The Turing Option

1 Ocotillo Wells, California February 8, 2023

J. J. Beckworth, the Chairman of Megalobe Industries, was disturbed, though years of control prevented any outward display of his inner concern. He was not worried, not afraid; just disturbed. He turned about in his chair to look at the spectacular desert sunset. The red sky behind the San Ysidro mountain range to the west threw russet light upon the Santa Rosa Mountains that stretched along the northern horizon. The evening shadows of the ocotillo and cactus painted long lines on the gray sands of the desert before him. Normally the stark beauty of this soothed and relaxed him; not today. The gentle ping of the intercom cut through his thoughts.

“What is it?” he said. The machine recognized his voice and turned itself on. His secretary spoke.

“Dr. McCrory is here and would like to speak with you.”

J. J. Beckworth hesitated, knowing what Bill McCrory wanted, and was tempted to keep him waiting. No, better to put him in the picture.

“Send him in.”

The door hummed and McCrory entered, strode the length of the big room, soundlessly, his footsteps muffled by the deep-pile, pure wool Youghal carpet. He was a wiry, angular man, looking thin as a rail beside the stocky, solid form of the Chairman. He did not wear a jacket and his tie was loose around his neck; there was a good deal of informality at the upper levels of Megalobe. But he was wearing a vest, the pockets filled with the pens and pencils so essential for any engineer.

“Sorry to bother you, J.J.” He twisted his fingers together nervously, not wanting to reprimand the Chairman of the company. “But the demonstration is ready.”

“I know, Bill, and I’m sorry to keep you waiting. But something has come up and I can’t get away for the moment.”

“Any delay will cause difficulties with security.”

“Of which I am well aware.” J. J. Beckworth let none of his irritation show; he never did with those below him in the corporate pecking order. Perhaps McCrory did not realize that the Chairman had personally supervised the design and construction of all the security arrangements of this establishment. He smoothed his silk Sulka tie for a moment, his cold silence a reprimand in itself. “But we will just have to wait. There has been a sudden and exceedingly large spurt of buying on the New York exchange. Just before it closed.”

“Our stock, sir?”

“Ours. Tokyo is still open, they have twenty-four-hour trading now, and the same thing seems to be happening there. It makes no financial sense at all. Five of the largest and most powerful electronic corporations in this country founded this company. They control Megalobe absolutely. By law a certain amount of stock must be traded, but there can be no possibility of a takeover bid.”

“Then what could be happening?”

“I wish I knew. Reports from our brokers will be coming in soon. We can get down to your lab then. What is it that you want me to see?”

Bill McCrory smiled nervously. “I think we had better let Brian explain it to you. He says it is the important breakthrough he has been waiting for. I’m afraid that I don’t understand what it is myself. A lot of this artificial intelligence stuff is beyond me. Communications is my field.”

J. J. Beckworth nodded understandingly. Many things were happening now in this research center that had not been allowed for in the original plan. Megalobe had originally been founded for a single purpose; to catch up and hopefully pass the Japanese with HDTV research. High-definition television, which started with a wider screen and well over a thousand scan lines. The United States had almost missed the boat on this one. Only the belated recognition of foreign dominance in the worldwide television market had brought the Megalobe founding corporations and the Pentagon together — but only after the Attorney General had looked the other way while Congress had changed the antitrust laws to make possible this new kind of industrial consortium. As early as the 1980s the Defense Department — or rather one of its very few technically competent departments, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — had identified HDTV not only as an important tool in future warfare but as being vital for industrial progress in future technologies. So even after the years of reduced budgets DARPA had managed to come up with the needed research money.

Once the funding decisions had been made, with utmost speed all the forces of modern technology had been assembled on a barren site in the California Desert. Where before there had only been arid sand — and a few small fruit farms irrigated by subsurface water — there was now a large and modern research center. A number of new and exciting projects had been undertaken, J. J. Beckworth knew, but he was vague about the details of some of them. As Chairman he had other, more urgent responsibilities — with six different bosses to answer to. The red blink of his telephone light cut through his thoughts.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Mura, our Japanese broker, is on the line.”

“Put him on.” He turned to the image on the screen before him. “Good afternoon, Mura-san.”

“To you as well, Mr. J. J. Beckworth. I am sorry to disturb you at this late hour.”

“It is always my pleasure to hear from you.” Beckworth controlled his impatience. This was the only way to deal with the Japanese. The formalities had to be covered first. “And surely you would not be calling me now if the matter was of no importance.”

“The importance must be assigned by your illustrious self. As a simple employee I can only report that the spate of buying of Megalobe shares has been reversed. The latest figures are on their way to me now. I expect them on my desk… momentarily.”

For the smallest instant the image on the screen stilled, the lips did not move. This was the first indication that Mura was actually speaking in Japanese, his words swiftly translated into English — while the movement of his face and lips were simulated by the computer to match the words. He turned and was handed a piece of paper, smiled as he read it.

“The news is very good. It indicates that the price has fallen back to its previous level.”

J. J. Beckworth rubbed his jaw. “Any idea of what it was all about?”

“I regretfully report complete ignorance. Other than the fact that the party or parties responsible have lost something close to a million dollars.”

“Interesting. My thanks for your help and I look forward to your report.”

J. J. Beckworth touched the phone disconnect button and the voxfax machine behind him instantly sprang to life, humming lightly as it disgorged the printed record of their conversation. His words were in black, while Mura’s were in red for instant identification. The translation system had been programmed well, and as he glanced through it he saw no more than the usual number of errors. His secretary would file this voxfax record for immediate use. The Megalobe staff translator would later verify the correctness of the translation the computer had made.

“What is it all about?” Bill McCrory asked, puzzled. He was a whiz at electronics, but found the arcane lore of the stock market a complete mystery.

J. J. Beckworth shrugged. “Don’t know — may never know. Perhaps it was some high-flying broker out for a quick profit, or a big bank changing its mind. In any case it is not important — now. I think we can see what your resident genius has come up with. Brian, you said his name was?”

“Brian Delaney, sir. But I’ll have to phone first, it’s getting late.” It was dark outside; the first stars were appearing and the office lights had automatically come on.

Beckworth nodded agreement and pointed to the telephone on the table across the room. While the engineer made his call, J. J. punched his appointment book up on the screen and cleared away his work for the day, then checked the engagements for tomorrow. It was going to be a busy one — just like every other day — and he pushed his memory watch against the terminal. The screen said WAIT and an instant later read FINISHED as it downloaded his next day’s appointments into the watch. That was that.

Every evening at this time, before he left, he usually had a fifteen-year-old Glenmorangie Scotch malt whisky. He glanced in the direction of the hidden bar and smiled slightly. Not quite yet. It would wait.

Bill McCrory pressed the mute button on the phone before he spoke. “Excuse me, J. J., but the labs are closed. It’s going to take a few minutes to set up our visit.”

“That’s perfectly fine,” Beckworth said — and meant it. There had been a number of good reasons for building the research center here in the desert. Lack of pollution and low humidity had been two considerations — but the sheer emptiness of the desert had been much more important. Security had been a primary consideration. As far back as the 1940s, when industrial espionage had been in its infancy, unscrupulous corporations had discovered that it was far easier to steal another company’s secrets than spend the time, energy — and money — developing something for oneself. With the growth of computer technology and electronic surveillance, industrial espionage had been one of the really big growth industries. The first and biggest problem that Megalobe had faced was the secure construction of this new facility. This meant that as soon as the few farms and empty desert had been purchased for the site, an impenetrable fence was built around the entire area. Not really a fence — and not really impenetrable, nothing could be. It was a series of fences and walls that were topped with razor wire and hung with detectors — detectors buried in the ground as well — and blanketed by holographic change detectors, the surface sprinkled with strain gauges, vibration sensors and other devices. It established a perimeter that said “No go!” Next to impossible to penetrate, but if any person or device did get through, why then lights, cameras, dogs — and armed guards were certain to be waiting.

Even after this had been completed, construction of the building had not begun until every existing wire, cable and drainpipe had been dug up, examined, then discarded. One surprising find was a prehistoric Yuman Indian burial site. Construction had been delayed while this had been carefully excavated by archaeologists and turned over to the Yuman and Shoshonean Indian museum in San Diego. Then, and only then, had the carefully supervised construction begun. Most of the buildings had been prefabricated on closely guarded and controlled locations. Sealed electronically, examined, then sealed again. After being trucked to the site in locked containers the entire inspection process had been done yet one more time. J. J. Beckworth had personally supervised this part of the construction. Without the absolutely best security the entire operation would have been rendered useless.

Bill McCrory looked up nervously from the phone. “I’m sorry, J.J., but the time locks have been activated. It’s going to take a half an hour at least to arrange a visit. We could put it off until tomorrow.”

“Not possible.” He punched up the next day’s appointments on his watch. “My schedule is full, including lunch in the office, and I have a flight out at four. It’s now or never. Get Toth. Tell him to arrange it.”

“He may be gone by now.”

“Not him. First in and last out.”

Arpad Toth was head of security. More than that, he had supervised the implementation of all the security measures; these seemed to be his only interest in life. While McCrory made the call J.J. decided that the time had come. He opened the drinks cabinet and poured out three fingers of the malt whisky. He added the same amount of uncarbonated Malvern water — no ice of course! — sipped and sighed gratefully.

“Help yourself, Bill. Toth was in, wasn’t he?”

“I will, thank you, just some Ballygowan water. Not only was he in but he will be supervising the visit personally.”

“He has to do that. In fact, both he and I together have to encode an after-hours entry. And if either of us punches in a wrong number, accidentally or deliberately, all hell breaks loose.”

“I never realized that security was so tight.”

“That’s good. You’re not supposed to. Everyone who enters those labs is monitored ten ways from Sunday. Exactly at five o’clock the doors are sealed tighter than the bank vaults in Fort Knox. After that time it’s still easy to get out, since scientists are prone to work late, or even all night. You must have done that yourself. Now you are going to find out that it is next to impossible to get back in. You’ll see what I mean when Toth gets here.”

This would be a good chance to catch the satellite news. J.J. touched the controls on his desk. The wallpaper — and the painting — on the far wall disappeared to be replaced by the news service logo. The sixteen-thousand-line high-resolution TV that had been developed in the laboratories here was sensationally realistic and so successful that it had captured a large share of the world TV, Virtual Reality and computer workstation market.

This screen contained tens of millions of microscopic mechanical shutters, a product of the developing science of nanotechnology. The definition and color of Beckworth’s screen were so good that, to date, no one had noticed that the wallpaper and picture were just digital images — until he had turned them off. He sipped his drink and watched the news.

And that was all that he watched — and only those news items he was interested in. No sports, commercials, no cutesy animals or pop-singer scandals. The TV’s computer sought out and recorded, in order of priority, just those reports that he wanted. International finance, stock market report, television shares, currency exchange rates, only news related to commercial relations. All of this done continuously, upgraded instantly, twenty-four hours a day.

When the head of security arrived the wallpaper and painting reappeared and they finished their drinks. Arpad Toth’s iron-gray hair was still as close-cropped as it had been during all the years he had been a marine D.I. On that traumatic day when he had finally been forcefully retired from the Marine Corps he had gone right over to the CIA — who had welcomed him with open arms. A number of years had passed after that, as well as a number of covert operations, before he had a major difference of opinion with his new employers. It had taken all of J.J.’s industrial clout, helped by the firm’s military connections, to find out what the ruckus had been about. The report had been destroyed as soon as J.J. had read it. But what had stuck in his memory was the fact that the CIA had felt that a plan presented to them by Toth was entirely too ruthless! And this was just before the operations arm of the CIA had been abandoned, when many of their activities had an air of desperation about them. Megalobe had quickly made him a most generous offer to head security for the planned project; he had been with them ever since. His face was wrinkled, his gray hair thinning — but he had not an ounce of fat on his hard-muscled body. It was unthinkable to ask his age or suggest retirement. He entered the office silently, then stood to attention. His face was set in a permanent scowl; no one had ever seen him smile.

“Ready when you are, sir.”

“Good. Let’s get started. I don’t want this to take all night.” J. J. Beckworth turned his back when he spoke — there was no need for anyone to know that he kept the security key in a special compartment in his belt buckle — men strode across the office to the steel panel set in the wall. It opened when he turned the key and a red light began blinking inside. He had five seconds to punch in his code. Only when the light had turned green did he wave Toth over. J.J. replaced the key in its hiding place while the security chief entered his own code, his fingers moving unseen inside the electronic control box. As soon as he had done this, and closed the panel again, the telephone rang.

J.J. verbally confirmed the arrangements with Security Control Central. He hung up and started for the door.

“The computer is processing the order,” J.J. said. “In ten minutes it will make entry codes available at the outer laboratory terminal. We will then have a one-minute window of access before the entire operation is automatically canceled. Let’s go.”

If the security arrangements were invisible during the day this certainly was not true at night. In the short walk from the office block to the laboratory building they encountered two guards on patrol — both with vicious-looking dogs on strained leashes. The area was brilliantly lit, while TV cameras turned and followed them as they walked through the grounds. Another guard, his Uzi submachine gun ready, was waiting outside the lab doors. Although the guard knew them all, including his own boss, he had to see their personal IDs before he unlocked the security box. J.J. waited patiently until the light inside turned green. He entered the correct code, then pressed his thumb to the pressure plate. The computer checked his thumbprint as well. Toth repeated this procedure, then in response to the computer’s query, punched in the number of visitors.

“Computer needs your thumbprint too, Dr. McCrory.”

Only after this had been done did the motors hum in the frame and the door clicked open.

“I’ll take you as far as the laboratory,” Toth said, “but I’m not cleared for entry at this time. Call me on the red phone when you are ready to leave.”

The laboratory was brilliantly lit. Visible through the armor-glass door was a thin, nervous man in his early twenties. He ran his fingers anxiously through his unruly red hair as he waited.

“He looks a little young for this level of responsibility,” J. J. Beckworth said.

“He is young — but you must realize that he finished college before he was sixteen years old,” Bill McCrory said. “And had his doctorate by the time he was nineteen. If you have never seen a genius before you are looking at one now. Our headhunters followed his career very closely, but he was a loner with no corporate interest, turned down all of our offers.”

“Then how come he is working for us now?”

“He overstretched himself. This kind of research is both expensive and time-consuming. When his personal assets began to run out we approached him with a contract that would benefit both parties. At first he refused — in the end he had no choice.”

Both visitors had to identify themselves at another security station before the last door opened. Toth stepped aside as they went in; the computer counted the visitors carefully. They entered and heard the door close and lock behind them. J. J. Beckworth took the lead, knowing that the easier he made this meeting, the faster he would get results. He extended his hand and shook Brian’s firmly.

“This is a great pleasure, Brian. I just wish we could have met sooner. I have heard nothing but good news about the work you have been doing. You have my congratulations — and my thanks for taking the time to show me what you have done.”

Brian’s white Irish skin turned red at his unexpected praise. He was not used to it. Nor was he versed enough in the world of business to realize that the Chairman was deliberately turning on the charm. Deliberate or not, it had the desired result. He was more at ease now, eager to answer and explain. J.J. nodded and smiled.

“I have been told that you have had an important breakthrough. Is that true?”

“Absolutely! You could say that this is it — the end of ten years’ work. Or rather the beginning of the end. There will be plenty of development to come.”

“I was given to understand that it has something to do with artificial intelligence.”

“Yes, indeed. I think that we have some real AI, at last.”

“Hold your horses, young man. I thought that AI had been around for decades?”

“Certainly. There have been some pretty smart programs written and used that have been called AI. But what I have here is something far more advanced — with abilities that promise to rival those of the human mind.” He hesitated. “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t mean to lecture. But how acquainted are you with the work in this field?”

“To be perfectly frank, I know nothing at all. And the name is J.J., if you don’t mind.”

“Yes, sir — J.J. Then if you will come with me I will bring you up to date a little bit.”

He led the way to an impressive array of apparatus that filled an entire laboratory bench. “This is not my work, it’s a project that Dr. Goldblum has under way. But it makes a perfect introduction to AI. The hardware isn’t much, it’s an old Macintosh SE/60 with a Motorola 68050 CPU and a data-base coprocessor that increases its execution speed by a factor of 100. The software itself is based on an updated version of a classic Self-Learning Expert System for renal analysis.”

“Just hold it there, son! I don’t know what a renal is. I know a little about Expert Systems, but what was it you said — a Self-Learning Expert System? You are going to have to go back and start at square A if you don’t want to lose me.”

Brian had to smile at this. “Sorry. You’re right, I better go back to the beginning. Renal refers to kidney functions. And Expert Systems, as you know, are knowledge-based programs for computers. What we call computer hardware is the machinery that just sits there. Turn off the electricity switch and all you have are a lot of expensive paperweights. Turn it on and the computer has just enough built-in programming to test itself to see if it is working all right, then it prepares to load in its instructions. These computer instructions are called software. These are the programs that you put in to tell the hardware what to do and how to do it. If you load in a word processing program you can then use the computer to write a book. Or if you load a bookkeeping program the same computer will do high-speed accountancy.”

J.J. nodded. “I’m with you so far.”

“The old, first-generation programs for Expert Systems could each do only one sort of thing, and one thing only — such as to play chess, or diagnose kidney disease, or design a computer circuit. But each of those programs would do the same thing over and over again, even if the results of doing so were unsatisfactory. Expert Programs were the first step along the road to AI, artificial intelligence, because they do think — in a very simple and stereotyped manner. The self-learning programs were the next step. And I think my new learning-learning type of program will be the next big step, because it can do so much more without breaking down and getting confused.”

“Give me an example.”

“Do you have a languaphone and a voxfax in your office?”

“Of course.”

“Then there are two perfect examples of what I am talking about. Do you take calls from many foreign countries?”

“Yes, a good number. I talked with Japan quite recently.”

“Did the person you were talking to hesitate at any time?”

“I think so, yes. His face sort of froze for an instant.”

“That was because the languaphone was working in real time. Sometimes there is no way to instantly translate a word’s meaning, because you can’t tell what the word means until you have seen the next word — like the words ‘to,’ ‘too,’ and ‘two.’ It’s the same with an adjective like ‘bright,’ which might mean shining or might mean intelligent. Sometimes you may have to wait for the end of a sentence — or even the next sentence. So the languaphone, which animates the face, may have to wait for a complete expression before it can translate the Japanese speaker’s words into English — and animate the image to synchronize lip movements to the English words. The translator program works incredibly fast, but still it sometimes must freeze the image while it analyzes the sounds and the word order in your incoming call. Then it has to translate, again, into English. Only then can the voxfax start to transcribe and print out the translated version of the conversation. An ordinary fax machine just makes a print of whatever is fed into a fax machine at the other end of the connection. It takes the electronic signals that it receives from the other fax and reconstructs a copy of the original. But your voxfax is a different kind of bird. It is not intelligent — but it uses an analytical program to listen to the translated or English words of your incoming telephone calls. It analyzes them, then compares them with words in its memory and discovers what words they make up. Then it prints out the words.”

“Sounds simple enough.”

Brian laughed. “It is one of the most complex things that we have ever taught computers to do. The system has to take each Japanese element of speech and compare it to stored networks of information about how each English word, phrase or expression is used. Thousands of man-hours of programming have been done to duplicate what our brains do in an instant of time. When I say ‘dog’ you know instantly what I mean, right?”

“Of course.”

“Do you know how you did it?”

“No. I just did it.”

“That I just did it is the first problem faced in the study of artificial intelligence. Now let’s look at what the computer does when it hears ‘dog.’ Think of regional and foreign accents. The sound may be closer to dawg, or daw-ug, or any other countless variations. The computer breaks down the word into composite phonemes or sounds, then looks at other words you have recently said. It compares with sounds, relationships, and meanings it holds in memory, then uses a circuitry to see if its first guesses make sense; if not it starts over again. It remembers its successes and refers back to them when it confronts new problems. Luckily it works very, very fast. It may have to do thousands of millions of computations before it types out ‘dog.’ ”

“I’m with you so far. But I don’t see what is expert about this voxfax system. It doesn’t seem to be any different from a word processing system.”

“But it is — and you have put your finger on the basic difference. When I type the letters D-O-G into an ordinary word processor, it simply records mem in memory. It may move them around, from line to line, stretch them out to fit a justified line or type them out when so instructed — but it is really just inflexibly following unchanging instructions. However, your languaphone and your voxfax program are teaching themselves. When either of them makes a mistake it discards the mistake, then tries something else — and remembers what it has done. This is a first step in the right direction. It is a self-correcting learning program.”

“Then this is your new artificial intelligence?”

“No, this is only a small step that was made some years ago. The answer to developing true artificial intelligence is something completely different.”

“What is it?”

Brian smiled at the boldness of the question. “It is not that easy to explain — but I can show you what I have done. My lab is right down here.”

He led the way through the connected laboratories. It all appeared very unimpressive to Beckworth, just a series of computers and terminals. Not for the first time he was more than glad to be at the business end to this enterprise. Much of the apparatus was turned on and running, though unattended. As they passed a bench mounted with a large TV screen he stopped dead.

“Good God! Is that a three-dimensional TV picture?”

“It is,” McCrory said, turning his back on the screen and frowning unhappily. “But I wouldn’t look at it for too long if I were you.”

“Why not? This will revolutionize the TV business, give us a world lead…” He rubbed his thumb along his forehead, realizing that one of his very rare headaches was coming on.

“If it worked perfectly, yes, it should certainly do just that. As you can see it apparently works like a dream. Except that no one can watch it for more than a minute or two without getting a headache. But we think we have a good way to fix this in the next model.”

J.J. turned away and sighed. “What did they use to say? Back to the drawing board. Anyway, perfect this one and we own the world.” J.J. shook his head and turned back to Brian. “I hope you have something to show us that works better than that.”

“I do, sir. I’m going to show you the new robot that will overcome most of the limitations of the older AI machines.”

“Is this the one that can learn new ways to learn?”

“That’s it. It’s right over there. Robin-1. Robot Intelligence number 1.”

J.J. looked in the indicated direction and tried to control his disappointment.

“Where?”

All he could see was an electronic workbench with various items of some kind on it, along with a large monitor screen. It looked just like any other part of the lab. Brian pointed to an electronic instrumentation rack about the size of a filing cabinet.

“Most of the control circuitry and memory for Robin-1 is in there. It communicates by infrared with its mechanical interface, that telerobot over there.”

The telerobot did not look like any robot J.J. had ever seen. It was on the floor, a sort of upside-down treelike thing that stood no higher than his waist. It was topped by two upward-reaching arms that ended in metallic globes. The two lower branches branched — and branched again and again until the smaller branches were as thin as spaghetti. J.J. was not impressed. “A couple of metal stalks stuck on two brooms. I don’t get it.”

“Hardly brooms. You are looking at the latest advance in microtechnology. This overcomes most of the mechanical limitations of the past generations of robots. Every branch is a feedback manipulator that enables the management program to receive input and—”

“What can it do?” J.J. said brusquely. “I’m very pressed for time.”

Brian’s knuckles whitened as he made hard fists. He tried to keep his anger from his voice. “For one thing, it can talk.”

“Let’s hear it.” J.J. glanced obviously at his watch.

“Robin, who am I?” Brian said.

A metallic Ms opened in both of the erect metal spheres. Tiny motors hummed as they turned to face Brian. They clicked shut.

“You are Brian,” a buzzing voice said from the speakers also mounted on the spheres.

J.J.’s nostrils flared. “Who am I?” he asked. There was no response. Brian spoke quickly.

“It only responds when it hears its name, Robin. It also would probably not understand your voice, since it has only had verbal input from me. I’ll ask. Robin. Who is this? Figure next to mine.”

The diaphragms opened, the eyes moved again. Then there was a faint brushing sound as the countless metallic bristles moved in unison and the thing moved toward Beckworth. He stepped backward and the robot followed him.

“No need to move or be afraid,” Brian said. “The current optic receptors only have a short focus. There, it has stopped.”

“Object unknown. Ninety-seven percent possibility human. Name?”

“Correct. Name, last, Beckworth. Initial J.”

“J. J. Beckworth, aged sixty-two. Blood type O. Social Security number 130-18-4523. Born in Chicago, Illinois. Married. Two children. Parents were…”

“Robin, terminate,” Brian ordered, and the buzzing voice stopped, the diaphragms clicked shut. “I’m sorry about all that, sir. But it had access to personnel records when I was setting up some identification experiments here.”

“These games are of no importance. And I am not impressed. What else does the damned thing do? Can it move?”

“In many ways better than you or I,” Brian replied. “Robin, catch!”

Brian picked up a box of paper clips — and threw them all toward the telerobot. The thing whirred in a blur of motion as it smoothly unfolded and rearranged most of its tendrils into hundreds of little handlike claws. As they spread out they simultaneously caught every one of the paper clips. It put them all down in a neat pile.

At last J.J. was pleased. “That’s good. I think there could be commercial applications. But what about its intelligence? Does it think better than we think, solve problems that we can’t?”

“Yes and no. It is new and still has not learned very much. Getting it to recognize objects — and figure out how to handle them — has been a problem for almost fifty years, and finally we have made a machine learn how to do it. Getting it to think at all was the primary problem. Now it is improving very rapidly. In fact, it appears that its learning capacity is increasing exponentially. Let me show you.”

J.J. was interested — but dubious. But before he could speak again there was the harsh ringing of a telephone, a loud and demanding sound.

“It’s the red phone!” McCrory said, startled.

“I’ll take it.” Beckworth picked up the phone and an unfamiliar voice rasped in his ear.

“Mr. Beckworth, there is an emergency. You must come at once.”

“What is it?”

“This line is not secure.”

J.J. put down the phone, frowned with annoyance. “There is an emergency of some kind, I don’t know what. You both wait here. I’ll attend to it as fast as I can. I’ll phone you if it looks like there will be any lengthy delays.”

His footsteps retreated and Brian stood in angry silence glaring at the machine before him.

“He doesn’t understand,” McCrory said. “He hasn’t the background to understand the importance of what you have accomplished.”

He stopped when he heard the three coughing sounds followed by a loud gasp, a crash of equipment falling to the floor. “What is it?” he called out, turned and started back into the other lab. The coughing sounded again and McCrory spun around, his face a bloody mask, collapsed and fell.

Brian turned and ran. Not with logic or intelligence, but spurred on by simple survival — painfully learned from a boyhood of bullying and assaults by older children. He went through the door just before the frame exploded next to his head.

Straight in front of him was the vault for the streamed backup tapes. Lodged there every night, empty now. Fireproof and assault proof. A closet for a boy to hide, a dark place to flee to. As he threw the door open bright pain tore into his back, slammed him forward, spun him about. He gasped at what he saw. Raised his arm in impotent defense.

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 me 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 certain 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.”