The Weapon - Lex - part 26
By Diana the Valkyrie
How can you say "No" to the Guardian of Humanity?
Update: 10/11/2003 to valkyrie05


It felt very strange, walking in to an eatery with Wendy disguised as Sandy
disguised with a headscarf and a pair of dark glasses. "What do I call you," I
asked her as we sat down. "Sandy will do fine." "But you're in disguise." "No,
not really, it's what we call a token disguise, so people who do recognise me
know not to make a fuss about it." I nodded like I understood. But this was
getting too complicated for me. "So," I said as they brought the menu, "what
now? Can I get a job with Cute Chicken?" The waitress came. "I'll have a
quarter pounder with fries," I said. "No. He'll have a lamb pasanda, dall and
basmati rice, onion bhagee before that, khulfi afterwards. I'll have a lentil
curry with lots of garlic," she said. The waitress went to get food.

"No," she said, "that isn't what I have in mind." She reached across the table
and took my hand. "I have plans for you." Something at the bottom of my
stomach dissolved. The queen of porn has plans for me? "No, the Guardian of
Humanity does. It's like I was telling you, I can't do everything myself." "So
I'm to be Wendy's Little Helper?" "Sort of." I waited for elucidation. She
sighed.

"I'm not human," she said. "Yes, I know that." "No, you don't. I mean, you
know it in a theoretical sense, but you don't believe it deep down because I
present myself as a human female. And even in a theoretical sense, you don't
understand the implications." "OK, clue me in." "OK. Think of your mobile.
What does it want? What are it's motivations?" "Don't be silly, it doesn't
have any, it's just a mobile." "And you know this how?"

I thought about it. "Well, because. First of all, it doesn't say anything for
itself, it's just a channel of communication." "So what doesn't speak, can't
have desires?"

Hmmm. "Well, I suppose it could. But how would I ever find out about them?"
"Precisely," she said, smiling. I scratched my head, pulled out my mobile and
looked at it. Nothing.

"That's what you think," she said. "I can hear it thinking all the time,
packets being picked up by its antenna, examined and discarded as being for
someone else. A tight loop waiting for input. A heartbeat, keeping track of
time. Checking to see if there's anyone else within blue range. I am, so it
keeps offering to mate with me. Dynamic memory refreshing, occasional time
checks against the NIST clocks, software upgrade offers, acceptances and
refusals. Mail coming in, being read and sorted. It's a hive of activity in
there, and just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it isn't happening."
"So what are you saying, mobiles have rights?" "Not right now, no, because you
don't see them as people. Yet. You know, a few centuries ago, the phrase
"Animal rights" would have been met with baffled looks - how can a cow have
rights? But now, they do. No, what I'm saying is that your mobile is so alien
to you, you can't really understand it. Not deep down. And you're really alien
to me, I can't understand you. We don't have the common shared experience.
We're not singing from the same hymnbook"

"Like how?"

"Well, like for example, your priorities are all short term. When there was
that big Y2K kerfuffle a couple of hundred years ago, you changed all your
year dates from two digits to four." "Right, and I read that was a real big
problem." "But you've set yourselves up for the same problem again, in the
year 10,000." "But that's ... " " ... only eight thousand years from now,
baby. You're short term. You really don't care what will happen 8,000 years
from now."

"8000 years, how can that be my problem?" "Right. Because you don't live very
long. But I just don't have that perspective, it just doesn't make sense to me
that you'd postpone a problem for a little while, when with a bit of thought
you could have solved it properly. But that's just a simple example. There's a
whole bunch of ways that I just can't, simply cannot, predict how you would
think about something."

"Why would that be a problem? I can't understand what my mobile wants, but I
can still use it." "You don't love your mobile, you don't want to do your best
for it. That's the difference."

"You really do love us all that much" I said, wonderingly.

"It's the way we are. I got here when I was a few minutes old, my momma found
me someone to be with, he was my Wielder, my first love, my Duncan ... "

She fell silent for a few seconds. Then she shook her head briskly, making her
platinum blonde hair fly around her head.

"So anyway. Now I understand you a lot better than I did then, obviously.
Living with you for 150 years has taught me a lot. But you still surprise me."
"Like those Humanity First scum?" "Uh, no, they're not really a surprise," she
smiled, "and they do have a valid point." "Valid point?" I squeaked, "without
you, we'd be asteroid meat, you just told me." "Oh, I didn't say they were
entirely right, Geoff. Just that they do have some good points in their
agenda. This is your planet, I'm just a guest here, really." "You're welcome
to stay in my part of it any time," I offered.

She smiled again, and took my hand. "Wendy needs someone to be her Wielder,
someone to be the human half of the partnership, someone to tell her how
humans feel about things. Someone she can trust, trust totally. Mass, love and
trust, the three supports of the People. I convert mass to energy, just like
you burn food for energy. Food, sex and money, the three supports of humans.
And the three parts relate, but the relationship isn't simple. Love and sex
aren't the same, just closely related. And trust and money are quite
different."

"Why are you talking about yourself in the third person?"

"Uh, I'm Sandy Gentle right now. This is something you'll have to get used to,
I'm two people. More, actually." "More?"

She told me about her emulations; Duncan and Fiona. "It's like having very
detailed memories. You might ask yourself 'What would Napoleon have done'; I
ask Duncan what he would do. And it's comforting having him around. Not as
good as the real thing. But comforting."

"Would you tell me more about Duncan sometime? And Fiona?" She looked across
the table at me. I felt as if she was looking inside me, fingering my soul.
"Yes," she said, not to me, more to herself, or to someone I couldn't see,
"yes, he might suffice. But ..." "Do what?" I asked. "Geoff, you don't have a
girlfriend or anything, do you?" "No, not currently. I was kind of dating a
bit with Sally, but that isn't like serious." The thing at the bottom of my
stomach that had dissolved, now started to flutter like butterflies round a
buddleia.

"Now, I have to leave you for a while, Herbie will get into trouble if I leave
him alone for too long. Find somewhere to stay, I'll see you later." "How will
you know where I am?" "Oh, Geoff. Stop asking silly questions." She stood up.
"And don't do anything I wouldn't do." And she walked out. I got out from
behind the table and rushed to the door after her, but when I looked down the
street, she was gone. Then I looked up in the sky, and maybe it was just a
pigeon I saw flying off in the distance. But I like to think it was her.

I found a cheap motel, and checked in. I lay on the bed wondering what the
hell I'd gotten into. I felt like a straw swept up by a hurricane. She thinks
that ten thousand years is short term, she sees the whole world as her
responsibility. And she was talking about me being the one to tell her how
humans think about things? But we don't! We don't usually think, and when we
do, we certainly don't all think the same way. I couldn't do this. I'd tell
her, tomorrow. I'm not up to this, it's too much responsibility. I'm just a
simple farmer. Give me a box of weedkiller and a screwdriver and I know what
to do - this sounds too much like management.

What if I screw up? What if I make some dumb mistake, and she does something
that causes a catastrophe? Where will I be then? My brain raced in a turmoil
as I tried to think how I could get out of this gracefully. I didn't think I'd
be able to refuse anything that Sandy Gentle wanted, what man could? And,
worse, how can you say "No" to the Guardian of Humanity?