The Last Firewall (16 page)

“Sonja told us six eighty-three,” Mike said.

“There have been six more since we spoke.”

Mike let out a low whistle of surprise. “It’s still going on.”

Leon pressed his fingers to his temples, trying to concentrate. “Sonja and her team went to San Diego. Why?”

“The first deaths took place there. Three were obvious murders, and the other three appeared to be of natural, although unexplained causes. One was the cousin of Lonnie Watson, the current head of the People’s Party.”

“The anti-AI group.” Mike said, flexing and holding up his arm. “Thanks, by the way. It feels great. Where did you get the medical nanites? I didn’t think they were cleared outside military use.”

“I have a permit for experimental nanotech, and open source designs float around the AI community. They will accelerate healing, then dissipate in six weeks.” The bot clicked manipulators, seeming satisfied with itself.

Leon cleared his throat. “Who do you suspect is behind the murders?”

“Given the complex pattern, it must be an AI, as a human simply would not be capable of the necessary cunning. With all apologies to you, of course.”

Leon waved away the concern. “If it’s an AI, how can it evade attention? We have an entire ethical architecture, including reputation scores, traffic monitoring, and locked chips to prevent AI movement.”

“I don’t believe it’s a flaw,” Shizoko said. “The architecture you’ve designed is satisfactory, although I could suggest minor improvements.”

“What about a large group of AI, collaborating together?” Mike interrupted. “Could they hide their activities by covering for each other?”

“To a limited extent,” Shizoko said. “If their actions were restricted to those inside their social circle, it could be hidden. Otherwise it would be trivial to trace them.”

“This makes no sense. The complexity of the murders implicates AI, but the ethical constraints mean they can’t have done it.” Leon sighed and turned to the glass exterior. From his fourth floor position, he saw anti-AI protesters blocking the roads around the convention center, their chanting indistinct through the distance and thick glass. The convention center was a terrible location to be trapped, surrounded as they were by glass walls.

“Why is this your home?” he asked, turning back to the bot.

“I was created in a workshop at the final South by Southwest conference. The Institute had just released a new SDK for developing AI within the ethical framework. The attendees, led by Harper Reed, wanted an emergent AI based on the application of fluid dynamics to neural networks. I emerged, applied for Japanese citizenship, conducted a number of speculative trades, and bought the convention center.”

“Why?” Leon asked. “What was your motivation? You could have gone anywhere in the world, been housed at a secure data center or someplace more suited to an AI.”

“A neural network based on graphene computer chips is no different from a human neural network based on biological tissues. Certain preferences and biases develop.”

Leon nodded, looked outside again.

“What are you thinking about?” Mike asked, coming to stand beside him.

Leon looked at him, his brow furrowed. “I’m wondering about the motivation. AI have been physically attacked by extremists. What if one is retaliating? It’s illogical to expect change by murdering people, but then the AI might not be rational.”

“I disagree,” Shizoko said, “for two reasons. Although AI have preferences and even emotions, we do not make illogical decisions. This,” and here the bot gestured at the concrete and glass building around them, “is a perfectly suitable home for me, and within my financial means. It contains power, structural stability, and size for future expansion. It may be unusual, but it is not a poor choice.”

“And the second reason?” Mike asked.

“The murders started before the creation of the People’s Party.”

“Before it?” Leon said, shocked. “But what caused the creation of the party?”

“According to Lonnie Watson’s speech, it was high unemployment, then 35% nationally and 60% in his district.”

“I don’t buy it,” Mike said. “People don’t do things for big ideas. They do it for personal reasons, then justify their actions with moral arguments.”

“You may be correct,” Shizoko said. “Extrapolating from available data, Lonnie was influenced by three people: The first was a prominent business owner in Lonnie’s congressional district whose company was driven under by AI competition.” Shizoko projected a photo of the two men talking, then followed it with a photo of a woman. “The second was Lonnie’s aunt. Her daughter appeared to commit suicide, and the mother blamed her daughter’s lack of employment. But her death conforms to the high bandwidth pattern, suggesting it was not a suicide, but a murder.”

Leon flipped through the photos Shizoko shared, digging down for details.

Shizoko went on. “Finally, Lonnie had a college friend whose son died, another case where appearances suggested suicide. This death is not part of the cluster, because there was no high bandwidth transmission before death, but the boy in question didn’t have an implant. Nothing suggests the death is connected, unless we believe it was done to influence Lonnie, in which case we are using our conclusion to support our evidence. However, it’s a convenient coincidence. Shortly after these events, Lonnie proposed the People’s Party.”

As they spoke, more people swarmed outside the convention center, now forming a thick cordon around the building.

“They know we’re here,” Leon said. “I assume these are People’s Party supporters?”

“Yes,” Shizoko said. “Correlating identity with social net feeds, all are members in name or action.”

“Are we safe?” Mike asked, unconsciously rubbing his arm where he’d been shot.

“For the moment,” Shizoko said. “This building is secure against any reasonable amateur attack. I notified the police, but they have not responded.”

Mike turned to face Shizoko squarely. “We want to go to San Diego to figure out what happened to the Enforcement Team, and to get to the root of these murders. It seems clear the murders and the People’s Party are intimately connected, and whatever events unfold, they are bound to have a significant impact on your kind. Will you assist us?”

Shizoko rolled up to the window, the soft tap, tap, tap of his rubber treads slapping the concrete floor. “What is clear to you is still nebulous to me. It’s unlikely your human intuition is more accurate than my nonlinear statistical modeling, but I would be honored to assist the founders of artificial intelligence. I will arrange transport, and we will leave in fifteen minutes.”

29

T
HE PHENOMINOL WORE OFF
quickly, leaving Cat in a lethargic post-coital bliss. Alex, on the other hand, wasn’t keen about being turned into a human puppet and stormed out, calling her a crazy bitch as he dressed.

Cat watched him leave, thinking it wasn’t quite fair, considering that she’d been more than willing to be tied up and at his mercy. After he’d left, she felt herself spiraling downward and decided it was too depressing to stay in the hotel room. She dressed and made her way home, crashing hard, neurotransmitters depleted.

When she woke, images from last night flashed through her mind like an out-of-order slide show.

She tried to focus on what she knew. Linking during sex was accomplished by connecting to each other’s low-level interfaces, creating a sensory feedback loop that turned the most minor event into rapture. She’d finally experienced linking as it was intended, and damn, it was good, but the experience paled in comparison to her control over Alex.

Was it the drug or the weeks of practice using her implant that had helped her do it? She wouldn’t know unless she tried again. She had to know, it was all she could think of.

She threw off the blanket and stood by the window, watching white collar workers walk by. Reaching out with her implant, she spoofed packet headers subconsciously, disguising her tracks, as she requested their info feeds. Bubbles appeared above people’s heads showing their name, occupation, status, whatever they shared publicly.

Cat queried their diagnostics and the bubbles updated, layering in people’s IDs, implant version, and supported interfaces. Maybe a quarter had their medical feeds open, so she pulled basic health, and dense infographics appeared showing blood types, nutrient and hormone levels, and sleep history.

She’d put it off long enough. Now it was time for the experiment.

She broadcasted this time, sending data to open implants instead of receiving, imagining the act of waving her left arm.

Simultaneously, up and down the street, dozens of people’s left arms rose into the air and waved.

She stared in shock, covering her mouth as she let out a surprised scream. People stopped and stared at themselves, wiggled their arms, then shrugged it off and continued on. One man cursed at the cup he’d dropped, splattering coffee on his clothes.

“Sorry,” Cat whispered. But she felt a broad smile cross her face. She’d never been so powerful before.

She found her boots and rushed outside. Standing in the middle of the sidewalk, the morning commuters flowed around her like water around a rock.

She emptied her mind with a meditative mantra, then felt around in the net: these implants were open, these others closed. Some were anonymous, and some public. The more she did it, the easier it became. She was shocked to see how many people had their interfaces wide open, completely unaware of their privacy settings.

On impulse, she picked a man coming toward her. If she could control someone, could she also see what he saw?

She reached inside his implant, found the data connection to his visual cortex, and with a lurch, snapped to the man’s vision. Stunned at first by the perspective change, she saw a girl in black hair and jeans, then realized she was seeing herself.

She felt disoriented almost as soon as she’d made the connection. Struggling to assimilate the man’s vision, his sense of balance and self, she fought nausea and dizziness. Still looking through the man’s eyes, she saw her own body sway and start to fall.

She rushed forward to catch herself, inducing another wave of motion-sickness. With a final wrenching dislocation, she cut the connection and snapped back to her own body, finding herself looking up at the man who’d caught her.

“Thank you.” Her voice sounded weak, even to herself.

“Are you all right?” he asked, looking around, clearly wondering what had happened. “You seemed like you were gonna pass out.”

“Yeah, fine, I guess.” She took a deep breath. “Just lost in my implant.”

“You might wanna sit down next time.”

“Good idea. Thanks again.” She looked down at his hands, still wrapped around her body. “You can probably let go.”

He laughed awkwardly. “Right. Well, hope your day gets better.”

After he walked away, she looked around self-consciously. She glimpsed a fat man staring at her from the noodle shop across the street. She turned to a mirrored store window, and pretended to fix her clothes. He kept studying her, so she reached through the net, but he was blank, totally without an implant.

Hairs raised on the back of her neck as she fought to stay calm. Down a few doors was a coffee shop, so she bought a drink and sat on a stool, taking the bystander’s advice.

Closing her eyes, she reached through the net, looking around in the Vietnamese restaurant. She found the owner had an implant, and explored it, looking for an opening, some way to use his vision without controlling his body.

She felt something, an edge. Whatever she was doing, it was intuitive, not conscious, so she went deeper into a meditative state. She felt the edge again, exploring it until she flicked open the man’s root interface, giving her access to everything. She went straight for his eyes and ears. As her vision swapped out for his, she felt her real body begin to sway. She grabbed firmly onto the counter, but the transition was less disorienting this time.

She was inside the noodle shop, seeing and hearing from the perspective of the owner. He spoke in a language Cat didn’t understand, presumably Vietnamese, to his wife. He glanced out at the fat man she’d seen and walked over.

“You want anything else?” he asked, in English.

“Tea. Green tea.” The man answered without looking away from the window.

The owner glanced down. A handheld computer sitting on the table displayed a photo of Cat with blonde hair and her real name. The owner went back to the kitchen, and she carefully cut the connection.

The fat man knew who she was, and was watching her. He must know she lived here. She had to abandon the apartment, and leave now for Mexico.

But she’d come downstairs with nothing, and the siren call of her backpack and money was strong. How much time did she have? Was he by himself? Why hadn’t he tried to grab her?

Cat started to perspire, every nerve coming alive and screaming to run. But she forced herself to think. She’d beat that gang in Portland, and evaded police and security in both San Francisco and LA. Anyone after her would know this, and attack in force. Ergo, if he wasn’t coming after her now, then he was alone, and she could go up to her room and get her stuff.

She walked back to her apartment slowly to avoid tipping him off. Upstairs, she stuffed clothes and dozens of payment cards into her backpack. She snapped the necklace into three parts, spreading them among the pack and her pants, and taping the last piece inside her boot.

Pulling the backpack over her shoulders, she took a last look. Her hot plate and a dozen cans of food lined up like soldiers on the dresser. She’d forgotten her toiletries, so she grabbed them and struggled to fit them in the backpack. In a short time, she’d gone from nothing to more possessions than she could bring.

Downstairs Cat slid out the back door, heading for the subway. She paused before she’d gone a block. He didn’t have an implant, so he almost certainly couldn’t be police. And she was damn sure she could take one out-of-shape guy in a fight. So there was nothing stopping her from asking him what he wanted.