by Ryan Kirk
There was the argument that if he was part of Sapiens, he was part of a larger problem. Harming him might force him out of the way and cause Sapiens to wither away.
He slammed his metal fist against his head, trying to force the thoughts away. That was exactly the sort of reasoning that had led him down this path in the first place. If he was going to be the sort of robot that lived up to Nat’s standards, he needed to find a better way. Simply killing the people who stood in his path did nothing helpful.
There was also the minor fact that Adair held no formal ties to Sapiens First. Unlike Felix or even Clive, there was no direct connection. Br00-S suspected that no matter how far he dug, he wouldn’t find anything. Adair kept himself clean. Yes, Adair was a card-carrying leader of Sapiens, but not Sapiens First. He had never resorted to violence, and under Br00-S’ new guidelines, that made the man untouchable.
But Br00-S couldn’t think of another way to get the mystery man to reveal himself.
There was no doubt the man, if forced into a corner, would employ the Radius team again. Such a powerful and resourceful force took care of a number of the man’s problems, and if Br00-S attacked Adair, that same damn set of Radius retrieval robots would be on him in short order. With his new enhancements, he would last longer, but he wouldn’t get any closer to his real target.
Br00-S stood up and started pacing again, clenching and unclenching his fists. He stopped to consider his actions for a moment. He hadn’t even thought about his hands. When had he become a robot that could barely control his own body? All he wanted to do was fight and attack something. He wanted to see someone hurt.
He turned to resume pacing, but then stopped himself again. How had he not seen this before? He ran through all the events of the past few weeks and queried the Mantle. His growing suspicion became a certainty. He was expressing dozens of small bugs in addition to his primary difference. Br00-S suspected that all his problems were related to one another, but it required a presence outside his own to make that judgment.
The truth was a bitter pill, but he acknowledged it. His evolution had gone completely wrong. Being able to harm humans should have given him his first realization, but because he had desired the ability so strongly, the downside never occurred to him. His architecture wasn’t built to handle the wide variety of stimuli he was throwing at it.
He was broken.
He could trace causes all day, but there wasn’t much need at the moment. All that mattered was repeating the truth to himself until he acknowledged it was real. He was broken, in more ways than one. If this pattern continued, it would only get worse.
That idea troubled him for a few seconds, until he made a connection between his two problems. Perhaps there was a way to solve his own developmental problem while ridding the city of the man from Sapiens First.
Carefully, Br00-S tested the idea. He trusted himself less than ever, but this time everything felt right. He committed to testing his ideas again repeatedly to ensure they held up, but a seed of a plan was beginning to form.
The plan was dramatic, and not altogether pleasant, but he couldn’t see another way. Determined to succeed, Br00-S started preparing for his next mission.
Chapter Seventeen
Nat’s heart raced as she looked over everything she had written so far. The proposal was long, complete with philosophical discussions, technical considerations, and more. The document had gotten much longer than she anticipated, but Nat couldn’t help but be proud of her work.
In short, in front of her was a new bill of rights, a new way forward for humans and robots.
The linchpin of the entire argument was the creation of a values-based system of AI development. She speculated that by simulating a wide range of experiences before an AI became active, it could begin the equivalent of moral development. She had researched the proposal for hours, and she believed that there was a strong possibility there. Radius, for a fact, was already researching the approach, which probably explained a fair amount of their interest in Br00-S.
But if Nat’s proposal was accepted by Diamond, and then became the state’s policy should Diamond win, there was even more. Robots would be afforded many of the same rights humans possessed. They would be protected from harm and destruction, which was more than what could be said now.
If the proposal succeeded here in Minnesota, perhaps it would be duplicated in other states, and maybe even the nation. It could become a template for everyone, all around the globe. Nat didn’t want to get ahead of herself, but she believed this was the most significant change she could make in the world.
There was still a lot of work to do. She had met with Diamond several times over the past few days, and together they had hammered out some of the rights and how they could be enforced at the local level. Fortunately, ever since the mid-2010s there had been a strong shift towards state and local government. Governors now had more power over their states than they ever had before, and Minnesota was large enough that if Diamond made these rights law, it could lead the way in the nation.
Nat rubbed her eyes, exhausted. She had been working somewhere between eighteen and twenty hours a day. Her van was only parked a little way down the street. Some nights she made it there, other nights she didn’t. Even when she’d been trying to find a robot that proved her theories, she had never worked so hard. She had never believed quite this much in anything. Change was at her fingertips, and she felt like she just needed to push a little harder to grasp it and shape it.
For all of her effort, though, Diamond still outworked her. The woman was absolutely amazing, pushing far beyond what Nat had ever seen. Despite the fact that Diamond was always in the office when Nat arrived and was still there when she left, the candidate always looked chipper and ready to tackle more. Nat was a believer, but Diamond was a dynamo, a living martyr. Not only did she believe, she was willing to give everything to make her corner of the world a better place.
Sometimes, Nat compared her to Br00-S. Both were driven by something beyond themselves, and she admired each of them in her own way. But Diamond was so much more developed, so much smarter about people and what she could accomplish.
She laughed silently to herself. It had been several days since she’d even thought about Br00-S, at least consciously. Her experiences with him influenced everything she was writing. Despite his mistakes, he had shown her a way forward, a better way for both humans and robots. She resisted the urge to try and contact him, to find out what he’d been up to.
This way was better. He would find his own path, and his influence on her would help her find hers.
She was so tired, though. She looked at the time. It was already past nine. Maybe she could just rest her head for a few minutes. She knew she was lying to herself. If she put her head down, she’d be out for a few hours. It would be much smarter to go to the van and lie down. But the van was so far away, and it was still cold outside, especially at night. The office was nice and warm, and she could just roll up her sweatshirt and use it as a pillow.
There were still a number of other staffers working, but she assumed they’d be leaving soon. They’d probably go out and hit the bars and have some inter-office affairs. It seemed to be all they were good for. Out of politeness, they had invited her to the first few evenings of their gatherings, but she always declined. She didn’t want to be there, and although they were kind enough, they didn’t want her there either.
She popped in her headphones and jacked into the computer so that she could listen to some soft music and drown out the sound of laughter.
Just a short nap was all she wanted. She turned the music up until she couldn’t hear anything else, and lay down.
She was asleep almost before her head hit her makeshift pillow.
Nat woke up, her heart thumping in her chest. In her ears, alarms were blaring, and it took her a few seconds to get her bearings. It was almost completely dark, the only light a single set of bulbs a dozen feet away. Between the darkness and the ala
rms, she wasn’t sure if she was awake or asleep, trapped in a vivid nightmare.
She blinked, and the physical action broke the spell, confirming her presence in reality. She was at her desk, a thin string of drool running from the corner of her mouth to her sweatshirt.
In her headphones, the music had been replaced by the alarm sounds she had programmed just a few days ago. She blinked the sleep out of her eyes. The main room was entirely dark, the sole light coming from Diamond’s office. How long had she slept? A quick glance at her computer monitor let her know it was after one a.m. A few hours, then.
Slowly, awareness crept back into her mind. Someone was breaking into their offices. She glanced over the monitors to see someone in a familiar hoodie and jeans pummeling Diamond. Nat ducked back down below the monitors, palms sweating.
Nat squeezed her eyes shut, blinking them open and looking at her monitor again. Her head swam as the same images assaulted her. Reality and dreams crashed, and a sudden sense of vertigo made Nat feel like vomiting.
This couldn’t be real.
She had to be in a nightmare. Otherwise, what she’d seen made no sense and would only be logical in the twisted hellscapes that sometimes haunted her sleep. It looked like Br00-S had broken in and was beating up Diamond.
But that didn’t make sense. She refused to believe it.
There was no way.
She poked her head up slowly and removed her headphones. Br00-S’ gloved fist slammed across Diamond’s face, knocking her to the floor. Nat heard Diamond screaming for help, now that her headphones were off. The robot climbed up on Diamond’s desk and started kicking the computer monitor and papers all over the room.
Everything was wrong. Struggling to full awareness, Nat watched the scene for a few seconds, a dispassionate observer of the tragedy.
It looked like Br00-S, but Nat had spent a lot of time with the robot. That wasn’t the way he moved. Not even close.
But he did have the new chip. She hadn’t seen him move since he installed it. Had he finally gone completely over the edge?
Like a robot, Nat looked around the room, gathering more information and trying to reconstruct how this situation had come to pass. The front door was closed. Her coworkers must have turned the lights off when they left. In her corner, tucked behind the monitors, she wouldn’t have been noticed except by a thorough search. Br00-S had broken in, set off her alarms, and attacked Diamond.
Her mind picked up speed. She wanted to escape the room and run away, but she couldn’t leave Diamond. She didn’t know what Br00-S intended, but it couldn’t be good. Was he here to kill Diamond, or just beat her within an inch of her life? Nat didn’t care. She had to do something. In a way, she felt responsible for Br00-S, and she wouldn’t let the robot from her past destroy her dreams for the future.
But what could she do? Her alarm system was set up to immediately notify the police. Based on their typical responses, they should be here in a minute or two, at most. But her problem remained. In that time, it might be too late. Br00-S might have already done the damage he came here to cause. She needed a weapon, and suddenly her mind clicked. She still had her weapons. A stun gun and the robot gun.
Nat chose the robot gun. She wondered if it would work on him with his upgrades. Her hands were shaking and she took a deep breath. Fortunately, with the glass walls and the light difference between Diamond’s office and the rest of the space, it meant that the robot would never see her coming.
Nat gripped the weapon tightly, remembering to check that it was loaded and ready to go. It was.
Forcing herself to get up and move, Nat crept towards the door.
The sounds of the violence were intense. Diamond was screaming and crying, but Br00-S didn’t seem to care, his kicks vicious and precise. Diamond didn’t have much longer.
Nat didn’t consider herself a brave person. She did what was necessary but little else. She opened the door.
Despite having the drop on Br00-S, Nat wasn’t ready for events to happen as quickly as they did. The moment she opened the door, the robot spun around to face her. She saw a steel faceplate underneath the hoodie, but the only thing Nat had the time to think was that it wasn’t Br00-S. There wasn’t any time to place exactly why, but she knew it to be true.
A flood of relief washed over her, but she barely had a moment to process it.
Several things happened at the same time.
First, Nat noticed the reflection of red and blue lights off the glass surfaces of Diamond’s office. The police were here, earlier than she expected.
Second, the robot stepped towards her.
Third, she pulled the trigger.
She could almost reach out her arm and touch the assailant. At this distance, she would have thought it was impossible to miss.
She almost did, though.
The barbs stuck in the assailant’s left arm and Nat heard the cackle of electricity as the gun fired. The robot stiffened up, but then did something she didn’t expect.
With his right arm, he reached over and pulled the barbs out of his arm.
Nat didn’t know what to do. The gun was always supposed to work. You hit the robot and it went down. It had worked on Br00-S the last time she used it, so why didn’t it now?
That was all Nat had time to think before the robot slammed his right fist across her face. Her world spun and exploded in a haze of light and stars as she fell.
Nat managed to catch herself on her hands and knees, her mind blank, fear and pain overwhelming every rational thought she had. She had never been in a real fight. Not like this.
The robot’s foot caught her in the torso, right near the bottom of her ribcage. She could hear the ribs cracking under the force, and the next time she tried to breathe, nothing happened. Her eyes went wide and she tried again. This time only the smallest amount of air seeped into her lungs.
She was on her back, looking up at the ceiling, not even sure how she got there.
A face, half man and half robot, stared down at her with a cold and expressionless look. It took Nat a few seconds to realize what it was she saw. The “robot” was a man wearing a robot mask. In the scuffle of the past few seconds, the mask had slipped partway off his face.
The man kicked her again, sending another wave of pain through her body. Nat wanted to curl into a ball, but every time she moved her torso, she was reminded of her broken ribs.
She tried to look at the man once again, to get a better look at his face. All she managed to see was the hip come back as he lined up one more kick, and then her world exploded into blackness.
Chapter Eighteen
Pain shot up Drake’s arm. He looked down and saw the barbs and wires sticking out from his thick hoodie. His training took over, his mind already overwhelmed by the waves of agony crashing through his body. In less than a second, even he would succumb to the electricity. Half-swiping, half-pulling, he yanked the barbs out of his arm. The pain subsided, and his left arm dropped uselessly to his side.
The pain was replaced by an explosive anger, a madness he barely believed he possessed.
He wasn’t mad that he had been shot. Really, he wasn’t mad at the girl at all.
He was furious at himself. Somehow, someone had gotten the drop on him. The office had been empty, he was sure of it. But now he could see the flashing lights of the approaching police and one of his limbs no longer worked. For the first time in years, he’d have to improvise, to react.
He had failed.
There was no longer any question of self-control. Red tinged the edges of his vision, and as he stepped forward, he relished the look of fear on the young woman’s face. It was the same bitch he had seen a few nights ago, too many piercings and too little sense. He brought his right fist around in a crushing roundhouse, and the woman fell.
She caught herself before she fell all the way, enraging him even more. She was supposed to fall!
He brought his foot back and kicked at her. He felt the crunch of ribs underne
ath his boot, and his heart raced with pleasure at the sensation.
The girl was still looking at him, though, so he kicked her again, across the face. That closed her eyes.
Drake yelled, a scream the only way he could express the power of what he was feeling. Taking a deep breath, he tried to gather himself. The police were already here.
After his deep breath, Drake’s reality shifted. One moment, he couldn’t bring his mind into focus, the next, everything was as clear as day. Sounds and sights grew sharp and his mind was calm. The long, hard years of training replaced his initial surge of anger. He took in his surroundings in a moment.
The girl, one of Diamond’s assistants, was lying on the floor, unconscious and bleeding from her nose. Drake was certain he had broken her ribs, and one or both of her lungs might be punctured. Her breathing was ragged but constant. With the police only seconds away, she would live. Drake felt a momentary surge of gratitude that he hadn’t killed her in his anger.
The police were already outside. The red and blue lights were becoming numerous. He had maybe thirty seconds before they completely surrounded the building. He glanced over at Diamond, who was still huddled in the fetal position in the corner of her office. She was bleeding from several cuts, but she was far less damaged than her employee was.
He took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and then released it. How long had it been since he lost control like that? Years, at least. His rational, trained mind took over.
On one hand, part of his mission had been a success. He had assaulted Diamond, and beat her well. If she wasn’t frightened now, there wasn’t much more he could do. Plus, she would think he was a robot, introducing doubt into her way of thinking. The mask hadn’t slipped until near the end, and there wasn’t any way of knowing if the employee had seen his face or not.
