Worldwired Read Online Free Page B

footing, smaller wolves than China are going to be sniffing about for a piece of the corpse as well. Russia and the EU have provided aid; it's not like I'm in a position to turn them away—” She choked off, shaking her head. “I love my job. I just keep telling myself that I wouldn't rather be doing anything else in the world.”
    A shared grin, and Richard cleared his throat and hesitated—another simulation of human behavior. Most of the humans were more comfortable with him, rather than Alan—the only other AI persona who had had significant interpersonal contact. In fact, most of the humans had no idea the rest of the threaded personalities existed, yet.
    Richard had never been one to spoil a surprise. “The least complex solution would be to prepare a contract and ask any country that wishes my intervention to sign it.”
    “What are we going to do about sick people who wish to volunteer for nanosurgical treatment?”
    “We'll have to let them volunteer,” Richard answered. “We've already used the nanites on Canadians in a widespread fashion. It would be . . . inhumane to restrict the benefits to your own citizens. But the volunteers will need to be apprised of the risks, which are significant.”
    “Ever the master of understatement.” She pressed a fountain pen between her lips absently, sucking on the gold-plated barrel. Richard quelled the irrational—and impossible—urge to reach out and take it out of her mouth. “The promise of free medical treatment will open some borders. What about the nations that demand access to the augmentation program?”
    “Military applications of technology have always been handled differently than medical ones.”
    “Touché. People will scream.”
    “People are screaming. This isn't magic, Prime Minister.”
    “No,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “Just something that will look like magic to desperate people, and they'll be angry when it doesn't work like magic, won't they? Oh, that reminds me. I'd like to keep as many people—commonwealth citizens and otherwise—uninfected as possible.”
    “Most people are going to encounter a life-threatening incident sooner or later.” But that wasn't disagreement. She was right; they didn't know what the Benefactors were capable of, or what they wanted, and it was their technology with which Richard had so cavalierly infected the planet.
    It seemed like a good idea at the time.
    And cavalier wasn't a good word, though the process had been less cautiously handled than Richard would have preferred.
    Less cautiously handled than Riel would have preferred, too, and she was talking again. “Most people are. Some will refuse treatment. Some won't
need
treatment. It's a unique situation; this stuff is loose in the ecosystem, but unlike every other contaminant in history, we have perfect control over it.”
    “Or, more precisely, I have perfect control.”
    “I, we. Which is another thing. Can't we make some hay out of PanChina having a worldwire of its own?”
    “Well . . .” he began, “what they have is not exactly a worldwire. What they've got is a bigger version of the limited networks we started off with, much more protected, not self-propagating . . .”
    “And not self-aware.”
    “We hope.”
    “Ah, Richard. I'd like to extend the offer of Canadian citizenship to you.” She raised her hand before he could comment, shaking her head so that dark curls brushed her ears and collar. “Don't jump up and say no. Think about it. For one thing, it would do wonders toward confirming your legal personhood. For another, there's the matter of our suit against China in the World Court, and the question of whether AIs can testify.”
    Richard patted his hands against his thighs to a bossa nova beat. “Wait until somebody figures out that the nanite infestation falls under the third Kyoto and the second Kiev environmental accords, and that it's a violation of both.
Potentially harmful particulate contamination of