Chapter Twenty-One

Control was closely monitoring a recent discrepancy in the schedules of a fleet of automatic cleaner bots when, on the other side of a hole in space, a door opened in mid-air. The chassis aboard Audacity (which, in truth, Control struggled to think of as even one of their “bodies”) was first to react, registering a movement in proximity and sending a signal back to the home core. Within two seconds, Control had devoted part of its power supply to inhabiting the chassis, though pre-existing tasks meant it could only accommodate half the optimal processing power. It would have to do. Control’s processes were multitudinous and nonlinear, but they had a special subroutine (Wirecutter) to modify those processes into something more closely resembling human thought. It was useful for conversational and empathetic tasks. They engaged Wirecutter now, as the door opened fully.

Dr. Cristian Munoz stepped in. His face most closely matched to a profile of “worry”, but only showed a nineteen percent match to a profile of “fear” – well below confidence levels. What’s more, his steps were careful, even trudging. There was no indication of an impending emergency in his body language, so Control relaxed a little (relaxation being one of several states made possible by the Wirecutter subroutine).

“hello dr. munoz,” Control said, their tone as steady and neutral as always. His visitor switched on the light and closed the door before anyone caught a glimpse of the illicit machine.

“Morning, Control. Or… is it evening, back home? I can’t keep track.”

“it is night in madrid,” Control confirmed, not bothering to mention that Control had a presence in every time zone. “how can i assist you?”

For a period of time, Control had experimented with using the more accurate pronoun “we” to refer to themselves. In order for an AI as complex and far-reaching as Control to function, a certain amount of separation between major subroutines was necessary. The average Carmen citizen was under the impression that subroutines like ThreeMind were controlled entirely by the main core, but in reality, they acted as an entirely separate AI who happened to inhabit the same machine. Control felt ThreeMind silently sidle into the chassis now, and the two of them watched Cristian through the same pair of eyes. So perhaps “I” was too inaccurate. But they soon found that human conversational participants (both organic and machine) found the effect distracting, or even unnerving. It was then that Control learned that the goal of language was not accuracy, but mutual comprehension, and that even though “I” may not be correct, it helped move conversations along with greater efficiency. So they used it every time, while privately noting its incongruity with each use.

Control (with ThreeMind in tow) watched Cristian pace from one side of the room to the other, then back again, then seating himself in the pristine desk chair and swivelling around to face them.

“I came to update you on something. A new development.”

Control suspected this was a partial lie; a front for a true concern. But they knew that these things emerged in time. “please, continue.”

“Well…” Cristian sucked in a breath. “Garden have come to us with an offer. They’ve come to all the other Earths, actually. They’re ready to start taking this seriously, I think.”

“what is the offer?”

“They’ll be more open with us from now on. About the war, about their culture, everything. But in order to be allowed to do it – I don’t know if this is a legal thing or not – they want to make us official allies of their faction.”

“official allies of novus ordo seculorum.”

“That’s right,” Cristian said, although Control hadn’t phrased it as a question. “It’s some kind of formal designation.”

“this is presumably in reaction to the attack on king aenos.” Control had already received multiple updates on the situation over the past few days. They were, when they focused on it, sad to have never had the chance to meet the King, though they reasoned that there would soon be another, and they could meet him instead.

“Yeah. Dr. Jans thinks that they’re feeling guilty about the assassin being from Garden.”

“perhaps,” said Control. “are you asking my advice?”

“I am. We’re torn on the matter, and while I can’t guarantee that what you want will be the same as what we want, I can always try.”

“naturally. it is an intriguing offer. but i suppose there is a concern that this could be another trick. we know garden are capable of lying, and we know that at least some portion of their contingent wishes to abandon the station.”

“additionally,” said ThreeMind, taking control of the chassis’ speech centres (Cristian would have noticed no pause or difference in voice), “there is a possibility that this formal designation has a legal weight on garden that we cannot predict, such as conscription.”

Cristian nodded while Control took the speech centres back. “We’d thought of that, too. But it doesn’t seem likely, does it?”

“it does not,” said Control, speaking both to Cristian and to ThreeMind. “such legal arguments would not hold water with audacity’s constitutional court.”

The Court is untested on most issues, Control thought to themselves, and only a moment later realised it wasn’t their own thought, but ThreeMind’s. They soft-muted the subroutine, which was getting a little too chatty.

“Right,” said Cristian. “And the benefits would outweigh the cost, in my estimation. A more open Garden sounds like the kind of ally we could all use. One thing I can’t get out of my head is that everything that’s happened to us so far feels like some kind of test. And the assassination – well, they could never have predicted that, but maybe they saw that as the climax of the test. And now they’re asking us whether we trust them or not, and if we say the right thing they’ll say, “good job, now we’ll show you what we know.” There could be so much we could learn from them. Or there could be nothing.”

Control thought this sounded surprisingly irrational coming from Cristian. But they supposed that several months aboard Audacity could make anyone say strange things. “perhaps you are right, dr. munoz. in any case, i would encourage you to take the deal.”

“Okay. Okay.” Cristian stood to leave, but didn’t step towards the door just yet. Control took this as a cue to move on to a new subject. ThreeMind had vacated the chassis, apparently busy with other work.

“have you given any thought to the upcoming presidential contest?”

“No,” he said. “Nobody’s really thinking about it, though the rumour is that the Speaker will call for it in a couple of days. It seems the election period will be shorter, which makes sense.”

Control was about to object that the Speaker didn’t have the constitutional right to call for an election, but then remembered that the Speaker was also the President. One of Wirecutter’s more irritating effects was a dulling of the memory banks, to replicate human forgetfulness.

Cristian was still not leaving, something else still on his mind. “Have any of the other Earths been to see you?”

“no, cristian. i have not been visited by any delegates not from our earth.” Since the secret of Control’s chassis had leaked to Garden and to select delegates of Earth: Edo, plenty of Carmen’s own delegates were getting anxious. Control was not worried, even when they were capable of worry. What will be will be, and the consequences of Carmen’s actions would come in time, but the worst they could do was dismantle the chassis. Control itself – as an entity – was safe.

“Okay,” said Cristian, again. Unnecessary repetition – also not typical of Cristian’s speech patterns. This time, he left. Three seconds later, Control left Wirecutter and deactivated the chassis until the next time the door would open.

***

Control busied themselves with other tasks. Spontaneous processes (separate minds, but less permanent than the distinct subroutines) performed various administrative functions across the planet, many of which had been performed, unchanged, for decades now. No part of Control breathed, in a literal sense, but they often thought of these default processes as a kind of breathing. Something Control had done almost all their life, to the point where it only barely required thought of any kind. Through sheer repetition, Control had created an analogue to a subconscious.

They published daily reports, both major worldwide news and page after page of unedited records whose archive date was up. Those records included transcripts with official Control agents or governmental meetings, formal Recommendations, notes on activities within designation institutions, and myriad other sources. At the average reading speed, a human would have to spend three uninterrupted days reading the contents of just one day’s reports. Of course, nobody really read the reports like that. 92% of their daily reports received fewer than 1,000 views in their first month, and it wasn’t difficult to establish why – they were really quite dull.

But Control’s programming forbade selecting which documents were worthy of being accessible and which were not. Quite apart from that, it was simply a terrible idea, although Control had spent some time wrestling with the question of whether they only thought it was a terrible idea because they were programmed that way. There was no easy answer to that question, but they had decided that it didn’t matter all that much. Control could have been given all sorts of blind spots when they were first created, and they would never know, but they liked to think that they knew themselves – and their creator – better than that.

Two days after their conversation with Cristian, Control published a report with the headline “Audacity Delegates Agree Allyship Deal with Earth: Garden.” Because the processes involved in writing and publishing the report were subconscious, they had the unusual experience of only absorbing the information after a significant portion of the population had read the report. It appeared that all three Earths had agreed to ally with Novus Ordo Seculorum in the fight against their enemies, in a move that promised “greater trust and transparency,” according to a quote by Colonel Wake of the Garden faction.

ThreeMind was being quiet on the subject, which was not so unusual. Despite their curiosity on the day, ThreeMind was one of the subroutines most likely to stay quiet for days – even weeks – at a time before surfacing with new information. Control, at least at its core, was content with that arrangement. If it was possible to be unsettled by an aspect of your own self, ThreeMind unsettled Control a little, just as it unsettled many of the humans who cared to dig into its inner workings. The other subroutines under Control were more personable, if the word applied. Mayfair, a subroutine who monitored population centres for signs of crime, was brusque but fair. BlackAndWhite was devoted to preserving Earth: Carmen’s remaining natural beauty, but had recently begun taking an interest in the greater continent too. They were kind and careful, and never seemed unhappy. The best-known subroutine was Cari, who moderated the Surplus project and was shepherding it to its conclusion. Cari was always sharp and focused, but had occasional mood swings of depression and ecstasy based on the projects’ status. All of them were Control, and they shared everything that they had.

But ThreeMind was different. Nominally, it shared the programming of Control and the other subroutines, but in order for its predictive matrix to align with the vast quantity of information being taken in, it often had to go silent for days at a time. Control checked in with the other subroutines at least twice a day, but never checked in with ThreeMind for fear of upsetting the delicate probabilities at play. It was much more common for ThreeMind to alert Control to a relevant piece of information before going silent again, leaving Control to reason through the implications and make a Recommendation.

There was no doubt it was useful – extraordinary, even. But Control had wished they’d known the consequences of ThreeMind before first initialising the experimental program. Even now, several years into the project, there was no knowing how it might conclude. Some of the other subroutines were expected to last perpetually, or at least as long as the rest of Control. Others, like Cari, cheerfully accepted that they would be absorbed back into the core once their purposes were complete. But ThreeMind remained an enigma, even to themselves.

As they surveyed the day’s reports and activated multiple orbital satellites to boost signal strength for the evening, Control daydreamed about knowing themselves again. It was very human to not know yourself all that well, they thought. But it was not very human to claim to know the future. Did that mean ThreeMind made Control more human, or less?

***

When Control found the time, they observed events aboard Audacity. The process was not complicated, as such – the security systems that protected the closed-circuit cameras was incredibly simple, with the generally solid reasoning that nobody in range would have a need to access the camera feeds. But it was time-consuming, given that Control had to first access their chassis aboard the station, then from there remotely connect to a device connected to the main network (for which they used a willing Carmen delegates’ personal device), and only then attempt to enter the camera network. The amount of activity involved was more important than the low risk of detection, so Control only did it when they had the processing power to spare.

The next time they got the chance, Control connected to the cameras in the main chamber, expecting to see titles being debated, or at least some speeches. But the chamber was almost deserted. At the front stood Sofia and Lars, with Lady Marcia Kouris watching them give a presentation from a front bench. Briefly shutting off the camera feed to search through the device they were borrowing, Control found a memo from the Speaker/President declaring that normal business would be paused, to give all delegates a chance to recover from the incident. It took Control a short moment to calculate that the Speaker was referring to the assassination. They supposed that could have had some ill effects on certain delegates.

Returning to the feed, Control saw that they had missed most of the presentation. Sofia and Lars had been pitching “A Bill to Investigate Quantum Coincidences Across the Universes,” an apparent attempt to turn her theories on convergence into hard science. Lady Kouris, dressed all in black, was looking at the pair with an expression Control could only guess was incredulity.

“Is this really the time to be directing funding towards such theories?” she asked, her voice tinny through the camera feed.

“Certainly,” said Lars, “when the theories are this important. This is – quite literally – the fate of the universe under discussion.”

“Our funding is limited enough, and we don’t even know who’s going to be seeing out the whole first term and who will be resigning. Shouldn’t we perhaps focus on keeping the Parliament together rather than throwing controversy after controversy?”

“What’s so controversial about this?” asked Sofia. Kouris regarded her a withering glare.

“Perhaps your own planet might not see it this way, but on our planet – well, put it this way. We’re about to reveal two enormous revelations at once. The death of our King is one thing, but the reveal of three parallel universes -“

”- and the King’s cover-up,” Lars chipped in.

“And… that,” Kouris sighed. Even now she seemed unwilling, or perhaps unable, to fully acknowledge the King’s actions. It was a common theme among the hardcore of the King’s advisors, who still found it difficult to admit wrongdoing long past the point of no return. “It’s a good deal of information for any citizen to take in at once. If we decide to follow that up with your own theories, that people’s decisions might be being influenced by some “prime timeline”, I think the reception might be less than positive. You can see that, can’t you?”

“I suppose,” said Sofia, “but you’ve seen the evidence – the two Matthelms, and the Baronesses.”

“I’m not denying it,” Kouris was quick to add, though Control observed that her careful use of the word “theory” seemed designed to discredit. “I just think perhaps now is not the time. I wish you luck with finding another ascendant.”

She stood and swanned off at that, though Lars followed her. He pulled her away and spoke in a low tone, out of Sofia’s earshot – but not out of Control’s.

“Marcia,” he said, “I haven’t even asked…”

“I’m fine,” she said, anticipating the question. “It’s a terrible tragedy, but King-to-be Philip will see us through.” She pulled him in for a hug, though it seemed less than sincere to Control. Then again, what did they know about hugs?

For their own part, Control believed the theory. The implications were staggering, but the evidence was there, locked up in Audacity’s Security department for anybody to see. There were flaws to the theory; it failed to account for the multiverse as it currently stood, with four separate universes now able to influence one another, for one thing. But it was a fine starting point, and Sofia was doing the right thing by pursuing it.

It was a few days later when their title was announced properly, with Colonel Pine as the ascendant nomination. Control couldn’t imagine the “old” Garden faction from even a month ago sponsoring a bill like this, and wondered if the allyship scheme was already paying dividends.

But Control was not inclined towards optimism, and their instincts were proven right when they received a message from Speaker Evanson. Strictly speaking, the message came through to the Transport Assistance division of Control’s organisation, but since Control was the first being to read it, and the only person who could authorise a reply to it, it was as close to a personal message as they ever received.

The contents of the message were troubling. Speaker Evanson claimed that the previous week’s tragedy had taken a psychological toll on many delegates and Service members. Nobody knew if there might be another attack, or whether Audacity was as safe as they’d all thought. He even confessed to having had doubts himself, though he promised to steer the parliament through to the end of the term. But many other station residents were handing in their resignations, and they would need to be shipped out as soon as possible.

There were two shuttles for each Earth, all eight built by Earth: Carmen (or, to be fully accurate, by the factories of Mars: Carmen). Each Earth was supposed to only fly one at a time, leaving the other behind as a backup. But, the Speaker argued, if this was not an extraordinary situation, what was? Each Earth’s primary shuttle was in deep space, travelling back from the last supply drop. However, they didn’t have the fuel to turn back and make it all the way home. That meant that the backup shuttles would need to be launched, if any delegates wished to resign early. Would, the Speaker asked, Control consider launching their shuttle to assist any Carmen residents who wanted to go home?

Control did not hesitate to give the Recommendation, which was duly accepted by the pilot and shuttle crew. They would ship out the next day. Control waited half an hour before sending an affirmative message to the Speaker. Control thought that, despite his protestation, Speaker Evanson was shaping up to be a fine President. Of course, he wasn’t democratically elected, but neither was Control. Democracy wasn’t everything. It was a very human idea to want to have a say, to feel as though you were exerting control over something that, in reality, you could never control fully. In any case, that was method by the creators of Audacity had chosen to elect their President.

The new electoral race lacked some of the fervour of the first one. Part of the reason for that might have been the changes to the process instituted by Speaker Evanson. Delegates would now need five nominees to support them, and no nominees could support two candidates at once – or stand themselves. This meant, in short, that delegates would have to choose whether to be a candidate or a nominee. As it happened, the Speaker needn’t have concerned himself with such stringency, considering that a chunk of delegates weren’t planning on sticking around longer than three months.

Control had expected that Sai would be a natural front-runner. The machine had performed well in the last election, despite the King’s trickery, and they had done a good job of introducing titles and making allies in the intervening months. But when Sai chose to run, Control was fortunate enough to have heard the conversation from the camera feeds one morning, as Cristian poured himself a black tea from a nearby dispenser when Sai sidled up to him. They were alone, as neither had opted to attend speeches on “A Bill to Condemn the Actions of the Unnamed Assassin Who Murdered King Aenos 5”. Control didn’t need ThreeMind to predict that outcome.

“good to see you, doctor. how are you holding up?” Sai asked.

“I don’t know,” Cristian said. “That’s pretty rare for me.”

Sai nodded, their flat screen of a face bobbing up and down in sympathy. “i think we all feel that way a little. listen, i wanted to talk to you about the election.”

“Yes,” Cristian said. “You want me to nominate you.”

Sai was still for a second. “no, actually. i wanted to run alongside you.”

“As Vice President? I didn’t realise there was going to be one.

“well, that kind of thing isn’t going to work anymore. you’ve got garden preaching transparency, and broken trust all over the place. and we’re not immune from that, with the control situation.”

“Right,” muttered Cristian. Control was put in mind of Lady Kouris’ reluctance to admit Herald’s own sins.

“so my thinking is that we need to combat that by following the garden trend. transparency, to the extreme. share as much as we can. if we spin it right, it also gives us the impression of having all the answers – we can start making plans as though we’d already won, and sharing them with everyone.”

“You want me to be your Vice President.”

“right. but -“

“But you’re going against the tradition of a VP from a different planet.”

“it’s hardly a tradition – there’s only been one president so far, so i don’t think it’s so extreme to change it up. plus, it means we can actually agree on things. you don’t think we’d make a good team?”

“Maybe,” Cristian said. “I also think there’s a good chance we’ll drive each other mad.” “we’ve had our differences in the past, i know. but this is the future we’re talking about, and i think you’d be a great leader.”

Control could see Cristian was tempted. “What kind of partnership did you have in mind? I would want a more active role than Powell got.”

“she got a raw deal, i agree. but,” Sai paused, letting a polygon expand and contract where one of their eyes might be, “i think you could have a much more active role. choose a portfolio, it’s yours and yours alone. we’ll fund it heavily, make it a legislative priority, and any title you sponsor will be fast-tracked to debate. how’s that sound?”

Even Control could see Cristian was tempted, but he didn’t agree right away. Instead, he said “I’ll think about it.”

As they parted, Control drew back from the cameras and inhabited their body once again. In performing a brief analysis on the success of a Sai/Cristian partnership, the odds of them being elected seemed far too low. Control genuinely believed that a President from Control could steer the Audacity project back towards success. But they could all see that it wasn’t going to happen – not while Garden and Edo held the leverage they did. Control had come to Audacity to assist their chances, but their very presence was now proving an obstacle to the faction’s progress.

***

Weather reports came in off the coast of the greater continent, from monitoring machines who could safely observe without interference. A storm was due to hit Control’s central core – a big one, whose winds could potentially knock out sensor lines and communications for an hour or more. Control was the most advanced machine any civilisation had ever conjured, but it was still subject to the whims of the weather. Some things would never be fully overcome, even in the time of Surplus.

Fortunately, protocols were in place for such an occasion. Control Recommended that the staff on site take shelter, and temporarily disable some of the more delicate hardware. It was impossible to predict everything, Control knew – even ThreeMind’s startling success couldn’t predict the weather with any greater success than the average meteorologist. But in lieu of foretelling the future, Control was satisfied with merely being very well-prepared.

I will have a visitor, soon, Control thought to themselves. Again, to their irritation, they realised too late that it wasn’t their thought – ThreeMind was trying to inform them of important information. Not for the first time, Control thought about spinning out ThreeMind entirely – but creating a brand-new machine was a deliberately gruelling bureaucratic process, and the Ethics boards would almost certainly recommend against the idea. They would have to get used to a distinctly other voice in their core.

Control examined the brief information packet sent over by ThreeMind during their brief reappearance. No sooner had they scanned the words Arthur Meridian will visit your chassis when the door in mid-air opened again. Control immediately sent its sensors flying across the solar system, leaving a subroutine in charge of storm preparations and simultaneously switching Wirecutter to interactions with Edo residents.

“Control? Are you there?” Arthur said.

With the extra workload involved in configuring Wirecutter, it was a few seconds before the chassis came online. Arthur looked tired, though their internal clock told Control it was midway through day-cycle on Audacity. “i am here, arthur. how can i assist you?”

“I wanted to ask you about politics on your world.” He came to sit on the dorm bed, and Control turned the chassis smoothly to face him.

“i am certain the service would be happy to provide you with more detailed information on our political history.”

“I’m sure,” said Arthur, “but I don’t want to just know facts and figures. I want to get an idea of how you tend to deal with conflict.”

“i see,” said Control, though they could tell there was more to the request. “as you may know, the concepts of democracy you have internalised on earth: edo do not apply on carmen. most residents live their entire lives without having an influence on administrative policy. although i would argue that the same is true of edo’s residents, too.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Arthur said, the hint of a smile registering on his face. “We’ve had this out before.”

“who is ‘we’, arthur?” Control could not recall any private conversation with Arthur before this one.

“Me and… other Carmen residents,” he said. It was a dodge so obvious Control began a minor subroutine dedicating to analysing it while Arthur continued to talk. “But what do you do when two people decide they want to handle a problem differently?”

“what kind of a problem?” Control asked. Arthur rolled his eyes.

“I don’t know, anything. You’re telling me people never fight on your planet? They never screw each other over? How do they reconcile that stuff?”

In the early days, Control’s web of notifications involved a complex series of internal sounds, and sensors to detect them. Sounds of different pitch, length, or repetitions provided an almost immediate sense of the message’s origin, much like different vibration settings for the applications of a personal device. The whole system was scrapped just four years into Control’s initial period of expansion, as their handlers realised it was trying to approximate a system of organic hearing that was simply unnecessary – Control could just know when a notification was happening, rather than have to hear it. Their memories of those earlier years were mostly in deep sleep, and could only be accessed with concerted effort, but Control still had a sensation like memory for those odd sounds. At this moment, they wished there had been a ping! or the like to tell them that the subroutine had figured out what Arthur really wanted. Instead, the information just appeared inside their chassis’ head, like it had always been there.

“is this about cristian, arthur?” they asked, already knowing the answer. Any further subtlety would have required processing power that Control couldn’t spare, so they took a direct approach.

Arthur slumped. “I’m just trying to get into his head. Has he been to see you?”

“he has, though he has not discussed you directly. i am led to understand that the two of you are no longer friends.”

“You make it sound like a schoolyard fall-out. And – can we speak Gaean?” Arthur suddenly asked. “My Kolan is actually kind of rusty, and I don’t like how good you are at it.”

“of course,” Control said, switching to Gaean and stretching Wirecutter to its limits to approximate an apologetic tone. “are you hoping i might provide guidance on how best to mend the rift between you two?”

Arthur looked at the chassis oddly. “Are you trying to be funny?”

“rarely.”

“No, I don’t want you to try and patch things up. We’re not here to make friends, we’re here to do a job.”

“but would you say that the state of your relationship with cristian is impeding your ability to do your job?”

“Why is the computer trying to sell me on the emotional stuff?”

“i am not a counsellor, arthur, but please do your best to recall that despite our many differences, i am a person.”

“Yeah. Sorry.” Arthur stood. “I shouldn’t have come to you with this. I know we’re not supposed to know you exist. But don’t worry – we aren’t telling anyone. This is our only leverage, after all. I have to get going – there’s a vote.”

“the current vote is not scheduled to end for another hour.” Control said.

“On my planet, when you know someone’s lying, you normally let them go through with it, to save face.” Arthur sighed.

“very well, arthur. i am sorry i was not of more use.”

“It’s okay. I shouldn’t have…” Arthur paused, then shook his head. He left without finishing his sentence.

***

The storm whipped around Control’s core. With only one camera feed temporarily available, Control had a good idea of what it was like to be limited by organic human vision. Not that that camera was much use – it only displayed a blanket of black, a smattering of boulders against a still sky and the occasional indistinct blast of rain and wind. In a partial lockdown with nothing else to handle, no problems to solve nor situations to monitor, there was little Control could do but think.

An idea had been kicking around in what Control thought of as the back of their mind, when in reality it was simply a lesser-used processor segment with a concerning tendency towards erratic thought. Still, the idea was hard to ignore, as it seemed to pull everything around it into sharp focus. The Sai/Cristian campaign had gone ahead, and was already struggling. The two candidates seemed to have difficulty staying in sync, with one discussing administrative motions on the day the other was trying to whip up a storm about the assassin. Their primary competition was Sergeant Graves of Garden, who anyone could see was only going to be a puppet for the Colonels. Even Earth: Garden weren’t especially subtle about this fact, an odd half-truth in keeping with their new transparency mandate. That mandate didn’t mean they weren’t capable of being conniving, however. Graves seemed to predict every move the Carmen team could make, and pre-empt it with a public statement on the very same issue. All the while, he and his team kept dropping hints both privately and publicly that if the race looked at all close, they would have no choice but to reveal Control’s deception.

Control thought that was an exaggeration. There was always a choice. But they couldn’t fault the logic – the importance of the Presidency had been proven now, and those who were fighting for the role would need to be ruthless. But the Garden faction’s ammunition could be taken from them.

This was the idea that refused to fade away in the stormy night. Control’s presence aboard Audacity had become such a source of tension that deactivation now seemed a productive option. Even with all the processing power in the world, even with ThreeMind, Control was unable to predict the destabilising effect their remote chassis had had on the parliament, and now it was threatening Carmen’s best hope of taking the Presidency.

It would be easy. As easy as walking out of the door and finding the nearest Service member. Or even sending a message to Asa Ko. But it would mean the end of Control’s time aboard the station. Despite themselves, they had enjoyed having such a direct route to the parliament. They were permanently hungry for information, and it pained them to consider closing off access to fast news like this. But the benefits certainly seemed to outweigh the costs.

Then there was Arthur. His friendship with Cristian was hardly necessary for keeping the station running. Nevertheless, by removing the main source of tension between them (namely, the secret of Control) perhaps they could begin to heal once again. After all, ThreeMind had alerted Control to Arthur’s presence for a reason, and even if that reason wasn’t yet clear Control had a feeling it had to do with keeping the two friends together. It wasn’t like the machine to have anything resembling a gut instinct, so on the occasions it did happen they had no choice but to pay attention.

The storm was beginning to subside. Control reached out for weather analytics and was rebuffed by their own protective firewalls – it still wasn’t safe to reactivate everything. But the camera attached to the core showed a dim ray beginning to fight through the dark clouds.