Rusted Chrome by Karlos Allen	Table of Contents Day One, part 1   part 2   part 3   part 4 Day Two, part 1   part 2 Day Three, part 1   part 2   part 3   part 4 Day Four, part 1   part 2   part 3 Day Five Day Six Day Seven, part 1   part 2   part 3   part 4   part 5   part 6
Day Seven part 1 of 6

Christie had insisted on coming with O’Leary to the Pearl District. He’d tried to talk her out of it, but somehow it hadn’t worked. The fact that he couldn’t use public transit or even his own car without giving away the fact of his “non-death” had been points in her favor.

When they pulled into a public garage near the edge of the District he made one last appeal. “Look, Christie, I’m not a cop anymore. I don’t have a badge and, more importantly, I don’t have a gun. This is a BAD part of town and I can’t guarantee your safety. I’m not even going to be able to guarantee my safety. So, could you please just stay in the car?”

She grinned and got out the door on her side.

He hastily jumped out and came around. “OK, if you have to come, keep me between you and the street. Let me go ahead a little bit at the corners, but don’t lag behind. Stay within an arm’s length at all times. We may just get through this.”

As they walked down the street he noticed she was paying attention. Good girl! At least she doesn’t walk like she has ‘victim’ written all over her!

The CB’s were everywhere still, but neither O’Leary nor Christie made eye contact with them, and the CB’s did not seem all that interested. This was good, because watching them with their caps was making O’Leary’s skin crawl.

They had just rounded the corner and were facing the server farm when the snatcher hit. O’Leary hadn’t seen her coming. Looking forward and trying not to attract attention, he hadn’t noticed the woman in the alley until she came out.

Jostling past him, the woman suddenly bolted for the street. After two steps, though, she seemed to run out of pavement as if she were tied to something. Flying off her feet, she hit the ground hard enough to lose her grip on Christie’s purse. Dazed, she lay still for a second before jumping up and racing off.

“Nice work!” O’Leary nodded. “Most people aren’t that quick.”

“Well, I didn’t come from the ‘nice’ part of New Orleans, Chuck. This” — she smiled a little — “brings back memories.”

“Excuse me, sir.” The voice at his elbow made him jump. He turned and saw five CB’s standing there with the would-be snatcher in their grip. “Did this woman attempt to rob you?”

He looked at the woman and saw the mixture of fear and resignation change to a look of piteous begging. He’d seen the act before. Small-time crooks got away with a lot by playing the part of a victim when caught, and he’d had to let more than one go because the person they’d just hit wouldn’t cooperate. Of course this time it’s all wasted effort. We don’t have time to deal with a petty thief.

Looking at the CB, he put on his best innocent look and said, “Gosh! I don’t think so! I think she just tripped. Are you OK?”

The woman nodded hastily.

“So, if you could just let her go...”

“All right.” And with that the five just turned around and walked away. The snatcher took off in the opposite direction.

“She didn’t even thank you.”

“’Course not.” He shrugged. “It’s all in a day’s work, she’s probably got her next mark already spotted. Come on, let’s get going.”

* * *

Tien Yuan didn’t look much happier to see O’Leary today than he had a week ago. “What can I do for you, Mister O’Leary?” The faint emphasis on the “mister” showed that he knew what O’Leary’s status was.

“I’m not here trying to learn anything in an official position. I actually have a question about AI’s.”

Tien looked at him oddly and shrugged. “Well, I suggest you googlit.”

“Well, yes, I would, except that what I’m looking for is a little bit more detailed than what is made available for public consumption.”

Tien shrugged and glanced at the clock. “I have a few minutes, and I do owe you one for not having blared our troubles to the media last week. I’ll see if I can help.”

“How big is an AI?”

Tien looked a little surprised. “That’s easy: 20 terabytes for the standard AI search engine. Your police AI is about twice that.”

“Do they move around on the Web much?”

“No, something that big isn’t going to move around at all. We uh, we don’t download AI’s. They’re built in place and can’t move. It would crash the system.”

“So what happens if one goes bad?”

“Bad? What exactly do you mean by that?”

“Malfunctions.”

“Tech Support shuts it down and disassembles it. There’s nothing else you can do.”

In the corner of his eye O’Leary saw Christie shudder; he knew Margie was thinking about what could have happened.

“I see, so where are they stored? Forty terabytes per application is a lot of data; what kind of server can hold that?”

“Well” — Tien looked uncomfortable — “it’s not your ordinary server. We have to use some pretty high-end equipment. Special processors; that sort of thing.”

“Yes, I imagine that’s so.” O’Leary paused, wondering exactly how to drop the bomb. “I did have one small issue with my police AI. Never got around to talking to Tech Support about it, though. Hey, Margie?”

Christie’s head turned slightly and her voice made that subtle shift that told you that the person talking was not the person you saw. “Yes, Mr. O’Leary?”

“Could you explain to Mr. Yuan here the issues we’ve been having with our connection?”

“Certainly. Mr. Yuan, I’ve been unable to access my pipeline for the last few days. I believe that I have been targeted by a malignant program, possibly another AI.”

The look on Tien’s face was something that O’Leary knew he was going to treasure for a long time. “How...?” he husked, then stopped, coughed and tried again. “How did it happen?”

“Christie here came in contact with me in the course of an investigation. Once that happened, data started leaking over, and one thing led to another.”

“I see. Obviously, you can understand that this is a bit embarrassing. People aren’t used to the idea of programs running in their heads. Not yet. It’s going to take some education before we can break this to them. It’s not easy overcoming fear.”

“Especially when that fear is well-founded.” Christie was speaking again. “I didn’t react well to the idea that I was hosting an AI against my will. And it was against my will. I’m the president of the local chapter of Americans for Free Minds.”

Tien started laughing. “Oh that’s beautiful! The Head Crank is hosting an AI!” He shook his head. “What were you doing with a cap on in the first place, Ms. Porter? Aren’t they supposed to be from the Devil?”

Christine started to stand up and O’Leary hastily stepped in between. “Easy now, Christie. He’s entitled to his opinion.”

She stepped back but Tien wasn’t done. “So, Ms. Porter, what’s it like wearing a cap? Not as bad as you thought, is it? How are you going to convince people it’s so bad now? What boogey man are you going to conjure up?”

“I’ll interview Lisa McKay, and Zach, and I’ll ask them about Hector Gonzales y Rodriguez... and Alex.”

Tien’s laughter stopped as if a switch had been thrown. “You have done your homework, haven’t you?”

“Yes, we have.”

“You realize, of course, that’s ancient history. I don’t even know about it first hand, just from some confidential briefings I got when I took this job. We take what happened very seriously. The whole industry does. And we are making sure that something like that can’t happen again. In fact I’m afraid you’re going to have to have ‘Margie’ removed. Once a host makes contact...”

O’Leary looked at him. “You say that’s ancient history, though?”

“Yes, poor Hector died in a mental institution several years ago and ‘Alex’ died with him. What I said earlier about AI’s not moving around on the Web goes double for those old ones.”

Tien paused and looked at his desk as though gathering his thoughts. “Those AIs weren’t what people initially thought they were. I’m quoting my briefing materials directly now. They weren’t ‘artificial’; what had really happened was that certain people, when exposed to MI, developed multiple personalities. They had already had the tendency, and the equipment and techniques that the industry was experimenting with just brought it out.

“In a way that’s still true. When it all went down, they did save a few people who had managed to hang on to their sanity. Basically they ‘reverse engineered’ the personalities and figured out how to duplicate them in a way that allowed us to implant them in unused cortical space.

“That’s all ‘Margie’ is really, a cloned personality. But that’s also why we don’t have to worry about another ‘Alex’; the personalities were engineered for stability, and they can’t run. If one did go unstable, we would know exactly where it is and exactly how to deal with it.”

“That goes for the personalities that exist now. But what about those original ones?”

“They were so unwieldy and big that it would take a high-performance server farm to run one, and you could forget about moving it. Your ‘Margie’ is what, 40 terabytes? Maybe 50? Those old ones, especially the full-fledged personalities, ran closer to 100 terabytes. You couldn’t transmit something like that if you wanted to. It would crash the system, and whatever received it wouldn’t be able to reconstruct the packets into anything useful.”

“I see, but of course something like that could operate over the web, sending data and various bots and the like.”

“I suppose so, but where would something like that live?”

“What about the old facility where the experiments happened?”

Tien chuckled again. “The ‘Omega Fab’? Now you’re starting to get into the realm of the conspiracy theorists.”

“You mean the same ones who’ve been warning us about programs being run in our heads against our will, Mr. Yuan?” Christie’s face was a picture of innocence.

* * *

Proceed to part 2...

Copyright © 2010 by Karlos Allen