Chapter 10
brODIE AND TAYLOR DEPARTED THE morgue with Colonel Howe and Sergeant Mendez, rejoining Captain Spencer and Caroline Dixon. They all walked down an asphalt road that led toward the eastern end of the camp.
The sky was blue and cloudless, and the desert sun hung low over the northern hills. The temperature had dropped to something pleasant, and Brodie checked his watch: five-thirty. They should have called Dombroski by now. Not that they could report anything to him anyway.
Dixon walked with Brodie and Taylor as the two officers and the NCO took the lead. Taylor asked her, “What more can you tell us about Major Ames?”
Dixon thought a moment. “He was an intense sort of guy. And a bit of a lone wolf.”
Taylor asked, “He didn’t play well with others?”
“I wouldn’t say that. But he didn’t exactly lean on his team either. He was a brilliant mind but not a particularly good leader, which was supposed to be part of his role at the lab as the senior officer.”
Brodie asked, “Were you aware of his drug use?”
“No. But I wasn’t surprised when I learned about it. I knew he’d do night drives out into the desert. There was something… spiritual about him. At least, for a scientist.”
Brodie said, “Please explain.”
Dixon slowed her pace, and they fell back a little more from Howe, Spencer, and Mendez. “Can I be frank with you?”
Taylor looked at her. “That’s the only way we’ll have it, Ms. Dixon.”
“Caroline.”
“Maggie.” She nodded toward Brodie. “I call him a lot of names, but you can use Scott.”
Dixon smiled. This was nice. They were all on a first-name basis now, which was a way to build trust, or to soften someone up before you fed them bullshit.
Dixon said, “Roger was a computer scientist, not an engineer. He was very focused on advances in AI and, to be honest, disappointed with the lack of focus on that aspect of the D-17s. They are marvels of mechanical and electrical engineering, but they don’t have a lot of cognitive sophistication.
That’s by design, and it’s all part of a roadmap.
But Roger felt hemmed in. He wanted to push things further.
One time he told me he believed that human consciousness could be synthetically replicated.
It was simply a matter of the right programming and computational power. ”
Taylor asked, “And what do you think of that?”
“I don’t have time to think of that, Maggie.
I like to dream big too, but we have a job to do here.
” She hesitated, then added, “Roger was ambitious, and he was impatient, and he was unorthodox. And I just can’t help but wonder if he didn’t engage in some extracurricular activities once he was alone in the lab. ”
Taylor said, “You are implying he caused his own death.”
Dixon appeared uncomfortable with that characterization.
“I’m not trying to lay blame. And if he did meddle with Number 20’s programming, then he somehow left no trace of it, either on his computer or within the unit’s processor.
It doesn’t make any sense, and I can’t explain it.
But if I’m being honest, I can imagine him doing something like that.
Exploiting the opportunity presented by the bot’s malfunction to be alone in the lab with it, to… push the envelope.”
They walked in silence, and Brodie realized just how handicapped he and Taylor were on this case.
If a criminal or negligent act had been committed here, it had happened at the level of computer code—a realm where Scott Brodie was deaf, dumb, and blind, and his intuition didn’t serve him.
But he had to remind himself that investigations all have the same ingredients, as different as they might look on the outside.
He and Taylor needed to focus on motive—and Caroline Dixon had just given them one for the murder victim himself—as well as opportunity.
Only four people worked in the DEVCOM lab, and one of them was dead.
The other three, as far as he knew, were the only people on this base capable of reprogramming the D-17s.
So if this was a homicide, and someone had installed a few lines of killer code into Bucky’s processor, then Caroline Dixon was on a very short list of possible suspects.
He thought of Lieutenant Mike Lehner, the only member of the DEVCOM team they had yet to meet. He asked, “Where is Lieutenant Lehner?”
Dixon replied, “He’s probably following orders, which means he’s home.”
“How would you describe him?”
“Smart. Hardworking. The kind of person you want on your team. Ames and Spencer were computer scientists. Lehner is the robotics guy and is our liaison with Synotec for any questions or issues about how the D-17s were constructed, engineering choices made, parts used, et cetera.”
“Is he proficient in computer programming?”
She nodded. “Much more than the average person, much less than me, Ames, or Spencer.”
“What was his relationship with Major Ames?”
“Deferential. He admired him and respected the chain of command.”
“And how would you describe his attitude toward the work you were all doing here?”
“Like a kid getting the keys to the toy store. This is the ultimate assignment for a guy like him.”
“And a woman like you,” said Taylor.
Dixon looked at her. “Arthur C. Clarke said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. But I’m the magician. For me this is just another day at the office.”
Caroline Dixon obviously thought a lot of herself. But Brodie suspected her shtick was hiding something—or defending against something. He just needed to figure out what. He said, “Magic implies illusion. A misdirect.”
Dixon nodded. “And you’ve both fallen for it multiple times.” She looked at Brodie. “We built a weapon that mimics a man. Because of that mimicry, you’ve both assigned agency, intelligence, and inner consciousness to a machine that possesses none of those things.”
Brodie looked her in the eyes. “Are you calling us suckers, Caroline?”
She smiled. “No, Scott. I’m calling you human.”
Up ahead, Howe, Spencer, and Mendez stopped at a long, narrow single-story concrete building with a flat roof.
A Ranger with an EMP-equipped rifle stood outside a steel door, and parked nearby was a white Military Police sedan.
Brodie noticed metal bars over a small window on the far end of the building.
Taylor asked, “They’re keeping the robot in the brig?”
Dixon replied, “Just another part of the illusion.”
The Ranger on sentry, a Black corporal in his early twenties named Powell, saluted Howe and Spencer, then unlocked the steel door and swung it open.
They all walked into a room with a drop ceiling and fluorescent lighting.
In the middle of the room stood a metal table with two bottles of water, two notepads and pens, and three metal chairs.
At the far side of the room was another steel door, which was guarded by a young MP with a holstered sidearm, a specialist whose name tape identified him as “Kemp.”
Colonel Howe gestured to the table. “Agents, please have a seat.”
Brodie and Taylor sat on one side of the table, facing the door that evidently led to the holding cell.
Howe said to Powell, “At the ready, Corporal.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Powell took a few steps closer to the holding cell door and raised his EMP rifle.
Howe said to Brodie and Taylor, “I don’t anticipate an issue, but in light of what happened we are exercising extreme caution.”
Brodie said, “Good idea.” He felt his SIG Sauer M18 pistol in the pancake holster beneath his suit jacket, and it occurred to him that he was completely unequipped to provide for his own safety against the real threats at this place.
He eyed Corporal Powell’s EMP barrel attachment and wondered if it, like the D-17s, was a prototype—and whether it was also prone to malfunction.
Sergeant Mendez said to the specialist by the cell door, “Bring it in, Kemp.”
“Yes, Sergeant.” Kemp unlocked the door, swung it open, and said in a commanding voice, “Walk forward and sit in the chair directly ahead of you.”
The MP stepped aside, and Brodie could see into the holding cell. There was a cot against the wall, but he couldn’t see anything else through the doorway.
Then he heard shuffling feet, and the jangle and drag of chains. A tall figure appeared in the doorway and ducked its head as it walked through the open door. Taylor gasped.
It was a D-17, towering over every human in the room. Its arms were in front of it, with manacles on its wrists connected by a heavy foot-long chain. Another set of chained manacles looped around its ankles.
The robot shuffled into the room. Its movements were uncannily human. It took small, careful steps, so as not to lose its balance from the short chain connecting its lower legs.
Its many servo motors and hydraulics were surprisingly silent, and the only sounds were of its metallic footsteps and the dragging chain.
Its bucket-shaped head with the single black slit looked straight ahead and above where Brodie and Taylor were sitting.
Corporal Powell kept his rifle trained on the robot and followed it as it walked.
Brodie eyed the chains and manacles. The MPs could have just as soon strapped this thing to a gurney and wheeled it in. But cuffing it, holding it in the brig, making it walk in chains… it was oddly humanizing. Just another part of the illusion.
The robot approached the table, still not looking at them, and Brodie spotted the numeral 20 etched on its breastplate.
It clutched the back of the chair with both of its manacled hands, slid it away from the table slowly, then eased itself down onto the chair.
It tilted its head down slightly, fixing its sensors on Brodie and Taylor.
Brodie said, “Hello.”
The robot did not respond.
“What is your name?”