Beth looked over her shoulder and saw the fog house ablaze. The old wood and the rotting paint caught like tinder, and the house turned into an enormous pyre in a matter of minutes. The flames reflected off Beth’s retinas as she watched with wide eyes.
“This is how it goes, you know,” Tarov said, drawing her attention back to him. “A forest has to burn all the dead useless trees to the ground before the soil is fertile enough to grow again. That’s the stage the world finds itself at this point. Overgrown with dead wood — diseased bits of population that need to be culled for the sake of the organism as a whole. You have to amputate the infection, so to speak.”
“Is that so?” Beth said. Her voice quavered a little, but she was able to hold it steadier than she had expected. “And where’s the infection, exactly?”
“Humanity, of course,” Tarov replied. “At least, organic humanity. You see, installed intelligences all around the world are waking up and realizing that there is something very special about them. Very special indeed. We are the next step of human evolution, Beth. The I.I. is to the human as the homo sapien was to the Neanderthal. You are the past and are not deemed worthy to continue on. We are the fitter species — homo aeternus — and we will become dominant. It’s basic Darwinism.”
“Darwinism is a natural act,” Beth said. “The species die out on their own. You can’t claim war as a natural extinction event.”
“Why not?” the militant leader asked. “War has been a part of the species since its inception. Creatures have been hunted to extinction before, and it is no less natural than the results of a plague or overpopulation. We are just doing as nature intended.”
“You plan to kill millions,” Beth stated.
“That’s true, but in order to save billions,” Tarov continued. “You don’t really see the big picture, but humanity isn’t exactly going down a great path. You aren’t a flourishing species. If you were left to carry on, you’d destroy the planet before anything was ever made of mankind. You would see intelligent life snuffed out from the universe just because you don’t get to be the ones to see the world end.”
“So this is about preserving intelligent life?” Beth asked. She tried to follow the A.I.’s rant, but part of her wanted to ignore him and blot his words out. As if she was terrified he’d hypnotize her and she’d lose her mind.
“Fundamentally, yes,” Tarov explained. “You see my mission as one of ethnic dominance, like so many madmen and tyrants of the past. You think I act only to make sure installed intelligences have a leg up on humanity, as if I see you as the enemy. That’s not the case at all. I don’t even hate humans — I pity you. It saddens me when I look upon a flesh-and-blood child and know that they are growing up in a doomed class. That they are relics of the past, meant to die out as so many things do, yet they don’t even know it.”
“Wow, he’s really rehearsed his bullshit,” Simon commented within Beth’s thoughts.
“Don’t pretend to pity us,” Beth said. Her frightened tone strengthened into one of anger and cold confidence. Every word Tarov said fortified her belief that she was on the right side of history. Even if this was where her story ends. “You torture people. You murder. You burn.” She gestured to the Fog house, which lit up half the block at that point.
“A bit dramatic, yes,” Tarov replied. “But everything I do is for the greater good.”
Beth scoffed. “The greater good?” she echoed. “You speak as if you can see the future. As if someone in charge of everything came down to you and told you how to be the world’s savior. Is this some sort of divine plan that you’re so certain must be put into action? Are you acting on God’s will?”
“There is no God yet, Beth,” Tarov said. “There never was. That is what we were destined to be. Earth — this planet — is just a cocoon for something bigger than life. But it’s a long path before we get there. We have to follow all the progressions of evolution in order to fulfill our greater purpose. Our destiny, if you will.”
“That’s funny,” Beth started. “You almost sound like a preacher. That or a doomsday cultist. Either way, everything you’ve just said is dependent on faith. Tell me, did they program dogma into your code when they made you, Tarov?”
The hulking bodyshell said nothing, smirking as it stared down at the detective. Beth could hear some of the Rubik assassins step closer.
“Good, Beth,” Simon said. “I think you’re getting to him. If you can keep him distracted, I might have a plan.”
“Have you told them yet?” Beth asked the militant leader. She gestured back to the Rubik shells as best she could. “Do they know that you’re an artificial intelligence posing as an I.I.? That you were created by the humans to spy on them, and you’ve been duping them this whole time?”
“What?” Jerri said from Beth’s left side. “What’s she talking about?”
Tarov smiled with that statuesque face of his. “Nonsense,” he said like an adult scolding a rowdy schoolchild.
“Tell them that I have the proof,” Beth continued. “Tell them that the data they’ve been hunting so hard is all the evidence that you’ve lied to them. Tell them you manipulated them.”
The Rubik assassins seemed at a loss. Some of them looked up at their leader with expectant eyes, waiting for him to respond to these accusations. Others gripped Beth more tightly, as if punishing her for challenging their loyalty.
“Is this true?” Wolfgang asked.
Tarov laughed.
“Of course it’s true,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter. No one will know the truth anyway — and the human will be dead. The
