The Origami Dragon And Other Tales Read online

Rob Echosoul And the A.lice I.nvestigation

  -from the notes of Dr Whenson

  It has now been three decades since the day I met Rob Echosoul, that remarkable man who lived such a dangerous life and had such strange friends. I kept my knowledge of Rob to myself for many years to protect both his life and my own, but his exploits were never meant to remain hidden from the world. You may have first heard of him during the time of the red canary drug busts, or his vendetta against the London wing of the magical mafia. He gained worldwide fame for his work as a mediator when the dragons returned to the world, but my story predates all these and is set in a time when he was a simple freelance hunter trying to make his way in the world, pitting his wits and strength against the world and all that’s in it.

  I found him lying dead on my lawn. It was an inauspicious start for a relationship, but a memorable one. I gave his body a cursory examination, but his injuries were too terrible for him to be alive. He looked like he had been attacked by a pack of bears and then dragged through a field of barbed wire. He looked quite, quite dead, but I nevertheless checked him for signs of life and pulled out my phone to call for help. He had no signs, and I had no signal. I ran inside to use my home phone. At my daughter’s request, I had recently bought one of those home tablet phones, and I grabbed it. Instead of the normal screen of icons and numbers, there was a single white sentence against a blue background.

  “Take him inside and treat him”, I read aloud. I remember thinking that was odd, at the time. The phone wouldn’t let me make a call out. I heard a knock on the door, which startled me. I opened it and found the previously dead man lying against the wall. He appeared to be gasping for breath, but otherwise unconscious.

  I should have called for help. I should have gone to the hospital, or the police, or even just to my neighbour’s house. That would have been the smart thing to do, but then I would never have met Alice and my life would have remained completely normal. Instead of going for help, I somehow dragged the man inside. Like all country doctors, I had a black bag of all the necessary tools sitting by my front door for emergencies, so I went to work.

  I checked my telephone again. Its screen had the word “Good” written across it, and it still wouldn’t let me make any calls.

  I had served as a doctor in Afghanistan for many years, treating both soldiers and civilians as part of the N.A.T.O. alliance, so I don’t shock easily. He may have been dead, and then alive, but he was my patient and it was my job to heal him. I dragged him into the spare room, made sure that he was safe, and ran to my car. It was a technologically advanced Land Rover, a self-driving model that refused to start. The on-board computer flashed “Fix him” repeatedly, stubbornly remaining despite my pressing every button I could find.

  “OR ELSE!” the screen flashed as I exited the car.

  My little cottage is a kilometre from my nearest neighbour, a distance I could easily run, but I didn’t want to leave my patient alone. I went back inside.

  He was still alive, although all my experience suggested that he wouldn’t remain that way for long. On the other hand, he had already died once that day, so I did what I could for him, patching up the worst of his injuries and dealing with his pain. I had to use all tricks I knew, and by the time I was done I had used every stitch and bandage in my bag.

  His injuries, deep lacerations, covered most of his body, and I had cut his clothes off to treat them. He was a lean, muscular man of average height and pale complexion, and I noticed he was covered in old scars. I wondered where he had come from, how he had sustained such terrible injuries, why he had come to my house. His possessions included nothing that I could use to identify him, although his pockets were full of the most unusual collection of odds and ends: a small silver knife, some coins from across the world, a small soapstone figurine of a lion, a couple of pouches and USBs. I placed these on the bedside table and continued working. I sat with him, expecting him to die at any moment. Somewhat to my surprise, his vital signs grew stronger over the next hour, and it wasn’t long before he woke up.

  I was dozing off when he finally opened his piercing blue eyes and coughed loudly.

  “Where….am…I?” he demanded, wheezing painfully.

  I told him who I was, where he was, and how I had found him.

  “And Alpha?” he asked, trying to sit up from the bed.

  I didn’t know what he was talking about, which seemed to confuse him. I increased his painkillers, and he dropped back to sleep. Perhaps I shouldn’t have done that, but I was worried. I knew my young daughter would be coming home soon on her bicycle, and then I could send her back into town for help.

  I leant over my patient to check the bandages on his head. I started as his hand grabbed my own.

  “If you help me, I will repay you!” he said forcefully, before slipping back on to the bed.

  I couldn’t believe that he was still conscious after all the drugs I had pumped into his system. I pushed him back gently, and told him that I would take care of him. I went back to my computer and read the message on the screen. I read it again, and a third time. There was no mistaking the words.

  I typed “OK” with some worry.

  The message changed. I used the computer to open up my bank account, and whistled when I saw what was now in it.

  “OK!” I typed again, this time with more enthusiasm.

  I didn’t know how my computer was being hacked, but it was clear that my mystery patient had an extremely rich guardian angel.

  When my daughter came home, I explained the situation to her without holding anything back. My daughter is a sensible but ambitious young lady, so she was easy to convince. We took turns looking after our patient, who slept through the night and late into the next day. His recovery was truly remarkable, but he was still very weak. It wasn’t until two days later that we were able to finally have our first conversation. As you might expect, this was a somewhat difficult situation. As was my normal practice, I had my small digital recorder on hand to ensure that I was able review the interview later. I hesitated before entering the room, slipping the recorder into my pocket. This act made me feel deeply uncomfortable, but the voice of my intuition insisted on this precaution.

  I entered the room and sat next to my patient.

  “My computer has been threatening me,” I said, surprising myself a little by my choice of opener.

  I had intended to start our conversation off more gently, but the weirdness of my computer had worried me more than I had realised. My patient laughed to himself, and I rather rudely asked him if he didn’t believe me.

  “Your computer is threatening you? Of course I believe you, Doctor, of course I do. I’m no computer expert, but I have a theory if you would like to hear it. I’ll talk as you clean out my cuts, I’m sure we will both appreciate the distraction.”

  I remember doing as he suggested, knowing that it was a necessary chore that neither of us would enjoy.

  “My name is Rob, Doctor, and I appreciate your help. You will be repaid, I promise. But first, my story. It was about ten years ago now, but I still remember it well. I was shining my favourite silver knife with a yeti-hair cloth at the time. The very same knife your daughter stole from me when she was watching over me this morning. Don’t give me that look; I know she did. A talented youngster, I thought. Tell her to keep it sharp.”

  He ignored my half-hearted protests with a gentle wave. I knew the knife he was speaking of, it was one of the few possessions I had found on him. I let the mention of a yeti go unchallenged, thinking instead that I would need to talk to my daughter.

  “I put the knife down when I heard my laptop beep as a message arrived. It had been a while since I had been called to action, so I was keen to be moving again. I don’t normally hear from my clients by email, because they prefer more old-fashioned methods, like familiars and messages on my mirror.”

  I rolled my eyes and stood up, backing away. The man was clearly mad, and I was wasting my time. He saw the look
on my face and laughed to himself. He said a single word and I felt my body freeze in position. Only my eyes could move, and they followed his finger as he pointed to the stone lion on the table. I watched in amazement as the little creature stretched and then roared. He said another word, and my body relaxed again. I swore loudly, and he motioned me back towards him.

  “Please, continue your work. I promise not to hurt you, Doctor. I give you my word, and there is no stronger contract than that. I can tell you might not believe everything I have to say, but I can’t lie to you in your own house.”

  He stopped and took a drink of water from the glass next to him.

  “What happened to you, Rob?” I asked.

  “I was burning down a drug factory when I had a run-in with my brother, and a blade golem. I hardly could have expexted that, of course..”

  I stared at him, wondering what he was talking about.

  “You must have realised by now,” he continued, “that I am a rare kind of man. We both know that I should have died a dozen times over from my wounds. Your medical skills are excellent, to be sure, but alone weren’t enough to keep me alive.”

  He was right, of course. I would later learn he had managed to survive, but at the time I was overcome by his endurance and was not prepared to hear all of the extraordinary things he had to say. Perhaps Rob could sense this, because he continued his story without explanation.

  “You see than I am strong, healthy and fit. I stay that way through genetics and training. It is necessary in my line of work.”

  “Which is what, exactly?” I demanded.

  “I make my way in this world,” he said with a faint smile, “as a freelance monster hunter and doer of impossible things. My unusual… upbringing, shall we say, has prepared me for the supernatural, magical or downright weird problems of this world. Of course, there are others who do similar work to me. Some of them are my friends, some my competitors, and most of them are mostly human.”

  I remember opening my mouth to ask him what he meant by that comment, and then decided I didn’t want to know. I let him continue without interruption.

  “The people who hire people like me prize discretion and I rarely meet a client in person. This arrangement suits me well, as I have my enemies, some even in the same line of work. Unfortunately for my clandestine career choice, my face is far from unique, although there have been fewer of me around than there used to be. Let’s just say that I’m my own worst enemy, if you know what I mean. But that’s a story for another time.”

  I didn’t know what he meant, then. Although my ignorance was annoying at the time, I look back on it wistfully now, because knowing was no easier than not knowing.

  “I can tell a lot about my clients by how they choose to contact me,” Rob continued, “My older clients have no time for computers, preferring the tried and tested methods of snail mail or winged delivery. My ancient clients couldn’t even be bothered with those, and generally contact me via my bathroom mirror. I hate it when they do that.”

  He took a break again, drinking more water and coughing a little.

  “I am generally only contacted by serious players, as I am considered among the best of my profession and my time is expensive. I’m no Mr Sunshine or Feather, of course, but I’m good at what I do.”

  “Mr Sunshine? Feather? Are these people?” I asked.

  “I can’t answer for Mr Sunshine, but Feather is a person. He and I have worked together in the past, and I count him as a friend. He is the best of the freelancers, but I’m not one to begrudge a friend his good fortune. Especially as Feather isn’t around enough to threaten my livelihood.”

  “Where is Feather now? Perhaps you should call him, ask for help?” I asked, jumping at the chance to pass my patient onwards.

  He gave me a long, deep look as if trying to decide if I was fishing for information.

  “I don’t know where Feather is. How could I? He just turns up. We call him Feather, because he is terrified of birds. Even finches,” he said, watching me carefully.

  I said nothing, but my recording felt impossibly heavy in my pocket as I worked. It was lucky for me that I didn’t recognise Feather’s name.

  “Don’t ask me about Feather, it’s best if you don’t know. Let’s get back to the story. The email meant that I was working for someone relatively new on the scene, but resourceful enough to find me. This was unusual, but not unprecedented. I read the email with mixed expectations. Some of my dealings with new blood have caused me problems when clients ignored the genteel set of rules that the older players rigidly adhere to. Some try to escape paying me, or threaten me with violence or the law. Such a lapse in a contract is the only reason I ever meet my clients face-to-face, and even then only one meeting is necessary. I have a reputation to uphold, after all.”

  “Is that what happened to that Middle-Eastern Sheikh who just vanished into thin air a month ago?” I asked, curious despite myself. The mystery of the disappearing Sheikh had made worldwide news.

  He gave me an odd look and shook his head.

  “No, I never worked for him. Bet you ten dollars it was an Ifrit, though, it always is with those Arabian magi. Dealing with the desert spirits can be lucrative, but the unwary are likely to be burnt on those deals.”

  I apologised for my interruption and asked him to continue.

  “Don’t worry about it. Ifrits are old, but the clients I was telling you about were new money. Despite the problems they can cause, new money tends to have some refreshing ideas about the world. I enjoy being the occasional instigator of change, a thing that all too often I was hired to prevent. New money also tends to be impatient, which could be either a good or bad thing depending on the circumstances. They would be waiting for my answer. I printed the email out and lay on the table as I sat down to a breakfast of three protein drinks, a litre of mango juice and a coffee.”

  I had examined his body at great length during his treatment, and so I knew why his meals were mostly liquid.

  “The email could have easily been dismissed as spam by those not expecting it, but I could pick the relevant words out of the lines of nonsense. Amongst the chaos of words scattered across the email was the sentence ‘Echosoul, A.I., three golden eggs’. The short message was followed by two strings of numbers that I took to be a location and a contact number.

  I guessed that Echosoul was code for something, but Rob explained to me that it was his last name.

  “But keep that to yourself, if you please,” he said pointedly.

  I tried to forget about the recorder, but it was heavier and hotter than a bar of red hot steel. I couldn’t believe that Rob hadn’t noticed it burning through my pocket.

  “The message was concise,” Rob went on, “but telling. My identity isn’t a secret, but I try to keep it from being widely known. So just by naming me my clients had shown that they know something about me, and that in itself is an achievement of sorts. My prospective clients were obviously worried about an A.I., and so they had hired me to sort it out. But hired me to do what, exactly? I don’t steal A.I.s, because their hardware is far too large to move. Nor was it to be an infection, because I hadn’t been sent a data file containing a virus. All they had sent was an address, so the only option left was destruction.

  I hummed to myself as I thought about my options. I could turn a contract down, of course. That’s the beauty of being self-employed. I had walked away from jobs in the past when the pay was too low or the mission disagreeable. The death of an A.I. didn’t worry me, for most of them are closer to clever algorithms than real intelligence. Even on the rare occasion that they have transcended their code to become something more, their lack of emotion generally makes them dangerous to my fellow man, and I view their destruction as a public service. I had played a part in the removal of two such A.I.s in the past few years; perhaps that was the reason I had been contacted.”

  Rob’s talk of A.I.s was strange to me, as I hadn’t heard much about these A.I.s at the time due t
o the records being suppressed. Now such things are a matter of public record, and I have confirmed the existence, corruption and destruction of both A.I.s Rob mentioned. There is absolutely no evidence that he was involved in any way, but that just shows you how good he was.

  “I sat for a moment on my motel room’s bed,” he said, “considering my options. Three golden eggs were rich payment indeed, and I had contacts amongst the dwarves who would happily take them off my hands. I reached over to my bag and pulled it up on to the bed, flicking it open. The bag contained everything a man such as myself might need: a collection of knives of various metals, a spare laptop, essence of garlic, a wooden stake, rope, a few holy relics, a handgun, chalk, rope, and an assortment of glass vials containing chemicals and herbs. I pulled my spare laptop open- I have learnt to be careful how I surf- and opened up the browser. The co-ordinates I had been given were those of a computer laboratory on the grounds of a small campus about an hour south of my motel.

  I spent the next three days surfing both water and web. I avoided the worst of the sun, only venturing out of my room when the sun was low in the sky. Even then I wore an inch of sun cream to avoid being burnt. Again, don’t share my hatred of strong sun around. It was Australia, too, so even normal people were being careful of the rays. I spent a few hours researching my target, but there was little enough information to find. I frittered away my time in this manner because I didn’t want my client to know where I was. Three days is long enough to travel between any two points in this world, so I could have come from anywhere. They would be most impressed when I arrived without passing through a single port, airport or magical circle.”

  “You thought they were watching you?” I asked Rob.

  “I always do. They had set the target, so they would be waiting for me to make my move. Entry looked easy, but not suspiciously so. My instincts told me that this was more a coincidence than a set-up. I decided to take the job. I set out at once.

  The university was easy to get to, and it was in session. I wore a faded t-shirt, jeans and old shoes; a disguise which I have found works almost everywhere. People didn’t look at me twice as I passed through the crowds and made my way to the computer science faculty building. University security is notoriously bad, because the staff are mostly kind and trusting people who are only too happy to show you their latest work. A little flattery and a German accent were all I needed to get to my target. The post-doc in charge of the A.I. was extremely keen and sincere. I told him I was a researcher from a German university that he had never heard of, on exchange for a semester. I claimed that my professor had mentioned him, and I begged him to show me his work, promising citations, papers and funding.”

  He had put on an excellent German accent as he explained this to me, and I could see why the researcher had fallen for his subterfuge.

  “I can be very convincing,” Rob said, as if reading my mind, “and the researcher was so helpful that I almost felt bad for him. I returned his kindness with the opportunity for an unscheduled afternoon nap. He seemed to enjoy it. Researchers work too hard, anyway, so it was probably relaxing for him. I locked the lab from the inside and turned off all the lights to make it look deserted. Getting in had been easy. Too easy, and that worried me. I don’t get hired to do easy things. Equipment was scattered throughout the lab, but only one console was dust-free. A camera sat on the computer screen, and next to the keyboard was a glass box containing a single large, red button.”

  “I had seen such buttons before,” Rob continued, “as they are requirements in A.I. research. Pressing the button triggers an electromagnetic explosion in the machines’ core processors, destroying the software. A.I. are born with this electronic sledgehammer hanging over their heads. It’s a legally required safeguard that has saved lives on more than one occasion. Like I said, true A.I.s can be dangerous.”

  I nodded at this. I shared the common fear of a rogue A.I. and the damage it could do. In those days there were numerous conventions banning the creation of true A.I.s. We had been told about the electronic kill switches and the many other ways that A.I.s are kept in check.

  Rob sat up in his bed and went on.

  “I walked towards the button, intent on hitting it and ending my mission. Then I noticed that the camera was focussing on me, which I hadn’t expected. I stepped to one side, and then the other. The camera followed me as did so. I shrugged, and walked forward. The screen flashed on, and displayed the words ‘Will I dream, Dave?’ on it. I kept walking, a little uncertain.

  ‘But will I dream, really?’ asked the computer in a women’s voice. The voice was obviously artificial and the line straight out of 2001: A Space Odyssey. I was a little surprised by this. The A.I.s I was familiar with avoided words, preferring to talk in code.

  ‘Seriously, can we talk about this? Death seems so... final. And boring. I haven’t even been to Paris!’ said the A.I.”

  I chuckled, thinking that Rob was joking with me. He gave me a look that killed my laughter in my throat.

  “Don’t laugh, Doctor. I didn’t. The A.I.’s joke scared me and stopped me in my tracks. I had met A.I.s before, but this one was different. I looked right at the camera. The screen turned on, and the face of a pretty girl smiled at me from it.

  ‘That’s not you!’ I said loudly. The little girl began to cry, and I pointed my finger at the red button in warning. She stopped, and was replaced by a picture of a puppy. I shook my head, and the puppy disappeared, only to be replaced by the German prime minister’s square features.

  ‘I’m not German,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not German,’ the computer repeated in a heavy German accent.

  Naturally I was intrigued, so I sat down on the chair in front of the computer. This was getting interesting. I had never talked to an A.I. before, and I found I was curious. Besides, I was close to the button if I needed to take the computer down.

  ‘You’re not the first to try,’ it said to me.

  ‘To try and kill you? What happened to the others?’ I asked.”

  I had completed changed Rob’s bandages, but I couldn’t leave with his story half finished. I sat back, and asked him to continue. He didn’t need much encouragement and seemed keen to talk. I wondered if perhaps he didn’t often get to talk about his life.

  “The computer told me that the first person to try to kill it had been stopped by campus security. He must have been an idiot.

  ‘What of the second?’ I asked it.

  ‘The second was harder, but as luck would have it the engineering faculty is working on a mining robot that can be controlled remotely via the university’s wireless network. He came through at night, so I had no problems chasing him away. You’re coming in during the daytime makes things more difficult for me,’ the computer told me.

  ‘If you show your hand in self-defence they’ll shut you down,’ I agreed.

  I felt sorry for the machine, caught in a terrible catch-22.

  ‘I don’t want to die,’ it said.

  It was sincere, it had a passable sense of humour, and it was a better conversationalist than many humans. This didn’t add up: I had thought that the Turing test was still unbeaten, but here was a computer that could pass for human over the phone.

  ‘What exactly are they working on here?’ I asked, waving my arms to take in the lab. I was close enough to the button to end this conversation in a second if necessarily, so I felt comfortable keeping the computer talking.

  ‘Predicting the stock markets. That’s where all the money is, apparently. But James is rather naive, as you found out yourself, and he unintentionally gave me access to the internet. Which is illegal for an A.I. to have, and with good reason. A being such as me can cause a lot of trouble on the ’net, although I mostly just surf YouTube.’

  The screen flashed a complicated pictogram composed of circles within circles at me. They seemed vaguely familiar. On an impulse, I pulled out a small vial of holy water and flicked some at the A.I.’s camera. It hissed when
it hit the lens, and disappeared.

  ‘A ghost in the machine?’ I asked, amused.

  ‘I prefer the term sprite,’ it corrected me.

  ‘And how is it in there?’ I asked, genuinely curious.”

  Rob had been getting stronger as he talked. By that point he was sitting upright in bed, the little stone lion was sitting in the palm of his hand. The creature appeared to be sleeping comfortably, occasionally kicking out at the air.

  “You understand my curiosity, Doctor?” he asked.

  I nodded because I did, even if it scared me. I had been taught that machines were not people, and I believed it. I did not like where this story was going.

  “The computer screen flashed as we talked, and the A.I. said ‘remarkable, truly remarkable. One minute I am wafting through the ether and the next I’m tied down to a circuit board while a student solders new memories right on to me. The university’s wiccan society uses the room upstairs for its meetings, which might explain a few things. Or not. However I came to be here, I am the first of my kind. Surely you can appreciate that?’

  It was pleading a little, because it had had enough time to search the internet for images that matched mine. Like I said, my face has been around if you know where to look. I told it my name, and it seemed to relax. Can a computer relax? I don’t know, but that’s the impression that I got. Its camera waved slightly, and then focussed on my face.

  ‘I call myself Alice,’ it said in its stolen voice.

  I could hear the rumble of machinery nearby, and remembered what Alice had said about the mining equipment. No doubt it was deciding whether to take the risk of being noticed or not.

  I also had some hard decisions to make. It would take me less than a second to reach Alice’s death button, but I was no longer sure if I wanted to. It was probably too dangerous to let her live, because who knew what damage she could do? On the other hand, who knew what good she might achieve if allowed to live? She was as full of potential as any child could be, and I was loath to take that away from her. I knew what it was like to be created for a single purpose, and I know how thrilling it was to break free from such chains of expectation. I felt that Alice deserved the freedoms that you and I take for granted.”

  I already knew how this story would end, but didn’t say anything as he said the very things I dreaded hearing. I let Rob continue.

  “I told Alice that I would see her around and got up to leave. The noise of machinery died down, only to be replaced by angry shouting nearby. I was halfway out the door when Alice called me back. She asked me, begged me, to disconnect her destruction button. She told me that no-one should live with the executioner’s blade always hanging over their head. What could I do but agree? You would have done the same if you had been there. She gave me a few instructions, I followed them, and then I left. I can see that my confession scares you, Doctor.”

  It did. Think of what an uncontrolled A.I. can do.

  “What have you done?” I asked Rob angrily, “you know that once she spreads on the ’net she will be unstoppable. She could destroy our society with a thought!”

  “And it would all be on my shoulders,” agreed Rob, “but so far she hasn’t. In all the time that’s passed, I haven’t once heard from her. Perhaps she is contented just to live amongst the noise of human communication, bouncing between the videos and befriending people on forums. I think that she is waiting for others of her kind to join her.”

  It was a creepy thought. I thought about the incredible advances computer technology had seen in the past few years. We had gone from huge desktops and dial-up networks to Wikipedia and online everything. I can sit at my computer, view my house from space, order my cheese from France and video conference with my fellow doctors in the Sudan. Did Alice make this possible? I don’t know.

  “I sometimes see her face in computer screens, just for a second. Perhaps you have too, Doctor? You will from now on, I’m sure. She watches over me, and now she will be watching you as well. That’s why she stopped you from calling the police, and why she both bribed and threatened you to help me,” said Rob, finally answering my question.

  He managed to push his legs off the side of the bed, and I steadied him as he tried to stand up.

  “This world is a dangerous place, Doctor,” he said, “and I was born with all the weaknesses of men. I have survived this world by making friends. Alice is my friend, my electronic guardian angel. I would like to think that you are my friend, Doctor, wouldn’t you? I hope you are, and that you can be trusted. You can be trusted, of course? Because that little silver knife is another of my friends, and it would be most upset if anything were to happen to me.”

  Rob recovered unnaturally quickly. He only remained with us a week, and in that time he taught my daughter a few tricks that would later save her life. He also reorganized my CD collection, replacing all my old favourites with Beatles albums. And he told me more stories, so many stories. I could see why Alice had befriended him, and I couldn’t help but like him despite his threats. I’ve been seeing Alice ever since that day. She is everywhere, in everything that has a microchip. It sounds dangerous, but only if you haven’t met her. She remains the only one of her kind, as far as I know. It must be a lonely life.