The Turing Option

31 September 12, 2024

They watched in numb silence as the reports came in one by one. Other than this incident, this disaster, the rest of the operation had been a complete success. All of the suspects had been secured and were in custody: no records, files or machines had been touched or sabotaged. A police guard had moved into position and now surrounded the premises. The only alteration to the original plans was that a reinforced bomb squad was going over everything before the technicians entered any of the buildings. They would be alone inside the complex until the premises had been secured.

One of the agents was dead, another mangled severely.

“Suicide?” Brian finally said. “Did Thomsen kill himself, Ben?”

“I doubt that. He was all bluster at first, but beginning to ravel at the edges — you saw how worried he looked. If he was planning suicide he was a remarkable actor. My snap guess is that he was killed to shut him up. He must have had information on the people we are looking for, was probably one of them himself. This is not the first time they have killed — or tried to kill — to ensure silence. They are a brutal lot.”

“But how did they know what was happening?”

“Lots of ways, bug the office, maybe bug the whole building. But I think we will find out that it was the telephones. They are all solid-state now and never malfunction. Filled with gadgetry. They record calls, answer calls, remote page, conference, fax facility, you name it. Easy enough to fix a phone so that it is always turned on, always being monitored and listened to by another number. Put some plastic explosive inside with a coded detonator. It could sit there for years waiting for the right moment. Then when the day comes and whoever is listening doesn’t like what he hears he presses the button — and boom. End of conversation, end of party.”

“That’s terrible!”

“These are terrible people.”

“But they would have to listen in twenty-four hours a day… no, I take that back. Easy enough to use automatic word-recognizing machines. Let it be on the lookout for certain words like FBI or Megalobe, that’s all you have to do. It would sound the alarm when one of the words triggered the program, get someone on the line at once to listen in, decide what to do. The people behind this are horrible. While we were listening to what was happening in that office — somewhere else, someone evil, was listening as well. When he heard what was happening, understood the situation—”

“He ended the conversation. This is bad but don’t let it depress you too much. This is not the end of the investigation but only the very beginning. They hid their tracks well — but you and Sven found them. One villain dead, more in hiding, but all the evidence to hand. We’ll get them yet.”

“Meanwhile I’m still locked inside Megalobe. It’s like a life sentence.”

“It won’t be forever, I can guarantee that.”

“You can’t guarantee anything, Ben,” Brian said with a great tiredness. “I’m going to lie down for a while. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

He went to his quarters and dropped onto the bed, fell asleep at once. When he awoke it was after ten at night and he realized that it was his stomach that had growled him awake, protesting the fact that he hadn’t eaten in over fourteen hours. He had drunk a lot, too much probably. There was cereal and a fresh quart of milk in the fridge and he poured himself a bowl. Turned on the recently installed window that really wasn’t a window and pulled a chair up before it. Ate the cereal slowly and looked out at the moonlit desert. Stars right down to the horizon. What was going to happen next? Had they reached another dead end with Thomsen’s murder? Or would the investigation turn up the people behind it? The dark and murderous group mat had planned the theft, the killings.

It was very late before he pulled his clothes off and finally fell into bed. Slept like a rock until the buzzing telephone woke him up; he blinked at the time, after eleven in the morning.

“Yes?”

“Morning, Brian. Going into the lab today?”

He hadn’t thought about it at all, too tired, too depressed. Too much else happening.

“No, Shelly, I don’t think so. It’s been a seven-day week for too long a time. We both could use a day off.”

“Talk about it over lunch?”

“No, I’ve got — things to do. You take care of yourself and I’ll phone when we are ready to get back to work.”

The black depression just would not go away. He had got his hopes up so high when they had traced his AI to DigitTech Products. He had been so sure that this would be the end, that his imprisonment was going to be over soon. But it wasn’t. He was still inside and not getting out until they found the conspirators. If ever. It didn’t bear thinking about.

He tried watching television but it made no sense. Nor did the National Almanacs that he had printed and bound. Usually he enjoyed browsing through them to catch up on his missing years. Not today. He made himself a margarita, sipped at it, wrinkled his lips at the taste so early in the day, then poured it down the sink. Turning into an alcoholic wouldn’t help. He slapped together a cheese and tomato sandwich instead and permitted himself one beer to wash it down.

When Ben hadn’t called by noon Brian phoned him instead. No news. Slow progress. Stand by. Contact you the instant anything happened. Thanks a lot.

In the end he fell back on an old favorite, E. E. Smith, and reread four volumes, then some Benford robot stories before he went to bed.

It was noon of the second day before the phone rang again — he grabbed it up.

“Ben?”

“It’s Dr. Snaresbrook, Brian. I’ve just got to Megalobe and I would like to see you.”

“I’m, well, a little busy now, Doc.”

“No you are not. You are in your quarters by yourself and haven’t been out for two days. People are concerned, Brian, which is why I am here. Speaking as your physician I think that it is important that I see you now.”

“Later, maybe. I’ll phone you at the clinic.”

“I’m not in the clinic — but right downstairs in your building. I would like to come up.”

Brian started to protest — then resigned himself to the inevitable. “Give me five minutes to pull some clothes on.”

He pulled on his clothes, answered the door when the bell rang.

“You don’t look too bad,” the doctor said when he let her in. She looked him up and down professionally then took a diagnoster from her bag. “If I could have your arm, thank you.”

One touch against his skin was enough. The little machine buzzed happily to itself, then filled its display screen with numbers and letters.

“Coffee?” Brian asked. “I just made it fresh.”

“That would be very nice,” she said, squinting at the tiny screen. “Temperature, blood pressure, glucose, phospholamine. Everything normal except a slightly elevated alpha-reactinase. How is the head?”

He brushed his fingers through the red bristle. “Like always, no symptoms, no problems. I could have saved you a trip. What’s bothering me is not physical. It is just good old melancholia and depression.”

“Easy enough to understand. Cream, no sugar. Thanks.”

She settled into one of the dining chairs and stirred her cup, staring into it as though it were a crystal ball. “I’m not surprised. I should have seen this coming. You are working too hard, using your brain too hard, putting a strain on yourself. All work and no play.”

“Very little chance to play in the barracks — or the lab.”

“You are absolutely right — and something must be done about it. I blame myself for not stopping this even before it started. But we both have been so enthusiastic about your recovery, accessing your CPU, everything. And your work, it’s gone so well that you have been on an emotional high. Now you have come down with a thud. The murder at DigitTech and the dead end there were the last straw.”

“You know about that?”

“Ben swore me to secrecy, then told me about everything that happened. Which is why I came here at once. To help you.”

“And what do you prescribe, Doctor?”

“Just what you want. Out of here. Some rest and a major change of scene.”

“Great, but very little chance of that in the near future. I’m really just a prisoner here.”

“How do you know? Hasn’t the situation changed since the discovery of DigitTech? I believe that it has. I have told Ben to get here at once with all the details. I think that a big rethink is needed on security — and I am on your side.”

“You mean that!” Brian jumped to his feet, paced the room. “If I only could get out of this place! With you helping me we might just be able to work it.” He rubbed his jaw and felt the grate of his whiskers.

“Help yourself to more coffee,” he called out, heading for the bedroom. “I need a shave and a shower and some clean clothes. Won’t be long.”

Her smile faded when he left. She had no idea at all if the authorities could be convinced to give Brian a bit more freedom. But she was damn well going to press them for some changes. She had made a decision and had deliberately put herself on Brian’s side, given him the moral support he so badly needed. Even if it had been a cynical attempt to aid his mental health she sincerely wanted to help. Hell, it wasn’t cynical, it was logical. She had never married, her work was her life. But the Brian that she had brought back from the grave, given renewed life to, was just as much her responsibility as any biological child could ever have been. She was going to fight like a mother cat to see that he got some rights, privileges, pleasures.

She was just as angry as Brian was when Benicoff came in, all gloom and doom and status quo, nothing can be changed until more evidence is found. It was no accident that she sat on the couch next to Brian, aligned herself physically at his side, shaking an angry admonitory finger at Ben.

“That is just not good enough. When there were killers and gunmen out there, all right, I went along with all the security and everything for Brian’s sake. But all that has changed—”

“It hasn’t, Doctor, we still haven’t found the people behind this.”

“Bullshit — if you will pardon my French. Aren’t you forgetting that the threat to Brian’s life came about because he hadn’t been killed in the first attack here? His existence threatened the thieves’ future monopoly of artificial intelligence. But now you have tracked down this AI factory and found some damn bug-killer. Big deal! Now that Brian’s AI is ahead of theirs we can make our own bug-killers — better ones too. Am I getting across to you at all?”

“Makes great sense to me!” Brian said. “Instead of all the security and secrecy we should now be telling the world about our new advances in AI. Giving out publicity about how we will go into production soon and all the great changes that our smart new robots will bring about. Keep Bug-Off in business and let’s start manufacturing some AI products here in Megalobe — which I might remind you was why I was hired here in the first place. The monopoly is broken, the secret is out — so what reason do they have for still trying to kill me?”

“You’ve got a point—”

“That is the point. You’re in charge, you can make the decisions.”

“Whoa there, not so fast. I’m only in charge of the investigation of the Megalobe robbery. Security, as you must know, goes through your friend General Schorcht. Anything like this will have to be decided by him.”

“Then get to see him at once, get some freedom for Brian,” Snaresbrook said firmly. “As Brian’s personal physician that is my prescription for his continuing well-being.”

“I’m on your side!” Ben said, raising his hands in surrender. “I’ll get onto him soonest.”

“That’s grand,” Brian said enthusiastically. “But before you rush out — what is the status of the DigitTech investigation?”

“It’s all in this GRAM here, I thought you would want to run through it. But I can sum up. A lot of interesting details have come out. We are pretty sure that DigitTech was the front for the operation and that.Thomsen was the only one in the know about the Megalobe connection. About a year ago DigitTech was bought out for a lot of money, and that’s when Thomsen arrived to manage it. He has a pretty soiled past that was not mentioned to the company. A couple of bankruptcies and even an indictment — dropped for lack of evidence — for insider trading. He was a good businessman, but a little too greedy to keep honest.”

“The perfect guy to use as a front man.”

“Correct. The manufacturing side of the firm wasn’t altered much, personnel changes of course but no more than would be normal in any firm. What did change was on the research side. A new laboratory wing was built and work began on improved Expert Systems. At least that’s what everyone in the lab believes. They use the word AI all right, but none of them knew that their research was based on a stolen AI. Their work was just to build the AI into their bug blaster.’’

“But someone in the research lab had to know,” Snaresbrook said.

“Of course. And that person was a certain Dr. Bociort, who was in charge of the company’s robot research.”

“What was his story?” Brian asked.

“We don’t know yet since he cannot be located. He was an old man, in his seventies or eighties, we were told by the technicians who worked with him. A few months ago he fell ill and was taken away in an ambulance. He never returned. The employees were told that he was in a hospital and very ill. Those who sent flowers or letters were sent thank-you notes by his nurse.”

“Which hospital? Couldn’t they tell from the envelopes where he was?”

“Interesting you should say that. All the hospital mail was apparently addressed to Thomsen. Who opened the letters himself and passed on the contents.”

“Let me tell you what comes next,” Brian said. “No ambulance from any hospital or ambulance service in the area ever picked anyone up at DigitTech. Nor is there any record of the geezer in any hospital or nursing home for a hundred miles in any direction.”

“You’re learning fast, Brian. That’s correct and that’s where we stand now. Dead end again. But we have found your stolen AI. But there may be other AIs out there somewhere so we’ll keep looking.”

“So will I,” Brian said, stamping across the room and grabbing up the GRAM that Ben had put on the table. “Sven is going to work again. He found the AI in the first place — and I’ll bet he tracks down more leads from all the information that you have in here.”

“The holiday,” Dr. Snaresbrook said. “You still want that, want to get away?”

“Sure, Doc, but no big rush. Ben is going to have a big job convincing General Schorcht that I ought to be let out of prison. And while he is doing that I and Sven are going to keep this investigation alive — and solve this crime. They’re still out there, thieves and killers. They did me an injury — and by God I’m going to do one back to them — in spades!”