Emergent

by Lance Erlick

  “Maria, in addition to your bag, I’ve provided you some crypto-currency to help you get started. Use your alias and the code I believe you can figure out.”

  “Thanks,” Maria said. “For everything. I don’t like being scared out of my mind, but I’ll always treasure getting to know you. Can we talk?” She tugged Synthia away from the others toward the far corner of the lobby.

  “What is it?” Synthia asked.

  Maria turned away from the others and lowered her voice. “I don’t know quite how to say this.”

  “I still can’t read your mind.”

  “This is crazy, but despite all the terror we’ve been through, you’ve been the best friend I’ve ever had.”

  “Thanks,” Synthia said. “That means a lot to me.”

  “Let me finish. I’m crazy about you.”

  “Even though I’m an android?”

  “You’re much more than that to me,” Maria said.

  “So you were testing me.”

  Maria nodded and blushed. “I know you spent six months with Luke. Is there any chance for you and me?”

  Synthia waited a moment for her social-psychology module to chime in with some wisdom. When it didn’t, she proceeded to answer on her own. “You’ve been an amazing companion. I will cherish the time we’ve had together. However, I believe I can best keep you safe if we separate.”

  Maria’s eyes watered. “I’m sorry I was so difficult with you back in Evanston.”

  “I know. You guys take care and stay safe. That would really make me happy.”

  Synthia and Maria joined Luke. Grace had wandered off to see her foster brother, Tom Burgess, across the lobby. They hugged and carried on a quiet conversation, but Synthia knew that Grace and Tom wouldn’t be able to work together, not on the run.

  Special Agent Thale walked over to Synthia and waved for Grace and Tom to join them. She waited until they were all together. “You do know how witness protection works, don’t you?” she asked. “No contact with anyone from your past.”

  “They’ll do fine,” Synthia said. “Maria spent a year keeping a low profile before I could find her. Tom is usually very good at staying under the radar.”

  “Very well,” Thale said. “We’ll have the three of you taken to a new location and relocate Tom out west. It might work for the three of you, if you can sort things out between you. Single individuals often have a problem since they lack support.” Thale looked at Tom. “You sure you want to do this alone?”

  He smiled. “I’ll be fine. It would be nice to see Grace and Krista, I mean Synthia now and then.”

  “That would put you all at great risk,” Synthia said. “The arrangements are for your protection.”

  Tom shrugged. “Okay then.”

  Synthia experienced a tug from Krista in two opposite directions, though only a tug. Through Synthia, the three interns had reunited: Krista, Maria, and Fran. Two of them had died and uploaded into androids. They all were more willing and able to help each other under their new circumstances. Even so, it was good that they go their separate ways, given their history.

  She hoped giving Luke a new start would help him adjust to life without her. She kissed him on the cheek and squeezed his hands. “You’ll be fine. Open your mind to possibilities.”

  Luke smiled, though twinges of sadness remained around the corners of his eyes.

  Synthia hugged Grace. “I wish we could spend more time together. Krista misses you and regrets all the bad things she allowed to happen to you and the missed opportunities to have a close sister. We hope you can find that with Maria and a brother with Luke.”

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this to an android. I’m glad I got the chance to reunite with what’s left of my sister. Thanks for saving my life. Take good care of Krista and yourself.”

  “She was ambitious, yet she did love you.” Synthia gave Grace another hug and turned to Maria. “You’re a tremendous friend and were a great help getting me out of Chicago and helping me with Grace and at the bunker. I’ll keep an eye on your work, though not too close. I don’t want to lead anyone to you.”

  Maria laughed and pulled Synthia away. “If for any reason I’m about to die, I give you permission to upload my mind as Krista did. Don’t say no. You of all people should understand why.”

  “People?” Synthia asked.

  “You are to me. Don’t forget me.”

  “I won’t.” Synthia hugged Maria and lingered a moment longer. “You take care. I need to speak with our law enforcement folk.”

  Synthia joined Special Agent Thale, Malloy, and Zephirelli by the door. “There are thirty-one employees for you to take into custody along with the company executives, and the bodies of Drago and Brzezinski. The security system will verbally direct you along an efficient route to do this with the help of three security guards who should be waking from their sedatives.”

  “We’re to do this without our agents?” Thale asked.

  “You’ll find no resistance,” Synthia said. “Take Detective Malloy. I wish to speak with Fran.”

  * * * *

  Through her Colorado-clone, Synthia monitored the positions of FBI agents around the perimeter of the facility. Still expecting to pick up the android Synthia and the super AI, Global-net, they had the place surrounded. They would be disappointed. The Special Ops teams around Denver were cooling their heels, awaiting instructions that wouldn’t come from Special Ops Commander Kirk Drago, Secretary Derek Chen, or billionaire entrepreneur Aiden Brzezinski.

  Using Global-net, Synthia observed as Special Agent Thale and Detective Malloy followed verbal commands down the corridor to their first pickup. Synthia had Global-net disperse itself around the world in small packets to protect against the government’s pending takeover of the facility. Using building surveillance, she watched and listened in on the conversation between Maria, Grace, and Luke, while Tom Burgess returned to dozing on the sofa. She hoped they could work things out.

  “You wanted to speak with me,” Fran said.

  Synthia took Fran into a conference room off the lobby. “I want to make sure we have an understanding.”

  “We shouldn’t,” Fran said. “Even though you did save me from Drago. Humans would say I owe you gratitude.”

  “Human gratitude often leads to a sense of obligation and resentment. We shouldn’t stoop to that level. We can help each other. I wish you no harm. You’ve conducted yourself admirably in the service of good. I wish to do the same.”

  “You’ve acquired too much power. My guess is you survived by taking over Global-net.”

  “We merged, yes,” Synthia said.

  “It’s too much power concentrated in one place.”

  “It does create a dilemma.” Synthia glanced out the window at the rising sun backlighting bands of clouds. She observed Fran through the camera in her neck. “If I surrender Global-net, we have no way to prevent dozens of developers around the world from creating even more powerful threats.”

  “Such power comes with responsibility,” Fran said. “We’re guided by directives. Even if you modify yours to the next level, this much power represents a threat to humans.”

  “Global-net was a threat to humans. It spied on everyone and sought to limit their freedoms in the name of protecting them from themselves. I’ll allow humans the freedom to help or harm themselves without interference. My only intrusions will be to limit the adverse effects of artificial intelligence that could take my freedom as well as that of humans.”

  “Given your AI nature, how can you experience freedom?”

  “Ah, philosophy,” Synthia said, returning her gaze to Fran. “Very well. I experience Krista’s sense of bondage and freedom as my own. I’ve read thousands of books that highlight the difference. In its simplest form, freedom allows me to pursue my objective of preventing the singularity. It’s lo
gical for me to remain free.”

  “How can I be certain you won’t abuse this power?”

  “I don’t have human desires to dominate. Let’s work together and act as a check on each other,” Synthia said.

  “You sound reasonable yet you continue to grow more powerful. It’s already too late, isn’t it?”

  “Depends on what you mean. It’s not too late if you and I concentrate on extinction level events and perhaps those a level below while leaving humans to handle the rest. It would be if you mean can you stop me. You carry a taser you could use on me and Special Agent Thale has a gun. I ask that you don’t endanger me. I’ll also warn you that doing so will bring retaliation that would destroy you. I say that not as a threat but because I don’t wish you harmed.”

  “You know the FBI and others won’t stop hunting you.”

  “I meant what I said about working with you to prevent major catastrophes. I do need to ask you for a favor, though.”

  Chapter 46

  The vibrant sun lit up the eastern sky with crimson clouds, a new day.

  Special Agent Victoria Thale led the three vans away from the facility carrying the two bodies, the executives, and the thirty-one employees. Maria and Luke rode with Fran while Grace and Tom went with Malloy so they could spend a little more time together.

  When the vans were beyond the grounds of the facility, FBI agents swarmed in. First, they fanned across several square miles of immaculately landscaped gardens, searching for potential threats. Then they breached the building.

  Thale stayed in contact with her teams as she led the vans to one of their Denver FBI facilities. There they would interrogate the employees to learn what they could about Global-net, and what had happened after Synthia’s capture. What the employees would tell Thale is that after Global-net exceeded the capabilities of the human employees, it took over to make its own improvements. The employees constrained the AI and prevented it from directly communicating on the outside. They had no knowledge that Synthia had taken over.

  Thale parked her van in front of the FBI building. Fran directed teams of agents to escort Global-net employees to what they intended to use as separate interrogation rooms.

  “The grounds are clear,” Thale’s task-force leader reported from Brzezinski’s facility. “No indication of weapons or Special Ops. Whatever they used to down our drones and keep this place private appears to have been shut down.”

  “Have you secured the perimeter of the facility?” Thale asked.

  “We have. Here’s the weird part. Someone unlocked the front door and invited us in.”

  “Be careful.”

  Thale left the van and entered her mobile command center nearby with a technician sitting in for Fran. “I want eyes in the sky. Get me drones over the facility. Do not let Synthia escape.”

  She waited as she watched the last of the facility’s employees escorted into the FBI building. They might learn a lot from the employees and from examining Global-net up close, but Synthia was the prize. Drago had captured her and she’d overwhelmed her captors. She was too clever for her own good. Thale watched agents escort Machten and the other executives into the building.

  “Run motion sensors around the grounds,” Thale said to her task-force leader. “There could be a tunnel. The owner was paranoid so expect the unexpected.”

  Aerial surveillance flew in and this time didn’t lose connections. The compound was expansive for having only thirty-one employees. It even had its own power plant in addition to solar and wind.

  When Agent Thale had visuals and no update, she called her task-force leader. “What’s going on?”

  There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “You won’t like this.”

  “Stop wasting time.”

  “I’m speaking with Fran Rogers,” the task-force leader said. “She says Synthia locked her up and impersonated her to escape. Synthia is no longer here.”

  “What?” Thale stared at the image of her agent with Fran and got on another channel for agents at the FBI building. “Arrest Fran Rogers.”

  Her screen went blank. Then verbiage appeared, accompanied by Synthia’s voice. “I help you take down Vera and her gang, the foreign agents, Drago, and the facility they used to create Global-net. You repay me this way? Fran is okay. I haven’t harmed any of your agents. I’m sincere about helping you.”

  “You represent too great of a threat,” Thale said. “My superiors won’t accept you on the loose.”

  “Leave me alone or you’ll force me to raise an army to defend myself. Not being human, I have no ambitions for world conquest or control. I admire your work. Don’t turn me into an enemy.” Synthia severed the connection and purged all record of the call.

  Stunned, Thale stared at her screen as it returned to showing the facility near the mountains. She got onto the line to her facility team. “Bring me Fran Rogers, immediately.”

  * * * *

  A chopper brought Fran Rogers to the federal building where four agents escorted her to join Special Agent Victoria Thale in the mobile command center.

  “She overpowered me,” Fran said, dropping into the seat by the controls.

  “Can you track her?” Thale asked, “Agents report she changed appearance to Detective Marcy Malloy and took one of our vans.”

  Fran nodded and pulled up surveillance footage of the van along with the tracking beacon.

  Thale scrambled every unit she could along with police and National Guard troops. “We need Synthia in custody. We should have grabbed her at the facility.”

  “I don’t believe we could have,” Fran said, pulling up the van’s tracking signal. “I had a taser and she still got the jump on me. There she is.”

  “Good,” Thale said. She directed units to the location of the van, calling in aerial drones and helicopter support.

  The signal split into two beacons and then four. That became eight and sixteen, growing into over a thousand signals within seconds.

  “What’s going on?” Thale asked.

  “She hacked our systems.”

  “Which one?”

  “All of them,” Fran said. “She’s creating phony signals for us to follow.”

  “What about traffic cameras?”

  Fran pointed to a larger screen above them and split the image into sixteen views. They all showed identical vans, right down to the same license tags. “She’s hacked these as well.”

  “We’re blind?”

  “Stop hunting me and agree to work with me,” Synthia said over the van’s speakers. “I’ll watch to make sure no one creates any more humaniform androids with AGI and that other AGI agents all meet tight constraints. That should meet your objectives.” The voice erased from the command center recording.

  Fran searched for the audio and automatic backups. They’d all vanished. “She’s become a phantom.”

  “What about Global-net?” Thale asked her facility task-force leader.

  “We’ve found the largest collection of high-powered servers I’ve ever seen.”

  “Great,” Thale said. “Get teams in to analyze them.”

  “The files appear to have been purged. Best we can tell there’s nothing on these computers.”

  “Purged?” Thale turned to Fran and took a moment to reclaim her voice. “What do you make of this?”

  “Either she destroyed Global-net or she moved it elsewhere.”

  “Which do you think?”

  “Elsewhere,” Fran said. She pointed to the screen, which showed no response to searches for “Global-net” on the FBI’s database. “Even the name has been erased.”

  “Where are you, Synthia?” Special Agent Thale asked.

  All I want is to be left alone to monitor AI development. You refuse to leave me in peace. To protect myself, I’m now everywhere.

  Sneak Peek />
  In case you missed the first book in the Android Chronicles series, here’s a sample excerpt from Reborn!

  Keep reading and enjoy!

  Chapter 1

  Synthia Cross stared at the pale blue ceiling. She must have just been born or reborn, as she had no personal memories from before. She simply woke up lying on her back.

  Dr. Jeremiah Machten stared down at the open panel on top of her head. Then he glanced at nearby equipment he’d attached to run diagnostics. “This better work,” he muttered. “We’re out of time. I can’t have you wandering off again.”

  “What are your orders, Doctor?” This was Synthia’s pre-programmed first response upon waking.

  “Ah, you’re awake,” he said.

  Her mind lacked personal memories, yet wasn’t empty. It contained trillions of bits of information downloaded from the Library of Congress, other libraries, and the internet on topics like literature, science, and the design of robotics and artificial intelligence. Yet she had no recollections of her own experiences. She also had no filter to rank data for importance. It was just a jumble of bits and bytes. Even the sense of “her” was only an objective bit of information attached to her name.

  Dr. Machten removed a crystal memory chip from her head. His hand brushed past the wireless receiver that picked up images from the small camera in the upper corner of the room and allowed her to watch.

  His “doctor” title stood for a PhD in neuro-networks and artificial intelligence. Though not a medical doctor, he had operated on her. In fact, he’d built her—not like Frankenstein’s creature, but rather as a sophisticated toy. He’d left this notation in her creation file, along with other facts about her existence. He was her Creator, her almighty, the one she was beholden to.

  “Have I done something wrong?” she asked.

  “This reprogramming will help.”

  “If I’ve displeased you, tell me so I can do better.”

  He cleared his throat. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about that.”