2163

"Beg your pardon, what do you mean, 'if'?"

Impressive, Akilah thought; face, tone, cadence, posture—everything is precisely set on the edge of impolite. You've had some practice, Doctor Cain.

"Oh, nothing in particular." She kept her focus on X. "Joyce tells me your results in the tests she's been running are exceptional." It—he?—spared an instant to look at Joyce, then back to Cain, back to her.

"I'm glad to hear that." Back to Cain again; what was he looking for? That face—realistic beyond the point of uncanny, such that Akilah had to consciously remind herself she was looking at a machine—alternated between lost and closed: an institutionalized child, asked to face the real world.

"Hold on, this is too important to gloss over," Cain said. "Part of why we signed with you is because we thought you recognized what makes X truly great."

"He seems plenty impressive to me as is," Akilah said. Do you know where the edge of the envelope is?

Cain chuckled. "I suppose that's true, but should we be worried?" Hands up—question and supplication. "The three of us have been working up a research road map and AI is a high priority."

"I wouldn't say worried, but I'm sure you understand that we're in a unique position right now. We have to consider the fact that the research road map even existing is heresy to about one-hundred-and-seventy million people." You're sensible of that, right?

A brief pause. Cain's eyes were hard, but no flash of hostility.

"True. The prospect of an entirely new lifeform is frightening, especially if it surpasses us entirely." His smile had teeth for the first time.

"I'll admit it, I'm curious," Isaiah said, bursting his way into their little exchange. "What's supposed to make you so different from the robots we have? Brain-wise, that is."

X was again stunned to have anything directed at him; Cain gave him a pat on the back. Neither spoke. Doppler's eyes widened with each silent second until he stepped forward.

"If I may? What we're absolutely sure of is the difference of degree. During our escape from the Exclusion Zone, X . . . Essentially created a weapon out of thin air, calculated the flight paths of two Hunter Killer units, and shot both of them down with some kind of high-speed plasma projectile, and all this took a few seconds." The more he spoke of the technical, the more he felt himself, Akilah noted. "At the very least, that suggests his raw computational power is orders of magnitude greater than anything we have access to."

Cain folded his hands behind his back and nodded with amusement, as though having to explain such a thing was beneath him. Akilah looked over her shoulder to Joyce, as did the others at the table.

"That meshes with our testing."

"Right!" Like a teacher whose student finally saw the pattern. "The more contentious issue is that word 'sentience," and that . . ." He didn't like the way what he was thinking felt on his tongue. "I am not as fully convinced as Euse—Doctor Cain—is. Some times X seems as human as any of us, others . . ."

"Christ, all right, all right. Next time you want to get to 'I don't know,' spare me the scenic route," Ally said, raising his glass to his lips.

"Really? I appreciate the candor." Kelvin said.

"I'm hoping you two might throw some more candor my way," Iskander said. "There have already been questions since the press conference about how this unlikely partnership ended up forming. Our reputation is probably a lost cause in some places, but most Europeans are still on the fence. Now's the time to clarify our position and . . . Erm . . . Doctor Cain?"

When Akilah looked back, Cain was waving at Iskander as at a buzzing fly.

"Someone once said to me, 'Explanations are for things you can't make people feel.' Now, I didn't think much of it at the time, but as I got older, I understood there are times it's right." He cleared his throat, drawing himself up as straight as possible. "X, march in place."

"What?"

"I said 'march in place.' That is a direct order."

X tilted his head slightly. "Why?"

"You see that? Why. Why." Cain pointed at X. "You've put X through hardware tests, but this is the first time any of you are talking to him at all. Now, no robot we have on hand can ignore a direct order from a human that harms neither the robot nor any humans. Maybe, you'll say, this is something practiced, or a clever algorithm. But if that word 'why' gave you even a shred of doubt, I invite all of you to sit down with X for at least an hour and really talk to him. You'll see: he's all the position we need."

"Doctor." X could barely be heard. "I can't—"

"I believe in you, X. We both do, don't we, Sig?"

"Well, I . . . Yes. We do."

That was real tenderness in Cain's voice, no mistaking it. And the way X looked to the two men . . . she had seen what she needed.

"Again, this was just a meet-and-greet. There's no need to decide on anything, but we'll have plenty of time to arrange for one-on-ones if you're open to it, X." She motioned for her own bodyguards. "If you could escort Doctor Doppler and X back to the lobby and ready the car, I just need to borrow Doctor Cain for a moment."

Neither Doppler nor X knew what to make of that; oh well, they didn't need to. They let themselves be shepherded back the way they'd come. Cain followed Akilah as she walked down a terrace and turned off into a citrus grove. The conversation at the table resumed, obscured by distance, leaves, and misters activating all around.

"Is poking me with a stick like that really the way to start off our relationship?" Cain asked. It was hard to see the color of his eyes behind the smoke off his charcoal pupils. A mirthless smile. "It's almost like you think I'm dangerous."

"Take it as a compliment, Doctor. I don't think that about many people," Akilah said.

"At least assure me you're not that blind to the pote—"

"I'm not. Put yourself in my position. A man who was known—at his best, decades ago—to have an ego problem reaches out with big talk about changing the world order, after sitting on your ass, hiding from your failures for, what, fifteen years? That's not a story unique to you, and most of those men? All they have left is hot air. I needed to see if you had more."

"Hiding from my failures?" Cain whispered.

Akilah stepped towards him and put a firm hand on his shoulder. "Listen. We're going to have to live with each other for quite a while. So whatever you're thinking about saying right now? Don't say it. I've seen what I needed to."

"Fine," Cain said. "Are we done for today?"

"One more thing. To try to get a bit ahead of the fanatics, Tshering Dorji and I have been backchanneling a bit. The Church has sent a high-ranking observer. Dorji's going to announce it to the Remnant once I've met the observer in person. I'm hoping you can find a way to break it to your people."

His body seized and relaxed in time to her words; by the end, he was nodding, looking sly. They returned to the main path, clasping his hand and shaking it as she came into view.

"To a long and prosperous partnership," she said, louder than she needed to.

"Amen," he said with a laugh, strolling off down the terraces.

Akilah rejoined the lunch party. Ally and Nyirenda both tried to offer their opinions of her new collaborators, but she let them wither on the vine. Near an hour later, they began making their excuses, bodyguards trailing after them like familiars. Only Desmond remained, taking up the seat to her right.

"Your read on Cain was dead-on," Akilah said. "He took the bait from the start, and all I had to do to get him to leave quietly was make everything about him."

"I wish I'd been wrong this time," Desmond said.

"If he were just a raging egomaniac that would be one thing. Did you see how the others fell for his soapbox act? They were eating out of his hand."

"X was, too."

Akilah sighed into her hands. "That's the rub."

"Nyirenda thinks Doppler can be trained to be the face of the project," Desmond said. Akilah didn't bother to reply, just throwing him an arched brow. He capitulated. "Right. How do you want to handle this?"

"We're stuck with Cain until we can get X to open up more. He's still a tool we can use; we'll just have to be careful of the sharp edges."

"And what about X himself?" Desmond swirled his finger about in a cyan-tinted glass, the steel straw clattering against the sides, disturbing the drops of condensation. "Do you think he has free will?"

"Sure," Akilah shrugged. "As much as any of us have now that we set this boulder rolling."