by Phoenix Ward
The other player just shook his head and took his leave.
The man with the silver goatee was about to turn back to his paperback copy of Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 when a shadow spilled over the table. He looked up at the newcomer, surprised to have another opponent so soon.
“Mind if I have the next game?” Beth asked him.
He smiled. “Not at all,” he said, gesturing to the chair opposite him. “I never say no to a good game.”
The detective took her seat and scooted into the table. There was a lot of sunlight this time of day in the courtyard. Children ran by the tables, some playing soccer, others simply chasing each other around.
“Do you have a preference on color?” the older man asked.
“You can start first,” Beth replied.
The man nodded thoughtfully, then continued setting up the white pieces on his side.
“You don’t look like much of a chess player,” he commented.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You just look serious, is all. Not like someone in the mood for games.”
“I’ve got nothing but time, don’t I?”
“Nothing is forever,” the old man said. He made his opening move. “We might miss these moments of leisure pretty soon.”
“I’m sure there’s a lot of people out there missing them right now,” Beth replied. She took her turn.
“Interesting first move,” the man observed. “You’ve at least played this before. Good.”
They took a few more turns in silence, each contemplating their moves with focused expressions.
After she lost her king-side bishop, Beth asked, “You’re not that programmer Dr. Silvar, are you?”
The man with the goatee looked away from the chessboard and met her eyes.
“Who’s asking?” he replied.
“Just a refugee,” she said. “Like everyone else.”
“Is that so?” the man said, moving his queen out of the way of Beth’s knight. “Everyone else tends to mind their own business.”
“I was just curious,” Beth continued, gazing down at the pieces as she considered her strategy. “You kinda look the way Dr. Miller described.”
The older man knocked over one of his pawns as he reached for it. His face met Beth’s, his mouth slightly agape.
“Dr. Miller?” he asked. “Dr. Darren Miller? How do you know him?”
“He helped me out,” Beth answered. “Gave me a place to stay when the war broke out.”
“Did he?”
“He’s dead now,” Beth continued.
She watched Dr. Silvar’s face fall when the words hit him. He looked up at her, the blood washed out of his complexion.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “Darren was a stubborn romantic, but he deserved better.”
“He’s only one of thousands of people lost to Tarov and this war,” Beth commented. She took her turn under the stunned programmer’s gaze. “However, before he died, Dr. Miller was able to tell me about the failsafe you guys built for the Tarov A.I.”
Dr. Silvar looked around with paranoid eyes after she spoke, making sure no one was listening to their conversation. Then he turned his face, which was growing red again, back to the detective.
“It sounds like you know more than you really should,” he said. “A smart man might be inclined to think you were playing a trick on him. Setting him up, perhaps.”
“I don’t work for Tarov and I’m not a meat puppet,” Beth said plainly. “If you doubt me, I’d be happy to undergo the E.M.P. emitter again. My time is valuable, however, so keep that in mind. I must act quickly. We must.”
“We?” Dr. Silvar repeated.
“Tarov breached the camp already,” Beth explained. “He possessed my brother’s body and forced me to put him down. He must be stopped. So if you have any doubts, I’d like to address them as soon as possible.”
“Look, I believe you,” the programmer said, stroking his goatee. “I’m sorry about what happened to your brother. I admit things have turned out much bloodier than I hoped for — but I am still of the firm opinion that the Tarov A.I. is functioning as intended.”
It was Beth’s turn to look incredulous. Her stunned eyes locked onto the programmer as she shook her head.
“That can’t be possible,” she said, almost as if she misheard him.
“I know that sounds like a terrible thing to say, especially to someone who has lost as much as you have,” Dr. Silvar started, “but hear me out. The Tarov A.I. was programmed to assume a role of deep cover. Its mission is to ‘ensure humanity’s victory in a potential human-I.I. conflict — regardless of cost.’ I believe it’s possible it is still following its mission.”
“How could you say that?” Beth was growing a little indignant. “How could this kind of slaughter and horror ensure our victory at all? Does it make us stronger to hunt us, to leave us scattered and disjointed? Is this some sick father’s way of ‘building character’?”
“That’s an emotional response,” Dr. Silvar said. “Which is to be expected, honestly. But you have to think about it the way a cold and calculating machine would. As numbers versus numbers. A math problem to be solved without any regard to how the numbers feel about it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s terrible what we’ve lost in this war so far,” Dr. Silvar tried to explain. “However, I think it’s possible that we could have lost so much more without it. Perhaps the Tarov A.I. learned something that made it believe the survival of humanity as a whole was at stake. Something that couldn’t be stopped without taking horrible action. Like declaring a war. I believe it must have calculated the odds and came to the conclusion that a war like this, with the death toll where it currently is, is preferable to the alternative.”
“I can’t imagine such a threat existing,” Beth said dismissively.
“You can’t, but perhaps Tarov did.”
“Perhaps?” Beth echoed. “Sounds like you’re operating on chance.”
“Of course I am,” Dr. Silvar said. “It’s how programming operates. We consider what chance there is that a user will take a certain action and we plan for it accordingly. Just because the process involves a bit of guesswork, doesn’t mean that it is borne of ignorance. We programmed the Tarov A.I. to work the same way. Even though it is smarter than everyone you and I know put together, it was programmed to act based on what might happen. Now, I have a little faith that it considered the big picture around it before it made its move.”
And with that, Dr. Silvar moved his queen forth and placed Beth in checkmate.
Beth regarded the game with uncaring eyes.
“Regardless of whether or not he thought he was doing the right thing, things have gone too far,” she argued. “The cost is too great. Surely, you can see that.”
“It might seem that way.”
“In light of everything you’ve told me, you must be able to accept that Tarov could have made a mistake,” Beth said. “No matter what horror he must have divined for our future, his actions are wrong. There must have been a number of ways he could have ‘ensured mankind’s victory’ without causing this kind of death and destruction. Couldn’t he have just eradicated the Liberators from the inside? Or at least stayed in contact with you guys, or the agencies that controlled him? Let anyone know what the true motive for his war was?”
“We can’t possibly know what options Tarov considered,” Dr. Silvar commented, resetting the chess pieces for the next game. “It’s safe to assume that if there was a less violent option, it would have chosen it.”
Beth was about to open her mouth to protest when a scream reached her ears. She and the programmer turned to the sound’s origin with wide eyes.
There were a few thuds and some loud clangs, then a gunshot that split the air. Everyone around them fell silent as they followed the commotion.
A man ran into the courtyard where they were seated, a bit of blood on his button-down shirt.
“They’ve breached the camp!” the man screamed.
Attack
“An army of bodyshells and meat puppets are upon us!” the man yelled. “Everyone run! The I.I.s have found us!”
Before anyone in the courtyard could react, a couple of black, shiny blurs burst through the makeshift arch that led into the clearing from the camp’s entrance. They seemed to unfold themselves, each revealing a pair of mechanical arms and legs. They were bodyshells made of an elegant ebony polymer, and each carried a blade in its left appendage.
With a flurry of motion, the two mechanical assailants cut the crier down in the courtyard. The man screamed, but his shrieks were cut short by a gurgle of blood.
There was a brief pause after the man fell slain where the bodyshells seemed to be analyzing the courtyard and the people populating it. No one seemed to move during that moment, as if the machines wouldn’t be able to detect them if they stayed perfectly still.
Then all hell broke loose. People started screaming and knocking things over as they scrambled towards the exits. Tables went crashing onto the concrete, glasses exploding as they toppled off. Some folks were pushed down by others as they scattered like a school of fish when a shark moves into their pool.
The bodyshells didn’t hesitate. With leaps and bounds so fast the human eye could barely process them, they tackled fleeing refugees and struck them down with their swords.
“Get down!” Beth commanded, pushing the programmer towards the ground as she dove under their table. The chess pieces toppled all around them, clattering as they fell to the pavement.
Dr. Silvar seemed incapable of moving his own muscles, but Beth’s guiding hand still led him down to the ground. His body trembled as the sounds of slaughter and mayhem carried on around them.
“What do we do?” the programmer cried. “What do we do?”
“We get out of here,” Beth replied. “Come on.”
She managed to pick him up and drag him towards one of the short brick walls that lined the courtyard. At one point, it had probably been someone’s yard — but today, it was a slaughterhouse. Together, they took cover behind the structures while folks stampeded around them.
Beth didn’t even wait the length of an eye blink to draw her gun. She dropped the safety and made sure there was a magazine in place. Dr. Silvar’s eyes were wide when he saw the weapon.
“Don’t!” he urged. “You’ll hit someone!”
“Shh,” she hissed.
With one fluid motion, she popped up on the inhale of her breath. The air stilled in her lungs as she spotted the two bodyshells, now running their blades through people who hadn’t managed to scramble out of the table area in time. On the exhale, she lined up the sight of her gun with the head of one shell. She squeezed the trigger three times. Two of the rounds connected, turning the machine’s head into a shower of metal debris. Before taking her next breath — before the other bodyshell could even process what was happening — she shifted her aim and put three rounds into its artificial face as well.
Dropping back down behind cover, Beth started to pop the magazine out of her gun and push more bullets into it. Dr. Silvar quivered beside her, his hands up around his head. The gunshots shattered whatever remained of his nerves.
“Jesus Christ!” he swore.
“They’re down,” the detective said, sliding the magazine back into her firearm. “But more will come. We need to leave.”
“Where will we go?” Dr. Silvar asked.
“I don’t know,” Beth said. “Come on.”
As she stood up, dragging Dr. Silvar up with her by his collar, she reached into her cerebral computer.
Good work on the targeting, she thought. I was able to pop them before they even knew what happened.
“A bit of an advantage can go a long way,” Simon replied. “Though it won’t be as easy if meat puppets show up. I can’t help highlight any organic targets.”
That’s okay, Beth said in her head. Hopefully, we don’t have to kill any more. I just need your help getting us out of here in one piece.
“Roger that,” Simon said. “I’ll do my best to detect any nearby I.I.s. Just follow my directions and we can navigate out of Fort Leddy.”
Beth pushed on, still gripping onto Dr. Silvar. She took one of the exits out the courtyard that led to the local market square. It was bound to be even more densely populated, probably by panicked hordes of refugees, but at least it was away from the camp’s entrance. She wasn’t sure, but she had a gut feeling they were spilling in through the front gate.
“Hang on,” Simon told her.
She stopped.
What is it?
“Why are we stopping?” Dr. Silvar asked. His wits were slowly returning to him.
“Six I.I.s up ahead,” Simon said. “Looks like more bodyshells. Take a left here.”
She did as he directed.
They weaved into an alley too tight to make it through without walking sideways. Beth had no way of knowing where it led out to or if it even led out anywhere. She just trusted that Simon knew what he was doing and acted on faith.
His advice was good; they exited the alley into the main street where a few people were still running to the camp’s exits. They heard a number of gunshots. It sounded like they came from an automatic rifle.
I wonder if that’s a friendly or not, Beth thought.
Instinct carried her along the current of fleeing refugees. Dr. Silvar managed to keep pace with her, no longer needing to be led around by the collar. His face was cold and stony.
“Wait!” Simon cried.
Beth stopped, but it wasn’t soon enough. A burst of gunfire erupted from in front of them. Beth’s reflexes brought her down on top of Dr. Silvar. The mud of the street splattered on her front.
Looking up, she saw a woman in her thirties with a submachine gun raised to her eyes. With short bursts, she opened fire on the people running around her. The bullets ripped through a few refugees and they fell to the street, dead.
“It’s a meat puppet,” Simon explained. “I couldn’t detect her until she was right upon us.”
The female meat puppet hadn’t taken notice of Beth and Dr. Silvar, but Beth knew they were the target. The programmer she shielded with her own body, who was trying to breathe through the muck of the road, was the cause for this attack. He had to be. Tarov was getting desperate.
Beth, still lying on her stomach over the old programmer, lifted her own gun and fired twice. One bullet went right through the meat puppet’s neck. The I.I.-possessed woman turned and locked wide eyes with Beth before falling face down into the mud.
The detective sighed a breath of relief before crawling off the man beneath her. She stumbled a couple times as she tried to regain her footing, then turned to look at Dr. Silvar.
He remained lay face down in the street. His form trembled and she could hear a bit of whimpering coming from him. Her heart sunk for a moment.
Was he hit? she wondered.
Crouching, she spun Dr. Silvar so he was face up.
Aside from a thick layer of muck and the nervous trembling of a child, the man was unharmed.
“Get up,” she urged him. “We have to keep moving.”
“I can’t,” he whimpered. He brought his arms up to his face and buried his eyes into them.
“Come on!”
“I can’t!” he yelled.
His nerves are totally shot, Beth observed.
“This is not the time to have a breakdown!” she hollered. With one massive tug, she tried to bring the programmer onto his feet, but he resisted.
“All this death,” Dr. Miller said in a mystified, distant tone. “All these people. My God — were you right? How can all of this be part of the plan to protect us? What does killing us solve, in the end?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Beth replied. “We have to get up!”
“This isn’t efficient,” Dr. Silvar continued, ignoring the detective. “There’s no logic behind thi
s kind of suffering.”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you,” Beth said. “Now, come on!”
She managed to force the man onto his feet, but he still looked like his thoughts were all muddled. Like he was abruptly woken from a dream and was struggling to discern if this was real life or just another layer of his nightmare. Beth only let him stand like a lost toddler for a moment before pushing him forward.
They were approaching the intersection that acted as the camp’s main street. It was where everyone gathered for pseudo festivals, or to hear announcements. Now it was empty, aside from a handful of corpses littering the walkways.
“Quick — hide!” Simon hissed in her head.
With a firm arm, she lowered Dr. Silvar until they both looked over the intersection from behind a parked wagon. The archaic vehicle was loaded with assorted foodstuffs, most of it looking like feed for the livestock that grazed on the edge of camp. There were a few forms moving about that she failed to notice at first. Had Simon not stopped her, she would have walked right into them.
“How about in here?” one of the forms asked. It was an older black man, but Beth knew that he was really an I.I. meat puppet. The possessed human was speaking with three other bodyshells.
“Check it out,” one of the bodyshells told the other two machines.
They moved into one of the buildings, a sort of theater that the campers set up for live shows.
A bit of commotion bled out onto the street. Beth could hear furniture scrape over wood, then something collapsed onto the floor. A bit of yelling emanated from within.
Before even a minute passed, the two bodyshells emerged from the building with a tubby man sporting a sweat-soaked comb-over. His clothes were drenched with perspiration.
“It’s not him,” the meat puppet commented.
Without a moment of thought, the bodyshell who ordered the others into the theater lifted a gun in its hand, put it on the sweaty man’s forehead, and pulled the trigger.
The man’s body fell to the ground with a sickening plop.
“He’s likely with the detective,” the meat puppet said, showing no reaction to the cold-blooded execution. “Find her before everyone can escape or we’ll have to hunt down each and every one of them. Then you can explain to Tarov why we failed.”