Half Life (Russell's Attic Book 2)

by SL Huang

  “Him? Oh, God,” said Checker.

  “Who?” I said.

  “Seriously? McCabe? How have you missed this guy?” Checker split his attention between flailing at me and continuing to type. “He’s the poster boy for How to Wreck Your Country By Being Rich and a Douchebag. He puts his entire family fortune behind legislation that ruins people’s lives—his political action group was the one that hamstrung women’s rights in Texas, and shut down federal funding to certain types of genetics research—”

  “They went crazy here in Cali back when we was fighting for marriage rights,” put in Arthur. “Poured so much money into the state it got ridiculous. We couldn’t combat that kind of resources.”

  “Yeah, McCabe’s been spreading his filth for decades,” said Checker. “It felt like he calmed down a little the past few years—I hoped he’d been swallowed by irrelevancy, or better yet eaten by a grue. But he’s popped up again over this past year, and he’s been walking the line on inciting people to violence this time.”

  “Walking the line? Ha,” scoffed Arthur. “He should’ve been arrested for the Yapardi shooting, no question.”

  My eyes were glazing over from the political talk. “I don’t care. I’m concerned about us and Liliana. Can we figure out what the hell is going on, please? How are the people behind Sloan doing this? If the news is talking like he’s some business powerhouse, how long has he even existed?”

  “A day,” said Checker. He’d stopped typing, and his voice sounded funny.

  “What?” I hurried to look over his shoulder.

  “It looks like more time—a lot more. There are records; he’s all over the ’net—people are claiming to have known him, although who knows, he’s been fabricated to be famous so maybe they’re just trying to sound important—but so far all the records I’ve found are backdated. From yesterday. Whoever did it knew what the heck they were doing, I can tell you that. They did an amazing job making it look like Sloan is some sort of top dog oil magnate. But he isn’t.” He blinked up at me. “It makes more sense this way, actually—if he’s got the same AI capabilities as Liliana, he wouldn’t be able to be a business tycoon for real. The programming isn’t that good.”

  “He didn’t take questions,” I realized. “His speech—there must be NLP limitations. They sent him up there with a pre-programmed speech, but he wouldn’t be able to respond naturally enough to the reporters’ questions—they’d start figuring out something was off.”

  “But then why use one of ’em in the first place?” Arthur asked again. “’Specially if it’s such a risk of exposure?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “It’s not just Sloan,” said Checker, pounding madly on his keyboard again. “I’m finding—this Liliana, the one he destroyed, she had a backdated history, too. She was enrolled in daycare, under the name Alice Whittaker. She had—she had parents, at least they say she did, and there are all sorts of other records; they’re making it look like she existed after the fact—”

  “Won’t hold up,” said Arthur. “It can’t. People got to realize eventually that no one’s ever seen her before.”

  “Well, let’s see.” Checker hit a link and a video of a news interview popped up.

  The woman with the mic in her face was a frazzled-looking soccer mom with gray poking in at her roots and some dumpiness collecting around her middle. She spoke haltingly, with wide eyes, about how her children had played with this girl, how they’d had her over to their house—she was emotional and believable and the type of woman any mother could relate to—

  —and not real.

  I found my voice. “She’s one, too.”

  “Why am I not surprised,” said Checker. “Holy crap, is someone really trying to take over the world with robots? There’s just no way that would work. The AI isn’t nearly complex enough—”

  “For what?” Arthur asked.

  “For—for anything!” Checker cried. “There’s nothing these sorts of androids can do that either a human or a different sort of computer couldn’t do a thousand times better! If the adults are anything like Liliana, they won’t even be able to pass for very long before someone figures it out. I have no idea what anybody could be trying to achieve here!”

  I tried to process. This might not be as bad as it had seemed at first. Whatever was happening, it was bigger than Arkacite’s prototype research or anyone’s desire for custody of Liliana, and more importantly, it didn’t have anything to do with us. “Whatever’s going on, we don’t get involved,” I declared. “This is Arkacite’s debacle. We keep our heads down, maybe even use all this as cover so we can spring Warren from wherever they’ve got him, though I’m guessing that’ll just mean helping him jump bail. We keep Liliana out of sight till then, and then we send the two of them out of the country, and we’re done.” It was a more expensive resolution than I’d hoped for, but it would finish this.

  Arthur turned to Checker. “You really ain’t think nothing bad could be going down with all these AIs?”

  Checker waved his hands in an elaborate shrug. “Define ‘bad.’ Turning public opinion against artificial intelligence research is pretty far up on my list of execrable deeds, but if you’re asking whether riding it out will mean we fail to prevent a robot revolution—I can promise you that is not going to happen. I want to keep looking into this, because seriously, how can I not, but if you all want to make sure the girl’s safe first—”

  Once Liliana’s situation was squared away, I’d have more important problems anyway, like a bloodthirsty Mafiosa. “It’s settled, then. We protect Liliana, and that’s it.”

  The computer trilled, making us all jump.

  Checker switched windows. “Hey, Pilar. Denise Rayal is calling you.”

  Pilar jumped up and came over to join us. Arthur took her place with Liliana and started helping her clean up, ferrying the bowls back into the kitchen.

  “How did you—?” Pilar asked Checker.

  “I forwarded your number to VOIP along with Noah Warren’s and mine as soon as we got here, as I figured it would be bad if someone else answered our phones. As being evidenced right now—”

  “Answer it!” cried Pilar.

  Checker hit a key and gestured at her.

  “Oh! Uh, hello?” she said.

  “Pilar? It’s Denise Rayal, from Arkacite.” Rayal’s words tumbled over each other out of the computer speakers, scared and lost. “I used to work with you—”

  “Of course! Are you okay?”

  “Yes—no—I don’t know—I’m sorry; I didn’t know what to do. They told me you were part of all this; they were asking me where you were—I didn’t know who else to call—”

  “Denise, calm down. It’s totally fine. What’s going on?”

  “You know what’s been happening? That someone stole—”

  “Don’t worry,” said Pilar. “The girl on the news wasn’t her.”

  “What? Oh, yes, I know—it would be better if it had been; then this would be contained,” said Rayal, tense and miserable. “Arkacite knew the ’bot on the news wasn’t our prototype, I don’t know how, but that means someone else got the tech, and we have no idea what they’re using it for. And Arkacite thinks it was me—”

  “They think what was you?” asked Checker.

  “What?” said Denise, clearly thrown by a voice that wasn’t Pilar’s. “Who’s that?”

  “Friends,” Pilar said hastily. “They’ve been helping your husband. Go ahead, Denise.”

  “Oh, uh—okay.” She hesitated, then plunged on. “They think I’m the one who leaked everything. They think I’m working for whoever—for whoever did this—”

  I crossed my arms. “Are you?”

  “No! I’m not! I’m not even allowed to do any of that research. But I heard, someone from my team called, and the FBI came at them, at Arkacite. And Vikash told me the company…the company told the FBI it was me. That I must have leaked all the new technology. And I don’t know what to do.�
�� Her voice broke. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m calling; I know you probably can’t help me, but I thought, you might know more of what’s going on—”

  Checker was typing on his computer at the same time. “You’re right. There’s an arrest warrant out for you. Which looks totally bogus to me; even if you did leak corporate secrets I don’t see how they can stretch this into such broad felony charges. This is…holy crap.”

  “Do you think I should—should I turn myself in?” Rayal ventured. “Should I—I don’t want to make everything worse, and they’re going to find me eventually—”

  “No!” said Checker, speed-reading paperwork on his laptop screen with intensity. “Under no circumstances should you turn yourself in. They’re throwing you under the bus. What I’m seeing here, talk about trumped up—you saw how this thing is blowing up on the news; I’m guessing someone thought you’d make a convenient scapegoat. The US government has no problem bringing down the hammer on people who work with technology they don’t understand, especially when the public gets scared, and they are absolutely, definitely fixing to bury you for this. Do not let them!”

  While Rayal stuttered in response, Pilar leaned over Checker’s shoulder and clicked on the button to mute the call before turning to me. “We have to help her.”

  “‘We?’” I asked dryly. I very much wanted to stay out of this robot-revolution-that-wasn’t. I didn’t see any benefit to adding a fugitive Denise Rayal to my list of problems.

  “She hasn’t done anything wrong!” cried Pilar.

  “Can she pay?” I asked.

  “Cas Russell, don’t you dare,” Checker said. “She’s in trouble for doing science. There’s no way we’re not going to help.”

  My mouth dropped open, and any response tangled in my throat in shock. People didn’t speak for me that way. Ever.

  Checker wasn’t paying attention to me, and had already unmuted our side of the conversation. “Where are you?”

  “I ran…” Rayal said vaguely. “I know it was stupid, but I didn’t know what—I drove and then I got on a bus and then I got off the bus and—I don’t even know if I know where I am now. It’s a, a strip mall. My phone would know, I guess—”

  “Don’t bother,” said Checker. “Read off some street signs to me.”

  Pilar tugged at my sleeve. I reacted automatically, yanking away and twisting around ready to strike—I stopped myself. “Don’t touch me,” I said quietly. “What do you want?”

  She had stumbled back a step, her hands involuntarily coming up in front of her face. “I—uh—please. Please. Denise is a really good person. She doesn’t deserve this.”

  Sure. Lots of people didn’t deserve the crap things that happened to them. Nobody seemed to be able to comprehend the fact that Denise Rayal’s shitfest of a legal quagmire wasn’t my problem. Checker could help if he wanted, but I had enough to deal with.

  Of course, if I said no I’d have to explain it to Arthur.

  Fuck.

  Fucking moral people.

  “Fine,” I said. Pilar flinched back from my tone even though I was agreeing to help. I ignored her and raised my voice slightly. “Arthur?”

  He came out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a dish towel. “What do you need?”

  “Can you go pick up Denise Rayal?”

  “Course,” he said.

  “Don’t let anyone follow you,” I said.

  “Course I won’t.”

  I went back over to the computer and interrupted Checker’s current tirade. “Rayal, a man named Arthur Tresting is coming to pick you up. African-American, six feet tall, leather jacket. Turn off your phone and take the battery out. Then find somewhere nearby where you can wait for him without looking suspicious.”

  “Um…okay,” she said. “There’s a library branch on the corner—”

  “Mommy?”

  We all looked around. Liliana had followed Arthur out of the kitchen. She reached up and took Pilar’s hand, gripping it in both of hers as she fastened her eyes on the computer. “Mommy? Are you there?”

  “Get her out of here,” I said to Pilar.

  Her eyes wide, Pilar herded Liliana back toward Miri’s bedroom, murmuring soothing platitudes as they went.

  “Rayal. You still there?” I said.

  “Yes,” she said after a beat. “Was that…?”

  “Liliana’s here,” I said.

  Silence from the computer.

  Then Rayal said, “You’re the person who came to my house. The one who was working for Noah.”

  “We ain’t the people responsible for what’s on the news,” put in Arthur, stepping over and talking in his trademark soothing voice. “But we can figure it out. We got some real smart people here. Let us help you, okay?”

  “Okay.” The word was very small.

  “Ditch your phone and wait in the library,” I said. “Go.” I leaned over Checker’s shoulder, clicked on the button to end the call, and waved at Arthur, forcing myself not to yell at him for having just volunteered us to solve the exact problem I’d been trying like hell to keep us out of. Of course, I had the sneaking suspicion he knew exactly what I was thinking anyway, but Arthur had a fantastic poker face. He slipped out and shut the door.

  “That’s all I can do,” I said to the suddenly-much-emptier room. “If Rayal cuts and runs, that’s her call.”

  “I hope she doesn’t,” said Checker, and his voice sounded funny. “For all our sakes.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “We’re in trouble.” He was multitasking in another window, skimming through hacked emails. “Arkacite’s throwing us under the bus, too, along with Denise Rayal. Pilar and Noah Warren are mentioned by name. Fortunately, Grant never knew your or my name, but I’m guessing that won’t stop the Feds for long, at least when it comes to me—I’m sure I’m already on a list somewhere. This could be really bad, especially once they figure out there are other AIs out there Sloan hasn’t taken apart. Whatever this conspiracy is, people are going to be blaming you and me for it, too. And they’re talking about Liliana like she’s some sort of patient zero. We’re not going to get away from this.”

  Shit. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment. “What does this have to do with Rayal?”

  “Well, she might be able to help us figure out what the hell is happening. She’s been working on these AIs forever; she knows their programming. I’m playing catch-up.”

  My head was starting to pound. “Okay. What’s going on with Warren? What are they charging him with?” Crap, I realized, he knows where we are. Would his loyalty to his daughter keep him from revealing it? He’d been willing to get shot for her, but still…

  We had to switch to another location anyway. Checker might have stellar security on this place, but too many people knew about it.

  “He’s…” Checker searched his screen for a minute. “Uh…Cas, I—it says here Noah Warren’s in the hospital. It’s bad. I don’t—”

  “What?”

  He scrolled, skimming, his eyes flicking back and forth frantically across the screen. “I—I’m not a doctor, but it looks like it’s serious—I don’t know if it was the Tasers, or if he hit his head or something, but this seems to be saying he’s in critical condition—I think—I assume they’ll arrest him after he comes out of it. If he—uh—if he does. They don’t know if he’s going to wake up.”

  I closed my eyes. He’d been trying to help us escape. He hadn’t realized his pointless heroism had been unnecessary.

  Sixty-six and nine-elevenths days. Not that Warren’s death would be my fault—it wouldn’t be, I told myself. The math had said there was nothing I could do.

  Nothing.

  CHAPTER 24

  WHEN ARTHUR arrived back at the apartment, with Denise Rayal amazingly enough in tow, Checker and I were watching Morrison Sloan reveal another android live. This one was a young man in a suit and tie who had waved jovially at the audience, cheerful and nonthreatening, until the so-called
oil tycoon electrocuted him and pulled apart his skull.

  “Um, hello again,” Rayal said to me, her voice subdued. “Is Pilar—is she here?”

  “She’s watching Liliana in the bedroom,” I said. Pilar had remained on babysitting duty, keeping Liliana out of our hair. Miri, meanwhile, had cheerfully bid us good-bye and left. Checker had refused to let me threaten her, making me feel less secure about keeping our base here than ever. After dark, I’d work on moving us to a new location—getting our eclectic and very identifiable group under wraps somewhere else was going to be an endeavor.

  Rayal’s face closed. “Oh. Oh. Okay.” She looked over to see what we were watching on the television. “Oh my God, another one?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Did Arthur fill you in?”

  “Yes, and I—this is—I can’t believe it. The programming we—it’s not advanced enough for this,” she said haplessly. “That was part of the point in building our prototype as a child in the first place. That’s where we are with the technology. We can build an AI that acts like a five-year-old; we can’t build one that acts like an adult. At least, we couldn’t…” She stared at the television. The screen had changed to news commentators making wild conjectures.

  “We think they’ve been sending them out with pre-programmed speeches,” I said. “I don’t know how they think they’ll keep up the charade, or what their master plan is, but so far the ones we’ve ID’d as artificial haven’t done any very complicated adult interaction, so they might not be any more advanced than Liliana.”

  “Ain’t kids even more sophisticated than adults, though?” objected Arthur. “The way children learn is damn near a miracle.”

  “Yes, but you’re misunderstanding what we—that’s not what we were trying to do.” Rayal started to become more animated, her hands coming up to gesture along with her words. “Passing a Turing test momentarily is different from showing learning over time. You’re right: kids’ brains are just as complicated on the inside as adults’ brains—maybe more so, I don’t know; that’s not my area—but it’s easier to mimic how they present in the moment. It’s the whole idea of a Turing test—it’s not about true artificial intelligence or learning so much as it’s about imitation—mimicry—and getting the best imitation we can.”