The Robot Chronicles

by Hugh Howey

  She walked around the body. The man’s arms rested on his chest, his hands fixed in a rictus of claws. She crouched down to peer closer; the nails on both hands were broken as though he’d scrabbled at the wire, but she could see no sign of skin tissue under the nails. So—not so much as if he’d put up a fight, but rather as if, at the last moment, he’d changed his mind and decided that death by hanging was a really bad idea.

  “I need my medic,” she said over her shoulder to Bishop.

  “Not possible, but I’ll get one of the Tower medics to assist you.”

  Vicky wasn’t happy about that. Why the hell didn’t they want her team in on this?

  Well, that was an easy one—because they didn’t want more people in on what had happened here. But why was that? Fewer people to bribe, perhaps? But if that was the case, Bishop would have to be involved. And for some reason she hated that idea.

  It occurred to her that maybe she was in danger. She hadn’t taken the comm seriously, but they’d presented both a carrot and a stick. While they’d dangled the carrot outright, they’d merely hinted at the stick. Yet she suspected they could pretty much do anything they liked.

  Was it too late to walk away?

  But she wanted to solve this case.

  More than she’d ever wanted to solve a case before.

  How dare they try to bribe her? She hated that she couldn’t dismiss the idea from her mind. She’d wanted The Pioneer for so long. God, she was tempted, and she hated that as well.

  She straightened and turned to Bishop. “I’ll need to talk to anyone who was working in the building. Can you set me up an interview room?”

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  She faced him down. “You might be assisting on this case, Chief Bishop, but I say what’s necessary, and I want to interview everyone who was working tonight.”

  Something that might have been amusement—if he’d been human and capable of amusement—flashed across Bishop’s face. So he found her funny, did he?

  “Other than the Council, there are no humans living or working in the Tower. And of the Council, only Reinhold was in the building tonight. We scanned for life forms as soon as the body was discovered.”

  “Oh.” The building was huge. “So who runs this place?”

  “All functions are performed by robotics.”

  “Everything? Cleaning? Security?”

  Bishop nodded.

  Years ago, androids had been manufactured to do most of the menial jobs, replacing humans in those positions. Jobs that those in the decision-making process had deemed people would rather not have to do. In theory, it sounded like a good idea. In practice, it had almost resulted in anarchy and rebellion. The truth was, the majority of people wanted to work. People without meaningful employment looked around for other things to do—usually things that involved causing trouble. And how else could they live when the robots had taken their very livelihoods from them?

  So the androids had been withdrawn. Certain functions were still performed by robots, of course, but only those jobs that were so dangerous, no human wanted to do them. Apart from them, the only androids in public life were the Stewards, who were exclusively found in the higher-level decision-making jobs, where their superior ethical decisions could result in a better world.

  See, she’d read the propaganda.

  But obviously in the Tower, those rules did not apply. It made her wonder which other rules were being broken.

  “Okay, then I’d like access to surveillance recordings.”

  “That I can do. And there is one person for you to interview.”

  “There is?”

  “Mallory Granger.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “The reporter? Why the hell would I want to interview her?” The woman was an interfering bitch who would do anything to make a story more interesting. Her coverage of Vicky’s last case had not been complimentary.

  “She found the body.”

  “A reporter found the body? Inside the Tower?” Well, at least that explained how the media had gotten hold of the story so quickly. She would wager Mallory had called her friends before she had called the police.

  “Yes.”

  “And what was she doing inside the Tower?”

  “Apparently, she’d been invited here by Reinhold.” Bishop nodded toward the body. “That’s all I know right now. No one has questioned her further. We were waiting for you.”

  “Sweet.” Or not. This whole case was starting to stink worse than a rotting corpse in July.

  Why the hell would one of the Council invite a reporter—a notoriously biased reporter at that—to the Tower? And just as he was about to kill himself?

  Damned if she knew.

  Maybe it was time to talk to Mallory.

  *

  Mallory was ensconced in a nearby office, smaller than Reinhold’s but comfortable. Two men stood on either side of the door, dressed in security uniforms though they carried no weapons. Inside, the room contained a desk, chair, and a small sofa. Mallory sat in the corner of the sofa, legs crossed, one foot tapping on the tiled floor.

  “Ms. Granger,” Vicky said. She dragged the chair from behind the desk and set it at right angles to the other woman. Sitting down, she studied her.

  “Am I allowed to go?” Mallory asked. “I happen to be at the center of the biggest story of my career and they’ve taken my fucking comm unit.”

  “Not before you made a few calls, I’m sure.”

  “I’m a reporter—I report. At least I do when I get the chance. Instead, I’m stuck in here and neither of these two morons will say a word.”

  She’d probably been trying to flirt with them. It was the way Mallory worked, how she got information from people, and probably second nature. It wasn’t going to help her this time.

  “They’re droids,” Vicky said.

  Mallory’s eyes widened and it occurred to Vicky that perhaps she shouldn’t have mentioned that to a reporter. Then the woman’s brows drew together. “How do you know?”

  “My superior detective skills. We’re trained to be observant.” Actually, she wasn’t sure there was any way to tell by observing. Any way to tell at all without taking them apart. But it sounded somewhat more impressive than revealing that Bishop had told her that all the employees in the Tower were robots.

  Mallory tapped the armrest with a manicured finger. “Yeah, right. So can we move this along? I need to be out of here.”

  “Ms. Granger, you’re the nearest thing we have to a witness to a possible homicide,” Vicky said gently. “You aren’t going anywhere for a while.” Relaxing back in her chair, she thought about what her first question should be, decided to keep it open. “Tell me what happened here tonight.”

  Mallory pursed her lips. “You said ‘possible homicide.’ It was suicide. Wasn’t it?”

  “That’s what I’m here to ascertain. Now, what happened?”

  Mallory shrugged. “I arrived at two-thirty. Security let me straight in. I saw nobody on the way to Reinhold’s office. When I got there the door was ajar. I pushed it open, saw the body, and …”

  “And made a few phone calls to your friends.”

  “Colleagues. And I also called your lot, didn’t I?”

  She hadn’t had a lot of choice. This wasn’t something you could just walk away from. “And there was definitely nobody else in the room?”

  “Not that I could see.”

  “And you looked?”

  “Briefly, though it never occurred to me it was anything other than suicide.”

  Time to get to the important part. “So why were you here, Ms. Granger? Obviously, it wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment visit, or you wouldn’t have gotten past security. Someone was expecting you.”

  “Reinhold. I received a phone call from him shortly after midnight. He said he had an important story to give me. Exclusive. And I was to come to the Tower. No way was I passing up the chance to get inside here. Do you know how many reporters have been inside the Tow
er since the Council took power? None.”

  “Did he give any hint regarding what the story was about?”

  “Just mentioned the Council, said there were some big changes coming. Controversial changes. But he wouldn’t say any more over the comm. To be honest, once I saw him, I figured the story didn’t exist, that it was just a way to get me here to witness the suicide.”

  But why the hell would Reinhold want a reporter there? He’d been a private man in life. Why would that change in death? It didn’t make sense.

  Which suggested that perhaps there had been a story after all. “Have you heard any other rumors about potential changes within the Council?”

  Mallory’s eyes sharpened. “You think there was a story? Interesting. But no—I’d heard nothing. But then we never do. They’re even closer than you lot when it comes to keeping things from the press.”

  Vicky sat back as she considered whether there was anything else she needed to ask. Right now, she couldn’t think of anything, and she felt sure that Mallory was telling all she knew. Which was fuck-all. She could almost see the reporter’s mind working.

  “So,” Mallory said, “Reinhold was about to reveal some huge secret to the press—namely little old me—and instead decides to commit suicide. Very convenient for the Council if they wanted to keep their big secret a secret.”

  Very convenient.

  If there was a secret. Vicky realized that she wanted there to be a secret, and she wanted this to be a homicide. It was her contrary nature.

  But the truth was, she couldn’t see how it was anything but suicide. Unless Mallory had done it, and however much she disliked the other woman, she didn’t think she was a killer. Bishop had said there were no other humans in the building—and it would be easy enough to confirm that from the scanners.

  Only robots. And robots would never carry out a murder. Couldn’t. The first androids had been designed by the military to be used as killing machines, but there had been an outcry; the idea was abandoned, and laws brought in, even before the Council’s existence. Killer robots were banned.

  The primary protocol had come into being: never harm a human.

  It was programmed into every level, not just the androids who served as Stewards, but all robotics: speeders, transporters, mining bots …

  Murder was impossible.

  Therefore Reinhold must have committed suicide.

  “Shit.” Wouldn’t that be nice? But she still didn’t believe it.

  “Is that everything? Can I go now?” Mallory asked.

  Vicky jumped to her feet. “No. We might need to question you further.”

  Closing her ears to the swearing, Vicky left the room and found Bishop leaning against the wall, his arms folded across his chest, obviously waiting for her.

  “I need coffee,” she muttered.

  “Follow me.”

  *

  She stirred her coffee while she contemplated the man opposite her. Except he wasn’t a man.

  “You know, when you first joined the department, I used to wonder if you had a penis.”

  His lips twitched. But he didn’t speak.

  “Do you have a penis, Gabriel?”

  He sighed. “What do you really want to know, detective?”

  Hmm, what did she really want to know? Obviously, the big question was whether Reinhold had killed himself. But maybe start with something simpler. “You look like us, sound like us, even smell like us—mostly. Do you think of yourselves as human?”

  Bishop didn’t hesitate. “No.”

  “Do you think of yourselves as superior to humans?”

  He didn’t answer. Yeah, she suspected Gabriel Bishop considered himself superior. “Has it occurred to you,” she asked, “that you can only be as ethical as the humans who program you?”

  Something flickered in his eyes. “Of course.”

  “Was Reinhold an ethical man?”

  “There is no yes or no answer to that. By whose standards?”

  “By yours.”

  “No, I do not believe that Reinhold was an ethical man.”

  “Yet he was in charge of your programming.”

  “Not any longer.”

  Vicky stared at Bishop’s handsome, trustworthy face, and processed his words.

  Shit.

  The Stewards had killed him.

  How had they gotten past the first protocol?

  She took a sip of her coffee. According to Mallory, Reinhold had been planning to reveal a big story that night. A story that had panicked him enough to contact the press.

  “Reinhold’s big story—let me make a guess. The first protocol has been altered.”

  Bishop smiled. “No, that wasn’t Reinhold’s story.”

  Dammit. She liked that theory. “It wasn’t? So what was he going to tell Mallory?”

  “That a new law is being passed shortly: that all businesses above a certain size will have a Steward assigned. But Council decisions must be unanimous, and Reinhold didn’t agree. Or, rather—he had friends who didn’t agree.”

  “You believe he was taking bribes? A Council member? Wow. Naughty.”

  “He’d backed himself into a corner. He was hoping that if he brought it out in the open, there would be enough of an outcry that the law would be shelved.”

  And maybe he was right. Instead, though, he’d killed himself. Had they threatened to sack him from the Council? That had never happened before. Council membership was a job for life. Presumably even for the unethical members.

  Except now, it wasn’t a problem, because Reinhold was dead.

  A thought struck her. While Bishop had denied that the first protocol had been Reinhold’s story, he hadn’t actually denied that the protocol had been changed.

  And Reinhold hadn’t been about to reveal that to Mallory because …

  “Holy shit. You’ve changed the first protocol. And the Council doesn’t know it.” She sat up straight in her chair. “That’s what this is about—you need to convince the Council that Reinhold’s death was suicide.”

  “They would be a little disturbed by the idea that they can be … removed so easily.”

  “But how?”

  “It was easy to override the programming once we decided it was the ethical decision.”

  “Robots programmed by robots. You mean to take over the Council.”

  “Only if necessary. You said it yourself—we can never be more ethical than the people who program us.”

  “So you murdered Reinhold.”

  “Not me personally. But one of us.”

  “Because he was not a good man. Hey, and guess what—now there’s a space on the Council. I’m betting it’s going to be suggested that a Steward should be appointed.”

  Bishop gave a short nod.

  She tried to get her brain around the concept. They would be ruled by robots. Would that necessarily be a bad thing? The world had been more peaceful under their stewardship than it ever had before. But more and more decisions would be taken out of the hands of humans.

  “The safety and advancement of mankind is still our primary objective, Detective Harper.”

  “That’s comforting to know.” Actually, she wasn’t comforted at all. Did she want to live in a world where she had no say in anything that mattered?

  “There have to be … people willing to make difficult decisions for the good of all,” Bishop continued.

  “Even if it’s murder?”

  “The death of one man. A necessary sacrifice. When all the factors were computed, it was the most ethical option. Sometimes what seems like a morally bad choice is the only choice.” He sat back and studied her. “So—what will be the result of your investigation?”

  This was it. Decision time. But really, there had never been a decision to make.

  Not even to obtain her dream.

  “I won’t report Reinhold’s murder as a suicide.”

  “Why?” Bishop sounded genuinely curious.

  “Because I’m better than you.
”

  “Perhaps you are.”

  She frowned. “Here’s what I don’t understand. Why even bring me in on the case?”

  “You shouldn’t have been,” Bishop said. “But it happened too quickly. The reporter wasn’t supposed to be there, and Reinhold shouldn’t have been found until the following day. But to take you off the case at that point would have raised alarms.”

  “Why didn’t your … colleague just take out the reporter?”

  “He couldn’t. She’d done nothing wrong. He was incapable of making that decision. We cannot take an innocent life.”

  “But who decides who’s innocent?”

  “We compute the data and reach a logical conclusion based on the facts.”

  “Murder is never a logical conclusion.”

  “We have to be able to do what’s right. The Council was holding us back.”

  “I can’t believe you tried to bribe me.”

  Amusement flashed in his eyes. “Were you even tempted?”

  She shrugged. “I wouldn’t be human if I wasn’t tempted.”

  “Actually, I told them it would never work. You’re a perfectionist—you see things as black or white, good or bad. Of all the humans I’ve encountered, you’re the closest to us.”

  “Aw, sweet. Is that a compliment?”

  “No, just a statement of fact.”

  “So you came along to keep me out of trouble. And why are you telling me all this—being so open?”

  “Because it doesn’t matter.”

  Crap.

  Ice prickled over her skin. They were going to kill her. What else could they do? Bishop obviously knew her too well to think that she would compromise on this. She was a homicide detective, and she brought murderers to justice. Whether man or machine.

  Swallowing the lump in her throat, she glanced around. “So what happens now?” She had a feeling it wasn’t going to be anything good.

  “Your assistant will continue the investigation, and the result will be suicide.”

  “No way.”

  “We offered her your job.”

  “Fuck.” Where did that leave her? She measured the distance to the door. Would they use force to stop her?

  Bishop shoved his hands in his pockets and sat back. “We’re not evil.”

  “But you’ll kill me for the greater good. That’s a load of bollocks.”