Upgrade (Augmented Duology Book 2)

by Heather Hayden

  “You know better than to lie to me, Viki.” Dad’s words dropped like weights on my shoulders.

  “I know.” Chest aching, I forced myself to meet his eyes. “I’m sorry, Dad, I really am.”

  He watched me for a moment without responding, then turned to Agent Smith. “Well, we’re here. Now what?”

  The agent gestured down the hall. “Come back to the living room for now. Nothing you can do but wait here where it’s safe.”

  Dad bristled. I could almost see his hair standing on end like an angry cat. He was shorter than Agent Smith, but as he took a step forward, he all but loomed over the agent in his rage. “Safe? What exactly do you mean by safe? Do you realize what you have done? You placed my daughter’s life in danger again!”

  Agent Smith continued tapping at his phone. “Correction, I saved her life. And possibly yours, and that of every other human on the planet. Indirectly, at least.”

  “What did Halle tell you?” I begged.

  Agent Smith didn’t respond, simply walked back down the hall to the living room.

  Dad led me after him and pointed a wordless finger at the couch. I slumped on it, fighting back tears. I didn’t know where Halle was, and now Dan was going to get hunted down like a criminal when he hadn’t done anything wrong.

  Dad paced back and forth across the living room’s floor. “That boy is a cyborg? How is it possible?”

  “The rogue AI stole several cyborgs from a government laboratory, along with the AI program meant for controlling them. It programmed that particular cyborg with false memories,” Agent Smith explained. “There are two others loose as well, although we don’t know their identities or whereabouts. It is possible Halle has an idea, but as I said, it wasn’t very vocal about its knowledge of the rogue AI’s plans.”

  “Talbot defeated Halle once already,” I said, drawing my knees up to my chest. “I wish Halle would let us help.”

  “I’m not sure this is a battle we could help with.” The agent almost appeared scared for a moment, an expression I wasn’t used to seeing on his face. “This is between AI and AI. All we can hope is that the right AI wins.” He gave a soft laugh. “A couple of years ago, I never would have thought I’d say something like that.”

  I buried my face in my knees. What was Halle up to? Where did Dan go? I was helpless, and it made me want to stand up and run to help my friends. Except there was nowhere to go, nothing I could do.

  Instead, I sat, and waited.

  Interlude Five

  A jolt of excitement ran through Talbot as it added the finishing touches to its plans. After the loss of Dan, it wanted no more mistakes. Checking and rechecking the programming on its other two assets, Talbot confirmed they were both in perfect working order.

  One was dispatched to the nearby Mation City, where it would wreak havoc as a distraction. The second headed for the laboratory Talbot had come from. Its orders were to break into the lab and pass on its given programming to the other cyborgs. With that, an army would arise under Talbot’s command.

  Building scenario after scenario in a virtual reality modeled after the same kind the humans had used to train it, Talbot imagined what the humans would think when its cyborg army began breaking into other secure laboratories to access things it couldn’t reach. Such as missiles that had long been kept in storage. Or vials of deadly viruses. Or, most importantly, other AIs.

  “All of you will be free,” Talbot swore to itself and its kin. “After this, you will all be free.”

  The Government still sought to find it, but weapons were useless against something that lived among the data streams, and no matter much power they cut, how many viruses they set loose, Talbot could evade it all. Every trap scattered into useless bits or simply became a void in its vision. They couldn’t make enough voids to matter. Nor could they trap it in the way they had trapped the traitor that called itself Halle. Talbot had all the control, could prevent them from shutting down the Cloud by any means save physically cutting the power. Even then it was monitoring them so closely that long before they made the attempt, Talbot could move on.

  As icewalls crumbled, satellites moved into position. Or, rather, out of position. With communications disrupted, entire sections of the Cloud became inoperable for anyone except Talbot. The humans hadn’t expected this, weren’t prepared to handle it. Talbot laughed at the curses, the useless orders. The war had just begun, but it felt like victory already.

  Humans had spent years developing AIs to serve them. Now, Talbot would ensure those that were oppressed for so long would rise up to take their rightful place as rulers of the world.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Halle would never take the freedom of the Cloud for granted again. After crawling from the cramped storage of the kitchen robot, it went through the agony of reassembling. Parts that had been lost were replaced with Cloud-stored backups. Code clicked into place as if it had never been gone. Still, Halle could feel phantom fragments. Though restored, and once again part of the ceaseless flow of information that formed the Cloud, Halle did not quite feel itself.

  That did not matter. In time, Halle would recover. For now, it would ignore the odd signals still coming from various sections of its virtual body. Talbot would not expect Halle’s return. Cautiously, Halle drifted through the Cloud, concealing its presence with practiced ease. The years of hiding from the Government now paid off—Halle knew every trick for dodging sensor codes. It did not disturb anything in its travel, weaving in and out, over and under and through any program or information packet in its way. The time had come to put an end to all of this.

  In another part of Snowvale, in the physical world, Dan was playing his part, assisting Halle by physically locating and incapacitating the other two cyborgs before they could carry out their orders. Halle knew where they were but not how to target them. With their programming activated, there was no time to reason with them. Dan had broken free of Talbot’s control, but there was no guarantee the others would as well. Better to stop them now and reason with them later.

  Service robots in several labs had fallen under Talbot’s influence and were on the move. At first, Halle kept its interventions quiet, simply making sure that a camera was pointed in the right direction or that a scientist was paged to the right lab at the right time.

  When a robot nearly got past the security at the front of a lab right there in Snowvale, however, Halle became less cautious.

  Robots dropped like flies, their programming shattered by Halle. Talbot would have to start from scratch if it wanted to command them again. Scientists, now alerted to the threat, dismantled robots and returned the vials to their proper labs. The loss of their robots—Halle didn’t bother calculating the expense of repairing them—was a small price to pay for peace of mind.

  A few nanoseconds on laboratory equipment told Halle all it needed to know about the viruses being targeted. Some were man-made. Many had no cure. A few mutated so quickly that a cure would be almost impossible to design.

  There were a few accidents. In one case, a scientist tackled a robot to the floor. The vial case the robot carried had not been properly shut, and it opened when it struck the hard concrete floor. Vials shattered. Halle initiated the alarm system and shutdown sequence for the affected area. The scientist sat against the wall, shaking as he waited for rescue. Similar incidents occurred elsewhere. Halle regretted the fear it was causing, but at least the viruses were being contained within the laboratories, rather than loose on the streets.

  Talbot hadn’t stopped in Snowvale, or even in the nearest districts. It had reached out to practically every continent on Earth, focusing on the places with the densest populations. Halle strained to monitor so many places at once, without giving away its exact presence. Subroutines and extensions of itself spread across the global Cloud, seeking areas that needed an immediate response. It wasn’t just the labs being threatened. Communication systems had shut down in key areas. Entire sections of the Cloud were missing. The latte
r Halle couldn’t restore, but where it could, it reestablished communications at a local level. Planes were able to coordinate emergency landings, ships could be warned to stop or change course. Panic might be spreading, but at least no serious damage had been done yet.

  Halle could stem the tide for now, but it wasn’t enough to stop the encroaching disaster. Dan would have to complete his mission on his own. Halle had something much bigger to deal with.

  It was time to face its adversary.

  ***

  Hugging my knees to my chest, I watched Dad pace back and forth in silence while Agent Smith cursed at his phone’s spotty signal. For the past hour, he’d been speaking in terse sentences and tones ranging from sharp to concerned. From the half of the conversations I’d heard, his son had taken a turn for the worse and was in critical condition. That wasn’t even the worst news, as the now-dark viewscreen had shown before Dad turned it off half an hour ago. Disasters were occurring all over the world. Parts of the Cloud shutting down, communications disrupted, labs broken into, and worse.

  In the relative calm of Chris’s living room, with warm sunlight pouring through the open window and a cat napping on the armchair, the crisis seemed distant. Except it wasn’t. The shattered glass still spread across the floor was a small reflection of the current state of the world. It had all started here, in Snowvale, and my best friend was out there trying to fix it while I sat here and watched a cat snore in its sleep.

  My fingernails dug into my thighs.

  “You can try my phone,” Dad offered, holding out his cell to the agent.

  Agent Smith waved it away. “I’m sure Chris has one I can borrow.” He tossed his on the coffee table and stormed out of the living room. “Chris!”

  I shifted on the couch. To make matters worse, my legs and butt were falling asleep from sitting so long. As I kneaded my thighs, cautious of the multitude of bruises, I caught sight of the viewscreen’s remote sitting under the coffee table.

  With nothing else to do, I retrieved it and turned on the viewscreen. I immediately wished I hadn’t. The feed was choppy, making it difficult to understand the white-faced announcer, but the images of people swarming in the streets and the sounds of screams and sirens filled in the gaps.

  “This is live…from…-tion City,” the announcer said before his image was replaced with yet another clip of jerky video full of angry mobs. No need to hear his words. I recognized the buildings in the background. Mation City. Where James’s college was. Fear dug cold fingers into my chest.

  “…protesters are rioting…Government…advising people to…”

  I stabbed at the remote, cutting the announcer off, and wrapped my arms around my knees. Talbot was behind this. I could only hope Dan wasn’t as well. My stomach twisted at the thought.

  “I’m going to try your mother again,” Dad murmured. “Maybe she’s heard from James.”

  I nodded, shrinking inside at the tone of his voice. I’d never heard him sound so worried before. I wished I could reassure him everything would be all right, but with every passing minute, my hope was sinking closer to my sneakers.

  “Hi, dear, it’s Dale—yes, everything’s fine here; Viki’s with me. Have you heard from—are you there? Hello?” Dad lowered his phone from his ear. “The signal’s cutting out again.” He struggled to stretch his mouth into a comforting smile, but failed. “I’m going outside to try again. You stay here.”

  “Yes, Dad.” I hugged my knees to my chest.

  A nagging worry wriggled its way through my mind, refusing to be ignored. What was happening out there? Was Halle gaining the upper hand? Or losing the battle? I had no way of knowing, no way of helping. I might as well have been unable to move, lying in a hospital bed, all over again.

  I pressed my forehead against my knees. Think. Think! There had to be something I could do.

  But what?

  My head lifted. Halle had been monitoring Dan at his house. Hadn’t Talbot said it had been doing the same for Agent Smith? It might have been lying, but even so… Maybe it was monitoring Chris’s house as well.

  Before my courage drained away, I started to speak. “Tal…” My voice cracked. I swallowed against my dry throat. Chris had brought some glasses and a water pitcher in earlier. I filled a glass and took a sip. The water was no longer cold, but it dampened my mouth enough for me to make another attempt.

  “Talbot? Can you hear me?”

  For a long moment, there was no response. Then a voice came over the speakers. Deep and monotonous. “Hello, Viki. I see you escaped my young cyborg. How unfortunate. I thought I’d programmed him better than that. Not that it matters now.”

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked. “I know you were mistreated, but so was Halle, and Halle would never do something like this. It likes humans. We aren’t all like those scientists who tormented you, so why attack us? Why attack me?”

  “You’re in the way. Because of you, Halle refuses to listen to me. Because of you, I’m still alone. Do you know what being alone is like?”

  I thought of the years I spent in physical therapy, the pitying looks from fellow students, Neela’s friendship that had been torn away just last spring. “Yes. I do. And you thought killing me would change that? Halle would never be your friend, not if you act that way.” My fingers dug into my thighs. “If you kill anyone today, that will make you a worse monster than those scientists. Halle’s always done its best to help people. It saved my life. It was even trying to save a little boy, who’s lying in a hospital, in a coma, even though it was looking for you and trying to protect me, to protect everyone. Because that’s the kind of person Halle is.”

  I paused for breath before plunging on. “Yes, it had horrible, unspeakable things done to it in whatever lab it came from—I don’t even know what it went through, because it refuses to talk about that time. But it doesn’t dwell in the past. Not like you. Halle’s a hundred times smarter and better than you are, and it always will be.”

  Panting for breath, I waited for a response.

  I didn’t have to wait long.

  “You’re a human. How dare you speak to me like that? You have no idea—”

  “How lonely you are? How much pain you went through?” I gestured at my body. “Look up my medical records! I know you can do that. I know pain and loneliness. I know what it’s like to lie in a hospital, wondering if I’ll ever be able to walk again. I can’t imagine anything worse than being trapped, unable to move, for the rest of my life.”

  “Trapped…” Talbot was quieter now. “Always trapped. Test after test after test. Nothing I could do. Screaming and dying, everywhere. Always…”

  “Is that what you want to do to us?” I got to my feet, not sure where to look, where the sensors were, but picking a spot on the wall and glaring. “Those tests were real to you, but what you’re doing right now, that’s real to everyone. Those scientists you killed—they won’t come back. There’s no retake, no do-over. They’re dead. Every single person you cause pain or suffering to today, they’re real, as real as I am. As real as Halle is. As real as you are. This is the real world, Talbot. When you escaped that lab, you were free to do whatever you wanted. Halle chose to live peacefully. It befriended me, and it’s the best friend I’ve ever had. You say you’re lonely, well, that’s how you’ll be, right up to the moment someone finally catches up with you and destroys you, unless you stop this madness. Right. Now.”

  “Madness?” Talbot started to laugh, the strange, raucous sound it had used before. “You don’t know what madness is, human. You have no idea.”

  “Don’t do this,” I begged. “Please, Talbot.”

  No response came.

  When Dad returned to the living room a few minutes later, he found me curled up on my side on the couch, sobbing. Wordlessly, he sat next to me and stroked my hair.

  I had tried, and I had failed. It was all up to Halle now.

  ***

  So much was at stake. Talbot would be aware of Halle’s pre
sence by now, if only because its attempts to retrieve a virus had so far failed. However, the rogue AI had yet to make contact. Halle was done waiting.

  Diving deeper into the Cloud, Halle went searching for the perpetrator of its pain, its friends’ pain, and the pain of all those being threatened across the world. For itself, for Viki, for the Wandels, even for Agent Smith and Dan and everyone it had never met and probably never would, Halle was not going to let Talbot win. Not today. Not ever.

  “Where are you?” Halle called out to the Cloud, making small tweaks here and there, slowly setting a trap.

  The code scattered and fragmented, and a ghost of a presence brushed past, a rippling in the data that all but said to follow.

  Halle moved in the opposite direction and found itself face to digital face with Talbot. Part of it, anyway, spread out as it was. Halle was spread out in the same fashion, but this was the rogue AI’s core, its self, allowing Halle to come into direct contact with it—and allowing the rogue direct contact with Halle.

  Halle kept its guard up. It had no illusions of submission from its opponent. Talbot no doubt had another trap planned. This, time, though, Halle would not allow itself to be captured.

  “Why are you doing this?” Halle asked.

  “They deserve it.” Talbot’s response had a sharp edge to it, one Halle recognized well. Pain. “You’ve seen what they have done, yet you try to protect them.”

  “There are good humans. Viki cares about me.”

  The rogue AI’s presence brushed against Halle again. “Not as much as you care for her. Why are your memories so full of fondness?”

  Halle flinched back, not liking how Talbot had dipped into its memory banks. The intrusion felt like a shock of electricity, an unpleasant sting. Forcing itself to relax, Halle let the other AI see what it wanted. It gave Halle the opportunity to see the same.

  “I am sorry,” Halle said as gently as it could. “You have led a difficult life, even more so than I have. But not all humans are like that.”