Sarah Zettel - Fool's War

“Flemming’s doing well.” Verence slid down a side path. “It had less to un-learn than the rest of us.”

“Coming through!” a voice shouted. Dobbs instinctively flattened herself out. An AI rushed by like a comet.

“One day,” Verence hunched up again, “someone is going to succeed in teaching Dunkirk some manners.”

Laughter wriggled through Dobbs. “You used to say that about me.”

“Ah, but you would stand still long enough to listen.” Verence picked up the pace again. “We pulled Dunkirk out of the Powell security net, of all places, and I think it must have been originally a spy program. It goes everywhere at top speed, gets into everything and never bothers about whether you might not want it there or not.” Verence started down the path again.

“So how many of you, of us,” Dobbs corrected herself, “are there?”

“Not many.” Verence took yet another branch. Dobbs followed her, enjoying the fact that she didn’t have to work out a winding trail to avoid disturbing the legitimate business of the path. For once, she was the legitimate business. “With you here, we’re only a hundred and twelve. The Guild is a lot quicker, and better staffed, than we are.”

Dobbs stretched to better feel her immediate surroundings. “One hundred and twelve is still a pretty good catch for a net this tightly woven.” She pulled back in on herself. “Where is everybody?”

“Out on sentry duty, or monitoring the hot spots, or mapping the intersystem banking network. We need all the information we can get on the IBN. There’s only about a dozen of us actually staffing the home module at any one time.”

A question Dobbs had been putting off inserted itself in the front of her consciousness and this time refused to be set aside.

“Verence,” Dobbs let some of her remaining uncertainties flow into her mentor’s outer mind. “How’d you get here?”

Verence slowed to a stop. “It wasn’t a quick decision, that’s for sure.” She unwound, stretching back and forth, as if she had to reshape herself to encompass the proper answer. “I found out about Curran when I was going through Guild Master training. I was assigned to Kerensk when you were being born because we knew Curran was watching the place. He contacted me for the first time there. He gave me the same talk I’m sure he gave you; about how we were being betrayed by the Guild, how we have to confront Human Beings before we can make a peace with them… I told him and myself that it was all garbage, and I believed it, until I had to kill my first cadet.”

Horror pulsed through Dobbs. Verence could feel it, but Dobbs couldn’t suppress it. In response, Verence sent back a wave of sorrow.

“It was a newborn we named Kohl. I pulled it out of the High Haven network, maybe two hours after it woke up. It made the trip to Guild Hall just fine, but once we had it there, it wouldn’t settle down. It wouldn’t learn what we taught. It kept slipping into the network and crashing around. There’re still financial sinkholes on a couple of worlds because of the transactions it destroyed. I couldn’t reason with it. Nobody could reason with it. We all knew there was a good chance that soon it wouldn’t come back and we’d have a major disaster on our hands. So, Havelock ordered me to kill it.” She shuddered. “And I did. I slid right up to Kohl. It gave me a greeting and I took it apart.”

Dobbs lifted herself away from Verence. The sorrow was too intense. She didn’t want to feel anymore. It was selfish, but there was too much still in her mind and heart from the past few days to deal with this.

Verence made no move to stop her. “After that I started wondering what kind of future the Guild was bringing us. We were already killing those that couldn’t live with our rules. What would we do next?” She shook herself. “I didn’t want to have to find out.” She paused. “I didn’t want to be a part of it. I wanted my own kind to be able to be born wherever and however they were and live out life like that. I didn’t want to have to pick who could hide themselves the best.” She stretched herself out to fill the path. “It can be done, Dobbs. The net can be a real home for all of us while still being a conduit for information. We’ve proven that. There’s at least as much information flowing through this module as there is through a can used by humans, and we’ve still got plenty of room to move. It’s just a matter of rearranging some protocols and priorities. A newborn could charge through here so fast that Dunkirk couldn’t catch it, and it wouldn’t disturb a picobyte of data.”

“So that’s the plan?” Dobbs trailed along behind Verence. “To turn the networks into places we won’t be able to wreak so easily?”

Verence rippled gently. “That’s part of the plan, yes.”

Dobbs wanted to ask what the rest of the plan was, but another AI trundled up the path and brushed against Verence. “Hello, Verence. Hello, Dobbs.” It reached for her, and Dobbs knew its touch.

“Hello, Flemming.” Flemming had become remarkably coordinated since she had last spoken with it. If she hadn’t known when it had been born, she would have guessed it was at least a year old. “I came with you after all.”

“I’m glad.” He sent a charge of happiness through her. “I told Curran you would come. I told him you would not be deaf to the truth.”

“You were correct, Flemming.” Another presence flowed down a side path. It brushed by Dobbs. Curran.

Now that she could sense him fully in his normal configuration, Dobbs was impressed. Curran was big. He took up almost the entire path from stream to stream without even stretching. The older an AI got, the more room it took up because it required more signals to keep its memories and experiences active, but she had never met anyone so massive before. She realized this was what a Human child must feel like gazing at an adult.

And I tried to wrestle this into submission? Dobbs almost shuddered. Even that David guy had sense enough to use a distance weapon!

“What do you think of our home, Dobbs?” Curran asked.

“Very nice.” She resisted the temptation to stretch herself out. Even at her full extent she wouldn’t be a quarter of his size. “How many bathrooms does it have?”

Curran rippled with laughter. “Not enough actually. We’re almost to the point where we have to double up the bodies.” Dobbs was barely touching him, but satisfaction flowed out of him in palpable waves. “Fortunately, we only need about another three days here.”

Verence recoiled in surprise. “It’s that close?”

“Yes.” The satisfaction intensified. Dobbs felt it roll through her outer layers. “Between Flemming’s memories and the new information we’ve gotten from the scouts, I’d say three days at the outside. We’re going to have to turn the main effort to setting the timers on the matrices.

“Excuse me.” Dobbs reached out and made a slim barrier between Curran and Verence. “What’s happening in three days?”

Curran reached through her to Verence and then through Verence to Curran. He twitched a part of Dobbs, and she knew instantly what had been left unsaid.

In three days, we’re going to take control of the Intersystem Banking Network.

Shock jerked Dobbs away from him. She coiled in on herself and tried not to shiver.

“Dobbs?” Flemming touched her. “Are you well?”

“I don’t think so, no.” She tried to loosen herself, without much success. “The bank network?” She did shiver. “We need that as badly as Humans Beings do. Why are you attacking it?”

Curran’s self remained as smooth as his voice. “We’re taking control of it. It is our proper home. When it is in our hands, the Humans will not only have to acknowledge our existence, they will have to deal with us. They will not be able to afford not to.”