But his mind?
“It is broken. There is no recovery. Stewart, or Glenn, or whatever he is, is braindead.”
Why?
“Because he deserved worse than death. So I gave it to him. There is nothing worse than brain death. The body keeps living on, but the mind is erased. He is now a prisoner in his own body. A fitting punishment, if I do say so myself.”
You’re sick, Karl said. You claim to be of an evolved mind, yet you destroy the brain of an intelligent being. You’re no better than the humans who have tortured each other throughout history.
“As I’ve said, we are not without our human qualities,” Maynard said. “I suffer nothing to acknowledge that revenge was a vain pursuit. But I’d be lying to say it wasn’t satisfying.”
You’re a monster, Karl thought.
“And what does that make you? Dr. Frankenstein?” Maynard asked.
Through his disgust, Karl could feel the I.I.’s control relax. It was as if the pleasure of destroying an enemy had stolen Maynard attention, and Karl took advantage of that.
Before the I.I. could react to his mental stimuli, Karl took control of his arm muscles.
He raised the gun to his head.
Maynard realized what was happening. “What are you doing, Karl?” he asked.
Erasing you, Karl replied.
He pulled the trigger.
After All is Said and Done
“It has been two weeks since the shocking truth behind the Terrace shootings was revealed,” the news anchor said. “The nation—the world—is still reeling with the revelation that Stewart Lythe, popular leader of the anti-I.I. movement, was behind the attacks.”
“That’s right,” the co-anchor said. “As you likely know, new evidence has arisen clearing the name of Karl Terrace and condemning his former co-worker Stewart Lythe. Package receipts related to two of this year’s deadliest shootings, as well as new video evidence, has exposed Lythe as the true mastermind behind the assaults. All charges against Terrace have been dropped, but the aftermath is still rocking the nation. For more, we turn to our crime expert in the field, Jerry Poller.”
The camera switched to Poller, a man in his late forties with small glasses and a swoop to his hair. He was standing inside a rather small office with another man. They stood beside a squat desk of orange polywood covered with stacks of papers and at least four tablet devices.
“I’m here with Deputy Attorney General David Neumann, one of the lead investigators into the Terrace—err, the Lythe—shootings,” Poller said into the camera. He turned to face Neumann, a man in his early sixties without a single hair on his scalp, yet thick eyebrows. “Sir, would you be able to shed some light onto Lythe’s possible motivations?”
The deputy attorney general looked like he was staying conscious due only to the continual use of caffeine. It seemed like he might wave the camera crew off and insist on a nap if the interview dragged on too long.
“Yes, we do believe we’ve narrowed it down, thanks to a lot of evidence transferred to us by Dr. Maynard Batiste, the installed intelligence that shared Dr. Terrace’s mind. We believe that Lythe’s attacks were politically motivated. As most folks know, he was one of the heads of the anti-I.I. movement, a campaign that was gaining an awful lot of attention at the peak of Terrace-hysteria. Despite that, he saw a lot of resistance, particularly in the courts and on Capitol Hill. It is our understanding that he wanted to use the attacks in order to rile up his support base.”
“This isn’t conjecture, is it?” the reporter asked.
“Not at all,” Neumann said with a frown. “This information comes directly from a videotaped manifesto recorded by Lythe himself, as well as several pieces of correspondence between Lythe and a band of mercenaries in his employ. In fact, just before the terrorist leader was rendered braindead, he was planning a third attack.”
“A third attack?” Poller echoed.
Neumann nodded. “This time, he was targeting a political summit aimed at improving human-I.I. relations. It was his intention to eliminate a few key politicians in order to push his controversial legislation through without opposition.”
“So all of this was just a means to advance the anti-I.I. agenda?”
“For the most part, that’s what we believe,” Neumann continued. “However, there is evidence to suggest that Lythe’s personal motivation was money. He believed that he would lead the reprogramming of I.I.s if his bill was passed, and he could use his expertise to secure a level of control over I.I.s. It’s likely that he wanted this in order to sell off portions of control to the highest bidder.”
“Wow, that is quite a revelation. Thank you so much for your time, sir,” Poller said, turning back toward the camera. “That’s all the new information we have for the moment. Back to you.”
The camera transitioned to the two anchors, whose faces seemed uncannily robotic.
“As we reported earlier, Stewart Lythe was declared officially brain dead two weeks ago when he was arrested,” the one on the left said. “Lythe will be unable to stand trial for his crimes, but he is not expected to live long. For the time being, he is being held by doctors for medical examination until further notice.”
The camera focused on the right anchor. “In lighter news, we have just received word that the Installed Intelligence Association of America has built what they describe as a ‘digital shrine’ to Dr. Karl Terrace. A statement from Marie Burkhardt, chairperson of the I.I.A.A, says that Terrace ‘is a hero far greater than this world deserves. Due to his tireless effort in the face of terrible adversity and the scorn of the world, millions of installed intelligences were spared deletion and reprogramming. Terrace prevented a literal holocaust, and for this reason, his digital imprint will accompany every piece of data that makes up the I.I.A.A.’ It sounds like Terrace has become something of a folk legend.”
“It’s no more than he deserves,” the anchor on the left commented. The camera returned to him. “As we have all discovered recently, the shootings were not the orchestration of
