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settled for a more generic appearance, a robot with a human silhouette but a blank steel face. I called it the Quarter-bot because I love football and my hero is New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning. I designed my machine to be like Eli, tough and precise. But the Quarter-bot is more consistent—sorry, Eli—and a lot less injury-prone.
    After a few minutes Dad lets out a sigh and turns away from the computer screen. He leans back in his chair and massages his temples. Then he looks up and stares at my steel face, as if he’s trying to peer inside me and see the thoughts running through my electronics.
    Unlike just about every other human on the planet, Dad is perfectly comfortable looking at me. He doesn’t flinch or wince or avert his eyes. He knows it’s me , his son, inside the neuromorphic circuits he designed. He invented something amazing, a silicon matrix that can hold a human mind, and he didn’t do it for fame or money or science—he did it to save my life. He’s proud of this, but I know he feels horribly guilty too, because there was a downside to his invention. The new hardware turned out to be the perfect platform for artificial-intelligence programs. It gave AI programs enough computational power to think for themselves and set their own agendas. The same circuits that saved me gave birth to Sigma.
    Dad stops rubbing his temples. There’s a deep vertical crease between his eyebrows. “I have a hypothesis, Adam. Care to hear it?”
    I nod. The Quarter-bot’s head is maneuverable, which increases the range of its cameras. I can tilt them up and down, left and right.
    â€œOkay, first things first.” Dad leans forward and points at the computer screen, which displays a summary of the North Korea mission, with a second-by-second breakdown of everything that happened. “The first soldier approached your position forty-two seconds after you breached the factory’s concrete floor. Given the speed of that reaction, they must’ve heard you coming. An acoustic sensor probably detected the sound of your drill.”
    I shake my Quarter-bot’s head. “That seems unlikely. The background noise in the factory was loud, over a hundred decibels.”
    â€œUnlikely, but not impossible. An optimized sensor could’ve heard you despite the noise.” He points at the screen again. “The sensor could’ve pinpointed the location of Shannon’s Snake-bot too. The information was probably relayed to the radio headset in the soldier’s helmet. That would explain how he was able to target her.”
    â€œBut he moved so fast! Did you see the video I recorded?”
    â€œThey weren’t ordinary soldiers. They were elite troops, probably the best in the North Korean Army. Which makes sense. This was the most secret military base in the country, so of course they’d assign their best people to defend it. Not to mention all the tanks and rocket launchers stationed there.”
    I search my memory for a file I downloaded from the Army’s database. The storage capacity of my circuits is very large—my files hold twelve thousand books, twenty-nine thousand songs, and the stats on every football player in NFL history. They also hold the U.S. Army’s analysis of the capabilities of the North Korean military. “The North Koreans couldn’t have done this on their own. They don’t have the technology to build a factory like that and equip it with such advanced sensors. Someone must’ve helped them.”
    â€œYou’re right. And there’s more.” Dad presses a key on the terminal’s keyboard. The text on the computer screen scrolls upward. “Look what happened to Shannon’s video of the assembly line. According to her data log, someone transmitted a software virus to her radio receiver at the same time the North Korean soldiers attacked you. First the virus disabled all the firewalls that