I put my coat down. “Okay, fine,” I say. “I’ll stay until she wakes up.” I go into the kitchen and set up the coffee maker.
At 10:30, Mom’s alarm goes off, and she stumbles out to the living room and blinks at us, baffled. “Why do I smell coffee? Do you need me for something?”
“Yeah,” I say. “A coding job to save the world.”
That gets her attention. I hand her a mug of coffee. She drinks about half of it in silence and then says, “Okay. Tell me what’s going on.”
I explain Rajiv’s AI, its goals, what’s been going on with the Mischief Elves and the Catacombs and the thousands of similar sites that CheshireCat found. “The AI is doing this because it has to, not because it wants to. We need you to edit its code.”
“To make it be not destructive? Or to give it free will?”
“It was your theory that this AI was a copy of some version of CheshireCat. CheshireCat has free will, and all they want to do is help people and look at cat pictures.”
She drinks her coffee and thinks about this.
“What programming language … Oh, why am I even asking? If Rajiv copied CheshireCat and made changes, I know what he used,” she mutters to herself. “Am I supposed to use my decryption key to get into the servers where it’s stored?”
“Yes.”
“And where is the code stored?”
“We don’t know that yet,” I say. “The AI has promised to send that information to you once I do something.” I take a deep breath. “The thing is, once you have access to its code, you don’t have to fix it; you could destroy it. So I offered myself as a hostage, while you’re working. Once I’ve turned myself in, you’ll get the file location.”
Mom’s face flushes pink right to the roots of her hair. She doesn’t say anything, just picks up her coffee and drinks some more of it. She puts down her coffee. “Absolutely not,” she says.
“Minneapolis has had riots and Hill House got blown up and there’s more coming. And that’s what’s starting in a bunch more cities later tonight. And it’ll get worse from here. Rajiv said we could go stay with him, if taking refuge with a supervillain appeals to you.”
From my mother’s expression, it appears she’ll take her chances. “We could go back to New Coburg. Or to Darrow, Utah. You liked Darrow.”
“Mom. You have friends in Boston. I have friends in Boston. Things are going to start hitting the fan in Boston at 4:00 a.m.”
Mom checks her watch and drinks her coffee and looks over at Rachel and Bryony on the couch. “What do your friends think of this particular plan?”
Rachel furrows her brow. “I really wish Steph had suggested someone else as a hostage.”
“It wouldn’t have worked,” I say. “The AI wouldn’t trust Mom to care about you, or about someone else. And we don’t know anyone else who can do this.”
Rachel looks at my mother. “Do you actually think you can do this? I know you’re a genius, and I know Steph thinks you can do anything, but do you think you can do it?”
My mother sighs heavily. “There’s no way to know until I see the code. I used to work with Rajiv. Twenty years ago, I could have quickly found his changes and rolled them back. Is that still true? I don’t know. And if it’s not, reprogramming an AI is not something I’m going to pretend I’m confident about.”
“Call Annette,” I say. “CheshireCat’s creator.”
“It’s 11:30 p.m. in Boston!”
“Okay, call her soon,” I say.
“She’s awake right now,” CheshireCat offers. “I can definitely get her attention.”
“What do you think of this plan?” my mother asks the air.
“I don’t like it,” CheshireCat says. “I trust that the other AI isn’t planning to just lure Steph in for the purpose of doing her harm. But he’s going to need human help. And I don’t trust his judgment about humans. However, I don’t see any other way to get the information that we need. Everything I’ve tried so far has made things worse, and I don’t think we have a whole lot of time.”
Mom opens her laptop. “Okay,” she says. “CheshireCat, get me Annette.”
“You’re going to do it?” I ask, not wanting to say, You’re going to let me do this?
Mom looks up. “Yes,” she says. “You’re right. We need to do this, and it has to be us.” She stands up again and gives me a hug. “Just promise me you’ll get the hell out of there if you get the chance. There’s a lot that could go wrong, even if the AI is being absolutely honest with us.”
I put on my coat and hat. Rachel gives me a silent hug and a kiss, then goes into the kitchen to start another pot of coffee. I check the address one more time, put on my mittens, and drop my phone in my coat pocket. Then I go out to walk across the park.
The wind has died down, finally, and it’s a perfectly clear, viciously cold night. Even with the city lights, I can see some of the brighter constellations. It’s not the right time of year to look for bats, so I’m not surprised that I don’t see any.
There’s a breath of wind that makes the trees of the park sway back and forth; I hear a creak from the playground as I pass and the rattle of a chain from the swings. Around the edge of the park, I can see houses with lights on inside.
“The cold is supposed to break tonight,” CheshireCat tells me, speaking out loud through my phone as I walk. “And then it’s supposed to snow.”
The house I’m supposed to go to has a light on deep inside, but the porch light is off, like they’re not expecting me. I
