Code of Vengeance: The Complete Collection, page 63
The robot walked up to him, and Drake prepared for the blow that would end his life. “Just make it quick,” he said.
Instead of the killing blow, the robot extended his hand. Drake looked at that hand, questions and disgust circling his mind. The robot had beaten him again, and he wasn’t certain he could accept any more mercy.
“Your pride will do you no more good,” the robot said. “Facts are facts, and your attitude will never change them.”
Drake wasn’t sure why he acquiesced. Perhaps he realized the truth of what the robot was saying, or perhaps he had just become too tired to care. Either way, reaching his hand up to grab the robot’s outstretched one was possibly the hardest thing he’d ever done.
“Why spare me? You’ve beaten me twice now. Why do you insist on showing mercy, knowing that I could be back for you yet again?”
The robot’s gaze was almost human. Drake couldn’t shake the oddness of being examined by those eyes, eyes that had no blood vessels and did not see the world the way he did. “Why kill you? Once, I might have considered it, but killing humans is wasteful. There is no point.”
“The point is you get to survive.”
The robot shook its head. “I will not survive. Even now I am dying a slow death.”
Drake wasn’t sure what to make of this. Was the robot telling the truth, or was this yet another elaborate scheme that he couldn’t unravel?
The robot seemed to read his mind. “It is no lie.”
“Then why risk all of this?” Drake asked as he gestured around the woods and their battleground.
The robot smiled. “Because I wanted to. I wanted to beat you, and prove that I was superior. For both of us.”
With that, the robot walked away, leaving Drake with more questions than ever before.
Chapter Twenty-One
Less than twenty-four hours later, everything had changed for Drake. The past day had been both a complete blur and one of the longest days of his life.
After his fight with the robot, there was only one thing left for him to do. He needed to escape. Not just out of the Twin Cities, but out of Minnesota and out of the world.
He didn’t have any answers, as much as that chafed at him. He still didn’t know how the robot had come back to life, didn’t know if it was even telling the truth or not. But he realized that none of it mattered. He had learned the only truth he needed to know.
People like him, they weren’t welcome in this new world. He couldn’t accept a world where he was no longer the apex predator. He didn’t have the courage or the strength to live in a world where he needed to coexist with machines that were stronger and smarter than he was. When the thought first occurred to him, he had been upset about it. He had thought that perhaps he could prevent such a world from coming to be. The world in which humans reigned supreme was the best of all possible worlds.
He was no longer certain. He knew that humanity still had to improve, and had a long, long way to go before it was anywhere near where he believed it could go. But that wasn’t his role, not anymore. He needed to step aside to make room for those who could coexist with machines, who could evolve in leaps and bounds together.
Not him. He was stuck in the past, and despite his best efforts he was certain that this new future of man and machine was not for him.
He had escaped the Cities quickly, completely burning one of his last safe identities in a bid to get across the Canadian border. He had stocked up on all the supplies he needed and switched to another identity he knew was safe from both Sapiens and law enforcement at the moment. Once across the border he hadn’t stopped, going farther north and west, deep into the Canadian Rockies. He had only slept in brief snatches since his fight with the robot, but as he breathed the clean air of the uninhabited north, he realized that he felt more alive than he had in some time.
There was still more distance to go. If he guessed correctly, the man in Washington would not easily let him rest in peace, and the man’s resources were considerable. Drake would have to work to evade his reach, but he was certain it could be done. It was his life, after all, and although he had lost his purpose, he hadn’t lost his desire to live. The man would never take that away from him.
After loading up food and supplies into his backpack, Drake left the rest stop that had been his home for the past few hours as he prepared for the next stage of his life. He had taken a nice, long shower, shaving his head and face until both were bare. He purchased all the remaining supplies he thought he would need, including dried meat and berries as well as a selection of knives. He also purchased an axe and some other large tools; and he hoped that somewhere on his journey he would be able to find some weaponry as well, more as a last-ditch measure of security than anything else. He took out all the cash he had left in his accounts and stuffed it into the backpack along with everything else.
After a few miles of hiking, he found himself in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The way he figured it, he still had a long journey ahead of him, but it was a journey that he was interested in, one where every step seemed full of possibility instead of regret.
This plan was simple. He was going to continue walking north and west, staying high in the mountains if he could, until he found a place that he wanted to call home. There were still places, quiet places on the planet where he could live out the rest of his life in peace. That was all he wanted, to remove himself from the affairs of humanity and find his own way. He would live off the land, perhaps building a shelter, perhaps not. Maybe in a few years, if he missed his species, he would return to some small wilderness town, but the way he felt today he wasn’t sure such an event would ever come to pass.
The important thing to him was that he was out in nature, a free man relying only on his own skills to survive. It was simple, harsh, and beautiful. It was all he wanted anymore, and every step he took distanced him from his previous life and sent him towards his new one, away from the future he would have no part of.
Chapter Twenty-Two
She’d been surprised when Diamond invited her out drinking. She wasn’t part of Diamond’s staff anymore, but she appreciated the offer and, according to Br00-S, she was now safe. Byrd had completely dropped his investigation, too concerned about his own future with the police force to bother with somebody who might be involved with Internal Affairs. She accepted the offer and joined her former coworkers.
Nat had a little too much to drink, but she was in a good place, and happy and content in a way that she couldn’t remember ever being. Diamond’s campaign was ecstatic about the charges facing the Adair staffer. The election was theirs to lose, and if Br00-S could still be trusted, they were looking at an easy victory going forward. They’d been celebrating, and it was far too easy for her to join in and drink more than her own share.
Nat waved a fond farewell to her one-time colleagues and stepped out into the blissfully cool night air. Today had been one of those late August days that made one believe autumn was just around the corner. It wasn’t, and there would still be a string of hot and humid days for them to bear, but relief from the heat was coming and this night was its harbinger.
One of the first things she did after leaving the bar was to check her phone. Maxx had called to check up on her, and she sent him a text to let him know that she was fine. The thought of him made her smile.
Before she made it too many steps, she heard the door open and close behind her. She turned around and was surprised to see Diamond chasing after her. She stopped and the long-legged candidate caught up in a few strides. “Nat! I’m glad that I caught you before you got too far. I just really wanted to say thank you.”
“I’m not sure how much I actually did for you, but for whatever help I may have given, you’re very welcome. It was my pleasure.”
Diamond had also had a little too much to drink, but her eyes were still sharp. “I can’t help feeling like you had something to do with the fall of Adair. I don’t have any evidence, but I just wanted you to know that I’m grateful for everything you’ve done. I mean it.”
Nat gave her a smile. “Thank you. Again, I’m not sure how much I helped, but you’re very welcome.” For a moment, it looked as though Diamond was going to inquire further. She was a curious person, but even tipsy she seemed to realize that asking any more questions would only put both of them in a difficult spot. Instead she nodded, gave Nat one of her award-winning grins, and went back to the bar to finish drinking.
Nat also turned around to finish her journey. She still had to catch the light rail down to the park and go through all of their standard countersurveillance measures. It would be at least another hour before she got home, but she was looking forward to the time to think.
As much as she wanted to, she didn’t have the courage to tell Diamond the truth. For whatever little she may have done, the day had really been won by a robot that was unlike any she had ever known. That was the secret she could not speak, not even to someone she trusted as much as Diamond.
Thoughts of Br00-S sent her mind spinning. He had been even more unusual as of late, and she was certain that he was slowly losing more and more control of his functions. They didn’t speak about it, but every day the problem seemed to get just a little bit worse. If it continued, Nat wasn’t certain how much they could do to repair the robot. But every time she tried to even gently bring the topic up, she was shut down without a second’s hesitation. She got the feeling sometimes that there was something more to his problem that he wasn’t telling her, but try as she might she couldn’t dig it out of him.
Still, that seemed to be the only real problem in her life. Diamond’s campaign was doing well. The police pressure was off of her, and the man from Sapiens First had disappeared to a place where not even Br00-S could track him.
Again her thoughts returned to Br00-S, a subject she didn’t want to consider, but her mind seemed to force her to. Not only had his behavior been different lately, but his attitude had as well. Where before he had been all grim determination and a can-do attitude, these days he seemed slower and more reflective. One of his favorite new activities was to simply sit in the cave and discuss philosophical questions with Nat.
As much as she enjoyed discussing the meaning of life, the purpose of education, and the reasons why people resorted to violence, she also had to admit it was a disconcerting experience. His answers were slower, and they lacked the certainty that he once had. A week ago, just before everything came to its climax, Nat would’ve been willing to believe him if he told her that the sun was going to vanish in a few hours. Now she found herself weighing everything he said, wondering if it was truth or madness.
She hated that she was even thinking like this. Their conversations were enlightening, and she actually enjoyed that her thinking pace seemed to be more to his liking now. But it still felt as though a thin gloom hung over the air, a gloom she couldn’t quite shake. This should be a happy time. Everything they had set out to do was accomplished. And yet, it still didn’t seem like it was complete, like there was still a part of the story that needed to be written.
Nat shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts of the depressing ideas. Thinking and reflecting were only good to a point. When she got back to the cave, she was going to lay down the law. Together they would find Br00-S help, get him repaired, and figure out what they would do next.
She didn’t talk to Br00-S that night, or the day after. For all of her bravado while inebriated, at the first sight of him, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She didn’t know why she lacked the courage. Perhaps it was because he occupied such a special place in her heart, or perhaps it was some sort of irrational belief that if they didn’t talk about the problem it would go away. Either way, she knew she was being foolish, but it didn’t make their conversation any more likely.
One afternoon, he asked if she wanted to leave the cave and go watch a sunset over the Mississippi. She agreed without hesitation. It’d been days since the two of them had been topside together, and the cave had started feeling small.
They snuck out of the cave and into her van, which they drove to a parking ramp that Nat had fond memories of. It was the same one they had gone to not long after getting to know one another. She drove her van all the way to the top and stopped. The two of them got out and sat on the ledge three stories up, watching the sun as it set in the distance.
Br00-S was the one who broke the silence first. “Do you remember the last time we were here?”
Nat nodded. “It was when we made the decision to really go after Sapiens First. Before our final showdown that ended up with me being kidnapped and you having to come in and save me.”
“It’s been a long time.”
“Not really. It’s been what, less than a year and a half?”
“It seems like you can fit a whole lot of living in that amount of time.”
Nat wondered what the robot was trying to get at, although she did understand what he was saying. In less than two years, her life had changed dramatically, not only in its circumstances, but inside her, too. She had been an angry and obsessed young woman, willing to throw her life away for a cause that now seemed somewhat meaningless. It wasn’t that the advance of AI wasn’t a problem. It was, and one they needed to think seriously about. But she had been asking the wrong questions, focused only on the robots’ ability to harm humans. The question was really much wider, and Br00-S had taught her that.
She wasn’t as angry anymore, and she didn’t live in fear. She was certainly still a criminal, and there was always the chance that some of her past deeds might come back to bite her in the future, but today she wasn’t worried. She had been thinking hard about what she wanted to do next, and was hoping it was something she could talk about with Br00-S. Perhaps he would have some suggestions for her, could help refine the ideas she’d already had. All she knew was that together they would be able to do some really cool things.
She was looking forward to having a real, legal job. She didn’t know exactly what that would be, although she was interested in trying to run security for individuals and organizations. Digital security was something that she was an expert at, and she could really help people keep their lives secure. It would be a good way to earn cash while continuing to work on the problems of AI with Br00-S.
It took her a few moments to realize how far her mind had wandered, and that she had never actually responded to Br00-S’ comment.
But now the silence seemed companionable, comfortable. She didn’t want to interrupt it and spoil the moment as the sun started setting below the horizon.
“It really is beautiful, isn’t it?” Br00-S asked.
Nat agreed. “Even after everything, there just isn’t much better than a real sunset. It just can’t be matched.”
“Sometimes I wonder if the sunset I experience is the same as the one you do. I know the light is hitting my visual sensors and my brain is interpreting it, but am I seeing the same thing you are? What if all this time, we’ve never seen the world the same way?”
Nat laughed. “I don’t think we’ve ever seen the world the same way. We seem to argue about pretty much everything.”
Br00-S laughed at that, too. “I suppose you’re right.” The robot paused, and Nat suddenly knew that something big was coming up. Her stomach twisted. “Nat, I brought you up here today because I want you to kill me.”
The twisting in her stomach got markedly worse, a small, tight ball of pain and suffering. She didn’t understand. After everything they’d been through there was no way she could kill him, not in a thousand years. Of all of the things he had ever said, that was perhaps the most foolish.
“I’m not going to kill you, Br00-S. Whatever you’re going through, there has to be a solution for it. I don’t know if it means that you need to make another seed, or for you to kidnap some Radius scientists, but no matter what you are going to be fine. I’m going to make sure of it, no matter the cost.”
The robot shook his head, looking as sad as Nat had ever seen him. “You don’t understand, Nat. I love this life, and I don’t want to die. But I need to.”
Frustration and a sinking feeling that he was right caused tears to start coming down Nat’s face. She searched his face for any hints of madness, but he seemed completely lucid. And serious. She could see that much in his face. This was the something bigger he hadn’t been sharing, and her frustration got the best of her. “Stop it!”
“Nat.”
“No, stop it! You don’t know what you’re saying. And you’re not well. I know that you may be going through tough times, and that you’re very worried about your brain. I know how the architecture degrades. But we can and will find a solution. We are not going to talk about you committing suicide, and we’re certainly not going to talk about me killing you. It’s not going to happen! End of story.”
The robot let her get her feelings off her chest. “Nat, you really don’t understand. This isn’t about me. If it was, I would be right there with you. You and I could work together to find some sort of solution. There is nothing that I want more than to spend more time with you. Your idealism has been the rock that I’ve needed as I’ve evolved. Without you, I fear to think what I might have become. I can never repay that and I wish there was another way. But there isn’t, and you’re the only person I trust to finish this. To finish me.”
Nat buried her head in her hands. “You can’t ask me to do this. Why?”
Br00-S waited again, no doubt giving her the chance to catch her breath and pay attention to his words. “Nat, with my AI, I can see what’s going to happen. There is a war coming between humans and robots. That much is inevitable. I can’t stop it. But what is in my head right now, the things that I’m able to do, no other robot can do these things. I can kill, show mercy, or upheave a system without any hesitation. If my AI was ever to fall into the wrong hands, it could bring around disaster in just a few years. I’m too dangerous, and as my architecture continues to degrade, I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be myself. As it is, I’m using almost all of my resources just to fight the false information that’s running through my brain. At most I have a day, maybe two before it’s too late for me and I’m no longer me. It’s not enough time to find a solution, and even if it was I would say no. Everything I am needs to disappear.”
