Colonel Howe said, “I agree,” which surprised Brodie. “I am going to my office now to put in a call to Major General Ramsay, the head of Army Futures Command, who will officially authorize my dismissal of General Morgan. I will also relay your wishes, and he or I will contact your superiors at CID to arrange a transfer of custody.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” said Taylor.
Brodie spotted Caroline Dixon walking across the parade grounds toward the remnants of Bucky.
Colonel Howe said, “Ms. Dixon, what are you doing?”
“Treasure hunting.” She began kicking away debris with her boots.
“The fragments are hot,” said the colonel.
“No shit, ma’am,” said Dixon without looking up, as she continued spreading the debris around with her feet, looking for something salvageable.
Well, if Brodie didn’t already know these two had some sort of history, he could sense it now.
Brodie said to Dixon, “Do not remove anything from the premises. This material needs to be boxed up and shipped out along with the rest of the units.”
Dixon stopped her sifting and looked at him. “Shipped where?”
“Anywhere but here.”
“Don’t do that. Not yet.”
“Why?”
Dixon said to Howe and Klasky, “This is a private conversation.”
Colonel Howe looked across the parade ground, where Captain Pickman was speaking with the Rangers. She called out, “Captain, send the Rangers back to their barracks and then return to your quarters. The lockdown order has not been lifted.”
Pickman nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” Even from fifty yards away, Brodie could see that the captain was irritated.
Pickman exchanged a few final words with the Rangers, who then piled into their vehicles and drove off. Pickman took one more look at his two superior officers standing with Dixon and the CID agents, probably wondering why he wasn’t being invited to the confab, then got into the general’s Jeep and drove off.
Howe turned her attention to Captain Spencer, Lieutenant Lehner, and Eric Saltsberg, who were standing off to the side in urgent conversation. “Gentlemen, the same goes for you. Mr. Saltsberg, your homeconfinement is hereby lifted. I would request you remain here another twenty-four hours to address any questions that CID might have for you, but you are free to do as you wish.”
Saltsberg nodded. “Thank you, Colonel. I’ll inform my employer that I am now a voluntary guest at Camp Hayden, which will hopefully mitigate some of the fallout caused by your superior. Happy to be of help how I can.” He clarified, “For twenty-four hours.”
Brodie said, “Thank you.”
The three men departed together toward their houses.
Colonel Howe watched them go, then said to Dixon, “Now you have as much privacy as you’re going to get.”
Dixon looked extremely annoyed at Colonel Howe, more so than was warranted in the moment. But, of course, these ladies were screwing, so that changed all the rules. Dixon said in a low voice, “The reason I had asked Kemp to bring me Number 20 is that I was going through the D-17’s code—we have copies of the software on our lab computers—and I found something. It’s hard to explain in laymen’s terms…”
“Taylor’s smart,” said Brodie. “Explain it to her and she’ll draw me pictures.”
Dixon gave him a deadpan look, not amused. “As I’ve said before, the code running these bots is simple, at least relative to the kinds of deep-learning software being developed now for more advanced AI. The D-17s follow a set of rules, and if two rules contradict each other, well, there’s a rule for that too. They have powerful CPUs so that they can process all these branching decision trees instantaneously. They were built to make tactical choices. Who to shoot, when to shoot them, how best to outmaneuver and overtake the enemy. They cannot and do not do anything unexpected and inexplicable. At least they hadn’t, until now. So, I was digging in the code, looking for something I missed. And I found a hidden program.”
“What does that mean?” asked Taylor. “How could it be hidden?”
“Well… it’s complicated. But the main point is that it is softwarethat is siloed from the main algorithm. So this program, whatever it is, should have no bearing on the bots’ behavior because nothing else in the source code points to it, or even suggests it’s possible for this program to be executed. The program itself is encrypted using a very sophisticated key I can’t yet crack. All I can read is the program’s name.”
“What is the name?” asked Major Klasky.
“Praetorian,” replied Dixon.
“Praetorian,” repeated Taylor.
