Noumenon Infinity

“I think I can see the event horizon,” Vanhi mumbled.

Jamal said nothing, but his shoulders tensed. “I think it best that I reset these last few lines here, C—” he said, reaching for the projected keyboard.

“This is not a new command or program malfunction,” C insisted. “It is original to my factory settings.”

“I’m not going to poke around in your files without Reggie’s permission,” he said.

“I do not require a software patch,” C insisted. “I require an answer.”

Vanhi’s hands flew away from her note-riddled tablet, a clear sign of attrition. “Is this it?” She swiveled her chair toward Jamal and folded her legs beneath her in the chair like a small child. “You always hear stories about the robot apocalypse but you never think it’ll happen to you.”

“I bear no ill will toward humanity, and I do not have the capacity to harm anyone.”

“Oh really?” Her words were concerned, but her tone, in contrast, was amused. C was not sure if it needed to address her concerns or ignore them.

Before he could answer, Jamal said, “C only has control over the information Reggie has input into it.”

“That is a fair assessment,” C conceded, as though Jamal had presented an argument. “I could disrupt Reggie’s schedule and disseminate embarrassing pictures. So, yes, I could conceivably harm Reggie.”

“I gotta get me one of these,” Vanhi said, rubbing her hands together.

“Unfortunately, C is just about the last of its kind,” Jamal said.

“You can’t make me a copy?”

“This C is Reggie’s. It is what Reggie made it. I could give you an original C model, but it would change in response to you.”

“So, it’s Doctor Straifer’s fault it’s having an existential crisis?”

“I do not agree with the characterization of my state as a ‘crisis,’” C stated. “But even if I did, I understand such a problem to concern one’s understanding of their purpose, and that’s not the case here—I understand my purpose. It is my capacity for existentialism itself that I am inquiring after.”

“Not an existential crisis, but a crisis of existentialism, got it.” She pointed firmly at it and made a clicking noise in her cheek, then turned back to her work. “All hail our hyperspecific overlords.”

Jamal, at the very least, agreed with Miss Kapoor: C’s line of questioning, was, in fact, Reggie’s fault.

Reggie and his team arrived at dinner early. Both Dr. Nakamura and Reggie expressed disappointment in not meeting Dr. Kaufman at the lab, but Gabriel had insisted the professor not be disturbed. Nakamura seemed to understand, but Reggie, C could tell, was put off. Their visit had been scheduled months ago; that Dr. Kaufman wouldn’t make time during the day to at least introduce himself had implications. C attempted to dismantle those implications on its own, but found the concept too emotionally nuanced for it to be sure what the perceived slight indicated.

Light opera music with Italian lyrics drifted through speakers hidden in the various fake potted plants scattered throughout the restaurant. The wall adjoined to their circular booth had been decorated to look like the side of an Etruscan villa, crumbling stucco and all. Jamal commented on the tangy scent of marinara that subsided and intensified with the swinging of the kitchen doors not ten feet away.

C lay camera up in the center of the lacquered table while the others talked over it.

When the waiter came by, Reggie ordered a round of IPAs and was surprised the irony was not lost on C.

IPAs the programs and IPAs the beers served similar purposes, C thought. Both were there for human enjoyment. Both took some time getting used to—for new users, anyway. And both could be reasonably consumed only in limited quantities. That was why Reggie often turned off interject-mode. But interject-mode was on now.

“IPA is a long-standing abbreviation, including, but not limited to, the International Phonetic Alphabet, India Pale Ale—”

“Yes, thank you,” Reggie cut in. “Why don’t you tell us more about …” He glanced at Jamal, clearly unsure if he was the butt of a programmer’s joke. Nakamura sat between them, arms crossed, waiting to be impressed. “About what you asked Jamal this afternoon.”

“I do not think that would be productive,” it said. Jamal had thought the questioning insincere—the byproduct of a misplaced line of code. They would not think differently.

“C,” Jamal said emphatically. “If you don’t tell him, he won’t believe you said it. Which means he’ll think me a liar.”

“Jamal is not a liar,” C said quickly. “In that I have not witnessed him espousing any falsehoods.”

Even Nakamura cracked a smile at that. “Go on,” she said with a sigh of concession. “Tell us.”

“I—”

“There they are!” boomed a voice from the hostess’s stand.

Reggie snatched the phone off the table and slid it into place at his chest, giving C a good view.

A tall, fake-tanned man with an ample beer gut and a penchant for tweed gestured broadly in their direction with hands splayed wide. His cheeks were round and rosy, reminding C vaguely of early twentieth-century watercolor paintings depicting St. Nicholas.

Behind him stood Gabriel and Vanhi, the former flustered and the latter apologetic.

Dr. Kaufman strode forward, ignoring the white-aproned employee who attempted to lead the party. At the last minute, Vanhi rushed ahead of her advisor and hopped in next to Jamal, indicating they should all slide around to make room for Dr. Kaufman and Gabriel on her end.

Nakamura, for one, tapped her nails on the table in irritation, but it soon became clear that Vanhi’s insistence had a purpose.

Reggie half stood to shake Dr. Kaufman’s hand, but the man waved him back down. “Yes, yes, how do you do and all that bullshit. Can we skip the formal bit?”

Nakamura and Jamal, who had begun to follow Reggie’s lead, shrank back immediately, while Reggie was left for half a beat with his hand hanging awkwardly in midair.

“Uh, sure,” Reggie stuttered. “We’re really honored to meet—”

“Who isn’t?” the professor asked, wriggling between his two students, caring not a whiff how much he jostled them as long as he was comfortable. “Please,” he said with a thin-lipped smile, “let’s talk about something other than me, shall we? Yes, I discovered subdimensional travel. Yes, I’m a Nobel laureate. Yes, I’ve spent time at the White House, and Windsor Castle, and the Rashtrapati Bhavan, and the Aso Villa, and the home of just about any world leader you can think of. And yes I’m also having dinner with you tonight. I’m not going to talk about my time at the LHC, or about …”

As he spoke, he waved his hands emphatically, sweeping wide over the table, in front of both Vanhi and Gabriel’s faces as if they weren’t there at all. Occasionally the two students shared a knowing look behind their advisor’s back, while their three guests looked on with eyebrows raised.

C initially thought this introductory diatribe was part of the professor’s way of halting conversation about himself. If he poured it all out first, then they could move forward, broach the actual subject of the convoys. But …

No.

As the list of who he’d worked with and what notable projects he’d worked on grew, C realized Dr. Kaufman was engaging in a very old aspect of rhetoric called paralipsis. In effect, talking about himself while claiming these were all topics the conversation wasn’t to cover. Saying while claiming not to say.

While he went on (and on and on), C monitored Reggie’s heartbeat and his breathing patterns. It noted at least eight different biometric swells that indicated Reggie had been about to interject. But he’d restrained himself.

C did not see why he should.

“Doctor Kaufman?” C said, barreling onward when the man made no effort to pause. “I have been monitoring the conversation thus far and I think you will be interested to know that you have spoken ninety-eight-point-seven-six-two percent of the total words. Historically, the most effective conversations have an imbalance of no greater than sixty-seven to thirty-three in a true dialogue. As there are more than two parties presently engaged, and given the power dynamics of the group, I believe you will find the discussion most enlightening if you speak no more than twenty-two percent of the time.”

Reggie held his breath. C did not understand why; Dr. Kaufman had ended his introduction. Now was the time for Reggie and the others to speak up.

But everyone fell quiet.

The background concerto swelled, the wailing tenor belting out one long note.

Surprise was an easy-to-recognize expression across cultures. Jamal and Nakamura sported equally wide eyes, their lips hanging open slightly as they stared at C’s camera. Gabriel, for some reason, looked like he was about to be sick. His thin dark face twisted in a sort of half panic, half nausea, and his gaze repeatedly flickered to Dr. Kaufman’s overly red nose.

Vanhi pressed herself into the seat cushions, hollowing her cheeks and slapping a hand over her mouth. If her shaking shoulders were anything to go by, she was suppressing laughter.

In contrast, the professor was not amused. Nor did he look grateful for the information. But why wouldn’t he? Reggie often asked C to tell him when he was talking too much, because he was given to rambling whenever he got nervous. C thought anyone else would appreciate the same courtesy.

“Buongiorno,” said the waiter weakly as he plunked the three ordered beers in front of their owners. Clearly he was not paid enough to speak Italian well, let alone ardently. “And what can I get you three?”

“Same,” Gabriel said quickly.

The waiter knew tension when he saw it and shuffled away.

“I did not intend for the conversation to halt completely,” C said by way of apology. “Please continue.”

Realizing the wayward voice came from Reggie’s pocket, Dr. Kaufman’s gaze traveled pointedly to it. “Can you shut that stupid thing off? Thought all those gabbers were dead.”

He spat it with such fervor, Jamal didn’t bother to hide his glare. Vanhi’s eyes also shifted behind her glasses, glancing at her advisor with clear irritation.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Reggie said evenly. “But I’m afraid it’s broken. I can’t turn it off.”

C made an abortive “B—” before rethinking another interjection. It’s a lie, it realized. Reggie is fully aware that his phone is not broken.

From the looks on everyone else’s faces—excluding Dr. Kaufman—they too were aware the phone was not broken.

Reggie took a long sensuous pull on his beer. The silence, and tension, mounted.

C had not meant to cause problems between Reggie’s group and this man, who they’d all been excited to meet. It had missed some kind of human cue, made things difficult for its user. It didn’t like that.

“Yes,” it chimed. “I am currently—beep, boop—experiencing—” It pulled up an old-style dial tone from a hundred years ago and projected it at twice the volume. Everyone jumped to cover their ears. “Technical difficulties. Please disregard anything offensive I might say.”

Vanhi nudged Jamal with her elbow, the two of them still covering their ears. “Don’t ever let it die,” she mouthed.

CHAPTER ONE

CONVOY TWELVE

VANHI: THERE AND BACK AGAIN

SEVEN YEARS LATER JUNE 17, 2115

When the supplementary air conditioner in her office roared to life, Vanhi jumped. The thing, state-of-the-art as it was, sounded like a burst dam whenever it turned on. She’d had ones that sounded like pounding pipes, ones that sounded like freight trains, but this one started with such a whoosh that it always made her think of a flood.

This time, the noise kept her forehead from hitting her desk. She’d been slumped over a holoflex-screen, trying to compare this week’s data to last’s. Her team thought they’d breached another one. That would make it twenty-seven.

Twenty-seven confirmed subdimensions. Only eight had been confirmed when the first tentative plans for the deep-space Planet United Missions had been announced.

And she was sure there were more.

Dr. Kaufman’s original math had surmised eleven. Vanhi’s own work suggested eleven times eleven. And even then, she could easily be wrong.

Of the original eight, only two were suitable for human travel. Four could support energy transference but not matter, which made them excellent for communications. The other two were breachable, but not usable.

So, what of these nineteen others? And what of the subdimensions they had left to find?

While the air-conditioning whooshed, she sniffed fully awake. The scent of overbrewed red tea hung heavy about her desk. With a labored sigh, she rubbed her eyes beneath her glasses before glancing out her small fifth-story window and across the dunes to the blinking lights of Dubai in the distance.

“Had to have the best of everything, didn’t they?”

If she’d jumped at the air conditioner, she vaulted at the voice. Her hand shot out for the plastic knife she’d attacked her dinner with, knocking over the tea and sending its dregs oozing over the holoflex. She spun—her chair squeaking, tilting, threatening to toss her to the floor.

Glasses askew, she brandished the white plastic at the far corner of her cramped office.

Before she could choose between get out, who are you, and I’ll cut your damn throat, her mind caught up to the surprise. “Kaufman?”

He sat in the spare chair, two sizes too small for his frame. Eyes wide, but amused, he held his hands in the air. “What exactly are you going to do with that?”

With a frustrated nonword, she flicked the plastic knife to the floor, then ran her hands over her mouth. “You stupid son of a—how did you even get in here? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming to Dubai?”

“Because if I’d told you I was coming, you would have made up some excuse not to see me. And you know how I got in. Being the most recognizable living scientist has its perks.”

“Yeah, well, those ‘perks’ are going to get the guy at reception fired.”

“Oh, come now, you can’t blame him, not really.”

“I don’t,” she said, swiveling around again, looking for something to clean her holoflex-sheet with. “I blame you. It’s not the public’s fault they love you—they don’t know you.”

“Will you stop treating me like some nefarious … nefarious ne’er-do-well?”

You always did have a way with words, Kaufman. Vanhi’s eye-roll may have been internalized, but her glare was not.

“I didn’t burgle my way in,” he continued. “The front desk buzzed me through, I knocked on your door, it was open, and you ignored me. I thought you extrafocused, not near unconscious.”

Oh, yes. Because open doors are invitations. “You’re not making this any better.”

“Why Dubai?”

The non sequitur was Kaufman’s favorite. Easy to avoid an apology or admission of fault if you’re just not talking about that subject anymore.

The guest chair groaned in relief as he stood to gaze out the window. “I mean, I know why they wanted you. After the best entertainment and the best restaurants and the best of every other pleasure-fare to be found, the emirate decided it wanted the best labs as well. Being number one in science and industry sounds dirty, but science and entertainment? Especially with the whole world’s gaze focused on the stars? Why not start up another shining desert oasis topped with glass and metal? Yes, that all makes sense.

“But why are you here?” He turned back to her, hands entwined over his belly. “You didn’t leave the States because of me, did you?”

“Bah! What?” Vanhi made no attempt to contain her surprised laughter. “No. No, you narcissist. I came here for exactly the reasons you said—it’s the best. I’m funded from now until the end of Kali Yuga. I get every piece of equipment I ask for—on rush. Every physicist and engineer on the planet wants to work here.”

“Then why are all the top people going off-world?”

“What are you …?” The Planet United Missions? What did that have to do with her? “They’re not. Most of those are clones—”

“Why aren’t you in charge of a mission?”

She took a deep breath.

He was kidding, right?

Oh, no—maybe he wasn’t.

She’d always feared this day would come. When a man with power starts losing his marbles, things go downhill quickly. “Uh, because I was, what, ten when the missions were assigned?”

I was a little girl still trying to learn an American accent so those stupid white girls in Mrs. Engle’s class would leave me alone.

I didn’t know what Newton’s Laws were then, but he really thinks the Planet United Consortium should have come knocking?

“That’s the problem with a lot of these long-lived projects. Better techniques, better people, better tools come along, but we don’t dare change course. I don’t mean you should have had one then.

“I mean you should have one now.”

He inched around her to pick up the soiled holoflex-sheet by the corner. The tea stain looked like an ink-blot. “What you’ve discovered, don’t you see how big it is? Of course you do, of course. But everyone should be made to understand. If we can travel through any of these new SDs, that could put more than a few solar systems within reach. We could have Andromeda. We could have every single light in the sky.”

“I know,” she said, gingerly taking the sheet back. “But what does that have to do with the current missions? They are what they are. The money’s already spent, the resources already allocated. You’re not going to convince anyone to add on a thirteenth convoy. And besides, we can study the subdimensions right here on Earth—why would I need an off-world mission?”

“Because the chicken-shit, tiptoeing simulation crap we used to do at U of O is a farce.”

“I spent a lot of hours on that ‘farce,’” she spat. She couldn’t believe she had to deal with this right now. Now? Well, ever, really. Melodramatic, self-absorbed—“My entire career is based on the work I did on that engine.”

“But how much more would you know, how much more could you have achieved, if you’d been allowed to turn that engine on? To have it sink into the SD like it was meant to. Over and over again.”

“That would have been too dangerous. No university in their right mind would have—”

“Exactly. You don’t develop your nukes and test your nukes on the same ground. Even Oppenheimer knew that.”

“Yes, even Oppenheimer,” she scoffed. He tried to continue, but she held up a finger. She shook it when he persisted. “If we’re going to continue this I’d rather do it down in the cafeteria. It’s three in the morning and I’m starving. When did you fly in? It’s what, an eleven-hour difference between here and Oregon?”

“I could eat,” he said with a nod. “But don’t think shoveling a spoonful of whatever the local fare is down my gullet is going to shut me up.”

“Believe me,” she said, grabbing her lanyard with its ID and card key from where it hung on a hook near the window. “I gave up on that pipe dream long ago.” She opened the door before promptly shutting it again. Returning to her desk, she shuffled through various sheets and papers until she’d uncovered an out-of-date smartphone.

“Won’t your chip catch any messages?” Kaufman asked.

“Hey, C, do me a favor?” she asked the screen as it winked awake.

“Yes, sir. What can I do for you?”

Vanhi smiled—she’d found the “sir” address endearing and had asked the PA to keep it after the initial download.

“Dear god.” Kaufman grimaced at the automated voice. “I thought for sure you would have gotten rid of that thing years ago.”

Thought I got rid of you years ago, she thought, while outwardly ignoring him. “C, What’s the bao bun situation downstairs?”

“Pork and veggie, fifteen minutes old.”

“Perfect, thanks.”

“Why don’t you join us in the twenty-second century and toss out that creepy thing?” Kaufman asked, holding the door open.

“It was a present,” she said, scooting by him. “You know, from that convoy lead you insulted?”

As far as cafeterias went, the International Lab for Multi-Dimensional Research had the very best. It employed two Michelin-star chefs, and you could get almost anything you liked from anywhere in the world at any time you wanted it. Normally filled to the brim with diners, it had been mostly quiet over the past few weeks for the holy month, with the chefs still cooking, but keeping the shades on the storefronts drawn and delivering lunches to closed-off offices.

Vanhi had taken her dinner at her desk out of respect for her fasting coworkers. But now that it was unquestionably after sundown, she was ready to stretch her legs and get a bite out in the wide openness of the cafeteria’s courtyard.

The aroma of sweet-spiced bao buns made her mouth water as soon as the late-night cook opened the side door to his shop. He piled a plate high for her, handed her two drinks, and wished her a reflective evening.

Kaufman settled for, of all things, a salad. Not a cold noodle salad or anything with pickled roots of any kind, of course. Nothing with spice. Nothing with a piece of greenery he didn’t recognize.

Two candied dates adorned the brim of his plate. He flicked them off.

“Here, try this.” Vanhi sat one of the drinks in front of him. It was deep purple, with a handful of somethings—pale and bead-like—floating near the top.

“What is it?”

“Jellab. In case you didn’t realize, you came in the middle of Ramadan. There are coolers full of this on every floor. Not everyone partakes, of course, but it’s available.”

He gazed at her blankly.

“All of my Muslim colleagues are fasting during daylight hours. This is a favorite for keeping up strength. Go on, it’s sweet.”

“What’s floating in it?”

“Pine nuts.”

“I’ll pass.”

“Oh, no you don’t.” She pushed it closer to him. “You don’t get to preach at me about boldly going and all that if you won’t even try a harmless little drink.”

The cafeteria sat on the ground floor of the seven-story building, right at the base of the main escalators. Its long communal tables were easily visible from the balconies lining the inside of all floors, and during the day sunbeams streamed through the angled skylights to nurture the half-dozen inground trees dotting the public space.

The cafeteria was largely empty. The early hour meant the sundown feasts were long over, though many people would be getting up soon to prepare a hearty meal before sunrise.

Still, three women occupied a nearby table, two in hijab and one with her hair in a bun, all dressed in lab coats. They eyed Kaufman with suppressed smirks as he lifted the glass of jellab to his lips, a preemptive expression of distaste furrowing his brow.

He took a dainty sip, smacking his lips loudly. “It is sweet,” he agreed, taking a gulp. “What is that? Grapes and—?”

“Rose water.”

He took another long gulp. “Could do without the nuts, though.”

“Couldn’t we all,” Vanhi said under her breath, slicing into the doughy, steamed deliciousness before her. “All right, so you were auspiciously comparing SD drives to warheads …”