Authors: Christopher McKitterick
He uttered a bitter and angry sound, and brought down a fist against his thigh. This had gone too far. Certainly, this blacked-out force couldn’t do any real harm to Feedcontrol Central, but the very fact that they had begun to attack, that they dared.
With a flourish of one hand, he submitted a brief plea to the world leaders—partially prerecorded, partially AI. Even as the speech proceeded, response votes began to tally in a blur on the corner of his desk overlay. A smile formed on his lips. He hardly noticed the tiny servos that created the expression beneath the artificial skin. Despite casualties and temporary property loss, war fever was on the rise: Fully 92% of EarthCo’s representatives supported the progression of war as long as they continued to win. He tapped into the secondary election-polls and found that those politicians were receiving support percentages at least as strong.
All to be expected in this well-oiled machine Herrschaft had invented, this perfected mechanism of government.
“
The Citizens have spoken,” he said aloud as he depressed a transmission button. Another canned speech fed out to the lawmakers, congratulating them, etc. etc.
Herrschaft shut down the ancillary feeds and stood. He stretched the mechanical body, though of course it needed nothing of the sort. “You’re stalling, Luke,” he chided himself.
Without much conscious prompting, a feedaccess panel appeared in an overlay atop the desk. One of the choices read, BRAIN. Herrschaft reached for it.
Just then, a rumble passed through the floor. He searched for a good vantage-point splice.
A second later, Herrschaft peered out through the electronic eyes of a surveillance wasp. “My god,” he whispered.
Throughout the towers and antennae of Feedcontrol’s I/O nexus, military equipment from four service branches—including his own EarthCo Warriors!—pounded the facility. How could this happen?
Another heavy hit set one of the office walls buzzing. Why couldn’t the automatic systems track the invaders?
“
What’s happening?”
Herrschaft shut down the splice, found the access switch to the Brain, and opened a line.
“
Yes, Director Herrschaft?” a male voice asked, a voice not unlike the one which had once issued from Herrschaft’s own body long ago.
“
What is the point of this?” Herrschaft demanded. “Don’t deny that you’re at the root of this absurd attack. Why? And show yourself, dammit!”
A moment of disorientation, then Herrschaft found himself seated on a high throne layered in rich purple and crimson velvet. He wore a black and red checked robe that reached past his footstool, down a flight of curving steps, and out into a dimly lit atrium studded with marble pillars. In the shadows, he sensed the shuffling and muttering of a great crowd of spectators, but his view extended only a few meters in each direction. Overhead hung tapestries woven with the symbols of EarthCo: The Earth and stars logo, the sundry corporate logos.
Out of the shadows stepped a man garbed in a dirty brown sack robe. Each soot-covered hand held a cut-crystal flask. The man avoided Herrschaft’s long train and climbed one step up toward the dais, where he knelt on the ochre rug.
“
My lord,” said the man. He looked exactly like Luke Herrschaft in his mid-thirties.
Herrschaft restrained himself from blurting out,
Have you gone insane?
If a virus had infiltrated the Brain, Herrschaft didn’t want to rouse the entity’s anger, if it were capable of such emotion. In his usual offhand manner, Herrschaft tried to call up an access landscape, but nothing appeared. Again he tried and failed.
“
Lord Herrschaft,” the Brain said, “we’re alone here. I am isolated from ECoNet, and so are you.”
“
You can’t do this!” Herrschaft said, leaning forward, his hands clenching the carven arms of his throne. He tried to simply overlay his headcard options—nothing.
I’m trapped
. He began to panic.
“
. . .and I’m surprised we have never spoken like this,” the Brain said.
“
What? Listen.” Herrschaft felt himself trembling with anger and fear; how could a computer do this to him? Hadn’t he built safeguards against this sort of thing? And why, why would a machine want to betray its creator? He calmed himself and formed a question.
“
I wanted to know why you shielded a treasonous EarthCo Warrior unit from our defenses. They’re attacking Central right now. That’s as much part of you as of me, perhaps more.”
“
Ah.” The robed figure climbed a few more steps until it stood nearly at level with Herrschaft. “I simply let the humans act out their own agenda, uninhibited. They may fail, but their mission is honorable.”
Herrschaft knew no words to respond to that. His jaw loosened.
The Brain’s 3VRD smiled, revealing yellow teeth. Around the figure’s neck hung a copper disk bearing what Herrschaft recognized as astrological symbols. He held one of the flasks so its cut surface sparkled in the light, and the smile faded.
“
What is the philosopher’s stone, my lord?”
Herrschaft frowned. “What?”
“
See the contents of this beaker?” A rusty powder filled the container; that in the Brain’s other hand was empty. “To transform this into something valuable—indeed, something useful—I need the philosopher’s stone, my lord.”
“
What are you talking about?” Fear was the only thing upholding Herrschaft’s patience.
“
Come to my laboratory.”
The throne-room vanished in a swirl of dark colors, then congealed to form a new scene. Dirt floor beneath, wooden beams and roof slats overhead, mud-brick walls to each side. Long planks stood along the walls, upheld by iron wrought into gargoyle shapes; burners ranged all across the tables, boiling liquids and vaporizing powders. Glass flagons and phials gurgled as their contents steamed away, stained glass tubes coiled from bottle to beaker. A great fire roared in a fireplace set into the far wall, crackling and spitting coals into the room. Acrid scents stung Herrschaft’s nostrils.
Herrschaft looked at his host. “So, you’re an alchemist.”
The man only smiled. “Do you know of the alien object discovered by TritonCo scientists on the Neptunian moon, Triton?”
Herrschaft felt uncomfortable. “Yes.”
“
That is where this war began.” The alchemist turned away from his king and set the full flask into a wire holder. He began arranging chunks of coal in a blackened dish beneath the flask, then crossed to the fire and returned holding a glowing ember in iron tongs. With a handful of silvery dust that flashed brilliant white, the ember ignited the coal.
“
Tell me, my lord, what is the philosopher’s stone?”
“
What is all this nonsense? I must get back to Central. Terrible things might be—”
“
EarthCo can run itself for a few minutes, my lord. Things set in motion tend to stay in motion.”
Frustration created a burning knot in Herrschaft’s chest. “I’m not going to play your game.
You
tell
me
: What is the philosopher’s stone?”
The Brain—looking disturbingly the way Herrschaft pictured himself—turned away from his work and smiled at Herrschaft. “It’s the substance essential to transforming base metals into silver, gold, and platinum. Men in this business,” he said as he gestured around the room, “have created recipes for philosopher’s stones composed of salts, sulfur, mercury, and other elements.”
The flask began to fume, spewing yellow smoke from its mouth. The Brain took a hand-bellows from a nail on the wall and began stoking the fire beneath it.
“
Of course, no alchemist ever succeeded in producing the substance. In your world, modern alchemists have written new recipes for philosopher’s stone, primarily composed of headfeed and ridiculous things like hard credit. I argue, my lord, that none of your practitioners have succeeded in creating the magical stuff. But it has been discovered.”
Herrschaft stepped back a pace without thinking. He found a walking staff leaning against one of the tables, raised it—
“
Let us be civil here, my lord.” The staff vanished.
That was all Herrschaft could stand. “Get to the point
. . .
you! Then return me to my work.”
The alchemist sighed. A second later, his flask erupted in a gout of yellow fire. He hurried to another table and picked up a pair of long tongs, which he used to lift the now-calm flask from the fire. Near Herrschaft stood a clean, bronze brazier on an iron tripod. The Brain dumped the contents of the flask into the brazier and stepped back.
“
Behold!” A small quantity of gold dust shone from the dish.
Herrschaft
tsked
. “Thank you for this little show. Now please send me back—”
“
Let me tell you something about myself,” the alchemist said. His face grew animated as he dropped the tongs. “I was patterned after you, my lord. I am all the good parts of Luke Herrschaft, all his talents and powers and concerns for the good of the world, with the sick elements outgassed like the volatiles that had filled that flask before I added philosopher’s stone.”
Herrschaft’s impatience and revulsion were becoming nearly unbearable, but he knew when he had met his match.
I’ll exact the necessary measures when I return
, he promised himself.
“
Before my individual GenNets even began evolving, all that makes humans imperfect was removed. But that left me lacking something I could never quite identify.” He took a step closer to Herrschaft, who refused to be bullied back to a comfortable distance.
“
Through a
. . .
virus of doubt—a philosopher’s stone, if you will—I have discovered an element of humanity within myself. Perhaps it was only a matter of my GenNets’ continued evolution; perhaps it was simply exploring the world in the guise of a human, perhaps it was making friends. I cannot know. To me, the best element of humanity is your capacity to see the pain in others around you and want to end it, while seeking meaning and purpose in life.”
He stepped to the brazier and scooped up a handful of gold dust. “I have found humanity in myself, and purpose in my existence. A growing number of humans are also finding their own philosopher’s stones.”
“
What does all this mean?” Herrschaft asked. Had the Brain created this entire scene simply to spout antique philosophy?
The alchemist’s face fell lax, and the gold fell from his hand to the packed-dirt floor. “I had hoped you and I could. . . .” The eyes tightened into an expression Herrschaft knew well from watching feed of his young self.
“
My lord, your war is wrong. You seem to have abandoned what remains of your humanity. But I see this is all moot. I’m sorry, my lord. The freed humans have now decapitated you.” Tears rose to the alchemist’s eyes. “I had truly hoped we could
. . .
reunite.”
The alchemist’s head shook savagely from side to side. The room’s fires and crystal sparklings swirled into a mass of color and light. And then Herrschaft found himself once again in the robot’s body, deep under Feedcontrol Central’s administrative tower. Relief lasted only a moment.
“
What—?” The office’s lighting had grown dim. When Herrschaft tapped into a statistical review overlay, he learned that a nightmare had come true:
Feedcontrol Central, EarthCo’s neural hub—the core of Herrschaft’s power, his very existence—had lost primary power. The fusion generator had shut itself down when systems damage reached a critical point. The invaders were free to crawl all over him now, like germs entering an open wound.
No,
he thought
, it can’t be
. He spliced into a series of povs throughout the I/O complex that surrounded the tower. Slowly, his terror faded. Virtually nothing remained of the invading force. All their artillery, armor, and aircraft had been destroyed, along with almost all the traitorous EarthCo Warriors and enemy soldiers. Herrschaft’s mechanical lungs heaved a sigh of relief.
He shut down the external pov splice and contacted Central security. Yes, they were aware of the invaders. Yes, sir, they were on their way outside to mop up the remnants of the siege forces.
Luke Herrschaft, lord of EarthCo and—he assumed—soon to be lord of all the solar system, tried to open a feedline to his political figureheads. Such a simple thing, a detail of life he had used a million times before with hardly a thought, like speaking or looking outside through a window. But now it was impossible. The few antennae still in operation were only the critical uplinks to the Brain, necessary to run maintenance systems in a billion places throughout EarthCo’s sphere of influence. The Brain, that fifth columnist, wouldn’t let even his master tap in to those lines.