Alive
Book 2
Pt20
1
A million questions had gone unanswered that morning. If not for the urgency of the moment, David was certain his clone ruse would have taken on too many holes to float. Only the severity of the situation had kept Henry from poking at those weak points. And only that severity had kept David from following as the man had stepped into the hall at the top of the stairs, carrying the cup of coffee he had brewed for Her. He would have gladly fallen on his knees and begged to bring it to her himself, just to see her again.
But 101 was out there. Its threat was real. The reunion would have to wait.
He was, again, amazed by the mind; how quickly his memories had returned. And how fresh they'd been. Of all the things that had slipped from his mortal brain, the ritual of Her morning coffee remained intact. Perhaps love was the virtual cloud in which memories of the human heart were stored.
Henry's suspicions had flared as he'd taken the cup of coffe, and he'd shot a cautious glance at David. But there was too much to think about, too much at stake, for the man to start asking questions. The man seemed to understand this. And perhaps, deep inside, he really didn't want the answers. In the end he'd simply taken the coffee up the stairs, looking warily over his shoulder as he ascended.
Martin's eyes had never left David. He could feel the dark energy of his rival's glare like heat on his neck.
"Relax," David said without looking back. "I'll be gone soon enough."
""It'll never be soon enough," Martin hissed.
David ignored the response and the two awaited Henry's return in a silence broken only the soft exchange of words from up the stairs, and Martin grumbling a few times, under his breath.
Minutes later he was climbing into his Stratocruiser as Henry and Martin watched. Their faces displayed varied expressions of suspicion and worry. Henry wary. Martin glaring. Each harboring different doubts about the future.
"Tell Jenna to check out Familiar Inc," David said as he strapped himself in and ignited his thrusters. The Stratocruiser began to hum. "Let her know 101 is in the deep net. It's probably watching everything. Everyone needs to employ emergency level encryption on all communications. That's the safest way."
"Don't you think we should contact the police," Henry said. At first David couldn't respond. Henry was asking for his advice? He had to adapt to this strange new relationship with the man.
"What would you tell them?" he said after a moment. "That a robot which doesn't even officially exist is up to something but we don't know what yet?"
Henry looked annoyed but finally nodded and stepped away. David glanced at Martin before he closed his canopy.
"And tell Jenna she might want to take a look at Olmier Enterprises too," David said. "I am sure they're mixed up in this somehow."
Martin grimaced and another question bloomed behind Henry's eyes. But neither had a chance to say anything before David snapped the canopy shut and the Stratocruiser lifted quickly into the air.
In moments his rivals were just specks on the expansive lawn in his rear-view monitor.
How long would this shaky truce last?
2
Familiar Inc. David couldn't shake the feeling that the company was connected with 101 somehow.
Their digital brain interfacing technology was so regulated that most developers and investors had steered clear until Government agencies had settled on an acceptable regime. Their scrutiny was unrelenting. And that was ironic since most of the company's existing contracts were with the Federals. And those were secret.
That's the thing about secrets. By the time you find out what they're hiding, it's usually too late.
At turn of the 21st Century, when the first dire effects of climate change had become obvious, the true potential of artificial intelligence was also being realized. Uproar had risen from the citizens of the world. At the same time their public lives were being irrevocably changed by rising oceans and rampant unending storms, by resource wars and collapsing social orders; thinking machines were also changing their personal lives. Cyberspace had become a reality unto itself, a rough beast slouching off to the halls of power to bang on the door of the old world. The rules by which man had governed his civilization for millennium were being rewritten; almost overnight, on a historical scale.
Religious orders, which had once been the arbiters of social hierarchy and morality, found themselves adapting to a new social consciousness and shifting conventions of public behavior. You can't control the net. It brought freedom in a way that humans had never known before. The secrets of the powerful were laid bare for all too see. And people didn't like what they saw. Information was the key. Instant global communication. The tyrants of old could not compete. Regimes fell. The de-facto monarchs of authoritarian states awoke to the hear roars of revolution; to see the siege banners of a new order on their palace steps.
Ancient sexual taboos were shrugged off by a generation newly freed from the grasping ghosts of Victorian repression. The patriarchal hierarchy flipped. Competence took the place of confidence, and the arrogant posture of dominance, which had hidden insecurity and fear for centuries, became a hindrance to progress.
Society could not fight its way out of climate destabilization, so there was no need for the warrior class of old. Survival now demanded more brains than brawn. The alpha-male was set out to pasture and the unisex uber-nerd took his place as a symbol of stability and progress.
Political ideologies adapted or disappeared. The laissez-faire, free-market mentality that once drove the economic engines of the world, had kept societies addicted to fossil-fuels and war. That could not continue. The market could no longer be allowed to run free. But its invisible hand had proven impervious to the restraints of the democratic process, which itself was under attack.
And that attack was coming from machines.
They had not been complex thinking machines in those days, not anything close to the sophisticated simulator David had once been. But they'd already been capable of infiltrating Cyberspace unseen and undetected; extracting information for the aspiring imperialists who used them to achieve their dark goals. They had never succeeded, but their new tools unleashed an unprecedented wave of spying and cyber-warfare. The Millennial Generation finally awoke to the threat… but too late.
It was the dawn of a new age; an evolutionary paradigm shift which arrived on the wings of a savage predator. But the socio-political backlash was thwarted by a new life-and-death battle with encroaching seas and chaotic climates. Mother Nature, it turned out, was truly not one to be messed with.
Millions drowned. Millions starved. News reports of daily horrors become so commonplace no one paid attention anymore. Tragedy fatigue. How many starving children can the mind digest before the heart says 'turn away, there's nothing you can do'…?
By the time society had stabilized to this new sunken world, independent thinking machines were anathema. The idea of robots acting unregulated by Orga was considered treason to one's own kind. Flesh for flesh.
And the idea of direct mental interface…? In the wake of the societal downfall, such a thought spoken aloud in the wrong company might have gotten one killed.
But no more. Now the brain interfacing systems were being sold freely on the market.
People adapt. Even to horror, they adapt. And now that the world had adapted, old ideas were coming back. Old mistakes.
3
"Familiar Incorporated," David said to himself over the whir of his thrusters. Who were they, really? Were they directly involved with 101? And the Spiders. Could the company somehow be the source of the spying bots?
With privacy restrictions as they were, anyone who made such a thing would not only need access to the best minds and technology, but they'd have to be able to keep their activities secret. If Familiar was the source of the self-destructing spybots, then they would need to have deep connections to the underworld; because the materials to build such sophisticated devices could not be obtained without the intervention of regulators.
But what if the agencies entrusted to such regulation were aware of them? What about Familiar's covert government contacts?
David's mind went somewhere new now. The spybot that had caused the security breach at Manhattan had been trying to use a butler bot to make a net connection. But why? What was it looking for? What information would a standalone servant bot have access to?
Then he felt a shudder go up his spine. A thought had come to him.
What if the spider hadn't been looking for anything, like a typical spybot? What if the Mecha had been its target all along? And what if instead of trying to open a connection to send information, as they had assumed… what if it had been trying to receive information?
Instructions?
He slowed his Strocruiser at the Delaware shoreline and gazed over the blue waters ahead. On the distant horizon, Rouge City shimmered in the sunlight. He had planned on visiting his old adversary Dr Know, hoping to find some ideas in the data banks of the all-knowing machine. But a new and terrifying train of thought froze him in place.
He'd come to assume the release of the spiders at the Nexus had been part of 101's search for the strange boy in the Nanofighter video; himself as it turned out. But what if that was only part of the plan? Or not really the plan at all? The spider's had not found him, after all. It had been the game he'd been given. Only Animal and 101 had claimed the spiders were designed to search for him. Animal would only know what 101 had told him, and 101 was a programmed liar.
So, if the Mecha had been the real target of the spider that got loose at Cybertronics… did that mean Mecha were the true targets of all the others? And if they were not trying to break passwords and steal data… then what were they doing?
The spider had destroyed itself, dissolved to a silicon puddle right before their eyes. Any information they might have gleaned went with it. No one had any idea of the little spy's longevity, their storage capacity or even what they'd been programmed to do.
How many of those things had been released? There could be thousands of them still out there. What if they true goal was to gain control of service Mecha and put them under the command of… who? 101?
Asmovian Law kept Mecha from actively trying to hurt an Orga. It was hardcode, and could not be overwritten. Any Mecha that was caught without this fundamental restraint was shut down and destroyed. Underworld figures, like Olmier, had to have custom bots made to serve as bodyguards and, on rare occasions, hitmen. Standard service bots could not be used as weapons. Not directly anyway.
But if a Mecha was not aware its actions were dangerous… then could it be made to do some that would harm an Orga?
Hadn't David himself un-intentionally almost killed his Orga sibling?
His heart began to race as the image of thousands of service bots suddenly going into alert mode and doing unintended harm to their owners or the children of their owners. Or, what if their instructions were simply to do something that seemed harmless, but would later have devastating consequences; like leaving on some innocent household device which might later start a fire... or an explosion?
It seemed far-fetched, but too logical to ignore. Hobby had to hear about this dark possibility. It was too late to go back to the Swinton's, Henry would probably already be headed to Manhattan. And David couldn't afford to break net silence to contact his Father. 101 would be listening.
But Monica was in danger! More danger than he had imagined. And Amanda! She was in the epicenter of 101's scheme!
David knew he would have to risk going home.
He was about to input course changes when he noticed a news alert flash across his cab monitor. His heart jumped at first, thinking it might be about him. He didn't know if the police were still looking. But as the words scrolled by, he realized that this was much, much worse.
An explosion had just destroyed a Cybertronics outlet in Rouge City.
It had begun.
(cont…)