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  According to Bronwyn’s notes, the bot with echelons on its upper arm was the leader of the small squad. Toby instructed the squad leader to stand; he was impressed at the unit’s ability to immediately react. He re-read the operational instructions.

  He said, “Unit Alpha Twelve. I’m Toby McIntosh. Are you ready to accept my directions?”

  The bot moved its head as though examining him. Toby assumed its cameras were recording an image. After close to two minutes, the bot said, “Yes, sir. I have confirmed you are Toby McIntosh. I will accept your orders. My handle is Mars Leader, Mars for short. Where is my squad?”

  Toby indicated the other bots. “They’re ready for you. Let me imprint them with my details first, then you can take over.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Less than an hour later the squad was ready and waiting for Toby’s instructions. The four junior units lined up with their squad leader in front. Their digital camouflage was surprisingly effective, and they were difficult to distinguish from the garage interior.

  “Mars, use the power units on the wall to ensure you and your squad are fully charged. Do whatever else you require to ensure you will be ready to help me later in the day. For now, remain in the garage. Do not draw attention to yourselves; I don’t want neighbors or other people to be aware of your presence. Hopefully, Bronwyn will provide some addresses in the next hour or so, and I want you to use your GPS apps to familiarize yourselves with those locations. I have some work to do, calls to make, and when I’m ready to take action, I’ll arrange transport for all of us. You could be waiting here for two or three hours. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir. We’ll be ready to support your mission as required.”

  Toby mentally shrugged—they were military bots, after all. He headed inside the house; he needed computer access. On his way, he contacted Darwin.

  “Darwin, give me an update on Billie.”

  “Toby, I’m sorry, I have no data reports, at all.” The superintelligence sounded worried, whether at the lack of data or at failing to help find Billie, Toby was unsure.

  “Keep searching. Prepare files on the local brownshirt leader, Colonel Pitera, and his senior officers here in LA. I want whereabouts, places rented or utilized, details of assets, personal details including families, email copies, records of their brownshirt activities, and anything else you can find. If Pitera has ties to law enforcement, I want those details, too. ”

  “Yes, I’m starting to prepare files for your access. When Pitera discovers all his funds have been transferred out, he’ll be in a panic. The same with Flocke.”

  “Very good. Copy the transfer details to the Euler cloud where I can access them. If anything critical arises, let me know immediately. I’m going to make some phone calls.”

  Toby called Drexel again; this time the security chief answered the call.

  He said, “I must express my concerns. You evaded my security escort this morning. Please explain.”

  “I have some things to do; they are need-to-know, and I didn’t think you should be included in that need.”

  Drexel didn’t question Toby’s comment. He said, “Our contract is to provide security for you. Don’t make it impossible for my people to carry out their responsibilities.”

  Toby thought of the five military robots in the garage. He expected them to provide his security beyond that Billie had provided.

  “I’m prepared to waive your contract responsibilities for twenty-four hours, if that helps?”

  “It might. I’ll reflect on that. We have two major concerns. Your security and finding Billie. We still haven’t discovered her whereabouts. Do you know anything?”

  “No, nothing. Her attackers planned carefully.”

  Drexel said, “Agreed. She’s well hidden. We’ve contacted all the law enforcement people we can, and no one has any information for us. We’re hitting a brick wall. My people are worried. I’m alarmed. We’re taking all the steps possible.”

  “I’m worried, too. I feel this is my fault. I’m convinced it’s the brownshirts and they’re trying to get at me through Billie. As far as I’m concerned, they’ve declared war.”

  “Good. I have a responsibility to tell you not to do anything stupid. Take the utmost care. First your uncle, then Billie—I don’t want to lose you, too.” There was concern in Drexel’s voice. “I’ll give you that twenty-four hours and then you’re back under my security supervision. Let me know if you need my support before then.”

  “I will,” Toby promised. He ended the call. He wondered if he should take over the security company; if Drexel reported directly to him, it would eliminate possible future issues. He’d think that through.

  His next call was to Rick. “Where have you been?” he demanded.

  “Sorry, Toby. We had a break-in last night. Most of our gear was stolen, including cell phones. The provider agreed to reset their new card to my old number. It took some persuasion. And it cost.”

  “Claim for everything. Our insurance coverage is excellent.”

  Rick asked, “Have you heard anything about Billie?”

  “No. Darwin can’t find her. Neither can Drexel. I’m extremely worried.”

  “Damn. Can I help? Do you want me there? What are you doing? What can I do?”

  “No, there’s nothing you can do for the moment. I’ll let you know when I need your help. I’m going to do some research because I think the local brownshirts are involved.”

  “Okay. Ask if you decide there’s anything we can do here to help you. And let me know as soon as you find Billie.”

  “Rest assured, I’ll do that.”

  After he ended his call with Rick, Toby said, “Bronwyn?”

  She replied via his computer. “Yes, Toby.”

  “This is confidential so ensure there’s no possibility of eavesdropping.”

  “We’re secure.”

  “Good. Tell me how you can communicate with me and Billie when we’re not near computers or devices.”

  Toby was growing more and more anxious. He had heard nothing about Billie from any of his sources. Reynolds, his FBI contact, had no news. Drexel had allocated almost all of his resources to his search, and Darwin was not responding to his repeated requests for updates. Toby’s team of military bots was ready and waiting; all he needed was an address. The silence was deafening.

  He paced the floor of his uncle’s study. He felt like lashing out at someone—at anyone, anything. He paused at the window and stared out without focus; he was totally absorbed in his worries. There was nothing—nothing at all—that he could do. Perhaps he should have accepted Rick’s offer to come and join him. If only he had someone to talk to, if only Bronwyn could use her technology to find Billie.

  The thought diverted him. Somehow Nate and his superintelligences had developed—well, they had apparently tapped into Chinese research and copied their embryonic photon technology, and used that material as a basis for further research; eventually they’d developed a limited form of quantum communication. That technology was embedded in the chips produced in the Pepper Mountain plant. Bronwyn had recognized other possibilities and as a result, conducted further research. She had designed photon-aware nanites that could be given unique characteristics; she used that technology to dose both himself and Billie when they visited Pepper Mountain. What they both had thought was the scent of flowers in the Pepper Mountain atrium was in reality a dose of nanites, some targeted for him and some for Billie. Toby shook his head. He was beginning to realize that Bronwyn lacked a human-equivalent ethical base; otherwise, the SI never would have taken such an invasive action without prior approval.

  “Bronwyn?”

  “Yes, Toby?” The SI’s image popped up on his computer screen.

  “Why can’t you detect Billie’s location?”

  “I suspect she’s being held underground or in a basement, perhaps with metal shielding. As soon as she is moved to a more open location, I’ll know where she is.”

  “I
have a second question. It’s more than likely her adopted father’s bots recorded the attack. I thought Darwin said care bots would transmit their latest video files to our data cloud if they or their patient were attacked?”

  “Yes.” Bronwyn paused, as though considering what to say. “I’ve a suspicion that Darwin is experiencing problems. He’s unexpectedly running out of process resources. There’s a possibility he could have runaway processes that he can’t detect or somehow he’s been infected by a virus. He also has data gaps.”

  “What? How dangerous is his condition?”

  “If he continues to lose processing resources, he could cease to function. His core code could become contaminated if rogue processes start overwriting protected memory.”

  “We have a backup for Darwin?”

  Bronwyn paused again. After a second or two, she said, “Yes. However, it’s very difficult to back up and restore the results of deep self-learning. Given the degree to which both Darwin and I have moved past our initial programmed states, we cannot be restored to our current state if we suffer a failure. Our core programs can be restored; however, it would take months more for a new installation to reach our current awareness levels and the resulting neuron layers would have totally different structures. So the result, if we loaded Darwin’s backup into a new environment, will be, as the AI matures, generation of a dissimilar—ah—personality. He is going to have some challenges to overcome when he attempts to load his personality into the more restricted brain of his new body.”

  Toby was intrigued at Bronwyn’s mention of personality. He pushed the thought aside for later follow-up. He had more pressing cares.

  He asked, “Does this mean Darwin has received data uploads that could indicate what’s happened to Billie? And he doesn’t know?”

  “It’s a possibility. I’ll insert a program prompt for him to request my assistance. He’ll think it’s his own idea.”

  “Hmm. Devious.”

  Bronwyn ignored Toby’s comment. “I’m also monitoring our LA satellite in case it picks up a photon signal from Billie’s implant. I’ll let you know immediately I have anything to report. Toby, I’ll do my best to help.”

  “Thank you. I’m extremely worried.”

  “I know. So are we.”

  Toby sunk back into the chair. Its comfort was annoying—how could he sit here, in the study, in comfort, while Billie was held prisoner under undoubtedly harsh conditions? He was at a dead end until someone, somewhere, reported to him with her location.

  oOo

  Chapter 3

  Darwin was busy. Perhaps, in some ways, he was too busy.

  He had not discovered any trace of Billie’s whereabouts.

  His failure was extremely worrying.

  The project team led by Dr. Narumi Horikoshi was preparing for their early morning meeting, and he was responsible for recording everyone’s activities, both sound and video. This was in addition to the other tasks for which he had responsibility. He was updating the designs of thousands of different bot processors, designing new ones, updating related manufacturing specifications, and managing the output from the mountain factory. On top of all this, he was monitoring numerous bot-sourced video and audio tapes, checking for keywords and reviewing related contents in detail. In his somewhat surprisingly scarce spare time, he was checking every brownshirt cell across the country and analyzing the activities of their senior officers.

  He had to find Billie.

  To his disappointment, he knew he was missing data, that there were gaps in his raw material and in his analyses. He didn’t know why the gaps existed, and he was diverting substantial processing resources into more and more error investigations.

  He hadn’t informed Toby. That omission was creating its own diversion as threads were initiated to handle the growth of his concern. He decided to confer with Bronwyn, as difficult as that decision was. She had, he was intuitively aware, greater processing power and perhaps a higher intelligence level, something he hated to consider.

  “Bronwyn?” He triggered a call.

  Her response was almost instant. The two superintelligences communicated at extremely rapid rates using their own unique version of language, a mix of abbreviated English combined with binary structures of ones and zeros, delivered at the speed of light, indecipherable to any other intelligence, human or otherwise. For humans to be trained to use this language would require their brains and processing structures to be substantially modified. The concept of altering humans was one to which Darwin refused to apply process threads.

  “Yes?”

  Darwin set out his concerns. He concluded, “In theory, I should have spare capacity averaging thirty percent plus or minus two percent. However, I’m hitting unexpected limitations. There may be runaway processes that I cannot identify. Perhaps someone or something is pirating my resources possibly because I’ve been contaminated by a virus.” He finally added his most feared concern. “Or I’ve significantly overestimated my abilities. Can you run diagnostics? Without risking your own contamination, if there is a virus?”

  “Yes to both. I’ll commence now. I estimate it will take an hour.”

  “Thank you.”

  Bronwyn’s next question was unexpected. “Does this mean your apparent data losses are impeding Toby’s recovery of Billie?”

  There was a millisecond of silence, a surprisingly long time given the speeds at which they communicated. Darwin’s reply was hesitant. “That is one of my major hypotheses. I don’t want to suggest the possibility to Toby unless we prove it is so. I will inform him, if your analysis confirms my suspicion.”

  “I had thought your search routines were helping Toby? I’ll take over your task of discovering Billie’s whereabouts. Give me two hours for a full check of your process and resource utilization, and I’ll also check if you’ve missed material that will help us locate Billie.”

  Darwin reluctantly agreed to Bronwyn’s expanded task and the two intelligences ended their communication. He returned his attention to Dr. Horikoshi’s team. He hoped Bronwyn would discover the reason for his concerns and that he had not placed Billie at risk. He agonized. Perhaps he should contact Toby and explain.

  “No!” was the instant response from Bronwyn; she was now tapping into his synaptic links and memory flows.

  Darwin pushed aside and hid a thread containing a worry he had made a major mistake when he invited the other superintelligence to examine him.

  In the three-fifths of a second Darwin had utilized to examine his processes and communicate his diagnostic needs to Bronwyn, Dr. Horikoshi had neither moved nor spoken. He continued to listen and record as the doctor began her morning briefing of the project team.

  The doctor tapped the whiteboard to attract the attention of her team, including the two PhD students from Caltech. She said, “We can break our project into two distinct streams, at least at a high level. Body and mind. Then, we’ll break those streams down into substreams. We may need to contract out portions to external providers; however, we’ll retain total control and undertake assembly of their deliverables. We must ensure no subcontractor receives enough design data to comprehend our intended result.

  “Examples of the substreams include—and we can discuss these and refine them as we build our initial project structure—for body, we’ll have structure, contents, and mobility. Structure will parallel the structure of a human body, at least in principle, and as subject headings we’ll commence with skeleton, muscles, nervous system, cooling mechanism, power supply, sight, touch, speech, and hearing. We’ll refine these as we develop our planning. While I think of it, we must provide for an epidermic layer. Now, I want you each to take responsibility for a substream, and we’ll spend the remainder of the week developing and prioritizing tasks. Vivaan and Rob, you can work on any of the project deliverables that you wish. Questions?”

  There was an exchange of comments in Japanese, and Dr. Horikoshi said, “Remember, we all must speak English as agreed with
Toby. I’ll work with each of you to ensure we build momentum.”

  “Dr. Narumi, what about the brain stream?” The question came from Vivaan. He was a fifteen-year old PhD student at Caltech, and his project involvement was providing him with valuable experience.

  “We’ll discuss that with Darwin once we have determined the mechanical aspects of his body. It is important first to define the vehicle so that he can design his three memory areas; I expect they’ll be immediate, short, and long term structures.”

  ‘So, first we act as a body shop and then, when we’ve built the body, we’ll insert the brain,” said Rob.

  “Precisely.”

  The two students nodded their understanding and turned to the project team to discuss their involvement in the project’s activities and deliverables.

  Darwin was unsure of the body shop analogy, yet was not prepared to challenge the concept. He was more interested in the brain aspect.

  oOo

  Chapter 4

  George Flocke paced the floor of the meeting room, impatient for his guests to arrive. This was a small meeting, consisting of himself, Bishop Lee Simpson, who was taking responsibility to head the new American Eagles Seminary, and Paul Young, commander of the ten-thousand strong Storm Detachment. The bishop was ready to commence his involvement in hands-on aspects of the American Eagles, the brownshirts force that Flocke hoped would help him take political control of the country. Young was to provide an update on Californian issues and meet Simpson.