"Don't touch me," Ander whispered. "Don't pity me."
Seeing him made her hurt, as if she were watching her own child drown in a guilt that wasn't his. For someone who claimed to feel no emotions, he did a wrenchingly believable job of showing them.
"It's not pity." She spoke gently. "If you truly were like Grayton, you wouldn't care this way."
"It doesn't matter," he said in a brittle voice. "Both of you, out to the car. We're leaving."
*18*
Alpine
Rocky hills rose in the southern California desert like the shoulders of giant skeletons jutting out of the ground, white bone under the sun. Gray-green bush mottled a land strewn with red rocks, and gnarled trees gathered in clumps. Fences lined the road, their lines regularly broken by traffic-control grid boxes.
The hovercar hummed along Highway 8, driven by its internal guidance system. Raj kept his hands on the wheel anyway, as if he could override Ander's control by sheer force of will.
Megan sat in the back, in her jeans, sweater, and tennis shoes, her hands bound to the roof hook. Ander had opaqued all the back windows so no one could see her. He sat in front, his attention never wavering, the rifle resting across his knees, aimed at Raj. She wasn't sure what would happen if he fired in a car and she didn't want to find out.
The car spoke in its rich tones. "We are twenty miles from the Kitchen Creek Road
exit."
The announcement felt like a welcome breath of air to Megan. They had driven almost four hundred miles, using the "back way" through California, roads that hugged the state's eastern and southern border. It took them through sparsely settled mountains and desert, avoiding the heavily traveled routes that converged on Los Angeles and San Diego. She had gleaned no more from Ander than their goal, a farm some miles north of the Mexican border. What he wanted there, or how he even knew it existed, she had no idea.
He always kept one of them tied up, but he let them switch every hour or so. Although Megan's arms throbbed, she was glad Raj didn't have to endure it all himself this time. Ander let them out once, in an isolated region of San Bernardino County west of the Turtle Mountains. The clear, parched air had almost no dust or humidity.
Ander hardly spoke. He listened to the news and used the car's computer to stalk the Web, searching for clues to the elusive siblings that he refused to admit had died. The rest of the time he brooded, if that term could be applied to whatever calculations he was carrying out in his mind.
Megan stared out the front window at the rocky beauty of the desert. They were south of the urban sprawl that stretched from above Los Angeles to below San Diego in a vista of shopping malls, suburbs, and housing tracts. The days of sleepy haciendas and Spanish missions had faded into the past. At least the voracious metropolis hadn't yet absorbed the state this far south. But the twenty-first century had brought ever greater water shortages, and a blistering heat stoked by global warming.
"Car," Ander said.
"What can I do for you?" it asked.
"How far to our destination?"
"Six point three miles."
"Are you going tell us what we're doing?" Raj asked.
"No," Ander said.
Megan leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes, wishing this would all be over.
A few minutes later they pulled off the highway. No holos lit the roads here, just a dusty metal street sign that said Old Hwy. 80. Low mountains rose around them, with a cover of green that looked soft from far away but resolved into prickly bushes up close.
They drove past a weathered sign that read Restaurant, La Posta Diner, then past the La Posta Mini-Mart. After another few miles, they turned off the highway and delved deep into the heat-baked hills. Cows grazed in nubbly fields and fences sagged along the road. They passed a gray sign that had been weathered until its words were no longer readable. Whitish gravel bordered the road and led off into dry creekbeds. When the road dipped, a yellow sign informed them the route was subject to flooding.
Eventually they came to a farmstead with a few assorted buildings and a trailer behind it. A rutted dirt road sloped down from the road. The car pulled up to a ramshackle house with a sagging porch, sun-faded walls, and a satellite dish on its roof. Scraggly bushes grew in the front garden. Ander released control of the car to Raj and had him park in a gravel driveway.
"What is this place?" Megan asked.
Ander turned to her. "Listen, both of you. Don't upset these people. We want to leave here healthy."
Raj frowned. "What have you gotten into?"
"Just do what I tell you," Ander said. "I'm the one with the combat training, remember? You two are civilians."
"Great," Megan muttered.
The door of the house banged open and three men came out, dressed in jeans and old shirts. The one in the lead was built like a tank, with muscled biceps, his hair razed to a blond stubble and an assault rifle in his hands. The second man was tall and thin. His long brown hair swung as he walked. The third was shorter and overweight, with wire-rimmed glasses and pens in the front pocket of his white shirt.
Ander left his Winchester in the hovercar, but brought the valise. Megan wondered what he wanted with the bag; he had dumped its contents last night, then done something in the back of the car, she didn't know what.
He had Raj untie her. The three men stood back, watching, the blond one covering them with the assault rifle. Megan didn't see how Ander knew these people. Given all the time he had spent on the Web these past few days, though, she had no idea who he might have met.
The heat pressed down, sharp in the dry air. As Megan pulled herself out of the car, Raj spoke with concern. "Can you walk?"
"I'm all right." She rubbed her arms, conscious of the strangers watching them. "Just a little sore."
The man with the rifle spoke. "Turn around and put your hands on the car with your legs spread."
Moving stiffly, Megan did as he ordered and faced the car, aware of Raj and Ander on either side doing the same. The long-haired man searched them. He spent longer on Megan than the others, running his hands along her sides. When his fingers brushed her breasts, she gritted her teeth, holding back the urge to sock him, knowing it could get them killed. Raj stiffened and started to turn toward him.
"Don't move," a voice behind them said.
For a terrible moment, Megan thought Raj would defy him. Then he took a breath and stopped, like a pacing animal trapped into stillness. She could almost feel his anger seethe. She wasn't sure who was more dangerous: Ander, who had no inclination to kill but could probably do so with cool analysis if he felt it necessary; or Raj, who would be consumed with guilt by such an act but whose simmering capacity for violence could be fanned into flame.
"Are they carrying anything?" someone asked.
The man who had searched them answered. "Nothing."
"All right. Turn around, all of you."
Turning, Megan saw the long-haired man a few paces away. He was taking the valise from Ander. The man with the glasses motioned to the house as if he were inviting them all to a barbecue. "Come on in."
"Real hospitality," Raj said under his breath.
Megan glanced at him, alarmed, but he said no more. As they walked to the house, the man with the assault rifle kept pace. She wondered what danger he thought computer nerds like she and Raj posed. She had no idea what these people knew about them, though. If Ander was the one they feared, they had sense. Inside the house, old furniture and dusty rugs filled the living room. They descended a staircase into a cooler room—and a new century. Equipment crammed the basement: consoles, screens, holo supplies, cell phones, printers, memory towers, a satellite link. Cubes, DVDs, CDs, disks, e-books, holosheets, and paper overflowed wooden tables scarred with years of usage.
The long-haired man opened Ander's valise, revealing stacks of cash. After checking the money, he left the room. Megan stood with Raj, trying not to look as scared as she felt. What on Eart
h had Ander been doing that he "met" these people?
The man returned without the valise. He gestured to Ander and the man with glasses. The three of them moved a few paces away, speaking in low voices. Ander remained standing, but the others sat down at their consoles, taking their places with the ease of long familiarity. They interacted with their computers using gestures, a light pen, or words, their low voices an overtone to the hum of machines.
The guard with the rifle stayed near the back wall, choosing a vantage point where he could see everyone. Glancing at Raj and Megan, he indicated two old armchairs in one corner. "You can sit there while they work."
Raj just nodded, saying nothing, and Megan was too tense to answer. As she and Raj sat in the chairs, Ander glanced at them from across the room. His look disquieted her, as if he were checking his two prized possessions to assure himself they were all right.
Then he turned back to the hackers and continued their discussion, voices murmuring in the muted atmosphere. The basement had a muffled quality, as if the room absorbed noise. It didn't take a genius to figure out he had hired these people, using his Las Vegas money, to help him search for the Phoenix androids he believed still lived. She didn't want to know how many laws they were breaking in the process.
She spoke to Raj in a low voice. "Sooner or later Ander will have to admit they're dead. Then what?"
"He might snap." Raj glanced at the guard with the rifle. "I hope they know what they're doing with that guy. If Ander loses control, he won't be easy to stop."
"I don't see why Ander came here. He could have done this over the Web with less risk."
"This is like paying in cash. No trail."
Megan thought of her contact in Las Vegas. She had never had a chance to call. Ander's uncanny vigilance unsettled her. He never rested, never tired, never flagged.
Despite the situation, she began to grow bored after a while. Watching people mumble at consoles ranked about as high as eating liver on her list of engaging pastimes. Eventually she dozed. She awoke when the man with the long hair swiveled his chair around with such a jerk that it clacked. He frowned at them, then turned back to his console.
Raj yawned. "Wonder what that was about."
The long-haired man suddenly spoke. "Karl, look at this."
The man with glasses glanced up. "What?"
"Come here."
Karl went to the console, followed by Ander. As soon as Megan saw Ander stiffen, she knew they had trouble. The android was already stepping away from the console when Karl spun around to him. "You fucking bastard."
The man with the rifle came even more alert if that was possible, his weapon poised, his posture wary. Ander moved to keep both him and the hackers in sight. A normal man couldn't have simultaneously concentrated on all three, but Megan had no doubt Ander managed with ease.
Staring at Ander with undisguised hostility, Karl pointed at Raj. "What the hell were you thinking, bringing him here?"
Raj swore under his breath. "We're in it now."
Ander watched Karl with an impassive stare made frightening by its utter lack of emotion. "Those two are mine. Understand? Don't touch them."
"It's a damn setup," the long-haired man said.
"If I were trying to set you up," Ander said, "I wouldn't have brought him here in plain view."
"Ander miscalculated," Raj said in a low voice. "He must have figured they wouldn't recognize me."
Megan prayed Ander could deal with the situation. He was nowhere near ready for this sort of operation; he needed more sophisticated reasoning algorithms, a wider range of patterns in his neural nets, and decision processes that sampled further into the future.
The man with the long hair stabbed his finger at Ander. "It doesn't matter who you think those two 'belong' to. We're done here." He turned to the guard. "Take them out into the desert and get rid of them."
"This is stupid," Ander said. Then he walked toward the man with the rifle. The guard aimed his weapon, Ander kept coming—
And the guard fired.
Shots exploded the muffled silence like rivets ramming metal. The bullets slammed into Ander's chest and ripped through his body, tearing a huge swath out of his back as they exited. He staggered with the force of the onslaught, taking several steps back.
Then he came forward again.
Color drained from the guard's face. The bullets had blown apart Ander's torso, yet he continued as if nothing had happened. The guard backed toward the door, firing again as Ander advanced, this time at Ander's knees.
The android lunged with mechanical precision. Although the guard countered, he couldn't match Ander's enhanced speed. Ander struck the rifle's muzzle, stepping forward so fast that his motion blurred. Bracing his foot against the guard's foot, he grabbed the rifle with both hands and wrenched, throwing the man off balance. The muzzle struck the guard against his head and then Ander twisted it out of his hands.
It happened so fast, Megan barely had time to catch her breath. Ander swung the guard around and shoved him, forcing him forward. The man stumbled toward the consoles where the hackers stood in frozen silence. Although Ander's arm spasmed and his head jerked, he kept his concentration on the three men and his grip on the rifle.
Karl was backing away now. He bumped into his console and stopped, his face as white as ice. The long-haired man watched Ander with almost comic disbelief. The guard had stumbled up against the console between the two hackers. He turned to Ander, obviously ready to fight but smart enough to stay put.
In a calm voice with no trace of strain, Ander said, "It's natural to aim for the heart." He demonstrated by aiming the rifle at Karl, whose face turned even paler, making his dark eyes look like bruises.
"But you see," Ander continued, "that assumes that what you shoot is human." His head jerked again, disrupted by whatever circuits he had lost. He moved the gun and fired at the guard's feet. The man jumped as bits of the floor exploded around him. Then Ander said, "But if it isn't human, you can't stop it, now, can you?"
They just stared at him, their gazes flicking from his face to his shattered torso and back to his face.
Ander spoke to Karl. "Are you going to do the job I hired you to do?"
Karl held up his hands. "Sure. Whatever you want."
"Good," Ander said.
The scene looked surreal to Megan, a man with his torso ripped apart holding a gun on five hostages. Shredded circuit filaments hung out of Ander's chest and lubricant soaked his shirt like silver-blue blood.
Ander made the guard lie facedown on the floor. He had Raj bind and gag both the guard and the long-haired man. Then Ander turned to Megan. She could guess his thought; with three more hostages to worry about, he could no longer risk leaving them free. He ordered Raj to tie her hands behind her back, then had Raj stay in an armchair while Megan moved across the room. She sat on the floor against the wall, her hands awkwardly behind her body.
As Ander turned back to Karl, the android's head twitched. "Now you can finish your work."
Karl nodded, still pale, and returned to his console.
Megan knew Ander well enough to decipher his "mood." He was agitated. No trace of it showed on his impassive face, but she recognized a pattern in the way his arms and head kept jerking. His physical problems had grown worse, not only from the damage caused by bullet holes, but also from the shock of high-speed projectiles tearing through him. The only reason the compression wave hadn't destroyed his insides was because he had nowhere near as much fluid in his body as a human.
She kept hearing his words: Those two are mine. It rattled her. Had he begun to consider humans his property?
What will happen, she thought, if we humans can't take into ourselves the advances we are giving our creations—the speed, memory, and precision, physical advantages, reflexes, durability, and lack of a need for sleep?
More than ever before, this situation brought home the truth for Megan: unless humanity found a way
to make those traits part of themselves, their creations would leave them behind, and the human race would become obsolete, surviving only on the sufferance of its machines.
*19*
Data Labyrinth
With five hostages, Ander couldn't monitor Karl as closely as he had overseen Raj at the bungalow. The damage to Ander's chest had apparently impaired his ability to use wireless signals. He jacked into Karl's console with a line from his body, as he had done in the desert floater—except this time he pulled it out through a hole in his chest.
The sight disturbed Megan, as if she saw her own child pull out his insides. But the "child" had grown past where she could affect his behavior. The android they had protected had become their protector, perhaps even their owner.
Ander interacted with Karl through the computer. Sweat beaded on Karl's forehead. He had to know he was expendable; Ander had a hacker-in-reserve tied up on the floor.
Over the next two hours, Megan fought to stay alert. She wondered how long Ander thought he could hold five people captive. The long-haired man lay on his side, watching Ander with a blend of apprehension and covetous regard, like a man who had seen a nightmare come alive as his most sought-after fantasy.
Throughout all those long hours, Ander never faltered. A human captor would have fatigued or lost concentration. Megan suspected he had reallocated his resources to compensate for his injuries. His reactor had to be operating overtime. She just hoped its safeties worked as well as their tests had claimed.
The guard, however, disquieted her more than Ander. Lying bound and gagged on the floor, he watched Ander with an intensity that chilled. She had worried that these people underestimated Ander; now she wondered if they had underestimated the guard.
Karl pushed away from the console, his face drawn from so many hours of work. "I can't find any trail for the people you want."
The Phoenix Code Page 22