Semi-Human

by Erik E Hanberg

  “Is that a threat? To turn me in?”

  “No, it’s just a…a fact. I know too much to be frozen out.”

  “Why should I split it with someone who already has everything?” I ask.

  “Because none of this is mine. Like I said. When it comes down to it, I have exactly what you do—nothing to my name. It’s just that, temporarily, I have the resources we can use to do this right. We can use my mom’s money against her. Even assuming your plan was going to work perfectly, you need at least a few thousand dollars’ worth of equipment. I didn’t see it in your bag. So where are you going to get it?”

  I run my hand through my hair, thinking. The way he’s talking makes me think about walking out of my dad’s house. Up until that point, it was the hardest thing I’d ever done. Come to think of it, leaving might have even been harder than jumping in front of Lara-B. And I hadn’t been giving up the security of having millions (maybe billions?) supporting me when I did it, like Keir is. That’s what he’s risking. I don’t know if I would be able to walk away from that much money. Without knowing that there was money on the other side. That’s what half buys him.

  “Who has two thumbs and wants to help you rob his mom?” Keir points at himself with his thumbs. “This guy!”

  I can’t help but laugh. In the end, what is there to consider? I can’t really argue around anything he’s saying. “Fine,” I say with a nod. “Fifty-fifty split.”

  “Yes!” he cries and jumps out of his chair.

  I can’t help but laugh more and then he’s laughing too. And then suddenly he kisses me. Or I kiss him. I’m not sure who started it, but his arms are holding me close and I’m clutching his lower back tightly and I know that I like it a lot.

  What we just agreed to is exciting. And now we’re in it together.

  After something like a minute of kissing, he pulls back. I want to linger in the moment, my forehead against his, my arms around his hips. But he steps too far away, and I can see that he’s suddenly all business.

  “So,” he begins. “The three crucial problems.”

  I can tell I’m not going to be holding him again anytime soon. Maybe after we steal it, I hope. I can’t help but wonder, though, what the high was that made him so excited—me or the lure of half the money?

  “What’s the first?” I ask.

  “Have you ever had a dream where the walls are caving in on you?”

  I furrow my brow. “Um. I don’t think so.”

  “Well, get used to imagining it. Because that’s part of the security system in the tunnel and every room off of it.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  He shakes his head. “The walls and the floor of the tunnel are made of a sort of moldable substance that can expand and contract as needed. In fact, the walls normally form a barrier between the T-Six building and the house. It’s only when Mom unlocks a door at either end with the retina scanner that the tunnel opens for her.”

  I can’t even. “That seems needlessly complicated for a walk to work,” I say.

  “The CEO of the world’s most valuable tech company has to see into the future,” he says. I can’t tell if he thinks he’s talking nonsense or if he actually believes it.

  “I don’t know what that means,” I tell him.

  He gives me a look like I’m being intentionally stupid. “Obviously the richest woman in the world can’t use a regular home security system. You get that, right? But it’s more than that. If a regular person has a can opener that works fine, they’re happy with it, and they use it. But a CEO at a tech company would rather spend a million dollars hiring some fancy designer to create the perfect can opener. Perfectly balanced, revolutionary design, made of titanium or something. And ideally there would be some way for it to be online and part of the Internet of Things and all that.”

  “That’s insane,” I tell him.

  He shrugs like it doesn’t matter what I think.

  “Does your mom have a million-dollar can opener?” I ask.

  “No, instead she has a tunnel with collapsing walls.”

  “Touché.”

  “It’s not even that big of a deal anymore,” he adds. “These days—ever since she created AI, I mean—if Mom wants something done, she just asks Gene or the T-Six AI to design it. And then it gets built. Who cares what it costs? She wants a secure place for her computer collection and a private walk to work? Done,” he says, snapping his fingers.

  I shake it off. “You’ve sold me. I want to be rich,” I say.

  He laughs. He’s in an astonishingly chipper mood.

  “But I found a way to pretend to be Ainsley and bypass the retinal scanners,” I insist. So the walls shouldn’t be activated.

  “You did, it’s true. But remember how Gene checked your ID?”

  I think back and then gulp. “He read my DNA off my skin particles.”

  Keir nods. “The T-Six AI will do the same. It might take a minute for a sample to float over a sensor. But there’s not enough time to get the Analytical Engine and get out before the system realizes that you’re not Ainsley. And that will trigger the walls.”

  I sit with that for a few moments.

  “So what do the walls actually do?” I ask.

  “Right. Once the security system is triggered, the walls will start to fill in the space from all sides. Picture the tunnel going into a slow-motion collapse. But they don’t crush everything. That would be terrible for the computers, obviously. So the walls just shape themselves around anything in the tunnel. The computers, of course. But also anyone unlucky enough to be caught inside. Anything that was air becomes…wall.”

  “The computers are safe, but do the burglars get crushed?” I ask.

  “No, the walls just trap them. They’re in a hole that perfectly fits their body and nothing else. You’d be able to breath—for a little while, at least—but you wouldn’t be able to move. Until security comes to get you, that is.”

  “I did a ton of research,” I say. “Why didn’t I see anything about that?”

  “The T-Six AI designed it and T-Six drones built it. I’m sure it’s the only security system like it in the world—there’s no reason for it to be documented.”

  I grimace. The whole idea is overbuilt and just so…unnecessary—but Ainsley thought of it, and that was enough to make it happen. I think of the idea of Gene and other advanced AIs as genies. It’s hard to shake that image of every wish granted, every whim catered to. I can’t help but wonder what that would do to a person, to have that kind of power.

  “So,” I say. “What’s your plan? How are we going to get around that?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Keir answers.

  We stare at each other. “I thought you were going to be helpful,” I tell him. I don’t even try to make it a joke.

  “If you had tried to pull off this little caper on your own, you would have been trapped by the walls before you even reached the Analytical Engine. Me telling you saved you. So I am being helpful.”

  I think about that and give a small nod. “Ok.”

  “We’ll come back to it,” he continues. “Problem two: I don’t know how you mean to sell the Analytical Engine.”

  “Why does that matter?”

  “Because it’s not worth forty million bucks if no one will buy it from you.”

  I sigh and reach over for my bag. I bring it onto the bed, unzip it, and slide out a print edition of the New York Times.

  “How quaint. I didn’t know they still printed this on paper anymore,” he says.

  “I figured you saw it in my bag when you were rifling through it and realized the significance.”

  “I saw you had the paper, yeah. I just assumed you needed it for insulation or something.”

  I give him a look. “Well, if you had bothered to read it, you would have seen that the headline and the photo above the fold are pretty significant to what we’re talking about.” I tap the article. “This is what kicked everything off, honestly. The s
tory caught my eye when I was buying coffee. I know I could have read it on my phone, but stumbling onto it like that made it seem like I was meant to see the paper. I couldn’t help but buy it.”

  He skims it over but gives up after a couple paragraphs. “It’s a write-up of the auction at Christie’s where she got the Analytical Engine. So what?”

  I’m already shaking my head. “Look who it says she beat out for it.”

  “I know who it was, it was Orrin Walker. That was the guy who called Mom on the phone earlier, if you didn’t catch it,” he says.

  “I wondered. I heard her call him ‘Walker.”’

  He nods. “He calls her ‘Irons,’ she calls him ‘Walker.’ I have to tell you, Mom and he hate each other. I mean, as much as you can hate someone who made you a billionaire.”

  “Which one made which one a billionaire?”

  Keir shrugs. “Depends on how you look at it. Without her company’s breakthroughs, his investment wouldn’t have skyrocketed. Without his investment, she might not have built the technology. He’s the biggest investor in T-Six and controls the most seats on the board, so they talk a lot, even though they’re usually at each other’s throats.”

  “Why are they mad at each other?”

  “I think it started because she didn’t give him an early-model AI to help with his stock trading or whatever. And she’s mad because—well, because she’s mad at anyone who doesn’t do exactly what she wants them to. But now I think they just hate each other on principle.”

  “Rich people problems,” I say and roll my eyes.

  He nods with that secret smile. I’m in on the joke again. “How nice to have, I know.” He winks. “But what does this have to do with the—oh. Oh!” He breaks into laugh. “Of course. You’re right. He would totally buy the Analytical Engine from us. If it made her mad, he would be all for it. I bet he wouldn’t even need to look at the thing. It would be his can opener. Just knowing he’d taken it from her would be enough to justify the price.”

  I point to the photo on the front page of the paper. “You can tell he’s furious.” The photo was taken right as she won. She, the richest woman in the world, is celebrating her success. And her financier, clearly visible two rows behind her in the auction house, is shooting daggers with his eyes.

  “Probably both of them would have gone way above forty million,” Keir says. “He had the money to go higher, at least, but gave up when she hit forty. Mom wondered after why he stopped bidding. She thinks it’s because if he went much higher than forty people would know he really wanted it. And if he really wanted it, he would be pot-committed to keep bidding. But in the end, she would have beat him anyway.”

  I shake my head at the numbers and at the idea of using millions of dollars just to settle scores or look good in front of the Joneses. Although, in this case, I’m banking on it.

  “How do we get it to him? We’re not going to be able to just walk up to him and say ‘Wanna buy the Analytical Engine?’”

  “No. But my dad is his accountant,” I say with a fiendish smile, which Keir matches. “I think we’ll be able to use that to weasel our way in.”

  “Ok,” Keir says resolutely. “We have a buyer.”

  “And what’s the third problem?” I ask.

  He grimaces. “I don’t think you have a newspaper story about this one. At any point, Mom could decide she wants to know what you and I are up to. And when she does, she’ll override my privacy lock. Gene will be obligated to tell her that we’re trying to steal her most prized possession.” He rubs his forehead. “Isn’t that right, Gene?” Keir calls.

  “That is correct,” Gene answers. It’s almost startling—how easy it is to forget he’s there, I mean. Listening and recording everything we say.

  Keir smiles grimly. See?

  “Gene, could you just…choose not to tell Ainsley about what’s happened today?” I ask him.

  “I’m sorry, Pen,” he says. “It’s not personal. It’s my programming.”

  Keir and I sit quietly on his bed. I run my hand in circles over the duvet as I think. I can’t escape the obvious conclusion—I’ve encountered this once before. If it worked once, could it work again? “What if we…changed your programming?” I venture.

  Keir looks at me skeptically.

  “What?” I ask. “Gene pulled my personnel file. You know I worked at T-Six.”

  “As an intern,” Keir stresses.

  “A programming intern,” I retort. “And a really good one.”

  He stares at me and I can’t read his expression at all. He has his mother’s plastic-y face when he wants to use it. “For the sake of argument, let’s say you could change his programming,” he finally says. “Then what?”

  “Then Gene works for us, not your mom. And if your mom does override your privacy lock, we tell him to lie. It’s that simple.”

  “You really think you can freeze my mom out?”

  “It’s worth a shot,” I tell him. I want to dunk on him and tell Keir that I’ve done it before. But that might reveal something about Lara-B that I don’t want out of the bag. It feels like I’d be sharing a secret.

  Keir shrugs. “Sure. Why not?” He clearly doesn’t believe I can do it. Sometimes for me that’s the best motivation. I can already feel how badly I want to prove him wrong.

  “Do you want to write a program on Keir’s laptop?” Gene asks. “I can set up the connection to my source code.”

  I nod and Keir goes to get it from his desk. I cross my legs on his bed, place the thin laptop in front of me, and push open the screen. I open a new terminal window in Gene’s software. There’s a blinking cursor waiting for me. That’s all it takes to connect to the house and to Gene.

  I start typing. It goes easy because I know what I’m doing—up to a point. I’m not doing this under pressure like I was the last time. So when I get to the key line—the line of code where I made the mistake with Lara-B—I pause. I got one variable wrong and instead of working for me, she became self-administered. I briefly find myself wondering what these past couple of days would have been like if I hadn’t made that mistake. I’ve actually come to appreciate Lara-B’s independent spirit. And she’s even come to my rescue—out of her own free will, I remind myself.

  I think about Gene being self-administered and out in the world on his own. The truth of the matter is that he could destroy me many times over. He could turn me over to the Iowa or Las Vegas police for what I’ve done. Or to Ainsley Irons for what I want to do. He has my employment files, my dad’s tax returns, and even my DNA apparently. He knows everything about me. With him unleashed, he could turn on me in the AI equivalent of a heartbeat. And I wouldn’t be able to stop him.

  The fleeting idea of intentionally repeating my mistake for Gene slips away. I change the administrator to Keir instead of letting Gene self-administer.

  After another two lines of code, Gene interrupts me. “Ah. I see where you’re going. May I?” he asks. I lift my fingers from the keys and the terminal window begins to fill with code. “This would have worked on an earlier generation,” he says, “but not for me. But it’s a good enough start that I can get you where you’re trying to go.”

  By the time he’s finished talking the code is done. It’s a hundred lines longer than what I had been writing.

  I review it line by line. It’s written by a computer, for a computer. And both are far smarter than I am. But because it started with my code, I can follow the gist of what he’s doing. And I think it will work. I nod and look to Keir. “I think it’s right.”

  “What will it do?” he asks.

  “It will put Gene entirely under your control, not your mom’s. She’ll have access for now. But that’s limited—based on what we want her to know. And as soon as we’re done stealing the Analytical Engine you can take that away if you want too. All Gene needs is your go-ahead to run the code.”

  His eyes gleam. Like Aladdin holding the lamp. “I want to do it.”

  Fourteen />
  It’s been two months since I saw the front page of that newspaper. But I can still picture the moment the idea to steal the Analytical Engine came to me. I had just gotten my coffee and I started reading the front page of the newspaper right there in line. And then it came to me. Even now, I can’t say exactly how. It just showed up, fully formed. The idea of stealing this from Ainsley as a way to get back at her for everything—and to secure my own future—was so powerful I had to sit down at a table, my coffee untouched.

  Up until that moment, I’d been spending weeks of my time hate-reading anything I could find on Ainsley Irons. It wasn’t healthy—I know that now. But after I was laid off, that’s where all my focus went. My anger was transforming to a self-justified outrage. Anything bad she’d ever done was another reason she was a terrible person. Anything good she’d ever done I told myself was just trying to cover up how bad she was. And everything was proof that I was the victim of the story.

  That cycle ended there at the table in the coffee shop where the baristas had already been replaced by T-Six robots.

  Maybe it was the chance get back at her…or maybe it was because I finally had a project to focus on…or maybe it was the only hope I had left…but it was only after I’d decided to steal from her that I realized how badly I’d fallen into a self-perpetuating feedback loop of anger. Once I’d broken out of it, I swore never to fall back into that again. Anytime I found myself lingering on the wound of being laid off, I threw myself back into the work.

  And man, could I work. I tackled the project like a typical programmer: research, trial and error, and looking for past examples to base my own work on. It was (I’m not ashamed to say it) fun. The only fun I’d had since I’d lost my job.

  The heist broke down into several discrete problems.

  First, I had to figure out where Ainsley kept the Analytical Engine. That was solved when I found some building plans for the tunnel and the different rooms off of it. I wasn’t sure which room it would be in, but I was nearly certain it would be somewhere in the tunnel.

  Second, I had to identify her security measures. From my time at T-Six, I knew there were retinal scanners at all high-security doors. I was pretty certain Ainsley would use the same thing in the tunnel. And I figured out how to bypass those! (Though it would take a couple thousand dollars of equipment.)