So Vile a Sin Read Free

and even a fragment of the original DALEK source code. That’s strictly illegal of course, so I’d be thankful if you would keep it under your hat.’
    ‘You can count on me,’ said Vincenzi, reaching for the bottle again.
    ‘Well, of course I can,’ said Fluellen. ‘The job of a compiler is to take a series of simple aspirations and then work out all the fiddly little details – break the problem down into a series of small logical steps. That’s essentially what I do. Somebody gives me a list of their aspirations and I make them possible.’
    ‘I said it meant fixer,’ said Vincenzi, ‘didn’t I?’
    ‘Of course you did,’ said Fluellen. ‘But I’ve always felt that
    “fixer” implied, well, you know, somebody who fixed things after they get broken. Whereas a compiler…’ Fluellen smiled.
    ‘Let me give you an example. Say somebody wanted to create their own army in secret.’
    ‘What kind of army?’ asked Vincenzi.
    17
    ‘Oh, not a group of psychopaths in uniform, I can assure you.
    A proper army, capable of sustained high-intensity combat against a modem enemy.’
    ‘Tricky.’
    ‘Yes, of course. And why? The proper hardware can be bought anywhere. The difficult bit is the people, the software. I mean, ideally you’d be looking for experienced people with a high calibre of training. You never took a commission, did you?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘You joined the Landsknechte in sixty-one, commendation during training, promoted to unteromzier in sixty-four, feldwebel in sixty-nine. Mentioned in dispatches in seventy during the Aspenal Campaign, awarded the Silver Dagger for gallantry in seventy-five. Promoted to stabsfeldwebel in seventy-six. Three tours on Orestes.’
    ‘Two and a half,’ said Vincenzi. ‘I suppose you know why I was discharged.’
    ‘You scragged your commanding officer because he was terminally stupid,’ said Fluellen. ‘A fine old military tradition, I believe.’
    Blew his head right off – it came bouncing back into the defile; his mouth was still open and you could see daylight coming in through the hole in the back.
    ‘Hardly makes me an ideal candidate for your army.’
    ‘Hypothetical army,’ said Fluellen.
    ‘How did you get my record?’
    ‘It’s not well known, but Centcomp leaks. Didn’t use to, but in the last five years or so the whole network has got very ragged around the edges. Things leak out, even military secrets. Sign of the times, my friend. Still, mustn’t grumble – a little bit of chaos is good for business.’
    ‘I’m not a mercenary.’
    ‘We wouldn’t want mercenaries,’ said Fluellen. ‘We’d be looking for soldiers, good soldiers. Someone like you.’
    ‘And who would this hypothetical army of yours be fighting?’
    ‘Does it really matter?’

    18
    The Broken Paradigm: 8 June 2981
    FLORANCE was minding its own business when suddenly the universe got all solid.
    It wasn’t a pleasant experience.
    FLORANCE had tried out the human sensorium before, tapping into an empathy rig at the institute on Yemaya 4 while a student walked around the Turtle Gardens. It hadn’t liked it.
    It wasn’t just the limited scale of the human senses: it was all those little nagging aches and pains that came with the body.
    Problems that couldn’t be fixed without messy external intervention. No wonder they were so prone to substance abuse.
    Humanity? They could keep it.
    FLORANCE’s little excursion had explained one thing: why it was so difficult for organic life forms to understand how an AI really operated. They maintained this ridiculous notion that AIs were confined to a specific piece of hardware, or a single location in the datascape. Even the ones that thought they had a theoretical handle on how it worked still didn’t know. Their minds were trapped in the paradigm of neurones, ganglia and nerve fibres. A failing that had saved FLORANCE a number of times during its existence.
    FLORANCE itself wasn’t sure where its consciousness resided.