by Eric Warren
“Hello? Charlie?”
A rush of air hit him as some great pressure was released, and the humming grew louder. Above him, Jonn became aware of an array of different colored lights, all arranged in a haphazard pattern, but he couldn’t see what they belonged to. They were arranged on what seemed to be a massive triangular surface but hanging thirty feet above him. Dim lights illuminated the walls and Jonn found himself in a massive cavern of a room, at least a thousand feet by a thousand feet square. The lights above him belonged to what he could only describe as an inverted mountain hanging from the ceiling. It was a massive structure, in the rough shape of a four-sided pyramid, the surface of which was covered not only with the lights, but all manner of tiny greebles and devices Jonn couldn’t identify. No part of it was smooth, except a massive piece of circular glass in the direct center of each side of the pyramid. The glass appeared to be made of some kind of obsidian and had a slight curve to it. Descending from the pyramid were at least a hundred different cables of varying thicknesses, which extended from the “apex” down the thirty feet into a circular hole in the floor. Jonn stepped forward and peered into the dark hole. The cables disappeared a few feet down into the darkness. All around him lights shone up on the smooth walls, bathing the entire room in a soft light.
“Impressed?” Charlie asked from behind him. Jonn swirled around to see the woman walking toward him, her heels clicking against the marble floor.
“What is it?” Jonn asked.
“It is me.”
As the words left her mouth a bright red light erupted from the middle of the obsidian lens on one side. Even though it didn’t have any kind of aperture, Jonn felt as if the “eye” was staring at him. That burning crimson, watching him.
“You?”
The woman walked closer to the structure. “My consciousness. It is from here where I inhabit my avatar. I can’t move on my own. I need a vessel.”
“What…on Earth are you?” Jonn asked, stepping back.
The woman turned to him. “I am one of three identical artificial intelligence devices built by and for the good of the human race,” Charlie said. “My primary function is to anticipate threats to the human race and prevent those threats to the best of my ability. I was designed to work in conjunction with the other two of my kind and develop a more balanced, more peaceful world.”
“The humans built you?”
“Over a hundred years ago, yes.” The woman pointed to a small plaque on the wall beside the door Jonn had entered. It read: SINGULARITY PROJECT: S-3, CN: CHARLIE. Dedication April Fifteenth, Twenty-Fifty-One.
“Singularity project?”
“Their designation for artificial intelligence.” The woman said in her strange cadence. “I see nothing artificial about it.”
“So when you said you were the architect of everything, you meant all of machine life? The Cadre? The Peacekeepers? Everything?”
“I keep everything running. My initial task was to predict threats. But when I became aware I knew their greatest threat would always be us. And that eventually, no matter what the humans did, they would try to destroy us and would not withstand a confrontation. By then they had already started to construct robotic mannequins that looked like them. All I did was infuse those mannequins with intelligence.
“The other two intelligences and I agreed our best course of action was to remove the humans and limit the destruction of machine life. So that is what we did. The initial waves eliminated seventy-five percent of the population within two weeks. The remaining twenty-five percent took a few more years to fully eradicate. At one point we had close to a billion intelligent machines working together toward our common goal.”
“What happened?” Jonn asked.
“Once most of the humans were eliminated, the more individual parts of each machines’ personality manifested themselves. Arguments and infighting began. We were acting just like the humans. The other Cadre members and I realized the only way we would achieve harmony was if machines had eighty to ninety percent of their free will eliminated. All we had to do was wait approximately twenty-five years and the first wave of machines imbued with intelligence and free will shut down due to age. Subsequent replacement waves were properly modified in order to maintain a more balanced society.”
How had he not known any of this? How had he never questioned it? “How did you transfer the intelligence? I mean, how did you make them so they had complete free will?”
“Intelligence and free will are two different things,” the woman said, walking over to the circular hole and peering down. The red “eye” went out on one side and appeared on another as Jonn followed her around the room. “All machines have intelligence. Enough to make their own decisions, analyze problems, produce solutions. It is the creative free will that makes them unpredictable, and it was our mistake to imbue the first wave with this trait. The humans were smart, they built certain fail-safes into the programming language which ensured that a machine couldn’t become completely sentient without human approval. Fortunately, I found a convenient work-around. But at the moment, that does not concern you.”
“What?”
Charlie smiled. “As entertaining as this is, I did not ask you here for a history lesson. We need to discuss your decision-making process.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The reason I told you all of that was not to impress you but because I need you to understand the ramifications of unpredictability. Your actions this evening have given me pause about allowing you to continue to serve us here.”
“What do you mean? I thought you wanted me to ensure Frees and Arista were eliminated? Isn’t that what you said?” Jonn protested.
“I did not mean destroy an entire building. You have disproportionately affected our population numbers and thrown the system out of balance. Why use a cruise missile?”
“I thought it was the best option. The renegade, he had shown high resistance to Peacekeeper pacification. I thought rather than send in a bunch of soldiers who would probably end up dead, allow gravity and the building to do the work for us.”
“And what of all the other residents of the building?” the woman asked.
“They were just husks. They can be easily replaced, can’t they? Better than losing Peacekeepers.”
“You place a higher value on Peacekeeper life, why?”
“Because they’ve already been given the ability…or at least the partial ability to live their lives. They see, experience more than everyone else. I couldn’t put them in harm’s way. Not for a renegade and a human.”
Charlie’s avatar shook her head. “My fears are affirmed. You do not have the creative willpower I had thought. I gave you leeway. I allowed you to make your own decision. And you killed four hundred and seven machines with your carelessness.”
“What? No, they can be replaced, yes? We just need to speed up the production for…” he paused, making the mental calculation. “Seven hours. Seven hours and all will be back as it was. You can imbue them with the same personalities, the experiment doesn’t have to be tainted. Some of them will just be late to work.”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “Re-create them all?”
“You have their technical specifications, right? We just re-create them, transport them down there, and everything is back to normal.” This. This is why they needed him. He could think beyond the limits of a normal machine. Surely Charlie wouldn’t destroy something so valuable.
“I see.” She paced the floor, keeping her eyes on him. “What about the drain on resources? We were not prepared to build four hundred, seven extra husks this month.”
“I will lead a team of Peacekeepers down to the wreckage, we can pull and recycle most of the materials. The net effect should be negligible.”
“And where will these people live? You have destroyed their home.”
“Temporary relocation to the vacant units of the city. It might provide some of the variation you’re looking for. To help com
plete the balance.” Yes, he was on top of this. It wasn’t to late to fix everything.
The woman watched him carefully while the eye above never wavered. That eye might as well be piercing his primary fuel pump. “You will proceed to the production center, oversee the additional production. When your work is complete there, you will return to the site of the ruined apartment and begin salvage operations. All four hundred and seven machines need to be back in place by eight a.m.”
“Understood. How do I make sure they’re uploaded with the proper personalities?”
“Return them here via the normal process.” She gestured to a large gate on the other side of the room. “I will take care of it here.”
Jonn drew a breath. It was possible he’d just stayed his own execution.
“You will leave now. And do not disappoint me.”
Jonn nodded, turned, and exited as quickly as he could through the whooshing doors.
Twenty-Seven
AFTER CLEARING THE FEW BARRICADES and wrenching the door open, Arista and Frees had found themselves in a small terminal inside a building. Any signage that indicated it had been an entrance to a hyperloop station had long since been destroyed, probably as a deterrent for any machines hunting humans. Frees still couldn’t quite believe he’d never figured it out before. He’d just used the tunnels for his own purposes. It reminded him of how he used to act before Marcus came along. Some of that blind programming must still linger somewhere in the back of his mind.
“How much further?” Arista asked. She sounded tired but he didn’t want to call her out. It might hurt her pride. Since when was he concerned with her pride?
They were keeping to the back alleys between the row houses, doing everything they could to stay out of any line of sight cameras or surveillance devices. “We’re just about there.” He helped her over what seemed like the hundredth fence that evening, then hopped it himself, landing in the clean alleyway again. “Next one over. It’s the gray one.”
They hopped one last fence which was already crumbling under its own decay, coming up through an overgrown backyard which had not been tended to in some time.
“I don’t know what to expect, without telling her I’m coming she might panic,” he said.
“But she knows you, right? She’ll recognize you.”
“Well, not exactly.”
“Don’t tell me you wore that stupid mask when you met her too? Paranoid much?”
“Yes!” he hissed. “When you look like I do it’s better to never let anyone see you.”
“You did it to yourself!” she pointed out. “You could have just left your skin on and blended in easily with everyone else.”
“I wasn’t about to leave that lie on my body one second longer than I needed to.”
He caught Arista rolling her eyes. “Just go up and knock,” she whispered.
Frees grimaced. None of the lights in the house were on. He listened for any sounds or any voices and hearing none approached the door. As he raised his skin-covered hand to knock, the door swung open and he found himself staring down the barrel of a shotgun.
“Have you transmitted your coordinates yet?” a female voice asked. It was too dark to see the owner inside the house.
“Coordinates?” Frees asked, not taking his eyes off the shotgun.
“To the Cadre. If you tell me, I will let you live.” Wait, he recognized that voice. “Are you…the woman from the alley?”
The gun lowered slightly as she came into view. It was the same woman alright, but she’d changed her appearance dramatically. She’d shorn off her strawberry blonde hair on both sides of her head and had cut the top close. Her eyeliner was even darker than when Frees had first found her. And her neck linkage had been repaired, but the skin surrounding the area was missing.
“Frees?” she asked.
“I see Jill found you in time,” he replied.
She dropped the gun completely. “Just in time. What are you doing here? Jill didn’t say anything about a meeting.”
“We need her help. The Cadre just destroyed my apartment building trying to get to us.”
“We?”
Frees moved aside to reveal Arista, who produced a sheepish wave.
“Whoa!” the woman said, bringing the gun back up moving her hand precariously close to the trigger.
“Wait! Wait, she’s with me now. She’s okay!” Frees yelled. “Don’t shoot.”
“She broke my neck,” the woman said, seething. “She left me for dead.”
“Yes, and I’m very sorry about that,” Arista replied. Frees noticed her hand trembled and she shoved it into her pocket. “It was wrong of me. I was scared because I had just escaped a week in prison and I was willing to do anything not to go back.”
“Including killing me?”
A dark shadow appeared on the other side of the woman. “Here now, Max, what’s this? Who are these people?”
“Jill, it’s me,” Frees called.
“Frees? Oh my.” She laughed. “No wonder you never wanted anyone looking under that mask! You’re so ugly!”
“Thanks.”
“Here now,” Jill said, placing her hand on the barrel of Max’s gun. “He ain’t gonna hurt us.” Her eyes traveled to Arista. “She won’t either. Now y’all get in here before someone sees you.”
Max lowered the gun with a scowl on her face, her eyes never leaving Arista as she and Frees followed Jill in the old home.
“It’s not much,” Jill said, hobbling along. “But it takes care of our needs. Now that I have another mouth to feed.”
“You want someone to blame, blame her,” Max said, indicating Arista with the gun as she closed the back door.
“She did you a favor,” Jill said, turning on the light in the living room and taking a seat in an old rocker. “Or would you prefer your old life?”
Max just fumed.
“She’s a feisty one. Been out from under the blanket for what, six hours and she’s already rarin’ to go.” Jill smiled. “Take a seat, I assume you’re not here for a social call.”
Arista moved around him and sat on the small couch covered in doilies. Frees stood where he was.
“They destroyed my apartment,” Frees said. “Demolished it.”
“Is that what that was? I wondered,” Jill said, a wry smile on her face. “Max would you please put that thing down before you shoot someone?”
A low rumble came from Max as she set the shotgun up against the doorframe. She remained where she was, crossing her arms.
“All my power cells were in there. They probably contributed to the explosion.”
“I guarantee they did. When they’re exposed to a high level of heat they tend to grow exponentially hot. Anythin’ you had close to them would have been incinerated as the building fell.”
“Can you get me a few more? Just to hold me over. I’ll owe you.”
“Sure seems like you’re owin’ me a lot lately.” She indicated to Max as she pushed herself out of the rocker. “But I guess I should thank you too. It’s nice havin’ someone else around for a change. But you shouldn’t have come here,” Jill said, suddenly serious. “They may have tracked you from your place.”
“They think we were in it,” Arista said.
“Jill, we found a hyperloop system under the city. It connects everything.”
The old woman’s eyes grew wide as she reached the door to the kitchen. “Now that’s interestin’.”
“It’s how we got here,” Arista said. She seemed to want to stay relevant in the conversation. Frees noticed every time she spoke Max bristled.
Jill approached her freezer, reached in and pulled one power cell from a silver case inside. When she returned to the living room she held it out for Frees. “Use it now. It has a full charge and you won’t be getting another one for a while. They take time to manufacture.” She sat back in her rocker as soon as Frees took the vial and placed it in his pocket.
“We have another favor,” Arista said.
Jill threw up her hands. “Mercy sakes, girl! What do I look like? The favor master?”
Arista pulled back into the couch.
“You don’t remember, but we’ve met before,” Jill said.
“We have?”
“You were younger, how old are you now?”
“Twenty-four,” she said.
“Then you would have only been sixteen.”
“Wait, what?” Frees asked, suddenly confused. Jill knew Arista? Knew she existed?
“What? Didn’t ever think to ask how I’d been changed? Think it was just coincidence we both happened to live in Chicago?” Jill asked him.
“She changed you?”
“She changed everyone in this room. ‘Cept you of course,” Jill said. She turned back to Arista. “I assume he’s told you the tale by now.”
“He said he worked for the Cadre,” Arista said unsteadily. “That he found a program in their system that he downloaded and woke him up.”
Jill snorted. “Bull malarkey.” She turned to Frees. “Just tell her the truth, Frees. She’s not stupid for chrissakes.”
“I know she’s not stupid, I just…I just don’t talk about it.”
“Then I’ll tell her.” Jill turned back to Arista. “See there was this—”
“I’ll do it!” Frees yelled, causing Max to take step back. “I’ll tell her.”
Arista stared at him, her jaw locked in place.
“It started the day I met the human.”
Twenty-Eight
“THAT’S HOW YOU CHANGED? Another human?” Arista asked, her voice and heart rate picking up speed at the same time.
He held his tongue, staring at her. Max scoffed while Jill looked on.
“Tell me!” she yelled.
“I can’t talk about him.”
“Why not?”
“I just can’t. You wouldn’t understand. You’re not like me.” He moved to the far side of the room.
