Tony Ballantyne - CAPACITY

“Wrong!” Helen said triumphantly. “Both trees are natural. The first plant you looked at is the venumb. McCusker’s Miracle. It was designed to extract aluminum from the soil. You got some of the metal residue on your fingers when you felt its leaves.”

Kevin laughed as he straightened up, his big body filling her vision, and he leaned a little closer so that he was almost touching her. He smelled very clean, just a hint of cologne.

“Ah well, can’t be right all of the time.”

He touched Helen on the cheek; she felt a tiny flutter where his fingers brushed against her skin. He gazed at her for a moment, and she smiled…then ducked under his arm and walked over to the center of the clearing. The noon sun lanced down onto the mossy grass, and she spun slowly round in its glow, showing off her body. The light flickered as silver space-bound ships slowly ascended from the port that bordered the arboretum. A sprinkling of butterflies rose into the air and flitted away, back towards the nearby coppice.

“You’ll find the best examples of the hybrid venumbs that way,” said Helen, deliberately facing away from Kevin towards an area where the trees looked more mechanical. “That section most resembles the modern world,” she said. “Or, if you want to see more traditional woodland, we can head in the opposite direction, towards the coppice. There’s fine display of butterflies and deer there, too.”

She became aware that Kevin was now standing just behind her.

“What’s that?” He pointed to the edge of the coppiced area. The corner of a silver-grey cube rose above the tops of the trees.

“That?” Helen smiled. “Oh, that’s the Secret Garden.”

“The Secret Garden? That sounds intriguing.”

Kevin had moved around in front of her now, gazing at the tilted, sunken cube, half seen through the trees. About twenty meters along each side, the straight edges and clean lines of its polished surfaces were in marked contrast to the rounded organic shapes of the surrounding wood. The top of the cube glinted oddly in the sunlight where it emerged from the foliage. Helen took him by the elbow and led him forward.

“Come on, let’s go look.”

They set off towards the cube. Helen put on her lilting guide’s voice.

“The Secret Garden is a first-generation Von Neumann Machine from around the end of the twenty-first century. Unlike contemporary VNMs, these first-generation machines were built without the use of AI library code. It seems hard to believe nowadays, but humans actually worked out the replication routines themselves-” she gave a little laugh; it was part of the script, “-and more often than not, they got them wrong.”

“Humans worked out the code? I thought all that sort of thing could only be done by artificial intelligences.”

Helen smiled knowingly. “That may be the case nowadays, but back in those days the first AIs hadn’t evolved properly. That VNM almost predates AIs.”

They reached the cube and stood in the shadow cast by one out-sloping side of the huge VNM. Kevin reached out and ran his hand across its surface. His big, powerful, gentle hand.

“It feels odd, almost frictionless. It’s sort of ugly, too.” He frowned at Helen. “I’m surprised they left it here in the arboretum. It’s hardly natural, is it?”

Helen frowned. “Kevin, people have resigned over that point! The consensus is that this cube is just as natural as any of the hybrid venumbs found in here. As much a living thing as the McCusker’s Miracle you were just looking at. This cube replicates itself, just like the beeches and the willows do. The EA therefore counts it as a life form.”

“Really?” said Kevin, sounding surprised. “Do you mean that thing is still replicating?”

“Oh, yes. The original unit was seeded about three kilometers down and one kilometer west of here. Some organization wanted a complex of rooms beneath the ground, all to be protected by stealth technology. That’s what gives the cube its silver sheen and frictionless feel. Industrial espionage was rife back then, so a secure location was essential. All appeared fine at first, but someone got the telomeric procedures wrong and the VNMs just kept replicating themselves. Rooms kept being built onto previous rooms. Go inside this cube and you’re at the top of a four-kilometer-high tower that has burrowed right up from beneath the earth.”

Kevin looked at the cube in fascination.

“How did it go on reproducing for so long? Why didn’t they stop it?”

Helen laughed. “They didn’t know it was happening! It was a stealth construction, remember? They didn’t detect any activity!”

She laughed again, and the console around her waist emitted another puff of pheromones. Helen looked delightful when she laughed; she had been told as much many times. Kevin’s console must have caught the spray; to be sent a puff of pheromones was a flattering invitation, but at the moment he seemed utterly fascinated by the construct.

“Can we go inside?” he asked. He suddenly switched his attention back to her and, caught by the force of his all too apparent intention, she felt her stomach flip over.

“Oh yes,” she said, looking up coyly from beneath her lashes. “There is a door around the other side.”

Heart pounding, she led the way along one side of the cube. Sunlight, flickering its way through the green leaves above, formed jigsaw patterns on the ground. Grass and moss grew right up to the VNM’s very edge but no further, unable to get a grip on its stealthy surface.

“It’s got no roof,” said Kevin as they reached the other side. The tilt of the cube allowed them to see the unformed top surface of the VNM.

“Ah,” began Helen, “the EA slowed the replication process right down. The thing is still growing, but now at about one billionth of its original rate. The EA does the same with a lot of the hybrid venumbs here in this park. They’re technically alive, but with restricted ability to absorb any more of the arboretum’s capacity.”

Kevin glanced at the entrance to the cube. It had been surrounded with thick, clear plastic that formed a collar around the door-shaped hatch.

He stood back and held out an arm, using an anachronistic gesture that still had the power to charm.

“Ladies first.”

“Oh thank you,” Helen simpered, and stepped through the hatch. She felt a cold breeze as she did so, and a sudden stab of fear that came from nowhere.

She shrugged her shoulders. She was being ridiculous.

Level Zero

A rich pool of green grass lapped the walls of the cube’s interior. It was as if someone had filled a tilted square bottle with green water. The process had not yet begun that would flush the cube’s inside clean and start the construction of floors and internal walls. A second plastic collar, set in the grass near the far wall, enclosed a set of steps leading down to the fully formed cube that lay immediately below ground, the first of a descending sequence of stealth rooms that extended obliquely deep into the earth . Kevin followed her into the cube’s interior, face now serious, and Helen felt a squiggle of danger inside her . She was alone with a man she had only met two hours ago. Alone in an area where her console would not work; the stealth circuitry in the half-formed walls was functioning well enough to block any incoming or outgoing signals.

Still, Social Care would know where she was. Their AIs would have seen her enter the cube; they would wait for her to exit.

Kevin walked towards her, his expression odd. Helen took a step back.

“What’s the matter, Kevin?” She heard the tremble in her own voice. He reached into his pocket and pulled something out.

“Helen, do you know what a Strangler Fig is?”