How can we stand to entrust our welfare to such a “thing?”
How can Conservators stand to entrust their welfare to fallible humans?
That “thing” is literally no more capable of self-aggrandizement than a person is of keeping his pupils dilated if I flash a bright light in his eyes. And for the same reason: built-in biological limits. AOI’s are the first truly beneficent “rulers” in history. (Of course you know that word in spoken quotes is all wrong.)
Beneficent, that is, until someone or something threatens them or the Commensality.
Then watch out.
Which brings us to the end of digression—
—and the beginning of panic.
* * * *
I was talking with Babylon.
The ceramic pavement grew cold beneath my bare feet, although objectively nothing changed. The shadows (not Shadow) around us seemed deep enough to swallow galaxies. I dipped a blunt finger under my torc and rimmed its reassuring solidity. My heart was beating like the core of a sun, and I willed it down to normal.
I knew Ace was going to be a little slower, now that he had been cored—
(Cored? Babylon catches a person who, despite the elastic parameters of life in the Commensality, has qualified as a disruptive rogue, destructive to the freedom of others. ((It’s all very scientific, each person building up a life-index sorta like karma in the AOI’s banks, and you have to be pretty nasty to qualify for coring. My daily complacency hinged on the belief that I wasn’t.)) In a simple operation, the rogue’s higher brain components are scooped out, leaving enough of the reptilian brain to handle the autonomic functions. A mass of paraneurons is dumped in, giving the AOI direct control of the body, and voila, an agent. Best use of a bad apple. Moral: don’t screw with Babylon and your fellows.)
—but I couldn’t gamble on taking him out, or outrunning whatever weaponry he had modded in.
Thinking fast, I realized that maybe there was no reason to do either. Perhaps this was strictly a social call, having nothing to do with any of my nefarious deeds.
Although I doubted it, I decided to play it that way.
“Ace—uh, Babylon. Hello. Nice to see you. A simple TAP would have gotten my attention just as well.”
The dead man didn’t smile. I had heard that Babylon had trouble portraying emotions, and Ace’s immobile features tended to confirm this.
“That is exactly the opposite of the truth,” said the AOI with the living corpse’s unmodulated voice. “You could have denied the TAP. But not this revenant. I find such encounters quite effective.”
Babylon stared at me until shivers laddered my dorsal plaques. Then he spoke again.
“Let us walk. We have things to speak of.”
What could I say?
We started walking down the nearly empty pre-dawn streets.
Above, it began to rain liquid methane. It sounded like a horde of little clawed animals scrambling atop the dome.
“The Conservancy has made a new move in their war on us,” were Babylon’s first words after we began to stroll, him in a slightly stiff-legged way.
“War is dead,” I parroted.
“Insofar as you mean attack by gross physical means, you merely repeat common knowledge. Neither we nor the Conservancy dare risk antagonizing the other to the point where our opponent would be provoked to, say, translate a few tons of rock directly into the same coordinates as a population center. Being equally vulnerable, we are all equally restrained. But the universe we know is in a constant state of war nonetheless. Our weapon is sheer example. By running an open society, we seduce individuals and worlds constantly away from the Conservancy. Their weapon is propaganda of a most insidious sort.”
I stopped short. “They’ve brought the Chronicle to Babylon.”
“Yes. The Conservancy has sent a representative carrying their Chronicle of Mankind. He’s just moved into the Gardens, and is already playing it for the curious. I am helpless to stop him. My whole reason for being is the free dissemination of information. But the information he has brought is a virus that will kill this world, or at least transform it into an outpost of the Conservancy. Which is the same as death for you and me. Unless we kill him first.”
I started walking again, silent. Babylon followed. We passed a lone axolotl, her neotenic clown’s face smiling. I think she wanted to cruise us, but Babylon must have sent some warning TAP. In a second her elastic features grew worried, and she hurried off.
At last I said, “Why are you telling me this? Can’t you just handle it yourself? Isn’t that your job, to protect our way of life?”
“There can be no official connection between me and the diplomat’s death. We dare not risk violent repercussions. So, I need a tool. And you are that tool.”
I risked some shuck and jive. I should have known it was useless.
“Me? I don’t know anything about such things. I’m a simple hedonist. Why, the very thought—”
Babylon laid a hand on my arm and I shut up.
Then he recited every last crime I’d committed since coming to Babylon.
It was a long list.
“So you see,” he finished, “I know you. You are the one I want. Find this Conservator and kill him. If we accomplish nothing else, we’ll buy a little time while the Conservancy decides what to do. At best, they might grow discouraged, and pick another target.”
I quit pretending. “What’s in it for me? Why should I risk myself to help you?”
“You’re a member of the Commensality,” Babylon reminded me. “As such, you’re a de facto enemy to the Conservancy. If they win here, and they catch you before you can get out in the mass exodus, they’ll scrub your brain. Me, they hate simply because I’m artificial. Mocklife, they call me. But you have two strikes against you. You’ve dared to modify the sacred human physiological ‘norm.’ And you practice miscegenation.”
“Anti-em,” I spat.
“Tagging your opponent with an expletive does not reduce his threat. And you should feel some loyalty toward your commensals. If that is not enough, then consider this. You are about to trip my rogue-trigger. Soon, if you continue your current lifestyle—and I do not predict you will change—you will become a legitimate target for my enmity. If you help me in this, I will wipe the ledger clean, and you will have at least as many years free from my dedicated pursuit as you have yet enjoyed.”
I thought about it for a minute. It seemed the type of argument that was kinda impossible to refute.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
Babylon didn’t smile, but I sensed an AOI analog to that emotion.
“I thought you would see things my way,” he said. Then:
[And I’ll be keeping track of you.]
* * * *
Day was born like a nova.
(Actually: lightstrips, Babylon, literalism, et cetera. )
I stood blinking for a second or two. When I was done, the body that had once been my pal Ace was gone. As to the nature of his future errands, I did not care to speculate. Especially since