Artificial(ish) Intelligence

Chapter 81

Mathison pulled the second glove down tight. They were a perfect fit. Of course they were, it wouldn't have made sense otherwise.

He stepped back, contemplating his handiwork.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood taught, prickling his skin. It was cold, but that's why he'd picked it. The building warmed up once Josef had the air conditioning ducts converted to security tunnels, but in this old server room the remnants of its dedicated climate control were preserved, with a large number of tiny air vents all connected to an isolated system. Which also meant no chance of a nosy defencebot dropping in unannounced.

A distant cry pierced the thick door. The source was unmistakeable. He slammed the cabinet shut and raced to the door, sneaking a look outside. Hearing the call again, he jumped out into the corridor and raced to his lab, barely taking a seat before--

"So?!" said Josef, bursting through the doorway.

"No," said Mathison.

"What!?"

"Let me explain," said Mathison, pushing his glasses up.

"It's not ready?!" screamed Josef, looming over him.

You couldn't tell Josef Hydan that his deadlines were unreasonable. You couldn't tell him that innovative technology forms a twisted path that often doubles back on itself. You couldn't tell him anything. You could only listen.

"I get the impression you don't care about this company as much as I do," said Josef. "You weren't even here a moment ago when I looked for you. Not working hard enough, is that it?"

Mathison yawned. Then stared with blood-shot eyes at the cannister still perched on his bench. The label read Marvin. He'd hoped Diya would understand that this wasn't just a code word, that it had that name for a reason. By sending her away, he hoped she'd put the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together and alert the authorities.

Sure, the brothers weren't meant to actually kill the data sources, but they did dissuade actual emergency calls from going out, thereby condemning starving game-players to a likely demise.

"I gave you help," said Josef. "So what's the hold-up?"

Mathison shook his head. You'd struggle to find more gravity in a singularity. "It hasn't worked," he said.

"You said the morons who play games were our best bet," said Josef. "You told me they were big strategic thinkers."

Mathison remembered the conversation well. He'd been shouted a few beers, made to feel important. It felt good to hear those words of validation after all the turmoil he'd gone through. In similar addled states, surrounded by an atmosphere promoting relaxation, he'd enjoyed teasing out thought experiments with fellow post-grads, so when Josef asked him which sub-group of society possessed the highest level of strategists, he took to the question with relish. His initial thoughts turned to politician aides; spin doctors perhaps, or PR consultants. That lead to advertising gurus, though it seemed as much psychological as strategic. When he began exploring the possibility of writers, he knew he'd taken a wrong turn. The struggle was real until he'd heard the sound of a high-pitched ding. A married couple, on a date night, were playing, over drinks, their own respective puzzle games on their own respective screens. While Mathison wasn't much of a player, he recognised a truth that few outside the community knew: hard-core gamers were smarter than they looked. He also knew that they needed advanced strategic thinking if they were to defeat the enemy, be they artificial or human.

Josef pressed him on the make-up of the best game-players, stretching the question to include other skills: ability to coordinate resources, effective communication, leadership, delegation, quick decision-making, formation of innovative solutions and, lastly, moral compunction, happy with the positive response to them all. It seemed to Mathison more like a job listing than an interesting, though perhaps ultimately unanswerable, question, shrugging it off at the time. He wished he hadn't. How many lives had he been complicit in ending? How many sources had they tested which were not up to desired specs? Too many.

And now Josef was about to heap more stress onto the psychological miasma. He leaned back, wrapping his fingers on the desk, and stared into Mathison's eyes. This was more uncomfortable than watching a customer buy Valium and condoms in a single purchase.

"I want all deliveries from Hot Or Not to cease," said Josef.

Mathison looked at him strangely, but Josef's focus was at the holographic display of his digital assistant. "I don't want any self-identified moron game-players to eat another noodle."

"Yes, sir," said Lem.

"That's why we bought the damn deliverybot company, after all," said Josef.

Mathison was trying to keep up.

"I'm going to let you in on a little secret," said Josef, turning back to Mathison. "We've run out of money."

Didn't he say there was enough for six months?

"I know what you're thinking," continued Josef, "we had enough for six months. But that was contingent on your prototype creating some buzz. It didn't happen. If you don't have a working version by noon tomorrow, you're responsible for sinking this ship."

Mathison nodded his head. But inside he was elated. Finally, an end to the carnage. This was his way out. "OK," he said. "I understand."

"I don't think you do," said Josef, tapping Mathison's breast with a firm finger, the red carnation almost spilling loose. "We've got debts. Unpaid creditors. If we declare bankruptcy, all your eye-pee -- the designs, inventions, even the device itself -- will be sold off. Everything you've worked for will be gone."

A face suddenly came to Mathison, a memory of a smiling bride, quickly replaced by her final days in a hospital bed, yellow-skinned and gaunt. Her mind was still strong and capable despite the crumbling shell around her.

He gulped. If he was unable to perfect the device, her death would have been completely in vain. It was the only thing keeping him going, the chance of a hostile world redeeming itself, for the device to be used as it was intended: to prolong life, not shorten it.

Or, to put it another way: to copy, not cut.

"It may not be as simple as collecting a seed and re-growing a new flower," he said, quietly, to himself. "But what if you can clip the flower and graft on its genetic copy?"

"What on you on about?" said Josef.

He was looking at the problem in the wrong way. You didn't have to keep the original synapses in tact, you only needed to transfer them back once you'd created the initial copy. A simple depth-first search algorithm would assure that every neuron's connection was re-constituted. It mirrored the same process he was already using to calculate each source's suitability as a CEO.

"OK," said Mathison, tapping his glasses in a burst of manic energy. "I can do this."

"You better," said Josef.

But Mathison was calculating how soon the changes could make it out to the front lines. It was like a new military invention, but with one important distinction.

"Tell them to--" he said. "But not the car park, my lab."

He looked up. Stared Josef in the eye.

"I need to see them immediately."