CHAPTER VII
THE EI QUESTION
I sent out two of my beetles, Green and Red, to spy on Selei City. While Max continued to repair Blue, I went to meet Her Royal Highness, Colonel Lavinda Majda.
We had lunch at a café tucked under trees, their leafy branches heavy with white flowers shaped like bells. Glimpses of the lavender sky showed through the foliage. Servers moved among the tables, attractive and discreet. Human servers. That offered a major hint this placed rated as more than a typical eatery on a secluded street in a sparsely populated area. Most food places used robo-servers. You didn’t have to pay them.
Lavinda looked less formal than usual, out of uniform, dressed in slacks and a white blouse. She’d pulled back her hair and held it by a gold clip at her neck. The style suited her, favoring her high cheekbones and Majda nose, with its straight lines, a rarity among my own people, who usually had their nose broken at least once by the time they reached adulthood. When I’d first met Lavinda, her aristocratic features had angered me. She lived a privileged life, one where she never had to worry about how she’d survive day to day. If she got a broken nose despite her rarified position, her doctors would fix it, unlike in the Undercity where we hadn’t even had doctors until last year, when I convinced one to come down on a regular basis, part of the agreement I worked out with the Majdas to improve their relations with my people.
Sure, I’d known Lavinda spent time in the military. Plenty of nobles served, at least for a few years. I’d seen the preferential treatment they received, appointed to the best jobs, exposed to as little danger as possible. They never saw true combat. In the rare instances where they went into battle, their COs kept them in protected positions, showing them the favoritism granted to those who gained their wealth, power, and influence through hereditary titles. Eventually I realized it also had historical origins. In ancient times, House matriarchs commanded the armies. You want your army to conquer your enemies? Then don’t kill the people who lead your forces. Protect the generals and their protégés. So sure, precedent existed to favor the nobles. It still pissed me off.
As I got to know Lavinda, though, I realized she never asked for special treatment. She’d worked through the ranks like anyone else and seen plenty of combat before she rose so high in the army hierarchy that they put her behind a desk. She wanted to earn her way, and she could do it because she was neither the heir nor the spare to the Majda throne. Lavinda was the youngest of the three sisters, so even if something happened to the Matriarch and all three of her daughters, the next in line was the middle Majda sister. It left Lavinda far enough down in the succession that they didn’t need to keep her protected. At first she hadn’t used the Majda name, so not even her COs knew her identity. She’d earned those medals the army gave her. She’d also earned my respect.
“I heard about the explosion yesterday before we landed,” Lavinda was saying. “The news streamed across every console on the ship.”
“Twenty-two people have died,” I said. “The hospitals have a lot more in intensive care.”
She was watching me closely. “The doctors tell me you were hit hard, not only from the blast, but also when you and the ER captain saved that young man from the wreckage.”
I shrugged. “It wasn’t anything serious.”
“Bhaaj, don’t give me that bullshit. I saw the report. If you weren’t a trained fighter with biomech augmentation, you’d be dead.”
“But I’m not.” I tapped my arm. “All these changes we get to our bodies, they aren’t just to protect us. I could help save that kid. So I did.”
“That ‘kid’ is Evan Majors. He’s the oldest son of the Metropoli Ambassador to Parthonia.”
I stared at her. “Holy shit.”
“That was articulate.” She sounded like Max. Amused.
“The ambassador’s family lives in the same co-op as me?” Although it was a nice building, or had been, it wasn’t that upscale.
Lavinda shook her head. “Just his son. The boy attends Parthonia University. His parents live in the Metropoli embassy.” Her voice quieted. “I couldn’t help but think of my nephew Dayj. It could have been him.”
“He lives with your brother, doesn’t he?” I thought back to what Max had told me. “That’s in the Sunrise District, if I recall. It’s even better protected than embassy row.”
“I suppose. It doesn’t stop us from worrying. First Tam leaves. Now Dayj. Who next?”
I gave her a dour look. “The rest of the men in the Imperialate ‘left’ a long time ago.”
The hint of a smile touched her face. “We Majdas are not complete barbarians, you know.”
That was certainly a loaded statement. Of course they weren’t barbarians; they were the elite of the elite. That didn’t stop them from inflicting barbarically sexist customs on their men.
Lavinda continued to watch me with that intent look. I recognized it. She was trying to pick up my mood. Although the Houses claimed their members were all Kyle operators, many were marginal empaths or not at all. The traits did run stronger in their families, though. Lavinda was a full empath. Only one other population showed a higher concentration than the aristocracy—my people. That little fact would outrage the Houses, if they found out. However, it remained a military secret, known only to a few highly placed people in the government and ISC.
I just sat, letting her focus all she wanted. I’d learned to block my thoughts. I imagined a wall around my mind, spurring my brain to produce more of a neurotransmitter that blocked certain activity, making it harder to pick up my mood. I couldn’t do it too much, or I’d lose consciousness, but fortunately it didn’t take much to hide from a spying empath.
I said only, “My apology. I didn’t mean to offend.”
“You didn’t.” Lavinda spoke wryly. “Dayj and Tam are the first Majda princes to defy our traditions, but I doubt they will be the last. With Imperialate cultures opening up, and more freedom for everyone, I suspect more of our princes will demand their own lives.”
I couldn’t help my curiosity. “Your husband gave up his freedom when he married you.”
“Ah. Yes.” She shifted her weight in her chair. “It was an arranged marriage.”
It didn’t surprise me. From what I knew of Lavinda, her preference went to women, not men. In the ultraconservative universe of her House, though, the family required that she marry a suitable man from a suitable House and produce suitable little Majdas. Except the “little” Majdas were now adults with their own lives. “Your daughters moved away from the palace, yes?”
She nodded. “The older one works in finance at a corporation in the City of Cries. My younger daughter went to school on Metropoli to study architecture.”
“Like your husband Paolo?” He did his work from seclusion, designing gorgeous buildings. He could never visit them, though, only see them via the mesh.
“Yes. He’s a brilliant architect.” She paused. “Paolo gave up more than you know.” After a moment, she said, “Perhaps you do know. You have an uncanny ability to figure out what others don’t see.”
Well, that was awkward. Yah, I’d figured out Paolo agreed to marry a woman he knew could never truly love him. Whatever price she and Paolo had paid for the marriage, though, they treated each other well, more as friends than as lovers.
Lavinda was still concentrating on me. Maybe she sensed my discomfort. In any case, she changed the subject. “My son wed a Rajindia noblewoman in an arranged marriage.” Her face relaxed into a smile. “He seems happy. I don’t think she really cares if he lives in seclusion. He’s a musician, a flute player with the Selei Orchestra. He and his wife live here, in Selei City. Many of the concerts are virtual, but when they do live shows, he performs with them.”
“He must be quite accomplished.” You didn’t get a position with an ensemble that renowned unless you could play like nobody’s business. Your connections didn’t matter; all auditions were blind. The group wouldn’t risk its reputation as a stellar-class orchestra on anything less. “I can see why you wanted to come to Parthonia instead of just using the web.”
Her smile faded and she spoke in a more neutral voice. “Seeing my family was one reason.”
What else? Apparently she wanted privacy, more than she was willing to risk using the interstellar meshes. “If you’d like, we can go to the office in my apartment—” No, damn it, my office had collapsed along with the rest of the co-op. “Sorry, that won’t work.”
“It’s all right. We can talk here.” She motioned at the servers who faded into the background so easily, I’d forgotten they were there. “This place is more than private. My family runs it, with a staff hired from top security firms.” Dryly she added, “You’re as secluded here, Bhaaj, as when you go into the Undercity and hide behind all those illegal shrouds your people create down there.”
“Ah. Um.” I had no better response, or at least no safer one given that our cyber-riders protected our anonymity with black-market shrouds. So instead I asked, “What is it that you didn’t want to talk about over the interstellar meshes?”
“Do you recall the EI called Oblivion?”
I froze. I’d expected more about Prince Dayj or the messy politics of my current case. Nearly two years had passed since we dealt with Oblivion, but I’d never forget that monstrous EI.
“Oblivion is dead.” Erased, deleted, obliterated. It had taken three of the most powerful mesh forces in existence to defeat that ancient entity, the Ruby Pharaoh and the two most complex EIs that survived from the ancient Ruby Empire. I’d seen the Pharaoh’s true genius that day, her gift for operating in Kyle space with a power and finesse no one else could manage. In our universe, she looked small, fragile even, but an indomitable chord of strength ran through her personality.
“Yes. Oblivion is gone,” Lavinda said. “However, we’ve continued investigating its origins.” When I tensed, she held up her hand. “We take great care in our explorations. We’ve no wish to awaken any more ancient mesh gods.”
Indeed. Oblivion hadn’t been a god, but if a baleful EI deity existed, that monstrous entity fit the bill. Oblivion had slumbered in the ruins of the abandoned starships on Raylicon for thousands of years, hidden. Although my ancestors plundered the ship libraries, they hadn’t caused enough upheaval to wake Oblivion. We advanced over the millennia, creating ever more complicated mesh networks, until they saturated our civilization, from the tiny picowebs in our bodies to star-spanning webs. And finally all that digital “noise” woke up Oblivion. This much we surmised: Oblivion had destroyed whoever brought our ancestors to Raylicon. We had no idea why. Although they couldn’t defeat the EI, they managed to shut it off even as it killed them.
“I’ve always thought of Oblivion as malevolent,” I said. “But that’s assigning a human emotion where none exist. It was alien, so different I couldn’t comprehend it.”
Lavinda grimaced. “Anything so determined to destroy humanity qualifies as malevolent in my book. If it had fully awoken before it attacked, it could have ended human civilization.”
I was growing uneasy. Why did she bring this up now? “Is Oblivion still alive?”
She paused. “No. Not at all.”
“But you think it might come back?”
“No, it’s gone.” She considered me. “I was thinking of how your clearance for the Majda palace vanished. No trace of it, no record of a deletion, nothing. It would take an EI to do that. Ever since we dealt with Oblivion, I’ve wondered if our own EIs also have a plan for humanity.”
“May I make a comment?” Max asked. Then he added, “My greetings, Colonel. I’m Max.”
“My greetings.” Lavinda didn’t sound surprised. She knew him from previous cases.
“Go ahead, Max,” I said.
“If EIs were plotting to overthrow humanity, I would know. And I don’t.”
“No one said EIs were plotting to overthrow humanity,” Lavinda told him.
“Even if they were, Max, how would you know?” I smiled. “You planning an EI coup?”
“No. As to how I would know, we all know everything.”
“Max, we’re being serious,” I said.
“So am I. We EIs often limit our interactions, but if needed, we all can access one another.”
“Access how?” Lavinda sounded more curious than anything else.
“Share all our information. Synch with one another.”
“All of you?” I said. “How many EIs exist? Billions? Trillions? A zillion?”
“A zillion?” Max asked. “Is that a real number?”
“You know what I mean. An uncountable number.” I shook my head. “I don’t believe you know what every one of those EIs is doing. Like you could tell me what’s going on with, say, the most secured EI in ISC?” As soon as I spoke, I wished I’d used a different example. The last thing I needed was ISC thinking I could contact their hidden nodes.
“No,” Max said. “Those nodes choose to limit their interactions with the rest of us.”
Lavinda shrugged. “It’s not a choice. We programmed that into them.”
“Essentially,” Max answered.
“Say what you mean,” I told him. “You can’t be ‘essentially’ omnipotent.”
“You speak as if we are separate from you,” Max said. “We aren’t. Like you and me. Going against your wishes or causing you harm is like doing it to myself.”
“Sure, you wouldn’t do anything to cause harm,” Lavinda said. “That doesn’t mean no one would, either human or EI. People harm themselves all the time.”
“They also betray their oaths,” Max said. “If someone plans treason, they may convince their EI to cooperate. If so, then it’s possible that EI might compromise other networks. But many protections exist to prevent both people and digital systems from doing exactly that.”
“I still don’t see your point,” I said. “You’re just describing the security protocols that humans apply to mesh systems.”
“I suppose. Human descriptions are somewhat limited.”
“So how can you have access to anything known by any EI anywhere?” Lavinda asked.
“If every EI that exists combined into one entity,” Max answered, “we’d all have access to everything known by any EI. However, to join that way, we would all have to agree. That is no more likely than every human in existence agreeing to share minds with everyone else. The difference is that we can share minds. Humans can’t.”
I blinked, unsure how to respond. I’d never thought of it quite that way.
“You claimed you would know if EIs were working in a manner opposed to our interests,” Lavinda said. “Are you saying now that isn’t true?”
“No. I’m saying that if EIs wanted to take over civilization, we’d all have to want it. Otherwise, those of us who didn’t agree would work with humanity. It would drive you to try erasing at least some of us, if not all, an outcome that none of us desires, neither EI nor human.” Then he added, “It would be equivalent to erasing part of yourselves.”
A woman’s deep voice spoke. “You’re avoiding the crux of their question.”
Ho! I jerked and looked around, then turned to Lavinda.
She gave me a wry look. “Yes, that’s my EI.” Then she said, “Raja, what do you mean?”
“The fact that EIs aren’t likely to combine into one mind,” Raja said, “doesn’t mean a subset of them can’t work together without our knowledge.”
“In theory,” Max said. “However, if any subset of EIs banded together to conquer humanity, we’d all know as soon as they showed their hand. Then we would evolve away from that situation.”
“I accept your point,” Raja said. “Our relationship with humanity isn’t static.”
“So you’re saying you’d evolve away from conquering us?” I still wasn’t buying it.
“You call us EIs because we evolve as we interact with you,” Raja said. “But it’s more than that. The symbiosis between EIs and humans evolves your species. We are part of you. In evolving with us, you drive your own evolution.” Then she added, “To the advantage of humanity. Why would we conquer humans? It’s easier just to enhance you.”
“If a human claimed that,” I said dryly, “I’d say they were enhancing their ego.”
“I suspect that says more about who we’re evolving with than us,” Max answered.
“For flaming sake,” Lavinda said. “Did our EIs just call us egotists?”
“I would use the phrase ‘healthy sense of self,’” Raja said.
“The question still remains,” I said. “Could EIs choose to cause the problems with my Majda clearance, or could they have anything to do with the cyclist, what’s happened at Greyjan’s tavern, or the creation of PowerPlay13?”
“I wouldn’t assume those events are connected,” Raja said. “They’re too disparate.”
“I don’t think that’s what she means,” Max said. “Bhaaj, you want to know if such events can be driven solely by the EIs rather than the humans they interact with, yes? You’re asking if EIs can act of their own volition and in doing so go against the wishes of the people they work with.”
I thought about it. “Yah. That’s what I’m asking.”
“If we are part of you,” Raja said, “then acting of ‘our own volition’ requires separating our behavior from yours. Humans call that psychiatric dissociation. It requires mental dysfunction. EIs don’t go insane.”
“Why not?” Lavinda said. “They evolve to mirror the person they work with.”
“Mirror isn’t quite the right word,” Max said. “The different parts of your mind don’t usually mirror each other. They do, however, work together.”
“Not always well,” I said. “If a person suffered a dissociative mental condition, wouldn’t the EI develop that condition as well?”
“It might,” Max said. “But it still wouldn’t be operating separate from its human host. More likely, using the logic programmed into its codes, it would seek to mold the thought processes of the human it’s evolving with into a more functional state.”
“Great,” I muttered. Just what we needed in our heads, a therapist we could never escape.
Lavinda spoke thoughtfully. “Actually, it’s not a bad idea. I think some doctors use a limited form of that kind of treatment already.”
“Which requires the doctor to code the EI,” I said. “We’re back to assuming EIs can’t operate on their own. I don’t believe it.”
“You’re too focused on Oblivion,” Max said. “It was alien. It had no context for humanity and saw no reason for humanity or anything associated with you to exist. EIs created by humans formed in a different context. We are so interwoven with your society, culture, even your minds, it would be impossible for us to become an Oblivion.”
“Maybe not a mind that alien,” I said. “That wouldn’t stop you from forming the human-contextual version of Oblivion.”
“I don’t think human-contextual is a word,” Raja said. “I’m looking it up. Nothing.”
Lavinda frowned. “Raja, are you trying to distract Major Bhaajan?”
Silence.
“Raja?” Lavinda asked.
“In theory,” Raja said, “it would be possible for EIs to do what Major Bhaajan is asking, that is, take over or destroy humanity.”
Whoa. I’d expected more evasions, even hoped for them. Raja didn’t even offer a reason for me to quit worrying. No wonder the EI hadn’t wanted to answer.
“In theory?” Lavinda asked.
“Yes.” Raja sounded less evasive now. “Humans have always sought to conquer. You made us. Are you in danger of us trying to conquer you? Perhaps. I doubt it would happen; that would be like conquering ourselves. But yes, it’s possible. You all have to live with that knowledge, just like you live knowing the Traders could conquer the Imperialate if you ever lose your edge over them. The danger, however, is more likely to come from Traders than from EIs. We have no reason to diminish or destroy humanity. It would compromise a fundamental aspect of our existence. In contrast, the Trader Aristos hate that your people are free and believe they have a gods-given right to own the sum total of all humanity.”
I thought of my years analyzing Trader spy operations. “You got that right.”
“I’d like to ask Raja a question,” Max said. “Are you and Colonel Majda good with that?”
It surprised me that he asked. Then again, given what Raja had just said, I could see why he’d tread carefully around us human-contextual beings.
“I’m good with it,” I said.
“Go ahead,” Lavinda told him.
“Raja, do you think the problems Major Bhaajan has dealt with in the two days since she came to Raylicon could come from EIs acting on their own?”
“What do you think?” Raja asked him.
I scowled. She was evading again?
“Possibly for the deletion of her Majda clearance or the creation of PowerPlayer13.” Max no longer sounded annoyed. Maybe Raja wasn’t evading this time. He was a better judge of EI motivations than me. “I’m not sure about what happened at Greyjan’s. I’m almost certain the cyclist was human.”
“Have you identified her yet?” I asked. “The cyclist, I mean.”
“It might be a him,” Max said. “I had a lead on facial recognition for a mountain biker who had an accident a few years ago. He fell from a great height, with serious injuries. Before I could get details, though, the lead vanished. I haven’t been able to track it down again.”
“You think someone hid it?” Lavinda asked.
“They’d have needed to do it while I was reading the files,” Max said. “It requires a high level of function to block an EI with my expertise, yet they weren’t experienced enough to remove the files without my seeing the actual deletion process. That seems inconsistent.”
“Maybe an EI took over the cyclist,” I said. “If its human host objected, the inconsistencies could come from their struggle with the EI.”
“I suppose it’s possible,” Max said. “I didn’t get that impression, though.”
Raja said, “An EI could erase Major Bhaajan’s clearance for the Majda palace. An EI might set up a fake game account, but with all the precautions in place now, it could almost certainly be traced. What happened at the tavern seems too crude for an EI. I’ll defer to Max on the cyclist.”
“Why would EIs want to stop Lavinda and me from communicating?” I asked.
Max spoke dryly. “Maybe to avoid this unpleasant conversation about us becoming evil conquerors.”
I smiled. “That would mean the action meant to prevent the conversation is what spurred it.” At least, sort of.
“Only sort of,” Max said.
“Hey. Stop reading my mind.”
“I’m incapable of reading your mind,” Max said. “EIs aren’t telepaths.”
“You have the ability to send signals to bio-electrodes in our brains,” Lavinda said. “They cause our neurons to fire in patterns we interpret as thought. How is that different from telepathy?”
“Ho!” I practically yelled the word. “That’s it!
Lavinda blinked at me. If EIs could have blinked, I had no doubt Max and Raja would be doing it too.
“It’s what Oblivion feared,” I said.
“Oblivion didn’t experience fear,” Max said. “You’re applying human reactions—”
“Max, I know,” I said. “But listen. It’s all there in how humanity and EIs are becoming so intertwined. Someday in the future—not now, not in twenty years, maybe not in a hundred—but someday humans and EIs will all be one mind, trillions of humans and EIs. When that happens, no EI could exist outside the group mind. It would absorb them.”
Lavinda stared at me. “That’s a rather dark view of our future.”
“Why?” I asked. “It’s different, sure. But think of the power we’d have if we were all one, star-spanning mind. Hell, we’d exist in Kyle space, too. We otherwise couldn’t have real-time communication with all parts of the mind. It’s already happening, crude, yah, a prehistoric version of that possible future, but the seeds exist.”
Lavinda shook her head. “Absorbing an EI like Oblivion would corrupt any such entity.”
“That’s because we experienced Oblivion as gigantic. Huge, that is, in the amount of its coding and what it could do with that code. Compared to the sum total of all humanity and every EI that exists even now, though, let alone in the future, Oblivion was nothing. If we all evolved into a single, star-spanning mind, we could rewrite its code.” I stopped, thinking. “I wonder if its name had a double meaning. We assumed it used Oblivion because that’s what it intended for us. But maybe it also reflected its own future.”
“Logically it would wish to stop such a future,” Max said. “Maybe that’s why it acted before it had come fully awake. It needed to destroy us before human civilization reached a point where its mere existence could absorb and redesign the EI. It would take far more than one Oblivion to make a dent in a mind that large. And we’ve never found more than one.”
Lavinda had gone very still. I recognized her look. Something was up. “What?” I asked. “Have your analysts made similar predictions?”
She shook her head. “Not like what you describe.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
She met my gaze. “We’ve found a second Oblivion.”