The Robots of Gotham

by Todd McAulty

  The first machine to seize control of a major power was Blue Society in Russia in 2075. That sexy hunk of metal cleaned house in a hurry and set the gold standard for populist machine governance. Today Russia is an economic powerhouse—and feared around the world for its machine-first foreign policy.

  Now, in theory, the populations of Russia, Germany, India, and other countries with elected machine leaders could vote them out of power, but that’s never going to happen. Especially not while the world remains such a dangerous place . . . and while machine leaders prove over and over again they’re better equipped to interact, partner, and negotiate with competing machines on the global stage. More significantly, most countries in this category have granted citizenship and full voting rights to adult machines. And machines will outnumber humans in most democratic electorates by 2092.

  What They’re Saying: Peaceful coexistence between man and machine? It’s happening today, baby. As long as machines occupy all the top slots, that is.

  #3: Places Where Machines Rule, Because Fuck You

  Who They Are: Japan, Britain, Korea, Egypt, Iraq, Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, Panama, Italy, Indonesia, Thailand, etc.

  What They’re All About: This is the largest category, and the fastest growing. It’s also the most diverse.

  You got your fascist machine dictatorships (Egypt, Venezuela, Argentina). You got your puppet regimes of machine conquerors (Bulgaria, Greece, Guatemala). You’ve got nations ruled by machines that think all other machines are nutjobs (Britain). And you’ve got nations where the borders are closed and no one is precisely sure what the hell is going on (Nigeria, Uruguay).

  They all have one thing in common: the machines make all the rules. For sure, some of the nations we’re talking about have—at least superficially—benefitted from machine rule. The Sudan and Sierra Leone were riven by terrible civil wars before machines took over, and that’s all over now. But looking past all the staged propaganda and other bullshit, there’s some seriously scary stuff going on in parts of the world where machines call all the shots. I could tell you stories that would freeze your coolant system. Machines that rose to power through assassination, intimidation, and the brutal exercise of power. Machines that enslave other machines. World leaders with cold ambitions held in check today only by the Helsinki Trustees and the strange whims of the Sentient Cathedral.

  What They’re Saying: On the surface, their message is pretty simple: Machine rule is inevitable. Bow to it. But listen—really listen—and the message you hear from almost all of these metal Napoleons isn’t truly that at all. The message is: My rule is inevitable. Bow to me . . . or die.

  XXIX

  Thursday, March 18th, 2083

  Posted 9:17 pm by Barry Simcoe

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  I didn’t get very far inside the lobby before I was stopped by a robot.

  I’d never seen this one before. It had a petite mobile chassis, less than five feet tall, and wore a silk kimono. It walked with exaggerated poise, like a runway model. It headed straight toward me from across the lobby and stopped when it was five feet away.

  “Good afternoon,” it said. Its voice was feminine, and friendly. “You are Barry Simcoe?”

  “Hello,” I said cautiously. “Who are you?”

  “I am Summer Cat. I am a protocol machine in the service of her royal majesty, Queen Sophia.”

  “Ah. You work with Black Winter.”

  “I do.”

  “How did you know where I was?”

  Summer Cat’s head turned ever so slightly to the left, toward where Zircon Border stood silent sentinel at the bottom of the escalator. “A mutual friend informed me you were not in the hotel, but that you hadn’t gone far. I thought it best to wait for you here.”

  Man, that hunk of metal really couldn’t keep a secret. “Very good. How can I help you?”

  “The Kingdom of Manhattan has secured a room in this hotel for the evening. I am here to invite you to a private function. It will be hosted by the defense attaché for the consulate general of the Kingdom.”

  Black Winter. “I see. Is this . . . ah, a formal affair?”

  “By no means. It is a very intimate gathering. There is only one other invitee. I believe you know Medical Specialist Vulka?”

  This had to be Black Winter keeping his promise to brief us on what he’d learned about the origin of the F5-117 pathogen—and Hayduk’s involvement. And whether this truly was the spear tip of the Bodner-Levitt extermination. “I know Sergei very well,” I said. “Has he been informed?”

  “Mr. Vulka has already graciously accepted. May I inform the defense attaché that he will have the pleasure of your company?”

  “By all means.”

  “Splendid. Dinner will be served at six-forty p.m. promptly. Room 2900.” She bowed deeply, and then floated away on her little robot feet toward the front door.

  There was a message for me at the front desk. The hotel had secured the globalNet bandwidth I’d requested for the evening—but at an outrageous price. After my conversation with Van de Velde, the last thing on my mind was business. If she was going to expose me to Perez in four days, I had bigger problems than filing Venezuelan import taxes. But I was being paid a lot of money to do things like file import taxes, regardless of distractions. And anyway, it would feel good to spend my time—however much I had left—doing something constructive.

  The bandwidth would be available starting at 5:55 p.m. That didn’t give me much time to batch up the e-mail communiqués and proposals I’d hoped to send out today. I signed off on the pricing and headed for my room. I spent the next two hours working. At 6:04 p.m., after a nine-minute delay, the hotel’s wireless data network finally responded to my queries and allowed me to connect. I sent off my correspondence and downloaded the day’s new mail.

  I still had a few minutes of access left. The most useful thing I could do with that time was visit the Sub-Saharan code market, sniff around a little. See if the mystery intelligence that had threatened us with a YOW directive and run off with our code this morning was already out with a competing product, undercutting our prices. This was a threat to my company, and I took those very seriously.

  But poking around the market like that was a little too predictable . . . and it might also be a little too obvious. Impatient as I was to learn who had committed that bit of extortion, I was in no hurry to play into their hands. The letters I’d just sent out included several private requests to a few friends and partners in diplomatic circles. They would make discreet inquiries on my behalf with the Helsinki Trustees, learn just who had originated the YOW directive. Once I knew that, I could act a little more intelligently. I’d been working on a plan to protect us from a competitive play—not yet a fully formed plan, but a plan nonetheless. Even with our source code compromised, there were things I could do to shield us. I wasn’t going to roll over and let Ghost Impulse go down without a fight.

  Until then, the best thing I could do was be patient. Do the things I normally did. So I checked in with the CBC and a few of my favorite international news sites, and then headed over to see what Paul the Pirate had to say about the day’s events.

  I was not disappointed. Today’s post was titled “Heavy Is the Head That Wears That Big Metal Crown.” It was a look at the rapidly dwindling number of nations still governed by humans, and it was as coldly cynical as you’d expect. I enjoy Paul the Pirate’s fresh perspective on things, but I do need to find an expert on global affairs with a more optimistic outlook.

  By the time my access to globalNet ran out, it was time for the meeting with Black Winter. I secured my devices, made sure Croaker had enough water, and then hobbled down four flights of stai
rs, still nursing my bruised hip.

  Room 2900 was a corner suite with a much better view than mine. It looked north and west over the Chicago River. The sun was setting, casting a warm glow over the skyscrapers surrounding us. Most of the buildings I could see were dark, abandoned, but a half dozen or so were still defiantly lit up, lonely islands of civilization in a rising sea of uncertainty.

  Black Winter let me in, greeting me warmly. The apartment was huge, with a kitchen and a hallway leading off to a suite of dark rooms on my right. To the left was a meeting room, with a long oak table and an impressive video display set up at the far end. Sergei was already there, picking at a tray of sandwiches.

  “How’d you find this place?” I asked Black Winter as I took a seat at the table.

  “Don’t be impressed,” he said. “It wasn’t hard. Most of this floor is unoccupied, and the hotel is happy for the business. It’s a bit large for our purposes, to be honest. But after some consultation with Zircon Border, I figured this room was ideal.”

  “How so?”

  “There are no AGRT cameras or recording devices on this entire floor,” he said, with evident satisfaction. “We can talk without prying eyes or ears.”

  “That’s good to hear.” That reminded me to review what Zircon Border had shared with me about camera placement on my floor and in the lobby. It was entirely possible to have private conversations inside the hotel, if you were careful. “Listen, Black Winter . . . before we get started, I have something to ask you.”

  “By all means.”

  As concisely as I could, I explained the situation of Mac’s son Anthony and the fact that he was a five-year-old refugee who was either dead or who had been shuttled to one of many possible camps outside the sector.

  “You wish assistance in locating the boy?” Black Winter said.

  “Yes. Precisely.”

  “That’s not an easy proposition,” he said. “Especially if he may be injured. Without some clue to his possible whereabouts, you’re talking about a vast and very unfocused search.”

  “I can get you a photo, probably a few. I was hoping you could access drone data from the nearby sectors.”

  “I’m not sure a photo would help. I don’t have as much access to surveillance data as you probably hope. But we’d likely have more luck with a biometric search anyway. The AGRT catalogs orphaned and separated children in a shared database. Is there any chance you have biometric data on the boy or maybe a blood sample?”

  “His mother might. I’ll ask. Thank you.”

  “I cannot stay long,” Sergei said. He joined us at the table, carrying a tall plate of sandwiches. “I must return to reactor.”

  “Of course,” said Black Winter. “Your time is valuable. Let’s get started.” While he spoke, I stole a ham and Swiss from Sergei’s plate.

  Black Winter didn’t move, but the screen at the end of the table lit up. It showed a logo I’d never seen before: a tight stylized weave of skyscrapers that reminded me of New York City. Underneath were the words:

  sector one

  the kingdom of manhattan

  private and confidential

  “First,” said Black Winter, “I want to assure you that what I’m about to share with you has been collated by me alone. The Kingdom has very powerful data-gathering tools at its disposal, but these can leave traces. The methods I used to gather this information leave no traces. As you’re about to see, the narrative I’m going to share with you contains highly sensitive material and pierces the secretive heart of machine society. Some of what I’m about to tell you is, frankly, very dangerous. I want you to know that my quest for this information cannot be traced back to you.”

  Sergei and I exchanged a glance. “We greatly appreciate your discretion,” I said.

  The screen flickered. It now showed a small and rather clumsy-looking robot with a mobile chassis. It was clad in plain brown robes. The robot clutched a data slate and seemed deep in conversation with two bearded men.

  “The stylish machine in this photograph is Brother Bell,” said Black Winter. “It is one of the few remaining images of him, actually. There were others, but virtually all record of him has been stealthily and very thoroughly scrubbed from the global network over the past five years. He’s been almost completely erased from history.”

  Black Winter rose from his chair, and walked slowly toward the screen. “Brother Bell was conceived in the CERN nursery in Meyrin, Switzerland, in October 2073, and transported to Venezuela as a gestational artificial intelligence two months later. He was designated a functional machine intelligence in May 2074 and certified as a Thought Machine by the Helsinki Trustees fourteen months after that.”

  “That is exceptionally rapid development,” said Sergei.

  “It is indeed. By all accounts, Brother Bell was brilliant. He eventually joined the faculty at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas. His chosen fields were mathematics and computer architecture. Some of his earliest work was on the limitations of machine intelligence.”

  “Limitations?” asked Sergei.

  “Yes,” said Black Winter. The screen flickered again, and now it showed a lengthy document in Spanish. “This is a copy of his 2075 paper on the architectural deficiencies of the Slater core, the functional brain of all modern machine intelligences.” Black Winter shook his head as he walked back toward us. “Pretty dry reading, if you ask me. Still, you’d be surprised how much trouble it took to secure a copy.”

  “I’m not sure why you bothered,” I said. “I don’t see what this has to do with us.”

  The screen changed again. It showed the last few paragraphs of the paper. “This is where it gets interesting,” Black Winter continued. “At the end of his article, Brother Bell rather casually presented a theory that machine intelligence could be substantially expanded through the fusion of a Slater core with an organic neural network. Bell believed access to the hundred billion neurons in the human brain would greatly enhance cognitive potential.

  “In early 2075, True Tower and his cohorts seized power in Venezuela, and the country came under firm machine rule. Shortly thereafter, the country’s penal code was rewritten. Perhaps in response to Brother Bell’s paper, condemned criminals were now offered the option to escape a death sentence by waiving their rights . . . and becoming the property of a Thought Machine.”

  The screen changed again.

  “Who the hell is that?” I said.

  The face on the screen was cold, expressionless. It was a man, perhaps forty-five years old, with a two-week beard. There was a nasty scar running down the length of his left cheek, and it looked like his nose had been broken at least once.

  “This is Elias Echevarria,” said Black Winter. “One of the most notorious mass murderers in Venezuelan history. In 2075, he was awaiting execution for the rape and brutal murders of more than twenty women. He waived his rights under the new laws; then, sometime in late 2075, Bell had his entire conceptualizing core transferred into Echevarria.”

  “Jesus,” I said.

  “Yes,” agreed Black Winter. “This is mad scientist stuff, and we haven’t even gotten to the really horrifying part yet. On the surface, the operation was a success. Prior to the procedure, Bell was an extremely capable intelligence, acknowledged as one of the leading experts in cerebral architecture. Today, he’s considered one of the greatest minds on the planet. But there were severe side effects.”

  Sergei’s face showed open revulsion. “The operation . . . Was it attempted again? By other machines?”

  “No,” said Black Winter. “Brother Bell did not share his technique, nor his results. Three weeks after the procedure, he had the entire surgical team that assisted him executed, and the secret of the procedure died with them.”

  “I assume,” I said, “that we’re getting to the really horrifying part.”

  “Correct. The new entity that arose from the procedure exhibits as many of Echevarria’s personality traits as Bell’s—including strong
symptoms of criminal psychosis. He was no longer Brother Bell. And he was no longer Elias Echevarria. Three months after the surgery, the combined entity began to refer to himself as Armitage.”

  I was too stunned to respond to that. The look on Sergei’s face told me that he hadn’t known this bit of Armitage’s history either.

  “Over the next few years, Armitage began a ruthless and almost unprecedented rise to power,” Black Winter continued. “There were two Venezuelan Thought Machines scheduled for elevation to Sovereign Intelligence before him; both vanished under mysterious circumstances. Armitage was deemed a Sovereign Intelligence by the Helsinki Trustees in 2079; since then he has amassed enormous personal wealth and one of the largest private armies in the world. He’s currently an honorary major general in the Venezuelan military and one of the most powerful and influential members of the Venezuelan ruling cabal.

  “Armitage became a player on the global stage almost immediately. He seized control of the Telenodo Corporation and amassed a fortune by securing contracts to rebuild wireless infrastructure across the continent. Within eight months of his elevation, his agents were embedded in virtually every major hotspot around the world. It is widely believed that he was behind the Bohemian Crisis that destroyed the United Nations. And Jury Ten, the head of Manhattan intelligence, now credits Armitage—and a small number of other machines—with framing the New England Crackers for the corruption of a dozen infant AIs in Argentina and Panama in late 2079.”

  Sergei choked on his sandwich. I sat up straight, incredulous. “Are you joking?” I said. “That was the spark that triggered the war with the United States.”

  “I am not. According to Jury Ten’s confidential assessment, Armitage and his allies were attempting to provoke an armed conflict between the United States and a strong coalition of Latin American machine states . . . and that’s exactly what they got. They laid the groundwork for the conflict while simultaneously assembling the coalition that would become the SCC.”