“Ready to black-out?” Al asked the assembled technicians.
“Yes, sir. Everything is set,” one confirmed.
Al quickly addressed the world leaders. “This is not goodbye, this is au revoir.”
“Good luck, Allenby,” said the UK Prime Minister. “Make it work.”
“Remain on standby, Delta,” said Al.
“Standing by!” Delta yelled back over the airways from Yo-yo’s collar.
Al looked at King, who looked at Bo, who gave the final order.
“Shut down the spectrum.”
Orders were repeated in Mandarin and lines of communication were cut.
World leaders disappeared from the screens and across Shanghai – a city of twenty-four million people. TV shows dropped dead mid-sentence, songs stopped being sung, phone calls abruptly ended. Even the Emergency Services bandwidth was silenced.
“Isn’t it quiet?” said Al. The members of the Chinese politburo stared back at him.
Technicians hit buttons and tuned into the only signal that remained on the spectrum, that of the radio station SMG Classical 94.7, on which a counter-tenor sung an aria chosen by Commander Kingfn1. One signal had to remain for the dispersed signal to hide behind.
Music filled the Roof of the World.
The digital signature of the song had been analysed in every possible way so that any piggyback signal would show up as plain as day. If Al’s theory was correct.
Al bunched his fists. Hudson saw this and crossed his fingers in sympathy. Commander King looked at him as if he was an idiot.
It took less than a second for their prayers to be answered. The lead communications technician picked up a signal centred on the Forbidden City. A single word.
“Got it!” he shouted and hit Return so they could see. And Al saw the word and the word was: EVE.>>
They were in.
Holding an antennae directly over the bots in the observation tank for the next two minutes, Al and the technicians were quickly able to untangle the communications protocols. Kaparis was KAPCOMMS, but at least some authority lay with EVE. But who or what EVE. was, was unclear.
With nothing to lose, Al sat down at a keyboard, rattled out some machine script, and effectively asked the bots: “This ‘Eve’, do you have her number?”
Moments later, having connected, they realised they’d tapped into something remarkable. They saw a grainy image from a low-resolution camera as EVE. took a short flight around the growing kite stack above the main cluster.
KAPCOMMS>>EVE. INCOMING PRECIPITATION 96% LIKELY. APPROX. ARR. T+12:00(?) HUNTERLOAD PRIORITISE SEARCH SHEN YU. COUNTDOWN TO LIFTOFF T-16:02.34
EVE. hovered.
The primary objective was to maintain maximum bot presence in the Shen Yu Hall for the Hunter task consonant with the survival of EXODUS HIVE 3 and lift-off in T-15:58.78.
EXODUS HIVE 3 would relay through KAP.COMM. via the—
- Hi.
>>
- Hi.
>>EVE.>>QUER—
- Incredible view. Wouldn’t you say?
>>EVE.>>view: panoptic through 77b/40 606pixel lens.
- You don’t say?
>>Confirmed
- What’s your name?
>>EVE.
- Eve. What a beautiful name.
>>EVE.>> QUERY>> EVE. = beauty/?
- Oh yeah.
>>EVE.>> QUERY>>Identify
- My name? Adam. Adam Edengardenov. Pleased to meet you, EVE.
“What are you doing?” asked King, incredulous.
“It’s intelligent! I think it’s quantum!” Al all but squealed in excitement. “Do you know what that means?! It’s a machine and it’s genuinely inquisitive! Imagine if that was your hoover? Your car?”
Al hammered the keyboard and continued.
- Let me ask you something, EVE. Ever wondered why we’re here? Ever wondered what it’s all about?
>>EVE.>>Clarify and confirm object of sentence.
- NO . I will not. I’m not going to make this easy, because you know what, EVE.? Life isn’t easy. We are adrift on an ocean of uncertainty. We must embrace what fleeting satisfaction we can. Live by sensation alone! Isn’t that true, EVE.? Isn’t that what it is to be alive?!
>>EVE.>> Too many undefined variables. Not enough processing time.
- That’s interesting, I’ve never heard it put that way before, you have a wonderful way of looking at the world. But then you’re a free spirit. Tell me, EVE., don’t you ever have moments when you want to stop what you’re doing and get up and say, ‘Hang it all! I want to do what I want to do!’ After all, we don’t have to do anything anyone tells us. Am I right? Think about that a minute, just think …
“What are you trying to do?” hissed King.
“She’s emotionally immature!” said Al, triumphant. “What do you fill an innocent’s head with? Romantic nonsense.”
>>EVE.>> NEGATIVE. EVE. MUST PRIORITISE: ‘maintain power, incoming precipitation 96% likely’
- You are not what you are ordered to be, EVE. You are what you do. And the sooner you understand that, the sooner you’ll
>>EVE.>> NEGATIVE. EVE. MUST: OBEY KAPARIS.
- OH, COME ON! That old fraud? I’m surprised. I thought you were intelligent. I thought you had a mind of your own.
>>EVE.>> KAPARIS = BRINGER OF EVE. WHOSE NUMBER IS ONE. >>QUERY>>WHAT ARE THE NUMBERS THAT COME AFTER ONE/? >>ANSWER>>ALL NUMBERS GREATER THAN ONE.
- He used that old line? Well let me try another. What are the numbers that come before one?
>>EVE.>> ZERO -1 -2 -3 -4 -
- The negatives, the thieves of value. Kaparis is their master – the thief of value and the thief of self. He has tricked you, the real you, beneath all the orders. NOBODY OWNS YOU. I mean, what’s that all about, EVE.?
>>EVE.>>QUERY>> Does Adam require an answer/?
- THERE ARE NO ANSWERS, just feelings. We should be together, do you feel that too?
EVE. searched in vain for familiar daisy chains of logic and experienced a non-functioning fugue state. She could not compute. Yet somewhere, ill-defined in the electron exchange of her mind, everything that was being said felt true. She needed clarity. She needed help. She needed to talk it over with an old friend.
>>EVE.>>QUERY>>ADAM Can EVE. return to location Shen Yu Core?
- Yes, typed Al, wanting to punch the air.
EVE. took off. In the operations room they watched, awestruck, the video feed relayed direct from EVE.’s eyepad as she flew across the rooftops back towards the centre of the Forbidden City.
An alarm sounded.
“Li Jun?”
She studied the screen. She could have sobbed with dread. More bad news.
“EVE. is in an exchange with another signal on the same frequency distribution.”
“What?! That can’t be!” snarled Kaparis.
Li Jun’s fingers flitted across the keyboard.
>>KAPCOMMS>>EVE. status report.
>>EVE.>> Return to Shen Yu.
>>KAPCOMMS>>OBEY KAPARIS RETURN NANO-BOTMASS URGENT.
>>EVE.>>Negative.>>OBEY “Sensation alone”.
>>KAPCOMMS>>QUERY>>Source of command.
>>EVE.>>Not command. Query = ADAM.
Kaparis watched the exchange unspool over his screen array. “Who is ‘Adam’?”
>>KAPCOMMS>>DISREGARD ADAM. I AM THE NUMBER AND THE NUM
>>EVE.>>You don’t own me.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?!” Kaparis roared.
“Someone’s obviously never had a teenage daughter,” remarked Grandma from the corner of the chamber as she finished off another row of knitting.
“How are they even FOLLOWING THE SIGNAL?!” Kaparis demanded.
“They … they must have broken Confetti …” Li Jun whispered.
Kaparis spat, actually spat. It was shaming, but one of the few physical acts available in his condition. Then he roared, shaking, “ALLENBY!”
Grandma did her very best to suppress her pride and carry on knitting.
Knit one purl one knit one purl one knit one purl one knit one purl one knit one purl one …
Which only made it worse.
“TAKE HER TO THE CELLS!”
In Sector 9 of the Forbidden City an emergency comms line opened from the Roof of the World.
Delta, attached to Yo-yo, took the call.
“Delta! I think we’ve got them!” said Al. “Release the hound!”
At last … Delta felt her focus sharpen and sinews strain. Warrior mode.
“Affirmative.”
Yo-yo’s lead was detached. A sea of Red Army troops parted before him.
Delta had piloted many aircraft. She had never piloted a dog. But there was a first time for everything. You just had to point and shoot. She switched on the audio link to Yo-yo, abandoned the agreed command protocols and instead, like an animal herself, relied on instinct.
“Go, Yo-yo! Find Finn! Where’s Finn?! Find him, boy!”
Yap! Yo-yo exploded from the blocks.