Unstable Prototypes (37 page)

"Are you alright? Is everyone alright? How is
your arm? Do you need a doctor? What did you do just then?" she
gushed.

"Aside from the pending nervous breakdown,
yeah, I'm okay," Jon said.

"Arm's fine. Don't worry about the arm," Lex
said, collecting his things from the ground.

"What did you do? What did you throw?"
Michella asked, crouching down to investigate his injury.

"Welcome back, Michella the girlfriend," he
said as she fretted over the burn on his arm.

"Mmmhmm. Michella the reporter still wants to
know what you did just there," she said.

"That slidepad was a spare from Ma's plan.
She had it keyed up for communication, so I opened a channel to her
and tried to get it on the ship. I figured she could trace it."

"Why would your mother know how to trace a
call?" Jon asked.

"It's a computer named Ma," Lex
explained.

"That's a weird name for a computer," Jon
said.

"It makes more sense once you meet her," said
Lex.

"... Meet
her?"
Jon asked.

"It's complicated," Lex said.

They worked their way back to where the
rental car was parked. Overhead, the skyways reactivated, though
flickering red barriers were replaced with steady blue; emergency
vehicles only. Police and paramedics were filtering slowly into the
outskirts, while the heavily fortified explosive ordinance removal
vessel of the military descended on the courtyard behind them. When
they turned the corner to their vehicle's hiding place, they found
a police cruiser waiting. The front grille of the cruiser was badly
damaged and had what appeared to be a shard of what had once been a
decorative lamppost protruding from it. A uniformed officer with
recent armpit stains and a constipated look on his face was
standing beside the vehicle.

"Are you the owners of this vehicle?" he
growled.

"I believe it technically belongs to the
Rackton Premium Choice Rental Agency," Jon said. A piece of the
fender dropped off. "I don't think they're going to want it back,
though."

"Let me clarify the question, then," the
officer remarked through clenched teeth, "Which one of you was
operating this vehicle when it endangered the lives of my men?"

"Who says it was one of us?" Lex asked.

The policeman pulled a bulky display device
from inside his cruiser and queued up a sequence of images. They
were all blurred and below normal resolution, likely shots cropped
from cameras at great distances. They were also unmistakably images
of Lex behind the controls.

"Ah..." Lex said.

"You are coming with me," the officer
said.

"He was aiding me in investigating a breaking
news story and acting only upon my specific requests!" Michella
said, slipping sharply back into journalist mode.

"In that case, you are ALL coming with me,"
he stated.

"Come on! All I did was hold a camera!"

"Relax, Jon. We'll get this handled,"
Michella said, "Just cooperate."

"That would be most appreciated," the officer
said, with a tone and expression that inserted a handful of four
letter words.

The three of them piled into the back seat of
the cruiser.

"It is nice to finally be doing this stuff as
a couple," Lex said.

"Next time give me a heads up. We could have
done a double date," Jon said flatly.

"Okay, once more," Silo said, eyes shut and
hand gently massaging her brow.

"I've already told you three times what is
going on," said Garotte.

"And I'm going to keep on asking until I get
an explanation that actually makes sense!" she snapped.

While Lex and the others were engaged in
their adventures in extreme journalism, Silo, Garotte, and Ma were
slowly recovering from their escape. Their departure from the
planet left them without gravity, thus prompting Garotte and Ma to
strap in to two of the crew chairs. The atmosphere was gradually
improved to the point that the oxygen masks could be removed.
Likewise the temperature had increased until those without the
benefit of a thick fur coat finally stopped shivering violently.
During that time, the emergency force field that had protected Ma
from the harsh surface of Manticore had remained intact. She had
remained silent, operating the ship as best she could in the
weightless environment until life support values stabilized enough
for the emergency field to drop. The very instant it did, the AI
grasped the slidepad tightly and selected a reply with a tap of its
nose, proceeding to tap at various other controls while it was read
aloud.

"I shall attempt to summarize the current
state of events to your satisfaction. The cerebral tissue of the
funk with the designation 'Squee' is currently being utilized as an
organic processing unit to run a useful subset of the capabilities
and functions available to Ma. For interface purposes, it can be
interacted with and treated in a manner identical to Ma. Karter has
been kidnapped by an as yet unidentified group who likely intend to
use him to construct a CME Activator. It is reasonable to assume,
based upon their methodologies, that their motivations for the
acquisition of such a device are criminal or extremist in nature.
It was determined that the most expedient, discrete, and reliable
method to locate and liberate him would be to seek the aid of
former allies. An individual named Trevor Alexander was contacted,
and with his help, the man who currently wishes to be addressed as
Garotte was liberated. Currently we are on a course for the nearest
unmonitored, low risk location in deep space. Upon our arrival and
the assertion that we have not been followed, we will assess the
situation and determine our next objective, which at this point is
likely to be, after the acquisition of an untraceable means of
payment, a rendezvous with an equipment provider who will better
supply us to complete our primary mission," the voice droned on
without pause. When it reached its conclusion, she nosed the pad
again. "Does anyone require medical attention?"

"Well, we were half-frozen, for one," Garotte
said.

"Even a brief exposure to the surface
conditions of Manticore is capable of causing hypothermia and
frostbite," Ma said. "Passive external rewarming should be
sufficient treatment for mild hypothermia."

The little creature launched herself to the
floor. She managed to unhook the straps securing the bag that they
had brought with them and tugged out the Cost-Mart bag, drifting
her way over to the others and presenting it.

"The Cost-Mart bag contains assorted first
aid supplies. Please apply any that you deem necessary to ensure
your swift and complete recovery from any sustained cellular
damage," Ma remarked, when she was able to recover her slidepad
from where she'd left it hanging in air.

Garotte took the bag and began to fumble
through it with his still fiercely stinging hands while Silo
continued to stare at Ma, the soldier's mind slowly attempting to
process the situation.

"So you are Karter's computer."

Ma nodded.

"And you're a funk."

Again, she nodded.

"Why don't you smell bad like the other
funk?"

"Special pills," Garotte said, pulling out a
plastic spray bottle, "And this stuff."

Ma implied agreement.

"And you just saved our lives."

Another nod. Silo shook her head and twisted
and turned the riddle floating just above the floor, trying to find
a spot in her mind where Ma fit. The thing claimed to be an AI, but
it certainly didn't act like the one she remembered from her brief
interactions with it in Karter's facility. It acted like a person,
but it certainly didn't look like a person. That didn't change the
fact that it had done something exceedingly deserving of gratitude.
She stared at it while struggling with the appropriate
classification, and thus the appropriate way to treat her. The
little creature simply stared back, slowly rotating. A flick of its
ear drew Silo's eye to the detail that would break the
stalemate.

"Oh, sweetheart, you're bleeding," Silo
said.

Ma furrowed her brow in a look of confusion,
holding up the slidepad and gazing at her reflection in its smooth
surface. Sure enough, there was a neat little notch taken out of
her ear, with a few specks of dried blood accompanied by a fresh
trickle beading up. Evidently one of the shots fired by her
opponent in the orbital station at Manticore had come closer to its
target than she had realized. She had only begun to nose out a
reply when Silo snatched her out of the air fast enough to dislodge
the slidepad from her paws.

"Pass me some swabs, some ointment, and a
bandage, will you?" Silo said, inspecting the injury.

When Garotte sent the requested supplies
darting her way, Silo deftly plucked them out of the air, then
tucked Ma under one arm and went to work. She carefully dabbed at
the ear, then pinched away the scab, prompting a jerk of pain and
an involuntary yelp of discomfort.

"Oh, baby, I know," Silo said through
puckered lips in a soothing voice. "Don't worry, we'll take care of
you. You won't have to worry about that little booboo anymore."

Ointment was gently applied, and a small
adhesive bandage folded over the wound.

"There, see? Good as new!" Silo said, holding
Ma up and looking her in the eyes with a smile.

Silo cradled Ma on her lap, belly up, and
began to scratch and fondle the advanced artificial intelligence.
Ma righted herself and made a brief attempt to make her way to the
escaped slidepad, but the woman simply tugged her back and held her
close, slowly and steadily stroking the funk's head and back. The
AI was tempted to try more vigorously to escape, but instead she
took a moment to observe the effect her current treatment was
having on the newest member of the team. Silo had clearly been
agitated earlier, showing signs of stress and anxiety. The telltale
indicators of distress were steadily fading now, Ma's sensitive
nose detecting fewer stress compounds and her ears reporting a
slower and steadier pulse rate. The experience was not entirely
unpleasant from her own point of view either. She decided that, in
the short term, she was providing a more useful service in this
therapeutic role than she would be in an advisory role.

"Oh lord," Garotte said, rolling his
eyes.

"What's your problem?" Silo asked.

"Look at you? Fawning over that thing. What
is it with women and small mammals?"

"Have you ever felt her pelt? So warm and
soft..."

"It is a computer, Silo."

"Well, they've made some real advances in
user friendliness since they locked me up, then," she said,
tickling Ma's chin.

"Unfortunately, we've got business to
discuss. We need... Wait," he said, pulling a bottle out of the bag
of supplies. "We had anesthetic the whole time?!"

Ma nodded.

"And you let me jab my face full of needles
without the benefit of so much as an aspirin?!"

Ma looked to the slidepad drifting just out
of reach. Silo plucked it out of the air and gave it to the AI, who
flipped onto her back again and clutched it, nosing out a
message.

"You had denied me of my means of
communication at that point. Your resulting discomfort was thus a
self-imposed punishment. It seemed fitting."

"That is just the most gosh darn adorable
thing I've ever seen," Silo said, watching in delight as Ma held
the slidepad and poked it with her nose.

"She just admitted to allowing me to subject
myself to agonizing and potentially disfiguring pain," Garotte
remarked.

"I'm sure she's sorry. Just look at that
face."

Ma glanced at Garotte, then selected a
reply.

"I feel no particular guilt or regret for the
action described, nor do I feel that such an attitude is
warranted," the automated voice droned.

Silo snickered. "She's like a fuzzy little
lawyer."

Garotte grumbled as he dug through his own
supplies, pulling out a canister with two large pills. Fishing out
a bottle of water, he downed a few of the painkillers along with
the pills. The subtle alterations he'd made to his face began to
ease back into their natural configuration in a sequence of
unsettling shifts and twitches.

"Oh, golly, I hate this part," Silo said with
a wince. She turned away and blocked her vision with her hand.

"Hardly a picnic for me, either," he said.
"I've got a shipment of parts and such to pick up, though. They are
expecting Garotte, not Kenny. If you're done with the computer, I
could use a hand working out how best to gather the resources and
meet our rendezvous."

Silo and Ma looked to Garotte with matching
looks of vague surprise.

"What? She's an insufferable bitch, but I'd
say that she's a damn good computer, and I could use one right
now," he said.

Ma nosed at her pad. "A funk is not a canine,
so the term 'bitch' is inappropriate. The most appropriate
taxonomic classification for a female funk would be a vixen."

"While I do so strive for taxonomic accuracy,
I've known a few in my time, and I assure you, you are most
certainly a -"

"Really, Garotte! Language," Silo
reprimanded. "There are ladies present. You really shouldn't say
things like that."

Ma worked at her pad. "I thank you for your
defense, Miss Silo, but I have observed that Garotte's typical mode
of social interaction with perceived equals relies heavily on
jocular ribbing and banter. Sharing this treatment is thus an
implicit indicator of perceived equality, and is acceptable. What
aid do you require, Mr. Garotte?"

"Well, now that we've been seen misbehaving,
it is probably best that we stay off the main road, so to speak.
I've never been much of a navigator, and I very much doubt Silo is
any more comfortable than I at traversing uncharted space. I would
like a route that will take us to a few places to gather the chips
for payment, then to the rendezvous for pickup. Ideally, the path
should be one that doesn't obliterate us along the way. Can you do
that?"