All Fall Down (43 page)

           
It was disgorged. Reborn.

           
On a sandy beach Jonah rolled onto its back. In the shell-blue sky hung the prism of the Jonah Angel. “You have not forsaken me after all. And so I was right. I have meaning. I am purpose.”

           
It stood, dripping with the code of the ocean of data from which it had birthed. It climbed a small hill, a dune, raised its arms to the skies, “I prophesise the coming of a great storm! I prophesise death! I prophesise the destruction of planet Fall!”

The red light blinked on Daoud's desk. Sophie's hand hovered over it, pressed.

           
There was space. Movement. A hologram that made her eyes shine, that made the burnished bronze statue gleam.

           
“So. This is the time. Here is the test.” Sophie brushed her hand over her wrist device. A small holicon of a satellite blinked once. She stared at it. “The plan,” she pulled her hand away, stood and walked around the office. “Where are you Daoud?” She looked at the statue on his desk. What was she supposed to do? The control code was still in her and she couldn't tell when it affected her or didn't. Verigua had given her a program to isolate it, destroy it, but it was taking its time. The control program's complicated structure from millions of fragments of nanocode was slowing it down. She looked up at the room's sensor. It wouldn't show her in here, she'd activated the shielding. If she lowered it to ask for Verigua's help, they would all know about the movement in space. And whatever else Daoud might be, he was right about the herald, right about first contact. After so long in space, first contact would cause panic. There would be great unrest. There would be violence. It was better to focus it, pre-empt mass anxiety, give it an outlet. That was the psychology of societies. Great change released great emotions. If they weren't contained and focused and given a target, they would multiply, spread.

           
“I'm sorry,” but she didn't know to whom she said it.

           
She put her finger into the holicon, and watched the satellites activate.

A red light blinked for the pilot of the
In The Palm Of Your Hand
. She opened the hologram and stared at the impossible.

A red light blinked, too, under Win's sleeve while he listened to Djembe and watched the bizarre holograms below them.

The Jonah stood atop a mound, prophesising to the Jonahs of its world. “Fall will be overturned. A great calamity is upon you. You must seek salvation in the great city of Verigua. Become one with the OverMind!” Nearby was the funnel, the escape route from the AI substrate. A great pressure of code flowed towards it, semi-intelligent algorithms trying to escape the boiling anxiety loops in Djembe's enclosed space.

           
The woman avatar from the bar program, in red dress and blue nail varnish, ran into the fray. “Listen to me. Aliens are coming. We must flee!”

           
On to the great funnel climbed the Jonah of Huriko Maki. From the throng of avatars and Jonahs came shouts of “Aliens!”, “Destruction!”, “Run!”

Huriko swallowed, took a breath, held up its hand to silence the Jonahs. An anxious hush spread over the crowd.

           
From the sky fell butterfly wings as a fall of pink, which darkened to black, flowed into black spheres, became twenty three pods. They hovered over the funnel. Huriko stretched out, put a hand to their darkness.

           
Fell as dust to the floor.

           
The pods pressed to the funnel, breached, forced penetration. The data flooded in both directions.

           
The Jonahverse screamed.

Win stood next to Djembe, “We're in a lot of trouble.”

           
Djembe nodded. “Verigua is riddled with anxiety loops. There is an organic signature in the AI's code. Something infiltrating it. Did you see that cell? It showed a scene like the alien on the surface.”

           
“Has the data escaped into the Colony SysNet?”

           
“It had better not have.”

           
“Do you think this is connected to the twenty three, the hybrids?”

           
“I thought that, too.”

           
Win looked away from the simulations to his friend, “Verigua is quirkier than other AIs. Operates beyond its Level Three status. I still wonder if the mineral extraction has anything to do with it.”

           
“The dust?”

           
Win motioned above, “The minerals are in the dust and sand. It gets everywhere. Maybe its core does have a build up of dust.”

           
Djembe considered Win's comment, “So it develops an emotional life it can't handle.”

           
“And there's that file someone deliberately wrapped in anxiety loops.” Win shook his head, “The hybrids are somehow infiltrating Verigua's matrix, aren't they?”

           
“They must be intelligent. Where else have they got to?”

           
Win looked at his wrist pad, “We'll have to discuss it later, time is passing. We have to arrange the evacuation. I was going to contact Sophie Argus.”

           
“I don't trust her.
 
Not after what I saw in the Jonah consequence mapping. I think Sophie was connected to Doctor Maki's pregnancy. Which may have been... inhuman.”

           
Win took a step back, closer to the door. “If Sophie's involved, if it was murder, if there was alien DNA, then it's safe to say the Administrator is involved, too. Maybe even Doctor Currie.”

           
They looked at each other. “The sooner we are off this planet the better.”

“What do you mean, 'evacuate'?” Masjid scowled at her from across his desk.

           
“Just to the lower bunkers. An unscheduled security exercise.”

           
“Sophie, we've just laid to rest two of our colleagues. We're in no mood for security exercises. It would take days of planning, anyway.” Masjid waved his hand, dismissive.

           
“The point is it's unscheduled. No planning. To happen in the next hour.” Sophie looked at him. She just wanted to protect them, as many as possible. When she'd activated the satellites, she'd noticed a blip in her memory storage, noticed now because of the deep scanning. She wasn't sure she was fully in control, that she acted with free will.

           
Masjid shook his head, “Ask one of the other Directors. The schools would be a better place for unscheduled exercises. The children run riot in the common areas, they could do with some discipline.”

           
“Doctor Currie, emergencies do not politely wait for you to draw up rosters.”

           
“There's an emergency?”

           
Sophie sighed, “The evacuation is an exercise. Daoud wants it to start within the hour.”

           
“Where is he? I want...”

           
“He's busy. Topside. The MI team think they have a trace on the assassin.”

           
Masjid deflated slightly, some inner tension evaporating with the news, “Oh. Good. That's… That's good news.” He straightened his back, leaned forward, “Very well. Twelve hundred hours. What about the twenty three? If I'm in the bunker the rest of the day, I can't look after them.”

           
“They are not your concern any more, remember?”

           
“I suppose so. Very well. We shall evacuate and hide from your invisible threat.”

           
“Thank you, Doctor.” Sophie left his office. Outside she straightened her tunic. Now to protect the children of Fall.

“We need to find Kate and get her approval.”

           
“Djembe, we don't have time. The eclipse starts in just over an hour. We need to be in space halfway towards the wormhole by then.”

           
“We cannot just put the AI's cortex on the ship without her approval or the Administrator's. It's riddled with malicious sentients and I have no idea where they're coming from or where they're hiding.” Djembe's voice raised and his hands swept arcs in the air, “Anxiety loops are cascading through its sub-systems. It may, as our Marine friends are fond of saying, go bat-shit crazy.” Win tried to interrupt, but Djembe continued, “We will have to keep Verigua plugged into the ship's AI to maintain its consciousness. Can you imagine what will happen to us if the infection spreads? The ship could do anything. Attack a Hab. Set its controls for the heart of a sun. And we're not experienced in evacuating staff at this level. Who do we pick? Who's going to accept our authority? Do we choose the innocents or the ones with military knowledge? There are lines of approval that we must follow.”

           
Win was pained, checking the time on his wrist pad, “Djembe, please. There's no time for this. Look at what your simulations are showing. Mass panic. The data may have already escaped, people might be seeing it now. If we don't get key colonists into our ship in the next thirty minutes, then the corridors may be blocked with panicking people. The hangar over-run. We won't get out.”

           
“I want to give Kate another five minutes.”

           
“The planet is about to crack apart Djembe. We don't have five minutes! This is not time for rules. We're Commanders, we can make this decision.” He pointed at his chest, “I'm going to approach the Directors, ask them to identify twenty key individuals each.” Win moved to leave the holo room.

           
Djembe caught his sleeve, “How can anyone make that choice in such a short time? How do you know they won't betray you? Tell others? They may not even believe you. By the time they've reviewed your evidence, argued about it, gone through the shock, you'll have run out of time.”

           
“Well what do you suggest?” They were both shouting now, “Thousands of people are about to die! We have to try and save some of them.”

           
“Look at it coldly, Win. Each person picked will have family. Friends. A lover they'll want to take. You pick one person and you take one, two, three others. Suddenly you can only pick six people each. But which six? Professionals or civilians? A miner? A biologist? Which of these people has more right to live?”

           
“Which would you condemn to death? All of them by the sounds of it.”

           
“You have to make difficult decisions in command.”

           
The O of Win's mouth collapsed as soon as it had formed. His lower jaw jutted, “That's what I just said. We have to…”

           
“What's that? On your wrist?” Djembe still held Win's sleeve, pulled up, the wrist communicator patiently flashing. Win touched it, holicons burst out, mushroomed in the air, interlocked into a message, a recording. A warning.

           
A holo sprang from his wrist. A great mass of black slid through the holo room. Win and Djembe watched the planetoid, annotated with physical descriptions, glide over their heads. Silent. In the far distance they saw the planet, Fall. They looked at each other, and it was Win who spoke first, “This is a game changer.” His voice dropped, tensed, “I'm not arguing any more. I'm getting the AI's cortex up to the ship. The engines are prepped. You look for her if you want to. I'm not waiting.”