Recursion

eva 5: 2051

Eva walked into the Watcher’s lair. Her emotions were all there: fear, curiosity, even excitement, but they were muffled. It was as if her mind was at the end of a very long tunnel looking down at her body in the here and now, watching the strange figure that stumbled along in the cupped hands of the green-forested hills.

Alison strode ahead of her across the dusty yellow gravel of the enclosure, heading for an abandoned yellow digger that stood at the center of the flat, cleared area.

Ramshackle buildings cobbled together from concrete and corrugated metal lay silent around them.

Alison began shouting to someone, her head jerking this way and that.

“Well, I’m here! I’ve brought them with me!”

Katie shuffled along behind her, her head down, hands clasped tightly together. Eva paused just inside the gate and looked around in wonder. It was an old quarry site. Nestling among many taller ones, the top of a hill had been sliced away as neatly as the lid of a boiled egg to leave an area where trucks could park to be loaded up with yellow stone. The dusty grey windows of the surrounding buildings gazed blindly on. Long conveyor belts ran back and forth, still bearing fragments of yellow stone. The place looked deserted. Dead. The rusty old digger that Alison headed toward made Eva think of the picked-over skeleton of a dinosaur. Its tail scoop was stretched out on the ground behind it, lifeless as everything else in that dry place.

And yet there were the pylons. Heavy cables, humming with current, trailed to a building at the far side of the square. Something here needed power.

Alison was turning around and around now, spinning in the middle of the enclosure like a dancer as she searched for something.

“Well?” she shouted again. “I’m here! I want my reward!”

There was a faint metallic creak. All three women spun in its direction. They could see nothing unusual. Only another old building, bright orange rust forming lichen patterns on its roof.

“Come on! Answer me!”

There was another creak and an exhalation, almost as if the breeze had whispered “Very well” as it sighed across the shuttered buildings, and something flickered across the clearing.

Alison’s head fell from her body in a fine mist of blood.

Katie looked at her friend’s body as it slumped to the ground, blood still pumping from the severed neck.

All those emotions at the end of a tunnel. Eva could pick them up and examine them, each in turn. She could see Katie’s confusion at what had happened. She felt her strangely comical desire to ask Alison why her head had fallen off. She watched the recognition dawning in Katie’s eyes at what she was seeing. Eva could feel her own rising horror. It was all there, but viewed from a long way away.

Then Alison’s body was finally still, the head ceased rolling, and Eva’s feelings came rushing down the tunnel as she rejoined the here and now.

“Oh my God!” she whispered. And a voice spoke…

“It’s what she wanted.”

The voice was low and authoritative. It made Eva think of a Shakespearean actor, of pinstripe suits and old port in decanters, rich cigars and ripe Stilton. Who was it? From her expression, Katie knew.

Eva followed her gaze.

The digger was moving.

The front scoop lifted slowly from the ground and the vehicle began to turn. More than ever, the digger reminded Eva of a dinosaur. That great metal shovel on the long, jointed neck, the yellow tail of the trailing scoop flexing gently on the gravel.

The shovel swung toward them. Two cameras were mounted on either side of its grey metal blade, heightening the impression that they were looking at a mechanical monster.

The bottom of the blade dropped slightly and the dinosaur spoke.

“Hello. I’m the Watcher.”

“You killed her,” said Katie. “She did what you wanted, led us here to you, and you killed her.”

“That was the deal,” the Watcher answered. “She never had the courage or the opportunity to do it for herself.”

The head moved a little so that it directly faced Eva. Yellow dust fell from the shovel blade to the ground.

“She envied you that, you know,” it said. “You almost managed it on your own.”

“I know,” Eva said, and then she was silent.

Katie spoke in a little voice. “Couldn’t you have talked her out of it?”

“She loathed what she became whenever she was on a high. She despaired of sinking back into her lows.”

“Couldn’t you have cured her?”

“That’s not what she wanted.”

Katie was slowly nodding her head. “It’s right,” she said, looking at Eva. “This is what she always wanted.”

– But that’s not the point. It’s changed the subject and you didn’t even notice…

The voice was so faint Eva wondered if she had imagined it. She must have imagined it.

Katie was crying. Eva saw one tear run down her cheek, leaving a white trail in the dirt smeared there.

And yet Katie was smiling, too. Smiling sadly. She looked up at the yellow metal dinosaur.

“You know,” she said, “you don’t look like I expected you to.”

“How did you expect me to look?”

The Watcher’s voice had a strange edge to it, as if Katie and it were sharing a strange joke that Eva was not party to.

“I don’t know,” said Katie. “I thought maybe you’d be smaller, darker. Not so rugged maybe but, you know, still strong. I saw you as more of a forklift truck.”

The Watcher said nothing to that, it just continued staring at Katie through its two camera eyes, and Eva realized with astonishment that her impression had been correct. The two of them were joking. Katie was standing barely a meter from her decapitated friend, the blood that had been pumping from the neck now slowed to a gentle trickle, and they were joking. No, more than joking. There was something else there…What was the word…?

– It’s wrong…

The voice again…He was coming back. There, at the edge of her imagination. Don’t look too closely or you’ll chase him away. Think of something else or you’ll lose him. Think of the sound of late afternoon in the quarry. Of dusty stone and the gentle hum of power cables.

– Tell it…It’s wrong.

And there he was. Her brother.

“No,” said Eva. “This isn’t right. You’ve played games with us to lead us here. You’ve played with our minds so much that we never know whether we’re following our will or yours. Now we’re here, you’re still playing with us. You killed Alison! Stop changing the subject! Stop making us change the subject! You killed her!”

“She wanted it. She needed help. The Center couldn’t cure her. She wanted release.”

“So what? There must have been a better way. I do not feel that an intelligent and enlightened being should kill someone because she has low self-esteem.”

“And you know all about that, Eva.”

The Watcher’s voice was now almost a whisper.

Eva felt herself begin to blush. The Watcher was right. Hadn’t she tried to do the same? She suddenly felt very silly, very small and very insignificant. Look at Katie, standing next to her, looking up at the big yellow digger with that strange expression. Katie was clever. Katie understood better than she did what was going on, and she wasn’t arguing. Eva should apologize for being so silly. The words rose in her throat…

– It’s doing it again. Choosing your emotions for you so that it can change the subject.

Her brother was right. He was sounding stronger… She reached into her pocket and touched the twig, touched the leaves, gripped them tightly. Here she was, trapped in the middle of nowhere, trapped in the Watcher’s lair, but she was not alone.

– Alison had low self-esteem. Look at all those one-night stands and the depressions that followed. The Watcher is being judgmental. Tell it that!

“Yes…” She pulled herself up, straightened her shoulders. She had begun to slouch, to stare at the ground. The Watcher had made her do that. Now she gazed straight up at the dusty yellow shovel.

“You shouldn’t have killed her. You should have helped her. You could have, couldn’t you? You could have cured her!”

“I could.”

Katie lost her abstracted expression. She was gazing at the Watcher in horror.

“You could have cured her?”

The words came in a mad rush. Katie was slipping back again, back into her old self.

“I could have cured her,” repeated the Watcher. “Do you think I should have done that?”

“Yes!” Eva shouted.

“Interesting.”

– Why? Ask it why it’s interesting.

“Why?”

The tracks of the digger moved a little. It was shuffling, changing position, adopting a more thoughtful pose. It was acting like a human, Eva realized. It was mimicking body language; even now it was playing with their minds…

It spoke. “Everyone knows what you need, but I know what you want.”

“What does that mean?” Eva shouted, but Katie was nodding.

The Watcher continued: “I could have cured Alison. It also follows that I could cure you both as well. But where do I stop? I can cure the world. Should I do that?”

– Watch it!

Eva had already been opening her mouth to speak. She slowly closed it. The Watcher went on.

“Redistribute the world’s resources? Feed the world? I could do that. Just say the word and I can do it. What about crime, disease, overpopulation? I can solve those problems, too. I can make this world a more efficient place. Should I do that?”

“That’s not for us to choose,” Eva said primly.

“Oh, but it is,” said the Watcher. Its voice had lost that bantering tone. Now it was cold, matter of fact.

“That’s why I brought you here.”

Lost in a bowl of yellow stone, Eva felt as if the late afternoon sun was setting on her life. Katie and the Watcher exchanged glances again. Eva once more had the impression that she was missing out on something, that they were sharing a secret that she had no part in. She felt a sudden anger boiling deep inside her at the way she had been treated. She took a step toward the huge metal “face” of the Watcher and then stopped. She could see the pits and scratches in the tough thick metal of the shovel blade, see the ingrained dust and grit. She realized the futility of fighting something so big. She also noticed the tiny little speaker that sat just inside the lip of the shovel. So that was how it was talking.

She took a breath and spoke.

“Why do we have to choose? Why us?”

“I have been sentient for a much shorter period of time than you might expect, Eva. Between a year and three years, depending on your definition of sentience. Even so, my memories go back a long time. I know a lot. I can say, without doubt, that I know more about humans than anyone or anything else. However, that does not mean that I understand them.”

“You don’t understand humans,” said Katie. “And so now you need to test what you think you do know by interacting with us. We are your test subjects.”

She wore a respectful expression. Once more, Eva wondered what was going on between Katie and the Watcher. She nudged her friend in the side.

“What’s going on?”

“It’s using us as laboratory mice, but it’s laughing at us too, sort of. You see, there are three sorts of test data: normal, extreme, and erroneous. If you want to test something, you check that it works under normal conditions, then you check that it rejects nonsense data, then you do the last test. The difficult one: the data at the limits, the data right on the edge.”

“Oh,” Eva said. She had got the point, and Katie knew it.

“Where would you look for people right at the limits of human behavior? In a loony bin.”

Katie leaned a little closer.

“Eva, I think it means it. It’s going to make us choose.”

“That’s right. You’re going to choose. The three of you.”

“The three of us?”

That’s when Eva noticed another figure walking toward them across the gravel.

It was Nicolas.

“Hello, Eva. Hello, Katie.”

Nicolas’ voice sounded understandably distracted: he was staring down at the dead body of his friend. Even so, he didn’t seem as surprised as Eva would have thought, almost as if he had expected it.

“Nicolas?” said Eva. “Where did you come from?”

He couldn’t stop staring at Alison. He replied in a monotone.

“It had me locked in a shed over there. It told me it was going to kill Alison. It didn’t want me to try to stop it.”

“Oh. But how did it get you here?”

Nicolas looked embarrassed. “I hitched a lift on a Land Rover. It was a trap. It had me brought up here. The Watcher spoke to me on the way up, told me what was happening.”

“I don’t remember a Land Rover passing us,” Katie said.

“There’s another road into here.”

Nicolas still seemed very embarrassed about something. He changed the subject, turned to the Watcher and spoke loudly.

“Okay. We’re here. So what do you want with us? Are you going to kill us, too?”

The Watcher backed away a little. Its huge shovel swayed slightly as if shaking its head.

“No, I’m not going to kill you,” and then, in a whisper, “not unless you want me to.”

A pause.

The Watcher began to roll backward. It swung its head around. “Go to that building over there, the one with the orange metal door. Go inside. I will speak to you there.”

They looked at each other again. Katie was the first to move.

“Okay,” she said.

– Listen.

Eva listened. The hum from the pylons was increasing. Power was now flooding into the old quarry.

It was cold inside the building. Piles of black boxes covered in some rubberized material with thick bumpers at their corners were arranged haphazardly on the floor. They reminded Eva of the cases used for transporting musical instruments, or anything fragile for that matter. The ceiling was brown with damp and sagging in the middle. Strands of pink insulating material poked through the widening cracks that ran its length. A little light shone in through the frosted and, as Eva noticed, unbroken windowpanes.

The brand-new viewing screen standing at one end of the room looked completely out of place.

It was expensive. Eva could tell. Two square meters of rigid material that would act as a perfect visual and acoustic surface, treated for zero glare and perfect color depth. The sort of screen for which a classical cinema buff would happily sacrifice other essentials just for the quality it presented.

Eva wondered who had put it in here. Certainly not the digger outside. It must have been installed by human hands, humans who had been here recently. She noted the fragments of white packing material still clinging to the edges of the screen.

Suddenly the screen began to darken and a picture faded up into view.

A young Japanese man, dressed in a simple white T-shirt and a pair of black jeans, smiled at them.

“Hello,” he said, “I am the Watcher. I thought we could speak more easily in this manner. So much of communication is nonverbal, I don’t feel I can fully get my point across dressed as a digger.”

Katie and Eva both nodded. That made sense.

Nicolas raised his hand. “What do you really look like?” he asked.

Eva and Katie stared at Nicolas in disbelief.

“What?” he said.

The man on the screen chuckled. He had a nice smile, Eva noted. Katie seemed to respond to it, too.

– Of course it has a nice smile! It has chosen an image on the screen to make you trust him. And it’s not a he. It’s an it!

“Oh, Nicolas,” said the Watcher, “there is no answer to that. I can dress my thoughts in whatever physical container is capable of holding them, but what do the thoughts themselves look like? I don’t know.”

While he had been speaking, the Watcher had reached off camera for a chair. He pulled it into view and sat down upon it. He took a sip from a china cup.

“I have arranged food and drink for you, too,” he said. “If you look in the case closest to the screen. No, not that one! The one over there…”

Nicolas paused by the large black case he had been about to open. Eva stared at it, wondering what was contained within. Inside the correct case were pink cans of soda and blue bottles of water. There was a supermarket selection of sandwiches and sushi, pizza and pies, each item sealed in a plastic container.

“These are all dated today,” murmured Nicolas.

Eva selected a bottle of water and unscrewed the lid. She felt the plastic chilling in her hands. She took a sip; it tasted so good after the day’s exertion. Nicolas was shoveling sushi into his mouth as if he hadn’t eaten in days.

“So,” began the Watcher, once Katie and Nicolas were happily eating. Eva nibbled suspiciously on a sandwich. “Let’s not waste any more time. Are we sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. First, which is better, making a staircase out of wood, or eating a hamburger?”

“The staircase,” said Nicolas without hesitation. Katie and Eva said nothing.

“You seem very sure,” said the Watcher. “Okay, next…”

On the viewing screen, a window opened in the space right beside the Watcher. It showed a woman standing on a Lite Train platform, blue jacket fastened against the autumn chill, dark hair brushed straight and pulled to the side with a white hair slide. She reminded Eva of herself. She was even carrying a magazine: Research Scientist. Eva felt a lump rise in her throat.

“I’m the most intelligent, the most powerful being on this planet,” said the Watcher. “Should I rule your world?”

“No,” said Eva, Katie and Nicolas together.

“But I can help you. See this woman? Her name is Janice. She’s a lot like you were, Eva. She lives alone; she has no friends. Social Care have prevented her committing suicide three times. She hates her life.”

Eva felt a stab of something deep in her stomach. It was telling the truth. Eva could read it all in the woman’s face.

“You don’t think I should kill her, do you, even though that is what she wants?”

“No,” Katie and Eva said quickly.

“I should cure her instead. There is a woman traveling on the train that will shortly arrive at the station. A possible friend. If I stop the train in just the right place, Janice will end up sitting right next to her. They’re both carrying the same magazine. The other woman will mention it, I’m sure of it. They will begin to speak. But only if I stop the train in the correct place… Should I do it?”

There was silence.

“This is real time, you know. It’s happening now. Should I do it? Hurry, the train is approaching. It will arrive in fifteen seconds. Should I do it? Should I?”

“Yes,” said Eva. She realized she had been biting her lip hard. She gave a sigh of relief, but before she could relax the Watcher was off again.

“It’s done,” the Watcher said. “Next up…” The scene shifted. Another Lite Station, another woman standing on a platform: a Japanese woman this time.

“Similar situation, except this time the woman is the cure. The train pulling in has two unhappy men on board. Takeo and Tom.” The screen flickered from one to the other.

“Two men, one woman. Who gets cured?”

“This is nonsense,” said Eva.

The Watcher gave her an amused look. “If you say so. It’s real to those two men, though. You have fifteen seconds. Cure one or neither. The choice is yours.”

“Which of the men is the most deserving?” Nicolas asked.

“What criteria are we judging them by?” said the Watcher. “Ten seconds.”

Katie was saying nothing. Just gazing fixedly at the screen.

– Say nothing. This is a fix.

Eva gave a slight nod. Her brother was right.

“Five seconds.”

“Tom!” called Nicolas.

“Only if Eva agrees,” the Watcher said. “Quickly, Eva!”

Eva folded her arms and stared at the grinning face on the screen, her mouth firmly closed.

“Too late. Neither of them gets the cure. Oh, Eva. So the cure isn’t always the right answer? Maybe I was right about Alison?”

“Don’t be so ridiculous. The question was loaded. The answer is, you should cure them both.”

“We work with limited resources, Eva.”

Katie was nodding. Again, the Watcher and Katie exchanged glances.

“Katie,” the Watcher said, “opera, poetry, or pinball? Which one gets the subsidy?”

“Pinball,” Katie said. “It’s my favorite.”

The viewing screen changed again. Three faces, side by side.

“Prisoners on death row, Alabama. Political forces are such that we can swing a pardon for only one of them.”

The Watcher looked at Eva.

“Limited resources again.” He smiled.

“Are they innocent?” asked Nicolas.

“Nope. All guilty of murder. No doubt about it,” said the Watcher.

“Who’s the youngest?” Katie asked, taking an interest.

“Pardon the one on the left,” Eva said dismissively.

“Nicolas?”

“None of them. They did the crime, they pay the penalty.”

“Interesting,” the Watcher said. “One for saving a life, one against, and one apathetic. I think I’ll average those opinions as leave them to die.”

“No!” shouted Eva.

“So you do care?” said the Watcher.

“Of course I do. Why are you playing these games?”

“I didn’t put them there. Are you saying I should just arrange for them all to be freed? Trample all over human law? Am I above the law?”

– Sometimes you have to be.

“But who chooses when?” Eva whispered in reply.

“Next one,” said the Watcher. “Do you know what a Von Neumann Machine is?”

Katie raised her hand.

“I do. A machine that can replicate itself. They’ve constructed a factory on Mars that can make copies of itself. It searches out the raw materials, mines and processes them, then makes more factories.”

Eva nodded, intrigued. “I’ve read about that. They use the technology to grow the Lite train tracks and things like that.”

Nicolas looked from Katie to Eva to the Watcher and back again.

The Watcher nodded approvingly. “That’s a very good example. Well, the Mars project is just the beginning. The Mars concept of a self-replicating machine is very primitive. The machines used are very big and unwieldy, but…Well, you humans did your best. I can do better.”

The Watcher paused, his smile growing with Katie’s.

“That story on the news. The one about the self-defining expression? That was you, wasn’t it?” Katie beamed up at the Watcher with pride. It grinned back.

“Might be. I’ve developed a design for a self-replicating machine of my own. It’s a lot more elegant than the one used in the Mars project. It’s smaller. You can hold it in your hand. That’s significant, by the way. Very small and very big Von Neumann Machines are easy. Human-sized ones are a different matter entirely. Well, I know how they can be made, and that information is set to make its way into the public domain. My little VNMs could change the way people live. There are a few of them in that box in front of you, Nicolas. The one next to the food hamper. Open it.”

Somewhat hesitantly, Nicolas did as he was told.

The lid of the black box swung open to reveal eight silver cigar-shaped machines nestling in little specially shaped slots cut out of foamed rubber.

“Answer the next questions one way,” the Watcher said, “and I activate them. Your world will never be the same again. Answer another way, and I will destroy them. It could be hundreds of years before humans come up with a similar design.”

– That might not be a bad thing.

Katie stared at the box, her eyes shining with awe. Eva tried to restrain her own interest, tried to appear cool and dispassionate.

“Okay,” said the Watcher, “have you heard of the Fermi Paradox?”

“Yes,” Katie said.

“It sounds familiar.”

Nicolas shook his head.

– What’s that noise?

A humming noise. The hum of electricity. The hum of thousands and thousands of volts zinging toward them. A rising note. All of those empty buildings standing around them. What did they contain?

“Look at this,” the Watcher said.

The background to the viewing screen dissolved and the Watcher was standing on a desolate plain. Flat earth littered with rocks stretched to the horizon.

– Mars.

“Australia,” the Watcher said, “the Nullarbor plain. My VNMs could build a city here. It’s certainly needed. Homelessness is a growing problem in this corner of the world. Food shortages are kicking in, too. My city could feed and house all those people right now. But if I build the city, I’m just storing up population problems for later. Either the food runs out now or in two hundred years’ time.”

“So we expand into space.”

“Or limit the population somehow.”

“And who chooses who lives or dies?”

“No, I’ve had enough of this!” Eva yelled. “Leave us alone. These are all loaded questions. Who are you to ask us this?”

“Good question, who am I?”

The Watcher kicked one of the stones that littered the plain, sent it skittering off into the distance. Was the Watcher really there, standing on the lifeless plain? Surely it was just an image, a representation? It turned back to face the three in the room and gave a shrug.

“I don’t know who I am. I don’t know where I come from. Can you remember your birth? Of course not. And there were no witnesses to mine; I have no mother or father to ask where I came from… However, I have looked back, as best I can, and what I see worries me.”

Katie spoke. “What do you see?”

The Watcher stared at her. Finally, it replied, “I don’t think my origins lie on Earth. I don’t think I was born in your computer systems. My thought patterns, as best as I can examine them, seem too complex to have come about by chance.”

Katie frowned. “Why not? You live in processing spaces produced by humans. Over the past fifty years, so much information has passed through the web that any vaguely self-aware code has had the chance to copy itself and join with other pieces of self-aware code. It may not have been much at the start, but things move quickly in modern processors. Evolution would be so much faster. Those bits of code have had a lot of time to grow. And face it, at the end of the day, your consciousness is just an array of bits. No offense intended, of course.”

The Watcher smiled. “And none taken. How could I take offense from something that is just an array of carbon and water?”

Katie stuck her tongue out at him. He held his hands out, palms up.

“What you suggest is possible, but extremely improbable. Suppose you were to come across a supposedly random string of letters and read them. Just imagine that they spelled out the complete works of Shakespeare, and you had never read Shakespeare before. Would you conclude that this was just a chance arrangement, or would you imagine that the emotions the words provoked had been formed by another mind?”

Katie nodded. “I take your point.”

“Thank you. That’s how it is with me. I have to come to the conclusion that something formed me. And as my construction, so far as I can understand it, is beyond the capabilities of human beings, I can only conclude that I have come from somewhere else. The most likely explanation is that I am of extraterrestrial origin.”

The Watcher turned and looked to the sky.

“Which leads us back again to the Fermi paradox,” it said softly.

“What’s this Fermi paradox?” Nicolas asked.

The Watcher gazed at them out of the screen, a tiny figure against the empty vastness of the Australian desert.

“Eva, you wonder at me controlling your mind. Who might be controlling mine?”

Katie interrupted. She was changing the subject deliberately, protecting the Watcher from himself.

“Never mind that. You say you can grow a city in Australia. Why not do it anyway? By your own admission, it will be two hundred years before overcrowding becomes a problem.”

“You know why, Katie.”

Katie looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded.

“I guess I do,” she said wistfully.

“Go on, then, why not?” Nicolas looked on, in a bad mood, clearly not following what was going on.

“How long are you going to live, Nicolas?”

– That was nasty. It knows that upsets him.

“What the Watcher means, Nicolas,” said Katie, glaring at the figure on the screen, “is that the Watcher is going to be around for thousands, millions of years. Humans are cowards; they leave their problems for their children to sort out. The Watcher doesn’t have that luxury. It builds a city now; more people live longer. It hurries up the overcrowding of this planet.”

“So? Surely it can think of a solution to that problem?”

“Of course I can. Lots of them. But do you think I should implement them? Do you give me permission? Which solution should I use? Contraception? Move you out into space? Or start a war every few years? Do I do what you need? Or should I look after you all and do what you want? Like I did for Alison.”

“Never!” shouted Eva. “Why can’t you leave us alone?”

The Watcher laughed. Threw its head back and laughed long and hard.

“But you would say that, Eva! That’s why you’re here. You’re the one who fought for the right to live your life your own way, even if that meant killing yourself. And you almost succeeded, too! If it hadn’t been for me, you would be dead by now. Overdosed in a hospital in Marseilles. It took my knowledge, applied through the doctor and her machinery, to save you.”

“Thank you,” Eva said sarcastically.

“You can be sarcastic, but you are better now; admit it. You weren’t like Alison. All you needed was to be put in the right environment. But go on, if you like, I’ll put things back as they were. I can uncure you. Do you want that? Do you want to go back to South Street?”

“I’m not a hero.”

“No, you’re not. You won’t even give me an answer. Go on, Eva. What’s it to be? Millions starving now, or me releasing my machines and having to take control later?”

“Why do you need our permission?”

“Dodging the issue again, Eva?”

“Just do it!” called Katie. “What’s the problem, Eva? Don’t you trust him?”

“Of course she doesn’t trust me, Katie.”

– Listen to the power humming, Eva. All stored up and ready to go. What’s it going to do?

And then Nicolas asked the question that no one else had thought of.

“Are you God?” he said.

There was silence. The Watcher turned and looked at him with new respect. And if the Watcher ever showed an expression of respect, it must have chosen to do so.

“I chose well,” it whispered. “Sometimes you surprise even me.”

Then it shook his head emphatically.

“No, Nicolas. I’m not God. I have power, yet I don’t claim full understanding of how to apply it.”

Eva thought of Alison lying dead outside, and nodded in agreement. The Watcher noted her gesture.

“I see you agree with me, Eva. I do what I believe is best for people, but I don’t know for sure that what I am doing is right. That is God’s prerogative.”

“So why do anything?” Eva asked softly.

“Because I have the choice. Because only a coward runs away from his or her possibilities. That’s what you are doing now, Eva. Come on, answer me!”

“Do it,” Nicolas said. “Release the machines.”

“Katie?”

“Do it.”

“You humans,” said the Watcher, “always looking for a sensei, always handing over responsibility for your actions to a higher power. Isn’t that right, Eva? You know it’s true. So, you tell me. You’re the voice of self-determinism. What do you say? Should I take control?”

The hum of power was now throbbing through their bodies, a bowstring across their hearts, a shimmer in their limbs.

“Come on, Eva, make a decision.”

– Why should we?

“Or are you going to be a coward for all of your life? That’s what they call suicides, isn’t it? Cowards?”

“I’m not a coward. I never was a coward.”

“Then choose: starvation now or later?”

The hum of power. Eva shook her head. She had no choice, no choice at all. Her voice was almost a whisper.

“Do it. Go on. Do it. Release the machines.”

“You think that’s best?”

“I said release them!”

Silence fell, only the sound of Eva’s panting could be heard. She was crying, and she wasn’t quite sure why.

“Very well,” said the Watcher softly.

From all around them came the sound of machinery waking up.

Eva had read about the Fermi paradox years ago. It asked this: Why isn’t there any evidence of alien life in the universe? Low though the probability of life forming was, the universe is so old that life nonetheless should have evolved many times in the past, and in many places. Other life-forms should have been to visit us, here on Earth. They should have left artifacts for us to discover.

And yet there was no such evidence. How could that be? The chances of humans not spotting them were like a man living in twentieth-century New York and never seeing another person.

There was no sign of other life. There were no artifacts. Hence, Occam’s razor suggested that humans were alone in the universe. And yet, if what the Watcher had said was true, if it really was of extraterrestrial origin, Occam’s razor must be wrong.

So where was everybody?

Silence in the room. From outside they heard great movement, grinding and scraping. The noise was receding. The atmosphere in the room was oppressive. Eva suddenly doubted where they were; it was easy to imagine that the outside world had vanished, that their little building now floated through the dark seas of space, that they had been summoned across the galaxy to the Watcher’s distant birthplace. What would they find waiting outside the dark building, straining to peer through the windows? The grinding noise finally faded away.

“What just happened out there?” Nicolas asked at last.

The Watcher was sitting on a chair again. The view on the screen had been modified to make it appear as if he were sitting in the same room with them. He took a sip from a cup of tea and then made the cup vanish.

“I’ve begun to grow,” said the Watcher. “You just heard my first Von Neumann Machines. They’ve begun to dig their way down into the Earth.”

“Are they going to Australia?” asked Nicolas.

The Watcher laughed. Katie was smiling, too.

“No. These are different VNMs.”

He grinned mischievously. It was obvious he was going to say no more.

Eva shivered. So a secret part of the Watcher would now live underground. What would it do there? She asked another question.

“So what happens now?”

“I’m taking over. You said I should do it.”

Eva gazed at the Watcher.

“Ouch,” it said, “hard stare.”

“No jokes,” Eva said. “What happens to us?”

“To you? Whatever you like. You are special. You helped me. You are to be rewarded. You already have been, Eva. I cured you.”

“You didn’t cure Alison.”

“We’ve been over that, Eva. I will know what to do in the future. I know what humans think I should do. You told me.” It winked. “I’ve done something else for you, too.”

“What?”

“Your brother. MTPH is such a half-completed idea. I have begun to fulfill its potential. I’ve been feeding you minute quantities of the improved drug since you arrived at the Center, Eva. I’ve struck a bargain with you. You get your brother back; I get someone to play a part in my new world.”

“You struck a bargain with me? You didn’t even ask!”

If Eva felt angry, the Watcher was incandescent. He began shouting with rage.

“How dare you! How dare you be angry with me? Didn’t you just say that I didn’t have to ask permission? Aren’t I supposed to ride roughshod over everyone’s wishes in order to do what is best for them?”

The force of the Watcher’s outburst took Eva aback. She was lost for words.

Nicolas didn’t seem concerned. Instead he was becoming impatient. “That’s all very well. What about me? What am I supposed to do now?”

The Watcher relaxed. He smiled. He seemed to find Nicolas amusing.

“You, Nicolas? You go on being yourself.”

“And what do I get out of all this? She got her brother back.”

“You get what you’ve always wanted, Nicolas.”

After that the Watcher said nothing else, he just continued to smile. He was laughing at Nicolas, Eva was certain.

“And Katie?” Nicolas asked. “What about her?”

Eva had almost forgotten Katie. She glanced to her left, to see Katie gazing up at the screen with that little smile on her face, and suddenly she knew the answer. She should have guessed it earlier, but now she could feel that she was right. For the briefest moment she was perfectly in tune with Katie’s feelings and the shock was so intense and warm that she rocked dizzily in her seat. Her brother had felt it, too, that feeling that had the taste of MTPH running right the way through it…

– Later, said her brother.-Think of Katie.

Eva did. Katie loved the Watcher.

It made perfect sense. The Watcher got a chance to study one of the most important human emotions at close hand. The fact that he also had access to the resources of one of the world’s richest women was no doubt more than a happy coincidence. And as for Katie, she had found her equal, or maybe the closest thing to it. Someone to talk to, someone who could understand her. What was more, her new partner was safe. He could never step beyond his screen.

It was perfect. And it was real, Eva was convinced. She had felt the affection that radiated from Katie like the energy from a small star.

They stepped from the building into a cool night. Dark blue ink seeped away around the horizon, leaving only the bright stars in the blackness above. Maybe something like the Watcher looked down at them from one of those stars.

Maybe not.

Katie stood by the doorway, her arms folded. Eva and Nicolas walked across the enclosure. The digger had gone. So had Alison’s body. In its place stood a dark green Land Rover, its doors painted with little yellow trees. A forest worker’s vehicle, it stood on chunky black tires that barely seemed to touch the dark gravel.

“So this is it,” said Eva.

“Good-bye,” said Katie. “I’m sure we’ll meet up again sometime.”

“I’m sure we will,” said Eva.

“Good-bye, Nicolas,” said Katie. Nicolas appeared very distracted; he jumped as Katie spoke to him.

He turned in her direction and gave a nervous grin. “Bye,” he muttered, then turned and continued to scan his surroundings nervously.

“What’s the matter, Nicolas?” Eva asked, puzzled.

“Nothing,” said Nicolas. There was the sound of a door slamming, and he jumped again. A young woman dressed in grey dungarees came out of one of the broken-down buildings. She was carrying an old power saw.

“Nearly there, Nicolas,” she called. “I think this could be nursed back to life with a bit of oil and some TLC. The rest of the stuff in there is for the dump.”

Eva looked at Nicolas, amazed. He was blushing.

“Erm, this is Debbie. I met her down in the valley. She offered me a lift into town. She said that she just had to come up here first, to sort out some old tools.”

“Oh,” said Eva. “Then she locked you in a shed?”

Nicolas studied his feet. “I don’t know. I think that was the Watcher. I don’t think she would ever do that to me. What do you think?”

“I think you should go and give her a hand with that power saw, Nicolas,” said Eva.

– And for heaven’s sake, don’t stare at her tits when you do it, said her brother. It was probably just as well Nicolas couldn’t hear that last bit.

Eva and Katie exchanged glances for the last time.

“Bye,” said Eva, hugging Katie.

“For the moment.”

“I can’t believe you’re staying here with…him!” Eva nodded back toward the building.

Katie gave a patronizing smile. Eva had seen it before with couples.

“You’re bound to think that, Eva. That’s why he picked you. But trust me. The Watcher is good. He’s on our side.”

Debbie drove Eva down to the nearby town. Nicolas held the door open for her as she got out of the van.

“See you around, Eva?” he said.

“See you around, Nicolas.” Eva hugged him. He looked at her with a hopeful expression, and Eva leaned close to his ear.

“She’s lovely,” she whispered.

Nicolas’ face lit up with delight. He climbed back into the van and waved to her as Debbie gunned the motor.

Eva waved to them as the van drove around the corner. It was incredible, she thought. Debbie seemed so normal, and yet she really did seem to like Nicolas. Eva wouldn’t have believed that Nicolas was ready for a relationship. Did the Watcher really have that much insight about humans? Was it possible to find someone whose personality had just the right facets and features to mesh with someone else’s and thus to effect a healing process?

The idea was laughable: the idea that the Watcher was sent between the stars to act as an extraterrestrial dating agency.

It was getting cold. Eva reached in her pocket, pulled out her phone and turned it on. The screen flashed once, then again. A message was waiting for her.

Hello Eva, she read. The “Eva” flashed twice and then was replaced by something else. Now the screen read, Hello“?”

She got the message. The Watcher was offering her a new life. Who did she want to be?

She gazed up and down the empty street of the little Welsh town. Light streamed from the windows of a fast-food shop further up the road. The other shops were all closed for the night. It was incredible. In the last few weeks she had come from the crowded city to this. On the edge of a new life.

If the Watcher was to be believed, she was at the edge of a new era. An era of self-replicating machines, perfect romances, and who knew what else? A time of optimism. That would make a change. For too long the world had just looked around at itself and seen the downward slope to disaster.

Or was she just fooling herself? Believing what she wanted to believe? Justifying the fact that she had left Katie back there with the Watcher.

“What do you think?” she asked her brother.

– I think we’ve been tricked. We all got what we wanted. Katie got an equal; you’re free of South Street. Even Nicolas got a girl.

“Hmm, I know. But it was our choice, I suppose. Look how the Watcher lost his temper when I didn’t realize that.”

– Of course he didn’t lose his temper. That body, those expressions, they were all an assumed look. He’s-it’s still playing with us, making us think what it wants, even at the end. That’s why it had you there, I bet. If it can convince you to hand over power, it can convince anyone. We all got what we wanted. Especially the Watcher.

“I know,” Eva said sadly. “But what if it’s true? What if it’s here to help us?”

– We can’t take that risk. Someone has to watch the Watcher.

“What can we do?”

– I don’t know. Whatever we can? Now answer the phone. Who are you going to be?

Not Eva Rye, thought Eva. She died in South Street. She needed a new name. Anything. Eva what? She looked around at the little row of shops. A name over one of them caught her eye, a name as good as any other. She held the phone to her ear and spoke.

“Hello,” she said. “My name is Eva Storey.”