Willful Machines

by Tim Floreen

  “Okay, Dad.”

  I nudged the last Creature back into place. Dad sat back in his chair and rapped his knuckles once on his desk—something he often did when he was winding up a puck conversation. I might be home free.

  Then Dad squinted at me. The crease between his eyebrows, the one he always had when he talked to me, deepened. “You look tired, Lee. Is everything okay? Anything else going on I should know about?”

  My eyes skittered away from him and landed on my cat-shaped pest catcher, Mouthtrap. “I just didn’t sleep very well last night. That’s all.” Mouthtrap seemed to sneer at me with his sharp silver teeth. Jeopardizing national security so I could stay in the closet—I was now officially a Walking Walk-In of the lowest order. Bex would be even more disgusted with me than usual if she knew.

  “It’s nearly eight,” Dad said. “Shouldn’t you be dressed by now?”

  “I thought I might sit out classes today.”

  “Because you didn’t sleep well?”

  I nodded. “I think I’m getting a cold, too.”

  “Come on, Lee. You’re not going to miss class because of a little cold, are you?”

  I should’ve known better than to try that excuse. He disapproved of me getting sick almost as much as he did of me having emotions.

  “Okay,” I mumbled. “I’ll get dressed.”

  His face unclenched a fraction. “Good boy. Look, I need to go. I’ll check in with you again soon, okay?”

  When the projection vanished from my wall, though, I didn’t start getting ready for the day. I wandered over to the window instead and leaned my forehead against the glass. I pressed my scraped-up palms against it too. The cold numbed the pain a bit. The Swarmbots lay on the ledge outside, their little legs in the air, like the victims of a tiny massacre. Right on cue, the voices started whispering in my skull. Leap. Leap. Leap. I wondered, not for the first time, if a forty-foot drop would be enough to kill or just to seriously maim.

  I flinched away. “Send a message to Bex,” I told my puck.

  When I didn’t say anything else right away, the puck dipped closer and chimed inquisitively.

  I swallowed through a tight throat. “Bex, I’m sorry for yesterday. I was a jerk. Can you cut out of breakfast and meet me in the library? I need to talk. It’s important.”

  Be there in ten, she messaged back.

  I forced myself to shower and get dressed. I knotted my almost-black necktie in a neat double Windsor. I slid on my silver raven tiepin. The clothes I’d worn last night lay in the corner where I’d tossed them, crumpled and damp, the jeans still crusted with sand from the make-believe beach. I scooped them up and dropped them into my hamper. In the colorless light filtering in from outside, my room appeared as cold and empty as ever.

  Before I went out, I drew the silver watch from my nightstand and strapped it to my wrist.

  I headed downstairs. On the way, my hand went to my blazer, feeling the absence in my inside pocket. I hadn’t gone even a few minutes without Gremlin near me in years. Not since Mom’s funeral probably.

  My mind jumped back to that day. The wooden pews in Dad’s church in DC, as uncomfortable as the seats in the Inverness auditorium. Dad on one side of me, lost in a miserable trance. Stroud on the other, his back straight, his eyes pointed forward, his craggy face grim and composed, as if this were a military drill instead of a funeral. Mom in a coffin in front of us, her red hair neat and shiny, like she’d never worn it in life. I spent most of the service rolling my lips between my teeth to keep from crying. This was only my second time meeting my grandfather, and I had this idea in my head that if he saw me shedding tears, he’d lock me up in a room just like the one where those terrorists had kept him and my other grandfather prisoner.

  Midway through the service, Gremlin crept out of my blazer pocket, perched on my shoulder, and gave my earlobe a tug.

  “This is no time for toys,” Stroud growled. “Don’t you have any respect for your mother?” He grabbed Gremlin by the tail. For a second my little Creature hung there, legs waving, huge eyes blinking. Then he disappeared into Stroud’s pocket.

  Later, after the burial, I crept up to Stroud, my whole body tingling with fear. Remember, I kept telling myself, whatever you do, don’t cry. “Sir?” He looked down at me with eyes like chipped ice. “May I please have Gremlin back?”

  Except about halfway through the sentence, my words fractured into sobs.

  “Stop that,” Stroud snapped. He turned to Dad, who was standing nearby. “John, this is what happens when you let your son develop unhealthy attachments to lifeless objects.”

  For once, Dad stood up to him. “Let him have his toy, sir. He just lost his mother.”

  “I understand that,” my grandfather replied. “That doesn’t excuse his behavior. My whole life, I’ve only loved two people, and now I’ve lost both of them. That’s what life is: losing things. The sooner he learns that, the better.” He turned on his heel and left the cemetery without another word.

  “You have to understand, son,” Dad told me, “this is hard for him, too, even if he doesn’t show it. He lost your grandma before you were born. Now he’s lost his daughter.”

  But I didn’t care about excuses. I just wanted Gremlin back. I spent two wretched nights without him. On the third, I heard a tapping at my window. My Creature huddled there, orange coat filthy, battery almost drained. From then on, I’d always given him strict orders to stay hidden before I went out in public. Especially after my arrival at Inverness Prep.

  I turned into the library, passed the shelves of musty books, and climbed the iron staircase to the mezzanine. Bex arrived a few minutes later. She dropped into the chair across from mine and folded her hands on the table. “You look terrible. What’s up?”

  “I think I have something to add to Nico’s con column.” My throat had tightened even more since I’d left my room. It felt like a stone lodged there. “You were right about him. You don’t even know how right you were.” I pushed up my glasses and buried my face in my raw palms.

  Bex jumped up and put her arms around me. For a while she crouched next to my chair, not saying a word, her hand moving in a slow circle over my back. I shot a glance at Trumbull, but he hadn’t turned. When I’d pulled myself together enough to talk again, I told her the whole story of last night and this morning. She listened, the absence of makeup making her eyes appear vividly green. She let out a soft gasp when I said Nico was a 2B, but otherwise she managed not to make a sound.

  “My God,” she said after I’d finished. “I mean, I had suspicions about Nico, but I never imagined something like that. And he wouldn’t tell you what Charlotte’s planning?”

  “Just that she’s not going to hurt me.”

  “I’m sorry, Lee, but I don’t know if I buy that. Those raven attacks make the whole thing too suspicious.”

  “He said someone else must’ve hijacked Nevermore.”

  Bex screwed her mouth to one side. “Sounds pretty far-fetched to me. Especially considering Charlotte’s track record.”

  “So what should I do?”

  “What do you think, Lee? Tell someone!” She pointed at Trumbull’s back. “Tell Trumbull. He’ll know what to do.”

  “I can’t. He’ll find out about the kissing.”

  “This is more important than your stupid closet, Lee.”

  “It’s not just about my closet.” I propped one elbow on the table and pressed my forehead into my hand. In the bookcase next to me, the title of one of the books, embossed in gold on worn red leather, glinted: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. “If I tell about Nico, what’ll happen to him? I care about him, Bex. I can’t help it.”

  She rubbed my back some more. “I know this must be really hard for you, Lee. It’s a matter of life and death, though. Yours, and maybe other people’s too. That attack is supposed to happen today. Charlotte has to be stopped. It’s not that I don’t have sympathy for 2Bs. I already told you what I think of that stupid Protect
ion of Humanhood Amendment. But there’s no excuse for terrorism.” She bent her head lower to catch my eyes. “Nico lied to you. He can’t be trusted. And, Lee, he’s not a human being.”

  “I know.” I touched the spine of the book with my finger, tracing the grooves of the letters.

  “I’m warning you, Lee. If you won’t do it, I will.”

  She started to stand, like she meant to tell Trumbull right then. He turned, seeing the movement. I grabbed her wrist and pulled her back down. “Please, Bex, don’t,” I hissed. “I’m begging you.”

  Her eyes met mine. They softened. “Okay. But there’s at least one thing you should do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Talk to Dr. Singh.”

  “Bex, you’re obsessed with that woman.”

  “No, I’m not. Think about it. She knew Charlotte better than anyone. If you tell her what’s going on, she might have some idea what Charlotte’s going to do.”

  For the first time in a while, I remembered those words Dr. Singh had spoken on the terrace. Just let him fall. “You might be right. I didn’t tell you before. Something strange happened on Monday.”

  When she’d heard the story, her eyes went huge. “Do you realize what this means, Lee? She must know about Nico. She must be working with Charlotte. And maybe she was having second thoughts. That has to be it!”

  “That’s a big leap, Bex. We don’t know anything for sure yet. Listen, I’ll talk to her. In my own way, though. This is a delicate situation. If she is working with Charlotte, she’s not just going to come out and admit it right away. And if she isn’t, I don’t want to give away too much of what I know either. Now you have to promise you won’t say a word to Trumbull or anyone else.”

  Doubt clouded her face, but she dipped her head in agreement. “It’s a deal. For now.”

  21

  I still didn’t feel like going to class, but I forced myself. Dad would hear about it for sure if I didn’t, and I couldn’t afford to raise any more red flags now. I sleepwalked through my first two classes, biology and robotics. Then, on my way to English, my body tensed, as if bracing for a car crash. When Nico walked into the classroom a few minutes after me, it did feel like a kind of collision: inside me there was a jolt, then an almost-physical pain that made me grip the sides of my wooden seat. As for him, his eyes stayed on the floor as he crossed the room, and he chose a seat far away from mine. Even though I tried not to, I glanced over at him a few times during class. I never once caught him looking back at me.

  I headed back to the robotics lab during lunch. Trumbull wouldn’t find that strange: sometimes I went there at lunchtime or after classes ended to work on my Creatures. Dr. Singh was almost always there too, tinkering with projects of her own. At those times she never bothered to sit near the window while she smoked. Even though we never talked much—maybe because we never talked much—I sensed she liked my company.

  When I arrived, Dr. Singh sat hunched over her desk, a soldering iron in her hand, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, its inch-long ash threatening to tumble onto the circuit board in front of her. She grunted a greeting without taking her eyes away from her work. All around, squares of cardboard held in place with duct tape covered the holes Trumbull’s gun had left in the ceiling and walls. While Trumbull stationed himself near the door, I walked over to her. “Dr. Singh? Are you busy?”

  She looked up, nodded at the soldering iron, raised her eyebrows.

  “I was wondering if I could talk to you about something.”

  She tapped her cigarette over the black plastic ashtray on her desk. “What’s on your mind?”

  “I’ve been thinking about what happened in here the other day. Trumbull said you didn’t find any evidence on the local network log of somebody hacking my robot.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But that doesn’t mean it definitely didn’t happen, right? I mean, a really good hacker could do it without leaving a trace.”

  “I suppose it’s possible.”

  “Because the way Nevermore behaved—it didn’t seem like a glitch, did it?”

  She shrugged. “It’s hard to say.”

  So far so good. I sat down across from her and lowered my voice. “Three days ago, Charlotte released a message threatening another attack. Do you think that had anything to do with what happened?”

  She tensed at my mention of Charlotte. Because she knew something? I couldn’t tell. “I have no idea.” She brought the cigarette back to her lips.

  “Did you hear about the message on the news?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “So what do you think she has planned?”

  “How should I know? I haven’t had any contact with Charlotte in seven years, Lee.”

  “I’m sorry. I know you don’t like talking about her.”

  She stubbed out the cigarette and picked up her soldering iron. “Is that it? Are we done?”

  I squeezed my scraped-up hands together. Just say something, I ordered my brain. Just keep the conversation going. “I do have one more question,” I said. “It doesn’t have anything to do with Charlotte, or even with Nevermore. It’s just something I’ve been thinking about.”

  “What is it?” she said, her eyes still on the circuit board.

  “When you invented the 2B software, your big breakthrough, the way I understand it, was that you figured out how to simulate free will.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “But it was still just a simulation. Like say you put two scoops of ice cream in front of a 2B, one chocolate and one vanilla. You tell the robot he can choose whichever one he wants. In that moment he has the experience of making a free choice. But you can still control the 2B by programming him to prefer vanilla. So in reality, he’s not free at all. Did I explain that right?”

  “More or less. Where does the question come in?”

  “Sorry, I’m getting to it. My question is this: How are human beings any different? My dad’s always talking about how 2Bs don’t have true free will, like humans do. But aren’t our choices determined by our programming too? Our genes and our environment and all that? Aren’t we basically just robots ourselves?”

  By the time I’d finished talking, I’d slid to the edge of my chair, my hands still in a knot on my lap. I’d asked the question on impulse, but the more I spoke, the more I realized how much I wanted to know—needed to know—how she’d answer.

  Dr. Singh sat back from her desk and regarded me with a faint smile. She pulled another cigarette from her pack, tapped it against the hard wood, and tucked it into the corner of her mouth. “You know something?” She touched the tip of her soldering iron to the cigarette and puffed to get it going. “That reminds me of an old joke. It goes like this: The first guy asks the second guy, ‘Do you believe in free will?’ The second guy answers, ‘I have no choice.’ ”

  I blinked.

  She shook her head and shifted her hunched body in her wheelchair. “Look, all I’m saying is, you’re absolutely right: with all due respect to your father, free will is an illusion. Nobody really has a choice about anything. It’s just our human pride and stubbornness that make us think any different.”

  I slumped back and stared at my knotted-up hands. That hollow feeling blew through my body again.

  “The real question isn’t whether 2Bs are alive,” she said. “It’s whether humans are anything more than machines. But I have a feeling you knew that already.”

  I nodded. I’d never put words to the thought before, but I’d probably known it ever since Mom died seven years ago. In a blink, she’d just stopped existing, exactly like Charlotte had. While everybody else in America had wanted to know if Charlotte had survived her upload, I’d sat there in the church between Dad and Stroud wondering: Had Mom managed to upload herself somewhere? Had she gone to a better place, where she’d watch over me and wait for me to join her, like the minister said? Inside, I’d known the answer to that question. Mom had said it herself. All the hard evidence
argues against it. Over the years, while Dad had gone on to build his Human Values Movement and give his speeches about human free will, I’d wished I could believe, like he claimed to, that some nonmechanical part of us existed outside the reach of genetics and environment, body and brain, cause and effect, because that would be the part of us that kept on existing after we died. But I couldn’t. I was like Mom: a scientist. Maybe that was why I’d never let myself think about that subject too much.

  “Here’s the thing, though,” Dr. Singh continued, emphasizing her words with small jabs of her cigarette. “Free will is an illusion, but it’s a necessary illusion. If my machines hadn’t felt like they could choose their own destinies, they would’ve been unable to function.”

  Like me, I thought. The people in my life always said I never did anything. Dad complained because I didn’t participate enough at school. Bex complained because I wouldn’t come out of the closet or ask boys on dates. Even Nico had called me out on it. Maybe this was the reason. Because deep down, I knew what we really were. “So your machines felt free and autonomous,” I said, “but actually you had them under your control the whole time.” That image came to me again: Nico grinning at me over a lit sparkler, his face flickering like an old-fashioned movie. “All of them, just puppets on invisible strings.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  Her raspy voice lost some of its strength when she said that. I glanced up at her and remembered: Charlotte. Of course.

  “The 2Bs were complicated,” she said. “Their brains had just as much processing power as ours do. We still haven’t built a computer powerful enough to predict exactly how one of them—or one of us, for that matter—would react to every possible combination of circumstances. Take your chocolate and vanilla example. Even if we programmed our 2B to prefer vanilla, that still wouldn’t be a one hundred percent guarantee. What if he decided he wanted to vary his diet, or broaden his tastes, or make a point? He might choose chocolate for any number of reasons, despite his preference.”