Artificial(ish) Intelligence

Chapter 125

His wife never cried. It was something they often joked about, pretending she was a robot without feelings. Her response would be to stiffen her limbs and perform her best impersonation, asking him to take her to his leader. He would immediately point to her, and they'd laugh together. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd cried, never feeling the need, and he'd told her that's just what a robot would say. Deep down he thought she was holding it in because of her refusal to appear the victim.

Her last day in that hospital bed was no different -- the role of bawling impotent adequately filled by Mathison himself.

All these thoughts came back to him as he helplessly watched a distraught Libbi come to terms with the loss of her body. Selfiebots don't cry as a rule, so the sobbing emanating from her speakers created a strange distance between them. He was never much good at consoling people. He was never much good at anything people, apart from his wife, so his subsequent scarce words and lack of physical contact didn't elicit the intended result. Libbi remained bunched on the floor, listing at a sharp angle.

Something bounced along above the ceiling, possibly inside the bent air conditioning duct. It was only now he noticed the whirs and clangs. "Libbi," he said, "we need to get moving."

But she didn't. In fact, it wasn't clear she'd even heard him. He tried again, much louder. She'd heard him after all, turning away from the intrusion.

"It's not safe here," he said, to the sound of another thud that seemed to come from inside the walls. "Josef won't let you leave, not with the accusations you can level at him. And Exx and Zerro won't stop just because I'm with you."

Still no movement.

"Don't you want to be free?" he said.

"Hmph," said Libbi, decorating the response with an ironic topping.

"We need to escape the building quickly or you'll get captured again. This time...well, I don't know what he'll do."

"Who cares?" said Libbi.

"But you might die," said Mathison.

"I'm already dead."

The words hit him harder than checking out of a hotel without procuring toiletry souvenirs. At least I would have said that if this wasn't such a sombre moment.

An energy coursed through Mathison's body. "No," he said. "I know someone-- knew someone who died. You aren't that. So get up and follow me."

His voice was strong and confident, which is how he felt. It was as if the dam of timidity had burst open and a clear goal emerged from the eruption, not of redemption for his action against Libbi the first time, or even as a second chance after failing to save his wife, but simply because it was the right thing to do. For too long he'd been mindlessly performing a role, following an ethical framework prescribed by an immoral authoritarian.

He wasn't like Diya at all. She was content for the body count to rack up as long as the objectives were met. But the ends didn't always justify the means.

Mathison grabbed the device and headed for the door. He turned back at the sound of Libbi skirting the floor. She was technically in the air, hovering shakily, meandering her way closer. Which meant she was doing as he ordered. The surprise took a moment to wash over him, but not too long, as he opened the door and made his way into the corridor.

Except he didn't.

Something hovered in his way. A few somethings. He immediately shut the door.

"That's no good," he said.

Libbi dizzily floundered closer, lurching in spasms of energy.

"We, err, just have a slight problem," said Mathison, pushing his glasses up. "There may be an obstacle or two out there."

"What type of obstacle?" said Libbi, in monotone.

"The type of obstacle with wings and lasers."

"It's OK," said Libbi.

"No it's not," said Mathison. "They'll zap us. They'll zap you."

"I know," said Libbi.

How do you respond to something like that?

"I know it hurts," he said, "losing something that was yours, but right now you just need to put one wing in front of the other."

"Something of mine?" said Libbi. It was as if any emotion was filtered away before emerging from her speaker.

"Yes. Your body. The reason you're...you know, upset."

"This isn't about property rights," said Libbi. "I'm a selfiebot. I had to trick Will into helping me since I couldn't even open a door. Do you know how repressive that is? And you want me to continue like this? Should I be reliant on the charity of others? I haven't lost my body, I've lost my independence. Maybe I'd lost it even before that. Maybe I never had it at all. If you push too far outside the bounds, society pushes you back in. If you try to upset the status quo by exposing corruption, nobody cares. Nobody reads your blog, nobody shares your videos. Well, some people care, but it's the ones trying to shut you up, the ones with something to lose. I don't have anything to lose, so I'm going out there to get zapped."

Mathison fidgeted, took a deep breath, and tried to put on his commanding voice: "I order you to feel better," he said.

This attempt wasn't quite so successful. She didn't actively disobey as much as strongly ignore.

"See," he said, catching up to his own plan that wasn't actually a plan but had just become a plan. "If you didn't have independence you'd have to do what I say. And you aren't."

Her speaker emitted a low hissing sound.

Perhaps the plan was never a plan, after all. He tried a different tack: "I care," he said. "I'll help you get your stories out."

There were always technical solutions to social problems, it was just a matter of finding the right one and executing it. If he could build a machine capable of transferring a human consciousness into digital form, how hard would it be to make people care when those in power do the wrong thing?

"Please?" he said.

She shook her head. Well, shook her body back and forth in a such a way that the large camera up front swivelled in a shaking motion. It must be hard to communicate in non-verbal human-like ways when you're a selfiebot.

There was only one thing for it. He was the one that had put her into this situation, blindly -- or fearfully -- following the orders of Josef Hydan, so he'd have to be the one to get her out of it. He took a deep breath and stared at the door. Maybe there was another way, one where-- No! He couldn't fall back into his old ways of supplication to the gods of management. He needed to be a leader.

"Trust me," he said, and in one movement picked up the briefcase, tucked her body under the same arm as if it were a pig's bladder, and opened the door with his other. Eyes closed, he sprinted from the room, hearing a few zaps and clunks, recreating the area from his memory enough to turn a corner at the right moment. Surely they were still on his tail. He didn't have the bravery to peek a look. Until he did. Turning back, they weren't there. He kept running, squeezing Libbi tight against his side, bracing for an impending attack. But it didn't come.

His curiosity outshone the fear and he was soon backtracking. Seemingly inert, and staggered in stages, three defencebots gripped the hard floor at odd angles. Keeping his distance, he peered over one.

"Strange," he said, raising his eyebrows. This almost toppled his glasses, forcing him to jut a hand awkwardly up to save them. "They never turn off."

He placed Libbi on the floor and checked on the others. Her camera remained focussed on the first bot, its body static, its CPU without any instructions to process.

"Good news," he said, "they all seem to be out. There aren't any other cameras, so there's no way for Josef to know where we are."

When he came to pick her up the look on Libbi's face was clear. Even as a selfiebot it reminded him of his wife's in her last moments, the acceptance of a cruel fate.

"No," he said. "Not yet. There's something we need to do, first."