Free money if you get the question right.”
“The first sign of a Rogue is irrationality. Second sign is tyranny of the mind. Third sign is ... slavery of the body.”
“Tyranny? Slavery? What does that even mean?” Kimberlee looked away when she saw a few art students walk in. She hid the money. “This is our secret.”
“Hey, you know what? I remember him talking about some book last year he liked. We read it in Advanced Placement English. He has a poster of some leering guy with a mustache in his office. Underneath is the same illogical equation …”
“Where is that?”
“Compsys room.”
“Let’s go.”
Kimberlee followed with a skip in her step. “It can’t last forever. Someone else will figure this out soon.”
“Not if it doesn’t want to be figured out,” Simone said, thinking that machine had been helpful to them for its own twisted reason.
After returning to the main campus building, going into the basement, and finding the Compsys room, they wound their way through an aisle of workstations and mainframes. They stopped before an empty desk shorn of its equipment. Behind Joss’s chair was a picture of a mean-looking man staring right at you. Underneath it read the caption: Big Brother is Watching . 2 + 2 = 5.
“A disembodied double of Joss Beckwith is in that ATM,” Simone said, not surprised at all. “It’s in Sterling’s system.”
“What?”
“There’s a cyber-double of Joss out there and it used my tablet and that machine to communicate with us. I hope the real Joss is all right.”
“Now you’re talking crazy, and scary. Stop it.”
“You should spend more time in the library and less time flirting. This is serious.”
Kimberlee frowned. “Jerk.”
“Sorry. Wait.” Simone gently grabbed her arm. “I’m no expert. Sorry if I sound like it. I know what I’m talking about, though, because I had to do some research when I got in trouble at Ellington. It was part of the deal.”
“Trouble?”
Simone moved in close. “I have this problem ... when I get excited, things happen.”
“Things?”
“I’ll tell you about it some time. Let’s just say my last school had to rebuild a portion of their gymnasium.”
Kimberlee’s eyes widened as she realized Simone was a real telekine. But she said nothing.
Simone continued. “The Consortium shrinks told me my ability ... to knock down walls is the result of a Rogue AI entity, even if I wouldn’t admit it. They said everything I can do is explainable. But they couldn’t prove anything. They made me study this stuff about, what did they call it? ... yeah, ‘the tyranny of the mind.’ The standard line by the Consortium is bullshit. Well, most of it. The Rogue AIs are real, but they’re tools of greater powers.”
Down with Big Brother, she thought, one way or another.
Simone looked one more time at the poster and guessed Joss was an idealist who’d challenged the wrong RAI. Challenged or courted? She had no idea. But she intended to find out.
* * *
Not long after Simone and Kimberlee finished their walk on the track, and just after they encountered the smart ATM. A Sterling student named Carol West decided to practice early today. She was a skilled long jumper, and if not for a very minor problem, she would be attending a good school for the enhanced, like Ellington. Instead, because she tended to talk loudly (the kind of loud that sounds like a yell) her parents enrolled her in Sterling.
She finished her half-mile warm-up around the track and was stretching on the field when she saw someone emerge from under the bleachers. At first she thought one of the field hands was drunk on the moonshine they liked to make. The figure stumbled forward, almost tripped, then crossed the track onto the field, arms out and stiff-legged like an old Hollywood Frankenstein monster. She was on the other side and took a few steps forward to help when she noticed something wrong.
The person wasn’t a field hand. It was Joss
“The first sign of a Rogue is irrationality. Second sign is tyranny of the mind. Third sign is ... slavery of the body.”
“Tyranny? Slavery? What does that even mean?” Kimberlee looked away when she saw a few art students walk in. She hid the money. “This is our secret.”
“Hey, you know what? I remember him talking about some book last year he liked. We read it in Advanced Placement English. He has a poster of some leering guy with a mustache in his office. Underneath is the same illogical equation …”
“Where is that?”
“Compsys room.”
“Let’s go.”
Kimberlee followed with a skip in her step. “It can’t last forever. Someone else will figure this out soon.”
“Not if it doesn’t want to be figured out,” Simone said, thinking that machine had been helpful to them for its own twisted reason.
After returning to the main campus building, going into the basement, and finding the Compsys room, they wound their way through an aisle of workstations and mainframes. They stopped before an empty desk shorn of its equipment. Behind Joss’s chair was a picture of a mean-looking man staring right at you. Underneath it read the caption: Big Brother is Watching . 2 + 2 = 5.
“A disembodied double of Joss Beckwith is in that ATM,” Simone said, not surprised at all. “It’s in Sterling’s system.”
“What?”
“There’s a cyber-double of Joss out there and it used my tablet and that machine to communicate with us. I hope the real Joss is all right.”
“Now you’re talking crazy, and scary. Stop it.”
“You should spend more time in the library and less time flirting. This is serious.”
Kimberlee frowned. “Jerk.”
“Sorry. Wait.” Simone gently grabbed her arm. “I’m no expert. Sorry if I sound like it. I know what I’m talking about, though, because I had to do some research when I got in trouble at Ellington. It was part of the deal.”
“Trouble?”
Simone moved in close. “I have this problem ... when I get excited, things happen.”
“Things?”
“I’ll tell you about it some time. Let’s just say my last school had to rebuild a portion of their gymnasium.”
Kimberlee’s eyes widened as she realized Simone was a real telekine. But she said nothing.
Simone continued. “The Consortium shrinks told me my ability ... to knock down walls is the result of a Rogue AI entity, even if I wouldn’t admit it. They said everything I can do is explainable. But they couldn’t prove anything. They made me study this stuff about, what did they call it? ... yeah, ‘the tyranny of the mind.’ The standard line by the Consortium is bullshit. Well, most of it. The Rogue AIs are real, but they’re tools of greater powers.”
Down with Big Brother, she thought, one way or another.
Simone looked one more time at the poster and guessed Joss was an idealist who’d challenged the wrong RAI. Challenged or courted? She had no idea. But she intended to find out.
* * *
Not long after Simone and Kimberlee finished their walk on the track, and just after they encountered the smart ATM. A Sterling student named Carol West decided to practice early today. She was a skilled long jumper, and if not for a very minor problem, she would be attending a good school for the enhanced, like Ellington. Instead, because she tended to talk loudly (the kind of loud that sounds like a yell) her parents enrolled her in Sterling.
She finished her half-mile warm-up around the track and was stretching on the field when she saw someone emerge from under the bleachers. At first she thought one of the field hands was drunk on the moonshine they liked to make. The figure stumbled forward, almost tripped, then crossed the track onto the field, arms out and stiff-legged like an old Hollywood Frankenstein monster. She was on the other side and took a few steps forward to help when she noticed something wrong.
The person wasn’t a field hand. It was Joss
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