The Phoenix Code (8 page)

"No?" Megan scowled and crossed her arms. "What about those kids that cracked the Las Cruces weapons lab?"

"You mean the ones who went into the public outreach pages?" Mack asked. "The hackers who replaced the pictures of the lab scientists with action adventure cartoons?"

"Yeah," Megan grumbled. "Those."

The corners of Kenrock's mouth quirked up. "Don't you consult for Livermore?"

Megan gave him a dour look. "Yes. And yes, my image got doctored." She couldn't help but laugh. "They made me into a Barbie commando doll with camouflage fatigues, a designer machine gun, and pink high heels."

Kenrock grinned. "I've never seen that one in stores." His smile faded. "And you're right, that prank revealed holes in security. It's bad enough we have to worry about humans committing such crimes. We don't need androids in the mix."

"Yes, we have to careful," Megan said. "But we don't reprogram every teenager that rebels either."

Mack snorted. "Maybe we ought to."

Kenrock pushed his hand across his close-cropped hair. "She has a point. My kids may drive me crazy, with all three in their teens, but their rebellions are part of their trying to become adults, separate from their mother and me." Dryly he added, "Though if you ask me at a less tranquil moment, I might be less sympathetic."

"Aris needs to separate from us," Megan said.

"You know," Caitlin said, "if he doesn't, his autism could become more severe."

"Autism?" Kenrock asked.

Mack answered. "Some of his responses resemble autistic behavior in human children."

Their conclusions didn't surprise Megan. Some scientists believed autistic children suffered from a developmental disorder that interfered with their ability to model, understand, and predict the intentions or desires of other people. Developing AIs often shared that difficulty. Many of them used databases of rules in their models for human behavior. If they had too few rules or the wrong set, it limited their ability to respond.

"I first saw it in his aloof behavior and lack of affect," Megan said. "Also in his need for everything to be the same, so he didn't have to make choices. He's coming out of that now, but if we force a personality on him instead of letting him develop naturally, it might make him dysfunctional."

Kenrock glanced at Raj. "You've been quiet during all this. What do you think?"

Raj regarded him with an unreadable gaze. "I don't know enough about Aris yet to offer an opinion."

"You've read the same reports we have," Caitlin said.

Raj just moved his hand, as if to say, "That doesn't matter."

"Dr. Sundaram," Kenrock said. "Given the exorbitant fee MindSim is paying you, I would think you could come up with a more useful contribution than that."

Ouch
, Megan thought. She could almost feel Raj going on the defensive.

"I already gave at the office," Raj said tightly.

Megan understood his meaning, a play on "contribution" that also meant he had worked on the project in his office. She was almost certain he hadn't intended to insult Kenrock, but it came out sounding like a deliberate jab.

"This isn't a game," Kenrock told him.

Anger sparked on Raj's face, "well, shit. And here I thought it was."

Kenrock stiffened. "Straighten up, Sundaram."

"I'm not one of your flunkies," Raj said. "Back off."

Megan cleared her throat. "Maybe we should decide what to do about Aris?"

Taking a breath, Kenrock turned to her. "Of course."

"Richard, give us more time," Megan said. "We've just started."

Kenrock spoke to Caitlin and Mack. "What do you think?"

To Megan's surprise, Mack said, "I agree."

Caitlin nodded. "However, we should monitor the RS-4 at more frequent intervals."

After studying Megan for a moment, the major said, "All right. We'll try it your way for now." He glanced at Raj, then back at her. "Let me know if any problems come up."

"I will." Megan wanted to assure him they would have no trouble. She feared, though, that the problems had just begun.
 

Raj and Megan watched the elevator take Kenrock's car up to the desert. Raj had said nothing while Kenrock and his two lieutenants left, nor did he speak now. As he and Megan headed back to the base, he remained silent, lost in thought.

After a while, Megan said, "The LPs delivered your luggage to your room in the residential section."

Raj glanced up with a start. "Residential section?"

"Level Two. My quarters are on Corridor B. You're in C, next to Aris."

He turned his probing gaze on her. "Why did the LPs put me on a different corridor?"

"I told them to choose a room near Aris." She hesitated, not wanting to start things off wrong. "You can move if you like."

"I'm sure it will be fine." He had his full concentration on her now, which was more unsettling than his earlier preoccupation. "Why would you put me nearer to him than you put yourself?"

"He needs new people to interact with, to expand his knowledge base."

Raj suddenly grinned, like the blaze of a high-wattage bulb. "I'm new data?"

Megan wondered why he smiled so rarely. It transformed his face like sunlight chasing away predawn shadows. "You're a new experience for him. He hasn't had many."

"Does my being here make you uncomfortable?"

This was a side of Raj she hadn't seen. Apparently he wasn't always oblique. "You don't mince words, do you?"

"Should I?"

"No." She rather liked his blunt questions.

"You don't mince either." More to himself than her, he added, "But you somehow make it socially acceptable. I must study how you do that."

"I think you should stay just the way you are."

Raj drew her to a stop. "What did you say?"

Megan couldn't tell if she had offended, startled, or puzzled him. She gentled her voice. "You're fine the way you are."

He brushed back a tendril of her hair that had curled onto her face. His finger trailed along her cheek. Then he dropped his hand as if her hair had burned it. Flushing, he turned and strode down the hall.

Megan touched her cheek where his fingers had brushed it. She wasn't sure which bewildered her more, his gesture or his retreat. What had she said?
You're fine the way you are.
She supposed people didn't tell him that often.

He was well up the hallway now. She considered trying to catch up but decided against it. If he wanted to be alone, she wouldn't push. They would be working closely together in the next months. Better to give him the room he needed.

Raj reminded her of a jaguar she had seen in a wilderness preserve years ago, during a vacation to Mexico. She had stood on an observation platform next to her guide, watching the jungle with binoculars. The jaguar had stalked through its realm, incomparable in its sleek, powerful beauty, unaware of them. It went about its life, an existence they could never truly know, only admire from a distance. But if they ever trespassed in its territory, it would strike back, as deadly as it was beautiful.

He turned a corner up ahead, vanishing from sight, Megan didn't see him again until she came around the bend. He stood a few yards away, leaning against the wall across from the elevators for Levels Two and Three. His scuffed jacket and old jeans made stark contrast to the decorous ivory walls and blue carpet.

She stopped by the elevator. "Were you waiting for me?"

He watched her warily. "I'd like to talk to Aris now."

"That's fine." Usually his face revealed his emotions in detail, but right now she had a hard time reading him. "You can go to his rooms anytime you want."

Raj pushed away from the wall, his lithe movements taut with contained energy. "You should come. He doesn't trust me yet."

"Okay." She could have watched Raj move all day.

"Why are you smiling?" he asked.

"Smiling?" She flushed. "I was just thinking that, uh, it was good to have another expert here."

He tilted his head, considering her with raised eyebrows. Then he came over and touched the elevator's call icon. The doors opened with a hum.

They rode down to Level Three in silence, Raj standing with his hands in his pockets again, as if that posture warded off danger. Megan wondered what he was defending against. Her?

When they stepped out of the elevator, Raj said, "I'm glad Major Kenrock left."

She walked down the hall with him. "I had the feeling you two didn't hit it off."

"Sometimes he seems more mechanical than the robots I work with." Raj thought for a moment. "But that's not true, is it? When he was talking about his children, he sounded human."

"He's a good man."

"You think so?"

"Yes, very much. You don't?"

He walked a ways before answering. "I don't trust people who don't know me and yet think I'm going to do something wrong."

That reminded her of Sean, her brother. Outwardly, he and Raj were a universe apart. Sean joked with everyone, an outgoing young man with wild red curls and blue eyes. But Megan knew his other side, the shyness that made it hard for him to interact with people. He compensated with his outrageous humor, but underneath all that he was painfully self-conscious. Raj's oblique nature struck her as similar, in his case a protection against a world that for some reason he distrusted.

"Richard Kenrock doesn't know you well enough yet," she said. "He'll loosen up. I think you remind him of his oldest son, Brad, a high-school senior."

Raj snorted. "I'm almost Kenrock's age."

"But you look younger. Brad dresses like you, rides a motorcycle, and mouths off to Richard every chance he gets."

"Good for him."

Megan gave him a look of mock solemnity. "Do I detect a problem with authority figures?"

"Hell, yes." Then he added, "Sorry."

She laughed. "No you're not."

The hint of a smile played around his mouth. "Maybe not."

"Why don't you like Richard?"

"He's a control freak."

"Give him a chance. Let him see your good side."

Raj pulled his jacket tighter. "I don't have one."

She wondered where he had come up with such a thought. "Of course you do."

He almost stopped again, staring at her with the same surprise he had shown upstairs, when he touched her cheek. Then he resumed his pace, a flush on his face. She wanted to ask why compliments bothered him, but she held back, certain it would make him even more uncomfortable.

At Aris's room, the door slid open. Aris was working at his computer. The program looked like a war game he had written, but she wasn't sure. He played so fast, the holos blurred in a wash of color. MindSim intended for him to design such codes himself eventually, but for now he concentrated his resources on his own development and used other computers to write the games.

"May we come in?" Megan asked.

"No," he said, still playing.

Her breath caught. No? It was the first time he had refused her.

"You might enjoy our company," Raj said.

"Why?" Aris swiveled his chair. "Time for me to behave again?"

"I hope not," Raj said. "That would be boring."

"I'm not here to interest you," Aris shot back.

"I might interest you, though."

Aris seemed unprepared for this approach. "I don't see why."

"So find out."

The android sat for a moment as if he hadn't decided whether to glower or relent. Then he said, "Oh, all right, come in."

Megan stayed back, curious to see Raj and the android take each other's measure. Raj pulled a chair over to the console and sat down to study the screen. The geometrical shapes had stopped moving and now stood in ranks, like an army regiment.

"Defensive geometry," Raj said.

Aris sat stiffly. "It's a game."

"Did you write it?"

"Yes."

Raj indicated a purple cube. "What does that do?"

"It's a term in a partial differential equation." Aris regarded him with suspicion. "I use it in a model I designed to predict human behavior during combat."

"It was going around and around in a loop before."

Aris shrugged. "They get stuck that way sometimes. I fix it."

"You like writing war games?"

"I don't
like
anything."

Raj glanced at the computer screen, then back at Aris. "So why write games instead of standing on your head?"

Aris's forehead furrowed. "Why would I stand on my head?"

"Why not?"

"That's a weird question."

Raj smiled. "Probably."

"What do you want, anyway?"

"To know why you're angry."

"I'm not angry."

"Yeah," Raj said. "You're rolling with techno-joy."

The android crossed his arms. "It should be obvious why I'm simulating anger."

"Because we attacked you?" Raj asked. "Insulted you? Lied? Cheated? What?"

Emotions flickered on Aris's face as if he were trying and discarding them: hostility, indifference, unease, conciliation, suspicion. "Because you all control my conscious activity."

Megan's pulse leapt. Did he consider himself
conscious
?

Raj had also tensed. "Do you mean conscious as opposed to subconscious?"

"No," Aris said. "I have neither."

Disappointment washed over Megan, and Raj's face mirrored her reaction.

"How did you mean conscious, then?" Raj asked.

"I have no autonomy." Aris swiveled to look at Megan. "I know you well enough to trust that if you deactivate me, you will turn me on again without causing harm. But what if someone else gains that power over me?" He glanced at Raj. "Someone I have no reason to believe has my best interests in mind?"

She had known they would face this moment eventually. Aris would never have independence as long as people could turn him off. Yet for all that she had argued for his freedom, she had doubts about making it this complete this soon.
Some
protective mechanism had to exist while he developed. Only she could act as a systems operator on his brain now, so only she could turn him off or reset him with a verbal or wireless command. They could also turn him off manually, but it required they open him up. He must have guessed she intended to set Raj up as another operator.