“At first, the Tarov A.I. worked like a dream. We used him like some sort of artificial Manchurian candidate to assassinate and delete several Liberator leaders. He was able to do so with such discretion that no one in the I.I. underground suspected he was a traitor. In fact, he rose quickly through the ranks. It was working better than we ever imagined.
“From his position of leadership, he fed us volumes of useful data on the Liberators, and even some of their sister groups. The entire time, he played his role perfectly. Of course, he had to engage in legitimate acts of terrorism — sometimes resulting in someone’s death — but our superiors reassured us that they were all necessary costs. All a part of maintaining Tarov’s cover and keeping the terrorists unaware of their leak. I should have known better back then.
“We’d kept an eye on the Tarov A.I., but for the most part, we let him operate on his own. We figured too much oversight might lead to a slip-up and could compromise our mission. He’d feed us regular reports, but a little over a year ago, the reports stopped coming in. We tried to reestablish contact with the A.I. and figure out what went wrong, but every attempt was unsuccessful. At this point, Tarov already worked himself up to the rank of master general within the Liberators, so knowing what he was up to was of paramount importance. After weeks of trying, we determined that the A.I. must have gone rogue. It was around this time that the Liberator attacks got so dramatic and frequent — Tarov’s face was appearing everywhere. I’ve been trying ever since to rein in my creation.”
“But nothing has worked?” Beth asked. She wanted the programmer to continue the story until it reached a happy conclusion, but she sensed that wasn’t going to happen.
“Nothing yet, no,” Dr. Miller replied, his tone somber. “Though — before Tarov went rogue — Silvar and I started working on a failsafe measure. Something to stop the A.I. if we ever lost control.”
Beth’s face seemed to light up at the words. Her ears felt like they perked up like a dog that heard a sound on the wind. Her eyes widened with recognition.
“I’ve heard of the failsafe!” she exclaimed. “While I was doing my research on Tarov, I saw mentions of it. It’s real?”
“That’s right,” Dr. Miller answered.
Beth was getting excited.
“What are you waiting for, then?” she asked. “Why haven’t you used the failsafe yet? If you could stop Tarov this whole time, what’s the hold up?”
“You don’t understand,” Dr. Miller said. “Jacob and I programmed the failsafe virus together, but we had very different ideas about when we should use it. I wanted to be cautious and advocated that any deviance in his programming should result in Tarov’s immediate deactivation. Jacob, however, believed we needed the A.I. to act of its own volition. That — even if it deviated in ways which seemed threatening — we should trust that it was still functioning as designed; that it might be acting in the interest of all of humanity and any kind of disruption on our part would jeopardize the mission. We couldn’t agree in the end, so we split up the activation sequence for the failsafe. I have half of the program, and Silvar has the other half. Neither of us were able to examine the other’s in case one of us was ever compromised. It will require us both coming to an agreement to activate the failsafe.”
Beth looked around at the others’ faces. They nodded with a look of shame and defeat. They’d likely explored every option in connection with the failsafe — and came up empty-handed.
So it’s not the perfect answer I was hoping for, Beth thought. Simon remained silent, but she could feel him thinking deeply.
“I don’t understand,” Beth said. “If Dr. Silvar has seen everything that Tarov has been doing — knows that he’s gone rogue — then why hasn’t he agreed to activate the failsafe with you?”
“You would have to ask him, I’m afraid,” Dr. Miller replied. “After the fifth or sixth time I pleaded with him to come to his senses, he cut off all contact with me. He won’t take any of my calls. He hasn’t in over nine months. Last time I heard, he still believed Tarov was functioning properly, even several weeks after contact with the A.I. was broken.”
She felt the crushing sense of defeat emanating off of each of the resistance members. They had tried everything they could think of to stop the juggernaut Tarov became and came to a dead end each time. They exhausted their options and now they came to Beth with some misplaced hope. A secret desire that she might have the answer they’d been overlooking.
A mental light switched on in Beth’s brain. Simon. The I.I. that lived in her brain was in the Liberators as recently as a month ago. Not only that, but he had been one of Tarov’s most trusted soldiers. He was high up in the echelon. If anyone could shed light on an unseen option, it would be him. She had her own spy no one knew about.
Simon sensed her thoughts.
“No, Beth,” he said from within her cranium. “You can’t tell them about me.”
Why not? she asked.
“Because they’re fighting Tarov and the Liberators,” Simon tried to explain. “If they know I’m hiding out in your brain, they will never trust you. They know you aren’t working for Tarov, but they don’t know the same about me. Even if they can’t prove it, they’ll think I’m a spy working on his behalf. They’d kick you
