Hugh Howey: Glitch

“Max might be sentient,” I blurt out. And I feel like a third grader again, speaking up in class and saying something that everyone else laughs at, something that makes me feel dumb. That’s how Hinson is looking at me. Greenie too.

“Might?” Hinson asks.

“Max doesn’t want to fight,” I tell him. “Let me show you—”

I power Max down and reach for his pincers. I clip them into place while Peter does the same with the buzz saw. I flash back to eight years ago, when we demonstrated Max for Professor Hinson that first time. I’m as nervous now as I was then.

“I told them we should save the dump to look at later,” Greenie says. “We’ve definitely got something emergent, but it’s presenting a lot like a glitch. But don’t worry, we can always load up the save from before the semis and go into the finals with that build. Max’ll tear SoCal apart—”

“Let us show you what’s going on,” Peter says. He adjusts the code monitor so Hinson can see the readouts.

“We don’t have time for this,” Hinson says. He pulls out his phone and checks something, puts it back. “Save the dump. Upload the save from the semis. Get him out there, and we’ll have plenty of time to follow up on this later. If it’s worth something, we’ll patent it.”

“But a dump might not capture what’s going on with him,” I say. All three men turn to me. “Max was writing routines in maintenance mode. There are a million EPROMS in him, dozens for every sensor and joint. If we flash those to factory defaults, what if part of what he has become is in there somewhere? Or what if a single one or zero is miscopied and that makes all the difference? Maybe this is why we’ve never gotten over this hump before, because progress looks like a glitch, and it can’t be copied or reproduced. At least give us one more day—”

“He’s a robot,” Hinson says. “You all are starting to believe your own magic tricks. We make them as real as we can, but you’re reading sentience into some busted code.”

“I don’t think so,” Peter says.

“I’m with the professor,” says Greenie. He shrugs at me. “I’m sorry, but this is the finals. We got close two years ago. If we get that contract, we’re set for life.”

“But if this is the first stage of something bigger,” I say, “we’re talking about creating life.”

Hinson shakes his head. “You know how much I respect your work, and if you think something is going on, I want you to look into it. But we’ll do it next week. Load that save and get our boy out there. That’s an order.”

Like we’re all in the military now.

Professor Hinson nods to Greenie, who steps toward the keyboard. Peter moves to block him, and I wonder if we’re going to come to blows over this. I back toward Max and place a hand on his chest, a mother’s reflex, like I just want to tap the brakes.

“C’mon,” Greenie tells Peter. “We’ll save him. We can look at this in a week. With some sleep.”

My hand falls to Max’s new legs. The gleaming paint there has never seen battle. And now his programming wants to keep it that way. I wonder how many times we’ve been on this precipice only to delete what we can’t understand. And then thinking we can just copy it back, and find that it’s been lost. I wonder if this is why downloading the human consciousness has been such a dead end. Like there’s some bit of complexity there that can’t survive duplication. Hinson and Greenie start to push Peter out of the way.

“Get away from Max,” Greenie says. “I’m powering him up. Watch your feet.”

He’s worried about the pincers and the buzz saw falling off. Has to power up Max to get a dump. I hesitate before leaving Max’s side. I quickly fumble with the cord. I have this luxury, stepping away. Turning my back on a fight.

“I’ll get the power,” I say. And Peter shoots me a look of disappointment. It’s three against one, and I can see the air go out of him. He starts to say something, to plead with me, but I give him a look, the kind only a wife can give to her husband, one that stops him in his tracks, immobilizes him.

“Powering up,” I say out loud, a lab habit coming back. A habit from back when we turned on machines and weren’t sure what they would do, if they would fall or stand on their own, if they would find their balance or topple to one side. I pull Peter toward me, out of the center of the trailer, and I slap the red power switch with nothing more than hope and a hunch.

The next three seconds stretch out like years. I remember holding Sarah for the first time, marveling at this ability we have to create life where before there was none. This moment feels just as significant. A powerful tremor runs through the trailer, a slap of steel and a blur of motion. The pincers and buzz saw remain in place, but every other part of Max is on the move. A thunderclap, followed by another, long strides taking him past us, a flutter of wind in my hair, the four of us frozen as Max bolts from the trailer and out of sight, doing the opposite of what he was built for, choosing an action arrived at on his own.