Chapter Twenty-Four
“Do you think you could it?” David asked. “Live out here on a farm, take care of the fields, and milk the cows?”
“Well, since farming was one of the first things we basically automated, I don’t think taking care of the fields would be all that bad . . .” Kari said.
“But what if you had to take care of the cows by hand?”
“I don’t know . . . getting up early to milk the cows, or waking up in the middle of the night because one your students wanted to experiment with rocket-powered drones. It’s a toss-up.”
David laughed and squeezed her hand. They strolled through a small pathway between giant fields of corn. After the hectic nature of the past few weeks, Kari found Motorcad’s farm to be therapeutic. This was the second time today that she and David had left the others back at the farmhouse and gone for a walk.
“I think it would be fulfilling, though. Grow something from the ground, have a tangible output that benefits humanity. People have to eat,” David said.
“It does sound kind of romantic,” Kari said. “But I just think it would move too slowly for me. Producing one crop every few months and then doing that over and over again. I think I would get bored.”
“You could get into plant breeding. That would mix things up. Spend years trying to grow the best tasting, natural tomatoes, or something.”
“It would still be so slow. Evolution happens over years, I can spin up a hundred different designs in a couple of days. Iterating over each one, improving things, making them better and stronger.”
“Well, I give up,” David said. “I won’t try and convert you to the farm lifestyle. Although, I think we could have done good out here. Replace code with seeds and students with pigs. But hackers have to hack, I suppose.”
Kari kicked a clod of dirt in front of her and it shattered into dust. A bug flew by her ear and at first Kari thought it was a microdrone.
Part of me wishes I were just a farmer. I wouldn’t have to worry about giant, evil corporations or vindictive governments. I’d still have my problems, I’m sure, they just wouldn’t be as life threatening.
“I don’t even know if I’m a hacker anymore,” Kari said. “I’m not, really. I hardly code at all. And this stuff that’s been happening lately . . . it’s nothing like hacking. It’s just madness and running and hiding. It’s more warfare and politics than it is solving problems.”
They reached the rivet in the ground that marked their turnaround point. They shuffled around each other, not letting go of each other’s hands before they started back toward the farmhouse. Motorcad’s family home was a nice size and it was comfortable enough, even if it were far from any civilization.
“I think all this has been about solving very specific problems in very difficult circumstances,” David said.
“That’s fair. I guess they are just problems I don’t want to be solving. Designing Fai’s body, now that was something I really enjoyed. But then it turned into an absolute nightmare.”
“Well, it’ll be over soon. We’re going to figure this thing out, get your name cleared, and you’ll be back to teaching. And I’ll graduate soon and I can move out to Phoenix . . .”
It didn’t feel right to think about life in the future.
Nothing ever goes like I plan it. Even if we can figure all this out, it just seems like something else is going to happen. And I don’t think Henderson will ever stop coming after me.
“Yeah,” Kari said.
“It’s going to work out.”
“There are just so many questions about everything. I have a hard time thinking past it.”
“Maybe that’s why we make a good team. I trust you’re going to solve all the hard problems and I think about the other stuff.”
David laughed, but Kari wasn’t feeling as lighthearted.
There have been so many close calls. Eventually something is going to go wrong and there won’t be anything that comes after. It’s not sustainable . . . but I don’t have any other choice. I have to finish this, one way or another.
They walked in silence until they made it back to the farmhouse. They stepped inside to find everyone gathered in the living room. Country food from a nearby restaurant covered the coffee table and everyone but Fai was eating.
“That was fast,” Kari said.
“You just walk slow,” Jared said.
“Ruth and Jared were just telling me about how much of a difference you have made in their lives,” Fai said. “I appreciated hearing it from them.”
“Traitor!” Jared said.
“This is why humans are afraid of AIs. You tell them things in confidence, and then they go and spread it everywhere,” Ruth said.
“Are you going to conquer the world next?” Jared asked.
“From my perspective, the world has more than enough problems on its own. I’d rather spend my time here on the farm, or traveling,” Fai said.
“That’s what they all say, right before they declare martial law,” Ruth said.
Kari looked over to David and warned him not to make a pun off how close Marshal and martial sounded. He winked at her.
“Even if I wanted to take over the world, it doesn’t seem probable that I would be able to overcome the renowned prowess of Broccoli Rob,” Fai said.
“She gets it!” Ruth said.
“I always knew I liked her,” Jared said.
“I, for one, welcome her as our new overlord,” Ruth said.
“Oh, how I pity her if she is responsible for you two,” Motorcad said. He seemed back to his normal self again, which was a relief to Kari. Things always went better when Motorcad was in a good mood.
“Well, I’m glad to hear that they don’t resent me completely,” Kari said as she picked up a box of chicken fingers and coleslaw when she couldn’t find a burger. She took a seat in the overly padded chair in the corner of the room. Everyone looked to her to say something else, as if they were waiting for her to call the unofficial meeting into session.
Fine. Someone has to lead this group.
“So everyone is well rested, fed, and between us we’re only missing one limb. So it seems like it’s time to get started on finishing this thing,” Kari said. She looked around the room and everyone nodded their heads with almost uniform commitment. “So . . . what do we have?”
“Our previous theory that Christina was responsible for the attacks on the research lab appears to be incorrect. When we questioned her in the Oakland hyperloop station about her involvement, she denied it. My readings indicate that she was truthful in her responses. We also have confirmed our previous suspicion that the League of Humanity was not involved in the initial attack and that some other organization was responsible for the massacre,” Fai said.
She had video memory and the best capability for remembering things, so it felt natural for Fai to recap their situation.
“So if it wasn’t Christina and it wasn’t the League of Humanity, who else could it have been? It seems like we’re already at the end of a short list of suspects,” Motorcad said.
“Maybe we should look at the profile of someone who was capable of pulling the attack off and work backward,” David said.
“They had to have some extremist group that wanted to act like the League, or they had to be able to finance a group of mercenaries,” Motorcad said.
“More than that,” Kari said, “we know they were targeting John and we know they were trying to blame it on me, which suggests they had intimate information about what was going on at the lab. We also know that they were able to cut the camera surveillance before the attack happened and were somehow able to get their energy weapons past the EMP room. What does that suggest?”
“Inside job,” Motorcad said. “Has to be.”
“But not Christina?” David asked.
“What questions exactly did you ask Christina?” Motorcad asked.
Before Kari could remember, Fai stepped in to answer the question.
“Kari said, ‘You set up the attack on the research lab.’ Christina said that she had nothing to do with it and her response was truthful. Kari then said, ‘The only reason you hired me to design Fai’s body was so that you could pin the attack on me.’ Christina responded by saying she did not kill John. That was truthful as well.”
“Hmmm . . .” Motorcad said, giving a voice to what everyone was thinking.
Nothing there.
“Kari then said, ‘You hired mercenaries to attack the lab,’ which Christina indirectly denied. Her response, though not a specific denial, showed no signs of lying,” Fai said.
“That’s it?” Motorcad asked.
“We didn’t have much time,” Kari said.
“Should have let us help,” Jared said.
“There was more that may be of consequence,” Fai said. “There was an exchange where I noted that Kari was not involved in the attack on the research lab, and Christina registered a response that indicates she knew that as well.”
“That’s big,” David said.
“When I first talked to her after the attack, she sounded convinced that I was responsible. I mean . . . I’m not Fai, but if she knew that I wasn’t behind it, then she gave the performance of a lifetime.”
“I wouldn’t rule that out,” Motorcad said.
“Either way, if she knows I wasn’t involved, she didn’t do anything to curb the story and we all know she’s still hunting us. Henderson said she was even more obsessed with finding me than he was,” Kari said.
“Maybe she just wants Fai back?” David asked.
“Maybe, but they were firing to kill both of us during the attack,” Kari said. “Right, Fai?”
“The number of blasts aimed at both of us were slightly in my favor, but not significantly different.”
“Well, I give up,” Ruth said. “I guess Jared and I will have to run the Academy for the rest of forever.”
“No more school work! Only capture the flag from here on out!” Jared said.
“How is that different than when Motorcad is in charge?” Ruth asked.
“Good point.”
“So Christina wasn’t involved initially? But she has been playing along ever since?” Kari asked.
“It would make sense to have plausible deniability,” David said. “She must have known someone would question her.”
“Even if she didn’t order it, she at least thinks there is some sort of advantage to playing along with the narrative,” Motorcad said. “Either way, we still have a major hole in the center of our explanation.”
“We know it had to be someone involved with Vision. Someone who was able to orchestrate everything at the lab . . . given how secure it was, that can’t leave us with too many suspects,” Kari said. “Fai, you had access to the files of everyone there. Can you run that against the list of casualties?”
“That’s smart, look for survivors. People not at work that day, or anyone who visited in the weeks prior who wasn’t present when the attack happened,” David said.
“There are only seven names that match those requirements. Six if you do not count Christina. Four of those six are guards who rotated off their assignments. The final two are an on-call specialist doctor and a midlevel engineer,” Fai said.
“Run a background check on that engineer,” Kari said.
“I’m in the process already, nothing of interest has turned up. She has since relocated back to the Bay Area and is receiving a large amount of psychological help.”
“Could be promising,” Motorcad said.
“I doubt it,” Kari said. “It doesn’t feel right. There’s something we’re missing.”
“What?” David asked.
“I don’t know, that’s why it’s missing.”
She regretted coming off so rough, but she was too deep in thought to spend effort sounding nice.
“We need to watch the video again,” Kari said.
“Are you sure?” David asked.
“Yes. We don’t have anything else to work with.”
“I just don’t want you to pass out . . . Can the rest of us look it over without you?”
“I’ll be fine. Fai, can you invite everyone? Great, now everyone be vocal here. Let’s not leave anything unturned.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Just keep breathing. In. Out.
“Have we captured the gunmen’s faces and checked that against databases?” Motorcad asked.
“I wasn’t able to find anyone on public social networks that matched any of those faces,” Fai said. “Perhaps we should obtain access to government databases to see if we can get a positive match there.”
“Good,” Kari said. “Jared and Ruth, can you get started trying to get access to US databases?”
“On it, Professor,” Ruth said.
“Thanks.”
They had scrolled through the footage nine times and so far they hadn’t come up with anything substantial. Every time they finished slowly reliving the attack, Kari had expected the next pass through to be easier. It wasn’t. Every viewing compounded on the last, making her sink farther down the horror-filled hole in her stomach.
It also made her more determined to find the person responsible and to make them pay. It was new little details she noticed every time she watched the footage that filled her with sorrow and hate even more. The fragments of an action figure that must have sat on one of the scientist’s desk, the man crawling across the wet broken glass trying in vain to save himself, and countless other atrocities.
“Again?” Motorcad asked.
If anyone didn’t want to go through the footage another time, it was Motorcad. He had thrown up the first time watching the footage, but given the source material, no one had so much as mentioned it.
“Is there anything else?” David asked.
“I have the full records from the moment the first version of my body finished printing and I connected to it,” Fai said. “Would you like to start from the beginning?”
“No,” Kari said. “We don’t have time for that. Back it up to when we first noticed something was wrong.”
They experienced Kari’s rapid escalation of concern and John’s panic. They watched the footage from inside the room and from the cameras on Fai’s third iteration body. When those didn’t reveal anything of use, Kari had Fai back the recording up again, to when John entered the room.
“Freeze it!” Kari shouted. Her vision was overridden completely to show Fai’s recordings, but she could hear someone in the room jump at her sudden exclamation.
“Do you have the records of all your sensors at this point in time as well?” Kari asked.
“Yes, I can sync the highlights of the data to the sides of the footage if you’d like.”
“Can you just give me some perspective on his readings?”
“John Luken appears to be of normal—”
“No, not his. Adrian’s.”
“His heart rate and blood pressure both seem far outside of his normal range observed in his office with my version one body several days before,” Fai said.
“No . . .”
“Who’s that?” David asked.
“Does this seem like a normal reaction to your boss dropping by?” Kari asked.
“My understanding of the subject would place these particular levels of increased activity significantly outside the normal range for workplace anxiety.”
“Who’s the nerd?” Motorcad asked.
“Might I remind you that his name is listed at the top of the casualties,” Fai said.
“Skip ahead in the video to where we pass by his former office,” Kari said. “It’s right in the middle of the room, we must have run right by it.”
The video feed jumped to where they were passing by the remains of Adrian’s office. Shards of glass piled on the desk where he had sneered at her first attempt at Fai’s body, and the stand where Fai’s condensed biocore had rested was collecting water from the sprinklers.
I can’t believe it.
“No body,” Motorcad said.
“No body,” Kari repeated.
“That isn’t conclusive evidence,” Fai said. “He could have retreated to his personal quarters or perhaps he went to retrieve something from the printers.”
“When did you ever see Adrian leave his office? If the rest of them were cave trolls, he was their king.”
“Cave trolls?” Jared said.
“That seems very insensitive, Professor,” Ruth said. “Especially given how the trolls accepted you into their cave without eating you.”
“It’s not my term,” Kari said.
“Isn’t that what they say about all slurs?” Jared asked, but Kari was done engaging with them. She learned a long time about they could keep going forever if you kept fighting them.
“Who’s Adrian?” David asked.
“He was the head of research at the lab. He was the primary scientist on the team that created Fai . . .”
“And you think he did this?”
“Look at the facts. Elevated vital signs, nobody in the only place I ever saw him, explicit knowledge of the lab and how it works. He also could control what Fai had access to read since before I arrived! It all makes sense!”
“Except he’s dead,” Motorcad said.
“Where’s the body?” Kari asked.
“Probably turned into ash by now,” Motorcad said. “But that doesn’t mean he didn’t do it.”
“Wait,” David said. “You think he might have planned this attack knowing that it would take his life as well?”
“Maybe.”
“What?”
“I’m just saying, it’s a possibility,” Motorcad said.
“Why would Adrian order the attack on his own people? The scientists he had spent years working with, whether he killed himself or not?” David asked.
“He didn’t seem to like humans when I talked to him,” Kari said.
“That seems circumstantial,” David said. “He just might not have liked you.”
Kari closed the video feed and returned her vision to the real world. She didn’t need to see any more. She looked over to David, who had apparently returned his vision to reality as well. Ever since she had seen Adrian standing next to John, adrenaline had replaced her terror.
“Sorry . . . it’s just my major. I’ve been trained to look for the data.”
“Oooh, a fancy college man,” Ruth said. “No wonder Professor has the sweets for you.”
“You’re right,” Kari said. “We need the motive. Why would he order the attack on his own lab, hide it from Christina until after it was over, while possibly even taking his own life in the process?”
“Maybe he feared Fai?” Motorcad said. “Read a little too much League of Humanity handbook online or something?”
“He simply could have shut her down,” Kari said. “He had the clearance and power to do it.”
“Unless he didn’t want anyone to reproduce another Fai,” Motorcad said.
“That might add up,” David said. “But we think that Christina found out about the plan afterward and played along with it. Why?”
“She knew the only way to get an AI now was to get Fai back,” Motorcad said. “That explains why she’s been hunting down Kari so aggressively.”
Kari listened to David and Motorcad argue back and forth. It was good stuff, plausible even, but it just didn’t feel right.
Are there any hackers out there who would destroy their life’s work like that, even if it had the power to destroy humanity? I didn’t delete my hacking drones. Joseth knew his nanobots were too dangerous to let anyone else have them and he didn’t destroy the designs. No. We aren’t wired that way. Adrian can look down at me all he wants, but we share the passion for creation. In fact, as much as I consider Fai to be my sister or friend, he would be even more emotionally tied to her.
“There’s another AI,” Kari said.
The room went silent.
“What?” Fai asked.
“There’s another AI,” Kari said. “Adrian created another AI.”
The words poured from her mouth infinitely slower than ramifications were being processed in her mind.
How did I not see this?
“What are you talking about?” Motorcad asked.
“They found us in London,” Kari said. “They shouldn’t have been able to do it that quickly.”
“That is a fascinating theory . . .” Fai said.
“I mean, we have other theories about how that happened,” David said.
“Adrian created another AI, but this one was off the books. I don’t know why, but he felt like he needed to protect it.”
“How does Christina fit in?” Motorcad asked.
“I don’t know.”
“If we’re going to make a convincing story, we have to have proof that paints the entire picture,” David said.
“I don’t care about the story,” Kari said. “I just watched that massacre nine times in a row. All I want is justice. Adrian did this and if he’s still alive, he is going to face justice.”
Kari knew the people in the room still had their doubts, but no one voiced them. Instead they all silently supported her.
“So what do we do now?” Motorcad asked. “Figure out if he’s still breathing? Track him down? Find the other AI?”
“All of the above. If my theory is right, I know exactly where they will both be. Do we have any drones with enough power to make it to Colorado?”