Artificial Evolution Read online

  “One obstacle at a time, Jon. First, we figure out what we need to do, then we figure out how to do it.”

  She leaned her elbows on the desk, laced her fingers together, and rested her chin on her thumbs, eyes staring intently at the far wall. It was a posture Jon had come to know all too well.

  “Uh-oh. I know that look. That’s Scheming Mitch,” he said.

  She furrowed her brow but didn’t look away from the wall. “It is bad enough Trev calls me Mitch. Don’t you start.”

  “Well, whatever the terminology, that look usually leads to one of us committing some sort of illegal act.”

  “That’s nonsense.”

  “Is it? Last time you looked like that, I ended up impersonating an admiral to get the contact info of some quartermaster you thought might be a Neo-Luddite supplier.”

  “It worked, didn’t it?”

  “That’s not the point! The point is,” he lowered his voice, “you pretty much had me commit treason to get an unlisted address.”

  “You worry too much.”

  “I’m starting to think that’s my job description: worry enough to balance out Ms. Modane.”

  She grumbled again. “Just read me the slush pile, then. Maybe there will be something we can use.”

  Jon nodded and opened up the mailbox to which the various departments of GolanaNet redirected their unwanted stories. It contained everything from enthusiastic video messages requesting coverage for fundraisers and business openings to anonymous photos of the more private portions of the male and female anatomy. It was a haystack with very few needles, but most of it at least loosely qualified as news. When times were desperate, it was not unusual for a broadcaster to pick out one of the more harmless stories to fill some empty space or some time.

  “Let’s see. A two-headed kitten was born last week.”

  “No.”

  “Here’s a man who claims he was possessed by a medieval demon for two years.”

  “Call me skeptical…” She squinted her eyes and glanced aside, then pulled out a paper notebook and flipped through some pages. She found the one she was looking for and underlined a few words. “Do me a favor and filter the list to locations in this system. Or nearby.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He looked at the page reluctantly. Because no one could hack into or overhear information in a notebook, Michella tended to write her most sensitive information with pen and ink. If she was jotting something down, she considered it important. “Refining… refining. Just one result, one planetary system away. Oh, it’s a good one! Another ‘we’ve finally discovered intelligent life’ e-mail, this time from Mrs. Erma Wiley.”

  “Wow, how long has it been? Three? Maybe four months since the last time?”

  Science and space travel had fulfilled quite a few of the promises of the sci-fi movies of old. Flying cars and jet packs were a reality. Faster-than-light travel was commonplace. Cybernetic enhancements could be had for the right price. Alien life, on the other hand, had turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. Far from the English-speaking green-skinned space babes of pop culture, or even the bug-eyed grays of conspiracy, alien discoveries had been fairly lackluster. Extraterrestrial bacteria and fungi had been found in a few places, and one planet even had an ocean with some proto-fish in it, but our arrival among the stars had yet to be greeted by wishes of long life and prosperity accompanied by bizarre hand gestures. As always, where there was nothing to be found, there was no shortage of crackpots to find it.

  “You’ve got to give this lady credit, she’s bombastic.” He adopted a booming and dramatic tone. “‘You can be the first to tell the galaxy! Our intrepid Trans-Kuiper Union of Republics peacekeepers have not only continued to keep their fellow Teekers safe, but they have discovered, for the first time in human history, an intelligent creature of extraterrestrial origin.’”

  “Talk about an obsolete word. Most of the human population is extraterrestrial these days.”

  “Yeah, but not of extraterrestrial origin. And intelligence is none too common either. She goes on. ‘Pictures are being withheld until additional investigations can be made’—how convenient—‘ but scientists are already able to establish that it is entirely nonhuman and has shown basic problem-solving skills. We have contacted your network due to its history of journalistic excellence and its fair and evenhanded handling of socially relevant issues. You are therefore the perfect choice to document the most momentous event in human development as it unfolds…’”

  “I’ve heard enough. It is harmless enough to keep the network happy, and it is only a few hours away from where I was supposed to meet my informant. Here’s what I need you to do. Pluck that story off the pile and submit it to Lou. Ask him for rapid transit. I want to be there in no less than five days. I’m going to make some calls. It is a long shot, but this ET story might be a good enough smokescreen to let me hunt down something that actually matters.”

  “Sure thing, boss,” he said, jumping to the task. “Who knows, maybe the extraterrestrial will be legitimate. At least that would be safer.”

  #

  After Lex had managed to pry his eyes away from the departing Ms. Misra, he had begun his jagged and random return trip. After about a day, he happened upon one of the other side effects of bringing his pet along. Though the funk was more than happy to spend hours upon hours dozing around his neck or drifting around the ship, stir-craziness had a way of setting in quickly and severely. When it did, it was time to find a place to stop or face the wrath of Squee. Strangely, it didn’t seem to have anything to do with the usual reasons a dog wanted to go out, either. Squee had been alarmingly easy to train to use a zero-g toilet, a procedure which took some getting used to for most humans.

  Fortunately, space travel had followed the same evolutionary path that all other forms of travel had. First, it was for fearless adventurers, then it was for rugged workers, then for businessmen, and finally families. Most deep-space rest stops had a playground, and the better ones had a dog run. Squee caught on quickly, and now all it took was the distant gleam of a space station spinning like an aluminum wagon wheel outside the ship’s window for the little rascal to start rustling her tail and scrabbling at the hatch.

  “Okay, okay. You know the drill. Leashes on in the space station,” Lex grumbled, fighting to get the furry ball of energy under one arm so he could clip on the retractable leash.

  He brought his ship in and aligned the manhole-sized “docking port” on the top of his cockpit with one of the slots scattered around the hub of the station. He then paid the docking fee to latch on and was promptly dragged through the hatch by a leaping Squee. Like so many other things that animals had no right getting used to, Squee was more than capable of moving around in zero-g. She would dart from wall to wall with precision leaps, perform impressive triangle jumps along corners, and generally turn herself into a ballistic weapon. Stopping in zero-g was another matter. When she wanted to suddenly change direction, she usually ended up sliding along a wall until she bounced and twirled off at an odd angle. Alternately she would end her flight by barreling headlong into whatever person was closest to what she was after. She was smart enough to pick up on the fact that people were relatively soft and tended to grab her when she flew at them, which made them handy landing pads. When she’d chosen a security guard as her target and earned Lex a hefty fine, he decided to make sure he clicked on the leash before opening the port.

  Being on a leash wasn’t enough to keep Squee from being a troublemaker when she was in the mood. Lex doubted there was any force in the universe that could manage that. The access corridor between the dock and the ship was a square shaft with a grid of metal bars along the walls, like something from a playground. As dim LEDs lit the way, Squee clamored awkwardly along the grid, pulling against the tension of the slowly extending leash. Lex held on to the grid with one hand and let her pull the leash to its limit, then let go of the grid and pressed the retract button while she was braced. It sent him rocketing t
oward her like a superhero with a grappling hook, and he snagged her on the way past and let the momentum carry them to the end of the corridor. It struck him as he pivoted and sprang off the wall of the adjoining shaft that he wasn’t sure if he was doing it for her enjoyment or his.

  He reached the promenade of the station, the outermost ring of the station’s “wheel,” which provided the centripetal force that served as the low-budget replacement for gravity. The station was run by a company called Milky Getaways, which was the most disturbing failed pun he’d ever heard. They gave each of their rest stops a different theme. Some were supposed to look like the Stone Age, others had a Wild West look. This one was called Pleasant Acres and was designed to look like a suburban town in the 1950s. The storefronts had colorful vinyl-siding facades; there were little strips of lawn with real grass; and the primary walkway was a simulated cement sidewalk. They’d even installed a full ceiling screen depicting a sunny blue sky with shifting white clouds. It was an impressive bit of work, but the illusion was somewhat spoiled by the fact that the street curved up in either direction and was entirely populated by worn-out men and women in assorted spacesuits.

  Lex followed the sound of yapping dogs until he found a teenaged girl in a pink blouse and, fittingly, a poodle skirt. She stood behind a faux picket fence with a half-dozen dogs of various sizes running rampant around her.

  “Hello, sir! My name is Julie. Would you like to take advantage of our doggie daycare? Just one thousand credits for an hour or four thousand for a day,” she said with the genuine glee of someone who had found a way to get paid to play with animals all day.

  “Two hours,” he said, pulling out his slidepad and waving it over hers. He picked up Squee and removed the leash. “You play nice now.”

  She wriggled free and unleashed her hurricane of enthusiasm and affection upon Julie and the many dogs.

  “Just to warn you, she’s a jumper,” he said.

  Now that the pent-up energy of the little rascal was being vented, Lex took care of a few of his own needs. A shower was first and foremost. No-rinse shampoo and moist sanitary sheets could only get a man so far. With that taken care of, he spotted a replica of an old-fashioned barbershop and treated himself to a haircut and a hot-towel shave. A meal that wasn’t composed primarily of preservatives came next and left him with a plate of leftovers in an aluminum foil swan. He had a few minutes of his daycare time to spare, so he decided to stretch his legs for a while and reluctantly reactivate the data connection of his slidepad. Between being out of communication range and not wanting to share his location when he was in communication range, being a freelancer usually meant keeping one’s slidepad disconnected during less than legal jaunts. It made freelancers some of the few human beings who weren’t in moment-to-moment contact with the rest of the race. He selected the oldest thread of messages, which was from Henderson Conventional Transport, the new people who signed his bike courier paycheck. Three messages told him to, respectively, report to the office, call the office, and call the office immediately regarding his absence.

  “I’m sure this is good news,” he said to himself flatly.

  He tapped the contact and requested a connection. A few seconds later a weaselly man with slicked-back hair and a sweater-vest appeared on his slidepad’s screen.

  “Henderson Conventional Transport. Christopher Ronzone speaking; how may I help you?” he said blandly.

  “Uh, hi. This is Trevor Alexander. I was asked to call in?”

  “Ah yes. Mr. Alexander. May I ask why you did not report to work this morning, or yesterday for that matter? And why you left early the day before?”

  “I left a message with Mickey about that. Four day mark-off.”

  Ronzone rolled his eyes. “I don’t know what a mark-off is, Mr. Alexander, and I can assure you that we have no policies regarding them at Henderson Conventional Transport. And even if we did, in what world is it acceptable to simply state that you will not be attending work for four days in a message, and then promptly leave without even receiving an acknowledgment?”

  “I had a thing worked out with Mickey.”

  “Michael Stewart retired on Friday.”

  “Did he? Well, who’s the new dispatcher?”

  “I am. I am also your supervisor, and I absolutely will not accept this behavior. Who do you think you are to behave in such a way?”

  “I’m your best delivery boy. I can get packages from one side of Preston City to the other as fast as a high-altitude shuttle, and I do it for minimum wage. I’m the reason our office still has a same-day guarantee.”

  “Your on-duty performance may be impressive, Mr. Alexander, but a guarantee that is only valid when our employees feel like coming to work isn’t a guarantee, is it? Now report to the office for your shift in the next twenty minutes or consider yourself terminated.”

  “Twenty minutes!? I marked off for four days. I’m at least six hours away!”

  “Well then. No sense waiting. Effective immediately you are no longer an employee of Henderson Conventional Transport. Good-bye.”

  “But—”

  It was too late. The connection was closed. A few seconds later he received a text-only notice of his dismissal.

  “Well that was sudden.”

  Just like that he’d lost his most stable, if not most profitable, job. It wasn’t the first time he’d been fired, and it wouldn’t be the last. The man who dispatched his chauffeur jobs fired him once or twice a month, only to assign him another job the following day as though things hadn’t changed. Something told Lex that Ronzone wasn’t a senile old man with too many drivers to keep track of, though. This dismissal was going to stick.

  He shrugged. “It isn’t like it was my only job. My debt is finally under control, and I’ve got some money saved up. I’m rent free, too. I can coast for a while.”

  The next message was labeled simply “Ma.” The text preview of the message said “Please contact me at your earliest convenience, provided that said convenience is within thirty-three days of the send date of this message, minus travel time to Big Sigma from your present location at the time of reading.” He smiled. Ma was certainly the most unusual person on his list of friends, at least partially because most wouldn’t even consider her a person. Ma was an artificially intelligent control system devised by the same man who had created Squee, and aside from a few quirks, she tended to be one of the most caring and well-adjusted individuals he had the good fortune of knowing.

  He tapped the contact.

  “Good evening, Lex. Thank you for contacting me so promptly,” Ma answered with her distinctive voice. Rather than speaking with a single voice, Ma communicated through the mixed and matched voice recordings of three different women along with a synthesized voice to fill in the gaps.

  “No problem.”

  “Before we address the reason for my message, perhaps some pleasantries? How was your day?”

  “I’ve had better. I just lost my job.”

  “That is unfortunate. Which occupation, and under what circumstances?”

  “The bike gig. Change of management. It’s no big deal.”

  “It is fortunate that your unconventional lifestyle permits you a level of flexibility.”

  “Yeah. So what’s the word, Ma? Why the call?”

  “It is regarding Squee. Is she in good health? Has she been behaving herself?”

  “Squee’s been great. Most of the time she’s super laid back. When she gets to be a handful, it usually means she needs a walk. Much more mellow than Solby.” He thought back to his interactions with Solby, the other funk. That little beast brought new meaning to the word hyperactive. “Why do you ask?”

  “Do you recall when I presented her to you? I suggested that there would be some minor side effects from my brief residency.”

  “You mean the couple of weeks when you were installed in her brain? Yeah, I remember.”

  “I have completed some analysis and have discovered a potential issue.
It is a simple matter to treat, but until I can develop a less intensive treatment, I will need to see her with some regularity.”

  “What sort of problem are we talking about?”

  “I have theorized that the lingering neurological effects will present themselves in two ways. The first, which you have confirmed, is a subtle change in behavior. I am pleased that it has not negatively impacted your interactions with the creature. The more significant of the side effects is a highly eidetic memory.”

  “A what?”

  “She has photographic memory. Total and complete recall of all thoughts and sensations on a moment-to-moment basis. It is how I record my own existence, and that aspect of my reconfiguration seems to have resisted attempts at reversal.”

  “Uh-huh,” Lex said. It was somewhat telling that absurdities such as this had become rather routine for him. “How is that a problem exactly?”

  “Her synaptic capacity is insufficient to provide this level of storage for more than approximately eight months before it may interfere with essential brain function.”

  “You’re telling me my pet’s brain might fill up.”

  “That is an artfully simplified assessment of the condition, Lex. Well done.”

  “Thanks. So what do we do about it?”

  “You need to bring Squee for a simple mental encoding procedure approximately once every three months. I will record her current mental state, process the results into a more natural format, and rewrite them. The process is entirely painless and takes seventy-three minutes to complete.”

  “That’s a fairly specific estimate.”

  “It is not an estimate. I have simulated the procedure with the mental state acquired during your visit two weeks ago.”

  “You copied her brain when I visited?”

  “Of course. It seems only fair that Squee be given the same treatment as Solby.”

  Lex shook his head. In an uncharacteristically sentimental act, Karter had installed a device into his pets that allowed him to download their memories. In the event something happened to one of them, which was anything but rare in Karter’s lab, one of an array of clones was given the most recent backup, and the creature was as good as resurrected. Squee had the same equipment, but due to a high-voltage mishap, it was no longer wireless. At first Lex felt a bit relieved that Squee was “backed up,” but something about it bothered him.