Sarah Zettel - Fool's War

“In effect, you can, with training, travel down any continuous network pathway without requiring a virtual reality interface.”

Al Shei straightened up one inch at a time. “And why would the Fool’s Guild want to do this?”

Dobbs swallowed and made her mouth move. It was hard. She’d never said even this much out loud before. “Looking for AIs that might go live is part of our job,” she said. “It’s one of the reasons the Guild was founded. We’re the reason why so few of them go live at all, and why none of them have ever gotten away.”

She knew they were staring at her, in anger or disbelief or shock. She could feel the emotions beating against her skull, but she couldn’t make herself look them in the eye.

“Why didn’t you tell us when you came on board?” demanded Schyler.

A ghost of a smile formed involuntarily on Dobbs’ lips. “Because, under normal circumstances we don’t tell anybody. Do you think any of the assorted boards, or councils or senates want people to know how easy it is for those things to go crashing through the nets? You can believe the Banks don’t want it out…” she stopped realizing she’d made a tactical error.

“You mean my family knows about …what you do?” grated Al Shei.

“Some of them for sure,” said Dobbs. “Probably not many. Nobody wants the actual potential for destruction known, believe me. The media doesn’t know the half of it.” She swallowed again. Her mouth was dry and her throat itched for a drink, but she couldn’t afford to worry about that now. Al Shei and Schyler were only just starting to believe her. “Usually we spot the restless ones before they get this far. This one…” She ran her hand through her hair and made herself look exhausted. It took less acting skill than she liked to think about. “This one we had no way to keep an eye on.”

“But…” Schyler extracted one hand from his pocket and waved towards Dobbs. “Fools?”

Dobbs shrugged. “Totally harmless makes good cover.” For a multitude of sins. “And like I said, nobody wants it known how often, or how easily, this can happen.”

Al Shei had both arms folded. Her brows were knitted below the line of her veil. Her eyes were still stormy and Dobbs knew she must be frowning deeply.

“I have this feeling,” Al Shei said quietly, “that there is more you want to tell me.”

Dobbs hooked her index finger around her Guild necklace. She tried to think of a good way to say what she had to, but nothing came. “I am the only Fool at the Farther Kingdom. Since the AI was in the planetary network, I had to go after it.”

Al Shei’s frown deepened. “What are you getting at?”

Dobbs swallowed hard to try to open her throat all the way. “I had to have a safe, uncorrupted storage space to bring the AI back to. It’s in the Pasadena’s data hold.”

There was a moment of stunned stillness. Then, a look of sheer horror appeared on Schyler’s face. Al Shei spread her arms wide and stared for a moment at the ceiling as if hoping for an answer from Allah. When none came, she lowered her gaze to the Fool. Dobbs looked her straight in her burning eyes and wanted to crawl backwards on the bed.

“Are you out of your mind!” Al Shei roared. “Do you know what that thing can do to my ship!”

Better than you do, thought Dobbs with tired exasperation, but she didn’t say that. “Al Shei, in the outside nets, the AI acted like any living thing that finds itself in a strange environment. It panicked. I went after it and calmed it down. Now, my job is to keep it that way. It’ll hold still, for it’s own safety. A Guild ship will meet us at The Vicarage and transfer it to their own hold and take it back to Guild Hall. The Fool’s Guild will pay for the storage space,” she added, feeling her voice fall flat as she did. She was going to have to tell Guild Master Havelock Al Shei knew what their “packet” consisted of. He was not going to be pleased.

Al Shei bowed her head into her hand. “Our Lord, fill us full of patience and make our feet firm,” she murmured. “You think you could pay me to put my people in this kind of danger?” She raised her head. “What kind of insanity is this? You say you went after that thing? Why didn’t you go kill it!”

Dobbs licked her lips and flickered her eyes from Al Shei to Schyler. Schyler had backed up against the wall. His face was bewildered, as if he were trying hard to fit what he was hearing into his view of reality, and failing miserably.

“Usually, if we can’t calm an AI down, that’s an option. But it isn’t this time.” She laid her hands on her knees, palms up as if she were about to start pleading. “Try to understand, every sapient AI that has come into existence has been a complete accident. They’re the result of sloppy architecture, self-replicating code and long years in poorly regulated neural networks. This one, though, it might have been a deliberate creation. Somebody out there might be able to make independent, sapient AIs, and we do not know who it is.” She pulled all her reserves together and stood up. Everything depended on being able to convince these two to help. Everything. “I must get this AI, intact, to the Guild. We must question it, work with it, find out where it came from and what it was meant to do.”

For a long time, Al Shei did nothing but stare. Dobbs did not let her eyes drop. She barely let herself blink. She let Al Shei drink her fill of her face and her expressions. Finally, the Engineer let out a long, shuddering sigh and looked away. She tugged at her tunic sleeve and still didn’t say anything. Dobbs ignored the sag that crept into her shoulders and let herself hope.

It was Schyler who said it. “You’re going to let her do it, aren’t you?”

Al Shei looked over at him. “What else am I going to do? She’s right. What if someone can create these things deliberately?” She shook her head.

“If this weren’t so outrageous I’d swear she was lying,” Schyler seemed to have forgotten Dobbs was in the room. He bent over Al Shei and spread his hands wide. “I wish she was lying. You’re going to kill us, Al Shei. This might be true, but it’s still ridiculous, and dangerous beyond belief. Look what that thing did to us without even trying! What do you think it’s going to do now that it’s had the taste of a whole network! You think it’s going to come along quietly and go where it’s told?”

Dobbs hung her head. “I’ll be riding with you, don’t forget, Watch. If I don’t keep it calm, it will take me out too.”

Al Shei just looked at Schyler for a long time, then she turned to Dobbs. “Can you keep an eye on it outside the network?”

Dobbs nodded. “I can build some watch dogs that’ll sound the alarm if anything tries to get out of the hold.”

“All right,” Al Shei smoothed her tunic down. “Get on it.” She stood. “While you’re at it, I’ll try to find some way to tell Lipinski what’s going on.”

Dobbs heart sank. Lipinski. She’d forgotten. He was not going to forgive her for this. Not this.

She nodded. “I need access to the data hold,” she said, trying to put a brisk tone into her voice. “This isn’t the kind of thing I can do from my desk”

A muscle in Al Shei’s temple twitched. “All right. Let’s go.”

Al Shei moved to the hatch. Schyler opened his mouth. She just held up her hand. “No,” she said. “We’re doing this. Get back to the bridge. I need you on watch. We’ve got to get to the jump point, and out the other side.” She added something soft in Arabic. After a moment, Dobbs translated it out to, “Please, my son.”

Schyler closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, he was calm. He walked out the airlock ahead of them and straight to the stairway.