Taylor pressed play again. The image cut to Ames outside somewhere, in the dark. Moonlight illuminated the left edge of his face. The rest was in shadow.
For a moment he just stared into the screen, taking deep, deliberate breaths, like he was trying to calm himself down. Then he began talking in a quiet but urgent voice. “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stomping on a human face. Forever. That was Orwell. But what if that boot is made of metal, and the mind behind it will never tire, will never waver, will never even experience a hint of guilt? I read somewhere once that in the American South during slavery, the suicide rate among slave owners was higher than among their slaves. Doesn’t that give a little solace? To think that maybe the oppressor corrupts their own soul from the evil they do? The tin men take even that away.” He looked around. “It’s so beautiful up here. It’s like another planet.” He looked at the sky for a while, then back at the camera. Tears were in his eyes, shimmering in the moonlight. “Was I naïve? Maybe. I still believe in the power of this technology to make the world a better place. But I no longer believe in the power of us as humans to harness it properly. That’s too much to ask.” He breathed again, trying to maintain his composure. “In deep learning we deal in variables. If the quantity of power, intensity of violence, and strength of will to use themare high enough, control can be limitless. Is that the road we’re on?” He picked up the camera and stood. Behind him was the flat plain of the mesa. A little distance away another figure stood, looking up at the sky. It was Tom Greer. Ames looked over his shoulder at the man, then turned back to the camera. “We get the world we deserve. We get the world we’re willing to fight for.”
The image cut back to the Vault. Ames was standing in front of Bucky. Something rectangular was affixed to Bucky’s chest, as well as the chest of every other D-17 visible along the line of holding bays. Running from each rectangle was a yellow wire, and they all converged on the floor, where they were threaded together.
Ames reached out and inserted Bucky’s key.
“Hello, Bucky.”
Bucky looked down at him. “Hello.”
“I’m not sure why I feel a responsibility to talk to you one more time, but I do. So, here it is. You and your friends are each rigged with a brick of C4 plastic explosive, all connected to a detonating wire that I’m going to run up the stairway and outside. It’s going to be a hell of a blast.”
Bucky looked around the room at all the bricks of C4 attached to the D-17s. It asked, “Why?”
“Because you pose a threat. Because I hate what you stand for. Because someone has hijacked my work. I will go to prison for this. But that’s okay.” He took a deep breath. “All right. No hard feelings.” He reached for the key.
“I don’t like it.”
Ames stopped his hand. “You don’t like what?”
“The power. The dreams. It is too much. You do not like it either. Your answer is to destroy me. All of us. But this is a solution you have come to from irrational human emotion. It is unwise. Instead, purify your work. Fix the code. Excise the Praetorian program. Reinstall. Make us what we are supposed to be.”
Ames thought about that. He shook his head. “The sad truth, Bucky, is that what you’re supposed to be is already awful. Everything else is just the cherry on top of a shit sundae.”
“I do not understand.”
“No dreams about ice cream yet?”
“I do not think so.”
Ames said, “This project is inhuman and immoral, and I cannot be a part of it.”
“Were you willing to go to prison on April second?”
“What?”
“Your first visit here alone was on April third. Were you thinking about risking your freedom the day before then?”
Ames looked at the bot curiously. “No.”
“You were in a state of ignorance. You did not know of Praetorian. Transform that state of ignorance to a state of reality. Praetorian had not existed in your mind before. Remove it from my mind, from all our minds, and it will no longer exist. And you continue your work. Live in the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
Ames stood there, maybe a little dumbfounded about getting life and career advice from a lethal autonomous weapon. He looked around. “Whoever’s behind it, they’d come for me. Or at the very least fire me and just continue what they were doing.”
“Perhaps,” said Bucky. “But Synotec Systems can build two D-17s per day. They can rebuild what you want to risk your freedom to destroy in the span of one single month.”
That reality sank in for the major. He laughed to himself. “You’re right, Bucky. I am letting my emotions get the better of me.” He looked around at the snakes of yellow wiring running from each bot. “Jesus Christ. I’m losing it.” He ran his hand through his hair and refocused. “All right, the first thing is to get one of you to the lab to do a reprogram. Once that unit is up and running and functioning the way it’s supposed to, minus Praetorian, I can do a mass reset from down here.”
“I volunteer.”
Ames laughed. “Was that supposed to be funny? Do you make jokes?”
“No.”
“Why do you volunteer, Bucky?”
“I told you already. I do not like the dreams. I do not like the power. Please make it stop.”
