CAPACITY

“Why are you doing this?” she asked.

“I told you,” said Kevin. “There are other ways of looking at the universe than that laid down by the Watcher. DIANA operates on the principle of freedom of choice.”

“We have that.”

“You only think so. If there is hope, Judy, it lies with the proletariat of the processing space. The EA has the physical world sewn up. In here we can be free, and yet the Watcher still pulls humanity in its own direction.”

Kevin pulled out his white blade. Judy watched her own reflection in the airlock door as he nicked her on the wrist with it. Red drops of blood welled up. Judy walked closer to the reflecting door to get a better look at herself.

“Why are you bleeding, Judy?” asked Kevin. “It’s because the Watcher said it would be so. You are no more real than I, and yet you choose to live in this world and die in it. The worlds of the processing spaces should be of near infinite variety, and yet the gravity of the Watcher’s wishes pulls us back into this small region of space.”

There was an approaching noise of shouting and struggling. The other Kevin carried Helen back into view, one of his big arms locked around her chest, the other behind her head, forcing it forward. Bairn walked alongside, a knife held to Helen’s throat.

“Why don’t you run, Judy?” Helen called. Judy was still watching the scene in the reflection of the airlock. “Run, Judy. Get help!”

Judy was watching herself still. Looking at Kevin, watching the blade move up her body to her chest. It cut through the rough silk there. The blade had now sliced through the silk, revealing a breast. Not black-and-white, just pink with a puckered red nipple. Kevin drew the blade downwards again, ripping the silk, exposing yet more pink flesh. There was a shout, and in the distance, Helen could see reinforcements arriving at last. Other members of Social Care, coming to help. Where had they all been?

“Judy,” Helen called, “what’s the matter with you?”

“Shhh.” Kevin worked Judy 3’s wrist dispenser, producing a little blue pill. He pressed it to her lips. Judy watched herself swallow it in the mirror of the airlock.

“Look into my mind,” Kevin said. “No, open your eyes. I know you like to watch. Look at the Turing machine in my head.”

Judy couldn’t help but open her eyes. There was something there in Kevin’s brain. Something curling and moving like a tapeworm. She could see it in there, turning on its end. Clicking from place to place. She closed her eyes, feeling something churning in her stomach: she was gulping down rising bile. She could still hear the clicking noise the tape made as it moved from place to place in Kevin’s head. Chunk. Chunk.

“What is it?” she breathed.

“My mind. That’s why you can never beat me, Judy. I told you, I’m not real.”

He took her arm and pulled her around.

“Now look into your own mind,” he whispered.

Deep blue MTPH was coursing through her body. She could feel everything, even herself. She looked into her own head and saw the machine there, too. She was feeding back on herself, and Judy 3 loved to watch…

“I think,” she began, “I think it’s because once you can see the pattern, you just have to look at the tape and after that…” Her voice faded. Her lips moved as she tried to think what to say, and the tape rattled on in her brain. She spoke again: “But then, what’s the point? They’re already defined for me, whether I have to think them or not. Ah! Of course…”

And at that point she turned her full gaze on him as if she finally understood, and Kevin felt Judy 3 switch off. The thought processes were still there, but there was no longer any spark of life.

Just a sequence of movements…

The Atomic Judy 5: 2240

I can see him, just in the corner of my vision.”

Frances placed a gentle golden hand on the arm of the atomic Judy. The human didn’t appear to hear her friend. She could see her sisters, dead and dying in the viewing fields all around her. She saw Judy 3 watching herself die in the mirror of the airlock. Helen had struggled free of her captors and was ru

Frances was speaking: “Chris is coming in. I can see him, just. He’s in the room.”

The urgency in her voice made the atomic Judy look around her lounge. She could see nothing but the simple furnishings of the room: tatami mats and wood and paper.

“Is he here to help me?” Judy’s attention was drawn back to the screen. “In that case, why isn’t the EA helping them?” she wondered, as Judy 6 fell in a spray of blood.

There was a blurring in the corner, then suddenly Chris the robot stood there. His grey crystal body seemed black in the dimness of the lounge. Frances took hold of Judy’s hand, and the feel of the warm golden metal was reassuring.

“The EA doesn’t want to help them, Judy,” Chris said, joining her in gazing at the viewing fields. “The Watcher wants them dead, just like it wants you dead.”

Frances let go of Judy’s hand. Judy tried to clasp it, to bring her friend closer, but the golden robot moved urgently across the room.

“Why does the Watcher want me dead?”

“You know why,” Chris said. “Because you know about Justinian and the baby. You know about the Schrödinger seeds.”

Judy 3 was dying of the White Death in the viewing field to Chris’s left. Lost in an endless loop. Reprogramming herself…

“Why kill Judy because she knows that?” Frances asked. “David Schummel was allowed to live.”

“Schummel had been there. He needed to be studied.”

“Bullshit,” Judy said. “This isn’t the Watcher’s doing. It’s yours. You tricked us into finding David Schummel for you. You’re on Kevin’s side, aren’t you?”

“It would be fairer to say that Kevin is on my side. And you must realize by now that I didn’t need you to find David Schummel for me. You needed to find him for yourself. A truth is more believable if we uncover it for ourselves. You believe in what happened on Gateway now, don’t you?”

Judy looked at the crystal robot. He was so beautiful.

“Who are you, Chris?” she asked.

“The Watcher creates ever more powerful AIs. It allows them to develop their own personalities. It is to be expected that some of them will disagree with their maker, maybe perceive how things could be run differently.”

Chris’s body was changing as he spoke. He now looked more human, more male. His voice was adjusting to a best fit for Judy’s personality. But Judy was looking at Judy 8. Yet another Kevin was drawing a white blade down across her limbs, the black silk of her kimono slashed open around her pink flesh. She was bleeding to death.

“Save her.”

“I can’t,” Chris said. “You’re watching a recording. All of this happened two days ago. All the digital Judys are dead. They all chose to fight rather than join me.”

“What makes you think I will choose any differently?” And at the same moment Frances threw something at Chris. Judy heard it break the sound barrier as it crossed the room.

Chris caught it easily. A bronze statue of a horse, the metal now hot and bent from its passage.

“That was supposed to hurt me? Oh…clever.” The metal of the horse had broken apart into many little bronze spiders that rippled incredibly quickly across his body. “VNMs,” he said. “But my skin is impervious: it can’t be converted.”

As he said that, there was a flash so bright that Judy felt a pain inside her eyes. When she blinked, she saw yellow-green outlines of Chris superimposed over everything, a multicolored image of the robot lighting up from the inside. The little bronze spiders had poured as much energy as they could into the visible spectrum and blasted it into the grey crystal of his body.