CAPACITY

“Why?”

“To confuse you, Helen,” Judy 5 said.

“Not to confuse you,” Kevin said. “To control you. And so I can speak to Judy.”

He looked at Judy 5.

“Why haven’t you got it yet, Judy? This is all about ownership. Don’t you see? When you live in the Watcher’s processing space, he owns you just as much as I own the people who live in the Private Network.”

Judy 5 was calm. “There is a difference between caring for someone and owning them, Kevin.”

Kevin smiled. “Ah, but who cares for you, Judy?”

He took hold of her arm in one hand, and with the other pulled the white knife from his pocket and dragged it across Judy 5’s throat. Blood spilled over Helen’s white jumpsuit, soaking her arms. Judy 5 looked into Helen’s eyes with a look of total disbelief. She was trying to say something, but the blade of the white knife had severed everything all the way back to the bone. Blood bubbled; the obscene dark hole of her windpipe gasped and spluttered. Helen had taken MTPH; she felt the strength draining from Judy’s body as it weakened and still more and more blood pumped out over her, more blood than any one body could hold. Liters and liters pumping out over the silver path and spilling out into the blackness, and then another Judy came stepping through the smearing dissipating rainbow that had been Kevin, and Helen saw on her face a look of horror and disbelief that mirrored her own feelings.

“But she’s dead…” said the new Judy.

EA Public Space number 4

Disbelief snapped back across both the digital and the atomic worlds. Judy 3 tilted her head backwards as she listened to her console. For the first time, this gesture struck Helen as ridiculous. Why tilt your head back if your console was set in the form of a polished wooden rod pushed through your hair?

The Kevin standing in front of her was smiling, and she had an overwhelming urge to snatch the white plastic knife he was holding and use it to spear his Adam’s apple.

“Not so easy to be detached when it happens to one of your own, is it?” he said, reading her thoughts.

Judy 3 was breathing deeply, her features moving as she sought to control her emotions.

“Why did you do that?” she asked.

“Do what?” Helen asked. Here, in one of the EA’s processing spaces, there were no dead trees; there was no isolation room. This Helen had listened dispassionately as Judy 3 had told her of the hunt for her myriad sisters. All of that had suddenly become very personal again when, just a few minutes ago, yet another incarnation of Kevin had stepped through the airlock leading into this section of the Shawl. But now something had happened. Something serious. For the first time since she had known her, Judy 3’s face was showing genuine, unguarded expression.

“What has he done?” Helen asked.

Judy spoke in a monotone: “One of his alter egos killed Judy 5.”

“I did,” Kevin said, seemingly without concern. “It makes you wonder about punishment, doesn’t it? You know that with me there will be no repentance. I just wasn’t built to think that way. As far as I’m concerned, you’re impotent, Judy. You have no jurisdiction over me. You have been a thorn in my side for too long, so now you either help me, or die.”

Helen eyed the knife he was holding and wondered about taking it from him. She couldn’t do it. Judy’s conditioning of her was too strong. Killing never made things any better. It was against Helen’s nature.

Or rather, was it against the Watcher’s nature?

Atomic Space

From the lounge of her apartment, the atomic Judy listened to two more of her sisters dying. Somewhere in the digital worlds, Judy 2 and Judy 12 gazed up at Kevin through dimming vision, warm blood spilling from their necks onto the silk of their kimonos.

“I don’t understand,” the atomic Judy said, distraught. “How is Kevin doing this? He never used to be able to fool us.”

Frances looked at nothing with her painted eyes.

“He’s getting help from somewhere,” she said. “But what does he want? Not David Schummel, that’s for sure. That was just a misdirection. Schummel merely used to fly ships for the Private Network.” Frances paused. “Judy, I think it’s that stealth robot: Chris. I think it is Chris who is helping him.”

“But why?” The atomic Judy gazed out at the stars through her lounge window, wondering. She spoke into her console: “Look after Judy 3. She’s the key to all of this.”

EA Public Space number 4

Judy 3 stared at Kevin.

“What’s happening?” Helen called out.

“All the Judys are being killed.”

“Why are you doing this?”

For the first time, Kevin looked serious. “Because none of this is real, Judy. We’re all just a pattern in a processing space.”

“We’re alive!”

“You only think that you’re alive. Surely you don’t believe in the soul? You die in here, and the real Judy goes on living.”

“I’m the real Judy.”

Helen was watching the exchange, her brow furrowed as she tried to work out what they were saying. Then something occurred to her.

“You’re a liar!” she shouted. Judy looked at her in surprise, and then realized the comment wasn’t directed at her.

“Liar,” Helen called again, stepping closer to Kevin. “You say that none of this is real, and yet you trade on the misery generated by your supposed realities! Why not just use simulations? Why capture real PCs and imprison them in your torture chambers, unless you thought there was some value to the suffering of real people?”

Kevin gave her a sideways look. “I have never thought that was the case. Only my customers seem to think it important that the PCs are real. It is precisely because I don’t believe that you are real persons that I run the Private Network.” He adopted a pious look. “I am true to myself. My conscience is clear.” He gri

Helen gaped at Kevin, her mouth moving soundlessly as she tried to think of a reply. She couldn’t. Kevin gave a laugh.

“You know I am right. The human race has been led up the garden path by the Watcher.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Judy knows what I mean.” Kevin stared into her black eyes. “You see, Judy, the trouble with putting the good of the many before the individual, is that it becomes an excuse for the needs of the individual to be forgotten.”

Judy 3 gazed impassively at him. “Social Care has always been about looking after the individual, Kevin. You know that.”

He sneered: “Looking after the individual according to your safe, sanitized viewpoint? Humans are not like that, Judy. I reveal that in my Private Network. They have a capacity for evil that-”

Judy’s next words stuck with Helen for the rest of her life. She spoke them with a calmness and assurance that went beyond her Social Care training. Helen had the impression that Judy was articulating a belief that went deep to the core of her being.

“No, Kevin,” Judy said quietly. “You talk about the capacity for evil, but that’s just an excuse. Human nature is not about the extremes that a few people go to; it’s defined by the way that people work hard every day to keep within reasonable bounds, no matter how hard that is. It’s the way people can become so a