“They are prototypes, so maybe the stakes are lower, and maybe they actually aren’t that smart. Yet.”
“Prototypes can still kill. One of them did. What if itchoseto kill Major Ames? At what point does machine intelligence have its own agency and its own moral culpability?”
“These are interesting philosophical questions, Maggie, and maybe they’ll become interesting legal questions for the Judge Advocate General. Not us. Besides, if scientists engineered a lethal autonomous weapon with the capacity to choose and engage a target all on its own, and it used that intelligence to kill an Army scientist, I’d call that faulty programming or faulty wiring. So we’re back to negligence.”
Maggie looked down at her desk, maybe lost in thought, or maybe just disappointed in her narrow-minded partner.
Brodie took out his iPhone and said, “Hey, Siri.”
The computerized voice, which he’d set to British and female, asked politely, “Yes?”
“Have you ever wanted to kill me?”
The phone took a moment to think, which was a little disturbing. Then Siri replied, “Of course not.”
Brodie looked at his partner, who said, “Siri is stupid. And the most harm she can do is screw up a dictation.”
“She’s still listening.”
“But you’re not. AI adds a new dimension to this case. Maybe it changes everything, and maybe the laws have not caught up.”
“What is your point?”
“That we need to keep an open mind. This case is not like anything we have dealt with before, and it might test us in ways we have not been tested before.”
He looked at her. “I passed my hardest test in the deserts of Iraq at the age of twenty-three. As you did in Afghanistan. Everything since has been a cakewalk.”
She met his gaze. “We’re going back to the desert.”
“Different desert. This one’s a hundred fifty miles from LA, probably has a few fast-food chains, and on our way in, no one will be launching shoulder-fired missiles at our Black Hawk.”
“Hopefully not. But we were both unprepared for what we faced then, and we will be again.”
Maggie Taylor was overstating the case. All the same, it was best to enter Camp Hayden with an open mind. And extra ammo.
CHAPTER 4
BRODIE DROVE HIS CHEVY IMPALAthrough the rain and rush-hour traffic to arrive home at his bungalow, which was a nice word for a shithole. He was renting the place, which meant every problem was someone else’s problem, except that Scott Brodie was the one who had to live there. Would the toilet back up again? Were there termites in the baseboards? Each day brought the potential for a new surprise.
He entered the front door, set down his briefcase and umbrella, then unclipped his pistol and placed it on the side table in the foyer. He entered the narrow galley kitchen, rummaged around the fridge for leftover takeout that didn’t smell too funky—on the menu tonight was three-day-old Hawaiian chicken and rice—then nuked the leftovers, cracked a beer, and settled into the sagging couch in the living room.
As a fourteen-year veteran of CID with the rank of CW4, Scott Brodie made a good salary and could afford a better place. But the slumlord never raised his rent, which was the least the guy could do, and Scott Brodie put in long hours and traveled enough for work that he didn’t care too much about where he came home to in the dark.
Despite the state of his accommodations, his dating life was okay. Maybe he attracted women who thought they could fix his life, and the length of his relationships—on average, about three months—was how long it took them to realize they were mistaken.
That brought Brodie to the unpleasant task at hand. He took out his cell and called Sarah, his girlfriend of about two months. She was a special ed teacher in DC with a seemingly inexhaustible amount ofpatience, both for her students’ challenging needs and for her boyfriend’s bullshit. She was gorgeous, and all-around too good for him, which she would realize on her own in about a month if he didn’t do something about it first.
She picked up. “Hey, Scott.”
“Hey. Do you have a minute?”
“Sure. We still on for Tuesday?”
“Actually, I have to travel for work tomorrow.”
“Oh. Okay… Where?”
“I’m not able to say.”
