Rusted Chrome

by Karlos Allen

Day Seven

part 5 of 6

Great, who knocks this time?

Nobody, we have to figure out another way in, Rita answered. Follow me, I helped design the firewalls for this place. If I can’t find another way in...

The wall stretched out ahead of them as a long gray vertical surface. It didn’t look real, and after a minute O’Leary figured out why. A real wall, even a smooth one, would have detail. There would be discolorations, marks, tiny imperfections. This was just steel gray vertical surface stretching up and out into the darkness. He figured that visibility extended about twenty feet in all directions; beyond that was blackness.

Why can we even see?

Because we imagine we can. Lu was ‘speaking.’ Data’s coming in and our brain is doing the best it can to interpret it. Without AI help, the interface can only do so much. I can promise you that for everything we see there’s a whole wealth of detail that we’re completely missing. All we really are seeing is that our movement is constrained in one direction. The brain imagines a wall, which works.

Then what are we looking for?

I really don’t know, Rita admitted. Another door, I suppose. What I’m really doing is trying a number of access codes to see if any work. If one does, we’ll see a door... Ah, here we are!

A door appeared in the wall right in front of them. See, new data reached us and the brain just put it in. She reached up and knocked.

Why knock? Why not just open the door?

Because, a touch of frustration entered her ‘voice,’ it’s NOT a door. I’m querying the system with a password. If it likes it, it’ll give us access. It will just look like a door is opening.

Whatever Rita did apparently worked; the door opened up. O’Leary braced himself, but this time no man-shape came out to kick them out of the system. Instead, they walked in and O’Leary found himself looking down a long gray hallway. Nice! Glad to see nobody’s been overdoing the color here. Wouldn’t want things to be too garish or anything.

Do you always do this??

Sorry, yeah, I do. I’ll try to keep it down; not used to having to censor my thoughts.

Thanks.

They walked down the corridor a bit and then suddenly doors started appearing on each side. And then more appeared in the ceiling and floors. Rita ignored them and kept walking.

O’Leary nearly tripped and bumped Lu. Sorry. Not used to stepping over doorknobs.

Look, just imagine them with card locks. It’s easier.

We can DO that?

We can do anything we want with the way the data’s displayed. It’s finding and manipulating it that gets dicey.

Oh. He concentrated for a second and the knobs disappeared.

He was about to start whining “Are we there yet?” when Rita suddenly reached up and knocked on the door above her. There was a pause and then it opened downward.

There was a shimmer and then the corridor seemed to rotate around them till they were facing the door. Not looking down, O’Leary walked forward behind the others and pulled the door closed behind him. They were in another open space with darkness ahead of them and the high gray wall behind them.

We’re through the firewall, Rita announced. Now we just need to find Ernie.

At some point we need to find Christie and Margie, too.

Who are they?

The woman that was online in the conference room is Christie. She’s the host for Margie. That’s my police AI.

Oh. We’ll see what we can do, but finding Ernie and shutting down Alex are first priority.

O’Leary was about to say something but decided not to. She had a point and it wasn’t as if he had any idea how to search on his own.

This time they didn’t move along the wall. Instead Rita turned and walked straight into the darkness with Lu and O’Leary straggling along behind. As they moved away from the wall, O’Leary noticed shapes in the darkness. Most of them seemed innocuous enough, but he still couldn’t help feeling the same way he had the first time he’d pulled an all-nighter in the police morgue.

The goose bumps were threatening to push his fedora right off his head when he heard labored breathing off to the right. As Rita turned toward the sound, O’Leary kept hoping it would just be a girl with a candle standing by a doorway. He also hoped that if he lost bladder (or worse, colon) control it would only be online.

They were rounding a shape which reminded him of a headstone when he saw the source of the noise. It was Ernie.

He looked bad. O’Leary had seen people that had been on the wrong end of a Black Friday rush and Ernie looked like a particularly bad specimen. Offline, he would have been a candidate for the EMT’s. Here, O’Leary wasn’t sure what they’d be able to do.

Rita and Lu rushed forward.

Are you all right?

No, but I’ll live. That creature has some new tricks.

Will the plan still work?

I don’t know. I’ve been hiding here hoping you’d find a way in. He tried to shut me down, but it didn’t work, I’m not sure why.

Have you seen Christie or Margie?

Ernie turned to him and grinned painfully. Yes, I have. They are both wonderful women, Detective. You are a very lucky man. If you were Muslim you could marry both of them and be quite happy.

O’Leary thought he heard Lu snickering quietly. Obviously you aren’t as bad off as you look, Ernie. Where are they?

They’re over there. He pointed shakily, and as O’Leary looked up, he saw a dim glow.

OK, I’m going to get them and bring them back.

I do not think that would be wise, Detective. Alex is over there too.

O’Leary skidded to a stop. What do you mean?

Alex is over there. It knows you are here, of course. It saw you with us earlier and when it lost contact with the CB’s that were supposed to be watching you, it started scanning the security system to see if you’d escaped. When it saw you hadn’t left the room, it knew you’d be coming here. That was when I managed to escape. It really doesn’t care what happens to me right now, it’s more concerned with you. It knows you’ll try to save Christie and Margie, so it’s waiting beside them.

Bait.

Yes.

Naturally it can see everything and I can’t, so I have no way of sneaking in — and no weapon either.

I am sorry, Detective. You will just have to wait here.

No, I won’t.

Rita and Lu looked surprised, Ernie did not.

It’s not wise, O’Leary continued, but I can’t do anything else. Sorry to leave you here. Thanks for getting me in, and uh, do what you have to do. If I get burned because of it, that was my choice. But if I want to be able to live with myself, I have to try.

O’Leary didn’t bother sneaking. He had a suspicion that the blackness around him was something that AI’s didn’t have to deal with. To Alex, he was probably this guy walking across a big cluttered room. He just hoped he’d get to Christie and Margie before it used that gun-thing on him again.

A minute or two later he stepped around something that looked vaguely like a large filing cabinet and into another pool of light. Christie and Margie were both seated on the floor, and the man-shape that was Alex was seated nearby.

Chuck!

Mr. O’Leary!

Hi, ladies. Alex. He nodded in the direction of the shape, hoping for some conversation, perhaps even a monologue.

He didn’t get it. Alex simply raised the ‘gun’ and fired. O’Leary didn’t try to dive behind anything this time. Instead he imagined the file cabinet that was behind him had moved between him and Alex. When it appeared, he nearly fainted from surprise.

I didn’t think it would really WORK! Hastily he imagined a few more of the obstacles that he’d spent the last hour walking around and barking his shins on forming a low wall in front of Alex.

Running behind it, he got to Christie and Margie. Let’s go! He grabbed their hands and ran back along the barrier toward the group he’d left.

He had made about two steps when the barrier disappeared and Alex was standing in front of them. Once again it raised the gun shape. O’Leary dove, but not aside. Instead he dove straight toward it. Out of the corners of his eyes he saw Christie and Margie doing the same thing.

The burst of sound from the ‘gun’ roared over his head as he crashed into Alex. He grabbed for the ‘gun’, and found himself clawing empty air as Alex vanished. Looking around hastily he saw they were alone.

Where is it? Do you see it?

Sorry, Chuck, I can only see about twenty feet and then it’s all black.

What about you, Margie?

I don’t see him either, Mr. O’Leary. Just a minute, let me get some light. She reached into her purse and pulled out a large old-fashioned flashlight. She switched it on, and suddenly the whole area lit up.

Off in the distance, O’Leary could see the firewall and, closer in, he saw Rita and Lu huddled over Ernie. Can they see too, Margie?

Um, give me a minute. She fiddled with the beam, and suddenly Rita and Lu looked around in surprise.

Thanks, Margie, I don’t know what you really did, but I appreciate it.

You’re welcome, Mr. O’Leary.

A few minutes later they were back together again.

O’Leary introduced them. This is my AI assistant Margie, she’s responsible for the lighting, and this is Christine Porter.

The host? Rita sounded pitying.

Yes, she is my host. What’s wrong?

It doesn’t work, Margie. The best you can hope for is to end up like Lisa and Zach. The worst is—

What happened to Hassam. Ernie’s voice was weak but steady. The brain isn’t designed to handle two personalities. Eventually one of them dominates and the other just withers away. I would imagine that if Lisa lives long enough she will wither and Zach will be all that’s left.

I see.

Look, O’Leary interrupted, we can worry about that later. And I don’t think we need to make any assumptions. Right now, we have to figure out what to do about Alex.

What happened? Ernie asked.

The three of us attacked it simultaneously and it missed and then disappeared. I think we confused it.

That won’t happen twice.

No, it won’t. So now what? Those ‘weaknesses’ you were referring to, how do we exploit them?

Rita shook her head. It’s not going to be that easy. Ernie here says that the coding has changed. Our assumptions aren’t valid anymore. We’re going to have figure out another way.

Well, there’s always our hole card.

What’s that? Christie asked.

They — O’Leary nodded toward the others — don’t like it much, but we brought the Old Man along... And his equipment.

There was a pause as Christie and Margie digested this. Margie looked faintly scandalized but not nearly as bothered as O’Leary had feared.

So, in other words, we just need to buy time? she asked.

Yeah—

Just then there was another shot. Ernie jumped and fell over. Lu grabbed him and dove behind the pile of rubbish they’d been leaning against. Seconds later all of them were working their way toward each other. It was frustrating: the minute you hid behind something, it had a nasty habit of disappearing. And while they’d all picked up on O’Leary’s trick of imagining more obstacles, it was obvious that all they were doing was delaying the issue.

Margie worked her way over to where O’Leary and Christie were huddled. This isn’t working!

I know! he answered. Got any better ideas?

Yes. I’m going to crash the server. She handed Christie something.

* * *

Proceed to part 6...