23
Ten o’clock. Lansing waited on the Hell Gate truss bridge, savoring a Cohiba while taking in the view. Moro paced restlessly back and forth on the walkway, chain-smoking American Spirit cigarettes and tossing the butts over the side. By design, they were half an hour early for their meeting with Patty Melancourt. Lansing wanted to get a feel for the place, scope it out, and picture in his own mind how things would go.
Built in 1917, the Hell Gate truss bridge was a three-track railroad trestle with a parallel walkway, spanning the toxic waterway also known as Hell Gate. It connected Randall’s and Ward’s Islands, in the East River, to Astoria, Queens. It was a quiet bridge, rarely used by trains and closed to pedestrians, accessed only by trespassing and climbing a chain-link fence.
The view was stupendous. Looking up Hell Gate and across the northern tip of Queens, Lansing could see the immense Con Ed plant on the banks of the East River, towers lit up and trailing plumes of steam; to the left lay the prison of Rikers Island, with its concrete ramparts, coils of glittering concertina wire, and roving klieg lights, looking like a high-tech Chateau d’If. While he watched, a 767 came screaming in low, heading for LaGuardia, visible beyond the Con Ed plant. Once it was past, all was quiet again for a few moments, even peaceful, until the next plane came roaring in.
Lansing leaned over the railing and looked at the black water. According to Wikipedia, the distance from the bridge deck to the water was 135 feet, making the Hell Gate Bridge the second-tallest bridge in New York City. For that reason, it was a favorite for suicides.
He checked his watch. Another ten minutes before Melancourt arrived. He felt exhilaration. Somehow, this sort of intrigue was more exciting even than beating the crap out of some investment bank in an algo trade. Lansing had grown up in a townhouse on East Sixty-ninth Street, and his father and his father’s father before him had all been investment bankers. His father was one of those delusional souls who believed that making money was doing God’s work. Lansing, instead, thought of making money as doing Lansing’s work. It was a dirty business—if done right. Sometimes in the midst of a trade, he felt like Blackbeard slashing up his enemies with his sabers, cannons roaring, deck covered with smoke, blood running out the scuppers. He got a thrill out of watching Mamba robbing the robbers, coming home full of loot. There were moments in high-speed algo trading where he made more money in one second than his father had made in an entire year. It had been great fun until … until someone had beaten him at his own game. A robber had robbed the robber’s robber.
He would get his revenge. This little “escapade” with Melancourt would be a sort of dry run, an advance trade.
He leaned on the railing, drawing in the cigar’s smoke and blowing it out in a stream. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Moro light another cigarette from the butt of the previous one.
“Don’t leave any butts on the ground,” Lansing said. “They have your DNA all over them.”
“I’m not stupid,” Moro said.
Lansing turned. “Here she is.”
A small figure appeared in the distance, hurrying down the trestle walkway—fast, frightened, precise. She arrived, breathless. Lansing extended his hand, and she shook it. Hers was clammy.
“Why do we have to meet here?” she asked. “I don’t like climbing fences, and I sure as hell don’t like this place.”
“It’s as much for your protection as ours. No witnesses. Do you have it?”
She pulled a fat, rolled-up spiral-bound booklet out of her pocket and handed it to Lansing. He took it, unrolled it. It was a heavily soiled, dog-eared book. It had crudely reproduced NASA and Goddard logos on the cover, along with a title.
KRAKEN PROJECT
FIAT LUX Scruffy Logic Coding Manual
Definitions, specs, features, modules, procedures
Confidential: Do not duplicate
“Excellent,” Lansing said, flipping through it. Gibberish. He handed it to Moro.
“The ID?”
She produced a piece of paper, on which the digits had been written by hand. Lansing stared at it.
“Why is this handwritten?”
“As a sort of added layer of protection,” Melancourt said. “It was programmed so that it couldn’t be printed out.”
“I hope this is correct.”
“It is. I checked it multiple times.”
“How do I know you’re telling us the truth?”
“You’ll just have to trust me.”
“If you’re deceiving us in any way about this,” said Lansing, “I’ll find you and take back the money. And not in a nice way.”
“Don’t threaten me. This is solid gold. You’re getting it cheap.”
“You can understand why I’m concerned.”
“You came to me. Not the other way around.”
Lansing took a long breath, keeping his cool with this difficult and unattractive woman. “Will you help us find Dorothy?”
“No. As I told Moro, that’s up to you.”
“Why not? You know we pay well.”
“Because NASA is out there looking for it. And the FBI. And the Pentagon. I’ve stuck my neck out far enough, thank you. And also—” She hesitated, then went on: “Because I know what that Dorothy software can do. When you go looking for it, be very careful.”
“Why the name ‘Dorothy’?”
She crossed her arms. “I’ve no idea. Shepherd chose the name. She’s a nutcase. Brilliant, but crazy. My money, please?”
Even though it had been a warm fall, a chilly wind blew down Hell Gate, bringing with it the smell of tar, mudflats, and rotting garbage.
“Just a few more questions. What was your exact role in programming Dorothy?”
“I led one of the coding teams.”
“Doing what, exactly?”
“Coding IVT—the Incremental Verification Task module.”
“Which means?”
“IVT controlled the Explorer’s task operations. If the Explorer failed at a task, it would try the task again, altering one or two variables in its approach. It would keep doing that until the task succeeded or it became obvious it was hopeless.”
“And this programming language—‘Fiat Lux’? What’s that?”
“It’s a new programming paradigm based on the Church-Turing thesis. The code is massively recursive; it can self-modify, compile, and decompile itself. But most of all, it crunches data through a visualization process—by transforming it into simulated light and sound.”
Lansing turned to Moro. “Do you have any idea what she’s talking about?”
“I will once I look through the manual.”
“You said the program was self-modifying,” Lansing said. “How does that work?”
“The modules are put through various simulations, adjusting their code as they succeed and fail.”
“What kind of simulations?”
“Modeling chemical reactions. Titan weather prediction. Music appreciation. Exobiology. String theory. Navigation.”
“Remarkable.”
“Shepherd even created a program to keep Dorothy company.”
“There’s another AI program out there?” Lansing said.
“It isn’t strong AI. It’s just a normal program, written in standard Lisp. She called it Laika.”
“Laika?”
“After the first dog in space, which went up in Sputnik 2. Laika was like a pet for Dorothy—a talking dog. It would bark, wag its tail, obey simple commands, chase digital rabbits, tell jokes. It was really strange—the Dorothy software just loved that dog and asked for it incessantly whenever Laika was off-line.”
“Can you get this Laika program for us?”
“It’s nothing special.”
“Nevertheless,” said Lansing, “I would like it.”
“What about my money?”
“How quickly can you get the Laika program?”
“I’ve got a copy of it in my laptop back at the hotel. There’s nothing classified about it. Everyone took copies home for their kids or whatever.”
“Bring it to me. Now. Tonight. Then you’ll get your money.”
“That wasn’t the deal.”
“Too bad. You pulled a bait and switch on me. Now it’s our turn. But I assure you, when you bring this next program you will get the money—in full.”
She stared at him, her eyes flat. “Prove to me you’ve got the money.”
Lansing nodded and Moro opened the briefcase, revealing banded bricks of hundreds. She reached in, plucked out a brick, riffled through it, took out another. “Down payment.” She stuffed them in her purse.
Four thousand dollars. Lansing decided he would let that pass. “How quickly can you get it?”
“Two hours.”
“Good. Bring me this Laika. Right here. At midnight.”
“I want the rest, without fail, when I return. Or I blow the whistle on you.”
“Just bring me the Laika program and all will be well.”
She turned and walked back the way she came.
Moro watched her go, then turned to Lansing. “What do you want a silly program like that for?”
“I have a silly idea,” said Lansing.