Freenet (21 page)

“How far back could they go?”

“It takes just as much energy to travel twelve billion years as to travel twelve million years.”

“Holy crap.”

“Exactly. Mankind has already taken omnidroid technology back to the beginning of time and forward to the end of eternity. The universe is riddled with wormholes, and we’re stuck here alone.”

“But we can go back to Earth any time. We’re still connected.”

Colin8 shook his head. “We can go back to view the Earth as it was in antiquity, not as it is now. We can never know the modern age. By now the omnidroids of intergalactic history will have evolved a psychic network of communication that spans the cosmos.” He stopped to palm a sensor, and a portal slid open. “This is our genetics lab, open for your inspection in full cooperation with the media.”

They stepped forward into a large expanse filled with computer hardware and bulging tanks like bathyscaphs. The stagnant air smelled stale. Colin8 extended his arm with sweeping grandeur. “The equipment in this lab was first developed to pioneer cloning technology for our illustrious progenitor.”

Roni surveyed the vast array of dormant apparatus. The viewscreens were blank and control boards unlit, and a series of empty office chairs stood in line like a regiment. No signs of staff, no tools on trays or jackets on the chair backs. “Where are all the workers?”

“Alas, you have arrived at the party long after the music has ended. We closed up shop some time ago. The latest biogen is seven years old now. This lab is a mausoleum, an ancestral relic.” Colin8 stepped toward a large ovoid vessel covered with a thin layer of dust. “This was my womb, my first home in an amniotic sea.” He pointed underneath at four hydraulic legs. “It moves on a programmed pattern to stir fluids in a natural manner.”

“You were born from a machine?”

“The omnidroids as well. We had all the in vitro systems in place, so after Simara arrived, we used her blueprint to splice together twenty-four more omnidroids, enough to establish a stable procreative base. Brain implant surgery was performed right here in the womb by micro-robots. Each omnidroid has an octahedral array, hardwired with the foundational source code of the V-net. They were born into digital space long before their first breath of air. The V-net is their true home.”

“How did you get around the trauma problem that plagued Simara?”

Colin8 held up a single finger. “That was our surprise breakthrough. We experienced no problems whatsoever. The new omnidroids connected with Simara from birth, even from the dark reaches of Babylonian winter. She became a den mother to all the children through a psychic tether that does not diminish by distance. Do you see how important this is?”

Roni nodded. “The mothership.”

“We can’t be sure if the hive-mind originated from Simara as a cognitive mechanism to cope with her digital distress, or whether the mothership is an actual first contact with a celestial intelligence. That is the most critical question under current study.”

“So you want to use the mothership to communicate with omnidroid colonies in space?”

“Yes. It’s our only hope to avoid an impoverished future. The speed of light is too slow to connect in any meaningful way. The universe is far too vast. But the omnidroids use their freenet to stay in constant communion, using science we are just beginning to fathom.”

“But what about us? What about simple humans? We’ll be left behind on the dust heap of history.”

The young clone nodded. “That much is true.”

“You’re willing to relinquish the future to the omnidroids? Just throw up your hands and walk away from your human heritage? That doesn’t sound like the Colin Macpherson of legend. How will your baby clones compete with their biogen peers? You’ll be second-class citizens.”

Colin8 slouched his posture in confession. “I’m the last of the Macpherson line, the final custodian. Eight lifetimes is enough for any man, and cloning leaves no room for the type of evolutionary development of which we speak. We have a 50% DNA interest in the omnidroid species, strictly speaking, though most of the code is augmented to creative schematics. We’ve secured a good foothold for posterity, a majority interest in this strain.”

Roni studied the young man more closely, frail of stature with pointed chin, high cheekbones, and wide ears. He recognized it now, the elfish look in all the omnidroids, a common ancestry. “What gives you the right to engineer the extinction of mankind?”

“Ah, the cry of the giant Neanderthals and the pygmy hominids. Humanity is changing, not disappearing. Nature selects the best features suitable for new environments, and always will. We’re introducing nothing foreign to the genome. Omnidroids can’t predict the roll of dice or the winning numbers on a lottery, but they can summon affective precognition under stress, and this gives them great social advantage, as you can plainly see. You’re the one being led around by the nose.”

“What are you insinuating? I’m not working for the omnidroids.”

“You are the vehicle of influence, the show with the biggest bandwidth. You have the three worlds watching daily vigil on the omnidroid elder, intimately concerned for her good health, while a week ago she was on her way to a courtroom lynching. You alone have changed the tide of public opinion and helped quash a murder investigation that has laid a protective mantle of double jeopardy on Simara’s shoulders. And for what? More eyeballs on the V-net bonus chart? More wireheads sucking up the feelie feed? You accuse my company of dastardly deeds while you spin a dangerous web for your own benefit.”

Roni shuddered at the possibility. “I’m just reporting the news. I’m not making anything up.”

“Our intent is to protect the good standing of Neurozonics and preserve the historic integrity of the Macpherson name. You make slanderous statements against us in the media, accusing us of conspiracy and attempted genocide, so we have no choice but to burden you with the truth. We created the omnidroids and are joyous at the outcome. We willingly lay down our heritage of cloning technology, now primitive in comparison.” He pointed a level finger at Roni. “Mothership manipulates you like a dancing marionette, dropping clues for you and falsifying data. A hardened newsman like you might not heed the warning, but I’ll voice it nonetheless: if you dare to tell the real story, no one will believe it. Your reputation will be slighted forever, and silence will be your only option.”

Roni’s chest tightened like a vice. “I’ll fight back.”

Colin8 turned and walked away. “Your time is up,” he said over his shoulder. “Niri will escort you to the tram.”

In a daze of confusion, Roni returned to the change room and put on his street clothes. He palmed a door sensor and stepped into the entrance foyer where Niri sat in her circular workstation. She looked over from the flashing thoughtscreens surrounding her. “Are you okay?”

“I’m not sure.”

Niri rose from her perch and sidled toward him. She slipped a sinewy arm under his elbow. “The truth is hard, but I hope you can see the glory of the vision. No secrets, no crime, a future where every thought is freely shared.”

“Just because someone can read your mind, doesn’t mean they’ll respect your interest.”

“Twelve billion years is a long time to learn wisdom.”

“Or perfect domination. These omnidroid gods are going to enslave us with trickery and deceit unless we do something to stop them. When’s the next tram?”

“There’s one out front. You can just catch it.” The plate-glass doors swung inward as they approached. “But don’t mistake altruism for tyranny. The machines weep for us, Roni, because we’re so primitive.”

Roni took the tram back to his apartment and poured himself a stiff shot of white allkool. Zen was in the kitchen roasting a chicken for their Heritage meal together. A fragrant cloud of spices filled the air and seemed to seep into Roni’s mind with a calming influence as he sat on the sofa and wrestled with his responsibility as a newsman. If Simara had used him unwittingly in pursuit of devious schemes, he would make it right and make amends. He would tell the real story, goddamn it. The future was squarely in front of Roni, risk and reward, passion and promise. The omnidroids were an evil menace and potent threat to all humanity.

He kept his thoughts to himself during the Heritage festival dinner. No sense burdening the Bali boy with guilt, or trying to explain the paradox of time travel to a cave dweller. They toasted allkool in tribute to every spiritual inclination in memory, religions past and present on planets near and far, but Roni couldn’t help wondering if a divine hive-mind had spawned them all. Did ancestral omnidroids wait over long eons for the first apes to walk upright on the fertile savannas of Earth? Did they use their amplified psychic powers to guide primitive hominids toward consciousness with archetypes and symbols, toward their own predestined fabrication at the hands of emerging
homo sapiens
—the worm ouroboros devouring its own tail across time and space?

After a long and ceremonial repast, Roni stumbled to bed and fell into a fitful sleep. He dreamed of monsters—giant red dragons with heads like turtles, threatening to devour him. They swarmed below his feet like writhing crimson snakes and snapped off his toes one by one with sharp, clamping jaws. He felt no pain in the dream state, no visceral discomfort as the dragons chewed up his shins to his knees. He tried to pull away, but his sleeping body remained inert. He tried to scream, but could summon no sound. An overwhelming agony of loss captivated his mind as the turtleheads consumed his legs, a horror of anticipation, for he knew when sharp teeth reached his scrotum all hope for the future would be lost. He heard a gong in the distance like the muffled bell from a medieval monastery in an ancient fantasyland, a call to action, a summons to war. He tried to move, but could not break free from paralysis, surrounded by dragons and unable to resist, a helpless, pitiful wretch. The tone grew steadily louder in the centre of his brain, evenly paced with persistence, and he moaned with recognition. Only his editor had access to his private mind. What the hell? “Login,” he snarled into his pillow.

::Great job, Roni. Neurozonics has given us a green light for the show. Whatever you did yesterday was a winner.::

He sat up and rubbed tension from between his eyes as turtleheads dissolved like red smoke around him. “It was nothing.”

::Did you actually meet Colin Macpherson in the flesh?::

“A young clone in a foppish suit. He told me the truth about everything. Did you get some documents from Neurozonics?”

::Yes. Sections of complicated machine code. They verify, and seem worrisome. But far too technical to use on the show.::

“The omnidroids have been manipulating data, altering history. They set up the accidents to reverse the tide of public opinion.”

::Old news now. We have a pressing development on Simara. Are you taking care of yourself? Did you sleep?::

Roni’s brain felt fuzzy with the hint of a hangover. “I’m okay. What’s up?”

::We’re scrambling an early crew. The omnidroids started to arrive at the hospital just past midnight. We’re keeping tabs on them like you said, and it seems to be paying off. They’re coming in from all over.::

“How many?”

::All of them, Roni. All twenty-two children should arrive within the next three hours. I want you there with your game face on. Get up and get your shit together.::

Roni groaned. “I don’t even like children, and these ones are freaky. They barely speak, and they’re no good on camera.”

::Get your lazy ass out of bed and get down here. One hour. No excuses.::
Gladyz signalled off.

A hot shower brought him back to his senses. All the omnidroids in one place—they must know something! Mothership must have summoned them for a purpose, some grand design. Roni slathered cinnamon butter on a hot bagel with a twinge of regret at the gluten and carbohydrates. He felt guilty as he took a bite, thinking about Niri’s sculpted physique. The woman had ruined his appetite forever with her dedication to perfection.

Roni poked Zen to wakefulness with the broom handle and handed him a glass of warm goat’s milk, his favourite morning beverage. The boy spent most of his time at the hospital, sitting beside Simara in quiet devotion like a man under a magic spell. He had no digital life, no reason to do anything else—a foreigner on a strange planet with only Simara as his tether to civilization. Why would a Bali boy built like an ox leave his home world to follow this trader waif into space? How had she brainwashed him in such a short time, a matter of days?

The camera crew was packed by the door and milling aimlessly in the hallway as Roni waltzed into the office. “Morning.”

Gladyz looked over from her workstation. “You’re late.”

He frowned. “I’m not late. I’m early. You called me in.”

She squinted at him. “You look like hell. Derryn’s waiting for your makeover. I’ve been hitting a brick wall with hospital bureaucrats all morning.”

“The omnidroids are using us, Gladyz. Manipulating the news.”

“As long as it’s good for the show, we shouldn’t worry.”

“They arranged the accidents and deleted the data tracks to hide their guilt. We have the proof.”

“Nobody cares about that now. Don’t make the omnidroids your enemy. Work with them.”

“Somebody needs to take a stand. Our DNA is being tinkered out of existence by mad scientists.” Roni gave his editor his best glare of sincerity. Everything in life was a mere distraction compared to information like this. Jobs, careers, family, politics—what good would it do an endangered species?

Gladyz shook her head. She wasn’t buying his premise. “You can’t force preconceptions on the public. Viewers will see right through it. The conspiracy idea is old news now. We were the ones who helped tear it down.”

“This is different. I’m working on a breaking story now. The omnidroids have a psychic communication system that stretches across the space-time continuum. Beats the hell out of an orangutan on a shopping spree.”

“You need to step back from the precipice before you go over the edge and hurt yourself.”