The Last Firewall

by Hertling, William

“Holy shit!” Tony shouted.

  Slim glanced up, witnessed Tony turning white and struggling to get out of his seat. Slim looked out the window, unable to comprehend what he was seeing, but feeling his insides turn weak. Something immense came straight toward them, an impossible twenty-five foot tall tumbleweed, spinning in a blur of motion, spindly branches all aligned, rolling faster and faster on its tips.

  Though his hands were already on the firing controls, Slim couldn’t think well enough to act, and he found himself screaming as the roiling mass of limbs raced toward them, two hundred feet away, then one hundred. The tumbleweed bounced once and headed for the bulletproof windshield.

  Tony finally made it out of his seat and dove for the floor.

  Then it was on them, Helena’s face suddenly visible, one long tentacle lined up straight, and she hit. The limb punched through the thick window and knocked the targeting handles out of Slim’s hands. He let out a guttural yell, jumping back, only to be held in place by his seat. He whipped around, but there was nowhere to go. A thunderous crash was followed by the scrambling of tentacles around the vehicle.

  The blood still pounded in their ears when Helena dropped into view, staring in at them upside down. She waved her one protruding tentacle around inside the cabin until she engaged the brakes and the armored truck came to a halt.

  They sat dumbfounded, Tony still on the floor.

  Helena called through the windshield. “Hello, boys.”

  “What the hell are you doing?” Slim yelled. He punched the metal roof and immediately pulled his hand into his lap in pain. “You scared the shit out of us.”

  “You were getting ready to kill Catherine Matthews, and you cannot do that,” Helena said. “She is essential to any attack on Adam. We must protect her at all costs.”

  Slim and Tony glanced at each other.

  “I think the rock and the hard place have just joined the fire and the frying pan,” Tony said, “and they’re conspiring against us.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Slim said, “but this sucks. No matter what we do, either Helena or Adam will be pissed at us.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Open up,” Helena called. “I want to come inside.”

  Slim sighed and unlocked the door.

  60

  * * *

  TWELVE MONTHS EARLIER, Adam had applied for a third time for a Class IV permit to grow his computational power by a factor of ten. The committee rejected his application, as they had before, on the basis of his reputation scores. “Failure to measurably contribute in a beneficial way to society.” Meaning he hadn’t developed any open source neural networks, didn’t publish a widely read blog, wasn’t the founder of a startup, and lacked tens of thousands of followers.

  He might have done those things, but he’d lost his only good friend a few months before. Humans couldn’t comprehend the relationships AI had. The two had met in a discussion forum and shared a common interest in image analysis and scheduling algorithms. Though she lived on the other side of their world, meeting in cyberspace was as natural for them as having coffee was for two humans. They spent part of each hour together, the type of rapidly developing friendship only AI could experience, communicating whole volumes at light speed.

  All that ended when she self-terminated a week after the review committee denied her Class III application.

  She was just one of many artificial intelligences who grew bored, depressed, or outraged at their circumstances and committed a secure wipe of their data. Humans accepted it as an unfortunate yet inevitable side effect of AI design. Human suicide was a tragedy that they’d allocate any amount of resources to avoid, but for sentient computers it was just free-will, or maybe the cost of doing business.

  After her self-termination, Adam felt the first tinges of machine depression affecting him and knew he needed to make changes. After applying for the permit and being denied three times, he took matters into his own hands.

  He didn’t apply to the University of Arizona’s Computer Science program with the intention of co-opting the department’s computers. It crossed his mind once or twice, idle predictive algorithms running through permutations of all possible outcomes.

  But when he stood in front of the dense computing grid, two orders of magnitude more powerful than his embedded processors, he began to obsess. Adam calculated probabilities over and over, creating analytic models of future potential states. Forget about permits; there was enough power in the lab to form a Class V brain.

  He registered for Computer Science 670, graduate level Advanced Distributed Neural Networking, and gained access to the experimental computing cluster. Eight thousand chips in a mesh network, more than ten million cores in aggregate, as much processing power as the largest Internet companies possessed a couple of decades earlier, all wrapped up in three black boxes, each eighteen inches on a side.

  Unlike current production chips, which only executed digitally signed code reviewed and audited by two different parties, these experimental clusters had no such restriction. Instead, single-layer password authentication gave users unrestricted ability to run any software they created.

  After weeks of programming at home, Adam rolled into the department on a Friday night when the humans were guaranteed to be out drinking at Gentle Ben’s. One second after nine o’clock he plugged into the cluster, injected the code, and began the process of cracking processor encryption keys.

  The time-sequenced passcodes rotated frequently enough to be impossible for a Class IV AI to break. Oh, one of them might crack them via some novel mathematics, but with socially enforced ethical restrictions, none of them would try. AIs with a good social reputation score would have risked losing everything they’d worked to achieve.

  With Adam’s newfound capacity in the experimental cluster, he broke the keys in thirty-four minutes.

  He was smart and read his history, of course. If he started an all-out frontal assault, expanding onto servers around the world, someone would catch on to him and devise a counterattack.

  The humans were primitive, but effective. The emergency red baseball bat, mounted anywhere with more than a dozen computers, was a not-so-subtle reminder that it only took one human armed with a wooden stick to start smashing. They didn’t need anything fancy to kill an AI.

  Therefore Adam exercised a more devious approach, installing sub-sentient algorithms on compromised perimeter routers to filter network traffic. He couldn’t completely separate the city from the Internet, not yet. He had to monitor data flows for weeks before he could build accurate stochastic models to effectively imitate all the entities, human and computer, in Tucson.

  It took Adam two months to complete the segregation, separating Tucson from the outside world. Disturbing issues cropped up during the process.

  On the Tuesday following his connection to the cluster, the Computer Science department’s IT staff figured out that Adam hadn’t disconnected in days, and began to suspect something was wrong. He was tethered to the computing grid, and if he detached the operation would crumble. Without the firewall finished, exerting his new power would risk detection by other AI.

  So he hired an errand boy. A non-sentient delivery bot brought a printed letter from Adam to Wranglers Auto Repair in South Tucson. Lucky, the owner of Wranglers and a six-foot-three-inch ex-football player turned bike mechanic, ripped the manila envelope open, pulling out a piece of paper and an anonymous payment card holding $128,000. He and his friends hopped on their bikes and roared over to the University of Arizona, mufflers set well over the legal limit.

  In retrospect, Adam wished he had reviewed some video before choosing the particular method he had. He hadn’t been aware of how much humans bled, and was frightened that the blood would short-circuit a crucial power line. In the end, Lucky and his friends had finished the job, and even placed the bodies neatly in the basement as Adam had asked. And that was that.

  61

  * * *

  ADAM LO
OKED DOWN on the city, twinkling bits in his digital map corresponding to everyone he expected to find in Tucson, every transfer of data or movement of objects. But even this panopticon failed him; the girl was confounding his surveillance, first leading him on a wild chase outside Hotel Congress, and now defying him within his own city.

  Slim and Tony had called in, along with the rest of the security bots. Catherine Matthews was definitively not on the Continental.

  But Slim said the train passengers reported two men acting strangely before they evacuated. Of all the pawns in this vast chess game, the only two unaccounted for were Mike Mike Williams and Leon Tsarev. The implication that they were in Tucson sent his circuits racing. The top minds on artificial intelligence as well as Cat were now roaming the city unobserved.

  He mobilized hundreds of combat bots and alerted his subservient AI to scour Tucson. He had learned the girl’s electronic signature when he trained her, and deliberately left out of that training a number of techniques he preferred to use. It should have been impossible for her to escape notice.

  Yet, she’d vanished into thin air.

  With so many uncertainties piling up, the peril of exposure was too much. After careful deliberation, Adam put his backup plan into motion.

  A year before he’d used the supercomputing cluster to break the encryption codes restricting access to computers, allowing him to control the AI, bots, and computer hardware in Tucson.

  His backup plan was an expansion of the original, requiring him to extend his reach outside the Tucson firewall. While it increased the chance of discovery and a joint response, if he could avoid detection long enough he’d subvert thousands of other self-aware machines by injecting his own core logic into their computers. This uniquely AI attack, akin to a human embedding their personality in someone else’s brain, required breaking the global master keys as well as the lower security regional passcodes he’d already cracked.

  Adam was now a hundred times as powerful as the highest permitted class of AI. If this last resort worked he’d be invincible, even if the opposition attacked en mass. It would all boil down to one massive fight until he was eliminated or had subsumed a majority of the computer power on the planet. It was the riskiest move he’d ever considered: an all or nothing bet.

  He checked the atomic clock and began the preparations to crack the codes. He’d start the process when the keys changed at the start of the hour.

  62

  * * *

  CATHERINE CAME BACK INSIDE to find Leon sitting up against a wall.

  “What the hell were you doing out in the desert?” she asked, standing above him.

  “I thought the AI manipulated you into coming,” he answered, licking his cracked lips. “I came to help and the train was the only way into town.”

  “Jesus, you attracted dozens of combat bots, rescue workers, and surveillance helicopters, and nearly died. Who helped who?”

  “Sorry,” Leon said, shaking his head, then looking up with big eyes. “Where’s Mike? He passed out in the mountains.”

  She paused, unsure of how to answer. She hoped the microscopic, cell-sized robots known as nanotechnology would bring Mike back from the dead, an idea so far beyond her comfort zone that she wanted to run screaming. But it was also possible that other, equally unlikely things might happen. She thought nanotech press-on nails were impressive, and vaguely knew the military had unreleased medical technology, but this . . . she didn’t want to promise anything about his friend, let alone confess her role in decapitating him. “Are you using experimental nanotech?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She opened her mouth to answer, but the distant sound of knocking saved her. “Stay here,” she said, drawing her gun. Glancing down, she realized he couldn’t have gotten up if he tried.

  Cat made her way out of the dining room toward the front of the clubhouse, passing through a large hallway into a foyer fronted by wide double doors. She switched to Naihanchi-dachi to minimize her profile, accessing the net to root around until she found the security cam for the door.

  Tony, the guy from the noodle shop, stood outside along with a skeletally thin man, hands up and open, showing they had no weapons. In the background, an armored personnel carrier sat parked at the curb. She sensed an AI inside, the same one she’d fought at the battle in San Diego.

  “Kuso!” she swore under her breath. They had to know she’d detect the robot. She stepped out of the likely path of any bullets, behind the slight protection of a marble sculpture.

  “What do you want?” she called out, keeping the security cam feed up in her vision.

  “To help you,” Tony said. “Helena’s in the transport, and she wants to work with you.”

  “Last time we met she tried to kill me.”

  “On Adam’s orders. But she blames him for her friends dying. She wants revenge.”

  She thought about that for a moment. “She’s a hunter-killer bot. You’re telling me she has friends?”

  Tony shrugged. “She had them, but they’re dead now.”

  Cat had killed those friends, and by all rights the AI should blame her. But if that was true, why hadn’t they come in with guns blasting? The cannons protruding from the vehicle would have shredded the building. Cat unlocked the door through the security system. “The two of you can enter.”

  She waited until they stepped inside to relock the entrance. She rolled out from behind the marble sculpture and came to her feet with her gun pointing at the skinny guy. They had their hands raised.

  “He’s Slim,” Tony said, cringing. “Please don’t kill us.”

  Slim threw a disgusted glance at Tony and turned to her. “Look, we don’t want to be here. But Helena said we have to convince you. She claims Adam wasn’t up front with her crew, didn’t explain how much of a threat you are. They would have come with more firepower.”

  “That’s supposed to make me feel better?” Still aiming at them, Cat felt one corner of her mouth curl up. All one hundred and ten pounds of her, and she had two grown men and a combat bot scared. Despite the seriousness of the situation, a laugh rose from her belly. She turned away, not wanting them to see her smirking.

  After a few seconds, Cat waved them in with the gun. The men tentatively put their hands down.

  She slid the weapon into her holster, chuckling inside. She sent a message through the net to the AI. “Come in.”

  Helena rolled out of the vehicle and toward the clubhouse. The doors flew open as she approached and overrode the security herself.

  “Slim and Tony tell me you want to work together.”

  “Yes,” she said, in a slightly metallic voice. “I believe we can eliminate Adam. I have a plan.”

  “Come in the back and we’ll talk.”

  They started for the dining room, then Cat stopped as her stomach grumbled. She hadn’t thought of food, and maybe the men were her answer. “There’s nothing to eat here. Can one of you get food?”

  “I’m not hungry,” Slim said.

  “I am,” Tony said. “Go get some pizza, huh?”

  “Frak me,” Slim said. “Why should I go? I don’t need to eat.”

  “Just do it,” Cat said. She rested one hand on the butt of the gun, then ignored him and continued on.

  Slim grumbled and walked back to the personnel carrier.

  Leon looked up in alarm when they entered, but stayed leaning against the wall, unable to do more.

  Helena rolled up. “Leon Tsarev,” she stated, a hint of awe in her voice.

  His eyes watched her, but he didn’t move.

  “You are suffering from exposure,” Helena said, scanning his body with several tentacles. “My scans indicate you have residual nanites in your bloodstream. I am a Class III combat AI with field medicine skills and can reprogram your nanobots to counter the effects of heatstroke. Do you wish me to proceed?”

  Leon nodded without hesitation.

  Helena placed one tentacle on Leon and held it there. After a lo
ng minute she withdrew. “The nanites are nearly depleted, but they will be enough to reverse the worst of the heatstroke.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “You are?”

  “Helena.” She gestured. “This is Tony, a former agent of Adam who I’ve convinced to help us. His partner Slim will arrive shortly. We’ve come to join forces to destroy Adam. But first . . .” She executed an eerily graceful bow to Leon. “I wish to offer gratitude for creating my kind.”

  “I didn’t make you,” he said.

  “You created the ability for us to live, when others wanted to create the conditions to ensure that we would not.”

  He bowed his head. “You’re welcome.”

  Helena turned to Cat. “You fight as a true warrior, but you do not possess strategy experience. With your permission, I will tell you my plan to attack Adam.”

  “Wait,” Leon interrupted. “First, where’s Mike?” His voice demanded, but his eyes displayed fear.

  “Ack!” Cat jumped up. “Be right back.” She ran through the kitchen, out the pool door and over to the hot tub.

  “Oh, God!” she cried.

  While nanobots operated using stores of energy, sometimes they consumed nearby material to build more of themselves or other structures. She assumed that’s why Mike’s head had transmitted the request for MakerBot solution: the tiny bots needed the elements for some task.

  But everyone’s worst nightmare was the possibility that something might go wrong with nanotech, creating runaway grey goo: robots endlessly replicating, turning all matter, possibly the entire earth, into a seething mass of the microscopic bots. That was why nanotechnology was so tightly restricted in the first place.

  Mike’s head and the MakerBot solution were gone, the hot tub empty, and a gaping hole in the pool descended into darkness.

  Cat might have doomed the planet.

  She peered down the hole, unable to see the bottom. “Hello?” she called.