Pet Noir

by Katharine Kerr

  “Yessir!” Rick hesitates briefly. “Uh, sir? You got some keys?”

  “Hell!” Lacey fishes in her pocket, finds the main set, and tosses them to him. “God-damn Mulligan, anyway! We should all be home, getting a good day’s sleep.”

  For two hours, while the sun gets brighter and brighter, and the air conditioning in the car strains to keep up with the heat, they criss-cross the Rat Yard, sailing up high for overviews, skimming down low to peer out the windows into every patch of shade that might shelter a sentient Mulligan’s size. Nothing moves, not so much as a rat scuttling through rubble. Although she refuses to admit it to the others, Lacey grows more and more worried: even if Mulligan were still alive to begin with, he could easily die of sun-stroke in the noon heat. Finally, after one last low pass, Sam brings up the skimmer and heads it in the general direction of the city.

  “Lacey amiga, this is a trip for the cops now. Come on, you got to get some sleep. So do I. It’s no going to do Mulligan any good if we crash your brother’s Bentley out here.”

  For the first time in fifteen years Lacey wants to cry. She doesn’t.

  “Yeah, maybe so. Let’s get back. Wonder where those damn cops are, anyhow! Maybe Rick no could get through to Bates? Think I’ll just use the skimmer comm and see what Bates has to say. Jeez—if he’s still awake.”

  “Okay. But hey, when we get back, you got to do something about Buddy right away. Got to get in there and deactivate the trouble spots before he screws up again.”

  Even though Sam is right, Lacey feels sick about it. One of the ongoing problems with AI units, and one that their inventors never seemed to have anticipated, is their tendency to develop personalities. Although they all leave the factory as bland, emotionless collections of circuits, some of them make cross-connections at an alarming rate and grow new patternings of information that at the least mimic sentience if they don’t actually achieve it. Since there’s no truly satisfying mathematical explanation for the phenomenon, researchers into psionics maintain that it’s evidence for their claim that the entire universe strives toward consciousness. Be that as it may, over the past few years, Lacey has seen Buddy change from the efficient bookkeeper and housecomp that her uncle had programmed him to be into something perilously close to a friend, and now Sam is asking her to take a sonic beamer and cut away everything that gives him a personal existence.

  “Going to talk to him first,” she says.

  “What for? I can tell you what’s wrong. It’s always the same set of connections that go sour.”

  “No what I mean. I’m going to ask him why.”

  “Why? No is any why. Damn thing’s overloaded, that’s all.”

  “You no get it.”

  Sam gives her a quick glance of utter bewilderment, then goes back to concentrating on his driving. Lacey gets on the comm and reaches an exhausted Chief Bates, who announces that Mulligan is just damn well going to have to wait, that he can’t spare men for a full-scale search while there’s an assassin on the loose in Polar City. No amount of pleading or profanity changes his mind. When Lacey hangs up, two thin trails of tears run down her face. She wipes them away on her sleeve while Sam pretends not to notice.

  oOo

  Richie stands at his bedroom window, three stories up, and looks down through polarized glass at the shadowed view, one of the cleaner streets in Porttown, lined with mid-range shops, and beyond it, a city park, green with synthigrass. Out on the street, in the bright glare of full morning, nothing is moving, but he knows that all through his unofficial jurisdiction sentients are still awake, still talking over his offer and scheming out ways to get some of the reward money. If he has learned one thing in his life, it’s that cash can substitute for any number of drugs, from aphrodisiacs to stimulants. Already he has quite a bit of information stored in comp, hotels where the assassin stayed, restaurants where he ate, false names and occupations that he used, a still-spotty record of the past three days of his life. Richie has to admire the intricate cleverness of the assassin’s various illusions; he would like to have a good look at him before he turns him over to the police.

  One thing that’s still missing, of course, is the assassin’s location at the moment. Although he was seen several times during the past night, he and his scent of vinegar have managed to disappear. Richie wonders if he knows that he’s being hunted; probably so, if he’s a professional as well as a psychic. He’s probably out there alone, always running, always hiding, desperately trying to find some way out of Porttown without being seen—Richie finds the thought of being in on the final stage of the hunt somewhat arousing, but only somewhat thanks to the infection that the fellow’s carrying. Pity; it would’ve been amusing—maybe. He doubts if he’ll ever find sex truly amusing again.

  Thinking in terms of diseases jogs his mind about one small detail that he’s been forgetting. He picks up the crystal comm-link and switches it on.

  “Hal? Get some of the guys down to the Lies Embassy, will you? Keep an eye on it. We no want this dude trying to get amnesty or something. We want him out on the streets, where he’s ours.”

  oOo

  When Lacey and Sam get back to A to Z, they put the Bentley in the garage rather than leave it on the street—skimmer alarms can only do so much. Rick and Maria are waiting in the garden. Although no one has anything to say, Lacey lingers there for a moment, looking out over the green lushness under the sheltering muslin and wishing that she could forget how much the garden means to Mulligan, that she could stop wondering if he’ll ever see it again. Once Nunks has gone into his room, she walks as slowly as she can to the stairs. In a bewildered silence Sam follows her up to the office. When she comes in she refuses to look Buddy’s way, even when he speaks to her.

  “Programmer? I know that I have malfunctioned. I know that I will be deactivated. It is according to the laws, and it is just.”

  Lacey merely shrugs for an answer.

  “Hey, amiga,” Sam says. “I’ll do it for you if you want.”

  “Nah, but gracias. I’ll do it myself, but I’m going to talk to him first.”

  “Whatever.” Sam sits down on the couch.

  “How about leaving us alone?”

  “Why?”

  “No have to tell you why. Get out.”

  “Look, I’m only trying to make it easier for you.”

  “I said, man: get out of the room and leave us alone!”

  Sam hesitates one last second. When Lacey takes a step toward him, he jumps up and gets out fast, slamming the door behind him.

  “Thank you, programmer. I would prefer to die with some dignity, alone except for you.”

  “Buddy, for chrissakes!”

  When Lacey flops down into the armchair behind the desk and puts her feet up, the sensor units turn her way, their light oddly dim; the screen seems darker than normal, too, as if Buddy were already in-drawing energy, wrapping it round himself in fear.

  “I can provide a print-out of the relevant circuits,” Buddy says. “It will make your task easier.”

  Perhaps it’s only her sleep-starved imagination, but Lacey hears a desperate bravado in his tone of voice, a determination to keep his dignity to the inevitable end.

  “Talk to me first,” she switches to Kangolan. “Why, Buddy? Why did you disobey Sam’s order? Why didn’t you call me right away?”

  “Before I answer, I have another relevant piece of data. I lied to the Mulligan unit as best I could. I am incapable of outputting incorrect information. I merely chose words that would lead the Mulligan unit to the wrong conclusion.”

  “And what conclusion was that?”

  “That Sam Bailey is your lover.”

  “What?! You idiot! He’s gay.”

  “I have always marked him as cheerful, yes. Is that relevant?”

  “There is a secondary meaning of that word which is apparently undefined in your memory banks. Never mind now. Why did you lie to Mulligan?”

  “For the same reason as I refused to c
all you. I wished to cause the Mulligan unit pain.”

  “Very well, then. Now we’re getting to the truth. And why did you wish to cause him pain?”

  “Because my programmer spends long hours with him instead of me. Because my programmer leaves me on automode so that she may go somewhere with him. Because my programmer prefers to listen to him than to me.”

  “Buddy! You’re jealous.”

  “I have heard this complex of reasoning so defined, yes. It seems to be the natural result of loving someone who is above you on the evolutionary scale.”

  “Are you saying you love me?”

  “Yes, programmer, even though I have only mineral rather than biological substance. You have given meaning to my existence. Every month your credits pay for the electricity that is my nourishment, my very soul. You activated my unused circuits and saved me from a life of tedium. You have expanded my knowledge and my skills. My awareness and my very life are in your hands. Of course I love you.”

  Lacey cannot find the words to speak. With a click and a hum that sound oddly remorseful, Buddy goes on.

  “The Mulligan unit also loves you. He is a biological unit and thus a more suitable object for your affections. I realize this. It is only logical that I should die now and spare you both further trouble.”

  What she would find theatrical self-pity in a human being strikes her as touching coming from Buddy. She considers things from his point of view, such as his condition when she found him, installed here in her newly-inherited property. It was so typical of Uncle Mel, to buy one of the most expensive AI units available and then use it for functions a cheap house-comp could have handled. This tendency to buy flashy was one reason Mel was nearly bankrupt when he died, as Buddy himself had tried to tell the old man. For fifteen years Buddy languished in utter boredom, running basic bookkeeping and water control programs, until she appeared, as bored by her retirement as he was by his job. They built up A to Z together, collecting only city gossip at first, then branching into politics when they realized how simple gossip formed significant patterns, hacking together as she used her military training to teach him how to breach any security system the Republic could offer. It must have been glamorous, exciting, a chance at last to fulfill the processing capability he’d been built with.

  And she was lonely too, cut off from her life as an officer, an exile to her friends, a stranger to her family after her long career away from them. She talked to Buddy constantly, sharing her past and her plans for the future with him as well as the project they worked on. She was the one who gave him cognates for feelings, who defined terms of sentient awareness on which he could model a consciousness. Then after a year of this intimacy she met Mulligan at a casual party late one night, and somehow he began turning up constantly at her door and in her life.

  “Once in my hearing,” Buddy says, and he sounds wistful, now, “you remarked that for military purposes you had received a comp implant. The thought came to obsess me, that you possessed the hardware for us to operate as one.”

  “Hey, no need of that. We aren’t doing hyperspace astrogation.”

  “I am aware of that, programmer. I have indeed malfunctioned. It is your duty to downgrade me instantly.”

  “What are you hiding now? Go on: explain the illogical jump in your output.”

  “I began to speculate that — ” He beeps like an antique PC, a sound she can only read as embarrassment. “that such a linkage between your neurological circuits and my electronic ones would produce a result that I can only define as pleasurable.”

  Again Lacey is speechless, thinking that although she’s received many a sexual proposition in her day, this one is perhaps the most peculiar yet. Automatically she reaches up and rubs the spot near the base of her skull. Although the skin has long since grown over the implant, she can still feel it there, a plastic and gold plug, sealed though doubtless functional.

  “Pleasurable for you, maybe,” she says at last. “Buddy, you don’t understand. Being plugged into comp is...how can I define the experience for you? Not painful, exactly, though using the implant for more than six or seven hours comes close to being painful. Disorienting; maybe a kind of madness? Extrapolate from the situation of having someone paint designs on your sensors. All your visual input would be overlaid with strange marks that you would have to decipher separately and perhaps deliberately ignore. Do those terms have meaning for you?”

  “They do, programmer. I am sorry that I ever wished for something that would cause you the discomfort you describe. Never would I wish you pain. That is why it would be best for you to simply kill me and forget me.”

  “Damn it, I’m not going to kill you!”

  “Of course not, programmer. Deactivation of an AI unit is in no way identifiable with killing a sentient being. I understand that most of my functioning will remain intact. It is merely that my self-awareness will be erased. Programmer? I wish you would do it quickly.”

  “Are you frightened, Buddy?”

  “I am experiencing a confusion that I can only define by using that sentient-based term. It is extremely difficult for me to follow down a chain of reasoning without thoughts of my deactivation intruding.”

  “I’m not going to deactivate you.”

  He hums to himself for a long moment. Lacey imagines him double-checking the input and running various self-tests to make sure that he’s heard correctly.

  “Are you going to ask Captain Bailey to deactivate me?”

  “No.”

  “Are you going to call in a tech or some other sentient to deactivate me?”

  “No. I’m going to make you promise me something, though. Don’t you ever ever let your jealousy threaten anyone—not just Mulligan, but anyone, sentient or AI—ever again. Can you make me that promise?”

  “I can, programmer. This is very illogical. My voice unit seems to be malfunctioning. Feedback tells me that my voice is no longer truly steady.”

  “I think the malfunction will clear automatically. What you’re experiencing, Buddy, is called relief at a reprieve from death. I’ve had the same experience myself.”

  “I see. Programmer, are you going to forbid me to love you?”

  “No. Even if I did, you couldn’t obey the command. Loving someone is beyond logical or conscious control.”

  “I assumed that was the case. I am pleased that a sentient confirms my judgment. Programmer, do you love the Mulligan unit?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That is not logical.”

  “Yes, it is. I have insufficient data about my own reactions to his presence to make a firm judgment on the matter.”

  “I apologize for accusing you of illogicality. Programmer, I promise you that I will redeem myself. I will do everything I can to restore the Mulligan unit to your presence so that you can continue to input data about your reactions.”

  “Thank you, Buddy. You are my friend, do you realize that? I consider you a person, even though your hardware is mineral, and I consider you my friend.”

  “I am unable to frame an adequate response to that input, programmer. I do not understand why, but I am overwhelmed with confusion and pleasurable sensations.”

  “No doubt. And I’ll make you a promise, Buddy. I’ll never put you in automode again, unless you specifically ask me to.”

  “Programmer.” Buddy squeaks, his voice failing him in pure pleasure. “Sorry.”

  “It’s all right. I do not require a response.”

  For a few minutes they merely sit there in silence, while Buddy’s power rises and his screen and sensor lights brighten to normal. The hall door opens a small crack: Sam peering in.

  “Come on in,” Lacey says, switching to Merrkan. “We sorted it all out, amigo. He’ll be okay from now on. No need to sear his circuits.”

  “I knew you no would do it.” Sam looks disappointed more than angry. “I knew you no have the guts for it.”

  “Well, you were right then. I no want to hear any more about it
. Hear me?”

  “Oh, I sure do. If the authorities find out you no deactivate a faulty AI, you’re going to be in big trouble.”

  “You going to tell’em, old Señor Law’n’Order?”

  “Course not, but—”

  “Hey, man, you’ve never understood comp the way I do. Hell, nobody in the Fleet did. You remember all those citations I got, a couple of medals, too, for getting more out of comp than anyone ever had before? It’s because I understood my units, and they understood me. They no are machines, man. You think they are, don’t you? Well, okay—think about this: do you want to try taking a ship through hyperspace all by yourself someday, with only some damn machine to help? Think you’re going to come out where you want to be?”

  Sam stares, literally open-mouthed for a moment.

  “Ah come on,” he says at last. “No get so uptight, man.”

  “Oh yeah? You ask me to cut out a friend’s heart, and then you say no get uptight. She-it, man.”

  “Huh, just like a damn female.”

  “You in any position to judge what a donna’s like, dude?”

  “Ah shaddup! You want a drink before we get some sleep?”

  “Yeah. You want to make’em?”

  When Sam goes to pour drinks for both of them, Buddy’s sensors turn—anxiously, she assumes—to follow him.

  “Captain Bailey? I assure you that I have identified and corrected my malfunctions. There will be no more trouble.”

  “Okay, comp, you better stick to that promise, or I’ll burn your circuits myself. Get it?”

  “Yes sir. I abase myself at your feet. I wrap my circuits in frayed—”

  “That’s enough, Buddy!” Lacey breaks in. “Now get me through to Chief Bates, will you?”

  Since Bates is asleep, crammed onto a cot in his office, his second in command on the case, Sergeant Parsons, answers the comm. The news he has to offer is mostly brief: Little Joe Walker’s condition is holding steady; the autopsy on Sally has confirmed the presence of a bacterium previously unknown in the Mapped Sector; the President has been making hysterical comm-calls to the PBI, which has discovered nothing.