The Phoenix Code Read Online Free PDF Page B

comparable to a human brain, but he couldn't match the speed of human thought—yet. As he became more sophisticated, Megan suspected his speed would outstrip unaugmented human thought.
    Right now he just stared at the box. According to her palmtop, Aris was calculating the trajectory he needed to jump. After his nets learned the process, he would no longer need to solve equations, any more than a child had to work out trajectories when she jumped, but he hadn't yet reached that stage. Even with his untutored nets, though, Megan didn't see why it was taking so long. He should only need seconds to translate the math into commands for his body.
    Using Tycho, she probed deeper into his code. It looked like his brain had switched to a mod that directed his expression of fear. She tried to unravel how it had happened, but the complexity of his always-evolving code made it impossible to follow.
    "Aris? Can you jump?"
    He continued to stare at the box.
    "Tycho," she said, "what is the highest level of fear Aris can tolerate before he freezes?"
    Tycho answered in a well-modulated contralto. "It varies. He has an array of values that determines what immobilizes him."
    His face did show emotion now. Frustration. He looked like a toddler stymied by a puzzle, reminding Megan of her sister's two-year-old son. But she held back her smile. Although she doubted Aris could have hurt feelings, she took care in her responses anyway, not only because his brain might have developed more than she realized, but also because she found it hard to think of him as a machine.
    She spoke into the comm on her palmtop. "Why is he frozen?"
    "The main contributor is an element in his fear array." It showed her several lines of code. "If the element goes above six percent, it stops him from moving."
    " Six percent? Are all the elements set that low?"
    "The values range from two to forty-three percent. The average is sixteen."
    "That's appalling." What could Hastin have been thinking? How did he expect the android to function with such stringent caps on his behavior?
    "Aris? If you can hear me, try this: use your logic mods. Have them analyze the situation." His mind should be able to determine he had no reason to fear the jump.
    At first she thought her suggestion had no effect. But as she studied Tycho's display, she realized Aris had shifted some processing power to a logic mod. Although he remained trapped in the fear mod, his logic response kicked in, trying to make him jump. His fear response persisted, conflicting with the logic. That branched him into an anger mod, which then sent him to a fight mod. The fight code kicked him into a parachuting mod, for heaven sake, probably due to some strangely convoluted interpretation of her request that he jump. So now his mods wanted him to throw himself out of a plane in the sky.
    "I need an aircraft!" His voice exploded out. "How can I jump without one?"
    Megan spoke gently. "Can you get out of the jumping mod?"
    He didn't answer, he just kept staring at the box. Controlled by his anger mods, his body pumped fluids to his face and raised the temperature of his skin. Aris stood frozen in place, his face bright red, looking for all the world like a furious young boy. A curl of yellow hair was sticking up over his ear as if to protest his ignominious situation.
    She tried another tack. "Do you know how to do a parachute landing fall? It's what jumpers practice on the ground before they go up in a plane."
    He neither answered nor moved. His face turned redder.
    Watching his quandary gave her the same emotional tug as seeing a toddler struggle to understand a baffling situation. Her voice softened the way it did when she spoke to her young nephew. "You don't have to jump. Aris? Can you hear? Don't jump."
    Nothing changed. He stared at the box as if it were a monster that had broken the rules of childhood nightmares and come out from under his bed in broad daylight.
    Megan disliked resetting him, in part because he