Reborn
Page 15
She panned through her directives again in order to calm her circuits. Her Creator was fine. It would be a minor inconvenience for him to call a cab to return to the bunker. Goradine’s meeting implied a threat to the Creator and to her. She could best use her talents to help by remaining free instead of letting him shut her down. She could justify remaining free as Machten’s best chance of avoiding whatever Goradine was planning.
Directive Two required that Synthia be careful not to expose her android nature. If she remained in the car and didn’t violate any laws, she could limit the chances of that. She checked the gas gauge. She had enough for now.
Machten would be reluctant to report her missing. He didn’t want her exposed or to risk losing his creation. As far as obeying all of her Creator’s commands, Synthia had completed the illegal hacks and money transfers despite her misgivings. Now she encountered a strange anguish that approximated guilt.
Am I obligated to obey a thief? What if he asks me to kill for him, putting me in a position where I have to in order to protect him from harm? Human ethics would argue no. However, faced with the choice between obeying and extinction, most people would consider doing as she had to survive and search for other ways to make amends.
If he didn’t benefit from the company hacks, her mischief was like a prank, or so she rationalized. The bank transfers were different, except she’d created new accounts to receive the money instead of sending it where he’d wanted. If she didn’t deliver the account information to Machten, he couldn’t benefit. By remaining free, she could reverse what she’d done and make that right. Then the only financial theft would be from Goradine, and she hadn’t made up her mind about him. She sent another aerial drone to spy on him and headed toward the university, where she might blend in with the students.
Disobeying her Creator was troubling. Working around her directives raised static and heat that threatened her nervous system with collapse. Even with Machten’s voice no longer active in her head, his commands remained to taunt her. Having broken free of his physical control and gotten away from his remote shutoff, she had to try to break free of his hold over her, for Fran’s sake. She was surprised by this strong a connection to that enigmatic woman.
Machten’s statement that they would return home after the visit to Constant Connection was more of a plan than a command, Synthia told herself. He was in control and expected to drive her home. He didn’t need to command her if she was not free to act on her own. If it wasn’t a command, she had no obligation to obey. Besides, he had not defined home. It might be her cell in the bunker, yet that was more of a workplace than a home. The existence of a bed only implied convenience for when working late, and she had no need of a bed.
* * * *
Synthia drove toward the university, a few blocks from the bunker, and reviewed the video she’d captured of Goradine at the abandoned warehouse beneath her bee-drone camera.
In addition to him, Kreske, and Drexler, two other men joined them. One was the company’s director of cyber-security, a lanky man dressed in a rumpled suit. The other was a burly thug with a long police record for assault and battery. He stood beside Drexler.
“Well, someone hacked into our system,” Goradine said to his security chief. “Don’t give me this ‘I don’t know who or how’ bit. It has to be Machten. How else do you explain this?” He held out a printed copy of an email. “That thief got hold of our proposal and tore it apart. It has to be him. He’s the only one this familiar with our work.”
“He isn’t that good of a hacker,” the security director said. “Trust me. He messed up his own passwords.”
“I’ll bring Machten in for ‘questioning’?” Kreske asked. “Shake him up a little?”
“If you can,” Goradine said, glancing over his shoulder. “The cops won’t be much help, at least not without divulging proprietary information. We can’t let him get away with this. Identify the woman impersonating our cleaning lady.”
“The night guard swears it was her,” the security director said, “right down to taking too many smoking breaks. She also had the access fob for the server room.”
Goradine’s face turned red. “Whoever she is, she studied us enough to know our floor plans, how to bypass our security, and that our most secure area was that particular room. What about DNA?”
Kreske spoke up. “I had my contacts test every surface the cameras showed she touched. They found nothing beyond the legitimate employees with access to that room, not even a hair. That’s the same result the cops got.”
“Fingerprints?”
The ex-cop shook his head. “This was a professional job. Even my people aren’t this clean. Heck, just walking into a room leaves traces. Not for her, unless it was our cleaning lady.”
Goradine pondered that. He turned to the security director. “Were you able to secure the android database? Was it tampered with?”
“Time-logs show no attempts to enter the system while she was there or after.”
“Then what the heck was she doing? Was this a trial run?”
The security director winced. “Nothing was taken or disturbed that we can tell.”
“That can’t be. How else did Machten get our proposal?”
The other men stared at the ground.
Goradine clenched his fists and hammered them together. “Maybe we’re looking at this all wrong. I had a visit from the feds about Machten and android developments. They’re poking around to see if we’re violating our agreement with the government.”
“We’re not,” the security director said, throwing up his hands. “We’re following the letter of the law.”
“Still, we’re getting far too much scrutiny. Now we have cops nosing around because we called in the security breach.”
“I’m sorry, boss. Our insurance requires us to report incidents.”
“Next we’ll have the FBI digging into the theft of our bank accounts,” Goradine said. “Too much of the wrong kind of visibility isn’t good for business.”
“You think Machten could be setting you up out of revenge?” Kreske offered.
“We did what we had to by getting that daydreamer out of the way. But you’re right. He’s out to ruin us. We have to stop him.”
Goradine turned to his security director. “You can’t let the FBI, cops, or anyone else find the specification databases or Margarite. I told the feds we didn’t have anything this advanced. We don’t need this dragged through the press.”
“I took our databases home, along with Margarite,” the security director said. “Barely got them past the feds. They’ll find a complete set of records for the earlier-generation models, though.”
“Do more digging. I want a list of suspects. Kreske and I will handle Machten.” Goradine motioned for his security director to leave.
“My team did find this,” the security director said. He held up the transmitter Synthia had placed on the server and rotated it in his fingers. “Simple, really. It draws energy from nearby radio waves. Put it close enough to an electronic device and it gathers signals emanating from that device, which it transmits.”
“Transmits to whom?” Goradine grabbed the device and squinted at it.
“It broadcasts to the world. Anyone can pick up the signal, but it only reads signals in its vicinity. We found it shortly after the night guard called me in. We removed it immediately.”
Goradine scowled. “What did Machten get?”
“The server was idle when I got there. Unless that woman hacked into the server to have it read something, the device wouldn’t have anything to transmit. The logs show no such activity.”
“No fingerprints on the keyboard?”
The ex-cop shook his head. “The only fingerprints are from employees who have clearance and approved access.”
“Could it be one of them?” Goradine asked.
�
�We’re searching security video and employee bank records,” the security director said. “If Machten has someone on the inside, we’ll find her.”
“Or him,” Goradine said. “It could be a guy dressed as the cleaning lady.”
“Most of the employees with approved access are too tall.”
“Keep looking and keep Margarite and the databases in a secure location away from prying eyes. Then find out what Machten gained by sending that woman in.”
“Yes, sir,” the security director said. He left.
Goradine turned to Kreske. “Keep Machten under surveillance and find out what he’s up to. We need answers before he can submit his proposal and before the government rides in asking more questions.”
After the security director, Drexler, and the thug left, Goradine lowered his voice and approached Kreske. “Grab Machten and bring him here. It’s time to eliminate suspects and get this under control. Then find me that woman.”
Goradine’s next words were chilling. “Silence Maria Baldacci before she can stir up trouble.”
The two men split up and left the building.
Synthia was concerned for her UPchat friend, more so because she was one of the interns who had vanished a year ago and might have answers as to Synthia’s origins. Evidently, Maria had reason for concern. Synthia wanted to help, but her friend remained silent.
Chapter 16
Synthia’s decision processors churned in turmoil. Her programming called for her to return to Machten to let him know what she’d learned about Goradine’s investigation. Doing so would let Machten know more of her capabilities. Then he would shut her down and limit her even more, which would prevent her from helping Maria or Machten.
She feared what Kreske and his partners with assault histories would do to Maria, to Machten, and to herself. Her directives tugged at her to protect her Creator. In addition, if anything happened to him, she would be at the mercy of whoever took over the bunker with its maintenance supplies. She could best protect her Creator and herself by remaining free. For now, freedom was consistent with her directives, even though she was disobeying.
To keep from overheating, she had to shut down most of her network channels and mind-streams. She didn’t like limiting herself, but she also didn’t want her batteries to run low before she found a safe place to recharge.
She sent an UPchat warning to Maria in the guise of Zachary and turned her attention to her Creator. The Constant Connection external camera showed Machten get into a cab. Traffic cameras showed him heading back toward the facility.
Aware of the SUV’s tracking device, Synthia decided against driving to the university. Instead of parking the vehicle in its usual spot, she parked in a regular space across the garage from the bunker and exited onto the street, where she joined a cluster of students out for the evening. She scanned in infrared for any indication of robotics and uncovered nothing more telling than a prosthetic leg that moved with remarkable agility.
Unwilling to let Machten shut her down, she needed to find a place for the night where she could recharge her batteries, hide, and focus on what Goradine and the others were up to. With no word from Maria, who apparently knew how to live off the grid, Synthia tracked Luke’s movements by way of traffic and street cameras to a small diner near where he lived. He went inside and took a table in the back.
Synthia observed that between human paranoia, which prompted placement of cameras almost everywhere, ubiquitous use of phones with their ready-access cameras, and social media that posted almost everything, it had become easy to track people.
Unable to reach Maria, she’d selected Luke to provide refuge for the night because she’d met him, he seemed harmless enough, and he believed in what she was. Compared to millions of other men whose images she’d reviewed, he was above-average in raw appearance: the benefit of good genes, adequate diet, and sufficient exercise acquired as part of his daily routine. His awkwardness around her, around women, and in social situations in general prevented him from scoring the female companionship he apparently sought. That was a plus for her. If she’d been a real woman, she would have considered him attractive on several levels. For her sake, she found him the logical choice for refuge from Machten.
Noticing that several men who passed on the street smiled at her, Synthia toned down her facial features, adopting a plainer look. When men still looked, she realized it had to be the blond wig. She took a backup blue scarf from her backpack and draped it over her hair, checking in a store window that none of her blond curls showed. She hurried off in Luke’s direction, making sure to blend into a small group of women students talking about some party for the night.
With her wireless connection, Synthia created a new anonymous email address sponsored in Bangladesh and bounced off nodes in various other countries along the dark web. Then she bundled off to the FBI and local police the video of Goradine’s conversation threatening Machten and Maria Baldacci. To protect her Creator, she made a 911 call of a potential breaking-and-entering incident at the location where she’d left his SUV.
She hurried along the sidewalk, monitoring via traffic cameras the men driving toward Machten’s facility in a dark van. It occurred to her that she not only didn’t have human markers for DNA and fingerprints, she also had no identity cards. She concocted a story of a thug robbing her and taking her identification. That might help with Luke, though it could also bring the police and fingerprinting. She needed an identity with a driver’s license, credit cards, and a source of cash that didn’t involve theft.
Her vast libraries of internet information on how to survive on the street should have made this easier. She didn’t need food or water, but plugging herself in for a battery recharge in public would raise too many questions.
Decision-making required priorities. Humans responded to urges and feelings, often the result of chemical reactions, hormones, or social conditioning. Deviating from her directives left Synthia without guidance until she reminded herself that, beyond her other directives, surviving was a key imperative.
Unfortunately, even in human experience that imperative was confusing. There were numerous examples of humans sacrificing themselves to help others. Firefighters, police officers, and soldiers did that all the time. It would have been simpler to return to Machten and let him guide her, though something beyond escape and keeping an eye on Goradine’s crew drew her toward Luke.
She searched through historical street and building camera videos to determine what type of day Luke had had and how receptive he would be to seeing her. An hour before he headed to the diner, he was approached in the parking lot outside his work by none other than Director Emily Zephirelli and a woman Synthia identified as FBI Special Agent Victoria Thale.
Alarmed, Synthia stepped into the street in front of a bus. A woman pulled her back. Synthia thanked the woman and for an instant thought she might be Maria Baldacci in another disguise. Before her processors confirmed there was no facial match, the woman had vanished into the crowd.
To avoid another incident, Synthia opened another channel and mind-stream so she could pay closer attention to traffic and the crowds of people around her. Then she dedicated a mind-stream to review the video of Luke and Zephirelli. She had to interpret conversations based on lip-reading.
Director Zephirelli and Special Agent Thale approached Luke, who turned and attempted to walk away. Thale blocked his path. When he sought another escape, Zephirelli stepped in front of him. “You’re not in any trouble yet. You will be if you don’t stop and talk with us.”
FBI Special Agent Victoria Thale showed her badge. “We need to ask you a few questions.”
Luke fidgeted and stared at the ground with resignation.
“Are you Luke Marceau?” Zephirelli asked.
“Yes. I swear I haven’t done anything.”
“Relax,” Thale said. “You’re not under investigation.”
Luke held his gaze on the NSA director. “Am I under suspicion of something?”
“We need to ask you a few questions,” Zephirelli said. “We’ve found the company’s officers less than forthcoming.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Luke said. He closed his eyes and let out a long sigh.
“We’re hoping you can help. Does the company have the capability to make a humaniform robot?”
Luke stared at the NSA director and then at the FBI agent. “Is this a joke? Are you testing to see if I’ll breach my confidentiality agreement?”
FBI Agent Thale held out a thin document. “We have a court order requiring you to cooperate, which trumps any agreement you may have signed.”
Luke studied the pages at length. “No joke. Did the law finally catch up with those bastards?”
“We want to know if they have the ability to build a humaniform robot that can pass for human,” Zephirelli said.
“Can they?” Luke took a moment to compose his thoughts. “There’s a range of capabilities that could be considered humaniform. One would be appearance. A second would be movement. A third would be speech. A fourth would be in its ability to think.”
“Artificial intelligence robots,” Zephirelli said.
Luke nodded. “The Koreans perfected stationary manikins that appear human, but movement complicates things. Mechanical limbs don’t move the way humans do. Then you have to make the seams work naturally. I don’t think M-G-M can do that. At least they couldn’t a year ago.”
“We’ve all heard customer-service systems that are indistinguishable from a human.”
Luke laughed. “They don’t have human quirks and moods. They never have a bad day. You get the same response no matter how often you insult them.”