Tony Ballantyne - CAPACITY

– The man didn’t really say. We had maybe less than one minute still to live at that point.

The atomic Judy touched the hem of her kosode, thinking.

– I don’t like it when things happen so quickly. It usually means that we are being railroaded; that someone is trying to distract our attention from something.

– I agree. I said as much to him…

The man was of average height, average build. He had brownish hair and greyish eyes and he spoke in colorless tones. There was nothing memorable about him; that was probably deliberate. He made an offhand gesture .

“ Ah, Judy, but what else can I do with so little time left? If you, or one of your alter egos, had been a little more efficient, we would not be trapped in this deflating simulation. We should have had time to talk .”

Judy listened again to her console. Just over forty seconds left . “ I believe you’re wasting time, whoever you are. I don’t understand why you waited for so many years, just to fritter away the few minutes that we now have .”

“ Because we must wait for the moment when everyone is distracted. Even the Watcher will not be watching us now. Judy, you will come to believe what I say is true. Stop the next murder .”

“ How ?”

“ Go and find the atomic Judy. Tell her- ”

“ The atomic Judy? And do you believe that atomic forms are superior to digital forms ?”

“ Do you want to waste your last seconds arguing about equal rights? Listen, the path that must be taken has been carefully constructed so that the Watcher will not guess what we are doing. Only the atomic Judy can follow that path. Trust me .”

“ Why should I ?”

The man ignored her . “ Listen. Tell the atomic Judy to investigate the Private Network. There are those who are involved in the Private Network who were there when Justinian Sibelius was murdered .”

“ Justinian Sibelius ?”

“ Don’t bother looking up the name. The Watcher changed the records. They will just tell you he died peacefully on Earth and is now lying next to his wife above the Devolian Plain. That’s a lie. He died at the edge of another galaxy .”

“ Another galaxy ?”

“ Tell the atomic Judy. Investigate the Private Network. Find someone who has been to the edge of another galaxy. That’s where you’ll find the answer .”

They both seemed to feel the change at the same time: Judy through her console, the man by some other means .

“ They’ve opened up a pipe. You can get out of here .”

Judy nodded . “ Okay. You can come with me and- ”

“ I can’t. The Watcher is looking for me. If I exit this space, it will see me .”

“ If you stay here, you will die .”

“ So be it .”

The man seemed to be getting bigger-not swelling like a balloon, rather expanding. The man’s head was already twice normal size. He looked down and smiled as it vanished through the ceiling. His chest seemed to fill the room; Judy took a step backwards as it approached her, the rate of expansion increasing. It passed through her, leaving a brief picture, half-imagined, of ribs and blood and pumping organs. And then…

– Nothing. I was standing in an empty room. He can’t have made it out of the processing space or we would have known it. I can only assume he committed suicide.

The atomic Judy nodded.

– So what do we do now?

– I don’t know. Can we trust the man you encountered? You say he believed what he said was true, but is that enough? It’s hard enough sometimes to believe that the Watcher really exists, even harder to think that it could be a murderer. And even if it was, what could we do about it, anyway?

They paused, gazing at each other: the black digital Judy and the apple-green atomic woman, mirror images of each other. So many Judys, and we all act in the same way. Well, we try to . She thought of Judy 3. Judy 11’s hands moved briskly.

– I say we do nothing. For the moment, at least. Insufficient information.

– I agree.

Judy 11 clasped her hands together.

– There is always the risk that what we know is no longer a secret. If Frances can read what I told you, then maybe so can the Watcher.

For the first time since they had met, the digital Judy spoke out loud.

“Frances?”

“I picked up everything,” said the robot.

The two Judys looked at each other.

“Then we do nothing,” said the atomic Judy.

“For the moment.”

As Judy 3 and Helen were just slipping off to sleep in a virtual bedroom of a virtual apartment on the virtual Shawl, an AI at the EA had completed a trace back along the path of the processing space that had housed the Private Network’s torture chamber. Fourteen years ago the pod’s path had intersected that of a spaceship. A quick trawl through the database gave the name of the owner of the ship. It also revealed that the craft had carried library code for a type 2 VNM and sufficient raw materials for the pod’s construction. Someone on that ship could have made the processing space and set it free, silently sailing along so that illegally copied PCs could be beamed on board at a later date. A further search threw up the name of the one crew member who had the ability to construct such a processing space.

Fourteen years ago. Peter Onethirteen, the crew member identified by the search, probably thought he had got away with it. The EA AI took a certain grim pleasure in requesting Social Care operatives for interrogation duty. Judy 3 had flagged a request to be involved in the investigation, so a notification was duly sent to her.

When the EA’s message hit Judy 3’s inbox, it was nighttime in France. In just a few hours someone there would be getting a very rude awakening.

Even from outside the flier Justinian could hear the baby crying. So why couldn’t Leslie? He stormed up the rear ramp into the relative dimness of the cabin, blinking at the yellow and green blots that were suddenly swimming over his eyes.

“Leslie!” he called, “are you hiding from me?”

The anger in his voice set the baby screaming louder. Justinian took a deep breath as he made his way over to the cot, where his son stood gripping the bars, tears dripping down his cheeks. Justinian’s eyes hadn’t adjusted to the comparative gloom of the flier’s interior; he couldn’t make out the robot.

“Hey, hey, baby boy!” Justinian picked up the baby and held him close, kissing the fine blond hair on his son’s warm little head. The cot collapsed and reformed itself into the shape of a flight chair.

“There, hey, baby boy. Shhh…” He cuddled his child closer, felt the hot little breaths on his neck as he rocked him slowly, struggling to hold his blazing white anger in check.

Leslie emerged from the door that led to the forward compartment.

“You’re back,” he said.

“You left my baby crying,” said Justinian, his voice cold, and the baby began crying again. Leslie involuntarily frosted over for a second, his skin increasing in fractality as he retreated from the real world.

“Get back here,” Justinian said in the sweetest tones he could muster. “Hey, shhh, baby boy!” He bounced the baby in his arms.

“I was only on the flight deck!”

“And why were you on the flight deck? I saw you on the ramp, listening, when the pod diverted from the script. You were hiding from me in there!”

“The baby had started to cry. I went through to get his blanket. He left it there earlier, remember? You were showing him the stars as the flier came in to land!”