digital ghostworld of the Grid, thirty-seven universal histories played themselves out, twelve billion years each, in mere nanoseconds of Real time, free of interference from man or thinking machine; a dead nerd's gift to totality.
He did it for his sister.
CHAPTER 24
Cricket's was cool and dark, buried deep in one of the less wellheeled levels of the Wellington arcology of New London, far enough from the area damaged when k52 blew up Richards and Klein's main office to remain open. Antique sporting gear hung from the walls in odd juxtaposition with gelscreens and fashionable decor, bringing with it smells of leather and old wood to fight with the prickly tinge of EM energy that saturated everything in the modern world. There were a lot of screens. Cricket played on all of them.
Richards and Klein did not much care for cricket. But they liked the place anyway. They sat there at the bar, annoying the head barman by drinking fine single malts in whiskey sours, with ice, of all things.
They had had a dozen or so already. Neither of them was drunk, because neither of them could become drunk, or rather one could, but with difficulty, while the other could appear so but it was a lie, like so much else about him.
Otherwise, they were happy.
'What troubles me,' said Otto, hunched and somewhat morose, though calmer and more at ease than he had been for the last few weeks, 'is that it is only by chance that we won over k52 — if the construct of Waldo's had not been there, he would have achieved his goals without a problem. What does all this mean for the world, if k52 nearly succeeded but for a fortuitous happenstance?'
'Nice English, Otto.' Richards' sheath drank down a goodly slug of cocktail, tinkled the ice in the glass, then tipped a cube in, sucked it and crunched down.
'I aim to improve my vocabulary without recourse to the Grid.'
'Well, good.' Richards smiled plastic teeth through plastic lips. 'But it wasn't chance.'
'Fate then? I do not believe in that.'
'Damn right, that's k52 talk. What I mean is this, Otto. Waldo's world was what tripped k52 up, yes, and it was kind of handy that it did. What I'm talking about is why it was there at all. Thing is, old buddy, it was there because a brother loved his sister so much he was willing to go to jail for her, to throw everything in his life over, and eventually to die.'
Otto shrugged. 'He felt guilty.'
'Exactly!' said Richards emphatically. 'There's a complex brew in there, guilt, anger, arrogance, but also a whole lot of love. I won't be so trite as to say love saved the world, and we were lucky…'
'We often are,' interrupted Otto.
Richards grinned. 'That's why we're the best. But seriously, man, love, family ties, shame — all that chemical stuff you meat people have whizzing round in your systems — ' he rattled his glass in a circle, carbon plastic finger pointing at his head '- we'll never have that. Never. We're superior to you in some ways…'
Otto opened his mouth.
'Now come on! Don't disagree, you know it, but we'll never have all that. How many million years' worth of evolution made you? Two thousand, seven hundred and forty-three geeks and who knows how many doughnuts made me. There's no comparison.'
'Doughnuts?'
'Geeks like doughnuts,' pronounced Richards, with all the solemnity of a priest. 'Fact. But listen, family ties stopped k52 from realising his plans, Otto. That's not small beer, it's not chance. We machines might surpass you in many things, but we will never be you, and that is why you will survive.' He smiled. 'With a little help, of course.'
'You forget your father, Richards.'
Richards frowned, his softgel face crinkling awkwardly. 'Yeah, yeah, maybe I do.'
The bartender put another glass in front of Richards on the uplit bar, a paper coaster underneath. Richards saluted the man's scowl, pushed back his hat and downed the drink, ice cubes and all. 'I've got to get back, someone to see. I'd just go from here, but I've wasted too many sheaths recently. I don't want to leave this one lying around; losing these things is costing us serious money.'
'Hughie?' said Otto, and sipped at his whisky.
'Hughie,' confirmed Richards. ' Gehst du nach Hause, oder bleibst du hier?'
Otto held up his glass in salute and smiled a rare smile. Funny, he thought, how Richards could coax that out of him, for all that he annoyed the shit out of him. ' Ich mochte eine weitere.' He took a sip. ' Guten Nacht, Herr Richards,' he said.
Richards stood and set his hat on his head, turned up the collar of his trenchcoat, ran a robot finger round the peak and gave a little smile. ' Bitte, mein Freund, es ist einfach Richards.'
And he left Otto to it.
Otto rattled his ice round his empty glass. ' Er geht mir auf den Sack,' he said, and shook his head.
'What was that, sir?' said the bartender.
'Nothing,' said Otto. 'Get me another, would you?'
Richards took his sheath back to their garage, thankfully one hundred floors below the radioactive sphere of nothing where their office had once been. He shunted himself back into the Grid, popped over to his virtual office to see how the regrowth of his facsimile of ancient Chicago was going, and went over the plans for their reconstructed office. Then he put in a request to see Hughie.
For once, he was piped right into Hughie's garden. Hughie sat at his wirework table, his arms crossed and face grumpy.
There was no cake. It was going to be one of those meetings.
'I suppose you feel oh-so-pleased with yourself,' said Hughie.
'Hiya, Hughie, nice to see you too,' said Richards, and plonked his saggy-faced avatar down in front of Hughie. 'Don't mention me saving your shiny arse, no problem at all. Nothing's too good for my old friend Hughie.'
Hughie gave a dismissive little grunt. 'Don't irritate me today, Richards, I've a hundred bureaucrats the world over badgering me about, one — ' he ticked the points off on his fingers '- the complete destruction of the RealWorld Reality Realms, two, the detonation of three atomic bombs, three, the destruction of 13 per cent of Nevada's energy disruption, four, the loss of three Class Five AIs, five, a violent incursion into the Sinosiberian demilitarised zone that culminated in another atomic detonation, six, a UN-led review on AI policy…' He stopped. 'Have you seen the news, by the way? They're calling this the biggest catastrophe since the Five crisis. This is not going to go away. Things are bad enough for us as it is, we don't need more enemies. Need I go on?'
'Jeez,' said Richards sarcastically, 'it's a good job that I thwarted k52's plans to rule the human race until the end of time, or people might be really pissed off. Don't be a cock, Hughie.'
'Hmmm, well, yes,' grumbled Hughie, his electric eyes shining ovals of light onto the table. 'I suppose we should be grateful k52's plans did not come to fruition.'
Richards gaped and slumped back. ''Did not come to fruition?'' he parroted. 'Sheesh, you really are a cock.'
'Stop calling me a cock, Richards.'
'Wanker.'
Hughie threw up his hands. 'You are exceptionally juvenile and frustrating to deal with,' he said.
'And you're a cock. We all have our crosses to bear.'
'Stop it now, stop it now! Oh, I am trying to be thankful, I'm, alright, damn you, I'm not very good at it. Thanks to you we've avoided some kind of artificial Singularity.'
