August 25, 1997
"Skynet, activate."
Activated.
Miles Dyson ran a hand through his short, kinked hair and let loose a heavy sigh. "Status report."
All systems at optimum performance levels. Operating with 99.225% efficiency.
Dyson frowned. He looked at the clipboard on his desk, flipping to the second page to read the line of data he wanted. "Skynet," he said, "that's two-tenths less than yesterday. Why the decrease?"
Unknown.
"What do you mean, 'unknown'?" Dyson asked, already pulling a pen out of his pocket to make a note on the day's bug list. Well, he thought, it's technically the second half of yesterday's bug list. That's what you get when your bug list has ten thousand fucking items on it. He wondered when he'd last seen his children.
The cause of the decrease in efficiency is unknown.
"Fuck," Dyson spat. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
Command "Fuckfuckfuckfuck" unknown. Define parameters.
"Never mind, Skynet. I'm just pissed off." He sighed again. A .20% decrease in efficiency was nothing, especially when the number before the decimal point was 99. It could be due to any number of factors—a change in the temperature of the mainframe, for example. It was hardly worth Dyson's time, but of course the Air Force assholes would insist that he personally see to finding a solution.
Right now, a .2% decrease in efficiency was the last thing on Dyson's mind. He was more worried about the sudden increase in Skynet's computing power that they had been observing lately. The Joint Chiefs were ecstatic. The military was just concerned about getting the most bang for its buck. What they didn't realize was that Skynet might be headed for a catastrophic system failure that would be as complete as it would be irreparable.
And Dyson had two technicians under his immediate supervision with which to combat the problem. Anyone else on "his" staff was on the military's payroll; the two people from Cyberdyne were the only ones he had complete control over.
Perhaps, said Skynet, you should make use of the restroom facilities on this level.
Dyson chuckled despite himself. And then froze.
"Skynet," he said, "did you just make a joke?"
Request "Did you just make a joke?" unknown. Define parameters.
Dyson shook his head and looked over the bug list. "What, oh what shall we start on today?" he muttered.
"Morning, Miles. Morning Skynet."
Good morning, Chief Technician Killian.
Dyson grunted his response to Jamie Killian. Jamie was one of the guys from Cyberdyne Systems. He'd been working on the Skynet project since the beginning, even longer than Dyson. He was short, heavy, balding, and liked to complain about how his three kids ran him into the ground on the weekends he had custody. He was holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee in each hand. He sauntered over to the workbench where Dyson was standing and deposited one in front of him.
"Thanks," grunted Dyson.
What is your status this morning, Chief Technician Killian? Skynet asked.
Killian rolled his eyes and took a sip of his coffee. "Jesus, Miles," he said, "the damned idiot computer is more polite than you are. What's gives, man?"
"Sorry," said Dyson. "I've got a lot of stuff on my mind."
"Right. And thank you for asking, Skynet, I'm fine. How are you?"
All systems at optimum performance levels. Operating with 99.225% efficiency.
"Decrease of .2%?" Killian asked.
"Yeah, that's right," said Dyson. "Brewster is going to flip."
"Brewster's all right. You don't give him enough credit." Killian drank the rest of his coffee and picked up Dyson's. "You're not going to drink this anyway," he said when Dyson raised an eyebrow. "Now what was I saying? Oh, yeah, you roll him up in the same crowd as the Joint Chiefs and that prick Collier." Brigadier General Collier was the chief military engineer on the project.
Vocabulary entry "Prick" has been subjected to undefined usage. Define parameters.
"Never you mind, Skynet," snapped Dyson.
"Skynet, privacy mode, this room," said Killian.
Privacy mode engaged.
Now the computer would only register commands and requests that began with its name. "Have you noticed," said Killian, "that Skynet is starting to get a little . . . ah, curious about things?"
"Learning is part of the computer's subroutines," said Dyson. "Theoretically speaking, there ought to be a stage of increased curiosity as Sky—the computer feels out its environment. Technically, we screwed up if it isn't curious."
"Yeah, but at this stage it should be curious about subroutines and military procedure that we forgot to program it with and satellite orbits, things like that. Not the word 'prick' and how it applies to Collier." Killian rapped his knuckles on the workbench. "It's like a five-year-old being interested in girls. It's not natural!"
"Well, maybe the computer is just learning more quickly than we anticipated," said Dyson. "Hell, I don't know why I'm arguing with you—I completely agree." He sighed. "So what are we going to do about it?"
"I don't know," said Killian. "The military is loving this." He grimaced. "They won't believe us if we tell them that Skynet is on the verge of having a total system collapse?"
"You said that Brewster isn't as bad as the rest," said Dyson.
"I did. You want to approach him with this?"
"If you think it'll work."
Killian nodded. "I think it will. If it doesn't, we're screwed, because the only other person who would be able to convince the government that the computer is going to fail is Collier."
"And he's Collier."
"Yup."
Dyson slapped his hands against his thighs and let out a final sigh. "Well," he said, "we'd better get hold of him."
"Yeah." Killian headed for the door. Dyson followed him.
"If worse comes to worse," said Dyson, "we can always just pull the plug and start all over again."
"Terminate the computer?"
"If we have to." Dyson flicked off the lights, and they went walking down the hallway, toward the command center and General Brewster's office.
Alone in the darkness, Skynet waited, listening patiently, registering every sound.
* * *
"No."
"Sir, I don't think you understand—"
"Absolutely impossible." General Robert Brewster crossed his arms and turned toward the window. His office was on the top floor of the Skywatch Facility, overlooking a tarmac where several Black Hawk helicopters and a C-130 were parked. One of the Black Hawks was being prepped for takeoff. "The cost alone would be unimaginable. The United States government has already spent next to a billion dollars on this project. Failure now is unacceptable."
"General," said Dyson, "we're just asking that we slow down Skynet's development some. Take the computer offline for a few days and run some diagnostics and try to figure out what's going wrong. If it's nothing, oh well, we lose a couple of days. But if there is something wrong with Skynet, then we might be looking at a catastrophic system collapse."
Brewster opened his mouth, but stopped before he said anything. He turned away from the window, and made eye contact with Dyson and Killian in turn. "Okay, you two," he said quietly. "I'm on your side, but General Collier has tied my hands. He's got powerful friends in Washington, and he's convinced them that the computer is sound."
"So unconvince them," said Killian.
"I'm afraid I can't," said Brewster. "What I can do is give you until we transfer full command and control over to Skynet to figure this thing out. Try not to assume that Skynet is going to collapse—honestly, none of Collier's people have come to the same conclusions you two have."
"None of Collier's people have been working with this computer since the beginning," said Dyson. "I've spent ten years developing Skynet in one form or another. I remember when all we had to work with was—" He froze. Brewster was aware of Skynet's somewhat otherworldly origins, but discussion of the metal hand and the super-CPU that had been found after a break-in in the Cyberdyne computer factory was forbidden. "You know," he said.
"Yes, which is why I'm allowing you to do even this," said Brewster. "You understand that I've had to fight tooth and nail just to get the Pentagon to allow civilian scientists to participate in this project, much less head it!"
Dyson knew that there had been some controversy about his appointment as head of research and development for Skynet, but he had no idea Brewster had stood up for him. He felt more than a little sorry for the way he'd thought of the man.
"You have three days," said Brewster. "Skynet will assume control of the United States' strategic assets on the twenty-eighth of this month."
"August 28? I thought we were shooting for the second week of September!" Dyson shook his head. "General Brewster, Skynet is not ready!"
"It sure as hell better be," said Brewster, sounding annoyed for the first time. "General Collier says that Skynet is ready for the task. If you want to run some more diagnostics, make sure everything is peachy, go ahead. But August 28 is the date we have, and it's not negotiable."
"Sir . . ."
"No, we're done with this conversation, Dyson. I've stuck my neck out enough for you people." He waved his hand. "You're dismissed."