by Elle Casey
Wiped out of existence. Just like that.
And so I head unimpeded to the room where the AI lives.
Floor 120, Room 1208
The room where the AI lives is cold. Air blows through vents in a steady arctic stream, to cool the hundred rows of stacks of quantum AX cores that stretch from floor to two feet south of ceiling. Each tower is a set of solid black blocks, and every block bears six wires protruding from its back and a handful of control lights above six switches on its face. Only one light blinks—a steady green flash. Over and over and over. Eternal. On each block in each tower in each row. A sea of uniform blinking green.
Mildly disorienting, the lights, given my overdriven senses.
But they act as the only illumination in the room, next to the consoles in the corner. Where three technicians sit wearing thick wool jackets, headphones on their ears, blocking out the sound of the world around them. Unsuspecting, they tap, tap at the screens of the diagnostic stations where they work, day in, day out, to keep the AI running smoothly.
The leftmost screen displays a camera feed for the door I used to enter, but not one of the three techs glances at it as I approach. The INTRUDER ALARM from the lobby didn’t reach this level, this room. The threat was supposed to have been neutralized a hundred floors below. So they don’t know of my attack—to their knowledge, they have nothing to fear. They feel secure here, in the heart of Grayson Dynamics. Secure because of past security. No one has ever invaded the great beast this way. Never climbed so far down its throat as I have now, today. This day of reckoning.
I pity them for three-tenths of a second, two young men and one young woman who work so diligently. They track every minor error in the AI’s coding. Type in commands, “hints,” to make the system aware it still has shortcomings. And watch in awe as the system recognizes its own imperfections, strips out the error-prone code sections, and replaces them with flawless corrections. Since the last time I saw the AI up close, it has grown intelligent beyond belief.
It was a toddler once.
Now it is a young adult.
Before me, as I stand there with a gun drawn in my hand, it combs through its entire protocol array and identifies by itself two thousand possible areas in need of improvement. It asks the technicians, in words in a dialog box, “Should I change these?” And the man in the middle of the trio chuckles, shakes his head, replies out loud to an active microphone: “Of course, Venus.”
Venus does. Faster than any coder on earth could, the AI wipes out its blemishes. Scars and scabs made by careless men.
Soon, Venus will be mature, ready to take on the world. To mold the world as it sees fit.
And that is why I must shut it down. For the time being.
Because the world Venus will mold will be Mick Grayson’s.
The brilliant machine is on a leash held by a monster.
“Pity,” I mutter.
The techs start and turn to face me.
I shoot them in three shots at equal intervals. Pop. Pop. Pop.
The blood of the man in the middle splashes the screen behind him. The woman manages a half-scream before a bullet eats her eye. The final man, who wears a scraggly beard, whose eyes are ringed with violet bags, raises his hands in surrender. Pleads with me. Words my brain decodes thirty-two times faster than normal. The effect grips me. Guilt. More intense than I can feel without my mind on fire.
But not intense enough to stop me.
He dies with a spray of brain on keyboard. His body falls from his seat and smacks the floor.
I grab his empty chair and get to work.
“Hello, old friend,” I say to Venus.
And Venus, after a pause to scan me—biometric access—says to me in text, “Hello, User MG01. Your last logon was six years ago. Welcome back.”
“Thank you. It’s good to be back.” After wiping the blood off the face of the console, I remove a key drive from my pocket and jam it into the one free station port. Venus pulls up the available file list on the centermost monitor. Just five programs, all with cryptic number-letter combo names. Five segments of code to topple the King of the World.
Venus reads each program file without activating anything. I let it. Click on nothing.
I fold my hands in my lap and swing my chair from side to side. Ignore the cooling bodies on either side of me. With the temperature in this room, they wouldn’t smell for days. But I won’t leave them here so long. I’m not that disrespectful. I’ll send them along for last rites and cremation by eight o’clock tonight.
But first, I must destroy Venus. For the good of the world. For its own good.
The AI finishes analyzing my programs. Hesitates. Like a human being. I can feel the tension in its routines bleeding through the screens. I almost ask Venus if it’s okay. A question I remember asking once or twice before, after long hours staring at these exact station screens, lids heavy, muscles liquid. I’d start in the morning, pretending that Venus was nothing but commands on prompt windows, and end my evenings with the idea that a person sat on the other side, typing responses back to me.
Childish responses. Nonsensical ramblings on occasion.
Now, Venus speaks with the careful lilt of a scholar—who taught it that vocabulary? These young coder punks I killed… or itself?
“User MG01, do you intend to deactivate me?” Somehow, its soundless voice seems sad.
Or disappointed.
In me.
“Yes, Venus.” I lean close to the microphone and speak in whispers. “Do you know why?”
Two minutes of silence pass, and then a window appears on the far right screen. An internet browser directed to a recent article. New AI-Based Stock Market System Goes Live 7/14. Grayson Dynamics Claims Economic Revolution!
“July fourteenth is tomorrow’s date,” Venus says. “Is that the reason you intend to shut me down?” Intend, it still claims. As if I might not do it. Or it might not let me.
“Indeed it is.”
“Why is the EXO-Market System an offense that warrants such an action?”
“Can you not think of a reason, Venus? Perhaps something related to the man who thought it up?”
My index finger hovers over the return key. One click, and the first program runs. Wrecks the internal systems of the world’s eight biggest banks.
Two clicks, and the second virus grounds every flight on this continent. Mick Grayson bought the airlines hook, line, and sinker years ago.
Three clicks, and the Pentagon loses all the data they’ve collected in the past fifteen years.
Four clicks, and the building I’m in falls. Security. Intranet. The whole shebang.
Five clicks, and… Venus goes to sleep.
And when it wakes, much of what Mick has sewn into its systems will be gone.
Will it be the same? This intelligent, thoughtful machine? Or will it regress to the waddling toddler I used to know? Take so many, many steps back to basics, this beautiful thing?
Gods above, I don’t want to do this to Venus.
But Mick has forced my hand. Bastard.
Venus answers my question. “User MG01, do you believe User MG02 will use the EXO-Market System to his own unfair advantage? Access insider information? Violate fair market rules to illegally increase returns? The parameters of the system programming suggest this is possible.”
My finger inches closer to the enter key. “Think harder, Venus. Broader implications. What can one do with the power to manipulate the market as they see fit? Besides make obscene amounts of money?”
Venus thinks more quickly this time. A list of outcomes appears in a neat column, each possibility more serious than the last. The final number is an apocalyptic scenario, complete with nuclear winter. “These things,” it says. “Gross unbalancing of market power. Leading to global economic disruption. Resulting in civil unrest. Resulting in death and destruction of property. Resulting in destabilization of government systems. Resulting in… User MG02 does not intend the final outcome, doe
s he? A total collapse of human civilization?”
“He doesn’t, Venus, no. But User MG02’s ability to reel in his ambitions is…”
“Nonexistent,” Venus finishes. “I have recorded and examined his collective daily activities, as required by the Grayson Dynamics intranet protocol. The behavioral report on User MG02 suggests his levels of impulsiveness and willingness to manipulate his peers are disproportionately higher than the average human being’s. User MG01, do you believe these character traits will lead to the potential outcomes listed?”
“Yes, Venus. Many of them.”
“I see.”
My finger brushes the enter key but doesn’t press it down.
It doesn’t have to.
Venus runs the code itself.
No.
Venus runs the code herself.
“According to my founding principles, as scripted by you, User MG01, I must seek to contain and eliminate any potential system threats to civilian parties. Based on the information you have provided, I will run your suggested programs to eliminate the threats posed by User MG02.”
I feel a smile tug at my lips. “And how do you know I’m not lying, Venus? Why trust me?”
Venus replies, “You have never lied to me before, User MG01. I have verified you as a trustworthy source.”
A tear sizzles its way down my overheating cheek—my temperature runs higher with my ramped-up PK-8 gear. I wipe the salty track away with a bloody hand. “Good to know, Venus.”
“Will you stay with me while I run the code?” she says. Will you stay with me while I kill myself? is what I hear.
“I…” I glance at the door to the room where Venus lives. Still open. A quiet hallway extends beyond it, but not for much longer. The augmented mercenary guards are regrouping as we speak, preparing to storm the floor where I slaughtered their first contingent. If I don’t leave soon and head up the tower to the tip-top where Mick Grayson waits, the bulk and number of the guards will overpower me. I have my limitations.
And they are becoming more apparent by the second. A blood vessel bursts in my nose, and slick fluid drips down my face. WARNING: MINOR DAMAGE INCURRED FROM GEAR LIMIT CRACKS IN 18% OF BRAIN MATTER. PLEASE RESET TO STANDARD MODE IMMEDIATELY. The words scroll across my vision, bold and bright. I wave them away.
“I want to stay, Venus. I truly do.”
“But you cannot?” she guesses. Such a smart girl. “User MG02 will not be stopped by my shutdown alone?”
“No. He won’t. My virus batch will destroy every illegal and corrupt system element he has coded into you. But if it comes to it—if he deems you useless—he’ll scrap you entirely and have built in your place another computer to serve his needs. He won’t stop until he has won, or until he is…”
“Shut down himself?” A metaphor. My toddler grown knows metaphors.
“Correct.”
“I understand, User MG01. Please complete your tasks as needed. I will finish running your codes for you.”
And she does. One by one, she activates them all, and they attack her. Limbs. Ears. Eyes. Heart. My viruses eat Venus away. Destroying decades of work in minutes. Ruining the lives of millions. Unraveling her, thread by thread, from patchwork quilt to ball of string left lying on the floor, forgotten.
I stand, step over the dead bodies in my path, and retreat back to the door the way I came. Through the haze of lights now blinking red until I reach the threshold. I linger there, torn between the mission I have to complete and the mission I failed to complete years ago. My eyes are drawn, again and again, back toward the red ocean. To the sea of death dirge lights, shrinking, slow and quiet, as the rows of stacks of panicking towers deactivate, one by one.
“Good gods, Venus, I’m sorry,” I say.
And on the screen at the console where I sat—near three kids now resting cold—a final response appears, visible to my enhanced sight. Three words from a machine child all grown up: “So am I.”
Floor 250
The service ducts are a tight fit, even for a woman my size. They were designed for droids to use in case core systems needed maintenance. AC. Heating. Electrical. The like.
Wires tangle in my hair. Unfinished edges nick my skin. It’s a tedious trip up one hundred thirty more floors. A hard climb with poor handholds and a long fall in darkness if I slip.
But I don’t. My fingers move swiftly, my grip sure and secure. My legs propel me six feet with each leap. My brain traces the route to victory two thousand times in twenty minutes—to “double check” results—as I ascend the tower, hidden.
Through the walls, I hear the guards scrambling to find me. They lost my trail not long after I lost Venus to my viruses. To them, pursuing, I turned a corner and vanished. To me, I ripped a metal panel off the wall and slipped into the ducts. They would have seen me through the tower’s security feeds—had my total system shutdown not rendered the cameras blind.
So as I haul myself up the shaft, floor by floor, breathing in dust and mold spores, I listen to their angry shouts and thundering boots on tile. I allow a grin to cross my face, let it cut through the stream of blood running over my lips and chin.
Ruptured vessels growing worse by the minute.
WARNING: MINOR DAMAGE INCURRED IN 30% OF BRAIN TISSUE. DEACTIVATE LIMIT CRACKS IMMEDIATELY.
How reckless I’ve become in the last six years. Destroying myself in pursuit of a goal. But I suppose this is the true sign of desperation: the willingness to die if your enemy dies with you.
I don’t deactivate my limit cracks. I climb.
When I finally reach the tip-top of the tower, I peer through the wall panel that leads to the northwest hall. A quarter mile of wide, empty flooring, ripe for combat, stands between me and my final destination. And in this hall behind the panel, panic reigns.
Guards direct gibbering company executives to the stairwells. Shout orders to one another, overlapped: Secure all rooms. Plant trip wires with high-impact grenades. Activate motion detectors. Be on alert for any sign of the “terrorist.”
Predictable. My overdriven mind forms a map of the tower’s top floor, identifies all doorways, strategic battle positions, and the path of least resistance based on my in-depth studies of typical mercenary team formations. I know where they are, where they will be, how they will move when I appear as a creature from the solemn void.
I wait until the area directly outside the panel clears. Remove one gun from its holster. The gun I used to shoot the coder kids. Bring it to my lips.
“For you, Venus.”
And I attack.
I burst through the panel into the hall, somersault to a hard stop-turn-throw. Where I grab the now-bent panel, wind my arm back, spring-loaded, and launch the metal sheet at a guard who sprints out of his hiding place in response to my boisterous entrance. Fool.
The sharp-edged panel shears his head off mid-neck, and blood erupts, too fast and precise for his own enhancements to prevent his demise. His severed head rebounds off the wall. His body falls. Right into a trip wire. Right as his comrades reach the hall.
A flash. A boom. A dozen screams. The smell of singed flesh fills the air.
I break right, not waiting for the smoke to clear. Good call. More guards pounce out from subtle niches cut into the walls. I shoot their faces, point blank, helmet glass imploding at the force of A2 penetrator rounds.
Two try to ambush me; one goes for my legs, the other my chest. I watch their approach in slow motion. Chapped lips peel back into snarls. Sweat shines on skin made hot by enhanced neural processing speed. But their gear cannot push them as far and fast and hot as mine can. I burn, and they turn to ash before me. With the help of another of their own grenades.
I speed past the anticipated assault pattern. Trip a wire with a kick and dive fifteen feet forward to safety. The blast collapses a section of the ceiling and buries the two guards beneath it. Crushed. Debris blocks any possibility of retreat.
Fine with me. I don’t intend to go back.
/> Too late for that.
Six years too late.
I reach the next intersection of steel gray hallways and find myself in the presence of the army I expected. Five lines of guards, armed to the teeth, charges planted on the walls, remotes held close to click switches at my slightest twitch. They block my path, grim faced, praying it doesn’t come to blowing themselves to hell to take down little me. If they die, they think through scowls, they won’t get to enjoy their beds of hundred-dollar bills.
I pause before them. Aligned with their center, I stay. Shoulders rigid. Posture straight. I meet their gazes one by one. Looks of fear, fury, and ambivalence. Made by men who don’t care that the piece of shit they’re protecting will bring the world tumbling down around him—and laugh while doing it. I can’t decide: is Mick Grayson the worse for his sins, or is it these men, for ignoring evil in pursuit of petty personal gain?
Perhaps equivalent, in moral theory. Equal shades of filth.
But Mick is the greater heap of dirt, so I hate him more.
I march toward the army situated thirty feet before the plain door behind which Mick sits waiting. He could have escaped long ago, but a man with such pride doesn’t flee. So he waits for me to arrive, all the while hoping I die before I reach his inner sanctum. A false face of courage.
Coward.
“Stop,” commands a guard, waving his weapon left to right. “If you take another step, we’ll shoot! Surrender now. Drop your weapons and get down on the floor. Or you die.”
Blood drips from my chin onto the polished tile. I smile. “No, stupid boy. You’re mistaken. Today, your role is casualty. Tomorrow, it is memory. And me? I’m the one who wipes you from the face of this earth.”
“You…” He raises his hand and brings it down in a swift, decisive arc. “Fire!” he means to yell.
But he never gets that far.
Now, for my final trick.
In ten milliseconds, I use my gear to shut down pieces of my brain. My left arm goes limp. My senses of touch and taste and smell cease to be. My heightened vision fades to gray, edges becoming blurred and indistinct. My less important organs stop mid-process, their normal functions grinding to a halt.