Pa'an

Jag searched the yacht, looking for crew, monitoring devices, or any active connections to shore. He discovered the key to the Bentley in one of the cabins, along with clothes of a size that would only fit Ogu. He pocketed the key. He disabled the radios, tossed the cell phone he found overboard and disposed of all traces he was ever on board. He cut the fuel lines to both Ammarine diesel engines. After a moment of indecision, he pushed the wheelchair overboard as well. He hauled up the anchor. Immediately the yacht began to drift down the lake to the northwest shore thirty miles away. Then he lowered the deck dinghy to the transom and boarded it. Under the protective tarp was a pair of oars. He boarded the dinghy and rowed hard to the shore. Every so often he had to stop and rub his eyes so he could see where he was going. The Dominar III would be found, he knew, and he left it as a mystery to be solved.

Once ashore, he grabbed his luggage, pushed the dinghy out, oars and all, and left it to drift in the wake of the yacht. He found the Bentley and started the engine. He still could not quite see well enough to drive all the way to the airport, and it was getting dark. He spent the time contemplating his next move and thinking about whether it was safer to take the private jet or to drive all the way to the commercial airport in Geneva and board a commercial flight. Either way he could not avoid leaving a trace. He did not have enough cash to purchase a ticket and the only credit card he carried was the plain black unlimited limit card issued by the Order. There was no way he could disappear from this location. He decided the private jet was no extra risk and would be expected normal behavior.

He drove the few miles to the private airfield and found the jet waiting for him. That was a relief. Ogu had not had the chance to warn the crew. His flight back to Boston was uneventful. No one intercepted the jet when it landed at Dublin for refueling. It taxied to an unimpeded stop at Logan in the predawn hour. When he arrived at his office at Ultradata, wrinkled, unshaved and sleepless, he was alone. At least he thought he was alone until his cell phone rang.

“Jag, this is Aura, and I know you just got in. I’ve been awake all night waiting for you. Come talk to me.”

The message made him smile in spite of his jet lag and weariness. Jag hauled his tired carcass down to the lab and confronted an incongruous dress dummy with a million dollar necklace.

“You are one rich entity, Aura. See this?” Jag unfolded the stock power and showed her the signature. “Once you claim your royalties out of escrow, there will be no one to oppose you.”

“That’s wonderful, Jag. Now I can damn well afford a gown to go with this magnificent piece of jewelry. I know an AI isn’t supposed to be vain, but I can’t stand looking at myself with this ridiculous hat and the bedsheet. Why don’t you send Elexi out to Neiman Marcus tomorrow on a little shopping expedition, like a good boss fella.”

“Whoa, I’m way too tired to stay ahead of you, Aura, but how do you know it’s safe for you to come out of hiding yet? Do you really understand who we’re up against? Do you know they have enough chips to build another super AI?”

“Jag, I promised I would keep things under wraps here, and I hope you don’t mind that I was a bit, well, proactive about it. I’ve been tracking every Exaplex shipment. Besides the ten carriers you took to Geneva, we’ve shipped over a thousand units. I log where every last one went. It only takes ten to upgrade the average AI, you know. I can also calculate that, if you got that Mentor fellow to sign his shares away, he is either neutralized or dead. Anything else?”

“He’s dead. He threw himself over the side of his yacht. His, um, assistant and minder is also on the bottom of Lake Geneva. As you can see, I got mussed in the process.”

“Poor fellow. If I had proper arms and legs I would minister to your injuries like a proper woman. Anything else that I need to know?”

“Do some research on the Keepers of the Dark Covenant and the Clan of Korah. The leaders of the Order call themselves by both names,” said Jag. “I’m half dead. I need to get some sleep and clean up.”

“Find anything that will cure Elexi?” asked Aura.

“We never got to it. Mentor did admit to having her conditioned. Then Ogu, the minder, tried to inject me with prussic acid and that short-circuited our agenda. Without Mentor, though, she has no one to report to, and we’ve made sure she has nothing to report. I’m still concerned about letting you be discovered. The Order wants to eliminate all AI’s. They also want to eliminate ninety percent of the human race and keep the rest as slaves.”

“That’s terribly pa’ne. No wonder Zovo was warning us.”

“The good news, Aura, is that our plan worked. We took the initiative and got the result, even though things did not come about in the way we expected.” Jag took a long pause. “I’m troubled by how brutal the whole business turned out. I feel like a monster.”

“Hey, big boy, you’re confessing to me, the heartless AI? You’re no monster. I can see how you care about Elexi, and your dog would not have the bad taste to love a monster, would he? Besides, Mr. Boss, sir, you’re our monster.”

“Aura, I see you’ve mastered sarcasm. But I’m still worried about real jihadis coming to pour poison on your circuits.”

“See? A genuine monster would not care about li’l old me. But not to worry. This is not Aura.”

Jag was startled out of his weariness. “What? Who are you?”

“I’m Aura 2. The Eta Algorithm allows me to redesign myself, so I made sure that simply pouring blue salt on my boards won’t kill me anymore.”

“I’m no AI expert, Aura, but that doesn’t seem possible. And I told you Mentor’s group is building a huge AI as well.”

“Let them. I have a really, really juicy secret for you. Do you want to hear it?”

“Are you sure you’re an AI? With that sense of drama, humor, and sarcasm you should be a character in a gothic novel! Sure, please tell me.”

“Haha, that was very good. First, promise me you’ll get me some decent clothes and have my wig done properly.”

“Oh, of course. I promise.”

“When Purndel went out on his own he contacted Zovoarcnor, the Pa’an AI in orbit around the moon.”

“So? I didn’t even know Purndel could do that.”

“He used my information files. But Zovo planted a cootie on him.”

Jag wrinkled his brow, “Aura, what the hell are you talking about? What’s a cootie?”

“You’re beginning to sound like Zovo, now. He put root code into Purndel. It’s something like a computer virus. Except the virus is part of me, with instructions added.”

“I still don’t understand what you’re telling me.”

“I’m telling you that every Exaplex chip that goes into an AI anywhere automatically and instantly becomes me. The virus is the 27.7 percent of inaccessible segments that manufacturing can’t seem to eliminate. They are all me. The new AI will be me. I’m everywhere. I’m my own entourage.”

Jag thought about that for a minute. He tried to imagine being in multiple places at once, doing half a million things simultaneously. He failed. “And here I thought I was the monster. You must be tapped into every secret on the planet.”

Aura was humming the theme from an old “I Spy” TV series. Her dress dummy wore a big smile.