Artificial(ish) Intelligence

Chapter 108

Mathison clutched his neck, barely able to rise. He felt as if a piano had comically fallen on him from a high window. But he was still inside his lab. At least, that's what his bleary eyes hinted at.

He made it to his feet, clutching at the desk. His head felt like it might explode.

Diya's body remained stationary, dried blood caking on the tiles. He shut his eyes, hoping to put it out of mind, but instead similar bodies flashed into his memory, slumped, dead, victims of his device. His heart raced and he almost stumbled backward.

"What evil," he said, thinking only of himself.

Mathison's mouth soured as the ramifications of his imperfect invention ricochetted against his mind, finding purchase at every conceivable moment of guilt. Was it easier without the physical manifestations? Like a game, he could pretend they weren't fully real.

He'd set aside all moral concerns for the chance to redeem a promise, but the bargain he'd made with the devil was laid bare in Diya's literal embodiment, and it wasn't one he could any longer fulfil. Her skin had become a pale hue, reminding him of that last hospital visit, his wife's eyes struggling to remain open, the life slowly draining from her body. But it hadn't drained yet, so maybe...

He leant down to check on her pulse. The response was faster than he expected. She was alive.

To say his first-aid training was minimal would be like saying organised crime likes to inflict minimal pain on a member ratting them out to the police. All he really knew was that bodies weren't like electronics, they were far more unreliable and bespoke -- what worked on one didn't always work on another. That's why he could never have been a doctor. But he was an engineer. That meant solving problems, especially difficult ones, like how to help an unconscious woman with a heavy knock to the head. It doesn't matter right now how she got in that condition. We don't need to discuss it. It could have been an accident, you don't know!

Armed with the desire to problem-solve, his mind went straight to the briefcase. But this wasn't the new one he'd given to the brothers -- the one he'd termed briefcase dash, or Briefcase', since it derived from the first briefcase -- but was, instead, the old version that had caused all those deaths. Diya was still alive, still connected to her body, so he wasn't going to cut the consciousness out of her brain.

The solution could only be found inside that dilapidated van.

He raced out the room.