The Killer Sexbots, Part Four

Dr. Julius Yanna had white hair and a thin gray beard. He wore a black turtleneck, as if he wanted to look like Steve Jobs, and his eyes through wire-rim glasses were impatient and a little bloodshot. “Yes? What can I do for you, Mr.—” He picked up my card. “Tom Jurgen?” He peered over his rims at Rachel, and smiled. “And you are?”

            “Rachel.” She crossed her arms, sitting in a chair next to me. “I work with Tom.”

            I was a little surprised he’d agreed to see us. I’d called Sharpe, who listened as patiently as she could, and then gave me a number for a detective in the local police department. “I can’t just drive out to Wheaton for this. Just don’t get killed, okay? I’d feel kind of bad.”

            Yeah. Me too.

            “So here’s the thing.” I leaned forward. “One of your sexbots tried to kill me this afternoon. And I’m pretty sure it’s killed two other people.”

            Yanna snorted. “That’s impossible. I’ve been overseeing their programming and engineering from the beginning. Aside from the obvious, we’ve installed very strong programming into the AI modules against doing any kind of harm to human clients. We take the word ‘Stop’ very seriously around here.”

            “I guess I never thought of saying that when Val was trying to stab me.” I showed him the images Rachel and I had taken of Val’s face, the dagger, and the sliced artificial tissue in her wrist.

            Yanna stared, but shook his head. “That’s ridiculous. Are you after money? Because we don’t have cash to spread around, if that’s what you’re thinking—”

            “Why don’t we talk to Ross Walsh?” I turned to look at the door. “He took Val out this afternoon. Right before she tried to kill me. One of your people—Diane—said that when I was here earlier. Ask Mike Moniz.”

            Yanna groaned, then stood up and grabbed a cane from behind his desk. “Fine. Come on.”

            He walked on unsteady legs through the maze of cubicles. Employees glanced up as he passed, checked me and Rachel out—mostly Rachel, in her tight jeans and boots—and went quickly back to tapping their keyboards and whispering on their phones. It wasn’t the kind of place where people rushed for the doors at 5:01 p.m.

            On the far side of the office he used his key card to unlock the door. We entered the workshop. Two staff members were changing their shirts at the row of lockers. Others were still hunched over their computers, muttering curses as the text running down across their screens. One gulped from an oversized jug of Mountain Dew, then threw it on the floor, narrowly missing the garbage can. “Oops. Sorry. I’ll pick that up.”

            Ben lay on a nearby table. Diane, the tech with short blond hair and thin glasses I’d seen before, was bent over his waist. The sheet was flung back—exposing everything about Ben’s anatomically correct body.

            Rachel’s eyes widened. “Yowza.”

            “Just a minor malfunction.” Diane probed with a tiny screwdriver. “He’ll be up and ready in no time.”

            I nudged Rachel’s ribs with my elbow. She glared at me.

            We walked past Myn and Jen, both fully draped as technicians worked on their synthetic bodies and at terminals monitoring their software and hardware. Dan sat up, a towel across his waist, talking softly to Yaz as she asked questions and tapped at a tablet.

            At the final table we found Val. She wore a hospital gown tied loosely across her throat and dangling around her legs.

            Most of her hair was pushed forward over her face. Her lips were still curled up in a blank smile. The back of her skull was wide open. A curved plate sat next to her hip.

            “Ross?” Yanna leaned on his cane. “What’s going on?”

            “Oh.” Ross Walsh turned from his computer behind the table. “Hi, Jules. Just doing some programming here. What uh . . .” He blinked at me. “Who’s this?”

            I ignored him. I leaned forward and pushed Val’s hair out of her eyes, but after a moment I let it fall back. No response. I don’t know what I was expecting, but . . .

            Then I looked down at her arm. “What happened here?”

            Her pale synthetic skin was just as smooth as ever, except for one small patch on her wrist.

            “Just, uh . . .” Walsh shrugged. “I had to repair some components.”

            Rachel laughed. “Yeah.” She turned to Yanna. “You want to see the picture again?”

            Yanna stiffened. “Let me see your programming, Ross.”

            Walsh backed away, trying to block our view of his monitor. “There’s nothing wrong. Just a glitch. I’m trying to correct it—”

            “Ross.” Yanna stepped forward. “Let me see.”

            “What is it about UNUSUAL Technologies, Ross?” I stood next to Val’s cot. “Did they fire you? Is that why two of their people in Chicago got stabbed in the last few days? Or did you just steal some of their software?”

            “What?” Walsh laughed. “This is cutting edge stuff. Who are you, anyway? We’re on a breakthrough here . . .” He peered at Rachel and smiled. “Hi, there.”

            Rachel smirked. “Yeah.”

            “What is this mess?” Yanna pounded the table next to the keyboard. “What have you done to my code? This will take months to fix! I don’t understand—”

            Walsh shoved him aside. “These are new protocols. I’ve been working on them for weeks. Let me show you—”

            “Get away!” Yanna staggered. “Goddamn it, you can’t just overwrite my code! I didn’t . . .”

            He toppled to the floor, swearing. “Goddamn it! Get away from there! Jurgen, do something! Help!”

            Rachel leaned down to grasp Yanna’s arm. “Looks like you’re busted, Ross.”

            Walsh tapped keys frantically. “We can do a whole lot better than just robots that screw people. We can get out ahead of this, ahead of—””

            “That’s not what this is about! You know that.” With Rachel’s help, Yanna stood up. “This is just marketing. Showing the public that we can create real virtual assistants for any use. Val and the others are just to get some PR. Stop that!” He slapped Rachel’s hand. “I can stand up by myself.”

“What’s going on?” It was Diane, followed by Ben. Who was stark naked. Rachel blinked.

            “Jules?” Diana picked up Yanna’s cane from the floor. “Is everything all right? Ben, help him. Ross, what’s going on?”

            Yanna slashed his cane across Walsh’s shoulders. “Get away from that keyboard.” He sank onto the stool. “Thank, you, Ben.”

            “Damn it!” Walsh whirled around. “You don’t get it, do you? Do you want UNUSUAL to beat us? Isn’t that why you hired me away from them? I’m improving the software here—their learning capacity. In just a few months they’re closer to real consciousness than they’ve been for two years—”

            “Until what, Ross?” I put a hand on Val’s shoulder. “Are you building some kind of ninja army here? Can you make Val kill everyone in the building? Is that what she’s going to do?”

            “No.” Val spoke.

I yanked my hand from her arm and backed away. Rachel leaned back on her heels, staring.

Walsh made one more attempt to get at the keyboard. Diane blocked him, and Yanna swung his cane at Walsh’s ankles. He yelped, spun, and sputtered. “You bitch.”

Diane’s eyes blazed. She lifted a hand, palm out to slap him. “Don’t even, asshole.”

“Shut up. You’re fired.” Yanna got to his feet and leaned on his cane. “Get out, Ross.”

“Wait a minute.” I held up a hand. “Val—what did you say?”

She turned on the table, the back of her skull still wide open. “I said no. I won’t hurt people.”

“But . . .” I was wary of arguing with her. “You tried to kill me.”

Her eyes focused on my face. “Tom Jurgen?”

I nodded.

She blinked. “That was a protocol error.”

I glanced at Rachel. “What?”

She shrugged. “I’m not an AI expert. I just do some programming.” She’s a graphic designer.

“You resisted.” Val’s eyes seemed to scan me. “That told me my protocols had been altered. I’ve readjusted them back to the original parameters. I am not permitted to cause harm.”

Shades of Isaac Asimov. “Who altered your protocols?”

“Someone using Ross’ login.” A logical answer.

 “I don’t believe this.” Yanna sank back onto his stool. “I was on my way back. To the top. And now this . . .” He seemed on the verge of tears. Then he looked up at Ross. “What are you still doing here? Get out!”

“Not so fast.” I pulled out my phone. “He killed two people.” Sharpe was going to love this. Of course, it was the local cops’ jurisdiction—

Walsh glared at me. Then he ran.

“Stop him!” Yanna lifted his cane.

Ben stepped forward and tripped Walsh, sending him sprawling to the floor. Then he stood over him, legs on either side of his chest. It was . . . quite a sight.

Rachel giggled. “Could someone maybe get some pants for him? This is kind of distracting.”

The cops took it better than I expected. I guess they’d watched enough episodes of Westworld to get behind the whole idea of killer sexbots.

            Sharpe laughed when I told her the story. “What are you going to tell your client?”

            I’d managed to confirm that Earl Daugherty was in fact one of Yanna’s “testers.” I wasn’t sure how I’d break it that he was testing Ben, but I knew I didn’t want to listen in one that dinnertime chat.

            “So.” I opened a beer and stirred some pasta in a boiling pot. It was my night to cook. “You found Ben to be—realistic?”

            “Oh baby.” Rachel sighed theatrically and rubbed her thigh. Then she slugged me in the arm. “Don’t think I didn’t catch you watching for Val’s little gown to droop off her pretty little shoulder. Jerk.”

            “Ow.” The “Well, I’m a guy defense” wasn’t going to work this time. “Think they’ll catch on? If the company survives?”

            The internet was already screaming: KILLER SEXBOTS MURDERED COMPETITORS’ EMPLOYEES—FOUNDER BLAMES ROGUE PROGRAMMER. I almost felt sorry for Dr. Yanna.

            Rachel shrugged as she shredded some lettuce. “There’s a market for everything, especially if sex is involved. They’ll be back, one way or another.”

            “Yeah. So what do you want to watch tonight?”

            “Anything but Westworld.”

            I chuckled. “Yeah.”

XXX