The Turing Option Read online

  Brian pulled on the handle, fell backward. But the bullet was faster. At the close range through his arm and into his head. The door closed.

  “Get him out!” a hoarse voice shouted.

  “The door’s locked itself—but he’s dead. I saw the bullet smash into his head.”

  Rohart had just parked his car and was getting out and closing the door when his car phone buzzed. He picked it up and switched it on. He heard a voice but could not understand the words because of the overwhelming roar of a copter’s rotor blades. He looked up in astonishment, blinking in the glare of its spotlight as the chopper settled out of the sky onto his front lawn. When the pilot slacked off the power he could make out some of what was being shouted into his ear.

  “ … at once … incredible … emergency!”

  “I can’t hear you—there’s a damn chopper just landed and digging up my lawn!”

  “Take it! Get in … come at once.”

  The spotlight switched off and he saw the black and white markings of a police helicopter. The door opened and someone waved him over. Rohart had not become Managing Director of Megalobe by being dim or slow on the uptake. He threw the telephone back into his car, bent over and ran toward the waiting machine. He stumbled on the step and hard hands dragged him in. They were airborne even before the door was closed.

  “What in blazes is happening here?”

  “Don’t know,” the policeman said as he helped him to belt in. “All I know is that all hell broke loose over at your place. There is a three-state alarm out, the Feds have been called in. Every available unit and chopper we have is on the way there now.”

  “Explosion, fire—what?”

  “No details. The pilot and I were monitoring traffic on Freeway 8 over by Pine Valley when I got the call to pick you up and take you to Megalobe.”

  “Can you call in and find out what is happening?”

  “Negative—every circuit is tied up. But we’re almost there, you can see the lights now. We’ll have you on the ground inside sixty seconds.”

  As they dropped down toward the helipad Rohart looked for damage, could see none. But the normally empty grounds were now a seething ant’s nest of activity. Police cars everywhere, helicopters on the ground and circling outside with their spotlights searching the area. A fire engine was pulled up before the main laboratory building but he could see no flames. A group of men were waiting by the helipad; as soon as they touched down he threw the door open and jumped to the ground, bent and ran toward them, the downdraft of the rotors flapping his clothing. There were uniformed police officers here, other men not in uniform but wearing badges. The only one he knew was Jesus Cordoba, the night supervisor.

  “It’s incredible, impossible!” Cordoba shouted over the receding roar of the chopper.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ll show you. Nobody knows how or what really happened yet. I’ll show you.”

  Rohart had his next shock when they ran up the steps of the laboratory building. The lights were out, the security cameras dark, the always sealed doors gaping open. A policeman with a battery lamp waved them forward, led the way down the hall. “This is the way I found it when we got here,” Cordoba said. “Nothing has been touched yet. I—I just don’t know how it happened. Everything was quiet, nothing unusual that I could tell from where I was in Security Control Central. Guard reports were coming in on time. I was keeping my attention on the lab buildings because a late party was in there with Mr. Beckworth. That was all—just like normal. Then it changed.” Cordoba’s face was running with sweat and he brushed at it with his sleeve, scarcely aware of it. “It all blew at once. It seemed every alarm went off, the guards were gone, even the dogs. Not every alarm, not on the other buildings. Just the perimeter alarms and the lab building. One second it was quiet—the next it looked like that. I don’t know.”

  “Have you talked to Benicoff?”

  “He called me when the alarm went through to him. He’s on the plane now from D.C.”

  Rohart went quickly down the hall, through the doors that should have been shut. “This was the way it was when we got here,” one of the police officers said. “Lights out, all the doors open, no one here. It looks like some of this stuff has been broken. And more, in here, it looks like, and equipment, computers too, I imagine—there are a lot of disconnected cables. It looks like a lot of heavy stuff was dragged out of here in a big hurry.”

  The Managing Director looked around at the emptiness, remembered the last time he had been here, at this spot.

  “Brian Delaney! This is the lab, where he works. His equipment, experiments—they’re all gone! Get on your radio at once! Get some officers to his home. Make sure that they are heavily armed, or whatever you do, because the people who did this will be going there too.”

  “Sergeant! Over here!” one of the policemen shouted. “I’ve found something!”

  “There,” he said, pointing. “That’s fresh blood on the tiles, right in front of the door.”

  “And on the jamb of the door as well,” the Sergeant said. He turned to Rohart. “What is this thing? A safe of some kind?”

  “Sort of. Backup records are stored in it.” He pulled out his wallet. “I have the combination here.”

  His fingers shook as he worked the combination, turned and pulled the handles, threw open the door. Brian’s body, soaked with blood, slumped forward at his feet.

  “Get the medics!” the Sergeant roared, pushing his fingers into the sticky blood of the man’s throat, feeling for a pulse, trying not to look at the ruined skull.

  “I don’t know, can’t tell—yes!, he’s still alive! Where’s those paramedics?”

  Rohart stepped aside to let them by, could only blink at the shouting organized confusion of the medical teams. He recognized the intravenous drips, the emergency aid, little else. He waited in silence until Brian had been hurried out to the waiting ambulance and the remaining medic was repacking his bag.

  “Is he going to be—can you tell me anything?”

  The man shook his head gloomily, snapped the bag shut and rose. “He’s still alive, barely. Shot in the back, bounced off his ribs, nothing serious. But the second bullet, it went through his arm, then … there has been massive destruction in the brain, trauma, bone fragments. All I could do was add paravene to the IV solution. It reduces the extent of injury in brain trauma cases, reduces the cerebral metabolic rate so cells don’t die quickly of anoxia. If he lives, well, he will probably never gain consciousness. It’s too early to tell anything more than that. He’s going by helicopter now to a hospital in San Diego.”

  “I’m looking for a Mr. Rohart,” a policeman said, coming into the room.

  “Over here.”

  “I was told to tell you that your tip was right. Only too late. The premises in question, the property of a Mr. Delaney. It was cleared out completely a couple of hours ago. A rental van was spotted at the scene. We’re trying to track it. The investigating officer said to tell you all the computers, files and records were gone.”

  “Thank you, thank you for telling me.” Rohart clamped his lips shut, aware of the tremor in his voice. Cordoba was still there, listening.

  “Delaney was working on an artificial intelligence project,” he said.

  “The AI project. And he had it—we had it. A machine with almost human abilities.”

  “And now?”

  “Someone else has it. Someone ruthless. Smart and ruthless. To plan a thing like this and get away with it. They have it.”

  “But they’ll be found. They can’t get away with it.”

  “Of course they can. They are not going to make the theft public. Or announce their new AI tomorrow. It will happen—but not right away. Don’t forget that a number of research people are working on AI. You’ll see, it will happen one day, apparently and logically, with no relation to what happened tonight, and there will be nothing that can be proved. Some other company will have AI. And as certai
n as that is—it is equally certain that it won’t be Megalobe. As far as anyone will be able to tell, Brian died and his work died with him.”

  Cordoba had a sudden, ghastly thought. “Why does it have to be another company? Who else is interested in artificial intelligence?”

  “Who indeed! Only every other country on the face of the globe. Wouldn’t the Japanese just love to get their hands on real, working AI? Or the Germans, Iranians—or anyone.”

  “What about the Russians—or anyone else trying a power play? I don’t think I would like to see an invading army of tanks driven by machine intelligences without fear or fatigue, attacking nonstop. Or torpedoes and mines with eyes and brains that just bob up and down in the ocean until our ships go by.”

  Rohart shook his head. “That kind of worry is out of date. Tanks and torpedoes aren’t what count anymore. The new name of the game is productivity. With real AI a country could run rings around us, put us in the economic poorhouse.”

  He looked around with distaste at the ruined laboratory.

  “They have it now, whoever they are.”

  2

  February 9, 2023

  The Learjet was flying at 47,000 feet, well above the seething cumulus clouds. Even at this altitude there was still the occasional clear air turbulence, reminder of the storm below. There was only a single passenger, a solidly built man in his late forties, working steadily through a sheaf of reports.

  Benicoff stopped reading long enough to take a swig from his glass of beer. He saw that the receive light on his E-fax was blinking as more messages poured in over the phone link and were stored in memory. Benicoff displayed them on the screen as fast as they arrived, until the exact extent of the disaster at the Megalobe laboratories was made all too clear. The light blinked as more messages arrived but he ignored them. The basic facts were fantastic and terrible beyond belief—and there was nothing he could do about the matter until he got to California. Therefore he went to sleep.

  Anyone else in his position would have stayed up all night, worrying and working on possible solutions. That was not Alfred J. Benicoff’s way. He was a man of immense practicality. Worrying now would just be a waste of time. Not only that, he could certainly use the rest, since the future promised to be an exceedingly busy one. He settled the pillow behind his head, let down the back of his seat, closed his eyes and was asleep at once. As the muscles in his tanned face relaxed, the lines of tension eased and he looked even younger than his fifty years. He was a tall, solid man just beginning to add a thickness to his waist that no amount of dieting could take away. He had played football when he was at Yale, line, and had managed to keep in condition ever since. He needed to be in this job where sleep was sometimes at a premium.

  Benicoff’s official title was Assistant to the Commissioner of DARPA, but this was a courtesy title with little real meaning, basically a front for his work. In practice he was the top scientific troubleshooter in the country—and reported directly to the President.

  Benicoff was called on when research projects got into trouble. To prepare himself for the worst, he made it his job to check on work in progress whenever possible. He visited Megalobe as often as he could because of the extensive research being done there. But that was partly an excuse. Brian’s research was what fascinated him the most and he had come to know and like the young scientist. That was why he took this attack personally.

  He woke with the whining thud of the landing gear locking into place. It was just dawn and the rising sun sent red shafts of light through the windows when they turned in their final approach to the runway of the Megalobe airport. Benicoff quickly displayed and ran through the batch of E-fax messages that had come through while he slept; there were updates but no really new information.

  Rohart was waiting for him as he came down the steps, haggard and unshaven; it had been a very long night. Benicoff shook his hand and smiled.

  “You look like hell, Kyle.”

  “I feel a lot worse. Do you realize that we have no leads at all, all the AI research gone—”

  “How is Brian?”

  “Alive, that’s all I know. Once he was stabilized and on life support the medevac chopper took him to San Diego. He’s been in the operating room all night.”

  “Let’s get some coffee while you tell me about it.”

  They went into the executive dining room and helped themselves to the black Mexican roast coffee; Rohart gulped some down before he spoke. “There was quite a flap at the hospital when they discovered the extent of Brian’s injuries. They even sent a copter out for a top surgeon, someone named Snaresbrook.”

  “Dr. Erin Snaresbrook. The last I knew she was doing research at Scripps in La Jolla. Can you get a message through for her to contact me when she gets out of the O.R.?”

  Rohart took the phone out of his pocket and passed the message to his office. “I’m afraid I don’t know her.”

  “You should. She’s a Lasker Award laureate in medicine, neuropsychology, and perhaps the best brain surgeon in this country. And if you check the records you will find out that Brian has been working with her on some of his research. I don’t know any of the details, I just saw it in the last report filed with my office.”

  “If she’s that good, then do you think that …?”

  “If anyone can save Brian then Snaresbrook can. I hope. Brian was a witness to what happened. If he lives, if he regains consciousness, he may be our only lead. Because as of this moment there are absolutely no other clues as to how this incredible affair was carried out.”

  “We know part of what happened. I didn’t want to E-fax you the security details on an open line.” Rohart passed over a photograph. “That’s all that is left of what must have been a computer. Melted down by thermite.”

  “Where was it?”

  “Buried behind the control building. The engineers say that it was wired into the alarm circuitry. The device was undoubtedly programmed to send false video and alarm circuitry information to Security Central.”

  Benicoff nodded grimly. “Very neat. All that the operators at Central ever know is what is shown on the screen and readouts. The whole world could come to an end outside—but as long as the screen showed recordings of the moon and stars—along with sound recordings of coyotes—the watch officer wouldn’t be aware of anything outside. But what about the foot patrols, the dogs?”

  “We haven’t a clue there either. They’re gone—”

  “Just like the equipment—and everyone, except Brian, who was in the lab. There has been one hell of an incredible breach of security here. Which we will go into but not now. The barn door is wide open and your AI is gone …”

  The phone buzzed and he picked it up.

  “Benicoff speaking. Tell me.” He listened briefly. “All right. Call back every twenty minutes or so. I don’t want her to leave without talking to me. That is urgent.” He folded the phone. “Dr. Snaresbrook is still in the operating room. In a few minutes I want you to take me to the lab. I want to see the entire thing for myself. But first tell me about these stock purchases in Japan. How does this relate to the theft?”

  “It’s the timing. Those sales could have been arranged to keep J.J. in his office until the lab had shut for the night.”

  “A long shot—but I’ll look into it. We’ll get over there now—but before you do that, I want to know exactly who is in charge.”

  Rohart’s eyebrows lifted. “I’m afraid that I don’t understand.”

  “Think. Your Chairman, your top scientist and your head of security have all vanished. Either they have gone over to the enemy—whoever that is—or they are dead …”

  “You don’t think—”

  “But I do think—and you had better too. This firm and all of its research have been badly compromised. We know that the AI is gone—but what else? I am going to initiate a complete security check of all the files and records. But before I do I ask the question again. Who is in charge?”

  “I guess t
he buck stops with me,” Rohart said with very little pleasure. “As Managing Director I appear to be the top official left.”

  “That is correct. Now, do you feel that you are able to keep Megalobe operating, manage the entire firm by yourself and at the same time conduct the in-depth investigation that is called for?”

  Rohart sipped at his coffee before he answered, searching Benicoff’s face for some clue and finding nothing there. “You want me to say it, don’t you? That while I can keep Megalobe operational I have no experience in the kind of investigation that is called for here, that I am out of my depth.”

  “I don’t want you to say a thing that you do not think is true.” Benicoff’s voice was flat, dispassionate. Rohart smiled grimly.

  “Message received. You are more than a bit of a bastard—but you’re right. Will you conduct the investigation? This is a formal request.”

  “Good. I wanted it to be completely clear where the line of demarcation lies.”

  “You’re in charge, right? What do you want me to do next?”

  “Run the company. Period. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  Rohart sighed and slumped back in his chair. “I’m glad that you are here—and I mean that.”

  “Good. Now let’s get over to the lab.”

  The door to the laboratory building was closed now—and protected by a large, grim man who wore a jacket despite the dry warmth of the morning. “ID,” he said, unmoving in the entrance. He checked Rohart’s identification, then glowered suspiciously at Benicoff when he reached into his pocket, grunted reluctant approval when he looked at the ID holograph and he saw who it was.

  “Second door down there, sir. He’s waiting for you. You’re to be alone.”

  “Who?”

  “That’s all the message I have, sir,” the FBI man said stolidly.

  “You don’t need me,” Rohart said. “And I have plenty that needs doing in the office.”

  “Right.” Benicoff walked quickly to the door, knocked then opened it and went in.

  “No names while the door is open. Get in and close it,” the man behind the desk said.