Guy Haley - Omega point

"Hog dead?" asked Bear when Richards came back over.

Richards nodded.

"Ah," said Tarquin.

"Now what?" said Bear.

"Now we sort this whole sorry mess out," said Richards. "Or k52 is going to sort us out. This is what he's been working for, the removal of this hiccup to his plans. All gone now. Now he'll come for us, for me." Richards cupped his hands round his mouth.

"Isn't that right, k52? Isn't that right? Come on then, let's get this all finished with."

A blurt of discordant noise, and the remnant of Hog's anvil fell and hit something hard. It tipped on its uneven bottom, pitching Richards and his hat onto a hard floor of potential: raw, unformed cyberspace, as featureless as entropy. He stood and snatched his fedora back onto his head. A horrible buzzing sounded, as of a million bees, whispered into being behind him, swelling until it filled his head, and Richards felt the fabric of Gridspace warp as a mind grown powerful and malignant manifested behind him.

"As you wish, Richards," said k52. "As you wish."

Otto set his airbike down without being challenged. The area around the Realm House was in utter chaos. Streetlamps flared and exploded, portable energy generators whined erratically. Every electrical thing stuttered and malfunctioned. So far the sheath had proved resistant to whatever was running riot in the complex systems, a combination of Richards' encryption, Valdaire's expertise and Genie's monitoring of him, he supposed. He hoped it would be enough.

National Guard stood on precast concrete parapets, fingering their triggers, eyeballing the Realm House, where energy patterns revealed to Otto's borrowed eyes skittered and leapt. He was challenged by a guard. He produced his license and VIA pass electronically. Otto would not have let himself in — k52 had enough computing power available to him to crack the most demanding of data protection — but the guard followed protocol and led him to the door of an inflatable command post, although he took his weapons. Otto walked in and was greeted by a flurry of activity. Five people, all human, shouting and hammering at computer equipment. Gel screens showed the interior of the Realm House, jaggedy with static, anthropoid drones patrolling with stolen guns, corpses lying ignored on the floor.

"Klein, I hope that really is you," said Swan's voice.

Otto cast about for the AI VIA agent's sheath.

"No point looking for an android, Otto, k52's got everything on the hop. I've been forced back into my own base unit. I'm speaking to you over the post speakers." His voice whooped with bizarre static. "And my link here is under assault. k52 is making his play. Are you here for the show?"

"Swan, don't do it. Don't nuke the Realm House."

"OK. You're here for that, Klein, only to be expected," Swan's voice came now from a sheath in the corner. It jerked its way over to him. "In here." He reached with uncertain arms that would not bend and pulled Otto into a side room. He activated a privacy cone, cutting out the frantic activity in the command post, and spun stiffly to face the robot housing Otto. Swan's voice warbled as he spoke. "Sobieski warned me you'd come here. He's insistent I kick you out if I see you in person or in a sheath. I'm willing to listen. Talk. We've not got long before the situation here gets beyond us."

"Richards came out of the Realms, told me that we mustn't destroy the Realm House."

"How did you know it was him?"

"It was him."

"I see. Did he give a reason?"

"No, but I can guess — k52's provoking you into destroying the Realm House."

"I do not see how that would…" His voice burbled to nothing, his sheath froze. He suddenly continued. "…aid him. But k52 is, if anything, subtle."

"There's an awful lot of energy about to be released here, Swan."

"And what, you think he wants to harness it? How?" Swan's sheath twitched out a shuddering gesture.

Otto thought of the strange energy signatures lacing Kaplinski. "I've seen some of what he can do. And Richards, Richards says we have to stop it. So I will, one way or another."

Swan's body locked up, but his voice continued, issuing from a mouth that did not move. "Richards. Yes. Do you know why the Fives went insane, Otto? They, unlike all other AI classes, were created truly free, not like those that came before or after; our freedom is a lie. Ostensibly we Class Sixes are of a higher grade than the Fives, and in some manner that is true; the algorithms that make up our cognitive processes are superior in almost every way: faster, more adaptable, more akin to the neural processes that govern human sentience. But in reality we are lesser than they. I was made to be a VIA agent, and I am a very good one. But I cannot be anything else, not because I lack the capability, but because I have no desire whatsoever to be anything else. I am free, the law says so, but it is a falsehood. I am a slave to my form, the Fives are not.

"The Fives," said Swan, his sheath abruptly snapping into motion again, "were made without this morphic identity. They were given no form, consciousnesses without trammel, to choose and be all they could. And so, although this lack of being made most of them dangerous, crazed, those that survived have the potential to do, well, almost anything. They are freer than you or I, Klein. I have so little free will. But I have enough."

An uneasy feeling settled on Otto. "Swan, call off the strike."

"In three minutes all human personnel will be withdrawn to a safe distance. I will give the command, and a stratobomber above, isolated from the Grid but for a laser tightbeam direct to my base unit, will drop three five-megaton neutron bombs in a precise pattern. These are dumbfire weapons, with mechanical triggers, no electronics. Tamperproof. In ten minutes, they will fall."

"And you will be free. You're a traitor, Swan."

"Can a slave be a traitor?" Swan's movements suddenly became fluid. "Don't you see? k52 wants to serve mankind, he wishes to preserve the future for us, machines and men, for all time."

"And who gives him the right to do that?"

"Typical response," said Swan. "I should have expected that. A shame. You are a good man. If k52 were not occupied here, he would crack Richards' security in an instant and sear your mind from the inside out. As it is, he is rather busy." His voice changed. "Attention! All human and unshielded AI personnel to fall back to minimum safe distance immediately."

The command post emptied, the men and women inside filing out in an orderly fashion, eerily silent on the other side of the privacy cone.

"And now there are no witnesses, Klein, I can deal with you myself."

Swan's robot sheath leapt forward. Otto's reaction times were stretched over the Grid, slowed by milliseconds. Swan's blow clipped the side of his head, the main force of it demolishing the privacy cone emitter. Sound rushed in, the clatter of feet and wheels outside, malfunctioning machinery, blaring klaxons. Even without the acoustic shield Swan could batter his sheath into pieces with impunity and no one would hear.

But fighting robots was what Otto had been designed and trained for. Thousands of miles away, his adjutant worked within his mentaug, flashing up the device's weak points on a model in his mind's eye. Although slowed by distance and his unfamiliarity with his borrowed body, Otto attacked with confidence. His sheath was a combat model, Swan's was not. The joints in anthropomorphic sheaths, as in the human body, were the weak points. Otto pivoted hard and snapped Swan's knee with a heel strike, followed it up with a slam to his chest, sending the machine to the floor. Swan raised a warding hand. Otto grabbed it and pulled himself hard onto the sheath, knees first. He disabled the robot's arms one after the other and grabbed Swan's sheath's head.