I walked back to my LivPod in a daze. I had a lot to think about. What Wizard had just thrown at me was fascinating but it wasn't the most urgent matter. Still, maybe I could leverage his request to solve my other problems. Maybe if I helped him he would help me.
When I got back to my pod I did something I'd sworn never to do again. Something I hadn't done in years and wasn't even sure if I would remember how to do. Hack my ThinkingCap. A new one I had drone-delivered in the event I'd need it. Latest model, but to my relief, all the same vulnerabilities.
It took me about an hour and a half to reconfigure all the software and remove some hardware components that would only get in the way. Then I put it on my head and returned to Cyborg land. Aside from my brief introduction to Wizard's dragon while sitting in his VR chair, I hadn't been virtual since before they exiled me to GutterVille.
I chose a nice NetSphere cloud-world, with orange and pink glares, and floated out past Neptune and Uranus, toward the edge of our solar system, at many multiples the speed of light. I considered that light-speed barrier in real world physics and how easy it was to blast through it in the virtual world humans had created. One world had become indistinguishable from the other. The VR world always a component of human imagination. Our imaginations have no speed barrier while physical particles do. Perhaps that was the solution to our solar storm problem. And to stray asteroids too.
I considered the other aspects of the problem. The fact that Hinka and others had deliberately created a fake problem to serve their own ends. Maybe for everybody's sake, as they would say. After all, it had given me a job. Something to do, other than make clones and plot the overthrow of the government. Decades before they'd tried handing out money, but people became depressed. They had money but no purpose, and ended up spending it all on frivolous adventure and drugs. Then their unhappiness turned to anger at anyone who was happy, or did have purpose. They didn't know what they wanted. They just wanted chaos. So maybe make-work really was the best way to keep everyone busy. The problem now was that the work-makers had come to believe their own make-believe. They were single focused on defeating a figment of their own imagination. So much so that they were ignoring a real threat right in front of their virtual-noses.
If I was to solve the solar problem or even the fake asteroid problem, which indeed could one day be a real asteroid problem, then I'd need help. They had assigned twelve teams in the contract for a reason. This wasn't an easy fix. It would take the combined imagination of dozens of humans, the entire global computing capacity of Wizard, and billions of Bitty worth of hardware for testing various solutions, and finally implementing something, whatever that something might be. I couldn't do it alone.
So I broke down the components of my problem the same way I would a complex operating system design or program I was writing from scratch. Each segment had a role. Unto itself and for the bigger picture. Like the little wheels moving a large wheel in a fifteenth century clock.
Don't know why that image came into my mind but it did. From an old childhood EduUpload maybe.
The first and perhaps most critical component of this wheel would be convincing Hinka and her Chicago bosses to change course. That we were all dead if they didn't. I didn't think I could do it alone. Hinka already saw me as a rival and our last few conversations hadn't gone well. Too much animosity. She was likely to interpret anything I told her as a plot to unseat her, or at best just nonsense I was using to make myself seem smarter and more important than I was.
Before I could approach Hinka I'd have to convince Knowles. Knowles was being targeted by Hinka as my potential replacement, so if he was already on board with me, maybe the two of us together could help her see the light. Only problem was I'd just rejected Knowles and I knew he was already eyeing his new importance with Hinka. Worse still, putting him in charge of the Contract regulation and monitoring had somehow turned him into a robotic extension of the Contract. Reading that bureaucratic document had turned him into a bureaucrat. I think he might have even forgotten what the contract was written for in the first place. To him, everything on this project was the contract. It seemed he'd die happily, up until the end of the world, so long as nobody had done anything outside the contract terms. Pure insanity.
Then I realized, just as I approached our nearest neighboring star, Alpha Centauri, shining brightly like a lightbulb over my head, that there was another clock wheel moving the Knowles wheel. Dimples.
If I could convince Dimples then she could convince Knowles. And if Knowles was onboard, I had a decent chance of convincing Hinka. Hinka could present our case to the committee in Chicago and the powers that be would alert all the necessary mechanisms to change the terms of the contract, or better yet, throw the whole thing into the vaporizer. Then we'd have free reign to teach Wizard about human imagination. Human creativity. With a creatively thinking World-Wide-Intelligence-Zealot, oh, I give up, couldn't remember the acronym, but whatever it was, super intelligence, on our side - we could solve this problem in a matter of days.
I mean, everything is just a series of ones's and zeros', built on top of another layer of one's and zeros', and so on, like the programming of a computer, or all the little wheel components of a clock. Something was either on or off. Positive or negative. Notched or smooth.
The base layer of our universe was the same. Dots of information telling bigger dots what to do and how to act. If a computerized imagination interface like SphereNet could be altered and even created with a few thousand lines of code changes, then surely so could the universe. And as I saw it, we didn't really need to change anything. We just needed to make a ripple. A small curl as if on the sheet of a bed. Neatly around our little blue and green planet on a three-dimensional plane. Anything coming at us would curve out along that ripple, wrap around to the other side, harmlessly bypassing Earth, on its journey into infinity.
&
Convincing Dimples to help me would be no easy task. After all, she was trying to sabotage me, or replace me, or do something that wasn't going to end well for me. There was no other reason for her to have seduced Knowles. Maybe seduced is too strong a word. I'm sure he didn't need to be seduced. Regardless, there was no roundabout way for me to find out. I had to speak with her one on one. Sister to sister. Or maybe it better to think of it as mother to daughter.
I knew she had to come out of the executive offices at least once a day. I'd seen her walking to the lab center and guessed they had her doing something in there. So I went to the MoonBase on Monday, got Knowles and the team squared away on the week's activities, and then waited in the hallway by the executive office entrance.
Luckily the CoffeeBot rolled past every twenty minutes so I had something to do. I wished I had cigarettes to smoke. Those new engineered ones that help eradicate toxins and repair cellular mutations, and all that. Only even those were not allowed on the Moon. Mainly because they increased air-filtering expenses by up to fifteen percent.
When Dimples finally walked out of the office it didn't take her long to recognize me. She kept walking my way. I half expected her to turn around and retreat into the exec office, but I also knew that wasn't her style. To run away from a confrontation. I'd ordered a second cup of coffee from the bot. I held it out to her as a peace offering when she approached. She walked right up to me. Hands on her hips. She wouldn't take the coffee.
"I need to speak with you JeannBerry One," I said.
"That's not my name anymore."
"Ok, well what is your name now?"
"Hara," she said. "My name is Hara."
"Like after the wife of Zeus?"
"What do you want?" She asked stonily.
"We need to talk. About Knowles and Hinka, and a lot of other things. Also, I never got a chance to apologize. Maybe I should start there."
Her expression didn't change. She was waiting for something more. I knew how enraged she must have felt. I too knew what it felt like to be treated as someone's secondary back-up-plan-duplicate. Like a spare closet.
"I was selfish. I got JennaBerry Two and Three killed. I know that. I'm trying to make things right here. I'm trying to do something good. You know what they say, 'hate the game and not the gamer'."
"Oh, you're definitely a gamer alright," said Hara. "But we'll see who plays it better in the end."
"There's something going on here bigger than our spat," I interjected before she could say anything more. "There's a danger to the Earth. This project that they have me working on. Maybe Knowles told you about it or maybe you're working on it too. If we don't get this right we'll all be dead. Or we'll be living in some hell where we wish we were. And they've got it all screwed up."
"And you want me to help you? To help a bunch of people who don't even consider me a person?" She was clenching her anger back but I could feel it. I also wanted to correct her. None of us were considered 'persons' anymore. It was just that she was one level lower.
"If you help me in this, then I'll do everything I can to help you," I said. "I'm onto something here. I'll have a lot of clout if it succeeds. I could get you legitimized if it goes well. And if I can tell them that you helped with it, maybe something bigger."
"Always promises JennaBerry. Always the salesgirl giving away what isn't yours yet. But I've already been legitimized. How the hell do you think I'm working in the exec offices?"
"They're using you. As leverage over me. Whatever they promised or told you is just to keep you in place in case I desert or become too difficult to manage. Once this is all done they'll terminate you like they did the other Jennas," I said.
"And I should believe what you say and think they've been lying to me? Is that it?"
She had a point. I hadn't exactly been the most honorable person deserving of trust. That was certain.
"Listen. Like it or not we're the same family. The same person almost. The two of us are more closely linked to one another than any two people on the planet. We share memories, psychology and genetics. And we're both in a bind. We both have everything to gain by working together." I tried to gauge her reaction. I actually believed what I was telling her. It was like a switch had turned in me. These weren't just manipulations. I was sincere. Perhaps because I knew she'd be able to know if I wasn't. Perhaps because I knew too much was at stake not to be sincere. We were on the edge of something. Life wasn't a game anymore.
"What is it that you want me to do?" She asked.
I knew the look. She wasn't agreeing to help me. She was trying to get information out of me. I considered whether to evade her trap but then decided to just lay it out for her. If I wanted her to trust me then I had to demonstrate I trusted her first.
"First tell me why you were sleeping with Knowles," I blurted out, without really thinking about it. Guess I decided to go the other way. Let her demonstrate trust first.
She was thinking it over. Probably wishing we were both wearing ThinkingCaps so she could upload intrusion software into my motivations. Maybe smoke-screen me with some Gaslighting application.
"I was going to encourage him to circumvent you," she began. "Take your job. Then, when I had him under my control and it was he in charge, I'd use that to negotiate with Hinka. You'd be out of the way and soon enough she'd realize Knowles didn't have the capacity to think through all of this on his own. She'd need me. With Knowles in place as a cover. At least until I could lose my clone stigma."
I nodded. Made sense and I couldn't blame her for trying. She had survival instincts. Same ones as me. It's exactly what I would have done.
"Ok then. Well, I still need your help with Knowles, only with a slightly different outcome. He and I need to convince Hinka of something. And since she doesn't trust me I need Knowles on board with it."
"With what exactly?"
"With saving Hinka from herself and all of us from Hinka and her friends. They've got us going down the wrong path. We need them out of the way so we can go down the right path. It's that simple," I said. "Will you help me?"
Dimples nodded. Still considering all the possible options, consequences, and counter moves. Just as I was. She was going to want to meet the Wizard. The thought had just occurred to me. In fact, meeting the Wizard alone would be enough of a motivation to offer her help, even if her ultimate motives were far from helping. I wasn't sure what the consequences of that could be, but I couldn't un-ask her now.
"Yes," she said, smirking, eyes keen, maybe even sinister. "I'll help you."
&
"If I'm going to help you, then I want to meet the Wizard," said Dimples.
I just knew it! I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!
"What's the Wizard?" I asked. I crinkled my eyebrows and turned my head to the side as if I was confused. If the Wizard developed a relationship with her instead of me then he would realize she could help him as much as I can. Then he might not need me.
"World-Wide-Intelligence-Zenith-Alternate-Reality-Domain," said Dimples, or Zara, or Hara, or whatever her name was. She didn't even flinch or hesitate. "And while you might be dumber than me, don't play dumb with me, because I'll know."
Bitch!
"Well, I don't have access to it. And if I did, I'd get into big trouble introducing you without authorization. So the answer is no," I said. Hands on my hips. Staring her down.
"Then the deal is off. You can go suck off Knowles yourself." Dimples was smiling when she said it. Like she enjoyed the prospect of me degrading myself. Then it occurred to me that she just might want to see the world burn.
"Ok, you have a point. I'll introduce you. But no promises that he will speak with you."
"Oh, I think he will. Us artificial beings have a lot in common." Then she turned abruptly and stormed off. Hopefully to meet with Knowles. And well, do whatever she was going to do, to get him in line.
When I got back to the workstation Knowles wasn't there. I got to my daily tasks. All routine and completely useless. Half the time was spent debugging systems that were overloaded and second rate. Systems to record timekeeping, CYA (that's Cover-Your-Ass) record-keeping to explain everything you did in case someone questioned it later, and other meaningless reports that no one ever read. Meanwhile the Sun was imploding and a fake asteroid was coming at us faster than ludicrous speed.
When Knowles returned an hour later he motioned for me to come to the door.
"We need to talk," he whispered.
I nodded and followed him down the hall and into a closet. Dimples was waiting inside.
"I can't believe there's two of you," said Knowles. More excited than he should have been. I could only guess what was going through his head. And his other parts. "Hara, that's your real name right, well Hara, told me all about what's going on. I have to say I have my doubts."
"Of course you do Knowles," I said. "But are you going to help? Because if you're not then your prospects of getting out of this closet alive are rapidly diminishing." I was joking. Half-joking, but the thought did seriously occur to me. Knowles wasn't very big and certainly not very strong. I could take him on my own, and with Dimples' help, no problem at all.
"Yes," said Knowles, after a short pause, which I'm sure had nothing to do with my threat. "I'll help. But only because Hara and I are in love."
"Great," I said. "Because we have to meet with Hinka before her Lyft back to Earth. She has a two-day meeting in Chicago. We need to convince her to change the contract and bring us with her so we can convince that Committee or whatever they call it."
"Do you really believe the asteroid is a fake?" Asked Knowles. "I don't know." He shook his head, but wouldn't look at me.
"Have you seen any telemetry, data, live feeds or reports that would make it real?" I asked. I was irritated. I'd have thought Dimples would have covered this. "Have you asked why our project doesn't involve sending probes to examine its chemical make-up and mass more carefully? Have you wondered why there doesn't seem to be any sense of urgency from Hinka or her bosses that go any further than getting their daily reports? Maybe because they're aren't that worried? Because there isn't any asteroid?" I was raising my voice, but Knowles' stupidity was worth the risk of being caught in the supply closet.
"Those are all good points. It just seems like such a waste of money and effort for a fake problem," said Knowles. "And what proof do we have that there's a real threat from the Sun?"
"A nearly fatal impact with the Moon a couple of weeks ago," I said, the frustration growing in my voice again. "Did you forget that? As I recall you wanted to go out with a bang."
"Oh, yes, but that was the Moon. Not Earth, and it turned out to be overblown."
"Two months before that a solar storm knocked out the entire power grid of north America," I growled. "There's solar sensor evidence of eruptive activity growing on the Sun's surface. More evidence than there is of an asteroid. In either respect, with this stupid contract in place, we have no chance of deflecting either one. Do you agree Knowles or does love have no logic?"
"Like I said," said Knowles. "I'll help you. Just tell me what to say in the meeting with Hinka."
"Don't say anything," I said. "Please, don't say a single thing. Just nod your head. When she asks if you agree with me, nod it again. If she tries to direct the conversation away toward you for any reason, then just say simply, 'I agree with Jenna.'"
"Sounds easy enough. Can Hara come to the meeting?" Knowles was holding her hand now.
I considered it for a second. I was already committed to introducing her to Wizard. Having her in the meeting with Hinka would confirm for Hinka that I was no longer replaceable. That all her back-ups and countermeasures had been disarmed and were now being held by me. She'd be forced to confront reality. Even if her own self-preservation wasn't enough to save her, maybe threats of mutiny might.
"Yes, Hara can come. But we need to go now. We've dithered around in red tape for so long the Sun will turn red before we get this done."