Thomas was surprised to find Sam at his house when he arrived home. "Didn't Lattie come?" he asked as he hung up his coat in the closet by the front door.
"She was here." Sam was standing in a pool of lamplight by the door. "I stuck around. Did some work. Played with your grandkid."
"Thanks, Sam." He walked with her into the living room. "Where is Jamie?"
"I wore her out." Sam looked worn out, too, but pleased with herself. "She was feeling rambunctious. So we ran and jumped. It took forever, but finally she fell asleep. Lattie had to go, so I said I would stay until you got home. Didn't you get my message?"
He thought of his talk with Alpha. "I've been in a meeting."
Sam went to the wine cabinet. "Let's have a drink." Then she froze, one hand outstretched. She swung around. "I'm sorry. That was tactless."
"Sam, don't." Thomas wished she and his children wouldn't be so overprotective. "I had a heart attack, not a funeral. It's true, I don't drink much anymore, but you don't have to wear kid gloves around me." He could actually have a little red wine, but he didn't want to argue with her. In debates with Sam, he never won. "Just give me some orange juice."
Amusement flickered on her face. "You must be fine. You're growling like always."
Thomas knew the real reason she had stuck around. "I set it up for you to see Turner Pascal tomorrow morning."
"Good." She seemed fascinated by the juice she was pouring.
"Sam. Talk to me."
She looked up, her face guarded. "About Turner? We just argue."
"About EIs."
"Maybe later, okay?" She offered him the juice, then sat on the couch near the windows that looked over his backyard. The lights of other houses were visible through the trees that bordered his yard.
Thomas settled in his recliner, relieved to rest. He might look like he was only fifty, but after a long day he felt all of his seventy-two years. Not so long ago, a man his age would have retired; in earlier centuries, he would have been white-haired and slowed; in earlier eras, he would have been dead.
"Are you all right?" Sam asked.
"Just tired." He took a swallow of juice. "I wanted to ask you something. How do you tell the difference between an EI like Pascal and an AI like Alpha?"
Her expression tightened. "Damn it, Turner is a man."
Thomas wanted to kick himself. He needed to be more careful in how he spoke about Pascal. He didn't recall ever having seen her like this about someone. No, that wasn't true. She had loved her first husband intensely and had grieved for years after cancer took his life. It seemed she really did love this Pascal fellow.
"I'm sorry if that sounded insensitive," he said. "I'm trying to understand Alpha."
"I thought I wasn't cleared to discuss it."
"I set up the paperwork. You already had clearance; I just needed to put through the okay." He sipped his juice and wished he had a beer. "I could use your expertise, Sam. You're one of the leading EI shrinks alive, and you've seen Alpha in action."
Her face relaxed into the meditative expression she took when she turned her prodigious intellect to a problem. "Alpha's lack of free will may constrain her in ways Charon didn't intend. For one, it limits her ability to solve problems. An AI designed to stay in the box can't find solutions outside of it."
"Free will and creativity aren't the same thing."
"No. But they're connected. The more you can look at how things might be different, the more you can innovate."
"She's capable of modeling scenarios that include free will. She just never goes through with them unless Charon tells her to."
"She needs input." Sam sipped her drink. "She processes language and responds to preset rules. Phenomenally complex rules, yes, but still a set of instructions."
Thomas spoke wryly. "So do we all."
"I suppose." She swirled her juice. "How would I distinguish an AI from an EI, and an EI from a person? AIs mimic human behavior but feel nothing. An EI is aware of itself. It has a will. The visual Turing requires it be indistinguishable from a human being, but that's a dated concept. It only applies to EIs that want to be human. Some may develop intelligences so different from ours, we can't fathom them."
In his more cynical moments, Thomas thought that applied to a good portion of the human race. Still, he understood what she meant. "So you would expect an AI to show less flexibility than an EI in its responses?"
"That's right."
"Then why does Alpha respond to me and no one else?" He rubbed his chin. "It's not as if I'm defined in her command structures."
Sam looked amused. "You and your brilliant tech-mechs haven't figured that one out?"
"Enlighten me," he said dryly.
"You resemble Charon. You're better looking than him, and you have grey hair instead of brown, but the similarities are obvious." She tilted her head, considering him. "You have the same military bearing and build, same height, all those muscles, probably the same weight. You even have a similar voice, deeper than most people. You're also the highest authority she's encountered. That makes you the closest approximation to Charon she has contact with."
It sounded like what Alpha had said. "I'm not sure I like the comparison."
"Oh, you're light-years different from Charon. But I'll bet you evoke him more than anyone else does for her. If she knows Turner deleted Charon from his matrix, that leaves you as the head honcho."
It was true, Alpha had opened up more after he told her Pascal had done the deletion. "But I'm not Charon. She knows that. So why react as if I was?"
"I don't know. I'd have to talk to her."
"Will you?"
She didn't look thrilled. "Last time I met her, she kidnapped me. And you."
He gave a rueful wince. "She won't this time."
She regarded him with her steely gaze. "I'll help you with Alpha if you let me keep seeing Turner."
"All right." Thomas wasn't convinced Pascal was good enough for her, but telling her that would do no good. Instead he added, "Sam, he's running a man's mind on a neural matrix. How can you be sure he isn't simulating affection?"
He expected her to launch into a technical description of human and EI responses. Instead she stared into her glass. "Maybe I can't." She looked up at him. "But he is a man. I can't give you a scientific justification. I just know it's true."
Thomas didn't know how to answer. Although he had studied the development of emotions in AIs in graduate school, he had a much harder time understanding his own moods. In his youth, he had avoided thinking about them. He always stayed in control. Or so he had thought. He had truly believed he managed his anguish over Janice's death, yet after his heart attack, his physician had urged him to stop suppressing his grief and let himself mourn. Nearly dying had spurred Thomas to look at his inability to express what he felt, not only to the people he loved, but to himself. Life was too short to lose time in denials of his feelings or misunderstandings with his family.
He spoke slowly, thinking. "How do we define a human mind? I spend time with Jamie, and I realize how little I can answer that even for the people closest to me."
Sam's face brightened. "That grandkid of yours is amazing. Do you know she can read chapter books?"
He blinked. "What are chapter books?"
"You know. Stories written in chapters. Ones in Leila's room. Madeleine L'Engle, Tamora Pierce, Rebecca Goldstein."
"Jamie can read those?" He didn't remember when Leila had, but three seemed way too young. "Are you sure?"
"She struggles with it, but she read several pages to me. It was impressive."
He grinned. "You think?"
"I don't know for certain," Sam admitted. "I'm no expert with kids. I can actually define it better for EIs."
"She knows some math, too."
"Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. Other stuff. She can read an analog clock. She told me she's been doing it since before 'this' birthday." Sam held up two fingers, illustrating Jamie's gesture. "It's amazing."
He regarded her dourly. "Since when is that an accomplishment? It may be a lost art in your world, Doctor Bryton, but when I was a kid, everyone could tell time on a clock with hands and numbers."
"At two years old?"
That gave him pause. "I don't remember when I learned."
"Maybe it's normal. She seems advanced to me, though."
Even if they weren't certain, it pleased him that her assessment matched his own. It would be no wonder if Jamie was bright; her mother had graduated from Harvard Law School and her father was a world-class mathematician.
"What makes a child like that?" he mused.
"Probably she was born with more neural structures than most people," Sam said. "I'll bet her mind establishes neurological pathways faster, too."
"You make it sound so clinical."
Sam finished her juice and set down her glass. "That's my job, to understand intelligence and translate it into something machines can process. But it pales compared to the miracle of a child learning the world. What I do seems trivial in comparison." She spoke quietly. "Then I think of Alpha or Charon and I wonder if our machines will pass us by before we realize what happened."
"They won't."
"You sound so certain."
"You said it yourself: you consider Turner human. He's what we could all become someday."
An edge came into her voice. "Those who can afford it."
That gave him pause. Were they creating a stratified society where the wealthy could live for centuries, with augmented health and intelligence, while the rest of society was left behind? He abhorred the thought. But it didn't have to be that way.
"That's what we said about computers early on," he pointed out. "Yet now mesh nodes are in everything, our clothes, jewelry, even silverware. They cost almost nothing."
Sam let out a long breath. "The optimist in me envisions the day when our advances will be available to everyone. The cynic believes the rich and powerful will hoard it for themselves."
"Refuse to let that happen. Let the cynic teach vigilance to the optimist."
"Well, we can try," she said. "So you really think our machines will become us?"
Thomas thought of the treatments he had taken. He could delay his aging, but he couldn't stop its inexorable march. As much as he valued his life and health, he could only go so far to keep them. Some people embraced biomech, but even having a doctorate in the related area of AI, he had never been comfortable with the idea of taking those advances within himself.
"For those who choose it," he said. "I can't help but wonder, though, if in reaching for the immortality of forma bodies, we will lose our humanity."
She answered quietly. "I don't know."
"Neither do I." He tried to smile. "Perhaps I'm being dramatic, eh?"
"Perhaps." But Sam didn't look convinced by her own answer.
Pascal was in the same complex as Alpha. Thomas and Sam found him in a sunny room, sprawled in a gold armchair, his legs up on a coffee table, his blond hair tousled. He was reading a holobook. It brought home to Thomas what Sam meant about Pascal being human. He thought like a man. He could download the book into his matrix, but he chose to read instead. His fingers, however, offered a jarring reminder of his differences. They glinted below his cuffs, eight metal digits. His body had other modifications as well, and he was taller, stronger, and faster than before his changes.
Pascal looked up with a start, and his face brightened when he saw Sam. "Hey."
"Hey," Sam said. As he stood up, she went over to him. But they restrained their greetings. Thomas felt like an intrusive third wheel. As much as he disliked leaving her alone with Pascal, however, it was her life.
"Well," he said awkwardly. "I will see you."
"Thank you," Sam murmured.
Pascal nodded stiffly. He and Sam knew they were monitored, but Thomas's departure would give them a semblance of privacy. Earlier today General Chang had decided to release Pascal into Sam's custody. Thomas couldn't tell them, though, until the paperwork was done. He knew Sam would take Pascal to her home in California. She had every right, but it saddened him to think of her leaving. It felt too much like when his sons had moved away. He missed them. He missed Leila, and she lived here. He missed Janice. He wondered why he had bothered extending his life when he had no one to share it with him. Sometimes his solitude weighed so heavily, he felt as if his heart would fail just from loneliness.
"Dance?" Alpha asked, incredulous. "No, Charon didn't dance."
They were sitting by the lake on a fallen log covered with moss. Trees with looped vines hung over them, and they could gaze out under an arch of branches to the shimmering water. Thomas's tennis shoes sank into loamy ground littered with leaves. The smell of damp earth surrounded them, a welcome reminder of the farm where he had grown up. He had worn jeans and a sweater today instead of his uniform, knowing he intended to take Alpha outside. Major Edwards and the orderlies stood among the trees, flashes of white and blue in the chill sunlight.
Alpha bent her leg so she could rest her elbow on her knee. He marveled at the fluid motion. Charon had achieved one of the most challenging goals of biomech construction: motion that appeared human. Designing an android that solved Schrödinger's equation of quantum physics was child's play compared to building one that walked smoothly. Biomech scientists analyzed motion and quantified its nuances. He had long wondered if those wizards who did it best understood it a physical level, perhaps from time in a ball court or dance studio or some other pursuit that honed the body's physical skills.
"Did he do any kind of sports?" Thomas asked.
"Physical training, like in the military," Alpha said. "Why?"
"Your motion is so human. No glitches, nothing unnatural. Pascal doesn't move as well as you do, and he has a human memory of how to deal with his body."
"Charon spent a lot of time analyzing women. How they moved." A muscle twitched under her eye. "What he liked."
The twitch startled Thomas. Was it deliberate? He wanted to believe she felt distaste for the criminal who had died trying to build an army of soulless mercenaries, but he should know better than to keep ascribing human qualities to her.
"You don't like Charon," he said.
"Of course I do." She spoke tonelessly. "He designed me to like him."
"Did you ever want to leave him?"
"No." She stared out at the water. "I have no purpose here."
"Do you want a purpose?"
"I don't want or not want." Her voice had gone flat.
He wondered if an AI could become depressed. She had reason, given her imprisonment. She might even "die" at their hands. Knowing they couldn't let her go didn't make him feel less guilty.
"What do you do to fill your time?" he asked.
"Nothing."
"Do you get bored?"
She watched wild geese sail across the lake. "Boredom is a human trait."
"We could give you a new purpose."
She finally turned to him. "You want my secrets. You want to reprogram me for your use. The ultimate agent, someone who passes as human, but with an enhanced body and the advantages of an EI. Ideal for space warfare. I don't breathe or eat. Microgravity won't bother me. I don't get sick. I can become part of a ship if necessary. It's no wonder your space committee is interested."
"I take it you don't like that."
She fixed him with a cold stare. Or maybe he just interpreted it as icy. "You want what Charon wanted. To use me. Except you want me to care. I don't. He programmed me to carry out certain functions. I will do so until your people take me apart."
Her words chilled him. "I don't want it to come to that."
"You want to reprogram me."
"You would rather continue Charon's programs?"
Her voice tightened. "Maybe I don't really have more orders from him. I'm rotting here while you waste all this energy trying to find out nothing."
"I like talking to you." Until he actually said the words, he hadn't realized it was true.
"Right. A lieutenant general is going spend his valuable time chatting for no payoff. I don't think so." Oddly, her face had become animated. Annoyed, yes, angry and frustrated—but alive.
"I'd like a payoff," Thomas said. "That doesn't mean I don't enjoy the talks."
She studied his face. "Suppose I were to attack?"
Edwards and the orderlies were suddenly there, their approach so swift, Thomas hardly heard them.
"Do you need anything, sir?" Edwards asked.
"Thank you, Major, but no." Thomas motioned them back toward the woods. "You can wait there."
"Yes, sir," Edwards said. They withdrew as quietly as they had appeared, but only a few steps.
Alpha gave a dismissive snort. "I could have killed you before they stopped me."
"You won't."
"Why not?"
"It serves no purpose."
"You trust me?" Her curiosity looked authentic.
"Not exactly." He chose his words carefully. "You said it yourself. You don't want anything. You just exist. Unless Charon programmed you to kill me, I don't see why you would." In her own way, she had a conscience, though Charon had obviously never intended her to develop one. It would interfere with his plans.
"You're a fool," she said, "if you think he didn't program me to seek the death of my captors."
"Killing me won't help you escape. It would have the opposite effect. They would take you apart for certain."
She frowned at him, but she didn't deny his words.
Leaves rustled to Thomas's left. He looked up and saw Edwards escorting Sam over to them.
"Well, look at this," Alpha said. "Little Doctor Bryton."
"Hello, Alpha." Sam spoke coolly and stopped a few paces away. Edwards remained at her side, and Thomas didn't ask him to leave.
"You two mind if I join you?" Sam asked.
Alpha remained silent.
"Please do," Thomas said.
Sam sat on the log on the other side with a couple of feet separating her from Alpha. Major Edwards stood at her side and the orderlies posted themselves behind her. Alpha gazed at the lake.
Sam glanced at Thomas. "I can see why you like it out here." She looked around at the gold-leafed trees interspersed with green pines. "It's lovely."
Alpha ignored her.
"Did you have a good visit with Pascal?" Thomas asked.
"It was great," Sam said. Alpha might as well not have heard them for all the response she showed.
"Well," he said. "Good." The conversation ground to a halt.
They went on like that for a good ten minutes, conversing in fits and starts, trying to draw out Alpha. Nothing worked. She didn't even look at Sam, let alone speak. It seemed she would talk only to Thomas—and he wasn't certain whether that flattered or alarmed him.
"Thomas, you're a lifesaver." Karl's face filled the console screen in Thomas's home office. "I had hoped to get back today, but I won't be able to leave until tomorrow."
Thomas wanted to scowl at his son-in-law. Leila was always dropping her work for her husband, but when her job was on the line, Karl couldn't come through. Or it seemed that way to Thomas. And why the blazes didn't Karl cut his hair? It was so long, it curled over his shirt collar. He looked like a kid, not a tenured professor in his mid-thirties. A good stint in the Air Force would shape him up. Not that Karl would ever go near a uniform.
Karl smiled amiably, oblivious to his father-in-law's thoughts. "How's my Moppet?"
"Jamie's fine." Thomas spoke coolly. "She's been asking for you."
Karl sighed with unrestrained regret. "I wish I could be there. Give her a kiss for me. Tell her I love her and I miss her."
"You could tell her yourself if you called more."
Karl seemed startled. "I'll try earlier tomorrow."
"Karl."
"Yes?"
"Did you know your daughter can read?" If Karl said no, Thomas was going to wring his neck for his lack of participation in his child's life.
"Isn't it amazing?" Karl beamed at him. "She's a brain, eh?"
"That she is," Thomas said, mollified. At least Karl wasn't as distant from Jamie's life as Thomas had been with his children. Maybe that was why Karl irked him; Thomas saw himself in his son-in-law. His daughter was repeating the pattern she knew best, the one she had learned as a child from her own father.
Thomas hesitated. "Karl—"
"Yes?"
"I spent a lot of time away from Leila and the boys when I was making my career. I can't tell you how much I regret that."
Karl blinked at him. After an awkward silence, he said, "I'll be home tomorrow."
Thomas didn't know what else to say, so he nodded. "I will see you then."
"Yes. See you then. Good evening."
"Good evening." On that overly formal note, they signed off. It was so strained, Thomas felt as if he should salute.
Well, you screwed that up, he told himself. He knew Karl was a good husband and father. Thomas wanted his daughter to know only joy, and it was hard to see her struggle with her life. It hurt that he couldn't make everything all right.
Thinking of Jamie, he went upstairs to check on her. Lattie had put a comforter on the bed and frilly curtains on the windows. Jamie was ensconced under the covers, curled up with her stuffed kitten in her arms. She looked so quiet in sleep, so unlike her usual bouncy self.
"Are you an angel?" Thomas murmured.
"I hope so," a dusky voice said. "Because she's coming with us. Insurance for your good behavior."
Thomas whirled around. A tall figure was standing by the open window, half hidden by the billowing curtains. Nothing, however, hid the projectile rifle she had aimed at him.
Alpha.