by Dale Brown
Ghadab nodded. The clerk went into a closet-sized room directly behind the registration desk; in the dim light of the lobby, the flash of the copy machine as it moved its platen seemed like the spark of an explosion.
About midway down the Moroccan west coast, Agadir was something of a budget beach destination for young European tourists during the winter. During the summer, however, it was relatively quiet, an easy place to strategize.
The hotel clerk returned, handing him the passport as well as a key.
“Free internet,” said the man. His Moroccan-flavored Arabic was hard for Ghadab to decipher. “Type Guest as the password.”
Ghadab thanked the man politely. Even if he’d had a computer or other device with him, he wasn’t so foolish as to use a hotel’s internet for anything beyond looking up the weather.
Upstairs, he checked the room for bugs. His search was crude—he looked for alterations, wires even, knowing that he would miss anything sophisticated. But the discipline was what was necessary; to rebound, one had to return to basics. And at least a search would detect anything the locals could manage.
Satisfied, Ghadab washed up. The porcelain in the sink was cracked and the water warm rather than cold; neither was unexpected. Refreshed if not restored after his long trip, he went out for a walk. The hotel was far uphill from the beaches and the large, ultramodern resorts that hugged the water, but even here the buildings were not very old; an earthquake in the 1960s had eradicated much of the town, and for the most part the cement-faced structures he passed were less than thirty years old.
It helped, too, that war had not visited the city for many years. The creases in the faces of the people he passed came from age, not constant fear; if there were marks in the facades of the buildings, they were from shoddy workmanship rather than gun battles.
Ghadab had shorn his head and beard before leaving Syria, and he doubted even his own mother, God rest her soul, could have recognized him. He wore Western clothes—black jeans and a soccer jersey with the number of Lionel Messi, the Argentine player so famous even here that the shirt was as anonymous as a paper bag. Ghadab had left all of his belongings at the border with Turkey when he fled.
The only item he regretted leaving was the knife. But he couldn’t have taken it on the airplane, and in any event the symbolism of the sacrifice was important; to continue he needed to strip himself of all.
Making his way through the crowded streets, Ghadab recognized many of the small shops. It had been two years since he’d been here, and his memory of the place had faded, dimmed by hundreds of other cities and towns, large and small, which to varying degrees had similar qualities. Finally, he found what he was looking for—a secondhand computer store. Halfway between a pawnshop and a discount retailer, it featured everything from point-and-shoot cameras to the latest Macintosh computers, insisting in semiliterate Arabic that all were “new out of box” while at the same time noting that “all sale final no warrants.”
After a bit of haggling, Ghadab bought an old tablet computer for fifty euros; down the street, at a coffee shop that offered Wi-Fi, he created an account and began surfing the web, randomly moving from page to page, watching a few YouTube videos of car races, then checking the news, then a travel site for flights to Athens.
He’d landed on Google News when a headline caught his eye: Les victimes du terrorisme honorés à Boston.
Terror victims honored in Boston.
It was about his Boston triumph. Apparently there had been a ceremony in the city.
His French was too rusty to read the entire story reliably, so he had it translated to English; when the page came into focus, he realized the woman in the photo that accompanied it looked familiar.
He couldn’t place her at first. There was a video with the story. He clicked it and watched as an older man talked about how his city couldn’t be defeated.
“Louis Massina,” declared the caption.
Oh, yes, he knew who he was. But the woman . . .
Ghadab stopped and replayed the video. The announcer said two employees had been honored. A photo showed the woman and a man, and Massina. He was their boss, a business owner in Boston.
The woman . . . the same one on the video from the hotel, the one who’d gone up to the room with Shadaa.
Was it?
It seemed far-fetched and yet . . .
No, of course. It made complete sense. This Massina had sought revenge for his city. That was what he wanted.
And he had achieved it.
More.
Boston.
Boston.
That would have to be the final target. Honor demanded it.
79
Boston—about the same time
Johnny felt a little light-headed as he closed the door to change. He’d had only two drinks, so it wasn’t the booze. And though the doctors had changed his medicine as soon as he got back to accelerate his healing after the bangs and bruises, he couldn’t blame that either—they’d made it clear that the drugs didn’t interact with alcohol.
So it had to be Chelsea, who was changing a few feet away, slipping out of the formfitting gown she’d been wearing.
There was a wall between them, so he couldn’t see her. But he certainly could imagine. He’d thought she was beautiful before tonight, but in the gown she was stunning.
Beyond stunning.
Maybe that was an exaggeration. Maybe she didn’t quite look like a model. Probably she wasn’t the perfect woman, every young man’s wet dream.
But she was close. Certainly to him.
There was a knock on the door.
“Ready?” Chelsea asked.
“Just a minute,” he said.
“And they say women are slow.” Chelsea laughed. “Meet you downstairs in the lobby.”
Halligan’s was farther than Chelsea thought, but the night was warm without being hot, and walking with Johnny felt incredibly right. They talked about the ceremony, how goofy it had been; they talked about the reporters, how little they knew; they talked about the interviews, how little they could say.
Finally, they talked about Syria itself.
“Were you scared in town?” Johnny asked.
“Very. Were you?”
“The first time we went in, I was a little nervous at different points. But we trained so much, I was kind of confident. Except for the language.”
“I know what you mean. Using the translator was kind of weird. I have a couple of ideas for fixing it.”
“I’ll bet you do.”
They walked a half block without saying anything. Johnny broke the silence.
“I was worried about you. That last mission. I wasn’t scared for myself at all, but I was worried that something would happen to you. Maybe focusing on that makes you forget to be scared about yourself.”
“Ukraine was like that for me,” said Chelsea. “I was too dumb to know to be scared.”
“That’s a funny word to use.”
“What?”
“Dumb. You’re the opposite of dumb. Like, a genius.”
“I’m not a genius. I know some geniuses.”
“There are people smarter than you?”
She smacked him on the arm.
“Hey, that was a serious question. I wasn’t making fun.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Really.”
Johnny suddenly stopped. “I feel like a robot.”
“What?”
“Like I’m not human. Because of my legs.”
“Jesus—they’re better than your real ones. And they keep improving them and with the drugs—”
“That’s just it,” said Johnny. “I don’t—it’s not totally me.”
“I think you’re still you,” insisted Chelsea. “Your legs are just part of you, not the entire thing of who you are.”
“If you lost your legs, would you feel whole?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
The bar was full with the post-happy-hour
crowd, and there were no open booths or tables.
“Don’t you live near here?” Chelsea asked Johnny after surveying the crowd.
“Couple of blocks.”
“Why don’t we go there?”
Johnny’s hands trembled as he aimed his key for the lock. He felt as nervous as a teenager on his first date—more nervous, really.
Chelsea stroking his arm didn’t help.
Not that he wanted her to stop.
He got the key into the lock and opened the door.
“It’s not much,” he said. “The main attraction is the location.”
“Oh, it’s nice.” Chelsea walked in behind him, taking in the front room, which was decorated in what might be called contemporary mishmash—a largish sofa and a wooden rocker sat opposite a sixty-inch flat screen flanked by an orphaned dining room chair and an end table he’d assembled himself. The main function of the last two pieces was to hold the large JBL monitors that formed the heart of his sound system. There was a bookcase on the far wall, along with two baskets of dirty sheets and clothes.
“So, wine?” he asked, heading for the kitchen.
“Sure.”
As Johnny stepped into the kitchen, he realized he wasn’t sure if he even had any wine.
“Or beer?” he asked, turning quickly.
He was surprised to find Chelsea right behind him, a foot away.
Inches, actually.
Her eyes were wide and round, her face the color of a rose in twilight.
“Whatever you have will be fine.”
She stretched her neck, lifting her face toward his. He leaned closer, and they kissed.
Puppet Master
Flash forward
Boston—two months later
The laugh was deep and dark, the sort the Devil himself would make if he came to life.
“You control these people,” said the terrorist. “You put them on the stage like puppets.”
“I control no one,” replied Massina.
“It’s your time to die, Puppet Master. You and your city. Time for the apocalypse and God’s final glory.”
80
Boston—eleven days before
Chelsea turned over and opened her eyes, struggling to focus on the alarm clock’s small blue numbers. She saw a 5, but couldn’t make out what followed.
4.
8.
5:48 a.m.
Shit!
She needed to be at work at six for a test run of a new bot series. She swung her feet over the side and slipped out of bed, heading quickly for the bathroom.
Johnny stirred under the covers.
In the two months since they had first kissed, Chelsea had spent many nights with Johnny. It was a unique experience, first because he lacked “real” legs and generally, though not always, took them off to sleep.
But there were other things that made it unique, special. Most of the men she had dated were computer or science geeks, whizzes who fed that part of her. Johnny was the first man who fed something else, a part more physical, more emotional.
They had things in common. First and foremost, they’d had similar life-and-death experiences, and in the same places at the same time—she’d been there when he’d lost his legs; he’d been there when she was nearly raped and killed.
More: They were both Red Sox fans. They liked to take long walks and bike rides, especially by the water. They both liked to listen to indie music. They liked to share interests. Chelsea was starting to like alt-country, thanks to Johnny. Johnny was starting to appreciate fusion cooking, thanks to Chelsea.
But there was no denying basic differences: He didn’t spend his days thinking about computer code or how to best train a piece of software to be self-cognizant. And she didn’t spend her days thinking of how to preserve situational awareness while escaping a kidnapping attempt or consider the pros and cons of nonlethal shotgun charges.
They came at life from different directions, with just enough in common to meet at many different intersections. And that seemed to be what both of them needed.
And the sex.
Awkward and nervous at first—how do you make love to a legless man?—it was now comfortable and gentle, yet reassuring and fulfilling and all those other words teenage magazines promised and adult magazines said were difficult to achieve.
The fact that Johnny didn’t have his legs was always a fact, always something they were both aware of—how could they not be? And yet it wasn’t the only fact.
Caffeine. I need serious amounts of caffeine.
“See you later, Sleeping Beauty,” she said, grabbing her Nikes and tiptoeing for the door.
Chelsea made it to the lab with about thirty seconds to spare. She walked directly to the test board, where the test coordinator and a half-dozen other engineers were waiting. They’d already run through all of the pretest workups; the systems were green and recording.
Also waiting were eleven Smart Metal employees who’d volunteered to participate in the exercise. And it was an exercise: they were going to play soccer with Peter, who was sitting beyond the cones and taped field boundaries in the cavernous interior of Subbasement Level 3. Peter had not been programmed to play and had never even watched a game. Once the session began, Chelsea would give him a verbal command to join one of the squads. What happened next was up to him.
“Ready?” asked the test director.
Chelsea donned a headset and walked over to the robot. “Peter?” she said.
RBT PJT 23-A acknowledged by turning one of its claws. Chelsea looked back at the director and gave a thumbs-up.
A whistle sounded, and the game began, “red” with the ball and moving into “blue” territory. Blue was down a man but otherwise the teams were evenly matched.
“Peter,” said Chelsea as the whistle blew. “Observe game. Join on blue’s side.”
Peter reoriented his “body,” directing all of his visual sensors toward the field.
By the time Chelsea had returned to the bank of monitors, Peter had walked onto the pitch. He appeared to be observing, taking a spot near blue’s penalty area.
Eight different screens at the main test bench recorded the bot’s thought processes as it worked, with different analytic tools analyzing the data. Chelsea focused her attention on a tool that selected out open questions—queries by the AI engine as it proceeded.
Peter had tried to access Smart Metal’s information system to gather information about the game, but the system had been closed to it. So it turned its attention to the game.
Most of its attention. It devoted about 20 percent of its resources to trying to break through the security system barring it access.
An interesting decision, thought Chelsea.
One of the red players took a pass and began dribbling in Peter’s direction. Peter took a step forward—then promptly sat down. Play continued around it, but the bot remained frozen on the ground, not even watching the action.
Expecting a malfunction, Chelsea looked at the monitors. Peter’s “brain” was still operating normally, according to the data; it just wasn’t moving.
And it was still using twenty percent of its processing power to try to get into the Smart Metal system.
“So is Cristiano Ronaldo in trouble or what?”
Chelsea jerked around. Louis Massina had snuck in to watch the demonstration.
“I’m impressed that you know a soccer player,” said Chelsea. “But Peter’s on defense, and Ronaldo plays forward.”
“He doesn’t seem to be playing at all.”
“I know. I’m not sure why.”
“What’s he doing?”
“Analyzing every play he’s seen,” said Chelsea, freezing the screen that displayed data on the processors. “It accesses recent memory, but it’s also looking to compare it to its stored history.”
“Why?” Massina bent over her shoulder to examine the data.
“I don’t know. I could arbitrarily put a limit on the processing loops or time
—”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Massina. “It has to learn. It should be able to set those limits itself. But it is similar to Syria. He adopts a base position when confused.”
“But he’s not in base position.” Chelsea suddenly felt as if she had to defend the bot. “He’s thinking.”
“He should react.”
“He usually does.”
Massina smirked, and Chelsea knew why—usually wasn’t good enough. And a human being in either situation would not have hesitated.
“The interesting thing is that this is new,” noted Massina. “Peter has learned to hesitate.”
Chelsea furled her arms in front of her chest and leaned back in the chair. She hadn’t thought of the situation that way before, but Massina was right—the bot had performed without hesitation in hundreds if not thousands of roughly analogous situations before.
Was this good or bad?
She glanced at him for an answer, but instead he looked at his watch and changed the subject. “I need to show you something.”
“OK. When?”
“Now.”
“I’m supposed to supervise the rest of the experiment,” she said.
Massina nodded at Peter, frozen on the field as the players moved around him. “I think he’s gone as far as he’s going today.”
“But Peter—”
“They can continue the tests and diagnostics without you. He’s grounded until we figure it out anyway.”
“But—”
“This is more important,” said Massina, starting away.
Ten minutes later, Chelsea got into the back of one of the company’s black SUVs, joining Massina. The truck had no driver; or rather, no human driver—it was guided by Smart Metal software, still being tested for commercial use, but more than adequate according to Massina.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Across the river.”
“Is this one of our projects?”
“It is, and it isn’t,” he said.
“Shouldn’t one of us sit in the driver’s seat?” she asked.
