“If you trust me, I’m going to need to speak to Wolfgang”—she glanced at the milquetoast engineer, ostensibly her boss—“and Paul, I guess, in private. Can you give us that privacy?”
“What do you need to say?” IAN asked, his face collapsing with suspicion.
“If I told you that, then I wouldn’t need the privacy. You either trust me or you don’t. I am offering to take you at your word if you say you won’t listen in.”
IAN’s holographic face, designed to give the humans something to focus on in the server room even though his eyes were really the cameras on the wall, appeared to turn his gaze from her to Wolfgang, who reddened with volcanic rage. Paul seemed hurt that he was clearly an afterthought. “Fine. But do it somewhere else. I’m not giving access to my code to anyone without me here to watch.”
“Let’s go to my room,” Maria said. “We will need privacy there for fifteen minutes, IAN.”
The door closed behind them. Paul leaned against the door, his hands in his pockets. Wolfgang rounded on her. “Now what the hell was that about? I should throw you back in the brig for insubordination.”
“Shut up, Wolfgang,” she said, her voice low and tired. “That’s no threat; you’re throwing me back there when we’re done here anyway. This is serious.”
She took a deep breath and fell into her chair. “IAN. He’s not an AI.”
“Then what the hell is he?” Wolfgang said.
Paul was shaking his head. “Of course he is. I studied him for years.”
“No,” Maria said. “He’s human. Or started out that way anyway. He’s a mindmap modified to live inside a computer system.”
Wolfgang looked to Paul. “Is that possible?”
“Of course not,” Paul said, looking affronted that it would even be considered. “No one is that sophisticated a hacker.”
“I am one hundred percent sure,” she said, holding his stare.
“How?” he asked.
“Because I programmed him.”
IAN’s Story
200 Years Ago
December 3, 2293
Thanks for coming,” Sallie said.
Sallie Mignon’s personal cloning lab was in the basement of Firetown, free from windows and with three levels of security. Maria was her number one hacker and she had never been there.
It didn’t look special in any way, just a cloning lab with white walls, shielded cloning vats, and mindmapping computers. On the exam table in front of her, waiting to get a mindmap, was a sleeping Japanese man.
“What did you need?” Maria asked. She never saw the physical people, just the mindmaps.
“This is Minoru Takahashi,” Sallie said. “He’s a unique fellow from the Pan Pacific United government.”
“All right,” Maria said, uncomfortable. “How is he unique?”
“He’s one of the most brilliant minds of our age. Unfortunately he’s also cleverer than he needs to be and likes to play tricks. Once upon a time, people wrote folktales about the kinds of mischief people like this get up to. Back then, they were heroes. These days, they just get thrown in jail. Takahashi was to be put to death for treason in Pan Pacific United, but we managed to spring him from prison. He’s too good a mind to waste.”
“Why spring the whole body? Why not just make a mindmap?” Maria asked.
“Honestly it’s easier to smuggle a body out of a prison than smuggle large tech in,” Sallie said. “And they’d expect a mindmapping kind of jailbreak.”
“Okay, so why do you need me?”
“He’s legally dead. We could just keep him here and clone him, but he is too smart and would be too eager to show off to the Pan Pacific United government that they lost him. That could be detrimental to our alliance.”
“Which was already hurting because of the Codicils a few years ago,” Maria said, nodding. She pulled up a chair and looked at his face. Asleep, it showed nothing of the genius and mischief within. “So what do you need me for?”
“I have a challenge for you. I want you to take his mindmap and make it into a program to live inside a computer. Obfuscate it enough to make it look like an AI. That way we’ll have him, but he can’t get away.”
Maria’s stomach did a slow, sick roll. “Seriously? That’s…”
“Unethical? Like what you did to Jerome?”
“Are you going to bring up all of my past crimes—that you hired me for, by the way—to blackmail me?” Maria said. “It seems like death would be preferable to slavery inside a computer. Did he even get a choice of whether he wanted to die in prison or live as a machine?”
Sallie just looked at her, arms crossed.
Maria shook her head. “No, I won’t do it. Find someone else.” She got up.
The rather large people Maria had assumed were doctors moved from examining cloning vats to stand in front of the door.
“Unfortunately, the lab I usually use for this kind of thing got shut down recently. And I didn’t ask you,” Sallie said mildly. “I know what you’re capable of, Maria. You can do something like this in your sleep. You’ve done it before, you just don’t remember.”
Maria thought fast past the panic. She felt Mrs. Perkins, who traveled with her through her cloned bodies, shaking her head. She’d told Maria not to trust Sallie, and Maria hadn’t listened. Instead she’d figured out, through combing the news stories and the information she’d stored inside Perkins, what she had done when kidnapped. But Sallie didn’t know she knew. And under no circumstances could she know how Maria knew.
If she failed to show shock and disbelief, Sallie would very likely kill her here.
“No,” she shook her head. “I didn’t—I wouldn’t—”
Sallie laughed. “You would and you did. They had to persuade you, but yeah, you did what they asked, and they sent you back home with no memory only to get you again. Thankfully, you came to me to give you protection. Sibal couldn’t get you directly, but you trust me.”
Her tone changed, growing soft. “Maria, you’re the finest hacking mind of several generations. This could be the greatest thing you ever do. And if you don’t do it, my employees will make you. Torture broke you before. Twice. Do you want to get broken again, or just skip past the pain to the work?”
Tears ran down her face. “I—fine. I’ll do it. Then you and I are done. I’m moving back to Miami.”
“Sure, it’s a deal,” Sallie said, grinning.
Maria realized that she possibly had said this before. And might say it again.
Sallie gave her the parameters as the computer took the man’s mindmap. Minoru was too clever by far, and needed some sort of collar to keep him from completely taking over whatever computer he occupied. “Make him obedient,” she said.
Maria nodded, making notes. The collar would be something easily released, if you knew what to look for.
She spent hours in the lab, Sallie over her shoulder.