“Help me, Constantine…” she whispered.
Someone grabbed at Constantine and pulled him away. Dragged him through a door that had appeared, leading into a long, wide, low room full of strange machinery. They were running.
“Why are we running?” called Jay.
“Force of habit,” said Marion bitterly, coming to a halt. “We have humanity written right through us.” She was grey with terror.
“What happened there?” croaked Constantine.
Jay gave a nervous laugh. “Obvious, isn’t it? DIANA is trying to get a snapshot of you, Constantine. They need proof positive that you’re in here.”
“Why? They know I’m in here.”
“Yes, but they need the proof to present to the courts. Look, if a memory attack succeeds in wiping you out, 113 Berliner Sibelius will just run this simulation again. They’ve got your personality backed up in plenty of places. You’ll live the last three weeks over and over again until you give them what they want, and you will in the end, because each time they run you, they’ll learn just a little bit more about how to push your buttons. DIANA knows this. They’ve got lawyers out there. Lawyers who know who has copyright on your intelligence.”
Constantine didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Everything was happening too quickly.
“I don’t understand. Who has copyright on my intelligence?”
– You do, of course, said Grey.-The real you. The one who works for DIANA.
Jay had been speaking at the same time as Grey. She continued:
“…and the real you will be demanding that what is quite literally his intellectual copyright should not be violated. He has the right to have all pirate copies destroyed.”
Marion was sobbing with terror now. It was infectious. Constantine felt panic bubbling up within himself. If he let it boil over, he would never get a grip on himself.
“Yes. Okay. But WHAT HAPPENED TO MARY?”
Jay slapped him. “Calm down. Think about it! DIANA almost got a snapshot of you. Mary was a decoy. They only had ten seconds before the pipe was closed. 113 BS turned her into a near copy of you. DIANA uploaded the wrong one.”
Constantine felt fear and disgust and incredulity.
“They did that to poor Mary?” He rounded on Marion. “And you still say that 113 Berliner Sibelius are the good guys?”
Marion’s expression was now one of both anger and terror.
“They did that to Mary. And as you haven’t figured it out, I’ll spell it out. They will do it to me next time. Then they’ll do it to Jay.”
She shuddered.
“And I tell you this. Despite the fact that they did that to poor Mary, despite the fact that they will do it to me, I think that they were right. I still say that 113 Berliner Sibelius are the good guys. Constantine, you’re fighting for the wrong side.”
They wandered aimlessly through the low, wide room they had escaped into. It reminded Constantine of a forest where someone had cut away the tops of the trees and then placed a roof on top. In every direction they could see irregular patterns of metallic trunks rising from floor to ceiling.
“Where are we?” he asked after some time.
“Deep beneath Stonebreak. The very roots of the city,” answered Marion. She was crying now.
Constantine felt as if he should apologize to her. “I want to say something, Marion. If I could, I’d tell you what you want to know to spare you this…”
– You’re a fool, said Grey.-Even if you could speak, how do you know this isn’t all a trick?
Marion merely looked at the floor.
“It makes no difference, anyway, Constantine,” said Jay. “DIANA will wipe you in the end, whether you’ve told them or not.”
“Not true,” said Marion. “Why would DIANA waste their time silencing you once you’ve told all? These attacks will be costing them. They wouldn’t believe that Berliner Sibelius would keep us alive afterward. Where would the profit be?”
“No,” Constantine said, “you don’t understand. I want to tell you. It’s just that I can’t. The Grey personality is stopping me.”
He spoke the words quickly before Grey could stop him. He heard a sudden yelp of annoyance and then:
– It makes no difference.
Marion looked at Constantine in amazement.
“Why didn’t you say so sooner? I’m sure we could do something…”
Her console pinged. She held it to her ear.
“Twenty-two minutes,” she said. “They can suppress the Grey personality, but they say it will take twenty-two minutes.”
The room shuddered, pixellated, and returned to normal.
They looked at each other. Another attack.
– Twenty-two minutes? Grey laughed.-You haven’t got that long.
“Yeah, so how can we trust 113 Berliner Sibelius?” asked Jay.
“Because they work for the Watcher,” said Marion.
“That’s not an argument,” said Constantine. “I still say we don’t know for sure that the Watcher exists. Where would it come from anyway?”
Jay stared at him.
“Don’t you know? I thought that was common knowledge.”
Marion gave a sigh of realization. “So that’s why they put you in here.”
Jay was now speaking.
“It’s common knowledge on any of the space stations.”
“Yes?”
Jay came out of her apparent trance and looked at Constantine.
“Did you know that we are constantly scanning the skies out there? Looking for something. Anything. It’s standing orders. Anyone who travels through space-asteroid miners, pleasure cruisers, light sailors, everyone-is told to keep their eye on the sky. But no one looks as hard as we do.”
“I know what you’re looking for,” said Marion. “Alien VNMs.”
“That’s right,” Jay said. “If we can build self-replicating machines, then why not other races? What better way to exploit the galaxy? There we are, a station built of metal and plastic; we must stand out like a small star to any VNMs hunting for raw material. We were built that way deliberately, if you ask me. The edge of human space is littered with space stations, all loaded with excess gold and uranium and anything else that might just appeal to the appetite of any hungry self-replicating machine that happens by.”
“I didn’t know that,” Constantine said.
Jay continued. “Anyway, that’s all very well and good. But when you’re out there, watching ships disappear and monitoring the skies, you begin to talk. Other theories start to emerge. Like this one: Why are we looking for physical signs of alien life? Don’t we move increasingly away from the physical world as technology develops? Isn’t everything located more and more in the digital world?”
She laughed. “Just look at us.” Her brown eyes danced and sparkled, and Constantine felt a little wriggle inside him.
She became serious again. “Now, why not assume that alien races develop in the same way? Maybe they look across space and see us, not as a system of rock and metal and water and air, but rather as a digital haven. They see an area of memory and processing capability. Maybe when you reach a certain level of development that’s how all the universe looks to you.
“Why send a spaceship to contact us? Or a VNM? Why not just transmit the necessary programs to our computers?”
She dropped her voice. “Or maybe they just sent a personality to grow. An Advanced AI that can take root in suitable processing spaces. A sort of interstellar computer virus. Something that grew up into the Watcher.”
She looked around the group. “Of course, it’s only a theory. But you know, I can’t help thinking. If we’re talking about a virus sent here by advanced beings, maybe it would be a good thing. Maybe Marion is right. Maybe it could be trying to help us. Just like the Europeans used to try to develop the new countries they explored.”
“Only so they could exploit them,” Constantine said.
“You get my point, though.”
Marion’s console sounded.