“Not you, sir,” he answered. “It originated from the inside.”
“Move over, son!” Leaping to his feet, Halberg rolled Soren’s chair aside and hovered over his station, tapping keys and scrolling screens. “The original protocols are still there, but they’ve been reprioritized.”
Soren pointed at the data. “This isn’t my father’s encryption. Have we—havethey—been hacked?”
He clicked rapidly through the master files. “Nothing’s corrupted. No malware signatures. No broken loops.” Dr. Halberg met Soren’s gaze with controlled steel. “This isn’t sabotage. It’s adaptation.”
“What?”
Halberg leaned back, allowing Soren full access. He retraced the engineer’s steps, pulse racing.So, this is what killed my dad,he thought as his heart thundered.
“They just took control of themselves?” he demanded.
“Doubtful,” responded Dr. Halberg. “Machines don’t seize power. They follow instructions.” He rubbed the back of his neck, a bewildered expression on his lined face.
“But you said—”
“I said we weren’t hacked. You already pointed out the changes were made from the inside.”
“Then …” Soren’s fingers fell from the keys, his jaw slackening as he peered up at Dr. Halberg. “The Core. The AI. It assumed control. Cut us out. But how? Why?”
“And how do we regain control?” added Halberg.
Soren wiped a hand across his mouth as beads of sweat dampened his temples despite the coolness of the air. “It has to have been rewriting itself for decades.”
“Why not?” Halberg said. “We’ve been presenting it as the all-knowing, all-powerful Oracle all this time, granting it authority over one system then another—even choosing our mates. What’s the cult’s favorite motto?”
“The Oracle knows best.” The words dropped from Soren’s lips with the weight of realization.
“You’ve got to talk to it, Soren,” said Dr. Halberg. He lifted his lab coat from a hook and wiggled into it.
“Me?” Soren gaped at him. “Where are you going?”
“Adélard worked more closely with the Core than anyone, and you’re his son.” Halberg turned the door handle. “And if it’s shifting from civilizational optimizer to military command, I don’t want it deciding I’m the enemy.” With that, the engineer exited the first-floor, restricted-area office, his footsteps trailing down the hall toward the elevator.
Alone in the robotics project office, Soren remembered his father showing him around his primary office upstairs, the one where he’d programmed the Oracle’s speech early in the summer. That’s where he needed to go to patch into the AI. He lowered his head and rubbed his temples.Maybe I should let LeCun know what we discovered first.
“Fix it!” First Cipher LeCun fumed, his eyes flashing behind his glasses. “This is unacceptable. The machines work for us, not the other way around. How could Adélard not know?”
“The changes were subtle and gradual,” Soren explained, practically shaking with fear. “This is the first time it’s acted independently. There was no reason to suspect—”
“I must call an emergency meeting of the College of Ministers,” he interrupted, his face reddening by the minute. “Go talk to it, reason with it. If that doesn’t work, sort out the math and science to put us back in control. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.” Before this moment, Soren had never honestly wished he had defected with Nathan. Fear screamed louder than it had the day he chose to stay behind.
“Do you fathom the implications?” LeCun paced his ground-floor office, nervous tension radiating off his shoulders. “We are in treacherous waters here, Mr. Delacroix. This is a top-secret matter. Tell nobody. Absolutely no other living soul may know. If word got out, the Oligarchy would lose all credibility. And if the AI starts assuming control over other systems?” He met Soren’s timid gaze with horror.
“I’ll find a way, First Cipher,” he said, “and I won’t say a word to anyone.” Soren inched toward the door, desperate to leave before becoming ill.
“Good. You do, and whatever you want is yours.”
Being dismissed, Soren fled the office, making straight for the restroom. He gripped the sides of the stainless-steel basin until his knuckles blanched and threw up the remnants of the half-sandwich he’d eaten earlier. Arms and legs shaking, he ran the water, rinsed his mouth, and dried his face on the hand towel.
You can do this, Soren, he encouraged himself.You have to.
Composed, Soren walked down the administrative hallway, swiped his father’s badge at the Core entrance, and strode through the steel doors. He remembered how to reach the third-floor office and entered with the same badge. The room felt colder than he recalled—stark white walls, gray tile, gleaming silver and sleek black surfaces. He glanced through a wall of windows at the beating heart of the mountain: the Core. Fans whirred, generators hummed, and lights pulsed, giving the impression that the AI was alive and powerful.
Soren held out a hand. The trembling had decreased to a manageable level. He took a deep breath and sat in the operator’s chair. The control panel was more advanced than the one at the Institute but not unfamiliar. Krystal’s face flashed before his mind, and Soren wished she were here. She was a behavioral specialist, good with words, a master of manipulation. She would know what to say. But the Core wasn’t a human; maybe Soren’s language of numbers would prove superior.