From Evan: Come on man, we’re waiting for you. Get in here.
The conference room next to my office has become our unofficial war room. Louise, Evan, and Valerie are all seated at the small round table when Lin and I arrive. As usual, Andrea and Marc have opted out. Marc’s not opposed to helping track Jeff down, but he says that taking care of the kids is more important for him right now. I can’t blame him for that, especially with Mrs. Hastings still recovering and needing a lot of help. Andrea is trying to be Switzerland, as if there were actually some way to be neutral about all of this.
“So you’re sure Jeff had an implant?” Louise asks Evan.
“Definitely,” I answer for him, taking my seat. “There was a live control signal along a chained mesh network leading away from the site of the attack. When I first saw the cyclone of death—”
“Cyclone of death?” Louise interrupts.
“Sorry, context,” I say, realizing she hasn’t been clued in on all of the details. “The attack was a spinning construction made of bots reinforced with other materials. Let me sketch it out for you.”
I hit the whiteboard and diagram out Jeff’s monstrosity, labeling and explaining its core, spokes, and spinning edges.
“OK. Cyclone of death, got it,” Louise says, nodding.
“So the cyclone of death was showing adaptive behaviors when I first saw it. It changed course, moved around, and had some eyes networked with it. It realigned itself every time after it hit anything with any significant mass. I’m pretty sure Jeff was actively controlling it at that point. When I cut off the chain of bots networking Jeff to it, it stopped adapting. That’s the only way I think I could have taken it out before it leveled the whole area.”
“OK, so he’s got an implant then,” Louise says. “This isn’t good.”
“You think maybe?” Evan says, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “Yeah, maybe it’s not great that our insane brother who hates us has access to the most powerful technology on the planet.”
“No, not just that,” Louise protests. “I mean, yes, that’s all really bad, but it gets worse. There’s no way he got that thing installed by standard means. The research he stole didn’t include any of the plans for the first two generations of the implant, and the only way to install the gen three implants is with another implant, either one of the gen threes like we have or an earlier version like Father used. There are no manual controls for getting the medical bots into place in the brain without an implant. Even if you rigged something up to control them using another device like one of the VR controllers we licensed to the Brazilians, it takes millions of them to get a functional implant and it would take forever to get it done that way.”
"Are you sure?" Evan asks. "Because it sure looks like he had an implant running."
"Yes, I'm sure. Not even me or Max could do it without my implant."
If Max can’t do it, that makes the list of people that could install the implant even smaller than I thought. Actually, down to just Louise. And I know it wasn’t Louise.
“So what do we not know about that we should? How did he get the implant installed?” I ask, getting nervous.
“You’re not going to like it,” Louise says, her eyes downcast.
“What did you do, Louise?” Evan demands.
“You remember when we were doing the installs and calibrations on all the Geologists? How it took both of us all day every day for months?”
“I remember that,” Evan answers, “Yeah, that was a lot of work.”
“Well,” Louise says, still hanging her head. “I was thinking that it would be really nice to not have to do that on the next class.”
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“You automated it,” I say, realization dawning.
“I wasn’t done with it! And I wasn’t sure it could even work.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” Evan asks. I feel his pulse quickening “If you knew that there was a chance he could have a working implant, why didn’t you tell us?”
Louise hesitates, like she’s afraid to answer.
“Because there’s no way she could do it without violating the Butler Treaty laws,” I interject. Louise nods in confirmation.
“Sorry, I don’t think that I know what those are,” Lin says. “You have special laws just for your family?”
“It’s the set of international laws restricting AI and nanotech,” I explain. “They’re named after our father, who made sure the treaty got passed all around the world. One of the important rules says that you can’t have nanotech connected with adaptive or learning AI systems. It creates a risk of a self-directed, thinking swarm or a Gray Goo event. To automate the implant calibrations, the system would have to be adaptive by definition. It has to adapt to the individual neural signature of the person getting it installed. The brain is way too complicated to just brute force a solution.”
Louise nods again, looking miserable.
“Well, congratulations Louise,” Evan says, his voice thick with anger and disappointment. “Looks like you succeeded. Or at least got it close enough that Jeff could finish the job.”
Valerie puts her hand on Evan’s shoulder, trying to calm him. He shrugs it off and continues.
“You put us in danger, all of us. You put innocent bystanders in danger. You could have gotten Valerie killed today, or Lin, or Noah’s grandparents! All because you didn’t like putting in some work? Are you kidding me? What were you thinking?”
He stands up, his massive figure looming over the table. His voice is so hot with anger now that everyone but Louise flinches back. Louise just looks at him, her face full of guilt. Her mouth opens, but no words come out.
“You broke the only laws in the world that really matter!” Evan thunders on. “The ones that stop the whole planet from getting slagged into a writhing mass of nanobot goo. What the hell were you thinking! Why would you do that? And why the hell didn’t you tell us about it?”
With that, Louise breaks down. Tears stream down her face as she flees from the room. Evan stands there, shaking with anger in front of her empty chair. He’s usually so calm and easygoing. It’s terrifying to see him like this.
“Evan,” Valerie starts, “I—”
He puts a hand up, stopping her. He takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly. And another. And another. Finally he puts his hand down. His racing pulse is starting to drop, he’s calming down.
“Evan,” Valerie says slowly. “I know you’re mad. But the last thing we need now is to be divided.”
He nods, regaining his composure. He sits back down.
“You know it’s not her that you’re mad at, right?” she asks him.
She’s right. Louise should have been more careful, or better yet not done it at all, but Evan’s reaction doesn’t make sense. I can’t tell if his real anger is directed at Jeff, for letting wild bot swarms loose and putting the ones he loves at risk, or at me, for causing the whole Jeff situation in the first place. If it’s me he’s not showing it right now, but I’m sure I’d have to deal with it later. Hopefully it’s Jeff.
“I know,” he says, his countenance changing from anger to shame. “I know.”
“You want to go apologize now, or later?” Valerie asks him.
“Give me a minute,” he says, taking a few more deep breaths.
“Take a minute then, but you need to go talk to her,” Valerie says, standing up from her chair. “You don’t get to treat your sister that way. Not if you still want to be with me. I don’t care what she did. That’s not OK.”
“I know,” he repeats. He hangs his head. “Sorry.”
“I’m not the one you need to say that to,” Valerie says over her shoulder as she leaves the room too.
“I know,” he says again. He gets back to his feet, chastened, and starts heading out.
“Louise is in her room,” I tell him as he goes. “Give her ten minutes or so before you try to talk to her. She’s got something in progress that she won’t want you there for.”
“Thanks,” he says as he hits the door.
My bots normally avoid bedrooms or other places where people have expectations of privacy, but I wanted to keep an eye on Louise after she left. She’s currently taking a scalpel to her forearm, adding another scar to the long row of them starting at her wrist. She’ll heal it with the medical bots. She knows what she’s doing and she’s not suicidal. It’s how she deals with emotional pain, like after we killed Father. As far as I’m aware, I’m the only one she’s ever talked to about it.
I wonder how Evan deals with the pain. He always seemed so confident that killing Father was right and that he had nothing to feel bad about. But Jeff is a different story. He didn’t deserve what we did to him. He was just a convenient means to an end we all wanted. I’m sure part of Evan’s rage and shame is the baggage he’s still carrying over that.
Too bad he hasn’t rewired his brain like I did. At moments like this I don’t miss my sense of guilt at all. I just feel bad that he’s having such a tough time coping.
Mom, help me to help my brother. He needs me.