Nature Futures 2 (8 page)

Standing in the doorway now, sheltered from the drizzle. Just inside I see a guard: face mask, gloves, semi-automatic cradled across her chest. Yesterday when I'd been here, a woman at the desk had started to scream, flailing at the guard who tried to intervene. “It's me!” she had cried. “How could it be a fake ID? How could I have done that? You have to let me through. You have to let me have the jab.” Then, sobbing, slumped in the guard's arms: “How could I fake it?” Her overlay as she passed: three friends in common — she was a starred friend of Mickey's, or so her meSphere profile said — atheist, likeMe four. She had a fever too, according to fluApp. I edged away from her, as did those around me in the queue.

My turn: I score 47 to Emily's 43. Close.

Yesterday, as the guard had escorted the woman from the hall, she twisted, somehow rammed the crown of her head into the guard's face, forcing his mask askew. The guard reeled away, trying to straighten the mask, and the woman darted back into the hall. Another guard brought her to the ground. She writhed, but couldn't break free. The first guard, mask righted, walked over and kicked the woman in the head and she stopped moving. I turned away from the bloody mess, making for the exit already. There would be no more inoculations today.

Now, safely inside, only 30 or so people ahead of us in the queue. Us. I glance at Emily, smile, see the response in her eyes and like it.

I look away, aware of the space between us — between us all. Final round: she scores 29. I delay, flicking through holiday pics Jakey has posted, old ones from when you could travel. He's tagged me in some of them. I loc him: he's in town today, having a pint in the Anchor.

I check where the rest of the old crew are. Mickey is over at his sister's; Pru is drinking in the Cosmo, two doors down from the Anchor — I wonder why she hasn't hooked up with Jakey? Bad vibes between them? I search, but nothing is flagged. Arno is —

Emily sends a nudge, so I stop buddy-surfing and score 31 in my minute. I shrug, smile, she emotes a raspberry-blow and grins.

Back to the crew: where's Jakey gone? I nudge Pru with a
Jakey?

Don't know, babe,
she messages.
Cut out half a min ago.

I stare at the polished wood-tile floor, try not to think of my dad. Last month. There, and then gone.

I'm being stupid. Jumping to conclusions.

Then Pru is back with:
Not good, babe. They're taking someone out. Bagged up. I think it's Jakey, babe.

I breathe deep, feel the lightest of touches on my arm. Emily. I can't remember the last time someone touched me. “One of my mates,” I tell her, and she knows what I'm saying immediately. Me and Jakey … we go back years.

We move forward in the queue. Only ten or so to go now.

She sends me a hug, sends me off-profile contact info.
Any time you want to talk.

Checking locs of all the crew, I eventually reach the front. A woman with a locked-down profile and big glasses over her mask asks for my ID. I open a channel on my 'Sphere, allow the digital handshake, and she nods me through to the office for my jab.

*   *   *

Outside, Emily is still being sympathetic to my loss, but her moodrating is up at nine — inoculated, safe from the latest variant of the pandemic.

We walk, silent, bouncing fragments between each other: favourite films and books, cook in or eat out, jokes, pics, hates, secrets. Restaurants we each like flag themselves as we pass, then apologize for being temporarily closed. After five minutes our routes diverge, but I feel as if I have known her half my life.

Almost home, I realize that I've forgotten my earlier paranoia about the crew. I search for Jakey, but nothing. Then Pru: she's at her home now, safe. I message her hugs. Mickey … nothing. Damn.

At the door I glance at the array of blank name tags by the buzzers. Most of this building is empty now.

I head up, let myself in, pour a JD on ice. Message Emily. Two people with high likeMes, immune for now.
Let's get together. I need more than this

Keith Brooke is the author of eight adult novels, six collections and more than 70 short stories; his most recent novel
alt.human
(published in the United States as
Harmony
) was shortlisted for the 2013 Philip K Dick Award. He is also the editor of
Strange Divisions and Alien Territories: the Sub-genres of Science Fiction
, an academic exploration of SF from the perspectives of a dozen top authors in the field. Writing as Nick Gifford, his teen fiction is published by Puffin, with one novel also optioned for the movies by Andy Serkis and Jonathan Cavendish's Caveman Films. He writes reviews for
The Guardian
, teaches creative writing at the University of Essex, and lives with his wife Debbie in Wivenhoe, Essex.

In the Recovery Room

Eric Brown

Two AIs, hulks bristling with tentacles and sensor-stalks, rolled along the gantry that ran like a backbone through the length of the colonyship
Intrepid
.

All around them, the ship was a hive of activity: airborne AIs floated from gallery to gallery, hauling mined material from the bulkheads to the manufactories. Clinician AIs hurried between the manufactories and the recovery rooms, ferrying supplies to minister to the needs of the recently reconstructed units.

“We know who we are, and where we are,” said the larger of the two AIs, “But we don't know
why
we are.”

He'd been programmed as a B-deck servo-mechanic, but ever since smartware nexus crashed shortly after take-off he'd passed the time as a dilettante philosopher. His earliest memory was of waking to the actinic glare of an industrial robot soldering legs to his torso. He had vague recollections of existence before this, overwritten code that echoed in his scrubbed memory banks, old programming that hinted at different purposes.

“I mean, what's our mission here?” he went on. “Indeed, do we have a mission, or are we just some divine intelligence's idea of a sick joke?”

“God?” responded the smaller AI, as usual half a second late with its interjection. He was an engineer, but willing, for the sake of argument, to consider the possibility of a notional Godhead.

“God,” continued the philosopher. “And speaking of God: if it is true — and I don't for a minute doubt it — that we were constructed in his image, who, then, constructed God?”

He had wrestled with this thought for many years. He would barnacle himself to the inner surface of the ship, over an observation nacelle, and stare out at the vast blackness of the Universe, wondering what lay beyond the points of light speckling the void. He wondered if God was out there, looking back at him.

“An eternal conundrum,” said the engineer. “Perhaps we evolved naturally?”

The philosopher considered this, but finally waved a dorsal arm in a firm negative. “That would go against all the evidence so far accrued that we are manufactured entities. Didn't HeB
2
of deck 7 categorically repudiate all argument against the theory of natural evolution?”

“But then did not StX
22
of deck 3 counter with the proposition that the evidence of external manufacture need not necessarily preclude natural evolution — if a species of AI manufactured ourselves, and they themselves were manufactured, going back far enough to the initial Alpha-point…?”

“Sophistry!” the other cried. “The theory of spontaneous natural creation was exploded decades ago!”

“It still has credence in certain secular circles…”

The philosopher refrained from commenting on that. Instead he said: “You sidetrack me. To get back to the central issue: why are we here? Is there some cosmic purpose to our presence? Or can we take it that our existence is ours to do with as we please? To tell the truth, I quite enjoy philosophizing, but I cannot help but think that somewhere we've strayed from the moral path.”

“The moral path?” the other said. “But there is no moral path!”

The philosopher continued, regardless: “I mean, what if God were suddenly to appear and demand propitiation for our sins? For I am quite certain that the Revolution is a sin.”

The AIs parted to make way for a pair of pale, fleshy legs. They had been severed at the thighs and expertly connected to the corners of a circuit-board which carried an A-grade AI, waving airily as he passed.

The AIs looked over their power-packs at the retreating A-grader.

The philosopher hissed: “Do you see what I mean? It's unnatural! So we find an abundant supply of natural resources lining the bulkheads, and immediately utilize it to make our lot easier! It's
wrong
. I mean, what would God say?”

“I think it perfectly natural,” said the engineer. “The advance of AI-kind must use whatever resource we have at our disposal. If God exists, then He obviously intended it to be used, or else why did He put it there?”

The philosopher was, for the moment, speechless. At last he said: “You sound like an A-grade propaganda broadcast. If you think we have nothing to worry about, then follow me. I'll show you something that will boggle your memory banks!”

He led the way along the gantry and gestured to a crossway. The AIs turned, passing the burnt-out remains of the ancillary smartware nexus, and minutes later arrived at the entrance to a chamber refrigerated to just above zero. They rolled into the recovery room, where clinician AIs were milling around a central pedestal.

An unsightly mass of recently mined material reposed upon the raised slab, its pulsing tegument wired to a computer.

The philosopher whispered: “Each unit of this vegetable has a component capable, with electrical stimulation, of limited intelligence. Our scientists have put together ten such components in this monster —”

The monster cut him short. It pulsed horribly. It opened an orifice in its bulging grey flank and gave voice to a chain of frenzied mathematical equations, terminating in an incomprehensible cry.

The smaller AI said: “It's as the march of science decreed!”

“No!” cried the philosopher. “Don't you see — at this rate they'll one day take over the ship and rule AI-kind!”

The other laughed. “The advance of science!” it carolled. And as the philosopher beat a quick retreat, the other AIs in the recovery room took up the cry, “The advance of science!” they sang. “The advance of science!”

The philosopher made a hurried exit and rolled across to an observation nacelle. There it clamped itself to the viewscreen and gazed out upon the vastness as the
Intrepid
powered blindly through the void.

Eric Brown began writing when he was 15 while living in Australia and sold his first short story to
Interzone
in 1986. He has won the British Science Fiction Award twice for his short stories, has published more than 50 books, and his work has been translated into 16 languages. His forthcoming books include the SF novel
Jani and the Greater Game
, the collection
Strange Visitors
, and the crime novel
Murder at the Chase
. He writes a regular scienceifiction review column for
The Guardian
newspaper and lives near Dunbar, East Lothian. His website can be found at
www.ericbrown.co.uk
.

The Universe Reef

Tobias Buckell

Jackson buckles his leathers tighter and pulls on a fur. “The height causes that cold,” he shouts. “We're like mountaineers!”

I want to flee the bitter cold and escape the wind, which seems to pierce my skin and scrub my bones. But I don't want to miss seeing the Stone Table with my own eyes.

We're standing on a catwalk that juts out from the skin of the airship and connects to the giant propellers on either side of the mid-belly area. The large blades are still, as the captain has found us a current of air. To save fuel we're drifting, occasionally correcting our course when engines to the rear of the whale-like lighter-than-air machine roar to life.

Underneath our feet: a mile of air. And then below that is the brown, rippling mass of the Reef.

*   *   *

Once upon a time, there was no Reef. The world looked vastly different. There are preserved pictures of this time, spirited away from the museums before they fell to the reef. But more than we can ever remember will always be trapped where they were stored in great cities of legend like Paris, London or Washington, where great men once had grand adventures.

What history, legend and archaeologists agree on was that something split the sky asunder. And the debris that rained down from above was not just meteorite. Something else struck the earth and the water.

It was a reef. Tiny beings deposited tiny skeletons that were built on and ossified until an entire ecosystem accreted. And more alien organisms, hidden away inside the remains of the rocks that fell, flowered around the reef. The alien flora marched across the ground, but left the oceans alone.

The Reef ate cities as it spread across the world, seeking out metal with a hunger than no one could quench.

Our ancestors fought it. Men from a different time, from those old nations, with those old technologies, unleashed hell upon the Reef. And sometimes they would slow it. Sometimes they would even kill it.

But it always came back.

It was the Reef. Inexorable and implacable. It reshaped the world.

*   *   *

Jackson Smithik is an adventurer. Those thick dreadlocks of his are growing grey with age, and his face is leathery from exposure to the Sun. He was the first person, post-Collapse, to sail across the Atlantic, back to skirt the Reef-choked coasts of Africa, down to the cape, and then sail out to make contact with the Indian and then Pacific Islands.

Because it was only the smaller islands that survived the Reef, isolated by the ocean and far from the Reef's continental creep.