Burn-In

by P. W. Singer

  Todd’s comment hung in the air, the darkness of it creating the awkward moment that he intended.

  Chait was quiet, noticeably trying to figure a way to exit gracefully. “Well, I need to get back inside; otherwise Inge is going to think something happened to me.” He smiled artificially, as if the last few minutes of uncomfortable conversation had been a true pleasure. “Good to see you, Jack. We should have you over soon, maybe dinner or just to have a beer out by the firepit.”

  Todd looked over Chait’s shoulder at the red octagonal sign staked into the rose garden near his neighbor’s back door. “STOP. This Smart Home is Watching You” it read. A visible warning to any would-be attackers that it was a wired home.

  “We should do that,” Todd said. “A fire sounds great.”

  U Street

  Washington, DC

  Keegan led the suspect to the elevator, pissed off that he’d not given her time to stretch out before the chase, as her back now throbbed. Her stomach churned once more from the half-smoke chili dog. Vape pods and cigarette butts littered the elevator car floor, and the slight telltale sheen of a VR pen trail was on its walls. But without her vizglasses, she couldn’t make out whatever the digital graffiti said.

  TAMS noticed her interest and began to read it out loud, mostly words about the police that it needed to be programmed not to use around Haley.

  Keegan hit the emergency stop button. The robber, whose hands were now cuffed behind his back, stiffened for a moment, then his shoulders slumped, resigned to getting a beating. Keegan shook her head at him, and turned to TAMS.

  “TAMS, the cams in this building weren’t online, right?”

  “That is correct,” the robot replied. “DC police and municipal traffic and street surveillance cameras have not been functional in the vicinity of this building for seven months.”

  “Then how’d you know where to find him?” she said, jerking her head at the robber. Her left shoulder twinged at the movement. She’d feel that worse later.

  “The neighboring building is listed as the home address of six individuals with outstanding arrest warrants, one of whom spent five weeks at the Anne Arundel County Detention Center as the cellmate of Mr. Andrew Kerinsky, the first detainee handed over to the Washington, DC, police department. It was his most likely destination.”7

  As it responded, Keegan noticed it moved its hands. That was new. It had learned to use expressive motions at times of explanation—maybe from one of the other test bots in another field office. “You know, that would have been nice to know before I jumped off a building after him.”

  She released the emergency stop button and the doors opened. Unfortunately, the first thing Keegan saw waiting just outside the building’s lobby was Agent Noritz, pacing with the stiff-legged movement of absolute fury.

  A female DC police officer stepped in between with a huge smile. “That was effin’ amazing,” the officer said. “All the way up the side of the building . . .”

  Keegan started to smile, proud.

  The officer handed Keegan her vizglasses. “You must have dropped these chasing after your robot.”

  “Thanks,” said Keegan slowly.

  What’d she mean ‘chasing after your robot’?

  “How’d you teach it that? The crazy flip part was badass,” the police officer continued.

  “What crazy flip?” Keegan asked.

  “Didn’t you see it?”

  “I was a bit busy.”

  “Oh yeah, you’re only in the last scene. Well, you gotta watch the rest,” she said, holding out her ruggedized tablet to Keegan. Running on a federal budget, DC police relied on surplus Army gear.

  Keegan jabbed the screen with her finger. A drone’s view showed police cars converge on Ben’s Chili Bowl. TAMS emerged from the front door and scrambled up the awning, leaping to the neighboring building, holding onto a windowsill with one hand. It climbed up the side of the building, digging its toes and fingers into the slight gaps between brick and mortar. At the top, it hesitated for a second, processing before it crossed to the next building using the power lines. Keegan recognized the motion from when she’d taken Haley to the National Zoo. It was how orangutans traversed the “O-line” ropes.8 Back and forth the robot went, leaping and climbing and shuttling across as if in one of those parkour videos.9 Somehow in the few minutes that the footage had been online, a pulsing club beat had been layered over the video. As the robot climbed to the roof, the camera caught it popping up to block the robber, followed by Keegan coming in from the side of the screen with a tackle.

  “I want one, stat,” the officer said. “Better than my lazy, broken-down partner.”

  “I heard that!” a voice behind them hollered back.

  “Careful what you wish for,” Keegan said. “Where’d you get this?”

  “It’s everywhere. You guys are trending.”

  Keegan chuckled. “All I wanted was a chili dog.”

  “Bad call; the meat in those will kill ya,” the cop said in admonishment. “In either case, helluva collar.” She then added warily, “I don’t think your boss over there is as psyched about it, though.”

  Keegan looked over to see Noritz still glaring through the lobby window, motioning her to come outside. “Nah, he just really cares for me and got worried,” she said.

  Nudging the prisoner forward ahead of her, she said, “OK, TAMS, it’s your first collar, so you get the honor of taking him to the paddy wagon.”

  As they exited onto the street, a couple dozen civilians stood behind yellow police tape. Even though many had already seen it on the video, they gaped at the sight of TAMS walking the robber through the door, toward the waiting converted minibus that DC Metro Police had brought to the scene to hold suspects.

  Then came an explosion of breaking glass, green shards flying in front of them. Keegan looked up just in time to see another bottle sail out of an open window on the third floor. The robbers’ friends? Or just locals pissed off at the police? Or at the machine? It didn’t matter; the anger, and the outcome, was the same.

  Whoever threw the second bottle was more accurate, but they hadn’t accounted for machine reaction time. TAMS’s free hand batted the bottle away with the rubbery side of its hand, and it smashed against a brick wall across the street.

  People in the crowd started to yelp, the spotlights on their vizglasses lighting up to record the scene. A few even grabbed at waist packs to launch microdrones that flew over the yellow tape to get close-ups they could sell.

  “Get back! You know the drill!” one of the police officers shouted. He swung a jammer rifle—which looked like a black-painted two-by-eight piece of lumber—over the crowd, and the pocket-sized drones dropped to the ground. The jammer was little help against the bottles, though. As another splashed down, Keegan hustled TAMS and the robber toward the police bus. At its open door, the robot handed the man off to an officer, who quickly yanked the prisoner inside and then pulled back from the door to avoid getting hit.

  Then the robot froze, unsure of what to do next, even though more bottles sailed toward it.

  Keegan hissed at TAMS. “Stop being a target; you’re going to get someone hurt,” she said. “Follow me.”

  As another bottle smashed against the van, Keegan and TAMS climbed inside. This one had liquid inside, an explosion of green glass and yellow liquid. Beer or maybe urine dripped down the van’s front window.

  “Glass is bulletproof,” the officer said. “We’ll need a wash, but otherwise we’re good.”

  Keegan just nodded as she saw a black FBI Suburban drive up. It was hers, but she hadn’t called it yet. “Shit.”

  The SUV pulled up close to the van, blocking the bottles, and the driver-side window went down.

  “Get in,” said Noritz. Keegan started to cross over to the SUV, getting into the back seat, but TAMS stayed still. “Dammit, get in, I said!” Noritz yelled.

  “You gotta order it by name,” Keegan said quietly, as she slid over to make roo
m for TAMS.

  Noritz just glared back at her, and so she ordered it for him.

  After driving slowly for a few minutes into the Columbia Heights neighborhood, he finally broke down and spoke.

  “Explain,” said Noritz. His Watchlet buzzed and he held up his hand to keep Keegan from responding. He sighed and frowned even deeper. As he pressed down on the control screen, the SUV flashed its red and blue emergency lights and chirped its siren before doing a U-turn. They were now heading south, at speed.

  Keegan looked over at TAMS, sitting still behind Noritz, then back to Noritz.

  “I meant you, Keegan,” said Noritz.

  “This one landed on us,” she said. “We were engaged in a training evolution and two dumbasses tried to rip off the local transaction drives from Ben’s Chili Bowl.”

  “And why were you in Ben’s?” Noritz said.

  Keegan looked out the window before responding. “Establishing a robotic system’s cognitive baseline is complex and requires heterogeneous inputs that follow both regular and irregular inputs based on the anticipated local operating environment and its—”

  “Cut the bullshit,” said Noritz.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why did you bring in the bot? It’s not like it eats.”

  “Not half-smokes, sir. They’re not good for its digestion,” she said, then saw her attempt at calming the keyed-up Noritz down hadn’t worked. She continued, but in a more serious tone. “The training assignment they gave me is to teach it, sir. You can’t just program human interaction skills, so we’re doing ride-alongs through the city. That means visits to places any human agent might go through the course of their day.”

  That would also give her an excuse if they wanted to know about the detour home.

  “Every experience and setting is additional data for TAMS,” she said, consciously channeling what she thought Modi might say, “making it that much smarter and useful, as well as giving us data for how it handles different situations.”

  “Well it sure got some added data today thanks to you,” said Noritz, still angry but seemingly placated by her answer. “What you have to get, Keegan, is we’re both now under a pretty fucking bright spotlight. You ever fry ants with a magnifying glass as a kid?”

  “No, sir,” said Keegan, wondering what kind of sicko did that.

  “Well, get used to the feeling. You’re now being summoned to spend some time under the glass.”

  “The deputy director?”

  “Nope. Try again.”

  “Main Justice?”

  “Nope,” Noritz said. “A more powerful lens than that. The kind that can light us all on fire without even thinking or caring about it.”

  Keegan realized Noritz was savoring his advantage too much to get a straight answer, so she sat back in the seat.

  As Keegan shifted, TAMS pushed a notification to her vizglasses: Based on this vehicle’s map setting request, our projected destination is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC.

  Old Executive Office Building

  Washington, DC

  They pulled in from the 17th Street security checkpoint that closed off Pennsylvania Avenue. In the history vids, people used to play street hockey on Rollerblades there. But now the once-open boulevard in front of the White House was fortified like a Forward Operating Base in a war zone. Secret Service in heavy body armor and two sniffer bots manned the checkpoint, with two MRAP up-armored vehicles backing them up.1 Each hulking vehicle mounted the standard Homeland Security mixed-mission turret: eight tubed grenade launchers, filled with a mix of smoke and tear-gas grenades, and the distinctive black rectangle of a counter-drone jammer.

  “We’re here,” said Noritz.

  “Hmm,” said Keegan. “We being called to the carpet in the Oval Office?”

  “You’re not that important,” said Noritz. “I’m pushing you the details.”

  Keegan’s Watchlet pinged: Homeland Security Directorate, Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

  “I should have changed first,” said Keegan, conscious of the streaks of dust and asphalt on her pants. She ran her tongue across her teeth, wishing she’d also had a chance to brush away the spicy sausage taste.

  “Yeah, well, here we are. Your job right now is to say yes, got it? And nothing else,” Noritz said. “Let me give you a last piece of advice. Popping up on the radar screen of people like this never works out well for an agent.”

  “Or their supervisor.”

  “Especially their supervisor. Don’t fuck this up.”

  Keegan just nodded and got out of the SUV.

  She looked up at the gray eight-story building towering over the White House beside it. Holding the offices of all but the most important presidential staff, it had the grand design of a European palace, reflecting the ambitions of becoming an empire that had filled America during its construction in the late nineteenth century.2 Now, surrounded by checkpoints and a high wall of metal posts tipped with spikes, it had the look of a royal palace under siege. In many ways, it was.

  “Let’s get on with it,” Keegan said to TAMS. She was starting to sweat again. She could have blamed it on the 102-degree heat or that her core temperature had not yet cooled from the chase, but she knew it was something else. Chasing the robber was dangerous, was something she had imagined. Going in blind to the Executive Office Building was a scenario she had never considered. She cast a glance at TAMS and guessed that was never in its modeled scenarios either.

  The pair walked steadily up the stairs to the building’s main entrance, where a human guard wearing a ballistic-helmet viz rig opened the door to the security complex set up in front of the old building. Inside, they had to pass through a large scanner that hummed like a refrigerator.

  “This way, ma’am,” said the closest uniformed Secret Service guard, motioning with a black-leather-gloved hand. “First time? All your electronics and any weapons go here in these bins. Then you go on through and you can check in at the desk. You can retrieve your belongings when you exit the building at this location. They’ll be secure in a locker. Pick up your badge when you check in.”

  Keegan dumped her pockets, took off her Watchlet and vizglasses, and placed it all with her service pistol and spare magazines in a lockbox designed after the old post office boxes. She turned the small key to lock it and then placed the key and her belt on a rubber bin. As the bin went through an X-ray machine, she walked through a short hallway that did a full body scan, the walls themselves the sensors. As she exited, she looked back. TAMS stood on the other side of the scanner, the guard blocking its way.

  “No outside electronic devices are allowed through,” said the guard.

  “It’s not a device,” said Keegan. “It’s a TAMS.”

  “I don’t care what you call it. We can’t let him—I mean it—through. You’re good to go, but . . .”

  A young woman in a yellow-striped pantsuit and dark purple heels then stepped forward from the waiting area behind the scanner. “Let the robot in. It’s cleared.”

  “Alright, then,” the guard said dubiously, but respecting her authority.

  “I’m Mallory Gibbon,” the woman said, as TAMS proceeded through, the scanner lights glowing red as it set them off. “Special assistant to the Homeland Security advisor. You can follow me. However, please have your machine shut down its network access nodes.” As she spoke, Keegan noticed her eyes flickering back and forth, simultaneously tracking her vizglasses feed for work messages.

  Keegan looked at TAMS and said, “TAMS, kill network ports and comms. Confirm.”

  They all waited a moment until TAMS said, “I am now offline. Confirmed.”

  The security guard didn’t trust an outsider’s machine and motioned to his own to verify. A spherical roller bot, looking like a truck tire with a glass sphere inside, extended a small antenna, before circling TAMS to search for any signals.3 The bot retreated and the guard nodded.

  At that, Gibbon held out two red security access badge
s, with a large “V” for “visitor” in white. Keegan clipped hers onto her shirt lapel. TAMS took the second and then paused. A half second later, it went over to the desk and grabbed a lanyard, attached it to the badge, and placed it around its neck. The lanyard neck swung back and forth more than it would on a human, the card skittering across the chest plate before adhering to the magnetic pistol mount on TAMS’s torso.

  “Fascinating,” Gibbon said, pupils narrowing as she only now made eye contact with Keegan.

  “Yep. The way it problem solves without hand holding is hard to get used to.”

  As they entered the building itself, the antiquated grandiose interior made Keegan feel even more out of place. It had higher than normal, 18-foot ceilings, a relic of a design age before air conditioning, which seemed to dwarf the small robot. The hallway floors were slick marble, set in a black-and-white-checkerboard pattern. TAMS’s feet made a muffled tap with each step, while the rubber soles of Keegan’s shoes made a squishing noise, making her slightly self-conscious.

  Keegan knew better than to speak at times like this; what was coming was coming. Decisions had already been made. Careers at her level weren’t a factor in these kinds of people’s calculations, so whatever was going to happen was out of her hands.

  She reflected on what Noritz had said jokingly about getting fired, knowing how much her family also depended on this job. Keegan felt a flash of anger at the situation, but tried to keep her face impassive.

  “This way,” Gibbon said, shouldering open what looked like a steel stairway door. It had a modern, almost brutalist design, out of place among the rest of the wood-paneled doors.

  The next thing she knew they were outside, Gibbon’s heels clicking on the black asphalt. Across from them was a red canvas canopy protecting an unadorned wooden door into the white-walled building.

  Cold air blasted out of the door opened by another security bot. A gray-haired man, who Keegan was pretty sure was the secretary of state, pushed roughly past her, trailed by a younger man who nearly collided with her, too intently focused on whatever were his boss’s next appointments displayed on his vizglasses. Like the British colonial administrators of old, wearing their wool suits and high collars in the sweltering tropics, both men were in full suits and ties.