“I’m the most intelligent, the most powerful being on this planet,” said the Watcher. “Should I rule your world?”
“No,” said Eva, Katie and Nicolas together.
“But I can help you. See this woman? Her name is Janice. She’s a lot like you were, Eva. She lives alone; she has no friends. Social Care have prevented her committing suicide three times. She hates her life.”
Eva felt a stab of something deep in her stomach. It was telling the truth. Eva could read it all in the woman’s face.
“You don’t think I should kill her, do you, even though that is what she wants?”
“No,” Katie and Eva said quickly.
“I should cure her instead. There is a woman traveling on the train that will shortly arrive at the station. A possible friend. If I stop the train in just the right place, Janice will end up sitting right next to her. They’re both carrying the same magazine. The other woman will mention it, I’m sure of it. They will begin to speak. But only if I stop the train in the correct place… Should I do it?”
There was silence.
“This is real time, you know. It’s happening now. Should I do it? Hurry, the train is approaching. It will arrive in fifteen seconds. Should I do it? Should I?”
“Yes,” said Eva. She realized she had been biting her lip hard. She gave a sigh of relief, but before she could relax the Watcher was off again.
“It’s done,” the Watcher said. “Next up…” The scene shifted. Another Lite Station, another woman standing on a platform: a Japanese woman this time.
“Similar situation, except this time the woman is the cure. The train pulling in has two unhappy men on board. Takeo and Tom.” The screen flickered from one to the other.
“Two men, one woman. Who gets cured?”
“This is nonsense,” said Eva.
The Watcher gave her an amused look. “If you say so. It’s real to those two men, though. You have fifteen seconds. Cure one or neither. The choice is yours.”
“Which of the men is the most deserving?” Nicolas asked.
“What criteria are we judging them by?” said the Watcher. “Ten seconds.”
Katie was saying nothing. Just gazing fixedly at the screen.
– Say nothing. This is a fix.
Eva gave a slight nod. Her brother was right.
“Five seconds.”
“Tom!” called Nicolas.
“Only if Eva agrees,” the Watcher said. “Quickly, Eva!”
Eva folded her arms and stared at the grinning face on the screen, her mouth firmly closed.
“Too late. Neither of them gets the cure. Oh, Eva. So the cure isn’t always the right answer? Maybe I was right about Alison?”
“Don’t be so ridiculous. The question was loaded. The answer is, you should cure them both.”
“We work with limited resources, Eva.”
Katie was nodding. Again, the Watcher and Katie exchanged glances.
“Katie,” the Watcher said, “opera, poetry, or pinball? Which one gets the subsidy?”
“Pinball,” Katie said. “It’s my favorite.”
The viewing screen changed again. Three faces, side by side.
“Prisoners on death row, Alabama. Political forces are such that we can swing a pardon for only one of them.”
The Watcher looked at Eva.
“Limited resources again.” He smiled.
“Are they innocent?” asked Nicolas.
“Nope. All guilty of murder. No doubt about it,” said the Watcher.
“Who’s the youngest?” Katie asked, taking an interest.
“Pardon the one on the left,” Eva said dismissively.
“Nicolas?”
“None of them. They did the crime, they pay the penalty.”
“Interesting,” the Watcher said. “One for saving a life, one against, and one apathetic. I think I’ll average those opinions as leave them to die.”
“No!” shouted Eva.
“So you do care?” said the Watcher.
“Of course I do. Why are you playing these games?”
“I didn’t put them there. Are you saying I should just arrange for them all to be freed? Trample all over human law? Am I above the law?”
– Sometimes you have to be.
“But who chooses when?” Eva whispered in reply.
“Next one,” said the Watcher. “Do you know what a Von Neumann Machine is?”
Katie raised her hand.
“I do. A machine that can replicate itself. They’ve constructed a factory on Mars that can make copies of itself. It searches out the raw materials, mines and processes them, then makes more factories.”
Eva nodded, intrigued. “I’ve read about that. They use the technology to grow the Lite train tracks and things like that.”
Nicolas looked from Katie to Eva to the Watcher and back again.
The Watcher nodded approvingly. “That’s a very good example. Well, the Mars project is just the beginning. The Mars concept of a self-replicating machine is very primitive. The machines used are very big and unwieldy, but…Well, you humans did your best. I can do better.”
The Watcher paused, his smile growing with Katie’s.
“That story on the news. The one about the self-defining expression? That was you, wasn’t it?” Katie beamed up at the Watcher with pride. It grinned back.
“Might be. I’ve developed a design for a self-replicating machine of my own. It’s a lot more elegant than the one used in the Mars project. It’s smaller. You can hold it in your hand. That’s significant, by the way. Very small and very big Von Neumann Machines are easy. Human-sized ones are a different matter entirely. Well, I know how they can be made, and that information is set to make its way into the public domain. My little VNMs could change the way people live. There are a few of them in that box in front of you, Nicolas. The one next to the food hamper. Open it.”
Somewhat hesitantly, Nicolas did as he was told.
The lid of the black box swung open to reveal eight silver cigar-shaped machines nestling in little specially shaped slots cut out of foamed rubber.
“Answer the next questions one way,” the Watcher said, “and I activate them. Your world will never be the same again. Answer another way, and I will destroy them. It could be hundreds of years before humans come up with a similar design.”
– That might not be a bad thing.
Katie stared at the box, her eyes shining with awe. Eva tried to restrain her own interest, tried to appear cool and dispassionate.
“Okay,” said the Watcher, “have you heard of the Fermi Paradox?”
“Yes,” Katie said.
“It sounds familiar.”
Nicolas shook his head.
– What’s that noise?
A humming noise. The hum of electricity. The hum of thousands and thousands of volts zinging toward them. A rising note. All of those empty buildings standing around them. What did they contain?
“Look at this,” the Watcher said.
The background to the viewing screen dissolved and the Watcher was standing on a desolate plain. Flat earth littered with rocks stretched to the horizon.
– Mars.
“Australia,” the Watcher said, “the Nullarbor plain. My VNMs could build a city here. It’s certainly needed. Homelessness is a growing problem in this corner of the world. Food shortages are kicking in, too. My city could feed and house all those people right now. But if I build the city, I’m just storing up population problems for later. Either the food runs out now or in two hundred years’ time.”
“So we expand into space.”
“Or limit the population somehow.”
“And who chooses who lives or dies?”
“No, I’ve had enough of this!” Eva yelled. “Leave us alone. These are all loaded questions. Who are you to ask us this?”
“Good question, who am I?”
The Watcher kicked one of the stones that littered the plain, sent it skittering off into the distance. Was the Watcher really there, standing on the lifeless plain? Surely it was just an image, a representation? It turned back to face the three in the room and gave a shrug.