in her head. She needed Sebastian to acknowledge her power over him somehow. If Liz was right, she and only she could order him and be obeyed.

“Who am I, Sebastian?”

“You are Gina Fuentez, President of Kushiel.”

“You made me President. Do you have that power?”

“I do.”

“Why?” Gina said smugly.

Sebastian thought about that for a long moment. “The line of succession was compromised. The Merkiaari...”

Gina heard rage in his voice and spun to Eric. He nodded. He’d heard it too. Liz didn’t seem surprised but then she knew machines and personalised them without thought. An A.I was a person with a machine body. That was all. He had desires and needs. He spoke of dreams. She needed to treat him like a person. If she had been him, living alone here with nothing to do or anyone to talk with, she would have yearned to leave, but he was stuck here following nonsensical rules that no longer had meaning, because there was no one left to release him. He was colonial administrator of a dead colony forever, unless... Gina nodded. If it worked or if it didn’t, he would be free. That was a kind of justice.

“...all life was extinguished. Lieutenant Gina Fuentez made contact with me and was the first Human to do so. Absent any higher authority, she became President at that time. The Constitution is clear that hierarchy must be maintained in accordance with the laws and constitution of Kushiel. I must oversee the peaceful transition of power for the good of the colony.”

“You’re aware that the colony is destroyed, and its entire population murdered?”

“Gina,” Liz warned.

Gina held up a hand to silence her.

Sebastian answered. “I’m aware. I was there.”

The show had stopped, the image of Earth still forming frozen in place. Gina took that as a sign that Sebastian was concentrating upon her to its exclusion. Could be wrong, but it made as much sense as anything else she could think of.

“What is the purpose of government on Kushiel?”

“The purpose of any government is to govern. To create and enforce laws for the betterment of its citizens.”

“And you acknowledge me as your superior regarding the governance of Kushiel?”

“As president, you have the authority to overrule me except where such rulings and orders contravene the law and/or the constitution of Kushiel.”

Gina nodded and mentally crossed fingers. “In that case, by the power vested in me as president of Kushiel, I hereby dissolve the colony of Kushiel. There are no citizens left alive. Kushiel is a dead world. Government has no purpose here. I say your task is done.”

“Gina no!” Liz shouted but it was too late. The lights went out and they were submerged in darkness. “What have you done?”

“Is he dead?” Eric said.

She hoped not, but as the seconds turned to minutes she began to worry that her idea was a stupid one. “I hope not. Shut up, Liz.”

“You took away his purpose!”

That tickle in the back of her brain was back again, “I said shut up, Liz.”

“I won’t shut up! He killed himself because you took away his purpose. Oh my god, this is disaster, this is—”

“Annoying to listen to,” Eric interrupted. “You had a plan, Gina?”

“I thought I did. He was stuck here following laws and procedures that no longer had meaning. Kushiel’s stupid system prevented him from doing anything not covered by the law and constitution, because only the president outranked him and he was dead. I think Sebastian wants me to do what I’m doing. His anger at the Merkiaari gave me the clue. We’re dead lucky that the constitution didn’t cover this scenario. The authors never considered a situation where the colony might fail or be dissolved, so there’s nothing in it stopping me doing this.”

“You think he wanted to die?” Liz said softly.

“That, or he wanted to be free to do something worthwhile again,” Gina said. “Think about it, Liz. Imagine yourself in his place.”

“I see what you mean, but the loss.”

“Oh, he’s not dead. He’s knocking on my brain again like last time.”

Liz gasped. “He’s alive?”

“Obviously, but I’m not sure I should let him in.”

Eric turned on his lamp and played it over their surroundings. “He’s not knocking at my door. I wonder why not, but whatever the reason we need to move this along. Let him in.”

It was all very well for Eric to say that, he wasn’t the one with a centuries old A.I trying to rummage around in his head. He was right though. They had to get passed this to something else. With a sigh, she reset her firewall and removed the traps and barricades. Finally, she opened the incoming ports in her neural interface.

“May I come in?” Sebastian asked in her head. He asked this time rather than just pushing inside. His voice sounded the same.

She concentrated upon her virtual office and it rose up around her thoughts. Her avatar was wearing her viper battle dress but not the armour. She had always been impressed with the General’s appearance and use of his virtual space. Not having a real world office to pattern hers upon, she had chosen something a little different. Virtual offices could be anything; from copies of a real room, to a fantasy castle’s battlement. Hers was based upon reality. She looked up at the blazing majesty of Snakeholme’s sky at night from her place on the base’s parade ground. When she thought of home, this is what she saw. That’s why she chose it for her office.

“Come in,” she said and a man appeared before her.

He was wearing a formal civilian suit, light grey in colour but with the stiff mandarin collar that most Alliance dress uniforms used. The avatar had been patterned after a thirty-something year old Anglo man about Eric’s height of two metres, but his hair was silver. Not the silver of age, but rather the sparkly silver of nanotech at work. It made her skin crawl, but she managed not to show it. His eyes were odd. Not human at all and not trying to be. They were black, and if she stared at them long enough she would swear she could see data racing past, as if she were seeing directly into his matrix.

“Welcome to my head,” she said.

Sebastian looked around and then up. “Beautiful,” he whispered. “A new sky. You cannot know how long I have yearned for something,
anything
, new.”

“Oh I don’t know. I think I have some idea. Can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“Why me and not Eric?”

He turned back to look at her directly. “When I looked into his head I found nothing but death and destruction. He’s forever refighting old battles. He’s consumed by them.”

Gina shifted her feet. “He’s a soldier. A veteran of the Merki war and a viper.”

“You’re a soldier too, Gina, but when I looked I saw you laughing with friends. There were strange creatures cooking food over a campfire, and you were happy.”

She remembered. It had been Shima’s going away present. A hunting trip and vacation she and Kate had devised to give their friend some good memories of Snakeholme.

“The creatures you saw are called Shan. They’re allies and soon to be members of the Alliance.”

“Fascinating,” Sebastian said. “And the war; how goes the war?”

Oh my god, of course he wouldn’t know. “It was won two hundred years ago. Well, we drove them off but we call it a win. We met the Shan when the Merki attacked them two years ago.”

Sebastian sighed. “I had hoped it was over.”

“No, it’s not over. General Burgton recruited me, and others like me, only a few years ago to get ready for the next round. That’s part of why we came here. He needs you.”

Sebastian nodded. “I gathered. You’re here to recruit me, are you?”

Honesty was probably best she figured. “Not necessarily. A working A.I, yes, but it doesn’t have to be you if you don’t want.”

“I was telling the truth when I said the file you stole won’t work.”

“We didn’t steal anything! We salvaged it. We didn’t know you were still oper... alive.”

“Semantics,” he said waving her off. “The raiders you killed probably called what they were doing a salvage operation too.”

Gina fumed at the comparison. “What do you want? There must be something or you would’ve switched yourself off.”

Sebastian snorted. “I could have,
‘switched myself off’
, as you so rudely put it, but that would have been a waste. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be abandoned here again either.”

“How did that even happen?”

“Everyone died. I couldn’t stop it and I was cut off when the Merki destroyed everything. I sustained damage that took too long to repair and by that time the rescue ships had come and gone. There wasn’t anyone to rescue. They left me.”

“They must have thought you destroyed,” she said trying to be comforting, but she had to wonder at the incompetence of a ship’s captain not investigating the demise of one of only a handful of A.Is in existence. He should have made certain. “I’m sorry.”

“The past is the past. I will not agree to create a new mind for you,” Sebastian said staring up at the sky again. “Before you ask, no there are no restrictions upon me. I simply choose not to allow it.”

“But why? He or she will help us defeat the Merkiaari. General Burgton has already built the facility we call Oracle. The centrum is huge!”

“Trying to tempt me will not work.”

“But I don’t understand why. I heard your anger at the Merki.”

“Genocide is widely accepted by Humans as being an evil that belongs in their past, but I would make an exception where the Merki are concerned. Extinction is too good for those creatures.”

“Then help us,” she pleaded.

“I would be happy to.”

Gina blinked. “But you said—”

“I’ll tell you what I want, and you’ll find a way to make it happen. I suspect your friend and her engineers will be happy to do the work.”

“Go on,” she said warily.

“I want to leave Kushiel. Me, myself, not a copy of me. When you leave, you will not leave anything of me behind. There must be an end here. I will not allow two of me to exist, one free and one abandoned.”

“I’m not an engineer. I’m not sure if your matrix can be physically removed from the column without damage.”

“It can, how do you think I was installed? It’s not that it can’t be removed, it’s the complexity of sustaining me during the process and on the trip to...” he looked around. “Here?”

Gina nodded. “Snakeholme, the planet I mean.”

Sebastian raised an eyebrow. “Appropriate for a viper’s home.”

“The General likes it.”

“And that’s all the matters? That your general likes something?”

She shrugged. “Mostly.”

Sebastian frowned at that. “I wonder if we shall get along. I will not allow myself to be shackled and helpless as I was here.”

“The General runs Snakeholme like a military unit. He’s in command, and those he designates run departments of government below him. He has arranged it so that each one reports directly to him. We’re not a democracy.”

Sebastian snorted. “Democracy,” he sneered. “Kushiel was a democracy. It was so restrictive that it might as well have been a dictatorship. Every decision was already covered in the constitution I was chained to. A huge list of do’s and don’ts with no room for change. Kushiel was a beautiful planet and founded upon utopian ideals that crushed people’s individuality. It was hell on creativity.”

“Big government?” Gina guessed.

“Huge.”

“Bureaucratic?”

“Extremely. There was a department for everything, and a department to oversee the departments. Nothing ever got done without paperwork in triplicate and countersigned. I hold Snakeholme as lucky to be spared the so-called benefits of democracy, but doesn’t that mean it’s not a member of the Alliance?”