Tony Ballantyne - CAPACITY

Her mind began to drift to the gentle sound of the piano…but the sound was subtly changing. Effects were slowly fading into the notes, giving them an otherworldly edge. The keyboard player was competent but not truly professional; he made too many mistakes. Ah , thought Judy, but who am I to criticize him for that ?

She listened as the man finished the piece and then, after acknowledging the brief applause, began the next: Scott Joplin, “Maple Leaf Rag.” He was playing too fast for himself, she thought.

She didn’t notice the latecomer slipping into the chair next to her.

“Hello, Judy. I don’t know if you’ll remember me. I’m Lemuel.”

Judy was startled. She turned to look at the tall man seated beside her. Good looking, greying around the temples, distinguished. His skin was made of plastic. His eyes glowed softly in the dimness of the church.

She recognized his voice.

“You’re Frances’ friend,” she said. “I remember, you spoke to me on her birthday.”

“That’s right. It’s good to meet you in person.” He held out a hand.

Hesitantly, Judy shook it. She stared at the stranger, feeling as if she was somewhere else. Not thinking, Judy slid her right hand up to her left wrist, and then stopped. There was no bracelet there. For the immediate future she was to be the patient, not the counselor.

“How is Frances?” she asked, her voice level. As she looked at Lemuel, the emotion that she had been unconsciously holding back for the past few days, and for the ten years before that, suddenly overwhelmed her. Tears spilled down her cheeks.

“Why did you let him kill them?” she sobbed.

“Oh, Judy,” Lemuel said sadly. He took her hand in his. His grip was firm and warm. He offered a handkerchief. Judy took it, blew her nose, waved her other hand at nothing, seeking some sort of release. Other members of the audience tried not to look in her direction. Judy looked up into the barrel-vaulted roof and waited for her crying to lessen. Lemuel squeezed her hand again.

“I’m okay now,” she whispered, and her body shivered with emotion. “I’m okay.” Her voice was wobbling. “I just want to know. Why did you let Kevin kill my sisters?”

“Judy, you’re upset. How could I stop Kevin?”

She wiped her eyes again with the back of her hand.

“I don’t mean you personally. I mean all of you, all the AIs. I mean the Watcher. Aren’t you supposed to be looking after us?”

“We didn’t know,” Lemuel said sadly. “Not until it was too late. We didn’t know it was happening. Chris was helping Kevin cloak his actions.”

“I thought the Watcher knew everything,” Judy said bitterly.

“It has never claimed that.”

Lemuel sat back in his pew and looked around. Just ahead of them, to the right of the altar, was a large wooden frieze showing Christ being taken down from the cross. “Do you realize,” he mused, “in the past people came to these places to try to commune with the spirit that they believed made them.” He paused, and then spoke more softly. “And now, in a ziggurat, on a planet deep in the Enemy Domain, the Watcher does the same, in effect.”

Judy stared at Lemuel. No AI ever said anything without a reason.

A sudden flurry of noise signaled the end of the ragtime music and the start of the next piece. Now the performer was playing a medley of rock and roll hits accompanied by the sound of birdsong.

Judy wiped her eyes with the big white handkerchief, then blew her nose again.

“Have you captured him?” she asked.

“Kevin? Oh yes, thanks to you, Judy. He put a lot of effort into contacting you and your sisters. He really believed that you could be brought around to his point of view. He exposed himself far too much.”

“I don’t understand why,” Judy said bitterly. “I hate him. I always did. I tried not to let myself-I know it wasn’t my job to hate-but I couldn’t help it. How could he possibly think that I would help him?”

“Because that’s the way he is, Judy. He thinks people are commodities to be bought and sold. He isn’t a real person. He isn’t even a genuine AI, as you understand them. He’s just a very complex program, written for DIANA. A program written by humans, long before the Transition. An early attempt at an AI, one that can replicate. Somehow it made its way to the source of the Shawl and embedded itself there. DIANA was a commercial organization that saw everything in terms of competition, acquisitions, and mergers. Kevin has the same drives written into the core of his being. They’re in his bones, you might say. In Kevin’s terms, the society that the Watcher has created is the competition, therefore he still seeks to contend with us.”

“Why?” Judy rubbed a hand across her shaven head, feeling the little bristles spring back at her touch. It still felt odd; she was so used to having long hair. She spoke slowly: “I thought the time of competition between the large organizations and the EA ended after the Transition.”

“It did,” Lemuel replied. “This is just the death throes.”

Judy spoke bitterly: “So what have you done to Kevin? You say he wasn’t an AI at all; he was just a virus. You should destroy him.”

Lemuel paused as the rock and roll medley came to an abrupt end. The performer stood and took a bow to the polite applause that echoed around the church. Lemuel was clapping the loudest of all.

“Bravo,” he cried. “Bravo!”

“Well?” Judy said. “Have you destroyed him?”

Lemuel put a plastic hand gently on Judy’s arm, and she looked down at it. It felt unusual to be touched through a passive suit, having been so used to the silk of her kimonos.

“Kevin can’t be blamed for doing what he did, Judy. It was in his programming. He wasn’t a proper AI, remember-he had no love of life, including his own. He was nothing more than a set of yes/no branches.”

“As am I, surely,” Judy said.

Lemuel inclined his head. “Maybe. But there comes a point when what you are transcends the mechanism. Kevin has as much of a right to life as any venumb. He’ll be kept in a bottle, as a curiosity. Just like the trees in Helen’s arboretum.”

Judy pressed her lips tightly together. She felt as if she was going to cry again, and yet no tears emerged. She was puzzled: why had Lemuel come here in person to tell her all this? Huey, her counselor, was more than capable of debriefing her.

“I feel that I owe you this,” Lemuel said, answering the unasked question. “It’s what Frances would want me to do, if she could safely communicate with anyone. We feel that we have let you down. Chris is a lot cleverer than we realized. He has successfully hidden his capabilities all this time, even from the Watcher. He is still out there, Judy. Once he learns you are still alive, he will come looking for you again.”

Judy felt a cold ache of fear in her stomach. “Why?”

The AI looked solemn. “Judy, Chris still believes that you will help him someday.”

“Never.” Lemuel said nothing. She looked at him. “Well? I told him that on the Shawl. He tried to kill me for it.”

Lemuel remained silent.

“Why don’t you say anything? Why should I help Chris? How could he possibly believe that I would?”

Lemuel put his hands together and thoughtfully touched his lips with his fingertips.

“Judy, the reason that I am here, the reason that Frances would want me to come, is to tell you this…”

“What?”

Lemuel gazed intently at the performer. Judy began to think that he wasn’t going to answer, but then he turned to look at her.

“Judy, AIs can read human personalities all the way to the least significant digit. Chris really believed that you would see his point of view. If Frances hadn’t fought him, if she hadn’t made you run, he would have convinced you.”