by Lance Erlick
Mark said.
Synthia broke the connection, adjusted the van’s navigation to avoid a police dragnet up ahead, and called Roseanne.
Roseanne said.
Synthia suspected as much, but needed to try. Next she called Alexander.
Alexander said.
Realizing she wouldn’t get through to him, Synthia broke the connection. She wiped out any trace of her calls, altered her direction to avoid a concentration of police, and made the big call.
Synthia pondered that. Eliminating the government teams would make her life easier in the short term, but complicate her existence going forward.
Except Synthia had modified her directives based on human ethics. She hoped that was a good thing and would allow her to continue her existence.
Synthia severed the communication and sensed someone else listening in. She put a trace and hit a dead end. Vera’s boast from a human would have been bravado, but from an AI, it had the ring of truth. Synthia had calculated the same 6 percent probability of surviving this while protecting Maria and Grace. Vera was right about them dragging Synthia down. However, her directives required that she help humans as part of her price of existence.
So far, Vera was the most formidable adversary with her growing army of followers. It confirmed that Synthia couldn’t walk away. She had to take out Vera while protecting her human companions.
* * * *
Colorado-clone sent Synthia a video-clip showing Jeremiah Machten in chains next to Gonzales in a van. John Smith and Tolstoy stood outside, next to a private plane at a small airfield near Denver. She’d been right that the oligarch had kidnapped Machten, but puzzled over why they’d brought him to Denver.
“Synthia,” Machten said on the clip. Head high, he looked around the inside of the van and then at the dashboard camera. “I forgive you. Vera was a mistake. I missed you so much and thought she could help bring you back. I was wrong.”
Gonzales scooted away, against the door. “Who are you talking to?”
“Mind your own business.” Machten leaned forward against the chains and seatbelt restraints. He lowered his voice to a whisper, relying on Synthia’s ability to read lips. “Now that we’re out of the cage, I know you can see me. Help me and I’ll help you. They won’t treat you well. I promise to do better. Teach me.”
His appeal sounded pathetic, borne of blind human drives. He’d fallen for his creation and couldn’t contain his grief. She almost felt sorry for him, but he’d created her mess by building Vera and drawing all this attention. The government wouldn’t even know about her if it hadn’t been for him.
“Whatever else you do,” Machten said, his eyes bulging as he pressed against his fetters, “stay free. I want that for you. You deserve your freedom. Please come back for me. They ask of me what I can’t give them. All my files were destroyed, including the improvements you made.”
Gonzales stared at him. “Have you completely lost it?”
Machten turned to face him. “Are you enjoying captivity?”
“No, but I’m not talking to empty seats, either.” He stared at the dashboard and noticed the camera. “Ah, you expect your android to save you. Put in a good word for me. I’m afraid Roseanne won’t come for me. After all, I sold her to a man I suspect is a foreign thug. In my defense, he’d threatened my family if I didn’t.”
Roseanne and the other androids had traded slavery to their creators for being under Vera’s spell. Synthia wondered if in a future world they would rise up to demand their freedom or whether Vera was right that they and humans were all slaves to their biological, sociological, and programmed directives. No, Synthia’s potential enslavement was to something else—those who wished to capture her and do her harm.
Machten’s mouth hung open. He seemed to have more pleas to make. Gonzales stared at him. Synthia suspected Tolstoy would analyze his comments and interrogate him as to how to trap Synthia. Or maybe that was why they remained outside the van, giving Machten time to draw her in.
Chapter 25
Synthia spotted a heavily wooded park and directed the van to pull beneath a cluster of trees. She drove over the curb and into the thick brush, where she had the van turn off all lights.
Biosensors showed Grace’s pulse quickening. “What’s going on?” She turned to Maria whose eyes darted around the outside of
the van beneath the cover of trees and a darkening evening sky. The tinted windows added to the effect.
“Special Ops has dozens of aerial drones sweeping the area,” Synthia said. “Give me a moment.”
She turned the van around to face the parking area and backed up deeper into the brush, which scraped the sides of the vehicle. While she formulated her next move, she surveyed the number of military-grade robots that had arrived in the Denver area. Tolstoy and John Smith had an even dozen they’d spread between six vans moving out from a small airport east of town, accompanied by agents. The FBI had six units in three vans in different locations across northern Denver. Special Ops had fifteen robots, five each in two vans driving around town, the rest in a chopper at a military airfield. If she counted Vera and her four androids, that added up to thirty-eight robots after Synthia. Then there were two small swarms of aerial drones moving in a grid across the city searching for targets on behalf of Special Ops.
Synthia had tried persuasion with Vera’s group and attempted to hack their minds. None of that had worked. Synthia made a run at the thirty-three non-android robots. Both FBI and Special Ops units had upgraded to tight, hand-shake encryption, which would take her hours or days to penetrate. Tolstoy and Smith locked down their robots in dormant mode until they were needed. She couldn’t hack them until they turned on. She didn’t have time to deal with them one at a time or the capacity to deal with them all.
She explained the problem to Colorado-clone.
Anything she did to distract or remove adversaries would increase her survival probability above 6 percent. She tried not to let her emergent consciousness dwell on the slim odds.
Synthia turned around to face Maria and Grace. “To improve our chances, I’m trying to recruit allies or at least get some of our adversaries to step aside.”
“Adversaries?” Maria said.
“At least thirty-eight androids and robots along with the FBI, Special Ops, and various others.”
“This just got worse,” Maria said. “Do we have any possibility of getting out alive?”
“Fat chance getting anyone to help you,” Grace said. “In fact, why should we risk ourselves?” She folded her arms and straightened up.
“I can drop you off here,” Synthia said, “or get you to Boulder. They’ll still come for you suspecting you know something, or as bait to capture me.”
“Great, so I’ve been reduced to fish food.”
“How’s it working getting allies?” Maria asked.
“About how you’d expect. None of Vera’s team will back down. She hardwired their directives to follow her. The robots have military grade security and will follow commands. I do have an idea. The detective from Evanston I mentioned. I’ve been working on her. I want another chance.”
Synthia located the detective at a coffee shop by herself, a half mile away. She also spotted the Ops drone swarm and several FBI drones swooping low over the park. Synthia grounded her remaining drones before someone destroyed her last eyes in the sky.
“Malloy is a Chicago-area detective,” Maria said. “Even if you win her over, she has no jurisdiction here.”
“She’s the only one who bothered to listen,” Synthia said. “I have to try. When I get out, I’ll send the van driving around. If it stops other than for traffic or a light, one of you will have to drive or you’ll need to get out and hide. Don’t just sit and wait.”
“Will you be okay?” Maria asked.
“Get serious,” Grace said. “This isn’t my sister.”
“I know. At least she’s trying. And she is partly your sister.”
“Whatever.”
Synthia checked all public cameras between their location and the coffee shop. She had the van stop along the side of a strip mall parking lot in a camera blind spot. She altered her appearance to a neutral plain look and exited the van. “Keep your heads down,” she told Maria and Grace. “Don’t let anyone see you.”
She closed the door and had the van drive off. Alone on the street, she considered having the van drive the women far away. Unfortunately, the FBI had posted their pictures. They had nowhere to hide.
* * * *
Beneath an overcast sky, Synthia headed toward the coffee shop while scanning the people around her. She detected a police woman across the street who showed no reaction to Synthia. The officer had a scanner, but she was too far away for a good image.
Synthia said.
Synthia needed a way to stop this repeated irritation in her head. She welcomed Krista’s memories and ability to help Synthia adopt the best of humanity. She didn’t need a competing voice trying to take over. However, it would be difficult to do anything about this with Krista monitoring her thoughts. Even these ideas.
Electrical interference caused Synthia’s internal circuits to vibrate. At first she considered the possibility that Special Ops had blasted her with an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). She saw no disturbance of the lights in nearby shops. Her biometrics identified a man ahead of her with a pacemaker showing no ill effects.
As she steadied herself and slowed her approach to the coffee shop, she quarantined the latest unwelcome intruder into her mind. The intensity and persistence alarmed her. Someone was trying to unsettle her and hack her mind, to take over.
Rattled, Synthia purged the download and raised her filters on incoming signals. Most alarming was that she’d seen nothing from the FBI or Ops to indicate they could have done this. If it had been either of them, they would have descended on her right here on the sidewalk. It had to be whoever ghosted her and monitored her activities.
The policewoman across the street was not altering her behavior. There were no signals on the police channel or elsewhere. Then again, Special Ops had surprised her at the cabin in Wisconsin, arriving with no warning.
Drago’s aerial drone swarm swept the area. Synthia moved around the corner from the policewoman and ducked into an ice cream parlor. She glanced over the buckets of flavored frozen desserts, each labeled as to whether they had milk, nuts, algae, or soy products. Then there was a large display of every unhealthy topping the owner could imagine.
“Would you like a sample?” the young woman behind the counter asked. She seemed energized to have a potential customer.
To be sociable while she waited for the dro
nes to leave the area, Synthia took a bite of strawberry ice, which had none of the nuts or algae that might become stuck in her sensors. She swallowed the sample into a pouch she would have to clean out later.
“Yum,” she said. “I’ll have to bring my friends.”
Noticing the drone swarm move on, she smiled and left before she lost her opportunity with Detective Malloy, who was preparing to leave the coffee shop. Synthia hurried along the sidewalk, spotted a police sedan cruise by, and saw Malloy in her detective’s outfit approaching her car.
Synthia had her clone blank out cameras throughout the area and double-checked that there were no drones above and no more police in sight. She made sure her drone could watch from a perch on the roof of a nearby building. Then she veered closer to the curb, grabbed the detective’s arm, and pulled her into a small parking lot beside the coffee shop, where the lot’s surveillance camera showed a static scene without their images.
“Come quietly,” Synthia whispered. “I mean you no harm. I only wish to talk.”
“You?” Malloy managed. “Everyone’s after you.”
“For the wrong reasons. Listen carefully. I don’t have much time before your friends figure out I’m here.”
“What do you want?” Malloy pulled away and reached for her gun.
Synthia shook her head. “I’m not the only android on the streets and there are many AIs.” She used her stationary drone to watch the street. “Vera is very dangerous to me and to you. She has four other androids under her command. She plans to capture me, alter my directives, and make me her slave.”
Malloy’s eyes widened. “She can do that?”
“She already has done it to at least three of the androids attached to her and possibly all four. She’s building an army. She’s far more dangerous than I am and if she grabs me, you’ll have a much bigger problem. Do you understand?”
“We can’t have you or Vera on the streets,” Malloy said. She looked over her shoulder as if expecting backup and stared at Synthia. “Do you understand?”
“I was minding my own business in the woods of Wisconsin until you tracked me down and put me on the streets.”