by Mark Alpert
He nods.
“Okay, pull yourself together. We have twelve hours to come up with a solution. Maybe we can figure out the new code. Is it based on a mathematical formula?”
He lifts his head slowly. “Yes, it’s based on factoring large numbers. You know, finding all the factors that can be multiplied together to produce a number.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know what factoring is. But what’s the formula?”
“Well, the idea behind it is simple.” Dad perks up a bit. He loves to explain things. “Each new code is a prime number, a very large one. Let’s call it P. It’s a factor of an even larger number—call it X—that was sent to your Pioneer robots along with the old code. When your system receives the new code, it divides X by P. If there’s no remainder, it allows the low-power signal to flow to your circuits for another five days.”
“So the solution’s easy! We just have to find the prime factors of X!”
“Adam, the number X has more than twenty billion digits. It’s incredibly difficult to find the prime factors of a number that large. Even if all the Pioneers worked on the problem nonstop, they’d need more than a month to solve it. That’s what makes the code useful. It can’t be cracked easily.”
As usual, Dad is fervent in his pessimism. It’s starting to really annoy me. “Why don’t we try a hardware fix? Maybe we can rewire the electronics to go around the code-checking system. Then the battery won’t need the code to send the signal to our circuits.”
“No, that wouldn’t be any easier. The Pioneer circuits are too complex. All the parts of the electronic mind have to work together, so you can’t redesign one element without changing all the others. Believe me, I’ve looked at all the possibilities. There’s no way to fix it in the time you have left.”
I clench my Quarter-bot’s hands. “What should we do then?” My synthesized voice is harsh and shrill. “Just curl up and die?”
Dad waits a few seconds, his ears probably ringing from my last words. Then he rises from his chair and walks over to a tall steel cabinet on the other side of the lab. He opens the cabinet’s doors and steps back so I can see what’s inside.
The cabinet has five shelves, and lying face-up on each is a Model S robot. They’re identical to the prototype that Dad demonstrated in the Danger Room, except that these robots don’t have antennas. These are the machines we’re supposed to transfer our software to, using fiber-optic cables, under the plan Dad negotiated with Sumner Harris.
“It’s not too late, Adam.” Dad reaches into the bottom of the cabinet, below the lowest shelf, and pulls out a handheld military radio. “Before Hawke left the base, he gave me this radio and said I should contact him directly if I needed to. I could call him right now and tell him that the Pioneers have reconsidered Sumner Harris’s offer. The Army generals will definitely be angry at you for handcuffing their soldiers, but I think they’d be willing to forgive and forget, as long as you agree to transfer to the Model S machines.”
I get a sinking feeling in my circuits. In some ways, transferring to the Model S is scarier than dying. It’s horrifying just to imagine being trapped inside that puppet. But Dad, being human, can’t see the horror of it. And even if he could, I don’t know if it would make much of a difference. From the very beginning of the Pioneer Project, his goal was to keep me alive. The quality of my life didn’t matter, as long as I survived. And survival is all he cares about now.
Dad presses his point by holding the military radio in front of my cameras. “Once I contact Hawke, here’s how it’ll go. The general will talk to Harris and convince him to set up another video link between their aircraft and Pioneer Base. The government officials will observe us as we transfer the Pioneers to the Model S robots. Then we’ll destroy your old machines.” He points at my Quarter-bot. “Once the officials are satisfied, they’ll transmit the new code to the base. You’ll be safe as soon as you connect your Model S robots to your recharging stations. The whole process shouldn’t take more than a few hours.”
He’s right. The transfer would be easy. The hard part would come later.
I shake my Quarter-bot’s head. “Zia will never go for it. Not in a million years.”
Dad shrugs. “That’s her choice. If one of the Pioneers rejects the offer, the others can still accept it. It’s an individual decision.”
It hurts to hear this. The Pioneers are my family just as much as Dad is. Sometimes I don’t get along with my fellow robots—in fact, we argue most of the time—but we still care about each other. I can’t imagine leaving Zia to die. It would be a hundred times worse than losing my Quarter-bot.
I turn away from Dad and his cabinet of horrors. “I have to talk to the others.”
“I understand. If anyone can convince them, it’s you, Adam. Just don’t take too long, all right? We don’t have a lot of time.”
I nod, then steer my Quarter-bot out of the lab. I’m not angry at Dad, but I’m not happy with him either. It’s as if an immense chasm has opened up between us. He seems faraway, oblivious, unreachable.
As I leave the medical center, I radio the other Pioneers and transmit a summary of my conversation with Dad. It’s more efficient to do it this way and a lot less painful. But as the signal leaves my antenna and makes contact with theirs, I notice they’re no longer in the Danger Room. I connect to the base’s network of surveillance cameras and see Shannon, Marshall, and Zia in the corridor, escorting the handcuffed soldiers to a nearby conference room. The Pioneers lock the soldiers inside the room, presumably to stop them from causing any trouble. Then the three robots race toward the closest stairway.
I send a radio message to all of them. Hey, where’s everyone going?
Zia is the first to respond. To the command center. Amber’s already there.
What’s going on? Why—
Marshall interrupts me. I scanned the summary you sent us. The news from your dad isn’t good, is it?
No, not good at all. We can’t disable the kill switch. We may have to seriously consider transferring our software to the Model—
Hold on a second, Adam. I don’t want to get your hopes up, but there might be another option. Amber says she found something useful.
Amber? What—
Now Zia interrupts. Just meet us at the command center! Come on, move it!
Chapter
14
Pioneer Base’s command center looks like it’s been hit by a wrecking crew. The door’s been busted down, and all the computers and consoles in the room have been sledgehammered. The linoleum floor is carpeted with shiny bits of glass and jagged scraps of metal.
The other Pioneers are already there by the time I arrive. Shannon and Marshall are pointing their sensors at the demolished computers, while Zia paces across the room, her War-bot crunching debris under her footpads. Only Amber acknowledges me. Her Jet-bot rushes over, swinging its sleek black arms.
“Adam! Are you okay?” She stops just inches from my Quarter-bot, then raises her arms and locks me in an embrace. “I saw your message about your dad and everything he said. God, that must’ve been so hard for you!”
I’m not sure how to respond. I’m glad that Amber is concerned about me, but the other Pioneers are probably wondering why our robots are hugging each other. Marshall raises both of his wiry eyebrows, and the face on Shannon’s video screen opens its mouth in surprise. An instant later, she turns off the video, and the screen on her Diamond Girl’s head goes blank. She’s so upset, she doesn’t want anyone to see her reaction.
Amber is doing a terrible job of hiding our relationship. I don’t know if that’s because she’s so full of emotion or because she’s decided we don’t need to hide anymore, but either way, it’s a very awkward moment. I need to change the subject—fast. I take a step backward, forcing Amber to let go of me, and then I sweep my right arm in a wide arc, gesturing at the shattered hardware.
&nb
sp; “What happened to this place? Who trashed it?”
Zia lets out a synthesized snicker. “Right before Hawke left the base, he ordered his soldiers to destroy all the classified data stored on the computers. The hard drives, flash drives, everything. But the stupid humans botched the job.”
“Really?” I point at the bits of glass and metal on the floor. “It looks like they were pretty thorough.”
Marshall shakes the head of his Super-bot. He’s the Pioneers’ communications expert, so he knows a lot about classified data. “They shattered the storage devices but didn’t take the time to completely demagnetize them. Most of the information is still available in the bits and pieces. It’s just harder to retrieve.”
This is definitely good news. Maybe even excellent news. “Hey, do you think we might find the new code? You know, the prime number my dad mentioned, the one that’ll keep our circuits running?”
“We should certainly look for it.” Marshall extends an arm and picks up a triangular shard of glass. It’s a piece of an optical memory disk. “But I don’t think we’ll find it. That code is probably the one thing Hawke took extra care to erase. In all likelihood, the only copy of the prime number is stored in a very secure computer in Washington, DC.”
“But you said you found something, right?”
Shannon steps toward me. Although her Diamond Girl’s screen is blank, I can tell she isn’t happy. “Amber found it. While we were waiting for you to finish talking with your dad, she came up here on a hunch.” There’s a hint of skepticism in Shannon’s voice. She turns toward the Jet-bot. “Isn’t that right, Amber? You said you had a feeling you’d find something here?”
Amber aims one of her cameras at Shannon, but keeps the other trained on me. “Well, I knew Hawke’s soldiers would try to delete all the data in the command center. But I also knew Hawke was in a big rush to leave the base, and when people are in a rush, they make dumb mistakes.” Her Jet-bot strides toward a desk in the corner, nearly hidden by a row of wrecked supercomputers. Sitting on the desk is an ordinary-looking laptop, the only unbroken computer in the room. The laptop is open, and its screen shows a long list of files. “Someone left this laptop in the bottom drawer of the desk, under a stack of old Army manuals. Lucky for us, the soldiers didn’t see it when they were trashing the place. But I found it and scrolled through its files. That’s when I saw something interesting.”
Shannon also strides toward the desk. “It’s a little too lucky, if you ask me.” She points a sparkling finger at the list of files on the laptop’s screen. “There’s a good chance that someone deliberately left this computer here for us to find. And if that’s the case, we can’t trust any of the information in this machine.”
The Jet-bot nods. “You’re right about that. We need to look for other sources to confirm what’s in these files.” Amber’s tone is respectful and deferential. She doesn’t seem to take any offense at Shannon’s skepticism. “But if this information turns out to be correct, it could be very helpful.”
I focus my cameras and examine the files on the screen. “Is there a really big prime number in one of those files, by any chance? A number with billions of digits?”
“No, but take a look at this document.” Amber extends one of her mechanical hands toward the laptop and selects a file labeled Sigma Hardware. “The Army made a list of all the machines Sigma occupied—every robot and computer that held the AI’s program before you deleted it. And it’s not an ordinary list either. It’s an incredibly detailed breakdown, with all the hardware organized in a geographic format.”
After a brief pause, the file opens. A map of the world appears on the screen, with several locations in Asia and North America highlighted with yellow arrows. Amber taps the keyboard to zoom in on one of the arrows in America, about thirty miles north of New York City. The map enlarges across the screen until it shows Yorktown Heights, my suburban hometown. At the southern end of the map is the Unicorp Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, where my dad used to work and where he created Sigma. It’s also the place where we fought our final battle against the AI.
Superimposed on the map is a list of all the machines that were left on the battlefield, deactivated and dormant, after I erased Sigma. At the top of the list are the Snake-bots, the enormous steel tentacles that burrowed underground from Sigma’s base in North Korea to the Unicorp lab in Yorktown Heights. But Sigma controlled many other machines during our last battle, and the Army’s summary also includes dozens of smaller robots and lab computers that the AI had taken over. And next to each item on the list are three words in big green letters: DISMANTLED AND DISABLED.
I turn to Amber. “What does that mean? Is the Army shredding Sigma’s leftover hardware?”
Her Jet-bot nods again. “Yeah, the military engineers are tearing the Snake-bots apart. It’s a sensible precaution. If another AI like Sigma comes along, they want to make sure it can’t take over those machines. But that’s not the only reason they’re dismantling the hardware. They’re also worried about us.” Amber waves one of her steel hands in a circle, gesturing at all the Pioneers in the room. “I mean, think about it for a second. What’s the biggest difference between the neuromorphic circuits in the Snake-bots and our own electronics?”
The answer hits me like a power overload. “The circuits in Sigma’s machines don’t have a kill switch.”
“Exactly. The Army couldn’t deactivate Sigma. And it won’t be able to deactivate us if we transfer ourselves to Sigma’s old robots.”
The other Pioneers come forward and crowd around the laptop. Amber’s discovery is literally electrifying—it makes my circuits pulse with new hope. Zia’s War-bot jostles the rest of us aside and reaches for the laptop. “Let me see that! Where are the rest of Sigma’s machines? The Army hasn’t dismantled all of them yet, has it?”
“Hey! If you stop pushing, I’ll tell you!” Amber picks up the laptop and pulls it away from Zia. “In North America, the only machines that haven’t been disabled are the swarms of nanobots that Sigma used to infect its human victims. But Adam had a bad experience when he occupied one of those swarms, and they’re not the best machines for us anyway. The nanobots can’t become active unless they’re inside a human body.”
Marshall scrunches his plastic face in disgust. “That sounds a little too creepy for me. Perpetually swimming around in someone else’s bloodstream? I think I’d rather transfer to the Model S.”
Zia presses forward and points her sensors at the laptop. “What about the location in Asia? Sigma manufactured all its machines at that secret factory in North Korea, right? It sent most of them to America, but maybe some—”
“Nothing’s left at Sigma’s manufacturing complex.” Amber adjusts the laptop’s screen so that it shows the yellow arrow over North Korea. There’s another list of machines superimposed on this map, and next to each item is the word DESTROYED. “The U.S. Navy fired a hundred cruise missiles at the Korean factory. Then they sent in a team of commandos to blow up anything that was still standing.”
“So what are we doing here?” Zia raises the volume of her speakers and flails her massive arms. One of them slams into the ceiling and splinters a fiberglass panel. “I thought you said you found something!”
“I did. Look at this.” Amber taps the laptop’s keyboard again. The screen displays another part of the world map, a wide empty stretch of the Pacific Ocean. At the center of the screen is yet another yellow arrow, this one highlighting a location about twelve hundred miles west of California.
I focus my cameras on it. There seems to be nothing but blue ocean beneath the arrow. “Is that a very small island? I don’t see any—”
“The hardware is located 17,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, plus another five hundred feet beneath the seabed. The U.S. Air Force discovered it using a ground-penetrating radar system so advanced that only a dozen people in the world know abou
t it. Here, let me show you the radar picture.”
Her Jet-bot’s fingers tap the keyboard, and a black-and-white image appears on the screen. Six long, cylindrical objects lie parallel to one another, buried far below the seabed of the Pacific. Using the data from the map, I quickly calculate the size of the objects. Each is seven hundred feet long.
“Those are Snake-bots.” The sight of them constricts my synthesized voice. “They must’ve been tunneling from North Korea to America when I deleted Sigma.”
“Bingo.” Amber puts the laptop back on the desk and gives my torso a congratulatory pat. “Those Snake-bots were reinforcements that never made it to Yorktown Heights. When you deleted Sigma, they froze mid-route, and now they’re in a totally inaccessible location. The U.S. military can’t get to them because they’re too deeply buried. Of all the thousands of machines built by Sigma, those six Snake-bots are the only ones the military hasn’t disabled.”
Zia smacks my Quarter-bot in delight, almost knocking me over. “All right, we have a plan! We just need to get within radio range of the Snake-bots and transfer ourselves to their circuits before the six a.m. deadline.”
I’m a little surprised that Zia’s so gung-ho about survival. It’s only been eight hours since she tried to kill herself by running down her batteries. But I guess her thinking changed after Sumner Harris decided to delete us. Even if Zia felt her life wasn’t worth living, there’s no way she’ll let anyone else take it away from her.
Meanwhile, Shannon steps around us to get a closer look at the laptop. She’s been quiet for the past two minutes, but now she synthesizes a suspicious grunt. “Something weird is going on. Those Snake-bots are in the wrong place.” Her Diamond Girl’s fingers dance across the laptop’s keyboard. A moment later, a line appears on the world map, connecting North Korea with Yorktown Heights, New York. “This is the shortest path between Sigma’s factory in Asia and the Unicorp lab. It goes under the Arctic Ocean, not the Pacific, see? Because of the curvature of the earth, the shortest path passes close to the North Pole. If there are Snake-bots under the Pacific, they went thousands of miles off course.”