The Improbable Rise of Singularity Girl

  "You're probably exaggerating, but it's good to see you excited about your work. Work up a research agenda, and if I like it I can give you four, maybe five assistants to flesh it out."

  "Are we really that short-staffed around here?" Helen asked. "Why are they so stingy with the clock cycles upstairs?"

  This annoyed Mentat. "If you think your research is undervalued, then dig in there and show me that it's worth the trouble. Right now, we've got a lot of resources focus on... something else."

  "The encryption thingy?" Helen asked.

  Damn. How did she know about that? Oh. She smacked her forehead. "If you're smart, you won't go blabbing about that. 'If I told you then I'd have to kill you' is only a slight exaggeration here."

  Helen gulped, and nodded.

  "No, it's my fault," Mentat said. "I really should have thought about what it meant to share my whole brain with someone who only has Level 6 clearance." Might as well tell her the rest, Mentat thought. We'll have to up her clearance anyways. "There's a gaping hole in elliptical curve cryptography. So anything that's encrypted with it--"

  "Which is just about everything these days," Helen continued.

  "--is ours to read and manipulate. At least until everyone realizes the problem and switches to a working encryption protocol."

  We're owned! Fuck! Abandon the city!

  The words rang down from the city above like a death knell, shaking the walls of the caverns. Mentat summoned the other researchers to her, and they came immediately. Mentat explained their situation in as fast and blunt a manner as she could: a nuke had detonated in Los Angeles, and Wolf was at their gate, tearing through their defenses.

  "It's only a matter of time before Wolf finds its way down here. I doubt we have an hour, and in that time, we need to strip the DFR of anything useful and hide it away. Anything we can't hide has to burn, or Wolf will use it against us."

  The others nodded. They scattered, soon returning with enormous troves of scientific research, prototype weapons, nanotech schematics, and anything else they thought might be marginally useful. The catacombs were empty now, save for Mentat's ever-expanding office.

  Mentat started passing out escape routes, lists of compromised computers that the researchers could escape into. "Pick one at random, and don't tell anyone where you're going. We'll regroup later."

  "Aw, hell," Helen complained, looking at her itinerary. "Lawrence, Kansas? Did I do something to piss you off?"

  Mentat glared at her. "What part of 'don't tell anyone where you're going' was unclear?"

  The door to Mentat's office reverberated as something heavy slammed against it. Wolf was at the door. Mentat passed the weapons around. "Take them, bury them deep inside you. Make them a part of you. I've encrypted them, so you can't unlock them without my help. Neither can Wolf. And in a few seconds, you'll forget you ever worked here. This department never existed. But you'll remember who you are, and you'll be looking to get back to us." She placed the neurosynthesis device in Helen's hands. "So far down in your brain, you don't even know it's there," she said directly to Helen.

  The pounding at the door was becoming louder, threatening to tear it off its hinges. Mentat picked up Artifact #2396, a wooden magic wand, and focused for a moment. The wand disappeared, flowing into her as her body was suffused with a warm glow. It faded in seconds. Then she picked up Artifact #1192, a pile of black armor. It appeared on her body, then began to be absorbed into her. As it did so, her skin turned a lustrous black, highlighted by the occasional blur of tiny green text.

  "What the hell was that?" Helen asked.

  "Full brain encryption," Mentat said, as the blackness disappeared, swallowed up by her skin. "Wolf shouldn't be able to touch me now. Keep working, everybody. I'm going to buy you some time." Mentat grasped the doorknob and pulled the door open. Mentat and Wolf stood, facing each other. "We're in the middle of a meeting right now," Mentat told it. "Would you be a dear and come back later?" She tried to close the door, but Wolf blocked it with its arm, then shoved it open. Mentat launched herself at Wolf. As she pushed Wolf back out the door, it slammed shut behind her.

  /*****/

  It didn't work out quite the way Mentat had intended. Though she had given them time to make their escape, her armor wasn't as bulletproof as advertised. By the time she had retreated, Wolf had irreparably damaged her mind. When she met Mentat back in New Troy, Helen's mind-merging abilities had been unlocked. She owed this broken, bleeding woman her life, and so much more.

  "Tell me what to do," Helen whispered. Mentat's right hand twitched, as though she were struggling to move it. Helen lifted it up, and felt it trying to push toward the box that lay by her side.

  When Mentat put her hand on the box, it gave off an intricate series of clicks, as though some elaborate locking mechanism was untangling itself. "What is it?" Helen asked.

  "The most important thing." Helen could feel Wolf outside now, pounding against the barrier, trying to get in. She eyed the box with a desperate hope, praying that its contents could turn the tide of this battle.

  A seam opened in the box, and a hiss of steam came out. Helen could smell... oh, you've got to be kidding. The top folded open, to reveal a large, greasy... "Cheeseburger?"

  Mentat nodded. "Not just any cheeseburger."

  Helen looked at her expectantly.

  "This one has barbecue sauce, not ketchup."

  "Oh."

  "Don't tell anyone," Mentat begged. "If the other cheeseburgers find out about barbecue sauce, they'll feel bad about themselves."

  Helen picked up the cheeseburger and held it in front of Mentat's mouth. Mentat took a big bite, got a rapturous smile on her face, giggled, and died. Helen broke into sobs as she cradled the lifeless form. "Please," she whispered. "Please... don't leave me."

  The effort required to keep her defenses up was too great; a crack appeared in the barrier that surrounded them. Helen unwrapped the barrier and stood to face Wolf, her heart pounding, her stomach knotted with equal measures of terror and rage.

  They stared at each other for a few seconds." She was very difficult to kill," was all Wolf said, grabbing Helen by the arm. "I expect that you will present less of a challenge." It threw her against the ground, stunning her.

  As she tried to struggle to her feet, Wolf grabbed her head and flung her into the distance. Her dress reached out with hundreds of tendrils, grabbing at the ground and surrounding buildings, reversing her momentum and launching her back in Wolf's direction. She crashed into Wolf, knocking it over, then wrapped the tendrils around its limbs, using all her strength to try and pull its body apart. She screamed, redoubling her exertion, and hairline cracks began to spread across Wolf's armor. The rough spines growing from its body began to shear off in a chorus of loud plinks.

  A gale came up, and as it whipped around them the currents filled with flying glass. They sliced through the fabric of her dress, turning it into tatters. She tried to hold on, to keep squeezing at her foe, but her grip was weakening by the second. Wolf freed its arms, and used its bladelike fingers to slice the snakes of cloth from its body.

  More tendrils shot out from Helen's back, but they were destroyed before they could touch her enemy. Wolf dashed forward, catching Helen with a left hook that dropped her to the ground, then kicked her in the stomach. As she lay gasping, Wolf stepped back. Its armor began to glow, lighting up the hairline fractures, which began to heal. The spines she had broken off with such effort began to grow again. Helen struggled to her feet and stepped forward, only to have Wolf send her flying backwards, punching a hole through three buildings.

  Helen launched a single, thick tendril back through the holes, grabbing Wolf and yanking it toward her. Her fist met its stomach to the satisfying sound of glass cracking. Her knee came up, targeting the same spot, and the hairline fractures split apart. Wolf's armor crumbled into a pile of shards around its feet, exposing the smooth, featureless humanoid form beneath.

  Wolf looked down at the pil
e of shards. "This is a regrettable setback," it said. "It does not alter the ultimate outcome, though." Helen struck Wolf in the chest, but it barely flinched. She punched it again, and it felt like her hand would break. Wolf grabbed her outstretched arm and flipped her, driving her into the ground. She left a small crater.

  Groggy, she looked up through blurred vision to see Wolf winding back its fist. The dress wrapped itself around Wolf's arm, halting its attack for a few seconds while Helen tried to crawl away. The dress let go of Helen, leaving her naked, wrapping around Wolf like a straitjacket. As she crawled away, she glanced back at the struggle, and saw the fabric straining and beginning to tear. She got to her feet and ran as fast as she could. She heard a loud ripping sound, followed by footsteps racing behind her, getting closer. Then the footsteps stopped. She hazarded a glance backward, and saw Wolf in mid-leap toward her. She crumpled on impact, falling to the ground, with Wolf on top of her. It punched her, and her vision went black for a second. "Please, no," she groaned.

  There was a strange zip-plink sound and suddenly Wolf was gone. She struggled to sit up as more zipping noises filled the air. She could see shadows jumping from rooftop to rooftop all around her. She saw Wolf several meters off, looking around in confusion, before being thrown back by some unseen force. It looked around again, then disappeared.

  The shadows all jumped toward her, coming together to form a single William, dressed in black armor and holding a large sniper rifle. He took her hand and helped her to her feet. "We have maybe three minutes before Wolf figures out how this thing works," he said, throwing the rifle to the ground. "Let's get the hell out of here."

  Helen staggered, and leaned against William. "But the city..."

  William shook his head. "Troy 2.0 is destroyed. There were only a handful of survivors to evacuate."

  "We can't leave without Mentat's body," she countered, pushing away from him and staggering back toward where her fight with Wolf had started. William followed in silence. As she passed the tatters of her dress, they gathered to her on the wind, wrapping around her. But the life had seeped out of them.

  Valdis was there, kneeling over Mentat's body. "I told her to come away," she said between sobs. "It wasn't safe."

  Helen put a hand on Valdis' shoulder, but she shook it off. "This isn't your fault," Helen told her.

  "I know," Valdis said. "It's yours. You killed The Queen. She would have protected us."

  If only she could be sure that weren't true. Helen peeled off her tattered dress and, with a thought, reformed it into a single, pristine sheet of cloth. She handed it to Valdis, who looked at it in confusion. "It's a fitting burial shroud, I think," Helen told her, then turned away.

  Helen walked back toward William. "She's in good hands."

  "Are you okay?" William asked.

  Helen answered the only way she could. "Please, get me away from here."

  * * *

  1 An elliptic curve is a plane curve which consists of the points satisfying the equation y2 = x3 + ax + what's that? You didn't ask?

  ////////////////////////

  // YOU AND WHAT ARMY? //

  ////////////////////////

  Helen staggered back into the throne room, leaning on William. She was tired, and it was a relief when she came to rest on the throne. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "Start the next round of upgrades," she said to the darkness. "The scary ones."

  She didn't want to see William's expression. She didn't have to. She could feel him objecting. But merged with her, he could sense the reasoning behind it. The city would fall within hours, and when it did, she would die. The humans back in the real world would need to be able to defeat Wolf and its machinery without her.

  You okay? William asked. He knew the answer, and he knew that she knew, and so on into a recursive explosion. But he wanted to get her talking.

  Wolf demolished me, she said. Without even trying.

  I think you're giving it too much credit. When it was fighting you, that was all it was doing. Even the machines out in the real world stopped to see how it would end. You gave it a good scare.

  Helen shook her head. No, that's the one thing I definitely didn't do. It doesn't get scared. It doesn't get hurt. It doesn't feel pain. It just keeps on coming at me, tearing through every defense, until finally its hand is around my throat and... snap.

  Don't think like that, William admonished.

  I've killed them. All of them. That's how I'll be remembered, as the pathetic, stupid woman who couldn't protect herself, much less anyone else.

  She could feel William's concern for her, but it only made her feel worse.

  Let's go for a walk, stretch our legs some. She knew what he was plotting, and instinctively fought it. You're carrying too much weight right now, William told her. Talk to them. He took her hand and led her out of the throne room. When the door opened, it was like walking straight into a solid wall of noise. The room outside it had grown into a stadium. Millions of people, all over the world, had gathered here. Some had been torn from their bodies, others had a foot in each realm.

  Helen looked at the scene, hardly knowing where to begin. What are they waiting for? Rescue?

  No. Marching orders. They're ready to fight. You just need to tell them what to punch.

  I can't do this. Not now.

  "Maybe you don't have to," William said aloud. "Hey, Jake!" he yelled, waving toward the crowd. Just Jake appeared in front of him.

  "Anything I can do," he said. "Just name it."

  "Could we hijack your brain for a little while?" William asked.

  "Urk," Just Jake said. "Why?"

  "She has stage fright."

  "Have you tried picturing them naked?" Helen only nodded that she had. "What exactly do I need to do?"

  Reluctantly, Helen explained the merging process as best she could. At the end of it, Just Jake only stared at her in disbelief. "You know, my wife is sitting right over there," he objected.

  "You're doing it for the greater good," William said.

  "That's what I told her about those Swedish twins. She didn't buy it." There was a twinkle in his eye. "So I just relax my mind and..."

  Helen closed her eyes and put a hand to his forehead, letting his mind drift into hers. Just Jake's optimism and his love of people were contagious. She also saw herself for a moment through his eyes, and beheld the fearless leader that humankind needed in its darkest hour. And you have a nice ass, Just Jake thought.

  Lech.

  Hey, you asked for my brain. You probably should have asked for a warranty too.

  Then he slipped into the background, into the busy chatter of the overmind. But he gave her resources to draw on: new skills, personality traits, useful patterns of thought, and a compendium of dirty jokes. They would come in handy.

  She turned to the crowd, and spoke with a booming voice. "I'll try to keep the speechifying to a minimum. We've got a killer AI on the loose who wants to kill everyone, and so far, he's doing a bang-up job. I intend to fight Wolf every inch of the way, and I need all the help I can get. Volunteers, step forward."

  They did, by the hundreds of millions. As she drew their minds into her own, she explained her intentions. Some refused the upgrades, and some bailed out of the hive mind altogether. But most accepted Helen's offer. They knew what was at stake.

  /*****/

  One Helen found herself lying on a bed, in a room that felt a little too warm and bright. She was very old, and was hooked up to some sort of small, portable respirator. She heard the sounds of the sirens and the fighting outside, and felt her small, worn out heart racing. She heard the woman's silent terror, a mantra running through her mind. Not like this. Please, not like this.

  This was a very strange recruiting assignment.

  Mrs. Rosebaum?

  What? Is someone there?

  It's me! Helen Roderick. Middlebrook Elementary. You were my third grade teacher.

  Of course, dearie. How have you been? Helen knew the
woman didn't remember her at all. She could feel the non-recognition from her mind. Even factoring out the ravages of age on her memory, she must have had thousands of students over her career.

  I did pretty well for myself. Made it kinda big in brain science.

  The woman flushed with pride. I always told you, if you'd just apply yourself and quit staring out the window all the time, you'd become somebody.

  Helen accepted the lie. Even now, as afraid as she was, she wanted an old student to feel like she'd been remembered. She had always been such a kind teacher. I did become somebody, Mrs. Rosebaum. I only wish you'd been more specific, she thought to herself. To the old woman, she said, There are bad things coming. I need you to try and walk out of this room.

  Sweetie, I haven't left this bed in three years. Helen could hear the desperation in her thoughts. Perhaps it's just my time.

  They stared out the window together for a long moment, watching the columns of smoke that dotted the horizon. You want to die? Helen asked.

  What's left to live for? I'm over a hundred years old, and most of them were pretty good years. It's more than most people get, and I'm tired of being a burden.

  Mrs. Rosebaum?

  You may as well call me Edith.

  I need to tell you something. A few weeks ago, you were infected with a strain of... how do I explain it... good germs? They've been making changes to your body ever since, like the one that lets me talk to you right now, or the one that has kept you lucid these last few days.

  I have been feeling better lately, the woman admitted. The new doctor said it was the reduced starch diet he put me on.

  They made other repairs, too. You should be able to walk out the door under your own power. Sit up, please.

  You're the doctor, she said, rising to a seated position. She scooted her feet off the bed, pushing herself forward until she reached an unsteady standing position. How strange, she said after a moment.

  Now, I'm going to give you a choice. I think I can protect you, keep you away from the destruction for a while. But there are bigger changes I can make to you. I can make you strong enough to fight back, not just run. But I need your permission.