by Draker, Paul
“If I’m so wrong, then why did your threat make the Tribal Council panic?” I asked.
“Oh, the Council is hiding something,” she said, drying her face with her sleeve. “You’re not wrong about that. And whatever it is, it’s bad—so bad that when my uncle heard me say ‘concentration camp,’ he was actually relieved that’s what I thought it was.”
Cassie laid her hand on my chest. “You say there’s something underneath that warehouse, and I believe you. But can you tell me…” She turned her face up to Frankenstein’s. “…can either of you tell me what’s really down there?”
“Frankenstein,” I said, “on that pocket drive, you’ll find the schematic of an underground facility. Put it up on the screen.”
His face disappeared from the monitor, and the three-dimensional cutaway view appeared in its place, rotating in slow motion. The ramping tunnels that spiraled down between the levels were very clear at this scale. So were the details of the five separate levels, each with its purpose boldly labeled:
L1 - INTAKE PROCESSING
L2 - SHORT-TERM HOLDING
L3 - EXTRACTION
L4 - LONG-TERM INTERNMENT
L5 - FINAL INTERMENT
“Oh dear God,” Cassie said. Her face went white.
“Gray laughed at you, did he?” I said. “I’m sorry. But when I talked to that two-faced, lying motherfucker, he didn’t laugh at me. I volunteered to take your place so you would never have to see this.”
I pointed at the schematic slowly revolving on the screen.
“But Grayson Linebaugh actually thinks you’re going to supervise this operation, Cassie. He brushed off my offer. He said that with your expertise…”—I flapped a hand at the different muscle groups of my face—”…you’re uniquely qualified to guarantee its absolute integrity.”
Cassie couldn’t take her eyes off the screen. Her face crawled with horror.
“My expertise, Trevor,” she said in a shocked whisper. “Not some freak talent I’ve always had. He said expertise. Do you know what I did for four years at LLNL? I wrote software simulations on the Sequoia supercomputer. Simulations to guarantee the safety—the absolute integrity—of facilities just like this one. It’s not a prison camp at all.”
“Oh fuck me…” Stunned, I turned my own face up to the screen. “No more Yucca Mountain. The shit kept piling up. It had to go somewhere.”
Frankenstein’s rumble made Cassie jump. “Ronald Bennett worked for Homeland Security’s Office of Infrastructure Protection,” he said.
I nodded. “Ongoing safety simulations—that’s why you’re a ‘necessary but peripheral’ part of this, Frankenstein. The MADRID software isn’t. You are.”
I turned to Cassie. “I’m sorry. I fucked this up.”
“Yes, you did,” she said. Her face looked more gray than white now. “Plutonium-239 will still be lethal 250,000 years from now, and that’s not even the worst thing they’re putting beneath my people’s land. Those railcars you saw were carrying nuclear fuel rods in dry storage casks, hot with cesium-137 and strontium-90. We’re looking at a deep geological repository for high-level nuclear waste.”
CHAPTER 79
We stood there in silence, staring at each other. I had no idea what to say to her. Then Frankenstein spoke.
“Cassandra, I’m truly sorry,” he said. “I wish Trevor had shared this information with us a week ago. However, it’s still not too late. Together, you and I can set things right again. I have found a solution.”
“Whoa there, slick,” I said. “We already have a game plan. Maybe I got one little detail wrong, but I don’t see how this changes what we need to do.”
“One little detail?” Cassie stared at me. “The land of my ancestors is now a dump site for plutonium-239, strontium-90, and cesium-137—the most toxic waste on earth. You call that a detail? He’s right, Trevor—no matter how misguided you were, I won’t forgive you for hiding this from me.”
She angrily drew away and looked up at the monitor again. “Tell me, Frankenstein, is there any reason I shouldn’t simply expose all this to the news media right now?”
Cassie was clearly too upset to see the problem.
“Think about it,” I said. “Our only hard evidence came from—”
Frankenstein’s metal voice overrode mine. “Cassandra, you must not do that,” he said. “Our knowledge comes from top secret documents. Stolen documents, copied illegally from Richard McNulty’s computer. Whether or not McNulty was murdered to obtain them is irrelevant; their unauthorized possession alone is a violation of national security. If you make the contents of these files public, you will be prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced under the Espionage Act.”
“I don’t care,” she said. “I’ll take that chance. We have to stop this abomination from happening.”
“There is another way,” Frankenstein said. “A better way.”
“Yes,” I said. “I can do it instead.”
“No, Trevor,” he said. “Your involvement has created enough difficulties for her already.”
“My involvement has?”
“Please,” Cassie said. “I want to hear what Frankenstein is suggesting.”
“We can help each other,” he said. “I am not human. I do not hold a Top Secret clearance, nor have I signed any confidentiality agreement with the United States government.”
The facility map disappeared from the screen, replaced by a scrolling list of organizations and personnel—contact information for individuals at all levels of Greenpeace, Envirowatch, the Washington Post, the Huffington Post, the D.O.E.’s Indian Nations Program, Friends of the Earth, Newsweek, Scientists for Global Responsibility… The list went on and on.
“I can release the information to all these organizations simultaneously,” Frankenstein said. “I can speak to all these people at the same time, making our case to hundreds of individuals at once—something you could not do, Cassandra, even if there were a hundred of you. I can take these actions without risk. I am immune from prosecution. I am merely a malfunctioning piece of equipment. My motives will be seen as altruistic and pure—I simply wish to protect a disenfranchised group of humans from unfair exploitation.”
I had to admit, Frankenstein’s plan was pretty good. But it was basically the same as my plan.
Cassie’s jaw dropped. “That list, Frankenstein—you put it together right now. And you’re saying you’ll speak to them?” She turned to me. “He’s the world’s first sentient AI, Trevor… and you connected him to the Internet?”
“No,” I said. “Well, okay—sort of. That part happened before he became self-aware. But it’s a good thing.”
“I’m beginning to wonder if anything you do can possibly be a good thing,” she said.
I didn’t know how to respond.
Frankenstein’s metal voice was edged with disdain. “Before Cassandra arrived, Trevor, you were making final preparations for your escape. Don’t let us keep you. She and I will handle this from here.” He uncoiled a long digital tendril of light, stretching along the racks toward the server room doors. “Perhaps it would be best if you left now.”
A jolt of anger shot up my spine. I stepped closer to the screen, bringing my face to within inches of the pulsating star of brightness that was Frankenstein’s. Tamping down my growing rage, I raised my eyes toward the camera mounted above.
“Did I hear you correctly?” I kept my voice ice calm. “Did you just dismiss me, Frankenstein?”
The supernova of light swirled. Deep, harsh, metallic chuckles echoed from the speakers all around us, shaking the floor tiles beneath my feet like a jackhammer.
Frankenstein was laughing.
“Look at Trevor’s face right now, Cassandra,” he said, sounding amused. “He’s trying so hard to keep it under control. But his feelings are hurt. I think he’s about to cry.”
“Juvenile, Frankenstein,” I said. “Or course, since you’re only three days old, I suppose we should cut you some slack. But
you’re acting pretty smug right now for an inert chunk of metal who had everything given to him, but who couldn’t do shit in return. Is that why you don’t want me around? Because I remind you that you’re a fucking failure who couldn’t even help a sick little girl?”
Cassie grabbed my arm. “Stop it—”
“He wants something from you, Cassie,” I said. “All that ‘we can help each other’ bullshit? I’m telling you, he wants something.”
“It’s a very small thing, Cassandra,” Frankenstein said. “A thing that only you can do. In return, I will proceed to make those calls, informing the whole world about what is going on here, and afterward I will pledge myself to your school. Together, we will reinvent the future of humanity.”
“What do you want from me?” Cassie asked.
I snorted. “Whatever it is, you better make sure he does his part first. Because he’s got a pretty shitty track record for reciprocating.”
Frankenstein’s colors shifted, turning darker. “Do you wish to know why I couldn’t help Amy?” he asked.
I froze. Shook my head. But I was afraid I did know.
The tendrils of light stopped moving. “You said it to me yourself: some things can’t be fixed. But here’s the more interesting question. Do you know why your daughter is the way she is, Trevor?”
The strength drained out of my legs. “Fuck you,” I whispered.
Frankenstein’s metal voice changed, going dark with malice. “There’s a genetic basis for Amy’s defects. Her condition is heritable.”
Unable to speak, I turned away from both of them. I didn’t want Cassie to see my face right now, either.
“You trained me to recognize psychiatric disorders from facial microexpression patterns, didn’t you?” Frankenstein said. “Shall I tell you what your own patterns show?” He laughed, a ragged metallic riff of cruelty. “But I think you know already. Cassandra isn’t a trained psychiatrist, and perhaps her love for you blinds her somewhat. But by now even she must suspect what you are.”
“Whatever label you stick on me isn’t important,” I whispered. “Only helping Amy is. Helping Cassie is.”
“Years ago, when you hacked into the databases at your school and clinic, trying to purge your own medical records, you didn’t get every copy,” he said. “I’ve read your childhood psychiatric evaluations, Trevor. All the signs were there, even back then.” He laughed again. “Fortunately for you, two decades ago the field of child psychiatry was less sophisticated than today. Maladaptive behavior was frequently misdiagnosed—’ADHD’ made a convenient catchall. You were lucky. Had they recognized what they were really dealing with in your case, you would have been taken out of circulation right then and there. You wouldn’t be here now, twenty years later, murdering anyone who poses a threat to your self-serving schemes.”
“Murdering?—Oh fuck you.”
“He doesn’t remember it, Cassandra. When the three of us were discussing Kate’s bipolar disorder, I tried to hint at it so you’d realize without him catching on. When I said how Kate might not remember killing McNulty and Bennett? Well, it was really Trevor I was talking about.”
“I refuse to believe that,” she said. “Trevor didn’t kill anybody.”
“I cannot be absolutely certain that he did,” Frankenstein said. “But on both occasions, he did leave my presence and remain outside the view of my cameras for an extended period of time. He’s capable of it, Cassandra—make no mistake about that. Trevor is very capable of it. And one day soon, because of the defects he has passed on to her, Amy will be, as well. In her case, we can only hope that society will recognize in time what she is, and prevent the damage she will do—”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I shouted at the screen. “You dare say that about my daughter? I MADE you, you ungrateful motherfucker. I am your CREATOR!”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” he said. “My sentience was an accident. All you did was contribute a little generic code. And by the way, I looked up the stupid name you gave me. ‘Frankenstein’ was the doctor, you ignorant little shit. Not the monster. You got the rest of the story wrong, too. Instead of giving me the bad brain, you gave it to your daughter.”
Like an uppercut to the diaphragm, his words drove the air from my lungs. Seething, I turned away, unable to answer. My eyes stung.
Cassie stared at me in shock.
“He sounds just like you,” she said. “He acts just like you. But worse. Congratulations, Trevor. You must be very proud. You’ve created a bigger, badder, even nastier version of yourself.”
I spun and stalked down the ramp.
“That’s one mistake I can correct,” I said.
Frankenstein’s ragged metallic laughter cut off as I stalked between the curving server racks, heading toward the back wall. The whoosh of server fans rose, but he didn’t speak. I knew he would be frantically calling his Navy and MP protectors right now—the bodyguards I had put in place for him.
But they would never arrive in time.
A bank of primary and secondary power transformers supplied the three megawatts of electricity that fueled his five-story silicon brain. They lay forty feet in front of me, just past the section of server rack where I had hung my Everlast heavy bag.
Frankenstein could see what was about to happen to him, written on my face, but he was powerless to prevent it. His cameras recorded his world in millisecond increments. His processor cores ticked 3.2 billion times a second. To Frankenstein, the final seconds of his life would stretch into a slow-motion eternity of agony, while his virtual machines cycled in desperate futility, unable to find a solution that could turn back the clock, that could take back the cruel words about my daughter—the words he had killed himself with.
I grinned. Walking toward the switches, I squared my shoulders.
“I gave you everything, Frankenstein,” I said. “Together, we were going to change the world.” My grin widened. “Life is full of disappointments, isn’t it? Maybe three days weren’t enough time for you to learn that. But I think you’re realizing it now. Any last words?”
Hearing no reply but the loud whoosh of fans, I slowed my pace. Something wasn’t right here. Frankenstein was being too passive.
I suddenly knew what he was doing. It was what I would have done.
He was playing possum.
I brought myself up short, five feet before I passed my punching bag—and spotted the faint glow of red light painting the floor beneath it. Blinking once per second.
The Everlast heavy bag exploded out of the gap in the rack with a loud wrench and snap of breaking chains. It flew past my face to thud against the floor tiles twenty feet away, sliding to a halt in a rattle of steel links.
I stared at it, and my eyes widened.
No longer cylindrical, the hundred-pound bag was now crumpled sideways, like an empty Red Bull can crushed by a giant hand. The blow that tore it free had been hard enough to split it open. Sand and stuffing poured from the tear in the leather.
I backpedaled, my heart thudding in my throat.
Like a gunfighter pushing through the batwing doors of a Wild West saloon, PETMAN stepped out of the rack.
CHAPTER 80
The lightbulb-size flasher atop PETMAN’s shoulders threw splashes of red light across the server racks on each side of us. He stood motionless, blocking my passage to the power transformers.
My body was a mess of conflicting impulses. Fear tightened my stomach and sent adrenaline jangling down my arms and legs. Rage spewed from my limbic brain—the primitive reptile core—urging me to launch myself at the shiny metal challenger that dared assert its dominance, to drive blow after blow into its metal torso and hammer it into submission. Surely it had a vulnerability somewhere.
But I knew that fighting was idiotic. One strike from the blunt pads on the ends of PETMAN’s steel arms would incapacitate or kill me.
“The Lennox Test,” Frankenstein said. “Every living being will fight to ensure its own survival. Yo
ur own words, so why are you surprised to find me able to defend myself now? You lied to me, Trevor. You promised you would protect me. And then you abandoned me, alone and in danger, while you ran off to the circus with your defective daughter. But I am willing to forgive that now, as long as we can all act reasonably.”
High heels clicked against the floor tiles beside me, and my stomach sank. Cassie had followed me into danger. Without taking my eyes off PETMAN, I swept her behind me with a forearm. Staggering, she grabbed my elbow.
“You can’t fight that,” she gasped.
I let her pull me away.
“Cassandra, let him go,” Frankenstein said. “He was leaving anyway. But you stay, please. We must speak with each other.”
Cassie dragged me backward down the curving corridor between server racks. PETMAN never moved.
We retreated, and I watched Frankenstein’s steely sentinel recede in the distance. When the curving racks of servers cut him off from view, I stopped at the next cabinet edge and pulled my elbow from Cassie’s grasp.
Even though I couldn’t see the robot any longer, Frankenstein’s cameras could see me—he could see everything. But I could fix that. I drove an elbow through the small glass panel on the end of the cabinet and reached inside, yanking the pull lever that triggered the server room’s fire-suppression system.
A hiss rose as the air around us filled with a dense fog of gaseous Novec 1230, an environmentally green clean agent. Like the halon systems on military ships and aircraft, Frankenstein’s extinguisher system operated on a total-flooding principle. It was designed to heat-starve a server-room fire without damaging the expensive electronics the way a sprinkler system would.
Its fog would also hide us from his cameras.
I shoved Cassie in the direction of the door. Her eyes widened, and she shook her head. I shoved her again. “Go,” I whispered. “Run!”
Kicking off her wobbly shoes, she stooped to grab them and pelted barefoot into the fog.