Artificial Absolutes (Jane Colt Book 1) (14 page)

The Stargazer landed. The door opened, and the ladder extended. The Colts exited the vehicle.

The Seer pointed at the building. “This is an abandoned laboratory and workshop. It was built approximately eight years ago and abandoned approximately five years ago. I discovered it approximately six months ago. This area is a wasteland. No one comes here.”

Devin regarded the building. “What does this have to do with what you wrote on the Net?”

“Follow me.” It would be easier to show him.

The door to the building was broken and permanently open. It led to a long corridor. The two elevators no longer operated, and so the Seer entered the first door on his left and walked up three flights of stairs. He exited the staircase on the top floor and approached the second door on the right.

The Colts followed the Seer into a rectangular room. A cracked window at the back served as the source of light. Four black tables stood in the center. Another four lined the unpainted walls, which had broken wires protruding from them. The building had once contained a complex central computer.

Jane walked across the room. “What the hell?”

Numerous android body parts lay scattered on the tables and on the floor. They appeared very realistic. The items no longer served any purpose and therefore could accurately be described as
junk
.

A severed android arm lay on the table in front of the Seer. Slashes in its synthetic skin revealed clean machinery underneath. Four artificial eyeballs rolled on the floor beneath one table, disturbed by the wind from the cracked window. The scleras were too clear to pass for human, and the blue irises too bright. A spool of synthetic blond hair sat on the table along the wall to the Seer’s left with a piece of synthetic skin next to it. The skin had been cut to resemble a female human face with closed eyelids.

Jane stared at it. Her eyebrows pushed together, and her mouth opened—disgust. The Seer did not understand her disgust. Disgust was a normal human reaction to objects that could potentially carry diseases. The area’s desert conditions meant that disease-carrying microbes did not survive.

Devin extended his hand toward the synthetic face, paused, and then touched it. He had no discernible expression. “It’s different. Hers was more… real.”

His statement piqued the Seer’s interest. “Have you encountered an artificial being?”

“Yeah.”

The Seer was not surprised to find that his theories had been correct. He needed more information to determine what the presence of artificial beings implied. He chose to let the Colts explore the laboratory further before asking his questions. They would be more likely to answer when they were less distracted by the novelty.

Jane approached a table along the back of the room.
This has gotta be the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen.

On the table lay a torn human face. Well, an artificial one. Its lone eyelid was folded inside-out, and the black surface of the table filled the place that should have held an eye. Full lips were parted in a lifelike manner. The nose had been ripped in half. Most of the right cheek was missing.

Jane couldn’t resist touching it to see how real it was. It felt as though it could have been her own face.

Yikes.

The Seer stood in the doorway, expression blank. Devin looked as though he was trying to remain as straight-faced, but Jane could tell the sight disturbed him as much as it did her. As far as she was concerned, he had every right to be creeped out. Once, his fiancée’s body parts had been strewn across a workshop, with strands of her hair rolled up like thread at a cloth factory. Jane pictured Sarah’s delicate face lying on some table being perfected by a mad scientist with obsessive precision as he voyeuristically watched a hologram of the real Sarah.

Creepy.
That was the only word she could think of. The rest of her vocabulary had fled in revulsion.

Devin approached a table containing several metal rods. “So you knew there were lifelike AIs out there after you found this place.”

“I could not ascertain if the artificial beings existed,” the Seer replied in a clipped monotone.

He sounds a bit like a robot himself
.

“This laboratory only indicates the possibility of an artificial being that appears human. There is nothing here about the programming. All the computers have been taken or destroyed. I do not know who built this building or who stripped it.”

Devin picked up a rod and angled it in the sunlight. “Where’d you get the info about the behavioral programs?”

The Seer remained still, his face barely moving. “As I mentioned before, I worked at the Blue Diamond Technology Corporation under Dr. Kron. That is where I obtained some of the information.”

Does he always have to say its full name?
He’s gotta be the weirdest person I’ve ever met.

“Dr. Kron was obsessed with artificial intelligence. My project under him was to aid in the creation of a computer program that could convincingly mimic human behavior. He did not care that this project violated the Interstellar Confederation Technology Council’s regulations. We were not successful. After I discovered this laboratory, I determined that the primary purpose of creating lifelike androids was to impersonate human beings. This would require corresponding artificial intelligence. I found the rest of the information by illegally obtaining material from various companies and academic institutions.”

Jane saw an open door to the side and, curious, walked through it into the next room. Android body parts littered that place as well. She approached a round metal object on one of the tables, reached out, and turned it around.

What the hell—what the hell—what the hell.

The android skull had a pale synthetic face plastered on to the front, complete with eyeballs and teeth, meant to be a young man with soft, boyish features. Its mouth hung open in a freakish yawn.

Holy shit.

Jane stared at its fake green eyes. Something about their peridot color reminded her of Adam. She shuddered as she thought about a mechanical copy of him lying in pieces somewhere.
Why Adam?

She could rationalize replacing Sarah. Sarah was destined to be the next queen of pop culture. Whoever controlled her—or a version of her—stood to make a shit-ton of money. But Adam was just a seminary student, and an idealistic one at that.

“I think I get why you want to be a priest,” she’d said during a lunchtime meet-up at the seminary’s cafeteria. “Tons of malleable idiots want a leader to cling to, and religious leaders have power over people’s
souls
. If you get those dumbasses to believe in you, they’ll do whatever you want in the name of the Absolute.”

Adam took the chair across from her. “Is that why you don’t believe in religion? Do you really think I’m that shallow?”

“Of course not. I’m just saying it’d be a clever thing to do. Imagine all the power you could have.”

“I didn’t come here to gain power. I came because I believe in the Absolute and in living by the morals taught by the Via.”

Here we go.
Jane rested her chin on her hand and let her face go slack to emphasize her boredom. “Why don’t you become a monk, then? Why bother with all this Counselor nonsense?”

Adam’s eyes lit up as they always did when he spoke of what he hoped to do. “There are so many lost people looking for someone to guide them to a life of purposefulness and fulfillment, and I want to be that someone.”

Freaking idealist.
She wished she could slacken her expression further
.

“If I can help even one person…” He smiled good-naturedly. “You’re already making fun of me, aren’t you?”

“Ah, you’re such a goody-goody,” Jane grumbled, as she had on many similar occasions. “Why do I associate with you?”
Seriously, why do I?

“Charity, I guess.” Adam bowed his head. “Thank you kindly, Miss Colt, for deigning to fraternize with a ‘dumb religious freak’ like me.”

From conversations like that one, Jane knew that even if Adam were presented with opportunities to brainwash people, he’d rather spend his life building schools for Fringe settlements or something similarly bleeding-heart.

Then again, people listen to those bleeding-heart types
.

Maybe his replacement was meant to be part of some kind of money-laundering scheme? Get people to donate to his causes and funnel the cash to the bad guys? What kind of bad guys could build freaking
AIs
?

Devin peered over Jane’s shoulder at the android head.

Jane looked up at him. “I guess it all began here.”

“Perhaps.”

She examined a thin, transparent tray full of synthetic skin. It was the same shade of beige as the head but rougher and older-looking, a version of what its skin might look like if it were capable of aging. Beside the tray, a male-looking forearm stuck out of a box-like machine. Jane pressed one of the machine’s unmarked buttons. The android hand clenched and unclenched in movements that were fluid but not too smooth.

It’s so real.

Unnerved, she backed away. “This can’t be the work of some mafia. You know what? I’ll bet it’s BD Tech. It wouldn’t be the first creepy thing they came up with, and corporations are good at hiding their shit.”
I’m starting to sympathize with the conspiracy theorists
.

“The Blue Diamond Technology Corporation is not advanced enough.” The Seer had joined them in the room when she wasn’t looking. “I am unaware of any entity that is. How lifelike was the artificial being you encountered?”

Devin walked toward the window. “No one could’ve guessed she wasn’t real.”

“How did you determine that the being was artificial?”

Devin gazed out at the distant mountains. “I… surprised her one day, and she froze.”

“The being did not know how to react. Your action did not compute. You must have behaved highly irrationally.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“I would like to know more details concerning this encounter.” The Seer must not have noticed the distress in Devin’s expression. “When—”

“Shut up!” Jane wanted to smack him. “It’s none of your damn business!”

“It’s okay, Pony.” Devin faced the Seer. “Does anyone else know about this place?”

“No,” the Seer said. “You and your sister are the only ones to whom I have shown this building. I have determined that I can trust you.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful,” Jane scoffed.

“I am glad that you think so,” the Seer said.

I guess sarcasm doesn’t “compute.”

The Seer continued, “This facility appears to have been used to create ten different models. The ones on this level are the most complete. That is why I brought you here. I have concluded that none of these models were successful. They would have been easily identified as synthetic by the average human being.”

Devin looked as if he was trying, unsuccessfully, to hide his discomfort. “They were experimenting.”

“That appears likely. What was the identity assumed by the artificial being you came into contact with?”

Jane seethed at the Seer’s lack of sensitivity. “Why the hell should we tell you?”

Devin put a hand on her shoulder and looked directly at the Seer’s face. “You said you could trust us. Look me in the eye and tell me I can trust you.”

The Seer looked blankly at nothing in particular for several seconds. His gaze slowly shifted toward Devin’s. For the first time, he appeared uneasy. “You can trust me.” He immediately averted his gaze again. “I ask again: what was the identity assumed by the artificial being you came into contact with? By studying it, I may be able to discover its origins. I believe you desire this knowledge as well.”

“Sarah DeHaven,” Devin said, tone controlled.

The Seer asked more questions about Sarah. Jane, hating to see her brother so uncomfortable, went into the next room.

It was different than the previous two. It looked more like a chemistry lab than a psychopath’s basement. Jane approached a row of test tubes sealed with deep blue stoppers and leaned in for a closer look at the clear liquids inside. Fake tears, maybe? Fake spit?

Ew…

She wondered what other fake bodily fluids an AI would need.

Gross! Why did I go there? Talk about too much information!

She tried to think of something else, and the question that came to mind was:
what happens to the stuff they eat?

Jane recalled a dinner she’d had with her father, Devin, and Sarah about two weeks before. Dad had wanted to get to know the soon-to-be newest family member.

But I guess the only thing any of us got to know was how convincing an AI can be.

Dad had nodded approvingly at Sarah. “Music is indeed a great profession. You are a very brave young lady.”

Sarah lowered her eyelids. “Thank you. My music comes from my heart, and I only hope I can truly move the people who listen to it.”

Jane rolled her eyes.
That’s what they all say
.

“Jane!” Dad snapped.

Jane realized she’d been caught being rude. “Sorry.”
Don’t rant
.

Sarah smiled. “I know I sound like a cliché. Every artist says the same thing, that they have a real connection with their creations and seek only the purest form of expression. But that doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

Oh, I know it’s true. Trust me, I know better than most.

Dad beamed at Sarah. “I think what you’re doing is admirable. Music is a noble and sublime form of art, and I would be proud to have someone so deeply engaged in it as a member of the Colt family.”

Jane clenched her fists under the table.
Don’t say it
.

Dad frowned. “Jane, if you have something to say, then please, go ahead.”

“Okay, why is it all right for
her
to be a singer after all the grief you gave me about composing?” The words tumbled out before Jane could stop herself.
Dammit!

Dad sighed, as though already weary from explaining something so clear to him. “Sarah is a budding
success
. She is gifted in ways you’ve never been, and she has secured a contract with a top music studio, proving it was a smart path to take. You, on the other hand, never did more than pen a few odd-sounding tunes.”