Six (13 page)

Looking past them, I see a second door standing open, revealing the corridor beyond. I turn toward it, but before I can take another clanging step, one of the soldiers strides forward and positions himself between me and the exit. It's General Hawke. His face is stern and his heartbeat is steady.

“Armstrong!” he shouts, pointing at the broken door behind me. “Get back in the lab!”

I feel an urge to laugh, but my speech synthesizer doesn't recognize this command, so no sound comes out of my speakers. Hawke is unarmed, and I outweigh him by about five hundred pounds. Still, he takes a step toward me, coming within three feet of my torso.

“
Now
, Armstrong!” He points at the camera on my turret. “You signed an agreement, remember? You're a soldier now, like everyone else here. And that means you have to follow my orders.”

Again, I want to laugh. What's Hawke going to do, court-martial me? Slap a pair of handcuffs on my steel wrists and put me on trial? I'd love to see him argue his case in front of a judge.
Yes, your Honor, we killed the defendant, and now his mind belongs to the Army.

I'm just about to extend my arms and shove Hawke out of the way when my father comes to the general's side. Dad's pulse is racing. “Listen to the general, Adam! Your systems still need calibration. You'll damage your circuitry if you run off like this!”

I focus on Dad's anxious face, comparing it with the 657 images of him in my memory. I want to say I still love him, but how can I be sure? Maybe love is in one of the files I lost. Maybe I have nothing but anger now. I turn my turret away from him and point my camera at General Hawke. I adjust the sound level of my speakers, raising the volume high enough to make the walls rattle. “WHERE IS IT?”

Hawke doesn't flinch. “Where's what?”

“YOU KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT! WHERE IS IT?”

He says nothing, but I detect a slight pause in his heartbeat, and at the same moment his eyes flick to the left. Now I know where to go. In one swift motion, I sidestep General Hawke and my father. Then I march through the doorway and go down the corridor, heading in the direction that Hawke indicated. Dad yells, “Adam!” but I ignore him.

After five seconds the video feed from my camera matches a set of images in my memory. I'm striding down the same corridor I saw forty-three minutes ago when the Army doctors pushed me on the gurney toward the operating room. I made no special effort at the time to memorize the layout of this level of Pioneer Base, but now I have total recall of everything I saw just before the procedure. I can view every twist and turn of the corridor in my memory, and I can use this mental map to guide me to my destination.

My acoustic sensors pick up the sound of distant footsteps—more soldiers are coming to intercept me—so I increase my velocity. The corridor echoes with the
clang-clang-clang
of my footpads.

After another ten seconds I reach the operating room. The door is locked shut, but I smash it open. I stop short when I see the scanner again—the image triggers a rush of fear in my circuits—but I force myself to approach the stretcherlike table that extends from the scanner's wide, central hole. Then I point my camera downward and stare at the corpse of Adam Armstrong.

I try to keep my feelings at bay by concentrating on the physical details. The corpse's head is still locked in the stereotactic frame, carefully positioned within the scanner's hole. Although the face matches the images of Adam Armstrong in my memory, what I notice now are the differences. The skin is yellowish, the color of old newspaper. The mouth is open and the lips are dry and cracked. The eyes are open too, but the eyeballs are coated with a jellylike film.

Despite my best efforts, I get angry again. They were in such a rush to transfer my mind that they just left my body here! As if it was worthless! I suppose they would've eventually come back for the corpse and given it a proper burial, but the abandonment still seems wrong. This body isn't worthless. Until an hour ago, it was
me
.

I stretch my arms toward the corpse, intending to pick it up. At the same time, I turn on the tactile sensors that are embedded in the tips of my steel fingers. These sensors measure temperature, pressure, and moisture to determine the best grip for holding an object. But instead of grasping the body, I extend my right hand and lightly touch its face. My fingertips brush its cheek, which is cold and dry. Then I shift the mechanical hand a few inches and sweep it over the eyelids, closing them. As I do this, the anger fades from my circuits. I feel only a sense of emptiness. I've lost the best part of me. I've lost it forever.

It seems like I stand there beside my corpse for ages, but in reality I'm alone in the room for only thirteen seconds. A dozen soldiers come running through the doorway and take positions around me. Some are armed with rifles, others with pistols. A moment later, my dad follows them into the room and heads straight for me, ignoring all the soldiers and their guns. He doesn't order me to go back to the lab. He doesn't say a word. He simply rests one hand on the body of his son and the other on my torso.

I pivot my camera toward him. He's crying again. He wanted to save me, but now he's not sure if he did the right thing. I'm not sure either. But I know one thing for certain: I still love my father. The emotion floods my circuits. I love him no matter what he's done to me.

I point a steel finger at my corpse but keep my camera trained on Dad. “Can we save some of my DNA?” I ask. “Just in case…I mean…”

Dad nods. “Of course. Just in case.”

I've been a machine for less than fifteen minutes, but already I want to be human again.

From: General Calvin Hawke

Commander, Pioneer Base

To: The National Security Adviser

The White House, Washington, DC

Subject: The Pioneer Project

Classification: TOP SECRET, For Your Eyes Only

First of all, please excuse the unusual security rules I've established for all communications to and from Pioneer Base. We can't allow electronic messages of any kind. I've ordered Colonel Peterson to deliver this memo to you personally. If you wish to reply, you must write the message by hand or by typewriter (as I'm doing now) and give it to Peterson, who will carry it back to Colorado.

Let me explain the reason for these rules. From the start we've assumed that any hostile AI will be able to access all of the U.S. government's computer networks, no matter how high their security levels. When we selected the site for Pioneer Base we created a cover story to hide the true purpose of the facility. In the Department of Defense's classified records, our base is identified as Camp Vigilance, a secret maximum-security prison for terrorists.

During the construction phase we built several aboveground barracks and guardhouses to mask the presence of the underground complex and make the site look like a prison camp. If Sigma gains access to satellite photos of southwestern Colorado—as we assume it will, now that the AI controls its own surveillance satellites—our hope is that the AI will notice these structures and believe our cover story. But we can't count on fooling Sigma for very long. The AI knows that the Pioneer Project exists, and for reasons I'll explain in a moment, it will place a high priority on finding our base.

I've reviewed the latest reports from Russia, which were delivered to me yesterday. The most disturbing items are the new satellite photos of Tatishchevo Missile Base. It looks like Sigma is upgrading the unmanned T-90 tanks that it operates by remote control. The driverless tanks are shuttling between the defenses at the base's perimeter and the automated manufacturing plant next to the headquarters building. Sigma is probably using the robotic arms and other equipment at the manufacturing plant to make improvements to the tanks. I have to confess, I'm a little mystified by this activity, but the AI is clearly preparing itself for SOMETHING.

I'm aware that the President's advisers are debating whether to support the Russian plan to attack the laboratory at Tatishchevo and destroy the computers that Sigma is occupying. Before you make a decision, I urge you to read the report written by our chief scientist, Tom Armstrong. I've enclosed a copy of the report with this memo, but I want to emphasize its main points.

As Armstrong notes, Sigma is programmed to predict its opponents' actions and maximize its chances of success. For Sigma, the most successful outcome would be eliminating the human species while preserving our factories and supercomputers, which the AI can use for its own purposes. Therefore, instead of launching the SS-27 nuclear missiles, it simply threatened to launch them. This is a clever tactic. If we don't attack Tatishchevo, Sigma will use the time to develop a better way to exterminate us, one that doesn't destroy so much valuable machinery.

If we do attack, the AI will accept its second-best outcome and obliterate our biggest cities. But Sigma would've never given us this choice in the first place if there was even a remote chance that we could surprise the AI and destroy its computers before it could launch the missiles. Sigma knows the capabilities of our weapons better than we do. I wouldn't bet against it.

To defeat Sigma, according to Armstrong, we have to consider how it was created. The AI emerged as the sole survivor of an experiment in which various advanced programs were forced to compete against one another. This process shaped Sigma's programming. The AI's unwavering goal, its reason for being, is to confront and overpower all rival intelligences. Now Sigma sees itself engaged in another competition, battling against humans for control of the planet.

But what's the first thing Sigma did after escaping from the Unicorp lab and going to Tatishchevo Missile Base? It transferred itself to the base's artificial-intelligence lab and deleted all the other AIs stored there. And even before then, Sigma targeted the Pioneer Project by trying to kill Armstrong's son, Adam, who was slated to become the first Pioneer. Sigma clearly doesn't view human intelligence as its most serious competitor; it's more concerned about rival AIs and potential human-machine hybrids.

Sigma is threatened by the Pioneers because they're unknown and unpredictable. The AI can't calculate its chances against them. That's why we believe Sigma will make an all-out effort to find Pioneer Base. The Pioneers are our best hope for defeating the AI, and Sigma knows it.

Unfortunately, our progress here has been slow. Although the transfer of Adam Armstrong's intelligence was successful, in the three days since then, Adam has been uncooperative. I've encouraged him to connect to the computers at Pioneer Base and download their databases and take other steps to explore his new capabilities, but so far he's refused to listen. I've tried to explain the urgency of our efforts, how the fate of the human race may depend on his ability to adjust to his new status, but he remains unwilling.

In short, he's acting like a stubborn, sullen teenager. If I were his commander in an ordinary Army unit, I'd make him scrub the latrines with a toothbrush, but I can't give that kind of order to an insubordinate eight-hundred-pound robot. So now I'm focusing my energy on the young woman who will become the second Pioneer, Jennifer Harris. She's scheduled to undergo the scanning procedure later this afternoon.

I originally chose Zia Allawi to be the second Pioneer, but Sumner Harris—Jennifer's father—presented me with a note from the President urging me to reconsider. I know Sumner is one of the President's best friends (and biggest financial supporters), but the man is also a tremendous pain in the rear end. First he yells at me for proposing to kill his daughter, then he complains when I don't put her first in line for the procedure.

I'd be eternally grateful if you took the President aside and asked him to send another note to Pioneer Base. This note should be addressed to Sumner, and it should tell the arrogant idiot to get out of my face. I don't need this aggravation right now.

Other than that, life is just peachy. Give my love to everyone in the Oval Office.

I'm inside what I like to call my bedroom, even though it has no bed. At first Dad wanted me to stay in the laboratory all the time so he could observe my progress, but I told him I needed my own space. So he found a large room—exactly twenty-four feet by nineteen-and-a-half feet, according to my sensors—that was on the same floor as the lab and had all the necessary power and communication hookups.

The room is practically empty because I have no use for furniture. I don't need a bureau because I don't wear clothes anymore. I don't need a table either because I don't eat or drink. (Dad deleted the hunger and thirst commands from my circuits, but I still feel nauseous sometimes.) What the room lacks in furniture, though, it makes up for in decorations. An Army courier went to our home in Yorktown Heights, collected the contents of my old bedroom, and brought everything to Pioneer Base.

Now my old Super Bowl posters hang on the walls of my new room, including the poster with the photo of me and Ryan, and the one with my pencil drawings of Brittany. My comics are stacked on a long shelf nailed to the wall, and another shelf holds my Star Wars chess set and my official Super Bowl XLVI football. Although the floor is bare, the walls are full of memories. They give me something to look at while I pace back and forth.

That's been my main activity since I became a Pioneer: pacing across my bedroom. I walk twenty feet in one direction, then spin my turret one hundred eighty degrees and walk back the way I came. Over the past three days I've performed this maneuver thousands of times, pacing for hours on end. When my power runs low, I go to the corner of the room and plug the electrical cables into the port in my torso. It takes six-and-a-half minutes to recharge my batteries. The process is neither painful nor satisfying.

While I'm recharging I have to stand next to another Pioneer robot—a lifeless one, with no intelligence in its circuits. This robot has “1A” stamped on its torso, in the same place where I have my “1,” but otherwise it looks just like mine. General Hawke put it in my room because he wants me to practice transferring my intelligence from one robot to another. He says learning how to do this will help me adjust to my “new status.”

Each Pioneer is equipped with a high-speed wireless data link that can transfer everything in its memory to another robot in less than a minute. Hawke has ordered me to practice this transfer at least thirty times a day. But I have no intention of obeying this order. I already transferred my mind once, when my body died, and that was more than enough. So while my batteries are recharging I turn my turret away from the motionless robot in the corner, my mindless evil twin. I don't like looking at the thing. It reminds me of what I've become.

Once I'm fully charged, I detach the cables and go back to pacing.

At first, I admit, it was thrilling just to walk again. After I figured out how to coordinate the motors in my steel legs, I started practicing my footwork. I learned how to jump, sidestep, and reverse course. It was a big, big improvement over my wheelchair. I became so enthused during one practice session in my bedroom that I reached out with one of my telescoping arms and grabbed the official Super Bowl football off the shelf. For a moment I fantasized that I was back in Yorktown Heights, standing on the football field behind the high school.

In a hundredth of a second my circuits retrieved all my memories of those games. I could see, simultaneously, every football game I'd watched at the Yorktown field, every remembered sight from all those mud-splattered showdowns, right down to the grimace on Ryan Boyd's face as he dashed toward the end zone. It was like the virtual-reality program I'd written, but a thousand times more vivid. And like the VR program, it was ultimately disappointing. When I tried to reenact one of Ryan's plays, running with the ball across my empty bedroom, I felt nothing in my legs, neither fatigue nor joy. They just moved numbly beneath me.

I tried talking to Dad about it. I asked him if it was possible to put tactile sensors in my legs so I could feel my joints flexing and my footpads hitting the floor. He said yes, it was definitely possible, but right now we had other priorities. He said I shouldn't get too attached to my Pioneer robot because it was only meant to be a transitional platform, a temporary home for my mind. To fully explore my new abilities, he said, I needed to occupy all kinds of machines.

I told Dad he sounded just like General Hawke, and he replied that Hawke was right. The future of humanity depended on communicating with Sigma, Dad said, and I had to prepare myself for this challenge. Before I could interact with the AI, I needed to understand how it thinks and makes decisions. In other words, I had to become more like an AI myself. That's why it was so vital to practice transferring my intelligence and to download the databases that Hawke had ordered me to study.

That was yesterday. Now Dad's in his lab, readying the scanner and nanoprobes for the second procedure, which will be performed on Jenny Harris at four o'clock. I'm still angry at him for being so unsympathetic. Doesn't he realize what I'm going through? Can't he see how hard this is, living inside this hulking machine, cut off forever from
everything
? But I also feel guilty because Dad's working 'round the clock and I'm doing basically nothing. So while I pace across my bedroom, I turn on my wireless data link and establish a connection with Pioneer Base's computers. There's no way I'm going to transfer my mind to my evil twin, but I'll take a look at Hawke's databases.

I download a dozen folders, each holding a hundred gigabytes of data. It's a humongous load of information, the equivalent of a thousand encyclopedias, but my electronic brain immediately starts sifting through it. The text files and blueprints and photographs and video files cascade across my circuits, pouring through billions of logic gates as I analyze them.

There's information here about Sigma and the experiment that created the AI. There are also diagrams of the neuromorphic circuits at the heart of every Pioneer robot. But most of the files hold data about weapons. One folder contains the engineering plans for the F-22, the F-35, and every other fighter jet in the U.S. Air Force. Another has the blueprints for the Army's Black Hawk and Apache helicopters.

So much information rushes into my circuits that I feel like I'm drinking from a fire hose. After a few milliseconds, though, I adjust to the flow of data. My mind seems to expand. I feel exhilarated and triumphant, as if the whole world is spread before me, every fact and figure within easy reach.

As I analyze the files I notice something strange. All the blueprints and engineering plans have been changed within the past three months. Each jet and helicopter has been redesigned to include a control unit composed of neuromorphic electronics. The purpose of the changes seems obvious: a Pioneer could transfer his or her intelligence into any of the redesigned aircraft. I could occupy the control unit of an F-22 and zoom into the sky and fire its guns and launch its missiles. The databases include all the instructions needed to fly the jet.

I'm so surprised that I stop pacing. Although Dad wants the Pioneers to communicate with Sigma, General Hawke clearly has little faith in this strategy. He's going to train us for combat. He sees us as weapons.

I'm still standing in the middle of the room, mulling over this discovery, when I hear footsteps in the corridor. Someone is coming toward my room, walking with an uneven, hobbling gait. Then I hear a knock on my door. I remain silent and still. Five seconds later I hear the noise of someone trying the knob, but the door is locked.

“Adam? Are you in there?”

My acoustic sensors recognize the voice. This is the fourth time Shannon Gibbs has tried to visit me since I became a Pioneer. After her last attempt yesterday afternoon I told myself, “I'll let her in next time,” but now I feel the same painful dread I've felt each time she's knocked on my door. I don't want her to see me like this.

“Uh, I'm a little busy right now.” I hate the voice that comes out of my speech synthesizer. I've tried adjusting the speakers to make it sound more like my old voice, but it's still tinny and robotic. “Could you come back later?”

“You said the same thing yesterday, Adam. With all the memory and processing power you have now, can't you come up with a better excuse?”

I can't see her through the door—my visual sensors don't extend to the X-ray range, unfortunately—but I retrieve thirteen images of Shannon from my memory. In each one, she's smiling her lopsided smile. The truth is, I'd love to see her again. But I don't think she'll smile when she catches sight of me.

“No, really, I'm busy. Hawke gave me a lot of work to do. It's part of the training process.”

“You should get more creative with your lying too. I hear you've been ignoring Hawke's orders.”

“What? Who told you that?”

“Marshall. But everyone's talking about it.”

I retrieve an image of Marshall Baxley's massive head. The guy's a weasel. “Okay, he's right. But I have my reasons.” I want to tell Shannon what I learned from the databases, how General Hawke is planning to turn us into weapons, but I don't think it would be wise to shout this information through the door. “Look, I'll tell you about it later, all right?”

“This is ridiculous, Adam.” Her voice rises in pitch. She sounds frustrated. “Why can't I come inside now? I want to see you.”

It would be so simple to unlock the door. I wouldn't even have to walk over there; I could just send a wireless signal to the automated locking mechanism, and half a second later Shannon Gibbs would step inside. The problem is, I can imagine all too well what will happen next. She'll try to smile as she stares at my dull gray torso and steel legs and telescoping arms. She'll fix her gaze on my turret, but there's nothing to see there except a few antennas and the lens of my camera. And then her smile will fade, partly out of pity and partly out of fear. She'll realize she's looking at her own future.

I don't want to see that look on her face. Not now, not ever. I won't let her see me until she's a Pioneer too.

“I'm sorry.” I try to think of something funny to soften the blow, but for once my circuits won't cooperate. “I can't let you in. Because I'm naked, that's the problem. None of my old clothes fit anymore.”

No response. I hear nothing at all from the other side of the door. The silence lasts for fourteen seconds. Then Shannon lets out a sigh. “All right, have it your way. I'm going to the lab to wish Jenny good luck.” I hear her take a step away from the door, then another. But I don't hear a third step. She seems to have stopped in her tracks. Another ten seconds pass.

Finally, I hear her voice again, but now it's softer. “Adam, can I ask you a question? About the procedure?”

I stride closer to the door. After taking three clanging steps, I halt within reach of the doorknob. “Sure, go ahead. Ask me anything.”

“Marshall told me something else. He said there was some kind of problem right after they transferred you into your Pioneer.”

“Yeah, Dad had to delete the breathing commands. They were copied from the part of my brain that controlled my heart and lungs.” I adjust the timbre of my robotic voice to make it sound as reassuring as possible. “But that won't be a problem from now on. When Dad does the procedure again, he'll make sure to delete those commands right away.”

“But Marshall said the problem caused some damage to your memory.”

How the heck does Marshall know so much? Did he talk to one of the soldiers who work with Dad? “My system deleted about five percent of the total data in my memory. But we still haven't figured out what I lost.”

“You haven't noticed anything missing?”

“Dad says the information I lost might've come from my subconscious memory. Those memories influence the way you think and act, but you usually can't recall them in any detail.”

“But do you remember what happened just before your procedure? What we said to each other? About the limbic system and emotions?”

There's another long silence. Now I'm standing close enough to the door that my acoustic sensors can pick up the sound of Shannon breathing on the other side. It's irregular and raspy, almost as labored as my own breathing was in the last days before my procedure. But as I listen to the sound, I can't help but think how beautiful it is.

“Come on, Shannon. Of course I remember. And I still have all those feelings.”

She lets out a long breath, a loud whoosh of relief. Then, in an embarrassed rush, she says, “Okay, good, I'll see you later, Adam,” and with a clatter of footsteps she heads down the corridor toward the laboratory.

• • •

Afterward, I resume pacing. At the same time, though, I resolve to do something I've avoided so far. It's not one of General Hawke's assignments. It's something Dad suggested a couple of days ago and hasn't brought up since. He said I ought to write my mother a letter.

Mom refused to come to Colorado, but she isn't in Yorktown Heights either. Hawke said she wouldn't be safe there. Although Sigma doesn't know where Pioneer Base is, it knows I was chosen for the project and it could easily look up my old address. Hawke was worried that the AI might try to find me by wheedling or forcing the information out of my mother. He didn't specify how Sigma might do this—would it try to kidnap her? Maybe by hiring a team of mercenaries?—but it seemed prudent to take precautions. So the Army moved Mom to an undisclosed location. The hiding place is so secret that Hawke won't even reveal it to Dad. We can't call or email her, but the general said his men could deliver written notes.

I create a new file in my memory for the letter. In some ways, writing is so much easier now—my circuits can compose hundreds of pages on any subject in less than a second. But this particular message is a challenge because I'm writing to a person who believes I'm dead. Mom thinks I'm just a copy, an electronic replica. She believes her son is in heaven now and I'm an artificial intelligence designed to think and act like Adam Armstrong. And who knows? Maybe she's right. But I don't want her to feel that way. I want her to come to Pioneer Base and be my mother. Somehow I have to convince her that I'm her son.