The Last Firewall (6 page)

“That stuff doesn’t matter. Nobody cares.”

“I don’t have time for a relationship.”

“It’s just a date. That’s all. I know you have time for dinner, because we’re going to dinner now.”

Mike reflected on his earlier thoughts. What the heck, he had nothing to lose. “Alright, I’ll do it.”

“Hell yeah! It’s about time.” Leon closed his eyes for a second. “It’s done. We’re set for Friday at eight.”

Well, how about that. He was going on a date. What did people wear on dates these days?

Leon gave him a shove. “Let’s go. I’m hungry.”

They headed a few blocks over to their usual
izakaya
restaurant.

“Hello Leon-san, Mike-san,” the hostess greeted them.

“
Konbanwa
, Keiko-san,” Leon replied.

“
Ni desuka?
” Keiko asked. “No Rebecca-san?”

“
Ie.
”

She led them to the back of the restaurant to sit at the bar so they could watch her husband cook.

“
Konbanwa
.” He bowed to them.

“
Konbanwa
,” Leon said, as they both dipped their heads.

They turned to each other without ordering, knowing that Hiroyuki would prepare whatever he wanted.

“What do you think about what Rebecca said yesterday?” Mike asked.

“Huh?” Leon appeared lost in his thoughts, probably thinking about his date.

“The political party—the People’s Party. Do you think they’re really a threat?”

“I don’t know. Rebecca was the President. She’s the one who’s involved in politics. I don’t see how a political party is going to influence the Institute. We’re independent.”

Mike looked sideways at him. “You’re just saying that because you’ve never been the one who had to speak to Congress.”

“Yes, but we have our own charter,” Leon said. “We’re a non-governmental organization.”

“Don’t be naive,” Mike said. “The President could pull our funding if he wanted to. Or appoint some industry group to be in charge of AI standards.”

Leon began to protest, but Mike steamrolled over him. “Look, it’s possible, especially if there was a lot of pressure. The People’s Party has some real influence.” Mike pushed a handful of news articles into their shared netspace.

Tsukemono
and
onigiri
arrived as they spoke.

“Twenty-million members,” Mike said, between bites of the Japanese pickles, “mostly from conservative walks of life. Look at this.” Mike brought one page to the forefront. Leon’s and Mike’s photos headed the document, which continued with a litany of complaints about them. “I just saw a protest group go by while I was waiting for you. These people are gathering steam.”

Leon parsed the text, then correlated it with third party analysis. “They’re raving mad,” he said half a minute later.

“Exactly. They blame us for unemployment, degenerate youth, and crime. They’re even bemoaning the loss of factory jobs.”

“Shit,” Leon said. “The cornucopia has made it so they don’t need to work. Robots make everything and the cost of goods has almost gone to zero. Why would someone want to work in a factory?”

Mike opened his mouth to answer, but Leon cut him off. “I mean, I get that not everyone wants to be an artist or student or build stuff. But they could smoke pot and play video games all day if they wanted to. Or hell, they could go play at being knights!” The Society for Creative Anachronism had become hugely popular lately, with over two million members in the States.

“You’re asking the wrong person,” Mike said, shaking his head. “For ten years, I could do anything I wanted, including nothing at all, and I still chose to work twelve-hour days . . .”

Leon watched Mike’s eyes bouncing back and forth. “What are you looking at?”

“I’m searching for updates from the Enforcement Team on the string of murders.”

“What do you see?” Leon asked, as he received more plates from Hiroyuki—skewers of pork belly and steamed Chinese pork buns.

“It’s what I don’t see that’s more disconcerting.” Mike streamed the data over to Leon as he grabbed one of the pork buns. His mouth full, he sent electronically, “Look at the updates from Sonja.”

“Run-of-the-mill stuff,” Leon said after a minute.

Mike grabbed a skewer. “Exactly. Why would Sonja send budget updates if she’s in the field investigating these murders?”

“It’s the end of the quarter, she’s supposed to send you the budget stuff,” Leon said.

“You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“It’s suspicious when people do exactly what they are expected to do?” Leon took a sip of sake.

Mike looked up to see if Leon was being sarcastic. “Yes, it is. Especially when AI are involved. What’s missing is any information about the investigation. There’s no way Sonja would submit her budget but not even mention the murders.”

“Where is she now?”

“According to her last report, they were on their way to San Diego.” Mike looked up Sonja’s implant ID from the Institute’s data records. “I’m running a traceroute on her ID now.” Mike put the results up in netspace.

They ate in silence, watching the query work through the spider-web of data connections around the world. A minute passed, then five, soon ten. Any network router that had sent or received packets for Sonja would respond back with a “last time seen.” A few southern California routers lit up with faded blue lines.

“She made it to San Diego two days ago,” Leon said. “Nothing since.”

“She’s not responding to pings.”

“Let me try.” Leon concentrated. “She’s not on netspace or any other communication network. What the hell? Can we send anyone after her?”

“She took the entire Enforcement Team,” Mike said, worried. “We only have the eight investigators. There’s no one else to send.”

“I’ll message the San Diego Police and the California AI Police. That work?”

“That’s a first step. But I have a bad feeling about this.” Mike shook his head. “Sonja’s investigating a series of murders disguised so well that they eluded every police department in the country. Then she disappears? An AI has got to be behind this.”

“It’s impossible,” Leon said. “We designed the system. Every AI is subject to ethics scanning and every AI is monitoring every other one. Unless they’re all in on it together, I don’t see how such a large-scale crime could be possible. We haven’t had a major AI problem since we built the new architecture. Isn’t it possible she’s just deep undercover?”

“Something’s up,” Mike said flatly.

“What do you want to do?”

“Let’s go to San Diego. Tomorrow.” He looked at Leon. “Can you?”

“Sure, but don’t you think we should do a little investigating here first? Let’s access Sonja’s files, see what she found.”

“We can do that from the road.” Mike frowned at Leon’s reluctance.

“We can’t talk to everyone in the office. She may have said things to other people in the Institute. We also really need to talk to Shizoko, the AI that discovered the murders. It’s a class IV, we can’t just do that raw. We need filters.”

Mike toyed with the food on his plate. Leon was right. The AIs grew increasingly difficult to comprehend as their intelligence went up. It wasn’t a language barrier; they could speak English flawlessly. But they spoke in terms of concepts and models that humans couldn’t begin to understand. A Class IV AI would prefer passing a complete neural network to the alternative of articulating it at length in English. The Institute had special filtering software to make inter-species communication easier.

“Yeah, you’re right,” he said slowly. “We’ll go to the Institute tomorrow, talk to folks there, and the AI, then catch an evening flight.”

10

C
AT WAITED AT THE SIDE
of I-5. At two o’clock in the morning, there wasn’t much human traffic. Her face and stomach hurt where she’d been hit, but Cat found it better to focus on the pain than to think about what she’d done. She’d never meant to do anything but defend that robot. She blinked back tears.

It had been easy enough to avoid the police for the last few hours. So easy, in fact, it was a little scary. She could see them coming and going in netspace, their cars’ autopilots giving them away long before they could ever see her. And she knew enough to keep her implant in anonymous mode so no one could track her.

She didn’t know where to go. She couldn’t go home and she wouldn’t turn herself in. People who went to jail . . .  They didn’t come out the same.

It wasn’t clear if the police even knew it was her. But her implant had been on as she entered the park. They’d know everyone who was in the vicinity, and she had to assume she’d be a suspect. She needed time and space to think, to make a plan, but she couldn’t get that in Portland. She could evade the police for now, but eventually they’d spread photos of their suspect list across the net. Eventually someone here would recognize her. Surely they wouldn’t start a nationwide manhunt for a couple of thugs who’d been killed in a fight. If she went somewhere far away, she’d be less likely to be recognized. That made the decision for her; she had to leave.

She walked to the highway and looked for an automated shipping truck headed south. She’d never done anything like it, but maybe she could hijack one with her implant.

She reached out in netspace. When a truck approached, she closed her eyes and focused on it. She pushed and nudged in cyberspace until she felt the brakes trigger. She mucked around more, intuitively trying things, until she found the speedometer and GPS data. She fudged the data feeds so it would look like the vehicle was still in motion.

When the truck halted in front of her, she unlocked the doors and climbed inside the unoccupied cab. She let it accelerate and gave it a series of commands to gradually bring the speedometer and GPS telemetry back into sync. The stop would be unobserved.

Inside the vast empty truck cab, she numbly watched the road drift past.

Her whole life she’d tried to be good. But hijacking the truck had been easy, as had evading the authorities. The thought of the police brought back the image of the dead men, and she felt sick. She curled up, wrapping her light jacket around herself. Where could she go?

Her mom had been dead for three years, her father gone for nine, and she’d never heard from him since. Boyfriends never stuck around because she wouldn’t link implants. Her only friends in the world were at home, and she couldn’t go back there now.

The loneliness and fear welled up inside her until it was hard to breathe or think. She sat, cold and shivering, in a state of limbo until the drone of the road and the pulse of lights passing by lulled her to sleep.

*     *     *

When she woke the sun was coming up and the tractor-trailer was crossing into California. She forced a stop so she could relieve herself on the side of the road. After she climbed back in, the autopilot resumed its route.

She checked the software’s waypoints, finding that the vehicle was headed for San Diego. She sat, watching the evergreens go by, gradually forming a plan. She’d let the truck keep going, but she’d get out in San Francisco. That was a big city, a place where she could hide out for a while.

Cat inserted a fake delivery in Menlo Park. Hours later, nearing lunchtime, the truck slowed and exited the highway. When it came to a standstill, she climbed out of the cab. She sent a final set of data packets, fixing up the GPS monitors to disguise the unscheduled stop. The truck crossed the road and got back on the highway.

She needed a bathroom, water, and food, more or less in that order. Hiking down the exit ramp, she was frightened by how little she had. She’d left the house with no plan other than to get away from Sarah, and with nothing but the clothes she was wearing.

Just off the ramp she found a trucker’s restaurant. Ignoring the stare of the white-haired waitress, she headed for the bathroom in back. After she used the toilet, she looked in the mirror. Her T-shirt and jeans were crumpled with sleep, and her hair was a mess. She washed her face and ran wet fingers through her hair. She walked to the front of the restaurant, feeling presentable again.

The waitress looked at her. “Got cash, honey?”

Cat took a deep breath. “I have an implant. . . .”  She started indignantly, but trailed off with a whimper. She needed coffee, she wasn’t thinking clearly, she couldn’t use her ID or they’d track her down. “Sorry, I’ll be back.”

“Alright honey, come back when you have money.”

Cat turned around, her face hot with embarrassment, and headed for the door. The smell of eggs, bacon, and coffee made her stomach grumble and almost brought tears to her eyes. Outside, she looked back into the restaurant, salivating over an imagined plate of food.

She turned her back on the restaurant and walked along the road. She was twelve hours and seven hundred miles from home, on the run, with no access to her money or even anything to barter. What the hell had she been thinking?

Cat suddenly remembered that Einstein was at home. Her mom had given her Einstein before she’d died. The intense longing for her puppen, her last connection to her mom, overpowered her. She collapsed onto the curb, hugging her knees. But after a minute of this, she forced herself to stop. Maggie would take care of Einstein until somehow, someday, Cat found a way to go home. In the meantime, she couldn’t afford to be weak if she was going to survive. What she needed right now was money so she could get food. She stood and continued along the road.

Her neural implant had a public key, and the usual way for implanted people to pay for things was by digital authorization on the spot using the key. Kids and the unimplanted had payment cards, little squares of electronics that did much the same thing, just anonymously. Cat hadn’t ever had one. She knew that Tom used them when he bought drugs. But where did he get them?

She supposed bank machines must offer them. But if she went to one and tried to transfer funds, the police would trace her. She thought for a moment, wondering if the tricks she could play in netspace would work on a bank.