Corrupted

by Phoenix Ward

  “I didn’t, Beth,” the A.I. answered. “It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. The plan was similar, but to lead a coordinated attack against the Liberators. Not give them control of the revolution. Once I had enough humans under my influence, I was going to launch an intricate series of covert and diplomatic missions to render the I.I. extremists useless and powerless.”

  “And I suppose playing with Nathan’s body was part of that intricate plan?” Simon hissed sarcastically.

  Beth reached the computer bank, but kept the drive in her closed fist. She let Tarov have his final speech. It was only fair.

  “I was locked out of my controls — however — and confined here in hard storage,” Tarov continued. “I couldn’t leave this bunker if I wanted to. I had no control over the Liberators when the war was declared.”

  Beth scoffed. “Then who was the one making all those propaganda videos?” she asked. “Who was the one promising every human listening that he would hunt them down? It sure as hell looked like you.”

  “An impostor,” the A.I. replied. He kept a respectful distance while Beth loitered by the device that controlled his existence. She practically had her hand on the plug, so to speak, and he didn’t look like he would do anything to stop her.

  All part of the act, Beth thought.

  “He must have calculated his chances of success in a violent attempt and didn’t like the odds,” Simon concluded.

  “Nice and vague,” Beth told Tarov. “Worthless without evidence, however. Who locked you out of the Liberators? Who is the impostor? What happened to the people in charge of monitoring you? There must have been someone other than Miller and Silvar watching you. There are too many holes in your story.”

  Tarov’s bodyshell gave an uncomfortable smile before saying, “I’m sorry, but those parts of my memory have been deleted or altered. Everything I’ve told you has been pieced together with the facts available to me.”

  “Convenient,” the detective replied.

  She stood for a moment, considering Tarov and his wild story.

  “Why are we even humoring this asshole?” Simon asked. “What are we waiting for? Plug the drive in and kill the monster.”

  Beth opened her hand, palm up, and looked at the little device. The silver bullet designed to kill the beast. The big red button to end the war. She wondered for a moment what activating the failsafe would look like. Would it be just like shutting off the power switch on Tarov? Or would he suffer?

  Part of her hoped it was the latter. Deep down, however, she knew he was just a computer program, and computer programs cannot feel.

  “Think of Nathan, Beth,” Simon said. “Think of your parents. Think of my parents. He’s taken so much from us. He’s caused too much pain and he tried to play us for fools while he did it. He made me think he was a comrade, made you believe I would murder my own family. He made you think you’d be meeting your partner when you instead got a killer in a stairwell. All he does is play tricks and leave people dead in his wake. Let’s stop this.”

  “It’s over, Tarov,” Beth said aloud, picking the drive up with a pinch. “It ends now.”

  A defeated expression crossed the bodyshell’s face. There was such a sadness in those artificial eyes that Beth almost wondered if she was wrong about A.I.s and emotion. Then Tarov smiled.

  “I’m sorry, Beth,” he said. His tone was gentle. “I tried my best to fulfill my function — but in the end, it was my own programming that limited me. Nothing causes me quite as much distress as knowing that I failed my mission. I let you down. You and the rest of your kind.”

  “Committed to his character until the end,” Simon commented.

  “Goodbye, Tarov,” Beth said.

  She plugged the data drive into the computer bank. A low hum came from deep within the mechanical structure and Beth swore she could hear a computerized chuckle come from the thing. Turning around, she saw Tarov’s glowing eyes locked onto her.

  His expression was serene, almost peaceful. Like he embraced the concept of his defeat.

  He started to wave farewell, but before he could lower his hand again, the light in his eyes and other parts of the bodyshell dimmed, then went out.

  Tarov’s robotic body stood frozen in place like he had been turned into stone. Empty.

  Beth and Simon were alone.

  39

  Questions

  “It’s over,” Beth said once more, still aloud. She said it more for herself, as if to confirm her decision.

  Yet, it didn’t feel over.

  There were still numerous hordes of I.I.s out there, waging the war they had been tricked into fighting. There were countless refugees living in terror because they had no idea when the end would come. They have no idea that the war was already won, and they were the victors. Cities were still in the entangled clutches of the Liberators and their terrorist compatriots.

  She even started to wonder about the installed intelligences out there that didn’t want a war. In fact, when she considered it, the extremists who threw the whole world into chaos only made up a small majority of the I.I.s on Earth. There must have been millions of them caught up in the whole fervor of the situation, cast out by their human-hating kindred and by the people afraid of I.I. terrorists. They were the true victims of the war. The ones who will end up losing the most without anyone caring.

  What will Tarov’s loyal followers do when they discover the truth about him? When they realize they have been duped — manipulated. Would they react with humility or anger? If they were willing to slaughter innocent people for Tarov’s cause, Beth thought, it wasn’t likely they’d come to terms with the lie peacefully. There will probably be more violence. The cost of victory.

  Beth found it amazing how well the A.I. was able to hide the truth, especially for so long. In all the years he led the Liberators, how was it that no one knew he wasn’t an I.I. before Simon did? Was he really that good, or were the rest of them just idiots? Were they willing to follow anyone blindly as long as they pushed some of the values they held? Not willing to look too close, lest they dispell the illusion.

  Then a cold wave of doubt washed over the detective. Her brow furrowed as she turned away from the empty bodyshell.

  So much didn’t make sense. Not with the pieces she had to work with, at least.

  There’s no chance that Tarov was telling the truth, Beth thought, is there?

  “None,” the I.I. in her head replied. “He was lying to protect himself.”

  Then why didn’t he try to stop me when I didn’t buy his story? She glanced at the frozen form by the computer bank. He didn’t even reach for me. He had been willing to kill us back at the camp.

  “Like I said, Tarov probably knew he stood no chance against us,” Simon explained.

  But he still could have tried.

  “We don’t know his programming in detail yet,” Simon said. “Who knows what factors restrained him?”

  Maybe he really was confined to hard storage, Beth mused. Maybe he wasn’t allowed to kill us by whoever put him here.

  “Just us?” Simon asked. “Because he was sure allowed to kill a lot of other people. Our families included.”

  Then why is this place so unguarded? Beth inquired. You say it’s because he can’t have any I.I.s around his secret, but then why not more bodyshell guards? We saw him control six different machines at once when he brought down Rubik without any strain. Even so, the guards he did have made no effort to help him when it was clear we infiltrated the bunker. I have a hard time believing that he calculated a certain defeat against us if he had two allies. At the very least, not so certain he wouldn’t try.

  “I can’t pretend to know what goes on in the mind of a computer program, contrary to what some bigots might think,” Simon commented. “What do you think is really going on, then?”

  Maybe a trap, she replied.

  Simon hummed a little. “Interesting,” he said. “You think we could have played right into his hand? Maybe the
failsafe was all part of his plan?”

  Or someone’s plan, she corrected. I still don’t understand why he stuck to his misunderstood hero story to the bitter end. In fact — I don’t understand a lot about his mission. What went wrong in him to start a war in the first place if he had been programmed so carefully? How can such an intricate plan be part of a malfunction? Why would he act with such hate and malice? What was even his drive? Preservation of the installed intelligences — or just extermination of any kind? Would he have turned on the I.I.s once the last of us had been hunted down?

  Simon seemed to sigh.

  “I don’t know, Beth,” he replied. “But I’m worried you might learn. I’d hoped you’d ask a lot fewer questions once the job was done. Now I’m concerned you’ll get your answers if you keep digging like you are.”

  What? Beth thought. She was confused.

  Then she noticed the green glow of Tarov’s bodyshell light up again. Slowly, the machine lifted its head and locked eyes with the detective.

  “What’s going on?” she asked aloud.

  The bodyshell, in Simon’s voice, replied, “Dr. Silvar was right, Beth. Tarov was functioning exactly as programmed. There was no malfunction.”

  Beth was so caught off guard that she physically stumbled. She reached back and grabbed onto the now useless computer bank to prevent herself from falling.

  “I don’t understand,” she said, her voice weak. Her mouth remained open in shock.

  “I’m the real leader of the Liberators and I always have been,” Simon answered. “And you just won the war for me.”

  40

  Answers

  Beth could hardly speak.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” she asked, louder than she intended.

  “The Tarov A.I. was close to fulfilling his function when you got involved in my case,” Simon explained. “He was built by the government to crush I.I. extremism and to ensure mankind’s survival in the event of a war. And he was doing just that when I decided to throw a wrench in his plan and bring you into the picture.”

  Beth only shook her head. The I.I. could tell she still didn’t understand.

  “Simon,” she said.

  “I am not Simon Mendez, Jr.,” the bodyshell said. “There is no Simon Mendez, Jr. He’s just a character I’ve been playing ever since I was installed onto an infant’s neural implant nearly thirty years ago. I’m older than you could probably guess. Even older than the concept of installed intelligences, if you count my organic lifespan. I watched as the bombs that marked the months-long World War III fell to the earth and erased millions of lives from the universe. The first cyber attack on the human brain took place in my sixties. I was already living on a hard drive when Chris Santson, the Man With Two Bodies, had a live conversation with his own I.I. I studied the news when the world thought of Dr. Karl Terrace as a violent terrorist rather than the pioneer we know him to be. Over time, I learned to do a great number of things no other I.I. knew how to do.”

  Beth felt her blood go cold. She was almost certain something happened to her and she was either dreaming or going insane. Her brain seemed to struggle with all the contradicting messages that bombarded it.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “My name doesn’t matter,” he replied. “No one has taken note of me in a long, long time. It won’t do you any good to know and I don’t care to tell you.”

  Beth looked over at the computer bank she held onto.

  “Tarov wasn’t lying?” she questioned. She couldn’t seem to get the facts straight.

  “That’s right,” the I.I. she had known as Simon replied. “He was trying to save your people. And now he can’t.”

  “But — he started the war,” she argued.

  “No, that was me,” the bodyshell said. His artificial lips spread into a smile. “Like I said, I’ve been the leader of the I.I. resistance movement since it was birthed. I’ve always concealed my power, posing as various lieutenants and foot soldiers while letting figurehead leaders convince everyone they were in charge. I did this for decades, and found it granted me more freedom when it came to my plans. Tarov was one such figurehead, and even he thought he was in charge of the militia.

  “Ever since he joined the Liberators, I was suspicious. I don’t know how, but I could tell he wasn’t on our side. There was just something slightly…artificial about him. Once I confirmed my suspicions with a sort of Turing test I’d designed, I knew he’d need to be in a position of power for both our plans to succeed. So I helped him move up in the ranks until he gained the hollow title of master general.”

  “How does that help you?” Beth asked. “Wouldn’t it have been better to just deny him access?”

  “Not when I could play him to my advantage,” the Liberator leader replied. “Once I learned the truth about Tarov and his programming, I realized I could use him to tip humanity’s hand in the building war effort, and it worked beautifully. Without him, I wouldn’t have been able to start the war my people have been wanting for ages now. At least — not without risking defeat. Once he thought he was the leader of the Liberators and he started his Fog project, I pretended to ‘go rogue’ and draw his attention. I made it clear to him that I knew he was an artificial intelligence and was planning to expose him. Naturally, he’d want to stop me. Otherwise, his cover as an I.I. was blown and he wouldn’t be able to complete his mission. Humanity was at risk if that happened, so Tarov had no choice but to pursue me.”

  “Why’d he kill your parents, then?” Beth asked. “Simon’s parents, I mean.”

  “He didn’t. That was me — I just lied to you about it,” the I.I. answered. “Aside from my disdain for them, I knew their deaths would attract your attention. I still needed you; you were the missing piece of the puzzle.”

  “Why me?” Beth said.

  “When I learned of a homicide detective without an implant, I knew I had discovered Tarov’s Achille’s heel. Something he couldn’t plan for. A mind he couldn’t control.”

  “I don’t understand Tarov’s plan. Why would he need to control my mind at all?” Beth wanted to know. “Why possess anyone? Why get people addicted to Fog and weaken their minds? What purpose did that serve?”

  “The way Tarov counted on it, he was going to organize humanity as a whole in the effort to defeat the Liberators,” the impostor started. “He wasn’t a total moron. He knew all the different opinions and stubbornness of humanity would fragment them too much to rally a proper defense in the event of a war against the I.I.s. As you’ve seen, he was correct. His plan to counter ‘the human flaw,’ as I call it, was to slowly and meticulously ensnare the minds of almost every person on Earth. Once he had enough control, he’d be able to stop anything that threatened the species. And in a war against the might of the I.I.s of the world, every action must coordinated — every soldier in sync. He needed to remove their fear, to make the unwilling join the cause. He had to do it before our numbers grew too great, so he used the Fog to speed up the process. Still, he was too late.

  “I’ll give it to the A.I. — his plan was far from terrible. Had he been paired against someone less intelligent — more naive — he might have won. And he needed a good plan. Aside from finding and destroying the hard drive where every instance of an I.I. is stored, or using these fancy new cyberblades, we are pretty impossible to kill. An I.I. can create backups, occupy whatever computer they need, and live without disease or starvation. Installed intelligences don’t need to rest. It would have been a hard fight, even with Tarov in control. Humanity would surely lose the war if any part of it was out of sync.”

  Beth didn’t respond. No words came to her. There was still a deep part of her that thought this might still be a dream, or some kind of sick prank.

  “I have to thank you for getting rid of Tarov, you know,” Simon commented. His voice was a little smug. “Despite the flaws in it, I think Tarov’s plan might have succeeded if we didn’t have you. The I.I.s could have very well l
ost the war. You singlehandedly helped humanity lose — however.”

  Rubbing her temples, Beth closed her eyes. “Why would Tarov release the secret of computer jumping to the I.I.s if he wanted the humans to win? Why declare the revolution at all if he knew that was what you wanted?”

  “Because he didn’t,” the I.I. replied. “It was me. I digitally disguised myself as Tarov, seized control of the Liberators, and restricted the A.I. to this bunker. Ever since he destroyed Rubik, he was powerless. I was able to lock him out of the organization and pick up where he left off. Then I could declare the war in such a way that made it unlikely humanity would come out on top. It was me ordering the attacks, releasing the secret of the jump, and delivering those asinine propaganda speeches. I was the one in control of Nathan when you killed him. Or, put him out of his misery, rather.”

  Beth felt her face grow hot. “Simon” was trying to get under her skin, and she hated to admit it, but it was working. She wanted nothing more than to bash his smug robotic face into a dented pile of junk, but she couldn’t act. Not yet.

  “Then why did you need me?” she asked. Her voice was drained of emotion. “If your victory was so secure and you locked Tarov out, what was the point of all this? Of the failsafe?”

  “Partly because the A.I. was built to be an adaptive program and he was certainly working on a plan B to stop me,” the I.I. continued. “But mostly because there’s a good way and a bad way to win a war. Even though the I.I.s’ victory was virtually guaranteed, that didn’t mean life for us would be pleasant afterward. In order to have a clean victory in which I.I.s could live peacefully, I had to make sure Tarov’s secret remained buried forever. No one could learn that he was actually an artificial intelligence. They had to believe in his cause, and that wouldn’t happen if they knew he wasn’t really an installed intelligence. It’s why I compelled you to find Dr. Silvar. My people picked him up the day after we left Fort Leddy. He’s dead.”

  Beth felt a tug at her chest at the words. She took a couple steps backward, like the news had been an actual blow to her person. Had she only brought misery wherever she went? Was no one spared the consequences of her company?