The Last Firewall

by Hertling, William

  Shit. She’d killed them.

  The sound of the sirens grew louder.

  She disconnected from the grid so she couldn’t be tracked, then turned and ran.

  7

  * * *

  LEON GAZED AT REBECCA SMITH, sitting across the conference table. The former President looked gray and hard, not a shadow of her former self exactly, but more like a tree growing in a harsh environment. She was dense and weathered. Resilient.

  “You don’t understand the political realities, Mike,” she said. “The People’s Party does not want AI to exist.”

  “What do they think we’re going to do?” Mike said, raising his voice. “Just turn them off? Do they think we can just shut down a few computers, and the AI will be gone? Why is this coming up now, of all times?”

  Leon blinked and leaned back. Rebecca had been President of the United States. She’d founded the Institute by Executive Order. Mike’s yelling at her made him more than a little nervous. Worse yet, she seemed distraught, a state he’d never seen her in before.

  “They haven’t thought that far ahead. They blame the AI for their lack of jobs and in turn, the Institute for the AI. As the two most visible leaders of the Institute, they blame the two of you specifically. Why now? I’m not sure.” She shook her head. “Senator Watson is leading the group. It could be a long-range political maneuver. Maybe he’s planning to try for the presidency.”

  “But what have Mike and I done?” Leon said. “Artificial intelligence is an inevitable consequence of computers speeding up. Class I AIs are running on a handful of processors now. It’s a basement project that anyone can do.”

  “Leon, you don’t need to convince me.” Rebecca patted the back of his hand. “You two are very smart. You’ve each saved human society from destruction by AI. More importantly, you designed the third generation of AI to avoid those problems in the first place. What you’ve done is miraculous.” Rebecca leaned back in her seat. “But you aren’t seeing the human problem. Fifty percent of Americans are unemployed.”

  “I get that, Rebecca, I do.” Mike stood up to pace. “But there is no material want. The cost of goods is low. We have the American Stipend. We’ve eliminated poverty. There’s no one hungry now.” He looked at Rebecca, his eyes pleading with her.

  “You’ve solved the economic problem, yes.” Rebecca nodded. “People don’t have to work. But you don’t see the social angst this is causing. People don’t know what to do with themselves.”

  “They can learn, read, create.” Leon said. “They can experience the world.” Despite the words, Leon felt a pit of despair growing in his gut. He wanted the AI revolution to be a panacea, but deep down he harbored the same concerns.

  “You two do those types of things because you are the kind of people who, in any situation, at any time, would fill your lives. And you’ve surrounded yourselves with more people just like you. I don’t deny that many people are happy. But not everyone.”

  “It’s the Wikipedia dilemma,” Mike said softly, standing near the interior window, watching robots and humans collaborating around a table.

  Rebecca nodded, distracted, her eyes flickering as she read something in netspace.

  “What’s that?” Leon asked.

  “A long time ago, a man named Clay Shirky noticed that it took a hundred million hours of effort to create Wikipedia. You remember Wikipedia?” He looked at Leon.

  “Of course, I took history. I am a college graduate, you know.”

  “Shirky pointed out that Americans watched a hundred million hours of television advertising every single weekend. In other words, we could have been creating another Wikipedia-sized project every week. But we didn’t, because most people don’t do that. They don’t spend time creating or learning. They passively consume.”

  “That attitude disappeared years ago,” Leon said. “That’s why we created the college stipend by taxing AI income. So people would be able to develop themselves.”

  “It didn’t work,” Rebecca said, her attention coming back to them, her voice sharp. “Sure, it’s helped some. But most people aren’t driven to self-actualization. If you’ve got a hundred million unemployed, that’s a lot of dissatisfaction. That’s the foundation of a political party.” She continued in a softer voice, “And as far as they are concerned, you two are the cause.”

  “What are we supposed to do about it?” Leon said. “We’re AI researchers, not sociologists.”

  “I’m not asking you to do anything. I’m going to speak with the President, get him to talk to Congress about it. I just need you two to keep a low profile. Keep yourselves safe.”

  Leon looked around. “We’re completely unknown to the average person. I walk up to women on the street all the time, and nobody has ever recognized me.”

  “You’re just not that good-looking.” Mike said, with a smirk.

  Leon punched him in the arm.

  “Take this seriously, you two,” Rebecca said. “You need to stay out of harm’s way.”

  Leon nodded soberly.

  8

  * * *

  FRANK WALKED UP to the office building, his father’s old leather briefcase in one hand and take-out coffee in the other. When the building’s AI queried his implant, he provided his credentials. The high security door slid open, letting him enter the vestibule. The door behind closed, locks slamming shut. Cameras panned and zoomed to scan him.

  Frank sighed at the wait. As though his credentials could be faked. He felt the worn leather of the briefcase under his palm, the thread protruding slightly from the handle a familiar and comfortable irritation. Just as he took a sip of coffee, the AI unlocked the forward door.

  “Good morning, Mr. Nelson” the flat voice said. “Please come in.”

  He nodded to the building, gripped his briefcase more firmly, and stepped out. As he exited, the security vestibule cycled, allowing an android into the chamber behind him.

  The human security guard nodded, his bald head gleaming. “Good day, Mr. Nelson.”

  “Good morning,” Frank said, nodding back. He liked the man’s crisp British accent. He walked across the marble expanse to the elevators, where one waited with open doors, and pressed the button for five. The antique car rumbled to the top floor, and the doors slid open, groans muffled by thick layers of grease. He walked past his secretary’s desk, still empty, into his own office, the knob turning as it read his fingerprints. The door swung back to reveal two men sitting on his desk, the antique mahogany piece that had been his father’s and grandfather’s. Frank dropped his coffee in surprise, yelping as the hot liquid splattered his leg.

  “Hello, Mr. Nelson,” the heavy one said. “Nice to meet you. I’m Tony, and my colleague here is Slim.” Both men wore suits, but neither looked accustomed to it. The thin one, Slim, had slicked back hair and tattoos peeking out from under his sleeves. Neither one made a move to give up their perch on the desktop.

  Slim chuckled and pulled out a metal box with two antennas from a brown leather bag. “Now, this won’t hurt a bit.” He set the box on the desk and flipped a switch.

  Frank never even had a chance to protest. As the device turned on, his vision doubled, and the two men faded away, replaced by the same room twenty-five years earlier. He was an eight-year-old boy, and his father was behind the desk.

  “Come here, Frank, I want to show you something.” He hesitated. His father didn’t like to be bothered at work. Frank came a little closer. “Come on, boy, I’m going to show you what I do. Someday you’ll be an important investment banker.”

  He walked the rest of the way over. His father wrapped one arm around him and started explaining the symbols on the screen. He loved the scratchy feel of his father’s shaved face, the smell of his cologne. Frank peered at the display, trying to understand.

  The memory faded, and suddenly Frank was older. Now he was sitting behind the desk, reviewing paperwork, the investment accounts for Senator Watson. He scanned through the account history. The
n it passed and he switched to another memory, his first date with the woman who would become his wife.

  The two men sat on the desk and watched Frank Nelson, crumpled on the floor, oscillating through emotions. Smiles, tears, and fear alternated so quickly that his face tried to display them all at once.

  “OK, so maybe it’ll hurt a little bit,” Slim said. “But there was no reason to alarm you, was there? No, sir.”

  They waited about ten minutes until the machine finished with a double beep.

  “Let’s go,” Tony said.

  Slim picked up the machine and put it in the bag. They carefully stepped over the dead body of Frank Nelson. Tony closed the door behind him and calmly hit the button for the elevator.

  “We need to send these memories to Adam,” Slim said. “He’s been waiting for something special from this guy. Then we got another list of people to go get.”

  “How many more?” Tony asked.

  “Eight. The next one’s in San Diego.”

  “What? We gotta fly across the country again?”

  “Nope, it’s the bus this time.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Quit complaining,” Slim said. “I guess you’d rather go back to selling smack off the back of our rusted-out bikes? Remember that piece of crap I was riding and the freaks we had to deal with?”

  Tony just shook his head, frowning.

  “This is good stuff,” Slim said, smiling. “We got the easiest job in the world.”

  9

  * * *

  MIKE WAITED, TURNING his face up to the sun. He glanced over at Leon, who was hitting on a college student. There was nothing to be done but be patient when Leon took a fancy to someone. Mike wondered, not for the first time, if he should be following Leon’s lead. He looked around at the busy sidewalks, a mix of office workers and students, all hurrying somewhere.

  He glanced over at Leon, who now had one hand on the woman’s arm. Between the boy’s sandy hair, strong Eastern European cheekbones, and friendly manner, he was a natural magnet for women.

  He grunted, thinking about his own brown hair and plain face. When he looked in the mirror, he still saw the same teenage boy who’d spent all-nighters playing Civilization, except now fifty years old, with knees that hurt when he climbed stairs.

  His life hadn’t left time for romance. For ten years he’d been the sole caretaker of ELOPe, the first AI, whose existence he’d fought to keep secret. He couldn’t sustain a relationship then. Maybe there were some who could have a deep personal relationship while maintaining a deception about who and what they were, but not him. And merely knowing ELOPe had been all-consuming.

  Then for the last ten years, he and Leon had been the architects of human-AI society, evolving an entire set of social norms and rules to keep the balance of power equal and prevent a runaway AI from destroying humanity. No surprise there that he hadn’t found the time for a woman.

  Yet the last ten years hadn’t stopped Leon. He shook his head, uncomfortable with his thoughts, and turned back to watch the street with arms crossed. Exactly what was he doing with his life now? Was he going to spend it alone?

  Across the street, a mixed crowd of older adults and college-age kids approached, yelling to each other. A man up front carried a sign and egged the group on. “No Altered Intelligence,” the sign said, echoing the crowd’s chant. Great, now they were opposing neural implants and AI? Thirty, maybe forty people passed by. A mother carrying a baby in a backpack trailed the group with her own sign reading, “No Rights 4 Robots.”

  Mike scowled until they were out of sight and the street returned to normal. A few seconds later, Leon came up. “Well?” Mike asked, trying to put the protesters out of mind.

  “We’re going out Friday. Want to come? She’s got a roommate working toward graduate degrees in English Literature and Philosophy.”

  Mike shook his head. “Unless it’s her mom, no way. She’s got to be twenty years younger than me.”

  “That stuff doesn’t matter. Nobody cares.”

  “I don’t have time for a relationship.”

  “It’s just a date. That’s all. I know you have time for dinner, because we’re going to dinner now.”

  Mike reflected on his earlier thoughts. What the heck, he had nothing to lose. “Alright, I’ll do it.”

  “Hell yeah! It’s about time.” Leon closed his eyes for a second. “It’s done. We’re set for Friday at eight.”

  Well, how about that. He was going on a date. What did people wear on dates these days?

  Leon gave him a shove. “Let’s go. I’m hungry.”

  They headed a few blocks over to their usual izakaya restaurant.

  “Hello Leon-san, Mike-san,” the hostess greeted them.

  “Konbanwa, Keiko-san,” Leon replied.

  “Ni desuka?” Keiko asked. “No Rebecca-san?”

  “Ie.”

  She led them to the back of the restaurant to sit at the bar so they could watch her husband cook.

  “Konbanwa.” He bowed to them.

  “Konbanwa,” Leon said, as they both dipped their heads.

  They turned to each other without ordering, knowing that Hiroyuki would prepare whatever he wanted.

  “What do you think about what Rebecca said yesterday?” Mike asked.

  “Huh?” Leon appeared lost in his thoughts, probably thinking about his date.

  “The political party—the People’s Party. Do you think they’re really a threat?”

  “I don’t know. Rebecca was the President. She’s the one who’s involved in politics. I don’t see how a political party is going to influence the Institute. We’re independent.”

  Mike looked sideways at him. “You’re just saying that because you’ve never been the one who had to speak to Congress.”

  “Yes, but we have our own charter,” Leon said. “We’re a non-governmental organization.”

  “Don’t be naive,” Mike said. “The President could pull our funding if he wanted to. Or appoint some industry group to be in charge of AI standards.”

  Leon began to protest, but Mike steamrolled over him. “Look, it’s possible, especially if there was a lot of pressure. The People’s Party has some real influence.” Mike pushed a handful of news articles into their shared netspace.

  Tsukemono and onigiri arrived as they spoke.

  “Twenty-million members,” Mike said, between bites of the Japanese pickles, “mostly from conservative walks of life. Look at this.” Mike brought one page to the forefront. Leon’s and Mike’s photos headed the document, which continued with a litany of complaints about them. “I just saw a protest group go by while I was waiting for you. These people are gathering steam.”

  Leon parsed the text, then correlated it with third party analysis. “They’re raving mad,” he said half a minute later.

  “Exactly. They blame us for unemployment, degenerate youth, and crime. They’re even bemoaning the loss of factory jobs.”

  “Shit,” Leon said. “The cornucopia has made it so they don’t need to work. Robots make everything and the cost of goods has almost gone to zero. Why would someone want to work in a factory?”

  Mike opened his mouth to answer, but Leon cut him off. “I mean, I get that not everyone wants to be an artist or student or build stuff. But they could smoke pot and play video games all day if they wanted to. Or hell, they could go play at being knights!” The Society for Creative Anachronism had become hugely popular lately, with over two million members in the States.

  “You’re asking the wrong person,” Mike said, shaking his head. “For ten years, I could do anything I wanted, including nothing at all, and I still chose to work twelve-hour days . . .”

  Leon watched Mike’s eyes bouncing back and forth. “What are you looking at?”

  “I’m searching for updates from the Enforcement Team on the string of murders.”

  “What do you see?” Leon asked, as he received more plates from Hiroyuki—skewers of pork belly and steamed
Chinese pork buns.

  “It’s what I don’t see that’s more disconcerting.” Mike streamed the data over to Leon as he grabbed one of the pork buns. His mouth full, he sent electronically, “Look at the updates from Sonja.”

  “Run-of-the-mill stuff,” Leon said after a minute.

  Mike grabbed a skewer. “Exactly. Why would Sonja send budget updates if she’s in the field investigating these murders?”

  “It’s the end of the quarter, she’s supposed to send you the budget stuff,” Leon said.

  “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “It’s suspicious when people do exactly what they are expected to do?” Leon took a sip of sake.

  Mike looked up to see if Leon was being sarcastic. “Yes, it is. Especially when AI are involved. What’s missing is any information about the investigation. There’s no way Sonja would submit her budget but not even mention the murders.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “According to her last report, they were on their way to San Diego.” Mike looked up Sonja’s implant ID from the Institute’s data records. “I’m running a traceroute on her ID now.” Mike put the results up in netspace.

  They ate in silence, watching the query work through the spider-web of data connections around the world. A minute passed, then five, soon ten. Any network router that had sent or received packets for Sonja would respond back with a “last time seen.” A few southern California routers lit up with faded blue lines.

  “She made it to San Diego two days ago,” Leon said. “Nothing since.”

  “She’s not responding to pings.”

  “Let me try.” Leon concentrated. “She’s not on netspace or any other communication network. What the hell? Can we send anyone after her?”