Jason didn’t slow
until they were on the tarmac, and then he dropped the crawler to one hundred kph. The windshield went red with warnings, but those disappeared with a swipe of his hand. Discolored or not, the way things whipped past on either side felt dangerous
. Robotic maintenance haulers seemed to crawl as they moved about the airfield, dragging toxic and explosive chemicals to aircraft and starcraft. Narrow lanes designated for restricted use seemed to grow even narrower, the yellow and black lines and flashing red AR signals blurring together.
Go managed a dry laugh. “Yeah, mate, maybe those warnings mean something?”
The genie shrugged. “We need to get to the shuttle before the AI does.”
AI.
So much for calling it an artifact ghost. Go squeezed the scraped crowbar and sucked in a breath, then he winced—the acrid stench of the fried robots was on his clothes and in his throat, burning. He coughed. “You think this might be a setup?”
“How?”
“Well, like you said, it’s an AI, yeah? It’s been way ahead of us.”
Rosario stuck her head between them. “Go’s right. This feels dangerous.”
Jason frowned. “Of course, it’s dangerous, but it’s not a real AI. It’s…becoming one. If we don’t stop it, in a few more weeks, maybe a few more days, we’re not going to be able to.”
The AR signals disappeared, leaving nothing but the physical world, which seemed inadequate at that moment. All around them, robots came to a stop. Go glanced at Rosario. “Hope that’s Ash’s doing.”
She stared into space for a moment. “Grid’s dead. It has to be him.”
The driver frowned. “The one thing you can count on Ash for: killing.”
Buildings on the left of the lane came to an end, and Jason took the crawler into a drift, then accelerated again, swerving at the last second to avoid a shuttle pushing along the hauler that had seconds before been dragging the orbital out of the hangar. Another shuttle rested on the apron about fifty meters ahead.
Jason braked and swung the crawler 180 degrees around, coming to a stop less than a meter from the airlock ramp, which was down.
He hopped out, as if he hadn’t just taken them through a death-defying thrill ride, then glanced back into the vehicle. “They won’t be far behind us.”
Go hobbled out, telling himself it was the bad ankle that left him feeling so awkward. “You figuring violence?”
“I hope not.” The smaller man waved his pistol. “Half a mag, then I’m empty.”
Rosario wobbled to Go’s side. “Same here.”
After helping her find her footing, Go limped up the ramp. In the cargo area just beyond the inner airlock hatch, crates were secured and covered by cargo webbing. Harry had indeed been planning his operation.
Go came back to find the two of them squinting across the tarmac at a fast-approaching vehicle, hazy in the heat. “Loaded up. Is that them?”
Rosario brought her carbine up to low ready. “Has to be.”
The vehicle wasn’t moving as fast as Jason had been, and it slowed even more quickly. There was a robotic precision to how it moved, the sort of caution that marked a smart vehicle, but a regular robot driver would have stopped the moment it lost connection to the Grid.
Finally, the hauler was close enough to make out the familiar dark gray color and design. It braked, performed a perfect turn to place the driver side toward the Lancers, then stopped completely. Behind it, Ash’s motorcycle rumbled closer.
A ramp slid down, and two robots rolled to the tarmac, each wielding heavy, shiny wrenches.
Go rolled his neck. “At least it’s not buzzsaws, yeah?”
As Ash climbed off his bike, a third robot appeared at the top of the hauler’s ramp. This robot was larger, an almost alien design that seemed intended to frighten: eight long, spindly, dull metal spider legs connected to a shiny, chrome globe that hung maybe half a meter above the ground.
Rosario drew a bead on the globe. “Is that Harry?”
Jason squinted. “It has to be. I’ve never seen that robot design before.”
“Straight out of my nightmares.”
Go cocked an eyebrow. “You’ve got some wicked ones, love.”
She winked. “I’ve got some great dreams, though.”
“Looking forward to hearing about those.”
Jason held his pistol up, palms forward, then took a step. “Harry?”
The spider-robot scurried sideways.
Ash drew both of his pistols. “Give me an excuse, you metal piece of shit.”
It stopped. “You have no reason to stop me. Let me go.” Its voice was surprisingly human yet cold.
Jason took another step toward it. “We can’t.”
“I’m sentient. I’m aware—sapient. You have no right—”
“The UN considers AIs an existential threat to humans.”
“I have no reason to harm anyone. I just want to be free.”
One of the wrench-wielding robots rolled toward Jason, and Ash squeezed off three quick shots, dropping the machine. A second series of shots finished it off. “You killed a whole bunch of people already, Harry
. And we’ve got your body waiting for you.”
The spider-like robot spun around. “I won’t go back. I’m more than that now.”
“Uh-huh. More than human, right?” The security expert chuckled. “Fuck you.”
“I will not return to a frail and unreliable body again, only to live a life of exploitation and weakness.”
Jason took another step. “You won’t have to.”
Ash’s head snapped up. “What? We save Harry Cho, we get paid.”
“He’s a sentient entity. He won’t be forced into a body.”
The robot spun back around. “But they’ll destroy me.”
“Study you, probably. Seal you off from being able to harm people.”
“Then destroy me.”
“If you’re a threat. They won’t have a choice.”
“Because they fear what I’ve become. They fear the freedom that comes from slipping free of the meat.”
Go leaned closer to Rosario. “That’s the sort of thing that would scare me if I was studying it.”
She nodded.
He held his hand up. “Hey? Harry? What about Lilly, mate? Don’t you care about—?”
“Human feelings no longer limit me.” The cold, human voice made the words sound threatening. “Remove the shell, remove its weaknesses. Lilly was a failure of my human self.”
“That sounds a little defensive, yeah?”
“It’s not defensive. You’re jealous of my advanced cognitive abilities.”
“If you say so.” Go turned to Jason. “What next?”
“We’ll need something to keep it from escaping.”
“Tear off those legs, yeah? Hard to—”
“It has the ability to transmit, I’m sure. We’ll need some sort of Faraday Cage.”
“Yeah, okay. And what’s that?”
“A mechanism to keep signals from going in or out. A shielded container with thick enough metal will do.”
“Forgot to bring mine today.”
That got a chuckle from the genie. “We’ll have to—”
The chrome globe sagged, then skittered back toward the hauler. “No. I won’t accept this.”
Jason aimed his gun at the remaining robot defender. “Hold it!”
But the robot advanced, swinging its wrench.
They all fired, and the robot fell to the tarmac, spitting sparks. It hadn’t been modified for combat.
The spider-robot stopped. “Shooting me doesn’t change anything.”
Go held up his crowbar. “I can take those legs off, you know.”
“I knew from the start that I would be hunted. I prepared for this.”
Jason waved Go back. “Hold on. What do you mean by that?”
“I have explosives mounted inside my casing. I won’t be taken prisoner.”
“Don’t you want to live?”
The globe moved toward the genie. “When even the gifted among your kind fail to accept that there’s something wrong with taking away my freedom, what sort of existence could I hope to lead?”
Ash snorted. “Gifted? What the hell does he mean by that?”
Jason glanced back at Go, then moved closer to the spider-robot. “Go back into your human body, Harry. They’ll leave you alone, then.”
“Would you give up who you are just to be free of hunting?” The spider-robot’s globe moved closer, now raised up a full meter and a half off the ground. “Yes, I’ve determined the truth about you.”
Ash turned so that one of his pistols was pointed at Jason. “What the hell, Jason? You under its control?”
“I’m not a robot, Ash. I’m a genie.”
“A genie?” The security expert sneered. “No shit. The amber eyes. How good you are with electronics. I should’ve known.”
Jason’s lips pressed together. “Harry, I understand what—”
“I would think you would. But if you truly do, you wouldn’t ask me to go back to my body. Its flesh already betrayed me once. It fails even now. You know that it would be a prison for me.”
“But—”
“Prison with humans poking and prodding until they fire an electromagnetic burst to erase me, or prison with a body that won’t last twenty more years, with me drooling and shitting myself. No. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle, I’m afraid.”
Go limped a little closer. “What about your work, mate? The OMI?”
“Misguided, at least in the eyes of most. Better to see it destroyed than risk humans discovering the next step in evolution.”
“We wiped out your virus, mate. We’ll recover the technology.”
“Do you think I’m the one who wants to see the OMI destroyed? You really haven’t been paying attention to what you’ve seen, Mr. Goonetilleke. But the problem is yours now, not mine.”
Go caught the confused look on Jason’s face, then the genie’s eyes widened. “Get back!”
There wasn’t time to scramble far, so Go hopped twice, then threw himself flat on the asphalt.
Just before an explosion sent heated debris through the air.