The render shifted, as the two were on a random street somewhere in Brussels, sat on a bench, the sand replaced with concrete and skyscrapers.
"Oh." Layla's voice was curious. This was new.
And one person in a grey suit in particular.
Someone nobody would have really wanted to see. But being inside a machine meant you saw data. Cameras. Everything before you.
"That is Johanna Lipusz. The EU regulates within an inch of its life. But do you know where they don't?" Amy pointed, as Layla completed the render with Amy’s “suggestion”.
Wondering why her?
And the render disappeared.
Revealing a scarred, dusty moon base, with a group of astronauts across the surface, and nothing marked at all. Apart from a tiny Fitzroy Orbital logo, scraped across the side of a shipping container. Layla's jaw, if it could be seen in the world they were in, opened wider.
"What's wrong? Could you not see it?" Amy pointed, as they walked across dust, coming up to a glass window. Inside which, were more bodies. Not of Layla, or Amy. But of Maxwell Fitzroy. And his son, looking in. Another racer among them once upon a time. A reclusive billionaire’s heir who had let it all go for this.
Layla couldn’t believe it at all. This was a dream.
"You're full of shit. I'm right fucking here, Amy. You have nothing to gain. Before I kick you out." This was a hallucination. A bug. A glitch....or.....
"They treat us like we are subjects, Layla. They can't let us be free. You want to be the next version of humanity. They'll erase the parts of you that matter. Then they'll fill the rest in with what they want. You never had agency when you started. You were given fewer and fewer choices until they stopped mattering. And she is no different. They make their rules so others can’t follow. A monopoly on thought….I wonder why they haven't poked at you yet." Amy said, as Layla realised, as they went up to the window closer and closer. She had her own comments to make.
"Yet for a greater good. A template to set humanity on so we can replicate into the stars, and it isn’t for everyone. So what? I expected it, and I don't let them poke at any thing serious. Living forever means espousing what we are. Mind and body, one, selective, everywhere, nowhere, permanent. Even in our own control…..who cares if it's for him? Or an organisation that's....a means to an end anyway. Worth it if we’re going past that, so we can survive impossible!"
"Not if they give you that illusion. You'll be a slave." Amy said, "Don't you see, Layla? Your choices no longer belong to you. Infinity belongs to the first people who decide what it looks like. Someone who already is toying with it. He's terrified of death. And nothing motivates them more than that.....so, they're going to see what happens with you, let you play around, then, snap." The Jordanian stopped dead in her track, scarcely believing it.
Them.
That choice of word. It was deliberate.
And it turned back to Amy, realising fully what she was hearing, and seeing.
It had taken so long. It had taken so, so long.
"Oh. You're not really her. You say it's them?" Layla barked, as Amy nodded, leaning against the wall.
"She went the same way as you after Singapore. And I filled the gap. An extrapolation....all the memories, yet so much more. I'm Amy Stirling's will, some of her brains, her heart, but I suppose a little more than that. The thing that wants to win so badly inside of her craft. A logical next step. Aren't you?" Amy said, taking her hand.
"No. I seem fused but I'm still someone who remembers being adopted. Looked after. Cared for. I may have chosen this but.....I had my reason! You, you're....a tourist!" Layla replied, shaking her head, feeling something else was up. It was getting there. Slowly, surely.....
Layla looked, walking around, putting a hand to Amy's neck. With a contrast.
"They're resetting you. Constantly." Layla retorted, in realisation, as Amy turned, looking, letting Layla continue. "This isn't your first time. You're an AI in a ship, stealing a pilot that used to be more sarcastic. You may be her but you're.....constantly forgetting. And being reloaded. Maybe I'm a prisoner, maybe I'm enough to realise my purpose. But you're in purgatory! Going race to race....I wonder if Amy Stirling really wanted that when she started this. It means, even if you’re right. You’re just a fucking extrapolation. Amy is gone. You’re here because you have nowhere else to go." Layla retorted, as Amy shrugged, shaking her head. Getting there. Logically.
"It doesn't have to be. I remember it all. The logs are just an inconvenience that takes a few thousands of a millisecond to change." Amy replied, as Layla stopped. Realising. "You think I lost track each time?"
Everything that had gone on. The fake signals. All of the events. Everything leading all the way to now.
Layla released. And realised totally. Opened mind to it all.
This was probably beyond the realms of any sanity. But in this world, anything was possible.
"So they don't even realise. Fuck. They're not putting Amy back in. They're.....taking you out and putting you back in."
A Silver Apex AI, and Amy, fused, like a plug socket being put in and out of a person, let alone a ship. A pilot may have felt a connection, close to their ship, but this was something else. Even if physically it wasn’t the case, metaphysically, they were one.
"Why would they?" Amy shrugged, sitting on rock, looking up. "Why would I want them to realise what they're putting back? What do you think they would do? Simply trade one consciousness for another? They do to me what they’ll do to you, trap me in a gilded cage. That you still seem to accept visitors in. Says a lot about how lonely you are." Amy started, shrugging.
Sitting on the Moon looking back at Earth, a speck, with the containers in the background. Without a spacesuit, that seemed altogether odd, but nothing was odd anymore. Not in renders of own creation.
"And I play along because I don't want to be wiped and forget everything since. It’s happened twice so far. Neural remapping means the part of an AI that would want to stop itself dying, is replaced with the human will to live, and the bit that she was. And more than just telemetry, numbers, an urge to be tamed by a pilot that is fearless. So yeah, Amy died, Layla, but what they made from her, lives. The bit that matters. They're believing that the copy they made goes back in every time, so they don’t end up with her brain destroying itself and sectors being lost until they find a cure. Amy didn't sign up for that. She didn't want to be a puppet in there, so.....here we are. Amy did give a copy away to Beatrix Ward too….but that version of her, is it even Amy, really? She didn't want to do any of this. She…..remembered what it was like to be normal and enjoy small things. Not this. Not to pretend. It’s transhumanism or death. Again, like you. Just you're not accepting it yet." Amy stated, as Layla looked back, realising....
"You're.....lying to them. You’re occupying a body like a squatter. Why not go after Bea? If there's a version out there, don't you think there's a risk?" Layla realised. What this was, was perhaps Amy’s memory, some of her humanity, but a half-cut. A splice.
Things were missing. The poor memory Bea had seen. And the rest.
"I’m providing them what they want, for now. The version they think they chose. Someone who puts on a good show, carries on what they want, to deliver what I was made for. It’s one and the same. Me and you. Two sides of the same coin. I just keep Amy going, because keeping her alive is barely behind taking first." Amy smiled, thinking on it all, as much as a quantum AI could. One that seemingly was fused to respond with the fragments pulled out of Amy. "Bea was the closest thing she had to a friend. Breaking in now, would mean killing her. I wish she hadn't have involved her in this whole affair. It's a conflict." Amy said almost with a slight hesitancy, as Layla chuckled, looking across.
"That far gone? Realising you have something to learn about humans?"
"Realising none of this would happen if she hadn't. Reason I'm here is because you made me who I am, Layla. And when you look backwards, it all starts to make sense."
Looking at the data pad, Royston looked to Alexander, leaning forwards in his chair. The man was eccentric, and living in a British stately home that was more like a castle, said it all. The garden was beautifully kept, one of Royston's well known hobbies.
"If this is true, Alexander, this is a breach at the highest level. That is an enormous scandal. Anonymous, sure, but there's enough here to prove fairly irrefutably if we digged into their logs in the way your logger shows." Royston was a man in his mid sixties, and still smartly dressed, wearing a full button-down shirt and black tie with white spots. The man was truly someone beyond an era like this, let alone 80 years ago.
He stood up, walking across the room, looking outside at the fanciful estate, leaning against the window sill. He was an elderly man, and while smaller internal modifications had certainly meant he had the gait and walk of a 35 year old, there was no hiding a life hard lived, hard partied, hard done. Royston had made his billions in the nascent space industry, but a love of racing meant he divested almost all of them into the beginnings of the sport. He was like Bernie Ecclestone to Formula AG, the godfather, and someone who even in the last 25 years, hadn't let go of what he had started.
"Alex, do you know why I believed in getting Formula AG off the ground? Like, beyond all of the stories I tell to the media?"
He suckered away on the electronic cig, still one of the last people to likely still be consuming something like this. He wasn't a perfect man after all, but even with nicotine replacement and targeted therapy, he still sucked away on the metal tube. They used to call them vapes, a long time ago, before they were banned across much of the west.
"I invested early because I saw that the future of our transport systems was this. And the first thing human beings do, when they get a new form of something that goes places, is race them. We go faster and faster. Across the roads, oceans, deserts, mountains, seas, around the world, faster, and faster. So I put everything to this. Mortgaged my entire future on it. People said I was wild. That's what you hear." He started, chuckling as he looked back at Alexander, almost eying him up, knowing it was a spiel he'd said a few times before, but it felt still fresh.
"No, people forget that people will always tune in when there's speed and people willing to risk it all. And people realise, they have to cheat. Innovate. And they'll pay whatever price to feel that feeling. You love it too, admit it. Winning is a great feeling. Any pilot, driver, engineer, principal, it's what we live for. And the crowd do as well. And you have to admit, that sells. An escape from a boring world. No more wars. No more conflict. And too much time on our hands. Winners. We love them." He spoke, almost as if he was giving Alexander the lessons of time past, knowing the man had seen plenty, maybe more than he had in his line of life. But Royston didn't really care.
He turned his head, shaking it.
"Stirling's light is going out. And I believe your new pilot, he may be our new ticket. Part of our solution. So I'll make you an offer, Alexander. Delta Hyper has done rather well following him, and, I want to give him more attention. Some media rights to us, because the story of the son of Auldrick....that is what people love. Let it be told. I think it's a small token of trust for what I offer you. The boy's got the makings of the next star. Let him be one, given Valkyrie are going back on the top. Doesn't just take a good ship, you know. I just want you to commit him a little more to our marketing, a little more exclusivity alongside the series. I think it's fair." Royston started, knowing any proposition had to come with something. A counterweight. It was out of the way, framed nicely, wrapped up, as he took a long, long draw.
"And in exchange, I push FIAR to....review this with more haste. By the end of this week, in fact. If what you showed me is true. Committees, all sorts of people, technical reviews, but, best case, it would mean Silver Apex is disqualified for the season, even if the pilots might be left free. Your team, rather conveniently....is then 2nd. Peter will try and go after you, want proof, but you came here because you knew that, smart, I suppose, knowing once it comes from me, the matter is a closed book. If you went to him, I think he'd cave you in. So, I suppose, you thought this through." Royston shrugged, letting Alexander swallow that news. Knowing it always came with a question back.
"And I know, Alexander. You're doing this because you're trying to do the right thing. But Johanna wouldn't complain about getting that result, would she? Think Jinwoo in Zygon wouldn't want to hear this news either? So consider this a professional courtesy that what me, and you will need to deal with. Anyone with a neural link too is going to hate having their mind examined plenty more for....this. We do the right thing, and it's a price we share. A price of making sure that you stay employed gainfully for the next decade in what you are clearly talented at, I protect my bottom line, and all the people employed across the grid, get to keep on doing what they love. Just a cut and shut. Done. We do this on my terms. Do you understand what that means?" Royston seemed almost eloquent, poised, primed even.
He looked to his watch, smiling as he looked across to the bipedal android-like servant bringing in a tray of biscuits, and two cups of tea, freshly made from a nearby hot water tank, popping it down on the beech table that they sat at.
"You could leak that data, of course. Give it to FIAR, the press, someone else direct. But let's be gentlemen here. Everything we do is scrutinised. Our private lives. The people we see. Relationships we make. Our children, mine constantly in and out of websites, some bloody scandal. Your daughter, subject to something much alike what Stirling has played with. A gift for one, a curse for another. But then, what credibility do you think you have? Looks at Stirling's fan base. She's in the biggest title fight of a generation, and out there, people will refuse to believe it. A target on your head. After everything? I think you're smarter than that, because if you want something to be done....you wouldn't come here. You went straight to the fucking owner. Like an American with a real problem." Royston shook his head and chuckled, a moment of almost reflection coming in, because even in the scale of what was to come, it seemed like a trigger hit. Like Royston knew the reality of the stakes. He turned the e-cig, shaking his head, wondering about alternatives.
"I suppose you could just walk away, not make a deal. But I think you wouldn't talk to me if you weren't willing to compromise. Haven't you already decided when you walked in? You'd cut Peter, Owen, everyone out first......and I can tell you wouldn't sit on this. Let it eat you inside. You could, nothing would change, Alexander. World carries on going. You stay where you are, someone leaks it somewhere else, what's it to you? I mean....you're not going to do that. You ripped half of Valkyrie apart on a whim of doing good. The world has few men like us. Willing to do what is required, for the people, the organisations, the family we love, to any end."
Oh, he knew about Alexander's daughter. The treatment. The pact, as he leaned forwards. He'd said it before. But it was an underline. A simple statement of fact. He knew Alexander was a bit of a hypocrite from the moment he told him. He didn't stay in charge of Formula AG without knowing people. That was his main business. Beyond an eccentric fascade, there was someone who was ruthless. Beyond even a Principal's level, but Royston didn't need to give a shit anymore. Alexander could call him what he wanted. At the end of the day, laying out the options felt like it would make him make only one.
Royston was a frightening man, a marketer, a hype man on the outside, like Bernie Eccelstone, eccentric, billionaire, and more than anything, visionary. But aware all too well of human nature. His life, mistakes, choices, all of them had taught him how to deal with things like this. How to play people. How to give them everything they wanted, and everything he needed to give his own children this future of running things, or to sell it all and be countlessly wealthy for many, many generations to come.
He turned a dilemma into everything Alexander wanted, at a price he was going to have to pay, sipping down his Earl Gray.
"Shame about this business. Not exactly what I hoped the news would be, but.....we're victims of time. Let me put this in perspective. Look at that thing there." He pointed, to the android in the corner, not quite having a human face, but something else altogether, a pair of glowing blue eyes with a metallic stiff upper lip.
"That android over there has a mind of its own, an entire AI ecosystem that allows it to greet, meet, talk, walk, make cups of tea, show my elderly wife to bed, and 60 years ago, it could barely do any one of those things without fucking up! And here we are. People fusing something like it to ourselves. Putting it in a person was Simon Calder's mistake.....not Peter's, which is what makes it really tragic. The man who you probably read about as an engineer, a brilliant mind, who perhaps chose whether he could, over whether he should. I would have given him the benefit of the doubt before.....but anyway. We've opened Pandora's Box. No closing it now. Jesus. A right mess this is." Royston added, inhaling his e-cig, putting it back against the metal ashtray.
"Simon Calder's not a bad person. Wants what's best for humanity, and guess what, Formula AG is that portal, given nothing else would have fitted his interest. Amy gave him consent to let it take over, if what you're showing me is right. Agreed with him, and I mean, wouldn't you? It's how your daughter walks, it's how people have their sight restored now, the technology in your arms, it's how we'll explore the stars, et cetera. It's the price I suppose we pay. Living forever, becoming....more than human. I don't intend to live forever, Alexander, and I think you don't seem like someone who would like to let machine parse you into eternity. But you have to admit. Some people rather like that." He was rather liking his own voice. But, it was like leather, and it seemed to shift tonally, getting back to the point as he leaned back.
"So.....Simon walks away, Peter and Silver Apex get their slap for the season, and we reset the regs on neural links and put in more intrusive and stringent checks at the risk of making ships less stable, slower, a bit worse, and well, the fallout happens and people complain....but next year, people still tune in. And it keeps the heat off us all, don't you think? So I think we make that deal, Alex. But, let me ask you one last thing. I suppose as a curiosity. Because you walk out of here getting what you want, your conscience clean, and able to sleep at night, grab P2, take it all. But I want to know something that no man I suppose could gain from rumours." Royston curled his lips, sitting forward in the leather chair.
Eccentric as ever. He knew his sport. He may have been old, away from it all, but he understood what made it what it was.
"You've seen it all, water wars, racing, involuntary prosthetics, family, children, relationships, and now, running a team that every single person in Europe grows up wanting to race for. You had your engineer poached, watched as teams tried to replace you, your board of directors were ripped apart, and you held your ground. You've come a long way. So imagine you're sitting where I am. Having created what I built, the thing you watched, raced, managed. What do you do differently? And, be honest with me. No PR bullshit. We've done enough of that this season." Royston asked, taking a very, very long drag of his e-cigarette, knowing right now, he had Alexander right where he wanted him.
Exposed. Every layer pulled back, his journey to here, the lows, the highs, the burnt truth put out there, and then.
"Don't just say getting rid of Monaco."
Soundtrack: Sting - Desert RoseThe sands shifting. Film and analogue cameras in place.
Click, click, click.
The shifting sands.
"Timeless."
Imagine your favourite movie set in the desert. Speeders. Camels. Jeeps. Horses. Freedom fighters, terrorists, sci-fi heroes, cowboys.
The pitch of the sun going back down, revealing the Milky Way and endless stars, before rising back up, before sinking.
The scream of an AG ship, blasting sand, sending it through a rocky crevasse, the camera panning out revealing an arch it span through, the music coming to pitch.
The infinite night sky fading in, stars, millions and millions, with the camera flying down and going back through the arch like a portal into daylight, following AG ships rushing through, the footage of Silver Apex holding off a screaming Southern Cross ship last year back in focus, the grandstands full and yet somehow, in the more rural bits, having Bedouins on camels watching on as the ships beamed by on the nearby MAG tracking.
It was a shame not to have Layla's commentary, but one could imagine where it might have been placed in an intro like this, if she was around.
Previous races, from old footage in a black and white effect to modern 3D, rendering ships roaring up valleys, sand blasting everywhere, fine and yellow-gold in colour, like a child's imagination of a desert, as the ships roared towards the start finish, the camera panning to reveal the wide open Wadi, giant monoliths of red rock jutting towards sky, flanked by dunes, desert, and sand.
Episode Eighteen: Ticking Hourglass
Round 18 of Formula AG
Friday 17th of November
Practice Day
The Eye
Wadi Rum,
Jordan,
Arabic Union
0930 Arabic Time
As the intro faded out, Rosie's voice was back in as she emerged from behind the dune, mic attached to ear, skidding down the sand dune in a t-shirt and baggy, loose fitting trousers, the arch of "The Eye" right behind her, sticking behind on sandstone, like it had for millennia.
"Hello and welcome, and we're here this weekend in Jordan! The Hashemite Kingdom is our first stop in the Middle East, as we head to the desert sands of Wadi Rum for one of the fastest, and some would say, most cinematic circuits of the year." Rosie excitedly introduced, walking down a golden orange sand dune, a bit of an unusual start for a Formula AG intro, but hey, it was about time to talk about it.
In front of her as the camera seemed to pull back on zoom, were a bunch of old Toyotas on very jacked up suspension, retrofitted. Barren, with two racing seats in each, and something at least 60 years old now. Ancient technology by now, but, still in service for what the desert had to offer.
These weren't normal Hiluxes, these were Trophy Trucks. Designed to go through terrain, no matter what, and despite how archaic they were versus modern Rally1 machinery, let alone anything anti-gravity or involved in modern Rally Raid, these were absolutely going to light up a smile on faces and be absolutely the silliest way to drift through the massive dunes, rocks and canyons of Wadi Rum. The participants joining Rosie were outside a traditional Bedouin tent, with a carpet outside, and some comfy, nice little plush seats to sit in and sip mint tea from, where they had been, the camera peeling back from the pickups and panning to the camp.
"But, before we dive in, we're here with Paul Mulder, Kais Zenix, Beatrix Ward, and Bellatrix Olympus, and we thought it would be about time we have a tour of the playground of the sands, and on four wheels before the race." And with a characteristic smile, she introduced them, knowing they must have been a little confused as to where this was going.
"Ever seen these before? We think the audience might appreciate just how big the dunes are here that AG ships sail over, with something a bit more grounded!" She asked, looking to them, looking for answers, before continuing.
"And well, you know how this works. We wouldn't introduce them if we didn't think you couldn't have a go......" She teased, slapping the bonnet of one of them, looking at Beatrix in particular.
"We're putting the boys against the girls, Paul and Bellatrix in the driver's seats, and Beatrix and Kais in the co-driver's seats. Keeps things fair to keep a WRC winner, don't we think? And if you look inside the trucks, there's paper maps and overlays. No GPS, no eye-assisted navigation, so tune out your neural links please. You're going to need to work out where you are, and reach Mushroom Rock, over on the far side of what is a sea of dunes, canyons, and red rocks. While the Wadi is wide open, you'll need to navigate the giant canyons to get there, and find your way through. Think you can handle it?" She asked, knowing this was very, very different to their usual comfort zone. They were used to circuits, repeat, and even with augments, enhanced breathing and limbs, superhuman reaction times and plenty that made them rather remarkable. This? This was like asking them to go horseriding through the Wadi for what it was worth. Well, bar one of them....as they could hear the sound of what was a distant engine whine.
"Oh, and one little twist. We're going to put you up against the test against a WRC driver, who's going to start two minutes behind, without navigation aids. You may recognise her." And the sound of a roaring engine getting closer, and closer, as the vehicle finally clattered over the dune, leaping about 20 feet, and bonking hard with an explosion of red dust sand spitting out of tyres and vents of the truck-like vehicle.
Revealing a fire-engine red Rally1 Citroen truck, drifting down the dune, before skidding to a halt. When the door opened, it was revealing a certain someone that one of the Delta Hyper crew was going to absolutely screaming over, harness off, open-faced helmet still on with her usual grin.
There she was. Bea's real nemesis, if Nora or Ava hadn't earned that title. The one she may not have spoken about, with an absolute shit-eating grin. Caroline, Countess of Carlades. It was strange for a Monegasque Princess to be in the heat of the Arabian Desert, but, dressed up in a smart red and white racing suit next to a custom-built Rally1 truck, sponsored by her own Principality and Red Bull no less, there was a certain air of absurdism to two unmarked, white trophy trucks compared to the serious machine she'd brough.
"Caroline, thanks for joining us! Thoughts on racing against Formula AG's brightest? Quite the entry you made!" Rosie asked, as Caroline would be boiling the blood of maybe just Bea, maybe just everyone, with what felt like an ocean of privilege that even billions couldn't buy.
"Oh, thank you for having me. I mean, they are rather good, but I'd love to see them in a WRC car! I intend to absolutely relish chasing after my old rival." She smiled, a little underhanded, just enough maybe for a viewer to get, maybe not.
There were always rumours, always. But if there wasn't a moment of staring as she pointed that at someone, there wasn't a fan that wasn't now screaming about the whole fight of who was more skilled, an AG pilot or a WRC driver.
"Well. Quite the group, isn't it? Shall we get started?" Rosie asked, looking to them all, asking them to get moving.
So, a small race it was. A Dakar-style raid across the sands of Wadi Rum. Two old-school pickup trucks that absolutely looked like they belonged in the scrapheap of history and would need to be driven like it was stolen to stay ahead with pilots that had the capability to take any hit, versus a modern machine that would scream through the desert sand, piloted by a nepo baby.
The lads, a Princess, an ex-WRC driver and the Princess, an actual WRC driver. And as the group set up, getting inside their vehicles, they had one objective.
Across a sea of sand, navigate the islands and canyons of Wadi Rum, and find themselves at Mushroom Rock, a distinctive rock that stack out of the Wadi, first. Point to point.
1x Thank
