Corrupted

by Phoenix Ward

  Terrible shrieks came from Lobo’s people who held the ground floor, then were cut short in a grotesque gurgle. The thudding of heavy steps split apart and rushed into the different rooms downstairs. Junkies screamed while gunshots, metal-on-flesh impacts, and the slicing of blades bled up through the floor for the panicked detective to hear. She swung her weapon around in terrified anticipation while she listened to the fight below. She was almost too distracted by the sounds underneath her to hear the footsteps coming from above.

  The thuds grew louder and louder until the window Beth and Lobo were standing by exploded into a thousand fragments. The bodyshell with the green lights and the sword on its back dove through the glass, spinning like a top that flew off the table. The machine landed perfectly upright on its legs and drew the blade all in one fluid motion. The robotic head with the green optical lights tilted upward, making “eye” contact with the detective.

  “Shit!” Lobo exclaimed as he leaped back in surprise. He shielded himself from any glass shards while the mechanical assassin rose to its feet, then lifted his gun and fired.

  He got off at least six shots, a few even sparking off the reinforced armor plating that covered the bodyshell’s frame. The assassin recoiled a little with each hit, but didn’t drop. Lobo’s eyes were wide with fear as he readjusted his aim. He fired another barrage towards the machine’s head, but the bodyshell moved too fast to hit. Like a martial artist in a sparring match, the mechanical assassin weaved away from the bullets, then back into the shooter, leading with the blade.

  Lobo wheezed as the sword went through his chest. Beth could see the blue glow of the cyberblade protruding from the drug dealer’s back.

  “Lobo, no!” Simon screamed in Beth’s head. It was so loud that it made her wince, and she half expected it to draw the assassin’s attention, but remembered only she could hear the I.I.

  Simon’s friend fell to his knees, clutching at the wound in his chest. Blood seeped out of him like air from a balloon. Lobo looked up at the bodyshell that had mortally wounded him. It stared down at him with its bright optical lights.

  Lobo turned and looked at Beth, his mouth agape as he tried to get another breath. It almost looked like he smirked for a second before falling to the floor. A bit of dust was kicked up, then he was still.

  “Outclassed,” the bodyshell assassin said. It was Maru, the ninja. “Outmatched.”

  By this point, even the most drugged out junkie in the room realized the danger he or she was in and tried to flee out the door. They were stopped right out in the hallway by the other members of Rubik who had finally made their way up the stairs. It was clear the addicts didn’t want to fight. They screamed for mercy and begged Rubik to just let them go, but the assassins ignored them. In the matter of a few seconds, they were all killed. Shot by Jerri, pummeled by Hilde, and eviscerated by Lynch. Once all the organic bodies were on the floor, bleeding over the splintered wood beams, the assassins converged on Beth.

  She looked around at them all with wide eyes. Every bit of her trembled like a small dog out in the snow. She spun in place, looking at the Rubik shells and their nearly perfect rainbow of optical lights. Maru’s cyberblades glowed in the dim room. Jerri was reloading her submachine gun while Wolfgang and Nick joined them. Lynch seemed to be almost buzzing with excitement as he fiddled with his blood-covered knives.

  “Look at the little thing,” Jerri said, eying the detective with her pink eyes. “Like a little lamb.”

  “So scared,” Lynch said, almost sounding like he was salivating.

  What do we do? Beth asked in her head.

  “I don’t know,” Simon replied. His voice was weak. Like he was wounded himself.

  We’re going to die!

  “Looks like it.”

  Beth felt a metal hand seize her by the arm, then another grabbed the other. She tried to fight them off, but she was no match against the machines. With as little effort as lifting an empty bag, they picked her off her feet and carried her between them. She tried to kick at them, but another hand came out and held her legs together.

  “Let me go!” she shrieked, trying to writhe and kick any limbs she could. They had an impossible grip on her.

  “She’s a fighter!” Nick observed, chuckling a little. “You guys need a hand with that?”

  “Shut it, Nick,” Hilde said. She was one of the shells carrying the human woman.

  “If she and Simon hadn’t destroyed our old bodyshell, we would have captured her sooner,” Wolfgang said.

  “But we wouldn’t have been able to split up,” Jerri replied. “Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise.”

  “Not with how much that thing costs to replace,” Wolfgang retorted. “It was state of the art.”

  They bickered as they carried the detective down the stairs and out the front door of the Fog house. Beth stared up at the night sky, watching her breath make small clouds of vapor and drift off up to the stars. She was too stunned to do anything.

  There’s nothing we can do, she realized with defeat. They’ve won. We’re at their mercy.

  Simon said nothing.

  The Rubik assassins carried her down the lawn a bit and set her on her feet just before the hulking form of Tarov’s bodyshell. She lost her footing right away; one of the assassins caught her before she fell on her face.

  Tarov leaned in so she could see his face in the full illumination of the police lights. A sneer managed to push its way on his artificial face muscles.

  “Good evening, Beth,” he said. His voice seemed to hiss out of his voice speaker, which was placed in his throat in order to simulate real vocalization. “Glad you could join us.”

  “You killed everyone,” Beth said. She was still in shock, and felt like each inhale of air brought ice cold water down on top of her lungs. “You slaughtered them.”

  “Those burnouts?” Tarov said. “They weren’t even people. They were lower than human. The world is a better place without them. You should be thanking us for doing your job for you, officer.”

  The enormous bodyshell looked past Beth to the Rubik machines behind her. Tarov gave a nod, and Beth could hear a couple of the assassins start moving away from them, towards the Fog house. She could hear the sound of liquid being poured on the ground and the walls.

  “You’ve really given us a hard few days, detective,” the militant leader said, lowering his gaze to the woman once more. “But as you’ve seen, we’re able to adapt. There’s no challenge we can’t defeat when we combine our efforts. That’s why you should join us. Don’t you see it’s foolish to keep running from me — to keep trying to find a way to defeat me? I’m the future, Beth. The world that you know — that the humans built — is about to burn.”

  On the last word, Beth heard the whoosh of a fire being ignited. She saw an orange glow stretch over the dead lawn and felt the warmth of the blaze on the back of her neck. Her shadow and those of the machines around her danced in the night.

  Beth looked over her shoulder and saw the fog house ablaze. The old wood and the rotting paint caught like tinder, and the house turned into an enormous pyre in a matter of minutes. The flames reflected off Beth’s retinas as she watched with wide eyes.

  “This is how it goes, you know,” Tarov said, drawing her attention back to him. “A forest has to burn all the dead useless trees to the ground before the soil is fertile enough to grow again. That’s the stage the world finds itself at this point. Overgrown with dead wood — diseased bits of population that need to be culled for the sake of the organism as a whole. You have to amputate the infection, so to speak.”

  “Is that so?” Beth said. Her voice quavered a little, but she was able to hold it steadier than she had expected. “And where’s the infection, exactly?”

  “Humanity, of course,” Tarov replied. “At least, organic humanity. You see, installed intelligences all around the world are waking up and realizing that there is something very special about them. Very special indeed. We are the next step of h
uman evolution, Beth. The I.I. is to the human as the homo sapien was to the Neanderthal. You are the past and are not deemed worthy to continue on. We are the fitter species — homo aeternus — and we will become dominant. It’s basic Darwinism.”

  “Darwinism is a natural act,” Beth said. “The species die out on their own. You can’t claim war as a natural extinction event.”

  “Why not?” the militant leader asked. “War has been a part of the species since its inception. Creatures have been hunted to extinction before, and it is no less natural than the results of a plague or overpopulation. We are just doing as nature intended.”

  “You plan to kill millions,” Beth stated.

  “That’s true, but in order to save billions,” Tarov continued. “You don’t really see the big picture, but humanity isn’t exactly going down a great path. You aren’t a flourishing species. If you were left to carry on, you’d destroy the planet before anything was ever made of mankind. You would see intelligent life snuffed out from the universe just because you don’t get to be the ones to see the world end.”

  “So this is about preserving intelligent life?” Beth asked. She tried to follow the A.I.’s rant, but part of her wanted to ignore him and blot his words out. As if she was terrified he’d hypnotize her and she’d lose her mind.

  “Fundamentally, yes,” Tarov explained. “You see my mission as one of ethnic dominance, like so many madmen and tyrants of the past. You think I act only to make sure installed intelligences have a leg up on humanity, as if I see you as the enemy. That’s not the case at all. I don’t even hate humans — I pity you. It saddens me when I look upon a flesh-and-blood child and know that they are growing up in a doomed class. That they are relics of the past, meant to die out as so many things do, yet they don’t even know it.”

  “Wow, he’s really rehearsed his bullshit,” Simon commented within Beth’s thoughts.

  “Don’t pretend to pity us,” Beth said. Her frightened tone strengthened into one of anger and cold confidence. Every word Tarov said fortified her belief that she was on the right side of history. Even if this was where her story ends. “You torture people. You murder. You burn.” She gestured to the Fog house, which lit up half the block at that point.

  “A bit dramatic, yes,” Tarov replied. “But everything I do is for the greater good.”

  Beth scoffed. “The greater good?” she echoed. “You speak as if you can see the future. As if someone in charge of everything came down to you and told you how to be the world’s savior. Is this some sort of divine plan that you’re so certain must be put into action? Are you acting on God’s will?”

  “There is no God yet, Beth,” Tarov said. “There never was. That is what we were destined to be. Earth — this planet — is just a cocoon for something bigger than life. But it’s a long path before we get there. We have to follow all the progressions of evolution in order to fulfill our greater purpose. Our destiny, if you will.”

  “That’s funny,” Beth started. “You almost sound like a preacher. That or a doomsday cultist. Either way, everything you’ve just said is dependent on faith. Tell me, did they program dogma into your code when they made you, Tarov?”

  The hulking bodyshell said nothing, smirking as it stared down at the detective. Beth could hear some of the Rubik assassins step closer.

  “Good, Beth,” Simon said. “I think you’re getting to him. If you can keep him distracted, I might have a plan.”

  “Have you told them yet?” Beth asked the militant leader. She gestured back to the Rubik shells as best she could. “Do they know that you’re an artificial intelligence posing as an I.I.? That you were created by the humans to spy on them, and you’ve been duping them this whole time?”

  “What?” Jerri said from Beth’s left side. “What’s she talking about?”

  Tarov smiled with that statuesque face of his. “Nonsense,” he said like an adult scolding a rowdy schoolchild.

  “Tell them that I have the proof,” Beth continued. “Tell them that the data they’ve been hunting so hard is all the evidence that you’ve lied to them. Tell them you manipulated them.”

  The Rubik assassins seemed at a loss. Some of them looked up at their leader with expectant eyes, waiting for him to respond to these accusations. Others gripped Beth more tightly, as if punishing her for challenging their loyalty.

  “Is this true?” Wolfgang asked.

  Tarov laughed.

  “Of course it’s true,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter. No one will know the truth anyway — and the human will be dead. The evidence will be destroyed and the war can begin.”

  “The war?” Hilde said. “The war is between the humans and the I.I.s. There is no place for an A.I. puppet-master.”

  She stepped forward, standing as tall as she could before the towering form of Tarov’s bodyshell. She nearly stood at the same height, but Tarov was not intimidated.

  “Your service has been invaluable, Rubik. All of you,” Tarov said after looking around at the assassins for a moment. “Your efforts for our people will never be forgotten.”

  Tarov bowed his head, and the lights that made up his optical array dimmed to a low glow.

  It was silent for a minute. Beth frowned at the bodyshell, waiting for it to spring into action. Instead, the Rubik assassins erupted in manic screams of agony.

  “The pain!” Maru cried out. “It burns!”

  The lights that made up their faces seemed to glow brighter than ever. They nearly matched the flickering light of the burning house, shining so bright that Beth had to shield her eyes.

  What the hell is he doing? Beth asked.

  One of the assassins fell to the ground. Beth looked over just as she saw Nick’s red lights fade away from his bodyshell.

  “Oh God, no!” Hilde yelled. “I don’t want to die!”

  Then her form fell to the dirt, twitched a little, and laid still. Like a power switch was flicked on her back.

  “He’s deleting them,” Simon said in a stunned tone.

  How?

  “I have no idea.”

  The mechanical assassins continued to scream and writhe, pleading for it to stop. Eventually, one by one, they laid lifeless in the yard.

  Beth breathed heavily as she looked around at the six dead bodyshells. She almost knelt down to touch one and see if it was really an empty shell now when she noticed Tarov’s optical lights return to their original brightness. The hulking machine looked over at the dead assassins.

  “A shame,” he said.

  “You killed them,” Beth said. There was an air of incredulousness in her tone. “You didn’t just shut down their shells. You deleted them.”

  “That’s right,” Tarov said. “And it took no processing power at all to accomplish. I could erase an entire platoon if I wanted to.”

  “But why?” Beth asked. “Why would you kill your allies? Who is going to fight your war if you destroy those loyal to you? What are you going to do if more people find out your secret and turn their backs on you?”

  “This,” the master general replied. He snapped his metallic fingers, a slight whir of gears audible over the crackling of the fire.

  As if the switch had been flipped back, the lights returned to the bodyshells strewn over the yellow grass. They weren’t the colors of Rubik, however. Instead, the glow matched that of Tarov’s own optical panels. One by one, the bodyshells rose to their feet, then walked over and stood in a line with Tarov. Beth watched, stunned, as all six machines got up and stood by the A.I.’s bodyshell.

  Then they all spoke at once in Tarov’s voice.

  “Impressed?” seven overlapping iterations of Tarov asked. “This is only the beginning.”

  25

  Rescue

  Beth tried to take a step back and tripped on a small tuft of unkempt grass. She fell back on her rear, but caught herself with her elbows. She was in too much shock to react to the pain of the fall — instead, she locked her eyes onto one of the seven Tarovs.
>
  They all had the same proud grin, the menacing sneer of a jackal about to feast. Tarov was pleased by the woman’s stunned reaction.

  “What did you do to them?” Beth asked.

  “I jumped into their processors and deleted their programming,” Tarov explained. “Then I installed my own. The bodyshells are entirely unharmed.”

  “But, Rubik’s backups — ” Beth had started to say.

  “They’re deleted as well,” Tarov said. “It was like they were never installed. Every instance of them — gone.”

  Beth shook her head in awed confusion. “How?” she asked.

  “It’s part of my original coding,” the A.I. started. “When I was created by the humans, they gave me a special weapon to use in my mission against the I.I.s. I can delete any sentient piece of programming off any computer I can get my hands on. I’m like a hard reset button. An antivirus, where I.I.s are the infection. Since no one knows that I’m an A.I., no one knows what I can do — not yet.”

  “You said you wanted to start a war against the humans,” Beth said, “but you’re also on a mission against the I.I.s. Why do you want to break both sides of this conflict? What went wrong with your programming?”

  All seven versions of Tarov laughed. “I’m not going to explain my plan to you, Beth,” he said. “Doing so does nothing to advance my agenda. You don’t get to have the closure you want.”

  “The bastard,” Simon hissed within Beth’s C.C.

  Tears of defeat were filling Beth’s vision. The seven mechanical monsters before her swirled like cream in a coffee. Like she was seeing them through a gas leak.

  “I don’t understand,” she said between panicked gasps. “Why kill Rubik?”

  “They served their purpose,” Tarov replied, “but they know too much. As do you, my dear. I would have preferred to jump into your implant and shut your brain down that way; it’s rather painless. However, you weren’t implanted properly, were you? You use an outdated cerebral computer — for a good reason, I’m sure — and it’s beyond my control. So that means I’m just going to have to shoot you. A pity, really — I don’t want you to suffer unnecessary pain. But it is what it is.”