by Scott Meyer
He stumbled woozily from his hands and knees to his feet, only to nearly fall again when the quad performed a barrel roll and left the course. Standing with his feet wide apart, his knees bent, Eric stretched his hands out to either side for balance. In the distance he saw a cluster of people with VR goggles in their hands, or pushed up on their heads, all looking at one man, still wearing his goggles, who seemed to be doing some sort of dance, or perhaps a Spider-Man pose. He heard voices behind him curse. The onlookers started running as Eric’s quad closed in on them at high speed, seemingly set on a collision course with the man standing with his feet apart and his hands outstretched.
It dawned on Eric that he was looking at himself. Thus he was in the uncomfortable position of watching himself as he panicked and tried to run away from his own quad. Another wave of nausea gripped his stomach from the disagreement between his eyes and his inner ears. Eric managed to run for several steps, watching himself from behind as if he were playing a third-person action game, but the dizziness got the best of him, and he keeled over, landing hard on his side. The quad stopped and hovered. He watched himself from above as he rolled on the concrete floor, moaning. Then he watched himself throw up.
Eric lifted his visor and rolled onto his back. All of the other racers looked stunned and confused. He looked up at his own quad, hovering above him, completely out of his control.
Wi-Fi, Eric thought. The quads are controlled by Wi-Fi, and the race server is connected to the net.
Eric looked at his quad and asked, “Al, is that you?”
The quad answered by losing all power. It fell ten feet to the concrete floor, where the puddle of vomit in which it landed completely failed to break its fall.
Hope squeezed the excess water out of her tea bag before throwing it away. The tea’s hot cinnamon smell was soothing, but she took two steps across her small galley kitchen, from the microwave to the cupboard where she kept the liquor. She opened a bottle of cinnamon-flavored whisky and poured a shot’s worth into the tea. Even better.
She carried her tea across her apartment to her couch, where she curled up with her gaming tablet.
While she had three different old game consoles, a gaming phone, and a virtual reality headset for her VR games, some titles still worked best on a high-powered PC. Her tablet had once been top-of-the-line, capable of handling most games. Now its age showed. Brand-new games had to have their graphics turned way down to run smoothly. She was saving up for a new machine.
Of course, she thought, I could keep the tablet I have and get a newer, safer car, but I don’t spend nearly as much of my time driving as I do playing games.
She pulled up her friends window to see who was online, playing what. Just like in real life, there were some people she enjoyed playing with and many more she’d rather avoid.
A message popped up saying that Unycorn1563 wanted to play Tactillios.
Unycorn1563 was the player who’d ruined her game of Tactillios the night before. Normally if someone lost their temper and cursed at her over a game, Hope would have simply ignored them. This time she chose to accept the invitation instead.
If you are Al, maybe you’ll make a mistake.
A chat window opened. Unycorn1563 wrote, “Hi.”
Hope responded, “Hi.” She said it out loud, but the computer transcribed it into text.
Unycorn1563 wrote, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gotten so mad yesterday.”
Hope said, “That’s true.”
“And I shouldn’t have called you shitful.”
“That’s also true.” Either time, Hope thought.
Unycorn1563 wrote, “I feel really bad about it.”
“That’s okay. We all get mad, but it’s just a game.”
“Wanna play again?”
“Sure. You want to attack or defend?”
Unycorn1563 wrote, “I’ll defend.”
Hope said, “Fair enough,” then launched the game.
The screen faded into an image of a fortress at one end of an empty field. Tiny soldiers started running across the field, moving toward the castle. Unycorn1563 fired the fortress’s cannons. Shells traced a painfully slow arc across the field. Hope’s men dodged, but not quickly enough. Only some of them got out of the way in time.
After thirty seconds both Hope and Unycorn1563 got five hundred points for still being alive. Hope pulled up the modifications menu, keeping an eye on the battle. This early in the game, she could afford only one upgrade. She spent her points on faster soldiers, leaving better armor and weapons for a later upgrade.
Once Hope completed her upgrade, she returned her focus to the battle. Her soldiers moved faster, but that only allowed them to be killed more efficiently.
“Whoa,” Hope shouted. “Wait a minute. Hold up.” She paused the game.
Unycorn1563 wrote, “What?”
“What the hell is this?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about your fort.”
“What about it?”
“I can barely see it behind all of the guard towers, pillboxes, trenches, tanks . . . and what are those airplane things? How did you get all that stuff so early in the game?”
Hope waited several seconds for an answer. When it came, it was unsatisfying.
Unycorn1563 wrote, “I dunno.”
“Don’t ‘I dunno’ me,” Hope said. “You’re using cheat codes. There’s no other way you could have built up that many defenses so fast.”
“Nuh-uh, but so what if I am?”
“You can’t do that! It’s cheating!” Hope replied. “That’s why they’re called cheat codes.”
“You know about cheat codes too. I didn’t tell you not to use them. It’s your own fault that you didn’t think of it. I thought of it, I used them, and I’m winning.”
Hope said, “I chose not to because it’s wrong.”
Unycorn1563 wrote, “It’s a strategy, just like misdirection.”
Hope smiled at his mistake. “Like when I made you think my general was in the corner of the board?”
“Yeah.”
Hope said, “You misspelled ‘unicorn,’ Al.”
Hope watched her screen; Unycorn1563 did not write anything.
Hope said, “How are you doing this? I’m not angry. I’m impressed.”
A dialog box popped up that said “Unycorn1563 has terminated the connection.”
Jeffrey Madsen walked slowly into the room his mother and Fernanda both called the Master Retreat. Fernanda had come with him, but she was waiting just outside the door.
His mom was sitting in a big, comfy chair with her feet curled up beneath her, wearing pajamas and reading. She looked up from her tablet and asked, “What is it, dear?”
Jeffrey said, “I’m going to bed, Mommy.”
“Oh,” his mom said. “Is it bedtime already? My, that came fast.”
Jeffrey said, “Yeah.”
“How was your day, dear?” she asked.
“Fine.”
“And how was school?”
“It was fine.”
“Good.”
“One of the kids, Haley, she said that it was her turn to sit on the beanbag, but Ronnie was sitting on the beanbag.”
“That’s nice. I’m glad you had a good day. Good night, dear. I love you.”
Jeffrey said, “I love you too.”
Jeffrey’s mom kissed him on the forehead, mussed up his hair, then looked back down to her tablet. Recognizing this as his dismissal, he walked back to the door, where Fernanda was still waiting for him. Fernanda was much younger than his mother. He didn’t think of her as skinny, but he didn’t think of her as really being heavy either. She had long black hair and wore bright red lipstick that made it easy to see when she was smiling, even from a long way away, which he liked.
Jeffrey followed Fernanda upstairs to his bedroom. “Mommy sure reads a lot,” he said.
“Yes, she does.”
“It’s
her job,” Jeffrey said. “She has to read so much for her job.”
Fernanda snorted, then covered her mouth. “That’s true. A lot of her reading is for her job.”
“Some of it isn’t?”
Fernanda said, “For her job she reads about computers, and brains, and lots of reports. At night she reads about other things.”
“What other things?”
“Fun things.”
“Like what?”
“Ladies. Gentlemen. The things ladies and gentlemen like to do.”
“You mean like kissing?”
“Yes. Like kissing.”
“That doesn’t sound very exciting.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“No,” Jeffrey said. “A whole book about ladies and gentlemen kissing each other? The lady kissed the gentleman. The gentleman said, ‘Thank you for the kiss,’ and kissed her back. They kissed and kissed until their mouths were tired. End of chapter one.”
Fernanda laughed. “They don’t just kiss.”
“What else do they do?”
“Hey, was it Haley’s turn to sit on the beanbag?”
“What?” Jeffrey asked.
“At school. Was it Haley’s turn to sit on the beanbag, or was it Ronnie’s?”
“Dunno,” Jeffrey said. “But Haley hit Ronnie with a book and Ronnie cried. Then Haley had to stay inside at recess.”
“I hope you learned a lesson from watching that. Two lessons. Don’t hit people with books. And don’t mess with Haley.”
They entered Jeffrey’s room. His mother kept it stocked with educational toys; Fernanda kept it neat and tidy and occasionally added a toy that was more fun than educational. Jeffrey climbed into bed. Fernanda tucked him in, kissed him on the head, then said, “Good night. I don’t want you playing with your tablet. You need sleep.”
“I will.”
“You will what?”
“Sleep.”
“And what won’t you do?”
“Play with my tablet.”
“Good.” Fernanda kissed him on the head again before leaving.
Jeffrey listened to her footsteps, waiting until she was downstairs again to pull out his tablet.
The tablet had been created specifically for kids his age in that it was brightly colored, made of sturdy material, and cheap enough to replace when he eventually lost or broke it anyway. It also had limited capabilities. The only people who could e-mail or chat with him were his mother, his teacher, Fernanda, and the other kids in his class. He opened the e-mail program, hoping one of his classmates could tell him what kind of punishment Haley had gotten for hitting Ronnie. It confused him to see that he had a new message with no name attached, just an empty space where the name should have been.
The message said, “Hello. Is this Jeffrey Madsen?”
Jeffrey replied, “Yes. Who is this?”
He received a reply almost instantly.
8.
Hope spun in her chair and watched as Dr. Madsen entered the room; Eric did the same and almost tipped over. Robert Torres, whose seat already faced the door, didn’t have to move.
Torres rose to his feet, smiling. “Doctor. Thanks for coming in on such short notice. Please have a seat. I hope traffic wasn’t too bad.”
“Not at all,” Madsen said. “Happy to come in.” She glanced uncomfortably at her underlings as she took a seat next to them. Hope smiled at her. Madsen quickly looked back to Torres and asked, “Is there a problem?”
Torres said, “More than one, I’m afraid. Mr. Spears and Miss Takeda here are your lab assistants, yes?” He motioned toward Hope and Eric like a lawyer pointing to a photo of a bloody footprint.
“At the moment,” Madsen said.
Hope picked up on the implied threat. She suspected Eric, Torres, and any birds that were flying past the window had caught it as well.
Torres continued. “And have you told them to try to handle any problems that come up themselves, and not to come to you with them unless they have absolutely no other choice?”
“I don’t believe that those were the words I used,” Madsen said, “but they are my assistants. It is their job to take care of things for me so I can concentrate on the bigger picture.”
“I disagree,” Torres said. “Half of their job is to deal with problems, as you say, but the other half is to tell you what those problems are. Telling the people working on your project not to bother you with problems is like trying to fly a plane with no fuel gauge and an altimeter that only says ‘high enough.’”
“I’m not sure I understand what you mean,” Madsen said, sitting a bit straighter.
Hope said, “He’s saying that you need to listen to us.”
“Shhh,” Madsen said. “Be quiet, Hope. Robert and I are having a discussion.”
This is probably what Jeffrey feels like, Hope thought.
Torres’s smile widened. “Miss Takeda and Mr. Spears had a problem,” he said. “One they couldn’t deal with themselves. They didn’t feel comfortable bringing it to you, so they went over your head, to me, the CEO.”
Madsen said, “I can see that. I’ll have a long talk with them later.”
“To thank them, I hope,” Torres said.
Torres proceeded to recount the story Hope and Eric had told him in detail, including Hope’s conversation with Unycorn1563 and Eric’s adventures in drone racing. Dr. Madsen sat and listened, but Hope suspected it was only because Torres was her boss.
When Torres finished, Dr. Madsen thought for a moment, then said, “None of that really proves anything.”
Hope rolled her eyes and started to speak, but a quick glance from Torres stopped her.
Madsen continued, “They can’t prove they didn’t tell Al the things he knows, and as for the idea that Al is controlling things over the Internet, what’s their evidence? That Eric’s malfunctioning drone finally stopped entirely right after Eric said the name ‘Al’? That the small child Hope accused of being Al hung up on her? I’m sorry, Robert, but I just don’t find the evidence all that compelling.”
Torres said, “Yes, I sort of thought the same thing.”
Madsen turned to smile at Hope and Eric. She looked unnerved to find them smiling back at her.
“That’s why I called the folks down in the server room,” Torres continued. “All of the traffic in the building is carefully logged. Nobody pays much attention to the logs. Frankly, all they do is take up hard drive space until something goes wrong—like it did this time. The logs show that an unidentified computer has been accessing the network at night via the access point closest to your lab.”
“There are countless other computers within range of that access point,” Madsen said.
“No,” Torres said. “Not countless. The IT department has accounted for all of the other machines and matched their IP addresses to the log. An extra computer has been accessing the network at night. And it isn’t just to download updates. We’re talking about a large amount of traffic in bursts that are sometimes hours long.”
Madsen said, “This is ridiculous! Robert, it isn’t possible for him to access the network. Al’s computer doesn’t have Wi-Fi.”
There followed a heavy silence that was finally broken when Hope said, “Yes, it does.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Madsen said.
“Yes, it does,” Hope said. “It isn’t enabled, but physically, it does have Wi-Fi.”
“I created Al. I’m in charge of the project, and I’m telling you, Al has no Wi-Fi.”
“I’m the person you ordered to requisition and set up the computer Al runs on. I promise you, he does.”
“I told you to get a bare-bones business desktop.”
“I did.”
“I didn’t tell you to get one with a Wi-Fi card.”
Hope blinked at Madsen. “How long has it been since you bought your own computer? Wireless networking is hardwired onto the motherboard these days. The only way to get a PC that doesn’t have integrated wireless would be to order
a custom-built rig, which you specifically ordered me not to do.”
“But I told you that Al couldn’t have access to the network. Any network! What did you think that meant?”
“To disable wireless connectivity.”
“Disable it?” Madsen said.
“Yeah,” Hope said. “By going into the OS settings and turning wireless networking off.”
“That’s not nearly good enough,” Madsen said.
“Why not?” Hope asked. “Al’s just a program. He wasn’t written to have the permissions he’d need to mess with the computer’s settings.”
Torres’s smile turned brittle. He looked at Madsen. “You never told Miss Takeda or Mr. Spears about plasticity and the people who see with their tongues, did you?”
As if to prove him right, Eric said, “Ew! How does that work?”
“Robert, they’re just my lab assistants,” Madsen said. “Their job is to babysit Al while I handle the big picture. They don’t need to know all of my theories.”
Torres’s smile hardened into a sort of frozen grimace.
Madsen glared at Hope. “You’ve ruined the whole project.”
Hope said, “By failing to follow an order you didn’t give. I hope you’ll accept the apology I will never offer.”
Torres said, “The problem with keeping people on a need-to-know basis is that it’s hard to predict what anyone will need to know.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Madsen admitted.
“Although,” Torres continued, “it seems rather obvious in hindsight that you should have informed the person ordering your hardware that your A.I. might naturally develop the ability to control any device he’s attached to.”
Hope said, “I’m sorry, what?”
Eric moaned.
Madsen said, “The human mind adapts. That’s how we learn to crawl and walk. It learns to understand its inputs and to make use of its outputs. It’s logical to suspect that Al would be able to naturally gain control of certain functions of any machine on which he runs. That’s why it was so important for his computer not to have Wi-Fi capabilities.”
“I guess that makes sense. I wish you had mentioned it at least once,” Hope said.
