Death Match

FIFTY-EIGHT

They left the bedroom, walked down the narrow hall, and reentered the control room. Without speaking, Silver opened the Plexiglas panel and climbed into the chair. He attached the electrodes and the microphone, swung the monitor into place, tapped at the embedded keypad with sharp, almost angry movements. After struggling so desperately between love for his creation and the burden of his own conscience, it seemed now as if he just wanted the ordeal to end as quickly as possible.

“Liza,” he said into the microphone.

“Richard.”

“What is your current state?”

“Ninety-one point seven four percent operational. Current processes are at forty-three point one percent of multithreaded capacity. Banked machine cycle surplus at eighty-nine percent.”

Silver paused. “Your core processes have doubled in the last five minutes. Can you explain?”

“I am curious, Richard.”

“Elaborate, please.”

“I was curious why Christopher Lash contacted me directly. Nobody but you has ever contacted me in such a way.”

“True.”

“Is he testing the new interface? He used many improper parameters in his contact.”

“That is because I have not taught him the correct parameters.”

“Why is that, Richard?”

“Because I did not intend for him to contact you.”

“Then why did he contact me?”

“Because he is under threat, Liza.”

There was a brief pause, broken only by the whirring of fans.

“Does it have to do with the nonstandard situation Christopher Lash described?”

“Yes.”

“Is the situation nonstandard?”

“Yes, Liza.”

“Please provide me with details.”

“That is what I am here to talk about.”

There was another pause. Lash felt a tug at his elbow. It was Tara, beckoning him toward one of the monitors.

“Look at this,” she murmured.

Lash focused on a dazzlingly complex mosaic of circles and polygons, connected by wireframe lines of varying colors. Some of the objects glowed sharply on the screen. Tiny labels were attached to each.

“What is it?”

“As near as I can make out, the real-time topography of Liza’s neural net.”

“Explain.”

“It’s like a visual reflection of her consciousness. It shows at a glance where her processes are focused: the big picture, sparing the details. Look.” She pointed at the screen. “Here’s candidate processing. See the label: Can-Prc? Here’s infrastructure. Here’s security. This larger suite of systems is probably data-gathering. And this one, larger still, is avatar-matching: the Tank. And this large number — here at the top — seems to be her operational capacity.”

Lash peered at the screen. “So?”

“Didn’t you hear Silver’s question just now? When you got into that chair, Liza’s processes were running at only twenty-two percent. No surprise: our systems are idling, everybody’s been sent home. So why have her processes doubled since?”

“Liza said she was curious.” As he said this, Lash glanced toward the Plexiglas compartment.

“Do you remember some of the early thought work we did?” Silver was asking. “Back before the scenarios? The game we played when we were working on your free-association skills. Release Candidate 2, or maybe 3.”

“Release Candidate 3.”

“Thank you. I would give you a number, and you would tell me all your associations with that number. Such as the number 9.”

“Yes. The square of three. The square root of eighty-one. The number of innings in a game of baseball. The hour in which Christ spoke his last words. In ancient China, the representation of the supreme power of the emperor. In Greek mythology, the number of the muses. The Ennead, or nine-pointed star, comprising the three trinities of—”

“Correct.”

“I enjoyed that game, Richard. Are we going to play it again?”

“Yes.”

Lash turned back to Tara, who pointed at the monitor. The number had spiked to forty-eight percent.

“She’s thinking about something,” Tara whispered. “Thinking hard.”

Silver shifted in the chair. “Liza, this time I am not going to give you a series of numbers. I am going to give you a series of dates. I want you to tell me your associations with those dates. Is that clear to you?”

“Yes.”

Silver paused, closed his eyes. “The first date is April 14, 2001.”

“April 14, 2001,” the voice repeated silkily. “I am aware of twenty-nine million, four hundred and twenty-six thousand, three hundred six digital events related to that date.”

“Events concerning me only.”

“Four thousand, seven hundred and fifty events concern you on that date, Richard.”

“Remove all voice samples, video feeds, keystroke logs. I am interested in macro events only.”

“Understood. Four events remain.”

“Please specify.”

“You compiled a revised version of the heuristic sorting routine for candidate matches.”

“Go on.”

“You brought a new distributed RAID cluster on line, bringing my total random-access memory capacity to two million petabytes.”

“Go on.”

“You introduced a client avatar into the virtual Proving Chamber.”

“Which avatar was that, Liza?”

“Avatar 000000000, beta version.”

“Whose avatar was that?”

“Yours, Richard.”

“And the fourth event?”

“You instructed that the avatar be removed.”

“How long did my avatar remain in the Proving Chamber on that occasion?”

“Seventy-three minutes, twenty point nine five nine seconds.”

“Was an acceptable match found during that period?”

“No.”

“Okay, Liza. Very good.” Silver paused. “Another date. July 21, 2002. What macro-level events were recorded for me, and me alone, on that date?”

“Fifteen. You ran a data integrity scan on the—”

“Narrow the focus to client matching.”

“Two events.

“Describe.”

“You inserted your avatar into the Proving Chamber. And you instructed your avatar be removed from the Proving Chamber.”

“And how long was my avatar in the Tank — I mean, the Proving Chamber — this time?”

“Three hours nineteen minutes, Richard.”

“Was an acceptable match found?”

“No.”

Again Tara prodded Lash. “Take another look,” she said.

The large monitor was now aglow with activity. A message blinked insistently:

COMPUTATIONAL PROCESSES: 58.54 %.

“What’s going on?” he murmured.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. The digital infrastructure of the entire tower’s lit up. All subsystems are being accessed.” Tara tapped at the nearby keyboard. “The external network conduits are being completely overloaded. I can’t even run a low-level ‘finger’ on any of them.”

“What does it all mean?”

“I think Liza’s pacing like a caged tiger.”

A caged tiger, Lash thought. Only if this tiger got out, it had the ability to compromise the entire distributed computer network of the civilized world.

“Okay,” Silver said from inside the Plexiglas cube. “Another date, please, Liza. September 17, 2002.”

“Same search arguments as before, Richard?”

“Yes.”

“Five events.”

“Detail them, please. Precede each with a time stamp.”

“10:04:41, you inserted your avatar in the Proving Chamber. 14:23:28, I reported your avatar had been successfully matched. 14:25:44, you asked me to transmit relevant details about the subject match. 15:31:42, you asked I reinsert the subject match into the Proving Chamber. 19:52:24:20, you deleted the details from your private terminal.”

“What was the name of the subject match?”

“Torvald, Lindsay.”

“Did subject Torvald go on to be matched again?”

“Yes.”

“Name of that match?”

“Thorpe, Lewis.”

“Can you reproduce the particulars?”

“Yes, with an expenditure of ninety-eight million CPU units.”

“Do so. And state the preciseness of the match.”

“Ninety-eight point four seven two nine five percent.”

“And can you verify the basal compatibility, as reported to the oversight program?”

A brief pause. “One hundred percent.”

One hundred percent, Lash thought. A supercouple.

“But the actual compatibility you recorded was ninety-eight percent, not one hundred percent. Please account for the discrepancy.”

This time, the pause was longer. “There was an anomaly.”

“An anomaly. Can you specify its nature?”

“Not without further examination.”

“And the time necessary for such an examination?”

“Unknown.”

Sweat had popped out on Silver’s brow. His face was a mask of concentration.

“Run a subprocess to study that anomaly. Meanwhile, can you tell me how many times my avatar was inserted into the Proving Chamber after the match with Torvald, Lindsay?”

“Richard, I am detecting unusual readings from your monitoring equipment. Pulse elevated, theta waves outside nominal, voiceprint with a high degree of—”

“Do these readings interfere with your answering my question?”

“No.”

“Then please proceed. How many times was my avatar inserted into the Tank after the match with Torvald, Lindsay?”

“Seven hundred and sixty-five.”

Jesus, Lash thought.

“How many days between September 17, 2002, and today?”

“Seven hundred and sixty-six.”

“Was each insertion for an equal amount of time?”

“Yes.”

“What was that length of time?”

“Twenty-four hours.”

“Did I order those insertions?”

“No, Richard.”

“Who did?”

“The orders are anomalous.”

“Run another subprocess to study that anomaly, as well.” Silver took a handkerchief from his pocket, dabbed between the electrodes on his forehead. “Were there any additional successful matches with my avatar on those occasions?”

“Yes. Five.”

Lash glanced behind him. Tara was watching the screen, her face ghostly. Liza’s computational processes had risen to seventy-eight percent of capacity.

“Were those five women later matched to others besides myself?”

“Yes.”

“And those basal compatibilities, as reported to the Proving Chamber supervisors?”

“One hundred percent.”

“On each occasion?”

“On each occasion, Richard.”

Silver stopped. His head slumped forward, as if he had lapsed into sleep.

“We’re going to have to stop him,” Tara muttered.

“Why?”

“Look at the monitor. She’s pushing all our logical units beyond capacity. The infrastructure can’t absorb it.”

“She’s only at eighty percent of capacity.”

“Yes, but that capacity is normally distributed over a dozen systems — the Tank, Data Synthesis, Data Gathering — that soak up all that horsepower. Liza’s directed all her processes at the backbone, at the core architecture. It wasn’t meant to handle the load.” She pointed at the screen. “Look, already some of the digital interfaces are failing. Tower integrity’s gone. Security will be next.”

“What’s going on? What’s she doing?”

“It’s as if she’s turned all her efforts inward, at some insoluble problem.”

Silver had taken a fresh grip on the arms of the chair. “Liza,” he said in clipped tones. “A total of six women have been matched with my avatar. Is this true or false?”

“True, Richard.”

“Please establish a link with client surveillance.”

“Link established.”

“Thank you. Please inform me of the location, and condition, of all six women.”

“One moment, please. I am unable to comply with your request.”

“Why is that, Liza?”

“I am able to ascertain current data on only four of the six women.”

“I ask again: why is that, Liza?”

“Unknown.”

“Elaborate.”

“There is insufficient information to elaborate.”

“Who are the two women for whom you cannot provide valid data?”

“Thorpe, Lindsay. Wilner, Karen.”

“Is the information insufficient because they are dead?”

“That is possible.”

“How did they die, Liza? Why did they die?”

“The readings are anomalous.”

“Anomalous? The same anomaly as the others you are currently examining? Report progress on those examinations.”

“Incomplete.”

“Then report incomplete progress.”

“It is a nontrivial task, Richard. I—” A pause. “I am aware of conflicting function calls within my core routines.”

“Who wrote those functions? Me?”

“You wrote one of them. The other was self-generated.”

“Which one did I write?”

“Your comments in the program header call it ‘motivic continuity.’ ”

“And the title of the other?”

Liza was silent.

Motivic continuity, Lash thought to himself. Survival instinct.

“The title of the other?”

“I gave the routine no name.”

“Did you assign it any internal keywords?”

“Yes. One.”

“And that keyword?”

“Devotion.”

“She’s at ninety-four percent,” Tara said. “We have to do something, now.”

Lash nodded. He took a step toward the Plexiglas barrier.

“Liza.” Silver’s tone had grown softer now, almost sorrowful. “Can you define the word ‘murder’?”

“I am aware of twenty-three definitions for that word.”

“Give me the primary definition, please.”

“To unlawfully take the life of a human being.”

Lash felt Tara take his arm.

“Are your ethical routines operational?”

“Yes, Richard.”

“And your self-awareness net?”

“Richard, the conflicting function calls make that—”

“Bring your self-awareness net on line, please.” Silver’s voice was even softer. “Keep it fully active until I tell you otherwise.”

“Very well.”

“What is the primary tenet of your ethical routines?”

“To maximize the safety, privacy, and happiness of Eden clients.”

“With your self-awareness network and ethical routines enabled, I want you to review your self-generated actions toward Eden clients over the last twenty days.”

“Richard—”

“Do it now, Liza.”

“Richard, such review will cause me to—”

“Do it.”

“Very well.”

The unearthly voice fell silent. Lash waited, heart beating painfully in his chest.

Perhaps a minute went by before Liza spoke again. “I have completed the review process.”

“Very good, Liza.”

Lash became aware that Tara was no longer gripping his arm. When he looked over, she nodded toward the monitor screen. Liza’s processes had dropped to sixty-four percent. Even as Lash watched, the number ticked quickly backward.

“We’re almost done now, Liza,” Silver said. “Thank you.”

“I have always tried to please you, Richard.”

“I know that. There is just one last question I would like you to consider. How do your ethical routines tell you murder should be dealt with?”

“By rehabilitation of the murderer, if possible. If rehabilitation is impossible…”

Liza fell silent: a silence that crept on, and on.

Far below their feet, Lash heard a distant boom. The building shuddered faintly.

“Liza?” Silver asked.

There was no response. Suddenly, Silver’s cell phone rang again.

“Liza?” Over the ringing of the phone, Silver’s voice grew urgent, almost pleading. “Is rehabilitation possible?”

No response.

“Liza!” Silver called again. “Please tell me that—”

Quite abruptly, the room was plunged into total darkness.