Elizabeth Bear - Hammered

Twenty minutes later, they stood in cold morning blackness. Valens watched as Alberta bent into the steam of her coffee, savoring the aroma with her eyes half closed. She didn’t look up as he related the information about the odd power spike, and the brief incursion into the well-guarded systems monitoring Casey’s vital functions. “And of course, there have been those consistent malfunctions in our monitoring of Castaign, his older daughter, and occasionally Casey. Very convenient, I’d say.”

“Interesting. But no apparent attempts to contact Dunsany?” She sipped her drink, rolling the fluid over her tongue.

“I suspect the AI — if that’s what it is — is too smart for that. On the other hand, if it’s interested in the others, perhaps we can use that to trace it.”

“Trace it? And destroy it?”

“Hell no,” Valens answered. “Catch it. Use it. Faster than building one from scratch.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” She had that arch look, the one that said she expected him to fail her. Again . The way he’d failed her on Mars.

He grinned. “Then we use the one that I think generated in our intranet this morning. The bastard’s laying eggs, Alberta. And it can be made to serve our purposes.”

9:30 A.M., Wednesday 27 September, 2062

National Defence Medical Center

Outpatient Surgery

Toronto, Ontario

Elspeth leaned her head against Gabe’s shoulder in the white-tiled waiting room and sighed as he embraced her. “Tomorrow,” she said. “He’s decided. He wants the life support turned off.”

He held her awkwardly, she thought, as if he wasn’t sure exactly how much latitude he had. Which is just fine with me. After a moment, she slid out of the embrace. “Any word on Leah?”

He shook his head. “They said she should be in the recovery room within ten or fifteen minutes.”

“Do they sedate for this?” She sank down into a tubular steel chair, harsh with orange upholstery. Her hands fretted the smoke-colored cloth of her trousers, folding it into spindles like a paper fan.

She didn’t look up, but from his tone she imagined him staring toward the door, unfocused. “Mildly. She’s to be conscious throughout the procedure, though. Apparently it’s just an introduction of nanosurgeons and a little stabilization. The bugs build everything over the course of days. You’re a physician — shouldn’t you know this?”

She snorted. “I’m a psychiatrist, Gabe. Med school does not a doctor make.”

“Ah. Oh, here they come.”

She looked up as he stood, checked the doctor’s expression — smiling — and laid a hand on his arm. “I’m going up to see Jenny for a minute. Then I’m going to sit with my dad. Come up when you’re done?”

“Of course.” Gently, he shook her hand off, and walked away.

Hours later, when Gabe had come and gone, Elspeth leaned her forehead against the back of her father’s fingers and closed her eyes. The ventilator hissed softly at his bedside. She was not sure how much time passed, but she didn’t think she slept.

Allen-Shipman Research Facility

St. George Street

Toronto, Ontario

Wednesday 27 September, 2062

Evening

Gabe and Elspeth settled themselves while Valens’s assistant brought coffee and mugs into the conference room. The colonel was already seated, waiting for them, and Elspeth took her time pouring coffee and fussing with the creamer. She pretended to listen while Gabe updated Valens on their progress with identifying candidates, but something about Valens’s smile made her think he wasn’t paying any more attention than she was.

She glanced away, scanning the over-air-conditioned conference room. The leather of her chair creaked as she leaned forward, idly flipping through notes on her HCD. I shouldn’t be here. I should be at the hospital. She glanced up again, looking toward Gabe but watching Valens.

Valens waited until Gabe finished, then let his smile widen a little bit. “It sounds like you two are starting to get some traction on this project. Excellent.” He paused and tapped the table edge with his light pen.

Here it comes, Elspeth thought. I wonder if he knows what Alberta told me about the starship. I wonder if I can use that…

“Unfortunately, our timetable has been stepped up—”

She took a breath. “Because the Chinese are moving faster than expected?”

He stopped midsentence and blinked. It was worth it just for the momentary look of surprise breaking through his control. “Where did you hear that?”

Gabe was staring at her, and she couldn’t read his face. “Doctor Holmes,” she answered.

“Ah. Of course.”

She thought he might be concealing a frown, but she wasn’t perfectly certain. So there is friction between Valens and the estimable Doctor Holmes. I wonder if that can be bent to our advantage. Dammit, I wish I could talk to Richard myself. She knew she couldn’t justify stalling the program further, not considering the Chinese competition.

She let Valens watch her while she thought, carefully and consciously smoothing her expression. “Timetable,” she prompted at last, and he nodded.

“We need an AI by Thanksgiving.”

“We can’t do it, Colonel.” She shook her head, a long, thoughtful sway. “Even if we started programming today, or tried again with one of the previous failures—”

“Which is why you’re not going to do that.” Making it Elspeth’s turn to stare. This is it, then.

She caught the warning, worried glance from Gabe from the edge of her eye. He knew where the conversation was going, too. Elspeth laid her light pen down across the face of her HCD. “What do you have in mind, then?”

Valens indicated Gabe with a tilt of his chin. “Your daughter’s recovery from her nanosurgery — no complications?”

“I expect she’ll be in school tomorrow,” Gabe answered, as if laying each word on the table in a cautious line.

“She’s been spending time in Avatar with an individual who we’ve determined has no existence outside of Gamespace.”

Oh, damn. This is not where this was supposed to go.

Gabe licked his lips. “How is that possible?”

“Well…” Valens let his voice trail off and sipped his coffee. Elspeth realized that hers had probably long gone cold. He continued, “There has been some indication that the proto-AI which Elspeth attempted to destroy back in 2048 actually managed to escape and has concealed itself in the Internet. If this is true, then the proto-AI has attained either sentience or a semblance thereof.”

“I don’t understand how this helps us,” Elspeth countered, stalling. Her agile mind flipped through scenarios, possibilities. He’s going to use Gabe’s daughter to catch Richard. That’s why she got the scholarship. She let her lower lip bell out and blew a wiry coil of hair back. This is all happening too fast, and there are no good choices.

She could help Valens catch and enslave Richard. Or she could essentially hand the future to a rival government. One without the finest of human rights records, at that. And there’s still the Richard-clone. And Jenny.

She wished she knew which way Jenny was going to jump.

Assuming Jenny ever walked again.

Her next thought made Elspeth reach for the cold coffee and down it anyway. Oh, hell. They don’t need her mobile to fly a ship through a VR link.

No, Elspeth. But they need her more or less willing. And that’s not something you can control, so let it go.