CAPACITY

“You’ve heard all this before, haven’t you?” the pod said shrewdly. “Who are you? Why are you here? You’re obviously not one of the regular surveyors.”

There it was again: all the pods so far had figured this out. They might be acting like children, but they still had intelligence at least equal to his own. And, stripped down though their intelligences were, they still had access to vast libraries of data. Data that covered many, many subjects. How to read body language would be just one of them.

Justinian played it straight. “My name is Justinian. I’m a counselor. I’ve been brought to Gateway to try and figure out why AIs aren’t thriving here.”

“A counselor?” said the pod. “The sort that uses the empathy drug? You’re an MTPH counselor?”

“Originally. I work mainly with personality constructs nowadays.”

“Personality constructs? Does that make a difference?”

“It shouldn’t. You have to retrain in the use of MTPH-”

“I suppose that’s one reason for sending you here to speak to me,” the pod said thoughtfully. “Still, I would have thought the reasons for my failure would be beyond human intelligence. I would have thought the investigation would be a job for an AI.”

Justinian let sarcasm lace his voice. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? The trouble is, AIs don’t seem to want to work on Gateway. So far I’ve interviewed fourteen of the thirty-two pods that were seeded here. All of them have been exactly like you: drastically reduced versions of their former selves. Virtual suicides.”

The pod seemed unbothered by his tone. “Really? So it wasn’t just me, then…”

The pod was silent for a moment. When it spoke, Justinian thought there was an edge of fear to its voice. That was silly, of course. The pod could make its voice sound however it wanted.

“So that’s why they sent a human. But why you, I wonder? There’s more, isn’t there, Justinian? There’s a reason they chose you in particular.”

Justinian stifled another yawn and looked towards the dark shape of the flier, lost behind the bright lights that illuminated the pod. He thought longingly of his bed.

“I counsel potential suicides,” he said. “Specifically, I counsel personality constructs who wish to wipe themselves from the processing space in which they reside.”

“Give me an example.”

“Why can’t you look one up for yourself? Your databases are intact, aren’t they?”

“You know they are. You’re testing me, aren’t you? Well, now I want to test you. Give me an example of the way you work with human PCs.”

Justinian rubbed his hands together uneasily. Even after fourteen other pods had asked him exactly the same question, he still felt uncomfortable about opening himself up to one. He was used to having his personality read by AIs-what twenty-third-century person wasn’t? — but this was different. This pod had got halfway through its development cycle and then, for no apparent reason, wiped out all its higher brain functions. Just like every other pod on Gateway. He was dealing with an unstable personality. And that was frightening. Everyone knew that AIs could make you do what they wanted you to, without you even knowing it. Those of a more paranoid frame of mind believed that the Watcher itself was only giving the human race the impression of free will. They believed that it was in reality driving humankind towards its own, inscrutable goal. AIs could always force you to choose the card they wanted, and the one in front of Justinian was unstable. What might it choose to make him do? Maybe Justinian would just suddenly, inexplicably take it into his head to step off this mud spit into the dark water below. What if he were to now swim off into the cold night, to sink into the blackness, to drown in the dark all alone, light years from home?

The pod noted his hesitation. “What’s the matter, Justinian? You’re asking me questions to figure out why I’ve malfunctioned. Why should I not do the same to you?”

“Because I haven’t malfunctioned,” Justinian said. “Nonetheless, I’ll tell you about Leigh Sony. She had Cotard’s syndrome.”

“Cotard’s syndrome? No, tell me about one of the personality constructs that you counseled, not a real person.”

“Leigh was a construct,” Justinian said. “That was the problem.”

Leigh looked up as Justinian stepped into the room. Once again he was struck by the apparent reality of the modern VR interfaces. If he concentrated, he could feel the slippery touch of the interface mesh he wore at the back of his neck, but that was about it. Directed electromagnetic fields were manipulating his nervous system and were reading what was written there, even as far down his body as his arms and legs, giving him the impression that he really was standing in the hospital ward. The sharp smell of antiseptic and healing accelerants seemed to jumble with the light reflected from the white surfaces.

“Hello, Justinian.”

“Hello, Leigh.”

She smiled up at him politely: white hair, wrinkled face, gentle brown eyes. She looked a lot older than her fifty-four years.

“It’s good of you to come, Justinian,” she said. “Hardly anyone has spoken to me since I died last month.”

Justinian sat down on the plastic bed next to her chair and took her hand.

“You’re not dead, Leigh. You are still a living being, both in fact and in the eyes of the law.”

Leigh smiled at him politely. “You are very nice, Justinian, but I know that I am dead. I was trying to think of the ages of my grandchildren just before you came in, but I could only remember the ones who were older than me. That’s not right, is it?”

Justinian rubbed her hand gently. “No, Leigh. But it is an indication of Cotard’s syndrome.”

“You counselors and your fancy terms. I die and you call it Cotard’s syndrome.”

“No, Leigh. Cotard’s syndrome is an illness, a result of severe depression or neurological disease. You haven’t died.”

Leigh gave a gentle smile, humoring him.

“It’s all the same to me. Now, how is your wife? How long before the baby is born?”

“Six weeks.”

Justinian bit his lip. Leigh squeezed his hand with hers. It felt very dry, hardly human, as if she were dead already.

Leigh gave a warm smile. “Six weeks? It’s your first, isn’t it? You should make the most of your free time now; it will all be different when the baby is born.”

Justinian smiled. “So everyone keeps telling me. Tell me, Leigh, do you remember how old you were when you became a personality construct?”

Leigh laughed. “Personality construct! You’ve got a phrase for everything, haven’t you? I told you, about a month ago.”

Justinian was ready for this. He used his console to open a viewing field on the wall next to where Leigh was sitting. A blue-green series of misshapen concentric circles appeared there.

“No, Leigh, I’m not talking about when you think you died. I mean, do you remember when your atomic self had a copy of herself made?”

Leigh smiled patiently at him.

“I’m telling the truth, Leigh,” he said, glancing away from the viewing field to make eye contact with her. “Let me remind you: you were separated thirty-one years ago when the atomic Leigh Sony was twenty-three. That’s your visual representation on the viewing field there. Can you see your key code in it?”

Leigh looked at the VRep without interest.

“I don’t think so, Justinian. How can you simulate death in a processing space? I’m not a personality construct. I’m a dead woman.”