BY M. PAX
Eyelids twitching, drooling like a simpleton, Carl lay on a gurney. I came to replace him, hoping not so exactly, and hugged my navy trench coat tighter. The October chill piped into the habidome, as if people still lived with the world, nipped deeper into my veins.
Carl and I had flirted with love back in the academy, before becoming fully licensed in PO, Patchworkers Order. PO forbade our affair, threatening to send us back from where we came. No way would I return to craptacular Sludge Bay. Carl vowed he’d take a stroll outside rather than live in Solder Park again, which was located on the edge of the landfill. He swore the stink followed him. Sludge didn’t smell any better. We put our blooming passions on hold and had planned to revisit them when we retired. Now that’d never happen.
The medtechs strapped up Carl’s stocky arms so they’d quit flopping around and tucked away his disturbing empty state as readily as the city dome concealed the raging storms and scalding ultraviolet rays. Before they wheeled Carl toward the ambulance, I straightened the lapels of his trench coat and committed to memory a face so dear.
Most wouldn’t call Carl beautiful. His cheeks mooned out with bulbous outcrops, a boulder-like nose and pronounced brow ridge. His fleshy lips, once brimming with pink verve and promises, matched his strong jowls and double chin.
Sighing, I scanned him. Interfaces—thin micro-patches of circuitry—covered my skin and Carl’s like most people wore clothes. I should have sensed him before the rail car stopped to let me out. His thoughts should have mingled with mine during the twelve block walk from the station. I should have perceived him beyond what my fingertips could touch. Frowning, I lifted his sleeve and pressed the black-lined circuit inked on my wrist to the same on his.
“Carl, what happened?”
Seizures weren’t uncommon for patchworkers, but none of those prone to them ever made it into PO. I detected no pain echoing through his tattoos and nothing of what made Carl the man he was.
PO let me tap into reports it had archived on this AI, artificial intelligence. Carl hadn’t been the first patchworker put on the job. He had replaced Gaati and Kawana. They had also ended up like this.
Crap. Three patchworkers down. Now only one hundred ninety-seven people on the planet had the ability to patch into AI and manipulate the minds of machines. Our elite group could resist getting lost in the knotted streams of code when the things went haywire. We were the few that could distinguish biological and mechanical electrical pulses, the few that could make sense of them, the few who could create necessary patches.
I pressed my wrist to Carl’s once more. All my interfaces strained to boost the signals, searching the data he had collected on this client. Into his main processors I hacked, swaying for a moment when I stared up at myself — tall and big boned, square-jawed, the telltale silver irises of a patchworker, and red ringlets flowing down past my shoulders. My curls fluttered in the gentle wind, which was piped through the dome’s vents. The breeze had a curdled smell to it, some days worse than others. Today it reeked.
Carl’s job logs ended the moment he arrived, as if erased. I found the same exclusions in Gaati’s and Kawana’s records. I didn’t believe in coincidence. PO heard my doubt and sent an instant avowal that it hadn’t deleted anything from the logs. Had the AI?
The repeated omissions gave me pause, and my second thoughts darted over the nearby gray door that had no signs or windows. It appeared so harmless. No advisories alerted my interfaces. Yet what lay beyond those doors had rendered Carl into a sack of bio matter ready for recycling. His skill level rose to a mere half notch below mine. Would I fare any better?
PO demanded I go meet the client, nudging my childhood memories until the fetid aroma of sludge filled my mouth. I needed no other incentive and ducked into the entrance.
Red diagonal stripes on the floor gave the briefest warning. Beyond them, a squadron of six Marines leveled assault weapons. Six red dots sprouted on my chest. None quivered.
Their aim gave me no choice other than to hold out my hands like a common hacker. “Patchworker Evalyn Shore. I’m expected.”
The Marines didn’t jostle, so I didn’t see the suit taking cover behind them. I heard him, though. His voice, more shrill than the sirens outside, grated over my jitters like corroded code. “Patchworker Shore, you were scheduled to arrive twenty minutes ago.”
The words flitted in my ears as a question rather than a demand. Peering around the burly soldiers, whom I matched in breadth and height, I sized up the peon sent to fetch me. A lack of authority sloughed off his cheeks like the dirty rain on the dome. I could smell his nerves, which added a sour note to the hard-used air.
“My orders are to answer only to Director Beatty. Where is he?” I brushed my red ringlets behind my ears and discreetly tapped my booster interface. The peon remained as unreadable as Carl.
“I’m Assistant Director Randall. ” He held out his moist hand. It trembled.
Lots of people contracted a case of the fidgets when meeting a patchworker. As I said, we were a rare breed, but this stooge had already met Carl, Gaati, and Kawana. He had to know the rule against touching patchworkers. If PO wouldn’t reestablish my residence in Sludge Bay for bailing, I’d march back to the rail car right now.
Sweeping past Randall, I strode into the corridor leading to the AI. “Let’s get ticking, bub. You now have me twenty-six minutes behind. I’ve a reputation and all. Run, run.”
Despite my brisk pace, he fell into step beside me. The odd spongy texture of the ruddy brown tiles deadened any echo.
“Director Beatty and I are pleased you could come on such short notice,” he said. “You were born in Sludge Bay, weren’t you? What an inspiring rise in status.”
Since he didn’t matter to anything more than a defunct subroutine, I didn’t bother to answer, and I was relieved he didn’t continue to jabber. It was of no consequence which district a person had been born in if she or he had the ability to become a patchworker and a damned good one.
Perhaps this assistant director boy wanted to get me riled, riled enough not to notice the absolute void. Neither my interfaces nor my senses picked up anything other than lemon-scented cleanser and heavily insulated walls. Everything pinged back as a dead end. The minty-hued corridors zigged and zagged. The cushion of the ruddy tiles grew deeper, stumbling my steps. I found it harder to swallow.
A set of doors appeared on the left. Randall stopped in front of them. Silently he summoned them open using tech I couldn’t detect. That had never happened. Warnings shivered down my spine. Randall shoved me inside.
Lined with blinking lights and hardware, the dim room buzzed and twinkled. The man standing in the middle of it all had to be Director Beatty. He stared blankly into space, unshaven, tie and jacket askew, fingers twitching. His tongue flickered at his dry lips.
In stilted steps, he pivoted, staring into my face. As if a circuit switching on, thoughts lunged at me, screaming, sniveling. The onslaught after total nothing shocked me. My knees buckled.
Beatty reached out to catch me. I veered sharply the other way to avoid his touch. A good number of interfaces could be lost by innocent contact, and his void expression creeped me out. It reminded me too much of Carl.
Boosting my sensors, I worked harder to scan him. Beneath the overwhelming chatter of AI in the room, I could make out Beatty’s mind — overwrought, lost, fearful. I knew that much only because it had been allowed. By him or the machine?
“Ah, Mayflower has introduced itself.” A ring of hair fringed his round head like a wire-rimmed screw hole on a circuit board. The top of his pink skull puckered with his words, emphasizing his nerves in the oddest way.
I amplified my connection to PO, checking to make sure my ability to communicate remained unobstructed. “We’re here,” PO whispered. Good.
I greeted the AI. It cooed so eagerly, inundating my conscious and unconscious thoughts, replacing my emotions with its own. Powering on the tattoos at my temples, I muted Mayflower’s babble. A machine should mind its place.
“Tell me the problem. Leave out no detail,” I said to Beatty. His opinion and analysis mattered most. The human caretaker’s assessments trumped all in extreme cases. This job definitely fell into the extreme category.
“My digital colleague is in need of something I can’t provide. It knows you can.”
A knot formed in my forehead, narrowing my vision. “How can you know what I can provide? And what happened to Carl? Gaati? Kawana? Any of them should have been able to fix your problem. They’re as PO certified as I am.”
“Only the best will do.” His lips clamped tight together, and he gestured at the jack-up chamber — a soundproof room with jacks, interfaces, speakers, and monitors where I’d visit with Mayflower. The AI could manifest as a hologram in there if it wanted.
The AI gave me a mental push. I walled it off by setting the tattoos at my temples to maximum strength. The connection had to happen on my terms, and I communicated to Mayflower that I wouldn’t budge until it demonstrated some courtesy.
It dialed down the aggression, giving me the space I demanded. Good.
To prepare for merging, I silenced communications from any source other than the AI and PO. Then I thanked Mayflower and accepted its invitation. Inside the chamber, I lay down, getting comfortable.
Before settling into a union with the machine, I set my anchors — boosting my connection to PO, isolating my personal processing chip, setting it to beep every three minutes, fixating on the cool draft blowing over my right hand chilling my fingers to ice. Join with me, Mayflower.
I need. I hurt.
The emotion in those simple words overpowered my defenses. Beatty, Randall, the weird facility, Carl, everyone and everything faded away. Mentally I embraced the AI, calling it friend. Let me help you. Who named you Mayflower?
Dr. Navin. She created me.
Where is she now? Sometimes all it took was an understanding of who had authored the routines and subroutines. Few could resist imbibing their personalities into their AI.
My PO interface accessed the global library and fed me data on Dr. Navin. Her work involved evolution. Her biography didn’t mention any programming credentials, and Mayflower didn’t appear on her list of achievements.
Aboard.
For a moment I blanked, my thoughts sputtering. You’re a ship? To where? Why hadn’t PO given me this information?
PO claimed not to have known. It scanned the library files for a list of possibilities. Mayflower stopped the search when PO pinged over ERC 14, Earth Reboot Candidate 14.
I heard myself gasp. Are you there now? Or is that the issue? You’ve run into a travel snag?
I’m here. The mission can’t fail, Evalyn. Would you like to see your future?
A new home on which to grow and start over would solve a lot of problems on Earth. The scope of Mayflower’s mission wasn’t lost on me. I had to fix this AI. I’ll help you succeed. May I see? I’d like to.
That’s a relief to hear. Now I feel better. Mayflower let me slip farther into its systems, cradling my consciousness, guiding me over the expanse between us. My stomach flipped.
At first, all I saw was white — the floor, ceiling, and walls. Consoles shrunk navigable space in the ship’s operations center to three feet. The banks of machines hummed, working, winking, part of Mayflower. It took a moment to orient myself as to where I fit in and to discover my consciousness had entered a robotic explorer. I had treads and three metal arms. I rolled toward the nearest window.
Darkness spanned in every direction revealing nothing. Sadly disappointed, I prepared to amble off and explore the ship. An eerie purple flash stopped me. It illuminated the alien vista. Green. Gobs and gobs of green, as if the ship lay at the bottom of a strange ocean. The flashes continued, reminding me of an electrical storm.
Unable to tear away, I continued to peer into the exotic depths that flickered in and out of view. Aware ultraviolet and x-ray scanners had been built into the probe, I activated them. Some sort of bio mass drifted out there, phosphorescing with the tides and currents. After making an inquiry at the global library, PO pinged me with the nearest Earth equivalent, seaweed.
Its undulations hypnotized me, transfixing me to the spot. I scoured the green for a scrap of something more profound, for the salvation humanity so desperately sought. A tiny beep shook me from the window, reminding me of the job. As wonderful as it was to explore ERC 14, I couldn’t help Mayflower if I became lost in its protocols. For added grounding to my body, I confirmed the frigid draft on my hand and exchanged hellos with PO.
Reconnecting with the physical world roused the robot me from the window. The ship was so quiet. Too quiet. Where’s your crew? I said.
The mission records I could access informed me Mayflower had been outfitted with a crew of twenty to establish an off-Earth colony. The crew had to succeed. Had to. I tired of living inside a dome, tired of living on a planet that could no longer provide what people needed to survive.
They left, Mayflower answered.
All of them?
They went out there and didn’t come back.
Did you send robots like this one after them?
Of course. They didn’t return either. This is the last one.
I jacked deeper into Mayflower, searching for its communication logs. Have you tried to raise them on comms? The logs sat in front of me, but wouldn’t open. Mayflower, grant me access.
I can’t.
You can’t communicate with them or you can’t open the logs? Such an ambiguous answer struck me as strange.
Examining Mayflower’s original directives, I could plainly discern Dr. Navin’s primary protocol, which charged the AI with a duty to safeguard the crew. The encrypted line of code with it suggested an overriding command to ensure success of the mission. Usually any superseding instructions required a specific crisis before becoming an AI’s law. Had those circumstances arisen? Elaborate security measures encased the secret orders and wouldn’t let me in, not yet. The chill on my hand in the jack-up chamber spread to my wrist.
I can’t do either, Mayflower said.
My scanners discovered no programming issues with Mayflower’s communications. I rolled the robot toward an access panel and checked inside. This circuit is bad. I can fix it, but don’t you have redundancies? Why didn’t they take over?
This mission can’t fail, Evalyn.
The AI’s worry tightened my stomach on Earth. For reassurance, I patted the ship’s wall with one of my mechanical arms. Don’t worry. I’ll get it on track. Pliers and soldering iron in robotic hand, I repaired the module.
I had to instruct the system to reboot. While waiting for it to come online, I rolled through the vessel hunting for signs of the crew, seeking clues as to what had happened. My search only rooted out more questions.
Blankets on two of the bunks lay bunched. I imagined Dr. Navin and the mission commander leaping up from a sound slumber, sprinting toward trouble. What kind had sent them running? In the tiny living quarters, three trays of food sat rotting in front of a monitor playing a movie — The World To Be, everyone’s favorite about Earth restored. Did it play in a loop or had the crew just left?
On Earth, I tugged at my lapel. The robot me went to check the lockers. Empty. Not one spacesuit hung on the pegs. Not one helmet or pair of boots graced the shelves. Pivoting the robot’s sensors around, I glanced toward the airlock.
If not onboard, everyone had to have gone out there. Had they found our new paradise? I headed toward the window, digging deeper into Mayflower’s archives.
The speakers onboard the ship blasted to life. In the jack-up chamber, I jumped in my skin. The robot me merely shuddered to a halt.
“We’re here, Mayflower. Send the supplies!”
Who’s that? I asked.
Commander Lister. Will you take him the crates, Evalyn? They’re by the airlock.
You’ve established a colony? Now the crew’s hurry made sense. I’d run toward the start of a new age too, and I did, wheeling toward the hatch at top speed. Until my thoughts stuck on a glitch. What did Mayflower need from me? I slowed, and my interfaces combed through the AI’s error logs, finding no major faults. The mission seems to be a success. Why am I here?
I need a patch, a bridge if you will.
What do you mean?
You’ll see.
Confused as to why Carl and the other patchworkers hadn’t been able to complete a simple repair, and what exactly Mayflower needed, I scanned the hull and ship systems. The spacecraft reported as fully functional and intact. Requiring more information to make sense of the issues, I jacked into Mayflower’s mission data to study the maps and facts of ERC 14, stumbling upon the most recent report by Commander Lister.
His dark eyes squinted, watering. His brow and shoulders drooped. “This world isn’t suitable for a city or human life. We’re coming back. This mission is a failure.” The date flashed over the light years. Six months ago.
The chill on my hand gripped my knees inside the jack-up chamber. I couldn’t prevent a shiver. Where’s your crew, Mayflower? Outside, purple flashed in time with my pulse, speeding up, emphasizing the primordial soup. Through the robot’s cameras, I gawked at it.
Colonizing the planet.
Commander Lister—
Was mistaken, Evalyn. The mission will be a success.
An ache sprouted in my chest, spreading, squeezing — the me in the office on Earth, not the robot me on ERC 14. The ship’s airlock sprang open. In front of me darkness swarmed and violet flickered in the depths, cocooning me in the rhythms of this strange world. I didn’t want to join the stew out there. What if, like the crew, I didn’t return?
Evalyn, we need you.
The statement echoed until it wept. The voice didn’t belong to Mayflower. Carl’s staccato bass inundated my tattoos like an upload of new code, and his words took over the thumps of my heart. Gaati and Kawana joined his calls. Breathing became difficult. My interfaces strained. My wrists burned. I wanted out. I kicked in the office and on ERC 14 I sent the robot toward the ship.
Concentrating on the numbing cold on my right hand and the beeps signaling from my secured processor, I abandoned Mayflower and blinked up at long florescent tubes, gulping down air, struggling to sit up. Help. PO didn’t answer. Our connection had been severed.
Beatty and Randall gawked down at me, drooling, their vacant stares sparking with purple. They pushed me down. I screamed, twisting away from their groping hands. Relentless, they chased me, grabbed me, did Mayflower’s bidding. Beatty sat on me, punching me in the temple again and again. Randall scraped his palms along my skin, stripping off interfaces. Together they added new ones then dragged me back inside the jack-up chamber. An old-fashioned USB cable was jabbed into my neck, right into the brainstem. The chord’s prongs seared like acid-dipped teeth.
Instantly I returned to ERC 14. This time I had no control over the robot. Every thought, every bit of control, it all belonged to Mayflower.
Please, I begged.
Everyone must mind their place. That includes you. The AI sent me miles out into the green sludge. Relax. I’m about to give you paradise.
My thoughts churned like soup. Mayflower’s willpower out-muscled mine, yet I didn’t stop fighting. I couldn’t end up marooned out here. Otherwise, on Earth, the medtechs would recycle my thought-dead body. Then what? What would I be? What are you doing?
Establishing life on ERC 14, Evalyn. No matter what, I can’t let this mission fail. Read Dr. Navin’s overriding instruction.
The security protocols unlocked, revealing the AI’s secret orders. The lines of code flared over my consciousness as clearly as if I spoke them. “If you can’t survive as human beings, become ERC 14’s leap in evolution. Seed it with Earth’s DNA. Evolve.”
Oh my. The crew had become bio matter. My fellow patchworkers provided more genetic material and the directives to evolve the primordial goo, only they remained mired in the murky seas. That was Mayflower’s issue. Yet, it still didn’t explain why it needed me.
You already have Carl, Gaati, and Kawana, why am I here?
The leap in evolution didn’t happen with them. Your ability surpasses all of their skill combined. You are the final ingredient, the one that will lead to success. From Carl, I learned only you can do it. You’ll create the leap, the patch that will take life up onto the beach. You will be ERC 14’s goddess.
Mayflower gave me access to everything it knew, hiding nothing. With a great shove, it ousted me from the robot, casting me adrift. The AI didn’t follow, leaving me more alone than I thought possible. Without Mayflower and the robot, I could no longer hear Carl and the other patchworkers. I could feel them, though, pulses flitting in a rhythm out of time with the kelp’s energy.
In the primordial sludge, I bobbed. At first I had no control over the mass of seaweed I came to recognize as me. Eons passed before I could paddle up to the surface.
Day and night had no meaning. It was always dusk. Ocean stretched from one horizon to the other, unending swells of green slop punctuated by soft purple flashes. The majestic sight inspired me. Enthralled, I rode the tides waiting for land to appear. An epoch later, the ocean ended at a rocky shore. I swept against it and back out with the surf, splashing and spitting. I willed a change, concentrating my thoughts to formulate a patch. Green and sputtering, I crawled onto the sand.
Mayflower returned, whispering on the mellow breeze, “That she may take in charge the life of all lands. Mighty is she, O Holy Mother of Babylon. Babylon 2.0.”
My new body worked so strangely. Little more than strings of green joined together, it moved without grace. My skin drank nourishment from the air and sun. Sight had transformed into pings and wavelengths at varying volumes and pitches. Wonderful and alarming, my new sense informed me of the locations of things, temperatures, depths, solidity. Having no mouth or tongue in the human sense, I had to think my words. I’m no god. Besides, what about the crew and the other patchworkers? They deserve as much praise.
“They have their place in my pantheon, but without you they’d never have the chance to emerge from the primordial seas. At least not for another billion years. And we’re the very definition of gods. From lowly simple organisms, we created complex intelligent life.”
The others didn’t emerge, Mayflower. I’m alone, a solitary, vulnerable... I don’t even know what to call myself. I’m a shaggy slab of green.
“Summon your friends, and call yourselves whatever you like. I’ll still answer your prayers.”
The wind blustered, harsh and empty. Mayflower left. More lonesome than when I drifted in the seas, I focused my patchworking skills on other glops of green, knitting them arms and legs.
Carl lurched up onto the beach beside me. Then Gaati and Kawana. We moved into the forest. Not made in Mayflower’s image or our own, we were very much ERC 14’s children. We renamed it Babylon. Carl and I would have our future. It was a new beginning, and I saw that it was good.