Half Life (Russell's Attic Book 2)

by SL Huang

  Checker snorted with laughter. A vein started pulsing in Lau’s forehead.

  “I’m normally not opposed,” I said. “But hold off for now.”

  Lau and Grant glowered at us. The lawyer had a bizarre expression on her face, as if this sort of interaction was so far outside her realm of experience she didn’t even know how to react.

  We made it to the conference room. I commandeered the side of the table facing the frosted glass door for my team, and the Arkacite folk seated themselves across from us. The lawyer opened her briefcase and took out some papers and a pen, as if she thought this was going to be a normal business meeting.

  “Let’s cut the bullshit,” said Grant, making her lawyer’s eyes bug out. “We need the prototype back.”

  Warren stiffened in his chair, his hands clenching on the edge of the table. The reaction could not have been more obvious if he had shouted. The tension in the room ratcheted up about a thousand notches.

  “Okay!” I said, holding up a hand to give Warren pause. “Ground rules. For the purposes of this discussion, she’s a girl and her name is Liliana—all right, everyone?”

  Grant’s mouth pinched.

  Checker jumped in before anyone had a chance to boil over. “You have all of Denise Rayal’s notes and designs, right? And most of her team is still employed here. I’ve read the specs; you can build another, uh, another prototype. Why not let Mr. Warren keep his daughter? Why can’t he buy her off you or something?”

  “The, uh, Liliana is privileged information,” said Grant acerbically. “Having it floating around out there while we develop for commercialization is unacceptable.”

  I could feel Warren tensing even more beside me, the hurt and anger rolling off him in waves. “‘She,’” I said. “Let’s call her a ‘she,’ okay?”

  “Well, we don’t need a reason to want—her—back,” said Grant. “If we don’t want to give away our own technology, that’s our decision, and stealing from us in this farcical attempt to leverage a deal is despicable.”

  “So is taking a guy’s daughter,” I said.

  Grant opened her mouth, then glanced at Warren and pressed her lips together.

  “You’re also discounting the value of the data we’ve been acquiring from her extended trial,” put in Lau. “We have no way of predicting what types of responses we’ll get from an AI with machine learning algorithms of this complexity. After Liliana was activated, Denise Rayal led a team of seven engineers who built up an extended behavior study that this department has poured resources into for over a year. If we stop those observations now, we lose that year. Any other prototype would start at the beginning.”

  “Come on,” I said. “What does Arkacite even want with this technology anyway? Why would anyone buy one?”

  “She belongs to us regardless of whether you believe we would want her,” said Grant. “As to applications, they could be considerable. We have many avenues to explore.”

  “Like what?” I demanded. “It is relevant here, because this is a negotiation and she has a value to you. I’m trying to figure out why that value’s not zero.”

  Lau and Grant exchanged a glance. Her expression was still pinched, but after a moment she waved him on.

  “Children who act realistically could help parents prepare for real childrearing,” Lau recited, turning back to us. “Some people might be inclined to buy human-like company as a companion, the way they might a pet—something to love, if they need or want that. Others might consider one of our products for certain specific tasks, if we could program them to be proficient—to be nannies or tutors for their children, tasks a computer might be capable of but be otherwise considered too harsh, or administrative positions that do not require human intellect but benefit from a human face. And if we could upgrade the Turing mimicry to approximate something close to an adult woman…well, there are less savory applications that could be very lucrative. The prototype is very valuable to us.”

  “Wait, you finally created a machine that passes the Turing test and you’re going to reduce it to producing sex dolls?” cried Checker.

  A slight flush rose up Grant’s neck. “Of course we are. Palatable or not, it’s an obvious market.”

  “I dunno,” said Pilar. “If I could buy a hot guy who would know when to shut up and how to please a woman and I could keep him in a closet between times, I’d be all over that.” Everyone stared at her. She shrugged and pulled a face. “I’m just saying. It’s not a totally bad idea.”

  Checker choked. “I—okay,” he said. “Point taken, and, yes, maybe the market for it is obvious, and I’ve always been as pro-kink as it’s possible to be, but—well, I’ve been literally forced to do a lot of self-reflection this past week, and I’m just saying. Maybe training all your customers to treat women as objects who only say what they’re programmed to is something you should at least think about?”

  “Commercial applications are years away from development,” said Grant, a sharp edge in her voice. “We will consider all we feel we should. This is not the time for that discussion. Nor is it, frankly, any of your business.”

  “Well, it sort of is,” said Checker. “If we’re concerned about the integrity of what you’re going to do with the technology—”

  “I’m not concerned,” I cut in. Checker shot me an annoyed look, but I ignored him; the last thing I needed was for him to get into a knock-down drag-out with Grant and Lau about ethics. I’d made a solid career out of flexible morals. “I couldn’t care less what you do with your tech. That’s your call. I’m concerned about one little girl and her relationship with her dad.” Warren let out a quiet breath beside me. “Grant, you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t willing to shift a few inches. You said we’d cut the bullshit. What are you willing to give?”

  Grant folded her hands on the table. “We would be willing to allow Mr. Warren to…uh, visit.”

  “No.” Warren’s voice was so quiet I wasn’t sure Grant heard it, but I put a hand on his arm regardless, warning him back again.

  “That’s not going to cut it,” I said. “How about this. Why can’t Warren live with her and you observe her at the same time?”

  “We need to keep her in a secure, controlled environment, not off-site under someone else’s purview. Remember, we will go to the police if—”

  “That’s not what I meant,” I cut in. “What if Warren lives in your controlled environment with her?”

  Grant recoiled. “He’s not going to be willing to give up his life—”

  “Let’s ask him,” I said. “Warren, would you be willing to live in a lab with Liliana?”

  “If she’s comfortable, well-treated—if I can care for her—”

  “There you go,” I said to Grant. “Give ’em a nice locked apartment in a lab somewhere, like whatever you had set up before with Rayal. Your researchers can be the ones who visit.”

  Grant’s forehead knitted. Lau cocked his head to the side thoughtfully. “It could help our research if this…relationship…were to continue,” he said. “She’s already been trained to respond to him as a father.”

  “Even better,” I said. “You can put him on payroll.”

  Grant squinted at Warren. “You’d give up your life for this project?”

  “She’s not a project,” said Warren quietly.

  “That means ‘yes,’” I translated. “Does that work for you?”

  Grant’s jaw tightened like she had bitten down on something spoiled.

  “May we have a moment?” said the lawyer.

  Clarise the Lawyer shepherded Grant over to the side of the room and spoke to her softly. Lau stayed in his seat. He didn’t seem very comfortable; his gaze floundered around like he didn’t know where to look, and he’d started twitching. After a few minutes I realized why: Pilar was staring at him blandly from across the table.

  “What do you want?” he hissed at her.

  “Don’t mind me,” said Pilar. “I’m just imagining your head impaled on an
iron spike while rats chew chunks out of your eyeballs.”

  Checker choked.

  “Quit it,” I said.

  Pilar dropped her stare, though she managed to do it very deliberately, as though it was her idea.

  Grant and the lawyer came back. “We can work something out,” said Grant, biting off every word. “But the fact remains that you broke in, stole our technology, and are leveraging it against us. That’s unacceptable. We need more.”

  “What did you have in mind?” I asked.

  “Which of you broke into our facility?”

  “Why do you want to know?” I countered.

  “You owe us,” said Grant.

  “You want us to help you beef up your security?” said Checker. “Or are you talking about some sort of, uh, damage remunerations?”

  One of Grant’s fingers twitched against the table. “Something along those lines,” she said.

  Well, that was a nonsensically vague answer. I narrowed my eyes at Grant. I supposed it was possible she wanted security tips, but I had the distinct feeling she was aiming for something a lot less legal.

  Oh, the irony.

  Whatever. If it got me out of this mess, I’d take the job. “Okay,” I said. “You’ve got an IOU.”

  The lawyer was scribbling. “We can specify the details—”

  “No, that’s all right,” said Grant. “Your word is good, isn’t it?” she asked me, an ominous shadow behind the words.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  The lawyer stopped writing, her eyes widening. “Ms. Grant, as your legal counsel, I strongly advise—”

  “Draw up the contract for the, the daughter. Mr. Warren and I will sign it,” said Grant.

  The lawyer looked like she wanted to argue, but instead she hesitated just long enough to convey stern disapproval. “All right.”

  Holy crap. We’d figured this out. Warren had his daughter back, Arkacite wasn’t after him, and I’d steal something for Arkacite and everything would be hunky-dory. Well, except for the fact that I wasn’t getting paid. That part sucked.

  My cell phone rang.

  “’Scuse me,” I said. The number was Arthur’s; I got up and moved to the corner of the room, away from the conference table. “Yeah?”

  “Are you still at Arkacite?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “What’s up?”

  “You seen the news?”

  “No, because we’re still here. Spit it out.”

  “It’s—I think it’s your robot girl.”

  Foreboding shot through me. “What?”

  “Well—she’s on the news. Russell, I don’t know how it happened, but she—they—they killed her.”

  CHAPTER 22

  THE WORLD felt like it tunneled to only me and the cell phone. “What? How? Who?”

  “I ain’t sure—it’s a guy, he’s on every news channel—I don’t know yet how he got her, or why; I dialed you right away—”

  “I’ll call you back.” I crossed to Checker, carefully avoiding looking in Warren’s direction. “I need Miri’s number, now,” I whispered.

  “Is something wrong?” Grant asked, the edge back in her voice.

  “No,” I snapped.

  Checker’s expression went still and serious. He pulled out his mobile, scrolled, and handed it to me; I threw out an excuse I didn’t hear to the Arkacite team and retreated out into the hallway before I hit the screen to dial Checker’s phone.

  Miri picked up on the third ring. “Hello?” She sounded utterly relaxed.

  “It’s Cas Russell,” I said urgently. “What—”

  “Oh, Checker’s ex, right? Hey, good to talk to you again.”

  “Uh—no, I’m not—Liliana, tell me what happened to Liliana!”

  “What do you mean?” said Miri, sounding taken aback. “She’s playing with my cats right now. Adorable kid.”

  “Wait, she’s there?”

  “Of course.” She strung the two words out with a dollop of cheerful sarcasm. “Hey, I know you strangle people randomly, so this might seem weird to you, but when you babysit you aren’t supposed to leave little kids alone. It’s a thing. That’s why they call you a babysitter.”

  I let out a long breath and leaned back against the wall. Liliana was okay, then. “Uh, keep an eye on her, all right?”

  “I just told you,” said Miri. “That’s what babysitters do.”

  “Right. Thanks.”

  I hung up. What the hell was going on?

  Checker’s phone was a specially-secured smartphone instead of one of the disposables I usually carried. After a little fussing, I found its web browser and surfed to a news site.

  Arthur was right. Smacking me in the face was a picture of a man on a podium, and cowering away from him was Liliana—and she was cowering away from him because he was attacking her with something akin to a cattle prod, blue electricity arcing against her skull as her expression contorted in pain and fear. An inset photo showed her small body collapsed on a chair, her limbs sprawling off the sides and her head torn open to spill broken and twisted metal shards down her front.

  I stared at the pictures for a long moment, the horror not registering.

  Artificial intelligence imposters revealed, read the headline below the photos, with the subheading, Hunt is on for humanlike machines among us.

  I kept staring at the pictures, even though I didn’t need to—I had already automatically done the math, the eigenvectors and isometric invariants of facial recognition. I never mix two people up. The girl in the picture had the same bone structure as Liliana, the same features, the same height. She’d been dressed in a girl’s tank top and jeans instead of the blue party dress, but she was undoubtedly the same girl.

  Unless in this case she wasn’t. I dialed Miri back.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s Cas Russell again,” I said.

  “Checker told me something of what’s going on, you know,” she assured me. “We’re locked up tight here. You don’t have to worry.”

  I ignored her. “Put Liliana on.”

  “Sure.” I heard a couple shuffling sounds, and then Miri’s voice said faintly, “Hey, sweetie. Do you remember Cas? She wants to talk to you for a tick. Now, if she’s mean, let me know and I’ll take the phone away.”

  I glowered impotently at the speaker, though I supposed Miri had reason to take the mickey.

  “Hello?” said a tremulous girl’s voice.

  The same wrongness rippled through it, the too-even cadence produced by a machine. It was Liliana.

  Of course, so was the girl in the news picture.

  “Hi there,” I said. “I just wanted to say hello. Is everything okay?”

  “Everything’s okay,” said Liliana. “Hello.”

  “You can put Miri back on,” I said.

  “I swear I am a mildly responsible adult,” said Miri into the phone.

  I didn’t bother trying to explain. “Don’t let her out of your sight. Not for a minute.”

  “Darn, and I was going to send her out for some smokes and whiskey.”

  I hung up on her.

  Liliana had a copy out there. One not controlled by us or Arkacite. Or at least, she’d had one, until now. I started to look back at the news article to find out what the hell was going on—

  —and an almighty roar sounded from back inside the conference room.

  Shit! I tore the door open just in time to see Warren overturn the conference table with a mighty heave, all control lost—he’d seen the news already—

  Goddamn people and their obsession with checking their goddamn smartphones every minute!

  Checker and Pilar were trying to drag Warren back and having almost no effect at all, Grant and Lau were screaming at Warren in a rage—something about his fault and years of research down the drain—as Lau stabbed a finger in his face, and the lawyer had scrambled to a corner and was trying to look invisible.

  “Hey! Stop it! Stop it!” I yelled.

  They kept shouting. I
did a quick acoustic equation in my head and stuck two fingers in my mouth.

  The piercing whistle overwhelmed the room, echoing and redoubling off the walls, blazing through our skulls, taking every thought and smashing it to oblivion. Pilar and Checker snapped their hands to their ears, letting go of Warren; he half-fell forward, catching himself on the ground with his hands and barely keeping himself from faceplanting on the overturned table. He curled over on his knees, arms wrapped over his head to shut out the noise. Grant, Lau, and the lawyer all clamped their palms against their ears as well. The lawyer started screaming.

  I ran out of breath and took my fingers out of my mouth. My ears were ringing.

  “Holy crap, Cas,” croaked Checker.

  I was pretty impressed with the mathematics myself. At least it had quieted them all—with the exception of the lawyer, who was hyperventilating into her corner. I ignored her. “The girl in the news is not Liliana,” I announced to the room at large. “I just talked to her, and she’s fine. We will get to the bottom of this, but everyone needs to calm down. Right now.”

  “That’s not possible,” said Grant, one hand still against the side of her head and her voice loud and over-enunciated. “Whether or not that was our prototype, it was definitely our technology. Your threat to go public means nothing anymore—this deal is off. Our security will detain you until we figure out how this theft of our property happened.” She brandished her phone at Warren. “I called when this menace started shouting. That should be our security team now.” The door burst open as six men and women with Tasers rushed into the room. They aimed at all of us with wild eyes and hands that were far too twitchy—then again, they had probably heard my lovely acoustic demonstration a minute ago.

  “Is this legal?” squeaked Pilar.

  “Go ahead. Call the police,” barked Grant. “You stole our property, blackmailed us into a deal when we tried to get it back, and then were responsible for a leak of corporate secrets that’s now having repercussions in national news. I’m sure the authorities would love to speak with you.” Her head whipped to me, and her eyes burned. “You gave me some grand statements about being above the law. I wonder how many warrants are out for your arrest?”