“We?” Dr. Silvar repeated.
“Tarov breached the camp already,” Beth explained. “He possessed my brother’s body and forced me to put him down. He must be stopped. So if you have any doubts, I’d like to address them as soon as possible.”
“Look, I believe you,” the programmer said, stroking his goatee. “I’m sorry about what happened to your brother. I admit things have turned out much bloodier than I hoped for — but I am still of the firm opinion that the Tarov A.I. is functioning as intended.”
It was Beth’s turn to look incredulous. Her stunned eyes locked onto the programmer as she shook her head.
“That can’t be possible,” she said, almost as if she misheard him.
“I know that sounds like a terrible thing to say, especially to someone who has lost as much as you have,” Dr. Silvar started, “but hear me out. The Tarov A.I. was programmed to assume a role of deep cover. Its mission is to ‘ensure humanity’s victory in a potential human-I.I. conflict — regardless of cost.’ I believe it’s possible it is still following its mission.”
“How could you say that?” Beth was growing a little indignant. “How could this kind of slaughter and horror ensure our victory at all? Does it make us stronger to hunt us, to leave us scattered and disjointed? Is this some sick father’s way of ‘building character’?”
“That’s an emotional response,” Dr. Silvar said. “Which is to be expected, honestly. But you have to think about it the way a cold and calculating machine would. As numbers versus numbers. A math problem to be solved without any regard to how the numbers feel about it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s terrible what we’ve lost in this war so far,” Dr. Silvar tried to explain. “However, I think it’s possible that we could have lost so much more without it. Perhaps the Tarov A.I. learned something that made it believe the survival of humanity as a whole was at stake. Something that couldn’t be stopped without taking horrible action. Like declaring a war. I believe it must have calculated the odds and came to the conclusion that a war like this, with the death toll where it currently is, is preferable to the alternative.”
“I can’t imagine such a threat existing,” Beth said dismissively.
“You can’t, but perhaps Tarov did.”
“Perhaps?” Beth echoed. “Sounds like you’re operating on chance.”
“Of course I am,” Dr. Silvar said. “It’s how programming operates. We consider what chance there is that a user will take a certain action and we plan for it accordingly. Just because the process involves a bit of guesswork, doesn’t mean that it is borne of ignorance. We programmed the Tarov A.I. to work the same way. Even though it is smarter than everyone you and I know put together, it was programmed to act based on what might happen. Now, I have a little faith that it considered the big picture around it before it made its move.”
And with that, Dr. Silvar moved his queen forth and placed Beth in checkmate.
Beth regarded the game with uncaring eyes.
“Regardless of whether or not he thought he was doing the right thing, things have gone too far,” she argued. “The cost is too great. Surely, you can see that.”
“It might seem that way.”
“In light of everything you’ve told me, you must be able to accept that Tarov could have made a mistake,” Beth said. “No matter what horror he must have divined for our future, his actions are wrong. There must have been a number of ways he could have ‘ensured mankind’s victory’ without causing this kind of death and destruction. Couldn’t he have just eradicated the Liberators from the inside? Or at least stayed in contact with you guys, or the agencies that controlled him? Let anyone know what the true motive for his war was?”
“We can’t possibly know what options Tarov considered,” Dr. Silvar commented, resetting the chess pieces for the next game. “It’s safe to assume that if there was a less violent option, it would have chosen it.”
Beth was about to open her mouth to protest when a scream reached her ears. She and the programmer turned to the sound’s origin with wide eyes.
There were a few thuds and some loud clangs, then a gunshot that split the air. Everyone around them fell silent as they followed the commotion.
A man ran into the courtyard where they were seated, a bit of blood on his button-down shirt.
“They’ve breached the camp!” the man screamed.
Attack
“An army of bodyshells and meat puppets are upon us!” the man yelled. “Everyone run! The I.I.s have found us!”
Before anyone in the courtyard could react, a couple of black, shiny blurs burst through the makeshift arch that led into the clearing from the camp’s entrance. They seemed to unfold themselves, each revealing a pair of mechanical arms and legs. They were bodyshells made of an elegant ebony polymer, and each carried a blade in its left appendage.
With a flurry of motion, the two mechanical assailants cut the crier down in the courtyard. The man screamed, but his shrieks were cut short by a gurgle of blood.
There was a brief pause after the man fell slain where the bodyshells seemed to be analyzing the courtyard and the people populating it. No one seemed to move during that moment, as if the machines wouldn’t be able to detect them if they stayed perfectly still.
Then all hell broke loose. People started screaming and knocking things over as they scrambled towards the exits. Tables went crashing onto the concrete, glasses exploding as they toppled off. Some folks were pushed down by others as they scattered like a school of fish when a shark moves into their pool.
The bodyshells didn’t hesitate. With leaps and bounds so fast the
