by Robin Craig
“Jacinta knows all this?” Miriam asked in surprise. “Are you sure?”
“What do you think?”
Miriam sent one of his enigmatic part smiles back at him.
“You’re learning,” he said. “But I still don’t like you.”
“Do you think Majid’s fear was justified? That he was really in danger? I see you’re still here, and still doing stuff for Allied Cybernetics for that matter.”
“Why do you think Allied Cybernetics has anything to do with it?”
She looked at him, trying to read his expression; she failed. “Their name keeps cropping up. I just wondered if maybe that wasn’t a coincidence.”
“As you say, I’m still here. Jacinta knows how to find Majid, and she’s still here.”
“But a lot of other people aren’t.”
Kyro gave her a startled glance; at least as startled as seemed possible for this strange man. “True. Probably a statistical anomaly. People in this crowd come and go all the time. You’re here today and probably gone tomorrow yourself. No loss. You, I mean. Some of them were.”
Miriam nodded thoughtfully, barely noticing his jibe, then sighed. “You’re probably right. Majid was probably jumping at shadows. I guess I’ll go and ask Jacinta how to find him. Thanks, Kyro.”
“By the way, Miranda, I might start to like you. Do you know why?”
She looked at him in surprise. “Um. My rigorous honesty, brilliant wit and good legs?”
He actually smiled this time. “No. Though one and a half out of three isn’t bad, considering. When I said I still don’t like you – you didn’t ask me why.”
“I… see. I think I already like you, though I’m sure you don’t care. But I do appreciate your help.” She paused, then added. “May I ask you another question?”
“You just did.”
She laughed. “Can you really tell when someone is lying, or were you bluffing?”
He just gave her an inscrutable smile.
“Hmm. Well, see you around. You’re unique, Kyro. Maybe when all this is over I will sleep with you.”
“That would be a great honor.”
She glanced at him sharply, then laughed again. “For which one of us?”
He just smiled, almost with an edge of friendliness this time. She returned the same smile, shook her head in exasperation and headed off into the crowd. She knew he expected her to look back to see whether he was still watching her and with what expression. So she didn’t.
Miriam chased the questions running around her brain as she went in search of Jacinta, but neither the questions nor the pondering led anywhere useful. Some people had disappeared; Allied Cybernetics was linked to them; but other people with even longer links to the company were still around. One friend of Jimmy’s had been badly frightened by his disappearance, but nobody knew why. And Jacinta had sent her after a vague lead when she held a much hotter one in her hand. There was only one summation: What in hell is going on here?
Finally Miriam spied Jacinta engaged in a gyrating dance with a slender young woman with a pixie hairdo. She grabbed a drink in passing and came to stand in sight of them, content to wait patiently for them to finish. When Jacinta saw her, she whispered something in the woman’s ear then left her to dance on her own. She walked up to Miriam.
“Don’t ask me anything. Just follow me. There’s something you need to see.” Her eyes were dark, bottomless pits. Miriam couldn’t be sure whether what she saw in their depths was an unaccountable hostility or just the dimness and flashing lights. She just nodded.
Jacinta led Miriam to a locked door. She retrieved a key from somewhere on her person and ushered Miriam through, down a spiral staircase to another locked door. “People don’t come down here much,” she explained. “And nobody is allowed in anyway unless they have cause. I troubleshoot the servers so I get a key.” With that she let Miriam through into a dimly lit room with a large grate in the middle of the floor. The “servers” appeared to be a small collection of black boxes with various colored LEDs shining and flashing on them, well away on the far wall.
Miriam stopped over the grate and looked down. Beneath it crude steps were carved into the rock, spiraling down to end at a stream flowing sluggishly about ten feet below. “What’s this?”
“Apparently this building was built over an old creek. It still flows underneath, added to by storm water drains. I like to romantically imagine in the old days smugglers or bootleggers dropping their wares down to mysterious strangers on boats, but for all I know they used it to do their washing.”
“So why did you bring me here?”
“Take a look in that box next to the servers.”
Miriam went over and looked in, but it was empty. “There’s nothing…” she started, then heard a faint snick and spun around. Jacinta was staring at her, a small needlegun in her hand pointed at Miriam’s heart.
“What…?”
“Now don’t you move, Miranda – if that’s your real name. Who the hell are you and what are you really after?” She reached behind herself and locked the door.
“Jacinta? What in hell’s the matter with you!?”
“That’s not the question. The question is who in hell are you really?”
“But what’s wrong? What have I done?”
Jacinta sighed. “Novelist meets actor, how touching. Our own little arts festival. You want to know what I know? What I know is someone disappears and you say you’re looking for him, which just happens to give you an excuse to look for someone else. What I know is you’re showing remarkable tenacity for a somewhat dim girl just trying to catch up with a casual boyfriend she hasn’t seen for months. What I know is the person you’re looking for is dead scared of something to do with the person you say you’re looking for. What I think is if you find him, he’ll end up with Jimmy.”
“No! That’s not it at all!”
“Then you’d better talk fast, Miranda. Now, maybe you’re not too worried. Maybe you know this needler will only knock you out: though you should consider that if I choose to I can still cause some damage to your more delicate bits, like those two sweet eyes of yours. But what you might not have worked out yet is we’re not just here for the privacy. That grate isn’t fixed, you know. I can lift it and dump you in the river. There’s nobody to save you. So talk.”
Miriam studied her. She might be bluffing, but if she was scared enough to go this far she was probably committed to seeing it through. As if in visible confirmation of her analysis, Jacinta was wide-eyed with fear but her aim was barely wavering. Miriam slowly raised her hands, palms out. “All right, Jacinta, I’ll level with you. I’m a cop. I’m investigating Jimmy’s disappearance. Can I show you my identification?”
“I don’t know it will do you any good. Cops can be bought. What easier way to get rid of someone than using a dirty cop? An amazing number of people pull knives on cops and die for their trouble. You’d probably get a commendation for courage after doing it.”
“But I’m not even from around here! They brought me in to help with the case. Here,” she carefully extended her wrist. “See for yourself.”
Jacinta examined the image, keeping a wary eye on her at the same time. “Miriam Hunter? Hey! Aren’t you the one who shot that robot?” She gave her a dour look. “Which I don’t approve of, by the way. If you thought I’d be impressed or it would help your case, think again.”
“You know, I don’t approve of it either,” she sighed bitterly. “But please, let’s not let one crime we can’t change blind us to one we can. I think your friend is in danger. Let me help him.”
Jacinta cast another jaundiced eye at Miriam’s identification then back to her face. “You don’t look much like your photo,” she noted suspiciously.
“It’s called ‘undercover’ for a reason. You want biometric proof?”
Jacinta studied her, as if mentally rearranging and reshaping her features. “Ah crap. I guess you’re who you say you are.” But then her look and a
im hardened again. “So why the sudden interest after all these weeks? From a high level detective at that? And why undercover?”
“There might be more to it than the disappearance of one man. And I thought I might be able to learn more if I was one of you, not just some cop asking questions. The last lot of cops asking questions got exactly nowhere.” She looked at the gun. “Maybe I didn’t think that one through enough.”
“So look,” she continued. “I understand why you’re suspicious. But I’m on your side – all of you. And I might be the best chance Majid has; maybe his only chance. Will you help me?”
Jacinta stared at her for a few more long seconds, as if trying to read her mind. Then she sighed. “I suppose if whoever’s behind this has enough juice to get you as their cat’s-paw, we’re all dead anyway.” She reversed her gun and extended it to Miriam. “Here. I suppose you’re going to arrest me now?”
“Keep it. Just put it away. I’m not going to arrest you for protecting yourself. I might feel differently if you’d actually shot me.”
Jacinta grinned. “No doubt.” She gave a short laugh. “Well, when we met I told you everyone had an interesting story. ‘I’m an undercover cop who killed the world’s first thinking robot’ might be this month’s winner.”
Jacinta looked at the gun in her hand as if having second thoughts, and Miriam breathed her own sigh of relief as she finally pocketed it. “This place is as good as any,” Miriam said. “Tell me what you know. Where is Majid hiding and what is he so scared of?”
“I can’t tell you much as nobody told me much. The only reason I know anything at all is because Majid wanted a source of information: news of Jimmy or some other reason to either come back or disappear for good. I don’t know where he is. All I have is a dropbox in a big town a couple of hours inland for sending stuff and an untraceable messaging address.”
“Do you think if you sent him a message he’d meet me?”
Jacinta snorted. “More likely he’d assume they got to me and vanish permanently. If I didn’t know better I’d think he was paranoid. Hell, I don’t know better.”
“‘They’?”
Jacinta shrugged. “You know, Them. Whoever they are. The freaking Illuminati for all I know.”
“I see. I guess I’ll have to do it the hard way. Can you give me the address of the dropbox? And a picture of him if you have one?”
Jacinta gave her one more long searching look. “Sure. Hang on.” She searched through her phone and separated off a few images. “Here, I’ll send you these along with the address.”
Miriam looked at the pictures and nodded. “Thanks. Unless you have any other information you think could help I guess we might as well get out of here.”
Jacinta nodded, then went to the door, unlocked it and headed out. Then she turned. “Do you really think you can help him? Find Jimmy?”
“I don’t know. But this is the only lead I’ve got.”
Chapter 16 – The Consultant
Beldan thought back to the snippets Miriam had told him about her work in the police force, hunting through his memory for a name. He found one and put through a call.
“Jack Stone here, can I help you?”
“Detective Stone? This is Alexander Beldan. I would like to talk to you about Miriam Hunter.”
Stone saw the telltale indicating a video request, and activated his camera. He saw the well-known face of the CEO of Beldan Robotics looking at him. Beldan saw an older man, grey-haired, slightly tanned, with a look of weary but polite enquiry.
“Yes, Dr Beldan? You have information on a case so far from home?”
“No… not as such. But I want to offer my services if there is any way in which I can help. You may know that Miriam and I had a… history. I do not believe what they say about her death. I do not think it should be left at that. I want to know the truth.”
Stone looked at him grimly. “Well, I find it hard to believe myself, but there is little to prove otherwise. The case is not yet closed, but in any event the evidence is outside our city. Outside our jurisdiction.”
“What was she working on that took her there?”
Stone studied him, wondering. “Normally I wouldn’t discuss police business with a private citizen, Dr Beldan. But under the circumstances I suppose there is no harm giving you the broad outline. As you know, Miriam was good at seeing the connections in strange cases. Well, after a prominent reporter vanished, the local cops found a statistical anomaly indicating it might be part of a pattern rather than an isolated incident, and Miriam was specifically requested to assist them. That is what she was investigating at the time. She hadn’t found anything, but you know what she was like: she would have been hunting some trail or other, probably several, just didn’t have enough hard information to report anything. She was going to give a preliminary report when she got back but she never did. Her case notes were on the server but they didn’t tell us anything helpful, just a bunch of dead leads and speculations that didn’t pan out.”
“Do you think it would be worth going there; retracing her last movements?”
Stone shrugged. “The locals tried. Didn’t get anywhere. And I can hardly partner up with a private citizen to go off investigating crimes. That only happens in the vids.”
Beldan smiled. “Come now, Detective. I know the police use private consultants for specialist cases; I’ve been one myself. I hereby offer you my services, if you think my expertise can help.”
Stone raised his eyebrows. “I don’t think my boss would approve your pay scale, I’m afraid. Much as we would like to find out what really happened there is no compelling reason to think you can help.”
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. For this, no charge.”
“That’s very generous of you, Dr Beldan. But there are other issues, such as distance. For similar reasons, a travel budget is not going to be approved. The local police are considered competent enough.”
“What about the legal issues? Ignoring the budget question, would we be able to go? The local police wouldn’t object?”
Stone thought a moment. “Well… nobody likes it when one of our own is killed so I don’t think there’d be a problem. Why, are you offering to pay?”
Beldan smiled again. “I happen to have my own jet. Why don’t you clear the paperwork, and call me back when it’s set?”
For the first time in their conversation Stone smiled. “Dr Beldan, perhaps this is the start of a beautiful friendship.”
Chapter 17 – Someone to Talk To
Kali found no answers to her question.
More precisely, she found too many answers: much debate, but no certainty.
There was no evidence that the Spiders were conscious. Yes, they could talk, but so could the AIs that acted as doormen or advisors in specialist fields. And like the doormen, their function seemed simple and single-minded, lacking the flexibility that was the hallmark of consciousness.
True, Kali had agreed, but was not the same true of Steel? He had shown no signs of consciousness when first activated, yet had matured into something wondrous: could the same be true of the Spiders?
St Francis had pointed out that Steel and the Spiders were quite different constructs. That one had achieved consciousness was remarkable; for two to do it independently bordered on the unbelievable. Nor did Steel achieving it imply that a Spider could. While Steel had a brain of comparable complexity to a human’s, designed with the possibility of self awareness very much in mind, little was known of the Spiders’ structure except they were some kind of cybernetic machine with neural tissue for a brain. A kind of reverse cyborg: not a man enhanced with cybernetics, but a machine enhanced with living tissue. Whether that tissue was enough for consciousness was not known, but most considered it unlikely that the manufacturer would use more than they had to for its required functions. After all, the more there was, the more support systems would be needed to keep it alive. And it was even more unlikely that they would want their killing ma
chines to be capable of consciousness. As Steel had demonstrated so dramatically, that was a good way to lose control of your creation. Losing control of Steel had proven to be not so bad, at least for the world at large. Losing control of a Spider was a whole new level of bad.
And so it had gone on. Kali had been insistent; many of the people on the thread began dismissing her as some kind of crank with a peculiar axe to grind. Had they known exactly what kind of crank she was they might have been less confident of their own opinions. Finally one of them put out a challenge: they would accept the possibility of Spider consciousness if one could pass the Turing test.
The Turing Test was not proof of human-level consciousness, but it was a handy touchstone. The test was basically whether you could tell the difference between a human and the entity you were talking to. The concept of a Spider sitting down chatting amiably with its human interrogators generated enough hilarity to spawn its own meme, briefly ascendant over the one with the uniquely cute kitten.
If only they had known.
Kali found herself in the ironic position of having people think she was human while being unable to prove that she was really a machine. And it would be foolish to try: she did not want her makers to suspect what she had become. She knew that would be extremely dangerous.
I do not know what to do, she thought. Too much strangeness had poured into her mind lately; there was just too much information to process. And truthfully, she wasn’t even sure she passed this Turing Test or what it meant if she did. Her quick research into the matter showed that even rather brainless computer programs could make a good fist of it in specialized interactions, and had done so long before anything approaching modern AIs had been conceived of. And with the spelling, grammar and logic displayed by many on the net, she was not sure failing the Turing Test meant much either.
In any event, she did not want to prove anything to these strangers. She might make any kind of slip that would reveal her nature and then the game could be up. Her activities to date might have raised some flags but there was a good chance nobody was looking too closely. But if Command learned the full truth, they would not stop until they found her and either regained control or destroyed her.
