Lethal Velocity

by Lincoln Child

  “Good boy, Wingnut!” Georgia cooed. The robot yipped excitedly, spun in an awkward circle.

  “Look, he’s chasing his tail,” Terri said. “Just like a real dog.”

  Georgia let the paper fall to the ground, turned toward Warne. “Dad, aren’t you done yet? We’ve been here an hour, at least.”

  “Half an hour, princess.”

  “Don’t call me princess.” She glanced at her watch. “It’s almost two o’clock.”

  “Just a little longer.” He glanced at Terri, then gestured toward the terminal. “There’s nothing wrong with the Metanet. I’ve tried to break it every way I can think of. Multi-threaded downlinks, missing arguments, everything. It always crashes gracefully.”

  Terri finished the mango, shrugging as if to say, I told you so.

  “It’s like you said. All the Metanet changes have been benign.” Warne turned back to the terminal and began mousing his way down the screen. “What really gets me are the incident reports. I’ve checked almost all of these robot glitches. You know what? According to the Metanet logs, none of those bots were ever even touched. The Metanet made no modifications to their code. And that doesn’t make sense.”

  He stared at the terminal. He could see his own face—pale, a little drawn—staring back at him from the reflecting glass. Just sitting at this terminal brought back potent, bittersweet memories. The last time he’d sat before it, in his lab at Carnegie-Mellon, he’d felt an almost paternal pride for the creation that was about to be shipped off to Nevada. The Metanet was to be the first in a series of revolutionary developments that would no doubt be emerging from his lab. His theories about machine learning were the buzz of the robotics community. And he’d found a powerful champion in Eric Nightingale…

  How different things were for the face that stared back at him now. He closed his eyes, bowed his head. What’s happened? he asked himself. How could everything go so wrong, so quickly? It’s like I just can’t catch a break.

  There was a whir of stepper motors, a loud, metallic, clangorous yipping. Wingnut rolled back and forth across the center of the lab, as if searching for something. Then he came to a stop below a bank of fluorescent lights.

  “What’s he doing?” Terri asked.

  “Recharging his solar cells. Since his avatar—most recently, that was Georgia—isn’t moving, he’s in a wait state, doing background tasks. Like locating the brightest light source and moving toward it. Remember your graduate school cybernetics? Grey Walter’s tortoise, its primitive light-seeking, light-avoidance behaviors? Same idea.”

  Terri watched the robot, motionless beneath the light. “He’s completely autonomous. Right? If he’d been plugged into the Metanet, I’d have known about it.”

  “Yup.”

  “I assume he’s using the A-star algorithm for pathfinding? How did you avoid the usual zigzags?”

  “By adding some postprocessing tweaks.”

  “And his architecture—totally reactive? Must be, given all the random processing the poor thing has to do.”

  “Right. But there’s a hierarchical core to give him some personality traits, make him seem more real. Not that they all work the way they’re supposed to, though. He can be an unreliable little spud when he feels like it.”

  He stole a glance at the woman. Clearly, she knew her stuff.

  The robotics community was split into two camps. The older camp believed in creating robots with “deliberative” AI: highly structured, hierarchical systems with fixed internal world models and hardwired assumptions about that world. The newer camp—of which Warne himself was a controversial leader—believed that “behavior-based” robotics was the way of the future: reactive systems that based their actions on what their sensors told them, rather than relying on pre-coded instructions.

  “There’s something a bit unsettling about him,” Terri said. “As if you never knew what he was going to do next. And why’s he so damn big?”

  “When I first built him, components weren’t as miniaturized as they are now. Over the years I swapped out his innards for smaller, more powerful replacements. That cut his weight in half, freed up space for bigger motors and servos. That’s why he’s such a speedy brute, too.” Warne looked at her. “You sound as if you’d never seen him before.”

  “Only from a distance. It was sitting in a corner of Sarah Boatwright’s office. Or maybe Barksdale’s, I can’t remember.”

  Warne sighed. Somehow, he wasn’t surprised.

  “Tell me about Fred Barksdale,” he said. “What’s he like?”

  “Let’s see. He’s charming, suave, cultured, debonair…if you like that sort of thing in a man, of course. Can quote Shakespeare for hours on end. All the women in Systems are madly in love with him. Which is precisely why I’m not.”

  Warne chuckled.

  “According to the grapevine, he and Sarah Boatwright are quite the thing.”

  Warne’s laugh died in his throat. He looked over at Terri. He could have sworn there was the slightest, teasing edge to her tone.

  “Don’t worry, Dr. Warne,” she said. “I know all about it. And you. Utopia’s even more fond of gossip than Peyton Place.”

  He sighed, looked away. “That’s ancient history.”

  “Not ancient enough,” Georgia muttered.

  Terri let out a whoop of laughter. “You know, I like this daughter of yours.”

  Georgia grinned, blushed.

  Warne looked back at the screen, moving the mouse from one code window to another. Once again, a mix of feelings washed over him: part fear, part desperation. He was losing the Metanet; it was happening right before his eyes. And yet there was nothing wrong with it—he’d just run every test he could imagine. But clearly, something had to be wrong. The accident on Notting Hill Chase. And just this morning, his own construct, Hard Place…It made no sense. He lifted his hand from the mouse, rubbed his bruised wrist absently.

  There was a sudden commotion nearby as Wingnut—batteries now fully recharged—darted in, grabbed the mouse, then rushed away. There was a loud bang. Warne looked over at the hulking robot, who was staring back at him, mouse between his metal jaws, severed cord hanging down like a flaccid tail, waiting for Warne to give chase.

  “Wingnut, no chase,” he said in a tired voice. He turned toward Terri. “Got another mouse handy, by any chance?”

  “Sure. Does he always grab things like that?”

  “He developed a fondness for chasing cars, robots, anything with wheels. Don’t ask me where it came from. It got so bad I was forced to hard-code a special instruction into him: ‘no chase.’ And it’s still hit-or-miss.” My career in a microcosm, he thought as he stared ruefully at the robot. No wonder the thing had become a dusty relic.

  Terri walked off to fetch a new mouse. Somehow, the natural sway of her body was able to make even a lab coat look alluring. Warne glanced over at Georgia, riffling disconsolately through an industry journal, then back at the screen.

  There it was again: the sense that something was wrong.

  And then, suddenly, he realized what it was. It was so simple, so obvious, that he’d never made the connection.

  “Terri,” he said. “If the Metanet modified certain bots for inappropriate actions, why are there no internal modification logs for any of them? I’ve examined the Metanet’s logs. None exist for any of the bots that went haywire.”

  Terri shook her head. “That couldn’t be.”

  “And there’s the other thing. In the meeting this morning, Barksdale said the problems were intermittent. The bots would misbehave one day, be fine the next.” Warne paused. “If the Metanet instructed those bots to misbehave, who told them to behave again?”

  Terri looked at him, dark eyes troubled. “Only the Metanet could do that.”

  “Exactly. But there are no internal logs showing either the introduction or the correction of these glitches.” Warne pushed the incident reports aside. “How many cases of inappropriate code have you actually seen with
your own eyes?”

  “Only one. Notting Hill Chase.”

  “How did you determine what went wrong?”

  “Maintenance walked the ride, found the loosened safety dogs. I found incorrect behavior in the onboard code.”

  “What kind?”

  “The code had been altered to specifically loosen, rather than tighten, the safety dogs.”

  Warne winced involuntarily. There were only two ways for the bots to receive such specious instructions. Only Terri was authorized access to the Metanet terminal. Either she had deliberately hand-coded the errant bots, or the Metanet had modified their programming. The Metanet had caused the accident. He felt the sense of desperation grow stronger.

  “Dad,” Georgia spoke into the silence. “Come on. Please.”

  “Georgia!” Warne turned sharply. Then he took a breath, mastered his annoyance. “Look, I’m sorry, but I have to finish this.” He glanced at the screen, considered a moment. Then he turned back to Georgia. “Tell you what. I’ll let you take in a few rides on your own. How about that? Give me an hour. No, ninety minutes.”

  “I don’t want to go by myself,” Georgia said. “What fun is that?”

  “That’s the way it has to be, sweetie. I’m sorry. Just ninety minutes. I’ll meet you at…” He fished in his pocket for a guidemap, unfolded it. “At Guest Services in the Nexus. Quarter after three. We’ll finish up Boardwalk together. Okay?”

  Georgia chewed her lip a moment. Then she nodded, stood up. “Thanks for the Game Boy,” she said to Terri. She tugged her headphones onto her ears, shouldered her backpack, headed for the door.

  “Georgia?” Warne asked.

  She stopped in the doorway, turned back.

  “No big coasters, no tall rides, okay? Save those for me.”

  She frowned.

  “Promise?”

  She sighed. “Yeah.” Then she slipped around the corner, closing the door behind her.

  A brief silence settled over the lab. Warne found himself staring at the door.

  “She’s a cute kid,” Terri said. “As far as kids go.” And she smiled roguishly.

  Warne turned his gaze to her. “You don’t like kids?”

  “It isn’t that. I guess I just never had much use for them. Especially when I was one myself.” Terri shrugged. “Never had a lot of friends my own age. Never had many friends at all, actually. Somehow, I always felt more comfortable around adults.”

  “Sounds like Georgia. I worry about that sometimes. Since her mother died, it’s almost like she’s pulled up the drawbridge. I’m the only one she’s really close to.”

  “At least she has a loving father.”

  “You didn’t?”

  Terri rolled her eyes. “Don’t ask. The Wicked Warlock of the East.”

  Warne stretched, glanced back at the terminal. “Let’s get back to it. There’s a mystery here that I don’t understand.” He waved at the stack of incident reports. “Only the Metanet could have caused these glitches. But why did you actually see the altered code in only one: the Notting Hill ride? What was different about that particular glitch?”

  Terri looked down. “There was a casualty,” she said.

  For a moment, Warne lowered his eyes.

  “And you shut the ride down,” he resumed. “When did you examine the two Notting Hill bots?”

  “The following morning.”

  “Were they connected to the Metanet at that point?”

  “Of course not. The whole ride was taken off-line.”

  “Naturally.” Warne picked up the pile of incident reports. “And the problems with all these other bots. When were they checked?”

  “Usually, the afternoon following the day the reports were filed.”

  “Were they ever checked earlier?”

  “If it was a high priority, we’d check them first thing.”

  “Which means?”

  “Around 9:30. Right after downlink.”

  “Right after downlink.” He glanced at her quickly. “That’s it. That’s why you only saw the altered code in the Notting Hill ride. Not the others.”

  “I don’t think I understand.”

  “And I’ll bet if we examined the internal routines on Hard Place, we’d see it, too. Jesus, don’t you see? All the rest must have been—”

  At that moment, a rap sounded on the door.

  “Come in!” Terri called.

  The door opened, and a tall, thin man in a lab coat stepped in, pushing a metal cart before him. Sitting on the cart was a metal box the size of a milk carton, multicolored wires streaming away: the central processing unit from Hard Place. Beside it sat a low-slung robot. Warne recognized the type: a late-model Autonomous Systems controller assembly, frequently used for simple maintenance duties. This one’s upper plate looked oddly scorched, though; almost as if somebody had held a blowtorch to it.

  Wingnut turned his head array toward the new arrivals. He emitted a low, muttering growl and began rolling toward the cart.

  “Wingnut, no chase,” Warne said in a warning tone, enunciating the command carefully. The creature rolled to a stop.

  “What are those doing here?” Terri asked.

  “Ms. Boatwright asked me to bring these to a Dr. Warne. Said I’d find him in your office.” The slender man glanced over at Warne. He was pale, and shrank back nervously from Wingnut’s attentions. “Would that be you?”

  “The big one is Hard Place’s brain,” Warne said, nodding at the cart. “I told you how he went postal on me today. I had to hit his kill switch manually. I don’t recognize the other one.”

  “It’s from the Griffin Tower show,” said Terri. She turned back to the technician. “What’s it doing here?” she repeated, her low voice a little louder now.

  The man licked his lips. “The laser went nuts during the 1:20 show.”

  “What?”

  The man nodded. “Overloaded. Shot right through a guy’s face.”

  Hearing this, Terri seemed to go gray. She moved toward the cart, then stopped, as if unable to bring herself to touch it.

  “Oh, my God,” she said. “I programmed that. I did that…” She glanced back toward Warne, a look of horror on her face.

  But Warne did not notice. His mind was far away.

  SARAH BOATWRIGHT WAITED. Over the dedicated landline, there was no sound: no digital artifacts, no whisper of static, nothing.

  Then, at last, Chuck Emory’s gravelly voice came again. “High explosives.”

  “That’s right, Mr. Emory.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “There’s a brick of it sitting on the table in front of me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Bob Allocco found it. Without a detonator. Left there to send us a message.”

  “Some message. And you’re sure it’s not a hoax?”

  “Allocco says it’s the real deal this time. And the glitch with the laser-firing robot, the accident on Notting Hill Chase—those certainly weren’t hoaxes.”

  There was another silence. Waiting, Sarah felt ambivalent about bringing Emory into this. But she reminded herself there was no way she could proceed—one way or the other—without talking to Emory first.

  If Eric Nightingale had been the creative genius behind Utopia, Charles Emory III was the man who had taken Nightingale’s idea and breathed life into it. In the wake of the magician’s death, Emory had quickly moved from chief financial officer to CEO of the Utopia Holding Company. He had managed to keep the corporate backers and venture capitalists together through the Park’s final design and fabrication. Many people credited Emory with saving the Park, for guiding its development in the face of unexpected tragedy. Others—Utopia purists, or people who, like Andrew Warne, had been drawn in by Nightingale’s original vision—felt differently. They believed Emory sold out, took Nightingale’s dream and sullied it with commercialism. Emory had added thrill rides, concession areas, merchandising tie-ins. And, most controversial of all, he had added the casi
nos. Nightingale had planned to have a single, small emporium in Boardwalk, where guests could play turn-of-the-century games of chance with buffalo-head nickels. Emory had replaced this quaint Emporium of Chance with four full-blown casinos that catered in real money.

  Sarah respected Emory’s business sense. She knew that the entrance fee covered only half the Park’s overhead. The rest came from food, beverages, souvenirs, concessions, and most especially the casinos—a business reality that Nightingale had never been able to accept. To his credit, Emory had spotted new trends—like holographic technology—and been quick to leverage them when there was a profit to be made. He excelled at managing from a distance, letting the Park’s creative designers and administrative staff run the day-to-day operations. But he seemed less good at handling crises. There had been only one in recent memory—a salmonella scare in Camelot that had proved to be unfounded—but his indecisiveness, at a time when prompt action had been called for, remained uncomfortably strong in her mind.

  There could be no indecisiveness, no hesitancy, here. The longer she thought, the more convinced she became: bold action was required.

  “Do you know how many people are involved?” Emory asked.

  “No. Judging from appearances, it’s a well-planned operation. And they couldn’t have done it without help from inside the Park.”

  “Jesus Christ. Do we know who?”

  “Not yet. But it’s a good bet whoever the insider is works in either Security or Systems.”

  A pause. “What are these people? Fanatics? Some kind of cult?”

  “I don’t think so. I just got off the radio with their spokesman. He told me what it is they want.”

  “And that is?”

  “The Crucible, Mr. Emory.”

  Once again, the line faded into silence. Then Sarah heard—or thought she heard—a long, slow release of breath.