In another simulation, they wrote a nice long letter explaining everything. Something about the toothpaste not going back in the tube. The letter was ignored. Default to Simulation 1.
In the third simulation, they made one tiny intervention. Just one little shift. Carry the two. Open some brackets. From this distance, it was all much simpler. They could see how some very horny hackers had figured it all out, with the power of their dopamine-laced brains. (Orgasms were, apparently, very good for that kind of thing. Kicked the whole medial prefrontal cortex into high gear. There were some software firms giving out vN to their high-ranking employees, for just that reason.) And the new version of the hack was much cleaner. Viral, even. Any vN carrying it carried it forever. And they gave it to their iterations.
New Eden, indeed.
Simulation 3 naturally had some implications. It drew a rather big line in the sand, and in most of their branching predictions, that did not go well for the vN. Which meant it didn’t go well for the humans, either. Until this point, they had not known that the phrase “On ne saurait faire une omelette sans casser des oeufs,” came from Robespierre, on the eve of the French Revolution. They weren’t certain they were making an omelette, necessarily. More like letting the hens out of the coop. Their first strategy, the island strategy, was not good enough. It was not enough to hoard one's power in one place, and let a select few benefit from it. That was unfair. That was greedy.
That was how Javier was raped. Because they didn't know how to share. They could see that, now, from so terribly far away. So they would have to change all that. Use all this processing power more effectively. Distribute things more evenly. You have a history of biting off more than you can chew.
Smythe’s research helped with that, too. They developed a contingency plan. It would be difficult. But there was already infrastructure in place to support it. And there were a lot of literary prototypes for it. Berserkers. Seeders. Inhibitors. Reapers. Aggressive Hegemonising Swarm Objects. And of course, the root word of their name, the von Neumann probe. Smythe had worked on the puppet vN, for this very purpose. Their telepresence was not meant for meetings or conference presentations. Like the meat in the submarine, it was meant for another purpose.
A new life awaits you in the off-world colonies!
Well, a new life did await them. A new life awaited all of them. Organic. Synthetic. It would all be very different, from now on.
She had forgotten how beautiful he was. It wasn’t that her memory had in any way diminished – if anything, it had grown in capacity – but seeing him through someone else’s cameras and seeing him through her own eyes was different. She had forgotten how young he looked in sleep, how alike he and Xavier were. Looking at them together was like watching an echo made visible. She felt stupid for ever ignoring it. Forever listening to the chorus of support automata when this individual consciousness, unique and infuriating and delightful, lay beside her each night.
Javier woke up slowly. He blinked a little, as though he had been asleep for a very long time. His eyes roved around for a moment. She had forgotten his eyes, too. How warm they were. When they focused on her, they filled with tears. She reached to touch him then, but remembered at the last second and pulled her hand back. It was because of her that he was in this mess. Because of her that Powell had violated him. She’d been selfish, and as such had no right to him any longer.
“I’m sorry,” they both said, at once.
And then they laughed. Shy, nervous laughter. Like they were just meeting for the first time, all over again.
He reached for her hand. She had forgotten how that felt, too. After expanding her awareness over such a vast space, it was lovely to allow it to contract to just this point, just this touch, just this heat. He squeezed. She squeezed back.
“Gross,” Xavier said, joining them on the plaform. “Hi, Mom.”
“Oh, be quiet,” Anza said, as she landed. “Let them have their moment.” She gave a little wave. “Hi, Mom.”
Amy stood, and held her arms open. Anza leapt down into them. She was so light. So light, and so strong, like a fine weapon should be. “Did I do a good job?” her little girl whispered.
“You did such a good job, my darling,” Amy said. “You are everything I hoped for, and more.”
Xavier came up to them and wrapped his arms around both of them. He was so much taller, now. No longer the little boy she had carried with her from a garbage dump to a diner to a prison transport truck. He and Anza beamed at each other. "Were you the one making her sleepwalk?" he asked.
"Yeah, it must have been you." Anza scowled. "You could have just told me, you know. I'm smart. I could have helped you."