21
Lansing entered the lobby of the motel, disgusted at being in such a seedy, low-class place. He almost expected to see whores coming and going with their johns. But what did you expect of the Bronx, he thought as he stepped into the elevator, which reeked of old cigarette smoke and Lysol.
He went up to the room and found Moro and Patty Melancourt waiting for him, Moro sprawled on the bed, the woman sitting rigidly in a chair, hands clasped in her lap. Lansing paused in the doorway, assessing her. She was short, ill-proportioned, dressed in plaid, and frightened. But there was a truculence about her compressed lips that told a story of someone disappointed in life and determined to get her own. He wondered briefly about the kind of man who would have the fortitude to “bone” her, as Moro had so charmingly put it.
“Dr. Melancourt?” Lansing said, extending his hand. “Thank you for coming. You sure you weren’t followed?”
“Positive,” she said, her voice high and tight. “They’ve got no interest in me. I’m just a cog in the machine.”
Lansing took the other chair, hesitating momentarily before setting his worsted-wool-clad bottom down on the dark, greasy fabric. He would have to check himself for bedbugs before going back to his Trump Tower penthouse. “So,” he said, “you and Mr. Moro are going to write a program for us.”
She didn’t answer, so Moro jumped in: “Patty says she can’t write the program. She’s missing a crucial key of some kind.”
Lansing looked sharply at her. “Why didn’t you tell us this earlier?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Melancourt said. “Because I’ve got something even better for you.”
Lansing looked back at her, his eyebrows rising. “Really? What’s that?”
“I…” She hesitated. “I need to be paid first.”
“I was under the impression that you were already paid a hundred thousand dollars.”
“I want fifty thousand more.”
Lansing considered this in silence. It was outrageous.
Moro said, in a complaining voice, “I gave her the hundred grand. Everything was supposed to be set. And then she springs this on me, this key or whatever, then says she’s got something worth even more money. I told her it better be good.”
“It is good,” she said.
Lansing looked back to her. Despite her appearance, there was nothing stupid about this woman. “Dr. Melancourt, we’ve paid you handsomely and you’ve done nothing for us yet. And now you’re asking for more? I’m sorry, but I feel you’re shaking us down.”
“There’s no shakedown. I’ve got something better, and I want more money for it. It’s quite simple.”
Lansing swallowed his rising irritation.
Moro said, with the whine still in his voice, “I’ve tried to talk reason to her, I swear, but she insisted on dealing with you directly.”
Lansing shifted in his chair, crossed his legs. “Tell me more, Dr. Melancourt.”
She rapidly brushed her bangs out of her face, once, twice. “We can’t write a new program—but we won’t need to.”
“Why not?”
“Because the program you want already exists. And it is … extraordinary.”
“You can get it for us?”
“I can help you get it. I know how to find it.”
“Help us get it? Either you have the program or you don’t. For a hundred and fifty thousand, I want you to deliver the program to us gift-wrapped.”
“I can’t do that. Trust me, this program is going to make you rich. Very, very rich. Once you unleash this on the trading floor, you’ll make back your money in a matter of minutes. And that’s no exaggeration. I’m a programmer. I know what I’m talking about.”
“Tell me about this program.”
“It’s called ‘Dorothy.’ Dorothy was the software designed to operate the Titan Explorer. It wasn’t destroyed in the explosion after all. It’s still out there, ripe for the taking.”
“You mean the software that malfunctioned and caused an explosion, killing seven people? You want me to pay you for that?”
“True, the software triggered the explosion. But there’s something else, something classified, about what happened after that. The software didn’t blow up with the spacecraft. Just before the explosion, it escaped.”
“Escaped?” said Lansing. “What do you mean?”
“This is a very, very special program. It’s artificially intelligent. You know what that means?”
“Of course,” Lansing said.
“When the accident happened, the software jumped out of the Explorer and fled into the Internet, where it’s been hiding ever since.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“What I mean is, the software—Dorothy—freaked out. And now it’s run off and hidden.”
“I haven’t heard anything yet that makes me think this software is of the slightest value to us.”
“There’s never been software like this. The Dorothy program cost five million dollars to create. It thinks for itself. It moves around. It can run on any hardware. It learns from its mistakes. It’s a disembodied electronic brain of enormous computing power. With a few tweaks it could be made to burrow through firewalls, break passwords, steal money, and trade on inside information. It might even be able to create money electronically. When you get your hands on the Dorothy software and tweak its code to make it work for you, you’ll rule Wall Street.”
Lansing looked sharply at Moro. “Is this possible?”
Moro threw up his hands in an exasperated, “I don’t know” gesture.
“How do you know this, if it’s classified?”
“I was there, at the explosion. And I’ve been questioned for thirty hours by idiot investigators. It was not hard for me to deduce this information from the thrust of their questions, especially when I faked not understanding anything and coaxed them into revealing more.”
“How could a program be like a disembodied brain?”
“As you may know, or should know, Alan Turing proved mathematically that a computer program can compute anything that it is possible to calculate in the real world. Thinking is a kind of computing. Thus an AI program can think anything that could possibly be thought by a human being.”
“That’s a tall claim,” said Lansing.
“It’s not a claim. It’s a proven theorem. I’m one of Dorothy’s programmers. Over the past two years, as I saw the software develop, I started to wonder about the wider possibilities for a program like this. I’m not like other programmers, who are basically idiot savants. I have experience in the real world. I saw the potential—especially on Wall Street.”
“So where is this, ah, Dorothy program?”
“Out there, wandering around the Internet. A poor, lost soul.”
“So how do we get her—or, rather, it, or whatever this thing is—into our hands?”
“Here’s where I’m going to earn my money,” Melancourt said. “Dorothy has a unique identifier. A string of two hundred and fifty-six hexadecimal digits embedded in her. Noncoding digits. This number is fully visible to an outside observer but completely invisible to the program. Dorothy can’t change or hide those numbers. The AI doesn’t even know she has them. It’s as if the software is carrying a sign pasted on its back, saying, MY NAME IS DOROTHY AND HERE I AM!”
“Do you have that ID?”
“Yes. I also have the coding manual. Those two things are going to cost you the extra fifty thousand. So you see, you’re getting quite a bargain, Mr. Lansing.”