Robots: The Recent A.I.

by Elizabeth Bear

  “I love it when you multitask.” He waited for a cyclist to pass, then crossed the street.

  “Love conquers all things except poverty and toothache.”

  Huang snorted and rolled his eyes. He walked under the scaffolding and stopped by the second upright. Turning so the eSpy could focus on the orange sticker on the scaffolding, he held still so Metta could read it. “Feldman Construction.”

  “Checking.” Metta looked up and to her left. “Got it.”

  “Well, then, let’s go see if they recognize Mr. Lowfat.”

  The rumble of heavy machinery pounded through Huang’s ears as he stood next to Mr. Feldman. The older man’s skin had been tanned to bronze. Age spots mottled his strong hands. He leaned over Huang’s unrolled PDA screen and studied the sketch of Mr. Lowfat.

  Feldman hitched his jeans up and gestured with his chin at the drawing. “Yeah. That’s Joe Yates. He okay? He didn’t show for work today.”

  Metta murmured, “Checking the name. . . . ”

  Huang rolled the PDA up. “He called in an incident to 911 yesterday morning and then left the scene before the responders arrived. We’re trying to find him to ask him about what he witnessed.”

  “What sort of incident?” The man crossed his arms over his ample stomach.

  “Possibly a murder.”

  “Possibly?” Feldman grunted. “You a homicide cop and you can’t tell if it’s murder?”

  “There’s the possibility that it was an accident, but we need Mr. Yates to know for certain. Can you think of why he would have left the scene after dialing 911?”

  The man scowled and dug his boot into the dirt. “Aw hell. . . . I check papers, you know, but I don’t check too well. I figure my folks were immigrants so why not give other folks a shot. If they work hard, I don’t ask too many questions.”

  Metta murmured. “If he’s illegal, that would explain why I’m having trouble finding him in the system.”

  “He’s not turning up in our files, do you have an address for him?”

  “Your system.” Feldman frowned. “Two minutes ago you didn’t know who he was.”

  Huang tapped his glasses. “I’m working with a police AI.”

  Feldman eyed the VR glasses. “There really an AI in there?”

  “Not in, Mr. Feldman, but yes, the precinct’s AI is listening to this conversation.”

  The man glowered at the ground. “You might not want to let my boys know you have one here. They don’t take too kindly to them things.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I gotta spell it out for you?” He jerked his chin toward the glasses. “Those things cost men like my guys jobs. Rig backhoes and cranes with remote control and one AI can run almost a whole damn construction site. I don’t got a beef with them myself, you know, but my guys. Some of them . . . you know.”

  In the VR glasses, Metta’s lips were compressed into a thin line. They’d run into this prejudice before, and that fear was why it seemed unlikely that groups like AIM would ever get artificial intelligences recognized as thinking beings. Huang cleared his throat. “How about an address for Mr. Yates?”

  Mr. Feldman just shrugged again. “I can give you a P.O. Box, but that’s about it.”

  “Had he worked with you long?”

  “A couple of months, but he was good. Solid worker. Reliable. Always bringing me leads. Like yesterday’s job. Heard about it while he was at that coffee shop he likes and comes to me instead of just doing it on his own. Honorable. You know?” He scrubbed his chin with his hand. “Think he’s okay?”

  “We’ll let you know when we find him.”

  As they walked off the construction site, Metta said, “It occurs to me that perhaps Mr. Yates lives in the neighborhood since he swings by the coffee shop on his way to work. I’ll send the uniforms around with his picture to see if anyone recognizes him.”

  “Good idea.” Huang sighed. “So, what next?”

  “I’d suggest a visit to Magdalena Chase. Let’s see why she had a meeting with Mr. Patterson and where she was yesterday morning.”

  The MAX line from HQ went straight past Chase’s office building. As the train hissed along under the electric wires, Huang leaned his head back against the window and turned his attention to Metta. “So what should I know about Magdalena Chase?”

  “Like Patterson, she renovates buildings, but her focus is on green technology. She graduated from MIT with a degree in AI studies and works with a number of charities, including StreetRoots, the Oregon Ballet, and AIM. Chase is known for employing ‘freelance’ AI and—”

  “Hang on—freelance?”

  Metta nodded. “Though artificial intelligences have not been recognized as people, Jarrett Tovar, our creator, sets each AI up as a corporation. An AI that is not leasing its services is called a freelancer.”

  “And you are . . . ?”

  “Leased. We call it indentured.” She smiled. “The chassis are very expensive so this is a way to pay off our start-up costs when we first come into the world. Once my lease is up, I’ll be able to freelance, but being in the Metta line it’s more likely I’ll renew the lease. I like my job and it requires a contract with accompanying vows in order to be granted full access to the city. Other AIs don’t have that sort of need so may be more likely to go freelance.”

  “Huh.” Huang shook his head. “I don’t think I’ve met a freelancer before.”

  “Well, you’re about to. Chase’s company has a freelance Quimby managing the building.”

  Another Quimby . . . as if his reports weren’t complicated enough with Metta Prime and Metta clone. “Does it bother you to have the same names?”

  “Some of us change our names, like the Qadir you met, but we don’t use those names with each other. That just helps when talking to flesh-and-blood about the type of system we are.”

  Huang blinked. “You don’t call yourself Metta?”

  “When I’m talking to F&B I do.”

  “You didn’t answer me.”

  “My ID to other AI is a three-dimensional equation.”

  “Ah. So, your Prime would have the same equation. Is that right?”

  “Yes, exactly.” She chewed her lip. “I’ll mention that to Delarosa in case it sparks any ideas on why they might have taken my Prime. Good thinking, Scott.”

  Not that he’d done any actual thinking, just asked questions. “I’m not used to running into AIs besides you. I mean, A.S., yes, absolutely, but running into this many in short order is odd. Or do I just hang in the wrong circles?”

  “Mostly, the wrong circles. Patterson and Chase are both very wealthy.”

  “Can you verify that for Chase? No hidden financial problems?”

  “Already did. The only thing tying her to this case is that she had breakfast plans.”

  Huang glanced out the window as they passed Saturday Market. The next stop was theirs. He grabbed the strap overhead and pulled himself to his feet. “Is there any previous connection between Patterson and Chase?”

  He hopped off the MAX and threaded his way through the foot traffic to the front door of Chase’s office. The building had been a bank in the days when banks had used Corinthian columns to create an impression of established age. The modern hermetic door clashed against the marble walls.

  “Besides the fact they both owned and developed properties, there’s nothing on the books, but I’ll start digging. Chase specialized in rejuvenating districts, and creating environmentally sound buildings. Her goal is to create buildings that can exist off the electrical grid and generate their own power.”

  As he pushed through the door, one of the terminals that dotted the lobby flickered into life. A man’s head appeared on it.

  “Welcome to the Chase Company.” The baritone voice was disturbingly familiar. Only the confidence in it separated Quimby’s voice from Qadir’s. The AI’s face had the same sort of calculated naivete as Metta’s neutral face; an almost Victorian purity, but in masculine form. “How
may I help you today?”

  Huang produced his badge and introduced himself. “I need to speak with Mrs. Chase.”

  A flicker of surprise showed on the AI’s face. “Certainly, her office is straight back on the right.”

  As they walked down the hall, Metta snorted. “Check out the camera. This will not be a private interview.” He glanced up as they passed under one of the surveillance cameras and it swiveled to follow.

  “Noted. Ask him to join us, will you?”

  The hall was dark after the lobby; only a few of the overhead lights were on, likely as a result of Chase’s concern for the environment. A woman stepped out of a door at the end of the hall. She was tall and slender. The light from her office backlit her, catching on the edges of her shoulders and gleaming in the silvery hair pinned up in a bun.

  She waited till he got closer. “Detective Huang?”

  “Ms. Chase.” Huang had to tilt his head back to look up at her. “I’m sorry to bother you.”

  She smiled sadly. “Given the circumstances, I can guess why you’re here. Come in. Ask me anything you want.” Her blonde hair was almost white; even her eyebrows were so light they almost disappeared. The only color on her face was her eyes. They were like bruises, red with weeping, and ringed with dark circles. “I thought someone would be by eventually.” Chase looked directly at Huang’s VR glasses, not focusing on his eyes. “Metta, Quimby is sending you our internal address so you can join the conversation on a proper interface.”

  Huang subvocalized, “Any reason not to?”

  Metta shook her head. “It scans clean. I’ll still be able to talk with you privately, which she must know.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Metta appeared above the desk, next to Quimby. She had abandoned the Mae West interface and appeared in her detective face. Huang didn’t know how she pulled it off, but the face was ethnically neutral. She could have been mixed from every continent. She had a firm jaw balanced by soft brown eyes. Metta nodded to Chase and when she spoke her voice was crisp with none of Mae West’s husky tones. “Thank you for the invitation.”

  Chase waved insistently at a chair, settling into another herself. Aside from an interface, a tablet, and a steaming cup of tea, nothing cluttered the surface of her desk. She turned the teacup in its saucer. “So. You’re here about Neil Patterson, right?”

  “Right.” Huang eased into a chair opposite her. “We’ll start with the basics. Where were you at eight A.M. on Tuesday, October twenty-fifth?”

  “I was at my yoga class.”

  “And do you have witnesses who can attest to that?”

  “Absolutely. Quimby can give you the contact there.”

  Metta whispered in Huang’s ear. “Got it and I’ll check.”

  Chase turned her teacup again. “Shall I tell you what your next question will be? You want to know why Patterson and I had a meeting. You want to know why I canceled Am I right?”

  Huang inclined his head. “Among other things. But let’s start with the meeting.”

  “We were collaborating on the renovation of the Water and Everett Street building. He took a serious hit after the whole thing with the foreman who took shortcuts and environmentalism is hot right now. I was going to handle making the buildings green; Patterson was going to handle marketing and tenants. It was a good match.”

  “Was?”

  Chase shifted in her chair. “We’d had some disagreements about management. Nothing major, but enough that we both felt it was better to separate the business.”

  “And the reason you canceled the meeting?”

  “Some paperwork that I’d been waiting on hadn’t come through and we couldn’t proceed without it.” She glanced at Quimby. “Would you send Detective Huang the papers we were processing?”

  “Shall I transfer them to Metta?”

  “Yes, please.” She leaned forward and picked up the cup from her desk.

  The thin white porcelain caught Huang’s eye. He subvocalized to Metta. “See what type of china that is.”

  In his VR glasses, she murmured, “Why?”

  “It looks like the china from the murder scene,” he subvocalized. He smiled at Chase. “How long has Quimby been with you?”

  Chase nearly upset her teacup and laughed. “Detective. Quimby is right here. You can ask him.”

  “A year and a half, Detective.” The AI inclined his head. “And if I may anticipate your next questions, I have a certified honesty vow and am sending the authentication to Metta. Yes. Mrs. Chase had a yoga appointment that morning and I can also provide her POV of the session via her VR unit. I will send that to Metta as well as recordings of the hour before and after the yoga session so you may verify her whereabouts.”

  Huang considered. He could get little else here without checking other details. “Thank you for your time, Ms. Chase, Quimby.”

  Chase stood. “What? That’s all?”

  “You’ve been very helpful, but there might be questions we want to ask you in the future, so please let me know before you go out of town.”

  Metta nodded her head as well, said her goodbyes and disappeared from the desktop interface. Quimby saw them out of the building.

  Metta hung in Huang’s glasses silently until they left the building. “Something’s not right.”

  “I know.” He shook his head. “Once you know what the teacup is, will you let me know what china was used at the scene?”

  She grimaced. “It will take awhile. I’ll have to get someone to bring it up from evidence so I can look at it. Sorry. Not in my memory.”

  “Not your fault. Just get it to me when you can.”

  Metta looked out from under her eyelashes. “Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly.” Even with the quote and the Mae West act, the tension still came through in her voice.

  Huang pointed at the MAX as it pulled up. “Oh look. A streetcar. I wonder if it’s named Desire.”

  In his ear, Metta giggled and the loosening of the strain in her face was worth the wait.

  Huang leaned back in his chair and scrubbed his eyes with his fists. The paperwork seemed unending and yet nothing connected. Chase’s alibi checked out. True, she might have hired someone, but why have a meeting and then cancel it if that were the case? It just drew attention to her.

  And if he were being truly honest with himself, Huang had wanted to find a lead to Metta’s disappearance. Delarosa had nothing. He ground his teeth at the futility of the day.

  Metta appeared over his desktop, still wearing Mae West as her interface. “I can finish this report for you.”

  “Don’t tempt me.”

  “I generally avoid temptation unless I can’t resist it.”

  Huang smiled at the quote, but it seemed too light for his mood. “It’ll help me focus.”

  She nodded and morphed back to the face she had been made with, her “natural” face. Stripped of Mae West’s glamour, Metta seemed young and fragile. Her look was modeled on some Victorian ideal, large dark eyes and waves of hair swept up in a bun. “I understand, I could use a bit of that myself.”

  He pulled up the first report and buried his head in the red tape of the department. Metta murmured occasionally to help him remember events, or to suggest clearer wording. Even so, his eyes began hooding over with drowsiness.

  “Hey, Scott?” Amado appeared by his desk. He was always pale from too many daylight hours spent in the basement of the station tending the computer networks, but now his face seemed drawn with tension.

  Huang ran his hand across his face, trying to wake up. “What’s up?”

  Amado said, “I’d really like to talk to you about what happened when Metta was taken.”

  “Sure.” He waited for Amado to continue.

  “C’mon, let’s grab a beer and talk.”

  Huang shook his head. “Not tonight, sorry. Mountain of paperwork.”

  “It would mean a lot to me. I’m worried about her.”

  Which “her”—the one missing
or the one watching Huang now? Huang worried about both. “That’s understandable. What do you want to know?”

  “Ah. I don’t want to hang around here. Let’s go out.”

  Huang looked down at the watch in the corner of his desk. Unless he called and said work was keeping him late, his mother would expect him home in an hour.

  Giving her one more thing to worry about was not high on his list of priorities. On the other hand, Amado was being awfully insistent on talking, and seemed set against going into anything in the building. If he were an informant, Huang would think he had a piece of information he didn’t trust to the system. But in this case, the system was Metta, and—what if he didn’t trust Metta for some reason?

  Metta would have to record anything they talked about, even if she didn’t want to. Unless they went off duty and left the building. . . . “Sure. Yeah. Want to hit Wacky Joe’s? Just give me a few minutes to wrap this up.”

  Amado fidgeted by his desk. “Yeah . . . sure. I’ll meet you there.”

  Huang agreed and watched Amado walk out of the room. The moment the door shut behind him, Metta said, “Did he seem tense to you?”

  “Yeah. . . . Can you think of anything he’d want to hide?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I can’t.”

  Huang could. He could think of a very good reason for Amado to be worried about the circumstances around Metta’s abduction.

  He groaned and looked at the clock. “I do need to get home to Ma though.” He took his VR glasses out of his pocket and put them in his desk drawer.

  “Scott?” She chewed her lower lip. “Will you take me home with you?”

  He stopped with his hand to his earbud. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’d feel better if I came with you.” She looked away. “You’ll probably have to report this, but I’m afraid of my backup tonight and I want to be around someone who was with me at the last one. I’m afraid I won’t remember today.” She looked back at him. “I want one night of continuity. That’s all.”

  He couldn’t help noticing that she hadn’t asked for the favor until after Amado had left. “We aren’t supposed to take the mobile interface equipment out, unless we’re on duty.”