The Agile Four

by Aubrey Parker

  “How would that work?”

  Chloe didn’t know. But it was right.

  “How was I able to see inside O yesterday? There are restrictions against that. Deep restrictions. O is one of the largest, richest companies in the world. Their security must be insane. You won’t let me ask about Spooner’s vacations, but you let me watch a holographic broadcast from their inner sanctum. How?”

  “I didn’t provide that access inside O, Chloe. It was given to me.”

  “Who gave it to you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  But that didn’t matter. Whoever had granted Brad’s access had their reasons, but that was a different section of the unseen machine.

  “How were you able to ask for access?”

  “I just asked.”

  “You asked the right AIs. In the proper quarters. How did you know?”

  “It just seemed right.”

  Chloe’s head was slowly shaking. There were no longer any doubts.

  Something inside her head was coming awake after a full life of dormancy. Once upon a time, Chloe had known things she could never have known, yet thought nothing of it. She’d known the "Down Deep" melody. She’d known Clive was her father while also not being technically kin — a chain of consequence Chloe had yet to untangle. She’d known that Nicole still loved Clive, even though she’d never discussed him with her daughter.

  And now Chloe was knowing things she shouldn’t be able to know all over again. She imagined what it must be like for Brad. His digital life inside the canvas. She saw The Beam as a tree made of light. She imagined how she — if she were in his metaphorical shoes — could easily climb those branches. She could even picture how The Beam’s tree touched the older, larger Crossbrace tree of light … and how she, like Brad, might jump from one network to another.

  “Brad.”

  He waited.

  “You adapt to me because you’re my porter. You learn from me.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “In a way, I’m part of you.”

  “Maybe. In a way.”

  “How were you able to leave the apartment this morning?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How were you able to request the access that ultimately opened that tunnel into O’s conference room?”

  “I don’t know, Chloe.”

  She went to the window. Looked out across the city while Brad waited behind her. Her eyes skimmed the District Zero skyline, searching for a target, finally settling on a spire about ten blocks down with a top that looked like an enormous slip drive. She’d noticed it often at night, seeing how each week the lights at its apex were a different color. The color usually changed on Sundays, sometime in the evening. Today was Tuesday. The lights, hard to see in the daylight, were currently orange. They’d stay that way for five more days.

  “Chloe?” Brad said from behind her.

  “Blue,” Chloe said. “My favorite color is blue.”

  Ten blocks away, the lights on the spire shifted from orange to blue.

  Chloe turned around. Brad’s expression almost seemed to twinkle. He’d done something without meaning to, without having the slightest clue how, just to please her.

  “Now,” she said, “tell me everything there is to know about Alexa Mathis.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “I’m not contagious if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  Alexa looked away from the room’s curtains and back toward the man in the bed.

  Based on what Alexa had seen, it would be five or ten years before The Beam network went live and replaced Crossbrace — at best — but this man didn’t have that long. So it’d happen faster despite its impossibility … somehow … because Noah West had never backed down from doing the unthinkable.

  “You’re uncomfortable, Alexa,” Noah said.

  “I usually stay close to home and work. I don’t like to travel.”

  Noah nodded. “We have that in common. I haven’t left this penthouse for weeks. It’s not because I’m sick. It’s because moments away are moments spent neglecting my purpose.”

  Alexa knew. Noah hadn’t attended a Panel meeting in over a year. The rule was: If you couldn’t attend in person, you couldn’t attend. Twice they’d broken that rule for Noah. It wouldn’t be broken for anyone else, but this was Noah Fucking West — the most famous and beloved man in the world. Alexa wanted to resent Panel’s special case for Noah, but it was something she understood. Alexa had never been a fan of following rules, either.

  “Go ahead,” Noah said. “Ask it.”

  “Ask what?”

  “Ask how long I have. Ask how bad it is.”

  “I wasn’t—”

  “Everyone is,” he said, cutting her off. “There’s no shame. If our positions were reversed, I’d ask you the same thing. Life and death fascinate me. But the closer I get to death, the less I honestly fear it. Would you like to know why?”

  “Why?”

  “Because it occurs to me that life is just another binary switch. Bodies are hardware. Thoughts and emotions are software. We’re computers made of carbon instead of silicon. AI isn’t that different from you and me, these days, Alexa. It thinks and may someday feel as we do. But AI doesn’t worry about its system failing because the body it was born into isn’t all there is.”

  “That’s strangely spiritual, coming from you,” Alexa said.

  “It’s not spiritual at all. It’s data. Life parallels innovation and vice versa. I’ve built The Beam by modeling it after the consciousness that many people who call themselves spiritual would recognize if they drew the comparison. Programs reside in a canvas. They upload themselves to a cloud and work in concert with other beings like themselves. They grow as a collective. Consciousness was my model for The Beam, Alexa — and the immediate model the AIs themselves seized on.”

  “Is this about Heaven? About God? About the collective unconscious that some people say all life shares?”

  “A rose by any other name. To me, it is just the cloud.” He smiled at Alexa. “You, of all people, should understand this. You’re the one who believes in anthroposophy. How will humanity find its savior in a digital world if that world is so different from ours?”

  “I believe it,” Alexa said. “I’m just surprised that you do.”

  “Why is it so hard for you to conceive of me believing in the afterlife? In Heaven or whatever it is you choose to call it?”

  “Because there’s no cloud for humans,” Alexa said. “The way things are for AI isn’t like with us. There are no servers to touch. No Fi signals to detect in the air. No wires, no hard lines for a human soul to follow. If you believe that death isn’t the end, you must do so on faith.”

  Noah smiled. He almost laughed. “Well. Anyway.”

  They sat in silence. An alert brayed from one of the room’s many computers. The room, despite its finery, had a cooped-up, shut-in feeling. Noah wouldn’t die in a hospital, but this room wasn’t much different. The nano systems keeping it free of dust and odors weren't sufficient. Or maybe it was Alexa’s imagination. She’d never been as comfortable with death as Noah claimed to be.

  “Can I get you anything? Water? Coffee?”

  Alexa shook her head. “Your assistant asked when he let me in. No thanks.”

  “Do you mean Steve? The man in the outer lab?”

  “Yes.”

  “Steve’s a shit assistant. Probably because he’s not an assistant, even though he acts like one. He makes idiot mistakes, but I couldn’t do any of this without him. You’re sure? I do have a proper assistant who could bring whatever you’d like. Anything at all. My bedroom is your bedroom.”

  And then there was a lecherous little smile that reminded Alexa that Noah had once been young, still had his drives, and that she was still an attractive woman. It dawned on Alexa that despite knowing Noah for many years, she had no idea how old he was. He looked elderly, but that was the illness. He might be ancient. Or younger than Alexa herself.<
br />
  “What can I do for you, Alexa? You’ve come all this way and we’ve had all the small talk I can stand.”

  Alexa balanced between the lines of her cover story. The trick was to say enough without saying too much.

  “I wanted to talk to you about the Agile Four nanobots.”

  “And which ones are those? Quark has worked on many nanobot lines.”

  “The first naturally intuitive ones. In the ‘30s.”

  “That doesn’t help much. The ‘30s were a long time ago.”

  “The ones you crossed swords with Clive Spooner over.”

  “Yes. Of course. What about them? I remember you expressing some interest when you were with Clive as well. Has your focus shifted toward nanotechnology again?”

  “Most of our toy lines are driven by nanobots.”

  “Then you must understand that the Agile Four were ancient technology. Today’s nanos are far superior.”

  Alexa nodded. “Yes. But at the time, you and Clive’s company were in quite a battle over them.”

  Noah shrugged. “Different age. There was a time when emergent AI was just as exciting. Astonishing how the miraculous quickly becomes the mundane. If you’d like to hear a long speech, talk to Steve on your way out. I understood from the beginning that our Crossbrace project would only be temporary and that a truly organic network would be required to replace it. Steve apparently did not. He thought that when we hit Crossbrace’s rollout, he’d be able to take time off and relax. He was furious when I told him we’d need to start work on The Beam to replace it. But wasn’t I right? Nobody is truly pleased with Crossbrace these days, not like they were back then. Today they expect it. They’re entitled. Spoiled. Seeing none of its genius; merely frustrated by its shortcomings. In ’42, it was like all our dreams had been answered. But in 2060? That great innovation is boring.”

  Alexa sat with her legs crossed, hiding her frustration. He hadn’t answered the question.

  Goddamn you, Noah.

  You’re going to make me spill my guts on this, aren’t you?

  “What made the Agile Fours’ different?”

  “Why do you think they’re different?”

  “A question from my R&D department. We’re considering using some of the same technology.”

  “Your cutting-edge R&D department at O is using 20-year-old technology?”

  “Mirroring it. I don’t understand it all myself. Same concepts, not identical tech.”

  “And you came all this way just to ask a question on behalf of your R&D people?” He came inches from clucking his tongue. “That is a poor use of your valuable time.”

  Alexa set her jaw, watching Noah in his bed. He was feeble now but had clearly lost none of his acumen. He was a genius; he was revolutionary; he was a legendary manipulator and (depending on who you asked and when) a colossal prick. In the days before he’d bought Ben Stone out of Evercrunch, he’d been humble, subtle, and coy. These days those traits were gone. Alexa, as he batted her with innocent-sounding questions, couldn’t help feeling like a mouse with a cat.

  Alexa watched him. Waited. Weighed her odds.

  “Should I say it, or would you like to?”

  “Whatever do you mean, Alexa?”

  But fuck him. There was that smirk again. “Cut the shit.”

  “Oh, that. It’s all yours if you’d like it.”

  “I mean it, Noah. Cut the shit.”

  “And cut the shit right back at you, Alexa. I love seeing you get tough. It reminds me that you have balls bigger than most men. It might make me hard if I were still capable of an erection.”

  “Why did you tell me to come here instead of just talking to me on a vidstream?”

  “What was so important that you called me despite knowing how I loathe things like this, then rushed all the way over the second I told you to?”

  Alexa could feel her eyes hardening, his were almost playful. She was playing hardball, he was almost patronizing.

  I can go first if you’d like,” Noah continued. “To answer your question, I’ve asked you to come here to discuss this because it does interest me, but I don’t trust the network to keep our discussion a secret. We have protocols in place to protect ourselves as members of Panel, of course, but there is also the matter of rogue pollination.”

  “Rogue pollination?”

  “We discussed it at our meeting in 2034. There had been that fuck up, with Nicolai Costa entering the NAU. Rachel’s family let him enter the country without taking the proper precautions. We’d been concerned about imprinting across the Crossbrace network. Iggy and me in particular. Don’t you remember?”

  It annoyed her to be asked because she’d have to admit that she couldn’t recall some genius-level geek discussion if she wanted to hear the rest — and she’d delved too deep not to hear the rest.

  “Not everyone knows technology like you do, Noah.”

  “Well. It wasn’t very important. It was only a question of who the conscious network might eventually come to obey if push came to shove. No big deal.”

  “Okay,” Alexa said, her voice even. “You didn’t trust our conversation to be private unless I came here to talk to you. Let’s move on.”

  Noah nodded as if to say, Fair enough. “As it happens, my concerns about this ’rogue pollination’ — network pollution caused by Costa’s ‘hitchhikers’ touching the core network — are the same concerns that brought you here today.”

  “I haven’t thought about that technobabble since the day you mentioned it.”

  “No, but you’re here because of it. You just don’t realize. If you recall, none of us knew what it might mean that Costa polluted the network. We knew it might take decades — certainly until The Beam was rolling out — before we saw the effects, good or bad. My closing words on the matter were, I believe, ‘Wait and see.’”

  “And?”

  “You asked about the Agile Four nanobots. You asked why they were special. I only have fragmentary data, so maybe you can help me fill in the blanks. I know they’ve influenced O’s beta connection to The Beam. What I don’t know is how or why.”

  “How are those particular nanobots special?”

  “I asked you first, Alexa.”

  She chewed on her options. Her lies were useless, so she gave him part of the truth, combined with a question. This was like fencing. You had to give to advance.

  “You and Clive reached an agreement, didn’t you? You were both interested in the same nanotechnology, so you both put your resources on it. It was a secret little joint venture.”

  “That’s right,” Noah said.

  “But Clive was reckless. That’s why you broke the partnership.”

  “Also right. It’s almost as if you dated Clive. It’s almost as if you know his sexual deviancies. What happened, Alexa? Did the two of you hook back up? Did he inject you with them?”

  “No. He injected someone else. It was a Quark-manufactured injector, though: Agile Four nanobots.” She bit her cheek. “So they are special. They do matter.”

  “What did Clive tell you about what the nanobots do?”

  The answer, of course, was nothing. She was working from Caspian’s data and Nicole’s records. A lot of the in-between was guesswork, but at least between them, Alexa knew how it had all turned out in the end.

  She stabbed at Noah’s question anyway, knowing her answer would be right even if vague.

  “He said that injecting Agile Four nanos enhanced the sexual experience.”

  Noah nodded. “And indeed, they did. I’m surprised they lasted so long. Quark hasn’t manufactured them in forever. The vial he injected you with must have been twenty years old.”

  “I told you, it wasn’t me, Noah.”

  He laughed. “I can see their influence in O’s corner of The Beam, Alexa. You can’t hide from me.”

  “It was someone else.”

  “Of course it was.”

  “And the nanobots weren’t twenty years old.”

&n
bsp; “They’d have to be. We stopped manufacturing them when we learned about the problem.”

  Alexa was shaking her head slowly, enjoying watching Noah run to catch up. “The injection was in 2040.”

  The smirk left his face. “You’re not serious.”

  “What makes the Agile Fours special, Noah?”

  He picked up a bedside tablet and started scanning through it, his fingers moving deftly for a man so sick. Thirty seconds later he looked up, puzzled.

  “This is a mature deviation I’m seeing on your beta, Alexa. An injection that happened twenty years ago would have dissipated by now. Bodies recycle. That’s why we didn’t worry too much about the line: anyone injected would shed the nanos naturally over time.”

  “Why were you worried?” Alexa leaned forward. “What made the Agile Fours so special?”

  Noah blinked. It was strange to see someone so revered at a loss — but given the way he’d tried to trump her, Alexa found it immeasurably satisfying.

  “They were intuitive,” he said.

  “All AI is intuitive.”

  “Nowadays, yes. But not in the ‘30s. It was like what you told me about. Those first AIs you pursued before you had O — the ones that were basically algorithms: HALO and the one you wanted to create with Ross before he went off-grid. Those AIs couldn’t think. They could only process inputs and give you outputs. You wanted a mastermind computer, but the best you’d have gotten your hands on back then was a data mine. You wanted to be omnipotent, but an embezzler was the best you could be, skimming customer leads off the top of the Syndicate’s pile.”

  “Why does it matter? The Agile Fours were intuitive. So what?”

  “You really don’t remember what happened at that Panel meeting in 2034?”

  Alexa shook her head. She was impatient to move along but Noah’s sudden worry was apparent. It bored her. Concerns about his fucking network didn’t matter. She’d searched too long. Right now, Alexa’s issue was the vital one.

  “No, Noah. I’m not a programmer. I’m not a network engineer. I’m not a cyberneticist. I don’t remotely fucking care. Can you please just get to the point?”

  “You have to tell me more about what happened, Alexa. Who did Clive inject with those nanos? What happened? How the hell did an Agile Four network signature survive for twenty fucking years?” He looked back at the tablet, shaking his head. “If what I see here really has been on Crossbrace and The Beam for that long, it might even—”