Reality 36 (29 page)

  AIs could split themselves into a variety of subsidiary minds, but these were unstable, prone to distraction and difficult to interface with. They, too, were illegal, mostly because an AI that broke itself into parts stood a good chance of driving itself insane as its mind attempted to reconcile multiple subjective experiences of one event. Watching such things from multiple viewpoints they could handle, but thinking of them as multiple experiences was dangerous. Turned out the universe wasn't as concrete as people thought.

  Richards did not always play by the rules.

  Otto was off-Grid. Richards could not aid Otto directly without revealing the German's location. That did not mean that he could not aid Otto indirectly.

  Richards had shaved off the merest sliver of himself, small enough to remain unnoticed, bright enough to help. Boxed in by task-specific programming and near-I adjuncts, detached from Richards' information stream, it was not properly aware, and Richards had what tiny thinking part it possessed sleeping in case it got ideas above its station.

  "I'll be having weird dreams for a few weeks after this," Richards had said when they'd last spoken. "But it will allow you to see. You'll be able to sense my scales like I do. If you're close enough to it physically, you should be able to find the phone, so get yourself close as you can, and plug in."

  He could only risk connecting up like this once or twice, because it was, as Richards had succinctly put it, dropping the PI act for the moment, "really fucking dangerous for meat minds to go raw on the Grid".

  Otto drew a deep breath. He didn't think he was going to get much closer than he was now.

  Otto, through this small part of Richards, would be able to feel the scales, also part of Richards. But to do that he'd have to see the world the way that Richards did. That's what was going to give Otto the mother of all migraines. If his head didn't pop.

  He procrastinated for a minute. "
Verdammt
," said Otto, and activated the software.

  The universe exploded out of the back of his head as Otto was joined to the Richards-sliver through his mentaug. The AR overlay vanished in a swirl of colour, and his near-I valet flickered out, a candle in a firestorm. Otto's perception of the Real receded and ceased.

  Otto was lost in a howling maelstrom of information. His mind stretched as he attempted to accommodate even a fraction of it. He was blind, deaf and dumb, but other, stranger senses unfurled themselves at exponentially increasing rates as his awareness spread itself over the Grid.

  With an effort of will, Otto stopped and reeled his mind back in, before he disassociated forever and was lost. The Grid was too big and there was not enough of him to embrace it all. His mind would smear itself across the virtual world until it was so dispersed as to be non-existent. He pulled his sense of being back into a shape that approximated his perception of himself. Struggling against the tempest, he moved forward. Ahead, shivering in a haze of knowledge, flashed a pair of ideograms representing the pair of Richards' scales that had tagged Chloe. A vortex of disinformation blurred them, but they were there. Otto dragged himself toward their location. There was a thundering in the ether about him, a howl of numbers. Before his ego shattered into atoms, he pulled the plug.

A cursor blinked. A checklist scrolled out below it. Icons filled a space, and a sense, not of words exactly, but of pure meaning, informed: "Cyborg unit 977/321-a1. Leutnant Otto Franz Klein. Incept date 13th May 2102. Reboot. Online. Near-I adjutant model 47 'Tiberius'. Reboot. Online. Systems operating at seventy-eight percent of optimal. Warning, maintenance required."

  Otto's native senses returned shortly after. For once he was spared the mentaug's merciless reminiscences. The scent of loam and ferns filled his nostrils. Birds sang somewhere. He rolled onto his back and opened his eyes. He spat soil and twigs from his mouth. He sat up and rubbed his head, dislodging more earth from his hair. His head throbbed. His visual systems cycled through the spectrum as they recalibrated themselves. This, very aggressively, did not help his headache.

  "Arrrr," he said, which did not help either.

  He'd moved. He was on his hands and knees, covered in mud and plant material, fifty metres into the forest, out of sight of the walkway down to the falls. He turned, and looked behind him. His head reeled with vertigo as he knelt and began to dig.

  Less than thirty centimetres down he came across a geckolock plastic bag. He unzipped it and pulled out a phone. It was small, slate-grey. Very businesslike, though a large animated flower decal on the top with the near-I's name glittering within its petals undid the effect.

Sentimental
, he thought.

  He flipped up the lid and pressed the "on" switch. The phone remained inactive, both top and lower screens inert, the same grey as the case.

  "Wake up, Chloe," he said. "I know you can hear me." He'd been speaking to machines all of his life, yet out here in the woods talking to the phone felt faintly obscene. "Tell me where I can find Veronique Valdaire."

  Chloe said nothing.

Chapter 19

The 36th Realm

Toward the tree the light of day disappeared to be replaced by a blue gloaming. The sun must have gone down by the time they finally reached the trunk, or so Jag surmised, but the dim blue light remained, shed from nowhere.

  The trunk was on an incomprehensible scale. They found themselves looking at a series of stepped, triangular plates of bark, built up to make the skin of the plant like a world-sized pineapple, with cracks as big as caverns in between.

  "I don't understand," said Veronique, her voice a hush in the arboreal silence, "why a monkey puzzle tree?"

  "I believe the good professor is joshing with us, asking that we play Jacks upon his beanstalk," said Jagadith. Both were whispering. The tree intimidated them.

  "No, he is also letting us know we are beneath him, presenting us with a vegetable to perplex an ape," added Tarquinius, his voice loud and unafraid, "condescending bastard."

  "Did I not mention that I have a doctorate?" said Veronique icily. "My point is that it is out of character. Professor Qifang would never have spoken down to someone so, or used such a crass visual metaphor."

  "I am thinking you may be in for a shock," said Jagadith. "You will find his character much changed. Godhood has a terrible karmic influence upon a man's soul."

  "Don't be surprised if he starts maniacally ranting either," added Tarquinius. "They always do that."

  "Quite," said Sir Jagadith.

  As activated by Jagadith's voice, a man stepped out from behind one of the oversized plates of bark. He came one freakishly long leg first, foot placed delicately, to land pointed toes first. A white gloved hand followed, fingers waggling, to grasp the edge of the bark, then another, then a smarming face dripping with oleaginous scorn appeared. His body came next, extracting itself from the crack with the slippery rush of a fatal confession.

  The man stood there before them, suddenly revealed. He was impossibly thin, clad in Edwardian black, long coattails flapping, shining black shoes covered by white spats, torso covered by a striped black and yellow waistcoat of a kind once favoured by gentlemen's gentlemen. His gloves had three brass buttons upon them that served no real purpose, aesthetic or otherwise. His hair was plastered to his scalp with macassar oil, parted to reveal a luminous scalp. He had a moustache so thin and heavily waxed it appeared painted on. His face actually was painted, bright white, with two rosy spots stamped onto each cheek. His eyes were mad, his capering wild. He had the demeanour of a maitre d' who regarded himself as so far above the others' station one needed a metaphorical radio telescope just to see him. He had an outrageous French accent to match.

  "
Bonsoir
, Chevalier, Monsieur Lyon, et M'selle Veronique! Ah! I thought it may be you when I sensed ze creation of new life only today. Very intrepid. Very bold. Maintenant, 'ow may I elp you zis fine eevning?"

  "Sweet lord, he's gone frog," said Tarquinius.

  "It is worse than we feared," said Jagadith. He drew his sword. "Stand aside," he said loudly. "We seek entrance to the Realm of the god who dares set himself above our world and remake it so. Do not attempt to stop us."

  "Oh, such a pity." The Frenchmen cradled his pointed chin in his hand and pulled an apologetic moue. "I do not zink zat weel be possible." He capered a quick flourish, then was suddenly still, his coattails whipping.

  "This does not bode well," said Tarquin. "And to think you mocked me for my concern."

  "I don't understand. I mean, surely you can deal with him? He's not really there, even by your terms," said Veronique.

  "But he is, madam goddess scientist," said Jag, turning in the saddle to face her. His face was lit by the glow of his sword, deathly grey in the twilit world of the tree. "That is part of your professor."

  "Part? I don't understand, I thought that we could only create false life in your world. How can he possibly be part of Qifang?"

  "He has split himself," said Jagadith.

  "Like an AI?"

  "After a fashion, though the creation of such as this does not involve the division of the mind, as it would for an AI. We've not seen it since the early days. A long time ago, the time of the first Wars-with-Gods," said Tarquin. "It's not supposed to be possible now. But we can see it. His signature stinks of binary cloning. It is him, but it is not. It means he can be in two places at once, and not in a figurative, nor in a purely mechanistic, sense."

  The Frenchman clapped slowly. "
Bon, bon
, very good. I see why ah 'ave not been able to deactivate you. You really are ze best, it is true. Ze legendary maharajah and 'is lyon! Ah, but it is something like from legende! Exquisite. So, bold
guerriers
, you 'ave a choice. You may turn back, and, in due course, ah will come to you and we may discuss the nature of your servitude in ma new werold order."

  "Why are you doing this?" said Veronique.

  The Frenchman flung his arms out and looked himself up and down. "Why not? A little theatre is an essential part of being a god,
non
?"

  "Jag, we cannot let this buffoon distract us. I don't like it," said Tarquinius. "His intention to delay us is succeeding."

  "Monsieur," said Jagadith, "I am assuming you were about to tell us that our other option was death?"

  "
Oui, oui. Exactement
." The Frenchman nodded, and stroked at his moustaches.

  Jagadith shrugged, "I thought as much. Please, be hearing me clearly now. I have been doing this for many years. So, I am respectively asking you if we may skip the rest of your monologue and move onto the part where we kill you and go about our way."

  "
Mais oui
! 'Owever, I am not so sure it will go the way you expect."

  "Now, Jag, now!" Tarquinius' battle armour slid from its hidden grooves.

  "Wait!"

  Too late the knight spoke, for the impatient lion pounced, drawing itself back and launching into the air in one swift motion. He landed where the Frenchman had been. A laugh mocked them from above. Tarquinius span round, and all three of them looked up. The Frenchman hung, a spider in morning wear, from the underside of a branch as wide as an autobahn. "A-a-a-a!" he wagged an admonishing finger, his spine cracking as his head turned 180 degrees to stare malevolently down at them. "I weel be going now. I weel not be seeing you again. Veronique, join me, leave zese two behind. I 'ave such things to show you, ah such marvellous, wonderful things! I am Zeus, I invite you to become ma 'Era."

  "Go to hell!"

  The Frenchman pouted. "Ah! Veronique, you upset me. You make a grave error. But,
c'est la vie
. As you wish. Die with your new friends." With that, the Frenchman let go of the branch with his hands and, standing on the underside of the branch, plucked a thin flute from his breastpocket. He covered a hole on the top and played a long, piercing wail like a bosun's whistle, wailing so high only the lion could hear its final notes. Tarquinius shuddered, moaning, shaking his head as if a troublesome fly was working its way into his ear. "Come monkee monkee monkee! Come monkee monkee monkee monkee!" said the Frenchman. He played the note again, causing Tarquinius to roar in pain and slam a missile into the Frenchman's perch. The man's legs grew obscenely long and he sprang away up the tree, leaping from branch to branch.

  "A tense encounter," said Jagadith.

  "Do not put up your sword yet!" cautioned Tarquinius, his voice heavy and weak, "something comes!" As the man's mad cackling grew faint, so a loud, cracking, snapping sound approached, coming down the tree toward them.

  "What the hell is that?" said Veronique, searching through the branches above.

  "Four hostiles approach!" said Tarquin rotating on the spot, scanning the limbs above. "I… I can't get a fix, Jag… I…"

  "Do not be telling me, you do not have any idea what they are."

  "No, Jag, no! Most of my senses are down. That accursed whistle!" Jag looked at the targeting screen. It crackled and blurred, reticules spinning uselessly.

  Streams of information rolled up the glass, none of it good.

  The crashing stopped. There was a tinny sound, as of cymbals of cheap brass being bashed together, following a raucous squawking. Further away came an answer: crash crash crash! "A-hooka! A-hooka! A-hooka!" Then again from directly above, and again from the left. Tarquin roared and flung more munitions into the tree above, blindly firing. A scalloped needle as large as a football field came sailing down, burning.

  "Where are they?" hissed Veronique.

  "There, there, and one up there," said Jagadith, indicating with his eyes. "The fourth I cannot see."

  Veronique followed his darting gaze. She caught a glimpse of a hulking silhouette the size of the lion. Two baleful red eyes looked back then were extinguished as the thing moved off into the darkness round the trunk.