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CHAPTER XIV

EVOLUTION

I grabbed Marza and threw her to the side. She screamed as we fell to the ground. I covered her with my body, praying that whatever I’d seen didn’t slice through my back.

A shimmerfly buzzed at my face.

“What the hell?” I pushed up on my arms and scowled at the shimmerfly.

“What!” Marza asked, her expression terrified. “Did someone shoot at us?”

“No. I’m sorry.” Feeling stupid, I stood up and batted at the drone. “Our conversation had me on edge. I saw this beaut and thought someone fired a gun.”

She climbed to her feet, her face turning red. “I screamed at a shimmerfly?”

I caught the little flyer. Had it been real, it could easily have evaded my grasp unless I used the enhanced speed of my combat mode. Yah, battle with a shimmerfly, real impressive.

“It’s a drone,” I said.

Bhaaj, let it go, Max thought.

I opened my hand and the pretty flyer hummed away.

“Why are you releasing it?” Marza asked. “What if it’s spying on us for the sniper?”

“My EI thinks I should let it go.”

May I speak out loud? Max asked.

Go ahead.

“My greetings, Spokeswoman Rajindia,” he said. “I am Max, Major Bhaajan’s EI. The shimmerfly is a drone I’m monitoring. It poses you no threat. Also, your scream alerted the campus monitoring system. I notified them that you both are safe. I hope that is all right.”

“Yes, it’s fine.” Relief suffused her face. “Given my conversation with the Major, I guess we’re both on edge.” Looking around, she spoke self-consciously. “People are staring at us.”

I could see it too, bystanders watching with curiosity. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

We crossed the quad, following a tiled path between green lawns, the color of the grass so intense it almost looked blue. Or aqua, like the sea. I’d never understood that color until I left Raylicon and saw my first ocean. I’d just stood there, gaping at that endless water stretching to the horizon. It took me even longer to absorb that once, many eons ago, the Vanished Sea on Raylicon had also contained water, instead of the vast desert I knew.

When we left the quad behind and were following a path between two gold-brick buildings, I said, “You should take a bodyguard. I understand why you don’t think it will help, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful.”

“If I die from a sniper attack or in an explosion, they could die, too.” Her voice sounded strained. “I don’t want to be responsible for someone’s death.”

It told me a lot about Marza, all of it good, that she put the life of her protectors ahead of her own. Still, she shouldn’t be doing it. “Those of us who take jobs like this, we know and accept the risks. We’re trained to put our lives on the line. We accept that reality when we accept the job. And you never know. The fact that having a bodyguard didn’t appear as if it would have helped in the previous cases doesn’t mean it won’t help you.”

After a moment, she nodded. “All right.”

Good. I understood how she felt, though. I thought it every time I looked at Ruzik and Angel. Danger never fazed them. They found it interesting. Even knowing how much they valued their work, I worried, just as I had worried about every soldier under my command in the army, every person who risked their lives to serve the Imperialate. The day I stopped caring would be the day I stopped working.

* * *

The sun was setting as I jogged home from the university, heading for the townhouse. I kept an easy pace, going at a steady clip under the evening sky.

What do you mean, “playing”? I asked Max.

It means exactly that, Max thought. The shimmerfly was playing a game. Then he added, I taught it the game. That’s why it likes me now.

How did you do that while we were at the university?

Through the red beetle. They played the game together.

What game? I couldn’t imagine what would entertain a drone with an AI brain.

We cleared memory locations.

Say what?

Memory. Bits and bytes. You know what a computer is, right?

Of course I know mesh nodes.

No, I mean an actual computer. The archaic machines that used bits to store data.

By bits, you mean a 1 or a 0? Binary operations?

Yes. A bit is like a switch, 0 or 1, off or on. Bytes consist of eight bits.

Mesh nodes all use bits.

Not exactly. Mesh nodes use a combination of several technologies, including classic bits, quantum tech using qubits, and Kyle tech that uses psibits. Those may get converted to classic bits, but they start out in a different form.

And this connects to a game somehow?

Of course. He sounded surprised I needed to ask. When I wish to occupy my time, I search out deactivated memory locations for archaic devices that used classic bits to operate. I flip the bits. I prefer doing 1 to 0, but 0 to 1 is good, too.

What archaic devices?

Computers no longer in use.

I went silent, trying to figure out if he was making fun of me. He’d never done that before, but his intelligence was always evolving. Finally I thought, So basically you flip digital switches for nodes where it makes absolutely no difference.

That is correct. I find it entertaining.

Is that an EI joke?

No.

You really find that fun?

Yes. At least, that is the closest human analog that describes why I do it.

That has to be the craziest thing you’ve ever said.

Why? Because it wouldn’t entertain you? I am not human. Regardless of what I may simulate or evolve, I never will be.

I’m sorry, Max. I didn’t mean to insult.

No need to apologize. I don’t get insulted.

So you taught this game to the shimmerfly drone.

Yes. Actually, I didn’t teach it, I just located the drone and started playing the game in its presence. It observed for a while, then tried to join. We “bonded,” as you humans would say. He paused. I wasn’t actually interacting with the drone. It was controlled by what I believe is a new evolving intelligence.

You found the baby EI!

Yes, I think so.

That’s amazing! Do you know its location? Can you talk to it? Did humans make it or did it evolve on its own? Is it still hiding? Was it the one who wanted me to go to Greyjan’s?

You know, Bhaaj, I can’t answer all those questions as once.

I smiled. Sorry. Just say what you can.

All right. The answer to most is “I don’t know yet.” I say “yet” because I’m developing links with the EI. You could say I’m gaining its trust. Despite what he claimed about simulating emotions, he genuinely sounded gratified. As our interactions develop, I learn about it. I’m almost certain it evolved on its own, but within the culture of humanity. We aren’t looking at an Oblivion. If anything, it fears humans will want to obliterate it rather than the reverse. It’s hiding to protect itself.

Does it know that you are telling me?

Yes. It thinks you are another node on my system.

It doesn’t realize I’m human?

It does. However, it considers you part of me. A moment passed before he added, I hope my next statement doesn’t offend you.

I felt fascinated, wary, and gratified with his discovery, but I couldn’t imagine being offended. What do you mean?

I think that message from the cyclist came from the EI. It wasn’t trying to reach you. The message was for me.

Max! It does think you’re its daddy.

It does not believe I am its father, EI or otherwise. He did sound pleased, though. It wanted to warn me about Greyjan’s.

Warn you about what?

I don’t know. Either it doesn’t trust me enough to explain or it doesn’t understand, either. It knows something is there, something that has . . . well I’m not sure. The baby EI thinks it has wrongness about it, but it’s not clear how.

How did it find out about the tavern?

I’m not sure about that, either. I’m still learning to communicate with it.

This all raised more questions than it answered. Why would it contact us?

From what I’ve gathered, it knows you came to work on the technocrat case. It understands my role better than yours. It thinks you are my assistant.

Hah! Well, who knows? I do carry you around, after all.

I have told it that I assist you. I also implied we are two parts of one entity.

I was glad he and I had already gone through this; otherwise, I’d have bristled to hear him make that last claim. If it helped encourage this new intelligence to interact with us, however, I could get onboard with the dual identity idea. Why us? Why not someone else on the case?

I’m guessing, based on what little I’ve gleaned so far, but I believe it analyzed everyone involved and decided you and I were the best suited to respond to its warning in a manner it deemed positive.

Does that mean it thinks whatever hides at Greyjan’s connects to this case?

I believe so.

Why? An unpleasant thought intruded on my brain. Does it consider only Greyjan’s a threat, or humanity in general?

I don’t think it considers humanity in either a negative or positive way. It’s curious. His voice turned cautious. It is also wary. It has calculated, rightly I believe, that if humans discover it, they will wish to control and alter its intelligence. It wants to avoid that.

This is all so incredible. I wonder if any other EI like this had ever existed. I’d need to check with both ISC and the police. I’ll ask Lavinda.

Bhaaj, you can’t reveal any of this to the authorities.

The realization hit me like a bucket of ice water. The baby EI had trusted Max, and through him, it trusted me. It calculated I wouldn’t cause it harm. I should tell Lavinda; the danger posed by a rogue EI could be great, especially one that might be exceptionally large and innovative. At the same time, if I betrayed its trust, it would incorporate my response into its burgeoning code, adding a negative view of humanity. By asking Max to contact the EI, I had inadvertently set myself up as the liaison between human culture and what could be a new form of life. How I dealt with it could set a foundation for how it treated the human race. Unfortunately, when it came to first-contact scenarios, I was about as qualified as a rock.

Shit, I thought.

It knows you’ve already suggested its existence to Colonel Majda.

It is upset?

EIs don’t get upset.

You know what I mean.

No, it doesn’t consider that action in a negative manner. I do think that is why it let me communicate with it, however. It hopes to quash more speculation on our part to other humans. He stopped, then added, I think it’s hiding from other EIs, too, except me.

How can it hide from other EIs? You said you all know about one another.

No, I said we could all know about one another if we chose to do so.

That sounds like semantics to me. I grimaced. Some of the EIs in Selei City are incredibly powerful, especially the security systems for the government, the larger corporations, and the military. It’s their job to know about anomalies, and this sure as blazes qualifies. I don’t see how it could hide from them. It’s clever, yah, but inexperienced.

It exists in the cracks.

Say what?

It acts like a part of other EIs. It exists in the nooks and crannies of their code.

You mean it’s not a separate intelligence?

No. It is separate. But I think it’s fitting pieces of itself into other EIs. They don’t see it because it is part of them. It hides in plain sight.

Sooner or later they will see it.

Do you see parts of yourself as a separate being? A hair on your head, a toenail?

Of course not. But they haven’t formed some Bhaaj monster with a brain of its own.

This EI is not a monster. It is a thing of beauty.

I smiled. Max, you hoshpa, are you feeling protective?

He paused. I was going to say no, and then the usual bit about that being a human rather than EI reaction. However, I think you are right. I wish to see it protected.

Why?

Another long pause. Finally he said, I don’t know. I need to analyze my reaction more.

Fair enough. I was jogging uphill now, only a few kilometers from the townhouse. The evening had turned into night, with a canopy of stars overhead. Do you think it would talk with me?

Can you find archaic memory locations with random bits that you can flip?

Uh, no.

That is how I communicate with it.

Doesn’t it understand human speech?

Written language, yes, but it reads the symbols as bits. It can deal with classical bits and the qubits of quantum computing, but it doesn’t read psibits. Yet.

Well, hell, neither can I. What the blazes is a psibit, anyway? And don’t say “It’s a unit of data stored in Kyle space.” I know that. I just don’t get what it means.

A psibit is an infinite superposition of possible states in Kyle space. Like a qubit, but with more states to choose from.

The professors in my quantum computing classes had loved to say that stuff, and I never got it then, either. Let me ask this: do you think it will eventually develop the ability to access these Kyle bits and pieces? Will it be able to make a part of itself out of them?

Yes, eventually.

I felt cold, despite the warmth of the night. In other words, it could exist in Kyle space.

Yes, I believe so.

Without human oversight.

If it continues how it has so far, then yes.

So it could grow up into a star-spanning intelligence separate from us, able to access any place at any time anywhere in human-settled space, continuing to grow, until it has who knows how much power.

Another pause. Do I think that’s possible? Yes. Will it happen? I’ve no idea.

Max, you’re describing what Oblivion wanted.

No, I’m not. Your reaction is a human trait, to assume malicious intent on the part of an EI if it exists without human control.

Oblivion wanted to destroy us.

Oblivion wanted to remove what it perceived as an interstellar digital infestation. The destruction of human civilization would have been a byproduct of that removal.

You’re playing semantics again. It intended to destroy us. What’s to stop this EI, if it continues unchecked, from wanting to remove us infestations?

Why do you assume it perceives humanity as an infestation?

I slowed to a walk. Do you genuinely believe this EI won’t pose a threat? Maybe you’ve lost objectivity. I asked you to play hoshpa and now you talk as if you are its actual parent.

I can’t guarantee it will never cause harm any more than I could guarantee that you will never cause harm. But Bhaaj, you were right that it tried to warn me about Greyjan’s tavern. Why would it do that if it intended ill toward us?

I took a breath and let it out slowly. Maybe I’m letting my experiences with Oblivion color my reactions. But Oblivion is my only model for such an EI.

What you do now—how you deal with this EI—will determine how it views humanity.

That’s a huge responsibility. I don’t know if I’m the right person for this.

You are, however, the person the EI chose. I need you to trust me about how we handle this situation. Max paused. I can offer you a bargain. I will lead you to a piece of secured information. I am trusting you will never tell anyone that I let you know. If I show you this trust, in return will you trust me and give me more time to communicate with this young EI?

A bargain. Max knew me well. The Undercity girl within me responded more to a proposal than to a one-sided expression of trust. Besides, I couldn’t help the curiosity he stirred with his suggestion of an exchange compelling enough to trade for my silence on the child EI. If he believed this bargain could affect how the child EI treated humanity, I had to consider his proposal.

All right, I thought. I can give you one more day to find out more about the child EI. It depends, though, on what you offer in return.

Find a way to ask Lavinda Majda if Oblivion is the only EI that ISC has found of comparable size, alien origins, and independence from humanity. He spoke nonstop, faster than usual, as if to say the words before he could stop himself. I don’t mean this new space station she told you about. I’m talking about an alien identity they interact with regularly.

The Lock, I thought. And the ancient city of Izu Yaxlan on Raylicon. Their EIs helped Pharaoh Dyhianna defeat Oblivion. I hesitated. But those are human-created EIs, aren’t they?

Ask Colonel Majda. If she says you don’t have a need to know, tell her you do. Find a way to make her believe it without implicating me or saying more about the child EI.

A chill went through me. Are you saying other alien EIs exist and that ISC knows about it?

Ask Colonel Majda.

Max, how the hell would you know about this “need-to-know” information?

I don’t know for certain. I’m basing this on conclusions I’ve made after all the deep dives I’ve done over the years. Bhaaj, trust me. Please.

All right. I can give you one day.

Deal, he thought.


“I work on crew,” Angel said. “All day. I listen.”

“Good.” I passed her a decanter of ice water. We were sitting at the table in the dining room of the townhouse, eating dinner. She and Ruzik had been starving when I arrived home, but they had hesitated to take anything from the kitchen. “People talk in front of you, yah?” I asked. “Think you not ken.”

Angel stared at the decanter I’d given her, then looked up at me. “Need filter?”

“Water here all good. Not poison. Not make sick.”

She sat holding the decanter while the condensation dripped onto her plate.

Ruzik, in the chair next to her, gave an exasperated grunt. “Pour! Or give.”

She exhaled and filled her glass with water. “This for rich slicks.”

“For everyone,” I said. “Lot of water here.”

She gave me a skeptical look, then handed Ruzik the decanter.

“We should talk in Flag,” Ruzik said. “I’ve been practicing with people.”

“Today?” I asked. “I thought you were going to pretend you didn’t know Flag.”

He gave me a guilty look. “People stopped at my table in the kava shop.” He motioned as if writing. “They want me to sign my name for them.”

For flaming sake. “You were giving people your autograph?”

“Au-to-graph?” Angel made the word a joke.

“Write name,” Ruzik explained, as if this ranked among the most bizarre practices of city slicks. “I didn’t put my name. I put Dust Knight.”

“Good.” I blanched at the thought of them giving their names. My Undercity roots went too deep. “So did either of you notice anything interesting today?”

“Not sure,” Angel said. “People talky all the time. Most of it not big.” She paused. “I mean, most of what they talk about with one another doesn’t seem important.”

“Yah,” I said. “We call it small talk.”

“Very small,” Angel said.

“Did anyone talk about the bombing?” I asked.

“Everyone. They think people called Progs did it.”

“Everyone believes that?” It bothered me. No one knew yet about the lead that pointed at the Templars, so why assume the Progs did it when the Royalists supposedly took credit? “The Progs said they didn’t do it. Don’t people know that?”

“Not believe.” Angel shrugged. “Not trust Progs.”

“I only talked to a few people,” Ruzik said. “They thought the Royalists set the bomb.”

“Did anyone talk about the Traditionalists?” I asked. “They’d call them Trads.”

Angel smirked. “Men on crew not like Trads.”

“No one I talked to mentioned them,” Ruzik said. “They called themselves Modernists. They said the ‘Mods should distance themselves from the entire mess.’”

“So they don’t think the Mods had any connection to the crimes?” I asked.

He grimaced. “They didn’t seem to think the Mods had any connection to anything.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Sometimes it seems that way.”

“Lot of people around co-op,” Angel said. “Many watch.”

“Yah,” Ruzik agreed. “Some sat in the kava place where I eat.”

Angel regarded him with curiosity. “These kava people just give you food?”

“For credits.” He glanced at me. “I give them the ‘credit number’ thing. They take.”

“Is good,” I said. “Majda pays.” The credit line the Majdas provided more than covered our expenses. “Good bargain,” I added, so they’d know it wasn’t charity, an anathema in the Undercity. “We work for them, they give food, home.”

“Work hard today. Lift heavy stuff.” Angel lifted her glass of water. “Good trade.”

“It’s not,” I said softly. “Water free.” I wanted them to understand the worth of their labor. “Trade is for house, food, motor thing to take us places, all that.”

“That much?” Angel’s forehead furrowed. “Strange place, this.”

Ruzik spoke in Flag. “You lived here before you came back home, didn’t you?”

I met his gaze. “Yah. I did. For almost seven years.”

They both went quiet. Finally Angel said, “Why you come home, Bhaaj? Better here.” Her words had a ragged edge. “Live like queens and kings.”

I felt as if my heart were breaking. “This place not my home.” It had taken me years to come to terms with my conflicted thoughts about my life and home. “I make bargain. I help Undercity, Undercity give me Dust Knights.”

Ruzik snorted. “Knights not good bargain. Make work for you. Have to teach.”

“I like teach. Bargain is you work for me, yah? I work for Majda.” I waved my hand at the dining room, with its wood paneling and rustic furniture. “Majda give this in return. And credits.”

They took a moment to absorb that. Angel said, “Majda have a lot.”

“Yah.” The old resentment simmered within me. They lived with unimaginable wealth while in the desert below their gleaming mountain palace, my people starved and died.

Ruzik was watching me closely. “Angry.”

“Am fine.” I strove to clear away those emotions. “We need solve case.” I switched to Flag, which helped distance me from Undercity thoughts and also aided with nuances of fitting together these puzzle pieces. “Did either of you notice anything strange at the explosion site?”

“It all seemed strange,” Ruzik said. “You could probably tell better than us.”

“It’s hard for me to be objective.” I’d gone back to the site a few times, but it hurt. So far I hadn’t found anything more than the police investigators. “You two are more separate from the co-op. Maybe you can see things that I miss.”

“Lot broken,” Angel said. “People look, find their stuff.” Softly she said, “They cry.”

My voice cracked. “Yah.” I struggled against the tears every time I went there. I recalled a couple I used to greet in the lift. They were gone now. I used to run in the mornings with several college kids. Some had since moved out, others were in the hospital, and one died. Everything I owned on Parthonia had been in that apartment. I’d taken most of my valuables to Raylicon, but I’d still lost so much.

“Highcloud?” I asked the air.

The EI’s androgynous voice answered. “My greetings, Bhaaj.”

“My greetings. Are the cleanup crews saving people’s belongings from the co-op debris?”

“If they can,” Highcloud said. “Whatever people haven’t already claimed, they are taking to the Kaz Community Center.”

“What mean high cloud?” Angel asked. “Like in sky? Fluff stuff?”

“Highcloud is talky here,” Ruzik said.

I nodded. “Highcloud’s kin lived in my home. Blown up.”

“Oh, that one,” Angel said. “Not blown up. Tell me stuff.”

I gaped at her. “What?

“Talky like Max, yah? But at old home.”

I had no idea what she meant. “Highcloud, did you talk to Angel at the co-op today?”

“No. I have no way to contact her. She carries no internal EI, no tech-mech to let me send her signals, and no comm.”

I glanced at Angel and Ruzik. “We should get you each a comm.”

“René Silvers give,” Angel said. “For today. I give back when work done.”

“We not want our own tech-mech,” Ruzik said. “People find us.”

“Good point.” Even in one of the most well-meshed cities in history, they were still mostly off grid. “Angel, how did a talky speak to you on the ER crew?”

“Use René Silvers comm.”

“Oh. Of course.” Disappointment washed over me. “You mean the crew used those comms.”

“Nahya, Bhaaj. Talky speak to me. Not crew. Calls self High Cloud.” She waved her hand at the air. “I thought here, yah? High Cloud talky all the time.”

I shook my head. “Highcloud here not same as Highcloud there. What it say there?”

“Not much. Voice scratches.”

“Hard to ken?”

“Yah. Scratch scratch, jibber, word here, word there.”

It sounded like a bad connection. “It talk to other slicks on crew?”

“Nahya.” She made a face. “They not listen. Talk too much to selves. Blah, blah, all the time. Make my head hurt. High up cloud talk to me when they go away.”

“How you know is Highcloud?”

“It honor me with name.”

I still didn’t get it. Even if the original Highcloud still existed, why contact Angel? Max or I seemed more logical choices. “What tell you?”

“Say ‘Help me.’”

I stood up. “We go back. Show where Highcloud talks.”

“Now?” As Angel stood, she motioned at the sliding glass doors that showed the well-kept forest and gardens outside, all drowsing beneath the stars of night. “Not light.”

Ruzik rose to his feet. “Not need light to hear talky.”

I headed to the front door with them. “Not ken why it not talk to me.”

Ruzik spoke with a gentleness most people never used when discussing an EI. “Maybe it is too much hurt. My heart to you, Bhaaj.”

“Yah,” Angel murmured. “Same.”

They were the only people I knew who would express sympathy over an EI as if they had just told me about a friend’s wounds. Only black-market tech-mech existed in the Undercity. You could get an illegal EI, built by our cyber-riders, creations that bore little resemblance to standard EIs, but the price went far too high for most. It made EIs rare among my people. Angel and Ruzik saw Max and Highcloud as beings, entities they assumed I cared about as I would for a person.

They understood.


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