Alex rubbed the small scar above his eye, and Grey chortled. “No secrets from Sophia, I’m afraid.” He came around from behind the console. “Well, shake her hand, captain.”
The silver figure silently rose from its seated position in front of Alex, and offered him its slim hand. The being stood shorter than he and its slight body made it look significantly less powerful than his broad frame as he loomed over it. Alex reached out, took hold of the hand and squeezed slightly. The android squeezed back with equal pressure.
“Don’t be shy, you can’t hurt her; go on, squeeze harder.” Grey watched them both closely.
“Take it to school, boss. And don’t hold back.” Sam grinned and looked at Grey. “Hey, how much do those hands cost? Hope you got spares.”
“I’ll try not to break it — like I nearly did with you.” Alex grinned at Sam, and then looked briefly at the science officer. “Remember, this was your idea.”
The slim hand compressed slightly like normal flesh and bone, but didn’t buckle.
The head titled again. “Three hundred psi — you are an extraordinarily powerful human being, Captain Hunter.” With that, Sophia squeezed his hand back, harder.
Alex applied all the force he could bring to bear. Enough to pulverize bones, and even compress steel tubing if he so wished. It was impossible to tell what the effects were as Sophia didn’t flinch and there were no facial features to gauge an expression of pain or even irritation.
Alex then felt the bones in his own hand start to bend and the veins in his arm stood out like thick chords. He ground his teeth together. Shit. Pain began to flare in his hand. Immediately the pressure stopped. Alex’s hand now throbbed mercilessly.
“Phew.” Alex nodded at Grey. “Thanks, that was getting nasty.”
Grey shrugged. “Don’t thank me; it was Sophia that decided to desist. She has a lot more hydraulic power than your enhanced physical strength. She read that you were at the limit of your physical capabilities. She could sense your physical pain and she shut it off.”
Sophia still held Alex’s hand, her blank face turned toward him. “You are different.”
“He sure is,” Sam said. “Careful, boss, Aimee better not find out you’re down here flirting with the new weapon tech.”
Sophia released Alex’s hand. “Aimee?” She turned to Sam.
Grey went back to the console, worked for a moment, and then Sophia sat back down. The soft glow in her face dimmed, as though the eyes had gently shut.
“The power I felt there; unbelievable.” Alex continued to rub his hand and then turned to Sam. “Looks like we’re out of a job, big guy.”
Sam just scowled down at Sophia.
Grey laughed softly. “Not quite; physical power is nothing; anyone can build a bigger battering ram. Our first prototypes were as powerful as all hell, but couldn’t tell the difference between friend and foe, and the dozens of distinctions in between.” Grey pointed at the android. “Sophia’s conscious decision to release you rather than do you harm is where the bulk of our investment went. The hyper-tough chassis was easy. But what we wanted was something that could be auto-dependent, could make life or death decisions in differing environments, and could learn and adapt. In effect it needed a brain, with human-like deterministic logic. We wanted it to make the right decisions.”
Alex stared at it. “I’m still feeling redundant.”
“Not quite yet.” Grey smiled down at Sophia like a proud parent. “The original problem was no matter how many human psychological applications we tried, it continued to make flawed decisions based on a save thyself first self-preservation model. Also, in battle situations, it sometimes wanted to compete. But, it wouldn’t stop competing. Sometimes it seemed to get…”
Alex scoffed and looked at Grey from under lowered brows. “She got angry, didn’t she?”
“Maybe some would call it that.” He smiled flatly. “Then we had a stroke of luck when we came across the brilliant work by the German scientist called Frans Knopper on ‘machine learning and the female brain’ — groundbreaking, and just what we were looking for. She wrote a paper on neurological gender differences, and how females have more white matter dedicated to communication, problem-solving and connecting information, which gave them an inbuilt species cooperation trait.”
He placed his hand on the android’s shoulder. “We just needed an appropriate logic model. And we found one. It’s called ALP — Applied Logic Patterning. But one that could handle stress, and women can do that five times better than men.”
Alex folded his arms. “We want our technology to be like us, yet we humans have some deep psychological baggage — little things called emotions.” He walked around the android. “Who wants a robot that feels envy, greed, hate, and… vengeance, right? Some emotions can be deadly.”
“Yes.” Grey’s eyes locked momentarily on the HAWC leader’s, and Alex suddenly wondered how much the scientist knew about his own psychological storms.
The scientist’s eyes slid away. “Anyway, Knopper’s ideas provided the seed for our software teams, and became the genesis of a new line of thinking. The female traits were ideal to include in a being that would be required to work as both an individual and as a member of a team. It needs protective instincts — maternal instincts, if you like. Remember, it is more than just a mobile military logistics computer or weapon, it’s a guardian.” His mouth quirked up. “A guardian angel, in fact.”
Alex smiled. “And we need all the help from the angels we can get.”
“And who guards the guardians?” Sam stared hard at the seated android. “It can learn, huh?”
“Oh yes,” Grey said.
“So, Sophia,” Alex said softly.
Grey nodded proudly. “Sentient OPerational Heuristic Interactive Android — Sophia. The key thing being heuristic; it means she learns by trial and error, just like we do.”
“Sophia was the Greek goddess of wisdom,” Sam said.
“Correct; it kinda fit.” Grey beamed. “Eventually, she’ll make better and better decisions, and even make best-guess judgments. She’ll be our guardian against, uh…”
The man paused, and Alex felt evasion. “Against what?”
“Threats,” the scientist said, keeping his eyes on the android.
Alex continued to watch him, and suddenly felt there was a reason Grey had wanted him to meet Sophia. Or perhaps he more wanted Sophia to meet him. “From threats, huh?”
“Hmm, hm.” Grey gave him a crooked smile. “Shall we?” He motioned to the exit.
They headed for the silver door and Alex stopped briefly as Grey turned out the lights. He stared back at the seated figure. He frowned. Did it just move? He had the distinct sensation he was being watched again. He went to turn away from the darkened room, and for a split second, he thought he saw two small lights slowly come on as though eyes had gently opened in the dark.
CHAPTER 12
Once back at base, Zlatan could see the outline of the stranger behind the one-way glass window. They thought they were invisible, but they weren’t, not to him, and he could also hear every word they uttered.
They were finally getting an assignment outside of the training camps — good. He and his men were eager to test themselves. What use was it to be told you were a superior soldier if you were never really benchmarked against an enemy soldier?