We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Book 4: Chapter 5: Investigation

Book 4: Chapter 5: Investigation

Bob

November 2332

Outskirts, Eta Leporis

A cloud of wreckage slowly revolved around a common center of mass. Some of it was recognizable; most was not. I was a little surprised that there was much of anything—I wouldn’t have expected a laser to leave much more than slag. Of course, I was assuming that whatever attacked Bender used the same techniques as the drones that attacked my scouts.

I would know more once I arrived. It didn’t make sense to have the drones try to collect all the detritus and bring it to me. That would take too long and carried too much danger of losing or further damaging something. Instead, I’d fly in with my complement of roamers and do a close-up inspection. But first, I set the exploration drones to watch for any approaching Boojums, even though it seemed unlikely that they’d take a sudden interest after letting the wreckage drift unmolested for so long. The fact that the wreckage was drifting away from the system was probably relevant. But if I’d triggered any alerts with all the activity, they might change their mind.

I fully admit that I crossed the distance a lot more quickly than I should have. Caution, for the moment, was taking a back seat. Fortunately, I didn’t run into Boojum pickets. Even more fortunately, I didn’t run into an asteroid.

I set the roamers loose to examine the wreckage. It quickly became obvious that what I’d suspected was true—an internal explosion had ripped Bender’s ship apart. Most likely the laser had taken out the nuclear reactor control system in such a way as to make the reactor fail catastrophically. I remembered my first encounter with Medeiros, in Epsilon Eridani, so many years ago. He’d suffered that very fate. In addition, the meltdown had taken out his matrix. I had to hope that Bender hadn’t come to a similar end.

It was an entirely different ship design, of course. Medeiros was riding a military ship designed by the Brazilian Empire. They considered even their human soldiers expendable, never mind a replicated intelligence. Bender was riding a ship that I’d redesigned, with special attention to keeping the replicant matrix safe. This bit of simple self-interest gave me hope.

Outside inspections complete, the roamers entered the section of ship. I had multiple windows up, trying to watch everything at once. Finally, I gave up trying to maintain my VR. I dismissed my library and frame-jacked. Now I could keep up with everything, and putting up with naked floating data windows was a small price.

One of the roamers bleeped for attention. I turned to the window, and would have smiled if I currently had a body. The roamer had found the replicant matrix containment, in the most heavily armored section of the ship. And no obvious damage.

Then elation was replaced by horror as the roamers opened the containment … to find it empty.

No, not empty. Worse than empty. Not only was the replicant matrix missing, but all of the interface hardware had been carefully removed, probably as a unit. This was not good. Someone had made a point of removing Bender and his support hardware in a way that implied an intention to study and possibly revive him. I remembered Homer, and cringed at the specter of Bender, helpless and subject to torture.

One thing was for sure, though—the Boojums, or their makers, knew that someone else was around.

Having found Bender’s empty ship, I had now flip-flopped from panicked rush back to paranoid caution. I wasn’t going to hurry anything, I wasn’t going to take any chances on attracting the Boojums or, well, running into an asteroid. The flight back to the autofactory area would take most of a week.

I had one quandary to deal with, meanwhile. Would I make an announcement now, or wait until I knew more? Could I even keep quiet for a week? For that matter, would Will be able to keep his trap shut? I hadn’t actually asked him to, although I was sure he would wait rather than steal my thunder.

Screw it. I pulled up my console and began writing a blog entry. I had a large following anyway, being the first Bob replicant, and I could be pretty certain that Luke and Marvin would be watching every post.

It took a few full seconds of thought to get the tone right. Cautious optimism, mixed with a realistic appraisal of possible issues. Hope, but be prepared.

Finally, it was done. I hit post, then sat back and waited. 3…2…1…

Luke, Marvin, and Bill popped in at the same time, all talking at once and waving their arms. I turned in my office chair and waited until the noise died down.

“Why yes, I’m free right now. Come on over,” I said.

“Bite me,” Marvin replied. “Where is he?”

“Well, that’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, isn’t it?” I materialized chairs for everyone, and Jeeves entered with coffee.

“Dammit,” Marvin muttered. “Dammit, dammit …”

“What’s the next step?” Luke asked. “Do you have a plan?”

“Nothing concrete, yet. I guess the first step is to find the Boojum base, or source or whatever. There’s a good chance Bender will be there. Hell, we can just fly in and SUDDAR the hell out of it, if it comes to that. Locate Bender’s matrix, then go from there.” ??????S?

“A raid?”

“If that looks like the best plan.” I stuck my chin out. “If someone has kidnapped Bender and is experimenting on him, I’m not sure diplomacy will be my first choice.”

“Easy there, Bob,” Bill said. “Let’s see what we find before we start building bombs, okay?”

“Yeah, I know. Don’t worry, I’ll be circumspect.”

There followed one of those silences where no one quite knew what to say. Finally, Marvin nodded and he and Luke stood. They gave me a wave and popped out.

Which left Bill.

“So, number two, what’s up?”

“Oh, ha ha. Listen, I wanted to ask you just how you plan to go in-system looking for the Boojums, and how public you’re going to be about it.”

“Public? What the eff? Are you saying there’s any question?”

“Of course not, Bob, not from me or any of the others in our generation. But Starfleet is agitating—”

“Starfleet? What?”

Bill sighed. “You still haven’t read my blog yet, have you?”

“Uh, no. Sorry, been busy.”

“Remember Morlock? We’re calling him and his group Starfleet now, because of their obsession with the Prime Directive. It’s become gospel to them. They don’t even want us to keep interacting with humans. They’re trying to generate support for a formal declaration of some kind that you should leave whatever you find alone.”

“Is a formal declaration anything like a law?”

Bill snorted. “We don’t have laws. But if enough people got together, they could apply social pressure of some kind.”

“What, like shunning?”

“Well, something like that, in principle. A loss of prestige, anyway.”

“For God’s sake, Bill, Original Bob never gave even a small fraction of a rat’s ass about that.”

“Yeah, I know, but more and more Bobs are becoming less and less Bob-like. I’m starting to call them replicants, in fact, instead of Bobs, just to make the distinction.”

“And they’re more concerned about prestige?”

“Given a random walk, you can’t very well drop below zero rats’ asses, but you can increase the value arbitrarily. So, yes. We’re getting more replicants who are, for want of a better word, joiners. They’re forming mutual-interest groups for all kinds of things.”

“Like Starfleet, and the Borg.”

“Mm-hmm. And the Skippies—”

“Skippies? Skippies?” I could feel my eyes bugging out, even in VR. “What, they’ve changed their avatars to beer cans and started calling people monkeys?”

Bill snorted his coffee and had to take a moment to compose himself. “No, it’s the group trying to build the Matryoshka Brain. You know, singularity, super-AI, and so on? I don’t know who started the nickname, but the Skippies haven’t complained yet. They also, by the way, want us to leave the humans alone. But in their case it’s because they think the humans are holding us back from our destiny or some such.”

“Are there any other—no, never mind, I’ll read your blog. Goddammit, I go away for a few decades and the whole place falls apart.” I grinned at Bill. “I have some catching up to do, apparently.”

“There’s an understatement. Let me know if you need anything.” Bill gave me a nod and popped out.

Interesting times, indeed.