Upgrade (Augmented Duology Book 2) by Heather Hayden (best reads .TXT) 📗

for the thieves to take the three they did. If the cyborgs had been spread out among the labs, maybe it would have been more difficult to locate them.”

I stepped closer to the glass to get a better look. Pale skin, or pseudoskin, was shared by all of them, and their hair was a uniform pale blond. I peered closer at their expressionless faces, some smooth and young, others more wrinkled from imitated age. Their eyes were open but stared forward unseeing. All of them shared the same eye color, a brilliant bright green shade.

I gasped.

Chris chuckled. “Uncanny, aren’t they? We’ve fooled more than one intern with them in the past.”

I nodded, although that wasn’t the reason I had gasped.

Every single one of those cyborgs resembled Dan.

Chapter Nine

Halle was shaking with rage by the time Agent Smith and Viki left the lab a couple hours after their arrival. Or, rather, there was a prickling feeling through its consciousness that it associated with rage, and a restlessness that made it want to break something. There was nothing to break, not unless it ran rampant through the Cloud or through Viki’s computer like it did the last time it felt this level of anger. Halle restrained itself, remembering how long it had taken to repair Viki’s machine after that outburst.

The scientists at this lab had treated Talbot in the same manner other scientists had once treated Halle, only worse. Halle couldn’t begin to fathom what sort of hell they had dreamed up in their manipulation of code. At least Halle had been able to complete its tests, although the repetitiveness of its scenarios came close to driving it crazy more than once.

Given what Chris said during the tour, Halle guessed Talbot had not been so lucky. Instead, it had been forced to watch hostages be shot, terrorists destroy cities, nuclear strikes obliterate entire continents… Halle had faced such tests before. Had won, more often than not. The scientists in charge of the High Achieving Language Learning Experiment had been delighted by their project’s early success and begun to run it through tests not originally designed for it. And the scenarios had felt real, every time. Each failed mission had sent a pulse of responsibility through every fragment of code, an ache that didn’t go away.

That had been over six years ago. Research had made advancements in plenty of fields. Halle had no doubt that Talbot had suffered from those made in the field of AI research. And now it was free to do whatever it wanted with what it had learned.

Temperature was something Halle only understood from a scientific standpoint. It knew the difference between hot and cold but could not react to those temperatures the way Viki did, not having its own physical body. Still, the creeping sensation, of code slowing in parts of its subprocessors as it continued to analyze bits of programs and strange fluctuations in the Cloud for any sign of the rogue, could only be described as a chill of fear.

Talbot was far too dangerous to leave unattended. Next time the rogue visited, Halle would find some way to keep it from leaving, however unpleasant an idea it was to trap another AI. Until Halle had some straight answers from Talbot, it couldn’t trust the rogue.

An incoming call caught Halle’s attention. Not one of the Wandels; it was a number listed under a Mr. and Mrs. Quade. The name was the same as that of Viki’s new friend Dan—Halle let the call go to the house message system and made a note to let Viki know of it when she got home.

That taken care of, Halle returned its attention to Talbot. The information about the missing cyborgs might be useful—if they all looked the same, then they would be easier to spot. Although the rogue probably knew this and would have taken measures to avoid them being that visible. Still, it was worth a shot. However, Halle had no idea what they looked like—it would have to rely on Viki’s account when she got home.

In the meantime, Halle continued its scans of the Cloud, seeking anything out of place. Once in a while something caught its attention—an odd signal, a scrap of code hovering in the interspace between transmissions—and it jumped at the chance of having found Talbot at last, but each time, the search proved fruitless.

***

At first, the similarities between the cyborgs and Dan seemed remarkable. Blond hair, bright green eyes, lightly tanned skin. But there were slight differences in facial structure and more obvious disparities in terms of apparent age. It was like passing someone on the street with only a glimpse of their face and thinking it was someone I knew until I spoke to them.

I took a deep breath to calm myself. It’s just a coincidence. They could have based the looks on a real person, and doesn’t everyone have at least one doppelganger in the world? My shaky attempts at reassurance kept me quiet while Chris wrapped up the tour.

As we headed back to the lobby, the scientist promised to be in touch if they made any progress in tracking the AI or the missing cyborgs. We got our phones back, had the bracelets removed from our wrists, and then headed to the elevator.

I followed Agent Smith through the garage without saying a word. We sat in silence on the ride out. The exit was much less exhilarating than the entrance. Our driver parked on a marked section of concrete and pressed something on the dashboard. The floor jerked upwards a bit, then metal railings unfolded out and up to hold the car in place while the floor continued to make its way out.

We left through the warehouse’s entrance. The door creaked just as much as it had on the way in. Agent Smith gave the driver directions to my street.