Alex Scarrow - Day of the Predator

Liam looked again at the young… woman… in front of him: lean and athletic, a porcelain beauty to her face.

Her? HER? It’s an IT, Liam. IT… get it? Not a ‘her’. Just an organic vehicle. A meat robot.

Almost as if the clone could read his mind, it drooled another long spittle string of gunk out of the side of its mouth and grunted something unintelligible.

Sal giggled. ‘So like Bob, isn’t she? She could be his twin sister.’

Maddy returned from the desk to sit beside the female clone. ‘OK, Bob’s preparing the download protocols. He needs to handshake with this support unit’s in-built operating system before he can upload a copy of his AI into it.’

‘Uh… how does Bob get into her… its head?’ asked Liam. ‘Don’t you need some sort of a cable or something?’

‘Bluetooth,’ she replied wearily. ‘Yes, I know, that means nothing to you.’ She sighed. ‘OK. It’s a broadband wireless data communication protocol designed for low-latency short-distance transmission.’ Liam was still staring at her, slack-jawed and bemused. Maddy sighed again. ‘Information will fly through the air from the computer and into its head.’

‘Oh… right.’ Liam smiled. ‘Why didn’t you just say that in the first place?’

They heard a beep coming from the computer desk.

‘Uploading is starting now,’ said Maddy.

The clone sitting opposite Liam suddenly jerked upright and cocked her head like a dog hearing a dog-whistle.

He watched with fascination as the support unit’s eyes blinked rapidly with the data flooding into the tiny computer system built into the middle of its cranium — computer technology that came from the 2050s, technology immensely more powerful than their array of linked PCs beneath the computer desk.

The download of information took about ten minutes, then finally the female clone closed her eyes.

‘Installing,’ explained Maddy. ‘Then it will boot up again.’

After a few moments the clone looked up at them with eyes that now seemed to faintly glint with intelligence.

‘Bob?’ said Maddy, ‘you OK?’

The clone nodded awkwardly. ‘Affirmative.’ The voice was a deep growl, almost as deep as Bob’s old voice had been.

‘Jay-zus!’ Liam lurched. ‘That’s… weird.’

Sal pulled a face. ‘Ewww… jahulla! That’s just so-o-o wrong!’

‘I will adjust the vocal register,’ Bob’s barrel-deep voice rumbled. The support unit cocked its head then spoke again. ‘Is this better?’ The voice now the smooth upper-register of a teenage girl’s.

Maddy nodded. ‘Much better. I think we can safely say you’re not an it… you’re a she now.’

Liam shook his head as he studied it… him… her… Bob. ‘I feel very strange about this,’ he finally muttered. ‘Very strange indeed.’

2001, New York

‘Now, she’s had all the biographical information about Edward Chan and details of the layout of the Texas Advanced Energy Research Institute uploaded. Isn’t that right?’

The support unit nodded as she lowered herself into the water beside Liam, wearing underwear that Maddy had self-consciously pulled out from beneath the sheets of her bunk and donated.

‘Affirmative. I have all the data required for this mission,’ the support unit replied sweetly.

Liam shook his head. ‘This is so weird. I mean… it’s great to have you back an’ all, Bob, but you’re a… you’re a…’ His glance flickered involuntarily for a moment towards the clone’s chest. He clasped his eyes shut. ‘Oh Jeez… you’re a girl, so you are!’

‘Recommendation: suggest this copy of my AI be given an appropriate unique identifier.’

Maddy, sitting on the top step and looking down at them in the water, nodded. ‘That’s right. You can’t go round calling her Bob.’

‘Additional information: although the AI in my computer is a direct duplication, I am now interfaced with a different organic brain, and during the operational lifespan of this organic support frame, different data will result in a different emergent AI.’

Liam looked up at Maddy. ‘What did she… it… Bob just say?’

‘That you should think of this support unit as someone brand new. As a different team member… because she’s going to develop a different personality. That’s right, isn’t it?’

The support unit nodded. ‘Affirmative. Consequently this AI should have its own identifying label.’

‘She needs a new name to avoid confusion with Bob,’ added Maddy, nodding towards the bank of monitors and computers on the desk. ‘Remember, Bob’s still in there.’ She grinned. ‘You’re best thinking of this support unit as… I dunno… his sister.’

Liam looked at the clone treading water beside him. She tried one of Bob’s reassuring horse smiles — just as clumsy and ill-fitting as her… brother. But, somehow, more appealing on her slim face.

‘Liam,’ she said softly, ‘please give me a name.’

‘Go on,’ said Maddy. ‘It’s your turn.’

He shook his head. ‘I… don’t know.’

‘OK, you think about it.’ She called across the archway to Sal. ‘What’s the countdown?’

‘Fifty seconds!’

She handed them a couple of sealed plastic bags. ‘Clothes for you in there. And a wig for her. Now, you’ll arrive at the institute just as a class of thirty children are being given a tour of the place. I’ve checked the floor plans and picked out what looks like an equipment storage room near to the institute’s main experimental chamber. That’s where we’ll send you. You can dry off and change in there, then join the school party.’

Liam nodded.

‘You’ll be there to observe how Edward Chan is assassinated, OK? Not to stop it… just watch. Then we’ll bring you back, you can tell us what happened, then we can work on what we need to do to prevent it happening. That’s the plan. Got it?’

‘Aye. And the return window?’

‘Is set for ten minutes after Edward Chan’s time of death. The usual failed-return protocols apply — if you miss that first window, we’ll open again an hour later… you know how it goes.’

‘An hour later, a day later, a week later.’

‘That’s it.’

‘Thirty seconds!’ called out Sal.

‘You OK, Liam?’ said Maddy softly.

He nodded, his teeth beginning to chatter with the cold.

‘Come back safely,’ she said affectionately, patting his hand holding the side of the tube. She got to her feet and clanked down the steps beside the tube.

‘Ten seconds!’

Liam turned to look at the support unit treading water beside him. ‘Hey… I’ve got a name for you.’

‘Insufficient time, Liam,’ she replied. ‘We have to go under the water now.’

Reluctantly he nodded, sucked in a big lungful of air, let go of the side and held his nose. The support unit gently rested a hand on top of his head and shoved him under with surprising force, then ducked beneath the water herself.

2015, Texas

He watched Edward Chan walking ahead of him with the other kids. He looked so small among the other high-school-age kids, so small and so vulnerable with his high-school rucksack on his back and a yellow T-shirt two sizes too big for him.

Yes. Yes, he does… but don’t forget who this boy is. Just how dangerous he is.

Howard Goodall gritted his teeth with renewed determination. Ahead of him, just a dozen yards away, was the legendary Edward Chan, grandfather of time-travel technology. His mind reiterated an inescapable mantra.

The boy has to die. The boy has to die.

Too many of his colleagues had been arrested to get him to this place, this time, close enough to kill Chan. He could feel the weight in his own rucksack — a red one with High School Musical 4 stencilled in cheerful pink across it. He could feel the weight of responsibility in there and the miniature carbon-fibre projectile weapon hidden inside an innocent-looking camping flask, the cheap plastic kind you can pick up from Wal-Mart for five dollars.