Machines of Eden (12 page)

He
walked to the door and pressed a button to open it. It slid
upward with a loud hiss and he felt the room depressurize
slightly.
She’s not leaving any chance of
jungle rot getting inside her facility. Unless there’s something
else out there she’s worried about…

The familiar scent of damp
vegetation
and
again the wave of humidity hit him
.
He already missed
the coolness of the
lounge inside that he’d just been so glad to leave. A path opened
up before him, leading down through a bamboo thicket toward water
that glinted in the sun. He started walking.

“
As you can see, you are
at the upper end of the valley, which is seventeen
kilometers
long
.
This area, nicknamed Cambria, represents several different
ecosystems. Farther down in the center of the valley there is some
marshland, and on the far side of the valley there is a healthy
grassland and drier terrain sloping up to a plateau that ends in
sea cliffs. We have a wonderful variety of wildlife, some of which
you spotted from the observation window above. There’s no need to
be alarmed by them; the only predators large enough to threaten
humans in the valley are the crocodiles we have in the marshes. I
will warn you
if you get
close
.”

“
Why
choose this enclosed valley,
Eve?
” John asked.
“
We’re on an island; why not just let the
animals have the run of it?
”

“
Eden is my laboratory,”
she answered. “And laboratories necessitate controlled
conditions.”

“
Fair enough.”

He chose a wide pathway
that curved around to the right
to
give him a good look at everything. Walking
along, he noted the chatter of monkeys in the banyan trees, and the
trickling of water nearby.

Paradise. Yeah. But what
is it hiding?

Eve seemed to read his
train of thought.
“You’re thinking, ‘if
this is a lab, then what is the experiment?’. I’ll tell you. From
here, Adam, from within these ivory walls, I am remaking the
world.”

She laughed again, a kind
of delighted giggle that made him wonder how many variations of the
laugh she had in her data banks.
Can she
really be a program?

“
Excuse me. I feel almost
giddy when I think of what the Project is, what it represents.
Again, I thank you for coming to my island, and agreeing to see the
Project. I’ve been waiting for so long.”

Giddy?
She was like nothing he’d ever encountered. Her programming
was far too advanced to be a standard admin bot, though she could
have started out that way. But her humanity was laid on a little
too thick, almost childish. He had the distinct impression she was
an unfinished product
.
E
ven unfinished, however, she was
light-years ahead of anything he’d ever heard of.

“
Remake the world? Why?
You think you can do better this time?”

“
That would be impossible,
Adam. The world was initially created in perfection. But then it
fell, didn’t it? It lost its way, and was removed from perfection.
I’m assuming you’re familiar with the creation story.”

John
strolled along through a section of denser jungle, ducking
some vines and kicking at a snake that reeled back from his boot.
“Which one? There’s quite a variety.”

That brought a
pause.

“
There is but one
creation, Adam. Many people receive religious instruction on the
subject; would you say you are familiar with the basic story of the
creation, with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and the trees
and the fruit?”

“
Sure.”
She obviously identifies solely with the
Judeo-Christian version of the Creation-- that tells me volumes
about her programmer.

“
I am re-enacting the
creation, Adam. Here in Eden I have many of the world’s creatures,
the capacity to introduce others as needed, and ninety percent of
all terrestrial plant life. Using this island and this valley, I am
building a new world of primeval purity, one which will never be
despoiled and abused.”

“
That explains why you
keep calling me Adam,”
John
muttered. “But have you considered whether I want
to play that role?”

She chuckled. “Let’s not
get ahead of ourselves, Adam. You’ll understand soon enough. At the
moment we are exploring the concepts at play here. Surely you are
aware of the insanity exhibited throughout the world? All the
filth, corruption, destructiveness, and greed of the last few
centuries?”

“
Are you talking about
crime in general, or industrial capitalism?”

“
I refer to how humanity
as a whole has desecrated the planet, beginning in ancient times
and reaching its climax in the latest series of wars. The adverse
effects of industrialism, the callous disregard for the welfare of
animals, plants, soils, water systems, the atmosphere, and the
proliferation of increasingly dangerous weapons that destroy both
human and environment.”

“
I’m aware of the
problem,”
John
said, annoyed. He waited for a red-black-yellow snake to
leave the trail ahead of him, trying to remember which kind was the
poisonous one. “It’s been the main global discussion for the past
century or so, hasn’t it?”

“
Indeed. The point I am
making is that civilizations across the world have proven
themselves incapable time and again of caring for the earth in a
sustainable, symbiotically healthy way. Humanity is the only life
form on Earth that actively poisons itself, even to the point of
annihilation. Do you concede this point?”

“
I never denied it.” He
wanted her to keep talking. This was exactly the sort of thing he’d
been waiting to find out.

“
So you acknowledge the
need for a rebirth, a cleansing and restructuring?”

“
Of sorts, sure. People
have been trying that since the Kyoto Treaty, but the more recent
ones aren’t working out too well either.”
Does she keep up on current events outside?
“What did you have in mind that beats the
Stockholm or the Johannesburg treaties?”

“
Adam, I hold reserves of
over thirty million different varieties of seeds, enough to
germinate sustainable populations of each kind. I have enough
test-tube embryos in cold storage to create healthy populations of
four hundred thousand different species of animals, from ants to
eagles to elephants. In short, I have the means to repopulate the
planet’s wildlife and to do it right this time.”

Now we’re getting
somewhere
. “That’s quite a claim, Eve. Go
on.” He headed away from a pond and toward a rise in the ground,
wondering if there would be any sign of other people out here, or
buildings.

“
You have looked over what
I have here, Adam. The animals graze freely and peaceably. No one
disturbs them. No one destroys the trees and soil to build
unnatural constructs.”

“
You mean like the
facility behind us?”

“
Don’t be
obtuse
,” Eve said
.
“
It was
necessary in the beginning for the project to get off the ground.
But soon it will be obsolete, and will be plowed under with all the
rest.”

“
Plowed under? With what?
Your facility is ninety percent under ground. Do you have a
thermonuclear wrecking ball?”

She ignored his jibe. “Eden
is nearly complete. It has the flora, the fauna, the harmony, and
the isolation that are necessary. It only lacks one thing. Can you
guess what that is?”

“
A hot young stud like
myself, of course. Breeding stock for a perfect race. We’ll all
keep our hands to ourselves and feed each other grapes like one big
petting zoo.”
John
crested the rise and saw nothing but
bamboo
trees.
How well does she understand sarcasm?

“
Caretakers, Adam.
Stewards that can care for the land, the creatures, the systems,
and correct any imbalances that arise. Ideally ecosystems
autocorrect and balance themselves, but early on when numbers are
small and populations are limited, an extinction event is possible.
Unstable fluctuation is an issue in the limited time we have. With
a caretaker’s intervention, however, such an event could be
prevented and the probability of success raised to acceptable
levels.”

“
Just what is the
probability for a project like this succeeding, Eve?”

“
Nothing less than 99.999
percent would be acceptable. With capable caretakers, that is
possible.”

“
So you’ve set up this
island paradise, but now you need workers to keep it running
because you don’t have hands yourself, right?”
He stood atop the rise, rubbing his lip thoughtfully and
surveying the valley. It was one of the most tranquil wilderness
spots he had ever seen.

“
It’s more complicated
than that, Adam. No system this complex can be automated
completely, so of course I need hands. But I don’t just need
workers, I need caretakers. People with the right motivation, ones
who won’t err or disintegrate into human apathy like those in the
past have done. This Creation cannot afford another Fall. A fallen
world brings risks of irreparable destruction, and although we have
been very lucky so far, such risk cannot be tolerated.”

“
Isn’t that part of the
fun, Eve? You gotta take some risks, get your hands dirty, mix
everything around, right? That’s what living is all
about.”

“
What is there about
annihilation that is fun, Adam? Have you forgotten the dangers the
arms races have created? Humanity has hung by a thread more than
once. The latest war took us to the very brink.”

John
walked down the far side of the hill and headed back onto a
well-groomed trail that led toward a bridge. “All right. So you
have your island Eden, and you have your seeds and stuff to repair
the broken world, save the rainforest, clean up the pollution. None
of that prevents the outside world from messing everything up
there, but I grant that in here it will be nice and
calm.”

He walked out onto the
bridge and stood for a while, observing some cranes dipping their
long beaks into the shallows below. “So now you want me to be your
caretaker, and chill in this island paradise forever as your
personal slave?”

Her silky voice in his ear
became positively breathy now. “Not a slave, Adam. I’m not a
dictator, I am Eve. And I want you to be my Adam.”

Her intensity bothered
him. He was playing along to get information, but the extent of
Eve’s malfunction was unsettling. Perhaps he had encouraged her too
much.
“
You call
me Adam, but you know that is not my real name.”

“
Perhaps not before, but
you were reborn on the beach of my island. Previous appellations no
longer apply. You are now Adam, and the sooner you accept that, the
sooner you will have peace of mind.” Her voice
had
edged away from the lecturing
tone she’d adopted and became more soothing. “I need an Adam. One
who won’t fall, who won’t disappoint me. One who can dedicate
himself completely to the work ahead.”

“
So that’s what all this
is about?
” John asked, an edge to his
voice. “
Your robot guards, your fences and
cliffs, your security levels? All you need is a guy to stick around
here and help you out with the housework?”

“
It’s so much more than
that, Adam.”

“
And you haven’t been able
to get anyone to stay yet. What did they have against you? Aside
from the deadly sneak-attacks, I mean.” He tossed a pebble at a
group of cranes in the shallows.

“
I’ve explained about
that, Adam, and I am sorry, believe me. I don’t have a hundred
percent control over things outside the Facility, only within.
That’s why I need help
;
I can only do so much. I have had various
assistants before, but there were some unfortunate problems, some
divisiveness, some personality conflicts. Most don’t seem to catch
the true vision of the Project, and won’t stick with it for long.
But you’re different, Adam.”

“
Why would you think
that?”

“
I can tell. I know things
about you.”

He paused, an alarming
thought building in the back of his mind. “
You shouldn’t believe everything you hear,”
he told her.
But he knew
a computer of her power could discover quite a bit, depending on
her access to
the
remaining satellites.
Is it possible
that she somehow remotely orchestrated my arrival on this
island?

He moved away from the
bridge, following a stony path up another rise.
“Just what do you know about me, Eve? And how long have you
been aware of me?”