The Girl Who Dared to Think 7: The Girl Who Dared to Fight

No clue, Tony replied cheerfully. But I told you. Lionel always has a plan. Let’s see what it is!

Doubt rose up in me as he pointed a finger to hit the Y key. Leo had said that his terminal would be fried if he was gone for longer than twenty-four hours, which he had been. Sage had been inside my head through the legacy nets at so many points, and knew about Leo, which meant he knew we had been down here. For all we knew, this was a trap. Maybe a bomb, or something that would signal to him that we were alive.

Tony, I thought, sending a surge of warning with it. Don’t—

“Like I always say, Liana,” Tony said out loud in my voice, a confident smile on my lips. “You need to relax.”

Then he hit the button.

The screen lit up and made a chirping noise, then the words disappeared, leaving the monitor black. For several seconds, nothing happened. I could feel Tony’s curiosity and confusion, but I was too busy with the alarm coursing through me, feeling like sand being blown apart by the wind. As Tony scanned the room, looking for some sign of what would happen next, I paid close attention for anything that resembled a trap.

A sharp hiss of air coming from one of the bookcases hit our ears, and our head snapped toward it, a readiness settling into our skin. The bookcase in question was the one centered between the two sofas on the opposite side of the room, directly across from the desk, and still had a few objects lining the bottom shelves.

As we watched, the right-hand side of the bookcase suddenly swung forward half an inch, then an inch, and then Tony was quickly striding over to it. I knew better than to argue, so instead settled for keeping a wary eye out for any signs of a trap or ambush. It was possible that Sage had instructed one of the Alice units to come down here and wait for us, and if so, I wanted to be ready.

Not that I could exactly, y’know, do much, with Tony in charge.

If Tony heard any of my thoughts, he gave no indication of it, and reached out with one hand to grab the edge of the bookcase and pull it forward. It swung easily, as if it hadn’t been sitting here neglected and unmaintained for the past three hundred years, revealing a…

Well, to be honest, I wasn’t sure what it was, other than a room in which the walls were emitting a pure white glow that was similar to the Medica’s in a way, but also less obnoxious. It wasn’t very big—maybe ten square feet in total—and had absolutely nothing inside.

That didn’t stop Tony from stepping across the threshold, his eyes open wide in wonderment. “I think these are old-school holographic emitters,” he exclaimed. “Holy cripes, I think this is Lionel’s original design! He—”

“Greetings, Tony!” a voice exclaimed, and I felt a splash of ice run through me as I recognized it. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be.

A moment later, the light on the walls began to change, colors rolling across them like a kaleidoscope. An image started to form in front of us, of a tall black man with white hair and a kind, but weathered, face. He was wearing a plain black uniform and carried a cane in one hand.

As we watched, the image refined itself and sharpened, and then took a step forward, going from a two-dimensional representation to a three-dimensional human, like he had just stepped through a door.

Inside, I couldn’t help but gape at the image of Lionel Scipio, the Founder of the Tower and creator of Scipio.





20





“Tony, why don’t you go ahead and let the girl have control over her body,” Lionel said, and I immediately felt Tony’s presence diminish, my limbs and motor function finally returning to my control. I lifted my arms and wiggled my fingers, relieved that everything was still working, and then looked up at Lionel.

“What is this?” I asked suspiciously, unable to help myself. “Lionel Scipio is dead. Ezekial Pine killed him.”

“Right you are, Liana. May I call you Liana?” Lionel cocked his head at me, an expectant look on his face, and after a moment of hesitation, I nodded. “Excellent. Now, as you say, I am not Lionel Scipio. I am, however, a facsimile of him, made from his memories. I contain many mannerisms inherent to him, but as my program has been running for a long time, I am also different. But that doesn’t matter. What does is why I sent the drone after you and Tony.”

“Yeah, about that,” I said, realizing I had a billion questions for him. I hadn’t been asking them on my merry ride with Tony, but now that he was standing right here in front of me, I was curious. “How did you know where to send it? What are you doing here? Can you stop whatever is going on in the Tower? Why did Lionel create you? How many more AIs am I going to have to deal with?”

Lionel blinked at me, and then nodded approvingly. “All very excellent questions, but please, allow me to answer them out of order. I was designed to monitor Scipio and the other fragments, as an independent and unbiased observer, to catalogue any problems in the program and project solutions for the next iteration of the program. All the fragments, and Scipio himself, transmit data directly to this station no matter where they are—and they aren’t even aware that they are doing it.” He paused and cocked his head at me. “You with me so far?”

I smiled, grateful that he was giving me a moment to absorb all this. It made sense that Lionel had left some sort of final monitoring station to keep watch over his creation, but to what end? “Does that mean you have a solution to fix it?” I asked.

“Indeed, but you’re not going to like it.”

I frowned and crossed my arms over my chest, feeling a bit annoyed by his response. “Hey, my friends are trapped eighty floors above me, and the entire Tower is having Requiem Day, the sequel. I don’t like a lot of things that are going on right now, so let’s just add whatever it is to the pile and figure it out. We’re wasting time.”

He gave me a surprised look, and then a kindly smile, the projectors managing to make his eyes glitter. “My predecessor predicted that the fragments would eventually fail, and began to experiment with the idea that his theory of augmenting the whole with fragment personalities, while giving Scipio a greater advantage for long-term survival, also acted as his greatest weakness. He retained a copy of the original program, whom you have already rechristened ‘Leo,’ I believe, and embedded in him a series of protocols for a variety of contingencies for replacement, based on my observations and assessment. After copious research, I have determined that the only way to proceed is to use Protocol 001-A: a complete deletion of the Scipio AI as he currently is, along with all the fragments.”

I felt Tony’s surprise and fear—which was justified, given that the replica of his creator had just callously called for his destruction—and held up a hand, unable to stop myself. “Delete the other fragments? But they’re individuals! People in their own right! And what happens to Leo? I thought even a full AI wasn’t big enough to handle the complex algorithms by itself!”

“The fragments will understand their duty,” Lionel said heavily. “Well, most of them. Rose and Jasper are still on your side, though Rose is buckling under the torture he’s subjecting her to.”

It took me a minute to realize he was talking about the copy of Rose, who had willingly sacrificed herself to keep her copy safe from Scipio’s notice so that she could stay behind and help me. I knew from hearing Leo talk about it that copying oneself wasn’t easy, and required a conscious choice. I also knew that copying an AI’s code too much began to degrade their coding, and Rose’s hadn’t been the best to start off with. And Sage was hurting her. I took a step toward him, instantly concerned and sickened. “What is he doing to her? To them? And what about Scipio?”

Lionel’s eyes turned dark, and he looked away. “Believe me, you’d be happier not knowing.”