A night heavy with drizzle had settled over the house in Chevy Chase by the time Thomas arrived home. He unlocked the front door and stepped into the foyer. Relief settled over him and . . . something else. A sense of homecoming? He usually returned to a dark house. Tonight lights glowed in the front room, and he remembered with a sharp pang the days before his wife, Janice, had passed away. All those evenings he had come home to a house full of light, voices, laughter. These past four years, since her death, he had adapted to his solitude, but he missed those days. His three children were grown and Janice was resting in the cemetery, but for a few days he had warmth back, and he discovered that it meant the world to him.
The spacious living room lay straight ahead, the kitchen was to his left, and the hallway on his right went to the family room. The parquetry floors in his house gleamed, and the throw rugs were clean and fluffed. The shades were drawn against the night. It was all fresh and tidy. And empty.
He heard voices, though, a child and a woman. He headed down the hall toward the family room, past the holoscapes of beaches that glowed on the walls, shedding blue and green light as if he were submerged in the ocean.
"Hello?" he called.
"Grampy!" The young voice came with a squeal of delight. A small figure dashed into the hallway and cut a beeline toward him. She was wearing a pink jumpsuit smudged with paint, and her yellow curls flew about her face.
Thomas crouched down so his granddaughter could hurl herself into his embrace. She put her small arms around his neck and hugged him hard. Standing up with her in his arms, he inhaled the scent of fingerpaint and childhood, and savored the joy that came with her.
"Evening, General," a voice said.
Thomas peered around Jamie to see a woman a few paces away. With her plump figure and graying hair, Lattie Douglas looked more like someone's favorite aunt than his housekeeper. It flustered him to realize she had seen him acting sentimental.
He nodded stiffly. "Good evening."
Lattie chuckled. "It's no crime to hug your granddaughter."
Thomas knew he shouldn't feel self-conscious, but he had always been restrained in expressing affection. At the same time, he didn't want Jamie to think she wasn't welcome in his house. His heart attack last year had made him painfully aware of how transient life could be. He could have died with so much left unsaid to the people he loved. Since then, he had tried to be more open with his family.
He bounced Jamie in his arms. "You're a joy to come home to."
She blushed pink and hid her head against his shoulder.
Thomas looked over her head at Lattie. "Thank you for staying. It would have been difficult to bring her with me to the base."
"It wasn't any trouble." With a wry smile, she added, "Maybe you should take her to your war councils. She would tell everyone to be friends. Might do you all good."
Jamie pulled her head back to regard him, and Thomas smiled at her. "All friends?"
"Everybody, Grampy." She put her arms around his neck and tilted her head against his. "Mommy says you make us safe."
Thomas felt his insides melting. He had been the same way with her mother when Leila had been this age. "Always, Moppet."
Lattie came over and patted Jamie on the arm. "Be good now." She nodded briskly to Thomas. "I'll be saying good night, then."
"You're sure you can't come tomorrow?" he asked.
"Sorry, General." She seemed genuinely regretful. "She's a pleasure, and if I'd had a little more notice, I could have rearranged things. But I can't drop my other clients."
"I understand."
"I could later, around three, if that would help."
Relief washed over him. "Yes, that would be good."
"Well. That's settled." She beamed at Jamie, and the girl let go of Thomas long enough to hug Lattie. The housekeeper gave her a kiss and then bustled off, waving at Thomas as she went down the hall.
When they were alone, Thomas stood holding Jamie, at a loss. He wasn't certain what to do, but she seemed content, so perhaps he was managing all right.
"Are you hungry?" he asked.
"Lattie made macaroni 'n' cheese." Concern showed in her large eyes. "You missed it. You need to eat, Grampy."
"I did." He had managed a sandwich between meetings. He set her down, but she looked disappointed, so he offered his hand. She put her small one in his large grip with a trust that bemused him. He couldn't remember being so flustered by his children. Janice had always been there, though, to take care of them. He didn't recall any time like this, when it had just been him and a toddler.
Jamie regarded him with an expectant gaze. So he asked, "What shall we do?"
"We could play with my dolls," she offered.
"I don't think I would be very good at that."
"I know!" Jamie dropped his hand and dashed toward the living room. She spun around and ran back to him. "Play chase."
Laughing, Thomas caught her. "I don't have your energy."
"Let's watch the kitty holo."
He hadn't even known he had holovids of cats. "Did Lattie bring it over?"
"No. I found it." She beamed with the unrestrained pleasure of a three-year-old. "I made it go, too. Lattie couldn't."
"You set up the holoplayer?" Thomas had trouble himself figuring out the blasted thing.
"It's easy." She pulled him into the family room. Her paints were on the table, but someone had put them away and closed up the box. Jamie's attention was on the entertainment center on the far wall, all glossy screens and glowing lights. She drew him over and pushed a blue panel at about her height. The screen above it came to life in a wash of blue.
"Wait a minute." Thomas wasn't sure what she had done. "Did Lattie show you how to work this thing?"
"No." She regarded him patiently. "I show Lattie."
"How did you know?" He had only had this set up for a few weeks.
"Playing." She pressed another panel and a swirl of speckled gold and black lines appeared on the screen. It resembled the op art kids used to draw when he was a boy, with lines so close together, they shimmered. This was a hologram, the template used to project a holographic image. Decades ago, holos had been static because of the difficulty in producing holograms fast enough to portray motion, but nowadays, holo-movies were commonplace. A three-dimensional image appeared in front of the screen, a stylized view of the Pentagon in silhouette.
"Jamie! That's my work file." Thomas poked the blue panel, but the Pentagon stayed. Flustered, he jabbed another panel. The holovid continued, the symbol fading into the image of a jet fighter soaring through the air, an F-14 Tomcat from the twentieth century. The reproduction was so well done that he found himself extending his hand to touch the jet. His fingers went through the image.
"How did you find this?" he asked.
"I looked lots," Jamie explained. "See?" She pointed to the aircraft carrier in the water beneath the Tomcat. "It says 'kitty.' "
Thomas squinted at the image. A glowing caption labeled the carrier as the Kitty Hawk.
"Cats don't like birds," Jamie told him. "They eat them."
Thomas smiled at his granddaughter. "Did Lattie tell you what that said?"
"I read it."
That couldn't be right. "But you're only three."
She held up four fingers. "And four months."
"Good Lord." He indicated the screen. "Can you turn it off?"
Her smile faded. "You don't like the kitty-bird?"
"I like it a lot. But you shouldn't play with my files." The report contained nothing classified, or he wouldn't have brought it home, but the footage of wars in the Middle East might upset her.
"Mommy says to share toys," Jamie admonished.
"Not this one, Moppet. It's from your grandpa's work."
"Oh." With obvious disappointment, she pressed more panels. The holos faded and the screen went dark.
Thomas took her hand. "Come sit with me."
Her face brightened. "'Kay."
He was pretty certain that meant "okay." He took her to a couch along the wall. The room was agreeable and pristine, with its oak paneling, ivory rug, and gold furniture, but it seemed strangely sterile. He hadn't noticed before. His family room no longer had a sense of being lived in the way it had when his wife and children had filled the place with noise and mess and sparkle.
They sat together on the couch and Jamie snuggled against him, oblivious to the fact that most of the Air Force thought of him as an iron man.
"Will Mommy come home tonight?" Jamie asked.
"Not tonight." Thomas awkwardly put his arm around her. His uniform crinkled, and he took care not to let the ribbons on his chest catch her clothes or jab her. She closed her eyes and settled against him as if that were perfectly natural.
He wondered about her learning ability. Perhaps the Kitty Hawk thing had been a fluke. "Jamie?"
"Hmm?"
"Can you count?"
She yawned. "One, two, three, four." Opening her eyes, she looked up at him. "It would take infinity time to reach a thousand."
"That long, huh?"
She nodded solemnly. "Even longer."
"Do you know what infinity means?"
"Big number."
"How big?"
She held out her arms. "Bigger than the biggest anything."
Her ability to converse surprised him. She sounded older than three. Then again, he had no experiences with three-year-olds except his own children, and that was decades ago.
"How high can you count?" Jamie asked.
"Higher than a thousand."
Her eyes became wide. "Really?"
He grinned. "Really."
"You're smart, Grampy."
"Why, thank you."
Her look turned cagey, but with such innocence, he wanted to laugh. "'Kay, Grampy. What is four times six?"
That she even knew about "times" startled him. "What do you think, Moppet?"
"Twenty-four!" Her smile was sunlight glancing off a lake.
Good Lord. She could multiply. "What else can you do?"
"I like fractions."
"You do?"
She nodded vigorously, her curls bouncing. "One half plus one half equals one."
"That's right." He ruffled her hair. "Jamie, have your parents ever had you tested?"
"Tested?"
"Did they ever take you to someone who asked you questions about math and words?"
"No."
"They should." He pulled her into his lap. "Lovely, brilliant, and charming. You're going to break hearts when you get older."
"Never, Grampy!" She looked contrite. "I already broke the lamp when I jumped on the couch. Daddy was mad."
"We'll just make sure no lamps are around."
Jamie yawned again. "Can we watch a holovid?"
"I think you need to go to sleep, young lady."
"But you just come home."
"I'll be here tomorrow." Thomas stood up, lifting her in his arms. "Come on, Einstein. You need your rest."
He expected her to protest more, but she just leaned her head on his shoulder. He suspected he had let her stay up past her bedtime. As he carried her to the guest room Lattie had prepared, Thomas pondered his granddaughter. He didn't know enough about childhood development to judge if she really was precocious or his impressions were just grandfatherly pride. Had Leila or the boys known multiplication and fractions at that age? He had been gone so much back then. He regretted it more now than he would have ever guessed in the fiery days of his youth.
His memories of his own childhood weren't much help, either. As a boy, he had never been able to concentrate. He had managed to get by in school because he found the work easy, but he had been forever bedeviling his teachers with his inability to sit still. It wasn't until high school that a counselor realized he had ADHD, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. She called him "twice exceptional"; all he knew was that he finally had a name for his restlessness. His parents helped him manage the ADHD with changes in his diet rather than medication, but for him, going into the military had been the real answer. The structure, the routine, and the order had helped him take control of his life.
As an adult, Thomas had partially grown out of the ADHD and learned to control the rest. Neither Leila nor his oldest child, Thomas Jr., had shown any sign of it. Fletcher, his younger son, had inherited the restless Wharington bug, but they caught it early. With a close watch on his diet and school counselors who understood his needs, Fletcher had managed far better than his father. It was too soon to tell with Jamie, but he sincerely hoped she inherited only the "exceptional" part of her grandpa's line without his learning disability.
He tucked the drowsy child into bed and read Cinderella until she nodded off hugging her stuffed cat. Watching her sleep, he realized he was glad Leila had needed his help. It was worth his clumsy uncertainty with children to have this time with Jamie. He liked his work, but these moments were what made life worthwhile.
The voice of C.J. Matheson came over the comm on Thomas's desk. "Senator Bartley on line one."
"Got it." Thomas switched channels, then sat back in his leather chair and swiveled to face the window, which looked over the gleaming building and quiet streets of the NIA.
An expansive voice with a Southern drawl came out of the mesh. "Good morning, Thomas."
Thomas swiveled back to his desk. "You're up early."
"Damn straight," the senator said. "We have to talk about your guest."
Alpha, again. Bartley was on the Committee for Space Warfare Research and Development, which technically had nothing to do with Alpha. But they oversaw work that included the development of formas with Evolving Intelligences, or EI brains. The term EI had come into use for the rare codes that achieved sentience, as distinguished from run-of-the-mill AIs, which were neither self-aware nor mentally flexible. Only a handful of EIs existed. A few were in consoles or robots; a smaller number had android bodies. No one yet knew why one code became an EI and another didn't. None of the scientists working with Alpha believed she was self-aware; they considered her an AI. But Thomas wasn't so certain.
"The line's secured," Thomas said.
"You have to quit this 'debriefing' shit," Bartley told him. "When are you going to let the mech-techs take apart her brain?"
Thomas stiffened. Bartley might as well urge him to execute Alpha. "We have no idea what would be lost."
"Lose what? You've got zilch in the hay from her so far."
"That's not a reason to burn the haystack."
"You need to take apart her matrix," Bartley said. "Find out what's inside of it. Kayle and Sarowsky agree with me."
Thomas inwardly swore. Bartley had just named the other two senators who knew about Alpha. Unless Thomas headed them off, Sarowsky would keep pushing, even as far as the President if he considered the need drastic. Fred Kayle's inability to acknowledge that Alpha was anything but an inanimate object chilled Thomas. Yes, she was a machine. But great differences existed between a typical robot and a system as complex as Alpha, who might be on the verge of sentience. As far as Thomas was concerned, dismantling her matrix was tantamount to killing her.
"Taking her apart could destroy what we're looking for," Thomas said.
"The ol' quantum mechanics trick, eh?" Bartley laughed loudly at his joke. Just in case Thomas missed the point, he added, "The act of looking at something changes it." The humor vanished from his voice. "Except in this case it's bullshit."
"And if it's not?" Thomas asked.
"We're not getting diddly from her, anyway. You have any luck downloading her memory?"
"We're making progress," Thomas said, which was stretching the truth to breaking, given their lack of success. It was hard to crack a system that was itself actively opposing them. Alpha's "brain" was a matrix of filaments tangled throughout her body. It had two components: spherical buckyball molecules that acted as tiny biochips; and molecular threads that encoded data and transmitted signals. To copy her mind, either they had to convince her to transmit the data herself, which seemed as likely as the proverbial snowball surviving in hell, or else they had to remove the filaments and replicate their structure—which required taking her apart at a molecular level.
"What progress?" Bartley said.
"She's talking more," Thomas replied.
"Talk is no good."
"It's better than trying to synthesize the molecular structure of her filaments."
"Why?" Bartley demanded. "Yes, we'll lose data that way. But better half her mind than nothing at all."
Thomas was growing angry. "Her mind is more than data. I won't destroy one of the most sophisticated android-AI combinations ever created because of impatience. We need time."
"Destroy, hell. You'll back it up, right?" Bartley snorted. "We're not talking about a woman, Wharington. I don't care what she looks like, she's a machine."
Thomas wondered if he was losing track of that himself. By her own admission, she was neither self-directed nor capable of emotion. But he wasn't so certain her claims weren't defenses raised by a prisoner who could neither escape nor defend herself. It was true, they could copy as much of her mind as they could recover. They might even make another android body, if they could get funding. But it felt wrong.
"It isn't that easy to back up an AI," Thomas said. "Her brain consists of millions of microscopic threads. We not only have to get them out intact, we have to reproduce their structure. No matter how careful we are, we won't end up with exact matches. At best, we'll have flawed, incomplete copies."
"It's better than nothing."
"We have something. Alpha."
"Alpha isn't talking." Bartley's voice had lost some of its certainty, though.
"Give me time to work with her," Thomas said. "See if I can break her defenses. She reacts to me more than anyone else."
Bartley gave a crude laugh. "She likes you, eh, Wharington?"
Thomas scowled, more annoyed then he should have been. "She's a machine, remember? She's incapable of 'liking.' "
"So why does she respond to you, hmmm?"
"I don't know."
Bartley exhaled noisily. "I'll wait a week."
"Three weeks."
"Hell, Wharington, might as well be three years."
Thomas waited.
"Two weeks," Bartley said.
Thomas suspected that was all he would get. "All right. Two."
"Good luck," Bartley said. "With that barracuda, you're going to need it."
Jamie was in the office of Thomas's second in command, Brigadier General C.J. Matheson. When Thomas came out, after his talk with Bartley, he found his granddaughter in the small chair he had brought in this morning, one he had dug out of the basement at home. Matheson had set up an empty packing crate as a desk for her, and she was busy coloring in a NIA notebook. The guards had given it to her while Thomas was getting her visitor's badge processed. Now she wore her holobadge on a silver chain around her neck. She normally didn't stay put for long, but she had been out here nearly twenty minutes, apparently bemused enough by her coloring and her surroundings that she wasn't fidgeting.
Matheson was working at his desk. He served as the conduit to Thomas from the heads of divisions within the agency. Thomas had asked for him in this position and considered Matheson one of his best officers. They had become friends as they realized how much they had in common. Both had grown up in the rural Midwest, Thomas in Iowa and C.J. in Kentucky, each the oldest son of a farmer. Thomas's father hadn't liked it when Thomas chose the Air Force Academy instead of a local university, but he seemed proud of his son. Matheson had gone to the University of Kentucky on an ROTC scholarship, which delighted his family. His interest in computer science bewildered them, but they beamed when he talked about his work. Thomas enjoyed his visits with C.J.'s family, and his parents welcomed Matheson into their home.
"Hey, C.J.," Thomas said.
Matheson looked up at him. "How is the senator this morning?"
Thomas grimaced. "Same as always. In a hurry."
Jamie jumped out of her chair and ran over to him. "Grampy, look!" She held up her notebook, showing him a page.
"Ah." He peered at the picture she had drawn, a black object and some grey triangles. "That's very nice."
"It's kitty hawk," she explained.
If he looked hard enough, Thomas could see a cat with wings flying over mountains. "Well, good job. Good job." He wasn't certain what to say, but she seemed satisfied with his response.
Straightening up, Thomas found Matheson smiling. As soon as he saw Thomas looking at him, Matheson hid his grin.
Self-conscious, Thomas said, "Thanks for keeping an eye on her."
"No trouble at all," Matheson said.
Jamie reached up and took Thomas's hand. Then she waved at Matheson. "Bye."
C.J. smiled at her. "Have a good morning, Miss Harrows."
Thomas felt conspicuous walking through the halls of the NIA with a three-year-old, but Jamie was clearly enjoying herself. Soon they were out in the bright November afternoon, and she ran through the chilly sunlight, laughing and twirling. Striding after her, Thomas managed to catch her before she went any place off-limits. Then he took her to the security trailer. They entered it through a Hughes Arch, which checked them for radiation, extra metal or plastic, and any signals that shouldn't come from a human body. This morning, Jamie had been so excited about the base, talking about everything, she had barely noticed the arch. But now she started to fidget.
"I want to go," she said.
"We have to wait until it's done," Thomas told her.
"Go now!" She stamped her foot.
Thomas picked her up and settled her into the crook of his arm. "Don't you want to know about the ghost?"
Her eyes widened. "What ghost?"
He motioned at the arch with its glinting lights. "This was named after a mysterious man called Hughes."
"Was he the ghost?"
"Maybe." The arches took their name from one of the most enduring urban legends of the past thirty years. "Hughes was a mesh genius. Do you know what that means?" When she shook her head, he said, "He was one of the smartest computer people in the world."
"Like infinity smart?" she asked.
Thomas smiled. "Even that much. They say he haunts meshes. He can uncover secrets no matter how well anyone hides them." He suspected the tales had originated in a real person, maybe an inventor or security specialist. If Hughes existed, no one had seen him for decades. The rare sightings were always discredited. Eventually "Hughes" became a catchword among mech-techs for unusually innovative security.
"He sees everything," Thomas confided.
"Is he here?" Her eyes got even bigger. "Is he watching us?"
Thomas tickled her chin. "Well, Moppet, your Grandpa is in charge of this place. And I don't let anybody hide in my arches when you're here. Not even mesh-myth guys."
She dimpled at him. "You made up that story."
He tried to look convincing. "It's true."
"Mommy says myths are made up. Like dragons in the sky."
"You don't believe in dragons?"
"You mean you don't know?" She was clearly pleased to have information he lacked. "They're pretend."
"What about Santa Claus? He flies through the sky." If Jamie didn't believe in Santa Claus, he would have to have a serious talk with Leila and Karl.
"That's different," Jamie said. "Reindeer pull his sleigh."
"Ah. I see. So that's how he flies."
"That's right."
Thomas laughed and hugged her. "I'm glad to know that."
A courteous voice said, "Scan complete. You may go through."
"Is that the ghost?" Jamie asked nervously. She didn't sound so convinced it wasn't real.
"No ghosts here," Thomas promised. "I check every day."
"I'm not scared of ghosts," she stated. But when he set her on her feet, she stayed close to him.
As they entered the security trailer, Jamie looked around with unconcealed fascination. A woman in a uniform came up to them. She was smiling in the same way as Matheson had been, as if seeing the director with a little girl was the highlight of her day. Thomas wished they would quit looking so amused. It hardly made him feel dignified.
"Hello, sir," she said.
Thomas glanced at her name tag. "Good afternoon, Sergeant Gonzales." To Jamie, he said, "She'll take your visitor's badge."
Jamie solemnly pulled the chain over her head and gave it to Gonzales. "Thank you, ma'am," she said in a perfect imitation of the voice Leila used when she was teaching Jamie manners. Thinking back to his own mother's attempts to do the same with him, Thomas winced. Perhaps little girls were easier to civilize than little boys.
Gonzales smiled at Jamie. "Thank you, young lady."
Jamie beamed, clearly pleased to have completed the transaction properly.
After Thomas signed the register, he and Jamie walked outside. Jamie said, "That lady had a gun."
"She's a guard," Thomas said. "She protects this place."
"Do bad people want to come here?"
He led her into the parking lot. "They might."
"Why?"
He wasn't certain how to explain national security in terms she would understand. "It's complicated."
"Like the lady with the funny name?"
"The guard?" He wouldn't have expected Jamie to read the badge, but after what she had said last night, he couldn't be sure.
"Not the guard lady," she said. "The Alpha lady."
Thomas froze. Then he picked her up and carried her to the reserved pad where he parked his hover car.
Jamie spoke uncertainly. "Did I say a bad thing?"
"No, not at all." He opened the back door of his car and set her in the child seat. As he strapped her into the contraption, she watched with deep concern.
Thomas sat next to her. "How did you hear about Alpha?" He would have Matheson's hide if he was talking about secured matters in front of a child.
"No." She shook her head and her curls bounced around her cheeks. "You told the man who laughs."
"What man?"
"The man inside your desk."
"My desk?"
"Barl?"
"You mean Bartley?"
"Yes." She brightened. "That was his name."
A chill went up his spine. She couldn't have heard the senator. That line was secured, besides which, it was impossible for someone in Matheson's office to hear anything in Thomas's office. "How did you hear him?"
"I don't know. But you talked about Alpha."
"God almighty," he muttered. "How could security be that bad?"
"I'm sorry, Grampy." Jamie looked confused. "Don't be mad."
"I'm not." He patted her arm. "You helped me. You're my special agent."
Relief poured across her face. "Can I be a general, too?"
Thomas laughed softly. "Maybe someday."
"Where do we go now?"
"My friend Sam is going to look after you for a few hours."
Jamie regarded him warily. "Is he nice?"
"She." Thomas smiled at her look of doubt. "And she's very nice. I've known her since she was your size. Her father and I were friends."
"Oh." She sat considering that information. "'Kay."
"I'm glad you approve."
He got into the front seat and put the car on the traffic grid. As it took them to Route 32, he contacted security at the base and set up an investigation into what Jamie had told him.
It made no sense. Conversation couldn't travel through those walls. She couldn't have heard him.
How had she done it?