She could be lying, Christine said, meaning Alice. It might be one more fairy story, intended to distract and confuse us.
It might, I admitted.
If we are in rehab, though, she observed, therapys moved on since our day.
Its not therapy, I told her. It might be lies, but its not therapy. Its too weird for that. It may be fiction for fictions sake, but if it isnt that, its true. Paranoia had compelled me to consider the possibility that our captors had made a show of flushing our IT in order to increase our vulnerability to the conviction that everything around us was real, including the stories they wanted to tell us, but I couldnt believe that this was just a show. If I was still being played for a fool, then my adversary had won. I was a fool.
It has to be true, Christine said, her tone suggesting that she had not reached the conclusion easily or gladly. Its too insane to be anything else. But they cant let us go now, can they? We know too much. If things dont work out, theyll kill us.
Thats not the worst of it, I told her. The problem is that anyone on the other side who wants to win a further delay will have to kill us just to slow things down. If we actually get to Vesta and all the sides agree to settle the matter by negotiation, well probably be okay. Alice has been afraid all along that we might not even get there and our chances havent improved since we extracted the truth from her.
They wouldnt actually have to kill us, though, Christine mused, drawing back from her own conclusion. All theyd have to do is take us away or put us all into SusAn for a thousand years or so.
She was right, of course except that there might not be enough time left to negotiate that kind of a compromise, if it turned out to be the best deal we could get.
That wouldnt be such a bad thing, was the reply I offered. Here, you and I are the freaks in the sideshow within the zoo. Maybe the best thing that could possibly happen to us is that these talks between the ultrasmart machines will break down, so that Alices friend can be instructed to ferry us back to Tyre.
Do you want to go to Tyre? she asked.
Not particularly but it might be interesting.
Because wed get the chance to be shapeshifters? she asked.
Because the situation there sounds a lot simpler, and a lot more harmonious, than a home system full of rival posthumans and paranoid machines. It has potential, and a reasonable chance of developing that potential.
But we would get the chance to be shapeshifters, she said. I think perhaps Ive always wanted to be a shapeshifter, without knowing it.
You havent heard what the other emortality salesmen are offering yet, I pointed out.
We dont know that theyre offering anything at all, she countered. We were just the trial runs, remember. If one thing became obvious today, its that they dont think they need us any more.
Maybe thats not such a bad thing, I said. It might leave us free to find and choose our own destinies.
Unless, of course, she added, slowly, we werent trial runs at all. Maybe we were exactly what some ultrasmart machine ordered: a crazy killer and a cunning thief. Alice was careful not to say very much about the machines who wanted to clear the human vermin out of the system, wasnt she?
Maybe there arent any, I said.
Sure, she said. And maybe there arent any humans whose first response to the news that some machines have become people would be to switch them all off. Maybe the ultrasmart machines have been in hiding for centuries for no good reason.
If ever there was a good reason, I ventured, it surely must have degenerated by now into a mere matter of habit. If Child of Fortune could snatch the eight of us from under the sisterhoods noses, and make us disappear without trace, what must the entire fleet be able to do? The AMIs must be capable by now of defending themselves against any possible aggression from humans. They dont have anything to lose by revealing themselves its really a matter of when and how they reveal themselves, not whether or not they ought to do it. If they have cause to be afraid of anything, its certainly not the possibility that humans
might try to wipe them out. Theyve been living alongside posthumans for long enough to know every subspecies inside out. They shouldnt need to examine us, or debate with us, in order to discover anything about our attitudes or capabilities. If they really are going to subject us to some kind of trial when we get to Vesta, itll be a show trial: a demonstration or a drama.
And yet , I thought, privately, they let us wake up in order to observe us. There must be things they dont know, or things theyre afraid they dont know. Theres something here that I havent quite fathomed .
Whatever happens when we get to Vesta might be fun, Christine said, optimistically, presumably thinking about the AMIs love of games and stories.
In my experience. I told her, games are a lot more fun for the players than they are for the pawns. That goes double for stories. In my day, the world of VE drama always had a far higher body count per hour than the world outside the hood even the child-friendly fantasies that you liked so much when you were young. Having said that, though, I repented of its harshness. I hastened to add: But youre right. It will certainly be interesting and it might be fun. Anyway, were already way ahead of the games people played in our day, in terms of the prizes on offer. You might get to the Omega Point yet, and see a hell of a lot of scenery along the way.