The Phoenix Code (2 page)

She was about to continue on her way when she recognized him: the intriguing fellow from the audience. He looked over six feet tall, with black hair and dark eyes. A palmtop computer hung from his scuffed leather belt. He watched the birds with a half-smile, as if he hadn't decided whether it would insult their egos if he laughed at them.

Megan changed direction and headed toward him. As she came closer, though, she hesitated. His muscular build and handsome face didn't fit her image of a robotics expert. His hair curled over his ears and down his neck, longer than men wore nowadays, but clean and glossy with health. On most people, it would have looked sloppy; on him, it worked. The same was true of his clothes. What his long legs did for those raveling jeans would have brought their makers a fortune if they could have packaged the quality. It made her hang back, as if he were a holovid actor she would normally never have had the chance to meet.

Suddenly he looked up. "Good afternoon, Dr. O'Flannery." It was hard to place his background; his facial features evoked the Celts, his coloring could be Indian, and his rich accent, like molasses on a summer afternoon, was undeniably from the American South.

"Hi," Megan said.

He tossed the last of his bread into the lake. Flapping and squawking, the birds waddled after the morsels.

"Such hungry things," Megan said. "Greedy, even."

His grin crinkled the fine lines around his eyes. "They'd eat ten loaves if I brought them."

Oh, Lord.
That smile defined the word "devastating." It lit up his face.

"See?" He pointed at the sky. "They're leaving."

She looked up, as much to regain her composure as to see what he meant. A V-shape of birds was arrowing across the sky. "Well, yes." More collected now, she turned back to him. "Flying south for the winter, I imagine."

He indicated the birds floating on the pond, then held up his hand as if to offer them more delicacies. They paddled industriously toward him until they realized he was bluffing. Then they drifted off again. His gold watch caught rays of the sun, glittering with discreet diamonds.

"They don't cheat," he said.

"I'm sure they don't." Megan had no idea what they were actually talking about, but she doubted it was birds. Whatever the subject, she loved his voice. Deep and throaty, it rumbled like music, sometimes drawling, other times resonant. "Did you enjoy the session this afternoon?"

"I suppose."
Ah suhppose.
"You should have given a talk. You do better work than the lot of them combined."

That caught her off guard. "Thank you." She hesitated. "I'm afraid I don't know your name."

He considered her for a long moment. Then he said, "Raj. Call me Raj."

"Is that your name?"

"Well, no. Yes. At times."

"Raj isn't your name?"

"My mother calls me Robin." He spread his hands as if to say,
What can a person do?

Megan smiled. She could relate to that situation. Her father still called her Maggie-kitten. She didn't mind it from him, but it would earn anyone else a shove into a lake. "What do other people call you?"

"All sorts of things." He rubbed his ear. "I wouldn't repeat most of them."

She gave it another try. "So Raj is the name on your birth certificate."

"No."

Megan couldn't help but laugh. "You know, this is like pulling teeth."

His lips quirked into a smile. "My birth certificate, from the fine state of Louisiana, says Chandrarajan."

She stared at him. "You're
Chandrarajan Sundaram
?"

"Please don't look so shocked. I assure you, I've treated the name well."

Good Lord.
This was the reclusive eccentric who had revolutionized the field of robotics? Unattached to any university or institute, he worked only as a consultant. Corporations paid him large amounts of money to solve their problems. She had heard that one had given him a million, after he made their disastrous household robot work in time for its market release, saving the company from bankruptcy.

His reputation gave her a context for his conversation. Rumor said he paid a price for his phenomenal intellect; no one could think like him, but he had the devil of a time expressing those thoughts. From what she had heard, his mind didn't work in linear thought processes, so he often made jumps of logic that left his listeners confounded.

It astounded her that he had come to the conference. She had invited him, of course. He had been a top name on her hoped-for speakers list. She had already known, however, that he rarely attended such meetings. It hadn't surprised her when he declined.

Yet here he stood.

"It's actually Sundaram Chandrarajan Robert," he said.

"Your name?"

His voice became subdued. "My father followed the custom of giving me his name, followed by my own. But in this country, it's easier for us to have the same last name. So we use Sundaram. Robert is from my mother's side."

She wondered why the mention of his father caused his mood to turn so quiet. "It's a beautiful name."

Raj watched her with a long, considering look. "Then there are geese," he mused.

"Birds again." She gave a gentle laugh. "You know, I have no idea what we're talking about."

Amusement lightened his voice. "Most people don't respond this way to me."

"What do they do?"

"Nod. Look embarrassed. Then leave as fast as they can."

"Is that what you want?"

"It depends." He had all his attention focused on her now.

"On what?"

"Hair color."

"Hair color?" This conversation was making less and less sense by the minute. It was fun, though.

"Red," he said. "Yours is red."

"Well, yes. My hair is definitely red."

"Red flag." He walked over to her. "For stop."

It took a moment, but then she realized he was making a joke, using it to ask if she wished he would leave. Given that he had come over to her as he said it, she suspected he didn't want to end their conversation. Of course, she could be wrong. But he reminded her of her father, an absented-minded architect who tended to talk in riddles during his more preoccupied moods.

Megan put her hands on her hips. "I do believe, sir, that you're teasing me."

His lips quirked up again. "It could be."

She could tell he was still waiting for her response to his unasked question. "I'm sure my hair doesn't say 'stop.' "

A grin spread across his face. "You're quick."

Ah, that smile. It was fortunate this man lived as a recluse. Otherwise, womankind wouldn't be safe from either his dazzling smile or his nutty conversation. "Not that quick. I still don't get it about the birds."

"Winter is coming and they have a long way to go." He sounded more relaxed now. "So they eat a lot. But they aren't greedy. And they don't cheat. They only take what they need." His smile faded. "Humans could learn a lot from them."

Megan wondered what sort of life he had lived, that he saw the world in such terms. Then it occurred to her that given the value of his intellect and personal wealth, people probably wanted whatever they could get from him.

"Perhaps we could," she said.

"They followed me around too, you know," he said. "I sent them away."

Her brow furrowed. "The birds?"

"The suits from MindSim."

"They offered you a job?"

"Yes. I told them no." Then he added, "But perhaps I will consult for them, after all."

Her pulse jumped. Was he offering her the chance to work with him? She kept her voice calm, afraid that if she appeared too eager, she would scare him off. "Maybe you should."

He offered his hand. "I'm pleased to have met you, Dr. O'Flannery."

She shook his hand. "And I you. Please call me Megan."

"Megan." He nodded. Then he turned and started down the road. After a few steps, he turned back as if he had remembered something. "Oh. Yes. Good-bye, Megan."

She raised her hand. "Good-bye."

Then he went on his way, leaving her to wonder just what was going on out at MindSim.
 

Megan hadn't expected her security clearance to come through so quickly. It made her wonder if MindSim hadn't begun the paperwork in advance, just in case. After a few weeks of negotiations, they flew her out to California to tour their labs.

She felt like a kid in a computer-game arcade. She enjoyed this more than the pursuits her friends urged on her for "fun," like parties or holovids. Invariably, her parents joined the chorus, with hints that she should include a fellow in the postulated proceedings—son-in-law material, of course. Their unabashed lobbying drove her crazy. They were wonderful people and she loved them dearly, but she felt like running for the hills every time they got that grandparental gleam in their eyes.

Out at MindSim, Tony and Claire showed her the snazzy labs first. In one, droids trundled around, gravely navigating obstacle courses. She spent half an hour putting them through their paces before her hosts enticed her to another lab. There she met an appliance that resembled a broom with wheels and detachable arms. It expounded at length on how it moved its fingers. Then she went for a walk with a robot that had legs. Its smooth gait put to shame earlier versions that had jerked along like stereotypical robots. Her hosts also let her try a Vacubot. She decided its inventors deserved a Nobel prize for their compassionate gift to humanity—a robot that could vacuum the house while its frazzled human occupants went out for pizza.

"We also work on humanlike robots," Tony said as they ushered her down another hall. "This next lab designs the body."

Megan's pulse jumped. "You've an android here?"

"Unfortunately, no," Claire said. "This work is all theoretical. Development of the androids would go on at a facility in Nevada."

It didn't surprise her that they had a more secure base of operations. Industrial espionage had become a thriving enterprise. MindSim wouldn't make their results public until they had full patent protection and software copyrights. She doubted they could copyright an AI brain, though. They would soon have to answer the question: When did self-modifying software become a cognizant being?

The next lab enticed her like a bakery full of chocolate cake. Equipment filled it, all cased in Lumiflex, a luminous white plastic. Instead of blackboards or whiteboards, the walls sported photoscreens with light styluses. Disks and memory cubes cluttered the tables, and memory towers stood by the consoles. Although a few cables ran under the floor, most of the connections were wireless. A wall counter held a coffeepot and a motley assortment of mugs.

Two men and a woman were working at the consoles. They had outstanding workstations: Stellar-Magnum Mark-XIV computers; combination cellular phone, FAX, radio, microphone, camera, wireless unit, and modem; keyboard, printer, scanner, and holoscreens. Holos rotated in the air with views of the theoretical android: EM fluxes, circuits, skeleton, hydraulics, temperature profiles, and more.

It all brought back to Megan her first day in college. While her friends had gone to check out the city, she had spent the afternoon talking to grad students in the AI lab. Within a week, she was doing gofer work for their professor. He gave her a research job that summer. By her sophomore year, the group considered her a member of their circle. She understood why Tony and Claire had shown her the glitz labs first; this one had only holos to look at, nothing concrete. However, if she took the job, these people would be her team, and they interested her more than any glitz.

Tony introduced them. The slender man with sandy hair was Alfred from Cal Berkeley. Miska came from a university in Poland. About five years older than Alfred and half a foot shorter, he had dark eyes and hair. Diane, a stout woman with auburn hair, had done a stint at a government lab and then taken this job.

They described their work, referring to the android as "he." At first Megan appreciated their not saying "it," but then she wondered at her reaction. Already they were giving their hoped-for creation human attributes. Maybe it wouldn't want those traits. Someday they might download the neural patterns of a human brain into an android, but even then no guarantee existed that it would think or act human.

Their descriptions also sounded too detailed. Finally she said, "It's done, isn't it? You have a working android."

Alfred shook his head. "I'm afraid 'working' is too optimistic a term."

Tony indicated a table. "Let's sit down. Now that you've seen the models, we can talk about where we hope to go from here."

As they took their seats, Alfred brought over the coffee and mugs. When everyone was settled, Claire spoke to Megan. "We've tried to make several prototypes,
four
."

Miska took a sip of coffee, then grimaced and set his mug down. He spoke with a light accent. "The problem, you see, is that these androids are mentally unstable. The bodies have problems, yes, but we think we can fix these. We are not so sure about their minds."

"The first three failed," Diane said. "We still have the fourth Everest android, but he's barely functional."

"Everest?" Megan asked.

"It's what we call the project," Tony said. "Surmounting a great height." He leaned forward. "It could be yours. Your successes, your triumphs."

Triumphs, indeed. "What happened to your last director?"

Alfred spoke flatly. "He quit."

Tony frowned, but he didn't interrupt or try to put a spin on Alfred's words. Megan's respect for MindSim went up a notch.

"Marlow Hastin directed the project until a few months ago," Alfred said. "We weren't having much success. The RS-1 became catatonic. No matter what we tried, it evolved back to the catatonia. The RS-2 had similar problems, with autism. And the RS-3 ... well, it killed itself."

"He walked into a furnace and burned up," Miska said, his dismay subtle but still obvious.

Claire spoke softly. "We don't want that to happen again."

"I can see why," Megan said. "Is that the reason Hastin quit?"

"In part," Miska said. "But he didn't leave until later."