by Mandy White
Even though Vista was old and blind in her real eye, she was not blind to the trend she’d seen developing in the younger generation. Some citizens stopped doing their share of work, opting to saddle others with their workload in return for goods or favors. As the lazy ones increased in number, the working class was pushed toward the edges of the city. One day she overheard someone suggest they move the workers out of the city, into the Twilight Zone.
Vista’s fingers caressed the spray can in the pocket of her robe. Some people never learned.
“Here we go again,” she muttered.
I’m All Ears
It started out the way so many of these things do: A slice of potato, a needle and a cigarette lighter. Piercing my ears against my parents’ wishes was the ultimate act of rebellion, in my thirteen-year-old mind.
My sister was all for it, in the beginning. Sadie was a saint. She always had my back. Sadie was more than just my identical twin. She was my best friend and my savior, always willing to run interference to hide my rebellious antics. Like the pierced ears. Sadie chose to remain unpierced, and stood in for me when I hid to avoid my parents until my ears healed and I could remove the earrings around them. And when my amateur piercing job went bad and my ears turned scarlet with infection, Sadie was there for me.
It was the same with the tattoo. And the nose ring. And then the numerous tattoos that followed. Luckily, by that time we had moved far away from our conservative Christian parents and I didn’t have to face their judgment.
We took turns attending family functions, although it was always Sadie who went. Half the time she was herself and the other half she posed as me, always with an excuse as to why we couldn’t show up together. When excuses about having to work wore thin, we told our parents we had adopted a dog, and Sadie posed for photos with our neighbor’s Jack Russell terrier.
I wished I could have just been honest with them, I knew they’d disown me if they saw what I really looked like. And if they saw me, then Sadie’s role in our lifetime of lies would also be exposed. I couldn’t do that to her. Family was more important to Sadie than anything.
I studied my reflection, glimpsing the glint of the Christmas tree in the room behind me. I liked what I saw, but imagined the horror on my mother’s face then she saw the 2-inch discs that had replaced those DIY holes I’d bored so many years ago. As a professional body piercer, it was good business to advertise my wares, and of course I’d acted as my own guinea pig during my training. I was proud to say I’d done many of my piercings myself. Metal glittered in my nose, lips, cheeks and eyebrows. In addition to the discs in my stretched-out earlobes, I had nine more holes in my ears, decorated with an artful array of rings and studs.
My phone rang in the other room. It was probably Sadie, telling me she’d arrived safely at Mom and Dad’s house. I checked the number and saw that I was correct; it was my parent’s phone number. I answered, expecting to hear Sadie’s voice, but it was Mom.
“Annie?”
“Um…yeah.” Something wasn’t right. How did she know?
“Hi, Mom. I’m so sorry I couldn’t make it. It’s just…work is so busy this time of year. I promise I’ll make it for Easter.”
“Oh, Annie! Thank the Lord you’re ok!” I heard a sob on the other end.
“Mom? What is it? Is Dad ok?” My father’s health had been poor, and the last I’d heard he was battling a respiratory infection.
“Yes, he’s fine. Honey, it’s Sadie. I just got a call from the police. There’s been an accident. Sadie is…” My mother broke into sobs. “I’m so relieved to hear your voice! I thought you were together. I thought I’d lost you both. Sadie’s gone. Thank Jesus you’re okay!”
* * *
Throughout the flight home, my mind churned through what was likely in store for me at Sadie’s funeral.
There would be the shock and disappointment on my parents’ faces when they say me for the first time in my tattooed, pierced, blue-Mohawked glory, followed by their understanding of my absence, and then finally the anger: Anger at my selfishness that sent my sister to her death; anger that she was the one in that car instead of me.
There would be my parents’ desperate attempts to hide their humiliation on front of all the friends and family, painfully aware of every shared glance and whisper. My own humiliation and grief would be inconsequential; after all, I was the cause of it all.
I was surprised they were allowing me to attend at all.
But then again, they didn’t know. Not yet, but soon the truth would be laid bare. I feared my mother’s reaction the most. My father was the quiet type; I expected a disapproving silence from him, but my mother… Mom was outspoken enough for both of them, and I’d always been a little bit afraid of her.
I felt naked; raw as a fresh tattoo inside and out. If only I could turn back time. What would my life have been like if I’d never pierced my ears that first time? Perhaps Sadie would still be by my side and I would have enjoyed the same relationship with our parents that she did.
I half hoped the plane would crash and spare us all what was to come. But no such luck. The flight attendant instructed us to prepare for landing.
This was it. My mother waited on the other side of those doors, and for the first time my sister Sadie wouldn’t be there to cover for me.
* * *
Mom looked so much older and it dawned on me how many years had passed since I’d seen her in person. I wanted to turn and flee, but had nowhere to run.
I braced myself for the worst.
“Annie!” My mother’s arms enveloped me and I felt her shudder as I returned the hug.
“Mom,” I managed, before dissolving in a cascade of tears.
“I’m so glad you finally came.”
I held my mother close and sobbed into her jacket. The years fell away and all at once I was five years old, terrified of my first day of school.
Finally Mom stepped back and held me at arm’s length, studying me.
Here it comes. I ducked my chin in shame.
She smiled through her tears. “Looks like we have some catching up to do.”
“It’s a long story,” I began.
“I’ll bet it’s an interesting one.” She placed an arm over my shoulders and hugged me close as we walked toward the baggage carousel. “I’m all ears.”
Rogue
“Somebody is going to have to fix this.”
“Really? I thought maybe I’d do the exact opposite and ignore the problem. You know, like we’ve been doing so far?”
“Sarcasm? That’s how you respond to a global crisis? How professional of you, Captain.”
“I learned from the best, Commander.” Jay made no effort to hide the venom in her voice.
Commander Obert slammed his palm against the desktop hard enough to make the monitors flicker. “Watch your tone, Captain! You’re on thin ice already.”
“I warned you about the issue long before it was a problem. If you hadn’t rushed it into the field without testing, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“Are you suggesting this is my fault?”
“As opposed to what?”
“As opposed to the fault of the engineer who was paid massive amounts of money to program this thing without fucking it up?”
“I did not fuck it up! I programmed it exactly as specified! It’s not my fault you assholes suddenly decide to use it for something other than its original purpose!”
“I thought we hired you because you were one of the best in your field. Did you lie on your resume?”
Jay’s cheeks flushed from the sting of the insult. She fought to appear unruffled. “I told you the code was glitchy. It was untested. If you’d bother to read any of my reports, you would have seen…”
“You said your software upgrade would take care of it. Obviously it didn’t do shit! Now this thing is out of control and the whole world is watching.”
“If you recall, Commander, my software upgrade was only inte
nded to be a temporary solution. Temporary! A short-term patch to contain the unknown variables until we could perform adequate field tests! Without testing, how am I supposed to know what needs to be corrected? This isn’t Microsoft, for fuck’s sake! You can’t just toss something out to the general public for beta testing and then throw them an upgrade when problems arise!”
“This is your project, Jay. Now it’s your mess to clean up.”
“What do you mean, MY project? This was a team effort! Your hands are just as dirty, if not more so, since you were the one who accepted the money from that bitch! You assholes are all alike. You think money can fix everything.”
Obert, who had been pacing like a caged animal, spun to face Jay. His pale eyes darkened with fury, but he spoke softly. “Do I need to remind you how to address a superior officer?”
“Oh, pardon the shit out of me, Commander Asshole, Sir! I think diplomacy left the building around the time you accused me of lying on my resume. Did you seriously think we were going to get away with this? You sent an untested unit into an uncontrolled environment. What the hell did you think was going to happen? I warned you the code was buggy. I told you the bugs would replicate exponentially if the program ran uninterrupted for a long period of time. But no! Don’t listen to the stupid programmer! What the fuck does she know? Oh, right. Fake resume. That’s the style these days, right? If you don’t agree with something, just slap a big ‘FAKE’ label on it.”
Jay no longer gave a shit that the Commander had the power to strip her of her rank and jail her for insubordination. Let him do his worst, she thought. Prison was preferable to what he was suggesting.
“You know what you have to do, Captain.”
“No! Commander, please, I –”
“ENOUGH!” Obert bellowed. “I will not tolerate any more backtalk from you! You started this, and now you WILL FINISH IT!”
Jay turned away to hide the tears welling in her eyes. “Give me one more chance. I might be able to shut the unit down remotely without attracting any attention.”
“Make it happen!” Obert barked. “Otherwise you are responsible for shutting it down manually, by any means necessary.” He strode from the room without another word, leaving Jay to contemplate the task before her.
Armed with a steaming mug of whiskey-laden coffee, Jay positioned herself at her workstation to tackle the code once more. She had already tried everything, but the alternative terrified her.
She wasn’t ready to die.
* * *
Hours later, Jay woke, the checkerboard pattern of the keyboard imprinted on her cheek. She wiped the drool from the keys and from the corner of her mouth.
Dreams of wandering lost in an endless forest flickered at the edge of her memory. Tree trunks endless lines of ones, blooming with leaves of zeroes, with a meandering path that led Jay back to the start of the same broken loop, where a devastated, post-apocalyptic wasteland waited.
“Making any progress?” Damien slid up beside her on a wheeled stool, his usual means of conveyance around the work area.
“No,” Jay sighed, rubbing her eyes. “It’s just the same old loop. Every patch I try leads back to the same glitch, or makes it worse. There has to be something I’m missing.”
“Can I help?”
“Probably not.”
Damien Scott was a recent addition to the team, a young but brilliant engineer. Under normal circumstances, Jay might have welcomed his input, but this situation was anything but normal.
“Try me. I might surprise you.” Damien’s closeness suggested he might have been offering more than just assistance with the project.
“Don’t you have work to do, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, actually. Obert assigned me to help you. All my other duties are suspended until this…whatever it is, is fixed.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Nope. Message just came in now. So, what are we doing?”
Jay rose from her chair and stretched her weary shoulders. “Coffee?”
“No thanks.” Damien studied Jay’s screen while she crossed the room to refill her mug, minus the whiskey this time.
Jay returned to her seat. “Does any of this make sense to you?”
“Sure, I mean, I recognize the code. What’s the problem you’re having? It looks sound.”
“What do you know about the project?”
“Just the parts that are common knowledge. You have some kind of robot that has gone rogue and you’re trying to shut it down remotely.”
“An oversimplified analysis, but not entirely inaccurate.”
“So what is it, exactly? Artificial intelligence, I assume. How did you package it? Some kind of android-type unit? Cyborg?”
“You’ve seen too many Terminator movies.”
“Not a cyborg, then?”
“Not quite. We don’t have that kind of technology yet. This thing is 100% artificial, no living tissue or anything like that. But it looks real enough to fool most people at first glance.”
“And it’s intelligent, I presume.”
“It’s only as intelligent as its programming. But the CPU is a learning computer.”
“Like the Terminator. Now who’s watched too many movies?”
“Ok, I’ll give you that one. But that’s where the similarity to Hollywood ends. This thing is less sophisticated. It learns, yes, but it can’t think for itself. It is only capable of simulating independent thought.”
“What was it designed to be?”
Jay rolled her eyes. “Take a wild guess.”
“Something military, I’m sure.”
“Obviously. We were originally contracted to design an artificial soldier. Imagine the implications. It’s fearless, follows orders and can solve simple problems on its own. It would reduce casualties in any war to almost zero.”
“Except in a war there are always casualties. Often innocent ones.”
“Yeah, I know. Let’s skip the moral debate and focus on the job, ok? I was hired to program this thing, and for the most part, I succeeded. It passed all the field tests with flying colors. Except for the last one.”
“Which was?”
“They wanted to see if it was capable of integrating into human society. Maybe it could be more than just a mindless killer to send into battle. They started looking at other uses for the unit. Namely, espionage...”
“Robot spies.”
“More or less, yeah. Its ability to record sound and video would be indispensable in that environment. The question was: could it be sent undercover undetected?”
“I’m guessing it failed that test.”
“Not exactly. It passed. The problem was, we underestimated its ability to adapt. It blended into the public a little too well. And apparently it enjoyed being there. When we tried to call it back, it refused to obey. Dug its heels in like a five-year-old having a temper tantrum.”
“Didn’t you install a fail-safe shutdown procedure to prevent that sort of thing? I mean, that’s standard, isn’t it?”
“Of course it is. But they rushed me. Obert wouldn’t change the deadlines, so the unit was put into the field without adequate testing of the fail-safe protocols. If we had been allowed to run more tests, we would have found the bug in time to fix it.”
“So this thing was basically field-tested prematurely, and now it’s out of control?”
“Correct.”
“And you’re trying to shut it down remotely.”
“Yes.”
“And if you can’t?”
“You heard Obert. I have to do it manually.”
“And that is a problem because...?”
“Shutting the unit down manually is a suicide mission.”
“The hell?”
“First of all, there is the self-destruct function. Remember, the thing was supposed to be a soldier. Naturally, we designed it to be capture-proof. If threatened, it will explode, destroying itself and everything within a two mile radius. Manually shutting it
down would require physical contact with the unit.”
“Geez! What the fuck is wrong with Obert? He’d sacrifice you like that?”
“It appears that way, yes. My mistake, my consequence.”
“You’re sure you can’t achieve physical contact without triggering the self-destruct?”
“Positive. Because of the malfunction in the AI programming, the CPU is having the equivalent of a mental breakdown. It’s learning things it was never programmed to understand, and it isn’t equipped to process them. As a result it has developed a series of circuitous thinking patterns, all of which lead to perceived threats against it. It has developed a sort of programmed paranoia.”
“Artificial psychosis? Holy shitsnacks. That would be fascinating if it wasn’t so terrifying.”
“Right? Unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury of studying the phenomenon. This is an emergency unlike anything we’re equipped to handle.”
“Can’t Obert send some snipers to take it out?”
“Snipers would likely die in the process. They would need to be within the two mile blast radius. The unit is designed to be sniper-proof. Shooting it sets off the self-destruct, just like it would in a battle scenario.”
“Shoot it from a distance then. A plane? A missile? Have the sniper wear a bomb suit? I mean, it’s risky, but you might have to accept some collateral damage.”
“A bomb suit, yes. That’s an idea worth looking at. Unfortunately, Obert isn’t going to let me risk any of his men. You heard him. The sniper would have to be me. And I’m not exactly trained for that sort of thing. I’m not a soldier, I’m just a computer nerd. There’s a strong possibility I would miss. A failed attempt on the unit’s ‘life’ would be worse than none at all. The chain of events it would set off would be…disastrous. The thing is under heavy security, partly due to its paranoid state but also because of its position.”
“Position? Where the hell is the thing that makes it so hard to get to?”
“It’s more than just a ‘where’. It’s also a ‘what’.”
“Speak English or Nerdish – something I can understand.”