Cyphers

"You know, I can feel Cyphers."

Saede tried to tune out her co-pilot as he rambled on. Donovan was a sweet kid, but sometimes she just wanted to throw him in to the cargo hold and vent the atmosphere.

"I can’t come and get her, Tobi, but I can meet her here."

"They’re just different from real people."

Like right now. When she was trying to make a business deal. The kind that paid. Because she appreciated jobs that paid. And Donovan did too, even more than she did. So why wouldn’t he shut his gob?

"No, we’re under quarantine on Eldorado, so you lucked out. Yeah, brought in a load of refugees yesterday and until they clear quarantine, we don’t clear quarantine."

"It’s like I can feel the electronics, you know?"

Saede reached behind her, one arm flailing in his general direction. If she had come in to contact with him, she might have smacked him. But she didn’t, and he didn’t seem to notice the not so subtle hints to pipe down.

"Yeah, we’ll be here. When’s she leaving Skry? If she’s leaving tomorrow, she’ll get here in three days, local. I know you guys don’t like Starfall, but what are you going to do, go the long way ‘round?"

"There’s this buzz, in my head, when they are near me. Does that happen to you?"

Donovan didn’t need answers to his questions. He needed a sharp thump up the side of his head. Saede raised her voice, craning her neck so she could look at Donovan over her shoulder. The look she gave him didn’t stem the verbal tide for even a moment.

"When she’s done here I can bring her back. Usual deal, I like you guys. Nah, I trust you, you can deposit it when we get there, especially if you don’t know how long she’ll want to stay. I have nowhere pressing I need to be."

"Because they’re just wrong. Nature knows it’s all messed up, you feel me? You gotta feel bad for them really."


Finish the deal. Just finish the deal Saede, and then you can kill him.

"Sounds good. We’ll keep an eye out for her, but in case we miss you, tell her to find the Star Stealer. We’re in bay 6-D. If she comes in to the main port, she’ll be stuck here for a week too. It sounds like she’ll need that long. They’re keeping the refugees separate though. Yeah, military guard. But a Mage ought to be able to get in and talk to them. Pretty subdued group honestly. No. I don’t think they’re dangerous. Sorry Tobi, beyond that I don’t have much. They’re quiet. Confused by technology, so they must be from a pretty back water planet. Lost. She’ll be fine, there’s no harm in these people. Alright. Good talking to you again, say hi to Rya for me. You too."

"It’s not like they have a choice. They aren’t human."

Saede hung the ear piece up on the cradle of the public com and rounded on Donovan. He wilted a little bit beneath the full weight of her glare.

"What? They aren’t," he insisted.

She sighed, giving up. He didn’t understand and the call was done now anyway.

"Were you listening to a word of that conversation, or do I have to go over it again?"

He responded without hesitation. "We’re waiting for a Mage who’s coming here to talk to the refugees. You see, unlike some people, I listen when another person is talking," Donovan said loftily.

Saede just stared at him for a moment then shook her head. The thing was he did listen, even if it didn’t seem like he was. He could pay attention to half a dozen things at once, which was a huge help to her on the ship. And in port, she thought, recalling the times his uncanny attention had kept them out of trouble. Saede was good at reading people, but she could only track so many things going on at a time. Donovan had a knack for tracking an entire room, but never being conscious of all of it until the last moment. Right when it mattered. Which was really all she could ask for.

"So, what’s all this about Cypher’s not being human? Of course they are," she said absently as the two of them peeled off on to the walkway. It was busier than usual at the Eldorado Landing Dock. Beside several thousand refugees, everyone who came in to contact with them was being kept here for a solid week. Normally, off planet pilots and their crews spent as little time on Eldorado as possible.

"Just because they have human bodies, doesn’t make them human," Donovan insisted, stepping over a sleeping body. At least, he thought it was sleeping. Sometimes it was hard to tell. "They don’t have human brains. And the bodies are raised in vats, cloned composites. I’m not saying they deserve the lot they’ve gotten, or what some people do to them, but you really can’t argue with me that they are human and deserve the same rights."

"You barely register that everyone around you is human, so I guess it doesn’t surprise me."

Saede sidestepped at the same time, but not ignoring it the same way Donovan did. Yes, breathing. She knew there was nothing she could do. Eldorado had too many people in need of far more than anything she could offer.

Eldorado was a mining and manufacturing community. A hundred years ago, it had been a boom town, rare metals being brought up from a thousand mines all across the surface. But at that rate, it hadn’t taken long for all of the major veins to be completely stripped. There were still some mines in operation, but not many. And the manufacturing of Starfall drive components had dropped not long after the mining operations started coming up dry. It had left hundreds of thousands of people with nothing to show for it and nowhere to go. Not the factory owners of course. Just the people who worked for them. With no way to pay for a ticket off world, great sprawling work camps turned in to semi-permanent settlements built out of anything that could be salvaged from the abandoned factories. There were a few bastions of wealth remaining- the last of the factories, the Landing Dock, the Space Port in orbit around the planet. All but the Landing Dock were highly segregated, their current location the only place on the planet where those of relative wealth mingled with the destitute. The lengths some of them would go through to get off world….. Saede glanced sideways at Donovan.

For someone who was from Eldorado, he never really seemed to see it on the rare occasion they had to come here. Then again, perhaps it was a defense mechanism. He lived the first twenty years of his life here. He must have become inured to the suffering, or he never could have survived it. She never really knew what had possessed her to offer him a job, two years ago. Initially, it had only been a ride and some cash to somewhere he could find work. He’d helped her get out of a tough spot, and Saede felt she owed him that much. Once they’d gotten on the ship, it seemed for the best just to bring him to another mining colony. He had no schooling, no mechanical training. Certainly nothing to recommend him as a co-pilot. But he learned quickly, she’d discovered on the journey out. And rather than leaving him, she’d asked him to stay. And other than when he ran his mouth, she didn’t regret it.

He shrugged at her. "I’ve got to worry about me before I worry about everyone else. You’re different. You can afford it. The attention I mean. It doesn’t cost you anything. You always know that you can just get up and leave. You do what you can, when you can, but it doesn’t tie you to those people, you know? The rest of us, we get invested. So it’s better to just not bother."

They walked in an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes. It was not the first time they’d had this conversation. But it always left both of them a little irritated with the other. In a way, they were both accusing the other of not caring enough. But Saede never really understood how not doing anything was better than doing something. And that, she supposed, was the crux of why they disagreed.

"There’s one."

Saede glanced over at the couple moving opposite them.

"That one’s easy. His hair is short; you can see the jack in the back of his head."

"I felt him before I could see it," Donovan insisted.

Twenty years ago, anyone could have told the difference between a Cypher and a human just by watching for a minute or two. They had human bodies, but their brains were replaced by solid-state microchips. They were grown for sale, and at first, the programing hadn’t been that great. They were limited to menials, load bearers or doorman. But in the last couple of years, a few new companies beside the original Cypher Corp. had been cropping up. And the competition had rapidly improved the programing and integration. The jacks were a dead give-away of course. They allowed after-market upgrades to the software, and couldn’t be left off, but even those were smaller now than they used to be, and easier to hide with hair or clothing.

They were sold to the rich, or, if you were very rich, you could custom order a body and personality to your own specifications. It just took longer for delivery. Lately, the older models were cropping up for sale, second hand, as people were purchasing these newer, improved Cyphers. The new Cyphers were perfect. They were, on the surface at least, human. They moved, talked and acted like them. Slavery had been outlawed after a two-century long resurgence of the practice, and Cyphers were created in direct response to that. Create a need in the marketplace, and something will come to fill it, after all.

No matter how human they looked, ultimately there weren’t. Not in the eyes of the law. They weren’t even clones of a particular human. That was strictly forbidden by church edict, backed up by government support. They were computers in human bodies though, and that was where the debate came up.

The dialogue was relatively new. Most people felt the same way Donovan did. A sadly vocal minority thought that Cypher’s were strictly property, and could be treated however their owners desired. Technically, you could get a Cypher programed to like being treated badly. Saede’s stance was not particularly popular. And the Cypher’s didn’t have any opinion that they weren’t programed with. Saede understood that there were probably more important things to worry about. But the general opinion toward Cyphers bothered her deeply, and she just couldn’t help it.

"There are more of them around with the high muckity mucks getting stuck in this quarantine too."

Donovan’s comment pulled her out of her musings. "Where?"

"Over there, the young lady with the tall, ugly, bald man."

"Maybe she’s just after him for his money?"

Donovan rolled his eyes at her.

"Even I wouldn’t go after him for his money," he said with a snort, and Saede had to laugh.

"Alright, fair enough. But how do you know she’s a Cypher?"

"I told you, I can feel it. The vibrations from the micro-chip maybe, I don’t know. But they hum differently than humans do."

Now it was Saede’s turn to roll her eyes. "It’s the total lack of fidgeting while she’s standing there, waiting for him," she decided a moment later. "No one stands that still for that long. You’re good at picking up those little cues though."

They argued genially as they walked back toward their ship. The Star Stealer was a small vessel, suitable to passengers and small, specialty cargo, nothing major. But by shipping novelty and luxury items between planets, Saede was able to take care of herself and a crew member or two comfortably. Right now, it was just Donovan. But it hadn’t always been just the two of them. And Saede knew that it was only a matter of time before he found whatever it was he was really looking for and moved on.

"I wonder which company made that one? It’s really good."

They paused, Saede looking around but not catching the Cypher he was referring to. They were close to the section of the Docks where the refugees were being held, and there was less of a crowd this close to the military cordon.

"I’m less interested in Cyphers, and more how he got past the guards," Saede murmured, indicating a raggedy figure that had just darted furtively around the corner. He was clearly one of the refugees- the cut of his clothes and the peculiar hair style set him apart from the local urchins. At first she thought he was a child, but then he turned toward them slightly and she raised her appraisal of his age by a couple of years. Probably not much younger than Donovan, she realized, but significantly shorter.

"Hey," she called out softly, trying to get his attention but not wanting to make a scene. "Hey, you know if they catch you out here, you’re going to be in pretty big trouble, right?"

He stared at her silently for a heart-beat before suddenly darting off down a different hallway. She looked over at Donovan, shrugging.

"They won’t hurt the kid," she said, shaking her head. "But I bet they won’t be happy. I mean, I don’t think they have anything contagious but- what is it?"

Donovan looked at her incredulously. "Him, Saede. He was a Cypher."

She laughed. "Are you kidding me? He couldn’t have been. He was terrified. They don’t program fear in to Cyphers. It would be counter-productive."

But he just shook his head, eyes watching the hallway the young man had disappeared down. "I’m telling you. He’s a Cypher. And you’re right. He was terrified."

Looking back at her, she could see the confusion written clearly on his face.

"Why would they do that?"

Her own smile died slowly. He wasn’t kidding. He really thought that boy was a Cypher. And so far, he hadn’t been wrong.

"It doesn’t make any sense," he said helplessly.

She didn’t know what to say.

"In that case, I really hope you’re wrong, Donovan."

He nodded slowly, brows furrowed. "Me too," he said quietly.