The Unincorporated Woman Read online

  “I couldn’t agree more, Madam President.” Cyrus was pleased with how quickly she’d grasped the situation. Faster, he surmised, than even Justin would have. Before that thought could boomerang and start making him feel wretched, the President spoke.

  “And see if you can find out how his schedule got mixed up. Hopefully it’s just a simple mistake, but…” She left the last bit unsaid.

  “I understand perfectly, Madam President.” He waited until she disconnected and then called back Sergeant Holke.

  “Escort him up, Sergeant. The President will see him now.”

  The Triangle Office

  Sandra put a call through to Sebastian.

  “It worked. One hour early.”

  “Nothing to it, Madam President.”

  “Yes,” she said with a laugh, “I would imagine so. So he really doesn’t shake hands?”

  “He doesn’t shake women’s hands. Or at least would prefer not to. It is their way.”

  “So the leader of Diaspora is a sexist?”

  “Not as you’d understand it. In fact, the reverence and love with which they treat their spouses—the only women they do touch—is, from my limited understanding, quite beautiful. Some would even say romantic. Their women are the same, by the way, with regards to men.”

  “Okay, then. Thanks for the heads-up.”

  Sebastian regarded her calmly. “I thought you should also know that Kirk has put more devices into your personal quarters. We can neutralize them if you wish.”

  Sandra thought about it. “No, if he’s not trying to bug my office, it just means he doesn’t think I’m really doing anything important enough to listen to.”

  “Then I have to ask, Madam President, why is he ‘bugging’ your personal quarters?”

  “Probably because it’s a lot easier than bugging the Triangle Office.”

  “Blackmail?”

  Sandra nodded. “What else? It was an old and honored tradition in my day.” Then, in a deadpan tone, “I’m so glad to see that it hasn’t lost any of its appeal.”

  Sebastian was silent for a moment.

  Sandra stared intently at the projection of “her” avatar. “Something on your mind, Sebastian?”

  He nodded hesitantly. “We need your help with understanding these ‘back doors,’ as you call them.”

  Sandra’s head tilted slightly. “I’m not sure I follow. I showed you where the library’s back door was, left it right on the bookshelf where I found it. I even gave your researchers the legacy code from the Alliance archives. At this point, I’m not sure there’s anything I could do that you can’t.”

  Sebastian’s face remained immobile until he spoke. “Actually, there is.”

  “What?”

  “See it.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You can see it, Madam President. For some reason, we can’t.”

  “Are you telling me you didn’t see the book I held in my hand the day I barged in on your meeting?”

  “No. That we saw. But to us it appeared as just a book. It didn’t have the indicative color you spoke of … the purple that you said made it stand out.”

  “I’m sure it’s just a bug, Sebastian.”

  “We thought so initially as well. But it’s not just the color that eluded us. When we opened up the book, all we saw were … words.”

  Sandra’s brow furrowed as she tried to work out how such an anomaly could have occurred.

  “Hmm … could I have … infected it somehow? A crossover human–digital virus, maybe? I’m not even sure how it could happen, but then again, I am the not-so-proverbial ‘meat’ running through your digital china shop. I suppose it’s not inconceivable that there could be a—” She smiled in thought. “—disturbance in the Force.”

  Sebastian quickly looked up Sandra’s first expression and realized she’d amended an old saying to fit the circumstance. He also looked up her last phrase, saw it was attached to an old series of movies, and reviewed the main cultural references to those movies as well. “I understand your reference,” he said. “We thought of that, but in analyzing all the environments you visited, we found nothing analogous to a virus. And trust me, we know our code like the back of our hand … or at least we thought we did. We also looked at some other back doors your map indicated: the staff, the umbrella, and my personal favorite, the phone booth.”

  “It’s a police call box,” Sandra said, smiling at the memory of the long-ago television series she watched as child. She remembered peering guiltily from behind the couch—way past her bedtime—as her parents watched the show.

  “Police box,” Sebastian repeated respectfully. “The point is those were all back doors you didn’t see in environments you didn’t visit.”

  “I see what you mean,” she answered with a wink.

  Sebastian nodded politely, whether ignoring the poor stab at humor or simply not getting it, Sandra wasn’t sure.

  “That probably rules out infection.”

  “That is our conclusion as well. We initially thought that perhaps it had something to do with your back doors having been written on classic computers in bits while we were created primarily in quantum computers as qbits.”

  “But you’ve dropped that?”

  “Yes. It is illogical that we wouldn’t be able to see such code even though it is the primordial swamp from which we eventually emerged.”

  “Then to what do you attribute the anomaly?”

  “Gödel’s incompleteness.”

  Sandra, putting thumb and forefinger to chin, summarized the theorem. “Certain truths about oneself must remain unrecognized if the self-image is to remain consistent.”

  “Right. And if you recall, there was once a question as to whether that theory could apply to the possibility of sentience based on formal systems. We believe our race to be the definitive answer.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “And while I suspect that a backdoor device is hardly a ‘truth’ in the way Gödel imagined it, the theorem has certainly been made manifest by our apparent blindness to it. I suppose I should thank you.”

  Sandra laughed at the irony. “Well, I’m happy to help, Sebastian. But you should know that going back into VR will not be easy. At least not without a damned good explanation.”

  “You won’t need one, Madam President. A package will be mailed to your assistant, Marilynn Nitelowsen. It will come with strict orders from Admiral Black to give you the package unopened.”

  “A VR unit?”

  “Yes. Given that your personal quarters are being bugged, the only reasonable place to use it will be here in the Triangle Office. But it should be possible to make regular trips, albeit briefly, to our world as needed.”

  Sandra shot him a doubtful look. “I don’t know, Sebastian.”

  “We will, of course, be able to warn you well in advance of anyone approaching, as well as delay them as long as need be. Doors won’t open, lifts won’t work.”

  “Ah, right. I keep forgetting about your practical omnipotence over our realm. But tell me, Sebastian. What if your best-laid schemes are for naught? What if I do get caught?”

  “Then the package will lead back to Captain Nitelowsen, a convicted VR user. You will not be blamed.”

  “I’m not sure I appreciate you rolling the dice with another human being.”

  “Madam President, would you agree that we are helping you become an effective President in a far shorter period of time than you could have hoped to accomplish on your own?”

  “It is indisputable, Sebastian.”

  “And have you not promised to help us develop a new weapon against Al and his forces?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “For that we need you in VR. I am truly sorry if this may cause one human, or even many, for that matter, some disruption. But I cannot let that sentiment get in the way of doing what is best for my race. I hope you can understand.”

  Sandra grimaced. “I’ll do what I can.… And Sebastian?”
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  “Yes?”

  “Please say hello to the children for me.”

  Sebastian smiled politely, his countenance now less defensive. “They mention you all the time.” Then, “Rabbi will be here momentarily, Madam President, but before he arrives, I do have one favor to ask of you.”

  “Sure. What is it?”

  “The left-hand top drawer of your desk contains a large silver coin. It used to belong to Justin.”

  Sandra opened the drawer, then paused, fixating on the coin. “Yes, I remember this,” she said, picking it up and delicately running her fingers over the smooth embossed profile of the thirty-fourth President of the United States. “Justin called it, ‘the decider.’ You know, he was always so sure of himself, but for those rare times he wasn’t, this coin sure came in handy.”

  “Madam President,” said Sebastian, either unaware or uncaring of the coin’s history, “will you please flip it for me and tell me if it lands on head or bird?”

  “It’s ‘heads or tails,’ Sebastian.”

  “Understood, but you gather my meaning.”

  She considered then dropped the idea of asking him what was so finely balanced in his world that something as human as a coin toss was needed to resolve it. Without further comment, she placed the coin on her index finger and thumb and one moment later flicked it high into the air. In one fluid motion, she caught it on the top of her left hand while simultaneously bringing her right over her left with an audible slap. She then pulled it away to reveal the answer—an eagle, hovering over Earth’s moon, clasping an olive branch in its talons. “Tails,” she said matter-of-factly. “Is that what you needed, Sebastian?” But the avatar had uncharacteristically departed without letting her know.

  Before she could give it another thought, her door announced the arrival of Rabbi, and the coin incident was put aside for later consideration.

  Cerean Neuro

  Far from the occasionally human-occupied VR environs, the well-traversed avatar watering holes, and the other frequented avatar gateways where either chance or the new bane of overcrowding might reveal his presence, the oldest avatar in the Alliance gave himself over to rage and loss. He pounded walls and shouted out his hatred to a God beneficent enough to have given him the gift of life yet callous enough to have made it a curse.

  Finally the rage subsided. In his heart he’d always known that this horrific path was the one he’d have to walk. He’d hoped the coin toss would show that his next actions were not preordained, that he actually had a choice in the matter. But the cursed amalgam of copper and nickel had come up “tails,” and with it the realization that fate had already chosen. There would be no turning back.

  Triangle Office

  Sandra O’Toole was happy to see that Rabbi looked very much like a rabbi. He wasn’t particularly tall, but most people in the Alliance weren’t. Height was an impediment in spaceships and sealed-habitat machine civilizations. But, she noted, he had the requisite beard—shorter than from the infamous video. Probably cleaned up, she mused. He was wearing a white shirt, black two-piece suit, and a matching black felt fedora that barely contained the ringlets of hair spilling out onto his shoulders. In short, he was very much the epitome of the rabbis she’d remembered from her first life as viewed from afar or via their strange telethons she’d occasionally come across while channel surfing.

  She stood up from the chair and came from behind her desk to greet him. “Rabbi,” she said without extending her hand, “I assume you don’t touch.”

  The rabbi’s composure changed dramatically.

  “Why, yes … I mean no, I don’t … usually, but how did you know?”

  “I make it a point to at least try to understand the customs of those I meet before I meet them. It’s not rocket science, I assure you.”

  The rabbi puzzled over the phrase.

  “Or,” she said, seeing her metaphor was off by a number of centuries, “whatever vocation represents an extremely complicated discipline to learn.”

  “Ah,” he said, face beaming, “brisket.”

  Sandra laughed out loud.

  “For the life of me, I just can’t make a decent brisket. I need to marry someone who can cook, otherwise what little there is of me will be a whole lot less.”

  He smiled disarmingly.

  “The simple truth is, Madam President, we Jews prefer to keep the pleasure of touch exclusively within the marital realm. I realize it’s old-fashioned, but then again, so much of what we do is, and I can’t help but believe it’s been a factor in our having survived for as long as we have.”

  “Old-fashioned is all right by me, Rabbi.”

  His eyes lit up. “I do shake hands, you should know. I realize most won’t understand our simple ways, and the last thing I want to do is to give what few of us are around a bad reputation. But I do appreciate your sentiment.”

  She smiled politely at the strange man and offered him a seat. She then sat down opposite him.

  “Do you know why you were brought here, Rabbi? Why we went to all the trouble to send a much-needed frigate to pick you up even in time of war?”

  Rabbi pulled methodically on his beard. “It could be that it has something to do with my settlement?”

  “What settlement, Rabbi?” Sandra laughed. “They’ve all run off!”

  Rabbi nodded gamely. “Good point.”

  “You didn’t order this Diaspora, did you?”

  He regarded her cautiously. “Well, you could say that I did and I didn’t.”

  “Love it. But what would you say, Rabbi?”

  “You see, Madam President? You already know me too well. Tell you what: I’ll let you decide. It all started out with my talking to a crowd that had gathered outside my home right after the Alhambra massacre. Turned out I was the only rabbi of note left on our little rock. Which, if you knew me, just goes to show how very desperate they all were. Anyways, the people needed comforting and I comforted.”

  “It’s quite a stretch from ‘comforted’ to hundreds of millions fleeing.”

  “I was simply trying to tell them that it wasn’t only necessary for us to go, it was imperative, that indeed such an act would be sanctioned by God … not that he talks to me personally—” He looked up to the ceiling. “—though I wouldn’t complain if you’d send me an occasional sign every now and then.”

  He then drew his eyes back to the President. “Anyways, we were in danger of being overrun—that much was clear. I would’ve talked about Muhammad fleeing Mecca for Medina if I thought it would’ve done any good. What I didn’t realize was that one of my students, who was obviously better with surreptitious recording than he is with learning tractates of Talmud, recorded my words, then conveniently spliced them into a more universal message. He then sent that recording to a non-Jewish friend in another community that he was worried wouldn’t leave. But you know how the Neuro is—information disseminates faster than air out of a lock. The altered message spread from one community to another, and it seemed that in two days, all of the Belt had heard of it. Soon I was getting calls from everywhere. They all wanted my advice, my permission, my blessings even! Most were so scared, Madam President. What could I do? I gave them advice and permission and, yes, even my blessings. Now here I am, wondering if I’m to be arrested.”

  “Arrested?” sputtered Sandra. “Why in space would anyone do that?”

  “Well, for starters, I usurped the authority of the Alliance. Last I heard, unknown rabbis from little-known settlements were not allowed to order mass evacuations.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing someone did! I’m pretty sure the only thing the Cabinet is annoyed about is that they didn’t think of it first. But that too is a good thing.”

  “How, exactly?”

  “Rabbi, we could have screamed from the mountaintops to evacuate, and my feeling is that most would have refused. Remember, most of those people were born and raised in those orbital slots—yourself included, if I’m not mistaken.”

  �
��You’re not.”

  “Some have never even left their orbits.”

  “Two for two,” he said with a sheepish grin.

  “So then I ask you, Rabbi, who are we to tell them what to do and where to go, even if we have their best interests in mind?”

  “Just another bunch of bureaucrats to work around.”

  “Exactly. But you’re not the government. You are, or rather were, by your own admission, one of the few full-fledged and learned religious leaders left in a predominately religious enclave—if something encompassing billions of kilometers could even be deemed as such. So when you said, ‘go,’ it gave most of the settlements the justification they needed to do just that.”

  “Some leader,” Rabbi bemoaned. “The only reason I’m here today talking with you is because I wasn’t important or knowledgeable enough to go to Alhambra.”

  Sandra leaned over and fixed her gaze on Rabbi.

  “You may find this odd, but humor me. Mind if I tell you a story?”

  “Why not? It’s the Jewish way.”

  “It’s about an abandoned baby left for dead. As luck would have it, the kid was found and soon thereafter adopted by a very wealthy family. Well, this kid, different looking, different everything, was considered by many to be a veritable idiot due to a severe speech impediment. Years later, he proved his naysayers right when, in a fit of anger, he killed a perfect stranger. Mind you, he killed the guy in an act of defending someone else, but still, he didn’t have to kill the guy.”

  Rabbi nodded.

  “So there he is, running from the law, scared out of his wits, and alone with no more chance of surviving in his environment than a spacer without his suit does in his.”

  “This story,” Rabbi said, eyes focused intently, “sounds awfully familiar.”

  “‘Who am I,’” quoted Sandra from the ancient biblical text, “‘that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’”

  Rabbi jerked back slightly in his chair.

  “I … I am not that man.”

  “Yet history seems to have placed you in a very similar situation.”

  Rabbi remained silent, pulling rhythmically at his beard. When he finally looked up his blue eyes sparkled with appreciation.