Elizabeth Bear - Hammered

“It helps us,” Valens answered, “because we can use Leah to get a trace on the AI program so as to isolate and capture it.”

“No,” Gabe said, but Elspeth could hear the lack of force behind it. Knowing the kind of pressure Valens could bring to bear, she nodded slightly when Gabe looked to her for reassurance. He turned his attention back to Valens and she squeezed his knee under the table.

“It’s a matter of national security, I’m afraid.” Valens folded his hands neatly on the desk. “I’m prepared to do what I have to do to bring the AI under control. We know it’s been in touch with your daughter. We believe that the Feynman AI is also the hacker you were tracking at the beginning of the month. And there are similar lapses in the surveillance we’ve been keeping on Master Warrant Casey.”

“Since she’s been in the hospital?” Elspeth interrupted, turning her water glass with her fingertips. The faceted sides felt cool and slick.

“We have her monitors very heavily protected. There was one incursion, but we believe we’ve contained it.”

Gabriel’s jaw tensed. Elspeth sat back in her chair and watched him think through the possible answers. “I’m not going to let you use my daughter as bait.”

“Gabe.” Valens shook his head, sadly. “You don’t have an option. And neither do I. I need that AI. And uncontrolled, loose on the Internet, and interested in our program and Leah — and Jenny — well, the thing’s unpredictable. Quite frankly, it’s a threat.”

“And a tool,” Gabe said, leaning forward over the table. “I don’t buy your justifications, and I’m not—”

Valens held his hand up and then stretched, rolling his shoulders back. “I’m just saying that we’ll put a watch on her and if the AI contacts her again, we’ll trace it. That’s all.”

Elspeth swallowed, her throat dry enough to hurt. She let her gaze shift back and forth between the two men and frowned. Tingling paralysis touched her fingertips, and she didn’t think she could speak if she tried.

“You could have done that without telling me.”

“And did, frankly.” Gabe held his tongue while Valens pushed his chair back and stood, his reflection broad-shouldered and dependable on the surface of the boardroom table. He crossed to a credenza, which ran the length of the room before a window shrouded in linen-textured vertical blinds, and poured water from a thermal carafe into a glass. “But we need you for the next stage in the program. Water?”

Elspeth held up a finger. “Please.” God, don’t let him have thought of it.

Valens served her before bringing his own glass back to his side of the table. He pushed his HCD and light pen aside and sat, centering the glass precisely and drumming his fingers on the sweat-dewed sides. “We’ve been watching her since you came on board here — for your protection and her own. That’s the interesting part: there are gaps in the logs.”

“Quoi? Missing data?”

“Data that appears never to have been recorded to the writable media. Data that appears, more or less, to have just vanished. As if”—Valens smiled—“it never was.” Elspeth thought he was watching her, and she made her expression intent and ungiving, resisting the urge to toy with her crucifix

“Ah.” Gabe nibbled on his lower lip, resting his chin on his knuckles. “So how do you expect to be able to track this AI, if it can slip between the cracks so thoroughly?”

“I expect you to do it for me, Gabe.”

Gabe took a long, slow breath and looked over at Elspeth. She sipped her ice water and nodded once, hoping like hell that he could read her mind.

He blinked, looked down at his own reflection in the table, and rubbed his fingers across it. “Valens,” he said, meeting the other man’s pale hazel eyes. “I have a better idea.”

7:30 A.M., Thursday 28 September, 2062

National Defence Medical Center

Toronto, Ontario

Elspeth had opened the curtains in her father’s hospital room to let the morning light spill in. She sat by his bedside, the plastic chair’s embrace more familiar than Gabriel’s, and leaned her cheek against her father’s hand. The ventilator hissed in her ear.

What am I going to do about Richard?

Albert Dunsany’s skin almost seemed to rustle, cool and papery against her face. He slept most of the time now, as his organ failure progressed. Dad, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I can’t fix everything.

She leaned back and slapped at burning eyes. That’s right. I can’t fix everything. I can’t save my father’s life. And then there’s Richard. And Jenny. And all of this is so desperately wrong.

She laid her father’s hand down carefully on the white chenille bedspread. This is a morally ambiguous situation, and I need to think it through as such. What Valens proposes is slavery, pure and simple, if I accept the fact that Richard is a sentient being. And I don’t see how I cannot. And then there’s Jenny.

“Dammit,” she whispered, and stood as the door opened. I didn’t want to like you, Jenny. I didn’t want to pity you, and feel even worse about it because you don’t want anybody’s pity.

“Hey.”

“Morning,” Gabe said. “Do you want company?” He held a paper cup of tea out to her like an offering. She curled her fingers around it, amazed at how cold her hands were.

“I don’t not want company,” she answered, but she moved away when he rested his hand on her shoulder. “I don’t know how to do this, Gabe. I don’t know what to do.”

He swallowed and moved closer to her anyway, not quite touching but close enough that she could feel his body heat. “Nobody does.” He shook his head, gray streaks flashing among fair curls. “You just do it, is all.”

They weren’t talking about her father, really, and she saw from the worried expression in his eyes that he knew it. “Because it has to be done.”

“Yes. You do what it takes. I learned that…” He chuckled, a sound like kicked leaves. “I learned that from Jenny, come to think of it. Sometimes, when you don’t know what to do, you just put your head down and push until you run out of things to push against.”

“I’m not like that. I’ve always been very analytical.” She sipped her tea, swirling it over her tongue. It was bitter, tannic, stinging. “I think about it and think about it and think about it before I ever do anything.”

“You seem,” he said, studying the flowers on the nightstand, “pretty spontaneous to me.”

“You don’t see the two-week pondering process that leads up to the snap decision.” She put her hand on his arm. “Are you happy, Gabe?”

“That’s a silly question.” His eyes looked bruised when he glanced down at her. “Well, no it’s not, is it? I mean, my kid may not live to see thirty. My other kid is thirteen and being sucked into a political nightmare. She could get her brain fried, get killed in half a dozen different ways, wind up like Jenny. And Jenny. She’s my best friend, Ellie.”

“Don’t be an idiot, Gabe. She’s more than that.”

He didn’t answer, and he looked away. “It’s complicated.”

“So what isn’t?” She twined her fingers through his, squeezing hard, balancing the tea in her other hand. “I’m pretty good at human nature, you know. I just… I really hate hurting people. I hate getting hurt. I like to float.”

“I’ve noticed. I remember what you told me, about why you wound up in research. And — yes. To answer your earlier question. I’m happy. I mean, not right this second.” He let her hold his hand, however. The other one rose and swept a gesture that took in, she thought, seas and continents. “Heads get busted and hearts get broken and sometimes you get your hands burned. But you can take a bullet just as easily doing everything right and carefully and hanging back as you can taking chances.”