by Ryan Kirk
Chapter Fifteen
Drake struggled to concentrate. His breath was steady and even, but his mind leaped from thought to thought without slowing. He knew he had been on this job too long and that it was starting to get underneath his skin, but there was nothing to be done about it. His boss didn’t accept failure.
The robot was still alive.
Drake couldn’t bring himself to be surprised. Without the robot’s shell, he hadn’t quite been able to convince himself they’d been successful. The robot was as clever an opponent as he’d ever come across. Not very creative, perhaps, but that was to be expected from a young AI.
Barging into the bar had been foolish, though. The robot wasn’t making rational decisions anymore. There was no solid evidence to support the idea, but Drake believed the robot had become obsessed with revenge. Its behavior indicated as much, at least.
Beating up the bar patrons hadn’t helped the robot’s cause at all. It turned public opinion against the machine, which was useful for Adair, Sapiens, and Sapiens First. It didn’t draw him out, certainly. He wasn’t one to be ambushed so easily. But the actual result was beyond his wildest expectations.
After the robot’s assault, messages were posted on some of the forums where Sapiens members spent too much time. Fortunately, he supposed, he had been forced to open his laptop that evening so he could get some other work done. He saw the notifications that the robot was searching for him.
No one in the city knew who he was, though, so all of the messages on the board were cryptic, with a number of members actively trying to figure out who the robot was talking about. Drake had smiled at the attempts. Several names were thrown out: local leaders, Bryan Adair, and even more unlikely candidates.
Drake recognized the meeting place for what it was, a blatant and obvious attempt to choose the battlefield. The robot was trying to get a step ahead of him and failing miserably. He didn’t like it, but he was willing to sacrifice other Sapiens First members to protect himself.
There was no question as to whether or not he’d show up. There wasn’t a chance. He wouldn’t play the robot’s game, and if the robot was acting as foolishly as it seemed, not playing would only anger it further, leading to more poor decisions.
But he was surprised that a few organizers, without any input from him, decided that they would use the public threat as an opportunity to stage a rally. It was a bold and beautiful decision. Within an hour, hundreds of members were confirmed, with several members volunteering to live-stream the event.
There was no way he’d have shown up before, but now the chance was less than zero. How would the robot react? Would it attack a gathering of relatively innocent humans? Considering how it had behaved thus far, Drake didn’t consider the crime out of the question.
Drake had watched. He saw the impassioned speeches, and he was stunned by the outpouring of support for the victims of the bar fight.
Drake reminded himself that this was exactly why he had joined Sapiens First. Because at their core, humans were beautiful beings. They certainly weren’t perfect, but it was only because of their flaws that their real beauty emerged.
Robots, they had goals. They were nothing but machines designed to try and fulfill a specific purpose. No matter how much complexity was added, at their root that was what they were. Humans had goals too, but they were so much more. They were communities, driven to do what was right.
Since that night, the robot had gone silent again. Like a chess match, both players were waiting for their opponent to make the next move. From Drake’s perspective, though, there wasn’t much of a move to make. If he allowed the situation to unfold naturally, the robot would lose. Sapiens was making tremendous inroads in the polls. The only possible opposition was Diamond Carter, and Drake didn’t put much stock in that young campaign. They were misguided idealists.
The robot was losing, so it was the one that needed to act. Drake didn’t like sitting and waiting, but in this case, inaction was far superior to action. His boss might want a robot shell, but Drake thought the desire shortsighted. In the long term, it was Adair’s election that mattered, and the robot wasn’t doing anything to slow it down.
He took a deep breath and tried again to focus on his breathing. He wouldn’t fail his people.
Two mornings later, Drake was on the phone with his boss, an occurrence that was happening more and more as of late. The situation in Minneapolis was fluid and complex, and his supervisor, while trusting Drake, wanted to make sure the situation was under his full control.
“There’s been no more news on the robot,” Drake said. “But as soon as it shows up again, you can be sure that I’ll take care of it.”
There was only the slightest hint of doubt in his boss’ deep voice. “It’s unlike you to take so long to complete a mission.”
The question was implicit in the statement.
“I’ll admit this has proven to be particularly challenging. The robot demonstrates characteristics I’ve never seen before. It’s a remarkable specimen, and an affirmation of my beliefs.”
“An excuse?”
“An acknowledgment of the truth. It will fall.”
“See to it that it does. There is one last item I would like you to take care of before leaving the city.”
Drake feared what came next. Most of the time, when he was dispatched, he was done within a week, maybe two at the most. He had been here well over a month now, and the mission seemed to continually become more complex. Complexity led to mistakes. It was a fact of life. Simplicity was success.
“You know the woman who is in second in the campaign numbers?”
“Ms. Carter?”
“Yes. We would like you to dissuade her from her current course.”
Drake frowned. He couldn’t imagine a less pleasurable task. Or a less meaningful one. “Why?”
There was silence on the other end of the line. Drake knew the man wasn’t used to answering questions, but Drake wasn’t going to back down either. The request made little sense. The woman’s campaign had little chance of winning.
Finally he received an answer, even though it sounded as though his boss regretted giving away any further information. “She is gathering support quietly among a number of influential people. Her campaign is young, and if she is appropriately discouraged early on, she might not have enough momentum pushing her forward. If we can get her to drop out, the race is certainly won.”
“How far do you want to take this?”
“She must stay alive at all costs, but that is all. As it is, her movement is small but growing. She has a fervent group of supporters, but they don’t have much to stand on yet. Her death would make her into a martyr and galvanize her supporters. We don’t want that. We want her to be forced out, or drop out of her own volition.”
Drake had a dozen questions, but he knew that none of them would be answered. When the boss decided on something, it was a rare day he changed his mind, or even provided an explanation. The details would be left to Drake’s discretion.
“Very well, sir.”
Autonomous cars had ruined the stakeout, Drake decided. In old movies, all one had to do was rent an old beat-up vehicle and park it across from your target. But now, there was no need for parking. Cars drove themselves and were in almost constant operation. There wasn’t any need to park one. When cars did park, it was in tight structures that didn’t even give humans space to get in and out.
Drake had broken into a shop across the street from Diamond’s campaign. The security was one of the off-the-shelf units that too many people relied on. Even a cursory search on the net would have shown that these systems had been hacked almost the minute they hit the public eye. But most people didn’t care. They didn’t do their research. They bought whatever was cheapest and gave them the illusion of having some sort of protection.
He was glad to be out of the cold, though. Minnesota was slowly moving towards spring, but old man winter had one final heave. It was bitterly cold
outside, and even though Drake was comfortable tolerating it, being in a nice warm building did have its perks.
The campaign office had several large windows, so it was no problem at all for Drake to sit and watch the happenings across the street. Mostly, the campaign looked to be staffed by young people, probably at least ten years younger than him. They had a lot of energy, they talked, and they laughed a lot. Looked like fun.
Even though Drake disagreed with their arguments, he respected young people who volunteered and worked for campaigns. Too many people simply took the world they were given without question. Agree or disagree, those people across the street were working to make change. That made them good people in his book. It was a shame they were on opposite sides.
No one seemed to work harder than Diamond, though. Thanks to the large windows and the glass office she used, he could observe her easily. She had focus and determination. The more he watched, the more he was impressed. She was no ordinary woman, and he began to understand why she worried the boss.
The boss had asked him to dissuade her, but from a few hours of observing her, he decided that a simple beating wasn’t going to be enough. Diamond was a believer. She’d wear her bruises and broken bones with pride.
That night, most of the staff worked late. A large group left about a quarter to ten, followed twenty minutes later by a young woman who had too many piercings. Something about her seemed familiar, but when he couldn’t immediately place her, he pushed her memory aside. If Drake had his way, he would have made her take all those metal balls and rings out. She could have been attractive, but not like that.
The only person left in the office was Ms. Carter. For a moment, he was tempted to cross the street right now and have it done with, but he took a deep breath and stopped himself.
For one, he didn’t know what her security was like, and he didn’t dare poke around while she was still in the office. He had also just decided that walking in and obeying his boss’ orders wouldn’t have any real effect. He needed something more, something dramatic. The spirit of his boss’ orders could be obeyed, if not the word.
Ms. Carter didn’t leave until almost one in the morning. Drake nodded his respect at her as she left, even though she had no chance of seeing him behind the dark glass of the shop he hid in.
He waited twenty minutes to make sure the coast was clear, then walked across the street and checked out her alarm system. He shouldn’t have been surprised. It looked like the same company that made the system he had just broken into across the street. He checked the doors and windows and studied the inside of the building.
There were some cameras in there, he saw.
The cameras sparked an idea. He examined it and decided it was excellent. Not only would it destroy Diamond’s campaign, it would up the pressure on the robot as well.
He walked away into the cold night, grinning with pleasure.
Chapter Sixteen
Br00-S paced back and forth in his cave, his newer, stronger limbs allowing him to cover the small width of the cave in only a few strides. He wanted to punch the wall, to take out this anger he felt on something, but now he knew it would do no good. Violence was not the answer, not yet.
Doubt washed over his processors like waves crashing against the shore. He had experienced uncertainty before. There was no way to exist in the world as an intelligent being without it. But this time the doubt suffocated him and consumed his thoughts. He’d never encountered this feeling before, and he worried his logic was being completely overrun.
One question repeated over and over in his head, like a program that kept running and refused to be shut down.
Was he wrong?
He had driven away Nat, for reasons that he didn’t fully understand. He knew that they disagreed, but didn’t understand why she’d want to break off her relationship with him. For months, the two of them had orbited around each other, always drawn together. And just like that, she had broken away and shot off in a different direction.
The events of last night pointed towards an answer. His actions weren’t justifiable, and had only caused harm. Nat had predicted the future, but he had been blind to the potential consequences of his actions. It shouldn’t have been possible. He should be able to predict the future far more accurately than a mere human.
Everything had seemed so logical to him.
Until last night.
Until he saw the gathering of people huddled in the cold below him. People standing up for one another. People being kind to one another.
He had hurt a man. A man whose beliefs threatened Br00-S’ existence.
A man who had two little girls at home who would now suffer because of what Br00-S had done.
He couldn’t help himself. He pulled up the information on every person he had encountered since he was activated. Every person whose path he had crossed and altered.
Kleon James had a younger sister who would never see her older brother become the man he could have been.
Clive Proskey had three children, from a wife and an ex-wife.
Everyone he’d harmed had someone, some family.
Br00-S had hurt every one of them.
The doubt became crippling and he crouched in a corner, rocking back and forth as his processors struggled with the implications, tracing the effects of his actions. After a few degrees of separation, the information became overwhelming and he had to shut off his processors or risk burning them out.
Once all the information was out of mind, all that was left was despair. How could he continue, knowing what the consequences of his violence were?
He told himself he had saved lives, too. He had prevented people from getting hurt, and had brought some form of justice to those he hadn’t been able to save. There had been good in his actions too.
But then he contemplated the scope of his actions and realized there wasn’t any justification for the robot he had become. His primary goal had been to help and protect humans and robots alike, and instead he had very much done the opposite.
Fury mixed with sorrow, and he tried to hold on to anything that would save him.
He had done good, he was sure of it.
But the world was not as black and white as he imagined it was. Even with the ability to process more than humans, there were still shades of gray that existed all around him.
What had he done? What was he good for? Once he had considered himself a crusader for justice, but that wasn’t true anymore. He was assaulting people weaker than him because he disagreed with them.
But, he thought to himself, Sapiens First was willing to kill to further their ends. How else did you stop those who were willing to go so far for their beliefs?
Just like that, Br00-S found a light in the darkness. His mission, as he saw it, hadn’t been a poor one, but he had taken an easy path. Instead of learning specifically who was involved in high-profile illegal activities, he had instead focused on low-level thugs, people who might not have even been involved with Sapiens First officially. He had taken the path of least resistance to make it feel like he was making progress.
He wasn’t fighting against an idea or a belief. The only resistance to an idea was another idea. Not violence. His fight was against those who would harm others. That meant that going into the bar and acting as he did had been a tremendous mistake. One he needed to atone for.
His new mission was clear. He needed to see that the man who was the architect of all this be brought to justice, no matter what that took. He needed to end this man’s quiet reign over the city.
Now the only question was how.
Br00-S was as still as a statue as he considered the task in front of him. As far as he knew, the man he hunted hadn’t made a mistake yet. Everything the man had done was meticulously planned, and he had called the robot on his bluff. The man wouldn’t appear at a location unless he felt as though he was in control.
There was another problem, too, one that was almost as serious, if not even more so. There was sti
ll the matter of the Radius retrieval team. They had resources and the ability to make his life truly miserable. Now that he had made his presence known to the world through his stunt at the bar, there wasn’t any doubt that they would be on the hunt again, and they wouldn’t stop until his processors were safely secured in their research lab.
He was surrounded on all sides by enemies who wanted his head, and had no friends left to call upon for support. What had he gotten himself into? Again, he fought the urge to punch the wall, and noted that urge. He had been feeling more violent lately. His impulses had been stronger, and it took him a fraction of a second to regain full control of his functions. He’d queried the Mantle about the happenings, but nothing had come back to him. Whatever he was experiencing, it wasn’t publicly recorded in the history of any other robot. There wasn’t another option besides ignoring the problem for now.
If he was going to have any chance of beating the man from Sapiens First, he needed to get a step ahead. He needed to be able to set the battlefield and make the man commit to a situation he wouldn’t otherwise. The only way to do that was to somehow raise the stakes so high that the man wouldn’t have any choice but to respond.
One potential path presented itself. If Adair and the man both reported to Sapiens, one way to draw him out of hiding would be to threaten Adair. The man had called his bluff once already, but that had been against a group of bar patrons, a group that in the large scheme of things didn’t have any impact at all on the Sapiens movement.
Adair was important. If Br00-S threatened him, the man he sought would have to respond. There couldn’t be that many other candidates who could step forward to be a part of the gubernatorial race on behalf of Sapiens, especially not with less than a year before the election.
But could he follow through with his threat, or would it just be another bluff? He had researched Adair, and even though Br00-S didn’t think they would ever see eye-to-eye, the man had never done anything illegal. He was a defense lawyer, and an excellent one. Perhaps too good, getting many people who seemed guilty off the hook. But wasn’t that the purpose of his position? There was no rational point to harming someone because he was too good at his job.
