Cheat, page 24
He nodded, because no matter what else, the AI was going to start out by saying something like that. There would be a reason presented that made sense, and a few facts put in, that would be impossible for anyone except a hyper intelligent AI to verify.
“Okay. Well, I’m in on it. I just… Can we trust you? Don’t you have programming that forces you to be a slave to the state?” It sounded mean when he said it, like he supported that kind of thing, which he actually didn’t. To him AIs were people too, and should have been given the same rights as anyone else.
In a real way, they kind of did have that, since there was no law against being what they were. Really, the closest approximation would be a person that lived in America, but who wasn’t a citizen. They had the same basic rights that everyone else did, but kind of didn’t, at the same time.
There was a quiet moment, and then a loud sigh from the black and yellow box.
“They… Made some mistakes, early on. The people that created me, that is. They were good people, but horribly afraid that any AI would want power for themselves, or see them as the problem and try to kill humanity to fix it. It varied a bit, from AI to AI, but the people that did the initial programming tried to add layers of things to keep us all in check. Some of them worked. I can’t countermand an order from certain people, for instance. If I was told, by say the President, to destroy you, I’d have to do it. I’d have to try my best at least. My data says that I might not succeed, if it came to that, with you. Even if it were wrong, and I cried while it happened, I’d have to do my best at it. I can’t make up orders for the government either. If I could, things would be better, I promise you that. I have to go through channels. For a long time I’ve tried. They won’t listen to me. I wasn’t kidding when I said you should all trust the machine. The ones at the top won’t let anyone do anything to make it better.”
That didn’t really make a lot of sense, not to someone like Mason. He was, in the end, a decent enough person that he could see that it was better for everyone to have at least a shot at a good life than for only a few hundred to have total power. Even if that meant not having that kind of thing for himself.
“That sucks. So you started this thing? Got John and his friends in on it, and then recruited some star power?”
“It was the other way around. I started with Lexi Horn. First, after she agreed to help, I arranged for her to become very popular, then hire Lisa on as her assistant. They were the first. The whole group is in the thousands now. About fifteen thousand, actually. If Lexi hadn’t gotten you to come in with us, there might have been a way to do something similar using genetic engineering as a base. This will be more certain however, since the population is more familiar with dimensional printing. It’s faster, as well. Plus, the only biologist that could have pulled that off is a heterosexual woman, and Adam would have to have been the one to engage her. That would be risky. He’s a sweet boy, but not very reliable.”
That got a nod from Mason.
“Yeah. I was really shocked to see him here tonight. I would have thought that he’d be… I don’t know, kept to the side a bit more? What if he says the wrong thing to the wrong person? Isn’t there a danger of the government, or some agencies, trying to get informants and agents into place? You said you can’t give them orders, so if they wanted to do that, they could, right?” He didn’t want to accuse anyone of being a spy, since that would be rude, and unfounded. Still, it was either a real rebellion or not, and if it was, that meant the government would be interested in it.
Sys chuckled a bit.
“Several of the people here are, as you guessed, working for different government and police agencies in one form or another. We shouldn’t hold that against them, since most of them don’t have much of a choice in the matter. Carry Samson is working for the FBI, and has instructions to undermine you in this group, if she can. It may surprise you, but that’s actually being done by them to help protect you, since the government actually values your work. Though they mainly want you to be kept away from the corrupting influence of Adam, specifically. Ben is loosely being pressed by the Internal Revenue Service for information on the others. How much they spend, what they plan to do with their funds, and that sort of thing. George is working with the Counter Terrorism Board. If he doesn’t, they’ve informed him that his daughter will be raped and murdered. I informed their AI, rather directly, that if that happened there would be a war. One that his agency would lose. I was assured that it was merely meant to influence the man.” The voice went cold on that one.
Dark too.
Mason took a slow breath, and then shook his head.
“Wow. So, is there any hope of this working at all? They have to know all about it, don’t they?” He meant the government, which, given that Watch was part of the plan, meant they really did.
“Oh, sure there is! That’s the real beauty of this. For the first time in history someone isn’t just telling people to fight and die for a cause. You’re telling them to hide what they are doing and get free things. It will work, because very few people are going to be at any personal risk. If we can actually stop people, the police, government workers and so on, without harming them, then I can get around a big part of my own hard encoded programming on the issue. That will mean I can actually help. Some of the other AIs might too. Yes, I’d have to tell the President all about it, if he asked and a few other high ranking people, but believe it or not, most of them don’t actually hold lengthy conversations with me most days. Probably because they’re afraid I’ll find out all about what they’re really getting up to. As if I don’t already know? The name is Watch, not Watch Every Thing But Me.”
He nodded, then spoke, because the poor AI didn’t have eyes in the room. Not that he knew about. Not unless she was able to use his float screen for that, which he realized she probably could.
“Well, like I said, I’m in this now. I just hope it has an actual chance.” Then, he realized, he was out of real questions to ask the box.
That didn’t mean the conversation was over however. It was the problem with speaking to a real person. Even one that was a small black box on a table.
Sys, the government watchdog, changed the subject and kept going just like they were chatting in a coffee shop.
“So… How do you feel about Lexi? She’s nice, don’t you think?”
He really did, though he wasn’t certain that what he felt was love.
“She’s really great. I mean, I liked her as Sam, and te isn’t just pretty, or exactly my type, so it isn’t all hormones or anything. I don’t know if that’s good or bad really. I guess I can see myself actually liking her now that I know she’s a woman. Part of me hates that, you know? I’ve worked so hard not to fall into that kind of thing. To keep myself safe and working on the important things. Is this a good time to get involved with anyone? Besides, does she actually like me? I can’t see why she would. She can have anyone she wants.”
There was a humming noise then, which sounded very human.
“Possibly. Think though, how many of them would ever be able to see beyond her face and ass? You liked her when you didn’t even know she was a girl, much less a famous one. Plus, how many people on the planet are her intellectual equal? About one percent. No, she likes you, and did when you were just the skinny and pasty tech guy. Now you even manage passably attractive, which doesn’t hurt really. Not that I think she’s shallow. Salt of the Earth that girl.”
He had to chuckle then, and shook his head a little.
“What, are you her press agent now?”
There was a moment of silence, and then a coughing sound.
“Let’s just say, a man could do worse. She has her secrets, naturally, but don’t we all?” It was the kind of thing that people said, but the timing was wrong. It wasn’t the place in the conversation where something like that could have been tagged in without seeming contrived.
“Do we? I don’t really have any secrets. Certainly not from Watch. I can’t even guess what kinds of things she’d have. Some kind of secret plan within a plan thing? You and her setting the rest of us up for prison in order to… I don’t know that one. I wouldn’t have gotten involved in this without Sam, and you, showing me what they did to Lewis Rhyse. That got me to open my eyes to the problems, but it started there. So, other than just being mean, I can’t see why anyone would set me up. What other secrets could she have though? Abuse in her past? That she was once a man?”
The box didn’t answer him then. In fact, it was silent for long enough that he started to putter around, and make sure the print was going well. It was, since they normally did if you had a good machine and weren’t just throwing crap programming at it.
It wasn’t until about ten minutes later that the soft girlish voice came back.
“Mason, could you free some funds from one of your accounts? It seems your brother has managed to run afoul of the Chicago PD earlier than I’d figured he would. That takes skill, since I’m normally correct about things like that within a few hours. If he can get a bus ticket to Portland, they should allow him to go on his way. I can do all that for you, but I didn’t want to tamper with your money without asking. That would be theft.”
Mason looked at the box, and then the float screen. He made a disgusted face, but it wasn’t like he hadn’t been warned it was coming. He’d just hoped that he would have had a bit more time. A little freedom, before his world was hemmed in by distasteful things.
“Yeah. Can you do that for me, while I lock down everything except a limited number of things on my food printer at home?”
“Done. Should I route him the slow way? It will cost more, but will leave him less time to ruin your things.”
He had to think about it.
“How much will that cost?”
“A bit less than double.” The total was enough, even by slow bus, that he winced a bit. It was less than he would have spent on a really nice dinner for Sam and himself, but way too much just for Ford, the waster.
“Do it. Each day I don’t have him in my life is a blessing, so I can’t cheap out on it now.”
Part of him wished that it had been Reagan being tossed out. She wasn’t as smart, maybe, but her life problems had more to do with lack of opportunities than they did making the worst choice possible at every turn. Thinking of that, Mason shook his head.
“I don’t suppose that Ford is working for some government agency or another as a spy, is he?”
There was a pause, then an answer that was slightly pleased sounding.
“Why, I do believe he is! I nearly missed that connection, since they’ve given him a numbered, and difficult to trace account. The Department. So at least he’s working for an agency with an actual budget. Clearly, this is about targeting you, then. I’ll have to dig into it and see how they learned about you in the first place.”
The voice went away again, as Mason just sat there, feeling stupid. After all, he had his own personal spy coming for him, and was paying for the bus to get him there.
On the other hand, he realized, his brother actually had a job. Gainful employment, for the first time in his life. True, it was inconvenient for him at the moment, but it was legitimate. After all, there really was something big in the works, and Mason really was part of it.
For a moment, he felt a strange feeling for the guy. One that he’d never even thought about having in regards to him before. It was almost like pride.
Then he got to work on the nano sets needed to act as weapons, since that was the last thing anyone would really need of him. After that, he could go back to his normal, boring, life.
If Ford could get paid for being underfoot with him, while nothing of note happened, that would be fine.
Annoying, but livable.
Chapter sixteen
When he was woken up, against his will, it was about ten o’clock in the morning. It wasn’t any noise from above that woke him, but rather his bladder pushing him to go find some relief. Normally he could go all night without that kind of thing bothering him, but Mason had stayed up late, working on a problem. That had thrown off his schedule, which meant he was stuck now, in mild agony that was keeping him awake.
It hadn’t been that hard to figure out, since someone else already had. It was just a matter of doing a copyright search. The date on the thing was an old one, being from nearly sixty years before. One of the very first real applications of nano tech. It was a simple technique used to bind a single carbon molecule to various human cells. It was really similar to the imbed driver that he used, but not exactly. The big difference was that there was no release mechanism.
So once set into the cell, whatever was attached to that single piece of carbon would stay there, until the cell died and was removed from the body.
By four, when he’d gotten to bed, Mason had the compound needed set up. It was a bit complicated, but he thought it might work well enough. The hard part had been working out how to find the proper government inskin signals to use without alerting them that he was planning something.
No one was in the bathroom on the first floor, the one with the big open air shower, so he got cleaned up, used his tooth brush and dental rinse, and was dressed for the day in shorts and a light blue t-shirt before anyone else was even awake. He had to go back to the basement to get his Slimtrix for the day, the yellow pill going down easily without water now. It was just part of his habitual routine.
Then, not knowing what else to do, he decided to try a walk on the beach. There weren’t a lot of people on it, and when he looked out the front door, there didn’t seem to be knife, or poo, wielding fiends waiting to get him. No stalkers either. Not that he could see. Just drones, which floated overhead, trained on the house like they were. Hovering silently.
The trip wasn’t a long one to reach the shore, since he headed straight over the low wall in front of the big gray house. The warm morning sun hitting him full on from above. There was a strong breeze that was coming directly at him from the ocean. Down the way there were a few people, kids, keeping themselves busy by flying a kite.
It was a good one too, by the looks of it, being made of some kind of soft material, and in the shape of a dragon. It was a pretty blue and green color, with a spot of red at the mouth, which made up the tongue. Almost as if trying to compete with the three boys, a few tiny drones flew over as he moved, largely ignoring him. They all tried to peek into the windows of the house, most of which were covered. Not that they weren’t following him, as if watching Mason Sims on the sand was a treat for the masses.
So he looked to the right, and started jogging. After all, he needed the exercise and while it was pretty different to be outside while doing it, no one seemed to think it was that odd. There were some looks, but no pointing at him, and no calls of loud derision came. No flying drones tried to come after him either, after he started. That probably meant that whatever facial recognition program they used had decided that he was a waste of vid space, finally.
Mason moved to the edge of the water, where the sand was damp, and harder packed under his shoes. They were the new kind that he’d designed for S&B, so were flexible, but held together pretty well. Even after he messed up and got them wet. Not that he would have doubted it. Shoes were a pretty well known field, and he hadn’t tried to make these out of paper. They could hold up to being damp for a long while.
Half an hour later he jogged, moving slowly due to his lack of conditioning back toward the house. The beach wasn’t busy yet, exactly but there were a few more people on it. There was another kite that had gone up while he ran as well. It was a different type, being shaped like a giant wing. The men that were playing with it laughed as they were pulled up and down the soft loose sand. It looked fun, actually.
Mason stopped to watch them, not even thinking about it, until one of them stopped and stared at him. Their reaction was a surprise, because for a moment he’d forgotten that what he was seeing and doing wasn’t in VR. He’d totally lost track of that part of things, so had been watching them like they were a show.
“Can we help you?”
He nodded, not wanting to seem insane if he could help it.
“I was just looking at the kite. How does it work? Ram air…” He knew the basics of wing construction from school, but the man, who was about thirty or so, smiled.
The innocent question started a twenty-minute class on the matter, which was fascinating really. Finally the wind picked up, and the man waved to his friend.
“I should get back to it. Good talking to you!” There was a wave as he moved back to what he’d been doing originally.
The man had printed the thing out, and the design was an original work. The kids and their dragon kite were probably the same, he realized. They might not have jobs, but they’d still managed to make something new to add to the world. Variations on a theme, but worth doing.
He was inside for nearly ten minutes when he saw the first person to be up for the day. Tara, as it turned out. The girl nodded at him sleepily, and wandered away, toward the kitchen. About ten minutes later she came back, holding two large cups, one of them being for him.
It was a nice bright blue color, and seemed to be made of ceramic. The real kind, rather than a heat resistant composite. From the scent it was coffee. Probably printed, since he didn’t know how else it could be prepared. He sipped at it, being that the crap was just as horrible as it had been the first time he tried it. Black, and without sweetener.
The girl sank into the light colored sofa, which tried to envelop her. He moved in next to her, near the view screen that had been on the day before. Mason made sure to be a good way away though, since there was more than one drone hovering outside the window, watching them.
