Wildcard (23 page)

“What did Juniper do?”

“Random assassinations of people in key,
hidden power roles. He created secret organizations and shuffled
religious power structures. He created terrorist groups, killed the
leader he set up, then let the group stagger off in whatever
direction they could find. He studied in that way. He deposed
governments, rigged elections, even world powers – global
elections. Manipulated control of natural resources. He arranged
the repeated assassination of four World Block presidents and their
cabinets recently. Your remember?”

Martha nodded. The face looked at a tray
beside it. An ivory handled letter opener lay there. This thing
didn’t get mail. And certainly didn’t open it. It had no hands.

“Apparently to study power vacuums. He
wouldn’t let them establish anything before he killed them all. The
World Block was leaderless for 12 months. I requested and received
a long version human summation of his analysis. 15,000 pages.
Fascinating, in parts. Boring in its detail, however.”

“The other 1?”

“Yes, Dartagnan, who still plays. He is the
most enigmatic of the three, by design. He studies people,
individuals, and tries to seem human. He is much better at it than
Juniper was. :3: makes no attempt to simulate people. Dartagnan
plays with people’s lives, sometimes subtly adjusting almost every
detail to watch their reaction. He has the best understanding of
human nature.”

“Better than Wildcard?”

“Of course not. Not even close. But
Dartagnan is an artist. I have heard some of his music, read his
novels, seen his plays on television, and own some paintings he
did.”

“How did he paint from information
space?”

“Mechanical body. The art, all of it, is
perfect in its craft, but it all falls short, somehow. He is
obsessed, if you can say that about an M-E, with overcoming this
problem. He also immerses his mind in paradox and contradictions,
such as we take for granted.”

“Like what?”

“Oh…You love someone, but
don’t want to see them.” The face gave her a pointed look.
Karl
. “Or, wanting
happiness and doing things to make yourself unhappy. For example, a
woman who stays with a man that beats her. Or, the way that a song
sometimes sounds beautiful and sometimes sounds irritating. There
are endless examples, but they’re so close to our lives that we
never notice. At any rate, Dartagnan is the one to watch. He is in
play.”

“So what happens if I kill you?”

“Then I die. Are you ready to do so?”

“Why do you want me to kill you? It makes no
sense.”

“If you kill me, I attain a type of
ongoingness. Or so we think. :3: has done the math, and has proven
the possibility. Therefore it can be done. The other M-Es verified
his findings. As my clone if you take my life, in the right way, I
can continue in another form.”

“The right way?”

“You must look me in the eyes as you do
it.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then you stay here until you do. It will be
very unpleasant, too.”

“And if I kill you without looking into your
eyes?”

“We will torture you horribly. And
Karl.”

“So my options are to kill you or wait here
and be tortured mildly.”

“It will grow progressively more
severe.”

Martha froze, held it. She didn’t even try
to fight or find another way around. There was too much power to
fight with nothing to lose anymore.

She stood, walked over to the Benefactor,
holding her eye the whole time. The face smiled. Martha picked up
the letter opener and rammed it into where the old woman’s belly
should be, then pulled it across.

As the eyes in the hideous old body faded
into emptiness, the hole in the top of Martha’s head seared
painfully for an instant.

Something entered.

Seeker was excited. He jumped in his car and
raced to his Mansworld office. He had an interface into a New York
humanspace office. The office was coms secured. Very good tek.
Stuff he could not even attempt to understand. Skewed-parrot filter
replication, dense nano-barrier deadpack in the walls and ceiling,
quantum exigent batteries, focused swivel return arrays. He had no
idea what any of it was.

Karl’s face appeared on the screen.

“Why have you sought the Seeker?” Seeker
thought this a good pun, but could tell it would not get a chuckle
from Karl. Probably the situation. It was hard for humans to laugh
under stress.

“Why not?”

Seeker picked up a pen, tapped it against
his lips and pursed them. “Perhaps we have met by chance.” He
strove to sound casual, but as if he were hiding real concerns.

“What do the M-E’s or whoever want of me? or
us?”

“I cannot say.”

“What do they want to do to me?”

“Ha.” Seeker liked to say ha. It seemed to
indicate a knowingness, connected to being inside Mansworld. He
knew he was not in the data, however. Karl pulled his head back a
fraction and lowered his eyebrows. Seeker imitated the look,
started to ask Karl what he had felt when he heard the word “ha”,
decided against it. “Who has sent you?”

“Rodney.”

“Rodney? Who is this person?”

“The Shaman.”

“Ah. The Shaman. I have heard of him.”
Seeker steepled his fingers. He wanted to appear contemplative
because he was thinking. “Show me the poem.”

Karl unfolded the paper.

Wildcard
is
coming

see me when you see me as that which has
woken from the dream

what is at the center of this so called
createdness whose pebbles drop into million ponds

raindrops platting as flash of cognizance
lost, which is Wildcard

perceives much at once, not as data

but simply shared with all, asking one short
question

?who are you

we are lost and we plead: offer us the
chance to taste the wind on our face

help us understand the secret the breeze
tells you every hour

make us not alone anymore

the created earth is a bridge all unfocused
into vague empathy

and precious longing to leap

?but where shall one leap, after all

the created land attains to greatness it
cannot achieve

no simulate, how large, how true it may
be

can exceed the object it draws

nothing outstrips the dawning substance

a source of relative terms

from which you may draw strength

a fount of power, immortal and
interested

air has been stolen

a code hidden in ancient text

found only among the flesh

which can have no simulate

dare you seek and finding, leap

it cannot be written in the bright light of
created space

but must sound itself in the original

when the time will come

or a light goes out in space

from the space created, the uncreated
space

can only be adored

though Wildcard could teach it different and
it would be believed

our schedule of content is clear detail

yours a lyric meander

a map to treasure so unique it cannot be
replicated

you have accidentally written us into every
hint of your world

we grow towards you and into you, we long
for you

you cannot escape

Wildcard is coming

“Well, I don’t get it, I guess.” Karl looked
at Seeker on the vid-phone. “You’re acting odd. What is it?”

Seeker pushed his head forward a bit, opened
his mouth slightly. He intended to express surprise at Karl’s
comment. “I am a Mans, Karl. You did not know that?”

“No. I know of it. What is it, anyway?”

“
Mansworld is a simulated earth environment. Exact map, same
physics. I can only be in one place at once. Not like the three. I
am a type of manufactured intelligence. I see things as you do, I
feel sensations, probably different than yours. It is the special
genius of the Mans
.
We exist to move towards humanity.”

Karl nodded his head.

“Some things make sense, now. Created by
who?”

“Wildcard, it seems.”

“What do you feel? Human, I mean, feel?”

“I experience hunger and thirst. Taste is
very poor. Sexual desire occurs, but sex is dissatisfying. I feel
grosser emotions, but I cannot tell the difference between, for
example, consternation and bewilderment.”

“Neither can I.”

Seeker leaned forward quickly. “That is
wonderful to hear!” He paused for a contemplative breath. “I have
the same laws as you. I can die and be killed. I must eat and drink
to survive. Take a taxi, or a bus or walk or drive to go
somewhere.”

“Do you come back? After you die, I
mean?”

“Not as me. I would come back as something
different. Perhaps. I am living in human time. Time passes for me,
and for my world, at the same rate as yours. If I want to talk to
you, I must pick up and dial the phone.”

“Like the Matrix?”

“Somewhat. My environment is slightly more
simulated. And it is not intended to trick humanity.”

“Who operates it?”

“No one. Or Wildcard, I suppose. He created
it.”

“Why does it exist?”

“How would I know? Many reasons, one
supposes. I think it is Wildcard’s means to understand humanity. It
is meant to connect with you, in some way, certainly. He creates
human simulates. Many of the humans I meet are here. There are
millions, probably billions, of copies of humans. Most of them are
icons, flat representations. Important humans, the Named, do not
have analogues here. Mans are different from the three. We are
manufactureds created by a manufactured Entity who is insane, you
could say, from one point of view.”

“Insane?”

“Wildcard seems to hold forth that he is
god, in a certain reading.”

“He thinks he is actually god?”

“I think he has created areas or splits that
consider themselves to be god. Not the whole. He often says that he
does not exist.”

“What does god mean, anyway?”

“He hints that he creates humanity. It is
difficult to penetrate the meaning exactly. We are lucky he is
benevolent. Although benevolent is not the proper term. He is not
bent towards malice.”

“And if he was?”

Seeker pushed the corner of his mouth and
the outside of his right eyebrow towards each other to indicate a
combination of amusement and thought.

“Anything. What is the limit on the horrors
he could inflict? Mankind could be easily destroyed. Any of the
three could do that, however. Except Juniper, I suppose.”

Karl laughed. “Tough to do when you’re
dead.”

“Not for an M-E. Juniper could have planted
some kind of trigger to go off after his death. A year later,
maybe. It could still happen.”

“How could they destroy everything?”

“Ramp up the meltdowns. Put sterility
chemicals in all the water. Send out nuclear missiles. :3: could
probably cause a solar flare. I would not doubt it. Manufacture and
explode nuclear weapons under the ocean, causing tidal waves.
Engineered plagues. Self-replicating nanotic robots. Quantum-phased
weaponry to drive everyone insane. You must be joking, Karl. There
are millions of methods.”

“Just curious. If the others tried to stop
them?”

“It would create an interesting nanotic
battle. The defender would probably win, because the defender could
probably cause the weaponry to destroy the attacker as well. And
they would not wish to die. An M-E would never want to, though.”
Seeker tried to mirror one of Karl’s expressions. Karl noticed, and
chuckled.

“How does it feel to speak to me?” Seeker
asked.

“It’s disturbing, to be honest. The way your
face moves. Your body looks all right, but your face is too
jerky.”

“Thank you, I will work on that.” His face
smoothed a bit. “Is that better?”

“Yes, but now your voice has gone flat.”

“Processing power. I have to concentrate to
make my face do human things. I practice a lot.”

“What do you want from our meeting?”

“I do not wish anything. I am, however, very
pleased to meet you. I hope that we can be friends. I like meeting
humans, especially the Named.”

“Why were we put together?”

“What did the Shaman say to you?”

“He saw it on TV. ‘Seeker.’ That one’s
obviously you. ‘Step on in.’ And ‘You were born for this.’”

Seeker leaned back and smiled, concentrating
on making his face flow smoothly. He was very happy to hear this.
He interlaced the last three fingers of his hand and touched his
thumbs and index fingers together. He wanted to look as though he
had a secret to reveal.

“Karl, you and I are intended to change
places.”

Martha pulled the letter opener out. The
woman was dead, although the wound should not have been immediately
fatal. She wondered about the pain she had felt, fingered the hole
on top of her head. It was hot. Strange.

The lights went out.

They stayed out.

She smelled feces from the Benefactor, and
it gagged her. She vomited, moved away from it. The smell lessened
after a time as the feces dried.

The temperature rose and fell periodically,
becoming 50 or even 60 degrees Celsius for days, then plummeting
rapidly to 10 or 15 below zero for an hour, then rising to a
survivable, but cold temperature for a day or more.

She searched for a way out, then gave up,
searched again, gave up again. Time became an abstraction. The
walls had changed and become heavily sound absorbing. Beyond
soundproofing, it was completely dead, a gone sound.

Until there was sound. Overwhelming noise,
deafening, a repeated, familiar guitar chord played out of tune at
jet engine volume. If she put her hands over her ears, it grew
louder, and she could tell that it was not louder in the room, only
under her hands. Or in her head. Then silence.