Elizabeth Bear: Worldwired

I never began to imagine what I was in for, he thought, shifting focus as Constance Riel touched her earpiece and accepted his call. She wasn't in her temporary office in the provisional capitol, but a mobile one aboard her customized airliner. “Good evening, Dr. Feynman.”

“The same to you, Prime Minister. I understand that you will be touring the Evac with Dr. Valens tomorrow.”

“Preparatory to closing the relief effort, yes. I'm on my way there now. And on behalf of the Canadian people”—she leaned forward—“I want to formally thank you for your efforts. Which I am about to ask you to redouble.”

“Restoring the Evac is a lower priority than mitigating the climatic damage, you realize.”

A quick, dismissive flip of her hand reinforced her curt nod of agreement. “We have an official complaint on record from the PanChinese ambassador to the Netherlands, by the way. It seems he's attempting to get the nanotech infestation classed as an invasion of the sovereign territory of the PanChinese Alliance, and get it heard by the International Court of Justice.”

“You don't sound displeased.”

Riel grinned wolfishly. “We can't bring our suit for attempted genocide unless they consent to be a party to the case. Which they just did, more or less — or we can spin it so they did. Of course, Premier Xiong can't put up much of a fight, since he's still pretending the attack was the work of fringe elements.”

“If Premier Xiong was not privy to the attack, he may have a coup on his hands before too much longer. My analysis — which is based on severely inadequate data, and the preliminary testimony of Pilot Xie — is that the orders to attack must have come from high up in the PanChinese government.”

“I agree. Unfortunately, there's not much I can do about that currently. In a more immediate concern, though, World Health is on my ass again. We need a policy on use of your nanotech in medical emergencies.”

Richard sighed, pushing aside the “itch” that was the infestation's response to the damage surrounding the Impact. Life-threatening conditions first. Superficial wounds, no matter how unsightly, can wait. “This whole thing is a moral—”

“Quandary?”

“Quagmire.” He shrugged, hands opened broadly in one of the little gestures he'd inherited from the human subject his personality was modeled on. “I've got 60 percent global coverage right now and growing, and we used the nanosurgeons successfully on a few of the worst-injured Impact victims — and unsuccessfully on a whole lot more — but I've got extensive climatic damage to consider. I'm expecting mass extinctions, once the field biologists get some hard data back to us, and another spike in dieoffs once the dust clears and the temperature increase starts. Practically speaking, we can get a certain amount of the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere before then, but not enough to prevent the damage. We're talking mitigation at best, and we should expect a much warmer global climate overall.”

“How much warmer?”

“Think dinosaurs tromping through steamy tropical forests, and shallow inland seas. And wild weather. Also, we should expect earthquakes as the polar ice melts. It's heavy, you know—”

“These are all secondary concerns, aren't they?”

“Not in the long term.”

“They sound infinitely better than that snowball Earth you and Paul were talking about last year. Look, tell me about your moral quagmire first. The climate issues are easy; we mitigate as much as we can, and whatever we can't, we suck up. I'm worried about the personal cost.”

A moment of silent understanding passed between them, intermediated by the technology that permitted them to look eye-to-eye. Riel glanced down first. Since Richard's image floated in her contact lens, it didn't break the connection. “I'm tempted to tell you to restrict the damned nanosurgeons from PanChinese territory. But then they would claim we were sabotaging their environmental efforts and failing to make resources freely available on an equal basis… It's a mess, Dick. And once we move Canada off a crisis footing, smaller wolves than China are going to be sniffing about for a piece of the corpse as well. Russia and the EU have provided aid; it's not like I'm in a position to turn them away—” She choked off, shaking her head. “I love my job. I just keep telling myself that I wouldn't rather be doing anything else in the world.”

A shared grin, and Richard cleared his throat and hesitated — another simulation of human behavior. Most of the humans were more comfortable with him, rather than Alan — the only other AI persona who had had significant interpersonal contact. In fact, most of the humans had no idea the rest of the threaded personalities existed, yet.

Richard had never been one to spoil a surprise. “The least complex solution would be to prepare a contract and ask any country that wishes my intervention to sign it.”

“What are we going to do about sick people who wish to volunteer for nanosurgical treatment?”

“We'll have to let them volunteer,” Richard answered. “We've already used the nanites on Canadians in a widespread fashion. It would be… inhumane to restrict the benefits to your own citizens. But the volunteers will need to be apprised of the risks, which are significant.”

“Ever the master of understatement.” She pressed a fountain pen between her lips absently, sucking on the gold-plated barrel. Richard quelled the irrational — and impossible — urge to reach out and take it out of her mouth. “The promise of free medical treatment will open some borders. What about the nations that demand access to the augmentation program?”

“Military applications of technology have always been handled differently than medical ones.”

“Touché. People will scream.”

“People are screaming. This isn't magic, Prime Minister.”

“No,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “Just something that will look like magic to desperate people, and they'll be angry when it doesn't work like magic, won't they? Oh, that reminds me. I'd like to keep as many people — commonwealth citizens and otherwise — uninfected as possible.”

“Most people are going to encounter a life-threatening incident sooner or later.” But that wasn't disagreement. She was right; they didn't know what the Benefactors were capable of, or what they wanted, and it was their technology with which Richard had so cavalierly infected the planet.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

And cavalier wasn't a good word, though the process had been less cautiously handled than Richard would have preferred.

Less cautiously handled than Riel would have preferred, too, and she was talking again. “Most people are. Some will refuse treatment. Some won't need treatment. It's a unique situation; this stuff is loose in the ecosystem, but unlike every other contaminant in history, we have perfect control over it.”

“Or, more precisely, I have perfect control.”

“I, we. Which is another thing. Can't we make some hay out of PanChina having a worldwire of its own?”

“Well…” he began, “what they have is not exactly a worldwire. What they've got is a bigger version of the limited networks we started off with, much more protected, not self-propagating…”

“And not self-aware.”

“We hope.”

“Ah, Richard. I'd like to extend the offer of Canadian citizenship to you.” She raised her hand before he could comment, shaking her head so that dark curls brushed her ears and collar. “Don't jump up and say no. Think about it. For one thing, it would do wonders toward confirming your legal personhood. For another, there's the matter of our suit against China in the World Court, and the question of whether AIs can testify.”