The Human Factor

Mark Lord

Published:

2009

Categories(s):

Fiction, Science Fiction, High Tech, Short Stories

Tag(s):

"science fiction" cyborg AI "Artificial Intelligence" "short story"robot

Matu's hover-car zipped past the rest of the traffic, easily outrunningeverything except police vehicles. Speed was his only consolation now.The thrill of it kept other thoughts at bay. Not exactly dangerous any-more, the computer controlled hover control systems saw to that, but thenearest thing you could get legally. The communication sensor tingled tothe left side of his forehead. Message coming through, he transferred allof the hover cars powers to auto. The image of his boss appeared just be-fore his eyes, blocking out the view of the traffic and the heaven-scrapersof Albion City in front of him.'Matu, this is Central, can you hear me OK?' A more redundant ques-tion he couldn't imagine, he thought as he turned down the volume onthe communicator by making intricate finger movements to the side of his face. The ugly mug of Kalpo Graf sneered back at him.'No worries, Kalpo, I'm seeing and hearing you loud and clear. Youstill don't trust technology do you?''That's why I'm sending you on a new job, can't rely on those damn robots you know.' Kalpo was old school, he had inherited his position fromhis father, a hero of the counter-terrorist battles of World War III. The en-emies abuse of the West's own technology to fight that war still left a bit-ter taste in the mouth of Kalpo’s generation.'What is it this time - cleaning-up after some Infotech billionaire? I ap-preciate your fondness for using me Kalpo, but sometimes I get stuff thata robot could do in about 30 seconds.''Not this time. This one is serious. That's why I'm briefing the job andyou're half of the right team to take it on.' Kalpo, smiling before, nowlooked dead serious. Matu knew the jesting was over.'Half? Who else are you putting on it?''Let me tell you about the job first. It involves misuse of human-sim robots within the agency for the promotion of terrorist activity.' Kalpopaused to allow the gravity of these words to sink in. 'We have reason to believe that there are rogue elements loose within the agency workingfor terrorist organizations to help them destabilize the state. They arecovering their activities by using robots as proxies.''Jesus, what can we do, they sound powerful, do we know who'sinvolved?''I can't be too specific, this is all very confidential. If you decide thatyou don't want to take this mission I'll understand, but we will have towipe your memory of this communication. At the moment I can only re-lease certain packets of information to you and ask you to investigatethis in the field. Internal Affairs are investigating at Central, but we need

you and your assigned team partner to collect evidence from the field, inorder to make sure we catch the right players. Can I rely on you?''I have a question. Robots aren't allowed to hurt humans - it's integralin their programming. Surely the rogue elements can't get around thatfact.''The robots they have used haven't hurt humans directly, but insteadused to plant false evidence. In some case they have carried out execu-tions of innocent parties who they themselves framed. The rogue ele-ments have been quite clever in the manipulation of the robot's basicprogramming.''OK, I'll do it. What do you want me to do, and who's been assigned tome?'Kalpo smiled, the toothy grin made him look even more ugly. 'I needyou to go to the French subsidiary offices of De Koenig Corp., FranceCentrale. The agency has a human-sim robot working undercover there.His name is KP303, working under the cover-name Pierre Le Blanc. He'sone of the suspects. Interrogate him and download what you can. You'llmeet your partner there.''Who is?''Kira Shazumi'Matu stared at the image in front of him.'Signing off, report back after the interrogation.' The image blurredand went, replaced by hover cars zipping and spiraling around him, ashis own car swerved violently to dodge past heavenscrapers andswerved over freight lines. The navigation system was already turninghis car towards The Channel.#The car moved lower, faster so that it was nearly touching the crests of the waves swelling up from the deep Atlantic. Matu let the car do itswork, too distracted to drive. Why her? Each mission he hoped wouldhelp him forget, drive it further from his mind, and now it was brought back like a migraine.He flicked his wrist to the right, his latest text-mails appeared beforehim.'Opaque' he said. The mails became more distinct as their backgroundcolors blocked out the onrushing coast of Europe.Five unread. One from IT Security warning him to change his pass-words again, another from HR asking him if he wanted to waive his pa-ternal leave rights, and 3 from Kira Sazumi. All sent in the last fiveminutes.