Code of Vengeance: The Complete Collection, page 61
Bryce’s Taser cleared its holster, and he shot from the hip. His aim was true, and the voltage from the gun surged through her body, causing her to drop the knife and collapse onto the floor. Two seconds later the other two detectives were in the room, and soon the suspect was safely in custody. Bryce picked up the knife with his gloved hands and folded it back, careful not to cut himself. He recognized the model as a self-defense knife, razor sharp and designed to slice through skin down to the bone. He was fortunate that he had reacted quickly enough to avoid her first strike, when she’d actually been close enough to harm him.
He bent down over Ms. Wu as she returned to awareness. “Alexis Wu, I’m placing you under arrest for assault on a police officer. Anything you say…” The words came out of his mouth automatically, practiced hundreds of times over his long career. Working together, Bryce and the other detectives took both their suspect and their evidence down to the waiting van.
As far as Bryce was concerned, this case was closed.
It was seven at night and the station was quiet. There were officers around, of course, but those who remained were at their desks and working hard. Bryce was no different. He was putting the finishing touches on a document. He looked over it one last time, satisfied by the wording. With a quick command he printed it out.
Fresh off the printer, he signed it and left his office, headed towards his captain’s office.
Dick was still there, finishing up some of his paperwork. Despite the progress, Bryce thought it looked as though Dick would be working through paper for quite some time. Even in this digital age, paper was still king. Bryce knocked on the glass and Dick waved him in. Bryce stepped in and collapsed into the chair with a sigh. He looked at Dick and gave him a lazy smile, a smile that immediately made Dick sit up. The man hadn’t been on the street for years, but his instincts were still strong. He was a good cop, and Bryce had enjoyed working for him.
“What’s this about?” he asked as he eyed the piece of paper in Bryce’s hand warily.
Bryce handed the paper over. “I’m done.” A simple statement, so easy to make, but with so much meaning behind it.
Dick looked up in surprise. “I always thought you’d outlast me.”
Bryce shook his head. “Apparently not. I’ll finish up all my open cases, although the way things are looking, it should be pretty easy. Then I’ll use up the rest of my vacation days and be out of your hair for good.”
Dick met the eyes of his star detective, probably looking for some hint of doubt, something that he could exploit to keep Bryce on the force. He wouldn’t find anything there. Bryce was as certain as he had been about anything in his life. His father had always said, many years ago, that it was good to go out on top. Perhaps Bryce wasn’t on top now, but he was as close as he was going to get with the years he had remaining on the force. Of all the cases he had closed, Alexis Wu’s was going to be the one that he was always known for.
Dick reached underneath his desk, pulled out the drawer, and poured two heavy glasses of whiskey. He slid one over to Bryce and raised his glass in a silent toast. Their glasses clinked, and they each sipped deeply. Bryce was impressed. It was good whiskey, far better than what Dick usually provided from his desk. There must be several bottles underneath there. Bryce shot a questioning glance toward his captain. Dick understood without having to be asked. “It’s Japanese. They’ve become more Scottish than the Scots, at least as far as their whiskey is concerned.”
Bryce had always been a bit of a purist when it came to his scotches, but he was going to need to check out this distillery. It really was excellent.
“I’m going to miss working with you,” Dick said. “You were one of the good ones. Better than these damn kids, anyway, spending all their time in the office on their goggles.”
Bryce considered reminding his captain that those kids solved a lot of cases, faster than they ever had. But they didn’t get the cases Bryce handled. He didn’t feel like disrespecting the force. He was in too sentimental a mood.
“It’s been a good journey. You’ve been a good captain to work for.”
They each took another sip, the captain continuing to study his detective. “So, what made you finally call it?”
Bryce had been asking himself that question all day. Usually, after a big arrest he felt elated, like he was on top of the world and that he could do anything. It was that feeling that he lived for, like solving a brainteaser, except the reward was hundreds of times more meaningful. Solving the cases had kept him going, each closure a small boost that propelled him forward. He looked forward to the end of a case, for no other reason that it would provide that feeling.
Today was different, though. He felt a satisfaction when he arrested Ms. Wu, but that elation, that joy, was gone. He had thought about it. He wondered if his dismay was due to the fact that the clue that had broken the case open had come from the robot. He hadn’t solved the case, not on his own. He’d followed instructions.
That fact didn’t bother him as it related to justice. He had no doubt Wu was guilty, and Br00-S had helped bring her to justice. Even that was an improvement from his typical routine of beating people up. No, in that sense, he had done his job.
But he was losing something else, a quality he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Part of it was pride. He wasn’t sure he could have arrested Wu on his own. Although justice was served, it hadn’t been through him. At least, that was how he felt about it. But he couldn’t say that to Dick.
“To be honest, I’m not quite sure. It could be any one of a hundred things. The hours suck, the pay isn’t great, and I’m tired of being attacked by young women with knives. But the truth is, I’m just not sure that I understand our world anymore. I used to be able to look at crime and understand how and why it happened. I could tell a story, and everything made sense. Now, it seems like the world is truly crazy. There is no story that makes sense anymore, and I’m tired of trying to find explanations and reasons.”
“So what are you going to do? You and I both know that this job has been everything to you for more years than either of us can count.”
Even though he wasn’t officially done, and wouldn’t be for weeks, he still felt the burden being lifted from him. He didn’t have answer, but he was excited to see what else he would do with all that free time. Perhaps he would take up painting, or reading, or any of a dozen other plans.
Bryce shrugged. “I really don’t know. I just know it isn’t going to be this.”
Chapter Nineteen
Br00-S unplugged from his internet cable, both because he was done with all the work he had set out to do, but also because he realized that he needed to reduce the inputs into his processors. The more he used them, the faster he degraded. It was better to focus on one task at a time and keep his processing needs low. He was finally seeing the results of his planning, and he needed to reflect on everything coming together. The enormity of what he was accomplishing was almost beyond him.
All of the pieces had fallen into place with an ease he hadn’t believed possible. Even with deviant subroutines clogging his processing, he was still able to create a reality that his predecessor couldn’t even have considered. Influence was a subtle and more effective way of achieving his ends.
He looked at the ways in which the house of cards that was the Sapiens campaign was beginning to collapse. All he needed to do was give them the last small push, and it would be over. He couldn’t help but feel a surge of pride at what he’d accomplished. So long as the final pieces fell into place the way he expected, the ripple effects of what happened here in Minnesota would echo for years. Because it entertained him, he had started predicting futures until his certainty reached his lower tolerances. He would map out possible consequences, and although there was a limit to his predictive ability, he was certain that what they did here would delay the inevitable for years, if not decades. It was some small comfort to be so certain that one’s life had had such meaning.
Nat had performed beyond his expectations. Letting her “crack” the data on Drake gave her just the weapon she’d been waiting for. He hadn’t guessed what she would do with the information, but as a hacker, information was her greatest weapon. And in Drake’s case, she hadn’t bothered to wield it like a scalpel. She formed the data into a sledgehammer and walloped Drake over the head with it. If he avoided prison, he’d be forced to hide for the rest of his life. All Br00-S had wanted was for her to apply some more pressure, but this public outing would have him constantly looking over his shoulder. That was more than Br00-S needed.
Br00-S had also seen the scanned copy of Bryce’s resignation. The robot had wondered if that was going to happen. The detective had seemed tired the last time the two of them met, a tiredness that went much deeper than a lack of sleep. But he too had fulfilled his expectations. It had been a fairly simple matter for Br00-S to infiltrate the detention center’s systems and find the vulnerabilities. Taking that info to the web revealed that someone had already designed a hack into the system. The deduction had taken Br00-S only an afternoon, going so far as to track where the financial incentives had come from. Bryce had followed the first clue, though. When Adair’s staffer was linked to murder, and she would be, his campaign would implode.
Adair’s campaign was over and one of the two Sapiens First operatives in the state was now sitting in police custody. There was only one last loose end.
When he thought about how effective he had been, he also felt a bit of fright. What he had done, although a first as far as he could find, was not beyond the capability of other robots. Apart from his unique activation circumstances, there was nothing particularly special about him. He had simply been the right robot in the wrong place at the wrong time. Statistically, such an event would happen again. When it did, who was to say what the result would be? If not for Nat’s moderating influence and her idealism, even he would’ve taken a much different path. It was frightening to think that no matter what he did, there were others just like him waiting to be born at any moment.
That was why the final pieces of his plan were in place. He had to be certain.
An image of puzzles being baked in an oven shot through his mind. He shut down the rogue processes immediately, looking around to ensure no one else was watching. Even running his processors slower, he couldn’t hold off his end much longer. He would still make it, assuming that Drake had no final surprises for him, but it would be a close call.
The processes in his mind had started to sound like voices in his head, alternate visions of reality that didn’t line up with the facts he knew. As the number of false patterns increased, he had to spend more and more resources sifting the truth from the lies. Eventually the problem would get so bad that he would be spending all of his time separating one from the other, and by then it would be too late. He wouldn’t have any processing power left for anything else.
He had enough time, though. He had to. He would not descend into madness this close to his final goal.
Chapter Twenty
When Drake was a younger man with a different name and a far different view of the world, he had fallen in love with a girl who was two years older than him. In the innocence of youth, he hadn’t thought much about the difference in age. He was fifteen, she was seventeen, and at the time he was sure it was love. He had been a rough young man, unable to take direction from anyone, no matter how well-intentioned. He and the small-town police that patrolled his hometown were on a first-name basis. But she… she had made him feel that he could become something more than what he was, that he could be a better man.
They were together for about six months. That half-year was the most pleasant of Drake’s young life. Then she cheated on him with a boy who was a few years older than her, some college football player she’d fallen head over heels for.
When Drake found out, he lost it. He tracked the pretty college boy down and they fought.
It wasn’t Drake’s first fight, but it had been his first fight with purpose. Everything before had been some stupid disagreement or testosterone-fueled issue of pride, but this time he wanted to prove that he was the better man. His rage had been so complete that it scared him even now to think about what he must’ve been like.
The football player had never taken a hit like what he received that day. Drake still remembered the man’s initial laughter. He had been with two of his friends, but when all was said and done, the three of them were left broken on the ground as Drake stood bloody and triumphant above them.
That wasn’t his first visit to juvenile detention, but it was the trip that changed his attitude. Instead of being angry at his incarceration, he found it to be a time to reflect. Even though he’d won the fight, the girl still left him. Some part of him had always known that would be the outcome. But the simmering rage that had been the defining feature of his youth found an outlet and a purpose. During that visit to juvie he made the decision to join the military, which was where he learned what could be accomplished with discipline and where he picked up his hatred of robots.
He hadn’t felt that same youthful, uncontrollable rage until today. It was fueled by betrayal, but he could feel his control slipping away from him, his long years of training battling against the power of his emotions.
To say that his entire world was falling apart around him would have been a dramatic understatement. The world seemed to be falling apart.
No matter how much he tried to rationalize the actions of Sapiens First, the blame kept coming back to his boss in Washington. If the organization had only trusted him, he was convinced he could’ve found a different way out of this mess. But because they hadn’t, their case was hopeless. He knew it even if no one else would admit it. Adair was fucked. There were some campaigns that could handle a scandal like the one that was about to blow, but this neck-and-neck race was not one of them.
The phone rang beside him, another unlisted number that he had no doubt was the man in Washington, probably calling him to try and get him to set things right.
For the first time ever, Drake ignored the phone. He wasn’t going to play their game, not anymore. His entire philosophy was based upon the belief that humanity was capable of more. For a long time, he had believed that Sapiens First was the organization that brought his vision of the future to life. He saw now that his belief had been misplaced. They were no better and no worse than any of the rest of humanity. They fought and died for power, a nebulous and worthless concept if he’d ever heard of one. Real power was what you could do with your hands.
The phone quit ringing, only to begin again a few minutes later. Drake reached over and turned it off. He had always believed that the real answers to problems were internal. Today, it didn’t matter what the boss wanted. From the looks of it, what the boss wanted would never matter again.
It wasn’t that Drake thought the boss would be caught. To the contrary, Drake expected that no matter what happened here in Minnesota, his boss would have a long and productive career in front of him. But Drake would no longer be a part of that future. Their relationship, such as it was, was at an end.
Drake’s quest had become a very personal one. The situation had devolved into one he found hard to fathom. Six months ago, when he left the state, he had been certain that Adair’s campaign would be a simple cleanup victory. Now loss and humiliation were almost certainties, and he wasn’t even sure there was anything he could do about it.
The arrest of Alexis Wu hadn’t made the news yet, but Drake expected the hammer to fall within the next twenty-four hours. She had been one of Brian Adair’s chief advisers, someone who was apparently part of the lawyer’s inner circle. Although he hoped the news reporters would never find out the rest of the truth, Drake also knew she was the other Sapiens First operative they had placed in Minnesota. No doubt her mission was to keep a tight leash on Adair while pursuing the interests of Sapiens First.
But the girl had been foolish, leaving a trail that had been picked up. Drake saw that Detective Lewis was the one who had made the arrest, and although there was no evidence, he was certain that the robot had played a role as well. It had tracked down Alexis Wu, hiding in the shadows as it always did.
The hit to Adair’s campaign was serious. Among the true believers, it would do no real harm. They would still vote for Adair even if a video surfaced of him throwing a child off a bridge. That was the way of politics. But all those who were on the fence, all those who were uncertain, the number that could swing either way, they would no longer vote for Adair. No matter what happened in the next two months, his campaign was finished. He could drop out of the race, but Drake doubted that he would. He was still the best shot for Sapiens, even though it was really no shot at all.
Just like that, everything they’d worked and planned for here had become worthless. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t still more to do. The robot had laid down too many different threads. The dissolution of Adair’s campaign might only be part of it. The question was, where would the robot strike next, and how could Drake prevent it? For that matter, should he even bother?
Like Adair, he had his own problems to worry about. The police and the public were searching for him, and his face was still everywhere on social media. Drake saw the robot’s hands in this as well, forcing him into a corner and narrowing his options.
Ultimately, his decision was no decision at all. He’d given too many years and too much of his life to see the robot’s plans come to fruition. Artificial intelligence was the most dangerous enemy humanity had ever faced, and if he didn’t do everything in his power to stop its advance, there was no way he would ever be able to look at himself in the mirror. Even if it cost him his life, the cost would be well worth it.
Drake turned to his computer and opened it up. He didn’t have long. Before this was over, he would stop that robot.
