what's the zeroth persona at one moment can be the one-hundred-fifty-ninth tier a picosecond later, and then pop back up, and they all can spawn subprocesses and subpersonas customized to the task at hand. It's all interconnected. A true nonlocalized intelligence of almost infinite adaptability.”
Richard grins in my head. “He's figured out more than anybody except Min-xue has. Except he hasn't realized that we have an emotional connection to continuity of experience and personality, the same as you meat folks. So we're a bit less fluid than all that. But he's got the essentials down.”
You're not going to kill us all for having uncovered the evil AI plot to take over the world?
“Don't panic when I say this, Jen, but we don't need a plot. We've already conquered the planet. You're stuck with us now.”
Yeah,
I say.
I know
. I finish my Coke and set the cup aside. I'll pitch it at the recycler on the way back out the door.
Come on, Dick. Let's get this kid tucked in.
Gabe Castaign lay on his lofted, half-height alcove bed, ankles crossed, staring at the bulkhead—all two meters square of it. Or more precisely, staring at the porthole that pierced it. The bed was not quite broad enough for his shoulders. The only other furniture was a wall-mount swivel chair and a professional grade interface crammed into a third the normal space.
There was almost enough floor space to do push-ups. He'd seen solitary cells that were bigger, and had bigger windows.
But not a better view.
Genie's room was on the other side of the wall, her bed in the alcove immediately under his, so that he effectively had the top bunk and she the bottom, although they could not see or speak to each other.
He'd spent the first three weeks that they'd shared a wall teaching her Morse code—and he had to be the last man on the planet who knew it. It tickled her to learn, like knowing the Victorian language of flowers or something. She just knocked on the ceiling of her bunk when she wanted him, and he in his turn knocked on the floor. They'd become curiously formal with each other since Leah's death and the separation that had followed, and Gabe hadn't had the heart to press her as he knew he probably should. Kids were always funny around that age anyway, just moving toward adulthood, womanhood, and secrets. It was a strange, sad, and mysterious thing.
And he was too much of a damned coward to reach out and grab her before she got away. Irritated, he swung his feet down, ducking the edge of the bunk, and slithered to the floor. Half the covers followed him, rasping his jumpsuit pockets; he tidied them with military reflexes. He didn't even have to step across the room to reach his chair, just turn around and sit.
“Richard,” Gabe said, settling back, eyes trained on the revolving view through the porthole. “Remember when we were busting our asses trying to fix Ramirez's hack job on the
Montreal
's operating system?”
“Intimately,” the walls answered, as if the conversation had been ongoing rather than abruptly and unceremoniously commenced. “There haven't been any disturbances since we declared it clean.”
“I keep thinking it was too easy.” Reinforced aluminum creaked under Gabe's weight, even in partial gravity.
“You thought at the time that there might be a second saboteur.” Which, Richard didn't say, was a hypothesis they'd examined thoroughly and discarded. Richard was not the sort to disregard hunches, or discrepancies that nagged at the back of your mind for days, or weeks, or months.
And neither was Gabe. “I keep coming back to it, that if you can get one man inside, you can get a second. But I've got no evidence. Nothing but a hunch. And no line of investigation.”
“May I use your console, Gabe?”
“Sure.”
A holographic image flickered into opacity over Gabe's interface, a weathered, bony man in a white shirt and tan corduroys, no tie, his arms folded as he leaned against the bulkhead. “The code
Richard grins in my head. “He's figured out more than anybody except Min-xue has. Except he hasn't realized that we have an emotional connection to continuity of experience and personality, the same as you meat folks. So we're a bit less fluid than all that. But he's got the essentials down.”
You're not going to kill us all for having uncovered the evil AI plot to take over the world?
“Don't panic when I say this, Jen, but we don't need a plot. We've already conquered the planet. You're stuck with us now.”
Yeah,
I say.
I know
. I finish my Coke and set the cup aside. I'll pitch it at the recycler on the way back out the door.
Come on, Dick. Let's get this kid tucked in.
Gabe Castaign lay on his lofted, half-height alcove bed, ankles crossed, staring at the bulkhead—all two meters square of it. Or more precisely, staring at the porthole that pierced it. The bed was not quite broad enough for his shoulders. The only other furniture was a wall-mount swivel chair and a professional grade interface crammed into a third the normal space.
There was almost enough floor space to do push-ups. He'd seen solitary cells that were bigger, and had bigger windows.
But not a better view.
Genie's room was on the other side of the wall, her bed in the alcove immediately under his, so that he effectively had the top bunk and she the bottom, although they could not see or speak to each other.
He'd spent the first three weeks that they'd shared a wall teaching her Morse code—and he had to be the last man on the planet who knew it. It tickled her to learn, like knowing the Victorian language of flowers or something. She just knocked on the ceiling of her bunk when she wanted him, and he in his turn knocked on the floor. They'd become curiously formal with each other since Leah's death and the separation that had followed, and Gabe hadn't had the heart to press her as he knew he probably should. Kids were always funny around that age anyway, just moving toward adulthood, womanhood, and secrets. It was a strange, sad, and mysterious thing.
And he was too much of a damned coward to reach out and grab her before she got away. Irritated, he swung his feet down, ducking the edge of the bunk, and slithered to the floor. Half the covers followed him, rasping his jumpsuit pockets; he tidied them with military reflexes. He didn't even have to step across the room to reach his chair, just turn around and sit.
“Richard,” Gabe said, settling back, eyes trained on the revolving view through the porthole. “Remember when we were busting our asses trying to fix Ramirez's hack job on the
Montreal
's operating system?”
“Intimately,” the walls answered, as if the conversation had been ongoing rather than abruptly and unceremoniously commenced. “There haven't been any disturbances since we declared it clean.”
“I keep thinking it was too easy.” Reinforced aluminum creaked under Gabe's weight, even in partial gravity.
“You thought at the time that there might be a second saboteur.” Which, Richard didn't say, was a hypothesis they'd examined thoroughly and discarded. Richard was not the sort to disregard hunches, or discrepancies that nagged at the back of your mind for days, or weeks, or months.
And neither was Gabe. “I keep coming back to it, that if you can get one man inside, you can get a second. But I've got no evidence. Nothing but a hunch. And no line of investigation.”
“May I use your console, Gabe?”
“Sure.”
A holographic image flickered into opacity over Gabe's interface, a weathered, bony man in a white shirt and tan corduroys, no tie, his arms folded as he leaned against the bulkhead. “The code
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