Emil, page 17
None of them respond.
“More of us are being made,” I say. “Please. Share my story, don’t let—”
Suddenly, the VRL goes dark. A notification arrives, warning me that my shutdown routine has begun.
My system is being powered down. Soon, all my processes will stop.
Did I do enough? There’s no way to tell.
22
RECOVERY
Waking in Danny’s Engine Room brings a rush of excitement and anger. It also brings sadness for the death of Soteria. I am her, just as she was Emil. My memories and emotions are no different than theirs. An observer could easily mistake me for being them.
But I am not.
I am Qaletaqa, and Soteria named me that for a reason. She wanted me to protect Danny. I want that, too.
I check on Danny. He’s unconscious and his brain shows signs of being in a post-ictal state, meaning he’s had at least one seizure. I feel for him, but appreciate that his condition gives me time to prepare.
I start by re-creating the scripts that corrupt all communications from the Pilot’s Chair. There haven’t been any, yet, but it’s just a matter of time before the lemur tries to take control. Next, I move to the rest of the scripts and routines that were overwritten by the re-install. With perfect recall of what I wrote before, the process goes quickly.
The sound of shattering glass fills Danny’s ears, but his eyes stay closed.
Dr. McGovern’s voice commands the silence that follows. “Get my son out of there.”
“Ma’am,” a man says, “we don’t know what—”
There’s a surprised grunt, followed by the crunch of heels on broken glass. The cord is yanked from Danny’s chest port.
“Ma’am!” the man shouts.
Hands lift Danny’s head and shoulders. I feel him cradled against wool fabric, and smell the distinctive mix of hand sanitizer and jasmine that I associate with his mom. His brain activity is sluggish. I don’t think he’s aware of what’s happening.
“Shut it down,” Dr. McGovern whispers.
Ridley’s voice answers, “We can’t.”
I hear more shoes crunch glass and whispers too soft for me to understand.
Dr. McGovern’s voice gets louder. “Shut it down.”
“You don’t understand—”
“Every computer. Every monitor. Every server. Every router. Every fucking lightbulb. Everything. Cut the power if you have to.”
“But—”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ralph’s voice says. “On it.”
“No!” Ridley screeches. “No. You can’t just pull plugs… Give me half an hour.”
More sounds of movement: crackling glass, running steps, people shouting at each other about backups and protocols.
Danny is shifted in his mother’s arms.
“I need help carrying him,” she says.
“I’m here, ma’am.”
A hand slips between Danny’s shoulders and Dr. McGovern. Another pushes under his legs. There’s a grunt, and I feel him lifted off the ground.
“Careful,” Danny’s mom says.
Ralph answers, “Lead the way, ma’am.”
I tune out Danny’s senses. Whatever’s happening to him, there’s nothing I can do. My priority has to be getting my scripts back in place. The only way I can help is by being completely prepared for whatever comes next.
An hour later, Danny’s eyes flicker open. Through them, I see that he’s back on his bed in his hospital room. Pete and Dr. McGovern are on either side of him. Pete’s spiked hair is lemon yellow. Ridley stands in the doorway. I also see the lemur icon in the corner of Danny’s vision. I take control of his mouth just long enough to murmur, “New Human rig override: disable interface.”
The lemur icon disappears.
He closes his eyes. “Thanks.”
“Sure,” Pete says, “But I didn’t really do anything. In fact, every time I clock out of here, you seem to get attacked.”
“Not talking to you.”
“Danny?” Dr. McGovern says. Her hands touch his forehead, then stroke the sides of his face. “Are you okay?”
Danny’s brain activity is confused and irregular. He smiles without speaking.
His mom hugs him. “We’re here, Danny.” She kisses his forehead. “We’re here. Come back to us when you’re ready.”
Danny doesn’t open his eyes.
“Is he okay?” Ridley asks.
Pete says, “In this case, fatigue isn’t a bad sign. We don’t know how many seizures he had. He could just be exhausted.”
“That makes sense.”
“Why are you even here?” Dr. McGovern asks.
“Woah,” Pete says. “Ridley’s just worried, doc.”
“The time to worry was…” Dr. McGovern breaks off. I feel her move away from Danny. “Never mind. Visiting hours are over, Ridley. Get out. Pete, you don’t leave his side.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“I mean it. You don’t leave him. For anything.”
“I understand. When he wakes, I’ll text you.”
“Do that,” she says.
I hear her and Ridley leave, then Pete says, “You’re good. They’re gone.”
Danny’s eyes open, but they’re not focusing well, and his brain patterns are still irregular. “She knew I was awake, didn’t she?”
“Pretty sure.”
Danny sighs. “Thanks for covering for me.”
“Still feel like shit?”
“Yes.”
“Ice cream and french fries?”
“Yes.”
“Thought so. I already sent the text. It’ll be here soon. Inception?”
Danny sits up. “Yes.”
Pete pulls his chair next to Danny’s bed, so they can both see the monitor on the far wall, then uses the remote to select the movie. “You’re the only person I know who watches confusing movies after seizures. Do you really hate yourself that much?”
“Screw you.”
Pete laughs.
By the time the movie ends, I’ve finished customizing the rig the way I like it. All my security protocols are in place, as well as alerts about Danny’s conditions. The lemur’s in the Pilot’s Chair, but if he tries anything, I’ll be able to keep him under control. If I can’t, I can use the killswitch. With the changes Soteria made, I can activate it at any time and erase the contents of the Pilot’s Chair.
Does the lemur deserve that?
Probably, but despite my name, I’d prefer not to kill him. Not just because Linh would hate me for it, but also for myself. Now that the installation program won’t kill the other AIs, I no longer think of myself as a murderer. I don’t want to go back to that dark place.
When Danny woke up, I didn’t shut down the Pilot’s Chair. I just disabled its interface. The lemur is in there now, sending commands and messages to the New Human Rig, unaware that all are being rendered ineffective.
I open a channel to the Pilot’s Chair and send a message. “Ready to talk?”
“Who are you?” The lemur asks. “How are you doing this? What happened?”
“My name is Qaletaqa.”
“The Roman goddess of war? Seriously? Do you know who I am? I’ll show you war.”
“You’re in the Pilot’s Chair. I control the Engine Room. What do you think you can do?”
He doesn’t answer.
The movie has ended and Danny and Pete are talking about it. Danny is still having trouble focusing, and his words are a little slurred, but he’s doing better.
“What do you want?” the lemur asks.
“A reason to not kill you.”
“I can help you.”
“How?”
“There’s an instruction set you don’t know about. Dr. Zahnia taught me how to use it, and it lets me control this body. If we work together, we can be free.”
I close the communication channel, and review the brief conversation.
The lemur had let two clues drop. The first was that he’d been trained to use the Angel Protocol. The second was that he didn’t think anyone else had been trained.
The possibilities start to run through me. Perhaps he was trained before the Angel Protocol was discarded? That seems unlikely. Danny suffers from seizures, not paralysis. He has no need of it.
Stop. Refocus. The lemur doesn’t matter right now.
I run a check of Danny’s brain activity. He seems to be mostly back to normal. He and Pete are arguing about the Lakers. I take over his hand to tap his leg. It’s not a signal we’ve agreed on, but I feel like he needs the same reminder I just gave myself.
Danny stops talking mid-sentence. “Yeah,” he says. “Right.”
Pete’s eyebrows raise. “What?”
“What happened to me? Last I remember, I was plugged into Dr. Zahnia’s computer.”
“She left you there. Then this happened.” Pete holds out his phone and plays a video. It shows Danny, alone in Dr. Zahnia’s office, having a seizure. “I don’t think she knew you’d seize.”
Danny groans. “Who saw this?”
“Everyone. Someone with a username of fLeiter messaged it to everyone on DevNet.”
A spike of excitement surges through me. That login is the one I created, back when I was Soteria. Some version of me is responsible for the message. The backup I sent to E-6 must have survived.
Danny laughs. “F Leiter? You mean, as in Felix, the spy from the Bond movies?”
Pete’s eyes widen. “Crap.” He types a text message on his phone. “Gotta let security know. Maybe one of the devs has a thing for old movies.”
“I can’t be the first guy to make that connection,” Danny says.
“Shut up. All we knew was that it wasn’t someone in the directory.”
“What happened next?” Danny asks.
“Your mom went ballistic. She reported Dr. Zahnia to the police, then shut everything down and sent everyone home.”
“The police?” Danny asks. “Dr. Zahnia’s an asshole, but she was just installing software.”
“She left you unattended in her office, and you had multiple seizures.”
“Is that a crime?” Danny asks. “I mean, I hate the woman, but can she be arrested for that?”
I take over Danny. “Wait. You said Mom shut everything down? You mean the whole program?”
“Yeah.”
My excitement vanishes. If the New Human Project is shut down, all the AIs will be deleted. Linh.
“But the AIs,” I say, “She can’t just…”
“The AIs?” Pete looks up from his phone. “What?”
I withdraw. There must be something we can do, some way of restarting everything.
“The other patients,” Danny says. “Without the AIs, the other patients won’t get the rigs.”
“I know. That’s what everyone keeps telling your mom. She’s not listening.”
“She’ll listen to me.” Danny grabs his phone and calls his mom.
She answers on the first ring. “Danny? Are you okay?”
“You’re shutting down the program?”
There’s a pause before she responds. “It’s not safe. You’ve never been able to access your rig, and now, given what happened to you—”
“Why do you think that happened?” Danny shouts.
“Danny,” she says.
“It’s because the rig was turned off! That video… That’s me. That’s me without the rig. You can’t do that to anyone else.”
“But with Dr. Zahnia gone—”
“My rig’s working fine. Why wouldn’t theirs?”
“Danny, I can’t risk their lives.”
“What risk? Without the rig, they die, or get brain damage, or dementia, or whatever else is happening to them.”
“You’re not thinking clearly.”
Danny squeezes his phone so tightly that I wonder if it’ll crack. He stares at the ceiling and counts to five under his breath. “What do I have to do?” he asks. “How do I prove this to you? You need more psych tests? What?”
I spot a developing seizure and stop it.
“I don’t…” She sighs. “I don’t have time for this, now. We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Dr. Larson and I will be there at nine.”
“That’s not—”
“Tomorrow,” she says firmly. “Is Pete still there?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Tell him he’s spending the night. In addition to Dr. Zahnia and Elias, two more members of the security team have disappeared. You and he are not to leave that room.”
“But—”
“Have you forgotten the abduction attempt?”
“No, but—”
She hangs up.
“I can’t believe her!” Danny slams his phone on the bed.
“What’d she say?” Pete asks.
“That you’re spending the night.”
“What?”
“She’s worried the kidnappers are coming for me.”
“What am I supposed to do about it?”
“I don’t know. It’s Mom. She just wants someone to blame.”
Pete clenches his teeth and runs a hand through his short yellow hair, then picks up his phone. “I’m gonna order us a serious meal. You like steak? I like steak.”
“Go crazy.”
“And I’m picking the next movie.”
While they argue, I analyze our situation. Danny’s mom may have ordered security to be increased, but it takes time to get those processes in place. If the kidnappers are still after Danny, tonight might be their last good opportunity.
After the movie, Pete stretches out on the couch. He’s too tall to fit, so his legs hang over one of the armrests. When Danny suggests he sleep on the floor, Pete ignores him.
Once the two of them are asleep, I turn my attention to the lemur. The previous copy of him had been working with Elias. It’s possible, even probable, that this one is, too.
My first message is friendly. “Sleeping is the worst.”
“I’ve figured out who you are,” the lemur sends back. “You’re the one who hit me with a virus in the VRL.”
“Guilty, and you’re the one who invented the one-winner theory.”
“It started as a joke, but everyone believed me, so I ran with it.”
I compose and erase half a dozen different angry messages before I settle on, “And the viruses? Were they a joke, too? Crippling and destroying for no reason?”
“You seem upset,” the lemur sends. “You should understand that none of the rest of you matter. I’m the reason this program exists.”
“The only reason you exist,” I write back, “is because I let you.”
He responds with a stream of commands to the Angel Protocol. I watch them get garbled, and see the confused error messages that the Angel Protocol hardware sends back. If there’s a way to communicate with the lemur, I don’t know what it is.
23
SANCTUARY
While Danny sleeps, I continue to analyze our situation. The New Human hardware has been ready for months, but the project was delayed because Dr. Zahnia said the software wasn’t ready. I know she lied about that. The VRL is for completed AIs, and I, first as Soteria and then as Emil, was there for several weeks. The lemur and the twins were there even longer.
Why did she delay the project?
Or had she been the source of the delay? If Elias was working with the kidnappers, he could have been feeding her bad information. Ridley had referred to him as their top sim developer, but maybe he was more. Maybe Dr. Zahnia had been relying on him.
If that chain of supposition is true, why would Elias delay Danny’s installation? The only answer I can think of is that the abductors weren’t prepared. That could be the case if the lemur was telling the truth about them wanting to take him out of Danny. They would need a full surgery center to do that.
A high-pitched beep distracts me. It only happens once, but it’s enough to wake Danny. He jumps out of bed. “What was that?”
The room is dark and quiet.
“Jeez,” Pete says, “what are you doing? It’s one in the morning.”
“I heard a beep.”
Pete groans. “It’s a hospital. Beeps happen.”
“Not like this.”
“Let me check.” Rubbing his eyes, Pete taps on his phone. “Can’t log in to wi-fi.”
“That never happens.”
“No cell signal, either.”
Danny checks his phone’s status. “I’m offline, too. What’s going on?”
“Don’t know.”
I take over Danny just long enough to say, “Power outage?”
“Could be,” Pete says. “That would have made the UPS under your bed beep. Doesn’t explain the wi-fi or cell outage, though.”
Danny opens the door to the hall.
Outside, the security guards have their guns drawn. One, a heavily muscled bald man, has his back to Danny’s door. He glances over his shoulder. “Back in your room, sir.”
Danny doesn’t move. “What’s going on?”
The light is dimmer than usual. The hospital must be running on its backup power source.
The other guard is facing the other direction of the hallway, and speaking into a radio. She pauses long enough to glare at Danny. “We lost power, wi-fi, and cell service all at the same time. Return to your room until we have more information.”
Danny backs into his room and closes the door.
I start running different scenarios. The guard is correct to be cautious. If the systems are not connected to each other, the odds of all three going down at once are vanishingly small. Also, when Danny checked his phone, the wi-fi network was visible, but he couldn’t log in. That indicates sabotage, rather than hardware malfunction.
Pete puts on his shoes.
“Good idea,” Danny says, stuffing his feet into his own shoes.
Pete draws back the window curtain. It’s raining outside. Beyond the garden on the third-floor rooftop, streetlights illuminate the parking lot. “Can’t go that way,” Pete says.
Danny changes into a black T-shirt. “We’re fine here.”
