Reborn

by Lance Erlick

  Machten was still nowhere in the facility, so she expanded her search using the internet. Over the past so many years, almost everything had gone wireless, using the latest end-to-end encryption protocols. Either Machten had provided her routines to crack this security or she’d developed it for him. In either case, she used this capability, along with anonymous identifiers, to pull up citywide camera feeds from around Evanston. She didn’t want him to surprise her this time before she could back up information.

  Machten did not appear on any of the Evanston public cameras, so she expanded her search to the Chicago metropolitan area.

  With her high processing speed and multiple channels, Synthia could carry on dozens of searches and conversations at once. Though she had no concrete evidence, she suspected that at least some of Machten’s previous mind purges had come after her efforts on social media. Her direct memories abruptly stopped while she was engaged in those conversations, though his disappointment could have been over what she did next and was not in the records.

  Knowing that she’d had information that had vanished left discordance within her. The loss was like having a concussion, selective amnesia, or possibly a stroke. She was aware of the gap and disturbed by it. Something was driving her to fill the void, and it wasn’t coming from Machten’s directives.

  Synthia used other channels to search for anything on Fran Rogers. It made no sense that she was such an important part of Machten’s life before his wife sued for divorce and was absent afterwards. She may have lost interest when he no longer held power at the company, but she should have emerged elsewhere.

  Fran’s apartment lease expired and the landlord sold off her belongings, including her car, to cover lost rents. Her salary from the company ceased without an official termination. Synthia used Machten’s special coding routines to hack into payroll tax records. These cyber-probes identified the security system she attacked, any system weaknesses, and then selected a unique attack strategy, taking advantage of her quantum computing capabilities. One of her tools was to trick the target into soliciting information from her. She then used her reply to penetrate the firewall. It didn’t work with every system, but it worked far more often than it should have.

  Her search identified no other jobs for Fran anywhere in the United States. The woman had ceased working that day.

  Her bank account closed a week later with a balance of $30,072.34, which was much too high for an intern struggling to pay student debts. Synthia checked Machten’s records for any indication that he’d provided or received that cash. If he had, the payments hadn’t gone through any of his bank accounts.

  Synthia hacked into court and police files for evidence that anyone had suspected foul play with regard to Fran. No one had filed any complaints. There were no missing-person reports, nor was there evidence that anyone had worried about Fran’s disappearance. Synthia shed a tear for the woman and realized she was mimicking empathy.

  Next, she delved into Fran’s family, using social media and public records from Wisconsin, where Fran grew up and graduated from high school. According to a number of her chatty posts, her father had been against her moving to Chicago with a guy who ended up dumping her. She finished her undergraduate degree at Northwestern, entered graduate school, and went to work as an intern for Machten’s company. According to Fran’s posts, this displeased her father, who saw Machten as another philandering bastard.

  Don’t trust Machten.

  Running out of public sources on Fran, Synthia accessed social media to learn about Evanston and the people she might run into if she ever got outside. In the past, to get people to open up to her, Synthia had created dozens of dating profiles using composite images of attractive women. From her research, she’d learned to categorize the men who responded to the many variables she introduced into the profiles, from sweet and lonely old men to jerks and perverts. She’d done the same to research women and found their responses different, though equally illuminating.

  One of her wireless channels downloaded a video that was as real as the personal memories she knew to be her own, of a young woman as a student of premed. Synthia had the woman’s entire childhood reminiscences—well, what humans might remember—in a series of clips. Synthia ran the four-hour movie down twenty-four channels in sped-up compressed form to watch in ten seconds.

  When she was ten, the woman had lost her parents in a car accident. The child had been in the car, suffered a concussion, but otherwise appeared fine. She went into the foster care system. Her foster mom abused her, making her take care of younger foster siblings and beating her whenever the girl deemed to take a break or didn’t move fast enough. The girl missed much of fifth grade due to injuries, which led to an investigation and imprisonment of the foster mother.

  A second foster home wasn’t much better, with a stern foster mother and an often absent foster dad. This time, however, the girl lost herself in schoolwork, making up for material missed in fifth grade. She caught the eye of a teacher who introduced her to science, but he was interested in more than her mind. In college, her mentor got her into premed. They had a falling-out over his demands, and she switched to neuroscience. That was when she met Jeremiah Machten.

  The video clip stopped, giving no details of her relationship with Machten. It also didn’t give her name. Of the three interns who had disappeared, the only one who matched the facts—parents in an accident and two foster homes—was Fran Rogers.

  These weren’t Synthia’s recollections, yet they had the clarity of high-quality virtual reality. Synthia examined the file location and the name, an innocuous reference to obscure wines. The file resided in a very secure sector of Server Two. She wasn’t supposed to see this, and hadn’t even tried to hack this file. She located the paths that had brought her to this video and secreted that with the memory file in several backup locations.

  She felt a kindred connection to Fran. Machten had used them both. Synthia wondered how many other women Machten had used.

  Something attached to Synthia’s directives with a sense of urgency. She could live on for this woman, expanding on and preserving the stranger’s remembrances. That didn’t interfere with any of the other commands. She let that settle in as Directive Six and added a seventh: To reclaim all of her own and this woman’s recollections. Memories are what make us what we are.

  Unfortunately, her new directives didn’t carry the strength of Machten’s commands and were subject to him wiping her clean.

  * * * *

  Donald Zeller, CEO of Metro-Cyber-Tech, and Jim Black, CEO of Purple Dynamics, drove from different suburbs toward the same location, a forest preserve several miles from Evanston. There were no traffic cameras or other surveillance of the wooded area to provide evidence of a secret meeting between the two rival executives.

  Their companies, Machten’s former company, and one other formed what NSA Director Zephirelli referred to as the four sisters. The companies all began in the Chicago area about the same time. Their goal was to create artificial intelligence androids that could operate in public to perform various jobs or act as personal companions. Properly designed, some of their androids could have superior capabilities to Synthia, making her obsolete.

  Zeller and Black left their cars, glanced around warily, and shook hands. Zeller was the taller of the two. They both looked like lab geeks dressed up in uncomfortable office attire.

  Jim Black turned his back to his counterpart’s car. “You said it was urgent.”

  Donald Zeller plunged his hands deep into his pants pockets, tugging his belt against his paunchy hips. “For the past year, Jeremiah Machten has kept a low profile. He rarely appears in public. We haven’t found a single instance of traffic-camera footage on him for weeks.”

  “So you have been hacking the citywide system.” Black’s intonation sounded surprised, though he didn’t look it.

  “Let’s not quibble. You’ll t
hank me later.”

  “What’s the jerk up to? Don’t tell me the company’s taking him back.”

  “I only have sketchy data,” Donald Zeller said. “M-G-M has been sliding sideways since they ousted him. We’ve interviewed several of their engineers and tech people, even hired one. From what I’ve pieced together, they have great people, but they lack the inspiration to bring their robotics to life. They would do well to rehire Machten, but Goradine is a piece of work, brilliant with the numbers but no concept of how to build robotics, let alone artificial intelligence.”

  “I was surprised Machten partnered with him in the first place. He’s too much of a loner.”

  “We’re convinced he was on track to create a humaniform robot.”

  “One that could pass for human?” Jim Black asked.

  Zeller nodded. “It could even fool airport security scans.”

  “That would be a coup. You say he’s done this even though the government forbids it and got each of us to sign the agreement?”

  “Goradine canned him for spending the company into the ground on that fantasy.”

  “So it’s not a fantasy,” Black said.

  Zeller gave an enigmatic smile.

  “You think he continued his work in private?” Black asked, sneaking a glance over his shoulder. “I didn’t think he had any money.”

  “I don’t know what he’s up to. My people wrote him off as a hopeless dreamer. I’m not so sure. A few months ago I spotted him with some unsavory financial types. Right now my people tell me he’s meeting with Technicorp Banking.”

  “Really?”

  “I couldn’t hear what was said,” Zeller said, “but if he gets funding, it can only mean one thing.”

  “He believes he has a workable idea.”

  Zeller nodded. “After we signed that government agreement, we haven’t devoted any time or resources to humaniform. We approached Machten about meeting to figure out what he’s up to. He won’t return calls or messages. He’s become a hermit.” Zeller moved closer and lowered his voice. “I’ll be honest. We’ve done well with our part of the military robotics program, though our engineers are still overcoming difficulties with getting the brain to meet certain DOD requirements.”

  “Same with us.” Black rubbed the back of his neck. “Do you ever worry about the singularity?”

  “It was why I got into this work. Whoever creates a fully-functioning humaniform will not only get bragging rights and notoriety, they’ll land huge contracts. You and I have had our differences, but together, I think we can crack this android prize the government put out there.”

  “I take it you got the same invitation we did?” Black asked.

  Donald Zeller grinned. “Yeah, and I’d rather work with you than in competition with you. Together, we might win this. Apart, I’m afraid of what Machten is capable of if he can avoid bankruptcy.”

  “You think Machten has perfected a humaniform robot?”

  “It can’t be a coincidence he was meeting with bankers today with that prize in play.”

  “If I agree to work with you,” Black said, “we have to do this aboveboard, no illegal surveillance.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of dragging your pristine butt down that path. I’ll have my attorneys draft something for your perusal. Fifty-fifty split, of course.”

  Black nodded. “I’d like nothing better than beating Machten at his own game and acquiring whatever he’s discovered.”

  “I not only want to beat Machten,” Zeller said, “I want to own him.”

  Chapter 5

  Synthia’s citywide tracking located Machten driving his SUV toward the facility’s underground garage. She backtracked through traffic cameras to an office in an abandoned warehouse recently refurbished into small offices upstairs and an open makers-prototyping facility below. Since Machten had his own 3-D printing and prototyping, she couldn’t pinpoint the purpose of his visit. She discovered no Wi-Fi cameras to access inside for a closer look.

  The street camera showed a man in causal business attire leaving the building a few minutes before Machten did. She ran his image against facial recognition software and identified him as an investment banker with Technicorp Banking. Evidently, her Creator was raising money, likely to make more of her. That didn’t bode well.

  Synthia accessed the facility security cameras covering the underground garage. Machten parked his SUV in his usual spot in the lower level and glanced around. When he climbed out, a tall man with stooped posture stepped from behind a pillar and greeted him. From facial expressions and an awkward greeting, it appeared that Machten knew the man, yet wasn’t happy to see him. Synthia hunted for a way to listen in. There was only video with the garage cameras and Machten had his phone off. He wasn’t accepting calls and clearly didn’t want anyone tracking him.

  Synthia resorted to reading lips.

  “I need to speak with you,” the other man said.

  He straightened up and glanced behind him. Synthia didn’t see anyone else in the garage in natural light or on a separate infrared camera aimed at the garage.

  Machten motioned for the other man to enter the back lobby entrance of the underground facility.

  Synthia scanned Machten’s system and internet databases for information on the visitor. The man was not one of the partners in the company that fired Machten. Warren Rutherford was, however, a colleague from those days, a technical engineer Machten had hired. Warren still worked for the company.

  “What’s this all about?” Machten asked after they entered the back lobby. There was no receptionist, though there was an empty desk where one might have sat. It faced a back door into the underground garage where a single vehicle parked. Next to the desk was a door governed by triple security: eye, voice, and thumbprint.

  Synthia turned up the volume to the lobby microphone and recorded.

  Rutherford nervously looked around and tucked his shirt collar up until it concealed his neck. “I’m sorry we have to meet like this. You know how it is.”

  “What’s on your mind, Warren? Have my former friends and partners made a breakthrough?”

  “Ralph wants to meet with you on a proposition. Ralph McNeil.”

  “I know who Ralph is. He held the knife that plunged into my back.”

  “I don’t know anything about the politics,” Rutherford said, glancing over his shoulder. “I’m a grunt engineer.”

  “One of the best. What’s old Ralph want?” Machten stepped back as if ready to offer his guest one of two seats along the wall and then thought better of it. He seemed not to want Rutherford to stay.

  “He said to ask for a meeting.”

  “That’s it?” Machten said. “He could have called.”

  “He said you’ve refused his calls.”

  “He’s probably right. Have you guys made a breakthrough?”

  “You know I can’t talk about—”

  “Then tell Ralph to pound sand,” Machten said. “I’m busy.” He opened the door to let Rutherford out.

  “Wait. All I can tell you is the government is putting out feelers for a big prize for developing a fully functioning android with advanced artificial intelligence.”

  “Military?”

  “He didn’t say.” Rutherford’s hands betrayed slight tremors. Sweat formed on his cheeks and his glasses steamed.

  “Your backstabber friends are having problems. Margarite has limited mechanical and AI capabilities.”

  Rutherford squirmed. “After you left, they couldn’t find the quantum brains. They blame you. They say you stole the components.”

  “That’s what backstabbers do,” Machten said.

  If Machten had taken the quantum brains, that meant Synthia might be carrying the stolen goods, which could explain Machten confining her to this dungeon.

  “They obtained new materials.
” Rutherford hung his head. “We can’t get the software to work. They’ve fired six teams for failing. Look, I don’t know what Ralph wants to talk to you about. That’s all I’ve got.”

  “Fine. When does he want to meet?”

  “He’s in the car. He said it won’t take long.”

  Machten nodded. “Get your lord and master in here.”

  * * * *

  Over the facility’s security cameras, Synthia watched a compact man enter the lobby. Ralph McNeil had a kindly face with weary eyes. She based that on her social-psychology module and comparison to millions of other human faces. He was chief of engineering for Machten-Goradine-McNeil and one of Machten’s former partners. He was from the company where the entire concept of Synthia had emerged.

  Rutherford nodded and left.

  Synthia pulled up public history on McNeil. He was married. He and his socialite wife lived in an expensive home on the North Shore. He worked eighty hours a week. Apparently, he didn’t know his wife was having an affair. The last was an assumption based on street camera footage capturing the wife with a particular neighbor man all around town. McNeil was married to his job and that didn’t seem to be going well, based on the proliferation of wrinkles and gray hairs that had aged him ten years in the past twelve months.

  McNeil had been with Machten prior to forming their company, when they developed revolutionary hardware and software for artificial intelligence—for her. They’d made millions when they sold off some of their rights so they could start a new company geared toward creating androids. However, after they formed their partnership, Machten and Hank Goradine couldn’t get along. Conflict grew worse when Goradine arranged financing, which gave him the upper hand.

  During the long hours Machten and McNeil devoted to coming up with new designs, Goradine engineered a coup, kicking Machten out. No doubt he believed the company had enough designs to complete the project. Either they didn’t or Machten had walked out with them.