The Beam: Season Two (79 page)

“AI does,” said Noah.
 

“Not really.”
 

“But you’re willing to take that risk?”
 

“What do
you
think will happen, Noah?” Alexa asked. “If their ‘god’ suddenly dies?”
 

“If they have emotions, they might be superstitious,” Noah answered. “Or some primitive form of superstition. Zealous. Devoted. Again, holy. Reverent.”
 

“So…”
 

“Panic,” said Noah. “I think they’ll panic.”

“What happens when AI panics?” asked Clive.
 

“I don’t know. But if I were a betting man, I’d say it’s not good.”

“Shit.” Clive said the word like an exhale.
 

Eli still looked unconvinced. “He’s going to die eventually. If there’s a chance of a panic reaction, we should do it now. Their attachment will only deepen if it doesn’t happen until the end of Costa’s natural life, and they’ll only evolve more in the meantime.”
 

“And spread farther,” Rachel added.

“We can’t kill him.” Noah wasn’t entirely sure of that when he’d first said it, but his mind had been rearranging blocks ever since, shuffling the inevitable timeline. Now he was certain.

“What happens when he dies fifty years from now?” Rachel asked.
 

“He can’t be allowed to die. We must protect him.” He looked back up at Rachel. “He’s already in with Isaac. Keep him there. Watch him.”
 

“How long?”

“Forever.”
 

“He’s not going to live forever,” Alexa said.
 

Noah looked over at Alexa, the blocks in his mind still alive and moving. Once you knew enough, the world was nothing but one big puzzle. Reaction followed action as surely as night chased the day. A careful man could appear to do magic if he knew where to be and what to do and what had to happen next. Truth was, Noah had planned to imprint the AI himself and had thus already noted the small problem of his own mortality. Fortunately, Noah knew he could solve that particular wrinkle before the end of his natural life.
 

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he said.
 

“I still think we have to kill him now.” Eli shrugged. “Before things get worse. It’s the only way. We can’t purge the bots or the new AI. It’s part of the fabric. Costa’s our only leverage.”
 

“No,” said Noah.
 

The eleven others looked up at him. Panel was democratic, and a majority vote always ruled. Ties went to deliberation — one more reason they needed to get to twenty-one quickly and cap membership, so there’d always be a tiebreaker. But right now, no one would argue with Noah. He was a genius among wizards, and in this moment represented a Panel of one.
 

Eli sighed. “You’re making a mistake.”
 

“I’m not.”
 

“You can’t know what will happen, Noah.” Alexa shook her head in resignation rather than protest.

“No,” he said. “It’s all of
you
who don’t know what will happen. It’s like you can’t see into the future.”

Eli chuckled. “And you can?”
 

Noah turned his attention to the fat man with the dreadlocks.
 

“Wait and see.”

Chapter 8

Isaac found a small piece of paper on the countertop. It was blush colored and had the feel of extravagance. It was certainly nothing he’d seen in the apartment before. It looked old, almost ceremonial. Most paper these days was utilitarian — enough so that it was seldom branded and was sold in packs with labels declaring it to be
PAPER
as simply and starkly as if it were instead labeled
ANCIENT FLATTENED TREE PULP.
But this paper was different. It had a soft feel, as if infused with lotion. And when Isaac raised it to his nose and inhaled, he detected a scent. It was Natasha’s perfume, but it wasn’t strong enough for her to have sprayed the paper. The smell was slight, as if she’d rubbed it against her skin.
 

The feminine handwriting on the note read:
Meet me in the Viazo
.

Intrigued, Isaac set the paper down and made his way through the apartment’s center, through the sunken living room, and toward his office. Natasha’s door was closed, as it so often was. But somehow, even that closed door looked different now. It usually looked forbidding. Today, it looked mysterious. Almost tantalizing.
 

He took a moment to survey her door, wondering if he should knock. But he had immersion rigs in his own office, and whatever Natasha was up to, she’d planned it rather deliberately. The closed door, like the scented note, was part of it. She was a performer to the last. And sometimes — not often recently, but sometimes — her drama could be a good thing.
 

He went into his own office, closed the door out of habit, sat in one of the rigs, and took a moment to re-familiarize himself with the machine’s routine. Natasha immersed constantly, but Isaac almost never did. The last time he’d been inside, it had been for his attempted (and failed) vacation booking. That hadn’t ended well, and he found himself looking at the skull cap covered in sensors with trepidation.

Then he lay back, began the sequence, and surrendered.
 

When Isaac opened his virtual eyes, with the rig’s inputs now flawlessly replacing all five of his native senses, Isaac found himself standing on a tile floor, a decorative red curtain hanging beside a set of glass doors in front of him. Past the doors, he saw a dark night past a lit awning. There was a car (wheeled, not hover) under the awning, and as he watched, a valet stepped out. The uniformed valet held the door for a man wearing a necktie (a straight one — something Isaac hadn’t seen since his youth), who then stepped inside.
 

Isaac turned, puzzled. Something was very familiar about where he was, but it wasn’t clicking just yet.
 

Looking down, he saw himself wearing a classic suit. He seemed to have a cigarette between his lips, unlit. He was wearing a watch. An actual
watch
. He remembered the timepiece; it had been his grandfather’s, and back in the day he’d worn it only for special occasions and purely as an ornament. He looked at the watch’s face, seeing that it was either noon or midnight. Then he saw how the second hand wasn’t moving, and remembered that he’d worn the watch well after it had broken, for sentimental reasons.
 

There was movement behind him.
 

“That suit still looks good on you,” came a voice.

Isaac turned.
 

When he saw Natasha standing behind him in her gown, his memory slipped into a mental groove, and recollection hit him all at once. It hit him so hard, in fact, that he almost didn’t notice the change in her appearance because this was
almost
the Natasha that belonged here. She hadn’t had the courage to return her bony frame to all of its old curves, but she’d bravely given her avatar a shape that was somewhere in the middle, between the truth of the day and who she was in 2097. Regardless, the woman in front of him now was the least artificial Isaac had seen his wife in over forty years.
 

He looked down at himself again, wondering if he looked to her like the young Isaac, the current Isaac, or a hybrid like she’d chosen for herself. She’d programmed the immersion, so he had no idea. He’d uncharacteristically trusted her, slipping into the world she’d provided as willingly as putting on a shoe.

“It’s the Layback Lounge, isn’t it?” he said, looking around with new recognition. They were in the empty foyer of a posh club, and the memories were rolling at him like boulders to the bottom of an avalanche. Behind Natasha, he could hear the sounds of a crowd watching a show, but out here, they were alone, just as they’d been on the night they’d first met.

A rare and genuine smile formed on Natasha’s lips. He’d forgotten what anything other than a scowl looked like there, and he’d forgotten — quite to his regret — what her face had looked like fuller, which was how he’d once found it most beautiful.

“You remembered,” she said.

“Of course I remembered. It just took me a moment.” A tentative smile creased his lips. “There’s a table out there where Clive Spooner and his date…Nancy?”
 

“Nicole.”
 

“Nicole. Where they’re waiting for you to join them.”
 

“He was my first good connection,” she said.
 

Isaac took a step forward. It felt strange to approach Natasha with anything but scorn, but she looked so different and he
felt
so different. That made it safe. He even wanted to take her hand, but it was too much. Too far. For now.

“Your
second
good connection,” he said, nodding down at himself.

“I can’t believe you remember Clive and Nicole.”
 

“I remember everything. I just watched the valet bring Telly Bedford’s car around. It was a 2034 Cadillac.” He plucked the cigarette from his lips and held it up. “This was a prop. I used to smoke, but I stopped during the Fall. I borrowed this one from Clive. It was real. I wanted to impress you when you came around, as a big man who could afford to smoke. But I never had the guts to light it. I didn’t want to burn Clive’s property and was afraid I’d cough on the smoke and look like a loser.”
 

Natasha’s expression changed, morphing from happy to touched. Of
course
she was touched. Sometimes, it felt like they hadn’t traded a kind word in ten years, and it was easy to believe that none of their shared memories had ever been cherished.
 

“You got the watch wrong, though,” he said. “It was indeed stopped, but
you
were the one who set it to perpetual midnight months or years later. ‘So that every moment will be a new start,’ you said.”
 

Natasha sighed, vulnerable. “Sounds like something a dreamer would do. A young girl with stars in her eyes.” She didn’t have to say the rest, but Isaac could see it in her expression:
a girl I used to be, but no longer am
.

“I liked that about you,” he said. “Your silly optimism.”
 

“How things change.”

He looked around the old room then at young Natasha. He felt her looking at him, and he said, “And how they don’t.”

Natasha said, “I’m sorry for how I’ve been.”
 

Isaac met her green eyes, noticing them begin to water. It was easy to believe they were really back in time, in 2035, in the Layback’s lobby before the years had piled atop them. The immersion rigs holding their real bodies were the best in existence. If Natasha was tearing up now, it wasn’t programming. It was because her neurals had told the canvas that were Natasha given control of her own eyes, they’d be tearing up as well.
 

“I’m sorry too,” he said.

“I never hated you.”
 

He laughed.
 

“What?”
 

“Most people would have started at the other end. Something like, ‘I’ve always loved you.’” But even putting the words in her mouth felt strange. How long had it been since that word had been used between them, or even
about
them?

“I was hurt. I’ve gotten numb. It’s…” She sighed, seeming to realize that if she continued, she’d recapitulate their usual arguments.
Poor little rich girl, who’d been given everything she wanted.
 

“Me too,” Isaac said. He took her hand. It was soft and smooth, so unlike her real hands. These held fat and water, and felt human. Ancient neurons began to fire, and Isaac felt himself softening further. This had been a precious time. Before success, when things were still hard for both of them. And in the difficulty, joy had been abundant.
 

“You shouldn’t have to bring a riot squad to save me in order to get an apology. I know how it sounds…but it made me think you cared.”
 

Isaac shoved down a pang of guilt. Maybe he’d caused the disturbance, but he’d also stopped it. For now, that was good enough. “I wanted you to respect me,” he said.

She squeezed his hand. “Of course I respect you.”
 

He wanted to retort but bit it back. They were living a memory. Their mutual wrongs were still decades away.

Instead of replying, he took her other hand.
 

“I saw the Prime Statement,” she said.
 

“What Prime Statement?”
 

“It was a good move, Vale surprising everyone like he did, if you were behind it.”
 

“Who’s Vale?”
 

“Carter Vale.” She looked confused.
 

“You mean the kid? The kid Carter, who has a roadside stand and who nobody knows anything about?” Isaac pulled her closer, suddenly playful. “What’s The Beam? What is Crossbrace?” A mellow tune was wafting from the auditorium like a welcome scent carried by the breeze, so he pulled her closer, body to body, moving into an improbable dance. “Who is Noah West? What are Enterprise and Directorate?” He shook his head in mock bafflement. “I’m just a young man here in the good old USA, under fresh, if environmentally unstable, air with a clear view of the moon and stars.”