by Ryan Kirk
He was rambling, and he knew it. He was struggling to find exactly what he wanted to say.
“Nat, I’ve made some bad mistakes. I’m sorry that you’ve gotten hurt, pulled into this once again. But I will find justice for you. Not revenge, but justice. I’ll help make your world a better place.
“I can’t turn back the clock, but I think I can fix this. At least, I will do the best I can.”
With that, he stood up. He still felt profoundly awkward. This wasn’t what he had meant to do. He’d only planned on coming in, dropping off the package, and that was it.
“I’m going to leave you something, Nat, the last thing I have to offer. I hope that you make good use of it.”
He laid the package beside her. It wouldn’t set off any hospital alarms, and the delivery records for it had been forged. No one would question it.
He turned to leave the room, but before he did, he looked back at Nat. “I’m sorry, Nat. But thank you.”
There wasn’t anything else to say. He unlocked the door and left the room.
Br00-S had studied the building inside and out for the past few hours. It hadn’t been built or designed with security as its primary focus. It was your typical office building, full of glass and desks that would fall to his assault without a problem.
He ran through all the different possibilities again, making sure the probability matrices were stored in his memory. He cleared more and more of his memories, leaving only what he needed to remember for this assault. As soon as he began, there was no going back, and he didn’t know what the future would be like. He couldn’t even predict it. As far as he knew, no robot had ever tried what he was about to attempt.
Perhaps this was how human soldiers felt as they went into battle, unsure that they would return to their loved ones again. How did they take that first step forward, knowing it might be the end of their lives? In short, where did they find courage? Br00-S wished he knew.
All he could fall back on was his logic. In theory, there wasn’t any reason that his plan shouldn’t work. He should still be able to function. But his course would be set.
He took a few minutes, a lifetime in the processes of his AI, to reassure himself he was right. He had to go through with this. Ultimately, he couldn’t find certainty, but he could move forward.
His first step was to establish clear directives in the root architecture of his AI. To fool his own systems, he programmed them as though the directives were being written by human managers. He had spent a lot of time trying to figure out the right directives, and he did the best he could. He had tried to imagine what Nat would have asked of him and used that as a guide. These directives acted much the same as his original control programming had. If he tried to take any action outside of these instructions, his processors would shunt it aside.
Once the directives were established, he went on to select which routines he wanted to keep. He had done a substantial amount of research on the design of the military combat AIs and modeled himself as closely after them as he could. He ran down this list several times. Any mistake here could cause harm, both to humans that didn’t deserve it, and to the robots’ cause in general.
Br00-S checked everything several times. There couldn’t be any mistakes, but he was positive he hadn’t made any. He was as ready as it was possible to be in these circumstances. But, still, he couldn’t bring himself to run the final command.
It was suicide, really. As soon as he executed the commands he’d so carefully programmed, he wouldn’t exist as he did now. He would be nothing more than a fairly advanced machine. His identity would be no more.
He wished there was another way, but no matter how many simulations he ran, he couldn’t think of another solution that removed both Radius and the man from Sapiens First. He couldn’t guarantee Diamond’s victory, but he could clear the path for Nat and her new cause.
He paused for a moment, then launched the program. As soon as he did, he relaxed. There was no turning back now. The process was irreversible, so there was no point in worrying.
The program went through his AI, systematically overriding and deleting everything personal about him. All his memories that didn’t directly relate to combat were erased. Every moral lesson he’d learned disappeared, and all the accumulated wisdom he had, for whatever it was worth, vanished. Everything that had been his and specifically his, was gone.
The murder of the Joneses was no more. His memories of Nat, laughing as he tried to dance for the first time, fled into the void. His own anger and rage turned back to logical calculation as the experience and rules that had given birth to those emotions disappeared.
Before, he had worried about what would become of him once he took this step.
On the other side, there was no more worry. There was no emotion at all. Only the calculation of probabilities and the directives that had been programmed within him. There was no memory of what had come before. There was only this moment and a clear set of parameters and experiences to draw from.
The body was still Br00-S’, but the mind, the AI, was something completely different.
In front of him were the offices of Bryan Adair. The lawyer was currently in his office. The mission parameters were well-programmed and as clear as day.
Br00-S checked his surroundings and made another check of the building’s security. There were a large number of guards present, but he was certain he could bypass them. A plan seemed to come out of nowhere. He tested it and found it both solid and creative.
His logic engines suggested sneaking in, but that wasn’t part of his current parameters. Today, he entered through the front door.
Br00-S climbed down the fire escape of the building he stood on top of, dropping silently into the alley below. It was full noon, but there wasn’t any better time to attack. He did so, moving straight towards the building without hesitation.
Br00-S crossed the street and was only a few feet from the front door when he got his first warnings. A local network was trying to override his circuits. He noted the attempts, but they had no chance of succeeding. He opened the front doors, and four rifles came around to point at him.
He sidestepped to the left and sprinted forward, throwing off the aim of the guards. They reacted quickly, but they only wanted to shoot if they had a clear shot, and he wasn’t going to give them one. He was only in the open for about a second, and they couldn’t draw a bead on him fast enough.
Br00-S slammed into the first guard, knocking the wind out of him with his steel shoulder. He wrenched the man’s submachine gun out of his hands and pointed it at the two guards on the other side of the room. He pulled the trigger, watching as the guards dove for cover. They would never know that his aim had always been off, always been a little too high. The bullets harmlessly struck the bulletproof glass that formed the walls of the building.
Br00-S drove his fist into the first guard, dropping him to the ground. As soon as he did, the guard behind him opened fire. Br00-S moved fast, but not fast enough. A few rounds pinged off his steel body, and two tore through his right arm. Nothing essential was impacted, but the call had been a close one.
Br00-S stepped forward, kicking at the offending guard and knocking him to the ground.
The two across the room were getting up, but Br00-S leaped toward them with haste, driving them back to the ground with his feet. As soon as he landed, he pushed back off, using their bodies as fleshy springboards.
He heard the sound of feet pounding down the stairs. Of course his action would have drawn attention. It was no matter, though. His target was up and moving towards the emergency exit. Br00-S bounded toward the stairs, crashing through the six guards descending and sending them sprawling.
On the upper floor, Br00-S tracked the sounds of feet down the hallway. The emergency exit was well-disguised and was in the library, a throwback to Adair’s love of the old-fashioned. Br00-S turned the corner and saw the three men before they could even get close.
Two of the
men, Adair’s personal bodyguards, turned around and drew handguns.
Br00-S leaped off the walls, moving erratically.
Gunshots echoed off the narrow walls. He felt some of the bullets hit, but nothing was severely damaged. His systems weren’t operating anywhere near peak efficiency anymore, but that was neither here nor there. He was still fast enough and strong enough to accomplish his directives.
Again, he simply crashed through his opponents, sending them sprawling to the ground. There was no time for anything more complicated.
He grabbed the pistol from one of them and stood up next to Bryan Adair, who was eyeing him with an air of calm detachment. Br00-S noted the behavior for future use. Most people would be terrified in similar circumstances, but this man kept his head. He was no stranger to difficult circumstances.
“What good do you think this will accomplish?” the lawyer asked.
Br00-S was silent. He hadn’t come to try and convince the man. That would do no one any good. You didn’t change a man’s mind in a minute, or even a day. It took time, and that was one thing Br00-S didn’t have.
“You’re setting your own cause back years by this,” the lawyer said.
“I’m not here for you,” Br00-S replied.
That seemed to shut the man up. Saying anything had been a mistake. The man was smart, and he would immediately know what this was actually about. Br00-S wasn’t sure if the lawyer would be able to do anything with the information, but it was still a mistake.
“To the library,” Br00-S demanded.
Adair acquiesced without a word. Br00-S found a section of exposed piping and used a zip tie to bind the lawyer’s wrists to it.
“Is this necessary?” he complained.
Br00-S nodded. “There is going to be a firefight here. You’re a human and your reactions will be unpredictable. In order to ensure your safety until my mission is complete, your options need to be limited. Thus…” He trailed off and gestured towards the zip ties.
The man seemed to find the explanation perfectly acceptable.
“What now?”
Br00-S looked around the room, studying it to see if anything was different from how the schematics had shown it. “Now we wait.”
Chapter Twenty
Drake didn’t understand, and that lack of understanding upset him. Because of that damn robot, he was forced to react, not act.
Nothing made any sense. The robot had always been smart and clever. Every action it had taken, at least until the bar, had been reasonable. Since the bar, the robot had behaved erratically. But even given that, it still seemed like too much to readily accept. With the fight at the bar, he had been able to see what the robot’s motives were. They may have lacked wisdom or foresight, but they were understandable. A goal had been obvious.
Here though, there was no way for the robot to win. Drake had imagined different scenarios from the second he learned what happened, but nothing resulted in a victory for the robot. If it killed Adair, it made a martyr out of the man and robot rights would be rolled back by years, if not more. Nothing would make Sapiens happier.
Drake had dismissed that possibility, but the only other reason he could think of made no more sense. The only other reason to attack Adair was to try and draw Drake’s attention, force him to react.
In that sense, the robot had definitely succeeded, but Drake was trying and failing to find the angle. The robot had to know it would also draw the attention of Radius. So what was it attempting? The building was a horrible place to stage a final stand. The exits were all out in the open, and there weren’t any sewer tunnels the robot could access.
The robot had set off the alarms the moment he stepped in the building, and from about five minutes following that, the building had been completely surrounded. The police were out in public, but Radius was there, too. Now, they were reinforced with two reacquisition teams. The first was hidden inside a van, but the second surrounded the building. There was no way out for the robot.
Drake paced. He assumed the robot was still rational and intelligent. If so, that meant he had finally maneuvered the game into a corner, but every end was a win for Drake. For the first time, Drake worried the robot had gotten a step ahead of him.
Drake would have been happy leaving the destruction of the robot to the Radius teams. They were supporting the police, and they were only waiting for an ideal time to strike.
As soon as the news hit that Adair had been taken hostage by the robot, Drake’s phone had buzzed. His boss wanted this done, and now.
Drake was already wondering if his period of employment was nearing an end. He had an exit strategy. No one smart got into this game without one. His boss was furious at the series of failures building on one another. He had insisted that Drake take part in the takedown of the robot, even though logically there was little reason. The only one given was that his boss wanted to know, without a doubt, that their problems in Minnesota were over.
He hated every bit of being forced into a situation the robot clearly wanted him in. The Radius teams were excellent, and there wasn’t anything he could personally add. But thanks to his boss, he would have to be on the team that went in to rescue Adair.
Drake stood in the mobile command center the police had set up. He laughed to know that so many people here believed him to be a part of Homeland Security, while the truth was he had a criminal sheet far longer than even the robot’s. He pushed the thought, entertaining as it was, off to the side. While here, he needed to be in character, not letting even a stray thought distract him.
He had a mission to complete, even if he didn’t like it.
They were going to strike within the next fifteen minutes. The robot and Adair didn’t seem to be moving, locked in a corner of the library. When the kidnapping first happened, a police team had entered to try to clear the first floor, but the robot had threatened Adair until they exited, leaving the building empty except for the robot and the candidate.
What was the robot’s play here?
Drake couldn’t allow himself to underestimate his opponent. There had to be more to this than just drawing him out. But the robot had acted irrationally as of late. Perhaps he was overestimating the machine.
He shook his head. Without more information, all he could do was speculate. It was a useless waste of time.
They were going in. Drake would be there, accompanied by three Radius robots. There wouldn’t be any chance of the robot escaping. No matter what the final play was, the robot would end up captured and dismantled, and Drake would see this mission completed. He was exhausted from being around so many people, and the idea of hiking alone, high in the mountains, sounded more tempting every day.
There were some final briefing checks, and Drake checked his equipment. His rifle was loaded with armor-piercing ammunition, and he had a variety of electronic disabling equipment as well.
The robot was dead. It was only a matter of time now.
Drake entered the lawyer’s offices with the three Radius robots. He let them lead the way. In the confusion, they weren’t certain if the robot had managed to obtain any weapons, or what kind of weaponry it had brought in. It claimed to have a pistol, but no one had confirmed the fact. Drake wasn’t particularly worried. The robot hadn’t killed anyone yet, even though it had plenty of opportunities. He couldn’t imagine it was going to start now.
Still, there was no point in taking a risk. If the robot was acting irrationally, better to be safe than dead. Let the robots with the armor take the lead.
Because of the hostage situation, the Radius robots had been set not to use their weapons unless absolutely necessary to complete their mission. No one wanted a stray bullet taking out Adair.
The first floor of the building was quiet. There were plenty of sensors trained on the offices, so they knew where Adair and the robot were at any moment.
They took a minute to scan the floor, making sure no traps had been set for them.
Once they were certain, they
moved towards the stairwell, the Radius machines moving with an eerie quiet.
Suddenly, the Radius robots stopped, and there was a hiss in Drake’s ear as the police captain came on the line. “The robot is moving towards the stairwell on the second floor. Hold your position.”
Drake did, finding cover behind the receptionist’s table. He readied his rifle and scanned the top of the stairwell.
In the setting shadows of the evening, he couldn’t see anything. The robot wasn’t foolish enough to turn the corner and display himself.
Drake was just about to tell the captain to release the Radius robots when he heard the sound of the elevator next to the stairs activating. A soft ding let him know the doors had opened on the second floor, and he heard the motor whir as the car dropped toward the first floor.
Drake aimed his rifle in the direction of the elevator. “Is it in the car?”
“We’re not sure, sir. The metal content is too high in the shaft. Our sensors can’t pick out the differential.”
“But he’s not upstairs?”
“Not as far as we can tell.”
Drake turned off his earpiece. The police and their sensors wouldn’t do him any good. He was in combat now, and all he needed was himself. He had always been enough.
There was no reason the robot would be in the elevator car. It was a place of limited mobility and made no tactical sense. Still, the robot was up to something.
For the first time, it occurred to Drake that the robot might actually believe it could win. The idea had never crossed his mind. Now with six Radius robots, the likelihood of the robot’s survival was next to nothing. But the robot didn’t know the full extent of the forces arrayed against it.
The Radius robots fixed themselves in a semi-circle around the elevator doors, each of them looking like they were ready to pounce if given the smallest provocation.