The Last Firewall Read Online Free PDF Page B

hard in the ear, and continued her half turn, coming down lightly as he moved past her.
    Stunned, he turned slowly, and before he could bring the knife back up, Cat moved forward with a straight kick to his knee. She felt the crunch of the knee giving way, as her foot passed through the plane where his leg used to be, and jumped back again, out of reach of his knife. He fell hard, screaming as the fall impacted his leg, now bent backwards through the knee joint.
    Despite the adrenaline pumping through her, she felt sick at the sight of his leg in an unnatural position. She turned, fists still at the ready, looking at each of the four men. Over the blood pounding in her ears, she could hear nothing. The screams from the knife fighter seemed to come from a great distance away. Across the meadow, a glimmer of silver and red flashed through the trees. The bot, their victim, had gotten up and was running away.
    Cat fought with her emotions, wanting to go to the bot to see if it was all right, wanting thanks for rescuing it. But it obviously just wanted to escape.
    She was still standing there seconds later when the sound of sirens came through the trees. Would the police be coming here? Had the bot called them once it got out of range of the jammer? Would she be in trouble for fighting with these men?
    With a start, she realized that none of the men she’d put down with her implant had stirred in any way. She ignored the one with the broken leg, his screams counting him among the living. She ran over to one of others. She probed his implant as she also checked his pulse. No pulse, and no response from the implant. She ran to the red sweatshirt guy, and found the same there.
    Shit. She’d killed them.
    The sound of the sirens grew louder.
    She disconnected from the grid so she couldn’t be tracked, then turned and ran.

7
----

    L EON GAZED AT R EBECCA S MITH , sitting across the conference table. The former President looked gray and hard, not a shadow of her former self exactly, but more like a tree growing in a harsh environment. She was dense and weathered. Resilient.
    “You don’t understand the political realities, Mike,” she said. “The People’s Party does not want AI to exist.”
    “What do they think we’re going to do?” Mike said, raising his voice. “Just turn them off? Do they think we can just shut down a few computers, and the AI will be gone? Why is this coming up now, of all times?”
    Leon blinked and leaned back. Rebecca had been President of the United States. She’d founded the Institute by Executive Order. Mike’s yelling at her made him more than a little nervous. Worse yet, she seemed distraught, a state he’d never seen her in before.
    “They haven’t thought that far ahead. They blame the AI for their lack of jobs and in turn, the Institute for the AI. As the two most visible leaders of the Institute, they blame the two of you specifically. Why now? I’m not sure.” She shook her head. “Senator Watson is leading the group. It could be a long-range political maneuver. Maybe he’s planning to try for the presidency.”
    “But what have Mike and I done?” Leon said. “Artificial intelligence is an inevitable consequence of computers speeding up. Class I AIs are running on a handful of processors now. It’s a basement project that anyone can do.”
    “Leon, you don’t need to convince me.” Rebecca patted the back of his hand. “You two are very smart. You’ve each saved human society from destruction by AI. More importantly, you designed the third generation of AI to avoid those problems in the first place. What you’ve done is miraculous.” Rebecca leaned back in her seat. “But you aren’t seeing the human problem. Fifty percent of Americans are unemployed.”
    “I get that, Rebecca, I do.” Mike stood up to pace. “But there is no material want. The cost of goods is low. We have the American Stipend. We’ve eliminated poverty. There’s no one hungry now.” He looked