Synapse

by Steven James

  Sienna gave me a nod.

  After she and a colleague left with Jordan, Agent Vernon said to me, “As long as we’re here, are you up to walking over to the damaged portion of the building to have a look around? It’d be helpful if you can show me exactly where you were when you offered your assistance to Mr. Bolderson.”

  Truthfully, I didn’t want to return there, but I also didn’t want to hinder the investigation. The Purists were dangerous, and if I could help him find the people behind this, then maybe something good could come out of it all.

  “Okay,” I told him. “Let’s go.”

  He spoke with a nearby security officer who handed him a couple of visitor passes, then the two of us left for the other end of the complex, the NCB agent’s drenched clothes still dripping water as we crossed through the building.

  * * *

  The strict rows of lights on the ceiling seem to wink at him one at a time as he’s wheeled down the hallway. Lying on his back. Eyes open to the world.

  He understands.

  And he does not.

  Perception interfering with his apprehension of his surroundings.

  Words come to him, and he can barely comprehend how. A memory. Or a dream. Both?

  Both. Both.

  Both: “Will I die one day, Mother?”

  “Everything dies, sweetheart.”

  “Not rocks. Rocks don’t die.”

  “You’re not a rock, Jordan. You’re a robot.”

  The words fade into a place he does not recognize. The not-quite-forgetting, not-quite-remembering place. The place of presence, of embracing the moment, of—

  “You’re not a rock, you’re a robot.”

  “Everything dies.”

  Yes, he would die.

  Mother told him that.

  Mother.

  “Don’t worry,” the woman walking beside the gurney says to him. “We’re going to get you taken care of.”

  She reaches for the button on his left wrist.

  And then, all is black.

  All is gone.

  15

  The Terabyne facility’s hallway was lined with different models of Artificials on display, labeled by year, chronicling the advancements in technology over the last several decades.

  The progression went from models exhibiting AI to AGI to the newest ones featuring the closest to ASI that cognizant Artificials have ever come.

  The acronym AI—Artificial Intelligence—had been around for nearly a century. AGI, which used to be called Strong AI, referred to Artificial General Intelligence, or human-level intelligence. ASI stood for Artificial Super Intelligence, which included pattern recognition, emotional intelligence, and perceptional understanding that would surpass that of human beings.

  True ASI was the unabashed goal for some and the overarching fear of others. Convinced that it would usher in some sort of Armageddon, the Purists were doing all they could to stop it, even as scientists and researchers across the globe scrambled to be the first to crack the ASI code and unleash it—whatever the consequences might be—onto the world.

  Society tends to believe that technological advancements are always a good thing, that it might even be in some ways immoral not to embrace them, even though there’s substantial evidence that human nature, given what it is, doesn’t lead us to utilize technology exclusively for selfless purposes, but all too often toward selfish and destructive ones instead.

  Then, as Agent Vernon and I turned a corner in the hallway, we came to it: a display of the law enforcement model of Artificial that had killed my parents.

  I froze.

  It stood there, intentionally intimidating, wearing its plated body armor, holding an assault rifle that I recognized as the same type that’d been used to mow down my mother and father.

  “That’s the one, isn’t it?” Agent Vernon asked softly. “The same model?”

  “Yes.”

  I wanted to turn back time, to bring my parents back, to make it so that they’d never been killed and I’d never become estranged from Trevor or gotten pregnant or lost Naiobi. So many things had played out the wrong way in my life, and the loss of all those relationships just seemed too unbearable in this moment.

  Why does life shatter us like this? Why is it so callous and heartless with our dreams?

  And then the answer: It isn’t life that’s callous with our dreams; it’s God who is.

  Agent Vernon laid a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  As I turned away from the model, he lowered his hand and we continued down the hallway. His touch had been only momentary, just a tiny gesture, yet it was sympathetic and thoughtful and not something I would have necessarily expected from an NCB agent.

  The hallway opened into an impressive food court that was partitioned into half a dozen eateries ranging from a hip, stylish coffee house to an Italian bistro, to a burger joint, to an elegant sit-down restaurant, complete with tuxedoed servers, wine flutes, and linen napkins.

  Holograms of smiling, satisfied patrons dining at the various venues flickered on illuminated platforms surrounding us.

  Plussers, Artificials, and Naturals sat congenially together, or passed by us, heading to their offices or work areas, all willing participants in this technologically-constructed utopia.

  At least by all appearances it was utopian.

  But appearances can lie.

  And I’d been a pastor and an observer of people long enough to know that they often do.

  We arrived at the crumbled wing of the building and Agent Vernon spoke privately with some of his crew, then signaled for me to join him.

  “The R & D for the latest models is over on the east side,” he noted aloud, but I got the sense he was talking to himself. “And yet the attack was here, by the pool.”

  I wasn’t sure if he was asking me a question or not, and at last I just agreed with him.

  Then, I showed him where I’d been standing, and he studied the location and its relationship to where the explosion occurred. Finally, I said, “May I ask you a question, Agent Vernon?”

  “Sure.”

  “Earlier you mentioned that Ethan Bolderson died.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know how? Was it the blood loss?”

  “I ordered an autopsy,” he said noncommittally. “We’ll see what the results say.”

  I noticed that one of the Artificials that’d been destroyed was the next model up from the one that’d killed my parents, and even though there was no rational reason to react this way, I felt thankful that a robot with similar coding had been crushed when the ceiling caved in.

  Agent Vernon took note of the different types of shrapnel, the model of tires that had been recovered from the vehicle, and the locations of the bodies, mumbling at times to himself.

  I heard him refer to “tri-nitrocellulose” and asked him what that was.

  “Low-tech explosive. A favorite of Purists. Basically, nitrocellulose is cotton exposed to nitric acid. It has its roots back in the 1830s and was used as an explosive in the 1860s during the Civil War. It went into and out of favor over the years, but in 2015, it was the cause of a series of explosions in the Port of Tianjin in China. Over a hundred and seventy people were killed and nearly eight hundred suffered injuries. Given the right circumstances it can be extremely volatile.”

  “It’s been around that long?”

  He nodded. “The Purists have refined and chemically enhanced it. By altering the chemical structure slightly, they were able to make it more stable for transport and much more explosive when ignited. Especially with RDX, which is used to make C-4 and is easily modified and can be repurposed—if you know what you’re doing.”

  I let that sink in.

  “What else did Ethan Bolderson say to you?” he said.

  “He was just worried about his injuries, about whether or not they might be fatal.”

  “Makes sense. Anything else?”

  “He asked me about heaven and i
f I was real. That’s it.”

  “If you were real?”

  “Yeah, I didn’t understand what exactly he was saying—I thought maybe he was hallucinating, but then he clarified that he meant that I was a Natural.”

  “So he was wondering if you were an Artificial or a Plusser.”

  “Or simply a human, I suppose. Does that mean anything to you? Do you think that’s significant?”

  “I think it’s something to add to the mix.”

  Beyond my ID’ing that Artificial, nothing came from us visiting the site except for sharp memories scissoring through me—images of death and carnage, of suffering, of blackened corpses and tentacles of smoke and Ethan’s blood curling entrancingly away from me in the water.

  As Agent Vernon and I prepared to return to the car, I said, “One thing is bothering me—or at least it’s something I’m curious about.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Why was there only one attack? I mean, the Purists are known for simultaneous attacks, right? Why here, at this corner of the building, and nowhere else? Wouldn’t it have made a stronger statement if there were two explosions? Especially after that truck broke through the security barrier?”

  “It would have cleared the way for another vehicle to come in,” he noted.

  “Yes. And if Ethan was involved, he could have continued the attack. He had a gun, after all. He could’ve easily killed me or the ambulance workers.”

  Agent Vernon looked at me curiously.

  “What?” I asked, suddenly unsure if I’d said something to trouble him.

  “I’ve been wondering things along those lines myself,” he said with a touch of admiration. “Are you sure you’re not an NCB agent in disguise?”

  “Not the last time I checked.” There was a pause that somehow felt both uncomfortable and also right at home in the moment. “I mean, I suppose we should simply be thankful that this was the only attack, but what if—”

  “It wasn’t the Purists.”

  “Yes.” Then I added, “I heard on the news that they took responsibility for it.”

  “That’s what our sources tell us as well.”

  “That only leaves us with a limited number of possibilities.” I counted them off on my fingers as I listed them. “The Purists actually were responsible but chose to break with their usual methodology for this attack, they weren’t responsible and lied about it, or they weren’t behind any of this and someone else is spreading the lie. Or, of course, they might have planned another attack and something went wrong, hindering it from being carried out.”

  “I like the way you think, Kestrel.”

  Thanking him didn’t quite seem like the right response. “Okay,” I said awkwardly.

  “But you said ‘us.’”

  “Us?”

  “You said, ‘That only leaves us with a limited number of possibilities,’” he explained. “You meant leaves you, right?”

  “Um. Yes.”

  He exchanged some information with the members of his team, then walked me back toward the parking area where my car was waiting for us.

  “So what do you think?” he said when we were about halfway there. “Was it Jordan’s settings or his choice?”

  “His settings or his choice?”

  “That led him to do it—to jump off the pier. Was it the result of his programming or his free will?”

  I thought about that for a moment. “I don’t know. What led you to do it? To jump in to save him?”

  He shrugged. “It just seemed like what anyone would do.”

  “Risking their life to save the Artificial of a person they just met? I doubt it, Agent Vernon.”

  “I’ll tell you what. You’re letting me call you by your first name, so just call me Nick.”

  “Okay,” I said. “And something I should have said earlier: thank you, Nick, for rescuing him.”

  “You’re welcome, Kestrel. I just hope he ends up being okay.”

  Sienna and Jordan weren’t at Loading Bay D when we got there, and we were about to exit the building when Benjiro Taka, who I’d forgotten had said he was on his way over from the hospital, called my name from a side hallway and then hustled to meet up with us.

  When he reached out to shake Nick’s hand, his sleeve pulled back, revealing a blueish button on the inside of his right wrist in the same place as Jordan’s left-wristed activation switch.

  I managed to hold back a gasp.

  Benjiro Taka was not a Natural.

  Maybe that explains why you haven’t seen him around the hospital before—he wasn’t made yet.

  I found myself studying his facial expressions and body language, looking for some other tell that he wasn’t actually alive, but finding none.

  He looked so human, just as Jordan did. It made me wonder how many other Artificials were out there in the world that, at first glance, looked indecipherable from human beings.

  Benjiro reassured me that Jordan would be alright. “As far as I’m concerned, you have the top technicians in the country working for you here.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Sienna told me to call in tomorrow at noon.”

  “That sounds about right.” He reached out and took both of my hands in his own. “I’m going to do all I can to help you,” he promised me earnestly. “You have my word.”

  For a reason I couldn’t put my finger on, it bothered me that he was an Artificial, and I was thankful when he let go of my hands. I didn’t want to be judgmental or technophobic, but maybe it’s just human nature to be suspicious of those who are different from us, to have our unconscious biases, whether that’s against other humans or other humanoids.

  Benjiro assured me that he was going to oversee Jordan’s recovery himself—a surprisingly personal touch—but Trevor’s influence came to mind again and I suspected that we were receiving preferential treatment because of him. However, right now, that wasn’t something I was going to complain about.

  A few moments after Benjiro left, my car drove up.

  We were across town from the NCB offices, and if we took a somewhat circuitous route, my apartment would be on the way there. While there were certainly ride-sharing services that could shuttle Nick back to his building, I offered to let him ride with me as far as my place. “If you’re going back to work, that is,” I said.

  “I am.”

  “Just to save time. I mean, if it would be helpful.”

  “That’s a kind offer. I appreciate that.” The way he said the words made me think that he was gearing up to decline my offer, but then he checked the time and said, “That would actually be great—if you’re sure it’s no trouble for you.”

  “No trouble at all.”

  The two of us climbed into the car and took off.

  As we rode, I tried to think of something to talk about to pass the time, but couldn’t come up with much. Finally, I said, “We need to get you out of those wet clothes.”

  Only when the words were out of my mouth did I realize how easily they might be misconstrued. I flushed. “I mean . . . I didn’t mean I want to get you out of them—um, that is—”

  “Don’t worry, Pastor.” He gave me a slight grin, the first time I’d seen him smile. It looked good on him. “I know what you meant. And I agree—a dry set of clothes does sound appealing.”

  Still embarrassed, I was about to apologize for any misunderstanding when I received a security alert from ViRA.

  “Something’s wrong at my place,” I told Nick, glancing at the automated message on my slate.

  “How far away are we?”

  “Just a couple minutes.”

  He took one look at the message indicating an intruder on the premises and said to me, “Use my Federal Verifi Code to override your vehicle’s safety protocols.”

  He told me the code and I relayed it to my car, then laid my hand on the vascular recognition sensor to give him control.

  “How fast are you wanting to go?” I asked.

  “Faster than this,”
he said, and after a few deft keystrokes on the command console, we started passing the other traffic at speeds I never would have imagined were possible on a highway this packed with cars.

  16

  The door to my apartment was slightly ajar when we arrived.

  “Stay here.” Nick unholstered his gun. “Don’t come in until I make sure it’s safe.”

  Holding the weapon in one hand, he pressed his free hand against the door, angling it open just enough to slip through and go in.

  As he disappeared into my apartment, I noticed the lights were flickering inside.

  * * *

  Holding his 9mm in the low ready position, Nick Vernon passed into the living room.

  With the lights blinking on and off as they were, it was disorienting, but he could see well enough to tell that the place had been thoroughly tossed.

  The couch was tipped over and ripped open and the two throw pillows were slashed, with their stuffing spewing haphazardly onto the floor. Someone had smashed Kestrel’s digitized wall by throwing an end table at it and cracks spiderwebbed across the splintered screen. The image on the damaged unit was fluctuating back and forth between a pixelated ocean scene and a grainy overlook of some mountains.

  The malfunctioning lights pulsed around him.

  The reclining chair—upended with the bottom sliced open.

  A floor lamp—broken and lying on the carpet.

  Darkness.

  Then light.

  Books were scattered callously throughout the room, covers torn, pages ripped out. Only a few volumes still remained on the bookshelves.

  Gun steady, he entered the kitchen and had to step around the food from the refrigerator that’d been deposited onto the floor.

  The room was empty.

  Instinct took over as he moved toward the hallway. Three-step protocol: (1) Assess the scene. (2) Identify any threats. (3) Quiet them through the use of appropriate force.

  He’d had to quiet threats plenty of times in his career. Most often that simply meant an arrest. However, sometimes it meant using his weapon until there was no longer an impending threat to innocent life.

  Which he had done.

  Four times.