Time Was (45 page)

“I'm prepared to die,” said Zac.

“I'll alert the media,” said Annabelle with mock-surprise. “I know you're prepared to die, Zachary. But consider: The I-Bots are most likely rushing here to save you as we speak. If not, then they've gone depressingly dim—Simmons, Janus, and I planted enough clues with the media that even an amoeba could figure out that you're being held hostage at PTSI.”

“So?”

“So if you're dead when they get here, I'll have the advantage of shock on my side. That, coupled with a controlled blast from a positron-freezing gun, will enable me to reclaim my property.” A triumphant grin. “And you know that, once they're back in my possession, you are arguably expendable. Oh, sure, those scientists I have won't know nearly as much as you, but they'll know enough to reverse engineer the process.”

Zac started at the words “reverse engineer.” “You
wouldn't?
”

“Dismantle them?” asked Annabelle. “In a heartbeat. So, I figure that you'll decide to go on with your miserable, misguided existence not because you care about yourself, but because you care about
them
.”

Zac glowered at her.

Because she was right.

Dammit.

“All right,” he said, hoping to buy some time until he figured out what to do. “You win. I'll come back. Just . . . undo whatever you've done with the nanite and I'll—”

Annabelle laughed. “To use your own quaint phrase, Zachary, do I look like I just fell off the turnip truck? If you want to live and cooperate, you're going to have to
earn
the privilege.”

She rose and nodded her head.

Simmons came over and lifted the metal box that had been placed at Annabelle's feet earlier.

It was a small safe with an electronic lock.

Simmons placed the safe on Preston's desk.

“The lock mechanism is voice-activated,” said Annabelle. “When I press this button, you will speak your name, Zachary; from that moment on the safe will only respond to your voice. In order to unlock it, you have to speak the combination.”

Zac only stared at her, waiting for the punchline.

When it came, it was a lulu.

 

Psy–4 gathered everyone together and explained the situation.

“How long do we have until Roy has to be disconnected?” asked Radiant.

“One hour and twenty-seven minutes.”

“Give or take ninety seconds,” added Stonewall.

“And that's not counting how long it's going to take to locate Zac,” said Itazura.

Killaine sat in silence.

Psy–4 looked at her for a moment, then turned back to the group. “All bets are off. They'll know we'll be coming after Zac, so the element of surprise is shot. Our only hope is to hit them hard, with everything we've got.”

Singer tapped Psy–4's shoulder.

Would a large diversion be of use?

“What did you have in mind?”

“He's already explained it to me,” said Stonewall. “We don't have time to give you the details. Singer, Killaine, and I will take the first van. Give us a five-minute head start, all right?”

“Done,” said Psy–4. “Did you divide the weaponry—?”

“As evenly as possible, yes,” replied Stonewall.

“Where do we meet you?” asked Radiant.

“The same area of the fence where we entered for the security test.”

Itazura held up a hand. “What about all the equipment?”

“Most of it's all set to go,” said Stonewall. “What isn't ready we'll have to take care of when we get back.”

“And if there's not enough time?”

“Then we take what we can and blow up the rest.”

Stonewall snapped his fingers at Singer, then grabbed Killaine's arm and pulled her to her feet, dragging her toward the steps to the garage bay.

“Five minutes,” called Psy–4. Then, to Radiant and Itazura: “Let's see how much more of the equipment we can get packed. Something tells me we'll be leaving in a hell of a hurry once this is over.”

They were heading for the control room when Itazura said, “Where's all my HIR equipment?”

 

“In this safe,” said Annabelle, “you'll find another syringe. This one's filled with a little something we call ‘liquid burn.' It's the antidote you need. But here's the tough part, Zachary.”

There was a slip of paper taped to the door of the safe. Annabelle reached over and gently removed the paper, then handed it to Zac.

There were seven numbers on the paper: 1, 2, 6, 12, 60, 420, and 840.

“An employee of mine who dabbles in math and mystery novels came up with this,” said Annabelle. “There is an order to that sequence of numbers, though it's not as obvious as you might think at first glance.” She pressed the button. “Say your name.”

Zac remained silent.

Annabelle nodded.

Simmons stood by Zac and tossed a small amount of salt into the cut made by the vase earlier.

“Ouch!”
cried Zac.

“Good enough,” said Annabelle, gesturing to the red indicator light at the top of the safe. “The mechanism will now respond only to your voice, Zac, and—no, don't speak. Whatever you do, for the next several minutes, you absolutely
must not
speak. Nod if you understand.”

Zac nodded.

“Good. Now, the eighth number in that series completes the combination that will activate the lock mechanism and open the safe. Just to make it tricky, there are several correct solutions to the sequence, but only one will open the safe—you'll know which one it is . . . Keep in mind that you are free to move about this office, Zachary; but also keep in mind that we have disconnected the computer, removed Samuel's electronic calculator, and taken every piece of paper and writing instrument, so you'll have nothing with which to do your figuring.
That
will have to be done in your head. And in silence.

“You see, Zachary, you can only speak aloud
once
, which means that you can only recite the combination once; that's all the program allows. Say one word, utter one syllable that isn't the combination, and the program will consider
that
your guess and shut down and you won't be able to get to the antidote. Understand the rules so far?”

He nodded.

“Good. So now, all you have to do is, in silence, figure out the next number in that sequence and say it aloud.” She signaled Simmons, then she began to move toward the office doors. “Get it right, and the door will open, you'll grab the syringe and inject yourself with the antidote and be a happy camper.

“Get it
wrong
, and . . . well, you saw what happened to poor Mr. James.”

Before closing the door, she smiled at him and said, “And just so you know, I'm doing it this way just to make you squirm. Payback's a bitch, and so am I.”

With that, she smiled, blew him a kiss, then closed and locked the door behind her.

 

Driving out of Cemetery Ridge, Stonewall checked his watch, then cast a glance at Singer and asked, “You're positive that the other robots know how to—”

Yes.

Stonewall shook his head in amazement. “All of you know the sewer systems
that well?
”

Yes. You would be surprised how much more quickly you can get around on foot underground than with an automobile or even hover-car on the surface.

“How many HIR units did you program?”

Twenty-two. That is all Itazura had.

“Then it'll have to do.” Stonewall looked over at Killaine. “Are you going to snap out of this anytime soon?”

“. . . I . . .
how
could it have happened?” She shook her head and turned her face up toward Stonewall. “Tell me, Stoner; how was it possible for me to kill him? Not only that, but why haven't I ceased all functions?”

Stonewall looked at her, then returned his attention back to the road. “I want you to listen very carefully to what I'm going to tell you, Killaine, and you mustn't ask any questions, all right?”

“I can't promise that.”

“You'll
have
to, because I won't have any answers to them. There are certain areas of our programming that only Zac fully understands, and for his own reasons, he chooses to keep those reasons to himself.

“Over the years,” said Stonewall, “Zac has entrusted each of us with bits and pieces of information not known to the others. I suppose the practical reason was so, in case any of us were captured or stolen by Annabelle, no
one
of us on our own would possess
all
the information she'd need. I think the more
humanistic
reason is so each of us will feel a bond with him—sharing a secret with someone just naturally has that effect.” He shrugged. “I've also always believed he did it because he wanted us to know what it felt like to have to choose to betray a confidence in order to serve the greater good—to make the kind of difficult choices humans have to make, and in our doing so, becoming a little more humanlike—after all, we were designed to replace humankind if the worst ever happened so that humanity's best principles wouldn't perish.” He sighed, checked the mileage, then continued.

“Here is a secret I share with him—or, rather,
did
share until now: When Zac modified our programming from ordinary robots, he made it possible for us to kill an opponent if it was absolutely necessary. He realized that, because each of us has a different and distinct personality, that certain . . .
variables
had to be taken into account. Itazura's playfulness, my aloofness, Radiant's vanity . . . your temper.”

Killaine's head snapped back up.

“You're probably already getting the idea,” said Stonewall. “By giving each of us the ability to kill, he knew it would only be a matter of time before one of us
did.
And because the last thing he wanted was for us to look upon the taking of a life dispassionately, to view it simply as a means to an end, something with no emotional price to be paid . . . he modified the programming further, taking into the account the possibility of an accidental killing.”

Killaine wiped her eyes and whispered. “But . . .
why?
”

“Because each of us, in our own way, will sometime, someday
have to
experience the grief, the guilt, the rage, the confusion, all of the emotions that accompany the act of taking a life, and then learn how to expand our capacity to learn from that pain.” Stonewall looked at her and gave a sad smile. “You just happened to be the first of us to do so. You now possess knowledge that the rest of us don't: You know what it feels like to kill. So now it's up to you to make the rest of us understand the price one pays for that.”

“. . . still don't understand why . . .”

“Zac has a deep, abiding reverence for life—
all
life. Think about it—have you ever seen him so much as swat a mosquito?”

“No.”

“Even with the DNA he gave to us, Zac knew there was no way he could
teach
that reverence for life to us. It had to be obtained through experience.”

“. . . and so one of us had to be the first to kill.”

Stonewall nodded his head. “I'm afraid so. And I'm afraid it now falls on you to make us comprehend how that makes you feel.”

“But what about . . . I mean, if I accidentally killed once, what's to prevent me from losing control and doing it again?”

“Our individual capacity to learn from what happened—
your
capacity, in this instance. We may very well be put in a position again where we have to kill in order to save human lives from certain death. All we can do now is our best to not put ourselves in a position where killing may be necessary—a conscious,
individual
choice on each of our parts.

“But face the facts, Killaine; an absolute ‘no kill' rule for all of us, given Annabelle's pursuit and some of the security work we do, would be a disaster.

“There's now a kind of fail-safe device that links us all together. Because you have done what you've done, you have activated a sort of gestalt mechanism contained in each of us; from this day on all of us start learning the hard lessons that taking a life has to teach us.”

“Lessons?”

“Knowing what you do now, knowing how it feels to take a human life, would you ever do so again and take it lightly?”

“No, no—
never!
”

“You'll link that to the rest of us now . . . until it happens with another one of us.” He reached over and placed one of his mighty hands atop Killaine's. “Robots aren't supposed to be able to kill, but we're not robots—not wholly, anyway. Human beings
shouldn't
kill, but they do. And we're partly human—at least, in the psychological and emotional sense. Like it or not, violence is a fact of our existence. We cannot be like regular robots who are physically
incapable
of killing. Zac knew this when he made the modifications. We
can
take a life under the most extreme of circumstances, Killaine, but, with your guidance now, we'll learn to value all levels and forms of life.”

Killaine shook her head. “So I'm the standard-bearer for I-Botic freewill?”

“That's pretty much it. It's the first day of a new school for all of us now.” He touched her cheek. “If it's any comfort to you, I would have torn the little bastard in half for shooting Zac and that boy.”

Killaine leaned up and kissed Stonewall's cheek. “Thanks, Stoner.”

He looked at her. “Feel better?”

“No . . . but I can now believe I will. Eventually.”

“Well, then.”

“Yes. Well, then.”

 

1, 2, 6, 12, 60, 420, 840.