TIM, Defender of the Earth

  ‘Yes,’ said the prime minister with a wave of one hand. ‘But what do you really want?’

  ‘Pardon me?’

  ‘Professor Mallahide,’ said Mr Sinclair, ‘let’s be frank with each other, shall we?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Your ambitions for the human race are wonderful,’ the prime minister began, ‘or I’m sure they seem that way to you. I admire ambition in a man: I admire you, Professor Mallahide, truly I do. But . . .’ He paused. ‘Well, speaking as someone with some measure of experience in trying to convince large numbers of people to believe in him’ – the prime minister tried for a smile – ‘I have to say you’re not doing a particularly great job so far.’

  ‘Really?’ said Professor Mallahide.

  ‘I don’t think people understand you,’ Mr Sinclair said carefully. ‘To be honest, Professor, I don’t either. So, let me ask you again: what do you want? What can we give you,’ said Mr Sinclair slowly, rephrasing his question, ‘to make you stop what you’re doing?’

  ‘Oh!’ said Professor Mallahide again, surprised. Then he smiled, in a way that Mr Sinclair found particularly infuriating. ‘Prime Minister,’ he asked in a tone of mock horror, ‘are you trying to buy me off?’

  ‘All right,’ growled the prime minister, losing patience. ‘Yes! Well, can’t we?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Prime Minister,’ said Mallahide, ‘but I’m afraid the short answer is no.’

  ‘But . . . why not?’

  ‘Well, for one thing,’ the professor pointed out, ‘I now have direct control of all physical matter, down to the atomic level. In layman’s terms,’ he went on, ‘this means that anything I don’t happen to have – anything I want – I can now simply make for myself. Here, let me give you an example.’

  He held out a hand. The air over his open palm seemed to flicker for a moment, then an object appeared. It was crystalline and twinkly and about the size of a hand grenade. Mallahide tossed it to Mr Sinclair.

  The bodyguards flinched, reflexively (if uselessly) going for their guns, but Mr Sinclair had caught the glittering object before he could stop himself.

  ‘What is this?’ the prime minister asked, dreading the answer.

  ‘It’s a diamond,’ said the professor blithely. ‘I made it, just now, from the carbon in this room’s atmosphere. A simple process, really, just a question of arranging the atoms in the right configuration – and of course, the result is much purer than you’d get from digging it out of the ground, cutting it, et cetera.’

  The prime minister gaped.

  ‘You see,’ Mallahide went on, ‘now that I exist as I am, the human race as we know it is going to undergo some rather significant changes. One of the first things that will happen is that current conventional measures of wealth – jewels, gold, oil and so forth – simply won’t count for much any more. Before long, everyone will simply be able to make anything they want for themselves: my machines will conjure it for them out of air or earth or whatever base materials are to hand. Imagine it!’ he added excitedly. ‘Total freedom for everybody!’

  Seeing the prime minister’s attention was still rooted to the giant diamond, Mallahide’s expression fell a little. ‘I’ll take that, if you don’t mind,’ he tutted, gesturing – and the gem burst apart into a cloud of nothingness, its existence annulled as quickly as it had begun.

  The prime minister blinked.

  ‘My point is,’ Mallahide told him, ‘that if you were hoping that somehow you could tempt me with money, or power, or those sorts of things, then I’m afraid you’re in for a disappointment. Quite simply, Prime Minister, there’s nothing you can really offer me. So,’ he added, putting his hands on the other end of the table, ‘why should I want to . . . “stop”, as you put it?’

  The prime minister gulped. ‘People are scared of you,’ he said. I’m scared of you, he added, though not aloud. ‘People don’t want to be dissolved into atoms or whatever. People are happy as they are!’

  The professor looked sad. ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he said. ‘When I took the first step to becoming what I am, it wasn’t easy, I can tell you. It certainly requires something of a leap of faith. But I believe,’ he went on, brightening again, ‘that when people see the benefits, they’ll be begging to join me. And I’ll be more than happy to oblige.’

  ‘But what if they don’t?’ asked the prime minister. ‘What if that doesn’t happen? What’s to stop you from . . . forcing them? Dissolving them against their will?’

  The professor smiled. ‘My dear Mr Sinclair,’ he said, ‘what do you take me for?’

  The prime minister didn’t answer.

  ‘I’m not a barbarian, you know,’ said Mallahide. ‘If some people, for whatever reason, choose to turn down the chance to become what I can help them to become, then I’m certainly not going to force them. I abhor force in all its forms.’

  ‘You do?’ said the prime minister.

  ‘Of course,’ said the professor. ‘There is, however,’ he added regretfully, ‘the, ah, issue of safety.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well,’ said Mallahide, ‘it’s like this. The difference between being human, as I was, and posthuman, as I am now, is really so vast that – with respect – it’s going to be difficult for you to imagine it. But I must ask you to imagine how much vaster that gulf will become once a significant proportion of the world’s population has followed in my footsteps. Surely it’s not too hard for you to grasp it: before long, those who are left behind will begin to find that the world they have known up until then will be . . . well, incomprehensible to them. Morality, technology, relationships – let alone the fundamentals like birth and death – the old conventions on these things will simply no longer apply. And,’ the professor added darkly, ‘with ignorance and misunderstanding comes fear and, finally, danger.’

  ‘Danger?’ the prime minister echoed.

  ‘There will need to be . . . certain areas, I think, set aside for those who choose not to join me. It’s regrettable, really, to curtail their freedom any more than they’ll have already curtailed it for themselves. But the fact remains that the world at large simply won’t be safe for them any more.’

  ‘Why not?’ the prime minister pursued.

  The professor sighed again. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘you’re not going to like this, but it’s really the only way that I can explain it to you. Are you ready?’

  The prime minister just looked at him.

  ‘To those who choose not to take the path I have, we posthumans will be gods. We will be able to do whatever we want: we will seem so advanced to those who remain that anything we do will look like magic.

  ‘For us, however,’ he added regretfully, ‘those who have not joined us will seem rather different. They will be weak, vulnerable, easily crushed, damaged, maimed, or – worst of all, obviously – killed. They’ll present a tremendous burden, purely in terms of the care and attention with which they’ll need to be treated. In truth, compared to us, ordinary humans will be something like . . . well, ants.’

  The prime minister said nothing.

  ‘Those who don’t become posthuman,’ Mallahide went on, ‘will have to be kept separate from the rest of us for their own safety. We can set up – I don’t know what you’d call them – reservations? They’d be offered every possible comfort and allowed to live out their limited lives in whatever way they see fit.’

  ‘Zoos,’ said the prime minister. ‘You’re talking about zoos. For people.’

  ‘Well . . .’ The professor shrugged. ‘That’s not the word I would have chosen. But something along those lines will have to be established, I imagine. Yes.’

  The prime minister didn’t answer. He was staring openly at Mallahide now.

  ‘So?’ the professor prompted. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘You’re a monster, Professor Mallahide,’ said Mr Sinclair. ‘God help us all.’

  THE SECOND VISIT

  ‘NOW,’ SAID THE guard, ‘I’
m just going to lock this door.’

  ‘What?’ said Chris. ‘You’re going to lock us in?’

  ‘This is one of the most secret locations in the country,’ the guard pointed out. ‘I can ’ardly risk letting a pair of kids like you just go wandering around in the night, can I?’

  ‘But what if we need the toilet or something?’

  ‘There’s a button to press by the door. Though come to think of it, I’m not sure if it’s ever been used before,’ the guard added nastily. He grinned. ‘I ’ope it’s connected to something for your sake.’

  ‘Great,’ said Chris. ‘Terrific. Thanks a bunch.’ But the door had shut. He heard the snick of bolts. Then silence.

  The room Chris and Anna were standing in looked not much different from an ordinary hotel room. Two single beds lay along two of its walls, separated by a small chest of drawers with a lamp on it. The walls themselves were painted a fairly unappealing shade of beige. The room also contained a mirror, an armchair, a table, and a wardrobe that stood at the foot of one of the beds. The only thing that made the room different, in Anna’s eyes, took a moment for her to figure out.

  There was no window. Of course not: they were deep underground. And that made the room feel like a cell. Anna shuddered.

  ‘Well,’ she said, breaking the silence, ‘I guess that’s it for us for the night. We might as well try and get some sleep. Which bed do you want?’

  ‘You choose.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Anna, pulling back the bedspread on the one facing the wardrobe. She grimaced. ‘Do you know,’ she said, ‘I think that guard was right. I guess they keep the beds made up just in case a war breaks out or something, but you’d think someone would give the sheets an airing once in a while: these are so musty. Think I’ll sleep in my clothes,’ she added, taking her shoes off. She got into bed – and looked at Chris, who was still standing by the door like a spare part.

  ‘Would you mind getting into bed yourself and turning off the light?’ she asked him. ‘It’s been kind of a long day.’ Without waiting for an answer, she turned over to face the wall.

  ‘Oh . . . sure,’ said Chris. Awkwardly he got in his own bed and reached for the lamp. ‘Well . . . night, then,’ he said.

  Anna didn’t reply.

  For a long time Anna lay in the dark, listening to Chris’s breathing. Anna didn’t have any male friends or relatives apart from her father; this was the first time she’d shared a room with a boy before, and truthfully, she felt more than a little uncomfortable about it. Anna’s own breathing sounded very loud in her ears, and she kept wondering if Chris (for his part) was listening to hers. But gradually his breaths became more even, if a little louder, and she realized that he was asleep.

  The room was so dark that it made no difference whether Anna’s eyes were open or shut. Encased in musty-smelling sheets, in the underground room, it was as if she’d been buried in her coffin. If it wasn’t for the sounds of Chris’s breathing, she thought, this could be what it was like to be dead. In fact . . .

  ‘Anna?’ a voice whispered.

  She opened her eyes. She was still facing the wall, but the darkness had thinned somehow into a grey haze coming from behind her, just strong enough to cast her shadow.

  ‘Anna?’ the voice whispered again. ‘It’s me.’

  Slowly, ignoring the cold sluice of fear in her belly, she turned.

  Her father was sitting on the side of the bed.

  For a weird, detached second, Anna was glad he hadn’t appeared like this the first time he’d come to visit her: she would’ve had even more trouble believing he was real. He was glowing, flickering with the static grey light of an old TV tuned to an empty channel. He left no impression or weight where he sat, and his hand – where it gently stroked her side through the sheets – left no warmth or sensation. His hair and clothes and face and body looked the same as always, just in black and white. He looked like a ghost. He smiled at her.

  ‘How did you get in here?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Shhh!’ Professor Mallahide made ‘keep it down’ gestures with his translucent hands. His grin got wider. ‘I used to work for the military, remember? This place might be top secret to some people, but not to me!’

  ‘You look funny,’ Anna whispered back.

  ‘Yes, er . . . sorry about that,’ said her dad, looking embarrassed. ‘Getting through all the security and so forth was a bit of a challenge. I couldn’t risk bringing any more of myself with me than this, I’m afraid.’

  ‘So . . .’ Anna said, ‘what are you doing here?’

  ‘Why, I’ve come to see you of course, silly.’

  Anna didn’t answer. For a moment there was silence, apart from the continued sound of Chris’s breathing.

  ‘Who’s the boy?’ asked Mallahide, smiling broadly. ‘Friend of yours?’

  ‘Just someone from school,’ said Anna. ‘Why?’

  ‘No reason.’

  ‘Then why,’ Anna demanded, ‘are you grinning like that? He’s not my boyfriend or anything.’

  ‘Shhhhhhh!’ Mallahide said again delightedly. ‘Quiet! You’ll wake him!’

  Anna scowled and changed the subject. ‘You know,’ she began – and having to whisper was infuriating to her – ‘you’re really causing a lot of trouble.’

  ‘Change always causes trouble,’ said the professor, unconcerned.

  ‘But . . . the way you’re acting!’ Anna shook her head. ‘You’re not going to convince anybody like this. The things you’re saying! It’s much too sudden. You’re too scary to them right now for anybody to believe you.’

  Professor Mallahide smiled. ‘But you don’t find me scary,’ he said. ‘Do you, Anna?’

  Anna looked at him: at the weightless way he sat on the bed, at the black-and-white flickeriness of him, and at the touch of his hand that was no touch at all. She swallowed.

  ‘No,’ she lied. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Well, then,’ said Professor Mallahide, ‘perhaps we can help each other.’

  ‘H-how do you mean?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Anna,’ said her father, ‘I want you to join me.’

  Anna didn’t know what to say.

  ‘I think if you joined me,’ Mallahide told her, ‘then some of those other problems you mentioned would just go away. If someone like you took the step, then people would see the good in what I’m offering. They’d see that becoming posthuman isn’t something bad or frightening – in fact, it’s the opposite! And here’s the thing, Anna: you would too.’

  Anna said nothing.

  ‘You can’t imagine it,’ her father told her (again, Anna noticed). ‘The implications of it just get bigger and bigger! Every time I think I’ve approached the limits of what there is to discover about the way I live now, I find something else, something new, something amazing.’

  ‘Such as?’ Anna asked.

  The gleeful smile that had appeared on her father’s face, just as it always did when he talked about his work, now dimmed a little.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘there is one thing. As soon as I realized I could do it, I knew I had to tell you straight away.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s . . .’ Mallahide paused. ‘Well, it’s about your mother.’

  Anna looked at him.

  Anna’s mother had died when Anna was small. Almost eleven years before, just three weeks after Anna’s third birthday, Mrs Mallahide – after complaining about a very bad headache – had suddenly collapsed in the kitchen. She never woke up.

  It was a brain tumour, the doctors said, the most terrible thing: the disease had been progressing undiagnosed for quite a while before having its effect. It was nobody’s fault, everyone said: just one of those things that happen. But the professor had never accepted this. After his wife’s funeral, he’d thrown himself even further into his work. That was when he’d started taking military contracts in an effort to get enough funding – even though he’d always sworn blind before that he never would. That was when
his and Anna’s life together had become what it was. Everything dated from that time. From the time her mum had died.

  ‘Anna,’ he said now, ‘what do you remember about her?’

  ‘Why are you asking me that?’ Anna hissed back at him, exasperated.

  ‘Anna, please,’ said Mallahide, ‘just tell me. What do you remember?’

  The fact that she remembered so little about her mother was a source of great pain to Anna. She had fragments – being taken to the park, ice cream, hugs, picnics – and she hung onto those as best she could, hoarding them and polishing them like precious jewels. But what hurt about them, what made these memories sting her whenever she took them out to examine them, was the fact that they were unreliable. Whenever she thought back, Anna couldn’t help wondering: Maybe that wasn’t how it happened. Perhaps, without realizing it, she was adding things, embroidering them. Maybe, when she thought of her mother’s face, all she was really thinking about was a photo she’d seen or an impression of what she, Anna, would have preferred to remember – and she wasn’t remembering the real person that her mother had been at all.

  Anna hated that idea.

  ‘Little things,’ she said defensively. ‘You know – bits and pieces. Why?’

  ‘My mind has . . . changed,’ said her father slowly. ‘It works quite differently now, in lots of ways. Particularly,’ he said, leaning towards her and fixing her with a look from his strange black-and-white eyes, ‘my memory.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘When I allowed the nanobots to take apart my old body,’ Mallahide explained, ‘they recorded absolutely everything. That’s the way it works: they store every single piece of information about a person, every single thing there is to know – including memories. The difference is,’ he added, smiling again, ‘that unlike the contents of my human mind, I can now access all of it whenever I want. Everything I’ve seen, heard, touched, tasted, smelled and done is mine again. Mine, to remember and savour instantly. Believe me, Anna, it’s absolutely amazing.’