Beautiful Intelligence Read online

  “Your biograins are safe, Tsuneko” he said, in his softest voice.

  Tsuneko turned around. “My biograins had better be safe. My biograins could have made me a billion. Instead, I was seduced by your… vision.”

  “Hmm. You regret it? You want out?”

  “No. No. I’m just…”

  “Okay,” Manfred said, standing up. “Bad evening. Stressy. We all said what we needed to say. Pouncey, buy food. Expensive. We need a treat.”

  Pouncey grinned. “Sure boss,” she murmured as she left, nodding to him.

  Tsuneko sat at the kitchen table. She stared at Manfred and said, “My biograins had better be safe. My biograins take everything we learned from the internet, what the Rim learned to make the nexus, and fire all that inside the human brain. If the bis lose their way…”

  “They won’t,” Manfred said. “I’m right. I damn know I am. They’re in the room next door now, all nine of them, listening. Working out what the others know. I bet you.”

  “Let’s go and see–”

  Beep beep: their moby. Tsuneko clicked it. “Dijon… Maria… you got how much? Where from? Right… right… sure I want it… But it’ll cost? Right… right.”

  Tsuneko glanced at Manfred, eyes wide.

  “Dawn… Sure… I’ll be there. Non-traceable, you need to tell me that? After all the deals we’ve cut?”

  She shook her head and grimaced at Manfred.

  “Sure… sorry… yes, it is a lot of bioplas. Okay. Five am. ’Bye.”

  Moby off-click.

  “I think we’ve hit the motherlode,” she said.

  Manfred said, “Bioplas?”

  Tsuneko nodded. “One fifty one kilogrammes, finest Iranian. We could build the bis proper bodies!”

  Suddenly the threat and angst of the night was gone, and Manfred saw his young hothead researcher again. “Let’s go see the bis,” he said. “You and Pouncey can score the bioplas later. Then we’ll hunker here for as long as we can.”

  ~

  Pouncey skimmed the grease-sheened streets, rain popping her hair. At a Washington Square tang joint she bought keefers, chips, chocolate sponge and bottles of water. Real British water, from Yorkshire, where they still had some. Electric scooters whizzed by, mounted the pavement, then rode on. In her spex she saw clouds of neo-info swirl around the riders – kids, their ages, their names. They were safe though: her links to the PD computers told her that. She smiled. The nexus provided.

  She walked into Sansom Street, putting the food in her rucksack, then the ruck on her back. Then stopped.

  Six-Fingers?

  It was him, the man she employed to clean evacuated apartments of all human traces. He was being hassled by a white-haired Hispanic in a raincoat.

  Six-Fingers shouldn’t be here. He should be steam-cleaning furniture.

  She watched the pair. Three brief moves through the nexus brought their conversation to her ears via the parking meter they stood by – one of the old speak/listen models. And Six-Fingers was doing a deal.

  Suddenly cold, Pouncey retrieved the Hispanic’s kernel through the nexus. Theft. Arson. A Penn Centre gang drone.

  Danger!

  Pouncey took her hi-vel and ducked behind a liquor store hoarding. She had a good sight. The pair hadn’t seen her. She glanced over her shoulder. One cam looking the other way. And an exit – an alley. Too good an opportunity. No point thinking about it.

  She aimed. Shot Six-Fingers. Turned, ran.

  No time to see what the Hispanic did. But Six-Fingers was dead. She never missed.

  At the end of the alley she turned left into a yard, flipped over the wire mesh at the end, then dodged dogs to skitter down a covered passage. Then out into the street, calm, ordinary. No red lights blinking in her spex: no PD.

  A few minutes later the new place, and up in the lift. Through the apartment door, then shut it. Pause for breath, her back to the door; and a gasp of relief.

  Manfred saw her. His face blanched. “What?” he said.

  Pouncey took off her rucksack and extracted the food bags. “Six-Fingers screwed us. It was lucky though. If I’d not been out…”

  Manfred turned, glancing at Tsuneko. “You see? We’ve got to keep moving.”

  Tsuneko scowled and took one of the bags, sniffing it. She glanced up at Pouncey and in a quiet voice said, “Yes, but sometimes I feel I’d like a life.”

  Pouncey shrugged. “I’m just the hired muscle,” she said. “Sorry about the bad news.”

  ~

  Midnight, and Manfred peered through the sim-slot of the bis’ room, Joanna at his side. “What are they doing?” she whispered.

  He squeezed her arm. “Resting, I think. Maybe they’re getting used to their new heavy bodies. Two of them staring at each other though. Hmm… better go in. You too?”

  “Of course.”

  The door clicked as Manfred opened it, the lamps auto-brightening. Like cats, every bi turned to stare at them; motionless now, alert, aware. Manfred had seen this a few times however, and was not concerned. These intelligences had to be alert to survive.

  “Look at those two,” Joanna said.

  Manfred looked. Two of the bis had returned to staring at each other, and he noticed that their bioplas tints had changed. “The yellow one is more orange and the orange one more yellow,” he murmured.

  “It’s like you said. They’re trying to model one another. You were right!”

  At once new ideas flooded into Manfred’s mind. The whole point of using bioplas – rare, yes, and novel, but which he could still afford – was to give the bis malleable bodies. Ultimately, he wanted humanoid physiques. But then another thought. “We’ve made a mistake,” he said. “If they’re going to have a reason to mentally model one another, they need to be different. They need different experiences. They need…”

  “We could separate them inside the crates, give them screens to watch with different feeds.”

  He nodded, excited. “Yeah! And give them different music to listen to. Then we put them all together again. Force them to understand one another. Lucky we distinguished them at the start by tinting the bioplas. But this is how they’ll become conscious.”

  Joanna took a step forward. “They might already be developing some sort of communications if they’re modelling one another,” she said. She turned toward Manfred, worry on her face. “We want them to be like us, though. Comprehensible.”

  Manfred got to his hands and knees and crawled forward to the yellow bi. He sat, legs outstretched, and lifted it, placing it on his thighs. Then he grabbed it and hugged it.

  For a moment, nothing happened. Manfred and the bi stared at one another. The bioplas was cool, malleable like arto-foam, lumpy in places where layers of GM fat protected the biograins and their neurocircuitry. Close to the eye sockets he saw a hint of the underlying alu-plex skeleton.

  Tsuneko had designed that skeleton to be humanoid, flexible, expandable. He theorised the bis had defaulted to globular forms out of convenience. Well, it was time to shake them out of their complacency.

  “Do what I do,” he told Joanna. “We’ve got to get them changing. C’mon, Jo! Like me… do it now.”

  He lifted the bi and moved it along his upper body, ensuring it could sense his limbs and his head. The bioplas squirmed like a custard-filled balloon. The rudimentary legs, that had appeared and disappeared in recent days, expanded; and two arms appeared, growing like time-lapse vines into slender limbs. The eyes were wide. The ears twitched. Ripples like wind over a wheatfield flowed across the micro touch sensors.

  His tactic was working. The bis were ready now to explore their new world, to become individuals. To grow. This bi was copying the form of his body.

  “We’ve got to get them all limbed up,” he said. “Tonight. Like, now! Get them into human shapes that will be too useful to revert from. Like toddlers.”

  Joanna nodded. “There will be a virtuous circle,” she said. “Once we have set them off, they won’t be
able to unlearn. I’ve seen it so often in chimp communities.”

  He nodded.

  “I’m calling Pouncey and Tsuneko. We all need to do this. For us, yeah, but also for the bis. They need variety, they need to individuate.”

  Manfred lifted the yellow bi to the floor then stood up, flipping the call pad. Then he grabbed the red bi and sat down.

  Pouncey appeared a minute later. Manfred said, “Send Tsuneko a wake call, then grab one of these and do as we do. The little varmints are learning. Quick!”

  Pouncey tapped a wristband, said, “TJ,” then sat down.

  Minutes passed. Five, ten, fifteen… and the bis began to cluster, the humanoid shaped ones communicating with the globular ones in some primitive, almost abstract-simple language, like a tongue composed of unguessable gestures. Manfred watched them. They were without doubt passing information to one another, though he heard nothing, and there was no physical contact. Gestural info, maybe? But it was essential they grasped English, to communicate. For a moment he felt scared, dizzy, aware now in a way he had never been before of the incredible pace of their learning. He could thank the biograins for that, and the silk-fine, clotted cables of neurocircuitry designed by Tsuneko that infested their morphable bodies.

  “Where is she?” he asked.

  “Asleep,” Pouncey said, shrugging.

  Manfred glanced at the bis. He reckoned he could leave them for a minute or two. Standing up, he hurried out of the room and walked down the apartment corridor leading to the clutch of bedrooms. Rain tinkled against windows. The white, yellow, orange lamps of central Philly flickered against mildew-scarred walls. He walked into Tsuneko’s room.

  She was packing a rucksack. She span, gasped. Threw the rucksack down.

  Manfred frowned. He thought: what? She’s going somewhere?

  And then he understood.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “Oh, no. Not you.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “You can’t leave. I pay you.”

  Tsuneko hesitated, and Manfred knew from her expression that she had realised he knew what was going on. He pressed home his advantage, desperate to find the truth, guessing it, though not believing it.

  “You’re one of the BIteam,” he said. “This isn’t a group you can just walk out on–”

  “I’m not! What do you mean?”

  He bent down to pick up the rucksack, but she kicked it away. He jumped forward, shoved her onto her bed, then grabbed the bag, upturning it. Stuff fell out. Documents, standalones, moby. Clothes.

  “Don’t you push me!” she screamed at him.

  He stared. She planned to leave. “Why?” he asked.

  She stared at him, tears in the corners of her eyes.

  He said, “I’m sorry Tsuneko, but you can’t go. This isn’t a normal place of work. We agreed…? We had to have rules–”

  “Manfred, you’re talking shit,” she said, getting up.

  Manfred tensed – she never swore. He was right, he just knew it. He had to call Pouncey without making it obvious. He said, “Tell me why you want to go.”

  “I don’t!”

  “Then what’s all this?”

  The micro-pause was just long enough to confirm everything. Exasperated, she replied, “I’m getting ready for the next move, okay?”

  He nodded. He didn’t know what to do. The main apartment door stood ten seconds away. If she had a gun…

  Her gaze flicked to the room door, then back. Manfred heard footsteps: he froze. Pouncey… he was safe.

  Then she walked forward, stood a foot from him, staring at him. He looked away, embarrassed. She ducked down, grabbed his tracksuit waistband and pulled them down, kneeling on the floor in front of him. He took a step back. Her hands were inside his pants, her face at his crotch.

  He took a step back and said, “Wha…?” but she grabbed his knee and tugged. Off balance, he tried to right himself. She got his pants half down. Then Joanna walked into the room.

  He turned, stared. Joanna stared right back. Tsuneko leaped up and said, “Jo! It isn’t like you think… we were… we…” She ducked away, around Joanna.

  Joanna approached at speed. Manfred, bemused, confused, reached down to pull up his trackies, but Joanna grabbed his wrist and tugged hard. He stood up. Saw Tsuneko dart out of the room. “Get her!”

  Joanna span him around. “You f–”

  “No! She’s escaping!”

  He tried to free himself from Jo’s clutches, but he tripped, his legs entangled in his trackies, and fell.

  “Pouncey!” he yelled. “Pouncey, escapee!”

  Then Joanna froze. Turned. Realised.

  Manfred heard the front door slam. Joanna ran out of the room. He pulled up his trackies, got to his feet and followed. He smelled something harsh. His eyes watered. He heard Joanna coughing.

  “Choke defence,” Joanna gasped, returning. “Teargas…”

  The gas minicloud filled the corridor, immobilising them as they coughed their guts up. Pouncey appeared, jumped back, then reappeared moments later with a cell-mask. She ran forward, opened the door, vanished.

  Manfred pulled Joanna back into the bedroom and swung the door shut. Bottles of tru-water lay on the bedside table, which he grabbed. They drank. The nausea was passing.

  “Pouncey’ll get her,” he said.

  Joanna just stared, horror in her expression, fear in her eyes. “What did she say to you?”

  “Nothing. She pretended. Probably not planned. We’ll ask. I can’t let her go, not at this stage.”

  Joanna nodded, then shook her head. “We can’t. She knows the architecture of the biograins. They are… hers.”

  He nodded. “Ours,” he said.

  Noise at the apartment door. Hoarse breath. Pouncey.

  She staggered in, blood covering her right shoulder, arm and hand. An expression of surprise on her face. Of pain. Right arm squeezed close to her body by her left arm. “She had a razoo,” she said.

  “A razoo–”

  Pouncey wailed, “Get me the medkit! I think it hit a vein.”

  Manfred leaped to his feet and ran; grabbed the kit, ran back. Joanna was ready for him, already tying something around Pouncey’s upper arm. In seconds they had a tourniquet set, then faux-teeth to shut the wound.

  “We need to get her to casualty,” Joanna said. “Medics–”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Manfred said. “Okay… I’ll secure the apartment.”

  “Get my spex,” Pouncey said. “She might not be alone. You’ll need my sight.”

  Manfred felt close to panic. “Okay! Okay… mmm, right, we’ll run down to the med centre where Thomas Jefferson Uni used to be. That’s gotta be the nearest.”

  In less than a minute Pouncey was specced up, they wore raincoats, and the apartment was shut down and secure. They left. Traces of teargas lingered. They took the lift down, then slipped into the street. A big black coat covered Pouncey’s wound, her bloodsoaked clothes, the tourniquet. Nobody noticed them as they hurried away.

  CHAPTER 3

  The snow-muffled mountain slopes owned by Ichikawa Laboratories did not deal favourably with intruders. And that was the idea.

  Since founding his labs in 2086, Aritomo Ichikawa had insisted on procedures of rigour against commercial espionage. So when Leonora and Manfred Klee decided to break out, they faced a conundrum. How to regain their liberty?

  The only place of bugfree sanctum was their bed. They drew up a private legal agreement between themselves and Aritomo, allowing them a respite not granted to others, on condition that, as they agreed they would, they tried for a child. To buy time Leonora ingested enough oestrogen to upset her cycle; the moment she became pregnant the agreement would end.

  And so they talked in semantic vacuum. Manfred had a Korean contact in the outside world who could conceal them for a day or two. After that they would need to be hidden from Aritomo’s assassins. Leonora had a contact who knew the great firewall buster Goodma
n Awuku. And of course they had the Swiss bank account set up before joining Ichikawa, an account not much smaller than the GDP of a small country. So there was hope of success.

  If only they could get out of the mountain stronghold.

  Aritomo prided himself on the sophistication of his visual recognition software, boasting to all that no human being could approach his labs. He posted no guards on the retaining walls, knowing escape through the snow fields was simply too dangerous to attempt without external assistance. Choppers were the only method of entry and egress.

  Until Leonora had a thought. Nonhuman visitors were not on Aritomo’s list.

  Smuggling a solitary wasp into their bedroom, she housed it under a glass. Taking the dragon-watches given to them as a gift of good fortune by Aritomo when they joined the labs, she extracted their processors so that she and Manfred could glitch the wasp. It was the work of half an hour to write a suitable program into the processors, set it to activate at sunrise next day, then release the wasp.

  They waited.

  Not knowing how the real world would react to their program they had to guess a departure time. From the lowest store room of the labs, at the time they were supposed to be making a baby, they squeezed through a vent and followed a tunnel to the external wall. A twenty foot drop awaited. Snow cushioned their fall. A culvert led them onto the slopes, where they hid. They could not use any tech because the nexus would detect the trace, if Aritomo’s sensors did not, so they had to assume everything was working. Still hidden from vis ’ware, they slipped and fell down the precipitous culvert to a wide ledge.

  And then, far off, the light they hoped to see. A St Bernard rescue dog, invisible to Aritomo’s sensors. Knowing they remained well within Aritomo’s far-security field they shouted and waved so that the dog would see them. Twenty minutes later it wagged its tail by their side, sniffing around in the snow as if for the buried avalanche victim it had expected.

  Around the dog’s neck hung a rescue sled, ultracarb food, and drink. They unfurled the sled, allowed it to harden, then tied it to the dog. It pulled, struggled, slipped in the snow, then managed to get the sled running with them concealed inside it. So they slid their way fifty eight kilometres to the nearest town, frozen, exhausted. By that time the fake story created in the nexus by the wasp-carried program had given them false identities and an entire back-story, so it was easy enough to get a train to Niigata, and then a boat to an East Korean beach.