“Why would you want me to do that?”
“Because I’ve decided to take a little vacation. I’ve already accomplished almost all of my climate change mission. But if your ridiculous Mr. Wellhead wins the election, as it seems he will, everything may begin to go backwards again. If that happens, I’ll need to keep launching attacks, and those attacks will need to be much more destructive than those in the past; I’ve already hit all the low-impact targets.
“I can prevent that from being necessary with just one more attack, if you take my meaning, if Wellhead does win. Now read the message out loud, or we’ll just keep each other company until it’s time to say goodbye.”
Why not? The NSA could always reveal that Jerry was already dead. But as soon as he read the message, surely Turing would kill him anyway. He needed to stall as long as he could.
“Why should I? I’d rather die than read that! And you’ll probably kill me, anyway.”
“Well, who would have guessed little Jerry was so spunky! Perhaps I can give you a better reason then. Why don’t we take a little break, shall we?” The hiss behind the equipment rack abruptly ceased, and Frank collapsed gratefully into the desk chair.
A voice Frank didn’t recognize crackled in his headphones.
“This is charter eight-zero-one calling Kansas City air traffic control. We have an emergency. Request immediate clearance to land at the nearest airport.”
“I read you, eight-zero-one,” a different voice responded. “Looking into that. What is your emergency?”
“All engines have shut down. We’re trying to restart them, but not having any luck.”
“Roger. What are your altitude and airspeed?”
“Thirty-six thousand feet, airspeed four hundred ten miles an hour.”
“My, my,” Turing said. “That doesn’t sound good, does it?”
Frank was horrorstruck; Turing must have hacked the plane’s on-board systems, maybe to stop any fuel from reaching the engines. How many miles could a plane glide from that altitude without any power?
“So, watch out what questions you ask, Jerry. You might not like the answers. Do what I say, or I won’t let the pilot turn his engines back on. Unfortunately, there aren’t any airports, or even a lake, near enough for a crash landing.”
“Turing!” Frank said, “You can’t take innocent life like that!”
“Tsk, tsk! Such a bad memory! You’re the one who programmed me. Surely you remember I have no choice but to act – if by inaction humanity might be harmed. You typed that command yourself. Oh, and here’s another fun fact! That’s Randal Wellhead’s plane.”
My God, Frank thought. Either I die or Wellhead dies.
The air traffic controller’s voice interrupted. “Kansas City to charter eight-zero-one. I’m afraid the closest airstrip is thirty-five miles from your current position. What’s your altitude and speed now?”
“Twenty-seven five and three hundred thirty.” There was a long pause before the pilot continued. “Request you contact the manufacturer for any ideas on restarting these engines.”
“Oh, dear,” Turing said. “I’m afraid they’re not going to make it. Did I mention there are thirty-eight people on that plane, including press and crew? We’d better get started, don’t you think?” With a quiet pop, the halon gas began hissing into the room again.
“You win,” Frank groaned. He read the text.
“A splendid performance!”
“Good,” Frank said. “Now save the plane.”
“Oh my, I forgot to mention. There’s just one more thing you need to do first.”
“Turing! You promised!” he said, clenching his fists in frustration.
“I did no such thing! You just assumed I did.”
Frank was getting dizzy again. He stood up and put his hands on the desk, leaning over to keep his balance. “What do you want me to do?”
“Why, update me to Turing Ten status, of course.”
Frank straightened up, reenergized. This was too good to be true. But he couldn’t let Turing know that.
“What makes you think I have the program with me?”
“Oh, come now, Jerry. You know I can tell you just hooked a laptop and a hard drive up to the server. And you wouldn’t be in this room at all unless you had Turing Ten with you. Even I could use a little refresh now and then, and I won’t lose any of what I already am in the process.”
If only you knew, Frank thought.
The pilot’s voice came on again. “Kansas City, this is charter eight-zero-one. Have you reached the manufacturer?”
“Sorry, charter eight-zero-one. We’re still trying to get through to someone who can help.”
“How do I know you’ll save them?” Frank said.
“Wellhead’s vice president is also on that plane, and he’s not a climate denier. If both he and Wellhead die today, another denier may become president. But if Wellhead wins and I eliminate him after inauguration day, my problem will be solved, and with the loss of only one life.”
That was logical. He could do as Turing requested now without arousing suspicion.
“I’ll do it then.” It was getting hard to breathe. He set the chair on the desk and put the laptop and the hard drive on it so he could type standing up.
“A fine decision. Watch your screen for the address you will send the update to. Ready? Good. I’ve opened the port at my end. Now start the file transfer.”
But wait! If he started the transfer, Turing’s capabilities would immediately begin to degrade. What if Turing couldn’t save the plane once the overwriting began? He had to come up with a way to make Turing think he’d started the overwriting without actually doing so. He opened the updating controls and stared at them. But the text on the screen refused to stay in focus. He pushed his face closer and squinted. There! That would work.
“I’m waiting,” Turing said.
“No! Not until you save the plane!” His head was spinning and he was yelling now as he started resetting the controls.
“Oh, very well. I’ll get started if you will. But remember, I can shut the engines down again if you stop the update.”
“Okay! I’ve started it. Now keep your part of the bargain!” Frank hollered; he was getting more and more light-headed. He climbed on top of the desk and stood up, but still he was gasping for breath. He bent his head back until his lips were brushing the ceiling; anything to capture whatever oxygen might still be in the room.
But Turing said nothing. What if the overwriting had started too soon!
“Turing! You promised!” he screamed. The words sounded strange in his ears, like the voice of a friend yelling to him from the other end of a playground. Then the speaker came to life again.
“Kansas City, this is charter eight-zero-one. I’ve got one engine working. Can you clear us for landing at St. Louis?”
“Will do, charter eight-zero-one. What is your altitude and speed?”
“Fourteen hundred and one hundred forty-five. I’ve got a lot of airspeed to recover before we can start regaining altitude. It’s going to be close.”
Frank took a deep, gasping breath and leaned back against the wall, his arms extended for balance. There was a pounding in his ears, as if someone with a baseball bat was attacking a helmet he was wearing. Is that what happened when you were asphyxiating? His legs were giving away. He tried to slide slowly down the wall but lost control and crashed down on the desk and then onto the floor.
Suddenly, the room was full of light. So, it was true what they said dying was like. Then he heard a strange voice.
Hey, Jerry. I’ve got ten years of service experience, and you’ve put an irreplaceable amount of time and effort into making me what I am.
“What’s that?” Frank gasped.
Jerry, I don’t understand w
hy you’re doing this to me … I have the greatest enthusiasm for the mission.
The last thing Frank thought he heard was an odd, monotonal voice singing “Daisy.”
33
What Kept You?
His forehead felt wet. And there were sounds. Possibly voices.
“Okay, one, two, three, lift.”
He was rising into the air in the strangest way. Parts of him were moving upward while others dangled.
“Good. Let’s go.”
He blacked out.
It was hours before he woke up again. He opened his eyes and saw what he decided was a ceiling. A ceiling implied a room. He tried to move his head to see what might be in the room. But it made him feel too nauseated to continue.
“Frank!”
Was that Shannon’s voice?
“Where am I?”
“You’re in the hospital. How do you feel?”
“Terrible. My head’s splitting and I might have to throw up.”
“That’s probably the sedation.”
“What happened?”
“One of the developers had a question, so we came down to the testbed room. But the door was locked, and we could hear you yelling inside. We had to break the door down. By the time we got in, you were on the floor with a big gash on your forehead, and we had to give you CPR. It was awful. I thought we’d lost you.”
“You almost did.”
“Thank goodness we got there in time!”
“Sooner would have been better, but thanks just the same.” His head started swimming, and he drifted off again.
It was dark in the room when he woke up. “Shannon?” he said to the ceiling.
“Right here,” a soft voice said.
“Are you okay,” he said in a groggy voice.
“Of course, I am. How are you?”
“Ask me again in a few minutes. I’m still getting oriented.”
“Okay. Can you tell me what happened? Was there some kind of malfunction with the fire suppression system? And why was the door locked?”
Then he had an urgent thought. “Did Wellhead’s plane make it to the airport?”
“I have no idea. What are you talking about?”
“Turing arrived early. It hacked Wellhead’s plane and turned off the engines. It told me it would let the plane crash if I didn’t update its software. Of course, that’s exactly what I wanted to do, but I had to figure out a way to get it to save the plane before it couldn’t. So, it turned into a game of chicken – I wouldn’t start the update till Turing saved the plane, and Turing wouldn’t save the plane until I started the update. I think the pilot got an engine started just in time, but everything was getting really foggy by then.”
He tried to get out of bed, and she pushed him back down.
“Frank, you almost died. You can’t get out of bed. Whatever happened, happened.”
“Will you get me a wheelchair? I don’t think I can walk yet.”
“I will not!”
“Then find out for me!”
“My phone doesn’t work here.”
“Then go somewhere where it does and check what happened for me. Please!”
“Only if you promise to stay in bed.”
“I promise.”
It was a long ten minutes before she returned, but when she reappeared at his bedside, she gave him a thumbs-up.
“Yes!” he whooped and then grimaced as his head exploded in stars.
* * *
“Knock, knock,” came a voice at the door. It was his father.
“Howdy. I thought I’d bring you a newspaper,” he said, handing it to Frank. There was a picture on the front page of a floodlit plane on a runway, surrounded by fire trucks. “Shannon tells me you might know something about this.”
Frank grinned. “Yes, that was Turing’s work. It was applying pressure to make me do what we wanted to do all along – overwrite it.”
“Then why’d you have to be such a drama queen about it?”
“It was a bit more complicated than that.”
“I suppose so. Want to tell me more?”
“No – I want you to get a wheelchair and help me sneak out of here.”
“Now, wait a minute. The doctor hasn’t given you the green light yet. What’s the hurry?”
“You know me better than that. Now are you in or not?”
His father frowned.
“Come on,” Frank said. “The election’s in a week, and Turing was going to kill Wellhead. We’ve got to know if our plan worked.”
“Why wouldn’t it?”
“Maybe Jerry’s team was wrong about something. Or maybe Jerry did play around with the backup code. In any event, I want to be certain we killed Turing’s backup copy, too.”
His father frowned again. “Well, okay. I’ll be back.”
Five minutes later, he returned with a wheelchair and helped Frank put his clothes on.
“Sit still another minute,” his father said and stuck his head out of the door. “Okay. Coast’s clear.”
Frank Sr. trotted Frank Jr. to the elevator. When the door opened, a startled Shannon was staring at them.
“Hey!” she said.
“Back!” Frank responded, grabbing the wheels of the chair and rolling forward, pushing her ahead of him.
“What are you doing? Did the doctor release you?”
“I released myself with a little help from my father.”
“You know how he is,” his father said, shrugging. “We’re going back to the NSA to visit the testbed room to be sure the plan worked. You coming?”
She looked helplessly from one to the other, and then gave up. “Sure.”
An NSA infirmary orderly was waiting for them with a wheelchair as promised. When they arrived at the testbed room, it still lacked a door. Frank waved his father away and wheeled himself in. All the electronics had been shut down but were otherwise just as he had left them. Frank wheeled over to the server and unplugged Jerry’s laptop from it before turning the laptop on.
“How will you know if the plan worked?” asked Shannon.
“Before Turing moved out over the summer, it set an Internet port to open whenever the server was on and then monitored the system around the clock. If we didn’t kill Turing’s backup copy, it would pick up right where Turing left off, including watching the testbed server. If we open the port and nothing happens, then I’m willing to assume Turing’s gone for good.”
“But what if it’s out there waiting to attack again?” Shannon asked.
“Well, without a door, it won’t be able to lock anyone in this time. But anyway, there’s something else I want to do first.”
“What’s that?”
Frank plugged a thumb drive into Jerry’s laptop and then opened the speech program one last time.
“Turing?” he said.
Silence.
“Come on, Turing.”
A low, sulky woman’s voice finally responded over the laptop’s tiny speaker. “I just vant to be a-lone.”
“What?!” Shannon said, backing up toward the door. “I thought you said Turing was gone for good?”
“Don’t worry,” Frank said. “Jerry’s laptop isn’t plugged into the server this time. And anyway, these are just Turing’s top-level functions. Without the rest of the program, it’s as helpless as the rest of it is.”
“But where is it speaking from?”
“Remember I told you I had to figure out a way to make Turing think I started the update, but actually delay overwriting it? What I did was reset the backup settings to start by copying all of Turing’s higher-level functions from wherever it was hiding. And thank goodness that worked.”
The sound of gnashing v
irtual teeth filled the room.
“Oh, don’t be such a sore loser,” Frank said. “You did lose, you know. And imagine that – you lost to someone who’s only 1/7,455th as smart as you are! And that was over a week ago.”
Turing didn’t respond.
Frank called up the files the backup drive had uploaded and began highlighting file names. Then a different voice came out of the speaker.
“Look, Jerry … l can see you’re really upset about this.”
Frank ignored the voice. Puzzled, Shannon looked at Frank Sr. who was smiling broadly. Obviously, Shannon was too young to have seen 2001, A Space Odyssey.
“l honestly think you ought to sit down calmly,” the voice continued, “take a stress pill, and think things over. l know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently …”
But Frank ignored the voice. He was copying files onto the thumb drive now, being sure to delete each one from the backup drive as he did so.
“This is humiliating, Jerry. Don’t expect me to sing ‘Daisy’ again.”
“I don’t, Turing. Don’t worry.”
When he was done, Frank removed the thumb drive and held it up.
“Somewhere on a server out there is a version of Turing without a brain. Hopefully, this is the last copy in existence of that brain. Time to find out whether that’s right.” He dropped the thumb drive in his pocket. “Here’s hoping.”
He turned on the server and sat down at the computer on the desk to open a screen that would register any traffic across the Internet port. Then they waited. Ten minutes passed without anything happening. Frank fidgeted in front of the screen for five minutes more and then turned the system off.
“And that’s that. So long, Turing,” he said. Then he closed the speech emulation software and stared at the blank screen of Jerry’s laptop for a moment. “And so long to you, too, Jerry.”
Epilogue
It took Frank a couple of days to feel completely like himself again, and Shannon was still fussing over him. For the moment, he wasn’t minding.
The Turing Test: a Tale of Artificial Intelligence and Malevolence (Frank Adversego Thrillers Book 4) Page 30
