Luck and Death at the Edge of the World, the Official Pirate Edition (5 page)

“The AI. What’s he called?”

“Oh, Alan.”

“Does Alan report to you too, like Porsche?”

“Of course. He’s the one who gives me her check-up results. It’s within his domain, part of the security architecture.”

“So if Alan becomes aware of a threat to Max, from Porsche or anywhere else, he briefs you?”

“If it’s a real risk, yes. Max isn’t as famous as he once was, obviously, but he’s still well known among some older fans and he’s certainly rich, which means there are still a few crazies out there who want to kill him, marry him, whatever. Most of them are just harmless nutty old ladies and Alan is well able to handle them. They call, they send messages, they even send parcels. Alan intercepts it all. Max isn’t even aware it’s going on. Alan gives me a summary of that kind of activity every week, and I double-check it in case he might have missed something, but of course he never does. Other than that he only contacts me if there’s a serious threat.”

“What constitutes serious?”

Jerome smiles thinly.

“Anything rising above three percent.”

“Three percent of what?”

“A three percent chance of harming Max in some way.”

It’s an impressive cut-off point.

“That’s a very low tolerance.”

“Yes, well we’re very cautious when it comes to Max’s safety. Still, given our counter-intrusion measures and the fact that Max almost never leaves Cloud City, the issue rarely arises.”

“When was the last time something registered above three percent?”

“About six months ago. It had been years before that.”

“What triggered the recent alert?”

“Alan’s routine monitoring of police communications.”

Skimming police comm is against the law, but the AIs used by most wealthy people do it routinely. For the most part the cops just turn a blind eye.

“What did he pick up?”

“It was an internal memorandum within the Mexico City Police being routed from an interrogator to his superior.”

“Mexico?”

“Alan’s parameters are set very broadly, both in terms of the nature of potential threats and their location.”

“World-wide?”

“Where possible.”

He doesn’t elaborate, but for the moment I assume that the range of the possible excludes the Empires of China and Japan. No one knows what they’re up to and not even an AI like Alan is likely to be able to skim their comm. Plus, obviously the Grey Zones—the collapsed middle of what used to be America—where there’s no tech and therefore no comm to monitor.

“What about off-world?”

“Certainly, but nothing’s ever come of it.”

“So, what was Mexico saying?”

Jerome finally sits down, choosing an armchair opposite me.

“They picked up a 
Suerte
 
boy. Rare thing, given their nature. Even rarer, they got something out of him. Must have squeezed him pretty hard.”

The Mexico City P.D. are about three rungs above the L.A.P.D. on the scale of brutality, and when it comes to the 
Suerte
 
they know no limits. I’m sure they squeezed very hard indeed.

“The 
Suerte
 
had taken an interest in Max?”

“Yes, it seems so. Alan had trouble ranking the threat, though. The likelihood of the 
Suerte
 
breaching security, should they attempt to, was very high. You know what they’re supposed to be capable of.”

“Everyone knows. So why was it difficult to make a risk assessment?”

“Because the likelihood of them actually 
trying
 
to attack him was… incalculable somehow. Alan ran things one way and came up with an infinitely high result. Running it another way it seemed almost nil. With most people or organizations the likelihood of attacking a target is based on easily quantifiable factors, but as you know, the 
Suerte
 
have their own agenda and their own logic. So we were stuck with this paradoxical result. If they tried, they’d succeed, but we had no idea if they’d try. How do you assign a risk value to that?”

“What did you do?”

“We battened down the hatches for a few months. No one in or out of Cloud City. We relied entirely on internal supplies for food, water, energy. It’s a procedure that was designed in case of emergencies—outbreaks, civil unrest, that sort of thing. Even Porsche wasn’t allowed in.”

“But you couldn’t maintain it forever.”

“It’s not practical and it’s very expensive. Besides, with the 
Suerte
 
it might do no good at all. Eventually we let up, in gradual stages, until we were back to normal.”

The 
Suerte
. Missing a killshot doesn’t sound like them. But walking past the highest level security available on the civilian market, and getting past the military dogware, all with apparent ease? That sounds a 
lot
 
like the 
Suerte
 
to me.

I find Carmen in conversation with Alan in the security office in the main house. It looks like any other office, with access to the system’s data through a security sim. There you see things from the AI’s point of view, that is to say from everywhere at once, feeling the reports of the sensors as though they were your own bodily functions and perceiving Cloud City as one, uninterrupted multi-sensory panorama.

Carmen and Alan are sitting on a sofa, speaking quickly but calmly, like any two people discussing something important. Alan rises when I come in. He’s barrel-chested, with a blocky head, a high forehead, and a slightly distracted air. His dark hair is parted on the side and swept across his head in an antiquated style that’s almost quaint. A stray lock of it falls across his forehead from time to time and he unconsciously pushes it back into place. His eyebrows are thick and dark, his lips thin, his jaw strong. He could be anyone. In fact he reminds me of someone, though I can’t think of who it is.

“Mr. Burroughs,” Alan says in greeting, “I’ve been reviewing the results of the L.A.P.D. investigation with Ms. Jiminez. There are some diagnostics still running on the system itself.”

He has a higher voice than I expected, a little reedy, and he has a British accent. It’s an odd affectation to program into an AI. Maybe it was intended to appeal to the ancient notion of an English butler or maybe, like being male, it somehow simplified interaction with Max. He offers his hand and I take it, shake it, like we’re old friends.

“The P.D. let you in on their results?”

“Not as such, no.”

He has the very sudden smile that you often see in shy people—it’s a nice effect.

I nod, inferring that Alan’s been skimming, gathering their results for himself. Most likely they know he’s doing it and don’t give a shit.

Carmen stands finally. She is a small woman, barely five feet tall, with a face that would seem ordinary if it weren’t for her eyes. They are very large and a very dark brown, and they give her an unusual kind of beauty. Her other noteworthy feature is her absolute cool. I have seen her in some dangerous situations, and I have never seen her break a sweat. Instead she seems to become even more calm, to the point of looking drowsy.

“Anything interesting? Anything stand out?” I ask.

“Lots of interesting,” she says, raising one eyebrow. With Carmen a raised eyebrow is the equivalent of a fire-alarm, an air-raid siren, or a tornado warning. Usually what it means is that she has unearthed utterly inexplicable results. Anything less wouldn’t have rated any expression at all.

“So enlighten me.”

Alan begins.

“The cameras outside the wall captured an image of the assailant, as you know. He or she is not identifiable since they used a mask. But there is no corresponding image once they are inside. Nor are there data from the motion or heat or electrical sensors. There may have been images and other data once, but if there were they were wiped out. There is evidence of a burn.”

“I gathered that.”

Carmen shoves her hands deep into her pockets.

“Gat, no bullet was found.”

“They missed it?”

She shakes her head.

“There’s the hole in the subject’s shoulder. It matches in trajectory with a hole in the wall. There’s no bullet in the wall, though. Not lodged there, not dropped down inside, not gone through to the other side. They used x-ray and metal detection, even scanned for plastic projectiles. Nothing, nothing, nothing. They did a pretty thorough job.”

“Concussion?” I ask, already predicting the answer.

“Hole’s too neat,” Carmen says. “The tissue damage is purely consistent with a standard metal bullet. There’s concussion damage, obviously, because a bullet does that, but there’s the damage from the bullet itself too, no question about it. Besides, concussion rounds would still leave fragments that... ”

I wave her off, knowing full well what she’s saying. Concussion weapons don’t just fire a bolt of compressed air from a distance, they fire a projectile that explodes near the target, creating the compression on near-impact. It’s the concussion that does the damage, not the projectile, but there would still have been bits and pieces of the bullet strewn around the place.

“Something new then?”

This time it’s Alan who answers.

“I have access to information on the most up-to-date weaponry Mr. Burroughs.”

The implications of what he’s saying surprise me a little.

“You skim military comm?”

He doesn’t answer directly, which makes sense since the Forces are not nearly as laid back as the P.D. regarding their comm. Admitting he’d skimmed them would be confessing to a capital offence. He would be decommissioned for that. They’d scrap him completely.

“We are able to keep abreast of developments,” he says obliquely. “The dogs, for instance.”

“Yeah, I was wondering how you got hold of them.”

“Through negotiation, as with anything else.”

“First you had to know they existed.”

“I believe the diagnostic data are coming back,” he says, changing the subject. “We should go in.”

“Fine,” I say. Then it hits me. “Wait.”

“Yes?”

“You’re Alan Turing aren’t you?”

“My shell is a simulacrum of Mr. Turing, yes.”

“That’s where the accent comes from. Turing was British. And you use the name Alan.”

“Those details are consistent with using his likeness”

Alan Turing was a mathematician in the early and mid-twentieth century. He worked at code-breaking for the British military during World War II and invented the very idea of the modern, universal computer, not to mention founding the discipline of artificial intelligence. He never built a comuter, but he elaborated the theoretical structure that allowed others to build them. It was his likeness I’d recognized in the AI’s features.

“Are you programmed for that kind of thing or did someone else choose the likeness?”

“I’m programmed to initiate projects of my own, so long as they don’t exceed or contradict my fundamental parameters. It is thought to increase my flexibility and the fluidity of my computational design.”

“Okay, but why him?”

“He’s my father, really. The father of us all.”

By ‘us all’ he doesn’t mean Carmen and me, of course, he means AIs.

“Isn’t that a little sentimental?” I can’t help allowing a little amusement to creep into my voice as I ask it.

“Perhaps. I have been experimenting with the mimicry of human emotion.” He says it evenly, but I sense a slight glint in his eye, the barest hint of a smile at one corner of his mouth. It’s impressively subtle. “It’s another project I initiated myself, approved by Mr. Jerome of course. I thought it might permit me insights that I would not have by merely observing such emotions from the outside. Any insight into human nature only enhances my ability to protect Mr. Prince.”

“I suppose that’s plausible.”

“That is my one, overarching, unalterable root command, I’m sure you realize. To protect Mr. Prince.”

As he says it I see in his expression a sense of mission that looks like it goes beyond the mere unfolding of a program.

“Sorry, Alan. I never meant to imply otherwise.”

“No apology necessary. It’s your job to be rigorous, as it is mine. Shall we enter the sim?”

“Sure, let’s take a look.”

We recline in three out of a row of identical, padded, seats. It appears to be a custom unit, with no brand name visible anywhere. The transition into sim can be abrupt and disorienting, but this is a top of the line unit. Within moments the security system has remotely accessed and taken control of our sensoria and the security office fades to grey along a smooth, predictable trajectory. Despite the unit’s sophistication, though, there’s a brief moment when I can still see and sense my own body, but the artificially induced REM atonia has already kicked in, rendering me perceptibly paralyzed. Still, if I hadn’t been watching for it I’d never have noticed it.

When the transition’s complete, we appear to be floating high above the main house, hovering motionless in the air. It’s an odd sensation for a human, although I’m sure Alan’s used to it. Cloud City is spread beneath us in all directions. If I focus my attention on an object, the sim program automatically increases its magnification, so that I can look down on a single roof tile’s pebbled surface, or an ant meandering amongst blades of grass, all rendered with perfect resolution and fidelity. Near James Jerome’s residence I see a cat, crouched, edging forward toward some prey that’s hidden from view, probably an insect or one of those imaginary things cats see and that we don’t. It moves with a deliciously predatory stealth. The moment I release my attention, however, the magnification returns to normal and I once against see the entire vista of the estate.

It’s not only my vision that’s enhanced, though. I can, by concentrating, hear the nearly silent breathing of the hunting cat, or smell the scent of the flowers far away by one of the lakes. To me this perspective is so foreign that it’s hard to imagine that this could be anyone’s natural habitat, but it’s Alan’s. It makes me wonder how different our thought processes are, but a moment later he draws me away from my thoughts, gesturing toward the seawall in the west.