Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework (33 page)

“Thank you Lucius. Can we meet later?”

“Count on it, Your Excellency,” Wheeler said as he
turned and left.

The Child Prophet was relentless in getting
her to the shuttle that would take them to Pandem. The shuttle they
took down to the planet was decorated with real wood trimming,
thick plush seating, and had refreshment materializers within easy
reach. Eve watched as they passed groups of Eden ships. Their
shining hulls, angular features, and deadly weaponry had never
looked alien to her before. Even the ones with manipulation
appendages didn’t look right anymore.

“They’re magnificent, I never get bored
looking at them,” the Child Prophet said, straightening his
synthetic silk blue and green robes. “I bet you can’t wait to
connect with them.”

Eve nodded in response. She recalled the
cold presence of her machine children. She remembered the sensation
of thousands, being at the mercy of software voices that all
demanded something of her impatiently. They brought endless
questions and alien emotions that she was having difficulty
recalling clearly. Human arms, a face that could be read and
sentiments that were clear and relatable seemed so amazing in
comparison. Thinking about those experiences brought sadness,
because they weren’t hers, they were Alice’s. What that woman
shared with Bernice was unlike anything Eve could clearly remember.
She couldn’t recall her mother, and her father was mostly absent
when Eve was still called Nora, when she was dying. He became much
more of a factor in her life when he liberated her brain from her
dying body and implanted it into the core of a life support and
interface system.

Centuries in a tank, her senses filtered
through the mechanical. It seemed more like a nightmare to her as
she watched Pandem come into view, and they began to enter the
atmosphere.

“Do you think you’ll be able to get through
the speech?” the Child Prophet asked. “It’s five paragraphs, which
seems long. Do you find it long?”

Eve barely paid attention. “It’s good.” Her
palms were already sweaty. The thought of being in front of so many
people at once, more than she’d ever seen, was the most
intimidating thing she’d ever faced.

“Remember, they’re going to be easy to win.
They just want to know that they are safe, and after that they’ll
just want to see you in front of them.”

Eve remembered the sensation of being
chased, shot at, and almost killed. They felt like her own memories
as much as anything. “How many people did the Eden Fleet kill when
the virus struck?”

“It’s best not to concentrate on that,” the
Child Prophet said. “We want to avoid numbers and anything that
takes away from your emotional stance.”

“What’s that?” she asked, still feeling
quiet and saddened.

“What’s what?”

“My emotional stance.”

“I thought that was clear in the speech,”
the Child Prophet said. “You’re sorry for what your machines have
done and have taken control of them, so they guard your chosen
people. They are your children now, the humans down there.”

“Oh,” Eve said, returning her attention to
the porthole.

“Are you all right? We could delay
this.”

Eve considered the option, it was tempting;
the butterflies in her stomach were fluttering furiously. “I’d
rather get it over with.” More islands than she could count dotted
an endless blue ocean. Some islands were dominated by narrow
mountain ranges andothers were covered with lush green forests. The
cities were surrounded by bright green plant life, and some
buildings were coated with green and brown.

“The Order members replanted all the open
ground they could,” said the Child Prophet. “Wherever nature had
been stamped out, they’ve brought it back. Pandem is a model for
reclamation and a place where humans are learning to coexist with
nature again. I thought you’d appreciate it.”

“I do,” Eve said. She never thought that
humans could dedicate themselves to such a cause, but the evidence
was passing by below. As they descended towards one of the largest
islands, she saw gardens and young forests on roofs. They truly had
made a great difference in the time she was in stasis.

They sped towards a gargantuan, round
structure. Every entrance was choked with streams of people lining
up for entry. They slowed to hover over the stadium then began to
descend and Eve’s pulse began to race as the stands came into
view.

The seats were full, multitudes beyond
counting waiting for her to arrive.

“Are you sure I can’t get anything for you?”
asked the Child Prophet. “Something to help you calm down, or maybe
a touch up? We have an excellent groomer in the passenger
compartment. He does everything for me before appearances. You look
a little. . . off, to be honest.”

The time was almost upon them, and she’d be
shoved out of the luxury shuttle to face all those people. She was
sweating, it felt like her heard was pounding between her ears.
“There are worse things,” she said to herself quietly.

“Pardon?”

“Nothing, never mind.”

“You’re absolutely sure?” he pressed. “This
is only the second time we’ve ever done this kind of public
address. The results were wonderful last time, but if it’s too much
for your first appearance you could do it from in here, and we
could holographically project you out there.”

“No,” she said before she thought it
through. Eve entertained the notion for a moment, then shook her
head to affirm her decision. She was already preparing herself for
facing all those people, and for some reason her curiosity was
beginning to rule her desires. She had been isolated for years
beyond counting, even on the Overlord II, after she was
transplanted from a stasis tank back into a body.

The shuttle door opened. A gust of hot air
filled the cabin, it carried a smell that was unmistakably human,
but it didn’t disgust her as she once expected it would. The Child
Prophet patted her knee on his way out. “Come out when I introduce
you, back straight and looking over all their heads. Pretend
there’s no one there, you’ll be fine.”

Eve didn’t say anything, she just watched
him leave. He threw up his arms as he stepped out of sight and was
greeted with a deafening round of cheers. “Today is a great day!”
he started, his voice carried over the multitudes. She couldn’t see
him, but he could be heard perfectly. “It’s a memorable day, nay,
an historic event. For some time I have been alone in my
leadership, solitary in finding the best path for all of you. What
a rewarding journey it’s been, but it has been a lonely one.”

Eve leaned forward, almost placing her head
on her knees.
What would Alice do?
she asked herself.
Would any of this really phase her at all?
Eve recalled
Alice’s argument with the rich Ulrik, more than one firefight,
during which she may have had frantic moments, but her thoughts
were always clear. Alice had sidestepped death so many times in her
short life. She didn’t have framework technology, or friends to
come to her rescue, but she continued to risk life and limb for a
few more days’ worth of food, a few more days of life with no
consideration for what she had been. Then she realized something
that brought a tear to her eye.

As the Child Prophet droned on, proclaiming
that Eve was ‘the Forever Woman’ and a ‘beautiful, living Ancient’
without revealing exactly who she was, Eve was awed by the notion
that both Alice and her had been mechanical in some way. Alice was
software, an artificial intelligence before becoming human. Eve had
been a sickly girl, but her brain was transplanted into a machine,
with translators and sensors that changed the way she saw her
existence. Then she was put back into a human body, a body that was
someone else’s before, someone who didn’t want to die.

None of Alice’s memories contained the
desire to return to what she was, software. None so far, and Eve
doubted she’d ever find a memory of the thought even crossing
Alice’s mind.

Since she was first transplanted, Eve hadn’t
had that thought either; in fact, she couldn’t imagine giving up
her existence for what she was before.

“It is my honour to present a Goddess among
us: Eve!” announced the Child Prophet with so much enthusiasm that
his voice cracked.

Without thinking, she was on her feet and
walking out of the shuttle. The sun on her face was harsh but
enjoyable once she overcame the glare. The hot air carried with it
a fragrance that combined sweat, fresh paint, and other, less
identifiable things. It was almost overpowering at first, but then
she realized that there was no cheering.

By the time Eve’s eyes adjusted to the light
she was past centre stage, within three metres of the edge. She
looked down at the people only two metres past the edge. Her gaze
locked with that of a young woman. Her eyes were deep blue, peering
out from a wild mane of sun bleached hair. She was wearing simple,
loose fitting tan clothing that looked like they had been with her
for many working days. Excitement then fear were plain in that
young woman’s gaze, and the crowd of thousands standing on the
stadium floor seemed to fade away as she concentrated on that one
woman’s face. “I’m just learning how amazing it is to be human,”
Eve said. Her words, spoken only slightly louder than a whisper,
were directed to every listener. The overpowering loudness that the
Child Prophet had presented himself with was gone.

The young woman smiled a little. A strange
calm came over Eve as she allowed her realizations to be spoken,
moment by moment, thought by thought. She held up her hand to block
the scrolling text that was being projected into her eye from
somewhere ahead. “I never realized that to every person their own
experience is the most important experience there is. When I was
awake, and protecting a world I thought was too precious for people
to ruin, I treated humans like parasites. I barely remember what
that was like, but I remember the indignation, and the images of
death that the machines I helped create transmitted as they killed
so many.”

The young woman was beginning to look
worried. “I was ill, and my father saved me by removing my brain
then connecting it to machines. My mind may have been human, but my
body was gone, and I couldn’t understand. . .” she hesitated,
looking for the next word, desperately clinging to the message she
wanted to share. “I couldn’t understand that everyone I had killed
was a singular, precious person.”

The Child Prophet approached her and she
moved closer to the edge of the stage. The young woman with the
blue eyes looked surprised and took a step back. Eve gestured for
her to stay where she was with a pleading, reaching motion. “I’m
whole again, a woman instead of a human trapped in a machine,” she
said, saddened at the mere thought of being reduced again, having
her body taken away. At the same time, she couldn’t help but
remember that it was another woman’s memories that brought on her
quick, humanizing transformation. A woman whose human memories were
trapped, isolated in her subconscious.
Alice is just like I was,
in storage, dormant. I wish she were here so I could hear her speak
to these people. She loved so few people, but when she did, it was
a greater love than I’ve ever known.

The Child Prophet took her hand, but Eve
threw it back. For a moment Eve couldn’t find the woman she was
focusing on, and her eyes searched the front rows frantically. When
she found her, Eve said the first thing that was on her mind. “I’m
alive, and I want to stay alive. I can’t tell you where I learned
how wonderful and terrible it can be to be human, but I can say
that it’s a lesson I’ll never forget,” a tear rolled down her
cheeks, and she saw sympathy in the blonde woman’s expression.
“I’ll never forget that each and every one of you are having an
experience just as powerful as I am, every day, every hour, every
minute and second.”

“Talk about immortality! You’re supposed to
tell them about the framework technology and perfect immortality!”
The Child Prophet’s voice scolded. No one else in the crowd heard
it, thankfully.

Eve lowered her hand and glanced at the
scrolling speech she’d been ignoring. The passage she was supposed
to be relaying read, ‘those of you who have elevated yourselves to
the highest levels of devotion will be gifted with life unending, a
perfect immortality that is unlike anything promised by technology
or theology.’

She looked back to the woman who stared up
at her expectantly, feeling her vision narrow even as she did so.
“It’s so hot,” Eve said. Her knees buckled, and the world seemed to
tumble.

The Triton always had surprises in store for
Ashley. Not a day went by where she didn’t see something
interesting in a corner, or some room that seemed to be designed
with care, not just blocked out on some diagram and built in a
shipyard. Every space seemed to be waiting for its person, or
people, from the observation decks to the consoles on the
bridge.

The underside of the Botanical Gallery was
one of the more interesting places she’d seen. Transparent pipes
and reservoirs supported the life above. The Gallery still had
power, being on an independent backup, and Liam Grady hadn’t
bothered setting up a trap for anyone who tampered with it like he
had with the rest of the ship. Her codes got them through the door
once they got the external lock connected to power.

Lights shone dimly within the piping, adding
an eerie glow to the chamber. It was wider and longer than she
could make out, but only two metres tall. Sections of the floor
were transparent too, and some of those reservoirs looked more like
trapped oceans, with fish and wild life on the bottom and the
sides.

“This is incredible,” said the major at her
side.