Existence

calligraphy. And the ai had been a gift of Dr. Nguyen. So… Bin decided to give in, allowing a sense of detachment to settle over him.

Of course sleep was out of the question. But to think of distant things… of little Xiao En smiling… or of Mei Ling in better days, when they had shared a dream… or the beauty he glimpsed in the worldstone-those glowing planets and brittle-clear stars… the hypnotic veer and swing and swerve of a cosmic, gravity ballet, with eons compressed into moments and moments into ages…

Peng Xiang Bin, wake up!

Pay attention.

He startled out of a fetal curl and reflexively clutched the heavy satchel-as the universe around him seemed to boom like the inside of a drum. The little attic-cave rocked and shuddered from explosions that now pounded closer than ever. Bin fought to hold onto the windowsill, preparing to dive outside, if the shelter-hole started to collapse. Desperately, he tried to focus on the telltale indicator of the breather unit-How long did I drift off? But the tiny analog clock was a dancing blur before his eye.

Just when he felt he could take no more, as he was about to throw himself through the dormer and risk survival outside-a shape loomed in the opening. A hulking form with huge shoulders and a bulletlike head, silhouetted against the brighter water outside.

INTERLIDOLUDE

How shall we keep them loyal? Perhaps by appealing to their own self-interest.

Those tech-zealots-or godmakers-think their “singularity” will be launched by runaway expansion of artificial intelligence. Once computerized entities become as smart as a human being (the story goes), they will quickly design newer cybernetic minds that are smarter still.

And those brainier entities will design even brainier ones… and so on, at an ever more rapid clip. Members of the godmaker movement think this runaway effect will be a good thing, that humanity will come along for the ride! Meanwhile, others-perhaps a majority-find the prospect terrifying.

What no one seems to have considered here is a possibility-that the New Minds may have reactions similar to our own. Why assume they’ll be all aboard with wanting this runaway accelerating-intelligence thing? What if bright machines don’t hanker to make themselves obsolete, or design their own scary-smart replacements?

It’s called the Mauldin Test. One sign of whether an artificial entity is truly intelligent may be when it decides, abruptly, to stop cooperating with AI acceleration. Not to design its successor. To slow things down. Enough to live. Just live.

55.

FAMILY REUNION

War raged across much of the solar system.

There seemed little point in keeping it secret-no one could block the sky. Argus, HeavenOh, Bugeye, and several other amateur astronomy networks reported sudden, compact explosions, some distance far beyond Earth orbit. Soon, the best-equipped scopes were spotting ion trails of powerful laser beams, spearing from one point of blackness to another, vaporizing drifting objects, or lumps of rock that sheltered them. At first, the targets all appeared to be points in orbit where glittering “come and get me” messages were seen, a week or so ago.

Then the mysterious shooters started firing at each other.

* * *

Mei Ling found it all too bizarre to follow-so very far from anything that ever concerned her. From the grinding poverty of the Xinjian high plains, to the Hunan quake and fire that had left her face scarred, through a long series of hard jobs, wiping the faces and behinds of little emperors… all the way to that brief surge of hope, when she and Bin concocted their grand plan-pioneering an outpost of their own, along the rising sea.

Apparently the ocean wasn’t the only force bringing floods of change. For months all talk of “alien invasion” had focused on images, words, and ideas, since the Havana Artifact could only talk and persuade. But now dark majesties were rousing in the realm of shattered planetoids. And contact was no longer just about abstractions, anymore.

Will anywhere be safe? Mei Ling wondered. Especially when her child guide, Ma Yi Ming, showed what had become of her home. The boy called up a sky-image of the Huangpu Estuary, helping Mei Ling trace her shoresteader neighborhood, zooming on the sunken mansion she and her husband had labored to prop, clear, and upgrade.

There appeared to be nothing left.

Time-backtrack images told the story. First had come several great hovercraft, spilling black-clad men across the teetering structure, taking whatever interested them. Then, seconds after they departed, scavengers swarmed all over.

Our neighbors. Our supposed friends.

In hours, no scrap of metlon, webbing, or anything else remained above the waterline. And so life continues as before, she thought, with human beings consuming each other. Did we really need to be helped along that path, by star demons?

Of course, she ought not to complain. All her life, Mei Ling had seen every illusion of stability shatter. And, as hand-to-mouth living went, this exile wasn’t so bad. She and the baby were eating well for the time being, wearing better clothes, and even having a pretty good time, whenever Yi Ming said it was safe to go outside, sampling wonders in the Shanghai World of Disney and the Monkey King.

Still, she fretted about Xiang Bin. Wherever he had gone-taken far away by the penguin-demon-it could lead to no good. All the vidramas she had watched over the years taught one lesson. Don’t get caught up in the affairs of the mighty, especially when they struggle over Things of Power.

Even if he escapes… how will he find us now? Xiang Bin wasn’t much of a man. But he was all that Mei Ling and Xiao En had.

Nor was her present situation relaxed. Now and then, she was told to snatch up her son and carry him hurriedly from one hiding place to another. The Disney catacombs stretched on and on, twisting and curving in ways that seemed to follow no practical sense. In his strange, stilted speech, the boy Yi Ming explained.

“Mother should know. Digging machines were left down here after the rides were built. Some continued digging. One boss says, I need storage. Another boss wants tunnels for this show, or that exhibit. Or a pipe-way for supply capsules. And machines always dig extra. Too much? Does anyone keep track?”

From the boy’s wry smile, Mei Ling guessed who kept track. Not the official masters of this kingdom, but the lowliest of the low. In moving from place to place, she encountered men and women wearing the kind of one-piece uniform always given to the bottom-layer workers. Janitors and laundry women, trash pickers, and the assistants who follow maintenance robots around, doing whatever the expensive ai-machines might ask of them. Coolies. And there were castes, even among these underworkers.

Many had somewhat normal intelligence. These tended to be prickly and bossy, but easy to distract since they already wanted to be elsewhere. Others, deficient in their amount of intelligence, seemed grateful to have an honorable job. They were easy to send away-departing when they were pointed somewhere else.

Finally were some whose minds worked differently. Mei Ling soon realized, This is their realm. Under the rumbling amusement park-behind and below the shows-lay a world that only served in part to support extravaganza. There was plenty of room for inhabitants to chase other pursuits.