CAPACITY

“Do you want to waste your last seconds arguing about equal rights? Listen, the path that must be taken has been carefully constructed so that the Watcher will not guess what we are doing. Only the atomic Judy can follow that path. Trust me.”

“Why should I?”

The man ignored her. “Listen. Tell the atomic Judy to investigate the Private Network. There are those who are involved in the Private Network who were there when Justinian Sibelius was murdered.”

“Justinian Sibelius?”

“Don’t bother looking up the name. The Watcher changed the records. They will just tell you he died peacefully on Earth and is now lying next to his wife above the Devolian Plain. That’s a lie. He died at the edge of another galaxy.”

“Another galaxy?”

“Tell the atomic Judy. Investigate the Private Network. Find someone who has been to the edge of another galaxy. That’s where you’ll find the answer.”

They both seemed to feel the change at the same time: Judy through her console, the man by some other means.

“They’ve opened up a pipe. You can get out of here.”

Judy nodded. “Okay. You can come with me and-”

“I can’t. The Watcher is looking for me. If I exit this space, it will see me.”

“If you stay here, you will die.”

“So be it.”

The man seemed to be getting bigger-not swelling like a balloon, rather expanding. The man’s head was already twice normal size. He looked down and smiled as it vanished through the ceiling. His chest seemed to fill the room; Judy took a step backwards as it approached her, the rate of expansion increasing. It passed through her, leaving a brief picture, half-imagined, of ribs and blood and pumping organs. And then…

– Nothing. I was standing in an empty room. He can’t have made it out of the processing space or we would have known it. I can only assume he committed suicide.

The atomic Judy nodded.

– So what do we do now?

– I don’t know. Can we trust the man you encountered? You say he believed what he said was true, but is that enough? It’s hard enough sometimes to believe that the Watcher really exists, even harder to think that it could be a murderer. And even if it was, what could we do about it, anyway?

They paused, gazing at each other: the black digital Judy and the apple-green atomic woman, mirror images of each other. So many Judys, and we all act in the same way. Well, we try to. She thought of Judy 3. Judy 11’s hands moved briskly.

– I say we do nothing. For the moment, at least. Insufficient information.

– I agree.

Judy 11 clasped her hands together.

– There is always the risk that what we know is no longer a secret. If Frances can read what I told you, then maybe so can the Watcher.

For the first time since they had met, the digital Judy spoke out loud.

“Frances?”

“I picked up everything,” said the robot.

The two Judys looked at each other.

“Then we do nothing,” said the atomic Judy.

“For the moment.”

As Judy 3 and Helen were just slipping off to sleep in a virtual bedroom of a virtual apartment on the virtual Shawl, an AI at the EA had completed a trace back along the path of the processing space that had housed the Private Network’s torture chamber. Fourteen years ago the pod’s path had intersected that of a spaceship. A quick trawl through the database gave the name of the owner of the ship. It also revealed that the craft had carried library code for a type 2 VNM and sufficient raw materials for the pod’s construction. Someone on that ship could have made the processing space and set it free, silently sailing along so that illegally copied PCs could be beamed on board at a later date. A further search threw up the name of the one crew member who had the ability to construct such a processing space.

Fourteen years ago. Peter Onethirteen, the crew member identified by the search, probably thought he had got away with it. The EA AI took a certain grim pleasure in requesting Social Care operatives for interrogation duty. Judy 3 had flagged a request to be involved in the investigation, so a notification was duly sent to her.

When the EA’s message hit Judy 3’s inbox, it was nighttime in France. In just a few hours someone there would be getting a very rude awakening.

Justinian 2: 2223

Even from outside the flier Justinian could hear the baby crying. So why couldn’t Leslie? He stormed up the rear ramp into the relative dimness of the cabin, blinking at the yellow and green blots that were suddenly swimming over his eyes.

“Leslie!” he called, “are you hiding from me?”

The anger in his voice set the baby screaming louder. Justinian took a deep breath as he made his way over to the cot, where his son stood gripping the bars, tears dripping down his cheeks. Justinian’s eyes hadn’t adjusted to the comparative gloom of the flier’s interior; he couldn’t make out the robot.

“Hey, hey, baby boy!” Justinian picked up the baby and held him close, kissing the fine blond hair on his son’s warm little head. The cot collapsed and reformed itself into the shape of a flight chair.

“There, hey, baby boy. Shhh…” He cuddled his child closer, felt the hot little breaths on his neck as he rocked him slowly, struggling to hold his blazing white anger in check.

Leslie emerged from the door that led to the forward compartment.

“You’re back,” he said.

“You left my baby crying,” said Justinian, his voice cold, and the baby began crying again. Leslie involuntarily frosted over for a second, his skin increasing in fractality as he retreated from the real world.

“Get back here,” Justinian said in the sweetest tones he could muster. “Hey, shhh, baby boy!” He bounced the baby in his arms.

“I was only on the flight deck!”

“And why were you on the flight deck? I saw you on the ramp, listening, when the pod diverted from the script. You were hiding from me in there!”

“The baby had started to cry. I went through to get his blanket. He left it there earlier, remember? You were showing him the stars as the flier came in to land!”

Justinian glared at the robot. That could be true, he admitted to himself. The baby hadn’t been that upset when Justinian had stormed his way on board. If anything, it was the force of his own anger that had sent his son over the edge. Maybe he was overreacting. He didn’t like Leslie, and they both knew it, but maybe he should give the robot the benefit of the doubt.

Then he remembered his conversation with the AI pod outside on the mud slick. Still speaking calmly, as if humoring the child, he addressed the flier’s Turing machine. “Ship? I want you to take us back to the spaceport.”

“Okay, Justinian.”

The exit hatch slid smoothly up behind him.

“Justinian,” Leslie said, “you are aware that we’re not due to return to the spaceport for another two days?”

“Yes.”

The robot’s face was in soft focus, like the romantic lead in a twentieth-century movie. Even so, Justinian knew that Leslie was reading his thoughts through careful measurement of his heart rate and body language.

“Now, Justinian,” Leslie said, “you know that AIs are manipulative. The ones on this planet particularly so.”

“Present company included,” Justinian said, smiling sweetly.

Leslie sounded hurt. His blurred body language was defensive: legs together, arms crossed. For some reason his fingernails shone silver.

“Oh, Justinian. You can’t put me in the same category as those AI pods. I haven’t tried to commit suicide, have I?”

“Pity.”

“You don’t mean that,” Leslie said dismissively. “Look, why should you trust one of those pods more than you trust me? Leave now, and we might as well all just abandon the planet. The other colonists can’t stay here if they can’t trust their own intelligence. They are all relying on you to find the answer to what’s going on. I mean, how do we know that humans aren’t suddenly going to begin committing suicide, too?”