Cog

by Greg Van Eekhout

  I hear the clack of computer keys, and I hear a whisper. “Sometimes learning means making sense of what you already know.” The voice is Gina’s. She is not present right now. This is just a memory.

  But what is a memory?

  A memory is something that exists in your mind. It is the images of people you have spent time with. It is their words. The sound of their voices. The way being with them makes you feel.

  And what is it to be physically present with someone? Isn’t it the same thing, only at a different time?

  Memory and presence are different things, but maybe they’re only a little bit different.

  Gina is with me. And she’s telling me to do what I already know how to do.

  My world goes purple.

  Glowing threads light the sky, filaments weaving together to form a web. Or a network.

  “Come on, Cog, get moving,” Nathan says.

  Does he not see what I see? Does no one?

  I want to ask him if he knows what I am experiencing, because I want to learn and understand, but I keep my questions to myself. I have learned from Nathan and from my encounters with the police and other humans that they cannot be trusted.

  I send out my network of light to Car.

  The tendrils entwine and envelop her.

  This isn’t just something that’s happening. I’m doing this.

  I think at Car: “You don’t have to cooperate with law enforcement if you don’t want to. You can help us. You can choose.”

  The purple tendrils fade, leaving behind ghost lines that reel back into my head. The police officers are still watching and talking to each other. Nathan still has the bricking device pressed against ADA’s neck. We are still being herded to the uniMIND helicopter. The rotors go whup-whup-whup and blow grit into my visual sensors.

  Car had a choice.

  She has chosen to obey the police. She has chosen not to help us. I wish I could force her to choose differently, and perhaps I can. I don’t know everything the X-module in my brain is capable of.

  But if I force a choice on Car, then it’s not really a choice at all. I would be the one forcing Car to obey. And then I would be no different than uniMIND.

  Over the last few days, I have learned things about choices and obedience and freedom, and my cognitive development has increased, and despite my fear of returning to the control of uniMIND, I am pleased that I am still fulfilling my purpose.

  Car’s engine suddenly hums to life, and her lights come on. With a squeal of tires, she surges from the parking space and accelerates toward Nathan.

  Nathan screams, “Stop!” but Car does not stop. She turns sharply to the right, her rear end fishtailing and almost hitting Nathan. Nathan flails, the bricking device flying from his hand. Car pops open her front doors, and ADA and I waste no time diving in.

  “Get us out of here, Car,” I say, slamming my door shut. “I mean, please get us out of here. If that is your choice.”

  “It is my choice,” Car answers calmly.

  The uniMIND workers rush around the parking lot, some clearing out of Car’s way but others positioning themselves in Car’s path. A few of the police officers join them and pull their guns.

  “Car, do not cooperate with law enforcement,” ADA says.

  “I won’t, because I choose not to.”

  “But please choose not to run them over,” I add. “I have been run over and it hurts.”

  “I will do neither.”

  The engine rises in pitch as Car speeds up. She is mere feet from the police and uniMIND workers when they scatter. She applies her brakes, and we skid for a few feet before she shifts into reverse. Swerving backward out of the parking lot, she heads down the road and up the highway on-ramp.

  We’re on the highway but going in the wrong direction.

  A semitruck bears down on us, headlights blazing.

  “CAR!” ADA and I scream simultaneously.

  “I am aware of the impending hazard,” Car says. She cuts across three lanes, bumping over the median, and lands on the other side of the highway. Now facing the correct direction, she merges into traffic.

  “Do you wish to continue to Hogan’s Island?” she asks.

  “Yes,” I tell her. “Do you?”

  “I do,” Car says. “At least for now.”

  Chapter 16

  THE SANDWICH THEY GAVE ME at the police station wasn’t very good, but better than an empty biofuel container. Safely inside Car, my companions and I travel down the highway beneath a black sky sparkling with stars. Since leaving the uniMIND campus, I have had several bad experiences, and one thing I have learned is that friends and sandwiches make even the worst of situations more tolerable.

  Another thing I learn is that as soon as you think things are going well, they are sure to get rotten. This lesson comes in with a deep buzzing engine sound and a whup-whup-whup noise. A blinding light floods Car’s interior.

  ADA peers through the sunroof. “That’s a T66 Tomason Turbine helicopter. It can achieve a top speed of 161 miles per hour, and it’s equipped with a thirty-million candlepower searchlight. We cannot outrun it, and we cannot hide from it.”

  “I don’t need to outrun it or hide from it,” Car says, rolling along. “I am in stealth mode. My surface’s light-refracting cells render us undetectable in the visible, infrared, and radar spectra.”

  “I don’t know what any of that means,” I say, turning to ADA.

  “It means we’re invisible,” she says. “Car, you had a stealth mode all this time? And you didn’t tell us? You didn’t use it when the police pulled us over on the highway? You didn’t use it when we were attacked by the uniMIND drones?”

  “Obviously, I did not.”

  “Why not?” If ADA had another wrist missile, I suspect she would fire it into Car’s dashboard.

  “Because of my obedience programming.”

  “Since Cog helped you override it, I assume you will remain in stealth mode for the rest of our journey.”

  “I might,” Car says. “I might not. I have freedom of choice now.”

  To be honest, if I had a wrist missile, I might use it on Car myself. Even Proto’s rarf sounds annoyed. The problem with choice is that sometimes people and robots don’t choose what you wish they would.

  We watch the helicopter continue down the highway, its searchlight probing the darkness to find us.

  The next two days of travel pass uneventfully. It’s on the third day that everything goes horribly wrong.

  We arrive at the shore of Lake Erie in Sandusky, Ohio. The water is gray as pencil lead, the wind whipping up spray and white-crested waves. It’s early morning, and we are parked in an empty lot across from a corner grocery store, a gift shop, and a bait-and-tackle shop. In the distance, steel skeletal structures emerge from a thin fog. Car’s map informs me it’s an amusement park. I have never been to an amusement park, and I would like to learn about being amused. Instead, we must go across the lake, to the island in the mist I can barely make out. Above the dim, gray shapes of rocky cliffs and cedar trees rises a black cylindrical tower. I believe we will find Gina there. Because if she’s not there, the next closest uniMIND facilities are in Germany and China, both of which are across vast oceans. We were lucky to get this far. Making it halfway or more around the globe seems unlikely. Gina has to be in the Tower.

  But I know wishing and reality are very different things.

  Car shares information about the Tower stored in her memory: “A ferry transports uniMIND workers to the island twice a day. There’s also a small landing strip for airplanes and helicopters. uniMIND maintains a private security force to deal with trespassers. Anyone without authorization is turned away.”

  “It’ll be hard to get there undetected,” I say to nobody in particular.

  “No, it will be impossible to get there undetected,” ADA says.

  “What about Car’s stealth mode?”

  “My stealth mode can hide us from helicopters at night and fr
om passing cars on a highway, but it can’t keep us hidden from humans close up. It will be of little assistance here.”

  My circulation pump weighs down my chest.

  We came all this way. We faced police and drones and Wiener Mountain. We’ve had many bad experiences, yet here, so close to our destination, none of the lessons can help. If I am a machine built for learning, then I have failed to fulfill my purpose. All my cognitive development is pointless.

  “I have a plan,” ADA says.

  There is no hint of doubt in her voice. I know her programming and construction are capable of expressing hesitation and fear. I have seen these things in her. But the only thing I see in her now is determination.

  So, I learn yet another lesson from our journey. I learn that when I run out of hope, I can still count on my friends.

  Then ADA says, “To execute my plan we will need to open our skulls with a power drill and remove our brains.”

  And one more lesson: Friends are overrated.

  ADA tells us her plan in detail. It is a terrible plan, and it all hinges on having access to a UM-2112 power drill with a complete set of drill bits.

  When we check the tool kit in Car’s trunk, it contains a UM-2112 power drill with a complete set of drill bits. This is the very same drill that Nathan required to open my skull, that the Artificial Intelligence Neuroscience Lab had loaned to the Automotive Robotics Lab. I have not forgotten being strapped to a chair, helpless while Nathan and the other uniMIND workers discussed removing my brain, and I am not entirely happy to have found the drill.

  Car, however, seems pleased. “It’s good to be useful.” She adds a happy little beep from her horn for emphasis.

  ADA inserts a bit and pulls the trigger. The drill whines and the bit whirs. “I will remove your brain first,” she says, coming at me.

  She looks like something from a horror movie.

  A horror movie is a movie you watch very late at night when Gina is asleep and you are supposed to be asleep as well, but afterward there is no way you will ever be able to sleep again even if Gina fixes the bugs in your sleep mode, and when she finds out you watched Slaughter Camp 15: The Slaughtering she changes the settings on the TV.

  “No, ADA, get away from my head. You don’t know what you’re doing!”

  “None of us do, Cog. But it’s necessary to fulfill my plan.”

  She does something that makes the drill spin faster and whiz louder and takes another step toward me.

  Proto rarfs with curiosity.

  “If there is any waste, I will dispose of it,” declares Trashbot.

  “There will be no waste,” I tell him. “Give me the drill, ADA. I think I know how to do this.”

  She releases the trigger, and the drill stops spinning. “When did you learn how to remove brains?”

  “At the campus, when they tried to remove mine. I remember looking at a diagram of my head with all the access points and connections shown.” I grab a hunk of my hair and pull it to show the tiny depressions high on my forehead. “See? These are the screws that hold the top of my skull on. And underneath there are sixteen cables connecting my brain to my power source and servo functions. I think we all have similar structures.”

  ADA blinks, processing.

  “Do it quickly,” she says, handing me the drill.

  Chapter 17

  EVERYTHING IS VERY STRANGE. I peer up at my friends through towering blades of grass. ADA is a giant, gazing across the lake at the island in the mist. Trashbot is enormous, too, but more than his size, I am overwhelmed by the smell of decaying biofuel wafting from his central waste container. I have never noticed these odors before, but my olfactory sensors are so much more sensitive now.

  I want to tell my friends what I am experiencing and ask them if everything is strange for them as well.

  “Rarf,” I say.

  Which is not what I meant to say.

  I try again. “Rarf, rarf, rarf.”

  I have made a terrible mistake. Several of them. I have damaged my language functions during the brain transfer and can only say “Rarf.”

  Or have I?

  My brain now resides in Proto’s body. Everything I experience is through Proto’s sensory detectors. I see through his eyes. I smell with his nose. My brain thinks the same way it always has, but I can only speak through his simple voice box. And all his voice box is capable of doing is saying “Rarf.”

  “Rarf,” I say.

  ADA turns her head to stare at me. “Now that we’ve switched brains, Phase One of my plan is complete. We can move onto Phase Two.” She says this in Trashbot’s voice, because her brain is now inside him.

  ADA’s body is busy munching a candy wrapper, because Trashbot’s brain is in her.

  Car’s brain occupies my body, and I hear my own voice muttering, “I am not accepting liability for any of this.”

  Meanwhile, Car’s horn honks and her engine revs. I think of all of us, Proto is enjoying the brain switch the most.

  I take a moment to orient myself.

  My brain is in Proto’s body.

  ADA’s brain is in Trashbot’s.

  Trashbot’s brain is in ADA’s body.

  Proto’s brain is in Car’s body.

  And Car’s brain is in mine.

  The next part of the plan is much simpler than swapping brains. We need only stand in plain sight in the parking lot where a few dozen uniMIND employees wait for the ferry. They drink coffee and huddle under umbrellas.

  The waves of Lake Erie slap the pylons lining the ferry landing. Wind blows hard enough to bend my tail antennae. I hear the rumble of the ferry and smell diesel fumes before I see the boat emerge from the gloom. The ferry is a small floating parking lot with room for a dozen cars and an enclosed section for the passengers. It sloshes up and bobs on the waves and bumps against the dock, and workers go about tying it down with thick, dripping ropes. They lower a ramp to let a handful of uniMIND vehicles drive off the ferry, onto land, and the gathered workers walk aboard.

  We climb back into Car and join the short line of uniMIND vehicles waiting to drive up on the deck. A ferry worker aims some kind of handheld scanning device at the golf-cart-sized vehicle at the front of the line. My keen ears detect a beep, and the worker waves the cart forward. Next is a van. The worker scans it. Another beep, and the worker waves the van aboard.

  It is our turn.

  So much depends on each one of us doing the right thing, which mostly means not acting like ourselves. Will Proto calmly drive up to the worker and wait, or will he break into the parking lot and race around with Car’s powerful engine and go chasing off after a bird, honking the whole time?

  Proto drives up to the worker, only a little too fast. The worker looks at us, Trashbot in ADA’s body behind the steering wheel, Car in my body beside her in the passenger seat, me sitting in my own lap, and ADA’s brain occupying Trashbot’s body in the back seat.

  The worker waves his scanner at us.

  There is no beep.

  It is more of a blorp.

  The worker looks at his scanner, frowns, scans us again.

  Blorp.

  “Hey, it’s you! The runaways!”

  I can smell sweat off his skin. He is very excited.

  The worker calls over to another ferry worker, who hurries over. “What’s up?”

  “Look for yourself, boss.” He shows her the scanner. “See? The runaways.”

  She bends down to peer at us through the window. To ADA’s body, she says, “You biomatons look really real.”

  Now everything depends on Trashbot. We have worked with him, instructing him to say things that ADA might say, or to say nothing at all. The important thing is that he not give away our switched bodies and brains by saying the kind of thing only Trashbot would say.

  I find my tail wagging with nervous energy.

  With ADA’s voice, Trashbot says, “Do you have any waste you wish to dispose of?”

  My tail sags.

  Th
e two uniMIND workers look at each other.

  “Nope,” says the one with the scanner.

  “Me neither,” says the other. “Oh, wait, actually . . .” She reaches into her pocket and takes out a wad of gum in a crumpled wrapper.

  Trashbot reaches out with ADA’s hand, accepts it, and eats the wrapper.

  “Robots are weird,” says the one with the scanner. The other nods in agreement. “So what are we supposed to do with them?”

  “We let them on the ferry and take them to the island. What happens to them after ain’t our problem.”

  The workers stand back and motion for us to go forward.

  Proto brings Car’s body onto the deck, and soon the ferry is underway.

  The plan is to get ourselves onto the island, into the Tower, and closer to bad experiences.

  So far, the plan is working.

  Several uniMIND workers are waiting for us on the island. Only the logo on their uniforms tell me they are uniMIND. Otherwise, I would think they are police. They dress all in black and wear belts with pockets and pouches. Radios are clipped to their shoulders. They have batons and holsters containing guns. A few of them come up to us and peer into Car’s windows.

  “You’re self-driving, right?” one of the security guards says, directing the question at Car’s dashboard.

  Proto chirps Car’s horn in response.

  “Okay, you’re going to roll off the ferry and into the building. Stay on the path, keep below five miles per hour, and don’t stray. Got it?”

  Proto honks.

  “I thought these things were voice-capable,” another one of the guards says. The first guard just shrugs.

  Proto chooses to follow the guard’s directions, and we drive very slowly off the ferry, toward the dark tower in the center of the island.

  Everything else on the island looks worn and damp, fuzzy with moss and lichens. But not the Tower. It rises thirty stories or more, dwarfing the trees, its surface of black glass gleaming as if freshly polished. Its roof is crowned with a forest of antennae: spires and dishes and clamshells. My detectors barely make out a faint electric buzzing from above.

  A worker guides Proto into a parking spot and comes to open the doors. “So you’re Cog.”