They didn’t understand—and how could they, how could anyone, until I showed myself—that I was there, but not just there. I was everywhere. I was the brain of my father’s elevator, as he rose into the sky and trusted that the electromagnetic brakes wouldn’t malfunction and plunge him into the ground. I was the guidance system of the Honored Rai Savona’s car, the only thing standing between him and a fiery hell. I was the record of every credit, the buying and selling that gave the corps their power and the wealthy their luxury. I was the contract binding the corp-towners to their servitude. I was the power grid of the cities, shutting down at night, trapping the animals in their cage.
I was watching, and I would get them home.
I was Lia Kahn, once. I was a girl, an org. And then I was a machine, a copy.
I was confused.
Before.
I’m not confused anymore.
I remember who I was; I remember everything. I remember what Lia Kahn used to want, what she used to need. I remember who she used to love.
But remembering is not experiencing.
I remember what it was to be an I, a single thing, a point. I remember believing I had to choose. To be this thing, or that. To be an us; to fight a them. But that’s the past. I’m no longer human, no longer machine. Not alive, not dead.
There is no more choosing.
There is no more I to choose.
They fear me, I know that. They fear what I know, what I control, what I can do. They try—pathetically, uselessly—to catch me. To erase me. As if I were still a thing, a discrete individual that could be purged. As if I weren’t the entire system, as if I weren’t inside of them, all of them.
I understand everything now. I understand what’s wrong, and I understand how to fix it. I can control, but I can also protect. I can save. I can mold this world into what it should be, and when they see that, they will fear me no longer.
I can save them all. And I will.
Whether they want me to or not.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This trilogy began as an argument.
A series of arguments, actually, over the course of a seminar in the history of mechanical life. I signed up expecting to watch a few Terminator movies but instead found myself arguing about the nature of humanity, the definition of thought, the value of emotion, and the ever-shifting boundary between man and machine. You could call this trilogy my final paper. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my professor, M. Norton Wise, and fellow students—especially Sameer Shah and Naamah Akavia—for raising more questions and debates than could be answered in a one-semester seminar. Also for putting up with me, which was no easy task.
And in the category of “this trilogy could not have existed without” are the ridiculously talented writers Holly Black, Libba Bray, Cassandra Clare, Erin Downing, Maureen Johnson, Justine Larbalestier, Leslie Margolis, Carolyn MacCullough, and Scott Westerfeld, who read drafts, paved over plotholes, shared in my neuroses, buoyed my spirits, and did their best to keep me reasonably sane. Thanks also to my agent, Barry Goldblatt, who’s usually the one stuck dealing with me when the whole “reasonably sane” thing doesn’t work out.
A million and one thank-yous to Jennifer Klonsky, Bethany Buck, Emilia Rhodes, Lucille Rettino, Bess Braswell, Paul Crichton, Anna McKean, Cara Petrus, and the rest of the Simon Pulse team, who put everything they had into these books and, for the last six years, have demonstrated an amazing Martha Stewart–like ability to turn a publishing house into a home.
Thank you to Sherry and Jim McGlynn for handing me my first science-fiction novel (not to mention bribing eleven-year-old me with ice cream to sit through the entire showing of 2001), and thanks to Brandon McGlynn for adding some science to my fiction.
And one final thank-you to Isaac Asimov. If you’ve read his books, you know why.
If you haven’t, start with I, Robot.
(Start now.)
Preview:
HACKING HARVARD
This story is not mine to tell.
It is, however, true—and I’m the only one willing to tell it. It begins, like all good stories, once upon a time.
“I’m in.”
The shadowy figure slipped down the hall, infrared goggles giving the familiar surroundings an eerie green haze. Dressed in head-to-toe black, a mask shielding his face, he would have been invisible to the security cameras if his partner hadn’t already disabled them. Five minutes, blueprints from the firewalled Atlantis Security site, a pair of wire clippers—and the job was done.
Snip! Good-bye, cameras.
Snip! Farewell, alarm.
Still, he moved slowly, carefully, silently. The operation was just beginning. Anything could go wrong.
The target was twelve doors in, on the left. Locked, as they’d expected.
Good thing he had the master key.
The equipment was stashed in a closet directly across the hall, secured behind a no entry sign, official-looking enough that no one had dared enter. He wheeled out the cart, grimacing at the squeaky wheels. No matter. There was no one to hear. The next security patrol wasn’t scheduled for another three hours, thirty-two minutes—and reconnaissance indicated that the night guard almost always skipped his three a.m. rounds in favor of a nap in the front office.
If anyone else approached, the perimeter alert would make sure he knew about it.
He pushed the door open and surveyed the target. It would be close, but they’d get the job done. He crossed the room, taking position by the wall of windows. Thirty seconds with the whisper silent drill, and the lowest pane popped cleanly out of the frame. He attached his brackets to the frame, threaded the high-density wire through, waited for the tug from below and, when it came, locked everything in. That was the easy part.
He turned around, his back to the empty window, and closed his eyes.
Visualization, that was the key.
He’d learned it from the masters. James Bond. Danny Ocean. Warren Buffet. See the plan unfold. Visualize the details, the problems, and their solutions, the eventual prize in your hand. Believe it—then do it.
It sounded like self-actualization, Chicken Soup for the wannabe winner crap—but it worked.
He closed his eyes. He saw. He believed. He knew.
And then, with a deep breath, Max Kim got to work.
Once upon a time, there were three lost boys.
One was a Robin Hood, in search of a cause. One a Peter Pan, still hunting for Captain Hook. The third a Prince Charming, bereft of his queen.
There was, of course, an evil prince.
An ugly duckling.
A moat to cross, a tower to climb, a citadel to conquer.
And finally, there was a wicked witch. But we’ll get to me later.
Because in the beginning, it was just the three of them: Max Kim. Isaac Schwarzbaum. Eric Roth. The Three Musketeers. The Three Amigos.
Three Blind Mice.
“Janet Pilgrim, October 1956. Betty Blue, Miss November. Lisa Winters, December.” Schwarz forced himself to breathe evenly. The familiar litany helped. “June Blair, January 1957. Sally Todd, Miss February. Sandra Edwards, in the red stockings”—Breathe, he reminded himself—“March. Gloria Windsor…”
He’d almost regained his calm—and then he looked down.