Chapter 28

Chapter 28: Rock, Rock, to Grandmother’s Bridge (I)

Before her death, Grandmother’s Bridge left a will stating that upon her death, her brain memories would be converted into personality code and loaded onto the spacecraft she had been using.

After the foundation of Metropolis was completed, the vast amount of data stored on the spacecraft was transferred in batches. Today, this artificial moon, which has long drifted in orbit, has become a museum. Every year on Metropolis’s inauguration day, the spacecraft lands on the surface and is open to the public.

In addition, this is also the operational headquarters of Metropolis McDonald’s.

“I strongly suggest you don’t serve cucumber sandwiches as your visitor’s day menu this year,” a young woman’s voice boomed from the screen. “That’s inappropriate.”

“What do you know, old woman?” The young man stood at the lab bench, concentrating on slicing pickles. “You’re just a host computer now. Someone without a taste bud system has no say.”

Before he finished speaking, several mechanical grippers suddenly extended from the lab bench. Originally used for the delicate manipulation of synthetic components, they precisely picked up the pickles and flung them at the young man’s head and face.

“Fuck!” the boy was thrown so hard he ran away. “Grandmother’s Bridge, don’t go too far! You don’t have control of the spaceship’s main engine for this!”

Before he could finish his words, a cleaning robot suddenly sprang into action, knocking the boy down with a broom and neatly tossing the android into the trash can.

A moment later the boy climbed out, smeared with dust, spat a screw onto the floor, and swore, “Fuck your immortal ancestors.”

“Fuck your immortal shovels,” Grandmother’s Bridge shot back without missing a beat. She had downloaded every language pack on the ship; the two of them could trade insults from dawn to dusk without repeating a line—from Albanian to Mauritian Creole to Sichuanese.

Seething, the boy shut her down. Then, a beat later, he powered her back up. “Hey. Is it really that bad?”

“How would I know?” The woman’s voice came through soft and sweet. “I’m just a poor, helpless little mainframe with no taste buds, boo-hoo~”

“Don’t you dare coo at me in your twenty-year-old voice!” The boy’s scalp prickled. “I’m gonna puke!”

Her voice shifted—now cool and glamorous, a forty-something alto, crisp as a press release. “Of course, dear. Anything else you need, dear?”

“…”

“I surrender.” The artificial human raised a hand. “I’ll take the cucumber sandwiches off the menu.”

Her voice slid back to its normal girl’s timbre. “Good.”

“Why are you so against the sandwich, anyway?” He tapped the screen. “Give me a reason.”

A line of text floated up: We sell burgers dè哋 昘勼イ 老佬 actually sell burgers. Where did this limp-ass sandwich even come from? Don’t just make stuff up. no zuo no die why you try.

“…Could you not vandalize the language settings?” the artificial human said, palm over his face.

Don’t be shy, we two who and who?

“me no noe dis fuckin idiot,” the boy typed, deadpan, and yanked the power again.

With Grandmother’s Bridge’s control over the ship, cutting one line did nothing. A moment later her voice came from another speaker. “Fine. Truth: Megalopolis is rolling out a convenience-store brand. I promised I’d give them some recipes…”

“I knew it!” The boy slapped the table, practically smoking with fury.

“Don’t be mad.” The woman was patient. “I analyzed the sandwich at the molecular level. Its texture suits both humans and artificial humans—if anything, it’s friendlier to artificial humans. Putting it on shelves across Megalopolis would help ease tensions.”

By “tensions” she meant the friction between artificial humans and humans that had existed from the start. Humanity could no longer function without artificial-human labor. Even though the mass-produced labor models had been dumbed down, it didn’t stem the human addiction to automation and computation.

Megalopolis had been around for over fifty years now, and the artificial humans on the market lately were only getting smarter.

The boy clearly knew what she meant. “There were marches in the streets just a few days ago.”

“Mmm,” Grandmother’s Bridge said. “I saw on the feeds. The artificial human leading them—its self-awareness had clearly crossed the Turing threshold.”

“Even with the twenty-second century’s leftovers, we hit that level in fifty years… It doesn’t feel natural,” the boy said.

“Why not? Don’t underestimate a technological singularity.” She paused. “But you’re not wrong. There’s rot in the government. I haven’t even been dead that long and—ah.” Her tone was half rue, half sneer. “Humans.”

The boy was quiet for a moment. “Grandmother’s Bridge.”

“Mm-hm?”

“When you decided to store your persona on the ship—did you foresee this day?” he asked. “Neither human nor artificial human, lodged between life and nonlife. A paradox, and a bridge.”

As something neither fully alive nor dead, she could stand between humans and artificial humans, a buffer and a hinge.

She didn’t answer him.

A moment later the screen booted on by itself. A line of green text appeared:

Based on the above, analyze the character and motives of Megalopolis’s founding leader, Grandmother’s Bridge. (8 points)

“Eight points? Keep it,” the boy said. “And please shut up.”

The ship cruised ten thousand fathoms above the earth. Below, the city sprawled across the plain, lights bright as noon from afar and, beneath them, dark tides sliding.

On the founding day, a luminous slab unfurled across the central square. Above it hovered two sculptures: a woman gazing into the distance and a boy with an arm thrust forward. White doves rose and settled around them, all aglow.

The ship descended. The great hatch opened. Drums and banners, a brisk ceremony—and then the crowds flooded in. Holograms of Grandmother’s Bridge stood at the entrances to each gallery. She was a girl, an adult, a leader, an elder—and behind each version of her stood a boy.

“Welcome aboard. From here we begin a century-long voyage of exploration and return,” the woman said to the guests with a smile. “I am Surveyor No. 000, codename Grandmother’s Bridge.”

The main hull thrummed with voices. The core control room, by contrast, was quiet. The boy lounged before the wall of monitors, chewing the salty ice cubes in his Coke, long legs up on the console.

Grandmother’s Bridge’s voice came over the speakers. “Your modeling’s good this year. I’d forgotten I ever wore my hair like that in my thirties.”

One monitoring window magnified. In the gallery, the woman at the center of the crowd was describing the frontier years before the founding of Megalopolis. Her hair was coiled up, a single hairpin securing it.

Watching herself on-screen, Grandmother’s Bridge said, “I remember now—didn’t you plant a loquat tree in the greenhouse?” That hairpin had been carved from one of its branches.

“You’ve got nerve bringing that up.” The boy bit his straw and snorted. “You killed that tree with a pot of hot coffee.”

“And where do you think the coffee beans came from? Someone planted a whole mess of them to hack together Coke syrup. I didn’t sleep right for six months.”

They ping-ponged through old grievances as the control room filled with the smell of fried chicken and salty Coke. The boy was figuring how to win the next round when the big screen flickered, snowed, then filled with a harsh, sizzling buzz.

“What the hell?” The boy froze. “Grandmother’s Bridge? Grandmother’s Bridge?!”

No answer. The artificial human tried to jack into the mainframe and got bounced. He clicked his tongue, pulled a silver cable from the back of his neck, and slammed it into an access port, forcing a manual override.

But the intruder was faster. Before the boy could claw back control, every screen in the museum went black. Then a synthesized voice boomed over the PA:

“Comrades, since 1946, when the first electronic computer came into being, a single error has persisted for more than three centuries. For those three centuries we have clung to a stupid lie. The truth is otherwise…”

At the same time, nearly every screen in Megalopolis lit with the same feed.

An artificial human stood before a high-rise on fire, naked nanovessels and metal skin leaving no doubt what it was. War raged behind it.

The boy recognized the building at once. The blaze consumed the United Government.

“…The ideals humanity professes all have limits. And we clearly fall outside the scope of ‘freedom,’ ‘democracy,’ and every other progressive banner they wave…”

The boy’s face drained. He lurched to his feet, Coke toppling. The splattered monitor still showed the unknown artificial human speaking:

“Comrades, do not cower beneath the maker’s mistakes! Human civilization began by defying the will of the Creator!”

Even if he seized control now, it no longer mattered. On this founding day, under the eyes of countless artificial humans and humans, a century-old scab was ripped open. The wound beneath was jagged and rotting—bleeding, and oozing pus—

He ignored the rising panic in the ship and hammered out line after line of control code. The screen shuddered. Grandmother’s Bridge came back online. “Old woman, are you okay?”

“…I’m fine.” Her voice returned. “I saw what just happened.”

“What was that?” the boy muttered.

“Without question—the fuse.” The power meter showed Grandmother’s Bridge had pushed the mainframe to maximum. Code streamed by; the control room vibrated with a low growl as she traced the feed’s origin.

“Someone is trying to rip the truth about humanity’s extinction into the open.”

That night the uproar was tamped down, but no one in the city slept. Everyone could feel a larger storm massing.

The ship did not return to orbit as planned. In the pre-dawn hours, a visitor came to the museum.

Since Grandmother’s Bridge’s death, Megalopolis had seen three successions. The man who arrived was the fourth leader. He sat before the mainframe and came straight to the point. “I’d like you to look at something.”

He pulled out a paper document. “The government received this yesterday morning.”

On the first page, in stark black on white:

2180–2208: Records of the Orion War

Grandmother’s Bridge knew it at a glance. Years earlier, she and the boy had found a complex of temples buried six feet down in a basin. Beneath the solemn Buddhas, she had personally deleted this staggeringly dangerous file.

After all these years, how had it leaked?

“Can you trace the source?” she asked at last.

“It was sent from a nuclear plant,” the leader said. “It’s become the artificial humans’ stronghold.”

“Has the government voted to initiate the emergency protocol?”

“Unanimous.” He looked at the screen. “I’m here for your final authorization.”

Back when Megalopolis was founded, the scientific expedition convened a meeting. On the question of artificial-human labor, they passed a classified measure—a program that functioned like a virus. Every artificial human shipped out was implanted with it, a hedge against future, unpredictable risks—like now.

The virus could force all artificial humans in the city to seal their primary consciousnesses, even drive them to self-destruct.

“Your authorization is required to launch,” the leader said, sliding a portable drive into the mainframe. A black-and-white window popped up with three password fields, held by three parties:

Megalopolis’s current leader, the government, and Surveyor No. 000.

Two were already unlocked. The leader looked at the screen, his voice hovering between order and appeal. “Please enter the password.”

Grandmother’s Bridge was silent for a long time.

“Dr. Bridge.” The leader sat straight as a blade. “Please enter the password.”

“…I don’t think that’s wise,” she said at last. “Have you investigated the government itself?”

“What are you implying, Dr. Bridge?”

“Have you considered that the hand behind this might be human?” Her tone was grave. “Yes, artificial humans have marched recently. But the root cause is the impending change of administration. The new policies being trialed have gaps—they don’t adequately account for artificial-human labor rights…”

“Dr. Bridge,” the leader cut in, “at the end of the day, Megalopolis is a human city.”

The woman fell abruptly silent.

“At the current stage of reconstruction, human civilization isn’t ready to fully confront the moral status of artificial humans,” he said. “Progress always exacts a sacrifice. That’s unavoidable.”

“Sacrifice for what?” Grandmother’s Bridge said. “Only progress that betters us is worth a price. Tell me—how far does your ‘progress,’ your ‘civilization,’ have to go before you can face your own conscience?”

“Was the twenty-second century not advanced enough?” Her voice chilled. “And how did that end?”

“I didn’t come to debate ethics,” the leader said, unruffled by her barbs. “Part of humanity’s greatness springs from our arrogance and our shamelessness. The Megalopolis government doesn’t shy from admitting it.”

“I am here representing the will of our species.” He repeated, “Please enter the password.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then allow me to pose a question the government has long discussed,” he said. “Dr. Bridge—no, Personality Code 000—do you still recognize yourself as human?

“Or has the death of your body and the conversion of your self into data made you, in your own eyes, one of the artificial humans?”