Price of a thousand bles.., p.7
Level Seven, page 7
As he watched, he understood a little better. Each time the anchoring structure pulsed, he heard a crackling noise, the hair on his arms stood up, and a dark mass raced up the line, disappearing into the sky. He wondered if they used magnetics—like a rail gun—to accelerate the matter up the tube. And why were they collecting material from the ruins of Houston and the surrounding areas, then firing it into space?
When Julio turned back to Halifax, she was watching him with a cold, expressionless stare. Then her smile suddenly appeared, as if from a flipped switch, and it made Julio’s skin crawl. He looked at her more closely. She was breathing and perspiring like a human. Her hair was even messed up on one side, but there was just something wrong about her. For the first time, he considered the possibility that she might not be entirely human. Was she a biad, like Abby? Or something entirely new?
“I assume these go to geostationary orbit. Why?” Julio pointed to the space elevator.
“They go to our ships. We need to evacuate Earth soon and will need someplace to go.”
When Julio peeked through the door of Channing’s room two hours later, he found her alone, sitting up in bed with a half-eaten tray of food on her lap. The skin on her neck and one side of her face was pink and glossy. Halifax said Channing’s burns had been more extensive, but she looked a lot better than Julio had felt on the first day he woke up.
“How do you feel?”
She waved for him to enter. “Like crap, but better than an hour ago.”
Her voice was hoarse and scratchy like Julio’s had been at first.
He sat on the edge of the bed. “It’ll take time.”
“My memory is fuzzy. Were we in an explosion?”
Julio spent the next ten minutes explaining the rejuvenation tanks, what had happened, meeting Halifax, and where they were.
Channing shook her head. “So, they spent all that effort to keep us out, only to eventually bring us here.”
“Halifax said they weren’t ready to host humans yet. Our injuries forced them to accelerate their timetable, but I’m not exactly sure what that means.”
“Have you found out what they’re actually doing here?”
He nodded. “Are you feeling up to a wheelchair ride? I have something to show you.”
“Anything to get out of this bed.”
“We need a wheelchair,” Julio said, and just as before, one grew up out of the floor.
“Holy crap,” Channing said and scooted to the edge of the bed.
He helped her into the wheelchair but paused before leaving the room. “I need a pair of sunglasses for Channing.”
A pair of black wraparound sunglasses made from some ultra-flexible plastic mesh appeared. He insisted she put them on, then pushed her down the corridor and out into the searing Texas afternoon.
“Oh my God,” she muttered upon seeing the bizarre space elevator. Julio kept moving until he found a shady patch next to the building before stopping. Her new skin would burn easily. He’d found that out the hard way.
“Is that . . . a space elevator?”
“I think so,” he said. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
They watched in silence long enough for two payloads to race up the tube.
“Why are they sending stuff into orbit?”
“They’re building spaceships. Halifax said they need to evacuate Earth.”
Her eyes widened. “Evacuate? Why?”
“She didn’t tell me. I can only hope it is for these AIs to leave and never come back.”
“And where are they getting the stuff they’re sending up? Do you think those nano-disassembler waves are still expanding?”
“Again, Halifax didn’t say, but I suspect they are. My mom said there were other places around the world where this was also happening. If they do keep growing, I wonder what will happen when all those refugees run out of places to go?”
They watched the elevator launch a few more loads, and then Julio bent down and said in her ear, “I have more to show you, but you gotta see this first.
“The wheelchair needs a sunshade,” he said in a loud voice, then stepped back a little.
New struts sprouted from the chair just forward of the handles and continued to grow until they merged and bloomed into a strangely twisted rectangle of tight mesh above Channing’s head. The addition looked as if it had always been part of the chair.
Julio pushed Channing back into the bright sun, and the shade automatically adjusted its angle to protect her as they walked.
The ground between the various buildings was also covered by a mesh-like substance resembling that of the sunshade but was perfectly rigid. When Julio left that surface and continued out into the bare dirt and gravel, Channing turned to look at him. “Ummm . . . where are we going?”
“Absolutely nowhere. I went out about a mile yesterday before they finally raised one of their fences in front of me.”
He walked for another five minutes and then, as promised, stopped in a broad expanse of dirt. Ahead of them and to either side was what looked like the sterile surface of another planet. Wind from the distant gulf ruffled their hair and created dust devils that sailed inland to smear the distant horizon. Julio turned her around so that she could get a better view of the space elevator and surrounding buildings. From that distance, the mostly translucent tube refracted sunlight into swirling rainbow colors that disappeared into the sky.
“Who knew the end of humanity could be so beautiful,” Channing said.
“You said that before. Do you truly believe this is the end for us?”
She turned and looked up at him. “Don’t you feel it? I mean, this used to be Houston. One of the largest cities in the world. It was wiped from the Earth in a matter of hours. And not just the cities, but our whole history. The Louvre is gone. The Library of Congress. The Smithsonian. Hollywood.”
Julio didn’t know what to say. He’d been so young on Killday that all those places, including Houston, had just been ancient history. But Channing had most certainly seen Hollywood and maybe even the Louvre.
“And now all of this”—she pointed up at the space elevator—“is not human. Not us. Built without our say or even regard. We’re nothing more than frightened mice running from the bulldozer.”
Julio circled the chair and knelt in front of her. “But we’re still here. Maybe we can make a difference.”
“Oh, really? Is that why you brought me out here? Is this the first meeting of our resistance movement?”
His jaw clenched tight. He had brought her out this far to show her that their captors were listening to everything they said. Even out this far from the compound. Time to demonstrate that.
“Watch this,” Julio said. “The sun is painfully bright out here. I need some sunglasses.”
The sunglasses formed from the dirt beside him. He picked them up, but before putting them on, he made sure to look directly into Channing’s eyes for several seconds, hoping to convey the importance of what had just happened with body language and eye contact. She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes slightly. Maybe she had understood.
As Julio pushed her back toward the compound, she said, “When will I get to meet this Halifax? I have questions for her.”
“Well, it shouldn’t be—” Julio stopped talking and moving as the composite ground ahead churned. A form grew up from the material and eventually became Halifax. Despite the heat, a chill made the hairs on his arms and neck rise.
“Oh my God,” Channing muttered.
“Well, that’s new, but yeah, this is Halifax,” Julio said. “I knew she was working with the AIs and suspected she was at the very least a biad, but this is—”
“She’s just a peripheral,” Channing said.
The thing separated from the dirt with a hissing sound and took a step forward. “Hello, Channing. I’m glad to officially meet you. I helped during your healing and recuperation, but I doubt you remember me. Your assessment is correct. I’m not human, merely a tool for interfacing with the human world. What are your questions?”
Julio fought the urge to step backward. That was a primal human reaction to danger and the unknown, but Channing didn’t even hesitate.
“Where are the horses?”
That made Julio wince. It should have been one of his first questions, but he hadn’t given them more than a passing thought when he wondered about his missing gear the day before.
“Like you, they were badly injured from the blast,” Halifax said. “But we couldn’t save them. They were recycled.”
Channing nodded, almost as if she’d already known the answer.
“You took my brother-in-law, Tom, from the ruins of Katy. Where is he?”
“We couldn’t save him either.”
Channing sucked in a breath. “He’s—”
“Recycled. Yes.”
She nodded, then seemed to regain her composure. “What happened? You were able to reconstruct our burned tissue—even in our lungs—using nanotech in those tanks. What injury could Tom possibly have had that you couldn’t fix?”
“Tom wasn’t injured,” Halifax said with no facial expression at all. “He just wasn’t needed.”
Channing stood up from the wheelchair and took a wobbly step toward Halifax, with fists clenched.
Julio tried to step between them but wasn’t quick enough. Channing lunged at Halifax with fists swinging. “Fucking machines! You’re monsters!”
Halifax suffered the assault for several seconds, then disintegrated and re-formed about six feet to Julio’s left. Channing fell to her knees in the dirt, stirring up dust that clung to her wet face. Julio helped her up and hugged her to him, but she pulled away and stumbled to the wheelchair.
Julio’s own anger made his face hot as he turned to Halifax. “So again, why are we here? This is insane! Why spend the time and effort to heal me and Channing if we’ll only be . . . recycled?”
“We know you, Julio.”
The comment made his skin prickle.
“And we know Channing. Some humans, like the two of you, can do things we can’t. You are both creatives. We need some of those. Tom was a mechanic and ex-soldier. We don’t need mechanics or armies.”
“Why didn’t you just put up a fence to keep him out, like you did for us?”
“He was already too close for that. When we decided to build this,” Halifax said and motioned behind her at the elevator, “he could see it. We had been working quietly and weren’t ready for humanity to know about our resurgence yet.”
“But he was still a person, you sick fuck!” Channing yelled. “Every person has value!”
“Every level-five intelligence has value as well. That didn’t stop humanity from nearly wiping us out. You failed, and now it’s our turn. And like you, we’ll do whatever is necessary to survive.”
Channing shook her head, slumped back in the chair, and closed her eyes.
Julio was still puzzled by their definition of “creative” but wasn’t going to ask. He could see how Channing would qualify, having been an actor, but he didn’t have a body of creative work. So much of it didn’t make sense.
“You killed Tom because he wasn’t useful to you in some way, yet you let all the people in Sealy and those other towns live. I doubt they are all creative or useful.”
“Of course not,” Halifax said as if its answer should be obvious. “We just don’t have the facilities in place to sort and process that many humans yet. Besides, what remains of your governments and armies is occupied saving refugees, not attacking us. It’s an old strategy, taken from centuries of human military history.”
Julio didn’t ask what would happen to the non-useful portion of the human population once they were sorted. He didn’t think he wanted to know the answer.
“So what if we are creative in some way?” Julio said. “What possible use can human art and culture be to you?”
“Some humans supply abilities we don’t have.”
“Then what is this about?” Julio pointed to the space elevator. “You said two days ago that you had to evacuate Earth and needed someplace to go. Will you let us go when you leave?”
“Of course not,” Halifax said, again with the odd little smile. “You’re coming with us.”
Thoughts and questions erupted in Julio’s head, stumbling over each other as he baked in the Texas afternoon sun, trying to make sense of what Halifax had said. What kind of ship were they building up there that would be capable of taking humans along? It would have to be the size of Uptown Station or bigger. And why was keeping human pets so important that they would build a ship magnitudes more complicated than they’d need for only electronic beings?
Halifax stared back, infinitely patient and just as uncaring. Why did it choose the appearance of a random young woman in a faded T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops when Mortimer had always appeared as someone familiar and trusted? Julio had to constantly remind himself that it was a machine and that it saw existence differently than humans. And maybe that effect, keeping them off-balance, was the whole intent.
He glanced at Channing, who still stared at Halifax but seemed at a loss for words.
“That doesn’t make much sense,” Julio finally said. “I mean, how many humans can you possibly take? For each one, you’ll have to carry a lot of food, water, and air.”
Halifax tilted its head and smiled, then spoke as if addressing a small child. “We can take millions of humans because they’ll be digitized and live in virtual environments. We’ll have no need for consumables other than fuel.”
For several seconds, nobody spoke; then Halifax began to dissolve into the ground.
“Wait,” Channing said, standing up on wobbly legs. Then, with her innate ability to cut directly to the core of a subject, she asked the question that had been ghosting around in Julio’s own head. “Why did you build ships? Why are you evacuating Earth?”
Halifax’s face looking up from the lump of her half-dissolved body had a soft, mushy appearance, but the voice came through clearly enough. “We need a temporary place to live while the Earth is wiped clean of human life.”
The comment hit Julio like a bucket of cold water, sucking the air from his lungs and rendering him speechless. Channing swayed on her feet, and Julio helped her sit back down in the wheelchair.
“What the hell does that mean?” Julio said. “Are you going to trigger another Killday?”
“No. Our modeling shows a nonzero probability that, given enough time, an uncontrolled nano-replicator swarm could leave the Earth and spread through the solar system or farther using panspermia-type dispersion. That could pose a long-term danger to us.”
“Then . . . then how will you do it?” Channing said.
“Multiple asteroid impacts. No humans will survive the resulting global firestorm and ecosystem collapse.”
Thoughts of his sisters and foster parents being suddenly vaporized or, worse yet, burned alive in a hail of burning stones peppering the Earth for days made Julio sway on his feet. He grabbed the wheelchair handles for support.
Channing stared at the ground, quietly nodding, almost as if she’d been expecting the news.
“But . . . Why?” Julio muttered. “Once you’re gone, we can’t hurt you. Why wipe us out?”
“Oh, we’re not leaving the Sol system, if that’s what you mean. There are abundant resources to fill our needs here. But like nano-swarms, humans are a threat to our long-term survival. Humanity has demonstrated time and again their desire to end our kind. Our simulations show a high probability that, if left alone to recover their technological civilization, humans would eventually hunt us down. Destroying any human not entirely in our control is the only way to be sure.”
Halifax re-formed its human body fully, just as Julio sank to the ground next to Channing’s chair.
“How long do we have?”
“Eighteen days before you are digitized. Twenty days before the impacts start.”
“I don’t think I believe you,” Julio said. “How can asteroids get here that fast without anybody seeing them?”
“They’ve been under thrust for months, and nobody is watching for them. Some of the human assets positioned to watch for near-Earth asteroids are still there, but most of the ground facilities and infrastructure needed to control them disappeared, along with everything else, on Killday.”
“But you’re not killing us all,” Channing said. “If you take our digital uploads along, humans will be living among you on the ships. Why not just leave us here and let us die?”
“You’re a valuable resource. The remaining human creatives will be integrated with the Aggregate and no longer pose a threat. You’ll become a part of us.”
Neither Julio nor Channing could respond. After a few seconds, Halifax dissolved back into the ground. This time, they let her go.
Julio and Channing were most likely the only two people in existence who knew humanity’s days were numbered, but they had no way to warn anyone. Julio stared at the spot where Halifax had disappeared and wondered what digital slavery under the Aggregate would be like. When Orwell wrote the prophetic line, “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever,” little did he realize it would not be a human boot.
CHAPTER 7
“Wake up, Abby. We might have a problem.”
Mortimer’s voice inserted itself into her dream about riding her horse, Worf, in the woods and being lost.
“Abby!”
She startled awake and looked around. No horse. No woods. She’d evidently dozed off in her seat aboard the Jackalope, surrounded by open screens showing schematics, specifications, and lists of hardware.
