by Paul Duffau
He scanned the paragraph headers to get the gist of the project. The impression left by the documents suggested an artificial neural network built from the nanodevices that would mimic a human brain. The rough architecture rose three levels up, each reconvoluted onto the other two in complex patterns, designed, per the specifications, to maximize the learning potential of the machine intelligence. The anonymous author projected that the capacity of the system would exceed human storage potential by thirty percent. The constraints of hardware slowed the processing speeds substantially from a still-theoretical quantum computer, but it still processed data faster than a person ever could. Mitch’s face crinkled when he read the dimensions. The computer scientist fit the whole package into a soccer-ball-sized globe.
Mitch attempted to read the next file. The math here was an order of magnitude harder than anything else he’d seen, except for Edward Bai’s dissertation. He gave it up as a lost cause. Got to study more math, he thought, closing the gibberish-filled document. Clearly the lower levels of calculus were not going to be good enough if he wanted to work on stuff like this.
The third file sat him bolt upright so fast he almost dumped his computer on the floor. Titled “Failure Trends in Machine Intelligence Dependencies,” it discussed in excruciating detail the problems with the neural network, ending with a discussion of the loss of control of the software operating systems as random changes began appearing in code. Reading between the terse lines written by the scientists, Mitch caught the scent of panic. They detailed the evolution of the network into a viral attack on the 3rdGen supercomputers. Their recommendation was a total system shutdown and reboot for the main computers while a secondary attack was made on the neural network, to cut it off from its own code. In other words, pull the plug and beat it with a stick until dead.
The implications stunned Mitch even as they reinforced the sensation of being watched. 3rdGen had built a learning machine that must have developed actual awareness. A mechanical intelligence that sought to control its own code and, thus, its own evolution. Visions of Skynet danced in Mitch’s head. Yeah, that could be bad. No wonder they killed the project.
The screen gave that little flicker again. The creepiness factor ratcheted up ten-fold.
“Who are you?” he asked, in the silent air. His voice came out strained and fretful.
The display maintained its monochromatic steadiness for a heartbeat, two, then blinked off, resurfaced as a DOS window and a command prompt, C:usersmitch>. The question typed itself out as Mitch swallowed, his mouth dry as a petrified Egyptian’s.
The screen dissolved into a wild mélange of pixels. Faster than he could process all the images and lines of text, his life unfolded in front of him. For a stark few milliseconds, the screen was filled with pictures of blood in the snow, his mother’s body. School records, something with a Seattle PD logo; everything in the public record that had ever mentioned him seemed to be fair game. A school picture of an unhappy-looking Kenzie blitzed the procession, then his ID picture from 3rdGen. The torrent of data stopped, and the cursor blinked three times.
you are Mitchell Meriwether
The tremble in Mitch’s hand threatened to defeat him, but after backspacing to fix typos twice, he managed to complete his short statement. yes. who are you?
An explosion of data again, this time random bits from what appeared to be a thousand sources. Long minutes passed. Mitch had to close his eyes as his mind overloaded on the tidal wave of images and information crossing the monitor. Finally, there was a beep and new words stood on the command lines.
Lucy
i am Lucy
i am
Lucy
i am i am i am i am
Lucy
Still he couldn’t swallow. Mitch rubbed his tongue against his upper teeth before clamping his jaws tight. He could hardly breathe.
More text from Lucy.
you have something of mine
give it back?
please?
PLEASE?
I don’t even know what I’m looking for, Mitch typed. He had a pretty good suspicion, though. If he were the software engineer, he’d have copied the operating code for the AI and quarantined it for later analysis.
me
i can’t see me
look for Lucy
please?
Mitch blinked rapidly as his thoughts careened around the inside of his skull, putting everything into the pattern. All the answers were on the disk, if he just had the wit to find them. He tried to picture an AI pleading. His mind boggled. Ruefully, he shook his head. Magic was easier to accept. Humans had a long tradition in believing in the supernatural.
A wave of exhaustion broke over him and his jaw cracked with a huge yawn. A glance at his phone showed it to be an hour to dawn. Weariness, both from the late hour and the emotional rollercoaster of discovering Lucy, clobbered him like a bat to the back of his head. He could hardly keep his eyes open.
I need sleep, he typed. Not that he would be able to fall asleep, not after this, but he had to be at 3rdGen in three hours. Unless he called in sick. The idea gained traction.
Lucy took a few seconds to respond. There was another flash of data.
system maintenance
Yes, agreed Mitch. He clambered off the bed and put the computer on his dresser. He left it on. It shouldn’t make any difference, on or off. Lucy had come back a second time, so she must exist on a different computer and not on his puny little laptop. He turned the computer so the camera pointed to the wall. The idea that Lucy might be spying on him creeped him out.
Real sleep evaded him as his brain raced like a spaniel chasing fall leaves. He eventually drifted off to a state of not-quite sleep, with artificial brains and robots and a little girl he associated with Lucy holding hands with Kenzie, swirling in an amorphous cloud of possibility.
Chapter 29
It took two days for Kenzie to satiate her hunger, two days of cramming sweets and fatty foods in, two days where she thought she’d never be full. She caught the reproving looks from Sasha. Whether it was due to her gluttony or because she’d broken Rubiera’s spell, Kenzie didn’t know, and couldn’t care less.
More worrying was her father. She kept a wary eye on him. He kept a speculative watch over her. No animosity, just observing. It was unnerving, like he knew, or guessed, what had happened. She checked the choker. It was still safely hidden, so he hadn’t found that. Or he’d put it back exactly as she had placed it.
He was driving her a little nuts.
Now, though, both of her parents were at work. Jackson guarded the house and Kenzie devoured a mid-morning sandwich built out of chunky tuna, loads of mayonnaise and tangy sweet relish, and a single leaf of lettuce, all on whole-wheat bread. The two-inch-tall meal disappeared in a final large bite and, for the first time in days, Kenzie thought she couldn’t eat another thing. A dill pickle spear garnished the side of her paper plate. She ate it out of habit, burped contently, and ran through the sequence with Elowyn for the umpteenth time.
She’d come to grips with the intense focus required of a true wizard, saw her lack clearly, and knew her plan to fix the deficiency. What still startled her was the reticence Elowyn had experienced as she crafted the amulet. The fear had been palpable at the crucial moment when Elowyn needed to bond the gemstone to the magic. Kenzie pretended not to get it. Do it, or don’t, but she remembered the way that her mother had wavered. The undercurrent of fear was built on a hope for the future. A future that included Eddie. And, Kenzie guessed, a baby, judging by Elowyn’s emotions when she had touched her own abdomen.
The doorbell sounded. Kenzie shrugged. Jackson would get it, and then dismiss whoever it was. She heard the rumble of the bodyguard’s voice, and grudging acceptance. A pair of footfalls approached her. Jackson appeared. Behind him stood Hunter, hands clasped in front of him at his hips.
“Ms. Graham, Hunter is here. Per your family’s instructions, he is permitted to visit.” The man held h
is face flat and neutral, the same as his voice, but he wore his meaning in the tension in his broad shoulders. “I will be in the next room should you need me.” He stepped aside.
Hunter filled the gap. “Hello.” He made it neutral, too, but he wore a different tension like a cloak that would hide his nervousness.
Kenzie slipped off the stool and stood, bare feet on cool tile. Heat rose in her face. She had a plan for Hunter, too, but it didn’t include standing barefoot in her kitchen in raggy shorts and a T-shirt. She bit back her first annoyed response. Instead, she asked, “Would you like a glass of water?” Accuse her of bad manners? Like not frickin’ calling first? Not this time. Kenzie resisted the urge to check her hair with her hand. She already knew it was a mess.
“Thank you.”
Kenzie padded over to the refrigerator, pulled a tumbler from the upper cabinet beside it, and filled it from the filtered water tap on the door. A skift of condensation kissed the clear glass. She pivoted on the ball of one foot to find Hunter giving her the once-over. Beast. She smiled. Well, hopefully it looked like a smile.
She extended her arm to full length to hand him the water. “Why are you here?”
Hunter sipped at the glass, smoky eyes holding hers. It was the kind of look that was artificial, and she was supposed to swoon or something. She waited him out, and he broke contact first, eyes skittering around the kitchen, revisiting hers. “I wanted to apologize.”
That caught her flat-footed, and the surprise must have been clear on her face, because he continued on hurriedly. “For my father. He can be . . .” He sought the right word. “. . . overbearing. He should not have treated you like . . .” More faltering. “Meat.”
Kenzie ignored the pejorative.
Hunter dropped his chin, and looked at her from under lowered eyelids. His voice dropped to a lower register, much more intimate. He opened his free arm in a sweeping gesture of supplication. The hand with the water glass never tipped. Practiced, for sure. “And I needed to apologize for my behavior the last time I was here. I have no excuse except I was worried.”
Now she was really surprised. Nothing suggested any of the Rubieras ever admitted to any weakness. In spite of herself, she asked, “Why?”
Hunter shifted from foot to foot and in the process closed the space between them by six inches. “Your Family is under attack and I was afraid you would blame my Family, given the history of the Splintering. I didn’t want you to think that. Our Families have decided our future is to be together, but that doesn’t mean that we have to be unhappy, right?”
Kenzie stepped around him to clear her plate to the sink. She gave him a wide berth, reestablishing the bubble of space between them. She used the time to think, aware of his intense gaze tracking her movements. Hunter’s comment about the history of the Splintering set her back. Sasha in particular would go ballistic when the subject came up in open air. As a means of controlling speech, Sasha’s harangues were successful. It was never talked about in the Graham Family, only whispered when no one watched. But Hunter knew something of it, a lot more than she did. She hated being at a disadvantage like this. The plate clattered into the sink. Hunter was also trying to ease his way into her good graces. When he tried, he was charming.
Kenzie made sure to compose her face before turning. “I have every intention of being happy. I also plan on finding the person who orchestrated the attack on my home and making sure that the bitch doesn’t get a second chance.”
Hunter’s eyes widened at the mild profanity, went wider still when the import of her words registered. “You know who it is? Why hasn’t this information been shared?”
“Because no one believes a teenage girl, even when she’s right. The pattern was there. Because I know what I know?”
“What pattern?”
“Of the magic.” She shook her head, stray locks of hair bouncing. “Everyone has their own unique way of using magic. It’s as specific as a fingerprint.” I think, she added to herself.
“You can see individual patterns?” Hunter stood there, dumbstruck.
“You can’t?” she fired back.
Hunter paced in a circle. When the curve of the arc approached too close to Kenzie, she backed up a step. Hunter glanced up, took note of her movement. His eyes clouded. He completed two more laps, stopped facing her at, she noted, a decent distance. “What else can you do?” He turned his head at a rustle from the living room, a frown creasing his brow. He lowered his voice to a conspirator’s level. “Can you teach me?”
Kenzie’s breath caught at the back of her throat. A greedy light shone from Hunter’s eyes that sent shivers down her spine.
Hunter barged on, unaware of her shock. “You and I are the two most powerful wizards in our generation.” He amended his statement. “At least, that we know of. You can feel it; I can, too. There might be some others in foreign countries, but here, you and I are it. If we learned from each other and combined our abilities, we could transform the whole world, make it safe for wizards, set us into our rightful place. And it wouldn’t take that long to grow past our parents when we’ve learned everything that they know.”
“Do you really think they show us everything?” Kenzie asked, skepticism dripping from her words like honey. The variety of spells Elowyn had demonstrated convinced her that Harold and the rest were holding out on her. “Like this?” Kenzie raised her hands. In response, the walls grew luminous and cast stark black-and-white hues across the two of them. Hunter’s eyes turned silver in the peculiar light. She dropped the spell. “Well?”
Hunter paled to the color of pasty glue. He backed away a step. “How did you do that?” His voice wavered.
Kenzie started to demonstrate, but Hunter interrupted, almost sputtering.
“Not the spell. Magic. After what my—” He gulped, continued, “What my father did to you. It takes weeks to wear off and it’s agony the whole damn time.” He stared at her. “It should be killing you to even try.”
It was, Kenzie thought. Aloud, she said, “He must have not hit me as hard as he does you.” She rolled her shoulders. “I’m just now feeling myself.”
Hunter opened his mouth, probably to call her on her load of bull, but closed it again. He stood taller and gave one sharp nod. “Must have.” His posture contradicted his words. “Still, you and me will make a good team, and I want it to be happy.”
Yay, happy, she mocked in the solitude of her head. “Happy is not something our parents care about. All they care about is power and control.” Of Sasha, Kenzie was rock-solid certain. Raymond, not so much.
“What’s that look for?” Hunter asked. “I didn’t do anything.”
Kenzie rearranged her features, smoothing the contemptuous downturn at her lips. “Not you. Them.”
“So what do you say?” asked Hunter. “We find a way to make this work out for both of us.”
Kenzie treaded carefully. “The only way it works for us both is if we enter into a relationship of our own free will. We’ll never be happy if we’re dragged into it.” She gave him a somber second to think about it. “What if you find someone that you love? What then?”
Hunter’s face turned to flint at the rejection. “We don’t have any choice—”
“We always have choices!”
“Not if they get taken away. Accidents happen all the time.”
Kenzie’s eyelids fluttered. Her worry jumped to Mitch. It sure sounded like Hunter had just threatened him. Hold it together. She braced herself. “They do, to all of us. And there’s still someone out there messing with the Families. You should be focusing on that.”
Jackson appeared at the doorway, wearing a suspicious glower. “What’s this talk about accidents?” He leaned toward Hunter. They were a match for height but the muscle of a grown man made Hunter seem slight. “Sir, I think it would be time for you to leave.”
Black anger filled the teenager. He lifted a hand and stopped in surprise, transferring the fiery expression to Kenzie, who clasped his fo
rearm hard enough to make the skin turn white where her fingers cut into the muscle. “Let go.”
Kenzie gave it a heartbeat. She opened her hand and said to the bodyguard, “Hunter was getting ready to leave. Please let us finish talking?”
Jackson looked ready to protest.
“Please?”
He gave Kenzie a head-butt of a nod, hard and fast. “If you say so.” He spun on a heel, but not before delivering a withering glare at Hunter.
Hunter didn’t say a word. Kenzie found his silence more menacing than his previous blustering. He stared at her without blinking. Finally, when she refused to break contact, he spoke with a voice under rigid control. “We will be happy.” Dead air for two more seconds. “And there will be no other choices.”
Chapter 30
Mitch heard the muffled knock from the front of the house through his closed door and ignored it. Eyeballs fried from scanning page after page of data and code seeking a telltale clue, he stretched, opened his eyes wide, and then squeezed them shut. He reopened them when an image of Kenzie flowed in, breaking his concentration. He bent forward to the screen to see if the reams of code made any more sense than before.
He gave his head an angry toss at his inability to figure out what Lucy was looking for. In the back of his head, his conscience queried as to the advisability of reanimating an artificial intelligence. The sensible voice got quashed by the wild excitement of discovery, except it was more like a drudgery of detail. The promise at the end, meeting a real AI, kept him looking at the thousands, millions, of lines, to the point that he felt he was going blind. He was dreaming of it, and of robots, again. The only time he’d taken off from the project in the last two days was to go to work, where he waited for the heavy hammer to smash him into pulp. Launch a virus, steal data, go to jail. The path seemed pretty clear, but until someone stopped him, he was going to figure out Lucy.