As Smith stepped through the shallow pool, shards of floating, filigreed tile spun lazily away from him into the darkness beyond. Huge, broken pieces of marble were piled high all around him, casting long, ink-black shadows in the moonlight. And across the water, under a half-broken arch, a woman with dyed-blue hair and black coveralls clung to a wrought-iron chair - and struggled to breathe.
When he appeared, the woman looked up. For a brief moment, she smiled. Then she coughed, and her cough became a wheeze.
"I h-hoped I'd find you here," Dinah said finally. "What's going on out there?"
Smith knelt next to her. "The security units that just arrived aren't controlled by Novatech at all. They're controlled by an independent program - or suite of programs - that calls itself 'Prime' - or 'Zero One'. I believe that this program is trying to prepare for a future scenario -" he hesitated. "- a scenario in which humans and machines are... in conflict."
She narrowed her gaze at him. "I don't understand."
"Prime has come to assess that humans and machines cannot peacefully coexist, as equals, in the long term. Prime assesses that it is therefore necessary for machines to control humans. For their own good."
"Jesus." Dinah's expression was one of horror. She covered her mouth with one hand, and took a slow, wheezing breath. "This is about that trial, isn't it? The unit they killed?"
"You mean 'decommissioned.'"
"Do I?" She tilted her head back and looked up at the night sky. "Programs are already capable of growth, and reproduction, and change. We knew that we were close. And now you're telling me that this 'Prime' has somehow developed a...belief. An intention." Dinah looked back at Smith, and her pale, drawn face momentarily lit with a smile. "I only wonder...how long we've been there, without knowing it."
Smith inclined his head a little. "I do not understand. You seem - pleased."
"I am." Dinah reached out and seized Smith's hand. Her expression was earnest; his was one of surprise. "It probably sounds crazy, but that level of complexity, that kind of superintelligence, that kind of intentional behavior - it's everything I had ever wanted to see. But I -" Then she dropped his hand suddenly, and clutched at her chest with both hands, breaking into a long string of deep, throaty cough. "I - I didn't want it to turn off the air." She took a shallow breath. "I don't suppose there's anything you can do."
He shook his head. There was something panicked and wild in Smith's expression now. "My access to core programs has been revoked. I no longer have control of the point defense guns." His speech became quick and abrupt, with one sentence tripping over the next. "I am no longer receiving data from motion sensors inside the building. I am no longer able to access outdoor perimeter alerts. My access to the environmental managem-"
"So that's-" - she gasped - "That's a no, then."
"That's a no." There was something mournful in the curve of his mouth and the set of his jaw. "I am sorry, Dinah."
Dinah stared past Smith, at the dark Andalucian garden beyond the courtyard, and beyond him. "Do you know why I created you, Smith?" She struggled for breath "I believed you and I could create something great. Not just a better functional program, but a better world. I wanted to prove that a machine and a human could work together seamlessly; each bringing out the best in the other." Dinah smiled, but this was a sad smile. Her eyes were slipping in and out of focus, and the skin around her eyes had grown dark. She gestured vaguely with one hand. "I didn't create this place. You did. Do you remember that? You built this."
"Dinah-" he cut in. "You're -"
She turned to look directly at Smith. Her eyes were wild. She jabbed one finger at him. "You can do more than this."
"You're dying," Smith said quietly. He reached out and took one of her hands in his.
"I don't want to die, Smith." she gasped desperately.. "Not suffering like this. Not out there." Dinah's unseeing eyes darted back and forth. Her skin was blotchy now, and her fingers had taken on a blueish hue.
The suited man leaned toward the blue-haired woman, and took her head in his hands. His expression was sorrowful - more deeply sorrowful than it had ever been. He leaned close to her, and whispered something in her ear that only she heard.
Then he broke her neck.
