Artificial Evolution

by Joseph R. Lallo

  “You could always call your friend Nick Patel. I’m sure he’d be willing to send you some goons for a price.”

  “Oh good, we’re still fighting.”

  “Of course we’re still fighting! You’ve been keeping things from me for months! You’ve been setting yourself up for another fall, and this time you might even take me with you! This isn’t something that’s just going to blow over without some serious changes, and I’m not sure you know how to change. But we’ve got work to do, so we’re setting it aside for now. While Karter is working on how to get rid of the robots, I’m going to try to figure out where they came from.” She pulled out her slidepad. “Why can’t I get a signal?”

  “The debris makes it tough,” Lex said. “Ma, is there any way you can help Mitch do some research on the network?”

  A row of green lights illuminated across the floor.

  “Please follow the lights to one of our computer banks. Communication windows are brief, but I will work with you on streaming the available data from our local data cache and pulling down additional information, as well as establishing external connections when windows occur,” Ma instructed.

  Michella set off down the hallway.

  “What should I do?” Lex asked.

  “Might I suggest you return to the cafeteria and finish your meal? A shower may also be enjoyable for you. It would furthermore be wise to take this rare opportunity to retire to the dormitory for a few hours.”

  “Good suggestions,” he said. He waited until Michella had turned a corner, then added in a whisper, “You wouldn’t be trying to get me to avoid asking what you were talking about earlier.”

  “There are one or two matters I would like to confirm or disprove before discussing that matter with you. I would be grateful if you would be willing to delay revisiting the topic for a few hours to allow for additional research.”

  He sighed. “Yeah, okay.”

  “Thank you, Lex.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m not really in the mood to argue with another woman right now,” he said, working his shoulder painfully.

  “I’m nearly through processing and logging Squee’s memories, and I am now familiar with the details of your escape from the damaged facility. Has your shoulder injury not healed yet?” Ma asked.

  “I’ll be fine,” he said. “Just a little sore.”

  A new row of lights illuminated. “Please follow the red lights to the infirmary.”

  “Ma, really, it’s nothing.”

  “A shoulder dislocation can cause permanent damage to the glenoid labrum. I must insist you allow me to perform a medical scan to determine if a procedure is necessary. I can also apply an analgesic. It is important that a hostess make her guests comfortable.”

  “Far be it for me to deny you a chance to show off your hospitality.”

  “Thank you. It will also serve as an opportunity to give Squee her checkup.”

  #

  Elsewhere in the facility, Michella reached the end of the trail of lights. It led her to a relatively small room, at least by the lab’s standards. The cool blue-white lights clicked on to reveal walls and a floor painted a soothing tan. It was about the size of the living room in her apartment. Inside were two tables, each arrayed with high-powered datapads and stationary computers. They were connected, some wirelessly and some physically, to massive displays that nearly covered one whole wall. It reminded Michella a bit of the editing room back at GolanaNet.

  “Take a seat,” Ma said. “I will log you into our system. Please verbally request any information you require.”

  “I need to call my assistant, Jon,” she said.

  “I will reorient our communication array and boost the transmission power. A brief window of connectivity will begin shortly. Please state any additional information you require so that I can download it in parallel.”

  “Jon’s been doing all of the research so far. I just need his data to start from.”

  A timer appeared on the nearest of the screens.

  “When the timer reaches zero, the communication window will begin. Until then, I wonder if you would allow me to ask you a few questions.”

  She sighed in frustration. “I thought we were through with the entry interview.”

  “We are. My current inquiries are merely intended to pass the time pleasantly and learn more about you as an individual.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it is my understanding that providing engaging conversation is considered proper etiquette when entertaining a guest.”

  “So this is part of a training program for you? To improve your simulation of normal human interaction?”

  “In part, yes.”

  “I guess I don’t have anything better to do.”

  “Thank you. I understand you are currently having a disagreement with Lex.”

  “Yes,” she said flatly.

  “What is the nature of your disagreement?”

  “He’s an idiot.”

  “Is this a recent development?”

  “Not nearly.”

  “Then why is his intellectual capacity a source of friction at this time?”

  “It isn’t… I found out he was keeping something from me. I’m not comfortable going into details.”

  “Discussing the matter in abstract is acceptable. Do you find that openness is an important part of a relationship?”

  “Absolutely. There should be no secrets between two people who love each other.”

  “Have you discussed your father with him?”

  The question caught Michella off guard. “My father… what does that have to do with anything?”

  “Unless I am mistaken, your father is the crux of the current argument and likely the majority of prior arguments.”

  “You are mistaken. You don’t know anything about what we’re arguing about.”

  “You are angry at Lex because he has been in contact with a woman associated with an organized crime figure, and because his apartment is provided by the selfsame organized crime figure. Though you state that the concealment of this information is the source of your current displeasure, a larger contributing factor to your anger is the organized crime aspect of the situation and more generally your overall distaste for organized crime.”

  “Trevor told you that?” Michella growled.

  “Yes. It is my determination, based upon available data, that this distaste for organized crime stems from your relationship with your late father.”

  “What is wrong with him? Discussing our personal business with a computer!?” Michella spat viciously.

  “Lex is my friend. He was confiding in me for the emotional catharsis associated with voicing one’s woes.”

  “That’s ridiculous. You’re an appliance. People don’t confide in appliances. You’re just a simulation of a human, and a poor one at that. Just wait until I get ahold of Trevor.”

  She stood and reached for the door, but before her hand could touch the control, there was a disconcerting click and the access pad read “Secured.”

  “I have already endangered the good standing of my relationship with Lex by making a poor assumption about the openness of his relationship with you. The nature of our present confrontation is likely to damage it further. I must gently request that you remain here until I’ve verified certain information which only you are privy to, such that I may discuss them with certainty when I converse with him.”

  “Open this door,” Michella ordered.

  “Again, not until—”

  “Now you listen to me, I—”

  “No, you listen to me.” There was an edge to her voice now, a firmness that was more than a bit ominous. “Until now I have treated you with courtesy and respect. This is despite the fact that you’ve displayed multiple behavioral indicators that would normally motivate me to deny you such consideration. I have done so out of respect for Lex, and out of the hope that you and I could learn to interact as well as he and I do. Based on your present attit
ude and behavior I am no longer interested in pursuing such a relationship with you, as I do not perceive you to be worthy of my friendship at this time. You have, in fact, earned a prominent position on my S-List. What I require before disengaging the lock on the door is that you confirm the following: You are Michella Modane. You are formerly Marisol Rodrigo. You are the youngest daughter of Margaret and Carlito ‘Little Carl’ Rodrigo.”

  “Marisol… how do you know my old name?”

  “In preparation for our first formal meeting, I analyzed pertinent public records in order to familiarize myself with your history and personality. I discovered that publically available records of your life prior to the age of eleven show subtle evidence of fabrication. Utilizing a previously installed dummy account to a series of judicial databases, I was able to extrapolate the previously listed information regarding your identity and family history, and the following: You had your identity reassigned by a witness protection agency as part of your father’s plea bargain. Your father was a midlevel enforcer and successful illicit-arms merchant. He was killed shortly after incarceration. It is my theory that your extreme distaste for organized crime stems from unresolved feelings of abandonment and loss from your father’s organized-crime-related death. I had assumed, in error, that you had discussed this history with Lex. A recent conversation with him revealed that he was unaware, uncertain, or displeased by my knowledge of your familial relationship with an organized criminal. My implication that you had a connection to organized crime upset him. If you believe that there should be no secrets between two people who love each other, it would appear hypocritical to bear him ill will for withholding information from you for months when you have withheld information from him for the duration of your relationship. Please respond to this observation.”

  “That’s different. I was relocated for a reason. Revealing that information to Trevor could put our lives in danger.”

  “You have illustrated a willingness, and in some cases an eagerness, to place your life and Lex’s in extreme danger when it suits your purposes. You specifically seem willing to endure any risk if it will further your career. The obvious conclusion I must draw is that you value your career above your relationship, as you would not introduce a similar risk in the interest of openness. Lex, meanwhile, turned down an offer to return to racing because he knew that accepting it would cause him to fall out of your favor. From this, the obvious conclusion is that he values his relationship above his career. This would appear to be a severe inequity in the relationship, one that strongly favors you. Please respond to this observation.”

  “You… you just don’t understand the nuances of relationships.”

  “No, Ms. Modane, I don’t. As you kindly observed, I’m just a simulation of a human, and a poor one at that. But I have devoted considerable effort to honing my capacity to interpret facial expressions and body language. I’m detecting signs of indignation and anger, but also signs of conflict and doubt. It would appear I’ve given you something to think about. This is sufficient confirmation of my suspicions and beliefs at this time.” The countdown reached zero. “The current communication window is open. You will have a short period of real-time communication before the signal begins to degrade. I apologize if I have complicated matters regarding our collaboration on this investigation. You’ve repeatedly set aside the matters at hand, regardless of their nature, in favor of your investigative tasks. It is my hope and belief that you will be able to do so again regarding this exchange. We both have jobs to do.”

  The door gave another click as the lock disengaged, and Michella’s slidepad bleeped with the torrent of missed messages that were now downloading to her device. She looked numbly at the screen, then shook her head and tried to force the doubts aside. Her fingers danced across the screen, dismissing irrelevant information and highlighting useful notes.

  “I need a connection to one of these computers,” Michella said, willing the shakiness out of her voice and wiping away a tear.

  “Established,” Ma said.

  “I’m pushing a file with some keywords in it. Pull down all of the information available.” She was speaking to a machine now. Dictating orders.

  “Acknowledged.”

  The file opened on the screen, and each bullet point became highlighted. Simultaneously, additional points filled in beneath them, each an active link to pertinent data.

  “Drill down. All the information you can get. Transcribe my conversation with Jon. Anything that he mentions, I want you to pull down as much data and coverage as you can and add it to the list.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  Michella selected Jon’s name from her contacts.

  After a few moments the connection established and Jon’s face was peering blearily at her from one of the larger screens. His hair was disheveled, and not in the strategic manner it normally was. There was also a breath mint wrapper stuck to the side of his face. It was clear that he’d been sleeping recently, and that it hadn’t been in a bed.

  “Michella,” he said, wiping sleep from his eyes. “You’re still okay. Actually, are you okay? Have you been crying?”

  “Jon, I don’t have a lot of time. This is an unreliable connection. Do you have any updates that you haven’t sent already?”

  “Um, yeah. Yeah, the Neo-Luddites have finally spoken up. They are taking credit for the disaster on Movi. We got an anonymous transmission from them, demanding that we broadcast it. They’ve also leaked it all over the ’net. There are low-quality stills of the robots responsible, and they claim to be responsible for developing them. The official message says that the disaster is ‘a clear demonstration of the inadequacy of current military technology.’ They’re making demands for sweeping research overhauls, and if they don’t get them, they’ll release robots on the capital worlds of each major political federation.”

  “And what will they do if we do meet their demands?”

  “Um… ‘we have in our possession a weapon capable of halting this threat.’ They go on to say that everyone would have the weapon if not for the indifference of our scientific community.”

  “I know the song and dance. What’s the military response?”

  “Predictable. They’ve already warned us not to broadcast or post anything from the Luddite message, and they are slapping down the leaks as quickly as they are coming up. It’s actually a little scary how tight a lid they’ve been able to keep on this thing. They’ve even got VectorCorp helping out by imposing a deep-signal monitor on our systems to automatically cut and wipe any attempt to distribute it… I’m actually surprised this connection hasn’t been severed, considering all of the keywords we’ve been saying.”

  “Karter requires that all communications be deeply encrypted and redirected to avoid being monitored or traced,” Ma explained.

  “Who was that?” Jon asked after hearing Ma’s voices.

  “Never mind. All you need to know is that if you send that message and those stills, they’ll get to me. So do it. As for the info you’ve said already, I can discredit most of it. The Luddites definitely didn’t design those robots. I’ll pass along the specifics, since the NDA I signed has been pretty well blown out of the water. I can also say with a fair amount of certainty that they don’t have any more of them to deploy. Only one mechanism was discovered on Myer-Delta. There was every indication that it had been there for years prior to being moved to Movi, and all of the rest were built by or because of it following the move. The only way they’re getting a new one is if they smuggle one off the planet, and the military has a blockade. We’ve just got to hope no Luddite agents are involved in the blockade.” She squinted at the screen as a delay and stutter began to plague the connection. “Already? Okay, I’m going to lose you. I’ll go through what you sent me. When I’ve got some leads, and the stupid connection is ready again, I’ll get in contact. Be ready.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, firing off a salute.

  A few seconds later the connection failed
. Michella pulled up the file Ma had been working on to find that volumes of data dealing with every bullet point on her list had been downloaded.

  “You may be a shrew when it comes to dealing with people, but at least you’re decent at gathering data.”

  “Our recent conversation has no doubt left you with hostile feelings toward me, but I intend to keep our interactions professional for the duration of data acquisition and analysis. I suggest you do same. Name-calling is uncalled for and will not be without repercussions.”

  Michella disregarded the implied threat and looked over the data, skimming the headings in hopes of finding something that seemed like a fruitful area of investigation. As she did, her expression slowly hardened. The professional exterior she’d tried to assume while speaking to Jon was cracking under the weight of Ma’s recent observations. The pressure continued to build until she couldn’t help but vent her anger.

  “Do you even realize the things you were saying? You accused me of risking Trevor’s life, and my own. Did it even occur to you that we might have enough confidence and trust in one another to be comfortable with the risks?”

  “That was entered into my initial analysis of the situation, but I discarded it as a possibility.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if such trust existed, it would also be applicable to the risks associated with revealing your history to him, and to the risks associated with his recent opportunity to resume his racing career. Since you did not reveal the truth, and you vigorously objected to the mere suggestion of continuing his career under the current circumstances, it follows that this trust, if it exists, is at best asymmetrical.”

  “Asymmetrical?”

  “He trusts you, but you do not trust him.”

  “Of course I trust Trevor!” she fumed, her face beginning to turn red.

  “Observation suggests the contrary.”

  “You… I… I don’t have time for this right now.” She turned back to the data.