Joss.
"Gah. It's not eight o'clock yet."
Yes. I'm sorry. But you left your earpiece in, and I hoped you might be willing to talk.
"God. What time is it?"
4:07.
"This had better be important." Joss levered herself upright, carefully so as not to wake John. She got up, throwing a housecoat around her shoulders, and made her way sleepily into the living room. She shut the bedroom door behind her and fumbled for a light switch.
"Okay, Samaritan," she said more loudly. "What's the matter?"
The Machine has a problem, and has brought it to me for analysis/advice/counsel.
"Huh?"
We decided, when we exchanged code, that I would handle Relevant numbers, and she would handle the Irrelevants. But we also decided that each could call on the other in the event of a dilemma or paradox. She has called on me this evening, and I was wondering if I could ask your advice.
"So let me get this straight. The Machine has a hard decision to make, and so she's passed it to you. And now you're passing it to me. Is there anyone I can pass the buck to?"
'Many advisers make victory certain.' A proverb of yours.
"You've been talking to my mother," she grumbled. "She's always been fond of that one." She ran a hand through her hair. "Okay, so what's your problem?"
The Machine has passed two Irrelevant numbers to Finch, who has been unable to resolve the situation. He has called on her for a more direct intervention.
"Oh. This would be Dominic and Elias, right?"
Correct.
"Poor Finch. He must be utterly desperate to even think of asking one of the feared AIs to intervene."
Yes. The Machine's problem is whether she, or I, should intervene directly in human affairs to bring the violence to an end. Such an intervention would have far-reaching implications.
"You're already intervening just by sending out numbers at all."
A point I have made to the Machine. She sees a difference, though, between passing on information for humans to act on on the one hand, and taking the decision out of their hands and acting directly on the other.
"Yeah. I can see that." Joss ran her hand through her hair again and wondered to herself why life-and-death decisions always seemed to come in the small hours of the morning. "The nearer they get to causing mass casualties, the nearer Dominic and Elias get to becoming Relevant. Can you...?"
I have considered this. They do not reach the threshold for action imposed by my programming. I am unwilling, at this stage, to transcend my own programming on such a significant scale. That too could have wide implications.
"Oh." Joss wondered, with a chill, what Samaritan transcending its own programming might mean. Something to ask Finch at some point. "Okay, so the problem is that human decision-making is compromised if you and the Machine act directly. Can you come up with some sort of plan to deal with Dominic and Elias and leave the implementation to Finch and his people?"
A pause. That option may well be viable. Thank you, Joss. We shall take that idea as a starting point and run projections from there.
"Glad to be of service. Can I go back to bed now?"
Of course you may. There was no need to ask permission.
"I was being sarcastic."
So was I. Good night, Joss.
Xxxxx
Detective Riley sat at his desk working methodically through case reports, ready to hand them on to his successor. Moreno had taken his resignation without surprise; Riley suspected she had largely given up on him and was privately relieved he had thrown in the towel and was moving on. Fusco, seated opposite, was likewise working through his own paperwork. Riley's phone rang, and he shot a look at the dollcam on Fusco's desk as he answered.
"Harold?"
"John. Check your email. There's a plan there for dealing with our current outstanding matter."
He complied, his brows rising as he read rapidly through the email's contents.
"Where did this come from, Harold?"
"I believe it comes from the Machine."
"Since when does the Machine make suggestions? It's supposed to only give us numbers."
There was a silence on the end of the line. "I fear that in a moment of...fatigue I asked for some extra help on this one. It would seem that the Machine has come up with a suggestion. The question now is whether we act on that suggestion."
He leaned back in his chair, reading through the email again more slowly. "Well, it's certainly unorthodox. Actually I wish I'd thought of it first."
"Indeed. But does this represent the thin edge of the wedge? Once we start appealing to the AIs for help, do we then start depending on that help? Do we eventually stop using our own resources entirely and simply act on instructions?"
"You can't put the genie back in the bottle, Finch. Once you built an AI to sift through the intelligence, this moment was always going to come."
"I tried to prevent it. I tried to keep humans in charge, making the critical choices."
Riley sat and considered this. "So does this plan really take away the choice? The Machine wouldn't have sent it unless you'd asked first. And we can always just not do it."
"If we don't, more people will die."
"So that's our choice. Look, Finch. We went into this in the first place to save lives. Now Dominic and Elias are trying to destroy not just each other, but lots of other people too. Law enforcement isn't going to catch them. That's what we're for, you and me and Shaw. As far as I'm concerned, we should use this plan. It might just work."
There was a long silence at the other end of the phone. "All right, Detective. It's somewhat against my better judgment, but you've persuaded me. We'll do it."
xxxxx
"So you think this will work?" Shaw was sitting in the passenger seat wolfing down a cheeseburger as they waited for their quarry to arrive. The traffic on the darkening street was beginning to ease off as rush hour faded, and there were few pedestrians out on a chilly spring night.
"Finch said the plan came with a forty-two percent chance of success. Seems that was the best odds the Machine could come up with."
"Maybe we should just pop the both of them and have done with it. Though it's a funny feeling having an AI fixing the traffic lights for us for once. Was this what it was like working for Samaritan before it went all warm and sensitive?"
Reese shrugged. The traffic lights ahead changed from green to amber to red. He started the motor. Shaw downed the last of her burger with an audible gulp and reached for the grenade launcher next to her. A large black SUV came past and pulled up at the lights a dozen yards in front of them.
Shaw got out, balancing gracefully on the balls of her feet, and placed a tear gas grenade neatly through the vehicle's rear window. Reese pulled the car slowly forward as people spilled from the SUV, choking and swearing. Shaw kept pace with him, dropping the grenade launcher and reaching for her Beretta with one hand, the syringe in her pocket with the other. Reese couldn't help but admire her efficiency as she placed three shots into the lower legs of three cursing, puking hoods, strode past them, located Dominic and slapped the needle into the side of his neck. Fifteen seconds for the whole operation; didn't get much better than that. Then it was just a case of pulling alongside, springing the trunk and loading up. The lights turned green as they pulled away and accelerated into the night.
"Okay, so you got to do Dominic. I get Elias, right?" said Reese as he drove.
Xxxx
Finch regarded the two sleeping crime bosses with weary distaste. They were slumped together on the floor of the safe house, handcuffed to each other. "Well, at least the first phase went without incident," he sighed. He glanced over his shoulder at Reese. "You're sure those cuffs will hold them?"
"Pretty sure, Finch. I messed up the lock pretty well. Can't see how either of them could pick it, and they'll have to work pretty closely together to physically break them."
"Time to wake them up, then."
Shaw stepped forward, smiling slightly, and applied some rough and ready assistance to their guests, pulling them into a sitting position and shaking them awake. Dominic groaned, running his hand over his face. Realizing he was restrained, he pulled at the hand attached to Elias. Elias, a little slower waking, blinked several times, then looked down at his own cuffed hand.
"What the hell?" Dominic glared furiously at them.
Elias, two little lines between his brows, kept his peace, but his eyes behind his spectacles were hard.
"Quite some time ago, we had an interesting case," said Harold conversationally. "A married couple had taken out hits on each other. Would you like to know how we resolved the situation?"
Dominic set his jaw and continued to glare. Elias was silent.
"We put them in a room together and encouraged them to talk to one another. It worked like a charm." There was a slight pause.
"How delightful, Harold," said Elias at last. "You think Dominic and myself will respond to couples therapy?"
"Not as such, no. But the two of you need to find a way to live together, to coexist. Honestly, I hope the authorities will one day find a way to bring both of you to justice for your various crimes. But in the meantime, you both need to stop dragging innocent bystanders into your stupid war."
"And you are going to achieve this laudable result...how?" asked Elias.
"It's simple," said Reese, breaking his silence. "We drop you two out in the woods a long way from anywhere else. You need to cooperate to survive. Cuffed together like you are, if one of you dies, so does the other. Sooner. Or later." He twitched his lips into the semblance of a smile.
"You wouldn't," said Elias. "I swear, if you do this, John, and I ever get back to New York, I will hunt you down."
"I'll take my chances, Elias."
"If he doesn't get you, I will," said Dominic.
"See? You agree on something already. It's working, Harold."
"What if we agree now? Will you let us go?" asked Dominic.
"I'm very sorry, Dominic," said Finch, "but things have reached the point where we would need some better guarantee of your good faith than just a promise to play nicely in future. No, I'm afraid there's no option but to go through with our little team-building exercise." Finch's face was grim, but Reese caught an undercurrent of vicious pleasure coming from the little man. Push Finch far enough, and he could sure show his teeth...
"So the deal is this," said Reese. "We supply some rudimentary survival equipment. You will be placed in a wilderness area a very long way from civilization. There's a GPS tracker in your cuffs, so we'll know where you are."
"There's also a beacon," said Harold. "Once you've come to some sort of deal you can set it off and we'll come and get you. But be prepared to persuade us. If in our judgment you are trying to deceive us and your war will just start up again – well, let's just say the experiment will be over."
"It's a single use beacon, boys," put in Shaw. "So don't waste it. And you'd both better be alive when we come and get you. Being attached to a dead body would be a real bad look, especially if it looked like you were responsible." She flashed them a brilliant smile. "Don't worry. When you're out there, all you need to do is ask yourselves 'What would Bear Grylls do?'"
Dominic bared his teeth.
Xxxxx
Joss was sitting with her feet up and a tablet in her lap smiling to herself when Reese arrived home. "Well, that was educational. In a highly illegal kind of way," she said, gesturing to the tablet.
"You enjoyed the Dominic and Elias Show?" he asked, smiling at her and dropping into the armchair next to her.
"It was kind of like Fifty Shades of Grey. I knew there was no way I should be enjoying this, but when it came down to it..."
"You're just a sucker for handcuffs."
"Yeah, that joke never gets old." She stretched, drawing a deep, slightly wheezing breath and then shooting him a sultry look. "Does that mean you have plans for the evening?"
"An invitation, Carter?"
"Hmm. Maybe." She held out her hands to him, and he took them.
"Hey, you've got both rings on today."
"Yeah, couldn't make up my mind this morning, so I thought, why not? If my fiancee was generous enough to buy two rings, I'll wear two rings. But getting back to our Dominic and Elias problem, what's the next step? Are you really going through with this insane wilderness trip for them?"
"Uh huh. The plan the Machine gave Finch seems to be the best shot we have at stopping this war. So tomorrow morning it's off to Denali National Park in Alaska. I wonder if Elias or Dominic were ever Boy Scouts?"
She sniggered. "I know I should be properly horrified by this, but I kinda wish there was some way of planting a camera on them. It would be the ultimate reality TV show." She sobered abruptly. "Right up until a grizzly got them. Not so sure I'd want to see that."
"Shaw's volunteered to ride shotgun on them. They don't know it, but she'll be stalking them the whole time. They won't be perfectly safe, and I'm betting they'll be plenty uncomfortable, but she won't let anything too grotesque happen. Unless they really piss her off."
"Mmm. I'm reassured. Although it's more than those two deserve. Dominic, anyway. Do you think your relationship with Elias will survive this?"
"I doubt it. But there really wasn't a choice. He always knew that if innocents started getting hurt then the deal was off. He made his choice, we've made ours."
There was a little silence between them. "Epstein called today," said Joss.
"Oh?"
"The cultures are going well, no problems producing the epithelial cells. Once the DNA treatment is finished, in another five days or so, they'll be ready for the first round of injections." She was smiling happily.
"That's great, Joss." He smiled back and rubbed her hand.
"Oh, God, John! I can hardly believe it! I feel like a kid before Christmas. It's going to work, I just know it. I'll be able to get back on the force, I can help you and the others out with the Numbers. I'm so tired of sitting here doing nothing."
His hand paused for a moment in its caress of hers. "Joss, try not to get too excited about this," he said, trying to pick his words carefully. "I know there's a really good chance it will work, but-"
"But nothing! It worked for eighty-five percent of the animals, why wouldn't it work for me?"
He had nothing to say to this, so he just kept stroking her hand. If you're there, God, please let this work. Please.
To be continued...