Elytra 4

Monday 19 June 85AGF 5pm

'That's better, yes.' The voice was soothing, calming, protective. It was low and quiet. Now then, all you need to … that's right, that's good … oh, you are a clever girl.' The voice added pride to its long list of qualities. 'And now just a little, yes, yes … that's it …' The quiet peace of the room was shattered as two hands slammed down on the table. 'STUPID BITCH!' It shouted, and grunted as it swept the apparatus from it in a fit of blind anger.

The sound of metal hitting the floor brought an immediate reaction, as an intelligent looking Clansman burst into the room. 'What happened?

'Nothing.' Came the reply.

'It hardly sounded li …' The interruption that followed was one of force.

'I don't mean nothing happened, you idiot. Naturally I destroyed the latest version of my current project in what amounted to a fit of infant pique. That 'happened', that was an event that occurred. It occurred, however, because no matter how promising its movements were, nothing happened.' The voice was brutal, sarcastic, patronising. It came from a man in his late 60s. Grey. Wearing a dressing gown over an extremely shabby yet well-cut suit. His hair was neatly cut and oiled. He was clean-shaven. Bare-footed.

The Clansman winced slightly as the words were said, but displayed no more emotion than that. The atmosphere changed as suddenly as table had been cleared. The voice spoke once more. Now it was calm. Collected. Scrupulously polite. 'Would you care for a cup of coffee, young man?' Its bearer contemplated the man that stood in front of him. He was a cut above your average Clansman. A Singleton of the better sort, one perhaps who had been earmarked for upgrading but had developed in unexpected directions, or one whose chip hadn't taken and had been rejected by the System, one who had rejected the System. The mystery, as ever with his ilk, was the set of circumstances in which he had moved from servile, passive Overgrounder to relatively independent Undergrounder, and particularly a Clansman.

'Thanks. I'd like that.' He replied.

'Well, don't just stand there: sit.' The Clansman obeyed, sitting on a sofa to the right of the desk. He suspected it was leather, judging by the feel and the pattern of wear, though he'd never experienced it before. The room was like none he'd seen, full of dark wood and old machines. Books. Papers. All juxtapositioned with tablets, workstations and some pieces he didn't recognise. As the Clansman surveyed the room, the voice stood and walked over to the counter to make coffee. On his return, he walked through the debris, kneeling down where the wreckage was at its most concentrated. He began to sift through it methodically.

'Much damage?' Asked the Clansman.

'No.' Answered the voice.

'That's a stroke of luck.'

'There is no such thing. The apparatus is somewhat more durable than it appears. I could throw it against the wall there and simply pick it up, reassemble it, place it back on the desk and no one would be any the wiser.' He appeared to be searching for something. He peered ever more intently at the floor. 'Ah! There you are.' The voice picked up a small shiny black object from the floor.

'Something broken?' Asked the clansman.

'No, no, no.' The voice stood and walked towards the Clansman. He stretched out his right hand. 'Open your hand and keep it open.' The Clansman did as requested and the voice placed the small, shiny black object in the middle of the open palm. He returned to making coffee. 'Beautiful isn't she?'

The Clansman stared at the object sitting on his palm as he considered the question. 'How do you know it's a she?' He was jittery. The man who was currently making him coffee had a reputation for not suffering fools for minders. That was why he had been chosen, why he had put himself forward. He also felt that he had just been asked a trick question, one which was impossible to answer correctly. He wondered whether the beetle crawling over his palm felt the same.

'They are all shes. And they emerge as adults. This latest one has taken over a year to raise, somewhat quicker than in the wild, but still a big investment in time. My pique is a result of the beetle still being imperfect.' The room was starting to fill with the aroma of very good coffee. This was but one of the apparent perks of this position.

'How? It looks like a perfectly good beetle to me.'

'Ah, but this beetle is special. Not, sadly, successful. But special nonetheless. I am attempting to encode patterns on their wingcases using MemDNA.' The voice sighed, 'Still, there are ten more versions waiting to see the light of day. Ten more subtle tweaks of beetlekind.'

The voice brought over coffee and handed it to the Clansman. He opened his own palm and laid it next to the other's. He made a clicking sound with his teeth and the Clansman watched as the beetle opened up its wingcases and, before it took to the air for the trip to the voice's hand, flashed rippling shards of colour across them.

'Wow!' Was all he could muster.

'Oh, but that's not the beauty of this beetle, sorry, your name?'

'Francis.'

'… Francis. A good name. Francis Xavier was the first follower of Ignatius de Loyola, founder of the order of Jesuits … oh, but you won't know any of those names, much less care ...'

'Actually,' began the Clansman, 'I was named after him, apparently.'

'Interesting. In a previous life I was duty psychologist at the Loyola Multiple home. Maybe we met there.' He stared at his minder intently. There was not so much as a flicker behind his eyes, though the right eye's pupil was strangely dilated. The voice continued. 'But this beetle … decades ago, before the Great Fire, life as we knew it was carbon-based, so far as science was concerned. Then we started creating A-life, artificial life, but it didn't satisfy our desire to start anew. But then, then everything changed. Some sea-creatures were discovered, deep, deep on the ocean floor. Sponges which were definitely alive and definitely comprised primarily of silicon.'

'So?' The Clansman said. The voice sighed gently, but continued, albeit making it plain that he was resisting the urge to speak as if the man were a child.

'Silicon is the primary ingredient of the microchip. Engineers such as myself, enthusiastic amateurs who worked for the thrill of creation rather than for profit or utility realised that we could now design truly interesting circuitry, circuitry that would redefine our concept of what it is to be alive. We could truly create life forms that contained micro circuitry as part and parcel of their organic wholes. Not hybrids or transpecies, but creatures that have evolved with micro circuitry as if they were water snails and the circuitry their shells.' The Clansman took a deep draught of coffee. It tasted nothing like the coffee he was used to, and let it show. 'Ah, your first real coffee? Vile, isn't it? You'll grow to love it soon enough.'

'I doubt it. This beetle.'

'Silicon. Pure silicon. Otherwise exactly like its carboniferous cousins.' The voice inspected his handiwork. 'I designed it. I made it.'

'You created a new life form? But that makes you …'

'Exactly what I want it to.' The voice smiled as the beetle half-flew and half-hopped onto her creator's open palm. 'Good girl.' He said. And crushed it in his fist before throwing it away.

'You may call me Doctor.'

The Clansman nodded and the two men continued their conversation as the crushed remains of the beetle dragged itself to the corner of the room and disappeared through a crack in the wall.