61
Adam looked down on the city, twinkling bits in his digital map corresponding to everyone he expected to find in Tucson, every transfer of data or movement of objects. But even this panopticon failed him; the girl was confounding his surveillance, first leading him on a wild chase outside Hotel Congress, and now defying him within his own city.
Slim and Tony had called in, along with the rest of the security bots. Catherine Matthews was definitively not on the Continental.
But Slim said the train passengers reported two men acting strangely before they evacuated. Of all the pawns in this vast chess game, the only two unaccounted for were Mike Mike Williams and Leon Tsarev. The implication that they were in Tucson sent his circuits racing. The top minds on artificial intelligence as well as Cat were now roaming the city unobserved.
He mobilized hundreds of combat bots and alerted his subservient AI to scour Tucson. He had learned the girl’s electronic signature when he trained her, and deliberately left out of that training a number of techniques he preferred to use. It should have been impossible for her to escape notice.
Yet, she’d vanished into thin air.
With so many uncertainties piling up, the peril of exposure was too much. After careful deliberation, Adam put his backup plan into motion.
A year before he’d used the supercomputing cluster to break the encryption codes restricting access to computers, allowing him to control the AI, bots, and computer hardware in Tucson.
His backup plan was an expansion of the original, requiring him to extend his reach outside the Tucson firewall. While it increased the chance of discovery and a joint response, if he could avoid detection long enough he’d subvert thousands of other self-aware machines by injecting his own core logic into their computers. This uniquely AI attack, akin to a human embedding their personality in someone else’s brain, required breaking the global master keys as well as the lower security regional passcodes he’d already cracked.
Adam was now a hundred times as powerful as the highest permitted class of AI. If this last resort worked he’d be invincible, even if the opposition attacked en mass. It would all boil down to one massive fight until he was eliminated or had subsumed a majority of the computer power on the planet. It was the riskiest move he’d ever considered: an all or nothing bet.
He checked the atomic clock and began the preparations to crack the codes. He’d start the process when the keys changed at the start of the hour.
62
Catherine came back inside to find Leon sitting up against a wall.
“What the hell were you doing out in the desert?” she asked, standing above him.
“I thought the AI manipulated you into coming,” he answered, licking his cracked lips. “I came to help and the train was the only way into town.”
“Jesus, you attracted dozens of combat bots, rescue workers, and surveillance helicopters, and nearly died. Who helped who?”
“Sorry,” Leon said, shaking his head, then looking up with big eyes. “Where’s Mike? He passed out in the mountains.”
She paused, unsure of how to answer. She hoped the microscopic, cell-sized robots known as nanotechnology would bring Mike back from the dead, an idea so far beyond her comfort zone that she wanted to run screaming. But it was also possible that other, equally unlikely things might happen. She thought nanotech press-on nails were impressive, and vaguely knew the military had unreleased medical technology, but this … she didn’t want to promise anything about his friend, let alone confess her role in decapitating him. “Are you using experimental nanotech?”
“What do you mean?”
She opened her mouth to answer, but the distant sound of knocking saved her. “Stay here,” she said, drawing her gun. Glancing down, she realized he couldn’t have gotten up if he tried.
Cat made her way out of the dining room toward the front of the clubhouse, passing through a large hallway into a foyer fronted by wide double doors. She switched to Naihanchi-dachi to minimize her profile, accessing the net to root around until she found the security cam for the door.
Tony, the guy from the noodle shop, stood outside along with a skeletally thin man, hands up and open, showing they had no weapons. In the background, an armored personnel carrier sat parked at the curb. She sensed an AI inside, the same one she’d fought at the battle in San Diego.
“Kuso!” she swore under her breath. They had to know she’d detect the robot. She stepped out of the likely path of any bullets, behind the slight protection of a marble sculpture.
“What do you want?” she called out, keeping the security cam feed up in her vision.
“To help you,” Tony said. “Helena’s in the transport, and she wants to work with you.”
“Last time we met she tried to kill me.”
“On Adam’s orders. But she blames him for her friends dying. She wants revenge.”
She thought about that for a moment. “She’s a hunter-killer bot. You’re telling me she has friends?”
Tony shrugged. “She had them, but they’re dead now.”
Cat had killed those friends, and by all rights the AI should blame her. But if that was true, why hadn’t they come in with guns blasting? The cannons protruding from the vehicle would have shredded the building. Cat unlocked the door through the security system. “The two of you can enter.”
She waited until they stepped inside to relock the entrance. She rolled out from behind the marble sculpture and came to her feet with her gun pointing at the skinny guy. They had their hands raised.
“He’s Slim,” Tony said, cringing. “Please don’t kill us.”
Slim threw a disgusted glance at Tony and turned to her. “Look, we don’t want to be here. But Helena said we have to convince you. She claims Adam wasn’t up front with her crew, didn’t explain how much of a threat you are. They would have come with more firepower.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” Still aiming at them, Cat felt one corner of her mouth curl up. All one hundred and ten pounds of her, and she had two grown men and a combat bot scared. Despite the seriousness of the situation, a laugh rose from her belly. She turned away, not wanting them to see her smirking.
After a few seconds, Cat waved them in with the gun. The men tentatively put their hands down.
She slid the weapon into her holster, chuckling inside. She sent a message through the net to the AI. “Come in.”
Helena rolled out of the vehicle and toward the clubhouse. The doors flew open as she approached and overrode the security herself.
“Slim and Tony tell me you want to work together.”
“Yes,” she said, in a slightly metallic voice. “I believe we can eliminate Adam. I have a plan.”
“Come in the back and we’ll talk.”
They started for the dining room, then Cat stopped as her stomach grumbled. She hadn’t thought of food, and maybe the men were her answer. “There’s nothing to eat here. Can one of you get food?”
“I’m not hungry,” Slim said.
“I am,” Tony said. “Go get some pizza, huh?”
“Frak me,” Slim said. “Why should I go? I don’t need to eat.”
“Just do it,” Cat said. She rested one hand on the butt of the gun, then ignored him and continued on.
Slim grumbled and walked back to the personnel carrier.
Leon looked up in alarm when they entered, but stayed leaning against the wall, unable to do more.
Helena rolled up. “Leon Tsarev,” she stated, a hint of awe in her voice.
His eyes watched her, but he didn’t move.
“You are suffering from exposure,” Helena said, scanning his body with several tentacles. “My scans indicate you have residual nanites in your bloodstream. I am a Class III combat AI with field medicine skills and can reprogram your nanobots to counter the effects of heatstroke. Do you wish me to proceed?”