Ian McDonald - Cyberabad Days

‘Chai?’

‘Please.’ The anonymity of this civil service block is beginning to unnerve her: a city within a city. The chai is warm and sweet and comes in a tiny disposable plastic cup. Thacker’s smile seems also warm and sweet. He sits at the end of the desk, angled towards her in Krishna-Cop handbook ‘non-confrontational’.

‘Mrs Rathore. How to say this?’

‘My marriage is legal…’

‘Oh I know Mrs Rathore. This is Awadh, after all. Why, there have even been women who married djinns, within our own lifetimes. No. It’s an international affair now, it seems. Oh well. Water: we do all so take it for granted, don’t we? Until it runs short, that is.’

‘Everybody knows my husband is still trying to negotiate a solution to the Kunda Khadar problem.’

‘Yes, of course he is.’ Thacker lifts a manila envelope from his desk, peeps inside, grimaces coyly. ‘How shall I put this? Mrs Rathore, does your husband tell you everything about his work?’

‘That is an impertinent question…’

‘Yes yes, forgive me, but if you’ll look at these photographs.’

Big glossy hi-res prints, slick and sweet smelling from the printer. Aerial views of the ground, a thread of green-blue water, white sands, scattered shapes without meaning.

‘This means nothing to me.’

‘I suppose it wouldn’t, but these drone images show Bharati battle tanks, robot reconnaissance units and air defence batteries deploying within striking distance of the construction at Kunda Khadar.’

And it feels as if the floor has dissolved beneath her and she is falling through a void so vast it has no visible reference points, other than the sensation of her own falling.

‘My husband and I don’t discuss work.’

‘Of course. Oh, Mrs Rathore, you’ve crushed your cup. Let me get you another one.’

He leaves her much longer than it takes to get a shot of chai from the wallah. When he returns he asks casually, ‘Have you heard of a thing called the Hamilton Acts? I’m sorry, I thought in your position you would… but evidently not. Basically, it’s a series of international treaties originated by the United States limiting the development and proliferation of high-level artificial intelligences, most specifically the hypothetical Generation Three. No? Did he not tell you any of this?’

Mrs Rathore in her Italian suit thinks, this reasonable man can do anything he wants here, anything .

‘As you probably know, we grade and licence aeais according to levels; these roughly correspond to how convincingly they pass as human beings. A Level 1 has basic animal intelligence, enough for its task but would never be mistaken for a human. Many of them can’t even speak. They don’t need to. A Level 2.9 like your husband,’ he speeds over the word, like the wheel of a shatabdi express over the gap in a rail, – ‘is humanlike to a fifth percentile. A Generation Three is indistinguishable in any circumstances from a human – in fact, their intelligences may be many millions of times ours, if there is any meaningful way of measuring that. Theoretically we could not even recognise such an intelligence, all we would see would be the Generation Three interface, so to speak. The Hamilton Acts simply seek to control technology that could give rise to a Generation Three aeai. Mrs Rathore, we believe sincerely that the Generation Threes pose the greatest threat to our security – as a nation and as a species-that we have ever faced.’

‘And my husband?’ Solid, comfortable word. Thacker’s sincerity scares her.

‘The government is preparing to sign the Hamilton Acts in return for loan guarantees to construct the Kunda Khadar dam. When the Act is passed – and it’s in the current session of the Lok Sabha – everything under Level 2.8. will be subject to rigorous inspection and licensing, policed by us.’

‘And over Level 2.8?’

‘Illegal, Mrs Rathore. They will be aggressively erased.’

Esha crosses and uncrosses her legs. She shifts on the chair. Thacker will wait forever for her response.

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘A. J. Rao is highly placed within the Bharati administration.’

‘You’re asking me to spy… on an aeai.’

From his face, she knows he expected her to say husband.

‘We have devices, taps… They would be beneath the level of aeai Rao’s consciousness. We can run them into your ’hoek. We are not all blundering plods in the department. Go to the window, Mrs Rathore.’

Esha touches her fingers lightly to the climate-cooled glass, polarized dusk against the drought light. Outside the smog haze says heat. Then she cries and drops to her knees in fear. The sky is filled with gods, rank upon rank, tier upon tier, rising up above Delhi in a vast helix, huge as clouds, as countries, until at the apex the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, Siva look down like falling moons. It is her private Ramayana, the titanic Vedic battle order of gods arrayed across the troposphere.

She feels Thacker’s hand help her up.

‘Forgive me, that was stupid, unprofessional. I was showing off. I wanted to impress you with the aeai systems we have at our disposal.’

His hand lingers a moment more than gentle. And the gods go out, all at once.

She says, ‘Mr Thacker, would you put a spy in my bedroom, in my bed, between me and my husband? That’s what you’re doing if you tap into the channels between me and AyJay.’

Still, the hand is there as Thacker guides her to the chair, offers cool cool water.

‘I only ask because I believe I am doing something for this country. I take pride in my job. In some things I have discretion, but not when it comes to the security of the nation. Do you understand?’

Esha twitches into dancer’s composure, straightens her dress, checks her face.

‘Then the least you can do is call me a car.’

That evening she whirls to the tabla and shehnai across the day-warmed marble of a Jaipuri palace Diwan-I-aam, a flame among the twilit pillars. The audience are dark huddles on the marble, hardly daring even to breath. Among the lawyers politicians journalists cricket stars moguls of industry are the managers who have converted this Rajput palace into a planetary class hotel, and any numbers of chati celebs. None so chati, so celebby, as Esha Rathore. Pranh can cherry-pick the bookings now. She’s more than a nine-day, even a nine-week wonder. Esha knows that all her rapt watchers are ’hoeked up, hoping for a ghost-glimpse of her djinn-husband dancing with her through the flame-shadowed pillars.

Afterwards, as yt carries her armfuls of flowers back to her suite, Pranh says, ‘You know, I’m going to have to up my percentage.’

‘You wouldn’t dare,’ Esha jokes. Then she sees the bare fear on the nute’s face. It’s only a wash, a shadow. But yt’s afraid.

Neeta and Priya had moved out of the bungalow by the time she returned from Dal Lake. They’ve stopped answering her calls. It’s seven weeks since she last went to see Madhuri.

Naked, she sprawls on the pillows in the filigree-light stone jharoka. She peers down from her covered balcony through the grille at the departing guests. See out, not see in. Like the shut-away women of the old zenana. Shut away from the world. Shut away from human flesh. She stands up, holds her body against the day-warmed stone; the press of her nipples, the rub of her pubis. Can you see me smell me sense me know that I am here at all?

And he’s there. She does not need to see him now, just sense his electric prickle along the inside of her skull. He fades into vision sitting on the end of the low, ornate teak bed. He could as easily materialise in mid-air in front of her balcony, she thinks. But there are rules, and games, even for djinns.