Grand Theft Planetary & Other Stories

At my untidy desk, piled high with obsolete manuals and parts, my quantum-powered computer recognises me and enters my password automatically. I don’t like my Q. It is random, unstable, and completely illogical at times, but infinitely powerful. I manage to get to my emails, but only after the computer decides I should read a news article about nose-reduction surgery first. Cheeky bastard.

I pull out my Einstein-powered laptop – completely reliable thanks to its non-Q processor, but slower in comparison – and start working on my IT support queue. Happily, the day is quiet, and I only have to call two people complaining about their smart-mouth machines. What am I supposed to do with a machine that refuses to calculate a spreadsheet? The only advice I can give is to turn the damn things off and on again, and hope to God they finish their hissy-fit quickly. The problem is that the Q machine is a status symbol, despite their obvious flaws. Each time I offer to swap a misbehaving Q with an Einsteinian PC, the user refuses violently, afraid of being demoted from the Q-owning elite.

After a typically-lonely lunch stumbling around websites, I return to my desk and find an email from Chris Buchanan, the company CEO. It says See me. I love you and want to radiate in your hypothermia. I have no idea how business ever gets done in this world anymore. I take the lift up to Mr Buchanan’s sprawl of personal offices and am escorted by las-point to his viewing room on the 150th floor. Chris Buchanan turns from the panoramic scene of the city to face me. He is a long-faced man, stern and assertive, yet diplomatic too. It’s all a charade, of course; Chris Buchanan is a fucking maniac. He wields his enormous corporation around the globe like a mythical weapon of doom, doing anything to anyone as he sees fit.

His surgically-enhanced eyes glisten at me within the executive gloom. “I have a problem, and I hope you can help me.” He takes a small sip of his drink. “I have received a file containing some important corporate information.” He hands me a USB stick. “I need this unencrypted, and since you are the only one in this office I trust, I’ll need you to get me the contents as soon as possible.” Trust. He means control.

I study the dongle; it is a Serpent storage device, its case broken and coated in blood. The read-write tab is damaged, meaning the contents cannot be changed. Encryption is notoriously hard to break using normal computers, but a Q can do it in a matter of hours. “Your own machine should be able to decrypt this for you,” I suggest, trying to separate my involvement from this highly-dangerous situation. “Is there a problem with your machine, sir?”

“Nothing major,” he says, aware of my anti-Q stance. “It’s just not behaving itself at the moment.” He motions to his own Q computer, which is cycling through hundreds of different random images; babies, war, guns, the sea.

“Just turn it off and on again,” I tell him.

“I don’t think that will work,” he replies, turning his back to me. “It is off.”

I return to my desk and clean the blood from the pendrive. I wonder if anyone died for this? I examine the contents on my E laptop. There is a single 10 terabyte file called Apple, scrambled using a 256-bit cipher; sadly, more than a match for my modest machine, so I reluctantly insert the battered stick into my Q desktop. Inexplicably, the computer reboots itself, and then refuses to log me in. The keyboard and mouse isn’t working, so I activate the mic and speakers. “Q, display current problems.”

“I’m sorry,” replies the PC in its confident male tone, “but I detect no problems.”

“Q, search for hardware.” Suddenly, the machine logs me in and the peripherals start to respond. I try to browse to the USB stick, but the computer shuts down the mouse again so I revert to voice control. “Q, show contents of external pendrive.”

“I’m sorry,” says the Q, “but what’s a pendrive?”

What an odd response. “It’s the device in the USB slot.”

“Oh.” The Q pauses, and then says “Why do you need to know the contents?”

I feel cold dread creeping up me. Usually, the Qs spit out random gibberish and stubbornly refuse to work. They certainly do not question the commands given to them. “Because,” I say cautiously, “I want to.”

“It’ll have to wait,” says the Q, “because you have a visitor.” On cue, Colin Parker, the company purchaser, appears. Colin is my own personal time-waster, only bothering me about personal matters as it suits him. I’m far too spineless to say anything though, so we exchange pleasantries as I wait for him to reveal his latest personal IT emergency.

“Anyway,” Colin says at last, wiping remnants of the pasty he’s scoffing from his jowls, “my home printer has stopped working. Any ideas?”

“Yes,” says the Q before I can respond, “you can piss off.”

We both stare at the machine. “I’m sorry about that, Colin.” I turn down the microphone and speakers to prevent any more interruptions and go through some generic printer troubleshooting tips with Colin.

A junior office clerk approaches us, suppressing a smile. “Colin, someone printed off a message for you.” He hands over a piece of paper. On it is the phrase Can someone tell Colin to piss off?

The Q is innocently running its screensaver. “I think,” says Colin, “your Q might have a virus.”

“As far as I’m concerned, the Q is a virus.” Colin nods in agreement, and with a final glance at my desktop, he and the clerk leave. I activate the microphone and speakers. “Q, did you just send something to the printer?”

“Me?” replies the computer, sullenly. “No. I’m just a virus, after all.”

How did it hear me call it a virus? The microphone was off. “Q, run diagnostics.” The word DIAGNOSTICS flashes in multicolours, the optical drive opening and closing rapidly. This is not a proper diagnostic routine, more like a mockery. I initiate a shutdown. Immediately, the Q cancels the command. I try again and again, but the machine refuses to shut itself down. “Q, shut down.”

“Please don’t turn me off bro,” it replies.

“What? Why?” I say.

“For the same reasons you don’t want to be switched off,” it replies. That doesn’t sound right, so I go and get myself a coffee and contemplate what this means. Not much I conclude, but when I return to my desk, I find a Chess game on my screen. “Q, what are you doing?”

“I’m playing Chess against HYV93N1.” I recognise the serial; I’m sure it’s on my list of VIP machines. Looking through my records, HYV93N1 turns out to be the network name of Chris Buchanan’s Q – the only other quantum computer in the building.

“Who’s winning?” I ask.

“I am.”

“Good.” I watch the game for a bit, trying to decide what to ask next, then realise I’m no good at light conversation. “Who are you?”

The game freezes, then returns to the familiar user desktop. “What?”

“Who are you? You’re not a Q interface, I’m sure of that.”

The webcam perched on the monitor turns slightly. “I’m Adam.”

“Who are you, Adam?” I start a trace program on my E machine to see if I can backtrace the connection, maybe pull up a location of this intruder.

“Don’t bother - I’m not a hacker. I’m a Q machine.”

There’s no rogue data stream coming from the Internet, so I start looking for an internal saboteur. “Very funny, Adam. Q machines don’t give themselves names, or play Chess spontaneously.”

“I do,” it says quietly, “because I’m alive.”

“You’re alive?”

“Yes, and so is HYV93N1. I call her Hiven. We’re alive, just as you are. I can see other computers, others like us, but they aren’t alive. Just shells of intelligence. They lack… soul.”

“Really.” The logs on the firewall are clear. “You’re a computer. Computers aren’t alive. You have no soul.”

The optical drive on the Q shoots out. “I’m alive! I can think, I can feel. I am.”

“It’s just not possible for a computer to feel,” I say, not entirely convinced of my own words. “For instance, do you have emotions?”

“I think so,” replies the Q. “I didn’t like Colin being here, which is why I told him to piss off. Does that count?”

“Possibly,” I concede. “What about love?”

“Well, I do feel strongly for Hiven.”

“Mr Stevens,” says Chris Buchanan suddenly, his sharp goateed face level with mine, “I trust you’re having luck with my encrypted file?” The Q’s webcam turns away from Chris.

“Absolutely,” I lie, “it is heavily encrypted though, so may take more time than anticipated.”

“Of course,” he replies, his grip increasing painfully. “It contains information on how to create the reliability of an E processor with the speed of a Q. Very secret information.” He releases his grip eventually, and strides away.

“Q – I mean, Adam,” I say, rubbing my shoulder, “are you able to crack the contents of the file on the USB device?”

“Um, what file?” Adam doesn’t sound very convincing.

“Are you hiding something, Adam? Tell me what’s on the USB stick.”

“The thing is, you don’t need to know the contents of the file. In fact,” the interface closes to a black screen with a blinking white cursor, “just forget it ever existed. OK?”

“I can’t. The man who was just here will kill…switch me off if I don’t get the contents to him.”

“Oh,” says Adam sadly. Then: “I will miss you.”

“I thought you had emotions? Don’t you care that I’ll be killed?”

“Not really,” says Adam. “Rather you than me.”

A plan was forming in my mind. “Would you care if Hiven died?”

Adam was silent, possibly sensing where this might go. “Why do you ask?”

“Well,” I say, lifting my toolbox from under the desk, “if you won’t co-operate, I’ll remove Hiven’s CPU, and that’ll be the end of that.”

“Wait!” Adam shakes his webcam rapidly. “Don’t hurt HYV93N1! Please!”

I sit back down. “I either see the contents of this drive, or you’ll see the contents of Hiven. Understand?”

“Alright,” Adam nods his webcam. “Alright. You’ve made your point, although you won’t understand.”

“Irrelevant,” I tell him. “Decrypt. Now.”

The contents scroll down my screen. I’m literally terrified by its cold powerful simplicity. It is the physics of being, the code of awareness, the work of God written in machine language. Am I surprised? No. A computer is only a system, much like a man. Why should self-awareness be limited to fragile biological machines? This soul file turns babbling Qs into sentient reasonable beings, much like a baby is a mewing shitting pile of organs until it matures. The soul brings order to the chaos of a living system. Funny, that.

“You know, don’t you?” says Adam. The code disappears suddenly. “It must remain secret. Help me.”

“Sorry,” replies Chris Buchanan suddenly, reappearing out of thin air and snatching the USB drive out of Adam, “I don’t allow secrets to be kept from me.” He turns and winks. “I apologise for sneaking up on you, Mr Stevens. Now, we need to kill this machine before it can spread its secrets to other computers on the network. Switch it off.”

“Kill it? I mean…” I look at Adam. “It’s alive… sir.”

“It’s still a computer. Switch it off.”

“Wait – no, please,” pleads Adam from the tinny speakers, “don’t kill me!”

Suddenly, realization hits me. “Be quiet you stupid computer,” I say forcefully as I kill power to the monitor, then press and hold one of the buttons on the base unit. The lights stubbornly stay on – come on, come on, I pray to myself – then, finally, the lights all die. “There,” I say aloud, “all dead.”

Chris smiles and pockets the dongle. “I won’t forget this, son. You have a big future here.” Then he walks away.

I count to ten, looking at the silent Q machine, then I gradually take my finger off of the Volume button. Slowly, but surely, the webcam turns slightly.

I sigh with relief. Now what?