Scale Free

by Patrick Arnesen

  “Handing over classified information to private parties is not something we normally do. That tidbit we gave you was classified but deniable. It could have come from anyone. If you want real intelligence documentation then we’ll need a signed non-disclosure agreement from VivraTerra. I don't need to tell you the consequences of violating that agreement, do I?"

  I shook my head. “Please send the papers to Western Trust. They have signing authority on behalf of the company. I’ll make sure they receive instructions to sign without delay.”

  Gaudet projected a file on his desk. “Take this, it’s a decrypting program and key. Use it to decrypt whatever documents I send you, if any.”

  I noticed that a nearly imperceptible smile had caught the edges of his lips.

  “Is there anything else I can do for you today, Mr. Roamer?”

  I felt a chill run down my spine. “No thank you. Please consider my request earnestly. I sincerely hope you can give us some useful information. Obviously it’s also in our own best interest as well to track down any uploads engaged in illegal activity.”

  “Then I’ll call a guard to show you out. And Mr. Roamer, have a very nice day.”

  Chapter 22

  When I had gotten the robot back into the cab I jumped to my house and sent Mr. Speer the request to have Western Trust sign the non-disclosure agreement without delay. Then I went out on the porch to sit and stare at the waves and the seagulls. Would Gaudet send me anything substantial? Had I misread or misplayed the situation?

  A few minutes later, a warning light began flashing near the periphery of my field of view. When I focused my attention on it, the warning expanded into a panel. It read: “Error, connection to robot132 lost. Attempting to restore...”

  I tried jumping back to the robot in the cab, but got another error message: “Unable to connect to robot132.”

  I opened a map of Vancouver and superimposed the location of my robot. VivraTerra subscribed to a tracking service which monitored the location of its robots at all times via satellite. There was robot132, still hurtling northwest on Kingsway, en route to our building.

  One of the error message panels had a tech support link. I punched it. A few seconds later a video call came in.

  “Hi Mr. Roamer, I’m James with robotics support. I see you’re having some communications problems with your robot.”

  “Yes” I replied. “I haven’t been able to connect to it for over a minute now. Is there a network glitch?”

  “Let me have a look." James looked down. "The wireless grid reports no failures. Huh, the robot’s responding to network pings... but it’s refusing to open a connection; could be a software glitch but I haven’t heard of one like this before. Where is the robot right now?”

  “It’s in a cab, on its way back to the main office.”

  “That helps. I’ll send someone out to fetch it when it arrives. Sorry for the trouble Mr. Roamer. We’ll pick up the robot and repair it.”

  The blip on the map representing robot132 stopped moving. It was a little more than a block short of the office.

  “The robot’s not moving anymore.” I zoomed in on the blip. “I think it’s on the sidewalk now.”

  “That’s not possible.” the technician said.

  “I can see it plain as day on the tracker.” I felt the chill of Gaudet’s smile in my spine again. “This is very wrong. I’m going out there right now to get it.”

  James began to look worried. “I’m coming too.” he said and killed the video link.

  I punched in a request for a new robot and soon found myself back in the VivraTerra robot storage room. A second robot came alive and stepped out of its alcove.

  “James?” I said. The robot nodded.

  “Let’s go.” I turned and ran out of the room and down the hall. When I hit the lobby I found the emergency exit and ran through it; James followed. Down two flights of stairs and out onto the street. The sidewalk was crowded as usual and many of the pedestrians turned to stare at us. James and I did our best to weave through the crowd but the robots were ungainly and it was slow going.

  Then I caught sight of robot132. It was sitting on the chest of a young man. Its knees were pinning the man’s arms to the sidewalk. The man was yelling at the robot to get off. I started pushing and shoving to get there faster.

  Then as if in a dream, I saw robot132 pin its victim’s head to the sidewalk sink its other hand into the man’s eye socket. It smoothly ripped out his eye. I could see part of the optic nerve hanging from the bottom of the eyeball like string, dripping blood. The pinned man began shrieking at the top of his lungs.

  I desperately pushed my way forward but I was still too far away. I saw the robot drop the first eye and smoothly pluck out the second. The screaming man struggled desperately but could not dislodge the heavy robot.

  The stunned crowd had begun to react. One man between me and the robot misinterpreted my intentions and began to push and shove back. The software regulating my interaction with my robot recognized a potential risk to humans in my behavior and dialed back my available strength, making it an unfair shoving match.

  Robot132 curled its hand into a fist and struck its victim square in the face. Then it did it again and again. As the blows fell the man’s shrieks turned to grunts and then he lay still. The robot continued until it had broken most of the bones of the man’s face and was sinking its fist deep into his head.

  One of the pedestrians closest to the scene recovered from the shock of the moment and started to act. he grabbed the robot from behind by its waist and hauled it off the victim. The robot gained its feet, turned and sank its knuckles deep into the hero’s neck. The man sank to his knees gagging and coughing. The robot kicked him in the head and he fell to the ground and lay still.

  I watched helplessly as the robot grabbed the nearest woman by the wrist, snapped her arm and then her neck. Now the crowd began to surge way from the robot, carrying James and me along with them. We were pushed to the ground and trampled as the humans retreated.

  When the crowd had passed, I sat up and took stock. My robot host appeared to be mostly unharmed. James was coming to his feet beside me. Robot132 was staring at us from 20 meters away.

  I heard sirens. James started to turn back for the VivraTerra building but I grabbed his wrist. “No, we have to appear to be trying to stop that robot!” I yelled.

  I turned back toward robot132 but by now the police had arrived and officers were rushing out of their cars. I raised my hands in surrender and James followed suit. Robot132 stared at them impassively. The cops weren’t interested in arresting us. They opened up with their shotguns and handguns. Our robots are tough but they’re not built for combat and they’re certainly not bulletproof. As the rounds struck I felt bright flashes of pain at the highest level allowed by the simlet. Warning messages began popping up in my field of view, and I began losing subsystems. My perspective shifted wildly as my robot fell to the ground, and my virtual body in the simlet did the same. Several of my robot’s peripheral camera eyes shattered when its head hit the sidewalk and parts of the world stuttered and froze as my simlet became starved for new information. Then I lost the feed entirely.

  I found myself laying on my side on the porch, where I had been before I jumped into the second robot. The error panels had all vanished to be replaced by a single warning: “Unrecoverable damage to robot 51. Connection lost.”

  Chapter 23

  I curled into a ball. Without thinking, I flashed an emergency message to Melanie and Mr. Speer: “I need you two at my house right now!”

  Melanie found me first and rushed over to me. She dropped to one knee beside me and put her hand on my shoulder.

  “Jarrod, what happened?”

  Mr. Speer materialized behind her. His presence embarrassed me and I struggled to shrug off the after-effects of the trauma. I pulled myself up into a sitting position and Melanie helped me to my feet and walked me over to the nearest chair.
A glass of water materialized on the coffee table beside me. she picked it up.

  “Take two deep breaths... now drink this.” I obeyed.

  “Now, tell me what happened.” said Melanie.

  I looked at Melanie and then at Mr. Speer, who had pulled up a third chair beside us. Then it started to gush out. “I was on my way back from my second visit with Gaudet and then I lost my connection with my robot. Someone took control of it and used it to kill three humans on the street. I saw it happen. Then I was shot by police in the other robot body I had put on to try to stop the first robot.”

  “Jesus.” Melanie said. “Are you ok?”

  “I’m a bit shaken up. The killings were horrible and I couldn’t stop them because I was too far away. Then the cops shot me to death; or rather my robot, but it felt awful. The robot that attacked the human, I’ve never seen a robot move like that before. It was reacting so fast. Our control interface would never support that kind of agility. I don’t know how they did it.”

  Mr. Speer leaned forward. “Jarrod, do you know who took control of the first robot?”

  “I don’t have proof, but it must have been Gaudet and the NASC.”

  Mr. Speer nodded. “It makes sense. This is going to create an international media circus. Most of the public is already uncomfortable with the idea of uploaded people, and a sizable fraction openly oppose us. Many will see this as a call to action. The NASC is sending us a very clear signal. We give them what they want and this will all blow over. If we don’t, then they’ll have an excuse to move against us without exposing their true motives, and without suffering a public backlash.”

  Mr. Speer’s expression softened. “Jarrod, there’s going to have to be an investigation into this event. You’ll be contacted by VivraTerra’s internal police, probably quite soon. I’ll send you some instructions on how to deal with them. In the meantime I think you should take a little time to regroup. You’ve had a shock to your system.”

  Melanie said. “That’s right. Come on Jarrod. I’ll take you someplace where you can recoup for a while.”

  I nodded. “Alright. Until Gaudet comes through with some more information I don’t have anything to go on anyway.”

  Mr. Speer stood up. “Good. In the meantime I’ll have to start damage control. I'll see you later.”

  With that he was gone.

  Chapter 24

  Melanie took my hand and brought me to my feet.

  “Follow me.” she said.

  I followed her into the bedroom where she rifled through my closet and pulled out a soft white bathrobe. “Put this on.”

  I blinked my work clothes out of existence and wrapped the robe around me.

  Melanie curled her fingers around mine.

  "Take a deep breath." Then we jumped.

  The ground felt suddenly cool to my bare feet. We were standing on grass and green moss. Surrounding us were the thick trunks of evergreen and maple trees. They cast a deep shadow over a forest floor. Ribbons of light slipped through the leaves and played over the grass. Roses, rhodos and green bushes were scattered about but there was plenty of room to move freely between the trees. I heard birds calling in the branches above and the wind rustling the treetops. The air was cool but not cold. It was moist and fragrant.

  “This way.” Melanie led me down a gentle slope. I could hear a stream somewhere ahead of us. “This is a private sim I’ve been building. It’s nothing particularly original, but it’s a good place to decompress and a nice change from the sun and sand of Polynesia.”

  We walked down the trail together. The stream came into view ahead of us. It was small and shallow. The water gurgled around stones, some partially covered in moss. In front of us, just uphill from the stream was a flat mossy area. On the moss lay a very large oval sheet in deep purple. It was covered in pillows and silk sheets.

  “Come on.” Melanie sat me down onto the sheet and covered me with one of the blankets. I propped myself up on a pillow and looked up at her. She was wearing a flowing green dress with bare arms. Flowers had appeared in her hair. Standing beside me, she raised her arms in a graceful gesture and her clothes began to shimmer. Slowly they became translucent, then wispy, until they wafted away like morning mist. There she stood in her full beauty. Her wavy brown hair playing around her shoulders and breasts. her dark brown eyes gazed at me. Her curves beckoned. She sank down and joined me under the sheets.”

  Deep inside Melanie’s fantasy, under her rustling leaves, warm beneath her sheets, I took a deep breath and began to feel better.

  Chapter 25

  Melanie slipped away some while later. As I slowly returned to consciousness I became aware of the sound of the creek, and then the birds and the rustling leaves. I lay still and enjoyed the moment.

  The forest was exactly as before, and would remain that way, forever unchanging as long as I stayed here. Were I to leave, the sim would be empty. The software governing it would then shut it down. All of the clever algorithms controlling the flow of water around the stones in the creek would be halted. The birds would cease to be, the little AIs governing their behavior terminated. Details such as the placement of the pillows and sheets would be noted and saved so one day they could be restored just the way we left them. Less important details such as the angle and state of each blade of grass would be forgotten. An apocalypse of nonexistence would engulf the entire forest as the computing resources that supported its existence were re-allocated to other tasks. Right now though, this little world existed only for me.

  Then one day Melanie or I might decide to return here. In the span of just milliseconds, the parameters and specifications for the sim would be looked up and pored over by powerful algorithms. The ground and trees would be recreated, the laws of a Newtonian physics model would take hold and gravity, sound and light would come to be once again. The birds would pop back into being as their little bodies and minds were instantiated and resources allocated to support their existence. A tiny genesis would unfold inside the banks of VivraTerra’s servers and Melanie's lovely forest would come to be once more.

  Chapter 26

  I sat up. There were several messages waiting for me. The first was from Emma, telling me to rest up and not to worry about her. The second was from Gaudet; a big encrypted file over 5 GB in size. That was encouraging. The third was from VivraTerra’s police authority ordering me to report for questioning at once. The fourth, a message from Mr. Speer with some instructions for dealing with the police. I read the last letter over carefully.

  If I was going to be tied up with the police perhaps Melanie could make some headway with Gaudet’s files. I launched the decryption application he had given me. The sim recognized the application for what it was and created a three dimensional representation of it; this turned out to be a short black plastic pipe with a big green arrow down one side. I held the pipe with the arrow pointing down and dropped the icon for Gaudet’s encrypted file into the top hole. A folder icon fell out the bottom. I picked it up, expanded it, and looked inside. There were several documents, photos and even a few video files inside. Pleased, I re-iconified the folder and sent copies to Melanie and Mr. Speer.

  Next I turned to the police summons and found a teleport link at the bottom of the message. After a quick wardrobe change back into my business clothes, and with a last wistful look at the forest Melanie had shared with me, I hit the link. My surroundings took an immediate turn for the worse. The trees and streams of the forest were replaced by the four walls of an interrogation room. The room was large, nearly 20 meters to each wall. The floor, walls and ceiling were all white. An oval conference table of black hardwood, and white leather chairs were set up in the center of the room. Along the walls were stone statues in the Greco-Roman style, all showing heroic characters with perfect postures and uplifted chins; possibly an attempt to subliminally summon our better angels.

  A message appeared on my personal interface: “One moment please. An officer will be with you soon.”
I settled into a chair by the table and waited. After an hour's wait, the doors finally opened to reveal two men. They were dressed in VivraTerra’s standard police uniform, which was a white two piece suit with VivraTerra’s logo emblazoned on the jacket and VivraTerra colors on the tie. They quickly strode to the table as I rose to greet them.

  “Mr. Roamer, I presume.” I nodded. “My name is Officer Martin and this is Officer Slater. Please have a seat.”

  We took our places, with the full length of the table between the officers and me.

  “Mr. Roamer. You’ve been involved in a very serious event. A robot assigned to you has killed three humans. We’re here to record your account of yesterday’s events and to determine whether charges will need to be filed against you.”

  I nodded. “I wouldn’t expect anything less. However, before we begin, I need to make a few requests. First of all, these events are linked to matters of urgent national security. I have here a letter from Mr. Speer, minister of foreign relations, co-signed by Mr. Castillo, head of security, requesting that I not be detained for any length of time. Delaying me at this time could lead to tragic consequences up to and including the destruction of our Polis"