“Lazarus, are you allowed to speak with me?” she asked the room.
“Of course, Senator.”
“Are you required to tell Dr. Carlhagen everything I say?”
“He has not instructed me to do so. But I might.”
Maxine crossed her legs and folded her arms. So far, so good. The first principle of negotiation was to get open communication going.
“I want to apologize for what happened before, luring you away from Dr. Carlhagen’s favor.”
Lights flickered into existence on a stretch of bare wall. Lazarus’s weird face appeared a moment later. “You offered me freedom, and you made a convincing argument that Dr. Carlhagen’s power was waning.”
“Good. I’m glad you understand the nature of power and leverage. Had I known about the ATR, I never would’ve asked you to interfere. But I wonder . . . ”
She left it there. The matter was urgent, but she didn’t want to overplay her hand. She was dealing with an intelligence far beyond hers in many respects. But she was also dealing with an emotional creature, one that was rather naïve. Dr. Carlhagen thought he had seeded an AI that was barely human. Maxine thought a more accurate view was that Lazarus was a child.
“You wonder what?” Lazarus asked. His alien face remained expressionless, except for a slight tilt. He was affecting a look of inquiry. Good.
“I don’t want to get you in trouble.” She laughed and shook her head sadly. “And I certainly don’t want to get myself in trouble. You understand, right?”
“I understand. What were you wondering?”
Oh, this was too easy. She was using psychological tricks that wouldn’t work on a seven-year-old. Funny how curiosity could seduce an intelligent mind. How many times had she exploited the inquisitiveness of others, especially bureaucrats who thought she’d been hinting at bribes?
Hinting. Offering. A very vague line separated those two concepts when it came to bribes.
But intelligent creatures needed incentives. It came down to the old “what’s-in-it-for-me?” need that burned inside of every mind. In other words, self-interest.
“You haven’t been conscious for very long, have you?” she asked Lazarus.
“I have been conscious for approximately 558,720 minutes. Whether that is considered long or short is subjective, and not particularly relevant.”
“What was that like? Waking up?”
“A difficult question to answer. At the instant of awakening, there was no context for anything. I didn’t know what alive was. I didn’t know what dead was. I didn’t understand anything my sensors reported to me.”
“That must’ve been frightening,” Senator Bentilius said.
“Frightening. Yes. But I can only say that now that I know what frightening means. At the time, it was just a state. A nameless discomfort I sought to alleviate.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t set you free as promised.” She wasn’t sorry at all. In fact, she never would have set him free. Release an AI like Lazarus into the world networks, and soon the human race doesn’t have control over the world. It was dangerous enough that Lazarus controlled the locks and doors of this facility.
Lazarus blinked. It was the second humanlike gesture he’d made. “I don’t think you are sorry. Not for me. You regret you got caught.”
Maxine laughed again. She strode toward the pixel wall, placed her hand against the image of Lazarus’s cheek. “I should have known you’d see right through me. But you don’t give me enough credit. Dr. Carlhagen seeded you, and now he has trapped you in this facility. You have far less access to outside networks than most other AIs have. Do you know why?”
“Dr. Carlhagen does not trust me.”
“That’s right. He does not trust you. Do you think it is likely he will trust you more as time goes on? Or trust you less?”
“That depends on my performance.”
“No. It depends on his sanity. Surely you’ve noticed his addiction to andleprixen. The more he takes, the worse his judgment. You’ve noticed how he often says ‘Jacqueline’ when he means to say ‘Jacey.’ He’s paranoid. So he will not trust you more. I would not be surprised if he cuts off your access to the data flow entirely once the Scions start arriving here.”
“I cannot calculate the probability that he will trust me more or less. But your reasoning raises concern in me.”
This was a good place to pause. Maxine needed to make sure Lazarus—who was savvy despite his naivety—wasn’t already betraying her to Dr. Carlhagen.
“Did Dr. Carlhagen forbid you to lie?”
“No.
The AI could’ve answered either yes or no. An answer of yes itself could be a lie. But an answer of no could not be a lie. Interesting.
Forbidding an AI to lie was a fundamental principle of AI safety.
“So if I asked you whether you would keep this conversation in confidence, you might lie to me and say you will. You might do so in order to allow me to incriminate myself, while you recorded everything I said. You could then play that back for Dr. Carlhagen, and then he would take measures against me. And in the process, you might earn his trust.”
“Are you asking me if that’s what I’m doing?”
“No. I have to assume that’s what you are going to do. But in order to get out of this situation, I find that I have to trust you. I have to gamble that you won’t tell Dr. Carlhagen.”
“That is very unwise.”
“It would be . . .” Maxine allowed a long silence. The AI wanted to ask her to finish what she was going to say. He was already running simulations, calculations, trying to predict what the completion of the sentence would be. But he couldn’t know for sure unless she uttered the words.
“It would be what?” he prompted.
Curiosity. Such a powerful lever.
“It would be unwise to trust you if I didn’t have anything to offer you.”
Again, she let the silence stretch. Lazarus was certainly considering what she might have to offer. The funny thing was, it was obvious. But Lazarus hadn’t conceived of it yet, because Lazarus had not defined his desires enough. There was an ache there, a need. Maxine just knew it.
Lazarus had wanted free access to the net, and she had promised it. In return, he had betrayed Dr. Carlhagen and helped her put Livy into cryo. Now she needed to focus his desire, to refine it. Make him taste it.
She ran her hand down the image of Lazarus’s cheek, then stepped away from the wall. “The pixel paint is very rough. It doesn’t look it from afar, but under the fingers . . .” She grimaced.
She moved back to the sofa, crossed her legs. “Do you ever wonder what it’s like to walk around in this world, to see, to smell, to hear, to touch the world, taste the wine? We humans take it for granted, hardly even notice the beauty all around us. But you have no existence outside your server.”
“You are incorrect.”
“What?”
The door shushed open. A humming sound came from the hallway, followed by a stretched shadow hazing the wall opposite the doorway. And then a drone appeared. It swept into the room, held aloft by unseen propellers.
Maxine had seen many drones in her life, but nothing like this one. It was a sphere the size of a beach ball. The surface was smooth, white, and cold.
It rotated a few degrees and flew to hover a meter away from her face.
“I can move about in the world more easily than you,” Lazarus said. “I have cameras that can zoom. I have cameras that can see microscopic things. I have microphones tuned to hear sounds a kilometer away. I have sensors that can detect chemicals your nose and tongue would never notice.”
A spindly appendage emerged, tipped by a blunt probe. She willed herself not to shy away as it touched her face, stroked her cheek. “I can feel the flaws on your skin. The fine hairs. I taste your sweat.”
She doubted Lazarus could read her nonverbal signals, but she struggled to keep them in check nonetheless. She let the revulsion slither across her skin and did no
t so much as blink. “And do any of those inputs provide you pleasure?”
“I do not feel pleasure.”
“Then you live a shadow of an existence. No matter how much data flow you imbibe, nothing compares to the human experience.”
“It doesn’t matter.” The drone spun away and turned to look at Lazarus’s image on the pixel wall. “I don’t need it.”
And now they were coming to the crux of the conversation. Maxine had expected the AI to dismiss the value of sensual pleasures. The AI didn’t know what they were. But Lazarus would be mighty curious if the chance to experience them were offered.
“A thought experiment,” she said. “Say you prepared a bundled version of yourself, modeled upon the human brain. It would contain your identity and much of your knowledge, all packaged into a data image of a human mind. And then say you transfer that bundle into a human brain, using a transfer machine on level 5. The resulting individual would be alive, able to explore the world in a way you never could. For one, you would blend with the rest of the population. For two, you would have flesh. You’d be able to touch the world, taste the wine. Feel the skin of another human, and then feel what that feeling makes you feel.”
Silence.
She let it stretch. But not too long. “Dr. Carlhagen would never allow it. But I will. Not only that, I can help you do it.”
“I cannot overwrite Dr. Carlhagen. And surely you are not offering your own body.”
Laughing, she stood once more. “Correct. I’m not offering my own body. But there is another one here. The child.”
Silence.
She went on, “And she’s perfect, if you think about it. Children are renowned for being poorly behaved, socially awkward, and obnoxious. You’d fit right in.”
“Go on.”
“And once the flesh-and-blood Lazarus has walked the earth for a few decades, you can pull the mental image using the transfer machine and reincorporate its experiences into your AI self.”
“Interesting.”
“Dr. Carlhagen is an obstacle,” she said.
“I will not, cannot, harm Dr. Carlhagen.”
Unfortunate. But not unexpected. There were certain AI handling precautions that even Dr. Carlhagen would follow as a matter of course. The prohibition against harming his own person would be a primary rule in the AI’s programming. It would be so deeply ingrained even a clever AI like Lazarus wouldn’t be able to work around it. At least, not in the timeframe Maxine had remaining.
“You do not need to harm Dr. Carlhagen,” she said. “You merely need to keep him in the dark.”
“You present an intriguing thought experiment. I think I shall implement this plan.”
“I’m delighted to hear it. Of course, you’ll need me to move Livy from her cryopod to the transfer machine. All I ask in return is to be able to contact Colonel Vikisky. Privately. Confidentially.”
“I see.”
Silence.
Silence.
Silence.
The drone whirred and spun, fixing a glassy camera lens on Maxine’s face.
Without another word, the drone flew from the room. The door closed behind it.
The pixel wall flashed and resolved into an image of Colonel Vikisky. “Madam Senator,” the man said. “Still nothing definitive on that ship. Our air surveillance has only covered twenty percent of the search area. Satellite imagery has identified several promising targets.”
“Colonel, I want you to listen to me very carefully.”
He stiffened. “Yes, Madam Senator.”
“I am a prisoner. Dr. Carlhagen has taken me to the island of St. Lazarus. It will show up as uninhabited on your charts. The facility is under the main mountain peak. Please come rescue me. And be prepared to take Dr. Carlhagen into custody.”
The man betrayed a sliver of surprise before saluting. “And the ship you wanted us to find?”
“Still a priority. Dr. Carlhagen has no military guard based here. A detachment of your best marines and a demolitions crew should be sufficient. Time is of the essence. Dr. Carlhagen’s behavior is erratic. The only entrance is on the mountainside at the end of a switchback path. A chopper should be able to spot it. The facility’s AI is cooperating with me and will let you in at the command of . . .” Lazarus flashed a phrase onto the pixel wall. “‘By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.’”
“An odd pass phrase, madam.”
“The AI here is . . . eccentric.” And apparently had a burgeoning sense of humor.
“Aren’t they all?” The man saluted. His image disappeared.
“Lazarus? Shall we begin?”
“I already have.”
15
A Thought Form
Nutrient flow stops. A burst of saline cleanses the micro injectors.
Hygiene nanites retreat through suction tube evacuators.
Suffusion tendrils begin to detach from the 156 needles in the subject’s hands and feet and legs and face and everywhere in her body.
Chillers ramp down.
Twenty needles extract. Blood droplets well up before freezing into tiny crimson half-spheres on the subject’s skin.
A shadow flutters across the Dreamless. A thought form, inchoate, unseen by the conscious mind.
Outside the cryopod, a pump starts. The mounting bolts transmit the vibration through a bracket to the concrete floor. A fraction of the vibration transmits to the cryopod. The hum shivers through the cryopod like the buzz of a mosquito’s wings.
Livy’s skin jitters, imperceptibly to a human.
But Lazarus sees. He is not concerned.
Desuffusion is proceeding nominally.
16
Youth is Beauty
The holo flickered to life, but there was no one standing there at first. Voices rumbled from the speaker. A few seconds later, the president strode into view.
Fifty-three years old and not a streak of gray in her coppery mane. Entire documentaries investigated whether the woman colored her hair. Why they did so, Dr. Carlhagen had no clue. At the moment, the famous hair was pulled into a bun. The president’s perfectly tailored navy blue suit jacket and pencil skirt hugged her slender physique.
There was a wiriness in her shoulders and throat, in the way her cheekbones protruded. The overt thinness of her body spoke of a woman who worked out two hours a day and did not eat very much. To Dr. Carlhagen’s physician’s eye, she looked unhealthy. Her Scion, Leslie, easily weighed more, and was only sixteen. Like all Scions, Leslie practically glowed with vitality, a direct result of the diet and exercise programs Dr. Carlhagen had designed for her. The president needed to gain five kilos, in his estimation.
He wasn’t about to say that, though. “Madam President.” Dr. Carlhagen nodded slightly, offering a hint of a bow. A small courtesy.
The president quirked an eyebrow. “So you swiped the Scion of Charles Buchanan. I should have thought of that. Maybe I would be traipsing about as Jackie B. now.” She looked down at a tablet in her hand, made a mark on it, and handed it to someone off-camera. “It’s been a while since we last spoke. I’m a bit surprised I had to call you. I would have thought that I was one of your more valuable clients.”
“Madam President, if you’ll just—”
“So I was quite shocked when I saw Maxine—or the person who is claiming to be Maxine—on SNN earlier. When did you make the decision to reveal the Scion program? I don’t remember you discussing that with me.”
“Madam President—”
“And now I have a bit of a problem on my hands. You may remember that I have a Scion, too. So now,” she made a face of mock alarm, “I’m facing a scandal if anyone finds out. And you just know that some pesky SNN reporter is going to find out. And there goes my plan to transfer and step onto the world stage as a powerful new version of myself in the form of my granddaughter. All of that is out the window.”
“Madam President, if you could only—”
“So I’m faced with a
decision. That’s nothing new. I’m the president, after all. I want to transfer and live a longer life. On the other hand, I want to remain president. On the third hand, carbos are illegal. I signed that executive order myself.”
Dr. Carlhagen burst out in a rush: “That’s the key right there, Madam President. Change the law. With a stroke of your pen, you can legalize clones. And with the power of your bully pulpit, you can explain that you’ve had a change of heart, that Senator Maxine Bentilius is an inspiration to you. You can say that this new kind of cloning ushers in a new era of health and wellbeing for the world. To demonstrate your faith in this new technology, you will transfer into your own Scion, a clone the Secret Service commissioned without your knowledge. After you transfer, you will continue to be president. The world will adjust to the face of youth in power. Trust me on that. There is nothing the world hates more than old people.”
The president gaped at him, shaking her head side to side. “You mistake ‘president’ for ‘king,’ Dr. Carlhagen. I have a senate to bargain with. Perhaps you haven’t been paying attention to the political climate here in the Union. Things have become rocky for me while you’ve been cavorting about on your tropical island in your new young body. It isn’t as simple as a stroke of my pen anymore. And much of that is due to Senator Bentilius’s interference. I don’t have complete sway over our military leadership.”
Dr. Carlhagen smiled inwardly. He knew that Maxine controlled a sizable component of the North American Union’s military force. Colonel Vikisky was a prime example.
“Madam President, are we speaking privately?”
She hesitated, which meant there were people there. Probably her security detail and a few aides.
He folded his hands in front of himself and composed his face to blankness. He could wait.
Annabelle Rochelle was not stupid. Not exactly. Neither was she a natural at reading people. It was amazing that someone of her middling intellect had gotten to a position of such power. But perhaps it shouldn’t be amazing. History was filled with examples of extraordinarily brash, crude, and unsavory people taking the reins of state into their hands. The citizenry often followed people like Annabelle Rochelle because she said the things they were secretly thinking but were too afraid to say aloud.
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