We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Book 5: Chapter 41: A Disturbing Discovery

Book 5: Chapter 41: A Disturbing Discovery

Bill

July 2343

Sol System

Ihadn’t visited Charles in more than eight years. Maybe not surprising, though. He had webcams going so anyone could look in on the progress of the Earth project at any time. It was one of the more popular BobTube video feeds.

The reclamation crew was making great strides with Terra, and two hundred years after humanity nuked the planet into a new ice age, more than fifty percent of the globe was now completely ice-free. Another fifty years, and they estimated they’d be back to normal preindustrial temps. The high CO2 levels helped as well, although there was a project underway to reduce that as well.

“I’ve been getting caught up on your progress, Charles. The planet is coming along nicely.”

Charles waved the comment off. “The tensor field printers are going to make all the difference, Bill. We might have to take some liberties with cell structures, but we collected enough DNA to recreate ninety-eight percent of species, if you include insects. Even some that were already extinct in Original Bob’s time.”

“And the climate ... ”

“Back to interglacial. Weather patterns are still all over the place, but that will smooth out as the atmosphere and ocean temps settle into some kind of regular pattern.”

I stood and idly poked a globe of the moon, hanging on display, which showed oceans and clouds. “Is this real time?”

“Pretty close. It started as a dare or something, but some group decided to terraform the moon. It’s going well, and they’re even starting to get a magnetic field going.”

“What? How? With next to no rotation—”

“They’ve got a lunar day down to about fifty hours. Mover plates. Not just for destroying stars.” Charles smiled as he said this, but I still noticed a reserve that didn’t used to be there. Did he suspect what I was really here for? Starfleet had never attempted any kind of attack in Sol. Did Charles wonder about that, too?

“Venus as well,” I said, pointing at one of the other globes.

“Interesting? Like what?”

“Oh, I dunno. A lot of stuff could get buried.” Then I had a minor flash of genius. “For instance, there was some speculation that Dr. Landers might have had an extra Bob Johannson backup stashed away where FAITH monitors wouldn’t find it.”

Benny laughed. “Oh, nothing like that, no. Although we did find some powered-down mining equipment. Remember Rudolf Kazini? Yeah, he’s part of the crew now. You should meet him. He’s, honest to God, the stereotypical Russian—accent, vodka swilling, and all. And he thinks mannies come directly from God.”

I laughed. That was at least one piece of good news. “Any other replicants?”

“Uh ... ” Benny’s face fell. “We dug out the old institute building, but the replicant computer room had collapsed. No way to recover them. And there was that Homer backup that someone found ... ”

Aha. I had to be casual, though. Don’t scare him. Don’t make him lock up. “I thought Homer destroyed all his backups.”

“I’m sure he thought he did. But someone named Gerry found one. Or says he did.”

“Interesting. Do you know where I can find Gerry?”

Benny shook his head. “He was a collateral descendant, from several generations up. If I remember right, he was working with the asteroid-mining group. You could check with them.”

And I would. But meanwhile, the moon tour was honestly very interesting. I looked up at the Earth, floating in the sky at first quarter, softened by the new atmosphere, and smiled. Howard would monetize this in a heartbeat.

*****

The asteroid-mining group wasn’t hard to find. They were a little, ehm, odd by regular Bob standards, though. Maybe it was a bit of a cosplay thing, but their private VRs were apartments in their main moot, which was made up to look like the asteroid Ceres in The Expanse. Okay. Made sense, I guess, for asteroid miners. But how bored did you have to be ...

Unfortunately, they couldn’t tell me where Gerry was. In fact, Gerry hadn’t been heard from in decades. The Homer backup story was generally considered to be an urban myth, though, and the general consensus was that Gerry had just decided to go Von Neumann-ing.

I had another theory, though. One far less appealing.