That of course, ended my Friday excursion on a relatively somber note. Yes, I brought my point across, but on the other hand, I had to argue against two of the men I respected the most.
I understood where they came from, but unfortunately, the system they had grown accustomed to was unsustainable.
We had to balance the greed of the corporation with the need to make some profit off the work put into some invention.
Needless to say, I no longer had any intention of soaking in the atmosphere of the Abyss. The mood was done.
That of course meant that I had nothing to do for the rest of the day. I could have spent some time learning about energy technology, or maybe practice a bit on my instruments. Instead, I decided to use the afternoon to bond with Lady Nibbles.
By now the kitten had become a three-month-old young cat. Boisterous, aggressively playful, and oh so cuddly. Fortunately, she was often content to just roll up in my lap when I was in Cyberspace, but some playtime was always necessary. I was just happy that she had grown out of wanting to bite my fingers every given moment.
Nonetheless, an afternoon playing with my pet cheered me up considerably.
Saturday morning, when I looked over the low-priority messages from the night over the last cup of coffee of breakfast, I found something interesting.
Almost involuntarily, my gaze fell on Sarah Vaughn, who was joking around with her husband.
Yes, the scientists would remain here in New York for a few weeks longer, crossing the Ts and dotting the Is. Making sure that everything we had found out was as perfect as we could make it. I could even understand it.
For them, this, their participation here, was their legacy. Their contribution to the good of humanity, and their entry into the annals of history.
Sure, in 100, 1000, or more years, it would most likely be my name that would still be coming first in every record, every history book, in the documentaries, or wherever people got their history from.
But for me, even with what I had already achieved, my place in the history books was already ensured. Finding the key of life was only one of my accomplishments that would change the world.
And honestly, I hated it. Yes, I loved puzzling out the secrets of the universe, creating new things, and being at the forefront of science, but I could live without the fame coming with it and without anybody erecting any statues of me.
Especially as I, as a K4, had a decent chance of still being alive when they would build any statues.
Still, what we had achieved was probably a turning point in history, and I did not begrudge them their place in it.
Dr. Vaughn would, as it seemed, earn another spot in the history books though. And she noticed my intense gaze after a few moments.
“Uh… is something wrong?”
That shook me out of my musings, and I focused back on the here and now.
“Oh… sorry, I just got an interesting message. It seems that you got the nanites just in time. Or you would have had to wait another four weeks.”
It took her, and Charles, a few moments to understand, but it became obvious the moment they realized what I was saying.
Charles was the one, who with a breaking voice, stammered:
“You… you mean that… that Sarah is… that we are becoming parents?”
I shrugged.
“You know better than I that we can not yet talk about pregnancy. But there is a bundle of happily dividing cells slowly moving through her fallopian tube. So… let’s hope nothing goes wrong and it progresses to pregnancy.”
I was nearly deafened by the whoop he left out, while he jumped up and dragged his wife into an energetic hug, both of them jumping up and down in joy.
Mark, walking by, bringing his plate and cup to the sink looked at the couple, and asked into the room:
“What the fuck has happened to those two?”
“They passed the first critical hurdle of the Folly, and now are on the way to becoming parents.”
“What? For real? I thought you cracked the puzzle only two days ago.”
I shrugged.
“We did. As it seems they worked fast.” With those words, I drained the last of my coffee and cleared my utensils as well.
Mark looked at the still dancing scientists and then shrugged as well.
“Well then, gratulations I think?” And continued to the sink.
Honestly, sometimes I was a bit jealous of his simple view of the world. He did not care one bit about the implications but was just happy that we had a success.
On the other hand, I loved crawling into the underbelly of the universe way too much to be ever satisfied with his ‘it is as it is’-attitude.
The Vaughns had by now infected the Wakefields and the Mitchells with their need to jump around like madmen, but… in a way it was understandable.
I left them to their celebration and instead decided to practice playing the violin a bit more. No, I did not torture the Stradivarius with my amateur level of playing.
I instead used cyberspace to train on a virtual instrument, protecting the priceless artifact, and the hearing of everybody else.
It was a bit… frustrating. I had learned the piano like nothing. The guitar and the bass were no challenge for me, though in all cases, learning the intricacies was entertaining.
But the violin still sounded as if I was torturing Nibbles. Yes, I was getting better. Unfortunately, getting better was not yet to the point of tolerable, much less good. But I would not surrender. I wanted to be able to play the violin, and I would be able to play the violin. Even it would take me a hundred years.
It was during this practice session that doubled as torture, that I received a message from Danny McTavish.
She asked me if I had about half an hour for a meeting. To be honest, I agreed mostly to stop frustrating myself even further.
It helped that I was genuinely curious about what she might want from me. I mean, I had given her essentially everything we had found out about the key of life. She had access to all the raw data and the analysis that Warden had done on it.
She had the information on what inserting the key into a fertilized egg did. I could not think of anything else I could help her with.
But as I said, it was a good excuse to stop practicing.
I arrived at the address she had sent me, and the first thing she did was look all over my avatar.
“Ugh… seriously, do you have to wear that? Don’t you have anything better?”
I was seriously confused. Yes, I was not quite in formal wear, or even office wear. I mean, get real, it was Saturday, and as high up in the hierarchy as I was, I had most Saturdays free. And the simple casual clothing my avatar was clad in was just that. Simple and casual.
Only then did I realize that her Avatar was in what could be described as informal good clothes. Party wear, in other words.
“What… ? Why do I need something better?”
She shook her head but tipped the corner of her mouth with her index finger.
“No… this won’t do. And you need it for the meeting. What made you think to appear in this… grungy stuff?”
I shook my head confused.
“Meeting? Why don’t you simply tell me what you expect from me? I mean, this is a virtual avatar. It can look like anything.”
She sighed, crossed her arms impatiently, and then rolled her eyes while shaking her head.
“Ok, fine. Business casual, or garden party. Something like I am wearing.”
I rolled my eyes as well, but decided to humor her, and switched my avatar to some more classy clothes.
Business casual as she had said. Thinking that she would also object to my hair being more or less open, I switched to a simple braid here as well.
“Is that better?”
She harumphed but then gave in.
“Yeah, that is ok.”
“Good, then maybe you will now tell me what this is about?”
She grabbed my hand and dragged me out of the viron.
“You’ll see. By the way, you have a very good connection it seems. I can’t sense any lag.”
I sighed.
“I’ll see what? And of course. You do know about the Q-links that have been available for around four months now? I have less lag than most people in Seattle.”
She dragged me through the Seattle matrix, til we arrived in front of a nondescript matrix address.
Fortunately, that only took a moment, and so I had not yet begun complaining about her not answering me. Still, she dragged me into the viron, and we found ourselves in some sort of lounge.
Soft music was playing in the background, and seven people were present.
I was by now getting somewhat miffed at Danielle and her behavior.
And it was quite apparent that I was not supposed to be here anyway. I mean, yes I am bad at reading people, but this amount of disapproval is hard to miss. One of the women looked into the round, then rolled her eyes and sighed, before she made her way to Danielle and me.
“Hello Danny. I… well, not to be impolite or something… but you know this meeting is just for us, right?”
Danielle was clearly not fazed in the slightest.
“Hi Nads. And yes, I know. You can trust me, I know what I am doing.”
Nads became irritated, crossed her arms, and tapped impatiently with her left foot.
“Oh, is that so? So then you won’t have any problem telling me why you brought a stranger to a K4-only meeting? This meeting is just for us, where we don’t have to play dumb.” Her voice was now somewhat acerbic.
Not that Danielle was particularly impressed.
“I know that Nads… but, did you maybe look into the recovered data from Project Revitalize? About us K4?”
That shook Nads out of her cold stance, and a bit of confusion sparked over her face, only to be replaced by the same cold harshness from before.
“Changing the topic? No, I didn’t. But that does not change anything. So, would you mind answering my question?”
Danielle sounded amused.
“Oh, I am answering your question. You see when I did look up the data that was recovered, do you know what I found? There were not eleven of us in the first generation, but twelve. There are twelve functional K4. And when I then happened to be put in contact with Viv here… who is the missing number twelve, only a few days ago, I decided she needs to be here.”
That brought Nads, and the other six people, who I had concluded were all K4, to place their attention on me.
Nads still remained the speaker though, and with some serious distrust she addressed me:
“Is that so? Are you really a K4?”
Before I could answer, one of the men interrupted:
“And don’t think we won’t test it.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Yes, I am a K4. No, I did not want to be here, but Danielle here called me and as trusting as I am, I thought she wanted to talk about the data I have given her. Only for her to drag me here. So… if we are done then, can I please have my hand back?”
The last I spoke to Danielle, who still had my hand in a death grip. Not that it would hamper me in the slightest should I decide to break free. But we were not yet in the place for such uncourteous actions.
“So that you can just vanish? Forget it. You belong here, you need to be here, and you will be here.”
Nads’ eyes softened when she looked at me now.
“So… you are just another victim of Danny spontaneously deciding to throw a spanner in the works?”
I shrugged.
“It seems so. Now… from the very instructive conversation so far, I understand that this is the K4-meeting that Nathan Vandermeer instigated. But as I told him, I’m not really interested.”
I turned my attention back to Danielle.
“So… if you value the hand of that avatar, I would suggest you let go.”
“Or what? This is cyberspace. You can’t really hurt me.”
I sighed and used a tiny combat utility. Nothing harsh, just something that derezzed part of her avatar, removing her hand up to her shoulder.
“You should not assume that people you meet here are unable to do anything to you. That is… a dangerous notion.”
For a moment, Danielle just looked at her missing arm in shock.
“But… but… how did you do that? How is that even possible?”
I shrugged.
“That was just a tiny derezzer. And I used it on weak. Otherwise, your whole avatar would have been dematerialized. That is nothing more than a party trick. Some of the people running around here in cyberspace… if you treated them like me they might react with a nuclear strike on Seattle. Or simply fry your brain.”
For a moment there was fear in her eyes before it was replaced by stubbornness.
“Now you just want to frighten me. Nobody would just nuke a city like Seattle just for that.”
I sighed and looked her in the eye.
“That is exactly what happened in Hyderabad in 41. Some idiot angered a hacker, and the hacker reacted by using an Indian nuke on the city. Sure, the hacker in question did not survive that much longer, but other, less mass-destructive methods of showing displeasure are common.
Heck, there is even a utility out there that can lobotomize you through your jack.”
She threw her hand up. And the slowly regrowing stump of her other.
“Fine. I just wanted to get you to meet your people. Sheesh, no need to be so sensitive about it.”
I sighed.
“And if you had told me about I might have decided to come anyway. My point though was that I could have left you at any given moment. But that would have been impolite.”
Nads chuckled.
“Ok, yeah, that is the way to deal with Danny. She is… something of a freight train when she sets her mind to something. Well, then, if you are already here, and if we accept that you are a K4, something we can apparently quickly confirm, why don’t you stay for a bit? I am Nadia Versenkyov. Ph.D. in biology.”
One of the men spoke before I could answer.
“Well, if the data in Project Revitalize is correct, then you are Vivian DuClare? I am Tim Matthews. Ph.D. in chemistry.”
I frowned.
“Ok, yeah, I am Vivian DuClare. But is that Ph.D. in whatever really important? I mean, is anybody here who is not a Ph.D. or other kind of doctor?”
Nadine looked a bit embarrassed.
“Uhm… yeah, you are right, but… well we have so long been defined by that… it’s hard to let go.”
I shrugged.
“Ok, fine. Computer science and nanoengineering for me. Satisfied?”
“Oh… yes. Sorry, but it is…”
I waved her off.
“It doesn’t matter to me either way.”
One of the men spoke softly, mostly to himself into the awkward silence that followed.
“DuClare… DuClare. I know that name. Where do I have heard it before?”
While he spoke to himself, he was looking up to the ceiling, tapping his cheek with his right index finger.
“Oh, right! That was it. General Julian DuClare.”
He suddenly looked intensely at me.
“Are you any relation to him?”
Frick. I had hoped I had finally escaped that legacy. But there was no point in denying it.
“Yes. He was my father. Not that I ever met him, mind you.”
Another man turned towards the one who had asked after my father.
“Does it matter? So her father was a general… so what?”
“Oh, no it does not matter. But that name… he was that brigadier general that had been blamed for the loss of the 6th division, but it came out later that it was a Dalgon who fucked up.”
The other man frowned.
“Why the fuck did they blame this DuClare guy then?”
The first shrugged.
“There was something… but I can’t… I know that I know it, but I can’t just grasp it. Oh right, that was it.”
I cringed when he said that. Please don’t let him figure…
“He was married into one of the big families, and the Dalgons and the Knowles used that disaster to kick them… but…”
Oh frick, he was figuring it out…
“That’s it. He was married to… “ his eyes widened when he looked at me astonished.
“He was married to Rebecca Vandermeer! Fuck it, you are a Vandermeer?”
I sighed.
“I am a DuClare. Yes, my mother is Rebecca Vandermeer, but I don’t see myself as one of them.”
Danielle suddenly jerked a step to the side.
“Fuck it, you listened to my rant about the old man and it turns out he is your granddaddy? And you let me?”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
“When should I have been able to stop you? You were so in your tirade that saying anything would have made you explode. And as I said, he contributed to my genes, but I don’t see myself as a Vandermeer.”
Her voice became bitter.
“But you were happy to take the money, and the leg up in your education, weren’t you? You rich assholes are all the same.”
I raised my eyebrow.
“Do you know what happened to my mother after my father died, and was blamed for the fuckup of this asshole Dalgon-Smythe? The Dalgons and the Knowles put her in prison. While she was pregnant. Then they faked her death. Before I was born, mind you. For the next eight years, Nathan Vandermeer thought his daughter was dead, along with her unborn child, a.k.a. me.
Then Panacea used her to experiment with a new drug that would be addictive to Pures. Well, it works. It is insanely addictive, and it destroys most of the higher brain functions. But it’s ok, she is just a rich asshole, isn’t she?
But that meant that I spent the first five years of my life in a prison, where the handpicked guards made my life a living hell. After that, I was shoved into a welfare project. The worst school the Knowles could find. Cheapest replicator trash for food and clothing, cardboard beds, paper-thin walls, the whole works. I never had enough money to even feel comfortable.
But that’s ok, because I am a rich asshole, according to you. Guess what, yes, I am rich. I am insanely rich. Now! I have created my own fortune, with not a single centicred coming from Nathan Vandermeer. I met that man for the first time two months before I met you. So no, I did not get a leg up, preferential treatment, or any privilege.
The only privilege I had growing up was being a convenient target for the Knowles to vent their hate for my family.”
During my rant, I moved slowly closer and closer to Danielle, anger boiling inside me.
Just before I came into contact with her, some hands on my shoulders dragged me, softly, back.
“Hey, calm down. I don’t think she meant it. She’s always opening her mouthole before she engages the brain.”
Nadia spoke softly to me.
I closed my eyes again, counting slowly to ten.
“It’s ok. I am calm. Just keep away from that topic.”
The man who connected my name with Vandermeer looked puzzled.
“But… if you did not get any help from Vandermeer, how did you get rich?”
I rolled my eyes, though not alone, as several of the others did the same, and another of the women walked up to him and slapped him on the back of the head.
“Damn it, Harry, she just told us to keep away from that topic. Get your head out of your asshole sometimes.”
I waved her away.
“That’s ok. It is the idea that I owed anything to my family that makes me angry. And the answer is relatively simple. I am a nanoengineer. As far as I can tell, one of, if not the best. And I managed to stay away from the big corporations who suck up 99% of the profit.”
Harry was rubbing the back of his head but did not seem that satisfied with the answer.
“But… that can’t be that profitable.”
I snorted.
“Do you have any idea what a good 12th gen nanobot design is worth?”
He shrugged.
“No, not really, but it can’t be that much. A batch of nanobots costs what? Ȼ20? 30?”
I shook my head rolling my eyes.
“A batch, yes. And it costs the one making it Ȼ5 in raw materials and energy. For the common designs and use cases. That gives them Ȼ15 in profit. And they sell how many thousand a month? And now imagine you need something that the standard designs can’t do. You have to have somebody specially design those nanites for you.
And that will cost you around Ȼ500 million. Generic ones you get for Ȼ2 or 3 million, but you have to live with anybody who bought them using them. A good 8th gen nano-fab design sets you back another Ȼ500 million if you want it exclusive. If it is generic and basic, you can get the plans for Ȼ50k.
And considering that there are three corporations and three persons who sell the designs… well it is a seller’s market. My other leg is computer tech, and… well let’s say that I sold a few hundred specialized computer systems for around Ȼ2.5 million each. And a few other things.
And all that without Panacea or Dalgon putting nearly everything into their own pockets.”
They all just stood there with their mouths hanging open.
I sighed.
“Come on, you have to have known that the big corps exploited you and bled you dry. I bet each of you has made inventions that are worth as much. The only difference is that I got to keep that money, you didn’t.”
Harry, who Warden informed me was Harrison Bradley, Ph.D. in chemistry just shook his head.
“I think you overestimate our earning potential a bit. I mean, what do you think I could have earned freelance?”
That was actually the right one asking. I had to snort.
“You were the one who developed Abitriptan for Panacea, right?”
His eyes widened in surprise.
“Uh, yeah… how do you know that?”
“Ph.D. in computer science. I am good with computers. And the point is, Abitriptan made around Ȼ12 billion. For Panacea. How much did you get?”
He turned red.
“HOW MUCH?!? Panacea made how much? They told me it barely made back the development costs!”
I shrugged.
“And you believed them? Let me guess, you got a bonus of around Ȼ50k, right?”
“How… how did you know that?”
“That is what the Panacea dump suggests they use to pay their researchers when they try to make them believe that they are friendly. When in reality they exploit them to the bitter end.”
“But… but my contract…”
I shrugged.
“Do you really think they cared even a little bit about contracts? The Knowles owned this country. Law was what they decided it was. The judges ruled as the Knowles told them to rule. Contracts were only there to lull ‘stupid people’ into passivity. But lucky for you, the Knowles are no longer in power. You can sue, and you have a decent chance of getting your money.”
Danielle snarled:
“I told you, those up there are all assholes. You can’t trust any of them.”
I just shook my head but said nothing to that. The woman who slapped Harry though, who Warden identified as Roslynn Andrews, MD, lit into her as well.
“Get back on the ground, girl. We get it, you hate the rich. So what, does that mean that no rich person is doing anything good? Heck, did Vandermeer do anything to you? Other than allowing you to work on what you wanted to work on the whole time you slaved away for Panacea? Or giving you this jack and the implanted computer?
Face it, Vandermeer did what he could to keep the Commonwealth civilized. And you just heard what price he paid for it. His son-in-law dead and defamed. His daughter experimented on and with brain damage. And still, the first thing he did was put Revitalize back on track.”
Danielle glowered at her but then sighed.
“Yeah, you are right. But I hate that I can’t hate him.”
Roslynn slapped her lightly on the shoulder.
“We know. And still, you work for them.”
She shrugged.
“What else am I supposed to do, huh?”
“That depends on what you want to do. A good geneticist or genetic engineer can earn several Ȼ100k on the free market for each job. But you would have to do that on the side or leave Project Revitalize. Couldn’t use Vandermeer equipment either. So a bit of a startup cost here.”
Her eyes focused back on me.
“And you think Vandermeer will simply let me go? Just like that? Or will they keep their pet K4 where they can see them?”
I shrugged.
“I don’t know, are there any K4 who do not work for Vandermeer?”
Danny snarled but had no answer to that.
“Ok, fine. You are right. But…”
She stopped. After a few awkward seconds, another of the women, identified as Kelsey Gardenas, Ph.D. in Gravitics, even though she had to relearn virtually everything, asked me:
“But… if the Knowles had you that much under control, how did you stay away from Panacea? Or Dalgon?”
I sighed.
“Mostly because I am highborn. I… managed to sandbag them. Yes, they technically had the information that I am a K4, but the ones observing me did not. And the ones who did had no need to look for me.”
Kelsey frowned.
“Come on, you don’t really believe that bullshit myth that highborn are naturally smarter than us base born or the low born, do you?”
I had to snort.
“It has nothing to do with smartness. The idiots creating the Nephilim virus wanted to create a utopian society. That means that they upped the social instincts of their creation as high as they could. But they did not want to be controlled by it themselves, so they put in some markers that changed their social instincts by lowering them. Anybody who had a combination of those markers had the same lowered social instincts.
While the rank and mass of the Pure were nice and obedient, following social norms and were, in essence, sheep, those who shared the markers with the idiots were more… predatory. They tried various schemes to get ahead.
Those that were successful became the highborn, and those that failed became the lowborn. Simple as that.
And that is why my being high-born made the difference. I don’t think even Danny ever had the idea of going solo. It is just not done. Much less intentionally doing less than her best in the tests to divert any attention. I on the other hand had no such problems.
And honestly, the Dalgons prove that being high-born does not mean being smart. The Knowles are at least clever, but the Dalgons are simply rich and charismatic.”
Danny shouted:
“Ha, I knew it. All those up there are criminals…”
I rolled my eyes but did not correct her. She would learn, or not. But I would not waste any more energy in correcting her.
Luckily, she caught herself relatively quickly.
“Whatever. Where are Tams and Gordon?”
Nadia answered her:
“Tamara was held up in a meeting. She will come later. Gordon has something with his family that he said might run him late. And I see you did not ask about Jason.”
The last, she said with a grin, and Danielle scoffed.
“Oh please. Jason is always ‘fashionably’ late. There is no point in getting riled up about his antics.”
“How about the rest of you introduce themselves as well? I mean we can’t expect Vivian to just know you all.”
The ones who had not yet introduced themselves, namely Roslynn, Kelsey, a man named Owen Gaines, and one Warden IDed as Logan Spencer had the grace to blush.
Roslynn was the first to speak:
“Oh yeah, sorry. I am Rose Andrews, MD.”
“Yeah, sorry. I am Kelsey Gardenas, Ph.D. in gravitics.”
“Owen Gaines, mechanical engineering.”
“Logan Spencer, nano-engineering. Maybe we can compare notes sometimes.”
I smiled at him.
“Don’t you think Burgmeister will be a bit cross if you talk to the competition?”
His face was a bit stunned.
“Huh? How did you know that?”
I sighed.
“Computer science. Who do you think gave Vandermeer the Revitalize files back? I have a very powerful computer that helps me quite a bit. And identifying eleven people is not that hard.”
Rose frowned.
“So you did know who we all are?”
I shrugged.
“Partly. I know your full name but did not know that people call you Rose. And it is just polite to introduce oneself.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Ok, yeah. And thank you for not calling me Roslynn. I hate that name. It is so old-fashioned. Now let me just spawn another chair for you.”
She did just that, and the people started mingling a bit. From what I was seeing, this was just a social thing.
At some point, the missing Tamara Duncan, an electrical engineer, arrived, and we had the whole spiel about me being a K4 again, only to repeat it a second time when Gordon Diorgo, one of the two physicists among us K4 appeared.
That only left Jason Schuyler, the second physicist and the oldest of the K4. Before he made his big entrance, Nadia took me to the side and explained that Jason had some pathological need to be the alpha, to be seen as better than anybody else.
Oh joy, I could already see that we would have some clashes.
That of course, ended my Friday excursion on a relatively somber note. Yes, I brought my point across, but on the other hand, I had to argue against two of the men I respected the most.
I understood where they came from, but unfortunately, the system they had grown accustomed to was unsustainable.
We had to balance the greed of the corporation with the need to make some profit off the work put into some invention.
Needless to say, I no longer had any intention of soaking in the atmosphere of the Abyss. The mood was done.
That of course meant that I had nothing to do for the rest of the day. I could have spent some time learning about energy technology, or maybe practice a bit on my instruments. Instead, I decided to use the afternoon to bond with Lady Nibbles.
By now the kitten had become a three-month-old young cat. Boisterous, aggressively playful, and oh so cuddly. Fortunately, she was often content to just roll up in my lap when I was in Cyberspace, but some playtime was always necessary. I was just happy that she had grown out of wanting to bite my fingers every given moment.
Nonetheless, an afternoon playing with my pet cheered me up considerably.
Saturday morning, when I looked over the low-priority messages from the night over the last cup of coffee of breakfast, I found something interesting.
Almost involuntarily, my gaze fell on Sarah Vaughn, who was joking around with her husband.
Yes, the scientists would remain here in New York for a few weeks longer, crossing the Ts and dotting the Is. Making sure that everything we had found out was as perfect as we could make it. I could even understand it.
For them, this, their participation here, was their legacy. Their contribution to the good of humanity, and their entry into the annals of history.
Sure, in 100, 1000, or more years, it would most likely be my name that would still be coming first in every record, every history book, in the documentaries, or wherever people got their history from.
But for me, even with what I had already achieved, my place in the history books was already ensured. Finding the key of life was only one of my accomplishments that would change the world.
And honestly, I hated it. Yes, I loved puzzling out the secrets of the universe, creating new things, and being at the forefront of science, but I could live without the fame coming with it and without anybody erecting any statues of me.
Especially as I, as a K4, had a decent chance of still being alive when they would build any statues.
Still, what we had achieved was probably a turning point in history, and I did not begrudge them their place in it.
Dr. Vaughn would, as it seemed, earn another spot in the history books though. And she noticed my intense gaze after a few moments.
“Uh… is something wrong?”
That shook me out of my musings, and I focused back on the here and now.
“Oh… sorry, I just got an interesting message. It seems that you got the nanites just in time. Or you would have had to wait another four weeks.”
It took her, and Charles, a few moments to understand, but it became obvious the moment they realized what I was saying.
Charles was the one, who with a breaking voice, stammered:
“You… you mean that… that Sarah is… that we are becoming parents?”
I shrugged.
“You know better than I that we can not yet talk about pregnancy. But there is a bundle of happily dividing cells slowly moving through her fallopian tube. So… let’s hope nothing goes wrong and it progresses to pregnancy.”
I was nearly deafened by the whoop he left out, while he jumped up and dragged his wife into an energetic hug, both of them jumping up and down in joy.
Mark, walking by, bringing his plate and cup to the sink looked at the couple, and asked into the room:
“What the fuck has happened to those two?”
“They passed the first critical hurdle of the Folly, and now are on the way to becoming parents.”
“What? For real? I thought you cracked the puzzle only two days ago.”
I shrugged.
“We did. As it seems they worked fast.” With those words, I drained the last of my coffee and cleared my utensils as well.
Mark looked at the still dancing scientists and then shrugged as well.
“Well then, gratulations I think?” And continued to the sink.
Honestly, sometimes I was a bit jealous of his simple view of the world. He did not care one bit about the implications but was just happy that we had a success.
On the other hand, I loved crawling into the underbelly of the universe way too much to be ever satisfied with his ‘it is as it is’-attitude.
The Vaughns had by now infected the Wakefields and the Mitchells with their need to jump around like madmen, but… in a way it was understandable.
I left them to their celebration and instead decided to practice playing the violin a bit more. No, I did not torture the Stradivarius with my amateur level of playing.
I instead used cyberspace to train on a virtual instrument, protecting the priceless artifact, and the hearing of everybody else.
It was a bit… frustrating. I had learned the piano like nothing. The guitar and the bass were no challenge for me, though in all cases, learning the intricacies was entertaining.
But the violin still sounded as if I was torturing Nibbles. Yes, I was getting better. Unfortunately, getting better was not yet to the point of tolerable, much less good. But I would not surrender. I wanted to be able to play the violin, and I would be able to play the violin. Even it would take me a hundred years.
It was during this practice session that doubled as torture, that I received a message from Danny McTavish.
She asked me if I had about half an hour for a meeting. To be honest, I agreed mostly to stop frustrating myself even further.
It helped that I was genuinely curious about what she might want from me. I mean, I had given her essentially everything we had found out about the key of life. She had access to all the raw data and the analysis that Warden had done on it.
She had the information on what inserting the key into a fertilized egg did. I could not think of anything else I could help her with.
But as I said, it was a good excuse to stop practicing.
I arrived at the address she had sent me, and the first thing she did was look all over my avatar.
“Ugh… seriously, do you have to wear that? Don’t you have anything better?”
I was seriously confused. Yes, I was not quite in formal wear, or even office wear. I mean, get real, it was Saturday, and as high up in the hierarchy as I was, I had most Saturdays free. And the simple casual clothing my avatar was clad in was just that. Simple and casual.
Only then did I realize that her Avatar was in what could be described as informal good clothes. Party wear, in other words.
“What… ? Why do I need something better?”
She shook her head but tipped the corner of her mouth with her index finger.
“No… this won’t do. And you need it for the meeting. What made you think to appear in this… grungy stuff?”
I shook my head confused.
“Meeting? Why don’t you simply tell me what you expect from me? I mean, this is a virtual avatar. It can look like anything.”
She sighed, crossed her arms impatiently, and then rolled her eyes while shaking her head.
“Ok, fine. Business casual, or garden party. Something like I am wearing.”
I rolled my eyes as well, but decided to humor her, and switched my avatar to some more classy clothes.
Business casual as she had said. Thinking that she would also object to my hair being more or less open, I switched to a simple braid here as well.
“Is that better?”
She harumphed but then gave in.
“Yeah, that is ok.”
“Good, then maybe you will now tell me what this is about?”
She grabbed my hand and dragged me out of the viron.
“You’ll see. By the way, you have a very good connection it seems. I can’t sense any lag.”
I sighed.
“I’ll see what? And of course. You do know about the Q-links that have been available for around four months now? I have less lag than most people in Seattle.”
She dragged me through the Seattle matrix, til we arrived in front of a nondescript matrix address.
Fortunately, that only took a moment, and so I had not yet begun complaining about her not answering me. Still, she dragged me into the viron, and we found ourselves in some sort of lounge.
Soft music was playing in the background, and seven people were present.
I was by now getting somewhat miffed at Danielle and her behavior.
And it was quite apparent that I was not supposed to be here anyway. I mean, yes I am bad at reading people, but this amount of disapproval is hard to miss. One of the women looked into the round, then rolled her eyes and sighed, before she made her way to Danielle and me.
“Hello Danny. I… well, not to be impolite or something… but you know this meeting is just for us, right?”
Danielle was clearly not fazed in the slightest.
“Hi Nads. And yes, I know. You can trust me, I know what I am doing.”
Nads became irritated, crossed her arms, and tapped impatiently with her left foot.
“Oh, is that so? So then you won’t have any problem telling me why you brought a stranger to a K4-only meeting? This meeting is just for us, where we don’t have to play dumb.” Her voice was now somewhat acerbic.
Not that Danielle was particularly impressed.
“I know that Nads… but, did you maybe look into the recovered data from Project Revitalize? About us K4?”
That shook Nads out of her cold stance, and a bit of confusion sparked over her face, only to be replaced by the same cold harshness from before.
“Changing the topic? No, I didn’t. But that does not change anything. So, would you mind answering my question?”
Danielle sounded amused.
“Oh, I am answering your question. You see when I did look up the data that was recovered, do you know what I found? There were not eleven of us in the first generation, but twelve. There are twelve functional K4. And when I then happened to be put in contact with Viv here… who is the missing number twelve, only a few days ago, I decided she needs to be here.”
That brought Nads, and the other six people, who I had concluded were all K4, to place their attention on me.
Nads still remained the speaker though, and with some serious distrust she addressed me:
“Is that so? Are you really a K4?”
Before I could answer, one of the men interrupted:
“And don’t think we won’t test it.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Yes, I am a K4. No, I did not want to be here, but Danielle here called me and as trusting as I am, I thought she wanted to talk about the data I have given her. Only for her to drag me here. So… if we are done then, can I please have my hand back?”
The last I spoke to Danielle, who still had my hand in a death grip. Not that it would hamper me in the slightest should I decide to break free. But we were not yet in the place for such uncourteous actions.
“So that you can just vanish? Forget it. You belong here, you need to be here, and you will be here.”
Nads’ eyes softened when she looked at me now.
“So… you are just another victim of Danny spontaneously deciding to throw a spanner in the works?”
I shrugged.
“It seems so. Now… from the very instructive conversation so far, I understand that this is the K4-meeting that Nathan Vandermeer instigated. But as I told him, I’m not really interested.”
I turned my attention back to Danielle.
“So… if you value the hand of that avatar, I would suggest you let go.”
“Or what? This is cyberspace. You can’t really hurt me.”
I sighed and used a tiny combat utility. Nothing harsh, just something that derezzed part of her avatar, removing her hand up to her shoulder.
“You should not assume that people you meet here are unable to do anything to you. That is… a dangerous notion.”
For a moment, Danielle just looked at her missing arm in shock.
“But… but… how did you do that? How is that even possible?”
I shrugged.
“That was just a tiny derezzer. And I used it on weak. Otherwise, your whole avatar would have been dematerialized. That is nothing more than a party trick. Some of the people running around here in cyberspace… if you treated them like me they might react with a nuclear strike on Seattle. Or simply fry your brain.”
For a moment there was fear in her eyes before it was replaced by stubbornness.
“Now you just want to frighten me. Nobody would just nuke a city like Seattle just for that.”
I sighed and looked her in the eye.
“That is exactly what happened in Hyderabad in 41. Some idiot angered a hacker, and the hacker reacted by using an Indian nuke on the city. Sure, the hacker in question did not survive that much longer, but other, less mass-destructive methods of showing displeasure are common.
Heck, there is even a utility out there that can lobotomize you through your jack.”
She threw her hand up. And the slowly regrowing stump of her other.
“Fine. I just wanted to get you to meet your people. Sheesh, no need to be so sensitive about it.”
I sighed.
“And if you had told me about I might have decided to come anyway. My point though was that I could have left you at any given moment. But that would have been impolite.”
Nads chuckled.
“Ok, yeah, that is the way to deal with Danny. She is… something of a freight train when she sets her mind to something. Well, then, if you are already here, and if we accept that you are a K4, something we can apparently quickly confirm, why don’t you stay for a bit? I am Nadia Versenkyov. Ph.D. in biology.”
One of the men spoke before I could answer.
“Well, if the data in Project Revitalize is correct, then you are Vivian DuClare? I am Tim Matthews. Ph.D. in chemistry.”
I frowned.
“Ok, yeah, I am Vivian DuClare. But is that Ph.D. in whatever really important? I mean, is anybody here who is not a Ph.D. or other kind of doctor?”
Nadine looked a bit embarrassed.
“Uhm… yeah, you are right, but… well we have so long been defined by that… it’s hard to let go.”
I shrugged.
“Ok, fine. Computer science and nanoengineering for me. Satisfied?”
“Oh… yes. Sorry, but it is…”
I waved her off.
“It doesn’t matter to me either way.”
One of the men spoke softly, mostly to himself into the awkward silence that followed.
“DuClare… DuClare. I know that name. Where do I have heard it before?”
While he spoke to himself, he was looking up to the ceiling, tapping his cheek with his right index finger.
“Oh, right! That was it. General Julian DuClare.”
He suddenly looked intensely at me.
“Are you any relation to him?”
Frick. I had hoped I had finally escaped that legacy. But there was no point in denying it.
“Yes. He was my father. Not that I ever met him, mind you.”
Another man turned towards the one who had asked after my father.
“Does it matter? So her father was a general… so what?”
“Oh, no it does not matter. But that name… he was that brigadier general that had been blamed for the loss of the 6th division, but it came out later that it was a Dalgon who fucked up.”
The other man frowned.
“Why the fuck did they blame this DuClare guy then?”
The first shrugged.
“There was something… but I can’t… I know that I know it, but I can’t just grasp it. Oh right, that was it.”
I cringed when he said that. Please don’t let him figure…
“He was married into one of the big families, and the Dalgons and the Knowles used that disaster to kick them… but…”
Oh frick, he was figuring it out…
“That’s it. He was married to… “ his eyes widened when he looked at me astonished.
“He was married to Rebecca Vandermeer! Fuck it, you are a Vandermeer?”
I sighed.
“I am a DuClare. Yes, my mother is Rebecca Vandermeer, but I don’t see myself as one of them.”
Danielle suddenly jerked a step to the side.
“Fuck it, you listened to my rant about the old man and it turns out he is your granddaddy? And you let me?”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
“When should I have been able to stop you? You were so in your tirade that saying anything would have made you explode. And as I said, he contributed to my genes, but I don’t see myself as a Vandermeer.”
Her voice became bitter.
“But you were happy to take the money, and the leg up in your education, weren’t you? You rich assholes are all the same.”
I raised my eyebrow.
“Do you know what happened to my mother after my father died, and was blamed for the fuckup of this asshole Dalgon-Smythe? The Dalgons and the Knowles put her in prison. While she was pregnant. Then they faked her death. Before I was born, mind you. For the next eight years, Nathan Vandermeer thought his daughter was dead, along with her unborn child, a.k.a. me.
Then Panacea used her to experiment with a new drug that would be addictive to Pures. Well, it works. It is insanely addictive, and it destroys most of the higher brain functions. But it’s ok, she is just a rich asshole, isn’t she?
But that meant that I spent the first five years of my life in a prison, where the handpicked guards made my life a living hell. After that, I was shoved into a welfare project. The worst school the Knowles could find. Cheapest replicator trash for food and clothing, cardboard beds, paper-thin walls, the whole works. I never had enough money to even feel comfortable.
But that’s ok, because I am a rich asshole, according to you. Guess what, yes, I am rich. I am insanely rich. Now! I have created my own fortune, with not a single centicred coming from Nathan Vandermeer. I met that man for the first time two months before I met you. So no, I did not get a leg up, preferential treatment, or any privilege.
The only privilege I had growing up was being a convenient target for the Knowles to vent their hate for my family.”
During my rant, I moved slowly closer and closer to Danielle, anger boiling inside me.
Just before I came into contact with her, some hands on my shoulders dragged me, softly, back.
“Hey, calm down. I don’t think she meant it. She’s always opening her mouthole before she engages the brain.”
Nadia spoke softly to me.
I closed my eyes again, counting slowly to ten.
“It’s ok. I am calm. Just keep away from that topic.”
The man who connected my name with Vandermeer looked puzzled.
“But… if you did not get any help from Vandermeer, how did you get rich?”
I rolled my eyes, though not alone, as several of the others did the same, and another of the women walked up to him and slapped him on the back of the head.
“Damn it, Harry, she just told us to keep away from that topic. Get your head out of your asshole sometimes.”
I waved her away.
“That’s ok. It is the idea that I owed anything to my family that makes me angry. And the answer is relatively simple. I am a nanoengineer. As far as I can tell, one of, if not the best. And I managed to stay away from the big corporations who suck up 99% of the profit.”
Harry was rubbing the back of his head but did not seem that satisfied with the answer.
“But… that can’t be that profitable.”
I snorted.
“Do you have any idea what a good 12th gen nanobot design is worth?”
He shrugged.
“No, not really, but it can’t be that much. A batch of nanobots costs what? Ȼ20? 30?”
I shook my head rolling my eyes.
“A batch, yes. And it costs the one making it Ȼ5 in raw materials and energy. For the common designs and use cases. That gives them Ȼ15 in profit. And they sell how many thousand a month? And now imagine you need something that the standard designs can’t do. You have to have somebody specially design those nanites for you.
And that will cost you around Ȼ500 million. Generic ones you get for Ȼ2 or 3 million, but you have to live with anybody who bought them using them. A good 8th gen nano-fab design sets you back another Ȼ500 million if you want it exclusive. If it is generic and basic, you can get the plans for Ȼ50k.
And considering that there are three corporations and three persons who sell the designs… well it is a seller’s market. My other leg is computer tech, and… well let’s say that I sold a few hundred specialized computer systems for around Ȼ2.5 million each. And a few other things.
And all that without Panacea or Dalgon putting nearly everything into their own pockets.”
They all just stood there with their mouths hanging open.
I sighed.
“Come on, you have to have known that the big corps exploited you and bled you dry. I bet each of you has made inventions that are worth as much. The only difference is that I got to keep that money, you didn’t.”
Harry, who Warden informed me was Harrison Bradley, Ph.D. in chemistry just shook his head.
“I think you overestimate our earning potential a bit. I mean, what do you think I could have earned freelance?”
That was actually the right one asking. I had to snort.
“You were the one who developed Abitriptan for Panacea, right?”
His eyes widened in surprise.
“Uh, yeah… how do you know that?”
“Ph.D. in computer science. I am good with computers. And the point is, Abitriptan made around Ȼ12 billion. For Panacea. How much did you get?”
He turned red.
“HOW MUCH?!? Panacea made how much? They told me it barely made back the development costs!”
I shrugged.
“And you believed them? Let me guess, you got a bonus of around Ȼ50k, right?”
“How… how did you know that?”
“That is what the Panacea dump suggests they use to pay their researchers when they try to make them believe that they are friendly. When in reality they exploit them to the bitter end.”
“But… but my contract…”
I shrugged.
“Do you really think they cared even a little bit about contracts? The Knowles owned this country. Law was what they decided it was. The judges ruled as the Knowles told them to rule. Contracts were only there to lull ‘stupid people’ into passivity. But lucky for you, the Knowles are no longer in power. You can sue, and you have a decent chance of getting your money.”
Danielle snarled:
“I told you, those up there are all assholes. You can’t trust any of them.”
I just shook my head but said nothing to that. The woman who slapped Harry though, who Warden identified as Roslynn Andrews, MD, lit into her as well.
“Get back on the ground, girl. We get it, you hate the rich. So what, does that mean that no rich person is doing anything good? Heck, did Vandermeer do anything to you? Other than allowing you to work on what you wanted to work on the whole time you slaved away for Panacea? Or giving you this jack and the implanted computer?
Face it, Vandermeer did what he could to keep the Commonwealth civilized. And you just heard what price he paid for it. His son-in-law dead and defamed. His daughter experimented on and with brain damage. And still, the first thing he did was put Revitalize back on track.”
Danielle glowered at her but then sighed.
“Yeah, you are right. But I hate that I can’t hate him.”
Roslynn slapped her lightly on the shoulder.
“We know. And still, you work for them.”
She shrugged.
“What else am I supposed to do, huh?”
“That depends on what you want to do. A good geneticist or genetic engineer can earn several Ȼ100k on the free market for each job. But you would have to do that on the side or leave Project Revitalize. Couldn’t use Vandermeer equipment either. So a bit of a startup cost here.”
Her eyes focused back on me.
“And you think Vandermeer will simply let me go? Just like that? Or will they keep their pet K4 where they can see them?”
I shrugged.
“I don’t know, are there any K4 who do not work for Vandermeer?”
Danny snarled but had no answer to that.
“Ok, fine. You are right. But…”
She stopped. After a few awkward seconds, another of the women, identified as Kelsey Gardenas, Ph.D. in Gravitics, even though she had to relearn virtually everything, asked me:
“But… if the Knowles had you that much under control, how did you stay away from Panacea? Or Dalgon?”
I sighed.
“Mostly because I am highborn. I… managed to sandbag them. Yes, they technically had the information that I am a K4, but the ones observing me did not. And the ones who did had no need to look for me.”
Kelsey frowned.
“Come on, you don’t really believe that bullshit myth that highborn are naturally smarter than us base born or the low born, do you?”
I had to snort.
“It has nothing to do with smartness. The idiots creating the Nephilim virus wanted to create a utopian society. That means that they upped the social instincts of their creation as high as they could. But they did not want to be controlled by it themselves, so they put in some markers that changed their social instincts by lowering them. Anybody who had a combination of those markers had the same lowered social instincts.
While the rank and mass of the Pure were nice and obedient, following social norms and were, in essence, sheep, those who shared the markers with the idiots were more… predatory. They tried various schemes to get ahead.
Those that were successful became the highborn, and those that failed became the lowborn. Simple as that.
And that is why my being high-born made the difference. I don’t think even Danny ever had the idea of going solo. It is just not done. Much less intentionally doing less than her best in the tests to divert any attention. I on the other hand had no such problems.
And honestly, the Dalgons prove that being high-born does not mean being smart. The Knowles are at least clever, but the Dalgons are simply rich and charismatic.”
Danny shouted:
“Ha, I knew it. All those up there are criminals…”
I rolled my eyes but did not correct her. She would learn, or not. But I would not waste any more energy in correcting her.
Luckily, she caught herself relatively quickly.
“Whatever. Where are Tams and Gordon?”
Nadia answered her:
“Tamara was held up in a meeting. She will come later. Gordon has something with his family that he said might run him late. And I see you did not ask about Jason.”
The last, she said with a grin, and Danielle scoffed.
“Oh please. Jason is always ‘fashionably’ late. There is no point in getting riled up about his antics.”
“How about the rest of you introduce themselves as well? I mean we can’t expect Vivian to just know you all.”
The ones who had not yet introduced themselves, namely Roslynn, Kelsey, a man named Owen Gaines, and one Warden IDed as Logan Spencer had the grace to blush.
Roslynn was the first to speak:
“Oh yeah, sorry. I am Rose Andrews, MD.”
“Yeah, sorry. I am Kelsey Gardenas, Ph.D. in gravitics.”
“Owen Gaines, mechanical engineering.”
“Logan Spencer, nano-engineering. Maybe we can compare notes sometimes.”
I smiled at him.
“Don’t you think Burgmeister will be a bit cross if you talk to the competition?”
His face was a bit stunned.
“Huh? How did you know that?”
I sighed.
“Computer science. Who do you think gave Vandermeer the Revitalize files back? I have a very powerful computer that helps me quite a bit. And identifying eleven people is not that hard.”
Rose frowned.
“So you did know who we all are?”
I shrugged.
“Partly. I know your full name but did not know that people call you Rose. And it is just polite to introduce oneself.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Ok, yeah. And thank you for not calling me Roslynn. I hate that name. It is so old-fashioned. Now let me just spawn another chair for you.”
She did just that, and the people started mingling a bit. From what I was seeing, this was just a social thing.
At some point, the missing Tamara Duncan, an electrical engineer, arrived, and we had the whole spiel about me being a K4 again, only to repeat it a second time when Gordon Diorgo, one of the two physicists among us K4 appeared.
That only left Jason Schuyler, the second physicist and the oldest of the K4. Before he made his big entrance, Nadia took me to the side and explained that Jason had some pathological need to be the alpha, to be seen as better than anybody else.
Oh joy, I could already see that we would have some clashes.
