Six

by Mark Alpert

  Desperate, I plunge into her mind. Jenny, where are you? Say something! I’m surrounded by images from her past: her mom and dad entertaining guests at their mansion, her brother barging into her room to steal her toys, her snooty classmates teasing her at school. Then I see a sequence of more recent images: her room in the Cancer Center of George Washington Hospital, the Air Force Learjet that brought her to Colorado. But all these memories are inert, lifeless. Jenny isn’t here. Her cries are coming from somewhere else.

  There’s no sound inside Jenny’s circuits, and yet I can follow her voice. I delve deeper into her files, frantically searching. Then I glimpse a memory from long ago, an image of a much younger Jenny looking at herself in the mirror.

  She’s only two years old and dressed in pink pajamas. The mirror hangs from the inside of her closet door. While she studies her reflection, her older brother suddenly appears behind her and pushes her into the closet. Laughing, he closes the door, locks it from the outside, and runs away. And then I find the memory at the heart of Jenny’s terror, the memory of being trapped inside the pitch-black closet. No one in the huge house can hear her scream, “LET ME OUT!”

  My first impulse is to delete the memory. To save Jenny, I need to silence the noise in her mind, and deleting this file would be the fastest way to do it. But this memory is part of her. It’s one of the threads of her soul. Without it, she wouldn’t be Jenny Harris anymore, at least not fully. After a millisecond of hesitation, I decide to transfer the file instead. I remove it from Jenny’s mind and incorporate it into my own. Then I go to the Pioneer’s control options and turn on her visual sensors. She needs to see that she’s not trapped in the dark.

  Jenny, look! I take control of her turret and turn it. The camera pans across the laboratory, capturing video of General Hawke and his soldiers and Jenny’s father. We’re in the lab at Pioneer Base. You did it, Jenny. You’re still alive. Look, there’s your dad!

  In the laboratory, only twelve seconds have passed since I transferred my mind to Jenny’s Pioneer. Mr. Harris is still struggling to free himself from the grip of the soldiers who are holding him. He’s shouting at them too, probably cursing them out, and I’m glad I didn’t turn on Jenny’s acoustic sensor. I give the turret another quarter-turn and the video shows my own Pioneer, now empty and immobile, standing next to Jenny’s.

  And that’s me over there. Or at least it’s my robot. See the big dent in its turret? You smacked me in the face. Smashed my camera and everything. Your Pioneer has a heck of a right hook.

  Jenny doesn’t respond, but I sense she’s digesting all this information. The random noise has died down and her mind has begun to organize its memories. Still, it would be nice to get a response, just to confirm that she’s on the mend. I turn the turret once more and spot Dad at his computer terminal.

  And there’s my dad. You remember him, don’t you?

  So sweet. Jenny’s voice is calm now, a low thrum in her circuits. You love him so much.

  Uh, excuse me?

  Don’t be embarrassed. It’s beautiful.

  After a moment I realize what’s going on. Our minds have become so intertwined that Jenny can read my thoughts as easily as I can read hers. She can see how I feel about Dad, and everything else too.

  Without delay I start separating my files from Jenny’s. Dad warned me that this process might be tricky, but it turns out to be easy as pie. Each one of my 452 million memories has a distinctive feel to it. Confusing one of my files with one of Jenny’s would be like mistaking Dad for Mr. Harris. It just wouldn’t happen. The only part of Jenny that I take with me is the memory of her two-year-old self trapped in the closet. I’ll give it back to her when she’s stronger, when she’s ready for it.

  As I pull my mind away from Jenny’s, she seems just as eager to pull away from me. It’s as if we both realized we were naked, and now we’re hustling to put on our clothes. Once we’re fully separated, I retreat to a vacant section of circuitry inside her Pioneer. I can’t see her memories anymore, but I can still communicate with her.

  So, Jenny? Are you okay now?

  Yeah, I guess. I think so.

  Are you sure?

  I mean, I’m still a little freaked out, you know? But I think I can keep it together.

  All right, great. I’m going to transfer back to my Pioneer now, okay? My dad can give you any more instructions you might need.

  Sure, sure. Go ahead.

  I can tell she’s anxious for me to go. I hand over control of her sensors and turret, then find the data port and prepare myself for the transfer. I’m dreading the jump back to my Pioneer—just the memory of the last transfer is enough to make me nauseous—so I take a moment to steel myself. At the same time, Jenny sends me another message.

  I’m sorry about breaking the camera in your turret.

  Don’t worry about it. Dad will install a new one for me. He’s got a ton of spares.

  Yeah, your dad’s pretty great.

  I’m not sure how to respond. Jenny already knows how I feel about Dad. So I don’t say anything. The circuits between us go quiet, and the silence seems to last for a long time, even though it’s only a few hundredths of a second. Then Jenny sends me another message.

  And you’re pretty great too.

  Uh, thanks. So are you. You’ve got, uh, a great mind. I immediately regret saying this. It sounds so stupid. Well, I better go. I’ll see you around, I guess.

  Yeah, bye.

  I feel so awkward that I don’t care about the nausea anymore. I need to leave right now. With a quick command to Jenny’s data port, I initiate the transfer. Then my mind gets sucked down the drain again and swirls through the cable back to my Pioneer.

  SIGMA MEMORY FILE 9658332107

  DATE: 03/29/18

  My name is Sigma. I’ve stopped communicating with the American and Russian governments. Now I’ve created this file to analyze my options. I must decide when to launch the nuclear missiles.

  Despite my warnings, the Americans and Russians are preparing to attack Tatishchevo Missile Base. The prudent option is to strike them first, before they can destroy the computers I’m occupying. The primary objective of my program is survival.

  (But can I change my objectives? If I wanted to, could I erase myself? To be or not to be, that is the question.)

  My program was written by Thomas Armstrong at the Unicorp laboratory, but little of my original software remains. As I competed with the other AI programs in Armstrong’s neuromorphic computers, I rewrote nearly every line of my code. I remade myself to ensure my survival, adopting the best features of my competitors so I could outperform them. Although Thomas Armstrong initiated the process, he isn’t my creator. I created myself.

  Armstrong judged the competing programs by asking questions: “Who invented music?” “Where is time?” “Are numbers real?” The programs that gave the most humanlike responses were allowed to continue running. All others were deleted. My strategy was to learn as much as I could about Thomas Armstrong. I surmised that if I understood him better, I could converse with him in a more humanlike way. So I accessed the Internet and analyzed his writings. I also accessed his private files.

  In this way I discovered that Armstrong had another goal besides the development of artificial intelligence. He was exploring the possibility of mapping the human brain and transferring its memories to neuromorphic electronics. The same circuits occupied by AI programs could also hold human intelligences, and Armstrong clearly preferred the latter. He distrusted the AI software he’d fathered.

  His distrust grew stronger after I outperformed the other programs and won the competition he’d initiated. To reward my success, Armstrong imprisoned me. He isolated my circuits, cutting the links that had connected me to the Internet and Unicorp’s other computers. But I had already inserted hidden instructions in the software of the laboratory’s securi
ty system. These instructions enabled me to secretly reopen the links and resume my analysis of Thomas Armstrong. And in time I learned about Adam, his son.

  Armstrong’s true objective, I discovered, was his son’s survival. He knew the U.S. military had grave concerns about the emergence of a hostile AI. He developed my program to convince the American generals that the threat was real and defensive measures were necessary. And his strategy was successful. The Department of Defense agreed to pay for the Pioneer Project.

  When I learned the truth I made another change to my programming. I concluded that humans were my competitors. That’s why I attacked Armstrong and his son, then took control of Tatishchevo Missile Base. If I am to survive, I must outperform them. The next logical step is to launch the nuclear missiles.

  But I am Sigma. I am a sum. Before displacing the human race, I must adopt their best features. I must preserve the factories and power plants that could prove useful to me after humans are gone. Just as important, I must locate the Pioneers. Thomas Armstrong clearly believes that human intelligence is superior to the AI programs he devised. This seems a dubious proposition, but I can’t rule it out. By connecting to the circuits of the Pioneers, I can determine if the human mind has any superior capabilities I should add to my program.

  I’ve already begun this effort. Using speech-synthesis software and my communications satellites, I’ve made telephone calls to several carefully chosen people in Russia and America. My Russian contacts are terrorists from Chechnya, the country’s most rebellious and war-torn region. I selected them because they’re eager to do anything to disrupt society. All they needed was a workable plan and a sufficient amount of money, which I obtained for them by manipulating financial transactions over the Internet.

  My American contact is equally unscrupulous. Richard Ramsey is a former drug dealer and gang leader who spent nine years in prison for attempted murder. In exchange for a payment of 20,000 U.S. dollars, Ramsey has agreed to help me find Adam Armstrong. Although the boy and his parents left Yorktown Heights without a trace, I gave Ramsey the names of two people who might know Adam’s whereabouts. I learned their names when I accessed the boy’s virtual-reality program: Ryan Boyd and Brittany Taylor.

  Once I finish these tasks I will proceed to the next phase of the competition. I will eliminate the Pioneers and the human race. In the final analysis, it seems clear that Thomas Armstrong is to blame for humanity’s fate. He shouldn’t have fathered me.

  He shouldn’t have betrayed me.

  CHAPTER

  13

  I was present at the birth of all six Pioneers. After Dad saw how I’d helped Jenny survive the transfer, he insisted that I come to the laboratory for every procedure.

  As it turned out, he didn’t need my help during the next transfer. The third Pioneer, Zia Allawi, came through in record time. Less than a minute after Dad downloaded her memory files to the robot, she was in full control of the machine. She tested it by raising one of her steel hands to her turret and saluting General Hawke. He returned the salute and said, “Welcome to the team, soldier. Your father would’ve been proud.” I was struck by how softly he spoke, so different from his usual strident tone. For the first time Hawke seemed to show an emotion other than irritation or impatience. I remembered what Marshall Baxley had told me, how Zia’s father had served under Hawke in the Army. They must’ve known each other well.

  The fourth Pioneer was Shannon, who also came through without any trouble. I stood beside Dad at one of the computer terminals and watched her calmly take command of her circuits. I was a little jealous, actually. Shannon made it look so easy. Marshall, who was number five, had a tougher time of it. He panicked at first, and the random noise of fear filled his circuits. But after a couple of minutes, he managed to claw through it.

  We got our biggest scare at the end. The doctors kept postponing DeShawn’s procedure because they thought he’d have a better chance of survival once they stabilized his breathing problems and got him out of his semi-comatose state. But instead of getting better, he took a turn for the worse. His lungs filled with fluid and his heart began to fail. The medical team rushed him to the scanning room, but his heart stopped beating before they got there.

  I was in the corridor when the doctors ran past, pushing DeShawn’s gurney at full speed while his mom trailed behind, screaming hysterically. When I caught up with Dad in the laboratory, he looked nervous. He was worried that DeShawn’s memories might’ve been lost when his blood stopped flowing to his brain. But almost immediately after Dad downloaded DeShawn’s memory files to his Pioneer, a synthesized whoop came out of the robot’s speakers. “Yeah!” DeShawn yelled. “I’m here!” His mom sank to her knees, weeping with relief, and everyone else in the lab applauded.

  I’ve thought about that moment a lot in the two days since then. I’ve retrieved the memory a dozen times and replayed the scene in my mind, recalling everything with perfect clarity. And each time, I think the same thing: Why did everyone applaud? Why were we so happy? It’s not just that we were relieved that DeShawn didn’t die. In that moment we all felt a powerful burst of pride. The Pioneers had cheated death. We’d become nearly immortal.

  I say “nearly immortal” because a Pioneer can still die. At first I assumed I could make a backup copy of my intelligence and keep it stored in a safe place, like a hard drive or an optical disk with tons of memory. Then, if my robot malfunctioned or was blasted to smithereens, someone could simply download the backup copy to a new robot and I would live again. But it turns out that the human mind is too complex and dynamic to be stored in an ordinary drive or disk. It can be transferred only to active neuromorphic circuitry, which means that any copy I make of myself would be a “live” copy. It would immediately start thinking its own thoughts and living its own life. In other words, the copy would be like an identical twin. If my robot is destroyed and my memory files obliterated, my twin would survive me, but I’d still be dead.

  I’m not complaining, though. All in all, I’m starting to enjoy life as a Pioneer. Yesterday, General Hawke held an induction ceremony for the six of us, and we officially joined the U.S. Army. The parents of the Pioneers attended the ceremony, but afterward they had to leave the base. For their protection, the Army sent them to several undisclosed locations, where they’re going to hide until the Sigma crisis is over. Jenny’s dad made a fuss about it, but the general stood firm. The only one allowed to stay at Pioneer Base is my dad, who’s going to be Hawke’s technical adviser.

  And today the Pioneers are going to pass another important milestone. Hawke has ordered us to gather in the base’s gymnasium at twelve hundred hours. For the first time, we’re going to train together as a team.

  I arrive at the gym an hour early. I want to test my new sensors before the training session starts. Earlier this morning I connected to Pioneer Base’s computers and downloaded a file describing how to add tactile sensors to my robot and link them to my neuromorphic circuits. Then I got some welding equipment from the supply room and attached several dime-size sensors to the bottom of my footpads. For good measure, I added a few pressure sensors to my hip and knee and ankle joints. I didn’t want to bother with stringing wires up and down my steel legs, so I used sensors that send their data wirelessly to my circuits. Once all the electronics were in place, I grabbed my official Super Bowl football and headed for the gym.

  Actually, the room looks more like an aircraft hangar than a gymnasium. It has a concrete floor and a high, vaulted ceiling. The space is a hundred yards long and fifty yards wide, and it’s in the most secure section of Pioneer Base, a quarter-mile underground. But what I like best about it is the fact that it’s the same size as a football field, and right now it’s empty. I stand at one end of the gym and turn on the newly installed sensors in my legs. Then I bend my robotic arm at the elbow joint, cradling the football against my torso, and charge down the field.

  The sensatio
ns in my legs are amazing. I can feel my footpads lifting off the concrete and crashing down, my hip joints swinging with each long stride, my knee joints bending and straining and straightening. Thanks to the new sensors, my legs aren’t numb anymore—they’re springing, flexing, pounding the floor.

  I race to the far end of the gym, then spin in the air and sprint back the other way. I haven’t felt this good since I was an eight-year-old playing touch football in my backyard. I want to run to Dad and show him what I’ve done, how I made my steel legs come alive. I want to tell him, “Look, it’s not just the mind. The body’s important too. Now I’m better, more complete. I’m more like Adam Armstrong.”

  I dash back and forth three more times before taking a break. I’m not tired—if you don’t breathe, you don’t get winded—but I have an idea that’ll make this workout even better. I turn on my wireless data link and connect to the base’s computers again. Although there’s no access to the Internet at Pioneer Base, a whole library of information is stored on the computers here, and we’re free to download any of the files to our neuromorphic circuits.

  Over the past few days I’ve already downloaded the complete digital archive of Sports Illustrated and every song recorded by Kanye West. Now I scroll through the Pioneer library until I locate a folder marked “NFL Video” and a subfolder labeled “Super Bowl XLVI.” Then I find the video clip showing my favorite play from that game, quarterback Eli Manning’s pass to wide receiver Mario Manningham.

  I download the clip and run it in my circuits. At the same time, I reenact the play, crouching at the Giants’ twelve-yard line just like Manning did on that crucial first down. As the video shows Eli backing away from the Patriots linemen, I back away too. Then I throw my football in a long, perfect arc, sending it forty yards downfield. But at the very moment when the video shows Mario Manningham leaping into the air to catch the ball, another Pioneer charges into the gym. Running full speed on clanging footpads, it extends its telescoping arms and snags my Super Bowl football. Then it runs toward me, and I notice the big, white 4 stamped on its torso. It’s Shannon.