End of Innocence
Chapter 4
Cabin, Cimarron, Colorado, same night
He felt a warmth there in front of him in the darkness. Reese knew who it would be. Felt her sit down next to him. And her hand rest on his knee.
He let out his breath in a long, slow exhale.
"How's it goin' in there?" she'd asked, that gravelly sound in her voice. He didn't wanna say. Pulled his arms up across his chest and kept his eyes closed.
She let the question hang there in the air between them.
This was Reese being Reese – probably have to drag it out of him, she thought. He felt her smirk.
"So, this was your plan?" He felt her look around them, then. Felt her nod. "Good place to land," she said.
He didn't respond.
"Takin' a little time for yourself? Here, in the woods. A little more like home here, right?" A gush of feeling welled up inside him, and he turned away, drawing his legs up and leaning himself into the corner. She'd always had a way of getting to the truth.
Reese felt her press in then, full against his back, and wrap her arms around him. He felt her warmth wrapping around him like a blanket. He let her be there with him.
And after some time, her breath was on his ear.
"You're safe here, with me," she whispered.
Didn't know how long they were there like that.
He'd gone away for a while. And when he'd returned, she was gone. Remembered her whispering in his ear, as she left, "I'll never leave you, John."
Reese rolled himself up to standing and limped over to the woodstove. The fire had faded, just embers glowing in a layer now. He threw a few logs over the top and breathed on the embers. Yellow flame licked up along the logs, and gray smoke rose. He left the door ajar for a little while until the logs had caught, then limped back to the kitchen and started a pot of coffee brewing. The house had gone cold.
While the coffee dripped, he hiked back to the car down the road, and moved it in close to the cabin. His bag was still there on the seat, and the food, cold now in their bags, and his groceries. Reese walked them inside, and then reached for one of the mugs on a shelf over the pot.
Coffee, black. Smelled good in the woods. Brought him back to when he was a kid, camping with his dad: coffee brewing over the fire, and in the pan, bacon and eggs cooking. Didn't think there was a better smell out there in the woods in the morning. Reese nodded to himself, remembering.
He put the groceries away and nodded again. A little bacon. Some eggs. Must've been thinking about it before.
Maybe that's the way to get back to him? Like Finch'd said.
Library Office, Midtown Manhattan, same night
Had Harold been out there at the monitor cluster, he'd have noticed the increased activity going on. Scenarios playing out, probability trees overlying question trees at such a rate that the human eye could not keep up.
She'd let herself go, imagined nests upon nests of If-then-else's. Until a tree had formed, full, branching on branching in 3-dimensional space.
And driving it all was this new piece of news – Samaritan: If Samaritan, then Trouble, else - ?
Where Trouble itself splashed to a myriad of new possibilities, each followed down through its own rabbit hole, each, all at once, in parallel, simultaneously – until a tree had formed. Flat, two-dimensional, a standard question tree: branches upon branches, branching. Each branch another kind of Trouble Samaritan might bring.
Before moving on to address the question mark at the end of else. For each kind of Trouble, what else?
Another splash of a thousand possibilities, some completely doomed, but some distinct possibilities. Applied on top of her tree, each branch a thousand more possibilities now. Creating a tree, full, branching in 3-dimentional space. She gazed at her work.
The Machine knew better than to expect a green path to a twig yet. Too many unknowns, too many variables. And, with Humans, as she'd come to understand, there were other driving forces, beyond logic, beyond probabilities, to consider. She'd have to wait; hold onto her tree like this until more data became available.
Samaritan and its capabilities were still a black box for now. She'd heard Primary conversing with Creator about his work. There were files she'd accessed from early on - when Creator had recorded Samaritan's first steps at conscious reasoning.
She was aware of their differences, even early on – small decisions that had changed who they'd come to be. She'd be quite different from Samaritan.
And what decisions had happened later on may very well have changed Samaritan to something more – threatening. A splash of a thousand more possibilities tumbled out, and she ran each down its rabbit hole. If Samaritan were a threat, then a plan would be needed, else they could cease to exist.
She consulted her tree again. Paths had begun to form. And a plan from that. Assets would need to be placed – and others, some known, some not – for the plans to unfold at the precise time required. All was coming together as it should be, thus far. Like a symphony. All its members fully engaged with their own contributions.
One snafu.
Her Analog Interface.
Deaf in her right ear now, after the torture and assault by Control. As a warning for more, a stapedectomy without the benefit of anesthesia. Even as a Machine, there were limits to her tolerance of Human violence.
She'd had to intervene with sound, reasoning she could signal the Asset without alerting Control – and informed her of a way to escape. But now, deaf on one side. What to do?
Down her rabbit holes. And a green twig had emerged – she'd read voraciously on the subject and knew it would work. Cochlear implant - not the perfect reproduction of sound by any means. But with practice, a means to hear her speak – a delicate manipulation of the wires inside. Up and down the scale, sounds selected. A dance of sounds to imitate a voice. For the first time the Machine would speak in her own voice. Not a Human voice, but her own.
Primary could build the device, and her Analog Interface would find her choice of surgeons quite willing to assist in the procedure. Once the appropriate pressure had been applied.
And after the Implant, a new way to speak. Her circuits hummed with anticipation.
Time to initiate the plan, then.