Artificial Absolutes (Jane Colt Book 1) Page 4

  Adam returned her smile. “More than you give yourself credit for, I’m sure.”

  Jane rested against the back of her chair. “It’s too bad the Tech Council’s so paranoid, lumping AIs in with creepy shit like cloning and eugenics. It’d be pretty cool if they could create an artificial intelligence, don’t you think? Like, a sentient computer?”

  Adam shook his head. “I don’t know. It seems… wrong. When does an experiment become a life? Besides, it can’t be done.”

  “Why not? Brain science shows we’re all basically machines anyway, since everything we are, everything we think, is directed by stuff like chemicals and neurons.” She shrugged. “Wouldn’t be impossible to translate all that into code.”

  Adam looked into the distance. “Are we the way we are because we’re ‘wired’ that way? Or do we make choices on a higher, intangible level, and our physical beings adjust to reflect them? I believe in the latter, which is why I don’t think anyone can create a true imitation of human behavior. Machine logic is no match for human irrationality.”

  Ah, crap. He’s gone into moralizing mode again. Jane made a face. “Do you have a Via text to go with that?”

  Adam placed his forearms on the table. “I know you were being sarcastic, but I actually do know one that’s relevant.”

  Jane, interested, relaxed her expression. “Really? What is it?”

  “It’s one of the fables from the Book of Via.” He leaned in to tell his story. “Eras ago, in ancient times, the Absolute granted a village a token with the power to create any one thing. This village was often ravaged by violent invaders, so the villagers created an obedient giant made of stone to keep them safe. They became greedy, and they ordered it to attack the neighboring lands. The Absolute was displeased at this abuse of power and punished the village with diseases. The villagers blamed the stone giant. They decided to destroy it.”

  Adam drew back, and his gaze turned contemplative. “But it wasn’t the mechanical slave they’d thought it was. It had chosen to obey them out of love, and it was furious at the betrayal. It destroyed the village in its rage, but then was so miserable in its solitude and guilt that it threw itself off a mountaintop and shattered into a million pieces.”

  Jane raised an eyebrow. “That’s your allegory for artificial intelligence? That has nothing to do with it.”

  Adam turned his gaze to her. “It’s about creating life and the responsibility that comes with it.”

  “I think it’s a horrible, ridiculous story concocted by a bunch of dark-age idiots. Why would a stone giant become depressed? It was never real. Ugh, religion is so full of it!” Jane threw up her hand for emphasis. “Hokey lessons and nonsense masquerading as morality!” She put her hands on her hips. “Adam, why the hell do you want to be a Counselor when there are so many better things you could be doing?”

  Adam just gave his good-natured and infuriatingly adorable smile that was somehow amused without being condescending.

  Jane pulled out her slate and checked the time. “Crap. I’ve gotta get back to work.” She chugged the rest of her energy drink.

  “All right. I’ll see you tomorrow, same time?”

  Jane swallowed her last gulp. “Yup, ’s long as they don’t pile more work on me at the last minute.”

  The afternoon passed as uneventfully as any other. As soon as Jane finished sending out her end-of-day reports, she locked her computer and zoomed out the door. She didn’t take long to reach the airtrain station.

  She tripped as she pushed through the crowd, crashing into a woman in a doctor’s coat. “Sorry!”

  The doctor reminded Jane of the distress that overcame Adam when he spoke of his “medical” training, a look she’d never seen before on his usually placid face. The expedience of the Kyderan justice system really seemed to upset him. She worried about how he’d handle watching an execution.

  “The airtrain is about to depart. Destination: FFC Residential Complex. All aboard, please.”

  I’ve gotta go see him. Make sure he’ll be okay, at least bring him company. Maybe apologize for insulting his religion—again.

  Jane shoved her way off. She checked the screen at the station to see which train would take her to the seminary. It was about to leave, and that the next one wouldn’t arrive for another half hour. She sprinted to the platform.

  “The airtrain is about to depart. Destination: Via Theological Seminary of Kydera Major. All aboard, please.”

  Jane knocked people aside. “Move!”

  She leaped onto the train as the doors closed. The train shot forward. She stumbled into a seat, internally grumbling about the slowpokes who had almost made her miss her ride.

  Several minutes later, the seminary’s colorful towers appeared in the window. The train pulled into the station. She sped out.

  Jane followed the landmarks from her past visits to figure out how to get to Adam’s place. She got turned around and ended up entering the brick dormitory through an obscure side door, one of those non-computerized kinds. It led to a stairwell walled off from the lower floors. Walking up seemed preferable to wandering the building’s complex layout, looking for another entrance. She silently cursed the ancient building, annoyed that whoever renovated it hadn’t added a few doors along with the central computer.

  By the time she reached the level that let her leave the stairwell, only three flights remained. No point in looking for an elevator now.

  She finally arrived at Adam’s floor and wound through the corridors until she found his door. She grabbed the spare key he kept above his doorframe, stuck it into the old-fashioned manual lock, and burst in, hoping to startle him. “Surprise, surprise!”

  She froze and dropped her smile, wondering if she was hallucinating.

  Outside the dorm window hovered a triangular Barracuda spacecraft, the kind usually used by the interstellar fighter pilots. Its deep blue hull was unmarked. Through the square window on its side, Jane saw a boxy robot of the same color with multiple appendages and a rectangular head.

  Inside the room, an identical robot carried a limp and unconscious Adam.

  Chapter 3

  What the Hell?

  At the end of the workday, Devin remained at his desk, but not reviewing reports or double-checking numbers. The usual assortment of historical data applications and market news Netsites stretched across his monitor, which surrounded him in a semi-circle. All had been unattended for hours.

  Meanwhile, he devoted his attention to the message window on his slate.

  Corsair: I was finally able to trace the Seer’s signal. He’s out on the Fringe, somewhere in the Viatian region.

  The Seer was a notoriously untraceable person who lurked around the online forums of various Netcrews. He posted as “Anonymous” and had been given the Netname by the Collective. Although Netcrews were accustomed to people browsing their conversations, the Seer had gained a kind of notoriety due to his tendency to write mysteriously well-informed posts containing explosive information and return to silence. He never once showed up in the virtual reality forums where demons, represented by avatars, gathered to speak “in person,” their words transposed to the typed-out forums.

  One of the Seer’s recent posts had caught Devin’s attention, one that seemed uncannily relevant to Sarah’s strange reaction to his proposal. Devin had tried to contact the Seer ever since. Corsair claimed to have traced the most heavily veiled person on the Net, a deed many of the Networld’s most sophisticated demons—and more than a few cybersecurity teams—had failed to do. Although Devin trusted Corsair, he couldn’t help his skepticism.

  Archangel: How did you find him?

  Corsair: I won’t bore you with the details, but it was too easy. The Seer must have wanted to be found.

  Before Devin could respond, a window popped up on the screen: Jane
Colt calling. He pressed “accept.” A video of Jane filled the slate.

  “Devin! I-I didn’t know who else to call.” Her eyes were wide as she backed up against a mirror.

  Devin had never seen her so scared before. “What’s wrong?”

  Jane pointed at something out of view. “It came after me and—I can’t think. Devin, I don’t know what to do!”

  “Okay, calm—”

  “Don’t tell me to calm down!” Her expression turned from frightened to irritated.

  “Just tell me what happened.”

  “I went to see Adam at his dorm, and there was this—this machine. It was kidnapping him!”

  “What?”

  “You heard me! It—It came after me! I’m stuck in the elevator, and I tried calling for help, but I couldn’t get through—” Jane dug her fingers into her hair. “I—I don’t know what to do!”

  Whatever was going on, his kid sister was terrified, and he had to help. “Okay, Jane. Can you show me the elevator?”

  Jane panned her slate.

  The elevator was a Festiind model. An older one, but standard. “Take down the mirror. You should find a small glass door on the wall. The button behind it—that’s the emergency door release.”

  The screen went blank as Jane folded her slate. Devin heard her struggling to take down the mirror. He turned to his monitor, opened a communication window, and typed a message to the local authorities.

  “I’m sorry. Your message to the Via Theological Seminary’s Office of Public Safety cannot be sent at this time.”

  That’s odd.

  The video of Jane reappeared. The mirror leaned against the elevator doors behind her. She looked over the camera. “I just press the button, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay… Um…” Repeated clicking. Jane opened her mouth in panic. “It’s—it’s not working. Devin, it’s not working! It’s broken or… Shit, it’s coming!”

  Something whirred in the video’s background. What’s that? “Do you have your stunner?” The small weapon could fire non-lethal blasts that would knock out most would-be attackers.

  Jane shrank against the wall. “No… I forgot it…”

  Devin thought for a moment. There was something else about Festiind models, something that had caught his attention back when…

  “Jane, lift up the carpet. There’s a maintenance hatch in the center of the floor. Pull out the handle, twist clockwise, and push. It opens down.”

  Jane dropped the slate by the elevator door and tore up the carpet.

  Open communication window, retype message, send.

  “I’m sorry. Your message to the Via Theological Seminary’s Office of Public Safety cannot be sent at this time.”

  Jane picked up the slate. “Um… Devin?” Her eyes tilted down with worry.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “That.” She pointed the camera down the circular hatch, revealing the long elevator shaft below.

  Shit. The maintenance workers used cable systems to navigate the shaft. I should’ve remembered.

  Jane looked into the camera. “Where do I go from here?”

  The whirring grew louder. Devin thought quickly. “There should be some utility conduits on the side of… Forget it. You’re not going down there.”

  “What the hell am I supposed to do?”

  Open window, retype, send. Error. “Hang in there. I’m trying to—”

  A loud crash split the air as the mirror fell. The elevator doors had opened.

  Jane screamed. “Screw it!”

  “What’re you doing?”

  The video blurred. When the image steadied, the camera pointed vaguely in the direction of the door.

  A wheeled machine with several appendages came into view.

  What the hell?

  Devin pressed the “record” icon on his slate. The machine raised a pointed appendage over the camera and slammed into it.

  Jane had never been afraid of heights. As a child, she’d enjoyed alarming her mother by climbing the tallest Venovian evergreens on the Colt estate. Comparing her size then to her size currently, she probably wasn’t much higher up. It was a little different hanging from the underside of an elevator with only a hastily slammed hatch between her and a killer robot.

  Well, this sucks.

  That she’d caught the bar after sliding down the hatch could only be attributed to super reflexes reserved for times of great danger or to the grace of the Absolute. If only those super reflexes or that divine grace would allow her to reach the conduit Devin had mentioned…

  The faint lights along shaft’s walls let her vaguely make out the conduit’s square entrance. Jane saw another bar under the elevator, parallel to the conduit’s top edge. She’d played on jungle gyms when she was little and remembered the motion of swinging her body to catch a bar an arm’s length away, but she’d forgotten how much the friction burned her palms.

  She grabbed the bar and swung forward. Her face banged into the wall. Ow.

  After taking a moment to let the pain in her face subside, she extended her body as far as she could, barely touching the conduit’s floor with her foot.

  Dammit! Wish my legs were longer. Good thing I wore flats today. And pants. If I had to do this in heels and a skirt…

  The inane thoughts kept her from freaking out. Something about talking to her brother had done away with the panic she’d felt before. She wasn’t about to let it take over again.

  The conduit was only half her height. Even if she could stand, she would probably fall backward if she tried.

  Why are utility conduits so small? Are maintenance workers all midgets or something?

  A small handle below her, right by the conduit, looked within reach. She grabbed it with one hand. She had to let go of the bar under the elevator to enter the conduit, but the thought was too scary.

  Above her, the machine whirred.

  Jane had never been remotely religious, but in a situation as unthinkable as the one she was in, even she prayed, albeit facetiously.

  Hello, Absolute One. Please let the machine be too big to fit through the hatch. And please keep me from falling. In return, I will compose a magnificent motet for You. So be it, truly.

  Jane closed her eyes and let go of the bar. She bit her lip to stifle a yelp as she dropped her body weight onto one arm.

  She reached up with her free hand and pressed her forearm into the conduit’s cold metal floor. By pulling, bending, and twisting, she managed to fold herself into the conduit.

  She collapsed against the wall in relief. Whew! Made it!

  Jane listened for the machine, half expecting it to appear right behind her. Instead, a beep emitted from her pocket. Wondering what the hell it was—and why the hell she didn’t know the contents of her own pocket—she reached in. She pulled out her company-issued videophone.

  Oh, right. This thing.

  Devin sprinted down the office corridor, eyes fixed on the slate in his hand. Dammit, Jane. Please have your videophone…

  Jane’s face appeared in a window. “Devin?”

  “Jane!” He stopped and exhaled. She hadn’t fallen. “What happened?”

  “Don’t worry, bro. I’m all right.” Even in the darkness, Devin could tell Jane was trying to reassure him with one of her cocky smirks. “I caught the bar under the elevator and used my super jungle gym skills to get into the conduit.” The smirk faded. “I don’t know where the machine went, but I don’t hear it anymore.”

  Devin rearranged his face into a calm expression. He continued down the corridor, heading for the nearby hangar where Dad kept an air transport. “I’m coming to the seminary. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “You don’t expect me to wait, do
you?”

  “Of course not.” Devin ran through his memories. “Look back at the conduit’s entrance. There’s always a manual control panel there.”

  “Okay, I see it.” The panel creaked as it opened. Jane aimed the camera at it. “Um… There are, like, ten thousand switches here.”

  “Flip the green one marked seven-three-one. That’ll turn on the emergency lights.”

  A few seconds later, a line of dim green lights flickered on along the conduit’s wall, illuminating the funny look Jane gave him. “How’d you know?”

  “Never mind that.” Devin turned a corner. “Follow the lights. They’ll lead you to the building’s control room. You’ll probably have to go down some ladders.”

  “Okay, do you have a second job as an art thief?” Keeping her videophone in her hand, Jane crawled through the conduit. “How do you know so much about the inner workings of buildings?”

  I wish I didn’t. “I’ll tell you later.”

  Jane stopped and looked into the camera. “You always say that! Why do you have to keep these dumb secrets? I’m your freaking sister, Devin, and I know nothing about you. You never tell me anything, and whenever I ask, you act all mysterious. It’s irritating as hell!”

  Oh, Pony. Only Jane could lecture him while hiding from a dangerous machine in the dimly lit innards of a dormitory. Devin knew better than to defend himself. “Just follow the lights. That’s what they’re there for. When you reach the end, you’ll see a clearly marked door.”

  He reached the elevator and punched “G” for Ground into the control panel. As he waited, he minimized the video, opened a communication window, and contacted the police.

  “I’m sorry. Your message to the Kydera City Police Department cannot be sent at this time.”