Up Against It - M. J. Locke [177]
Jane heard a sloshing sound, a muffled “Ow! Careful,” and a distant, “Sorry.”
Then: “I’m not saying we did the right thing, Commissioner. We shouldn’t have cooperated with Glease. We didn’t know how twisted their plans were. And we’ve paid a heavy price. Now we’re making amends.”
Jane said, “All right. How much time have you had to study BitManSinger? Do you know why it saved the life of Ian Carmichael, the night before last?”
Vivian’s tone was thoughtful. “We believe it’s because BitManSinger emerged in the life-support systems. Several of its core routines, in particular the mirroring modules, entail protecting humans from harm.”
“Mirroring modules?”
“The subroutines that allow it to anticipate what is about to happen. BitManSinger creates mental models to predict what will happen, and protect itself from harm. Much as we do with our own mirror neurons.”
“From my own experience with the feral, it is highly intelligent and adaptable. I believe it can do great damage to Ogilvie’s ship systems, if it can get in. Can it? You’ve worked with the Ogilvies. Can the feral break through their firewalls?”
“I believe so, yes. It would probably take me a month to crack them, which means BitManSinger can break through in a matter of minutes.”
Jane said, “Very well, then. One last question. I’ve already ceded responsibility for the feral to you and your people, and I no longer have standing to tell you what to do with it. But…”
“I think I know where you are going with this,” Vivian replied. “As I told you before, we are no more ready for BitManSinger to be set at-large than you.
“We know a great deal more about it than we knew at the time of its near-escape. It won’t have time to transmit a full copy of itself. The only copies it will have time to propagate during the action are subsapient algorithmic nuclei, and we can detect and delete those before they get far. No, the real challenge we face is, will it be willing to help us? It has volition. We can’t force it.” A pause. “And frankly, I wouldn’t, even if I could.”
Jane fluffed her pillows and leaned back on them. “I’ll have to leave that problem in your capable hands.”
“Um, I hate to be a spoilsport, but we have a killer problem we have not yet discussed,” Vivian pointed out. “It needs nearly a yottamol of space to be fully functional. We don’t have that much capacity. We have no place to put it.”
“Yes, we do,” Jane replied. “I want you to put in a call to Mr. Sinton. Tell him Nathan Glease has been arrested, and you need access to the Upside-Down servers to install a new app, which will enable you to doctor the ‘Stroiders’ stream and cover up their activities. If he resists, point out that if Glease is not freed, Sinton’s involvement may come out during the trial. He’ll give you whatever access you want. You sneak the feral onto their servers and unleash it on the mob, then extract it and get out of there.”
“What if he has heard what happened to Learneds Harbaugh and Obyx?”
“At this point no one knows what’s happened in the Badlands, other than the people who were there. Make something up. A gang war … a runaway hack. We chromes have all kinds of wrongheaded ideas about you mutes. He’ll believe whatever you tell him. The weirder, the better.”
Another silence ensued.
“It should work,” ze finally said. “But you’ll want to know this first. There was someone else involved in this whole thing. Someone from the government. He could be a threat. I saw him talking to Mr. Glease earlier today—that is, yesterday. Right before.” Ze broke off.
Jane said, “Before the kidnapping.”
“Yes. Mr. Glease tried to conceal the other man’s image from me, but I captured it, in case Learned Obyx would want to know.”
Jane’s arm and neck hairs bristled. “Can you show me the image?”
“Yes. He’s a political appointee. I don’t know his name. I’ve seen him in the background once or twice, when the prime minister gives speeches. Glease