The Mother Code

by Carole Stivers

  But now everything had changed. He’d have to learn, all over again, how this world worked.

  43

  KAI’S MOOD BRIGHTENED as he listened to the stories of Rose McBride, the woman who had become his Mother. Her early love of learning—just like his. Her deployment in the Afghan desert—saving others’ lives, just as she had saved his. Her love of San Francisco—the place to which, in the end, she had brought him. Though he’d never imagined Rosie as a real, human woman, he knew her now as though he’d known her all his life. Her voice had been his music. She had been his rock. Somehow, he’d always known her love.

  He was sure now that what he’d told James had been right. The children could never bring harm to their Mothers. Somehow, they needed to reconnect. But how? He’d need help. He needed to talk to Kendra.

  It was late evening, the storm past, the sky a velvet black outside the little window on the far side of the computer lab. He slipped out the door, then tiptoed down the dim hall, back toward the cafeteria. But just ahead, from behind the closed door of the biology lab, a shaft of bright light cut across his path. At the sound of voices, he stopped.

  It was James, his voice low but insistent. “Okay. Based on the data we’ve gathered since Rho-Z arrived here, we know that the virus is forcing her CPU to operate on overload. Her cooling systems are struggling just to keep up.” He paused. “We also know that the boy isn’t going to offer us any help.”

  “We should have known he would be wary,” came the man named Rudy’s soft reply.

  “Too wary. Just like his father . . .” James murmured.

  “He’ll need time,” Rudy insisted.

  “Time we don’t have,” James replied.

  “Look . . .” It was Kendra. “There’s more to it than that. There was always a debate as to whether we could use deep learning to teach a machine how to think like a human. The answer was always no. But as Rose used to say, the training sets were always insufficient. We never really did the right experiment. Not until now.”

  “What do you mean?” James’s voice was a monotone, as though he was only feigning interest.

  “When the Mothers were launched, they themselves were like children,” Kendra said. “But their neural networks were designed with innate plasticity. Their brains had the potential to evolve, to break and remake millions of connections based on a constant stream of input data. What if such a brain was put in close contact with a human one—paired, year after year? And what if that human brain was itself still developing, still learning? Wouldn’t they both learn from one another? When I was with Kai today, I realized . . . Rho-Z is more to him than a machine. She’s his . . . other half. If anything, it’s he who should decide what happens to her.”

  Once again came Rudy’s voice, slow and husky. “James, of course we all want the children to be safe. But this disease we have . . . it clouds the mind. We need to make sure that we are thinking clearly before we make any irreversible decisions.”

  Kai flattened his body against the wall. Holding his breath and begging his heart to slow, he tuned his ears.

  “I understand.” James’s voice came stronger now, tinged with irritation. “But at the Presidio, we’re starting to get into the territory that sparked the Tenth Congress—robots taking control over human lives. Remember, these are just children we’re talking about. They’re confused, misguided. Soon they might be starving. And Misha’s caught in the middle of it. Who knows what might happen to her?”

  “Mac?” Kendra’s voice sounded low, defeated.

  “I’m with James,” came Mac’s gruff voice. “We can’t just wait for the bots to stand down on their own. I think we can all agree . . . that’s not the direction things are going. We need to be prepared to take them out.”

  Kai felt a shock, a punch to the gut. It was all he could do to keep himself from bursting into the room.

  “So . . .” Kendra sighed. “I’ll set up the code for you. But we’ll have to test it out on Rho-Z before we go any further.”

  Kai heard chairs scraping across the floor. The lights in the lab dimmed, and footsteps approached the door. He needed to move. But he was paralyzed, his limbs like rubber.

  At the last moment he scampered across the hall, ducking into the robotics lab as the group entered the hallway. Kendra bade her companions a good evening, then shuffled slowly toward the computer lab, passing just a few feet from where Kai huddled, panting, in the darkness. He could hear Rudy’s wheeled chair, trundling in the opposite direction. Craning his neck around the doorjamb and peeking toward the lobby, he watched James push the chair while Mac walked alongside.

  “It’s past your bedtime, old man,” James said.

  “I told you not to call me that,” Rudy said, his voice barely audible. “May I remind you that I am one year, three months, and four days younger than you . . .”

  Soon, the corridor was silent.

  As he waited for his breathing to slow, Kai’s eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. Across the enormous room, the mangled remains of great machines were strewn about the floor. Intricate arms were disassembled. Lengths of tread lay stacked like firewood. In the corner was a partially assembled cocoon, missing its hatch cover. It was clear: To these people, the Mothers were nothing more than hunks of machinery, to be disposed of when they were no longer needed. Gathering his legs underneath him, he got to his feet, careful not to make a sound. He slipped back out into the hallway . . . then froze as he felt a touch on his shoulder.

  “Kai, are you lost?”

  He looked up. In the dim corridor, he could just make out James’s tired features, his sloped posture. “Um . . . yeah. I was . . . looking for a place to sleep?”

  James smiled. “So sorry . . . We’re not used to guests, I guess.” Kai felt the man’s hand on his back, guiding him along down the hall and through the lobby. They stopped outside a small room. “This is where Misha stays when she comes for a visit,” James said. “There’s a fresh bottle of water inside.”

  “James?” Kai croaked, doing his best to keep his voice steady. “Did you think about what I said? About talking to Rosie?”

  James cleared his throat. “We’re trying to think of a way, but it’ll be difficult,” he said.

  Kai looked up, hopeful. Perhaps there had been another part of the conversation, one he hadn’t heard . . .

  But James wasn’t looking at him. His gaze was fixed across the room, toward a small window. Then, rubbing his eyes with his fingertips, James turned back toward the hallway. “Tomorrow’s another day,” he said. “You need to get some sleep.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll be turning in myself in just a bit—I just need to check with Kendra about something.” Squaring his shoulders, James trudged off. “I’ll let her know you’re situated,” he called over his shoulder.

  Taking a deep breath, Kai closed the door behind him. Outside the window, all was still. The moonlight silhouetted only the shapes of two large stones, protruding from the desolate ground. But as he watched, something slithered out from between them.

  It was Kamal’s snake, Naga, come with a message.

  Kai held his breath, closed his eyes, listening for Naga’s voice. But instead he heard Rosie’s: Kai . . . You are frightened. I will keep you safe . . .

  He took a blanket from a pile near the door. Lying down on Misha’s cot, he wrapped himself against the chill of the room. Things were different now. Now it was he who would need to protect his Mother.

  44

  AS THE FIRST light of morning crept through the window, Kai huddled under his blanket, dreaming of Rosie’s warm cocoon. Clamping his eyes shut, he worked to keep his mind in the dream. “Rosie,” he thought, “can we continue our lessons?”

  “Yes,” she replied.

  The memory flooded his mind—her hatch display screen surrounding him with images, her patient tutelage. He saw a human
face, the face of Rose McBride, smiling down at him.

  He started. His limbs stiffening, he tried in vain to resist as he was pulled from his cocoon and thrust back into Misha’s little room at Los Alamos. He sat up, blinking as the walls came into focus.

  Cautiously, he poked his head out the door. The halls were dark and deserted, the only sound the incessant hum from the ceiling. Small lights came alive from recesses along the walls as he made his way past the biology lab to the computer lab. Except for a clutter of loose metal boxes and wires on the floor surrounding Kendra’s desk, the lab appeared as deserted as the rest of the building. Kai crept in, his ears tuned to the faint hum of the signal emanating from Kendra’s vacant headset.

  Suddenly a voice came from behind him. “Hello? Who’s there?”

  He wheeled around to face the door. “It’s me. Kai.”

  “Oh . . . Kai . . .” Kendra stepped unsteadily into the room, the dim light from her computer screen illuminating her haggard features.

  Kai looked around him. “Where’s everyone else?”

  “Rudy suffered a . . . a setback last night.”

  “Setback?”

  “James and Mac had to take him to the Hopi medical center.” Kendra shook her head. “My poor Rudy . . . He always felt bad about the Epidemic,” she murmured, removing her glasses to swipe at one eye with the back of her hand. “He blamed himself . . .”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a long story—part of the story he was recording for you. But he wanted me to tell you . . . he’s sorry.” Kendra dabbed at her glasses with a cloth from her pocket.

  “When will they be back?”

  “Oh,” Kendra said, her face blank, “not until late tonight. James needs to take a treatment there too. What terrible timing . . .” She fumbled her glasses back into place. Then her eyes went wide as she stared at the floor. “What’s all this?” she asked.

  Kai once more took in the litter on the floor—black metallic cases, green and red wires, gleaming switches, and small lights. “I don’t know.”

  Kendra darted to her computer, her fingers flashing over the touchscreen. “No,” she murmured. “Oh, no . . .”

  Kai drew up beside her. “What?”

  Kendra’s hands curled into fists. “They downloaded the code!”

  “What code?”

  “He promised me . . .”

  Kai felt a sick sensation rising in his throat. “Is it the code you were talking about last night?”

  Kendra turned to face him. “What?”

  “I heard you all talking. In the biology lab.”

  Kendra was silent for what seemed a lifetime. When at last she spoke, her voice was barely audible. “James wanted to run a test . . . on your Mother. But he promised me he’d explain everything to you first.” Reaching down, she picked one of the cases up from the floor. About six inches on a side and two inches high, it was smaller, boxier than Kai’s tablet. “Looks like they took whatever they needed to assemble the decoys . . .”

  Kai stared at the case. “Decoys?”

  “The plan was to make a decoy for each bot, a replica of its tablet. Each decoy would send out a unique set of signature frequencies for a given child. When the Mother sensed the signature, she’d track down the source. Then when she got close enough, the decoy with her child’s signature could use the tablet’s access code to dial in to her CPU and infect her with the same virus we used on Rho-Z.”

  Kai gripped the edge of the desk, willing himself to stay calm. “So . . . they’re taking these decoys to the Presidio?”

  “That could very well be the plan . . .”

  Then, a momentary glimmer of hope crossed Kai’s mind. “But that virus won’t kill them, right? It didn’t kill Rosie . . .”

  Kendra caught his gaze, her brow furrowed. “No. But we added something else—code that will shut down the cooling systems. The CPU will overheat . . . brain death, within as little as five minutes.”

  Kai’s limbs went weak. Rosie. “Wh-what about my Mother? Did they . . . already kill her?”

  A worried look clouded Kendra’s face. Putting down the case, she tapped out a few commands on her keyboard and ran her fingers quickly over her screen. “No. Her signal hasn’t changed.” She turned to him, letting out a sigh of relief. “She’s still okay.”

  Kai wrapped his arms around the woman’s slender waist. “Please . . .” he murmured, burying his face in her narrow chest. “I can’t lose her . . .”

  He could feel Kendra’s thin hands, stroking his head. “Kai, don’t worry. I could never do that to her.” Bending down, she held him at arm’s length, her eyes glistening as her gaze met his. “When I watched you yesterday, hearing your Mother’s voice, I realized something amazing had happened.” She stood up straight, raising her hands to rub her temples. “I told James I wanted time to think of another way. Why couldn’t he at least give me the time?”

  Kai wiped his eyes. “But we do have time, right? You said they’re going to the Hopi hospital. That means they’re not going to the Presidio right away.”

  “Yes . . .”

  “So maybe we have time to think of something else. I keep thinking . . . There’s got to be something we can do to make the Mothers the way they used to be. To reboot them . . . Like Álvaro taught me to reboot my tablet.”

  Kendra stared at him. Slowly, her gaze drifted back to her computer. “Reboot . . . Maybe that’s it . . .”

  “What?”

  But Kendra was already typing, bringing up one new screen after another. “Your Mothers underwent a reboot when they arrived at the Presidio. The reboot code instructed them to shut down the cocoon support systems. But maybe that was the problem.”

  “How?”

  Kendra paused, staring now at the lines of code. “Of course . . .” Closing her eyes, she brought the flat of one palm to her forehead. “In the base code hierarchy, communication with you is a cocoon function. Speech, biofeedback—once the cocoon was shut down, all of those would be cut off . . .”

  “That’s why she couldn’t talk to me?”

  “She was probably trying to repair it on her own. Looking for workarounds. But she couldn’t find a way . . .”

  Kai leaned forward, staring at the screen. “Can we find a way?”

  Kendra was silent. Then she smiled. “I still have the source codes for all of the Mothers. I could try running a core reboot on Rho-Z . . . in Safe Protocol.”

  “Safe?” Kai felt something, another glimmer of hope.

  Kendra brought up another screen. “I could use the same trick we were going to use to shut them down. The signature would be the same. But rather than installing a virus and shutting down cooling, the new code would induce a shutdown and reboot in Safe Protocol. Your Mother would go back to being like she was.” She turned to look at him. “Better, in fact.”

  “Better?”

  “In Safe Protocol, she’d be less defensive: lasers disarmed; even an ‘off’ switch if things went south. And there’s something else. I’m convinced that your Mother has developed far beyond what she was when she was first launched. We could reboot the original capabilities, but we could also retain her new abilities, including the learnings she’s gained from you.”

  “Learnings,” Kai murmured. He remembered what Kendra had said the previous night. While Rosie had been teaching him, had he been teaching her too? “Kendra,” he said, “if we can fix Rosie, we still have time to fix the others too.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “James and Mac haven’t gotten to the Presidio yet, right? We could make new decoys for all of them. I could take them—”

  Kendra’s gaze softened. “We can try with your Mother, but . . . No. No, no, no . . . I’m responsible for you now. I can’t send you all the way back there . . .”

  Kai closed his eyes, remembering the s
oft hum of Rosie’s processors, her soothing voice as she sheltered him from the dust storms raging outside her cocoon. “Our Mothers had a mission,” he said. “They gave birth to us. They kept us safe. They did the best they could.” He looked up at Kendra. “I can’t just let Rosie die. I can’t let any of them die.”

  Kendra blinked. “First things first. We need to test this out.” Softly, she placed her hand atop his head. “Are you ready to wake her up?”

  Kai imagined Rose McBride’s imploring face. He could almost feel his heart jump in his chest, a certainty he hadn’t known for a long time.

  “Yes,” he said.

  * * *

  THROUGH THE PLEXIGLAS walls of the airlock by the lobby entrance, Kai could see Rosie waiting on the tarmac. In her hands, Kendra cradled the dark metallic case that contained Rosie’s “friendly decoy.”

  Kendra turned to him. “The virus with which your Mother is currently infected prevents her from uploading anything new. Even though this decoy uses her tablet access code, it won’t be able to break through.” She offered Kai a wry smile. “In fact, that’s probably what stopped James . . . Anyway, to interrupt the virus, you’ll have to dislodge your tablet from her console and remove the memory card.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “But be careful. You’ll want to keep the card in place until you get clear of her.”

  “Why?”

  “We don’t want the replivirus to stop installing for very long before the code on this decoy can take hold. Once the virus starts to clear, it’s possible Rosie could recover quickly. We can’t have her flying off before we get the Safe code in—especially not with you inside!”

  “Okay, so I’ll take out the tablet, climb outside, then remove the memory card from it. Then what?”

  Kendra held the decoy out in front of her, inspecting it one last time. “These things don’t have much of a range—you’ll need to place this no more than fifty feet in front of her. Understood?”