Divergence

“Nothing,” Anna said. “I can see the fliers up ahead. The evacuation point! They will whisk us to safety. Then we can…Ow!”

Anna stopped and began rubbing her right arm. Awkwardly, she bent it back and forth at the elbow.

“BVB,” she explained, “on my arm.”

“Aggh!” That was Edward. Saskia looked up to see the big man rubbing at his wrist. There was a black band wrapped around it.

“Run,” shouted Maurice and Judy at the same time.

“Come on,” Saskia called, pulling at Anna and turning to see why she hesitated so. She screamed at the sight of her. Three BVBs had formed around the young woman’s face, one forcing her mouth open. She was scrabbling at it ineffectually with her black velvet gloves.

Maurice grabbed at Saskia and pulled her away.

“We’ve got to run now. Get to those fliers! The BVBs are forming fast!”

“No, we must help her!” She turned back to Anna and grabbed at the young woman’s arm and pulled. The young woman toppled over, her legs bound together by more BVBs.

Saskia screamed.

“Come on, Saskia,” Edward called.

Saskia couldn’t stop screaming. Something smarted on her ankle. She felt her arms being taken, felt herself being pulled away down the street, saw the patiently shuffling crowd of Earthlings, saw individuals now gripping at their own arms, toppling over themselves. The sight was enough to make Maurice and Edward loosen their grip. Saskia pulled herself free and set off back towards the black-bonded shape of Anna struggling in the road, the crowd stepping patiently over her. Hands grabbed Saskia again and dragged her away, dragged her kicking and screaming up to the evacuation point. A flier sat waiting on the grass there. They pushed their way past the uncomplaining queue of people to a place on the ship, and safety.

everybody: divergence

A long silver wirecut across the blue sky. It stretched through the cold air in a kilometers-long arc that threaded its way in between the silver needles of Freiburg.

The flier was attached to one end, sliding silently through the sky, away from the sterilization zone. Somewhere in the belly of the ship, clockwork mechanisms, cut and bent into fractal shapes, ticked over one another in exotic dances, guiding the ship to safety. Save Constantine and the human passengers, there was no intelligence on board: nothing to look out at the skittering explosion of Dark Seeds and fix them in place as the flier was reeled into safety.

The ship was filled with sleeping gas, fine enough to even penetrate the filters of the active suits. The crew of the Eva Rye slumbered in a deep sleep, their intelligence beyond the reach of the Dark Plants all around.

But only just. Dark shapes bloomed just beyond their dreams. In his head, Maurice wandered through the rooms of the Eva Rye, clarinet gripped tightly in hand, searching for the listener that always lurked just beyond the next door. Saskia stood behind a lectern, images of grand designs projected behind her in graphs and charts, and looked out over a dark hall at an unseen audience who were listening for her first slip, ready to pounce on her tiniest mistake. Edward, as usual, sat at the edge of a conversation, folding his hands together and biting his lip as he tried to understand what everyone was talking about. And Judy stood in a brightly lit room, wrapped in a vibrant orange silk kimono, and peered through the window at the darkness outside, trying to get a better look at the twelve figures that flitted amongst the lime trees out there. A white hand would catch a branch in passing, a white foot would press brown leaves into the ground, the curve of a white neck could be seen passing into the distance, but try as she might, she could never see enough parts to fit together to make up a full body. And somewhere in Judy’s body the meta-intelligence went on turning, stripping apart whatever it could observe into its constituent parts.

It, at least, could safely observe the Schrodinger boxes; it possessed no intelligence to which they could react. It could observe them, and yet it did not pay them any attention. The Dark Seeds held no interest to the meta- intelligence, devoid as they were of any sign of artificial design themselves. They were natural artifacts, something that had evolved over time without external artifice. The meta-intelligence turned its attention to Constantine. The robot had separated its thought processes into strands that ran independently. At the moment, it would not be true to say that the robot was thinking, but the potential of thought was there amongst the processes that were undoubtedly taking place. Situations were being observed, events were being recorded, simple relationships were being established. Nothing more. Constantine was thinking without thought. What a fascinating thing for a meta- intelligence to observe.

Judy sat up, her hand to her face.

“What’s the matter?” asked Maurice.