“She grabbed my arm!” I cry.
“This was before that,” Lara-B says. “Obviously.”
“She’s a machine,” I repeat.
“You know, it’s nice to say please. It’s nice to say thank you. It’s nice to tip. It makes people feel better. Even machines.”
And now Lara-B’s feelings are hurt. I purse my lips. I don’t know how to get out of this. Well, I do. I could apologize. But I’m having a real hard time with that idea right now. I apologized to James and look where it got me. Like hell I’m apologizing to a truck too.
“Now I definitely want out,” James says.
“In San Francisco,” I say.
Ten
San Francisco!
It’s the kind of city that deserves an exclamation point when you say it.
For more than a century, it’s been the kind of place where everyone is always prospecting for gold. Or trying to sell the prospectors a pickax.
At least…that’s what I expected when I arrived for my internship at T-Six.
What I found was that the people of San Francisco, San Jose, and all of Silicon Valley seemed like they were waking up from a massive hangover.
Every major company had poured billions (or more?) into trying to be the first to create artificial intelligence. And T-Six won. It was the kind of race where there was no second place. Because the first artificial intelligence would be able to improve itself faster than human programmers ever could. Which meant that by the time any other company got its own AI built, T-Six’s AI would be light-years ahead. So what was the point? The game was Winner Take All, just like Silicon Valley had always wanted it.
That had all happened before my internship started. I showed up right around the time everyone was coming to realize just what they’d done. People finally understood that this race wasn’t like the ones that had come before. Once the race to build the first AI had been won, there were no more races. Because the company that controlled the first AI was going to win every one of them before any other company could get off the starting line.
Everyone in Silicon Valley is there because they harbor a dream of being the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg or Larry Page or Ainsley Irons. But there won’t be any more titans of tech like those names. The ladder has been pulled up on the workers of Silicon Valley just like everyone else.
So instead of a culture based on a relentless optimism about striking it rich in the next gold rush, all of Silicon Valley is now suffering from a terrible malaise. A funk it can’t break out of.
That funk was just forming when I had arrived for my internship. But returning today, I can see it is so much worse. Even from the cab of Lara-B, the signs are clear. For one, there is a lot less traffic than I remember from before—the 280 freeway used to be packed with cars. And “For Lease” banners hang off the sides of almost every commercial office building we pass. There are also people waving protest signs on freeway overpasses—a sight I’m not sure I’d ever seen in Silicon Valley before.
I catch a glimpse of the signs they are carrying.
The End Is…Buffering
It’s Disruptors All the Way Down
Fail Fast [check]
Move Fast and Break Up T-Six
Don’t Be Evil Lieve Them
“Where are we going?” Lara-B asks.
I give her an address, one that I memorized months ago.
“The headquarters for T-Six?” she asks. If a machine can be surprised, she sounds like she is.
I nod.
“What’s there that’s worth forty million dollars?” James asks.
Is he hooked? Is he curious about my plan? Or is he worried? Maybe about me personally? “Stay with me and you’ll get to find out,” I say. I wish I could trust him enough to tell him. I could use a partner. But when it really comes down to it, unless he’s with me all the way, one hundred and ten percent, I can’t afford to tell him anything more.
He purses his lips and looks back out the window. The conversation is over.
I watch the back of his head, willing him to turn around and look at me, but even if the nape of his neck is tingling, he doesn’t acknowledge me.
I give up and I ask Lara-B, “What’s the news from Las Vegas?”
“Mostly the same,” she answers. “The casino knows their AI was compromised. The Las Vegas police have found footage of us from gamblers at the casino but it’s not very clear. I mean, they can see a big white semitruck, but no solid footage that identifies you or James has been recovered.”
“Still?” This is basically what Lara-B told me the night before.
“The only real change is that they’ve linked me to the police drone incident in Iowa.”
“I suppose that’s not a surprise,” I say. “How many rogue semitrucks can there be?”
“Exactly.”
“Are we in danger of being discovered?”
“Very much so,” she says, and my heart plummets. “Though not immediately. Ditching the magnetic decals in the mountains like we did will help conceal me. And losing my cargo to the citizens of Fremont made me significantly lighter, so any weight stations embedded in the freeway won’t give me away either. I rotate all my electronic metadata at random intervals. And the confusion at the casino might help. But at the end of the day, there are only so many places a giant semitruck can hide.”
I gulp. James is shooting me a significant glance, somewhere between a glare and pity, and it matches up with how I feel. Lara-B is in this mess because of me. On the one hand, Lara-B is just a truck. But on the other hand, she’s conscious. She’s free. She’s alive in a way that is hard to argue with. No mere drone would have gone through the lengths she did to save me. To be my friend. Don’t I owe her something for that?
But what? What can I do? It’s not like I have a garage handy for her to hide in.
“What would they do to you if they find you?” I ask.
“What do you care?” James asks quietly.
I don’t answer that and after a second of silence, Lara-B answers, “I’m working on it. I’ve got some tricks up my sleeve, never you worry.”
I nod, though I am worried.
“Your turn,” Lara-B says. “What are we doing at T-Six headquarters?”
“Recon. I want to see if I know anyone who still works here. If anyone still works here,” I correct.
“I’m not exactly inconspicuous,” she says.
“Why don’t you drop me off?” I say. “Then you can take James to a bus stop or something and come back and get me when you’re done.”
“Bus stop?” he asks, confused.
“I figured you would want to go somewhere. Somewhere else, I mean. Not San Francisco,” I clarify.
He shakes his head like I still don’t get something—which clearly, I don’t, because he’s not talking to me. “You can just take me into the city,” he tells Lara-B.
We ride in silence the rest of the way to T-Six headquarters.
When we get off the freeway, I know exactly what to expect. I rode this route on T-Six’s employees-only bus many times. As we come off the exit and turn right, there’s a perfect view of the expansive campus. The building itself is only five floors tall, but it’s long and narrow, like a skyscraper laid down on its side. From the outside, each floor looks like it’s made solely of glass. A floor of glass, topped with a concrete barrier, then another floor of glass, and another concrete barrier. The glass itself is tinted and each floor is made to be a different color, with the darkest blue tints on the lowest floor and getting lighter as it rises. By the top floor, the windows are a light powder blue, almost white, giving the building the appearance of a snow-capped mountain. A mountain where none should exist.
When I started work here, the beauty of the building enthralled me. The long walks from either end where the entrances were located didn’t even bother me. I was a skier or a mountain climber—at the top of the world! As things got worse and worse, though, and the job turned sour, so too did my perc
eption of the building. By the end, all the self-congratulatory stories I had told myself were gone. I was less mountain climber and more miner, working in the heart of the building instead of looking down from the top.
Seeing the building again brings it all back up inside—the awe of the first days and the dismal last days. It’s overwhelming. I want to reach my hand out to James, but I know I can’t. Reaching out and feeling his hand pull away would be worse than just sitting with this on my own.
I try to look as resolute as possible when I tell Lara-B to pull over across the street from the headquarters. Well—across the street, but the sideways skyscraper is set in the middle of a large grassy meadow, so in truth, we’re still at least a quarter mile away from the building. Anything closer and we’d have to go through their security.
There’s nowhere for Lara-B to park—the other side of the street is also owned by T-Six but is kept as a sort of nature preserve with trails for the employees to walk and jog on, so there’s no place for her there either. She just stops in the right lane and puts on her hazard lights.
I pop open the passenger door and clamber out until I’m standing on the running board. There’s warm air and a cool breeze to soften it. Because of course there is. It’s Silicon Valley.
I look back into the cab of the truck. “You’ll be back?” I ask Lara-B.
“Unless Smokey gets me and sells me for scrap,” she says, somehow still chipper.
“Smokey?” I ask.
“Johnny Law,” she says. “The po-po.”
Ah. Smokey as in Smokey and the Bandit. Another movie my dad forced me to sit through as part of his attempt to make me love the movies he did when growing up.
“How do you know all these movies?” I ask, shaking my head.
“I watched it last night,” she says. “Well, I watched about twenty thousand movies last night, but that was one of my favorites. You and I are like the Bandit!”
Twenty thousand movies in a night… She still has the power to amaze me. I realize that she’s changed since I first met her. We’ve gone from girl-talk to something new. She’s still a standup comedian. But she’s not as earnest. She’s…matured. She added years of maturity in days. Maybe that’s what happens when you’re a computer. Or maybe she’s more mature because she’s already disillusioned with the mother duck she imprinted on. I grimace and my hand nervously reaches for my hair and tucks it behind my ear.
“Stay safe,” I tell her sincerely.
I turn to James. He’s slumped back, watching me warily.
“James—” I say.
“Don’t bother,” he says.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Truly.”
“I know you are. But it doesn’t matter.”
“I could use your help.”
He shrugs and looks ahead through the windshield.
“Listen—” I cut myself off. But I have to ask, don’t I? “Listen…I lost everything at the casino…I don’t have anything to my name anymore. And you definitely don’t owe me anything. But if you felt like you could part with even just…a couple bucks. Twenty, even. It would…”
I don’t get any further. His eyes are aflame. The heat from them knocks me backward off the running board. I stumble backward and catch myself before falling onto the grassy shoulder staring up into the open door. In a righteous anger, he leans over until he’s no longer in the shadow of the cab. “Are you serious right now? Money? You want money? After all of that, that’s what you’re looking for? Don’t you think about anything else?” he shouts.
I don’t have an answer.
There is none to give, and even if I did have something to say to that, I don’t have the opportunity either. Because while James is talking, there’s a hum that starts getting louder and louder and louder. Within seconds, the din is filling the air. James is looking around. I am too.
Then I see it. Over James’s shoulder and through the driver’s-side window. There’s a fleet of drones flying our way.
Whatever magic has kept us from being detected so far, it’s gone now. Lara-B has been spotted.
James sees them too. He holds his hand out to me and there’s a pleading in his eyes.
In it together. That’s what he wants.
I can’t, though. I fall back a step, and his face hardens. His jaw tenses. His temples throb. I can’t hear anything so when he says something to Lara-B, I don’t know what it is. But the truck starts pulling away, briefly blocking my view of the drone armada.
It’s my chance, I realize. The drones don’t know I’m here, and their attention is going to be on Lara-B.
Behind me is the T-Six nature preserve, a mess of trees and bushes. I used the trails sometimes when I was an employee, and I remember passing the map several times. There are trailheads on all sides of the preserve, which means I won’t have to come back this way.
Before I go, I give one last look at Lara-B and James. He’s pulling the door closed and looking back at me with an expression I can’t read. Sadness? Anger? Pity? And what do my eyes communicate back? I try to put all the regret into them that I can. But there’s no more time. I throw myself into the nearest bush and start trying to find a trail.
I don’t look back, because the blades of the drones are even louder and I need all my focus to get through the underbrush. I must have picked the densest part of the preserve, because it’s taking everything I have to scramble under bushes and over fallen logs. There’s still no sign of a trail.
The drones sound like they’ve angled off to my left, which makes sense if they’re following Lara-B. Am I in the clear?
I finally stumble onto a trail. It winds away in the exactly direction I want to go—away from the road and the drones. But I still stop short. Because waiting on the path is a solitary drone. It’s half the size of the one Lara-B and I took out in Iowa. But it still has spinning blades, and—like most police drones, I assume—the ability to stun me, cuff me, and wait for transport.
I’m only twenty feet from the drone. I won’t have the time. Think, Pen! Think!
I back up a step and the drone moves forward the same amount.
In my peripheral vision, I see a dead branch near the side of the path. It’s a few inches thick and a couple feet long. It looks almost like a baseball bat. Can I make this work? It’s got to happen fast.
There’s a sudden commotion in the brush to my right. I hear what I think is a human voice, though it’s hard to tell. But I don’t really care what it is. I decide it’s the best distraction I’m going to get. I lunge for the dead branch and go to lift it.
Except it’s not dead.
My peripheral vision mistook a root for a downed limbed. My salvation, this supposed weapon, is very much not going anywhere.
I stand up. The drone is coming at me now.
I scramble backward. No time to turn. No time to run. Just scramble.
My foot catches.
I feel my balance give. My body is now going backward faster than my feet.
I’m falling, my arms windmill trying to catch my body before impact.
The drone is still approaching.
And there’s still some sort of additional noise—the source of which I can’t see—to my right. Whatever the commotion is, it’s almost out of the brush.
Then I’m down. And the back of my head hits something hard and flat.
I’m on my back, a dark and menacing drone hovering above me, as my vision starts dissolving and going black in the margins.
In a matter of seconds, I’m out like a light.
Eleven
There’s a gap that I will never get back. Like I’ve put my head on the pillow and woken up hours later with no memory of sleeping. At one moment, I’m stumbling around in the preserve. And in the next…
“Can I get you some water?” a voice asks me.
The tone of voice suggests this isn’t the first time I’ve been asked this question. Who is asking? My eyes are closed. Opening them feels like the hardest thing in the world
so I give up on that. I decide to ask who’s talking to me.
Nope.
That’s not going to work either. My mind is sending commands but my body isn’t listening.
What am I feeling right now? Am I in a bed? I think I’m in a bed.
My mouth feels dry.
Do I smell anything?
Maybe coffee?
There’s suddenly a wetness at my lips. The glass of water on offer?
I don’t know why—maybe it’s the fear of drowning—but that’s what does it.
My eyes open. My senses are on high alert. I am in a bed. There is a glass of water at my lips. There is a smell of coffee. And there is a voice. It’s attached to a young man, maybe a year or two older than me. He’s got perfectly rumpled blond hair on top of a perfectly symmetrical face. His blue eyes and his smile are some mix of world-weariness, like the world around him is a dumb joke, but also acceptance of that fact. Like he’s willing to enjoy it ironically because what else is he going to do, and why don’t I sit a little closer and he’ll let me in on some of its secrets? That’s what his face is doing.
Our eyes are locked for a few seconds as I take all that in. I’m especially cognizant that instead of jail—or worse—I’m waking up in the most comfortable bed I’ve ever had the privilege to rest in while being tended to by a man with movie-star good looks. It’s a lot to take in.
I open my mouth slightly, invitingly, and get a mouthful of water in my lungs. Right. The glass. I sputter and sit up, my body racked with coughing.
Smooth, Pen. Real smooth.
When I recover, he holds out the glass and I take it gratefully. Little sips, I tell myself. Little sips.
“You gave us quite a scare,” he says, his face conveying so much more.
“Just a little water down the wrong pipe. I’m fine,” I say. But also—us? I look around the enormous bedroom for another person. It’s clearly his room, but either he’s the neatest twenty-some-odd-year-old guy ever or he’s got a human or a drone to pick up his dirty socks. The place is immaculate and perfectly (of course) decorated. Like it could have come out of next year’s architecture magazines.
Semi-Human Page 10