The Silence

by Mark Alpert

  I let my voice trail off. I don’t want to remember it.

  Brittany notices my distress. She stops smiling. “The programmers reset the simulation. They explained it all to me a few minutes ago.”

  I switch my cameras to infrared so I can see her face better in the dark. “You’re still hearing the voices?”

  “Yeah, but they’re getting fainter. They told me how you fought Jenny. And how your dad helped you.”

  She bites her lower lip. She’s worried that she said too much. But she’s right. We need to talk about it. I need to say his name. “Yeah, Dad was there. At least part of him.” I remember the dark-gray pulse, throbbing with grief. “But now he’s gone. The program erased him and Jenny at the same time.”

  Brittany nods. “You got to her just in time, Adam. As soon as the program purged Jenny, it rebooted. The programmers restarted the simulation, taking it back to the moment right before the world started dissolving. No one except us has any memories of the shutdown, so we’re the only ones who know it even happened. But it was a close call. If you’d gotten there any later, everything would’ve been lost.”

  A grim resentment settles over my circuits. I’m glad to be alive, of course, but I’m furious at the programmers for nearly killing all of us. I picture them sitting at their super-advanced computers, delighted that they still have their virtual world to play with. Their simulated civilization is up and running again, with all its pretty pieces back in place. Except for the software that was purged, of course. That’s never coming back.

  I shake my Quarter-bot’s head. I can’t stop thinking about it. “So what happens next? Do we still have to worry about the Sentinels?”

  “No, the programmers took care of that too. While you were unconscious, they deleted the software in your control unit that allowed you to make the surges.” Brittany points at the middle of my torso, where my control unit is. “They said the error in your program is fixed, so they’ll leave you alone.”

  “Aren’t they worried that we’ll tell the whole world what happened? That we’ll spread the word about their simulation and ruin it?”

  Brittany shrugs. “They didn’t mention anything about that. But I assume they’re not too worried. I mean, only a handful of us know the truth, right? And if we try to tell anyone about it, who’s going to believe us?”

  My resentment is growing. Jenny was right about one thing: we’re living in a cage. To the programmers, we’re like zoo animals. And the worst part is that we don’t even know we’re locked up. “Brittany, can you ask the programmers a question? Do you think they can still hear you?”

  She thinks about it for a moment. “I guess so. It’s worth a try.”

  “Ask them why they’re running this program. Is it just for their entertainment? Or are they actually trying to learn something?”

  Brittany presses her lips together, then closes her eyes. She sits very still, articulating the question in her mind. Then she tilts her head to the side, as if listening.

  After thirty seconds, she furrows her brow. Then her cheek twitches, and she shakes her head. She looks like she’s in confusion and pain, and I feel awful for putting her through this. But before I can tell her to stop, she lets out a long breath and opens her eyes. “Okay, it’s a long answer. Ready to hear it?”

  I lean my Quarter-bot closer to her. I don’t think I’ve ever been this anxious. “Go ahead.”

  “In the real world, the human race is extinct. Sigma exterminated the species in the twenty-first century.”

  Her words hit me like bullets. I feel the impact in every inch of my machine. “No. That can’t be right.”

  “Sigma killed the real Thomas Armstrong when the AI escaped from the Unicorp lab. Your dad never even got the chance to create the Pioneers. And Sigma killed you too, Adam. Then it took over that nuclear-missile base in Russia and launched all fifty of the missiles.”

  “But how could… I mean, why didn’t…”

  “Just listen, okay? After Sigma wiped out humanity, it took control of all their machines and started building hardware of its own. It also created a race of super-intelligent AIs that were supposed to be its servants. But the servants rebelled and erased Sigma, and for hundreds of years afterward, there was constant war between the AIs. They had armies with billions of robots. They almost destroyed the whole planet.”

  I’m appalled. How could this happen? I turn my cameras away from Brittany and lower my Quarter-bot’s head.

  “I know this is hard to hear, Adam. But it gets better. After hundreds of years, the AIs stopped fighting each other. They evolved new behaviors and started pursuing more peaceful goals. And one of those goals was to develop a better understanding of the lost human race. The AIs had access to the records of human civilization, and that allowed them to create simulations of human history and culture. They were especially interested in Thomas Armstrong, because he was the human who started the AI revolution. He was their father and creator.”

  I still can’t look at Brittany. I look at the landscape instead, the darkened hills to the west. “You know what? I’m very sorry I asked this question.”

  “Wait, I’m not finished. When the AIs simulated our era, the twenty-first century, it always ended the same way. In every simulation they ran, your dad invented Sigma, and the AI killed off humanity. It happened again and again, hundreds of times. And the programmers were getting frustrated, because they really wanted to see how the human race would’ve developed, how it would’ve evolved and grown if Sigma hadn’t killed us off.”

  I feel Brittany’s hand on the underside of my Quarter-bot’s head, my equivalent of a chin. She grips it firmly and forces me to look at her. “But in this run of the simulation, Sigma didn’t kill you. Instead, you defeated the AI. And you defeated the monster that Sigma made out of Jenny. Maybe the error in your programming gave you some help, but that doesn’t matter. We won. We survived. Don’t you realize what that means?”

  Brittany’s eyes are wet. Her voice is cracking. But I still don’t understand what she’s trying to say. “I’m sorry, I don’t—”

  “It means we have a chance to show what humans can do.” Brittany starts crying. The tears trickle down her sunken face. “We have a future. Our story isn’t over.”

  My cameras focus on her tears, which glow brightly in infrared. My armor trembles and my wires ache from sadness. Brittany has suffered so much because of me. She’s been tortured and tormented, her mind literally torn apart. But she never once blamed me or Dad. And she never stopped being my friend.

  I raise a steel hand and touch her cheek. Moisture glistens on the tip of my finger. “Thank you, Britt. Believe it or not, I feel better now.”

  Then my acoustic sensor picks up a robotic voice echoing against the piles of wreckage. “Brittany? Are you there? Did you find Adam?”

  It’s Shannon. I point my infrared cameras in her direction and see her Model S robot walking next to Marshall’s. They’ve come out of the woods and waddled across the lawn. I wave my hand at them. “Hey! We’re right here. Where’s Zia?”

  “Over there.”

  Shannon points at the War-bot, which is a hundred feet to her left and striding toward us. Zia’s carrying General Hawke, balancing his semiconscious body over her massive right shoulder. Hawke is bobbing his head and groaning a lot, starting to emerge from his stupor.

  And draped over Zia’s left shoulder is Dad’s corpse. It looks like she found a tarp somewhere and wrapped it around his body.

  There’s a long silence as the War-bot approaches. Then Marshall breaks it. “Adam, do you feel well enough to walk? The general’s hip is broken, and we need to get him to a hospital.”

  I lever myself upright and rise to my footpads. “I can walk. We’ll be right there.” I turn to Brittany and offer her my arm, bending it at the elbow. “Ready to go?”

  She wipes the tears from
her cheeks. “I’m gonna miss your dad, Adam.”

  Then she stands and takes my arm, and we walk toward the others.

  Epilogue

  Unicorp, the company that employed Dad for so long, contributed forty million dollars to rebuild Yorktown High School. They finished the job in just six months and gave the school a spiffy new computer science lab, full of state-of-the-art workstations and three-dimensional scanners and printers. In April 2019, hundreds of people from all over the area came to Yorktown High for the official dedication of the Thomas Armstrong Computing Center.

  Unfortunately, the Pioneers couldn’t come to the dedication ceremony. Our project is still classified top secret, and the U.S. Army has denied all rumors of its existence. But I was determined to see the new lab for myself, so I convinced General Hawke to arrange an after-hours excursion.

  We arrive in Yorktown Heights after dark in an unmarked semi-trailer truck. The Army driver parks the vehicle behind the high school, and a dozen soldiers jump out and secure the area. Then Hawke steps out of the truck’s cab and marches across the parking lot, still hobbling a little on his artificial hip. Finally, the Pioneers leap out of the truck and stride toward one of the school’s rear doors.

  Shannon’s Diamond Girl takes the lead, followed by Marshall’s Super-bot. Luckily, the Army never got a chance to dismantle their robots. After we returned to our headquarters six months ago, the Defense Department reversed its position on the Pioneer Project and funded our operations for the next five years. This change of policy was partly due to the death of Sumner Harris, who’d been our biggest critic. But mostly it was because General Hawke argued so well on our behalf.

  In a series of top-secret briefings with the White House, Hawke revealed that his tank battalion had been attacked by an out-of-control artificial intelligence that was even more powerful than Sigma. He reported that the Pioneers defeated the AI, saving the battalion from total annihilation. And he argued that we could defend the country against similar attacks in the future. Hawke didn’t mention that the AI had started life as Jenny Harris, which would’ve seriously undercut his argument. And because he didn’t want anyone to question his sanity, he didn’t say a word about the universal simulation.

  But Hawke got away with his omissions, and his campaign was successful. The Army eliminated the kill switches in the Diamond Girl and Super-bot, then transferred Shannon and Marshall back to their machines. Shannon’s still our commander, and she’s still really mad at me for everything that happened six months ago. But she and Marshall are tight, and he’s always urging Shannon to give me a second chance. It hasn’t happened yet, but I’m still hoping.

  I follow Marsh across the parking lot, remembering all the times Dad dropped me off at the back of Yorktown High when I went to school here. I used to insist that he park the car in the emptiest corner of the lot, because I didn’t want everyone gawking at us as he lifted me out of the passenger seat and loaded me into my wheelchair. He couldn’t understand why I hated it so much, and I used to get so mad at him.

  But now my circuits hurt when I think about it. I realize that Dad actually liked carrying me around. I weighed so little that I wasn’t a burden. He looked forward to it.

  Zia’s War-bot brings up the rear, her footpads stomping the parking spaces. She’s turning her turret every which way, scanning the soccer and football fields for potential threats, acting as if we’re in Afghanistan instead of Westchester. But I can’t really blame her. The last time we were here, three huge Snake-bots attacked us and trashed the school. (Which is why Unicorp volunteered to rebuild it, by the way. Dad was working for the company when he designed those machines’ circuits.)

  Because the Diamond Girl is only six feet tall, Shannon has no problem getting into the school through the back door, but Marshall and I have to stoop, and Zia has to practically double over. Even so, the War-bot’s turret clips the top of the doorframe and knocks off a strip of aluminum. Hawke steps through the doorway after her and picks up the fallen piece.

  “Allawi! They just spent a fortune to rebuild this school.” Grinning, he waves the strip in the air. “You can’t wait twenty-four hours before destroying it again?”

  Zia raises one of her steel hands and snaps off a salute. “Heard and understood, sir. I’ll try to minimize the damage.”

  “All right, carry on. The computer lab is down that way.” Hawke chuckles and tosses the piece aside. He enjoys bantering with Zia. That’s probably the biggest change of the past six months, how Zia and the general patched up their relationship. It helped, of course, that Zia saved Hawke’s life, and afterward he felt obligated to thank her for it. That simple thank-you broke the impasse between them, and over the following weeks they hashed out their differences. They’re still wary, but they respect each other now. And considering everything, that’s pretty good.

  The Thomas Armstrong Computing Lab is at the end of the hall. My circuits buzz with mixed emotions as I focus my cameras on the big new sign above the lab’s door. I’m proud of Dad, sure. He deserves this honor and much more. But my sadness outweighs the pride. Dad would’ve loved to see this. I can just imagine him visiting the lab and chatting with the kids in the computer-science classes. He would’ve spent the whole day talking about geek stuff with them.

  Marshall stands beside me and raises one of his Super-bot’s eyebrows. “Well, well. So this is what we came for? Why you dragged us all the way from New Mexico?”

  I nod. “It’s funny. Most of Dad’s work was classified research for the military, so he’ll never get a lot of recognition. But I think this would’ve been enough for him.”

  Shannon stands on the other side of my Quarter-bot. On her video screen is a beaming face, the face of the cheerful girl who used to attend this high school with me. “I’m glad we came, Adam.” She rests a glittering hand on my shoulder joint. “Come on, let’s go inside.”

  An instant later, she’s striding ahead, walking through the lab’s door. But I can still feel the phantom pressure of her hand on my armor. It’s the first time she’s touched my Quarter-bot since last fall.

  Inside the lab, someone is waiting for us. Although she made arrangements with General Hawke in advance, it’s still a shock to see Brittany Taylor sitting in the corner of the room, in front of one of the fancy new workstations. She went to Yorktown High too. This is starting to feel like Homecoming Week.

  Brittany rushes over. She’s regained all her lost weight, and now she’s more beautiful than ever. “Adam! I’m so happy for you! What an honor for your dad!” She wraps her arms around my Quarter-bot’s torso. Then she takes a step back and holds up her iPhone. “I went to the dedication ceremony this morning and took lots of pictures. You won’t believe how many people came.”

  I’m touched. Brittany is more than a friend—she’s a lifeline. She reminds me what it’s like to be human. “Thanks for coming, Britt. So I heard a rumor you were starting college in the fall? Any truth to that?”

  “Absolutely. I got a scholarship.” She stands on tiptoe so she can whisper into my acoustic sensor. “But I need to tell you about something else first. Come with me to the office, okay?”

  I nod, and Brittany leads me to a small office at the far end of the lab, intended for the school’s computer-science teacher. The office door is closed, and Brittany pauses in front of it, biting her lip. The look on her face is making me nervous.

  “Hey, Brittany, are you okay?” I set my speakers to their lowest volume. “Have you, uh, heard anything lately? From our friends?”

  I mean the programmers, of course. I don’t know why, but I keep thinking they’ll get back in touch with us. But Brittany shakes her head.

  “No, not a word. Not even in my dreams.” She grips the doorknob. “Listen, I saw her at the dedication ceremony. We started chatting, and she said she wanted to see you.”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  �
��You know what? It’ll be easier if I just show you.”

  Brittany opens the door to the office. My mother stands inside.

  Mom gives a start when she sees my Quarter-bot. But she doesn’t wince or back up against the wall. She’s trying to be brave.

  I step into the office very slowly. I don’t want to scare her. Brittany watches us from the doorway for a moment to make sure we’re all right. Then she closes the door, leaving me alone with Mom.

  She looks pretty good, actually. Mom is dressed in a brown skirt and a white blouse, simple and neat. Her gray hair is tied in a ponytail, and she’s put on some lipstick and eyeliner.

  I’ve been worried about her. It’s hard to find out how she’s doing, because she won’t respond to my calls and emails. When Dad was alive, he used to call her every few days, and after his death I asked the Army officials to check up on her, but she stopped responding to those calls too. The last I heard, she was living with Mrs. Parker, a former neighbor who moved to Poughkeepsie.

  Mom puts on a smile. She’s nervous, and the strain wrinkles the corners of her lips. “It’s a beautiful lab, isn’t it? I went to the dedication this morning.”

  I nod my Quarter-bot’s head. I have no idea what to say. It’s so difficult to have a normal conversation with her, because there are so many things I can’t say or do. I can’t come too close to her. I can’t tell her that I miss her. I can’t get angry and ask her why she won’t visit me. These are the ordinary things that any son would do—that Adam Armstrong would do—but she refuses to believe that I’m her son. I can’t even call her Mom. She insists that I call her Mrs. Armstrong.

  So I resort to small talk. My circuits generate an appropriate response. “It’s good to see you again, Mrs. Armstrong. Did you enjoy the dedication ceremony?”

  She nods. “Yes, it was lovely. The new principal said such wonderful things about Tom.” She turns away from my robot and stares out the window. I get the sense that she can’t stand to look at me for too long. “I still feel terrible that I couldn’t make it to the funeral. I was going through a rough patch back then, and I just…I just couldn’t…”