The Soul Consortium (27 page)

S
alem Ben does his job very well. Better than Erastus. Since his arrival fifty days ago, the administrative tasks that used to swallow all my time have been re-prioritized, consolidated, delegated, and spirited away by his skillful arts. And yet I find it amazing, that despite his constant involvement in my political duties, he shows so little curiosity in how I spend the time he makes for me.

Perhaps it is because he rarely takes time off from his labor, but he appears to have no interest in the mysterious sphere I have been working on.

Or me.

I find myself hesitating, nervous even, as I stand in the south entrance to the Consortium gardens. With the soft lamps simulating planetary daylight, the generous spray of enhanced flora, and the velvet chattering of bird life welcoming me in, I wonder why. Maybe it is because I know when he comes here Salem prefers to be alone with his thoughts, absently tending the plants in his section. Tasting the lush air, I pass through a watery arch enriched with dark green vines and jasmine to find his favorite place—the ancient redwood forest.

Kneeling in a dirty patch, grunting with effort, Salem is planting something in a large square of soil.

“It’s been seventeen hours since I’ve seen you. I thought I’d track you down to find out what’s been keeping you away for so long.”

He turns his head, wipes sweat from his brow with a muddy hand, smiles. “Majesty, a pleasure to see you. Care to join me?”

A tiny flittering of relief inside my chest surprises me. Returning his smile, I stroll over, squat down next to him, and look at the freshly planted sapling, trying to find the right words to open the conversation. “I still don’t understand your fascination with this place,” I say, though of course, I do.

Salem’s smile broadens, and he gazes at me with a passion I covet. A pity it’s not for me. “Life, Majesty. Life.”

I shake my head as he persists, showing me his hand as the fresh peat flakes from his palm. “There’s something wonderful about putting a seed in the ground and nurturing it, don’t you think?”

“But it’s so … unnecessary.”

He lifts one eyebrow into a circumflex. He knows I’m teasing him. Knows that I of all people—much closer to his age than most—understand the human need to bond with nature, even if mankind has completely removed it from material needs. Almost all dependencies and frailties have been overcome, yet most of us refuse to give up our emotional ties to our origins. We still cling to ancient pleasures: sex, eating, play, competition. Even gardening. Or teasing. My mind flicks to the computer rendition of the life I lived in my failed experiment an hour ago—a foreshadow of what existence might be like if humanity were to abandon these things. But I continue the banter.

“Well, it
is,
so don’t look at me like that. The Consortium’s Control Core gives us everything we need.”

“Not everything.” Salem winks.

“Yes. Everything.”

“Then why are you here, Majesty? You obviously need something from me, no? Have you lost a planet or something? Need me to find out where you left it last?”

I laugh. If only he knew what it was I really needed from him. And my name is Oluvia, not Majesty. “You know I always come to you for inspiration.”

“There you are—something your machines won’t give you.”

“It’s simply nice to have a different perspective sometimes.”

“So what do you need me to disagree with this time?”

A laugh bubbles up again. “You really want to know why I came to see you?”

Salem returns to his sapling and pats the earth around the roots. He knows I can see the grin on his face. “Does it involve that infernal technology of yours?”

“Of course.”

“Then, no, I’m not interested.”

“Well, I’m going to tell you anyway, even if you tune out.”

“Go right ahead. I’ll just amuse myself with my friend here.” He strokes the tiny leaves.

“There’s no soul to it.”

“What … this?” Salem gestures at the plant, shocked.

“No, I’m talking about the Soul Sphere.”

“Oh. That.” He reaches over to a large trug basket and pulls out another tiny tree ready to plant. “I suppose something called a Soul Sphere really ought to live up to its name. Please,” he says with a look of rapt interest completely absent from his expression, “do continue.”

I settle next to him, staring up at the nova sky through the domed roof of the sphere, resting my perfect hands on my knees, crossing my slender legs, not caring about the soil on my robes.

I know he’s not really listening, but I tell him anyway. About the two billion years’ worth of computation crammed into the Consortium’s data stack that seems impotent, about how I could pinpoint any single human being in history and use that data to know exactly how they lived their life, and about how I could even do it for future lives if it wasn’t for the law.

“And a wise law it is too,” Salem says.

“So you are listening, then?”

“Vaguely. What exactly is it you’re trying to do with this device of yours anyway? Those lives have been lived … They’ve gone. Why bother dragging them back up from the dark?” He’s not joking with me anymore. He’s thinking of the loved ones he lost. Again.

I resist the urge to touch him. “Perhaps one day you’ll need to know what they knew.”

“I know what I know, and that serves me well enough. That’s all that matters.”

“You wouldn’t want to see life through another’s eyes? Feel what they feel? Know what they know?” I look down. “Love who they love?”

“No. Never.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Most people spend their lives trying to be someone they’re not, living up to the expectations of others—which, incidentally is usually a product of their
own
fantasy. People have enough trouble trying to escape that downward spiral. They don’t need technology to make the temptation even greater, do they? No, thank you. I’m my own man. I don’t need to see inside someone else’s head to make sense of my own.”

It was said with a nonchalant smile, but it was quite an outburst. “My, my! I didn’t know you were so cynical.”

Salem turns to the dirt. “Please don’t let me dampen your enthusiasm.”

“Seriously, it’s not like you. I hope this isn’t a trend.”

“You needn’t worry. I’ve been on that ride countless times, slipped down the slope of despair, and crawled back up it again. I’m a survivor, remember? Always will be.”

I stare at him. Is he right? Should I even be working on the Soul Sphere? The need to make sense of the current crisis has propelled me back into this long neglected project, but in my haste, I have naively ignored the early failures. I can still see the insanity in the face of Kilkaine Nostranum after his disastrous immersion into the prototype so many years ago. Can still remember its impact on the scientific community and even my political status.

Does a computer replication of a human life actually represent the reality anyway? My failure today would seem to indicate that it didn’t, but even if I could overcome that obstacle, should I? Is it right to step into another’s life and experience what they experienced? Whose experience would it be? Is it still theirs? What if someone is living my life right now? Is it still me? And what if someone is living theirs too, like some sort of metaphysical matryoshka doll?

If I thought about it too long, I would probably lose my mind, and I cannot afford that. Perspective, that’s the key. Not just for me but for the Soul Sphere. If only there were some way to capture it, to bottle the human equation and combine it with the Codex and—

Majesty, please come to the Observation Sphere immediately. The Great AI have broken their silence. The artificial tones of the Control Core jolt me.

Salem is watching me, his smile exchanged for a frown when he sees the look on my face.

With my usual internal reflex, I trigger my subdermal transceiver and stand. “They have broken off the deal … Control, is everything prepared?”

“Prepared?” Salem stands too. “What’s going on?”

Y
ES,
they came minutes after the data flow completed, Control says in my ear.

“Majesty?” Salem insists, touching my arm.

“They must know. It is too much of a coincidence.”

“Who? Who must know? Tell me what’s going on.”

“The Great AI. They are here, and they are making their demands again. We must go to the Observation Sphere.”

I turn to leave, but Salem holds me back. “And exactly what are these preparations you made? Why don’t I know about them?”

“Follow me to the Observation Sphere, subject 9.98768E+14.”

“Tell me.” His expression is fierce. “What have you done?”

“W
e do not agree to your demands.”

They have no face. I can only guess by the silence that the Great AI’s opinion on my decision is divided.

The faces surrounding me, however, suggest that
their
opinions are not. Eight thousand men and women stand below me in the heart of the Consortium’s Observation Sphere, looking through the invisible shield into the vast nebula that is now home to the Great AI consciousness. These abductees represent the combined governmental power of the known universe, and all they can do is stare, united in fear, frozen in shock, without a clue about what I planned or why they were snatched away to this gathering so suddenly. Even Salem’s noble features are shadowed by dread as he waits by the exit. He sees me looking at him but quickly shifts his gaze before an assurance-seeking smile flickers across my lips.

Still he seems not to notice me.

He talks to me, but there is no depth between us. No intimacy. I swallow against the lump in my throat, wishing that just once he would resurrect some of that long buried warmth he keeps only for his family’s memory and offer a morsel to me. Only a token. Especially now when I can use it most. But I betrayed his trust.

The cloud pulses. To artistic eyes it might look like we have been engulfed by a bolt of lightning that exploded into a cloud of raw electricity, then froze in blue ice. But my analytical mind sees it for exactly what it is: a matrix of complex artificial brains networked to form the greatest of intellects. Our abomination.

The crowd is stirring, questioning, organizing. Some are forming small groups, positioning themselves and mustering the courage to approach their queen.

A trio of men, garbed in heavy ceremonial cloaks and dripping with golden chains, are the first to approach.

“Queen Oluvia Wade,” says the tallest of the three, the rage barely contained beneath the dark skin of his wide face as he takes a firm hold of my arm. “You may believe you have an excellent reason for this … abduction, but—”

“Control, execute him,” I say without hesitation.

A loud crack hides the gasps of his cohorts as an arc of electricity slams through their governor’s body. He spasms, then slumps at my feet in a smoldering heap.

“He will be reconstructed in the Consortium genoplant,” I tell the other two. “Please, I can spare no time explaining—”

“You do not have the authority to do this,” a woman shouts, marching toward me with five others. “It violates the Constellational Charter.”

Groups begin to close in from all sides, arms waving, voices raised.

“Send us back immediately!”

“This is not the act of a queen.”

“How did you do this?”

“Why did you bring us here?”

An iron voice cuts the air, sending the boiling crowd back to silence and sudden stillness. “Wade, they are calling you the Butcher of the Zen Nebula. What will they call you after today?”

I glance at Salem. Does he think that too? Does he blame
me
for the loss of so many lives? For the destruction of his family? No, I cannot afford to consider this now. I must maintain a level mind. The title bestowed upon me is to be expected: humans are fickle creatures, ebbing and flowing in a sea of united opinion, adoring their monarch for a thousand years but surging suddenly against me when the tide of fortune weighs against them. But this is an unexpected tactic from the Great AI. Although they understand human emotion better than most humans do, history reveals they rarely take advantage of the power that can be harnessed by manipulating human passions. They must be desperate indeed to resort to such tactics.

But their strategy is working. Most of the crowd, now hushed, are looking at the floor, though they can still see the sparkling AI cloud reflected on the shiny surface beneath their feet. Soon they will be upon me again with a new desperation. And I feel it too. My knees buckle at the reminder of what was already lost. Not a world or star system but an entire galaxy extinguished by their power for reasons none of us can understand. And they will do it again. Unless I agree.

Faces wrought with the agony of indecision and terror look to me.

“We cannot agree to your demands,” I repeat. For the benefit of my abductees I continue. “You expect us to merge with you—we do not know what that means or how it can be achieved—and you refuse to explain why. You threaten our liberty, our very humanity. You
know
this. Why do you persist?”

“We have explained,” says the voice. “Humans face annihilation.”

“Yes,” I shout. “From you.”

“No. Not from us.”

“But you already
are
destroying us. You claim you want to save us, but you have already murdered billions of innocents, and now you threaten billions more.”

“We regret the loss of life. But it is necessary. You will eventually submit, and some will survive. If you do not submit, no humans will survive. Submit now, and we will not extinguish the Terran Galaxy.”

“But why? Why will you not explain the threat?”

There is no answer, and I am left to ponder the horror of their reasoning. It chills me to the core. Not only because of what may happen but because I myself used the exact same logic. They justify mass extermination for no better reason than the balance of numbers; better to lose 99 percent of humanity than lose all of it. And I said much the same thing. Better that a few of us run and survive than none of us survive. But surely there is a difference. I am not the one doing the killing. They are.