Lockstep by Karl Schroeder

Author:Karl Schroeder
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: Macmillan-Tor/Forge

Eleven

“I DON’T LIKE POLICE,” Peter had told Toby once, as they were arguing over yet another point of design for Consensus. “They’re people, and how can you trust people? But I hate cop bots, too, ’cause, well, they’re not people.” In their next version of Consensus, he’d provided a solution to both problems.

Toby sat on the floor with Corva and Jay, looking up at that solution.

They had raced up from the bottom of the facility, hoping to head off Shylif. Toby couldn’t believe he was intending to kill one of the passengers in the module, but Corva had confirmed it. “He joined us because he was hunting this man Coley and he’d tracked him to Thisbe,” she’d said as they ran. “I never thought he’d actually find him!”

Apparently, now that he had, all other considerations had ceased to have any meaning for him. So he’d left his post, and in that instant the alarms that his presence there kept suspended had gone off.

It had taken surprisingly little time for the police dirigible to arrive.

In Consensus, red lights on the heads of bots like these four meant they were being “ridden” remotely by professional law officers. Telepresence had been decent in Toby’s day; he had no doubt it was perfect now. The people remotely controlling these bots would feel they were right here and had to be aware that they stood two heads taller than any normal human and had enough strength to tear off an airlock door with their bare hands—if their robot bodies would let them.

The bots had overrides to prevent their human drivers from killing or badly injuring anyone. The humans, in turn, had overrides on the kinds of simple assumptions a bot might make about what kind of situation they were in. Peter had thought it was a nearly perfect solution.

What made it actually perfect was the fifth bot that hung back from these four. Its headlights were green, meaning it was being ridden by a civilian observer, who would also be recording everything that happened here.

The cop bots didn’t seem too concerned about that fifth guy. One of the red-lit ones crouched with a gnashing sound in front of Toby. “Facial’s not getting a match on this guy. They must be stowaways.”

“They had denners,” said a second one, which stood with crossed arms over Corva. “Saw ’em scamper off that way.”

What about Shylif? Toby exchanged a glance with Jaysir, who gave a tiny shake of his head. Had they found him up top? Or was he hiding somewhere?

“Denners…” The first cop leaned toward Toby. “Is it true what they say? Those things’re altered to work like cicada beds?”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Toby.

“Shut up,” snapped Corva. “They’ve got lie detection built into those suits. You just said ‘yes,’ you know.”

“Oh.” He felt himself flush.

“Ha,” said the cop bot, tilting its head to one side. “Good readings off this one. So, kid, who are you, and where are you from?”

Toby looked the cop in its lenses. “I am

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