Lethal Velocity Page 8

  “It’s the only thing all the failures have in common. We’ve eliminated everything else. There’s no other answer.”

  “No other answer?” Warne heard his own voice, faster and louder than he’d meant it to be.

  Barksdale nodded. “The Metanet is supposed to be self-learning. Perhaps, over time, it has modified its own rule-set for the worse. You know: ‘Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well.’ ”

  “No, I don’t know. The system gets a nervous tic, and you blame the head.”

  “It’s rather more than a nervous tic,” Barksdale said. He had a strange look on his finely featured face, like a doctor breaking bad news to a patient. “There’s something else. What happened on the Notting Hill ride the Friday before last.”

  Warne had seen a short blurb about this in the paper. “That was a mechanical failure. Shoddy workmanship or something.”

  “All of our high-G rides are built by the Swiss firm, Taittinger & Rochefort. The Rolls-Royce of the roller-coaster world.”

  “Whatever. It was an accident. What’s the relevance?”

  “Two bots are assigned to that attraction. During the day, while the ride is operational, they work lubrication. After the Park closes, they do a safety inspection of the entire track. They’re programmed to look for metal fatigue, stress points, to make sure the electronic safety dogs that control the movement of the cars on the ratchet hills and descents are secure. For some reason we don’t know, seven nights ago they loosened a dozen of the dogs instead of tightening them, reversing polarity. During operation the next day, five of the dogs shorted out, two at a critical point. Without the dogs to keep it on the track, a car derailed on the final descent. Backup safety plates in the undercarriage kept the car from leaving the track completely, but it whipsawed severely throughout the entire seventy-foot drop.”

  “I reviewed video logs of the incident,” Sarah said. “It was like watching a dog shaking a rat. A boy in the front seat lost his grip and fell out. He survived, by a miracle. But both legs were shattered, several ribs crushed. He’ll be in a wheelchair for months. The other occupants of the car were badly bruised. The father suffered a broken collarbone. Needless to say, lawyers have been circling ever since.”

  Warne realized he was holding his breath. He exhaled slowly. “You’re sure about this?”

  Both Sarah and Barksdale nodded.

  “That doesn’t make any sense. Did you examine the bots’ programming?”

  “It was the first thing we did after closing the ride. We had a code-review team, led by Terri Bonifacio, check every line from the command stack to the mapping routines. The Metanet had reprogrammed the bots to loosen the safety dogs.”

  “Both bots?”

  “Each loosened precisely six safety dogs.”

  Warne felt something ridiculously like panic threaten to seize his limbs. He fought it back. “Wait a minute. Let’s back up here, think about the Metanet’s job. It’s a neural network that examines the operating code of the Park’s robots, and optimizes that code. That’s all it does. It’s a passive-learning system. It wouldn’t just…” Warne stopped. “You’ve considered the possibility of internal tampering?”

  Barksdale nodded, smoothing down his tie. “All of our IT staff goes through rigorous psychological testing and background checks. Our compensation and benefits packages are the best in the industry, we have an employee satisfaction rate of 99 percent—”

  “Wait, wait,” Warne interrupted. “That’s all well and good. But this has got ‘inside job’ written all over it. I mean, what other explanation is there?”

  Warne watched as Sarah and Barksdale exchanged glances. He could guess what they were thinking: He’s defensive, lashing out, trying to lay blame anywhere but his own creation.

  Barksdale cleared his throat. “We have a stringent code-promotion process, nothing gets updated without passing up the managerial chain and past me. But, Dr. Warne, the bottom line is, this simply isn’t the work of a corporate spy or a disgruntled employee. Diagnostic failures on mail-delivery robots? The handwriting is all wrong. Besides, it’s too broad-scale. Even so, we’ve begun interviews and log checking, just to be sure.”

  Sarah took a sip of her tea, replaced the cup in the saucer. “Meanwhile, Andrew, we want to detask the Metanet.”

  For a moment, Warne was too stunned to respond. Detask the Metanet. Jesus. He thought about the bots on Notting Hill Chase, the loosened safety dogs. Was it really possible that he was indirectly responsible for such a terrible…

  Then he shook his head. It wasn’t possible, it couldn’t be.

  He looked once again at Sarah and Barksdale. He could see in their eyes that this conversation was merely for the sake of form. A decision had already been made.

  “Sarah,” he said in his best abject tone. “I know you must be under a lot of pressure over this. But I think it’s a rash decision. Look, we can take a few days to examine the problem. You can show me the specifics. I’m sure something will come to light.”

  “Actually, Andrew, I’m leaving for San Francisco tomorrow morning,” she replied. “Fred will give you whatever you need.”

  Warne watched the two share another private look. Then he realized: Sarah and Barksdale were an item.

  Abruptly, jealous anger mingled with the shock, dismay, and mortification that already filled him. Not that he could blame Sarah, of course; going for someone like Barksdale was almost a given. The guy was charming in that Brit way that had always seemed a little superficial to Warne; good-looking, gallant, reportedly a brilliant CTO to boot. It was almost too much. Warne felt like a Volvo, traded in for a twelve-cylinder Jag.

  He shook his head at the bitter irony. All this time, he’d been worried about seeing Sarah again—how she’d act, how he’d feel, what Georgia might or might not say. He hadn’t been thinking much about the meeting itself at all, save how it might jump-start his stalled career…He sat back in his chair, feeling a lot older than when he’d first walked into the room. “You bought the technology,” he said, the anger hardening his voice. “It’s yours to use as you see fit. Why did you bring me all the way out here to tell me the bad news?”

  “We want you to head up the disassembly,” Barksdale said.

  “Don’t you think that’s a little cold? Not only are you giving my creation a lobotomy, you want me to wield the scalpel?”

  Barksdale seemed to consider this. “It’s a nontrivial operation.”

  “Surely you have enough programming drones on hand to do your plumbing for you. You don’t need my help—”

  “Dr. Warne, do you think it was my idea?” Barksdale was smiling, but the rich English vowels carried the faintest undercurrent of irritation.

  “Or maybe what you’re really looking for is a scapegoat.”

  Barksdale shot him a look of surprise, and Sarah rose to her feet.

  “I think you’ve heard all you need,” she said briskly. “Let’s wrap it up. Fred, I’ll see you at the State of the Park meeting. Andrew, why don’t you stay behind?”

  “Right.” Barksdale smiled briefly at Sarah, nodded a little warily to Warne, then left.

  Sarah watched him go, then turned to Warne. “Well, I’m glad to see you haven’t lost your ability to alienate an audience.”

  “How’d you expect me to react, after hearing my biggest success is about to be trashed? Pleased?”

  “You shouldn’t look at it like that. This Metanet exit is temporary, exploratory.”

  “Come on. I dealt with those home office guys after Nightingale’s death, remember? You saw the result. Once you take the Metanet off-line, it’s not going to go back on.”

  Sarah reached for her teacup. “I understand how you feel, Andrew, but—”

  “And that’s another thing. What’s with this Andrew?”

  “I think it’s better.” She withdrew her hand, looked him in the eye. “Don’t you?”

  Nobody won a staring match with Sarah. Abruptly, the anger drained out o
f Warne, leaving him feeling defeated. He leaned against the table and crossed his arms.

  Then he looked at Sarah. “It just occurred to me. Tomorrow is June twenty-first.”

  “And?”

  “The first anniversary of the day you walked out.”

  “I did not walk out, Drew. I accepted the job at Utopia.”

  “Would it have killed you to stay a little longer? Try to work things out? I mean, I know we were both busy, we didn’t have as much time as we should for each other. And I know Georgia didn’t make it easy for you. But you didn’t give her enough of a chance. You didn’t give us enough of a chance.”

  “I gave as much as I could. Did you expect me to give up my job?”

  “I didn’t expect you to pack up and move to Nevada.”

  “It was the chance of a lifetime! Would you rather I’d stayed behind, resented you for holding me back?”

  Sarah had stepped toward him with these words. Now she paused. Then, with deliberate movements, she took a step back, reached for her teacup, took a sip.

  “Let’s not play archaeology,” she began again in a quieter tone. “It’s pointless, it won’t get us anywhere.” She replaced the cup with a steady hand. “Bringing you into this was a difficult decision for me. But there was no other choice. Nobody else understands the topology of the Metanet like you. You designed it, after all. And…we just don’t want any more problems.”

  Warne didn’t answer. There seemed like nothing else to say.

  “I shouldn’t have to remind you of the original terms of the agreement. Can’t you view this as an opportunity? The thing’s had six full months to mature, operating in a production environment you couldn’t begin to duplicate in your lab.”

  I’m without a lab at the moment. But Warne simply shrugged. “Sure. It’ll make for a nice postmortem.”

  Sarah looked at him as the silence lengthened. Then she turned back to the table, collected her papers, picked up her teacup.

  “Teresa should be back any minute,” she said. “I suggest the two of you not waste any time. Mr. Barksdale’s expecting an action plan by the end of the day.”

  She walked out of the conference room, leaving the door open behind her.

  CALLISTO WAS UTOPIA’S future world, a bustling spaceport in geosynchronous orbit—visitors were asked to believe—sixty miles above Jupiter’s sixth moon. Andrew Warne found it hard not to believe. After a brief, pitch-black shuttle ride, he had walked through the docking area, Georgia at his side, then stepped out into the bustling main concourse—only to stop again and stare around in surprise. Spread before them was a thriving hub of entertainment and commerce that looked as if it had been torn whole from the twenty-fourth century. Strange-looking aliens and cast members in futuristic uniforms walked among the camera-clicking tourists. Ruby- and azure-colored lasers lanced and flickered overhead. Incredibly detailed holographic images were everywhere: pointing the way to rides and attractions, hovering like futuristic signboards above the entrance to restaurant and restroom alike.

  As elsewhere, the span of the Utopia dome curved far above. But this was not the stripe of brilliant blue sky he’d seen in the Nexus or Boardwalk. Instead, he saw a deep blackness of limitless space, punctuated by countless stars. The richly colored bulk of Jupiter filled more than a quarter of the sky. As Warne stared, he noticed that the clouds on the planet’s surface were moving, roiling convulsively in Earth-sized tempests.

  “Awesome,” Georgia said as she looked around. “Just like in the show. But why are we here? We haven’t finished Boardwalk yet.”

  “We’ll have plenty of time for that later on,” Warne said. “Right now, there’s something I want to show you.” He glanced at his watch. He’d agreed to meet with Teresa at one o’clock: that gave them a little over an hour. He tried to keep his step light, his tone relaxed: Georgia was too uncannily good at picking up his moods. Thank God, she hadn’t asked him anything about the meeting.

  He consulted a guidemap briefly, then steered Georgia out into the current of chattering guests. The excitement and energy grew stronger, the chill, sterile-smelling air was filled with an almost palpable sense of glee. Callisto was the only World where characters from Nightingale’s wildly popular cartoon show, Atmosfear, could be found in costume. It was also the location of two of the Park’s most outrageous thrill rides, Event Horizon and Moon Shot. As a result, children were everywhere: running up to full-size holograms of Eric Nightingale and costumed cast members, dragging parents toward favorite attractions, pleading for money to buy action figures.

  But the carnival atmosphere and exotic surroundings did little to penetrate Warne’s gloom. Detask the Metanet. He could still scarcely believe it. To think that just two hours before, he’d been wandering through Boardwalk, like a prize idiot, wondering what exciting new features they wanted him to add to the robotic network. He shook his head bitterly.

  “What’s up, Dad?” Georgia asked instantly.

  “Nothing. This place is just…All these rides, all these shops. It’s so commercial. Nightingale would turn in his grave.”

  “Dad, you are so utterly out of it. It’s awesome. Look at that.” She pointed toward one of the quieter rides: a spiderlike array of child-sized rockets, circling on pearlescent metal legs that seemed to fade in and out of sight, making the rockets appear detached, self-guided. “Even the kiddie rides look great.”

  Warne nodded. But it was a far cry from the vision Nightingale had described, seated at their kitchen table, coffee untouched, on that night they had first met. He remembered how the magician’s black eyes had glittered with an almost manic energy; how he had jumped out of his seat to pace, again and again, as he talked; how his hands had never stopped moving as they sketched out his idea for a virtual environment. He’d been traveling the world, visiting theme parks, castles, temples, medieval villages. He wanted to create virtual worlds complete in every detail; past worlds, future worlds, that would instruct visitors as they entertained. Worlds that relied on immersiveness, not rides, to delight guests. A themed system, Nightingale had called it, that would use the latest advances in digital media, holograms, robotics, to weave its magic. And he’d wanted Warne to design the robotics substructure.

  Even without Nightingale’s intensity and charisma, the idea had held great appeal. It meshed perfectly with Warne’s own highly controversial theories about artificial intelligence and machine learning. So he’d pitched the idea of a meta-network—metanet, for short—that would link all the Park’s robots to a central processor. The processor would study the robots’ activity, create improvements, and download the optimized code daily to the bots over the network. It would be the perfect vehicle to demonstrate his theories about machine learning. But it would be just the start of a vast web of robotics and AI that would ultimately encompass the entire operation of the Park.

  At least, that had been the plan…

  “Is Teresa Japanese?” Georgia asked.

  Warne pulled himself away from his thoughts, distantly surprised by the question. “I don’t know, princess. I don’t think so.”

  “Dad, I told you not to call me princess.”

  They had threaded their way deeper into Callisto now, and the crowds on the concourse were thicker here, jostling and laughing and pointing. To one side, guests were thronging around a tall, gaunt man in twenty-fourth-century armor and a glossy black cape. This was Morpheus, the demonic, magic-wielding ruler of Earth Prime: a creature 50 million television-watching children loved to hate. He was posing for a picture, hand on the shoulder of a young boy, devilish beard parted in a smile. Warne looked toward him, frowning. Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t spoken to Teresa in at least three weeks. That in itself was unusual: they’d developed a habit of making contact at least once a week, mixing shop talk with gossip, sharing jokes, catching up.

  She was in charge of running the Metanet. The least she could have done was warn him. Why hadn’t she? Anger lanced through him as he wondered
if she was somehow at fault for all this; if she’d done something, inadvertently or otherwise, to sabotage his creation. And to think his first reaction, upon seeing her in person, had been one of physical attraction…He shook his head.

  They had agreed to meet in her lab. And that’s what he’d do, he decided: he’d meet her. He’d discuss an exit strategy, make sure there were no impediments to a smooth transition. And then he’d do what he had planned all along: enjoy the Park with his daughter. Teresa and her people could take the Metanet off-line themselves. To hell with his contract. He’d be damned if he’d be the one to pull the plug on his own biggest accomplishment.

  Up ahead now, he could see a hologram of a skeletal constellation, revolving above the entrance to a brightly lit restaurant: the Big Dipper. A crowd of people were lined up outside, murmuring and pointing. In spite of everything, Warne felt himself smiling. He could guess what they were pointing at.

  Beside the restaurant entrance was a large take-out window, framed in chrome and open to the concourse. At its base, a series of round seats set atop low posts were arrayed along a counter of some shiny transparent material. Behind the counter, a futuristic ice cream shop sat bathed in ghostly shades of black light. Tending the shop was a large mobile robot. The mobot was a hilarious, ungainly-looking thing, a child’s unsteady construction of metal blocks. Its base was a dollylike platform of six synchronously driven wheels. Atop the drive mechanism was a large cube that housed the onboard computing. Planted on that was a tall cylinder which supported two arrays of ultrasonic transducers.

  Warne reached for Georgia’s arm, pointed. She glanced over, then stopped abruptly. A grin slowly broke across her face. “Oh, man,” she said at last. “It’s kind of weird to see him here—you know?”

  It was making a milk shake. Warne watched as the mobot industriously scooped ice cream into a metal mixer, the powerful pincers moving in short, controlled jerks. That had been the hardest part: the sonar geometry. Because he knew the robot would be working in a fixed environment, everything else—the wheel encoders for the dead-reckoning system, the topological map—had been relatively easy. But the stereo vision necessary to carve perfect scoops out of an unpredictably shaped tin of ice cream had kept him up more nights than he cared to remember. And it had given birth to the mobot’s name: Hard Place. No doubt its sibling, Rock, was somewhere inside the restaurant. Warne had designed Rock to tend bar: a far easier job, pouring premeasured drinks, requiring less of the fine motor control sported by Hard Place’s arm servos.