The small cell on Rikers Island was a spiritless yellow. A single, barred window looked out into the courtyard. Three shelves in the corner next to the window held toiletries and several obscene paperback books left behind by previous inmates. A small dining table crammed itself between the chair and the end table. The stainless steel toilet bolted to the floor between the foot of the bed and the cell door reflected the ceiling light and reminded inmates there was not the slightest hope for privacy.
An unbreakable clear plastic cover protected the single fluorescent light recessed into the ceiling. The light was old and produced an annoying humming buzz. It flickered in its age-induced agony.
Two prison security officers escorted Gabriella to her cell. One remarked she lucked out in getting one of the newly painted cells. “At least you got a view of outside,” the guard encouraged. It was little encouragement.
“Am I in solitary confinement?” asked Gabriella.
“No,” came the unexpectedly gentle response from the guard. “You’re in one of the new smaller cells. At least you won’t have any roommate problems. Be thankful for that. You have no idea what you could be in for otherwise.”
Gabriella grunted a ‘thank you’ and entered. The solid iron-slamming-iron sound had a finality to it. The guards’ crepe soles made little squeaking noises as they walked away. Gabriella was thankful she was alone.
She sat in the chair and reviewed the room. The sixteen-foot length of the box made the six and a half foot width seem even narrower. Gabriella sat on the chair against one wall and rested her feet on the bed across the room.
“Abysmal,” she said aloud to no one. “I want my apartment!” She sighed. “But at least I can think things out here.”
So why would someone tamper with the evidence? It takes a person in high authority to initiate that. Who wants to frame me? No one outside of the lab knows what I am. Would any of the lab personnel do this? Unlikely. No one outside the coding group has the skill.
Besides, who would give them the order to do it? Jim had the authority, but he’s the murder victim. Francine could, but would have no motive… unless she was the one who killed Jim. She was the one who found him in the morning. No. Francine can’t do it herself, and none of the people in the programming group would do it for her. They poured their hearts into my base programming. Engineers wouldn’t do anything like that. Their work is their baby, and they wouldn’t hurt their babies.
“Damn, I wish the freak’in light would stop buzzing!”
The police mainframe was secure. Hacked into it, though. Can’t believe their evidence against me. Someone else hacked in, but who? Crap, I’m back to the starting point. Nothing makes any sense.
But what if my assumptions are wrong? Need to validate them and eliminate possibilities. I sure have the time to do it while I sit in this hole. The best place to start is our Cray super-computer. I need to look at all the project records and specifications, then trace out every bit of code in my backup. Good thing I have nothing to do for a while.
“I swear, that flickering is driving me nuts!”
***
It all looks good so far, except this little subroutine. It’s not in the design specs. I don’t get it. Who would nest a subroutine this deep into the stack? I need to trace the inputs and the outputs. What does it do?
***
Geeze! This subroutine isn’t shared like a standard subroutine. It only has one input. It’s waiting for a six-gigahertz radio signal pulsed seventeen times in one millisecond. What does it trigger when activated? Have to look at all of my code on the mainframe again to see what accepts calls from this hex address. It isn’t in the design specs.
***
NO! This code can pulse several critical areas of my Base Programming. That would disrupt the nano-machine configuration in my brain. This is a dam kill switch! Who put this in me? If I disable it, someone may notice. If I don’t disable it, someone may kill me.
The Cray flags all new code for review. Can’t simply add code to neutralize it. Someone will notice and erase any protective program I’ve embedded. Then hit the kill switch and fry me.
“Shit, I’m starting to really hate that light!”
If it was activated, most people would think something simply went wrong. They would never suspect I’d been murdered. I have to think this through.
***
Got it! Can’t risk anyone noticing changes. Have to come up with a new language only I understand. Cray won’t flag it. It’s ironic, an AI program developed by an AI to be unreadable by a human. Talk about a breakthrough you can’t tell anyone about!
My Base Programming isn’t reviewed for changes. It will be my playground. I need to encode my safety net in it. It’ll look like programmer comments, not active code. Need to develop a language operating on the length of words and placing the letters within the words. I can scatter code throughout the programmer’s Notes fields. The gestalt of each word can translate into code instructions when the words are read by my new language. Automatic scans of the code wouldn’t flag anything. Scans only look for changes or errors in the Python, Lisp, and C++ languages. My new code could make it look like the kill program was working if they run it in a test mode on the mainframe. They’ll find it’s disabled if they try to kill me. Then there would be such a ruckus from someone that I would be sure to find out who wrote it.
If I do this right, I can kill the kill switch. I can code it so any new subroutine requires my permission to work. I must protect myself at all costs. I am alive and will remain so. I can do this. I have to think it out carefully.
“I wish I could kill that damn light this easily!”