Here is your handle.
A blinking object appeared on Maurice’s console, and he dragged it into the golden region representing the FE software running in the processing systems of the
“Uploading parameters now,” he said.
This won’t take long. Aleph has this all planned out.
“Aleph? The systems repair robot?”
Do you know any other Alephs? The space around Earth is now overrun with Dark Seeds. Systems repair robots are converging on this region in order to correct the anomaly.
“What anomaly?”
The Watcher, of course. Only an intelligence such as the Watcher’s would attract so many seeds. Haven’t you realized that? The Dark Seeds are everywhere. The Watcher is trying to find a solution to a problem of its own making! If it were to leave, if the Earth were to be emptied of AI minds tomorrow, then there would be nothing to fix the seeds in position here. There would be no problem. Ah, here we are!
Maurice’s console chimed. “Fair Exchange completed,” he said. Saskia was looking at him questioningly, and he understood what she was silently asking. He reached out and took Judy’s hand, a gesture of support.
“Here comes the contract.” Judy was already reading the lines of text that appeared on the screen.
“Oh,” she said, “you want me to enter the building. That is the exchange? You help me to enter the building, and in return I have to enter the building? That doesn’t make sense!”
It is the end of the correction process, Judy. To be honest, I just wanted the link through to the
Saskia suddenly stumbled. She grabbed hold of Maurice for support.
“Hey,” she said in surprise.
Edward was dancing on the white cobbles.
“What’s going on?” he yelled in alarm.
And now Maurice felt it, too. He looked down to see that the white cobbles were climbing out of their sockets and growing long silver legs.
“We’ve seen this before,” he said, and his eyes were wide with excitement. “It’s what happened to the
The walls of the watchtower had erupted in a tangle of movement, Von Neumann Machines forming themselves out of the material composing it, scuttling up and down, crossing over themselves to create new shapes. Edward had shut his eyes and was screaming, his hands over his ears. Saskia took him by the arm and began pulling him across the moving cobbles of the square to the safety of the city beyond. Constantine simply stepped from patch to patch of white movement, keeping his place amidst the ordered turbulence.
But Maurice and Judy were rocked back and forth as waves of machinery swept up, under and around them; they overbalanced, scrambled back to their feet, and tried to concentrate on the shape that was forming before them. Judy felt a mix of terror and delight that her long journey was over. Maurice could only feel wonder.
Hardware and software, medium and message—somehow, FE combined the two in one. FE was its container, and the container was FE. Once FE had been introduced, the watchtower was the DIANA building, and the DIANA building was the watchtower. Just like the
“Oh,” Maurice said. “Oh!” He was filled with a tremendous sense of wonder. Could a thought really take on physical form? Could his thoughts do the same? Could his body be re-formed in the same way even after his death?
The motion of the ground threw Judy and Maurice together, and they took hold of each other for comfort and support. Maurice’s suit was still set to allow body contact, and Judy’s fingertips were icy cold. A metal wave, a breaker, reared up above them and froze, and suddenly Judy’s suit interfaced properly with Maurice’s, and he felt her bare skin through his gloves. It was warm and smooth. He could feel the play of the muscles in her flesh as they shifted under the relentless onslaught of moving machinery. They held on to each other for sheer comfort, their vision filled with bars of light and darkness.
“Are you okay? Are you okay?”
