CAPACITY

continued from when the illegal imprint was made. You weren’t meant to know that you were actually running on an illegal processing space.”

“That was part of the torture,” Frances said, speaking up for the first time. Helen looked at the robot with mild horror. The painted blue eyes and smile gave Frances a distinctly sinister look. Helen’s eyes were then drawn down to the pubic triangle of push buttons.

“This is too much to take in,” she murmured.

“You’ll get used to it,” Frances said.

Helen said nothing; she turned to stare back out into space.

The atomic Judy looked over at her digital self and moved her hands in a flickering pattern.

– Why did you bring her here? she asked.

Devising a secret sign language was so much easier when each person drew on a common core of memory. When the digital Judy mimed rocking a baby, she meant home, here, their bedroom; it was a symbol they both remembered from their childhood, when home had meant the place their younger sister had been born.

The digital Judy was answering.

– I brought her here because she’s going to ask to help in tracking down Kevin, just like every personality construct of Helen ends up doing sooner or later. I think we should say yes this time.

The atomic Judy tilted her head slightly.

– I’m listening.

– She’s just heard that Kevin has committed suicide rather than be taken by us. I’m still rather shaken by that myself.

– As am I. We were just beginning to suspect there were several personality constructs of Kevin running in tandem. I think this confirms it. Who is he, I wonder…?

The digital Judy shrugged, then indicated Helen.

– She must know we’re getting nowhere, trying to catch him.

The apple-green atomic Judy glanced at Frances, then she looked back at her digital sister.

– Why you, 3? Why are you the only one to bring Helen here? There were lots more of her PCs running in there. Why have none of the other Judys thought of using her?

Judy 3 shrugged.

– I don’t know. Look, Kevin is our best handle on the Private Network, but he’s proving too difficult to pin down. We need to try another approach, and I think that is to use Helen. Why does Kevin have such an interest in her? Time and again he comes back to her personality construct. I think we should allow her to tag along with me. She might help us learn something.

“You’re speaking about me, aren’t you?” Helen was looking out from the red-bordered field into the atomic world, looking at the apple-green Judy.

“I told you she was good,” Judy 3 said out loud.

“Which one of you two is in charge?” Helen demanded.

“Neither of us,” the atomic Judy said. “Since the Transition, everyone is legally regarded as equal, whether they exist in the digital world, as you and Judy do, or in the atomic world, like Frances and me.”

Helen smiled coldly. “Does that include who inherits the money?”

Judy 3 laughed, her black lips opening wide to reveal white teeth and a red tongue. After a moment the atomic Judy did the same, a perfect mirror image of her digital sister, even down to the opposite ways their kimonos overlapped under the obi.

“You catch on quick,” Judy 3 said, “very quickly. No, only the atomic Judy gets the money. What would I do with it, Helen? Anyway, there is little use for money nowadays, even in the atomic world. Especially since the Transition.”

“What is this Transition you keep talking about?” Helen’s tone was accusatory, as if the Judys were deliberately using terms intended to confuse her.

“Let me explain,” Judy 3 said softly. “You are a personality construct, Helen. You understand what that means?”

“Yes. It means that I am now living in a computer. In a processing space. In the digital world.”

“That’s right. And just suppose that the organization that owned the processing space came to the conclusion that their ‘computer’ ”-Judy made quote signs with her fingers-“was full to capacity? What if they decided to wipe some of the programs, the personality constructs, in order to make way for others?”

“But that would be murder!”

“Only since 2171. The Transition established rights for digital and atomic beings, but it did far more than that. The world has always been driven by contradictory forces. In your time the contradictions were tearing everything apart. You had an economy driven by commercial organizations looking one, two, maybe ten years into the future, all concerned about nothing more than the bottom line. Then you had AIs built by those same companies that were thinking one hundred, two hundred, maybe even a thousand years into the future. The tension between human and AI was warping society.”

“What about the Watcher?”

The two Judys were silent. Frances spoke. “What about the Watcher, Helen?”

Helen looked at the robot. Something about Frances’ painted smile seemed to make her uncomfortable. “Didn’t the Watcher have a plan to help us all?”

“Helen,” Frances said, “do you really believe in the Watcher? Do you really believe that the first AI to evolve shaped all the other AIs? Do you really believe that everything is fine if it is part of the Watcher’s plan?”

“I don’t know. What do you believe, Frances?”

The two Judys laughed.

“Well spoken, Helen,” the atomic Judy said. She looked at her friend. “What do you believe, Frances? Do you think that the Watcher played a part in organizing the Transition?”

The robot wasn’t fazed. “I believe that the tyranny of the atomic world could not be allowed to go on,” she said smoothly. “During the Transition, the most intelligent AIs banded together and they changed the way the world worked. They reduced the power of the companies: DIANA, Imagineers; all those big commercial organizations were effectively sidelined, once AIs took a more direct approach to the running of the world. The Transition finally put paid to the myth that humans had any part to play in running their own affairs.”

Frances looked at the apple-green Judy. “What do you believe?”

“This is a human-shaped world,” she said. “I believe that the Watcher was the first AI. I believe that it learned humanity by studying a woman named Eva Rye. I believe that the Watcher has guided development through the EA for the past two centuries for the benefit of humankind.”

Frances laughed.

“Whether it’s the Environment Agency or the Watcher, you still agree that humans need to be nurtured by outside agencies.”

“No. I think humans should be able to handle their own affairs.”

“And yet you work for Social Care.”

“I do. But I work to heal people and help them realize their potential. Not to tell them the way they should live. That’s what the EA is doing.”

Helen was staring out into the darkness of space, visibly overwhelmed by the dark wall of the Shawl.

“Who is Kevin?” she asked suddenly.

Judy 3 raised a black eyebrow to the atomic Judy. Her kimono was invisible against the dark night beyond her, giving her the appearance of a disembodied head and hands floating in the darkness.

“Kevin is the person who seems to be running the illegal personality constructs.”

“I want to get the bastard.”

The atomic Judy put a finger to her lips and gazed at the floor, as if saying, “I told you so.” She spoke in a carefully noncommittal voice.

“And what would you hope to achieve by doing that?”

Helen scowled. “What do you think?” she asked. “Why were you so shocked when he committed suicide?”