Colonel Howe said, “Ms. Dixon is one of the few civilians at Camp Hayden.”
“That’s right,” said Dixon. “Me and the guy who cleans the toilets.” She looked at the colonel. “I’m running through the diagnostics logs that Roger generated the night of his death.”
“All personnel are to be confined to quarters,” said Major Klasky. “General Morgan issued clear orders.”
“As did my bosses at DARPA,” replied Dixon. “Their instructions to me were to conduct a thorough review of what happened.”
Taylor asked, “Anything of interest in the logs?”
“Not yet.” She turned to Captain Spencer. “Ed, let’s show our CID visitors around.”
Howe and Klasky were left to stew as Brodie and Taylor followed the two scientists through the lab.
DARPA stood for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon’s premiere R&D branch. The agency was notable for spearheading some of the most innovative technological breakthroughs of the twentieth century, including the internet and GPS. Their researchers were also known for their fierce independence from the rest of the military’s bureaucracy and bullshit, a spirit that Caroline Dixon seemed to embody.
As they walked among the lab tables, Dixon said, “The research that ultimately became the D-17 program began at DARPA a decade ago. While a number of civilian firms have been building their own robots, DARPA has taken a unique approach by virtue of our mission.”
Taylor asked, “What is your mission?”
Dixon turned to her. “To predict problems that have yet to be presented to us, and answer questions before the Pentagon asks them. Our goal is to remove the question of whether somethingcanbe done and empower the Pentagon leadership to craft future strategies unhindered by technological limitations. So, when the Army approached us about deploying autonomous weapons in training exercises, we already had working prototypes. We refined those prototypes in conjunction with the fine people at DEVCOM”—she gestured to Captain Spencer—“toensure that the capabilities of the bots were appropriate to the Army’s desired training outcomes.”
Brodie stopped in front of one of the metal tables, which held a disembodied robotic arm. He picked it up with both hands. It was surprisingly heavy.
Spencer said, “Please ask before handling any equipment.”
Brodie ignored that and handed the arm to Taylor, who inspected it. She asked, “Can you alter the programming of the D-17s from this lab?”
Captain Spencer nodded and gestured to the back room with the window. “We have a hardwired data link there, in addition to the ones in the containment bays in the Vault. This one is used mostly for diagnostics, and for small tweaks to the algorithm for testing purposes. Any refinement to a single unit is a temporary modification, at which point they revert to the same code as the fifty-nine other units. Any platoon-wide modification is done to all units at once via the console in the Vault. Only two permanent mods have been made in the last nine months, both for very minor things like reaction time, and the bots’ light detection and range sensors.”
Dixon added, “The algorithms that govern the D-17s are the product of years of work and have been carefully refined for their mission here at Camp Hayden, and the decision to alter them is not taken lightly. In this lab we can play around and test the limits in a low-stakes environment. Before we return the units to duty we hit the reset button.”
Brodie cut to the chase. “Could someone in this lab have reprogrammed Number 20 in a way that led to the death of Major Ames, whether accidentally or intentionally?”
Dixon replied, “In theory.”
“But not in reality,” interjected Captain Spencer. “The amount of work that would have to go into altering a unit to that extent, to make it capable of that… it’s more than far-fetched. We are a tight-knit andinterdependent group, and no radical modifications could be made that might result in a fatal accident without the entire DEVCOM team being aware of it and involved in it and performing rigorous testing. As for someone doing a clandestine reprogramming for malicious purposes, that is even more absurd. That kind of work could not be done in secret.”
Taylor asked, “What if someone came here when the lab was otherwise empty? At night.”
“That activity would be in the logs,” said Spencer. “And in addition, they would need to take a unit from the Vault, which cannot be accessed without another individual involved. And then they’d have to release the unit from the storage bay—another activity that is logged—then transport the thing across camp to the DEVCOM lab, which could be seen by either of the sentries on the two observation towers.”
Sergeant Mendez of the Military Police, who had been listening to all this along with Colonel Howe and Major Klasky, added, “One of my people is always on duty doing night rounds.”
Captain Spencer looked at Taylor. “Your conspiracy grows.”
The captain seemed to be taking all of this personally. It was important not to read too much into that—his close colleague had just been murdered and he was shaken up, and he had obvious reasons to be defensive of his work here. On the other hand, if he was involved in something nefarious, that was another reason to be defensive.
Taylor asked, “How many individuals work in this lab?”
“It had been four,” said Spencer. “Now it’s three. Myself, Ms. Dixon, and my subordinate officer, Lieutenant Mike Lehner, a robotics engineer.”
“We will need to speak with him soon,” said Taylor.
Spencer nodded.
Brodie said, “And we need printouts of the security logs for this lab and the containment unit for the past thirty days.” He turned to Howe and Klasky. “We will also need a schedule of when the bots are taken out of containment for training exercises, and what your protocols are.”
Major Klasky said, “I will provide that.”
