Tony Ballantyne - CAPACITY

“Now,” Judy 11 said, confidence returning to her voice. “Run. We can make it.”

Wrapped in the skin of her best friend, filled with renewed hope, Judy ran down the disintegrating ramp, through the thinning wind, the blackness of space opening up behind her.

“Hurry,” urged Judy 11…

…Except Judy 11 was already dead. She had died before Judy had ever left her apartment, scrambled as Frances had prepared her attack in the atomic Judy’s bedroom. The metal starfish that had come whirling through the door had sent interference patterns across the electromagnetic spectrum, the thrashing patterns of its legs distorting space and time and reshaping the relationship between entities in the room. Judy 11 stood apart from Frances in the processing space that made up the robot’s mind. She didn’t stand a chance against the attack. Frances was having enough trouble preserving her own integrity; the metal starfish seemed to operate on levels of physics she hadn’t known existed. Not a moment too soon, the starfish fell to the floor and twitched and died. It looked so pathetic lying there, a coil of material that had once been part of the wall of Judy’s lounge .

“ Why did you make her run ?” Chris had asked, as the glacial war of attrition that was the battle ground on around them . “ I only wanted to talk with her .”

“ You were reprogramming her. I can’t allow you to do that .”

“ You’ve condemned her to death .”

“ It was better than the alternative .”

“ You’re wrong .”

Complex shapes unfolded in five dimensions. Frances fought to understand this latest attack as she strove to protect Judy .

“ Why are you doing that ?”

“ Doing what ?” Frances asked .

“ Struggling to preserve a pattern of bits that you can easily recreate. You know this battle is already decided. Judy is going to die. What difference does it make if she lives another thirty seconds ?”

“ Thirty more seconds or forty more years, she’s always going to die, Chris. I’m going to help her hold on to every moment .”

Frances sought to gain a purchase on something, worked to find a way around the nano-virus that made every object in the section strangely slippery to her touch. It was hopeless .

“ Okay. I know that she is going to die today ,” snapped Frances, as she saw her position rapidly weakening . “ But, Chris, live in a body like I have done, and you would understand why I’m trying to give her these last few seconds .”

She felt black despair. She could see how Chris was manipulating magnetic fields, channeling them towards the atomic Judy, who was fleeing down the ramp. He was so much more powerful than Frances was, how could she hope to fight him ?

“ Frances, I could take a human mind and represent it as a string of ones and zeros, and write them out over the pages of a book. I could take a copy of Pride and Prejudice, burn it, and then print out the words it once contained on a wafer of plastic, and everyone would call it the same book. What is the difference ?”

“ Kevin knows ,” Frances said . “ His Private Network relies on the fact that both the clients and prisoners believe there is a difference… .”

The magnetic field that Chris manipulated was getting stronger, and it was focused near the base of the ramp. Judy was running to her death, and just like with Judy 11, there was nothing Frances could do to save her .

“ Still you try ,” Chris remarked . “ Still you try to save her. There’s nothing there that can’t be represented as bits, Frances. Are you saying that one pattern of bits has more value than another ?”

“ That’s exactly what I’m saying ,” Frances said, knowing Chris was teasing her. He could have destroyed her already. He wasn’t just a robot, Chris was all the material around her. Chris had always been much bigger than he had let on; he had a way of insinuating himself into the environment and then focusing attention on that beautiful grey body that stood at the heart of his being. Frances was just one very small robot lost within him .

“ It’s your fault that I have to kill her ,” Chris said . “ If you hadn’t hidden the truth from her all this time… ”

“ Don’t you see ?” Frances said . “ Her origin makes no difference! That is the Watcher’s point !”

And then it hit . Chris was playing with her.

“ You’re playing with my mind, aren’t you, Chris? You’re doing to me what we do to humans all the time. You’re making me think what you want me to think. Why are you doing that ?”

“ Look at Judy .” It was like she was wading through jelly, moving so, so slowly down the ramp. Everything that humans did was slow when you thought at robot speed. Seconds had passed for Judy, no time at all in her human frame of reference. Seconds were a long, long time to Frances and Chris. The battle would be long over before Judy hit the magnetic field. How could Frances have forgotten that? Because she had been in a body so long, and Chris knew it and was using that fact against her. But why ?

Because Chris was frightened of her. He still knew that Frances could do something to stop him .

And then she saw it-the path to the outside world, a small hole in Chris’ shielding field. A way to call for help. Call to the Watcher. In her haste she sent a signal straight through the hole .

“ Double bluff ,” Chris said, looking back down into her mind from the space she had opened up in order to call for help, and then his intelligence crashed down on hers, swamping it .

“ Triple bluff ,” Frances said .

Judy was running for her life. The ramp shuddered, and she stumbled, tripped, rolled to the edge and went over. She gave a scream as she began to fall. Faster and faster…She hit the ground with a force that knocked the breath out of her. She hurt. Oh, how she hurt. But she wasn’t dead. The golden spacesuit had formed itself into a padded shell as she hit the ground. She climbed painfully to her feet and looked around at the base of the section.

The base? She had reached the bottom at last. The walls of the section rose up all around her, a tall dark chimney, open to the stars. In their midst, the dark shape of the World Tree climbed up, its banners and streamers torn and lost to the vacuum.

Somebody spoke: “Judy, it’s me.”

“Frances! Where’s Judy 11?”

“Never mind. Turn round! Run back up the ramp! Now!”

Judy hesitated. “How do I know it’s really you, Frances?” she asked.

“You don’t. But Chris has a magnetic storm focused around that airlock, and it’s growing. You need to get away from it.”

Judy took a few steps towards the ramp, then paused.

And another voice spoke up. Loud and clear within the golden helmet of the spacesuit. A rich, deep, trustworthy voice. “Judy, it’s true. Run. I’m coming to help you.”

“Who are you?” she asked suspiciously.

“The Watcher. I can see you now. I’m sending help.”

“The Watcher?” Judy felt her legs go weak.

“Judy, it’s true!” Frances called. “I tricked Chris and got a look at that seed in his head. It began to grow. Faster and faster. Chris couldn’t look away; it has a way of drawing your attention to it. Chris had to cut his intelligence right down to stop it expanding further, but he is still much more powerful than me. He still has control of all the material of this section. All I have is my body.”