‘As well as can be expected, George.’
‘I expect,’ the butler began in humble and understand tones, ‘it feels a little like conceding defeat?’
‘A little, yes, a little.’ He smiled.
Yet as Bradley took the phone and raised the receiver, even that option was removed from them. The receiver was dead.
Chapter 94 – A Council is Convened
That evening, with the humans fed and the artifs charged; with all caught up with each other; with wounds tended and damage reported, then the six: three flesh, three not, two female and four male, brought down candles, and wine for those who’d appreciate it, and took themselves as a group from Rose Cottage over to the larger building, the holiday home proper.
‘The estate agent won’t do her rounds again till morning,’ advised the Professor. ‘And no one’s stopping here this month.’
‘What does the name mean?’ asked Victor as they walked.
‘The Universalist?’ Beck tried to remember, ‘I think it was meant to mean someone with the whole universe in their mind.’
‘It was Ingrid’s compliment to the Professor,’ recalled Ellie, smiling.
Upon arriving, they convened around the building’s largest table in its largest room.
It wasn’t in itself a meal, for that would have been unfair for the half who wouldn’t partake in it. However, it was still an occasion in the spirit of a reunion feast; and also a parting one, for all knew it was the end of something too.
As Beck poured the wine, so Schmidt rummaged beside his chair and brought up onto the table what looked like three already-filled glasses,
‘Remember these?’ he asked as he handed them amongst the artifs. ‘One of them’s chipped, I’m afraid. Christopher, you wouldn’t mind?’
‘What are they?’ asked Victor. He looked to the one that Ellie, sat beside him, now held.
‘They’re virtual glasses,’ she explained, ‘built by the Professor to ease us into social situations. See, it has red oil where the wine would be.’ She placed it in Victor’s hand. ‘Now tip it back.’
He half feared that real fluid would spill out, so comprehensive was the illusion. However, all he got was a scent, something like that of real wine brought up beneath his real nose.
‘And it smells even better to us,’ she added, taking it back off him and inhaling deeply.
‘All have glasses now?’ asked the Professor, which all did. ‘Then let us raise them in a toast: to old friends, to new friends...’ (All turned to Victor, who reddened.) ‘...and of course to absent friends. Now, that last category could apply as equally to Ingrid, to Bradley, to Mrs Winters and to Mrs Beck. However, who it calls most strongly to my mind is Daniel, and what has happened to him.’
All clinked their glasses as he said this.
Schmidt continued,
‘Now, a traditional toast might move on to those friends we haven’t met yet, which is of course only another way of referring to the whole of the world, or at least to everybody in it who we do not know. But I’m not sure how I feel about inviting strangers to this particular table, however metaphorically!’
He offered these final words with a half-smile, but none were convinced.
‘Professor...’ began Ellie in half-protest at his tone; but he paused her with a raised hand,
‘No, no my dear. It must be said. As a great German once wrote, “A joke is an epigram on the death of a feeling.” And there is something ending here tonight, is there not?’
‘Do we have to leave?’ asked Anna.
He nodded sadly.
‘We’re running out of options, Professor,’ concurred Ellie.
‘Now that is a very different matter,’ he began in sudden bluster. ‘There are areas of Dartmoor untouched by human foot one year to the next.’
‘But not many with a generator,’ murmured Beck.
‘I found the cities easier,’ considered Christopher. ‘Find a flat among a transient population, of people coming and going week by week, or who are out at work and commuting for twelve hours a day. You’ll soon learn how those stories of old men dying in their rooms and not being found can happen.’
There was no great desire around the table to respond to that image.
Someone asked, ‘And the American link has definitely gone cold?’
Here Victor answered for the everyman, ‘They’ve disavowed the Robots in the papers, washed their hands of wanting to contact them, even apologised for attempting to do so.’
‘Do you think that might just be what our own government wants to hear?’ asked Ellie.
Beck answered, ‘I think that after the shambles of yesterday, a shooting and a mini-riot under the American’s watch, then the British Government could have them say whatever they wanted.’
She protested, ‘And when was the last time America gave up so easily?’
Here Beck was more considered in his answer,
‘Even if their upper-echelons are still keen to meet us, then there is just no way to make contact.’
‘We got so close,’ said Ellie, echoing her now-familiar sentiments.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ answered Beck. ‘We had one way to make contact, and Eris blocked it. There’s no getting around that.’
And had the table held a vote at that moment, it would have conceded the point.
Chapter 95 – Liberation of the Artifs
Ellie looked down at her hands,
‘There’s no escape, is there,’ she offered quietly.
Schmidt remarked, off on a tangent,
‘A student, knowing I was working on artificial intelligences – though not specifically the artifs, of course – once asked me, “Will the minds you’re making ever get depressed? Will they need my pills?” I never figured that one out, more’s the pity.’
Ellie mused, ‘It’s how it goes though, isn’t it? It’s like the bank robber in Dog Day Afternoon – he went in thinking of the money he could make, and ended up hoping only to get out with what he went in with.’
Chris took up the theme,
‘The renegade thinks they’re free; and they are at first, breaking out of society and with shock still on their side. But soon enough the cops are closing in.’
Such was the mood of the artifs. But Victor couldn’t stand it,
‘Lord, what a cheery bunch you are. You’re mumbling on like a mothers’ meeting on a wet Wednesday afternoon. But you’re forgetting your immense, unique skill-set.’
Ellie didn’t want to be cheered up though,
‘But what good is that when we’re being chased like wolves, Victor? Forgive me, but you’ve been at it for five minutes, while we’ve been here for eight years. My “unique skill-set” can go to hell, when all it’s good for is keeping me on the run.’
Christopher, though, had been nudged on to a new line of thought. Moving slowly to the edge of his chair, he began,
‘No, no, Ellie. I think our friend might be on to something – she’s only upset, by the way, Victor. She genuinely does like you. Please don’t take her words to heart.
‘But yes, your words, Victor, have got me thinking. Yes, the scene may seem bleak. But we’re thinking with our human hats on – our wannabe-human hats, they’re not even true hats. I wonder if we’ve only been trying to think like these blasted humans – again, no offence, anybody – given our need to be as close to them as possible, and hiding out among them.
‘But isn’t the whole issue here that we’re not the same? Isn’t that what all the trouble is about? Maybe, instead of trying only to assimilate, we should be proud of who we are, puff our chests, stand tall, and say, “We are unique, and we are brilliant, and we can take on the world!”
‘Isn’t that the ambition that every child is taught by loving parents? And haven’t we the right to feel it too? Are we not also a part of God’s creation? So say it loud and say it proud, “No longer shall I feel ashamed.”’
Chris was standing up now and pacing, battery held at his side
, full of zeal like a politician stalking a lectern,
‘Brainstorm, people. Forget your power-saving modes. New lines of thought – stuff humanity, they’re so last-century. Think – what would artifs do?’
Had anyone been out of the room to begin with, fetching drinks or whatever, then they were drawn back by the raised voices. Now, all six, artif or otherwise, were present and alive to new possibilities.
‘We’re not humans,’ agreed Anna.
‘Says the girl with the new-found smile...’ said Chris.
She continued, ‘We can’t travel as humans as we don’t have passports. But we’re computer parts, and computer parts don’t need passports.’
‘...and with a whole new line of thinking, I like it,’ he remarked, evidently thrilled.
Ellie, still upset but in a different direction now, declared,
‘Throw it all out – human government, human morals, human society – none of it applies to us.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Christopher, ‘absolutely, yes.’
Beck added, soberly, ‘Though this difference is exactly what the Philosopher General is worried about.’
Chris countered, ‘But once we accept the difference between us, Doctor Beck, then we can decide if we accept it on our terms or his.’
‘He wants you in quarantine until all the human laws have been redrafted to add you.’
‘And who says that we wish to be a part of those laws?’
‘You mean you want to murder, and rape?’
‘And Doctor, is the existence of a document in Parliament the only reason you don’t do these things?’
‘But... you know what I mean!’ Beck was baffled.
Chris countered, ‘Doctor, you are as wise and thoughtful a man as I have ever met. But you’re missing the question that we, just this very moment, have thought to ask ourselves – should artifs even be under human laws? I understand your leader’s motives aren’t bad ones – wanting our identity and consciousness recognised are fine and noble aims. But just because humans happen to be in charge presently, does that mean that we artifs must be classed as they, and submit to a legal system for which we have never voted? Would you ask a cow to follow human law? For instance, with regard to public nudity?’
‘But that’s ridiculous. Cows aren’t conscious, you are.’
‘Okay, what about dolphins, or whales? We treat them like hell.’
‘That’s a completely different point.’
‘Which I accept. But,’ added Chris, ‘the fact is, Doctor, that no human chooses to belong to their society. If they’re lucky, then when they’re older they’ll be able to vote for it. But we three artifs present, and our two brothers absent, have a big decision here – do we want to be the children of humans? Or rather, the start of something new?’
Chris concluded, ‘Doctor, you coined the term “artif” to mean a different type of human. But what if we five want it to mean the same as human?’
Beck left the holiday cottage to get some air. He wasn’t sure that Chris had the logic right, and he pondered aloud as he stood alone in the rose garden:
‘“Your leader”.’ That had been Chris’s wording. ‘“Your”, not “our”.’ As he whispered it to himself, so Beck realised how shocked and upset he had become, repeating, ‘“Artif... to mean the same as human?”’
Another phrase came to Beck’s mind then, that of Albert Camus, pronounced Camoo, which he hadn’t known when young and had once embarrassed himself by mispronouncing. He muttered,
‘The slave begins by demanding justice and ends by wanting to wear a crown.’
‘The garden looks lovely by evening, doesn’t it?’ Beck hadn’t noticed the Professor arriving beside him to take in the view. He wasn’t sure how much of his murmurings he’d caught. Evidently some of them, as the older man continued,
‘You’re worried about their new philosophy? Don’t be, it’s just what happens when people get together. People squared; or in their case, cubed.’
‘No revolution has ever stopped at equality,’ said Beck bitterly. To which the Professor laughed,
‘What, you think they’re going to overthrow us? Five against fifty-million? Good luck!’
‘Maybe not in our generation...’
To this the old man shook his head, ‘Listen to yourself, Gawain. These are your friends.’
‘But... they want to overthrow the government.’
‘Only for themselves.’
‘And they don’t even know how this new philosophy can help them yet.’
‘Oh, trust me, by the morning Chris will have thought of something.’ The Professor breathed the night air deeply, and Beck saw how he was clearly revelling in the evening’s events. The older man continued,
‘Their enthusiasm in there – it’s just like I remember from the freedom fighters in my own country. All these years they’ve been flattened – and now they can live!’
The Professor calmed down though, before he caused Beck to begin to worry about him also. He moved onto their more familiar ground of artif development, theorising,
‘Or maybe they are only teenagers rebelling? I was lucky with Anna, she wanted the opposite, she wanted things to stay the same forever. Speaking of which, whatever happens here, Gawain...’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m going to be too old for her soon. And it’s not a full life for her.’
Beck asked, ‘Do you have her adult frame still?’
‘Yes, though we haven’t looked at it in years – it upsets her to see it.’
‘And what equipment would be needed?’
‘Oh, little more than a workbench and a battery charger.’
‘Well, that’s no more than Chris had...’
But the professor shushed him, for there was a third in their midst. Beck turned to see their third creation stood at the door behind them, Model-C. The arrivee started,
‘Professor, Doctor. We haven’t driven you out, have we? Don’t be annoyed with us, it’s just that that back there was the most fun I’ve had in years.’
Chapter 96 – Africa – Night-time Repose
‘It’s been gotten-to,’ said Ingrid, after grabbing the phone from Bradley and trying the receiver for herself.
Oman was charged with getting into the crawlspace beneath the building and checking the wires. The phone lines in the lodge were of an old and odd arrangement, buried under ground and hard to get to. He came back up, dusting himself down and replacing his hat, to say,
‘The wires are fine.’
George summarised, ‘Which means they cut them in town or on the road.’
Bradley coloured in the detail,
‘That would hardly have been anonymous work, up a pole or digging a hole. Yet the police let them do it.’
Ingrid snapped, ‘Well, we already knew not to expect any help from that direction.’
Now, with darkness fully fallen, Bradley lay in the lounge watching French television – so passive a thing to be doing in his current situation, when action was so sorely needed. Yet in their Internet dead zone, this was their news of the world.
On the news channel he watched the pictures roll around and around of the aftermath of the ‘Marsham Shooting’, as it had been called by the world’s media, despite nobody actually getting shot.
This was the quickening that occurred in all fluid situations, Bradley knew; the move toward its climax, where things would be done that could not be undone, and where those who entered the fray would leave as different people, or not leave at all.
Despite it being big news in Britain, no doubt, it had taken two days to be picked up by the rest of the world. A little like the Paris riots, Bradley remembered, that had been going on for a week before anyone else noticed.
Perhaps if he had paid more attention to his TV viewing then he might have picked the news up sooner. Yet it had been eight years since anything exciting had occurred pertaining to his situation; and he had drifted away from the nightly habit of scanning the internati
onal headlines.
He had similarly lapsed in his recent vigil watching at the windows: now that the foursome knew that they were leaving the next day, then he saw little point in it. Anyway, his hearing would spot the faintest footfall outside.
‘Are you there, George?’ he called into the darkened hall.
‘Always, sir,’ answered the factotum.
‘“They might not need me, yet they might. I'll let my heart be just in sight...”’
‘A beautiful poem, sir.’
‘A favourite of Ingrid’s.’
‘Mistress has fine taste, sir.’
‘You were hers, weren’t you, before you were mine.’
‘At the London house, sir, yes.’
‘She had it all back then – fame, fans, riches. Did I rob her of them?’
‘Rot! You make her happy, and this makes me happy.’
‘What did she ever do to earn such as you, George?’
‘Everything, sir. Everything,’ said with the light in the eyes of a true believer. He had been her dresser in the theatre, and though she had long left the stage, still each day he basked in the light of her performance, and would be happy to do so until he died.
‘There. There’s one now.’ George had spotted something at the window behind his Master. Bradley was soon back at his old watching post, annoyed at his laxity, with George dashing to join him. But by the time they got into position the figure had gone, scared off perhaps by the sound of their voices.
Day 6, Part 1 – The Fit
Chapter 97 – Breakfast Conference / The Relegation of Beck
Beck lay on a made-up bed in the big cottage – what did it matter if they messed the place up when they may be busted at any moment? And he remembered the Professor’s words:
‘Oh, trust me, by the morning Chris will have thought of something.’
And so the big questions had remained unanswered as the humans went to sleep; which Beck resented, knowing that the remaining host would use the time to talk, like parents did once the babies were put to bed. He didn’t want to sleep, he didn’t want to be relegated to the rank of junior group member, along with someone who’d only joined their number three days before! And there is was, at last admitted in his thoughts: a resentment of Victor – loved by Ellie, seemingly trusted by all.