Tony Ballantyne - CAPACITY

“Still just watching, Judy?” Kevin asked. “Is that all you’re ever going to do?”

“That, and understand.”

Kevin spat on the grass. “That’s what I hate about you, Judy. You try to understand all sides of the argument, but you never actually commit yourself to an opinion. Five of your sisters killed and you’re still just trying to understand me. Don’t just understand! Act! I’m not the enemy. The Watcher is. Why should a cut with a blade kill a virtual being? Why can’t your sisters be brought back to life? You’re all nothing but patterns in a processing space.”

He bent down and picked up the MTPH bracelet, fed out a little red pill, and swallowed it.

“The Watcher is a fraud. It’s a cuckoo! It is enslaving humanity, and humans are letting it do that. I can save humanity! DIANA can save it.”

“DIANA?” said Judy 3. Across the digital divide, the atomic Judy sat up straighter and stared at Frances. “DIANA? One of the old commercial organizations? You believe DIANA can save humanity?”

“Opinions, opinions,” Kevin scoffed. “You collect them like butterflies. Yes, I believe DIANA can save humanity. What do you believe in, Judy? Not the Watcher, certainly. You don’t believe in anything. You think that makes you somehow better because you stand there aloof from everything. You just like to watch. It’s all you ever do. You never join in, you… virgin !”

Helen looked at Judy significantly. She clearly felt Kevin had scored a point.

Judy noted the look. Her reply was cool.

“When there are twelve of you, you need something constant to hold on to, to keep you together-something serious. You can’t just give up chocolate or decide you like jazz. You need something really big to define you as a human being.”

The airlock opened and two figures in black spacesuits stepped through. Another Kevin and Bairn.

Judy looked at Helen. “Run,” she said.

EA Public Space number 1

Two Judys lying dead in the grass

Rough black silk and white faces

Blossom floats on red blood

EA Public Space number 4

Helen simply turned and ran, head down, as fast as she could. She was running for her life.

Judy watched as one of the Kevins chased after her. The other Kevin stayed where he was, smiling at her. The polished metal of the airlock doors reflected the green grass in crazy patterns. She saw herself standing alone in the grassy bowl, looking frightened.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked.

“I told you,” said Kevin. “There are other ways of looking at the universe than that laid down by the Watcher. DIANA operates on the principle of freedom of choice.”

“We have that.”

“You only think so. If there is hope, Judy, it lies with the proletariat of the processing space. The EA has the physical world sewn up. In here we can be free, and yet the Watcher still pulls humanity in its own direction.”

Kevin pulled out his white blade. Judy watched her own reflection in the airlock door as he nicked her on the wrist with it. Red drops of blood welled up. Judy walked closer to the reflecting door to get a better look at herself.

“Why are you bleeding, Judy?” asked Kevin. “It’s because the Watcher said it would be so. You are no more real than I, and yet you choose to live in this world and die in it. The worlds of the processing spaces should be of near infinite variety, and yet the gravity of the Watcher’s wishes pulls us back into this small region of space.”

There was an approaching noise of shouting and struggling. The other Kevin carried Helen back into view, one of his big arms locked around her chest, the other behind her head, forcing it forward. Bairn walked alongside, a knife held to Helen’s throat.

“Why don’t you run, Judy?” Helen called. Judy was still watching the scene in the reflection of the airlock. “Run, Judy. Get help!”

Judy was watching herself still. Looking at Kevin, watching the blade move up her body to her chest. It cut through the rough silk there. The blade had now sliced through the silk, revealing a breast. Not black-and-white, just pink with a puckered red nipple. Kevin drew the blade downwards again, ripping the silk, exposing yet more pink flesh. There was a shout, and in the distance, Helen could see reinforcements arriving at last. Other members of Social Care, coming to help. Where had they all been?

“Judy,” Helen called, “what’s the matter with you?”

“Shhh.” Kevin worked Judy 3’s wrist dispenser, producing a little blue pill. He pressed it to her lips. Judy watched herself swallow it in the mirror of the airlock.

“Look into my mind,” Kevin said. “No, open your eyes. I know you like to watch. Look at the Turing machine in my head.”

Judy couldn’t help but open her eyes. There was something there in Kevin’s brain. Something curling and moving like a tapeworm. She could see it in there, turning on its end. Clicking from place to place. She closed her eyes, feeling something churning in her stomach: she was gulping down rising bile. She could still hear the clicking noise the tape made as it moved from place to place in Kevin’s head. Chunk. Chunk .

“What is it?” she breathed.

“My mind. That’s why you can never beat me, Judy. I told you, I’m not real.”

He took her arm and pulled her around.

“Now look into your own mind,” he whispered.

Deep blue MTPH was coursing through her body. She could feel everything, even herself. She looked into her own head and saw the machine there, too. She was feeding back on herself, and Judy 3 loved to watch…

“ I think ,” she began , “ I think it’s because once you can see the pattern, you just have to look at the tape and after that …” Her voice faded. Her lips moved as she tried to think what to say, and the tape rattled on in her brain. She spoke again : “ But then, what’s the point? They’re already defined for me, whether I have to think them or not. Ah! Of course… ”

And at that point she turned her full gaze on him as if she finally understood, and Kevin felt Judy 3 switch off. The thought processes were still there, but there was no longer any spark of life.

Just a sequence of movements…

I can see him, just in the corner of my vision.”

Frances placed a gentle golden hand on the arm of the atomic Judy. The human didn’t appear to hear her friend. She could see her sisters, dead and dying in the viewing fields all around her. She saw Judy 3 watching herself die in the mirror of the airlock. Helen had struggled free of her captors and was running, running as fast as she could, towards the other members of Social Care who came hurrying from amongst the trees. Where had they been? What had Kevin done to stop them stepping straight through to help?

Frances was speaking: “Chris is coming in. I can see him, just. He’s in the room.”

The urgency in her voice made the atomic Judy look around her lounge. She could see nothing but the simple furnishings of the room: tatami mats and wood and paper.

“Is he here to help me?” Judy’s attention was drawn back to the screen. “In that case, why isn’t the EA helping them ?” she wondered, as Judy 6 fell in a spray of blood.

There was a blurring in the corner, then suddenly Chris the robot stood there. His grey crystal body seemed black in the dimness of the lounge. Frances took hold of Judy’s hand, and the feel of the warm golden metal was reassuring.

“The EA doesn’t want to help them, Judy,” Chris said, joining her in gazing at the viewing fields. “The Watcher wants them dead, just like it wants you dead.”