The Last Dancer | Page 9

I learned...that I disliked labels, or perhaps that the labels that exist are insufficient. If there's a word for what I am, I have not learned it."
Robert smiled; the smooth skin relaxed into laugh wrinkles. "If they made a word for it, you would become something else, and still the word would not fit. I am Robert, who does such and such a thing, or I am Denice, who does such and such a thing. This is closer, and even it is not accurate."
Denice said softly, "I missed you."
He nodded seriously. "Naturally."
"I've been feeling the need to talk to you recently."
The laugh wrinkles around his eyes deepened slightly. "Yes."
"It's just that I've been having a bad year."
He shrugged. "It happens. Stand up."
Denice unfolded out of lotus, came to her full height, and stood looking down at the small man.
"Turn in a full circle."
She did so, and he watched her move inside the yellow sundress; the smile broke across his face again. He came to his feet in a single fluid movement. "You've been practicing."
"I have."
"You're in even better condition than you were."
"I am."
"Want a job?"
"I need one."
"I'll fire the morning instructor, I've never liked him anyway."
Denice shook her head. "I'm sorry. That's not what I've had in mind."
The last letter from Trent was a year old. Denice knew it by heart, had felt the impatience in it as though Trent had been there in the room with her.
So join me. Or stay on Earth if you won't join me. I know things aren't good downside, and I know it's getting worse, and it's probably going to keep getting worse before it gets any better.
But if you don't do anything, you have no right to be angry.
Damn it, make the effort.
Make the commitment to make a difference.
And grow up.
Robert looked at her quizzically. "What would you like to do?"
Denice Castanaveras said quietly, firmly, "I would like to work in politics."
Robert snorted. "Well, it's your soul."
She slept in Robert's spare room.
The building was near two centuries old; built not long after the American Centennial. It was mostly what webdancers called dead space; most of the rooms in the building lacked access to the Net. Late that night, when Ralf the Wise and Powerful came to visit her, he did so through the limited radio packet bandwidth available on her handheld.
Denice did not need much sleep, four to five hours usually, and she got by with less. At 2 a.m. on Sunday morning, as she lay in bed reading one of Robert's prized paper books, the laser on her handheld lit, and a holoform appeared at the foot of her bed. The voice of the AI who had once been the Image of Trent the Uncatchable issued from the speaker in the handheld. "Hello, Denice."
Denice put the book down on the small table at the bedside and sat up in bed, drawing the covers up around her shoulders to keep herself warm against the slight chill. "Hello, Ralf. What have you found?"
Denice did not need much light to audit black text on white paper; she had dimmed the ceiling glowpaint considerably. Ralf's image illuminated its surroundings indistinctly, competing with the gentle glowpaint. He wavered at the edges, in the seeming of a man of indeterminate age, wearing dark, flowing robes. His slightly ascetic features were vaguely reminiscent of Trent's, of the man who had written the code that had become Ralf. Denice did not know, and had never seen reason to ask, if the image Ralf presented to the world was in any sense the way Ralf saw himself, or if, more likely, it was simply a useful representation when dealing with humans.
In the case of a true replicant AI, it would certainly have been the latter. But Ralf the Wise and Powerful was, to Denice's knowledge, unique; once merely Image, Ralf the Wise and Powerful had been made replicant by the touch of an AI named Ring. Unlike most replicant AIs, Ralf contained significant quantities of representational code, code designed by Trent in the days when Ralf had acted as his face to the Net.
It made Ralf, Denice thought, seem rather more human than most AIs.
"Nothing new," said Ralf quietly. "As you are probably aware, Douglass Ripper did not use his Electronic Times interview today to announce that he will run for the position of Secretary General; nonetheless that announcement remains a high order of probability through the next several weeks. One new datum; Ripper's infosecurity is good, but I have typed the code he uses for radio packet communications. Yesterday he took a call on his handheld as he left his limousine. Briefly, he did release one member of his personal bodyguard this Tuesday last."
"One of the people Robert trained for him?"
Ralf shook his head. "No."
"Good."
"Yes." Ralf paused, then volunteered, "I