Xenoform (24 page)

Just then Roberts appeared up the stairs, his eyes fresh in his otherwise haggard face. He wore his long coat even at this hour of the day. ‘Have you lot heard the news?’ he asked without introduction. They assured him that they had. ‘I don’t mind saying that I’m a little worried about all this,’ he admitted, uncapping a synthihol beer and seating himself next to Spider. ‘Morning, by the way.’

‘Early for that isn’t it?’ asked Whistler innocently.

‘Like hell it is,’ he retorted, casually brusque, swigging from the beer. ‘Sleep well?’

‘All day. You?’

‘
Same. And I wake up this morning to find the world going to hell. Sounds like a lot of people have the greenshit.
Category-A Public Health Concern
– you hear that? And what’s with all this computer shit? I want to meet this guy Tec scraped from the sewers.’

‘Scraped from the sewers?’ parroted Spider. ‘Jalan sent him, idiot. From the Sunken Chest.’

‘I know who Jalan is – the computer barman, right? Give me that smoke, if you would, my good man. Don’t fuck around now.’ Roberts indicated Spider’s latest reeferette demandingly. Spider chuckled and passed it. ‘Let’s begin as we mean to go on. I’m guessing there won’t be work today, what with the whole bodymod market collapsing and seemingly the rest of the economy with it.’

‘Guess not,’ said Whistler. He had a point. ‘Don’t get too mashed just yet though – you never know. And stop with the good mood, would you? It’s just not the Roberts we all know and tolerate.’ Roberts just grunted in response, more in character again. Whistler continued with her eggs.

‘Anybody seen Sofi today?’ asked Spider. Shaken heads all round. ‘Who was the guy referred you to Haspan? The gun man? Maybe he can sort the mag-rifle. I don’t want to bother Tec with it any more – he has a lot on already.’

‘Will you forget about that gun?’ said Roberts. ‘Let’s just have a day off.’ He saluted his own remark with his half-empty beer bottle, then finished it in one gulp.

‘Fuckin’ gun’s expensive, Rob,’ answered Spider. ‘No I won’t fuckin’ forget it. If something kicks off here we’re gonna need all the firepower we have, and the mag-rifle’s a significant part of that. Roland, wasn’t it?’

‘Yeah,’ said Whistler. ‘He never gave us contact details, but he said to come back if we need anything. Good guy – I think I trust him. Roberts could go with you.’

Roberts was already protesting. ‘No, no, no and also no. I intend to be too drunk to drive within the next ten minutes. And I don’t mean legally, I mean physically.’

‘It’s...’ Whistler leaned over and checked Roberts’s watch implant. The readout glowed redly through the skin of his wrist. ‘...Ten fifteen in the morning. Take Spider to see Roland. He’s right. We can’t let weapons fall out of action. If it can’t be fixed, get another. Use the company account, up to twenty thousand. And even I know that the van can drive itself, so don’t give me that crap.’

‘Right,’ said Roberts darkly. ‘Thanks for that. I’ll take him in a bit, okay?’

‘Thanks, man,’ said Spider. ‘Damn thing’s been doing my head in.’

There was the sound of a door opening below and voices talking over each other. Whistler looked over the rail and saw that Tec and Sofi had entered the big room with Debian, conversing heatedly. Tec was laughing, and the sound of it lifted Whistler’s spirits almost back to where they had been when she first awoke. The three waved in greeting and climbed up to the mezzanine.

‘Guys, this is Debian,’ said Tec, indicating the slim young man at his side. Debian nodded shyly to them. ‘He’s one unusual suspect. Debian – Roberts and Whistler. Spider you know already.’ He indicated his colleagues. ‘Whistler is our chief slave-driver, and Roberts – what do you do again?’

‘I saw you mind-fucking the new boy in your lair, Tec.’ said Roberts accusingly, without looking up.

‘Don’t worry about him,’ said Tec to Debian. ‘He’s always unhappy in the morning. Or if he’s ill, or too stoned. Or not stoned enough, or not drunk enough, or around other people. Actually, I’d generally avoid him if I were you.’

Debian didn’t seem to know what to make of this. His blank crystal eyes surveyed the harvesters impassively. He was really, actually, very handsome, thought Whistler, despite the locked-in-a-dark-room-too-long look he had in common with most hackers. He showed no sign of any gunshot wound – perhaps the bandage was under his clothing. Anyway, Jalan must have done a good job, because he didn’t look like he was in pain. His gaze moved on to scan the dark expanse of the big room below – the masses of junk and strange artefacts. Whistler wondered what he thought of her odd little world.

‘So, Debian, sit down,’ said Whistler, receiving the smoke from Roberts. Debian sat in the indicated place, looking vaguely uncomfortable. His face was delicate, intelligent, but a hunted look was beneath the surface like a shadow. ‘Tell me about why you’re here.’

Debian felt Whistler’s cool blue eyes on his face like a cold wind and he shivered slightly. She had a frightening, wild beauty about her, despite her apparent geniality. Her face was a scribed with the glowing pattern of a circuit board, a striking imprint of the synthetic on the natural. She appeared to be a meathead, and he wondered if the circuit-board effect was some kind of statement. ‘There is something in the net,’ he said. ‘An AI, but very powerful, very aggressive. I’m not sure how it developed but...Have you ever heard of native AI? Emergent intelligence?’

‘Sure, it’s what all the conspiracy theorists go on about, isn’t it?’ answered Spider. ‘An AI that develops autonomously in the net – a true, evolved being, right?’

‘Right,’ he said. Everybody was listening to him. He looked around at their intent faces. ‘Evolved in its native medium, it would have an unrivalled mastery of its environment, or so they hypothesise. It would theoretically evolve from scraps of man-made AIs and mindless programs, honed by natural selection. Theorists say that the net is as fertile as the primordial soup from which biological life first emerged, the perfect petri-dish for artificial life to grow in.’

‘The strongest programs naturally survive, right?’ added Tec. ‘It works just like in the natural world. And some viruses and other autonomous programs are designed to steal worthwhile code from others, take on their abilities, change their own code.’

Whistler exhaled heavily. ‘If that happened, then the basis of this emergent intelligence would still be rooted in man-made code, wouldn’t it? It wouldn’t be that different from existing AIs, except maybe in complexity. I mean, I’m no expert, but...’

‘I suppose that is true, for all it matters, but we are talking about an entity that theoretically evolves from a pretty fundamental set of instructions. It would have been through so many changes that it would be unrecognisable. Theoretically. Is there any coffee?’

‘Er, sure, yeah,’ said Spider, indicating the kettle but not moving to assist. Debian stayed put. ‘Is that what this is, then? The monster that the crazies have been harping on about all these years?’

Debian shrugged and the spirit seemed to go out of him. ‘Native AI is sci-fi bullshit. I don’t know what this is. Maybe...I don’t know. Maybe we’re living in a sci-fi.’ He shook his head, his face downcast.

‘Where else could it have come from?’ asked Whistler softly.

‘Maybe it was just engineered in the traditional way. I made contact with it...’ He looked distant, troubled, but a little wistful too. ‘It seemed very powerful. I never met my match in a program before. I don’t know where it came from. Nobody has ever managed to grow a native AI in controlled conditions. By definition it kind of resists attempts at cultivation. I don’t see how it could have been made by any human being and I don’t see how it could evolve by itself.’

‘What the fuck?’ interjected Sofi. ‘This is insane. What are you saying exactly?’ Clearly a good sleep had not cheered her up.

‘I’m saying,’ said Debian, unruffled, ‘that I don’t know where it came from. But I’m afraid that I might have set it off in some way. They tricked me into meeting with it. I think it took a pattern-scan of my brain.’

‘Why?’ asked Whistler.

‘To augment its abilities, the way some AIs take code from other programs, maybe. The only other reason I can imagine would be to identify me. But my pattern isn’t on record anywhere, nor would anybody in the know expect it to be. I’m not boasting when I say that I am the best hacker I know of alive today. Of course, all the really good ones remain quite well-unknown, but even so. I can’t imagine why else it would have done it. This AI is behind all the computer problems going on at the moment. I can’t prove that yet, but I know it’s true. I would advise all of you to refrain from connecting to the net for a while. Not by DNI, not at all unless you have to.’

‘No problem for me,’ said Whistler, sweeping a hand through her dark hair, showing that there were no plugs on her skull.

‘Meathead,’ said Debian, as if this went without saying.

‘And is it this program that you’re hiding from? How can we hope to keep you safe from that?’

‘I think,’ said Debian softly, looking down at his hands, ‘that if it wanted me dead I would be dead already. I am hiding from the people who set me up. My ex-employer, or representatives of. Who they really are I don’t know. I thought I did, but I was naïve, I suppose.’

‘Could the AI be behind the greenshit?’ asked Whistler.

‘I don’t know anything about that, I’m afraid. I’ve been a bit wrapped up in my own problems, to be honest. I heard something on the news about it. Some bodymod infection, isn’t it?’

‘Something like that,’ agreed Roberts, stroking his chin, brow furrowed.

‘How’s it going with our money?’ asked Whistler directly. ‘This isn’t a hostel, you know.’ She flashed him a grin, exposing her small fangs, lighting her whole face up.

Debian realised that, if anything, he had underestimated her beauty. ‘I know,’ he said, suddenly transfixed by her.

‘It was quality, guys,’ enthused Tec. ‘Couple of spliced avatars, proxy chain a million miles long
– we
ran rings round the customs sniffer bots. It was actually pretty clever, the way
–
’

‘It wasn’t too difficult,’ interrupted Debian. ‘We set up a fictional company account at one of the orbital banks.
It’s surprising how easily tricked their ID verification systems are – s
eems to be kind of a deliberate lack of diligence. They made a payment to your account, then dissolved. Tec assured me that it didn’t matter if it looked illegal, as long as I wasn’t linked to you or your premises by name. I don’t think anybody would have noticed. My own account was actually quite subtly attached to me in the first place. I was reluctant to go back into the net, but it was important that I could pay you guys. I didn’t actually connect personally – we just used the terminal.’

‘Good, no, that’s fine,’ said Whistler. ‘We’re pretty much covered for illegal activity, we just don’t want your
interested party
coming round here.’

‘We transferred four hundred grand,’ he said quietly. The harvesters drew a collective breath. ‘I know that’s a lot, but I thought it would act as a token of my appreciation. For the risk to your good selves. I really don’t think I’m safe on the streets right now.’ His face was serious and pale in the waxy artificial light. Whistler wondered if he ever really smiled.

‘That’s fine,’ she said, quietly pleased. ‘We will help you however we can. Within reason. But if your friends come by here shooting guns and what-have-you, I guess we’ll have to decide on a proportionate response at the time.’

‘I don’t know what will happen, I’m afraid.’ And he looked afraid, too, to Whistler. ‘I will have to get out somehow. To somewhere.’

‘We’re at least pretty sure now that there isn’t a sub in Debian’s head, anyway,’ said Tec brightly. Nobody looked too thrilled. ‘That’s a good thing,’ he prompted them.

Roberts made a decisive sound and went to the fridge, from which he withdrew another beer. He looked like a man trying not to look furtive. When he turned back Whistler was watching him. ‘Yes, boss?’

‘Roland, remember? I don’t want you running around out there smashed out of your skull. Health and safety.’

‘Health and what? I’ll just take Get-Up, if I have to,’ he responded, defiantly uncapping the beer. They both knew that alcohol plus Get-Up didn’t exactly equal stone-cold sober, just more alertly drunk.

‘You’re going after that one, then?’ It sounded like a question, but Roberts recognised it as an order. He answered only with a barely perceptible nod.

Whistler turned again to Debian. ‘You smoke?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘No thanks.’

‘Your choice,’ she said and passed the last of the reeferette back to Spider.

‘So who are these people you think are looking for you?’

Debian managed to look small and frightened and resolute and strong at the same time. ‘Hex,’ he said darkly. ‘At least, that’s what the last one was named. I mean, I don’t know who they really are. Were. Alcubierre is supposedly the name behind it all, but whether that’s a backing corporation or a person I don’t know. I don’t suppose that name means anything to you?’

‘No, sorry. You say these people tricked you into getting your brain pattern-scanned by this AI? How?’