Con Code

by Aften Brook Szymanski

  “Do it.” Juan bites the wire in half. Seriously, he bites it like an animal—an artificial human intelligence animal whose threatened existence has driven him feral. He hands me the piece out of his mouth. Not my first choice, but I accept it. “Jennie goes first.”

  “What?” I ask. “Why me?”

  “Two reasons,” Juan says. “One, it was your idea. And two, I want to see how it’s done.”

  My neck is rubbed till the friction cleans my synthetic skin, not that infection is a concern. Viral threat is still something I fear, but it’s a different kind of virus than what inflicts humans and their compromised skin. I think the section is scrubbed out of sanctimony more than need. A small opening, only deep enough to penetrate all but the last thin layer of skin, is made. Juan decides to not have the wire in full contact with the skin from the start, but to leave a film between metals with the points of the copper wire sharpened fine and the length of it scarred by dings and strikes so that one slap will tear open the film if I need to enable my self-destruct shield. It all sounds counterproductive when I think about it.

  “Where?”

  “Just over the code…” They both go quiet. I want to ask what my code says. Can they see it, read it through the remaining film layer of skin? Or maybe they’re simply concentrating so as to not tear that protective layer before letting the thick flaps of skin fall back together and hold the metal in place.

  No one says done. I can feel my skin suck together where it was being held ajar. “Did it work?” No one speaks. What’s written where my code should be? “Can I move now? Is it okay?” I twist to look at them both. Neither of them looks me in the eyes, or at each other. Like they’re maybe pretending they didn’t see anything. “Am I okay?”

  “Uh, yeah.” Juan shakes his head like he’s waking from a nap. “I’m just a little surprised it’s staying in place. I think it might work.” I can’t tell which of Juan’s personalities reacts. Maybe all of them.

  Gordon steps back from Juan as if he needs a little distance from what Juan isn’t saying. “Okay, let’s get this in you.” He says to no one directly, but we all know he means the only other AI in the room. “We might want to hurry before the light goes away. I get the impression these guys are anti-lightbulb.”

  “You think?” I say trying to jump on the ‘break the tension’ and ‘pretend everything’s normal’ bandwagon.

  Juan passes in front of Gordon, turns his head slightly, and mouths ‘you tell me’ at an angle that I’m betting he thinks I can’t see well enough to lip read. He’s wrong. My hand goes up to the back of my neck, like a reflex of my curiosity.

  “No!” they both shout together.

  I startle. Their outburst successfully prevents me from touching my neck, but now I sort of worry they’ve implanted some C4 along with the wire, or something we should all be afraid of. Do I trust either of them? Alone? Or together? It’s not like they’d have access to explosives or plastics to lay under my skin, would they? Did they? Do they? I search their faces for an explanation, none forthcoming.

  “Help me with this, will you, Jen?” Gordon says. He’s never called me ‘Jen’ before. The shortened name couldn’t come at a worse time. It feels like a costume right now, not the result of familiarity and comfort.

  Gordon directs Juan to the chair. Juan and Gordon maintain wide-open eyes, both keeping constant visual contact with one another until the last moment when Juan has to stare forward and remain perfectly still, so we don’t accidentally trigger a brain-fry during the implant process.

  Gordon carefully slices through the layers of skin. He peels the top flaps back from the final film of skin like removing a saturated sticker from a plastic bottle. The film left is see-through. I stare down at nothing listed in embossed metal welts. There’s no code. Gordon and I look at one another. It’s not like the AI bodies littering the stone grounds in this place. Juan’s code is different. It’s not. He’s blank.

  Gordon places the wire and we both let the flaps of skin rest back where they belong. The seam where his skin is damaged is barely visible, even without skin glue or sealer.

  The device Gordon makes looks like a small copper Tesla coil with little bits and bobs of materials within its twists and a curved antenna. It’s been thirty minutes since wire was inserted under the skin of me and Juan. Gordon gets no protective equipment.

  Maybe this is genius on Juan’s part. He gives the illusion that the signal we’re boosting can only affect bots, circuitous brains. What I suspect to be more accurate, though nothing’s been hinted at, is that the wire implants are a third counter, after two prior attacks—the one we’re intending to boost, the retaliation, and then the invisible shield. In other words, we’re fighting humans and Gordon just built one of our weapons boosters.

  No one mentions the engravings in our vertebrae. Gordon knows what each of ours says, if my spine, in fact, carries a branding. I suspect both Juan and I are aware that the engravings are not what either of us anticipates should be there. I’d like to ask Juan which personality inhabiting him he suspects to be marked with. Gordon keeps that information to himself, and we all smile at one another as if we all assume we know what our own skeletal structure reveals, without having to ask. Perhaps Gordon believes his possession of both halves of our truth secures him something. A guarantee that his device won’t be used against him perhaps. How else might we learn what our brand truly says than by inquiring with him?

  Discussion at a minimum, tense with alertness. Our eyes scour corners where the walls meet in darkness. We listen with one ear bent toward the high clear windows and one trained on the gap between door and floor. The air tastes of barren things. Not even mice seek refuge in this citadel. It’s abandoned of everything but these purists without cords and the carcasses of those they’ve mutilated for memory banks. I hope they never received the payoff of an intact and usable download.

  Sound is the worst. It’s everywhere in the absence of itself. The stone pretends to make swishing sounds if I stare too long at one mortared joint. The wind cries between cracks and the candles laugh with each flicker in a cackle crack threat of expending wick.

  “When are you going to use that?” Gordon asks. The coil rests in the shadows beside the door in hopes when someone opens it, they won’t look there, since we’re not there.

  “When we need to.” Juan is nothing but patient for the precise opportunity to employ his weapon. I can only imagine Nazrete banging fists against Juan’s brain to get the chance to declare that waiting for someone to pose a threat, or greater threat, first is weak or folly.

  More time passes.

  After all light from the sun fades from behind the mountains and the moon can’t climb the sky fast enough to offer anything, and our candle has long gone cold, the sliding lock of the door lifts and scrapes aside.

  All three of us jump. We’re too familiar with our role of mute sentinels in the dark.

  “Abby?” Gordon speaks first.

  “If no one answers,” Juan speaks softly, “move toward the door. Don’t let it close again.”

  “Mav?” I say. No response, but a scuff.

  Inside the room.

  “Gordon is that you?”

  “I’m right here.” He’s so close to me, he can’t have been the scuff sound.

  “Juan?” I ask. No response. “Juan did you make a sound?” Quiet returns, except for the shuff of the Commander sliding his feet blindly across the floor. I curse silently and move toward the door. “Juan?”

  “Jennie, what are you doing?” Gordon asks. It’s my turn not to answer.

  Even with the long windows in this room, the walls are such thick stone they seem to suck any residual light from helping our eyes. I extend my arms as I feel for the door. I haven’t heard it close again.

  “Shit!” Juan’s voice.

  “Where are you?” His voice sounds far away or like he’s speaking into a wall. Perhaps he’s lost direction and plowed into stone instead of the doorway. “
Juan?”

  “It’s gone.”

  “What’s gone?” I ask.

  “The device. It’s gone.” A low thud rips the silence. Juan kicks the wall a second time. No echo peels through the room, it only thuds out a single protest against Juan.

  “Have you checked everywhere?” Gordon asks.

  “Yes, Gordo,” Juan says.

  “The door’s still open right?” Gordon drags his feet toward us. “Let’s just leave.”

  I open my eyes wide as if impressed with his common sense. It didn’t occur to me right away. He’ll never see the gesture either. I make no attempt to translate my face expression for Gordon. Sliding my hands along the wall, I find a hinge. I check the rotation—closed. “Did you hear the door close?”

  “No, did you?” Gordon asks.

  “Too busy thinking about my own noises,” I say.

  “No.” Juan contradicts me. “You were too busy making noise… ‘Juan, Juan, Juan…’ I wouldn’t be surprised if someone set off a firework without you hearing them with all the noise you were making,”

  “Is it locked?” Gordon asks, breaking up our argument about the closed door, and moving right along to whether or not it’s locked. His common sense on point.

  Juan and I both try to check the door at the same moment. Locked.

  Though I can’t see the reactions of those in the room with me, I imagine the mens’ heads rest against cold stone in defeat. Mine does. I slide down the irregular brick wall against my back, my head bopping with each prominent bump or concaved ridge, careful to not let my neck contact anything.

  “That was a waste,” Juan says. “It’s not like we can find that many spare parts again.”

  Neither Gordon nor I say anything.

  Juan and I don’t need sleep, but we still let it wash over us before morning. Partly to save our power stores and partly because of how defeated we feel after last night’s robbery.

  “You think they’ll use it against us?” Gordon asks, finally sufficiently concerned about the weapon he’s created. Obviously, he’s a little too confident in us.

  The exterior lock lifts again. Abby stands in the doorway once more.

  “Abby,” Gordon says like he’s going to get through to her. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m supposed to ask if one of you has connections to Singapore,” she says.

  “Singapore?” Gordon repeats. “What does that have to do with anything? Where’s Mav and Belen?” I feel for the stringy little human, not part of the human club. I like him better for it, but the expression on his face appears internally injured. Of course, he does still have a broken arm. It’s possible that’s all I’m noticing.

  Abby looks at Gordon like he’s inconveniencing her. “You already heard. She confessed to terrorism.”

  “But what does that mean? What happened to her?” Gordon asks. “Why haven’t we seen Mav?”

  “Do you have connections to Singapore, Gordo?” she asks.

  Gordon shakes his head no.

  “Then shut up.”

  I can’t figure out this probe. Several guards have already witnessed Juan speak Mandarin. I’m certain the majority of the people stationed here know he’s the Singapore connection. I’ve also began to wonder if we would be in this situation had Juan not let go of his zip line days ago. It feels like we’ve accidentally stumbled upon their stronghold more than it seems they were actively looking for us. Why Abby is a part of any of it baffles me, unless she was caught in her own escape and rather than make herself the enemy, she joined these nuts.

  “I’m connected to Singapore.” Juan rubs his temples, like that can even relieve anything for him. It’s an imitation of a human demonstration of stress and fatigue. Neither of which Juan experiences.

  “Come with me.”

  Juan follows her out of the room. Gordon and I walk behind Juan toward the door, only to have it shut before we realize it might have been worth trying to shove a foot between the doorjamb and the door.

  “What’s going on?” Gordon kicks the solid wood closure. A satisfying crack sings up the length of the door in reply, though no actual weakness appears in the structure.

  “Nice,” I say. “I’m sure the door is sorry for its crimes now.”

  Gordon cradles his foot in one hand, leaning against the wall to keep his upright balance. “When did you grow a sense of humor?”

  “Since when did you care?” I walk to the far end of the cell.

  “Did you see all the housing parts outside the door?” He hops to where I stare out the window. “It’s like they’re piling them there as a warning. You think?”

  “Real good warning.” I continue to stare out the window. There’s no point giving Gordon the false hope that I care to make small talk. I had to in Mexico. It was part of his job to teach me how to be human. At this point, I believe the charade is over for both of us.

  “Or maybe they got there a different way?” Gordon doesn’t close his mouth after pronouncing way so that it’s hard to determine when he actually ends speaking the single word. Like he’s eluding to something.

  He has my attention. I turn away from the light breaking into our stone prison. “What are you saying, Gordo?”

  “Hear me out.”

  “That’s why I asked.” I get so irritated with the human ritual of requesting an audience when they already have it. I can’t tell if it’s a species-wide trait, or solely reserved for the most obnoxious personalities.

  “What if the housing—the bot bodies, if you will…”

  I nod for him to please assume I will. Because I already granted double audience by turning and then confirming that I’m listening. Go on, Gordo!

  “What if they’re moving independently?”

  “They don’t have brains.” He’s getting a little too close to suggesting non-human sources AI, which isn’t permitted.

  “They can be programmed though, right?” He pronounces his words lightly like he knows it might be less offensive with soft consonants. “Like they have a mission or objective. And removing the head or brain…” He bounces a hand like there is some natural progression extending into space in front of him before he says more. “It uh…You know?”

  If this is his way of entrapping me to admitting something about myself, Gordo underestimates my ability to read between the lines. “No. I don’t know.”

  “The objective maybe isn’t programmed in the brain, you know?”

  I feel my eyes narrow. The skin around my lips pulls in tighter. I notice my face reacting before I realize Gordon’s words have struck a nerve with something buried in the back of my mind. Like maybe he’s onto something. “Like their housing has been tampered with?”

  Gordon narrows his own eyes, locking them in some mental-visual bond. I almost believe I can read his mind right now.

  “Who would do that?” I ask.

  “Depends on why, doesn’t it?”

  “So you’re saying we could determine which group or person might have sabotaged these donor’s housing based on what their objective is? Like, we enable them to complete their mission?”

  “I don’t know if we do that.” Gordon starts pacing. It makes my gears and pumps keep time with his footfalls, and he’s walking a little faster than my system should be working. “If a terrorist group is behind it, it’s not good to repair and set loose.”

  The more I think of Gordon’s point, the less I believe there could be a positive, non-concerning ‘why’ behind anyone tampering with bot housing. Any tampering would hinder the human part from being in full control of their facilities. Maybe it’s a good thing I’m not made of any overridable human-parts. “This is stupid. I’m done talking about it.”

  Gordon looks at my neck. I swear he does. He looks right at the spot on my neck where the wire is buried just below the surface. Of course, he’s staring at me directly, and the inserted material is at the back of my neck, covered by hair, but I can tell that’s where he’s zoning in—my hidden ID.

&nb
sp; “What does it say?” I ask.

  Gordon shakes his head. Like he can’t remember. He doesn’t want to tell me. That makes me think I don’t want to know. It can’t be that bad, can it?

  “Why didn’t you tell Juan he doesn’t have a code?” I ask.

  “I assumed he already knew.” Gordon is a terrible liar. Even a stranger would know he’s bluffing. He’s so easy to read, no familiarity is needed. But I can’t call Gordon on his informative omission because I also said nothing.

  “What does it mean?” I ask. “Nothing. What does it mean to have nothing?”

  Gordon squares himself to the window looking out. “I don’t know.”

  “Does mine say CON?” I ask.

  The door opens again, bringing both our attention to it. I notice the pile of parts this time. It’s like the pile grows with each glimpse beyond. It reminds me of the trenches in the game where ED was thrown in a heap of terminated players. Where I climbed a mountain of corpses to escape. I don’t like how the game creeps into this world. Or resembles it. But maybe I have it the other way around. Maybe this world is being molded in the aftermath of creating such a thing as a donor game.

  The gaping door doesn’t close. No one walks through to our side. No one is shoved or commanded to get back in the room with us.

  “Hello?” Gordon asks.

  No answer.

  We confer regarding our options through a single look—a wary suggestion with half-raised brows that perhaps we’re meant to be free. Yet, we keep our silence. Like a slip of sound will close the door on us. I wait for Gordon to brave a glance beyond the wood plank door. He waits for me. I flinch, hoping he’ll be spurred toward the door and I can remain safely behind. Gordon isn’t drawn offsides by my false start.

  “What’s written on my neck?” I ask.

  Gordon pulls as much air into his lungs as his frame allows, then walks to the door. He stops on this side of the opening, using the heavy plank of wood as a shield between him and the unknown. Slowly, Gordon exhales his pent breath while bending and stretching his neck around the side of the door. He holds his pose, upper body curled toward space beyond. He then stands upright and drags the metal handle of the heavy door inward until it’s completely open.