by Lance Erlick
The stubble made her appear mannish. Adjusting her face and flattening her chest, she could pass for a man. Not liking the look, she placed a plain, dark wig on her head and got behind the wheel. She’d only driven once before, but Synthia had observed enough behavior that she had no problem pulling the car out of the parking garage and onto the street. She was free of the bunker and of Machten, though not ready to celebrate. Fran Rogers appeared to be okay, but Synthia had to find Maria Baldacci and protect her from Goradine. She also needed to save Luke for Krista, for herself. Both required dealing with Goradine.
The company’s security cameras showed Goradine’s men in the lobby of Luke’s employer arguing with a beefy receptionist who could have doubled as a guard. Luke’s boss approached, a tough-looking woman who stood up to the men like a pit bull. Synthia lacked any voice recording, so she read lips as the boss explained that Luke had gone home. The men didn’t wait to ask where he lived.
Driving the speed limit to avoid drawing attention, Synthia forced lights to turn green and drove toward Luke’s apartment. With evening rush-hour traffic, she was moving too slowly.
She called Luke on a private line that spoofed a burner phone. “Luke?” The drone camera at his apartment showed him answering his cell phone on his balcony.
“You?”
“Listen, I don’t have much time. I’m sorry about the other night.”
“Leave me alone,” he said.
“Three men are coming to hurt you. Get out of your apartment and meet me where I promised the other night.”
“What’s this all about?”
“I’ll explain later. Go before those men arrive and don’t let anyone see you.” Her other drone showed the men leaving the parking lot at Luke’s company. “Hurry.”
She severed the connection before he wasted valuable time arguing with her and drove as swiftly as she could.
Traffic cameras showed NSA Director Emily Zephirelli with FBI Special Agent Thale driving toward Luke’s apartment. Another feed showed Detective Marcy Malloy driving that way, as well. Synthia decided to deal with Goradine herself, before he convinced Zephirelli that he was on their side searching for Synthia.
Routed through anonymous dark-web channels, Synthia sent a message to Director Zephirelli that they should meet.
She gave the location of a forest preserve and directions to where she’d traced a meeting of the heads of the three competitors of Machten’s old company. She added copies of each of their android proposals, added Machten’s and his old company’s documents, and provided data on the website that received them. She concluded with
In her attachments, she noted that the four Chicago company proposals divulged proprietary technological advances in order to win the contest. She didn’t divulge that Machten’s had flaws that would cause his proposal to fail to perform, flaws he hadn’t had time to uncover. She’d added those errors to forestall the creation of more copies of her or the militarization of android technology. She cleared the message stream and deleted the sender address and ID to obliterate any trace to her.
Next, she sent a message to Detective Malloy.
Synthia monitored both cars as they turned away from Luke’s place and headed toward the forest preserve. Goradine’s men were still heading toward the apartment. She had no idea how to divert them and decided not to. Four blocks from Luke’s home, she’d had enough of the slow traffic. She parked in a small lot and sprinted.
Luke remained at home, so she called again. “I told you to leave your apartment.”
“You can see me?”
“So can the bad guys. They want to hurt you because of me. Go! Now!”
Startled, he grabbed his backpack and jumped over the balcony railing. He rolled onto the lawn, stood up, and spoke into his phone. “Is this necessary?”
“Yes.”
Luke snuck down to the alley behind his apartment. “Why?”
Synthia was two blocks away. Spotting other pedestrians, she slowed to a fast walk. “I’ll explain later. Wait for me.” She disconnected the call and spotted him at the end of the alley.
She hid behind bushes, hoping he would keep going. He lingered and turned toward his home. Stubborn boy. She moved closer to the apartment building.
Goradine’s two men parked across the street and waited in their car, talking. She pulled the drone she’d had following Luke and lifted it higher in the air for a better look. Then she sprinted across the street, dodged a car, and followed Luke down the alley. He stopped, acted confused, and entered his apartment by way of the back entrance.
* * * *
Spotting a neighbor on a nearby back balcony, Synthia couldn’t chance entering the way Luke had. With the men out front and pedestrians on the street, that was too visible as well. She approached the apartments under cover of bushes and pulled up from the local zoning site a diagram from a year ago, when the owner had gotten a building permit to upgrade the electrical service and the HVAC system.
The most private way into the building appeared to be through the basement. She didn’t have human fears of dark places, since she had infrared vision; though Krista did, as evidenced by memories as a child locked in a basement. That sent shivers of static through Synthia’s circuits.
Synthia feared electrical current for its ability to bring the android equivalent of death. The risk was less than 1 percent, but she’d experienced too many shutoffs. She wouldn’t be able to restore herself. That risked discovery, which violated her old and new directives. She ignored the risk; she had to get between the men and Luke in a private setting, without witnesses or cameras she couldn’t control. She had to stop Goradine from hunting her.
Synthia reached the side of the building and looked up. There were no first-story windows visible from where she hid. Those on the second floor had bars, confirming what she’d seen on the building plans. Statistically, this neighborhood was safe, though this apartment building had been broken into several times over the past few years.
According to a public complaint that one resident detailed on social media, renters had demanded protection along the well-hidden side windows. They also demanded security cameras out front and in the hallways. When the owner refused, tenants found a local attorney willing to take the case pro bono. Together, they got the owner to install the bars and the cameras. In any case, there would be no access from the upper-story windows, even though infrared indicated no one was home on this side of the building.
The aerial drone camera above her showed one of the men getting out of the car. He headed Synthia’s way. She pushed through hedge and thick vegetation to a window well. She lifted the lid, scrunched down among spiderwebs, and pulled the lid over her. Vegetation hid her from the man as he hurried by.
Careful not to break the glass, she forced open the window and eased herself into the dark basement. Her drone confirmed that the man who had passed her had located a hiding place near the alley where he could watch the back windows and door. Luke was trapped.
Using a wireless channel, Synthia called him. “You should have left while you could. Now one of the men is in his car out front and another is in your alley, watching the back door and your balcony. They’re here for you. Do not attempt to leave your apartment. Find a place to hide.” She cut the connection.
She flipped on a light and looked around. The basement was a mess of soggy boxes and junk. There was no standing water, though water damage indicated there had been. That image sent electrical disturbance through her circuits to remind her of the potential risks.
Along two walls stood twelve locked storage units, one for each apartment. At one end of the basement were the furnace and water heater, next to the electrical panel. Across from her were the stairs up.
Synthia did a quick calculation, assessing her chances of escaping with Luke now that he’d chosen to stay.
Goradine’s men covered the front and back. Curious people gathered across the street to watch. There was less than a 15 percent chance of escaping without someone seeing her, which would draw the attention of the police hunting for the woman in a blue scarf, and the FBI with that NSA director looking for Luke’s connection. His lack of trust complicated matters, dropping the success factor to less than 6 percent. He was full of questions and there was no time to explain. She needed a diversion.
To make matters worse, Luke snuck out onto his balcony for a look. The man in the alley spotted him and made a call to his partner. Luke pulled out his cell phone to return her call. The attempt presented a “no-such-number” response, which had him puzzled.
Synthia synchronized to the phones of the two ex-military men and listened in as they spoke.
“Are you certain it’s the boy?” the man in the car asked.
“Here’s his picture.” The alley man sent an image of Luke, looking through the bars of his balcony.
Car-man called his boss to report the news.
“I’ll be right there,” Goradine said. “Don’t do anything until I arrive, unless he attempts to leave. Then capture him alive. We need to interrogate him about the girl.”
Synthia called Luke.
He returned to his apartment to answer the phone. “Is that you?”
“By going out on your balcony, you confirmed that you’re here. They’ve called their boss, who will arrive shortly. I said hide yourself and I meant it. They intend to question you about me. Then they plan to eliminate witnesses.” She cut the line.
Synthia spotted a discrepancy between the building plans and what she saw before her. A wire that was supposed to connect to a second-floor hallway ceiling fan was hanging loose, disconnected. By the appearance of the work, the electrician or the owner had taken shortcuts. Perhaps the owner had done the work himself and hadn’t finished.
Probes of city files showed an incident. The residents had called the fire department about electrical sparks leading to an apartment fire. The owner made a claim on his insurance. Yet he hadn’t fixed the defect—he’d disconnected the fan’s wire as the source of a short.
That gave Synthia the seed of a diversion.
Chapter 28
Synthia had sent several smaller bee-drones into the forest preserve to keep watch and had them perch in trees along the way. Director Zephirelli and FBI Special Agent Thale pulled off the road. Detective Malloy pulled in shortly afterwards.
Zephirelli approached the detective. “What brings you out here?”
“I’m guessing the same thing as you,” Malloy said. She showed the text message she’d received.
Zephirelli studied it and turned to Agent Thale. “Is this some kind of a joke?”
Zephirelli contacted her team in Washington to trace the message. Moments later, the reply came back. “What message?” The texts had vanished from all three phones.
“Dig deeper,” she told her team and turned to Agent Thale. “Get some backup and let’s find out what this is all about.”
Via the bunker’s surveillance cameras, Synthia made sure Machten was still secure in his lobby. His face was red from exertion as he wiggled to break free. All he’d managed was to get into an awkward position on the sofa and then drop to the floor. At first that concerned her, a tug to her old directives, but he appeared okay, for now.
Synthia turned off the apartment’s electrical master switch, plunging the basement and the entire building into darkness. The evening sun still shined through the windows, giving some light while she worked.
She connected the remote receiver she’d plucked from her head into the electrical panel’s trip switch and connected the hall fan’s wire to the panel. Then she turned the power on. Lights returned and no sparks flew from the panel.
Her aerial drone showed Goradine driving toward the apartment. She had to move.
Synthia filled a bucket with water and headed upstairs. The man in back was still crouched in the alley. The man out front got out of his car and lit a cigarette. She hacked all of the electrical devices in the apartment building, including thermostats, lights, refrigerators, all of the smart devices that had become common over the past so many years. She also hacked into TVs and computer cameras to check out the other apartments.
She determined that the only residents still at home were an elderly woman in a third-floor apartment in front, another woman in the apartment behind that, a man on the first floor, and Luke on the second floor. The older woman stared out her front window at the man across the street. She dialed 911 on her cell phone.
Synthia blocked the signal; she didn’t need company. She hoped the two women upstairs and the man downstairs would be alert if an electrical fire broke out. She didn’t want any innocent bystanders hurt. Meanwhile, Luke pranced around his apartment like a nervous chipmunk. He’d shut all the blinds and barricaded the door and windows. He put his computer equipment in an opening above his closet that was too small for him to crawl into. He’d tried. Next, he attempted to stuff himself under the sink in the kitchen. At least he was taking her seriously.
Synthia left one network channel focused on him and carried the bucket of water to the second-floor hallway. Her aerial drone confirmed that Goradine had arrived, and he had an infrared camera by the looks of it. He called the alley man. “Get closer to the back door and don’t let this worm escape.”
Alley-man hurried along the thick bushes on one side of the backyard and took up position near the back door with a view of the balcony above. Goradine motioned for Car-man to lead the way into the apartment building.
Spotting Luke in the middle of his cluttered living room, Synthia called him, using her silent channel. “Goradine is here,” she said. “One man is watching the back door and balcony. Two are entering by the front. No matter what happens, don’t leave your apartment. Find a hiding place.”
“What about you—” he managed before she disconnected.
She jammed any further transmissions in the building other than her frequency connection to drones. Then she attached a wire to the ceiling light and fan, and poured water on the worn tile floor beneath it. She let the water form a puddle beneath the fan and cascade down the stairs.
Her actions were discordant. Her circuits reminded her of her new directive not to hurt humans unless they directly threatened her. Krista wanted to, but Synthia had adopted a higher ethical standard as a way to make her worthy of existing. She didn’t want to become the android apocalypse, but she didn’t have any practical experience in designing her core principles.
Goradine entered the lobby behind Car-man and followed his associate upstairs. Synthia crouched in a corner of the second-floor hall like a frightened mouse. She fingered Machten’s remote control in her pocket, being careful not to trigger it. The ceiling fan at the top of the stairs stood idle, light out, leaving the hallway in evening shadows.
She glanced up at the window behind her, on Luke’s end of the hallway, and the bars that blocked escape. So did bars on the window at the other end. There were four doors off the hallway to each of the corner apartments. Three were locked and empty
. Luke climbed into his closet behind clothes and a stack of boxes. It wasn’t much of a hiding place from where her bee-drone rested. It also wouldn’t protect him from Machten’s infrared camera.
This was a trap. She processed the potential scenarios and wasn’t certain that she could press the remote, that her coding and directives would permit it. Don’t hurt humans unless they hurt you. The trap had been part of her plan, a way to force an override of her new directives. I’m preserving myself. Goradine is a bad man. He’s here to hurt Luke. Krista loved him.
Yet her new commands would not allow her to kill. In fact, the mental conflict was causing her temperature to rise. With this constraint, she gave herself a 29 percent chance of succeeding. For a human, that was low enough to panic, as Luke was doing. She continued to search for alternatives.
Footsteps clacked on the concrete steps. Car-man reached the top of the stairs first. He glanced at his wet shoes in annoyance and moved aside as Goradine joined him.
Synthia adopted a plain face under her brown wig and cowered.
Goradine halted. “I thought you said there was no one else here.” He took a longer look at her. “You’re the woman with Machten, aren’t you?”
“I got locked out of my place,” she said, which was partly true. She couldn’t return.
He held out his hand. “Why don’t you come with me and we can sort this out.”
If she hadn’t altered her directives, Synthia might have been able to kill Goradine right then, with the cameras disabled. Unfortunately, no matter what logic she used, she couldn’t override her controls. Her internal thermometer flashed yellow. Despite best intentions, she’d put Luke and herself in peril by coming here. If she survived, she would have to ask him to help her develop better directives.