Blindsight

Szpindel shook his head. "Didn't believe it. Knew it. For a fact."

"But how—"

"Charge gauge on your car, right? Sometimes the contacts corrode. Readout freezes on empty, so you think it's empty. What else you supposed to think? Not like you can go in and count the electrons."

"You're saying the brain's got some kind of existence gauge?"

"Brain's got all kinds of gauges. You can know you're blind even when you're not; you can know you can see, even when you're blind. And yeah, you can

know you don't exist even when you do. It's a long list, commissar. Cotard's, Anton's, Damascus Disease. Just for starters."

He hadn't said blindsight.

"What was it like?" I asked.

"Like?" Although he knew exactly what I meant.

"Did your arm— move by itself? When it reached for that battery?"

"Oh. Nah. You're still in control, you just—you get a feeling, is all. A sense of where to reach. One part of the brain playing charades with another, eh?" He gestured at the couch. "Get off. Seen enough of your ugly guts for now. And send up Bates if you can find where she's hiding. Probably back at Fab building a bigger army."

The misgivings glinted off him like sunlight. "You have a problem with her," I said.

He started to deny it, then remembered who he was talking to. "Not personally. Just—human node running mechanical infantry. Electronic reflexes slaved to meat reflexes. You tell me where the weak spot is."

"Down in Rorschach, I'd have to say all the links are pretty weak."

"Not talking about Rorschach," Szpindel said. "We go there. What stops them from coming here?"

"Them."

"Maybe they haven't arrived yet," he admitted. "But when they do, I'm betting we'll be going up against something bigger than anaerobic microbes." When I didn't answer he continued, his voice lowered. "And anyway, Mission Control didn't know shit about Rorschach. They thought they were sending us some place where drones could do all the heavy lifting. But they just hate not being in command, eh? Can't admit the grunts're smarter than the generals. So our defenses get compromised for political appearances—not like that's any kinda news—and I'm no jarhead but it strikes me as real bad strategy."

I remembered Amanda Bates, midwifing the birth of her troops. I'm more of a safety precaution….

"Amanda—" I began.

"Like Mandy fine. Nice mammal. But if we're cruising into a combat situation I don't want my ass covered by some network held back by its weakest link."

"If you're going to be surrounded by a swarm of killer robots, maybe—"

"Yeah, people keep saying that. Can't trust the machines. Luddites love to go on about computer malfunctions, and how many accidental wars we might have prevented because a human had the final say. But funny thing, commissar; nobody talks about how many intentional wars got started for the same reason. You're still writing those postcards to posterity?"

I nodded, and didn't wince inwardly. It was just Szpindel.

"Well, feel free to stick this conversation in your next one. For all the good it'll do."

* * *

Imagine you are a prisoner of war.

You've got to admit you saw it coming. You've been crashing tech and seeding biosols for a solid eighteen months; that's a good run by anyone's standards. Realist saboteurs do not, as a rule, enjoy long careers. Everyone gets caught eventually.

It wasn't always thus. There was a day you might have even hoped for a peaceful retirement. But then they brought the vampires back from the Pleistocene and Great Grieving Ganga did that ever turn the balance of power upside down. Those fuckers are always ten steps ahead. It only makes sense; after all, hunting people is what bloodsuckers evolved to do.

There's this line from an early pop-dyn textbook, really old, maybe even TwenCen. It's something of a mantra—maybe prayer would be a better word—among those in your profession. Predators run for their dinner, it goes. Prey run for their lives. The moral is supposed to be that on average, the hunted escape the hunters because they're more motivated.

Maybe that was true when it all just came down to who ran faster. Doesn't seem to hold when the strategy involves tactical foresight and double-reverse mind fucks, though. The vampires win every time.