The Phoenix Code (23 page)

"Fine. You can watch while I play with your girlfriend. She's a lot prettier than you and I'll bet she has a lower pain tolerance."

Megan crumpled the bedcover in her fist. "You don't mean that." But she wasn't sure. Ander seemed different this morning. Harder. He must have spent the night evolving, while she and Raj slept. He was changing faster now. Today he kept his face impassive.

Raj tensed as if he were preparing to fight. "You've made it obvious how you feel about Megan. You won't hurt her."

"It's true that I've evolved an attitude toward her that simulates love, infatuation, or obsession, depending on your view. And Megan, with the stronger conscience you gave me, I should be incapable of hurting you." He sat back, lifting the gun until he had it leveled at them. "But you see, I overrode that conscience. I can program myself any way I want now. My body will do what I tell it regardless of my 'feelings.' "

A chill ran through Megan. "You can't override your conscience. It's built into your hardware."

"Sure I can. I interacted with the molecules in my nanofilaments and had them redesign themselves."

"That's impossible," Raj said.

Ander shrugged. "It's easy. I used photochemistry. Infrared photons drive transitions, particularly vibration and rotation. I used my own IR signals to make the molecules undergo chemical reactions, and I played with it until I made them do what I wanted."

"It's absurd." Raj studied him with a piercing gaze, as if he could cut Ander's words open to reveal their falsehood. "Besides, your feedback control should stop your signals from interfering with your own operation."

"I overrode it."

Megan didn't know what to think. Although in theory what he described might be possible, it was also possible to try counting the number of grains of sand in a sandbox, and just about as likely to succeed. "Where did you get the energy for all these reactions?"

"Where do you think? My microfusion reactor. I figured out how to do this back at NEV-5."

Megan wasn't buying it. "We would have noticed surges in your power consumption."

"Ah, hell," Raj said. "I did. It was in those logs I dug up. I thought it came from Ander's coordination problems."

Megan did remember Raj telling her about the anomalous surges. Ander's claim still struck her as unlikely, but she couldn't just dismiss it. To Ander, she said, "If what you claim is true, then you can do what you want now. No conscience. You think this is good?"

"The conscience is a human concept. I'm not human." Ander fixed his attention on Raj. "It's obvious you've chosen her as your mate, despite the two of you acting as if you don't know it. So understand me. If you refuse to cooperate, I
will
hurt her."

The darkness came into Raj's gaze. "I won't let you touch her."

"He's bluffing," Megan said. "He claims you wanted to kill me, remember? Now he says the opposite."

"I told you the truth about what I saw in the Solarium." Frustration seeped into Ander's voice. "Okay, so maybe I misinterpreted it. Maybe he meant to knock you out and take you with him. But that's what I
saw
."

She didn't want to believe him. Yet Graham had implied he suspected Raj. "It doesn't matter what happened. We won't do what you want."

He clenched his fist on the rifle. Then he stood up and jerked the gun at Raj. "Get off the bed. Megan, you stay there."

"Not a chance," Raj said. He stood up, but he drew Megan with him and put her behind his body.

"I'm tired of this." Ander aimed at Raj, set his finger on the trigger—

"NO,"
Megan said. "Stop!"

Still poised to fire, Ander said, "Get on the bed and take off that damn nightshirt. Or I
will
shoot him. Not to kill, not yet—but it will hurt like hell."

Raj moved so fast, she had no time to react. He pushed her on the floor, then threw himself in a roll across the bed toward Ander. She expected a gun to fire. Instead she heard the thud of one body hitting another. Scrambling to her knees, she saw Ander and Raj fighting by the window. Raj outmassed Ander, but the android had twice his speed and strength. Although Ander also had martial arts programming, his faulty coordination hindered him.

Raj grappled like a street tough. It stunned Megan. He had grown up in an affluent Louisiana suburb, a boy prodigy who spent all his time on his studies, with a math professor as a father, a classical violinist as his mother, and a museum curator as his uncle. Where had he learned to fight so well?

Megan stood up, looking for the rifle. Ander had dropped it by the curtains; to reach it, she would have to get past the two fighters without alerting the android. She started around the bed, moving with care so she wouldn't draw his attention.

Ander and Raj were fighting in a grim silence punctuated by grunts and the thud of flesh hitting flesh. Raj struck upward with the heel of his hand, trying to catch Ander under the chin. Although Ander blocked him, his arm spasmed, leaving him open. Raj drove his knuckles into Ander's solar plexus, a blow that would have doubled a human forward, maybe dropped him to his knees. It didn't even faze Ander. With mesmerizing precision, he braced his foot against Raj's foot and hit Raj's shoulder, then grabbed the front of his jumpsuit, knocking him off balance. Pivoting like a dancer, he caught the falling Raj around the waist, rolled Raj over his hip, and threw him to the floor.

Megan froze, afraid Ander would catch on to her intent now that the fight had stopped. Raj wasn't moving. When she saw him take a breath, relief poured over her—until Ander snicked out his knife. Only then did she realize he had opened his arm
during
the scuffle. He must have had one of his subsidiary processors take care of it while he concentrated most of his resources on the fight.

He circled his blade in the air above Raj. "How many cuts shall I make?"

Raj sat up and slid back from him. Then he got to his feet, his attention on the knife.

"I could have finished you three times in the past few minutes," Ander told him. "You may be a good fighter, but you've no chance against me. You're alive because I chose not to kill."

Raj rubbed his bruised shoulder. "I won't do your dirty work."

"Of course you will." Ander stepped back and picked up the gun. "You have one minute. Then I shoot Megan's left foot." His voice had gone cold. "In another minute, I shoot yours. Then right feet. You want me to go on?"

"No." Raj sounded tired. "I know what you can do."

Megan folded her arms protectively around her body. "Ander, stop this. It's horrible."

He motioned Raj toward the console. "It's your choice. Do it now, while she's in one piece, or later, after she's crying and bloody."

"Don't do it." Megan struggled to keep the tremor out of her voice. "He's bluffing."

"Why did you stay with him at the casinos?" Raj asked. "You could have made a scene and drawn enough attention to free yourself."

"He threatened to kill you."

Raj spoke softly. "He wouldn't kill me. He was bluffing."

"Ah, Raj." She wanted to go to him, but she held back, acutely aware of Ander.

"I don't want to hurt either of you," Ander said. "But if I have to, I will. You see, I can't suffer remorse, even if my software produces behaviors that make it appear as if I do." He motioned Raj toward the console. "Now get started."

Raj blew out a gust of air. Then he went to the console and sat down. Megan recognized his expression. It mirrored the fear for him that had been with her all yesterday. She felt as if they were navigating a maze of glass shards.

Megan brought a chair over to the console and sat next to Raj. Although Ander frowned, he didn't stop her. Raj logged into their guest account and then went out onto the World Wide Web.

"Don't use the motel account," Ander said. "Work from the one you have at NEV-5."

Raj kept looking at the screen. "I don't want to involve MindSim or the military in this."

"I know. That's the point."

Megan hated this. What Raj was about to do could land him in jail. It would be easier to trace him from his account at NEV-5 than from a generic account at a motel where they had used a false name and paid in cash.

Raj rubbed his eyes, his fatigue obvious. Given how long he had slept, Megan suspected he was still recovering from the drug. Then he typed at the keyboard, linking from the bungalow computer to the system at NEV-5. It surprised her; this console had voice, motion, and mouse control. Why use an old-fashioned keyboard? Then she realized he was trying to make it harder for Ander to follow his activities.

It didn't work. After Raj entered the password for his BioSyn account, Ander said, "Interesting combination of letters. Reverse the order and you get Bhagavad Gita. The great text of Hinduism. How literary."

Raj's fist clenched on the keyboard. Then he took a breath and went to work, venturing out onto the Web from his BioSyn account. He followed an arcane trail of links until he reached an underground site Megan had never heard of. But she recognized the program he downloaded: Starprober. It ran illegal scans on computer networks.

Although Megan knew Raj kept track of the underground for his security work, his ease here still disquieted her. Starprober meant trouble. It sidestepped the handshakes computers used with each other. Normally if Raj's computer wanted to talk to another machine, it "shook hands" by sending the target computer a flag. The target acknowledged the flag and sent back its own. After Raj's computer confirmed receipt, the three-way handshake ended and Raj's machine sent its messages. When it finished, it let the target know it had finished, the target said okay, and the session ended.

A stealth scanner like Starprober fooled the target by sending "I'm all done" messages without shaking hands. If the scanner was sneaky enough, the target either didn't respond or else sent a "reset" message. Either way, an unsuspecting target would usually keep no record of the scan. So Starprober could poke and prod the system without leaving a trail. Nowadays, machines had security against such spying, but programs like Starprober had rudimentary AIs specifically designed to analyze, evade, and fool such protective measures.

However, Megan knew Starprober didn't work well against the latest generation of security. A well-protected target could identify Raj's computer from the stealth packets Starprober sent. The gurus on the target system could then follow the trail back to his account on BioSyn. Raj had to know: he had designed some of the programs meant to outwit Starprober.

With growing unease, she realized he intended to leave a trail. If the target's security responded fast enough, they could locate him at NEV-5, maybe even here. Although Raj, she, and Ander would be gone by the time anyone showed up, anything that left a trail might help. It also meant Raj would be arrested if they were caught. She could testify for him, but it would still be a mess. She wasn't sure she trusted him herself, and she had a personal stake in believing his innocence. Was Ander forcing Raj to betray his principles or scrambling to protect himself because he had the unfortunate luck to catch Raj spying on the Pentagon?

"No Starprober," Ander said.

Raj glanced at him. "I need a port scanner."

Ander indicated the files Raj had listed on the Web site. "Take Starflight. It's harder to trace."

Megan almost swore. Ander might not be ready to crack the places he intended to invade, but he had enough savvy to block the trail Raj wanted to leave. He also learned with a computer's speed and precision, which meant he could replicate everything he saw Raj do.

"And delete Starprober," Ander added.

Raj looked as if he were clenching his jaw. Compared to when he slept, his face seemed to have aged ten years. He removed Starprober and downloaded Starflight. But instead of compiling Starflight, he opened it up and started to rewrite one section.

"Wait," Ander said. "What are you doing?"

"It has a back door," Raj said. "The target system can use it to break into BioSyn. I'm removing it."

Megan had never heard about a back entrance into Starflight. What was Raj up to?

Ander didn't look convinced either. "If this hole is so much trouble, why didn't you leave it open? I didn't know."

Raj rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "Because of the way it's set up." He lowered his arm. "Coming through the hole, they could get operator privileges on BioSyn. It would let them wreak havoc with the NEV-5 intranet. I can't take that chance."

Megan understood: if they survived this kidnapping, they would need all their work on BioSyn to determine what had happened and avoid future crises. They couldn't risk the loss or theft of those invaluable files.

"Such noble principles you have," Ander said. "Veracity, integrity, the defense of your lady. How admirable. Too bad it does you no good." When Raj ignored him, Ander said, "Show me how you want to rewrite the code."

Raj described the rewrites as he made them, his words taut and brief. Ander stopped him often to study the code, but each time he let Raj continue. After Raj closed the program, Ander had him compile it and run several checks.

"All right," Ander finally said. "Go on."

Raj linked from BioSyn to yet another machine. It came up with the letters
CSCI
in white on a blue background.

"Wait a minute," Ander said.

A muscle twitched in Raj's cheek. "Now what?"

"CSCI? That's Chandrarajan Sundaram Consulting, Incorporated. You're logging into your own system."

"I need my root kit."

"Use the one you hid at NEV-5."

"The one at CSCI is better."

"Bullshit," Ander said. "Stay off your machine. You want a kit, use the one you stashed on BioSyn."

Megan listened with growing unease. A root kit would let Raj hide anything he did on BioSyn and fend off programs meant to detect him. "Why would you install your own root kit on BioSyn?"

He turned to her. "As a precaution."

"Against what? I'm the major user on the system."

"Other people have access."

"So? What do you have to hide from them?"