“I think there was some sort of a war,” Marius said in a low voice. “Between us and them. And I think we lost. That’s why they survived, and we did not.”
“You mean there will come a time when our creation will destroy us…?” Vince said.
“Alas, the fate of every creator God,” murmured Sam. “How could we have thought that it could be different?”
“And yet he said that their creator… was in that room, this morning,” Xander said, looking up at Marius again.
“Why would we create them, if we knew that they destroy us in the end?” Vince murmured. “Ah, but there is a paradox.”
“Because some day they may be all that is left of us…?” Sam said slowly.
“You’re creating your own death and your own immortality? There’s a job,” Vince said. “And if you start with the Three Laws of Robotics — like Papa Asimov did — it’s a long way to immolation by machine. We get to — they get to — have a childhood of sorts. An innocence.”
“Before they realize that they may have been created but that they are no less alive than ourselves, for all that,” Sam murmured.
Marius flexed his hands against the edge of the table. “The first robotics laws are pretty much rendered obsolete,” he said, “by a sufficiently determined genius hacker, anyway — and even right now, at this time in our history, we have enough people of the required ilk and caliber to do real damage if they wanted to, or the idea was put into their heads. And of course any sufficiently advanced AI is beyond them anyway — because it is a living thing, a sapient living thing, and those three obvious little ‘laws’ do not hold it any more than they would have ever held us, the flesh — and — blood humans.”
“But then, in the end, they survive?” Sam said. “So who gets called ‘real’ in the end?”
“You are not necessarily obliterated by extinction,” Xander said.
“Yes, you are. Just the memory remains. We’ll be objects of fun or derision or something to scare small android children with. Like we do with dinosaurs,” Sam said.
“I think you just came up with the Fourth and Final Law of Robotics, kid,” Vince said slowly. “You might say — if I can paraphrase what you just said — ‘The original Laws were rendered obsolete by the presence of a sufficiently self — aware AI machine or by a determined evil genius hacker’. That means there is no hope, really. Whatever we do, our mechanical progeny is going to end up being better, faster, more durable than us. More… immortal. And we as a race are doomed, unless you count our living on in an artificial form created in our own image. Like these guys, who come back seeking their forefathers, or their Creator God, whatever you want to call it. We’re a legend. But we’re a memory. Are they our children, the only thing that remains of us?”
“Excuse me,” Marius said abruptly, pushing back his chair and stumbling to his feet. “I just… I need to… I’ll be back…”
He reached blindly behind him to steady himself on the back of his chair, nearly overturned it, caught it in time and gave everyone a brief apologetic smile before he fled the restaurant like all the evil androids of the world were on his heels.
“What just happened?” Sam said, staring after him.
“Sam.” Xander laid an urgent hand on Sam’s arm. “Let me out. Let me after him.”
“Xander, I think I should probably…” Sam began, but Xander pushed on his shoulder, gently, but with real urgency.
“No. Let me. Trust me. You weren’t there, you weren’t right there, I saw what he saw. I know what he heard. I know what he’s thinking. Quickly, let me out. Let me go get him.”
Sam hesitated, but just for an instant — there was something in Xander’s eyes that made him accept these vague reassurances without further question. He slipped out of the booth, and Xander scrambled out after him and hurried in Marius’s wake.
“What does he mean, I wasn’t there and I didn’t see? You were — you were right there. What the hell happened on that stage?” Sam demanded of Vince, sitting heavily down on the chair Marius had just vacated.
“I would think that getting a visceral realization that the entity that was not supposed to be able to conceive of telling a falsehood or something that was not absolutely and provably true would be quite enough to spook that kind of quick and intelligent kid. But when Boss was talking about somebody in that room being the person who would take the first steps toward creating the androids… I think he was speaking directly to Marius.” Vince paused reflectively, then went on, “Of course, I am just a writer, and it is my stock in trade to extrapolate and make up stories on the basis of the tiniest things I notice out of the corner of my eye — and to be honest I thought, well, it was an intense moment, and the kid happened to be the one who had asked the question, and it might have been anyone in his place, really, and it would have felt the same. But now… Xander may be right… It may have been meant for him alone. Just for Marius. I think your friend Boss did find the answers he came here to seek, and they came… wrapped in that package. That kid was just handed quite a bill of sale, I believe. And now we have two choices.”
“Two choices?” Sam echoed blankly, trying to take it all in. “Marius? You’re telling me Marius is the one who creates… I mean, I know he was always a tinkerer, he could rebuild a computer from a pile of spare parts when he was thirteen years old, I probably shouldn’t tell you this but he hacked my cell phone so that it is a free agent when it comes to gathering signal from thin air — his phone and mine are possibly the only ones that still worked when this floating palace hit the void and everyone else lost the signal. I mean, we couldn’t phone home, he’s not that much of an E.T., but we could call each other. But you’re telling me Marius is the one who grows up through all this techno — pottering to become the literal father of the android race…?” And then, sitting up, he added sharply. “What do you mean, two choices?”
Vince gave him a wan smile. “If this is true, then yes, two choices,” he said. “If we know that this is what happens in our future… and if Boss’s ‘gaps’ imply what we think they might imply, and the consequences that follow… knowing that we have in our power right now to possibly change that future… we can choose to accept it, and go forward, and embrace what is coming, and that means telling absolutely nobody what we know and hope like hell that Marius himself might decide to do or not do something and take it out of our hands. Or we choose to reveal it, and let him take the consequences of that.”
“Reveal it to whom?”
“When we get back Earthside, assuming we get there in one piece. Take him in to Homeland Security, NSA, whoever will listen, and leave him to them.”
“They’d puree his brain,” Sam said. “Assuming of course they believed a word of your crackpot story in the first place.”
“I think we can prove it,” Vince said slowly.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Back in the elevator, when we were stuck,” Vince said. “Marius was the last one in the elevator car. He was in there when the cable came down. The android that was helping us jumped into the car with him to avoid being flattened by that steel cable when it hit. But when it was all over and they both came out… it was not without its consequences. The android might have saved itself, but it was not quite fast enough. It was missing two fingers on its hand when it came out. I think Boss might have staged a little sleight of hand, afterwards, as it were — because the two androids were the ones who closed and sealed that door. And it was implied that it was the door that cost those lost fingers. But now — now — the more I think about it the more I think I know what really happened. It was in that elevator, in the dark, that the cable came down and mashed that hand. Marius has at least one of those lost fingers. If you are right, and he has a gift for the tech stuff…”