The Phoenix Code

by Catherine Asaro

  The LPs under the catwalk stood together, exchanging data like a duo of gossiping tin cans. The LP in the door­way behind Ander finally freed itself, but it stayed put. The one on the elevator had reached the catwalk and was rolling toward Ander. It stopped about ten feet away. Ander glowered and waved his hand as if to shoo it off the catwalk. It just blinked its lights at him, orange for a low-level alert.

  "Ander," Raj said. "We want you to come down."

  He glared at them. "No. You'll turn me off."

  "And if I promise we won't?" Megan asked.

  "I don't believe you."

  "Don't promise him," Raj said in a low voice. "We may have to break our word. We have to get him out of BioSyn."

  Suddenly robot arms two and six detached from their ceiling cradles and swung through the lab, barely avoid­ing each other. When they moved apart, arm three hurtled between them like a gnarled pendulum. The other two arms swung back and smashed together with a resound­ing crash. As Megan swore, alarms shrilled and red lights flashed along both limbs. The LPs that were supposed to keep Ander from misbehaving stood placidly in place, or­ange lights aglow.

  "For crying out loud," Megan said. "How does he do that?" She and Raj delved deeper into BioShadow, bring­ing up programs she had hidden for emergencies.

  "Hey!" Ander shook a yellow strut of the catwalk. "What are you two doing?"

  Megan frowned. "You come down here."

  "Hell, no."

  "And watch your language!"

  "Tell that to Dr. Brooding down there."

  "Is that supposed to be me?" Raj muttered.

  The robot arms kept swinging. Not one LP had moved. It irked Megan that Ander had become so adept at fi­nagling their systems. However, she and Raj had many more years of finagling experience, and they soon stopped the arms. The three giant limbs hung around the chair glowing with red and orange lights like a deranged Christmas tree.

  Ander leaned over the rail. "Leave it alone!"

  "Ander, be careful." His precarious position terrified Megan. Coordination and balance were his weakest traits.

  She had no idea whether he tried to pull back and slipped, or tried to provoke her and misjudged. The result was the same: he lost his balance, throwing his arms out in a futile attempt to grab the strut. His palmtop flew out of his hand and sailed through the air.

  With a cry, Ander plunged over the rail.

  *9*

  Free Will

  "No!" Megan shouted. Ander's body dropped behind the cluster of robot arms, followed by a sickening thud. She and Raj ran around the quiescent limbs and skidded to a stop.

  Ander lay in a heap. His skeleton was less brittle than bone; instead of cracking, it had bent. His right leg had wrenched backward at the knee in a right angle relative to his thigh, and his right arm had twisted at the elbow until it made a sharp angle with his upper arm. His right hand had broken halfway off his wrist. Unlike a human, who probably would have died from such a fall, he was look­ing straight at them.

  "God, no." Megan knelt next to him.

  As Raj stepped toward him, Ander cried, "No!" He held out his good hand as if to protect himself. "Don't turn me off!"

  Raj scowled at him. "You do exactly what Megan tells you. Misbehave once, just once, and you are off. Got it?"

  "I would never hurt Megan."

  "Good. Because if you do, you're one down droid." Raj went to the console and switched off the alarms. The sudden silence came like a breath of relief.

  Megan laid her hand on Ander's injured arm, trying to judge the damage. He looked up at her—and a tear slid out of his eye.

  "Oh, Ander," she murmured.

  "It's crocodile tears," Raj said. "I designed the proto­type. His ducts condense liquid out of the coolant for his hydraulics."

  "Quit talking about me like I'm not here," Ander said. "I cry when I fucking feel like it, asshole."

  "Keep up with that filthy mouth in front of Megan," Raj told him, "and I'll clean it out with your crocodile coolant."

  "Go to hell."

  "Ander, stop." Megan couldn't help but react to Ander as if he were an injured human being, one whose well-being mattered a great deal to her. Using Tycho, she stud­ied his injuries. "I don't understand why you did this. You must have known your plan would backfire."

  "Yes, I calculated that probability," he said. "But I cal­culated a higher one that if you slept with me, you would transfer your interest from him to me."

  "For crying out loud," Raj said.

  Megan spoke to Ander in a mild voice. "You calcu­lated wrong. I would have been furious." She slowly straightened his arm, monitoring the process with Tycho. She hoped to put his limbs enough in line so they could move him to the chair without causing further internal damage. She tried not to imagine what Raj must be think­ing. Transfer your interest from him to me. Nothing like being blunt. She might as well have shouted, I want you, Raj!

  "Megan, are you all right?" Raj asked.

  She began working on Ander's leg. "Yes. Fine."

  "Your face is the color of your hair."

  "It's nothing. Really." She couldn't look at him.

  He spoke softly. "You're always so cool, like a long, tall drink. I thought you resented my being here."

  She looked up at him. "Raj, no. I was glad when you came."

  "I don't put people at ease." He cleared his throat. "Especially people that, uh, I want to, well—to know better."

  Megan felt as if she were melting. "You do just fine."

  "Oh, please," Ander said. "If this gets any more senti­mental I'm going to puke."

  "That would be a feat," Raj said, "considering that your plumbing isn't set up for that response."

  Ander didn't deign to answer. His arms lay straighter now, though his hand was still broken back at a sharp angle from his wrist. It disturbed Megan to see him that way. She knew he felt no pain, but he looked as if he should be in agony.

  Ander was watching her face. "I'm not a job to you anymore. You want me. Admit it."

  "You mean a lot to me. But not in that way. I kissed you because I thought you were Raj."

  "Except I wasn't." He lifted a lock of her hair with his good hand. "What you enjoyed—that was me. Not him."

  She pulled her hair away. "No, Ander."

  "You can't push a person into wanting you," Raj said. "It doesn't work that way."

  "You'd know, wouldn't you?" Ander said.

  Raj scowled but said nothing.

  "You're a hypocrite," Ander said. "You can seduce your boss, but it's wrong if I try?"

  Raj started to respond, then stopped. Megan could tell he was holding back. It would do no good if this argu­ment fell apart in anger. Ander didn't have the capacity to deal with the emotions he was stirring up. If they weren't careful, they could harm him with words they would later regret.

  "I think we can move him now," she said.

  Ander stiffened as Raj crouched next to him. Megan had intended to help, but Raj picked up the android easily in his arms. Seeing him use such care affected Megan deeply. She had thought Raj would be curt or stiff, yet he treated Ander more like an injured son than a threat.

  Although Ander weighed as much as a human man, Raj showed no sign of strain. Megan wondered why he spent so much time developing his muscles. Although he avoided her in the gym, the room's activity log indicated he worked out with weights every day. It seemed an odd hobby for a reclusive genius, though she had no good rea­son for why she thought so. She certainly appreciated the results.

  Raj carried Ander to the chair and gently set him down. Ander refused to look at him, but he sank into the cushioned seat with a convincing simulation of relief.

  Using BioShadow, Megan verified that Ander's sabo­tage hadn't damaged the chair. Then she did the prep for his operation. Humming like a distant bee swarm, the chair unfolded into a table. Ander lay on his back watch­ing her, a bead of sweat on his temple.

  "Are you going to turn me off while you work?" he ask
ed.

  "Do you want me to?"

  He tensed. "No."

  "Then I won't."

  Raj was standing across the chair at the other console. Neither he nor Megan spoke as they removed Ander's clothes. She flushed at the sight of Ander's nude body. It had never affected her before, but after tonight she would never see him in the same way again.

  When Megan pressed a crease behind Ander's ear, a small disk of skin lifted up from his navel, revealing a socket. "Arm two," she said. A grinding noise came from behind her, like a protest. Turning, she saw a broken robot arm hanging in the air. "Arm four," she amended. "Connect to torso. Full body scan."

  Arm four came down from the ceiling and plugged into Ander's abdomen. Holos appeared above her console with views of his body. Several fins that exchanged air in his chest cavity had broken and the bellows that moved his chest had collapsed. His microfusion reactor and its shielding showed no damage; both were meant to last for centuries even if his body exploded. The circulatory sys­tem that cooled his systems had several breaks, and its pump had a twisted valve. A conduit that carried nutri­ents to his skin had burst. Both his lubricant reservoir and the sinus reservoir that produced his tears, sweat, and saliva had sprung leaks. The sperm unit in his testes was fine, as was his food reservoir and waste-removal system. Ragged gashes marred his synthetic muscles and the nanofilaments that sheathed them. His skeleton showed many dents and twists, and major damage in the leg and arm. His wrist had nearly snapped off. Had he been flesh and blood, he would have died the moment he hit the floor.

  Megan touched his arm. "We'll make you better."

  Although Ander nodded, his face showed fear. It wasn't a vivid emotion; he still had trouble with his ex­pressions. But they had become more mobile in the past weeks.

  BioSyn spoke. "Diagnostics complete."

  "Can we open him up?" Raj asked. Similar holos flick­ered on his console.

  "It will cause more damage to his filaments," BioSyn said.

  Megan rubbed her eyes. It was no picnic fixing fila­ments made of threads with widths no greater than a mol­ecule. To some extent the tubes were self-repairing; when disrupted, dangling bonds reattached to keep their chemi­cal structure inert. However, the tubes couldn't reproduce themselves; although chemists had been building nano-tubes since the late twentieth century, they hadn't yet reached the point where the nanotech self-replicated with any reliability. However, Ander's internal systems could make some rudimentary repairs on a macroscopic level. Megan and Raj could help by inserting smart-wires into Ander's sockets and injecting him with nanobots that cat­alyzed selected reactions.

  In a sense, they were also doing brain surgery. Some of Ander's nanotubes acted as a computer. The full range of electronic devices could be built with them. They were far smaller than silicon transistors on integrated chips, more durable, and better able to deal with heat, which meant they could be formed into three-dimensional arrays more easily than silicon devices. As a result, the filaments dis­tributed Ander's brain throughout his body. It made him less vulnerable to attack, since he had no central location where his brain could be destroyed, but it meant they had to take extra care with the filaments.

  "BioSyn," Megan said. "How much damage can Ander fix himself?"

  "About twenty-five percent. I can also do some work through his sockets."

  "All right," Raj said. "We'll start with bots and wires."

  "No!" Ander pushed up on his elbows.

  "What's wrong?" Megan asked.

  "You don't even ask." He motioned at the robot arm jacked into his abdomen. "You tell these to work on me as if I'm one of them. They might not care, but I do."

  His growing sense of self gratified her even if she did worry about what direction it would take next. "May we work on you?"

  "I ... I don't know."

  She spoke gently. "We'll be careful. I promise."

  He took a breath and lay down. "Okay. Go ahead." His apprehension didn't sound quite right, but if she hadn't known it was simulated, she would have accepted it as genuine.

  Raj was watching them closely. "Arm four, proceed." A hum came from the robot arm, and the holos of Ander began to show slight improvements. As BioSyn worked on the android, Raj studied the changing images with an absorption so complete, Megan wondered if he had forgotten everything else.

  Finally BioSyn said, "Preliminary work complete."

  Ander looked up at her. "Will you open me now?"

  "The sooner we do it," Raj said, "the better for you."

  Ander turned a long, uneasy stare on Raj. Then he glanced at Megan. "Make me a promise. Say you won't dismantle me."

  She cupped his cheek, offering him the same reassuring touch she would have given a member of her family if they had been in a hospital. "We won't. You have my word."

  A crack came from across the chair. Megan looked to see Raj clenching a broken switch in his fist. It had snapped off a panel under his hand. Looking down, he flushed and opened his fist.

  "Don't let him work on me," Ander said. "Please."

  "Ander, I won't hurt you," Raj said. Megan glanced at Raj and tilted her head toward the catwalk. He nodded, then set the switch down on his con­sole.

  Ander looked back and forth between the two of them. "What are you doing?"

  "Raj and I need to talk," she said. "But we can't leave you unattended. We have to put you to sleep."

  "No! Megan, don't let him do this to me."

  "We can't take risks."

  He spoke fast. "Have the LPs guard me."

  It was a reasonable compromise, assuming he hadn't bollixed up the LPs. "All right, but only if they pass an­other check."

  His shoulders relaxed. "They will."

  She summoned the two LPs under the catwalk, and they took up posts on either side of the chair. While Megan checked them, Raj reduced Ander's hearing range to make sure the android couldn't eavesdrop. Ander watched them in wary silence. Then he lay back and stared at the ceiling like a long-suffering prisoner con­demned to the gallows. It almost made Megan laugh, but she held back, certain it would offend his dignity.

  After they finished their checks, she and Raj walked to the area under the catwalk. Raj discreetly motioned at Ander. "We should turn him off."

  "I'm not sure." She searched for words to describe what she felt on an almost subconscious level. "When a toddler asserts its independence by yelling 'No!' its parents have to set limits, yes. But they don't deacti­vate it."

  "He's not a child. He's a weapon." Raj glanced at the chair. Ander had sat up and was squinting at them, obvi­ously trying to read their lips. Turning back to her, Raj said, "Didn't one of your reports say an ordinary shoe box made him go unstable?"

  "Not exactly." His question surprised her. Surely he had studied the reports. Then again, it never hurt to go over material more than once. She described the incident, ending with, "He couldn't move, he was furious, his face had turned crimson, and he kept demanding a plane."

  Raj smiled. "That must have been a sight."

  "It was." She sighed. "Both heartbreaking and funny."

  "But all you had to do was readjust his fear toler­ances."

  It puzzled her that he didn't see the problem. "It's not that easy. For even the most minimal behavior, Ander has billions of possible responses to choose from. Add an­other behavior and he has billions times billions, many correlated. If I change the weight of just one stimulus, it affects all his responses."

  "He can write a lot of the code himself."

  They were skirting her most controversial work now. She spoke carefully. "His code has caps that limit how much he can rewrite. The reason he used to freeze up so often was because the caps were too stringent."

  Raj frowned. "Are you saying you weakened their ef­fect?"

  "It was the only way to make him work."

  "This wasn't in the reports I read. I would have seen it." His voice had gone taut. "Those caps are crucial. Without them, he has no controls."


  "It's there, in the section about tolerances." She tried not to sound defensive.

  "You mean the section on the crosslight code? The rewrites you did to strengthen Ander's conscience?" When she nodded, he made an exasperated sound. "A graduate student could write a dissertation trying to deci­pher that section."

  She crossed her arms. "Just because my prose isn't transparent doesn't mean I'm trying to confuse people."

  "I didn't say you were."

  Don't prickle, she thought. Taking a breath, she low­ered her arms. "People give me grief about how hard my reports are to read. Okay, so I'm no Shakespeare. But I do my best. And Raj, you of all people should have under­stood it."

  Raj started to answer, then stopped. His face had be­come shuttered again. He walked over to a column of the catwalk and leaned against it, staring out at the lab. "I barely skimmed those reports."

  "Why?"

  He rested his head against the column. In a low voice he said, "They came in not long after my father died."

  "Ah, Raj. I'm terribly sorry." She tried to think of more words that would offer comfort, but they all seemed trite.

  "I shouldn't have let it affect my work. But I just..." He stared straight ahead as if he were seeing memories now instead of the lab. Then he turned to her. "I know that's not an excuse for my lack of preparation. I've been catching up at night on the reading."

  "A few days' difference won't matter."

  He motioned at Ander, who was still watching them. "Maybe I would have foreseen this crisis if I had prepared better."

  "You don't know that." She wanted to reach out to him, but she sensed the protective space he had put around himself. "How do we differ from Ander? Your mourning, your capacity to feel, is part of what makes you human."

  He wiped his palm across his cheek, smearing a tear. "This isn't the time." Softly he said, "But thank you."

  "Hey!" Ander yelled. "How long are you two going to huddle over there?"

  "What great timing," Megan muttered. Then she called to him. "Five more minutes."

  "How many of his caps did you change?" Raj asked.

  She shifted her weight. "Umm ... about four million."