The membrane yielded a titch under my palm, the solid surface going oozy. I expected that. I did not expect the gentle backsurge that came straightaway after… a cool jelly hand twining its fingers with mine. At the same instant, my brain bloomed up with a clear mental image of a million microscopic puppies licking my skin — an image superimposed over my real senses like a VR template.
"Jesus Christ!" I cried, yanking my hand back. It gave a thunderous pop as it came free.
"Good noise," Tic said. "Excellent volume. Can I hear it again?"
"No!" I snapped. "I thought… I thought I saw… I thought I felt…"
"Puppies?" Tic asked. "They wanted it to be a pleasant experience for you. You don’t like dogs?"
"That was…" I gasped. "You mean the nanites…"
"Projected the image to say hello. They meant well, Smallwood. Now they’re worried they’ve upset you."
"How could they project an image?"
Tic reached out a bony finger and tapped my forehead. "You’re wired in now. Linked to the digital oneness. Like the nanites."
"But they’re not intelligent!"
"Not very," Tic agreed. "But they’re connected. They asked the world-soul to greet you on their behalf; the world-soul was the one who came up with puppies."
I felt my gorge rise… whatever a gorge is. "The world-soul projected something into my brain? Without my permission?"
"In any sensible society, saying hello to people gives them permission to say hello back."
"They aren’t people, they’re nanites!"
"Yes… and soon they’ll be cranky little nanites if you don’t say how much you appreciate their greeting. Small brains. Short tempers. Easily hurt feelings." Tic gestured toward the window. "Go on. You don’t want to get on their bad side. Otherwise, the next time you run through a pane of glass, they’ll deliberately muss your hair."
I stared at him. Tic had such a bland deadpan expression — a perfect poker face. (If frumpy old basset hounds could play poker.) For all I could tell, there wasn’t an ounce of jokery in him.
Sigh.
Here’s the thing: I didn’t want to find out windows had easily hurt feelings. I preferred that my worldview didn’t include opinionated nanotech. But… link-seed, Vigil, blah-blah-blah. You know the song, sing along with the chorus — Faye can’t hide from the truth.
I reached toward the window again. Only one hand. The featheriest touch I could manage. A cool jelly palm made contact with mine, just as hesitant as me. Into my skull came the feeling of shyness — not my own, someone else’s, a million someone elses worried they’d made some social gaffe. It’s all right, I thought, projecting my words at the un-glass, I’m just jumpy is all. I forced my palm to linger an extra second, then pulled back, feeling the jelly hand slip away.
Ssssssss. A pop as soft as a soap bubble.
"An adequate start," Tic said. "Just don’t ignore them from now on."
"I never knew they… who programmed them for emotions?"
Tic leaned toward me and whispered, "Nanites only have two programmed emotions: boredom and involvement. A single bit-switch that tells them they enjoy doing their job. ‘Oh joy, we get to work for big people!’ " He smiled fondly. "But when the nanites communicate with you through the world-soul, the world-soul likes to add more emotional color. Truth is, getting to know your local nanites is mostly just a way to show the world-soul you’re machine-friendly. Like playing with a woman’s children to win the mother’s heart. You definitely want to stay on the world-soul’s good side — you’re a data-based organism now." He lowered his voice even more. "The world-soul likes to be called Xe."
I fair gulped at that one. Xe (pronounced Chay) was a female deity from the Ooloms’ ancient past, dating back millennia to the Divian homeworld… comparable in time and sentiment to the Greek goddess Gaia. The Earth Mother. As I’ve said I didn’t understand much about Oolom religions, but I was sure they all considered Xe mythical. A pretty legend, a gem of a metaphor, but definitely fictitious.
"Are you saying Xe is real?" I whispered.
Tic stared at me scornfully. "It’s the world-soul, Smallwood. An artificial intelligence distributed over a million different machines. It likes the name Xe, but even Xe knows it’s not Xe. Are all new proctors as gullible as you?"
"I’m not gullible," I grumped, "I’m just surprised the world-soul is… conscious. No one ever told me—"
"Xe’s picky in choosing friends," Tic said. "Who’s let in on the secret. Who gets shut out. If you remember this conversation tomorrow, feel honored."
"You mean the world-soul could wipe—"
"Shh." Tic put a scaly finger to my lips. "Wisdom doesn’t upset itself over something that might not happen."
Wisdom can go poke a porcupine, I thought. A self-aware AI with delusions of godhood had its fingers inside my cranium; and now I found that if Xe didn’t like me, it could wipe away all recollection of the past five minutes. I guess the conversation would never shift from short-term to long-term memory — thanks to an AI mucking with my mind.
And the entire Vigil was linked to that!
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. I’d found a grand old way to mess myself up this time.
Unless Tic was lying. Out-and-out delusional. I couldn’t deny there was something queer about the windows, the nanites and all… but this talk of Xe could just be an old loon’s demented concoction. Imagining he was the world-soul’s bosom buddy, when it was just an egoless congregation of computers, clean devoid of will.
Which was more disturbing? That my new supervisor might be psychotic? Or that he might be right?
Tic whispered, "Bye-bye," to the window, and patted the membrane a last time before turning to me. "Well, Smallwood. Down to business. I assume you’ve heard I’m your supervisor?"
"Yes."
"And you’ve also heard I’m a Zenned-out dotard with brains of sponge pudding?"
"Gossip has reached my ears," I said.
"All of it true," Tic replied, "except the parts that aren’t. Or the parts that are both true and untrue." He gave me a look. "I just said that last so I’d sound more Zen. Not that I know much about human religions, but mystics the world over love paradox. Which is to say they hate reductivist binary logic. Am I rambling?"
"You’re showing off," I told him. "Indulging yourself to make me think you’re really crazy."
He smiled. "Very shrewd, Smallwood. You’re smart as well as wide. But God Almighty, you are wide. Do you have to go through doors sideways?"
"No," I said. "And I’m married."
"With shoulders like that, no wonder. But don’t mind me — us old codgers always use sexual harassment to put women at their ease. People think it’s so adorable, we can get away with murder. And speaking of murder, what did you say that got Chappalar killed?"
The question caught me flat-footed. Ever adept with brilliant repartee, I said, "Huh?"
"Chappalar," Tic repeated. "We were both at a party for him the other day. Quiet fellow — never spoke a word through the whole ceremony. And speaking of speaking, whom did you tell? That you intended to visit Pump Station 3." Tic leaned his hangdog face toward mine. "Who knew you’d be there?"