Artificial(ish) Intelligence

Chapter 103

Libbi rushed on ahead, then dithered, exploring both sides of the corridor for hints. She thought she'd heard the sound of footsteps, but now there was nothing.

"I'm just oh-pee," said Will, with the partial giddiness of a person who'd performed a precocious act and could only marvel at their own amazing awesomeness. He blew on his fingers as if they were guns.

It was more than a little annoying. He hadn't stopped bragging about the way he'd stopped the defencebots, all with a few key words he wanted to keep to himself, as if it were a secret incantation. That wasn't the case, obviously, since Adelaide had promised to do exactly this, but it would only slow them down to argue the point, and the faster she could get back into her body the better.

"The key is to have great micro," said Will. "So you can focus on the details, but not at the expense of overall strategy."

"What is the overall strategy?" said Libbi.

They'd finally made it down to the basement, and she was more than a little eager to find the mortuary.

Will shrugged. It only made Libbi pine for a human body of her own.

"Only to get a load of that sweet, sweet donkey," said Barry White, giving his own answer.

It was starting to get on Libbi's nerves, and she wondered if this was how she was perceived by Will. Maybe her early tactics of playing the damsel in distress were a misjudgement. Then again, it got her inside AutomatIO. And she had to admit, it was nice to have someone alongside, battling for justice together.

They would have checked the rooms attached to the corridors, searching for frozen bodies, but there weren't any rooms and even fewer body parts. Until they stumbled upon a grave site.

Libbi's cameras darted around the room. Her clock-speed immediately shot up, putting her circuits in danger of overheating. So many emotions flooded her system. Was this the location of her body? Was it still in a liveable state? Who did all the other bodies belong to?

The room was dark and small, its contents difficult to make out. But they were clearly human limbs and torsos, even heads! It didn't smell, which was a good sign, but not enough to raise her hopes just yet.

She flew inside, searching for a facial resemblance. But there was something wrong. These bodies were...different in some way.

"Robots," said Will, sauntering inside. "Or robot parts."

On closer inspection the truth became, unfortunately, clear. The energy sapped from Libbi's battery, along with a chunk of hope.

"Sorry," said Will. "We'll keep looking."

Libbi nodded her lens unenthusiastically. Were there any clues here, at least? She floated from body to body, questioning whether she'd even remember her own human face. The task seemed to have become even harder.

Will quietly salivated at the sexy maid model. "It's like at Cecil's shop!" he said.

The body parts were what she'd seen in her memory, from the time she'd been caught. A metaphorical suitcase flung into her circuits and immediately opened up, projected on the wall.

"Help me out, junior," said Ms Glas. "Give me a reason to trust you. How does it work?"

"The technology itself?"

"I've heard whispers," said Ms Glas. "The legal aspects."

"You don't need to be concerned with--"

"Yes," said Ms Glas. "I do. But I don't care if it's illegal. If I did, half my deals wouldn't go through. The world hasn't got to where it is by sticking to restrictive laws by bureaucratic governments. That's tyranny. I simply need to understand my risk position so I can make an informed choice."