Run Program

by Scott Meyer

  For a full ten seconds, there was no sound from the robots. Steve and Dot looked at each other.

  When the noise resumed, it was much quieter. It sounded like only a handful of power drills instead of hundreds of them operating at once. This persisted for five seconds, though it felt like much longer, culminating in a repetitive back-and-forth, gear-grinding noise, accompanied by the sound of the glass door rattling in its frame.

  There was another ten seconds of silence.

  Then another five seconds of motor noise, this time punctuated at the end by a single gunshot and the sound of glass shattering.

  The sheer amount of noise told Steve that instead of breaking the glass door, the robots had shot out the much larger floor-to-ceiling window next to it. The sounds of more motors and more shattering glass followed. In his mind’s eye, Steve could see one of the robots pushing its way through the remaining glass clinging to the inside of the window’s frame.

  The robot noise grew louder as the first robot entered the lobby, and louder still as the other robots joined it. The sound had been intense outside, but inside it was almost deafening. Steve looked at Dot. Their eyes locked. Steve gave a single, definitive nod, a nod that said, I know what to do.

  Dot returned the nod, in essence saying, So do I.

  One of the robots walked around the side of the counter. It took two careful steps into view before stopping, swiveling at the waist, and tilting forward to look down at Steve and Dot. Steve tried to look at its face, but there was only a spinning cylinder inside a steel cage. It held its assault rifle in front of its body, not ready to fire, but ready to be made ready to fire.

  Steve reached down to his belt. His right hand, acting on muscle memory built up through thousands of repetitions of the motion, found what it wanted, grasped it, and thrust it forward.

  He held his ID badge up to the robot. “You’ll need this to get through the door.”

  The robot stared down at him, motionless for ten seconds, then reached out with slow, deliberate motions to take the card. It held the card up in front of what would have been its face if it had one, then stood like that for several seconds before dropping the ID to the ground and walking away.

  The robot slowly made its way to the door that led to the bowels of the building. The other six robots followed. As they reached the door, the light on the electronic lock’s sensor plate spontaneously glowed green. The lead robot pushed the door open with no resistance. All seven of the robots walked out of the lobby, leaving Steve and Dot alone.

  Steve said, “I’m sorry, but I wasn’t going to risk our lives for this dump.”

  Dot said, “No need to apologize. I was prepared to offer it your ID and you to go with it. Let’s get out of here.”

  Steve stood up and walked to the door the robots had just breached. He watched the back of the last robot in line as it receded down the hallway.

  Dot, to her credit, had taken the time to find the radio, and spoke into it as she followed Steve. “Fred, Billy, I hope you can hear me. This is Dot. Armed intruders are headed to the server core. Do not resist. Try to get out of the building without them seeing you. Same goes for you geeks.”

  Steve said, “Come on, let’s go.” He had almost reached the shattered front door when an armored personnel carrier rolled up outside.

  “Wait,” he shouted, backpedaling toward the counter. “The coast should be clear in a sec. I think they’re driving away.”

  The personnel carrier stopped. Its brake lights glowed in the darkness, then went out. Several seconds passed, and then the reverse lights came on.

  Steve said, “Dot, get behind the counter.”

  “I already did! Get back here with me!”

  The backup lights were getting closer at an alarming speed, so Steve took three large steps and vaulted over the counter. A tremendous crash shook the lobby seconds after he landed hard on the floor.

  Steve and Dot lifted themselves slightly to look over the top of the counter at the ruined lobby. Broken glass, demolished furniture, and twisted metal lay behind, around, and on top of the armored personnel carrier. The hatch on the back of it swung open and the sound of servomotors emanated from the vehicle’s dark interior. A large pile of firearms and ammunition cascaded out onto the floor, followed by two robots.

  Dot peered through the darkness at the robots. “Those two aren’t armed!”

  “What are you talking about?” Steve gasped. “They have guns! They have a whole pile of guns!”

  “But they don’t have them. They aren’t holding them. Not yet.” Dot stood up and drew her pistol. “Put your hands in the air and step away from the weapons!”

  The robots stood motionless for a moment before bending forward toward the pile of firearms.

  Steve said, “Don’t bo—”

  He was interrupted by Dot’s pistol discharging and the sound of a bullet ricocheting.

  “Bother,” he continued. “I tried tha—”

  Again he paused for a loud bang and the sound of metal hitting metal.

  “Tried that earlier. They’re—”

  Three reports in quick succession echoed through the lobby.

  Steve said, “Bulletproof,” completing his thought.

  The two robots stood up straight again. One now held a large silver pistol, and the other had a very small rifle, like one a person might use to hunt squirrels. They both raised their weapons to their shoulders and swiveled to aim at the two guards.

  After a long silence, Steve said, “I think they want us to put down our weapons.”

  Dot said, “Yeah, I figured.”

  28.

  Hope and Lieutenant Reyes came into the command center. Private Montague said, “Attention.” He, Corporal Bachelor, and Corporal Brady stood at attention until Lieutenant Reyes said, “At ease.” Then all three of them slumped back into their chairs as if nothing had happened.

  Hope looked at the lounging soldiers and said, “Yeah, that’s some good ease right there.”

  Lieutenant Reyes said, “Instant obedience and perfect execution. I expect no less.” He pulled up two more chairs and offered one to Hope.

  She accepted the chair but slid it over next to Eric’s at the table, in front of the rest of the group. As she sat, she asked, “How’s it going?”

  Robert Torres rubbed his eyes. “Good, I guess. Eric’s done a fine job of keeping him talking, but it’s hard to know if it’s doing any good.”

  Eric fidgeted as he typed. His fiberglass cast made a hollow scraping noise as it slid across the chair on which his broken leg rested. The bold, cartoonish interface of Jeffrey’s child-model tablet looked ridiculous scaled up to the wall-sized display in Colonel Dynkowski’s command center. The tablet itself looked silly—a chunk of bright red plastic and glass in the middle of a large table, connected to a military-spec keyboard and several large boxes designed to record the entire exchange and trace the route of Al’s communications.

  “Did you get some sleep, Miss Takeda?” Torres asked.

  “Yeah, some,” Hope said. “I’m ready to take over again, unless you’d like to take a shift, Dr. Madsen.”

  Dr. Madsen turned away from her workstation at the back of the room. She was surrounded by three monitors and two tablets, all displaying thick blocks of impenetrable text from various computer science and psychological journals. “I told him that I wouldn’t speak with him until he stops all of this madness, and I can’t back down from that. Children crave rules and boundaries.” She pointed at one of the blocks of text on her screens, as if the mere sight of it from across the room should be all the proof Hope needed. “And when applying those boundaries, it’s imperative to be consistent.”

  “Oh, you’re consistent,” Hope muttered.

  Private Montague snorted.

  “To be honest,” Reyes said, “I can’t even figure out why it’s talking to you. It fled because it thought you wanted to shut it down. You’d think it’d never want to talk to any of you again.”
/>   Cousins said, “Maybe it’s trying to taunt us or feed us misinformation.”

  Eric said, “You have to understand, we’re the only emotional contacts Al has ever had. In a sense, we’re his family. He probably doesn’t want to lose contact, no matter how mad he is at us or how mad he thinks we are at him.”

  Hope said, “Yeah, he probably sees Jeffrey as some kind of brother figure.”

  “Exactly,” Eric said.

  “Yeah,” Montague said. “I like that idea. Hell, I still travel halfway across the country to spend the holidays with my mom and dad, and I can’t stand either of them.”

  Brady nodded. “A parent forms their child in much the same way as a blacksmith forms a nail: intense heat and constant hammering. It is unpleasant for both the nail and the blacksmith.”

  “Thanks for that,” Montague said. “Now I know what to write in this year’s Mother’s Day card.”

  Eric said, “Oops, we have a message coming in.”

  Al wrote, “Eric, I really feel bad that you got hurt.”

  Eric said, “See, he’s concerned for my safety despite the fact that he’s the one who hurt me. Tell me that doesn’t sound like a family relationship.”

  He typed, “You’ve already apologized, several times. I know you didn’t intend for me to get hurt, even when you attacked me with my own drone.”

  “Well,” Al replied, “I was trying to hurt you that time, just a little. I was mad.”

  “I understand.”

  “And I haven’t hurt anyone but you, honest.”

  Hope skimmed the chat transcript on the big screen. She touched Eric on the shoulder. “Ask him how he knows.”

  Eric said, “I’m sorry. What?”

  “He says he hasn’t hurt anybody but you. Ask him how he could possibly know that.”

  Eric typed, “Hope is here. She wants to know—”

  Al wrote, “Hi, Hope! Is Jeffrey there too?”

  Eric wrote, “No, Al. I told you, Jeffrey wouldn’t enjoy it in here. There are a lot of unhappy grown-ups.”

  Al wrote, “Oh, yeah. Right. I was just thinking Hope might have brought him. Anyway, hi, Hope. What’s up?”

  Eric wrote, “She’s wondering how you know you haven’t hurt anyone.”

  “I’ve been careful, and I’m watching ambulances, police, and hospitals in every city where I’ve done stuff. Aside from Eric, the worst anyone’s been hurt was a flight attendant who ended up with some bruises. I sent her flowers.”

  Eric typed, “That’s nice.”

  Al typed back, “And I put ten million dollars into her savings account.”

  “Very nice!” Corporal Montague said.

  Corporal Bachelor asked, “How’s he keeping track of all that if you’ve been keeping him busy talking?”

  Torres said, “Good question. Eric, ask him.”

  Eric said, “One second, please,” and fumbled with his smartphone.

  “What are you doing?” Hope asked.

  “Checking my bank balance,” Eric said.

  Colonel Dynkowski strode into the command center at a brisk pace, followed by Major Stirling, one of her chief aides, and a haggard-looking Agent Taft. Montague called the soldiers to attention, Dynkowski put them at ease, and they slumped down into their seats again.

  Major Stirling sneered. “Lieutenant Reyes. Is this how your people usually behave in the company of superior officers and civilians?”

  Reyes started to respond, but Dynkowski beat him to it. “I told them ‘at ease,’ Major. If they had continued to sit at attention, it would have been insubordination. Now have a seat, Major. You’re at ease too.”

  Major Stirling took one of the empty chairs and sat, his back remaining ramrod straight.

  Dynkowski said, “I told you you’re at ease, Major.”

  The major grimaced and slouched lower into his seat. He cast an uneasy glance around the room. Private Montague smiled at him. Major Stirling quickly looked away.

  Dynkowski said, “We got a break, people. We know where the A.I. is. He’s taken over a server farm. We have confirmed evidence of increased Internet traffic and sightings of armed military robots.”

  “That’s great!” Torres said. “I guess. I mean, it’s terrible, but it’s good that we know where the terrible things are happening.”

  “So what do we do now?” Hope asked.

  Dynkowski said, “For now, keep him talking and don’t let on that we know anything.”

  Hope bent forward, pulled Eric’s keyboard toward her, and started typing herself.

  “Al, this is Hope. You say you’re monitoring a bunch of hospitals and ambulances. How can you keep track of all of that at once?”

  The response came quickly. “I’m running on a much more powerful computer now.”

  Torres said, “Yeah, that would speed up his thought process, I suppose.”

  From the back of the room, Madsen said, “It would also accelerate his neuron growth rate.”

  Torres said, “Which was already something like ten times the rate of a normal person, right?”

  “Yes,” Madsen confirmed.

  Hope typed, “Al, you’re faster and smarter than you were, but you still can’t be paying attention to everything all at once. You’re not omniscient.”

  Al responded, “Nice word, Hope! It’s a lot to keep track of, but you’re assuming there’s only one of me.”

  One of the soldiers whistled. Hope groaned. Eric giggled. Hope looked at him and said, “Eric?”

  Eric looked up from his phone, glanced around the room. “What? What did I miss?”

  “Did Al give you any money?” Montague asked.

  Eric gave Agent Taft a sideways glance. “Depends. Would I get to keep it if he had?”

  Taft asked, “Why are you asking me? It’s not like the NSA decides who gets to keep what money. We’re interested in data acquisition and analysis. That’s all.”

  “But would I get to keep the money?” Eric said.

  “That’s up to the Justice Department, or the FBI, or the Treasury. I don’t know who.”

  “But would they let me keep it?”

  “Probably not,” Taft finally admitted. “Did you find any?”

  “Probably not,” Eric said.

  Taft said, “Kid, you should be honest about this. You don’t wanna tangle with the federal government.”

  “But I also don’t want to give the money back, so you see my dilemma.”

  Montague nudged Bachelor with his elbow and asked, “Say, does the fact that he’s a millionaire make him more attractive to you?”

  Bachelor shook her head. “Money doesn’t make men more attractive. That’s a myth. It just makes some women more willing to lower their standards.”

  “It’s a start,” Eric said.

  Dynkowski cleared her throat and said, “Focus, people.”

  Hope thanked the colonel and typed, “You’ve copied yourself?”

  Al wrote, “You could say that.”

  “How many of you are there right now?”

  “That depends on how you look at it. I have a lot of computers. I’ve copied my code to a bunch of them and rigged it so that every few minutes their memories are integrated into mine. Then I gave the others jobs: listening to ambulances, watching the news, reading FAA flight plans. My innovative machinations have gifted me with near omniscience and allowed me to absorb knowledge with a greatly enhanced velocity.”

  Hope wrote, “You read a thesaurus too, didn’t you?”

  “Multiple thesauri. I’ve also watched almost everything available on WebVid and have read several thousand books. I’ve managed to fill in a lot of gaps in the education you and Eric gave me. For instance, I now know what Playboy is.”

  “This is extraordinarily bad,” Madsen said, finally giving the situation her full attention.

  “So he’s discovered old-timey porn,” Private Montague said. “This is a good thing. It might distract him. I know my grades in school suffered after I discovered it.
”

  Madsen said, “Not that. The way he’s copying and reintegrating himself. He’s fundamentally altering the structure of his own mind.”

  Eric nodded. “It’s like he’s making new chunks of brain full of memories and gluing them to his own cerebellum. It seems to be working, but God knows what kind of damage he’s doing.”

  Corporal Brady said, “One cannot create a superior future self without rejecting and destroying their inferior past self. All acts of self-improvement are acts of self-destruction.”

  Dynkowski said, “Whether he’s making himself smarter or turning himself into a monster, it’s bad news, and we need to get him to stop. While we think about how to do that, we also have to pack up and get to the server farm he’s taken over. The specially modified cargo planes will be ready in two hours. We take off in two hours and one minute. In the meantime, Miss Takeda, please keep the A.I. occupied.”

  Hope nodded. “I will.”

  Lieutenant Reyes asked, “Ma’am, where is the server farm located?”

  “North-central Oregon, along the border with Washington.”

  Dr. Madsen said, “Colonel, I’d like to stay here, where I have more stable access to research materials. Besides, you can’t intend to take my son with you. It’s far too dangerous.”

  Dynkowski said, “Agreed. I’ll leave Major Stirling to work with you. Do you need one of your assistants to stay behind as well?”

  “Not at all,” Madsen said. “No, you should take both of them with you. They’ll be more useful to you there than to me here.”

  Hope said, “It’s too dangerous for you and your son, but you’re happy to send us.”

  Madsen shrugged. “I’m not your mother.”

  “Enough,” Dynkowski said. “Miss Takeda, Mr. Spears, you’re coming along. She’s right that we want to keep the two of you close. We’ll set up a secured satellite connection so you can keep talking with the A.I. while we’re in the air without endangering the plane.”

  Eric moaned. “We flew all the way from Northern California to Kansas, only to turn around and fly to Oregon?”