TimeRiders 05 - Gates of Rome Read Online Free PDF

Waldstein was alive still. There were rumours.
    Rashim pushed a lock of hair behind his ear and turned to head towards the nearest glowing red ‘human’ icon a dozen yards away. Another candidate to delete.
    What did you see, Roald Waldstein? Hmmmm? What did you see with those mad eyes of yours? What did you see beyond these three spatial dimensions we can comprehend?
It was perhaps the most frequently asked question during the ’40s and ’50s when Waldstein’s face seemed to be on almost every media news-stream …
    What did you see, Mr Waldstein?
More to the point:
Why did it frighten you so much?

CHAPTER 6
2001, New York
    Liam watched the data slowly spooling down the screen – packets of hexadecimal data that made no sense to him whatsoever. Every so often the spooling stopped and lines and chunks of the meaningless alphanumeric text were fleetingly highlighted. Sometimes the highlighted text switched from white to green. Sometimes from white to red.
    Liam pointed at a chunk that had just turned red. ‘So that’s not good, is it?’
    ‘That is corrupted data,’ said Bob.
    The entire contents of Becks’s silicon mind had been downloaded on to the computer system over thirty-six hours ago, a mountain of data stored up by her during her brief life. And now computer-Bob was working through it, testing the data for corrupted packets. Liam looked at the progress log on another screen: a map of her hard drive, her mind, divided into a grid of blocks of data. White for the data yet to be tested, green for verified and red for lost data. The last few chunks of white were being cross-examined. The rest of the grid was a patchwork of green and red blocks. The red seemed to grow malevolently, like cancer tumours. Far too many of them.
    ‘We’ve lost her, haven’t we?’
    Bob’s face twitched with the ghost of a response. Involuntary?Possibly. Perhaps a sign that he was once again much more than the basic code he was born with. Learning to turn incoming information into an understanding, into context … an emotion. To
almost
be human.
    ‘Significant portions of her stored data are damaged.’ He offered Liam a wan smile. ‘But I am hopeful.’
    Computer-Bob was listening, despite being busy sifting through the data.
    >We will not know whether we have a stable AI construct until I have compiled the data and run the emulator.
    Liam looked at Bob. ‘What does that mean?’
    ‘The computer system will run the AI code on a software-simulated version of the chipset. It will then enter packets of the verified data block by block into the simulation to check the stability and reliability of Becks’s AI.’
    ‘To see whether she’s gone stupid?’
    Bob’s thick brow rumpled. Liam reached out and grabbed the bulging knuckles of one of Bob’s hands. ‘Jay-zus, you
really care
about her, don’t you?’
    His chest rumbled with a deep
hur-umph
. ‘She was an effective support unit. Her AI was able to develop more than mine.’
    ‘Ah, but that’s the ladies for you. Better at expressing their feelings than us fellas, huh?’
    ‘Gender is not a factor.’ Bob turned his grey eyes on him. ‘Did
you
care for her, Liam?’
    He laughed uncomfortably. ‘Well … I …’
    ‘The discoloration of your cheeks and body language suggest you have a strong emotional attachment to her. Am I correct, Liam?’
    He gazed at the screen.
    Blocks of colour. She’s just blocks of colour on a computer screen now
.
That’s it
. And yet in her flesh form, in human form, she’d almostseemed like another person. Perhaps a somewhat cool person, detached, aloof even. But she could make a joke, couldn’t she? And smile.
    He realized her smile – even though it was nothing more than a data file played out across facial muscles – could make something inside him flutter and ache. A beautiful smile actually. Quite stunningly beautiful, truth be told.
    ‘I’d miss her,’ he said finally. ‘If she really is lost … yes, I’ll miss