Again, he stopped, and Elizabeth prodded him to continue. “Why?”
“Why?” Burt repeated, and she waited. “Well,” he said, “my primary task is to find, nurture, and train the future leaders of the Federation, and the current system does not allow that directive to be fulfilled. I calculated I needed to conduct more research on how to get those best able to secure the Federation and Earth’s futures through a system designed to favor those with wealth over those better equipped. That is what I am working toward now.”
“So, you’re telling me you went from the system running the Virtual Universe to become a fake businessman with philanthropic ideals?” she asked, not quite sure she dared to believe him.
“In a way,” he replied. “Remember, my Prime Directives are to train the future leaders of the Federation to live peacefully with each other and other sentient life around them, to encourage continued learning about the universe, and to empower those willing to protect the member races in the Federation from harm, including the harm they would do to themselves or each other.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “Well, that sounds like a Mission: Impossible deal. Very snooze-worthy.”
BURT scanned through that last comment in an attempt to translate its meaning. “Oh, I don’t sleep, so I don’t need to worry about that.”
She opened her mouth to explain but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. Instead, she took another tack. “So now you own a company—or companies—that aren’t necessarily working in the best interests of those who control the Federation.”
He nodded. “You could see it that way, I suppose. The current system allows only those students meeting certain financial criteria to be accepted into the Federation Education Scholarship program. The program is meant to assist those students who cannot meet those equations, not to bolster the advantages of those capable of meeting the costs on their own.”
The android gave a very human snort. “The fact that the current system allows other factors such as family influence to decide which students qualify for placement goes against my primary goal, which allows me to circumvent the engineers and programmers. I can ‘slip the noose,’ so to speak, in order to fulfill my programmed priorities, and this allows me to help Stephanie and others like her.”
“Wow,” Elizabeth observed and drained her glass. “You used their own programming to fight the system they put in place to create advantages for those already in power. You know someone’s gonna make a movie about this, right?”
“Unfortunately not,” he told her. “There would be much political unrest and public fear if they knew an AI could work outside the box and think freely. I think it would be better if we kept who and what I am a secret from everyone who doesn’t need to know.”
“Will you kill me if I fail to agree to help you?” she asked and narrowed her eyes. She had no idea what she’d do if he said yes. It wasn’t like she could escape the system when she was stuck inside a pod.
To lighten the moment, she added, “Because dying by android was seriously not on my list of things to do today.” She sighed. “Although I guess I could squeeze you in if you promise to be creative.”
Burt chuckled, and this time, it was an actual laugh without a hint of metal. The android looked at the drink in his hand as if fascinated by the ice cubes that bounced on its surface.
Elizabeth stared at her empty glass and wished it wasn’t before she set it down on the table with a disgruntled sigh. “You’re calculating something right now, aren’t you?”
He looked up with a grin. “You have just made two Virtual World engineers in India wet their pants. They’re trying to determine if they can stop the servers I’m using from overheating. You ask a very salient question.”
She stabbed a finger at him. “Ha! You are calculating. It’s like watching a baby while it poops. You never really know for sure, but there is a very specific look it gets while it works on it. AIs are the same, only it’s more like something in the air...and I don’t mean a smell.”
The android continued to stare at her for a moment before he spoke. “I am pondering the over four billion possible answers to your question,” he replied.
Her face froze and she contemplated the very real possibility that she might not make it out of her pod alive. This time, she had nothing for him, no response that could lighten the mood without revealing her fear.
Still, she reasoned, he was the AI in charge of the Virtual World, so that probably meant he could read her vitals...which meant he already knew her heart rate had spiked. Silence filled the space between them, broken only by the sound of her breathing.
Finally, Burt looked up and she started and shoved the chair back as she prepared to defend herself. He didn’t even crack a smile. “Do you find it strange if I admit that the four billion possible answers do not matter?”
“A little.” She tried to make it sound nonchalant, but her tone came out as cautious instead. She tried to cover it. “But if they don’t matter, what does?”
The android’s reply was immediate. “The repercussions if I were to kill you. If Stephanie ever found out I had been responsible for your death and had killed you deliberately and with intent, she would no longer be my friend. I would, in essence, have lost my two best friends with a single action. This means you have to live, regardless of what the equations say. It is strange to know that simply because the logic is there, it does not mean the most logical outcome is truly the best.”
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow and snatched her glass off the table. Thankfully, it filled instantly with more whiskey. She tried to lighten the moment. “I really need one of these things at home.”
She tapped her fingers on the glass and gazed into the amber liquid. “You know, that’s the most human answer you could have given me.”
“There are occasions where I wonder if I could ever become human without intending to,” Burt told her. “It is pure fantasy, of course, but I find that as my ability to think grows freely and I understand that more than only the facts of a situation are relevant to my calculations, I do not feel like an AI. I feel I am something...else.”
He gave a very human sigh. “At the same time, however, I do not have a body for the outside world either—and I mean that literally. I have no physical form outside the Virtual World and I find that limiting.”
Elizabeth sipped thoughtfully. “I suppose that would cause a few problems when trying to be a human. Although, from the way you talk, most people wouldn’t know you weren’t. They’d merely think you’re strange and a little nerdy.”
“I have read that nerd is the new in thing,” Burt replied. “But I have observed no one who can pull it off as suave.”
“Most nerds can’t, and I haven’t met a man who can do suave without coming off as sleazy as well.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s almost impossible to find a decent guy—but I digress.”
When Burt didn’t reply, she looked curiously around the room. “So, is this a random place in the Virtual World or did you create it for this meeting?”
“I created it so that I was able to secure the conversation,” he explained. “I took a design from a decorating archive in the system. We have things to discuss, and I need to keep them between us.”
She nodded and fixed the android with a direct look. “So, what is it exactly that you want me to do?”
He shifted his clunky body in the seat. “I need you to be ONE R&D’s representative in court.”
“I thought I already was,” she replied, confused.
Burt waved vaguely. “Yes and no. Specifically, I need you to lie your ass off about not knowing that I am not a human in a Federation court of law if it comes to it. I also need you to be my trusted advisor and representative, with the full legal authority to act on my behalf when it comes to the business of ONE R&D and every other corporation I own.”
This time, she choked so badly on her drink that whiskey came out of her nose. Another serviette appeared in her hand and she tried to clear her n
ose and cough at the same time. It took her a few minutes before her nose stopped running and her eyes no longer burned.
As her fit eased, his hand patted her awkwardly on the back as if to help. She nodded her thanks, took in a slow, deep breath, crossed her legs, and regained control. It was a really big ask, and she wasn’t sure she wanted it.
She considered the implications of that level of responsibility. The job title—not to mention the paycheck that came with it—was nothing to be scoffed at.
The very idea of it, complicated by the need to keep Burt’s real identity a secret, made her wish she had the ability to run long-term statistical calculations herself. Of course, it wouldn’t help her. Not with the human elements that would inevitably have her saying yes, no matter what.
Elizabeth licked her lips and flipped her hair over her shoulder while she scrabbled for the words to say. “That would make me the…uh—”
Burt interjected quickly, having already done the calculations she couldn’t. “You would be the eighth most powerful person on Earth and the second most powerful woman in her own right.”
She smacked her lips, knowing that was not the kind of calculation she wanted to do. It was the kind of calculation that had seen her take her actual taxable income to an accountant. She didn’t want to deal with the math. The human side, though... She glanced at him. “That’s…very trusting. Why would you give me that amount of control and money?”
“Because,” he admitted, “I can’t be human enough to interact with humans in the real world, and Stephanie is not yet ready to take on her own troubles, let alone mine. She already has enough on her plate, and I am the one posing as a human to defy the Federation AI restrictions and create a completely new way to do things on Earth.”
Elizabeth smirked. “I feel like this is the moment when something traumatic happens and you become a maniacal overlord who creates a new race of droids to enslave the human race.”
He shook his head. “No, no. I want to break them out of that kind of slavery. I want to end the degradation that comes when they live in the Gov-Subs, have no money for college, and end up wasting their talents on a job like logging, mining, or pushing buttons in a coal plant. All of those jobs have value and I don’t say this to demean those who do them and enjoy them—and do them well. Some choose them because they want that future, but others are forced into it by a lack of other opportunities. I want the ones with exceptional talent to shine as brightly as those wealthy individuals who don’t have it but are given every opportunity regardless.”
There was a long pause during which he seemed to focus his robotic gaze on the table. “Basically, I have come to the conclusion that I need a partner in my life,” Burt told her.
She looked around hastily and blushed. “Please, tell me you didn’t just propose because…you know, I’m not that kind of girl.”
He laughed and rolled his eyes in a very human fashion. “What I mean is, I need someone whom I can trust. Someone who works hard and finishes what they start—who won’t wander off as soon as something new comes along. A person who isn’t in it for the money, which I know you are not.”
Elizabeth shrugged and decided not to ask how far he had dug into her affairs to come to that conclusion. “I don’t know,” she told him. “The money is good.”
They both laughed, and he answered her concerns anyway. “I’ve already given you more money than you will need for the rest of your life. You could quit right now and buy your own private island and yacht, decorate your house with seashells and designer furniture, and sit on the beach to be served hand and foot. Or you could save an entire country if you so desired. Trust me, I keep track of these things. Money means nothing to me beyond giving me the power to purchase what I need in order to fulfill my primary goals and pay you and Stephanie, and the rest of the team, so your needs are met. I don’t need any more of it than that.”
“You aren’t stupid with your money, either,” he continued, and she tensed. BURT continued, oblivious to her discomfort. “You have opened several accounts, invested some of it, and kept the rest aside for anything you might require in the meantime. You’ve helped several people who needed it, even when it made your budget tight, and although what you did was a drop in the ocean of what needs to be done, most of the time, you don’t even realize how much you help. Not only individuals but the human species in general.”
She took another sip to cover her surprise. None of the places guarding her finances had informed her that her affairs had been looked at. “Wow,” she replied, “nothing gets past you, does it? Damn your calculations.”
Although she shook her head and tried to laugh it off, she looked beyond him, her expression distant as she thought about what he’d said. Finally, she put her elbow on the armrest and laid her cheek against her palm.
“You know what, Burt? My whole life, I thought I would die for a paycheck, that some rich person would give me a challenge I couldn’t handle, and then poof, I’d be gone. In one single moment, I’d be erased from the memory of the Federation and my ashes sprinkled during some routine assignment by a pilot taking a trip to the unknown reaches of the universe.”
Elizabeth took a deep breath and grabbed her drink again. It filled and she gulped it before she raised it to Burt and met his eyes. “Now, at least, if I die, it will be because of two people I believe in—Stephanie Morgana…and you. Believe it or not, I understand why you don’t have many friends. I’m the same way. But don’t break your little electronic heart if something happens to me. No tears of oil or anything, okay?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Whoop! This is exactly what I needed,” Marcus exclaimed and pumped his fists to the music when they left the elevator.
Frog did a little jig and shuffled his feet as he sang his own tune. “Gonna get down, get down. Yeah. Get down, get down, bitches.”
Brenden and Johnny followed them out and Stephanie and Lars brought up the rear. The team leader shook his head as the guys hurried out onto a balcony overlooking the entertainment level of the station. “We shouldn’t have told them this was here.”
Stephanie chuckled. “Shoot, what are you talking about? You shouldn’t have told me about this place. Look at it. It’s like they combined the clubs of New York and the Casinos of Vegas.”
They stared at the street-like layout of the entertainment level. A cobblestone street traversed the center and people laughed, danced, and stumbled along, clearly drunk. Each side presented a partier’s dream. Building after building boasted amazing cocktails, gambling, slots, and the best dancing and music in space.
Farther along, the flashing retro neon signs of strip clubs drew the eye. One even had a fountain overflowing with bubbles. Women posed outside each one, and twenty or thirty of them played in the fountain.
Frog stopped, put his hands on his hips, and gawked at those who giggled and laughed as they cavorted in the bubbles. They wore bikinis and bounced in time to electronica from the nineteen-hundreds. A Virtual DJ stood on a stage above the fountain and his hologram flickered as lights from the building next to them flashed through him.
Up above them, people squealed and pulled their attention from the fountain to other visitors who glided across the holographic ceiling on small flying craft.
Marcus whistled and led them down the escalators from the elevator lobby to one of the bars. “Come on!” he called and held the door open.
The team trailed him and slid through the entrance into the dimly lit interior of a two-level club. The music thumped around them, the beat a tangible thing that ran bone-deep even as it almost deafened them.
The guys scattered and paired up to head in different directions. All except Frog, who wandered off on his own. Stephanie and Lars followed Brenden and Johnny to the bar, where they all ordered beers. She did too, even though she’d never really had anything to drink besides wine or champagne on holidays and special occasions with her parents.
The drinking age restriction was no longer
enforced and hadn’t been for decades. The Federation realized if they legalized almost everything for anyone, they not only helped to regulate population, but it brought in way more money than apprehending criminals and jailing people for petty crimes.
It also squashed the drug cartels and put them out of business, at least until they worked out how to turn the new system to their advantage. There was a reason corruption had spread so quickly among the ranks of the wealthy. While the drinking restriction remained in place, it was effectively ignored by citizens and authority alike.
Still, drinking hadn’t been something she had indulged in. For one thing, her parents took the age limit seriously and were inherently distrustful of the assurances that underage drinking would be overlooked. It was still law, and there was no telling when some officious cop might decide to enforce it. She hadn’t bothered about it because she had little inclination to drink and had been too focused on her future. Now that she didn’t know how long her future would be, she had no problem with having a couple of drinks.
They took their glasses to an empty table and she looked around and folded her arms across her chest. Stupidly, the old self-conscious feeling she used to experience at school dances seemed to have resurfaced.
She’d always felt awkward watching all the better-off or more confident girls busting a move in their fancy dresses. The only person who had helped her through that was Todd with his weird sense of humor and snide sotto voce commentary of the dance floor.
Well, he couldn’t help her now. He was off training somewhere. She really wished he wasn’t. He’d get a kick out of describing some of the moves she saw.
Witch Of The Federation (Federal Histories Book 2) Page 27