Zero
plus Four Days
“You a little heavy for a hu, cuz;
whatchu packin?”
“Oh, just a heavy breakfast, cousin. I
‘m sorry if I’m tiring you.”
“You sure et a load of crap then; and
it’s buzzing away inside you like a beehive. I reckon
you’s a cyborg o’ some sort. Ain’t no-one
else so heavy on the back.”
“Cousin Horse, I think you hit the
target there. A cyborg of some sort, that’s me. Now I
haven’t been a cyborg long, and nobody knows yet, so
let’s just keep it a secret between us, eh?”
“Drive, cuz, drive. Someone shure gon
get a surprise.”
Auguste Su-Gienah rode into ArGartha town on horseback, like
a cowboy set on revenge. He remembered with startling clarity the Unity
troupe on Nova Terra, dressed up like an ancient Earth posse; he
laughed wildly inside himself. Thanks to the fine control he now had
over his augmented body and mind, this laughter did not affect his
outward demeanour. As he swung down from the horse-taxi he looked
entirely human and insignificant; but inside he was popping and fizzing
with a million new sensations, and a focussed determination he had
never known before.
Gus took station at a table outside the cafe; it was a fine
day, with peach clouds slowly drifting past. He noticed the colours,
and part of his new extended mentality was calculating the relative
strengths of various types of scattering that produced this colour.
Such information should be useful for predicting short-term weather so
could not be ignored.
When the transaps rebuilt him they gave him a
generous helping of augmentations, raising him up to su-level (but not
breaching the first singularity; Gus was still emphatically human).
His blood had been replaced by a dense active fluid, and his
eyes were radically improved, although they looked entirely ordinary
from outside. Without moving them he could concentrate on any object or
group of objects in his field of view. Or he
could be aware of the whole scene in exquisite detail; this required
quite a lot of extra processing power. Using his mental augmentations
increased his body temperature slightly, as the processing nodes were
distributed all through his flesh and bones. Gus wondered how far he
could push these new augmentations before he started to overheat; the
answer popped up inside a little mental window. Now he had a large
exoself with plenty of processing power and a personalised interface he
felt that he could sympathise more than ever with Max, who must
experience this flood of calculation and information all the time.
Yes; this new augmented existence was just like plugging
inside the computerised mind of a vec. All his adult life he'd been
bonded with Max, his symaiote robot, relying on the information Max's
orderly mind could dredge up, but their communication had always been
superficial. Now Gus could do the same trick himself he found that he
could relate to the brushbot on many new levels; the newly-restored vec
was draped over his shoulders and was fairly buzzing with the flow of
high speed conversation between them. Max was finding this new improved
Auguste Gienah fascinating, and had much to learn.
"So you was a reporter
when you were a woman, eh? I have always suspected you were a natural
gossip."
“There is quite possibly something in a
woman’s mind which can handle interpersonal communication and
empathy more easily. It was difficult to appreciate at the time, but
with the benefit of hindsight – and an array of interesting
analytical tools I’ve never had before- I can see that I was
much more able to handle interpersonal relationships when I was a
woman.”
“Yes- they have given you a lot of new tools,
haven’t they? You are quite a bit different from the Gus I
knew- even allowing for the fact that I have been out of circulation
for four hundred and forty years.”
Max Handy had been
restored from his latest available backup, at su-Gienah’s
request; this turned out to be a copy made before the trip to Nova
Terra, the last time Max had ever copied himself. After the Trojan
virus had been introduced into man and robot, Max had never backed
himself up at all. Gus had copied his mindstate several times, but the
virus was only present in his tattoos, so it was never detected by the
copier software.
This meant that Max had four hundred years of gossip to
catch up on; and thanks to su-Gienah’s new extended
mentality, this could proceed quite rapidly. Not everything that Max
heard was flattering.
“Well, you can’t blame me for my actions after I
copied myself; I simply wasn’t there yet. If I had the chance
to do it all again I might have done something different.”
“Max, the fact is you were a great friend, but a
rubbish bodyguard. I was getting into trouble from one end of the
Necklace of worlds to the other, and you were either immobilised or
looking the other way. On Elsirac those modubot grains clogged up your
fronds, and in the Sludge Trap Caves you got yourself emped stupid.
I’ve managed to survive this long despite your help, not
because of it.”
“Like I said; I wasn’t there; that was just a robot
that looked like me.”
“And had the same memories as you; yes. I know all
the excuses.”
“You
seem to have become a snippy piece of work since they put all those
mods in your head; just remember, they are only extensions, they
don’t make you any wiser by themselves.”
“Maybe not, but they certainly help me organise my
thoughts a lot better.”
"Ah, just chill out, Mister All-Meat-and-Wires Head; just enjoy the
ambiance; looks like there is going to be a bit of
entertainment.”
And there was; a couple of poets occupying a table near the bar had
been loudly arguing over the relative merits of magical aestheticism
and subconscious prose; now they were rolling around, banging each
other’s heads on the fixtures and fittings. It looked to Gus
like they were both well-matched and able to take care of themselves; a
little bit of friendly fisticuffs was commonplace in the old town of
ArGartha.
When the fighting stopped, and the poets were buying each
other drinks at the bar once more, Max said,
"Perhaps it was all
something to do with the trojan horse we were both infected with. Your
particular symptoms were a little more dramatic than my own, after
all." His lights were
showing a particularly morose mustard colour at that point.
"Yes; It is not inconsistent with the facts; in fact you
might have been someone's sock puppet, playing with my fate for your
own amusement."
"'Not
inconsistent with the facts...' - by all the stars, Gus, your mods are
making you talk like a real tin-brain. Are you sure you are happy with
their settings? You can adjust them, you know."
"Peace, little vec; I want to be alert. We might have walked
right into the dragon's lair here, and we need all the help we can get."
Just as Gus said this, another commotion broke out; several
customers were peering over the low wall at the nearby river, shouting
at each other and towards the water. Several waiters and other staff
approached the wall with concerned looks. Gus did not move his head,
but he suddenly became very alert; his augmented eyes could observe
every aspect of the scene in front of him without moving, and with
these eyes he had seen a particular figure appear from the back of the
restaurant and walk towards the river with a measured stride. This
figure was wearing a particularly fine waistcoat and smart trews, but
was generally inconspicuous.
~That's him, Gus sent to Max, in a carefully encrypted burst
of data.
~I
think I recognise him, sent Max. ~Strange, because my memories are
generally crystal clear.
~Oh, he is very clever, hiding in plain sight. In fact I
think he has always been here, everywhere we look. The Librarian helped
me to remember what happened around the time that you and I were first
infected with the desire to go to Tau Ceti. That fellow was there, and
almost certainly responsible. Somehow he can make you overlook him, as
if he were part of the furniture. In some ways I think he is exactly
that.
Gus stood up, and casually walked over to the riverwall,
between the café tables and umbrellas. Max followed like an
animated broom. Most of the customers and staff were peering over the
wall, some laughing, some shocked at the strange sight before them.
Where once had been a respectable and fairly deep stream more than a
hundred metres wide now there was only a trickle. Stranded on the mud
was a large provolve, a two metre lungfish wearing a toolbelt of some
sort; he wasn’t in any danger of drowning in the air, but he
was pretty much helpless on the slippery mud and kept falling over
while shouting profanities. Mostly he kept saying ‘What the
freck happened to my river?”
A solemn cyborg standing next to Gus muttered; “The water
just drained away. It was there ten minutes ago. How could this
happen?”
Gus was watching the mysterious waistcoated figure out of the
corner of his eye (quite literally), and the figure was watching them
in exactly the same manner..
~ He knows we are here, whoever he is. He is the one who
infected us, I’m sure.
~Yes, that is the chap. I do
remember him. He is always
standing at the back of the crowd during official functions in this
town, and always at the best celebrations and parties; but he never
says anything to anyone. But who is he?
A profoundly wise, calm and temperate voice sounded now in their minds.
~That
is the avatar of your home town. Do you not recognise em? The
transapient entity which is the city of ArGartha itself. E will not
talk to you; the town mind abandoned spoken language long ago, and has
never spoken to anyone since, least of all Me. I have sent you to make
contact with this entity, to let em know that I have finally swept away
all the veils of intrigue e has spread everywhere. Contact has now been
made; events are unfolding.
~Thank you, my Lady, sent Gus;
privately he thought – The very gods are watching
through my eyes; it is a disturbing and uncomfortable experience. But
perhaps if those same gods had been keeping a closer eye on me long ago
none of this would have happened. But at least now I know my enemy, and
it turns out to be the very city that is my home.
He was boiling with anger inside; he used his internal
graphics package to send the Avatar of ArGartha a message in a language
e might recognise. By laying letters one on top of another in the
Coronese script he made a sigil, a message which was practically
impossible to read it was so complex. But Gus was certain the city mind
would be able to puzzle it out. Gus displayed this sigil closely spaced
all over his skin; to a casual observer it looked like a meaningless
pattern, but when the letters were disentangled it said-
u
fcker u r so busted
The avatar suddenly turned round, and hurried back into the
restaurant. Gus started to follow him, but a movement on the
skyline caught his eye. Something was happening to the
horizon.
“Gus-
can you see that?”
squawked Max in an impossibly high vec voice.
“Oh, corrupt my backup,” Gus said,
focussing on the distance.
ArGartha town was spread on the slopes of a great hill,
higgledy-piggledy roofs and towers climbing up towards the moors; Gus
and Max had been beneath that town many times, exploring far into the
passages beneath the hill. Now the hill was slowly shrinking, and the
roofs and towers were settling down one behind the other and gradually
disappearing from sight. This explained the disappearance of the river
as well; as the hill shrank, the river was losing its force.
Strange booming noises like cannon accompanied this slow collapse of
the landscape; most of the customers had noticed nothing, but some were
beginning to look at the town in amazement as it withdrew; one or two
customers and most of the staff were following the avatar into the back
of the café.
“Quick,
Gus, looks like they are doing a runner.”
Max Swung up onto Gus’s shoulders, and Gus ran
after the last disappearing waiter. Inside the
restaurant it was dark, but his eyes adjusted rapidly, so it was easy
to see the gigantopithecus provolve that jumped out to bar his way. Gus
used his momentum to barge past the ape, which was as big as a
drayhorse; Auguste Su-Gienah
was filled with mechanical blood-substitute and was much denser than he
looked, while the machines that acted as his
blood also compensated for this increase in mass by acting together
like muscle tissue (when required). Gus was now considerably stronger
than before, and the surprised ape found himself flying backwards into
(and through) the passageway wall.
~Whoo-hoo!
Nice move! You should take up rugby football.
~Never heard of it. Tell me all about it later.
The cannon-fire noise was deafening now; ahead Gus could see
a few stragglers racing up a short flight of stairs and diving into a
low doorway. A low doorway which was getting lower all the time. Like a
town in a nightmare, the town was shrinking; this particular town was
alive, and space only knew what nightmares it was having. In front of
him the short flight of stairs withdrew into the floor; the low door
had now become a window, and a face peered out of it going downwards as
if in a lift. Oh well, it is now or never, I suppose; Gus used his
assisted leg muscles to leap up towards the window/door, and shot
through the opening like a leaden missile.
Oh, he thought, when he was halfway through the opening.
The floor on the other side was rapidly receding; ten, twenty metres
below; Gus threw his feet apart and jammed them in the doorframe, which
left him dangling above a drop which was rapidly increasing. He slammed
against the wall, hanging head downwards, and was stunned; the
vasculoid machinery which filled his body absorbed most of the shock,
however, and he quickly recovered, looking down as the last of the
restaurant staff disappeared into a second door thirty meters below.
Thirty five metres.
Forty.
~Perhaps I shouldn’t have done that.
