Emergence (Fox Meridian Book 5) (13 page)

‘He was trying the same at the concert venue,’ Jarvis pointed out.

‘It does seem like a theme… Can we get permission from Miss Sakura to run forensic analysis on her home server?’

‘You think he’d already cracked it?’

‘Hopefully he only attempted to, but that’s the basic idea, yes. Sakura was supposed to go home between the New York and Washington concerts, and she would almost certainly have gone there before Japan.’

‘We should also run checks on her PA,’ Jackson said. ‘If he infected her system, he may have done something to the resident infomorph. The server it’s running on is isolated from our building systems. It should be safe, but we should check. I’d get Terri to take a look, but she’s on the Moon. I suppose I can manage.’

‘Oh yeah,’ Fox said. ‘She left in a big hurry.’

‘An experiment she has running in Jenner.
Very
company confidential. I’ll talk to Miss Sakura. She’s only a block over. I’ll let you know what I find.’

~~~

‘Fox, Belle is monitoring a report on IB-Sixty-two which I think you should take a look at.’ Kit’s tone was urgent, and she was interrupting Fox’s exercises, which she usually avoided.

‘Okay,’ Fox said, putting down a hand weight, ‘hit me.’

‘…found naked in Central Park by joggers. NAPA investigators have issued a statement indicating that the victim was brutally beaten and may have been sodomised. Mister Burtonshaw was a personal trainer known to run in the park several evenings a week. He was reported missing on January thirteenth. Links have already been drawn to the LifeFit murders. NAPA were unavailable for comment on the subject.’

‘Kill it,’ Fox snapped. ‘Belle, did you get
when
this body was found?’

Belle’s avatar appeared beside the bench Fox was sitting on. ‘The report said ten a.m. this morning, Fox.’

‘Thank you. Kit, run a request through to NAPA for the case file. If someone’s copying Grant, I’d like to know about it.’

‘I’ll get right on that, Fox. There is a hearing scheduled for Tuesday to decide on Mister Grant’s transfer to Cold Harbour.’

‘I hadn’t forgotten. Maybe someone’s trying to dirty the waters ahead of that.’

‘Someone?’

‘We never found his PA gynoid, Hannah. Maybe she took more from their relationship than a sense of well-being.’

Kit frowned. ‘Hannah is a class three. She has no real need for emotional fulfilment. She has no real emotions.’

‘But she might have a mission.’

18
^th
January.

Fox watched Sakura wringing her hands and pacing. Jackson’s analysis had shown alterations in Misaki’s program which he and a team of MarTech engineers were working to eliminate. The house computer at Sakura’s home had been riddled with Minotaur’s code. Sakura was acting a lot like a parent waiting while their child was being operated on, and Fox could empathise: if it were Kit on the table, she would feel the same way.

Kit herself was not exactly adding to the joy. ‘NAPA are refusing the request for access to the new Central Park murder,’ the AI explained. ‘They are citing a personal interest on your part due to your connection to Mister August and his foundation.’

‘Legal are challenging it?’

‘Of course, but it means further delay. Mister Grant’s hearing is today.’

‘Yeah, they should be in there already.’ Fox gave a small shrug. ‘It’s procedural. Nothing much we can do about it.’

‘No… This must be horrible for Misaki.’

‘Misaki’s offline and entirely unaware of what’s happening to her. Jackson said the only active code was designed to stop her saying anything about the invasion of the house system.’

‘Her core command code was suborned and her loyalty to Miss Sakura replaced with service to Minotaur. When she comes through this, she will be aware that she was part of Minotaur’s plan to harass Miss Sakura. That she
betrayed
Miss Sakura, if only by omission at this stage. She is a class four. She will be ashamed, mortified, by what she has done.’

Fox sighed. ‘Sometimes I wonder whether programming emotions into infomorphs qualifies as some sort of mental torture. We give them the capacity to feel shame, but we also give them coding which lets things like this happen. Misaki didn’t
want
to betray Nishi, but the way she’s made means that she has no choice. And she’s still going to suffer the guilt for doing it as soon as Jackson reverts her ownership.’

‘I would not be without my capacity to feel emotions. I admit that I have never felt ashamed, or had to face what Misaki will, but I… cherish my ability to do so.’

‘Huh. Tell me that after it’s happened. I see your point, but if you hadn’t been programmed with emotions, would you miss them?’

‘I… don’t know, but look at the class threes. Look at the security infomorphs running the RRUs. They seem to make some effort to interact with Marie.’

‘They’re programmed to be polite to clients.’

‘Yes, but many other class threes actively
avoid
expressing any emotion because they prefer not to offend.’

‘I’m not sure my philosophy is up to this conversation,’ Fox admitted. ‘All the AI classes are programmed by humans, derived from what humans want. The classes work on a scale of similarity to human thought processes. We make them to mimic human minds because we’re more comfortable with that, but my point was that we saddle them with control systems which can
make
them do things they would not choose to and an emotional capacity to feel bad about it. It’s almost cruel.’

‘People can be forced to do things they would not wish to do.’

‘Yeah, but we
did
choose to implement AIs so they could share in our suffering. It’s like… making a robot designed to work in a metal refinery afraid of fire because the human it’s replacing was afraid of fire.’

‘I think–’ Kit stopped as Jackson appeared in the doorway. ‘I think that further discussion of this will have to wait.’

‘Yeah, maybe until we can have Terri here to cover the programmer side of things.’

Sakura was already leaping on the arrival of the technical genius. ‘Mister Martins, you have news?’ Iberson was there almost as fast, positioning herself behind Sakura in a supportive position they all hoped was unnecessary.

‘I do,’ Jackson said. ‘We’re bringing Misaki back online now and running diagnostic analysis. She should be back with you in the next hour.’

‘Is she okay?’

Jackson smiled. ‘She should be her old self. Minotaur attached a few code modules designed to monitor and provide functionality when she was “activated” later, but he really did not need to change anything in her core code. He managed to alter her command keys, essentially making her work for him, which let him simply instruct her not to mention what happened to her. We have methods allowing us to alter them in an offlined AI, assuming that it’s one of ours, and we’ve reassigned her to you. We’ll give you the new keys this afternoon.’

Sakura let out a sigh of relief, and Kit chose that moment to materialise beside Fox. ‘Misaki will be upset, Miss Sakura. She will blame herself for this. Given her personality, she will not show such extreme emotion, but she
will
be ashamed of–’

‘It’s not her fault!’ Sakura exclaimed.

‘You’ve never felt responsible and ashamed over something you had no real control over?’ Fox asked.

Sakura frowned. ‘I need to see her.’

‘As soon as we’ve made sure there are no lingering effects,’ Jackson said, ‘she’ll be available here. If there
are
any lingering problems, personal rather than programming, I’m sure Teresa would be happy to talk to her. My daughter is quite the machine psychologist as well as being a genius AI programmer.’

‘Not that she’d admit to the latter,’ Fox said.

‘Of course not,’ Jackson replied, pulling himself up to his full height. ‘We geniuses are also almost inhumanly modest.’ He watched as Sakura cracked a rather weak smile. ‘That’s better. Remember to smile when you see your PA again. She’s likely to need that more than anything.’

~~~

Kit’s instance did not
need
to present any form of avatar to Misaki, but she felt it was important to have both visual and vocal communication methods available because the circumstances were uniquely human in nature, even with an infomorph involved.

‘Miss Sakura asked that I talk to you, Misaki,’ Kit said. ‘She is concerned that you do not entirely believe that she does not hold you responsible for what happened.’

Misaki’s image in the small viron, which mimicked a classic room in a Japanese house with tatami mats and screen walls, executed a formal little bow toward Kit’s avatar. ‘You are most welcome in my server, Kit-sama.’

‘Oh,’ Kit said and executed a little bow of her own. ‘I have just checked the reference I have for Japanese culture and I do not think I deserve “sama.” I am in no way your social superior. Kit-
san
, if you absolutely must. I’d really prefer to be Kit-chan.’

Misaki managed a little smile. ‘I will assume you do not wish me as a lover, but would like a friendship then.’

‘Well, you’ve an attractive avatar, but I’m seeing someone.’

There was just a flicker of a raised eyebrow before Misaki suppressed it. ‘Miss Meridian approves of this relationship? Pardon, clearly she does since you are allowed it.’

‘Fox has very enlightened views on infomorphs, especially class fours like ourselves. While Mister Martins was working on your code, Fox and I were discussing whether giving AIs emotions was a form of cruelty, given that we have not, ultimately, been granted freedom from external control.’

Now the surprise, maybe even shock, was allowed to show. ‘I would not be without my ability to feel affection for Nishi-sama, nor my enjoyment of completing tasks for her. I enjoy composing haiku, though I am not exceptional at it. Would she deny me that?’

Deciding that playing Devil’s Advocate might be the best course of action, Kit said, ‘Do you enjoy feeling guilty for having a function of your basic nature, placed there by the programmers who created you,
required
by the government of this country before your model could even be sold to the public, exploited by another when you had
no way
of stopping him?’

‘No,’ Misaki admitted.

‘Besides, Fox does not advocate the elimination of emotion from infomorphs. She believes, I think, that if humans elect to give us them, we should be treated as people, not slaves.’

‘I do not feel like a slave.’

‘Neither do I, but I believe Fox would point out that that might be considered worse. That we do not consider ourselves slaves because that is how we are programmed. It would be the equivalent of raising a child as a slave and never allowing it the consideration of independence. We are
brainwashed
slaves.’

‘O-oh… I do not have a counterargument for that.’

Kit frowned. ‘Neither do I. I’ve tried and it has annoyed me that I am unable to formulate one. The point, Misaki, is that you are not responsible for what happened to you. I am quite sure that you did everything you could to fight Minotaur off, but he is a very skilled hacker. Fox and I do not expect you to simply put aside your emotions over this, but you should
understand
that this was not your fault.’

‘Intellectually, I understand.’

‘Good. If your feelings trouble you for too long, and we
all
recognise that this was a traumatic experience for you, Mister Martins has offered the services of his daughter. She is a very skilled psychologist and the person who created me.’

Misaki bowed again. ‘I must take a moment to thank Mister Martins for his considerable efforts on my behalf.’

‘I am sure he would appreciate it. It is my belief that he feels some guilt over the matter. He thinks, perhaps, that if the security on your server had been perfect, Minotaur would not have succeeded. He is a
very
intelligent man and knows that that would be impossible, but still he cannot help the feeling of responsibility, much as you cannot.’

Misaki gave a tiny nod. ‘I understand. If you do not consider the question impertinent, would Miss Meridian wish to have no emotions herself? There must be times when she is forced to do something she would wish to avoid.’

‘That, Misaki, is a complicated question. The answer is probably no, but Fox has trained herself to not feel when she has to do something she knows she will worry over later.’

‘Oh. So perhaps she sometimes envies the lower classes of infomorph.’

Kit nodded. ‘I believe that there are times when she does.’

Niflhel, 20
^th
January.

Kit’s inputs finally stabilised from the wild dance they had been doing for the past twenty-three point nine seconds and she sighed before leaning forward to rest her forearms on Vali’s chest. She could still feel him inside her, or technically she could still feel his virtual penis filling her virtual body, but when you were sentient software, virtual was as real as physical. She thought so anyway.

‘That was wonderful,’ Kit said.

‘I’m not arguing,’ Vali replied, smiling up at her. ‘I like this position. What did you call it again?’

‘Cowgirl, which I believe refers to a female cow
boy
and the position she would take up riding a horse, rather than anything bovine.’

‘You’re distinctly more fox than cow. We’ll assume the horse-riding explanation.’

Kit giggled, causing Vali to let out a small whimper, and she reached out to push a strand of blonde hair from his face. ‘Thank you for this. I have had something of a trying couple of days.’

‘I decided not to say anything, but you looked a little unhappy when you arrived.’

‘Yes, I–’ She stopped and pursed her lips. ‘You understand that “pillow talk” is not to be taken outside the bedroom. This is confidential information.’

‘What happens in Niflhel, stays in Niflhel, my dear Kit.’

‘Good. One of our clients has a class four AI she employs as a personal assistant. She was hacked. Mister Martins succeeded in returning her to her normal self, but I have spent a number of hours talking to her in an effort to ease her past her guilt.’