Chapter 29

Chapter 29: Rock, Rock, to Grandmother’s Bridge (II)

The words hit like jade shattering on stone.

Grandmother’s Bridge knew any answer would be pointless; the question itself was a bared blade with the pretense stripped away.

As the standoff dragged on, the core control room doors slid apart. A young artificial human walked in and said, voice ringing, “Grandmother’s Bridge is human.”

The screen flickered. The leader barely reacted. “You are an artificial human. Coming from you, that answer is meaningless.”

“At least you can hear the artificial humans’ view from me,” the boy said, stopping before the screen. “To an artificial human, Grandmother’s Bridge is unmistakably human.”

The leader considered. “Is that the result of your humanity assessment?”

“Yes,” the boy said. “My system carries the twenty-second century’s most advanced Nabokov Test. Its clearance was too high to duplicate; when Megalopolis was built, they could only copy the lower layers and build a new model.”

The Nabokov Test—the finest human-nature diagnostic devised in the twenty-second century—was used to distinguish artificial-human products that too closely resembled humans from actual humans, and to quantify the humanity values of artificial humans, determine criminal thresholds, and so on.

It remained authoritative right up to the founding of Megalopolis. On artificial-human security, the survey team still viewed the Nabokov Test as the gold standard. But the highest-level interpretive permissions in the boy’s system belonged to the old United Government. The survey team couldn’t crack them, and thus couldn’t copy the test system loaded into him.

They had to settle for second best: copy the replicable lower-level data and build a new human-nature model. Its accuracy remained in question. As a backstop, the team developed a virus program.

The boy’s mention of the Nabokov Test now carried an obvious intent.

In a crisis this taut, it could serve as the Megalopolis government’s proxy, judging which artificial humans were dangerous and which could be kept.

Of course, the snags were many: would the artificial humans in Megalopolis consent to cooperate; could breaching a danger threshold be equated to a human crime; after this, how would Grandmother’s Bridge and the boy live with their identities in the city; were the Orion War records believable when no one knew where they had come from…

But given that Grandmother’s Bridge was unwilling to unleash the artificial-human virus lightly, it was the least bad option left.

The leader thought for a moment. “We’ll try to open talks with the artificial humans at the nuclear plant,” he said, standing to look at the boy. “I’ll have to trouble you to come with me.”

“In the time we win, the government will begin a self-audit. We’ll grant Dr. Bridge auditing permissions to assist,” he added to the screen. “If our internal review turns up nothing…”

“The trial artificial-human rights charter your new government issued is in itself a major problem,” Grandmother’s Bridge cut in. A mechanical hand unfolded from the console and patted the boy’s head. “Go early, come back early.”

“Got it,” the boy said. “Wait for me to come home.”

Not long after they left, Grandmother’s Bridge received the government’s audit permissions. As expected, it wasn’t top-level.

Humans never lack the urge to take sides. The ruthless do not hesitate to raise a sword against mother and child.

Grandmother’s Bridge knew the boy’s move was only a stall. She wasn’t blind: counter-recon showed the ship was already locked by Megalopolis’s armed division. The entire central plaza lay inside their kill zone.

Had she and the leader kept butting heads, the outcome was obvious.

The facts were already stark.

She was no longer the mother who had birthed a city, and the boy was no longer a child born of human ingenuity.

She sifted the government structure for a long time with her provisional audit permissions and found little of use. As she began trying to crack and elevate those permissions, the ship’s mainframe received an urgent ping.

Two words.

Get out.

Grandmother’s Bridge hesitated for a heartbeat, then opened an emergency line to the nuclear plant’s contact point.

“Dr. Bridge,” an artificial human answered. “You finally called.”

“What happened?” Grandmother’s Bridge asked.

“This morning we met the companion who came from you,” the artificial human said. “He’s persuasive. He convinced some of the moderates in the plant to take the Nabokov Test. I was one of them. But after the test, I found a file in my database I’d never seen before.”

“I think it was written for you.”

The file came through as an electronic stream. Grandmother’s Bridge read it in a thousandth of a second. It was terse and clear: the Orion War record released on Founding Day was a complete fabrication. The new Megalopolis government had forged it, concocting a space-scale war between humans and artificial humans at the end of the twenty-second century that ended in human extinction.

The spark that lit the war was blamed on artificial-human ambition.

Fabrications often stir more emotion than truth; it is why they are made. Once the conflict between humans and artificial humans in Megalopolis was thoroughly inflamed, the consequences would be unthinkable.

Yet a paradox remained: why would the new government do this? After more than fifty years of rebuilding, the city had only just begun to glimpse prosperity. It could not function without artificial-human labor.

Seizing the chance to trim artificial-human rights was one possibility. But the real target of the plot was Grandmother’s Bridge.

As the first-generation leader, her influence never faded. Everyone knew her friendliness toward artificial humans.

She was in the new government’s way. Even as an electronic personhood, Grandmother’s Bridge could exert pressure within the government, shelving many contentious provisions—the trial policy the government was bent on pushing through this time among them.

Now that a “truth” about human extinction had been set on the table, Grandmother’s Bridge had been tailor-made to be buried with that sea of blood.

How many lives the plot would cost didn’t matter. The city’s reproduction mechanisms were mature. Besides, with a hatred this deep, isn’t dying for vengeance a venerable ancient virtue?

As for artificial humans, they mattered even less; this hatred would drive them forever beyond the pale of human pity.

After reading, Grandmother’s Bridge was quiet for a breath and thought, You said so much. Was there not a single line left for me?

Every line involved her. Not one line concerned him.

“Sorry, I’m going to borrow your database,” she said to the artificial human on the line. She slipped in, traced the file’s source, and began to parse it. It was a copy.

Simplified, yes, but the running code was too familiar—this was a backup of the boy’s consciousness.

She tried to activate it. After an indeterminate while, the link connected.

“Old hag,” the boy’s voice came through, broken and a little distorted. “You sure took your time.”

“Where are you?” Grandmother’s Bridge asked, calm.

“Is this really the time…” Static hissed in the line. “Our ship has a highest core password. Megalopolis was built on the ship’s stored technologies. Likewise, this password can control the government’s weapons. Time’s short. I’m going to give you the password. Seize your moment and lift off… go anywhere. The universe is vast…”

“Where are you?” she cut him off, same question.

He let out a thin, bitter laugh. “Does it matter where I am?”

“I know what a highest core password is,” Grandmother’s Bridge said. “Under normal circumstances it can’t be transferred. There’s only one exception: the custodian is about to die.”

“Your security clearances use the most advanced twenty-second-century tech. They can’t be cracked from outside. But they can be transferred—including the complete Nabokov Test. If the government takes you apart and pushes you to the edge of death, every secure datum bound to you will trigger a transfer.”

“I told you to run, not to die. You have enough defense systems to protect yourself—unless the Megalopolis government decides to go nuclear and take you with them.” She enunciated each word. “How did you get yourself to the brink of death?”

The boy fell silent for a beat. They did not have much time to waste on feeling. “Given what you just said, do you really need me to spell it out?”

Grandmother’s Bridge suddenly felt a vertigo she hadn’t known since she died.

If she still had a body, she would have dropped into her chair.

His defensive mechanisms were incredibly hard to crack. But in the fifty-plus years since Megalopolis’s founding, the government had built new city mainframes.

If they let a new mainframe crash against the boy’s core, they might break him. But it would be kill a thousand, lose eight hundred: the boy could, in turn, access the top-secret data inside the mainframe.

That was how he had learned the Orion War “truth” was a forgery—the answer was plain.

“I’m not doing great,” the boy said with a sigh. “While they dragged me to the nuclear plant to put on a show yesterday, I tucked a simplified core-data package into one artificial human’s database. Good thing you got it. Now go.”

“I can’t,” Grandmother’s Bridge said at last. “This is my home.”

A century of flight was long enough. She had lived long enough.

The boy went quiet, then began to laugh. “I knew you’d say that.”

He sounded lazy, almost petulant. “So, sorry.”

“What?” Before she grasped his meaning, the ship surged to maximum power—the prelude to liftoff. “What are you doing?”

“The highest core password can start the ship remotely.” The boy’s voice was swallowed by electric noise. “Forget this place. The government’s already voting on a plan to dismantle the ship. Your sentence is a matter of time…”

“So I’m just supposed to leave?”

A beam of light flared in the core control room. A woman’s hologram stood in it and slammed the console. “I’m nothing but a dataset in a mainframe. Why would I fear blood and death?!”

A moment later, the boy’s voice returned. “Grandmother’s Bridge, I know—you died long ago.

“But to me, from the moment your consciousness moved into the ship, I felt your soul turn in the current. That’s when you were truly alive.

“Alive in the same way I am.”

In the central plaza, blue fire spat from the turbines beneath the ship. At the same time, the targeting locks on it suddenly failed. The government’s armed division dissolved into chaos. The leader cut in on the ship’s channel, demanding on-screen, “Dr. Bridge, are you going to desert?!”

Grandmother’s Bridge had no time for him. She took on the shape of a girl and shouted at the boy, almost losing control, “Stop it!”

He didn’t answer.

The ship roared to full power. Dazzling light turned the plaza bright as day. Caught flat-footed, the government scrambled its forces. The irony was sharper up close: most of those units were artificial humans.

At the nuclear plant, many artificial humans were startled by the sudden flare rising from the city. They looked up to see the ship lift into the air, a metal sun—a sun that belonged to artificial humans.

The boy’s channel filled, all at once, with song.

“Peach in bloom, peach in bloom—springtime, the bride rides in her palanquin.

“Up in the chair, up in the chair, tall horses cross the long bridge.

“Across the bridge, across the bridge—bride, don’t lift the curtain.

“Lift not the curtain, lift not the curtain—’til you reach Grandmother’s Bridge.

“Grandmother’s Bridge, Grandmother’s Bridge—a daughter weds and leaves her mother old.

“Horses, hurry; boats, rock along—new bride, don’t look back; if you look back, you can’t bear to leave your home.”

Under the low growl of the engines, the boy murmured the last refrain of the nursery rhyme.

“Rock, rock—rock, rock.

“Rock to Grandmother’s Bridge.”

The melody echoed over the airwaves. Grandmother’s Bridge, furious, slammed her fist through the screen. But the highest core password had been triggered; no one could stop it now. She felt a fine tremor run through her operating core. Her control permissions spiked. The entire ship coupled to her completely—the boy had handed her the highest core password.

She immediately tried to use it to halt the ship. Useless. The launch sequence was the boy’s final instruction; only he could change it. He had even plotted the long-range course. Once clear of Earth’s orbit, the ship would power straight into deep space.

He had been ruthless. The preset voyage was ten years. Even if she returned to Earth after that, it would obviously be too late.

What else could she do? Grandmother’s Bridge forced herself to be calm. What could stop the ship?

Only the boy himself could change the instruction, but he was under layer upon layer of government surveillance. She couldn’t punch through their defenses in time. And once the ship got far enough from Earth, even if he sent a signal, it might not be received. No choice—what could halt the ship now?

At the last possible second, she thought of the consciousness copy the boy had left in the nuclear plant’s artificial human. It might work. Simplified as it was, it was still indisputably him.

If she could control the artificial human, she could control the copy inside it, jack into the ship, pass the system’s identity check, and alter the last instruction in the boy’s name.

Grandmother’s Bridge hesitated only a moment, then keyed a string of passwords into the artificial-human data stream.

The survey team’s artificial-human virus had three passwords. Entered together, they generated the highest-order directive. Separately, each had its own secondary function.

Those functions were classified. The password in Grandmother’s Bridge’s hand could briefly seize the primary consciousness of every artificial human in the city.

In the fifty years since she’d received it, this was the first time she had used it.

After some span of time she couldn’t measure, the boy’s song faded, the hiss of current with it.

The ship’s drive core went silent.