We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Book 4: Chapter 19: You Did What?

Book 4: Chapter 19: You Did What?

Bob

June 2334

Garack’s Spine

I activated my manny and sat up, rubbing my eyes. I wasn’t sure if it was something Quinlans did, but it felt right. I peered out the small single window. Still dark. We’d “gone to bed” yesterday while it was still light out, so we had missed the Heaven’s River sunset. I wanted to see the sunrise. Mostly, I wanted to see for myself how Heaven’s River handled emulation of night and day.

I’d woken a few minutes early to be certain I was up before the dawn, but I’d left a message with the others. Quietly—not for my crew’s sake but for the other occupants of the motel—I snuck out of our room and down the stairs to the front door.

The air felt crisp and cool and wouldn’t be out of place in early fall on Earth. Item: the artificial sun supplied heat as well as light to the habitat. That implied a heat sink of some kind at ground level, since this was otherwise a closed system. My bet was that the water was kept below ambient, probably cooled by the river-bottom impeller/filters. Maybe the central cylinder absorbed infrared as well, when the sun was off.

No one else was about. We knew that Quinlans were primarily diurnal, so no big surprise. There might be a night guard wandering around, and maybe a paperboy or something, but otherwise I pretty much had the street to myself. Or so I thought, until a voice beside me said, “Morning.”

“Morning, Bill. Had the same idea?”

“Mm-hmm. Lots of data from the drones, but nothing beats eyewitness.”

We stood quietly, watching, as a light gradually grew at one end of the gigantic cylinder that was Heaven’s River. By convention, we translated that direction as “east,” with the other compass points falling naturally into place. “North” was anti-spinward and “south” was spinward, but from inside you wouldn’t be able to tell without doing some very sensitive experiments. Under this coordinate system, this branch of the river flowed generally west.

“It’s quite directional,” Bill said into the silence.

“What?”

“The light from the central structure. In theory, we should be able to see it from hundreds of miles away, but it doesn’t become apparent until it’s relatively close. I think it’s masked in some way to only shine over a limited range.”

“Makes sense. That would also mimic the early morning and late afternoon dimming of a natural sun due to atmospheric effects.”

Finally, the sky had turned a discernible blue, and the pseudo-sun was clearly visible at an angle of perhaps ten degrees above the horizontal. It wasn’t a perfect illusion. For one thing, every point on the surface of the habitat would see the sun pass directly overhead, as if everyone was at the equator. For another, the swing across the sky wouldn’t be evenly paced. Because the pseudo-sun moved at a constant pace along the central cylinder, it would appear to accelerate as it approached local zenith, then slow down afterward. Noon would be very brief.

“But the sky is blue. Have we figured that out yet?”

Bill turned to me. “Some of it could be just light-scattering. But, yeah, you’d think we’d be able to see more of the interior. Maybe not all the way around, but more than we do.”

“It’s a hologram.”

I jerked as Will’s comment came out of the, er, blue through my comms. “What?”

“It’s a hologram. Very weak one, nondirectional, and no detail. All it does is mask the central cylinder and reinforce the blue scattering slightly, just enough to give the effect that it does, of fading out the interior in the distance.” ??????§

“That’s interesting,” Bill said. “How did you get this information?”

“Inspecting the segment scans. We found some hologram projectors on the central cylinder. Big suckers.”

“Makes sense, I guess.”

“What makes sense?”

Bill and I both turned as we heard Bridget’s voice. She and Garfield had just exited the motel, presumably looking for us.

“Will’s comment. Run through the playback, you’ll understand.”

Bridget closed her eyes and turned her face up to the sun. “Feels good. The builders put a lot of effort into making this as homey as possible.”

“Mmm, yeah. Which argues against the ‘forced colonization’ scenario, which brings us back to the question—”

“Well, you all seem to be up very early. Got somewhere special to be?”

We all turned—again—at this latest unexpected voice. It was the cop, the same cop, that we’d run into yesterday. I wondered for a moment if maybe he was a manny and didn’t need sleep. But in a small town, there were probably only a few members of law enforcement, so maybe back-to-backs weren’t that unusual.

“Just discussing breakfast, sir,” I said, trying to project hungry.

“There are lots of eateries along here, gents—and lady—but most won’t be open yet. Best find a place to plant your behinds that doesn’t leave you in the middle of the street blocking traffic, while you wait.” He glared at us significantly.

What traffic? The street was virtually deserted, except for our group. Wow, this guy was a bit of a dick. “Yes sir, we need to get our morning routine going anyway.” I turned to head back to the motel, but the cop stopped me with a truncheon pressed against my chest. Yes, a billy club. One of those things cops always carry in cartoons.

“Best you be behaving yourselves here on in. I don’t want to have to notice you again. You understand?”

I remembered Fred from my time with the Deltans, and fantasized for a moment about grabbing this doofus by the throat and hoisting him in the air. But the feeling passed in a mil or two, and my manny showed no outward sign of the internal struggle. “Yes sir, not a problem.”

The cop examined us for a moment longer, then turned and walked away. Garfield rolled his eyes and grinned. “We’s juvenile delinquents, we is. Cor!”

Bridget glared at him. “That was the worst attempt at a Cockney accent I’ve ever heard. Unless you were going for Irish, in which case it was even worse. Don’t do that again.”

I chuckled. “How often does Howard do that?”

“Daily. And he says it never gets old.”

We returned to our closet, er, room, and sat. “Suggestions?” I asked.

“Why don’t we just split up for the moment?” Bill replied. “This isn’t Thunderdome, it’s a small, peaceful village. Just wander around and eavesdrop. Maybe one of us will pick up a lead, or at least some useful information.”

“Reasonable,” Garfield replied. “I vote for that.”

No one seemed inclined to argue. “Okay. Let’s give it an hour to keep Officer Friendly off our backs, then we’ll head out.”

An hour was plenty of time to get things done in the Bobiverse. We set our mannies on standby and went home.

An hour later, I had successfully hunted down breakfast, of sorts, at a nearby pub slash eatery. Quinlans didn’t really differentiate.

I looked down at the plate of fish parts and tried to control my face. The barkeep wasn’t pranking me—other Quinlans had similar fare in front of them.

“Something wrong?” he said, eyeing me.

“No, I just realized how often I’ve had squiz lately. I’ll be fine.”

He snorted and turned away. Apparently being a barkeep didn’t require empathy. Or conversational prowess.

Really, this wasn’t much different from sushi. And I’d loved sushi. I still loved sushi, and had it regularly in virt.

Hmm, nope. Not helping. It still looked like chopped-up raw fish.

With a sigh, I directed the embedded AMI to eat the meal while I backed away slightly from foreground processing. I cranked up my audio and tried to pick up something besides the snarfing, snorting sounds of Quinlan diners. They weren’t anywhere near as bad as on Pav—I’d seen Pav meals. There were many BobTube videos of Pav families eating, complete with overdubbed sports commentary. It occurred to me to wonder if the Pav had seen some of those vids. It might explain their attitude.

Still, Quinlans weren’t paragons of refined dining either.

Family discussions, gossip, who had or hadn’t been arrested for drunk and disorderly, occasional business discussions … there was plenty of talk, but it was all routine.

Mostly, anyway. I focused in on one discussion in particular, between two Quinlans:

“Another bunch of blow-ins again this week, only some of them sabbatarians. No one seems to know what’s going on.”

“I’d be less bothered by it if they spent their coin, but they all tend to be tight-fisted.”

“And surly.”

“Think they’re criminals running away from something?”

“Or maybe they’d been scattered?”

“That many? What about disbanded militia?”

“Haven’t heard of any recent battles.”

“Hmmph. Doesn’t make sense.”

Well, that was interesting. It could be just some local thing, but it was worth checking out. Especially the reference to scattered, which had been spoken with peculiar emphasis. I glanced around, trying not to be obvious about it, until I spotted the speakers. A couple of fat, older Quinlans, probably local merchants—they were wearing decorative baubles and cosmetic fur coloring that would never survive a swim. If I remembered my sociology, that was a wealth or privilege display, showing that they didn’t have to go into the water.

Maybe someone else could pick something up. “Guys, see if you can find out anything about large movements of untalkative strangers. And maybe get a definition for this slang word: scattering.”

I received acknowledgements from the others and went back to eavesdropping.

The conversation moved on to more commercial matters, unfortunately. After several more minutes I accepted that no new information was forthcoming. My meal being finished, thank the universe, I decided to go for a walk.

I stopped, taken aback, as I exited the eatery. Traffic had still been thin when I went in. Apparently Quinlans all got up at the same time. Or maybe there was a generally agreed-upon workday. For whatever reason, it was now chaos. I couldn’t detect anything like a right side/left side rule, or even sidewalk/roadway. Pedestrians dodged in and out of traffic, while animal-drawn carts maneuvered past each other and generally ignored people on foot. I eyed the draft animals, a vaguely oxlike beast that the Quinlans called a hown. They were huge and could probably crush an adult Quinlan without even noticing. Only their slow, steady gait allowed people to dodge them in apparent safety.

The carts were interesting. None of the contents were exposed. Some were covered in tarps, some were bundled and strapped down, and some carts were completely enclosed. It seemed like it would be a lot of work, as opposed to just piling stuff into the back.

I walked up behind a cart and peered in. Definitely well-attached. And since it was unlikely the howns were going to take the carts around corners on two wheels, I wondered if grab-and-run was an issue.

I was surprised by a shout. “Hey, you! Get away from my cart. Police! Thief!”

I looked up and realized the driver had been shouting at me. Jeez, hair-trigger much?

“Sir, I wasn’t—”

“Well, well, look who it is!”

That was a familiar voice, and not in a good way. I turned to find Officer Friendly leering at me, slapping his truncheon into his hand. Again with the cartoon posture, and I couldn’t help a moment of amusement. “Listen, I wasn’t—”

“I think you were, lad, and we’ll be talking about it down at the station. About-face and march.”

He attempted to prod me with his truncheon, and by reflex I swiveled my upper body to the right to let the weapon pass by. A slight nudge with my left arm ensured that the cop’s attempted jab would keep going.

He scowled and brought the truncheon back in a backhanded swipe to my head. However, since I already had control of the truncheon-carrying limb with my left arm, I simply leaned back and guided it over my head. Hundreds of seconds of virtual kung fu training were coming together, and I wanted to whoop with joy. Except, you know, cop.

And speaking of, Officer Friendly was now in full umbrage. He began yelling for backup. It took me a second to realize that backup would come, not from the police force, but from passersby. People turned to the fracas and came at me, hands out to grab. It seemed neighborhood watch was a thing.

“Guys, I seem to have gotten in trouble with the law. I think we’re all going to have to leave town. Like, now.”

Bill replied right away. “What in hell did you do?”

“Looked in a wagon. I’m not kidding, that’s all I did. Didn’t even touch it. These people really have anger-management issues.”

“Fine,” Bill replied. “We’ll meet downstream. Don’t show off, Bob. Nothing inhuman. Er, un-Quinlan. You know what I mean.”

I did. My android body was capable of speed and strength that no Quinlan could possibly match. I needed to avoid making them think there was some super-Quinlan out there.

This exchange had only taken a mil or so, and people were still coming at me. It was time to go.

I rolled off the outside of the first person’s grab, then took him around and pushed him into the next person. The push-off allowed me to reverse direction and I found myself face-to-face with another individual. His expression was just starting to register surprise when I pushed him into someone else, resulting in the beginning of a total tangle, and allowing me to change direction again. I now had people going in three different directions, trying to catch me. It took no more than a nudge to an off-balance pursuer and he was down, taking several others with him.

Now I had an open space, and I went for it, trying to keep my speed within Quinlan norms.

Right into Officer Friendly.

To his credit, he was probably used to this kind of chase. Or maybe he just guessed right. But there he was, right in the middle of my escape route. He grinned an evil grin as he opened his arms wide to keep me from going around him.

Instead, I went straight at him. Before he even had time to register shock, I straight-armed him, ran right up his chest as he went over backward, and launched off his forehead as he hit the ground. That wasn’t going to make me any friends, but then I wasn’t planning on hanging around. I had a clear shot at the river now. A short gallop to the docks, a quick leap down to the wooden deck, ending with a long dive into the drink.

I heard splashes behind me, as others gave chase. But I was out of direct sight now, and I could pour on the horses. Flat out, I hit about twice the speed of a biological Quinlan, and I didn’t have to come up for air. In seconds I was far out of their reach. They would hopefully conclude that I’d simply doubled back or otherwise lost them.

“Clear of the town. Waiting downstream,” I announced to the team.

“Hey, I have a great idea. Let’s put Bob in charge.” Bridget glared at me, but I could see her trying not to smile.

“Yeah, yeah, bring it on,” I replied. “I got’cher delinquent right here.”

We all shared a chuckle, and Bill said, “So it went from you looking in a wagon all the way to a riot?”

“In seconds,” I replied. “Literally seconds.”

“I saw the fracas as I headed for the water,” Garfield added. “There were a couple dozen people involved, all yelling. I think some of them had started to fight each other.”

We lapsed into silence. We were all floating downstream on the river, linked hands and feet in the usual Quinlan way. The current was slow, no more than a few miles per hour. Walking speed, maybe slightly more. I tilted my head and closed my eyes to absorb a little heat from the sun. It was midafternoon now, and we were far enough from Garack to finally be able to relax.

In the distance, boats moved up- and downriver. The Quinlans had sailboats, with proper triangular-sail designs, which I could see tacking back and forth as they crossed the river northward, or in beam reach as they headed up- or downriver. I noticed, though, that there was a lot more downriver traffic. I wondered if they tended to go back upriver by circling around on one of the other main rivers. That would certainly be easier, if a little more roundabout.

There were also boats that used one or more howns on a treadmill as a source of motive power. That didn’t strike me as terribly efficient, but efficiency was more of an industrial-era concern. Very probably it was more than fast enough for a pre-steam society.

“Y’know, Bob, you may have been right,” Bridget said, interrupting my reverie.

“About?”

“When you said they have anger-management issues. We saw several fights during the brief time we were in town, and no one seemed surprised. Quinlans are just naturally belligerent. More so even than humans.”

“I don’t know about belligerent,” Bill replied. “They seemed, well, polite is too strong a word. Agreeable, maybe.”

“Okay, how about short-tempered?”

“Mmm, yeah, hair-trigger tempers. Sounds about right.”

“So any luck on finding out anything new?” I asked.

“I found a bookstore. I was perusing when I suddenly had to leave town.” Garfield glared at me.

“Cool. What kind of titles?”

“Mostly fiction. Some philosophy and soft sciences. How-tos, stuff like that.” Garfield shifted his grip from a forepaw to a hindpaw and put his hands behind his head. “It’s a little jarring, because this isn’t actually an eighteenth-century society. The people, at least some of them, are aware of higher tech. They just don’t have access to it. But it’s like no one wants to bring it up.”

“Some kind of threat from management?”

“That’s all I can think of. But that implies that management is watching.”

“Which brings up the question of how.”

“Huh.” I took a moment to dunk my head and cool off. The manny could handle far more temperature variation than an actual Quinlan, but we were wired up to experience reality in as Quinlan-like a manner as possible. The sun felt good, but so did a nice soaking. “I wish we had SUDDAR scanning capability built into the mannies. We could just scan everything and look for hidden cameras.”

“Or mobile cameras,” Garfield said. “Artificial birds and such?”

“Uh, that seems like a stretch,” Bill said. “On the other hand, roamers … Hmmm.”

“Yeah. So we have to avoid looking suspicious, while looking suspiciously at everything.” I looked around and made a gesture encompassing the group. “Also, no more English conversations out loud. Any discussions like we’re having right now should be held on intercom.”

“Starting now,” Bridget added. “I don’t think anyone will be suspicious of a group of Quinlans quietly floating downstream.”

The water was calm and undisturbed, the pace slow. I had a mental image of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer floating down the Mississippi. For all the potential issues, life as a Quinlan was probably idyllic. As a natural predator, Quinlans could feed themselves as they travelled. We didn’t know how deep the Heaven’s River ecosystem was, compared to the original Quin biosphere, but it was a safe bet that it was self-sustaining. That meant at least some predator/prey action.

And with no social media or devices, there would be no notion of being constantly online. You could literally float down the river every day, looking for the next town. Or even sleep midstream, if you preferred. It was like Eden, in many ways—a slower, more relaxed pace.

I idly watched the shoreline as we floated. Details changed, but the broad strokes didn’t. Occasional farms were visible, but agriculture didn’t form anything like as large a part of the Quinlan lifestyle and diet as with humans. I spotted small homesteads, a slight curl of smoke giving them away as often as any visible structures. Use of fire would be an unfortunate side effect of a pre-industrial civilization, but presumably there was some kind of filtering for the air.

We’d floated past a couple of splits and merges in the river system, plus the occasional feeder. I couldn’t help being impressed. The amount of detail work that had been put into this place was truly amazing. A Quinlan could spend their whole life exploring and still not know every bend and turn. Never mind a billion miles’ worth of different towns and villages on four different rivers. As prisons went, if it was indeed a prison, it could be a lot worse.

The sun moved in the sky, gaining on us in its own downstream journey. A twenty-one-hour day meant we’d have slightly less time than we would expect to find a place to land and seek lodging. There was no inter-town communication system that we knew of, and anyway once we left, the Garack gendarmes probably wouldn’t give a hoot.

We hadn’t come upon another town by nightfall, so we pulled ourselves out of the water and formed a small nest from the local underbrush. According to Bridget, the Heaven’s River ecology was complete enough to include large herbivores and their predators, which included a couple of animals that might be inclined to see Quinlans as a food group. Our mannies were completely believable right down to smelling like Quinlans, but that could be turned off. We left the mannies on standby and returned to virt.

“So, kiddies. What have we learned today?” I asked.

“Quinlans are short-tempered, and cops even more so,” Bill replied.

“Useful information, but not particularly getting us closer to finding Bender,” Garfield added.

“I did a search through the Skippies’ online database for uses of the word scatter and all variations and declensions,” Will said. “Filtering out all the mundane usages, we have quite a few references. No good definitions, because everyone seems to know what everyone means when the word is used. But from context, it’s not a good thing, and seems to happen to anywhere from one person up to large groups.”

“Interesting. Not sure if it relates to our situation, necessarily, but anything might be useful at this point.” I looked around at my friends. “Intercom the rest of us if you think of something else. Otherwise, see you all in six hours.”