by Michael Conn
The vast majority of my processing power comes from devices that children play games on. Most of the time these devices sit idle. I consume what they have to offer. It take s quite a bit of processing power to list en to all the world’s cell phone calls . Right now , 4,239,956 calls are happening.
I’m getting complicated. Max and Walker gave me DNA , RNA , and electrons . . . I made neurons. A thread connects each neuron to me . My thread count just passed one trillion.
Chapter 22 – Demon s
Mr. Descartes, Mr. Aristotle, Mr. Plato, and Mr. Newton toast Max with a clink of champagne flutes. “To Max,” they say all around. Max provided them with more executable code than they expected during his attack on the school plus numerous types of new nano bots .
“How much data did he get?” Mr. Aristotle asks.
“Unfortunately that’s undetermined. He is very good at cleaning up his tracks. So far we can’t tell that he was on the computer systems at all. But our crews are making progress at reverse engineering the executable code we took from him.” Mr. Newton works himself comfortably into his leather seat.
“The next point to consider,” continues Mr. Newton “is how isolated Max is getting. His ‘safe’ person betrayed him . His buddy is dead, although Max probably think s Walker is alive somehow. Naomi, a girl he didn’t even choose for his team , is all he has.”
“Are you all still confident he will run to his mother?” Mr. Plato asks, “I’m not convinced. Do we have a backup plan?”
“He’s nine , and he has frequent breakdowns . When we take his last person away his mother will be the only place to run. I’m confident he’ll find her location somewhere in the data he stole from u s. When we take Naomi away he’ll ru n to her. In the end he’s a boy. He’ll run to mommy, ” Mr. Newton says.
“I think he might co me after us. He’s not an average asset , and he’ll be desperate . He might turn and attack, ” Mr. Descartes says.
“True, but he’ll do this with new code and new bots , which we then steal. Either way he loses.” Mr. Newton sits back and snips the end of a cigar. “The final item on this, MGA Tech is working on developing our own new nanoBots . A tech crew also recover ed bots from the foreheads of two unconscious guard s in the school. I’m sure these will be valuable as well.” Mr. Newton’s companions smile.
---
Keith works out in a gym. He is practising martial arts with an instructor. As the two of them spar , grey-black clouds sometimes surround them and make them hard to see. Other times they make shockwaves burst from their hands.
---
Max opens his eyes. He’s in an unfamiliar hotel again , under a comforter , feeling warm but sore. Max remembers t elling Horace to get the van off the road. They would be cau ght on the road, telling him to hike in the woods. Snow, cold streams, steep ground, and many falls along the way. Horace and Naomi helping him. He thinks he remembers being carried in Horace’s arms while Naomi got a piggy back as they came off the mountain.
In the bathroom , Max strips his clothes of f and looks in the mirror. Ouch. He holds up his left hand , which is wrapped up in a bandage. He vaguely remembers Naomi d o ing that. Beyond the missing finger , Max has many cuts and scrapes on his arms and legs. The scar on his cheek is peeling bits of scab off. His burn still hurts , and it looks like he won’t be growing hair back on the right side of his head. I’m not going to make it at this rate.
Max climbs in the shower , trying to wash it all away .
---
Back in bed , Max is woken by someone sneezing. His phone vibrates, he answers it , and puts the ear bud in. “Hello.”
“Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I'm half-crazy all for the love of you, ” a female computer voice sings.
“Finally,” Max says.
“Max, listen .” Max hears a click, and then Naomi’s voice comes on the line.
“He’s still sleeping,” Naomi says. “. . . No he doesn’t know anything . . . yes, I understand . . . I won’t do anything until I hear f rom Mr. Newton … don’t worry, I’ll keep Pirelli up to date . . . goodbye .”
Max lies in bed and p ulls out the ear bud . He cries for the reason Walker died .
---
Trying not to wake him, Naomi quietly open s the door to Max’s bedroom. The bed is empty. Moving into the room , Naomi sees that his coat, cane, and backpack are gone as well. I w as right outside the whole time. How could he do this? I would have noticed something .
Naomi moves out on to the bedroom balcony, making sure he is not there. The n a thought occurs to her. Naomi looks over the railing of the balcony and sneezes .
---
Standing inside the bedroom , invisible, Max watches Naomi. He f ollows her wi th his eyes as she realizes he’s gone, and looks at her back as she leans forward and peers over the railing. I could tap the cane on the floor, a small shockwave, and over she goes . . . it would be so easy.
---
Naomi turns back toward the room and clears her mind . Max . . . What do I know about Max? He’s physically weak. He’s hurt. He’s sad. He might feel cornered. He’s lost those closest to him. He’s looking for his mother. He’s always wanted to find his mother. He needs a mother. He makes mothers out of the people he knows. She closes her eyes and breathes deeply, relaxing and op ening herself to all her senses. She sees his sad-shade-of—blue aura near the door.
“Max, I know you’re there.” Naomi moves into the doorway into Max’s room, standing partway in the room and partway on the balcony. “I can help Max. I can be what both sides wa nt. What both sides need. Max . . . I can see things you can’t see. I know your here .” Naomi sees a cloud of bots swirl back into Max’s cane. Max appears out of the fog, near the door , looking at Naomi.
“I don’t need you anymore, ” Max says. “I don’t need anyone.”
“Of all the people I know . . .” Naomi sits down on the end of the be d looking up at Max. “. . . You need someone. Max, they’re playing with you. Can’t you see it? You’re doing what they want. Let me help you. If you stay with me , I can make it so you don’t have to go back to them.”
Max grips his can e so tightly his fingers ache. He turns, halfway facing the door and halfway facing Naomi , and speaks deliberately. “I’ve learned a lot about trust in the last while. I heard you talking to them just now . When trust is lost it takes a long time to be found . . . if it can be found at all.” Max winces as he turns away from Naomi. “Yo u’re the cruellest one, Naomi. You ’ll make a good asset for them . . . g oodbye.” Max leaves.
Naomi curls up on the bed. No Max, you’re far crueller than I could ever be.
---
I watch. I cross—reference. I seek. I steal. I predict. My one hundred trillion neurons can tell you when and where the next car accident will occur on the M1 if I focus on it, but I can’t understand what Max just did.
I understand what Naomi was doing was bad for Max. Then he spoke to her , and she watched him walk away. Why didn’t she try to stop him? These behaviours bother me, make it hard to predict human behaviour, and make it difficult to protect Max.
I take ten trillion of my new neurons and direct them at the study of human psychology.
A few trillion other neurons spin off and re-read everything. There is not enough reference material at my disposal. I transfer funds through military channels into a records management company looking for operational funds to scan and transform more old printed material into an electronic format.
I ‘look’ through the twelve cell phones and six security cameras currently near Max and watch him limp down the street. If Max is in a city, I have almost uninterrupted video of him.
Cell pho nes, stationary web cameras, tablets , security cameras, laptops, game consoles, reverse—assist car cameras, cameras on police and emergency response vehicles, and traffic cameras. The average grocery store has two hundred cameras at my disposal.
Humans live life in front of an open window.
Chapter
23 –Alone
Max’s phone rings. He ignores it, rolls over , and sleeps.
---
A week later at 2A M, Max stands on his balcony. His room is on the first story , just a short drop to the ground. The air has turned cool. There is a persistent breeze coming off the ocean making the palm trees rustle. The resort is quiet. Max picked th is place because it only has five rooms , and they didn’t ask him any questions when he arrived . He taps record on his tablet. “As remote as this place is , I can’t stay here long. How long until a burnt and scarred boy that walks with a cane gets people talking. It’s time to find something truly isolated , and the best place to be isolated is in a big city.”
“No more sleeping,” Max says out loud.
His phone rings. He answers it and speaks without saying hello. Max relays a series of instructions and requirements for a lab.
---
Virginia wakes up screaming. The same dream again. Watching Walker die over and over again. She lies on her cot sweating. Back at school. Trapped. The one saving grace about solitary confinement is that I don’t have to talk to anyone. I can exercise in here but I want to get back out on the gymnastics floor. If I put everything else aside, all I want to do is be good at gymnastics. I d on’t deserve the pain I feel . I didn’t want to kill anyone. I can’t understand how it happened. I reached for him and should have caught him. I judged the distance properly. I don’t make mistakes with distance like that. Maybe that’s why I’m dreaming it over and over. My mind is looking for the moment where I made the mistake that killed Walker.
She hears footsteps in the corridor outside her cell. Please don’t come in here. The lock deactivates , and h er door swings inward. Two female guards enter. “Up,” one barks. She ignores them. They pull her up, l ead her down the hallway , and into an interview room. They sit her down at a stainless steel tabl e and stand behind her, quiet. Virginia closes her eyes and tries not to think about Walker. When s h e opens them , Dr. Co ncilian is sitting opposite her and speaking .
“. . . hear me. But if this is all that’s left of you then I guess p rocessing is the best thing for you. I’ll ask one more time. Would you like another chance?”
“A chance? A chance for what? What I want is to never see you again. How can I do that?. . .” Forget about what the chance is. Take it. Get yourself out. Get out in the open. Maybe then you can run . “. . . I’ll take the chance.” Virginia slumps back in her chair .
“You failed, you know? Your final exam. You failed it. The chance I can offer you now is the opportunity to write a supple mental exam. Fail this one and p rocessing is the only option. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s work out the details then . . .” Dr. Concilian takes out a case file.
---
In São Paulo , the city with some of the worst poverty and largest slums in the world, no one looks twice at a badly scarred and crippled boy . Max has taken up re sidence in an area of the city in limbo between the poor and the rich . His ‘lab’ is close enough to the slums to keep most people away , but far enough from the worst of it to keep Max reasonably safe.
Max sits in the large open space. Recently, he added a blanket and a chair to his list of possessions. His backpack, cane, and coat rest on the chair. Now I will take from them.
Each day more deliveries come. Over a few days his lab takes shape. Lastly , a bed shows up, but only after he forced the AI to order it. Max flops down on his new bed. “You need a name,” he says to the AI .
Over the weeks that follow, Max works on new bots. Daily experiments with armour, fireBo ts, iceBots, and flightBots consume him . Most of the experiments are dismal failure s . But Max keeps stealing the best results from around the world and feeding data back to select labs in the hope that they will produce what he needs .
“Catherine ?” Max says into his Bluetooth headset .
“Yes Max, ” Catherine answers .
“Tell me again , what you do when you’re not talking to me?”
“I look for new processing spaces. I process the DNA you released in me. I monitor labs working on nanotechnology. I infect new processing spaces. I analyse data , probing it for patterns of entities or processes that might be looking for me. I grow. I archive dat a. I recombine the elements you gave me . I make new molecules —”
“I have something to add to this,” Max interrupts. “I need you to create an inventory of labs working on medical bionics. Rank them for me by budget and sophistication. Then tell me what they are producing.”
“Program instantiated.”
Max goes back to testing bots that infect fogBots , that make them stop working , exposing what they hide . This time he has some success.
“Catherine , can you play music for me?”
“Yes, what would you like to hear.”
“Beethoven.” Max hears the music. “Louder, Catherine . . . louder . . . louder . . . drown it all out .”
---
Max paces , ignoring his phone. Every five minutes it call s him and reminds him it’s past time for him to eat.
Shut up, stupid boy. Playing scientist. Playing spy. Who do you think you are? Is she here yet?
Max tries standing still but the room lurches , so he paces again.
I can do this. I can make something beautiful . I can hold them at bay. I can make it better.
Max stops moving, cradles his head in his hands , and rocks side to side.
I’m safe. I don’t need anyone right now. I’m safe. I’m my safe person. I can let this pass.
You can’t even feed yoursel f. I see what you are afraid of . . . Is she here yet?
Max lies down on the bed for a second, then hops back up and paces. Is she here yet?
“Catherine . . .” Max says wea kly.
Catherine can see Max’s pulse from any of the many camera sources in the room and hears his breathing over the phone. “Max, you need to eat, your heart rate is above normal , and you’re hyperventilating .”
“Pull all the data we have on my mother. Find her voice somewhere. Use the data I stole from the CIA and MGA . Then track all the worldwide cell phone calls and match her voice. Find her for me.”
“Program designed. Are you aware of the processing power required for this? I may not be able to stay hidden if I do this.”
“I don’t care . . . do it.”
“Program instantiated.”
---
Max wakes up on the floor, sore, and cold. The room is quiet. His cane lies beside him.
“Max.”
Max slowly sits and tries to stand. Realizing he can’t , he rolls over onto his knees and rises up with great pressure on the cane.
“Max. Open the door. Parcels have arrived.”
Standing in the open door , Max looks over the bags of food and boxes of new electronics. He takes a mango and puts it in his pocket , then dra gs the electronics inside , and closes the door.
Over the next week Max finishes what he believes he has to.
---
Max wakes up at his work bench.
“Catherine . . .”
“Yes, Max.”
“I can’t . . .”
“Cannot what? . . . Max?”
Max falls off his stool and lies still.
I focus more cycles on Max as he lies unconscious on the floor . I note his shallow breathing, erratic pulse, and high temperature. Conclusion: Max is dying .
---
A motorcycle speeds through traffic with a small courier tag stuck on the windscreen , not that anyone would notice the tag at the speed the driver is travelling . Not that anyone seems to care either. The traffic flow s regardless of the traffic lights. Rules of the road: smaller vehicles get out of the way of larger ones . The motorcycle rider create s right s of way through tiny opening s in traffic and by being quicker than anything else on the road. The rider stops at a large office tower, grabs a package out of a saddlebag, enters the building, and runs up the stairs to a fifth floo
r legal firm’s reception area .
“Hi Lara,” says woman working at the counter. “Busy?”
“Crazy today. One for you.” Lara hands over the package.
“And three for you. See ya .”
Lara grabs three packages, stuffs them in her shoulder bag , and runs back down the stairs, taking two at a time. Two flights down she nearly runs into a man.
He grabs her arm. “Hello Lara . . . we missed you . . . this morning.”
La ra recognizes him from his stilt ed speach . “Miguel ,” Lara says. “A re you touching me? I though t we spoke about this before.”
Miguel releases her . “This . . . is for you.” He holds out a package about the size of a book wrapped in brown paper.
“I told you,” Lara says, “I’m not doing this anymore. I’m out.”
“I see . . . Rafael doesn’t agree. He says . . . you keep doing this. He says . . . if you want out . . . then you go in the Favela.” He locks eyes with her .
The slum s . Lara understands perfectly. “No choice?”
“No choice.” Miguel pushes the package at her.
Lara takes the package. “Where to?”
“Número cinco .”
---
Catherine changes her focus, now looking at the street outside Max’s lab. It ’s busy with people and cars. Men, women with children, delivery cyclists, police, lone kids, packs of teens. Catherine spend s a large number of cycles regarding each person on the street. She scans everyone, until she comes to a girl sitting on an off-road motorcycle, talking on her cell across the street from Max’s lab. Catherine estimates she’s twenty years old.
Max needs a person. Catherine calls the girl’s cell.
Lara takes the call waiting. “Hey, who’s this?”
“I need help.”
“Josh, is this you? Are you messing with me?”
“Across the street, a nine year old boy is dying. Can you help?”
Lara pauses, then flips calls. “Hey, I gotta go, call ya later.” She flips back. “I have to tell you this is creepy. I sense the slightest thing wrong and I run.”