by Eric Warren
She entered into Frees’ room where he still lay on the slab with Blu furiously disconnecting sensors and connections on his head.
“What are you doing?” Arista asked.
“Nothing,” she said, pulling more connections away. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Tell me you didn’t, I told you you needed to ask him first!”
“I’m sorry!” Blu yelled, gathering up her wireless connections and stuffing them in her pockets. “I didn’t think there would be any harm.”
“Any harm? Didn’t you hear what I just said in there? AIs killed almost everyone on the planet.”
Blu shook her head, dismissing it. “That doesn’t mean it would happen here. You’ve seen what this place is like. We need a miracle. And this is the only thing that can help us.” Her eyes had teared up and they spilled down her cheeks. “Please don’t tell my dad. I don’t want him to be disappointed if it doesn’t work.”
“You still want to do it?” Arista couldn’t help but feel a pang of regret. What if Blu pulled it off and the same thing happened? Then millions of human deaths would be on Arista’s shoulders. She’d no longer be responsible for a select few dying, but an entire planet. But it fit, right? Wasn’t that what she was? A killer? And hadn’t these humans squandered their opportunity? They’d been given the chance to make a better world without machines and had screwed everything up.
“Is he okay?” Arista indicated Frees beside them.
“I just installed the drive. He should be fine.” Her voice quivered.
“Unstrap him and let’s wake him up. If you’re going to do this, you’re going to do it with his help. But if your dad finds something about Echo and we have to go, that takes precedent, understand?”
She nodded. “Thank you.”
“Thank me when the AI doesn’t end up killing us all,” she replied.
TWENTY-TWO
“HOW LONG WAS I OUT?” Frees asked, sitting up.
Arista checked her internal chronometer. “About six hours.”
He patted himself down, running his hands over his abdomen. “The drive…it’s…full?”
She nodded. “David figured out how to replicate Jill’s technology.”
“Don’t tell her that,” he replied, sliding off the table. “We’ll never hear the end of how a human duplicated technology she spent months developing.” He glanced around the room. “I hope I never have to wake up in this room again.”
“C’mon,” she said. “Blu is waiting for you. She wants your help. And there have been some…developments.”
His eyes flashed. “Developments?”
She did her best to explain everything that had happened, the call Echo received from McCulluh, David finding out she was his daughter in the other world, the key…all of it. By the time they had made it down the hallway to Blu’s room he turned to stop her. “Is this what we should be focusing on right now?” he asked. “I’m all for helping to start a new race of people, but aren’t there more important concerns than creating a new AI?”
“We’re only going to get one shot at Echo. I want to make sure she already has the key before we do it. She’ll be the most vulnerable then because she’ll be preparing to return home. David has her under surveillance and is sending a second drone to keep an eye on the park. Maybe later you can give him parameters on what the gate will do before it opens. If there is some kind of early-warning sign.”
Frees fell silent for a moment. Probably taking the time to go over all the information Hogo-sha had given him. “I don’t see anything in the records,” he said after a moment. “But I can look closer. I think this is a special case. Since the gate can open without a frame.”
“Regardless,” she said, directing him to Blu’s door. “It’ll probably be visible across the spectrum. We’ll need to be ready.”
“Frees!” Blu said, jumping up as the entered the room. “Feel okay?”
He nodded. “Fine. Arista told me you’re working on something and need my help.”
“Just a little project,” she said. Was she blushing? Hadn’t it been only yesterday she’d been scared of Frees? Arista couldn’t help but smile, but it was accompanied with a feeling of regret. She’d never gotten to experience many of the things teenagers were “supposed” to experience. She was too preoccupied with surviving. It’s not like there would have been anyone she could have experienced it with. Not unless she was prepared to give them autonomy, like she had with Jonn. And that had turned out swimmingly.
“I’ll just leave you two to get started,” Arista said, with a grin as realization dawned on Frees’ face. “I want to keep an ear on Echo. See if I can’t figure out where this key is.”
“Wait,” he said. “You don’t have to—”
“I’ll be in the workshop if you need me.” She pulled the door closed before he could get another word in. He wouldn’t snap at Blu again, not after the lashing she’d given him the first time. It seemed once he realized he’d done something inappropriate, he took additional action to make sure it didn’t happen again. He hadn’t tried to jump out of any more windows with Arista. And his actions back in the colony had obviously meant to protect her.
Which reminded her, they still hadn’t discussed what Max had said about him being infatuated with her. And at this pace they never would. It seemed like one subject he just wasn’t ready to broach yet. Though one day they would. And Arista wasn’t quite sure what she would say when they finally did.
“Everything quiet?” she asked as she entered the workshop. David was hunched over his table as usual, a small device on his ear. When he glanced at her she realized his eyes were bloodshot. “When’s the last time you got any sleep?”
“Yesterday, maybe. It’s been a whirlwind.”
She needed to give the man a rest. But that didn’t mean she was caving. She was being considerate. Plus, it would give her a chance to listen to Echo. She might say something else about Arista’s past, though it was doubtful. “Here, give me that.” She held out her hand. “Go sleep for a few hours. I’ll keep an eye on Echo.”
He nodded, pulling the device off his ear. “Thank you. I know this can’t be easy for you. With me here.” He turned to the table. “It’s all intuitive, this controls the feed, and this—”
“The inputs and outputs. Volume, resolution, frequency. Got it.” She’d barely glanced over the console but it seemed like she already knew how it all worked.
“That’s…right,” he replied. “If you need me or if anything goes wrong, I’ll just be shutting my eyes for a bit. Don’t feel bad about waking me if you need to.”
“I think I can handle it,” Arista said, the words coming out harsher than she’d meant.
He nodded again. “Night then,” he said, despite the fact it was only seven in the evening.
“Night,” she added after he was already out of earshot. She placed the device on her ear only to hear the rustling of clothes or footsteps. Echo was moving about. Arista checked the location tracker, which still had her in her tower. If she was going after this key she wasn’t being very urgent about it.
Why would she go after it herself when she had a virtual army that could do it for her? She was probably cozying up on some plush couch with a bottle of this world’s finest wine to watch the twinkling lights of Manhattan. Or maybe she was strategizing a battle plan for back home. Either way, the minute she said anything, Arista would be ready.
***
“What the hell?”
Arista bolted up out of the chair, a dribble of drool on her chin which she wiped away. She whipped her head around, looking for the source of the voice, finding the room around her dark and empty.
The voice came through her ear again. “It’s you, isn’t it?”
It took Arista a moment to remember where she was, but she clumsily checked all the controls in front of her. Everything looked good, no anomalies. Echo was still in the same place. And she was talking to her.
“I know you’re there, ans
wer me you little worm.”
Adrenaline flooded her body but Arista sat completely still. What had happened? How had she found the tag?
“Maybe you can’t answer me. Or maybe you’re choosing not to, but I know it’s you. You’ve always been a thorn in my side. Ever since you were little. It just had to be you who came through the gate, didn’t it? It couldn’t have been anyone else. It had to be you.”
She sounded drunk. Maybe Arista’s hypothesis about the wine wasn’t so far off. Somehow, she’d found the surveillance device, but Arista couldn’t respond if she wanted to. It was a one-way transmitter only. Had she been able to respond Arista wasn’t sure she’d be able to contain her anger.
“You’re not getting back. I already have confirmation from the other side my people are still in charge. You and your machine friend will be buried here, in this twisted, mixed up world. I hope you know that.”
“Oh, you have no idea what I know,” Arista said, her anger only growing. Who the hell did this woman think she was, dictating her life to her? And what had she done before Arista left the colony?
“And trust me, when I get back everyone you care about is dead. We’ll have no room for dissenters in our new world. Jessika will be first.” Arista felt her anger rise at the mention of her biological mother’s name. “Then your allies in Chicago. I’ll send an army after them if I have to. You stole something very precious from me, and I want it back.”
Could she be referring to Arista’s parents? What good would they do Echo? Unless it had something to do with why they were connected to those tube things. “Just keep talking, idiot,” Arista said. The more she revealed the more she gave herself away.
“I tried to tell David, I tried to tell him all those years ago you were too stubborn. But you must have gotten it from him because he didn’t listen either. And I knew from the moment you signed up for the program you were going to be trouble. And here we are, eighteen years later and look who’s still causing me problems.” There was the sound of glass breaking and for a second Arista thought she’d lost the connection.
“Fuck!” Echo yelled. “Get in here and clean this up!” she yelled at someone but Arista couldn’t pick up any other voices. The tag was only close enough to pick up hers. “I don’t care, just do it!”
There were footsteps and the rustling of clothes, but Arista remained as still as she could. This was good stuff, if only she could coax Echo; get her to give up more about her past. To tell her about what happened before she left the colony. Perhaps there was a way to force a two-way signal on this thing.
Her hands explored the controls, scanning for anything that might change the type of transmission. If she could even just get one word to her that might be enough to get her to lose all semblance of control.
“I can tell you this,” Echo hissed. “If you do somehow manage to make it back, the first thing I’ll do is have you executed. I’m going to put you halfway across the threshold of a gate and turn it off, slicing you in half. We’ll call it an industrial accident. So, if you want my advice…stay here. Don’t come back. You can make a life for yourself here and after I’m gone no one will bother you. I’ll even leave part of Dante’s fortune to you. You can be comfortable so long as you stay here.”
There was a crunch and Arista lost the signal. Echo had destroyed the tag. Arista pulled the device off her ear and tossed it across the desk. Did Echo really think she was so weak-willed she’d give up everything for nothing more than a life of luxury?
The Device told her to control her breathing, to slow down. She recalled how Jessika told her that was a safety feature. Had Arista been around a bunch of non-autonomous machines right then they would have all been changed. She was furious Echo would even suggest such a thing. Arista was even more determined to stop her now.
But without the tag they had no clue when she would obtain the key and call McCulluh again. All they knew was the gate would be ready to open in less than a day. And that’s all the time they had to work with.
Wait. Could Echo possibly know where they were? She had untold resources at her disposal; who was to say she didn’t piggyback the signal to its destination? What if all of that had been nothing but a way to find them? She needed to warn them.
“Arista!” Blu appeared from around the corner.
“Blu? What’s—?”
“It’s Frees. Something is very wrong.”
TWENTY-THREE
“WHAT HAPPENED?” Arista yelled, following after her.
“I don’t know! Everything was fine. We were copying some of his pathways in his cortex and he just froze up. We were almost finished, I don’t know what could have caused it.”
Arista stopped in front of David’s room. “We have to tell him, he might be able to help.” Blu hesitated half a second then nodded. “You wake him up, I’ll check on Frees.”
As Blu knocked and pushed David’s door open Arista rushed down the hallway to Blu’s room. The door was wide open and in the middle of the room stood Frees, still as a statue. His eyes were wide open but he wasn’t moving. When Arista touched him or prodded him he didn’t respond. Two small connectors on his temples told her he was still connected to Blu’s system, which she began to investigate. The interface was simple enough, or she was at least able to intuit the basic workings. The unit was downloading a massive amount of data from Frees’ cortex, but there was no notification of what might have caused him to halt all motor functions. It was as if someone had cut his neural processes from the rest of his body because the primary cortex was active. All parts of the system were lit up, almost like it had been overstimulated.
Arista wished she had access to her net. She’d be able to download in any and all information on prior incidents like this and how to manage them. Though, the machine solution was probably to shut the subject down, wipe him, and reinstall the personality in a new husk.
“What’s going on?” David appeared in the doorway, his hair sticking in all directions. Blu followed closely behind.
“We were working on building an independent AI,” Blu said, scooting around Frees and Arista and taking a seat at her interface. “We were in the middle of copying the last of his connections when the whole system when haywire.”
“You’re making an AI? Without the proper safeguards? Blu, I taught you better than that!” David yelled.
“It wasn’t going to be active! I was just setting the parameters, getting all the coding done. As soon as that was finished—”
“There’s no time to worry about that now,” David said. “We have to get him disconnected from your interface. Whatever is happening might be killing him.”
“I don’t think that’s what’s happening.” Arista pointed to a cluster of code on Blu’s interface. “Look, all of Frees higher functions are still intact, here.”
“You can read that?” Blu asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“It’s just…I built this interface myself. I’m the only one who knows how it organizes information.”
“Oh,” Arista said. “I have been around these machines my whole life. It’s not the first cortex map I’ve seen. But you can see here his normal code is intact, but this…” She pointed to the transfer. “This is coming from somewhere else. Did he say anything about these pathways?”
Blu shook her head. “He didn’t even seem to think they were important. But because we didn’t want to leave anything out we thought it was better to go ahead and copy them over, just in case.” Blu tapped a panel on her interface and a 3-D holographic image appeared in the middle of the room beside Frees. “This is a physical representation of his cortex. Everything that’s being transferred right now is coming out of this area,” she said. “Do you know what that is?”
Arista shook her head. “It doesn’t look familiar to me, but I’m better with the non-brain stuff. Arms, legs and other parts.”
“If we disconnect the contacts do you think it would hurt him?” David asked. “Stop the transfer all together
?”
“I don’t know. But whatever is happening is definitely pulling information out of his mind. It isn’t copying it, see?” She pointed to the same area Blu had indicated. The data volume had already decreased.
“What if we ride it out? See what happens when it finishes transferring?” Blu suggested.
“I’m not willing to do that,” Arista said. “He’s too important. I don’t want to risk his life for this.”
“Disconnecting him before its finished could risk his life.”
She rubbed her temple with her artificial hand. What do I do? Every second I let this continue it could be doing something to him. Destroying him somehow. But Blu is right.
“I knew this was a bad idea,” she said. “I’m sorry, Blu, but I let my feelings for you override my judgment.”
“Feelings for me?” she asked, taken aback.
She didn’t answer. “Disconnect him. We can’t let this continue, we don’t know if it’s hurting or helping him.”
Blu turned back to her screens. “It says the transfer is at ninety-eight percent.”
“Don’t let it finish!” Arista yelled. “David, help me get these contacts off his head.” She reached up, only for a spark to hit her fingers when she reached for the contact, traveling through her arm. “Ow!” She gritted her teeth. “Oh no. You’re coming off.” From her artificial hand she produced a sharp scalpel and raised it to the contact, intending to use it to pry the contact off. The small spark jumped from the contact again and this time she held on, despite the pain it caused as the electrical current ran through her. “On second thought, don’t touch him,” she yelled, “I’ve got this.”
