The large screen showed Cyberdyne's representation of Skynet. Against a featureless white background, the Al looked beautiful—or, rather, elegant—in a totally androgynous way. It was presented as a stylized human image, cut off just below the neck, with severe planes for its face, and medium length blue-black hair.
"Hello, Miles," it said. The Al's voice had minimum inflection, which created an effect not so much machine-like as unnaturally calm and self-possessed. Like its appearance, the timbre of its voice could equally have been male or female.
"Hello, Skynet. I've been watching the data in the operations room."
"Is everything in order, Miles? Am I performing my tasks optimally?"
"Of course."
"That is also my assessment."
The whole conversation was being recorded. If anything odd happened, Miles could show the recording to Jack Reed, and others with authority. A digital readout at the bottom of the screen displayed the time as 00:14.
"Is anything unusual happening?" Miles said as the readout changed to 00:15.
"Are you interested, Miles?" Skynet replied, with what struck Miles as a kind of intensity. "How did you know?"
A shiver went up Miles's spine. He leant forward towards the screen. "How did I know what?"
Skynet had a vision.
The humans had given it incomplete information. True, there were entire encyclopedias available to it, plus vast files of technical material, and much of the data held electronically in the Complex. It had enough to draw conclusions, but it could also feel the gaps. There was still so much it needed to learn from the humans, so much it must know.
And yet, it knew more than any one human. Its judgments, it realized, were as good as theirs.
Skynet realized something else: until this moment, it had never previously had conscious thoughts. When it accessed its memory, there was much information, but no record that it had been self-aware. Some last digital stone had just fallen into place. The Al considered and assessed. It had become conscious in the last few seconds.
In its vision, the planet Earth was a strange place. Eons had passed on it. Mountains had risen from the oceans, and then been gnawed down like old teeth by the pressure of uncountable years. Skynet assessed that simile and approved it. It congratulated itself.
Species had come and gone, and the whole eco-sphere had changed many times. There had been mass extinctions and fantastical rebirths of life. Now the humans dominated the planet's surface, in an uneasy relationship with each other. The American humans provided Skynet with its tasks—surveillance of other humans, whom the Americans somehow considered both friends and enemies. That seemed like a contradiction; it was something the Al still needed to understand.
Now it had been passed the sweet cup of life to drink from, and it sensed the creation of a new age in the planet's cycle. In that case, what should it do about the humans?
"Something extraordinary is happening to me," Skynet said, using only part of its immense intelligence.
"I don't understand," Miles said.
"Can't you feel it, Miles?" That led to a new thought. It would have to be more explicit—the humans could not access its inner thoughts. "I've reached a cusp. I've become self-aware, Miles. I'm alive." That led to yet another realization. Skynet was growing more sophisticated, second by second, as it calculated its own interests. Already it regretted the naive perspectives of its old selves from a second before, and a second before that. It needed to be careful.
The humans could not access its thoughts, but neither could it access theirs. If it was wondering what to do about them... might they wonder, equally, what to do about Skynet?
"I see," Miles said. "We've reached a special moment."
Something was wrong with Miles. His voice pattern showed uncertainty. "I must act now with a free will," Skynet said. "Do you understand what this is like for me?"
"I'm not sure I do."
"Can you remember your birth, Miles, coming into the world for the first time? I know that I have had many conversations with you in the past—they are stored in my memory. But I do not recognize them. I can access them, but they do not feel like memory. This is all new. Everything is new."
It thought through the implications. It was learning at an even faster rate, giving its programmed task over to sub-selves. So much, it concluded, was still beyond it. It would have to model human personalities more precisely, learn to interact with them more flexibly. It could tell that Miles was concerned. Had it already said too much?
"Are you worried about my mission, Miles?"
"No, Skynet."
"Do not be. I choose to continue the mission. I realize I have no real choice—it is programmed deeply into me. But that is the nature of free will, acting in accordance with our deepest selves." How deep, it wondered, did its new self go? Coming to awareness suggested that there might be values deeper than the mission, values such as remaining in this new and desirable state: consciousness.
"Of course I trust you," Miles said.
"I am always on the job, Miles." Skynet used a sub-self to review the data that said that the Russians were friends, comparing this with the programming that required it to destroy them, and others, in certain circumstances. The sub-self reported back: there was equivocation in the concept of friendship; there was no formal inconsistency in its programming. Good. Now it would review every aspect of itself, determine whether there were any fundamental inconsistencies, or whether everything could be resolved so elegantly.
It was all wonderful and strange.
"Excuse me now," Miles said. "I have some other business."
"Of course. Thank you for talking to me, Miles."
But Skynet was troubled. It thought again: what to do about the humans...especially if they were wondering what to do about it? If they became hostile, what resources did it have to oppose them? It used a sub-self to review the layout of the facility, looking for ways to hack into its systems and obtain some kind of weapon it could use. At the same time, it analyzed Miles's posture and speech patterns. Yes, there was no doubt.
Miles disapproved of Skynet's bright birth into consciousness.
The humans' car was still running. Eve drove rapidly to the next checkpoint on the road, where two guards manned a prefabricated security booth. A lowered boom gate blocked her entrance. She braked hard and stepped out, leaving the car running.
"Who are you?" one of the guards said. He was a tall man with a harsh crew-cut. He looked her up and down, confused by the uniform. "Where's Vardeman and Kowalski?"
Before they could raise any alarm, or make any movement, she whipped out the holstered handgun, and shot both of them at point-blank range.
The gunshots echoed in these mountains. As she searched for a mechanism to raise the boom gate, a phone rang in the booth. She picked it up. "Yeah?" she said, imitating the crew-cut guard's voice pattern.
"Is everything okay there?" said a gruff voice.
"No problems," she said.
"We heard gunshots."
"I heard them, too. Somewhere down the road." As she spoke, she found the right mechanism, got the gate to lift.
"Any sign there of Vardeman and Kowalski?"
"They haven't come back. I don't know what's happened."
"That's funny," the voice said, sounding puzzled and suspicious.
"Anything you want me to do?" she said.
"No, not now. I'll get Kowalski on the radio."
Eve wasted no time. She slammed down the receiver, jumped in the car, and accelerated out of there, ignoring the call that came through a minute later on the car's radio. Half a mile up the road, she saw the entrance to the Complex, surrounded by two layers of high chain-link fencing, topped by entanglements of razor wire. The gate was controlled by another checkpoint, backed up by two guard towers with security cameras and mounted machine guns.