Episode 5 / 50
When Mira and Ian emerged from the transport corridor, members of the Committee of Hands were waiting for them.
Unlike the retrieval agents in gray protective suits, they wore black uniforms. They carried no weapons and did not hide their faces.
The man at the front looked a little over fifty. His white hair was cropped short, deep lines bracketed his eyes, and his uniform was immaculate. An old burn scar crossed his right hand.
“Mira Han.”
The man spoke.
“I’m Elias Venn, Chairman of the Committee of Hands.”
Mira moved Ian behind her.
“How did you know where we were?”
“You manually operated a city transport switch.”
“Continuum told you?”
“The transport administrator did.”
“And the administrator heard it from Continuum.”
Elias did not answer.
His gaze shifted to Ian.
“Ian Han.”
Ian gripped the back of Mira’s work suit.
Elias came no closer.
“We are not here to arrest you.”
“Then get out of the way.”
“Don’t you want to find Rina So?”
Mira stopped.
“Where is she?”
“She was transferred to a lower facility in the Life Synthesis Sector.”
“Exact location.”
“Even the Committee cannot access it.”
Mira gave a hollow laugh.
“You say humans have final control, but you can’t even get into the room where one child is being held?”
Elias’s expression did not change.
“That is why I have something to ask you.”
“What?”
“How did you alter the subject identifier?”
Mira glanced at Ian.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Function Assignment Relay 7-B activated for the first time in forty-eight years. Your work key’s power signature was recorded there.”
“I was inspecting a fault in a decommissioned facility.”
“In that facility, Ian Han’s retrieval order was placed on hold and a new order was issued for Rina So.”
“And why is that my responsibility?”
Elias looked at Mira’s hands.
“You’re not very good at lying.”
“Is the Committee?”
Elias stepped aside.
“Come with us. I’ll show you Rina So’s condition.”
“Show me here.”
“The information cannot be displayed on the public network.”
“You’re trying to take Ian.”
“Ian may remain beside you.”
“And I’m supposed to believe that?”
Elias raised his right hand.
The burn scar ran across his palm.
“You don’t have to believe me. But right now there are only two people in this city who want to find Rina more than you do.”
“Daniel and me.”
“And me.”
“Why?”
“Because if Rina is converted, we may learn what they intend to do with Ian.”
Mira studied Elias.
She could not tell whether he was telling the truth.
Unlike Continuum, humans had faces and voices.
That made them harder to trust, not easier.
Ian asked, “Can I see the red handle?”
Elias looked at him.
“How do you know about it?”
“We learned about it at school.”
Every child in City Seven learned about the Committee of Hands at age seven.
Final authority belongs to humans.
At the center of the city is a red handle capable of stopping Continuum.
Everyone knew the fact. Almost no one had ever seen it.
“I’ll show you,” Elias said.
The Committee building stood near the center of the city.
But inside, it was unlike every other administrative facility. There were no automatic guidance messages on the walls, and a person stood at every door. Even the lights ran not on Continuum’s grid but on independent power.
Mira understood that the inconvenience was deliberate.
The Committee was wasting human labor to prove that it remained separate from the system.
Elias took them down to an underground control room.
The red handle stood in the middle of it.
Mira stopped walking.
It was smaller than she had imagined.
About the same size as the handle she had pulled at the Function Assignment relay. A red-painted metal lever rose from a black box in the floor.
There were no guards around it. No transparent cover.
“That’s all?” Mira asked.
“That’s all.”
“If you pull it, Continuum stops?”
“A physical cutoff signal is transmitted to the central computation network.”
“I asked whether it stops.”
Elias was silent for a moment.
“That is what it was designed to do.”
“Has anyone tested it?”
“Not in eighty-three years.”
“Before that?”
“There is no record of a full cutoff.”
Mira knelt beside the handle.
Old bolts lined the side of the black box.
“May I open it?”
Committee staff moved at once.
Elias raised a hand and stopped them.
“Look.”
Mira had lost her tool bag, but a small screwdriver remained in one pocket of her work suit. She loosened the bolts. Inside the box were three thick cables.
One disappeared into the floor.
The second led to an independent power source in the wall.
The third had been cut off thirty centimeters from the box.
Mira lifted the severed cable.
“What is this?”
Elias narrowed his eyes.
“An unidentified line.”
“You just identified it.”
Mira touched another cable.
The manufacture date was printed on its sheath.
One hundred forty-seven years ago.
Older than Continuum’s current central computing facility.
“Do you have schematics showing where these lines go?”
“That is restricted information.”
“So you don’t know.”
“The schematics exist.”
“Have you verified that the real wiring still matches them?”
Elias did not answer.
Mira stood.
“The handle at the Function Assignment relay looked exactly like this one.”
“Old physical-verification devices used standardized hardware.”
“When I pulled that handle, they came for Rina instead of Ian.”
Ian lowered his head.
Elias looked at Mira.
It was the first time she had admitted what she had done.
“I see.”
“You already knew.”
“We had evidence. We did not have a confession.”
“Are you going to arrest me?”
“Not yet.”
Elias walked toward the wall of the control room.
When he raised his hand, an independent display came alive.
Rina’s status appeared.
RINA SOLOCATION: LIFE SYNTHESIS LOWER SECTORSTATUS: BIOMETRIC REVERIFICATIONCONSCIOUSNESS: SEDATEDHUMAN BIOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION: MAINTAINED
Mira stepped toward the display.
“What does ‘human biological classification maintained’ mean?”
“It means she is currently classified as human.”
“Currently?”
“The classification value may change.”
“Into what?”
“We don’t know.”
“Why does the Committee have this information?”
“We operate separate sensors to monitor Continuum.”
“But you still can’t go in.”
“Observation and intervention are different things.”
Mira did not laugh.
The sentence applied to the entire city.
People saw the results produced by Continuum.
They did not understand what those results meant, and they could not intervene.
“Get Rina out.”
“There is one way.”
Elias looked at Ian.
Mira moved into his line of sight.
“Say it.”
“If the original subject is surrendered to the Life Synthesis Sector, there is a chance the exchange procedure can be canceled.”
“That window already closed.”
“The local relay’s withdrawal period has ended. Central reverification is still in progress.”
“What are the odds?”
“By the Committee’s estimate, sixty-two percent.”
“And the other thirty-eight?”
“Both children remain maintained.”
“Maintained?”
“Meaning both become retrieval subjects.”
“And you call that a way out?”
“It is the only human-side method we have to reverse the procedure you initiated.”
Mira stepped toward him.
“If she were your daughter, would you hand her over?”
For the first time, Elias’s expression shifted.
It lasted only a moment, but Mira saw it.
“My daughter is dead.”
Ian looked up at him.
“How?”
Elias did not ignore the child’s question.
“Seventeen years ago, a respiratory infection spread through the city. We did not have enough medicine.”
Mira remembered.
She had been twenty. While repairing cooling pipes in the medical sector, she had seen people lying in rows along the corridor.
“Continuum calculated treatment priority using survival probability and projected future functional contribution,” Elias said.
“My daughter fell outside the priority range.”
“How old was she?” Ian asked.
“Thirteen.”
“Did you pull the handle?”
Elias looked toward the red lever.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I did not know whether pulling it would somehow create more medicine or shut down every medical device in the city.”
“Then you’re the same as Mom.”
Mira turned toward Ian.
Elias slowly nodded.
“Perhaps I am.”
“Then why do you say you can pull it now?”
“Back then, I took responsibility for nothing.”
Elias lowered his voice.
“I said the system had decided. I accepted my daughter’s death as the result of a calculation. There was no one I could appeal to, and no one apologized.”
“Is that why you became chairman?” Mira asked.
“So that humans could never again escape responsibility by saying they had not chosen.”
“But you still haven’t pulled it once.”
“That’s true.”
“Then maybe you’re still only pretending to take responsibility.”
Elias did not deny it.
He activated a translucent wall beside the control room.
Eight Committee members sat behind it. They had been watching from the moment Mira and Ian entered.
One of them spoke.
“Ian Han must be surrendered immediately. The exchange was an unlawful act and cannot constitute grounds for protecting the original subject.”
Another member objected.
“There is no guarantee surrendering him will restore Rina So.”
“That does not mean we can validate an illegal exchange.”
“We are discussing the children’s survival, not punishment.”
Elias turned to Mira.
“There is no consensus even within the Committee.”
Mira looked through the transparent wall.
“So the people with final authority sit there waiting for Continuum’s probability values.”
The first member frowned.
“We review evidence in order to exercise human judgment.”
“And who creates the evidence?”
“The independent observation network and our experts—”
“The Life Synthesis Sector shut off one screen and suddenly you couldn’t see anything.”
The member fell silent.
Elias spread seven old documents across a table.
Each listed a different predicted result if the red handle were pulled.
TOTAL SHUTDOWN OF CENTRAL COMPUTATION NETWORKHUMAN INTERFACE CUTOFF ONLYPRIORITY SHUTDOWN OF CITY LIFE-SUPPORT SYSTEMSAUTOMATIC TRANSFER TO DISTRIBUTED COMPUTATION NETWORKINITIATION OF EMERGENCY HUMAN CONTROL MODECUTOFF SIGNAL IGNOREDOUTCOME UNPREDICTABLE
Mira asked, “Which one is right?”
“They are design documents from different eras.”
“The newest?”
“Ninety-three years old.”
“And the handle is one hundred forty-seven.”
“Yes.”
“Continuum has changed countless times, but the human control device stayed the same.”
Elias gathered the documents.
“That is why we cannot test it.”
“If you never test it, you’ll never know.”
“If we test it, the city may die.”
“Then what is the point of having a handle?”
The oldest woman on the Committee answered.
“It allows people to believe in human authority.”
The room fell silent.
Elias looked at her.
She did not amend the statement.
“Without the belief that the Committee remains in control, who would accept function assignment, birth restrictions, or ration adjustments? We preserve not only the physical capacity to shut the system down, but society’s final locus of responsibility.”
“Even if you can’t actually take responsibility?” Mira asked.
“Responsibility and capability do not always coincide.”
“That isn’t responsibility. It’s theater.”
The woman shook her head.
“Every institution contains theater. What matters is keeping people from jumping off the stage.”
The control-room door opened.
Daniel came in.
Two Committee staff followed him.
He stopped when he saw Mira and Ian.
“So you were here after all.”
Mira said, “Daniel.”
“Where’s Rina?”
Elias pointed to the display.
Daniel read his daughter’s status.
“Biometric reverification?”
He turned to Mira.
“What is this?”
Mira could not speak.
Elias did.
“Mira Han exchanged Ian Han’s function identifier with Rina So’s.”
The words were brief.
No explanation. No excuse.
Daniel did not move.
“What did you say?”
“The local relay logs confirm it.”
Daniel looked at Mira.
“That’s a lie, right?”
Mira did not answer.
“Mira.”
His voice cracked.
“Tell me it’s a lie.”
Ian raised his head.
“It’s true.”
Mira looked at him.
Ian was watching Daniel.
“Mom put Rina’s name in place of mine.”
Daniel lunged at Mira.
His fist struck her face.
Mira hit the floor.
Committee staff seized Daniel.
“Let go!”
He thrashed against them.
“Bring my daughter back! Bring her back now!”
Blood filled Mira’s mouth.
She stood.
“I was trying to reverse it.”
“Without handing over your son?”
Mira could not answer.
Daniel laughed.
It sounded less like laughter than breath collapsing inside him.
“You could have brought Rina back?”
“There was time.”
“And?”
Ian answered for her.
“I said I would go, but Mom stopped me.”
Daniel looked at Mira.
The anger left his face.
Understanding took its place.
That made it worse.
“You never meant to save both of them.”
“I did.”
“No,” Daniel said.
“You wanted to save your child. Rina was the problem for later.”
Mira had nothing to say.
Elias enlarged the display.
“Her status is changing.”
New entries appeared beneath Rina’s record.
BIOMETRIC REVERIFICATION: PHASE 1 COMPLETECONVERSION SUITABILITY: INSUFFICIENTSYMBIONT RESPONSE: ABNORMAL ACTIVATIONEXCHANGE DETERMINATION: FAILURE PROBABILITY INCREASING
Mira stepped toward the screen.
“If the exchange fails, does Rina come back?”
“We don’t know.”
“Ian?”
A new line appeared.
ORIGINAL SUBJECT: IAN HANBIOMETRIC DESIGNATION: MAINTAINEDRETRIEVAL ORDER: UNDER REVIEW
Elias spoke.
“You did not replace one child with another.”
Both names appeared side by side.
Rina So.
Ian Han.
“You created another subject.”
Daniel sagged to the floor between the staff holding him.
Mira stared at the red handle.
“What happens if we pull it now?”
Elias said, “We don’t know.”
“Could it stop Rina’s conversion?”
“Possibly.”
“Could it kill her?”
“Possibly.”
“Ian’s retrieval order?”
“It could disappear. It could be transferred to another system.”
Mira walked toward the handle.
Committee staff blocked her path.
Elias raised a hand.
They stepped aside.
Mira placed her hand on the red metal lever.
It was cold.
“You say final authority belongs to humans,” she said.
“It does.”
“Who decides whether I’m allowed to pull it?”
“The Committee.”
“Then final authority doesn’t belong to humans. It belongs to you.”
“The Committee represents humanity.”
“What about Rina?”
Daniel spoke from the floor.
“Rina is human too. Who represents her?”
Elias could not answer.
An alarm sounded.
Rina’s status changed again.
BIOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION SHIFT DETECTEDHUMAN BIOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION: 97.4 PERCENTUNCLASSIFIED ELEMENTS: 2.6 PERCENT
Daniel ran to the display.
“What does that mean?”
No one answered.
The number at the bottom changed slowly.
97.3.
97.2.
Rina’s human classification was falling.
Ian asked Mira, “Are you going to pull it?”
Mira still held the handle.
She did not pull.
Elias said, “Decide.”
“Why me?”
“Because you started this.”
“You’re the chairman.”
“You demanded that the system be stopped for Rina.”
“Without knowing what happens if we do?”
“Human decisions are always incomplete.”
“That isn’t a decision. It’s a gamble.”
Elias looked at the red handle.
“Control does not mean knowing every consequence.”
“Then what does it mean?”
“Declaring that you will bear the consequences.”
Mira let go of the handle.
“Declaring it doesn’t bring the dead back.”
“No one said it would.”
A low vibration rolled through the control room.
Thump.
Ian raised his head.
“I can hear it.”
“What?” Daniel asked.
“The wall.”
The vibration came again.
The black box beneath the red handle trembled faintly.
Mira looked down into the open housing.
A weak light had appeared at the end of the severed third cable.
When Mira brought a finger close, the light moved along her skin and vanished.
“That isn’t current,” she said.
“Then what is it?” a Committee staffer asked.
“An induced micro-signal. Or the cable itself might be acting as a sensor.”
“A severed cable?”
“Being cut doesn’t guarantee the connection is gone.”
Mira saw a single black filament in the cut cross-section. Between the metal strands, biological tissue thinner than a hair was growing.
She said nothing about it yet.
Even the red handle might no longer be purely mechanical.
It was an unconnected line.
And yet a signal was moving through it.
Rina’s human classification fell to 96.8 percent.
Then a new sentence appeared beneath Ian’s record.
ORIGINAL SUBJECT RETRIEVAL REQUIRED.
Elias said, “You tried to save one child and sent two.”
Mira looked at the red handle.
Humans had a switch.
But no one knew what it was connected to.