1
FREDDIE’S GAME
Timah Ansari had the best playthings money could buy. Some of them were even alive. Almost.
None of them was as much fun as Freddie, though. And Freddie hadn’t cost her Baba a dime. Of course, Freddie wasn’t nearly as smart as Timah’s tutor Mr. Mandelbrot, and he didn’t look or sound as pretty as her singing flower garden. He was hard to see and hear, actually. Grownups couldn’t do it at all. Even a six-year-old like Timah had to really, really concentrate to make out the words in Freddie’s quiet whisperings, or see more of him than a little shimmery light off in one corner of her eye.
But Freddie was worth more than a dozen AI teddy bears like Mr. Mandelbrot, more than a whole bouquet of soprano black roses. Because Freddie was her friend. Her only friend.
It was only because Freddie was her friend that Timah had promised to meet him here, over by the garden wall on the far side of the compound, to play a new game. She wasn’t really supposed to be here at all.
Timah buttoned the top button on her wool sweater against the chill, fog-laden breeze coming in off the ocean. Her dark eyes swept across acres of California hillside, golden brown going green after the winter rains, down to the private cove far below, then out to the empty, leaden-hued Pacific and the cloud-racked horizon beyond. Searching for the little winking will-o’-the-wisp that was Freddie.
The shy smile that normally lit Timah’s round, olive-dark face flickered out. “Freddie? Where are you?”
Timah was about to call out again, when she heard something—not Freddie, something big—come trundling down the path that cut through the garden. A moment more and she could see it too. The top of its steely head, anyway. The rest of it was hidden by outsized animatronic rose bushes.
Only after it had bulldozed its way through a hedge of dwarf cypresses did the whole of the blocky, stylized body come into view: a Sony Mark V guardbot. It was big and shiny and more than a little bit scary looking. Like a mean old dog, only with metal where a dog had fur.
Timah backed up a couple steps. The Security bots weren’t nearly as nice as her cute little AIBO. Baba said it wasn’t their job to be nice.
The Mark V came to a halt ten yards away and stood there scanning her with the wide-eyed photoreceptors set on either side of its gunmetal gray snout.
“Fatimah Ansari,” the synthesized voice said after five or ten seconds. That’s how long it took the guardbot to recognize her face. For an AI, the Mark V wasn’t very bright.
“Fatimah Ansari!” the voice came again, sterner than before. “It is not safe here. Move away from the perimeter.”
“No!” Timah gave her head a vigorous shake that sent straight shoulder length black hair flying. Freddie had said to meet him here, and she would too. Besides, she could tell from its stilted speech and slow responses that this bot was patrolling on auto. There was no one in control of it right now, so not doing what it said wasn’t really like disobeying a grownup.
“Move away from the perimeter,” the Mark V repeated. “It is not safe to play here.”
“Course it’s safe, you big silly. Baba says nobody can get through the fence.”
She turned and pointed at the metawall barrier that ringed the Pairidaeza compound. Stronger than steel, her father had said, and—even better!—able to turn any color of the rainbow, even clearer than glass, like now. Timah could see through it like it wasn’t there at all, could see all the way out to the misty horizon. She took a step toward it.
Perhaps the guardbot misread Timah’s movement as an escape attempt. It scuttled around to interpose itself between Timah and the transparent barrier and barked “Get back!”
Timah stamped one sneakered foot. “I’m allowed to be here. I am!”
The Mark V stood its ground, unimpressed. It also lowered its head and began muttering to itself. Linking back to the Security office in the main compound. To Mr. Hamza.
“Freddie?” Timah’s mouth felt dry. She knew she shouldn’t let herself get upset. Getting upset could bring the colors, and the bad feeling in her tummy, and then the darkness. If only Freddie would come. Freddie knew how to keep the colors away.
Her lower lip trembled. “Freddie? Where are you?”
All at once, a tiny point of light darted across her field of vision. If the afternoon hadn’t been so overcast and gloomy, she might have missed it altogether. Now she could hear a faint whispering sound too, scarcely louder than the distant surf.
“It’s all right, Fatimah,” the whisper seemed to say, “I am here now.”
“There you are. I was waiting and waiting. And now this mean old thing—” Timah’s toe scuffed a small puff of dust in the general direction of the guardbot, “—wants to make me go back inside again.”
“You can make him stop, Fatimah,” the little voice whispered inside her head, “just repeat after me.”
Timah listened, but—“Those aren’t even words.”
“Just repeat them, Fatimah. Say them aloud—quickly now.”
“Tell them to me again.”
Timah listened a second time, then turned again to the guardbot and repeated the nonsense syllables as clearly as she could: “Al-fah dell-tah six five bey-tah, pry-or-it-tee over-ride soo-lee-man—ter-min-ate.”
The Mark V’s muttering abruptly warped into a squeal and ended a hiccup. It reared up on its hind legs. Its heavy front paws flailed aimlessly, then thumped to the ground with a dull thud. The rest of it followed suit.
Timah tried not to giggle at the ungainly antics. Baba said AIs didn’t have any feelings to hurt, but that was no reason to be impolite.
The Mark V was struggling back up onto its feet again, but it looked all wobbly now. One more hiccup-squeal, then it sat down on its haunches, hard, and slowly slumped over onto its side.
“Oh,” Timah said. “Is it all right?”
“The guardbot will be fine. Come now, the new game is starting.”
With that, Freddie shot over Timah’s shoulder on a beeline for the metawall. She turned to follow him. As she walked forward, one arm out in front of her so as not to bump her nose on the invisible barrier, she felt the ground begin to rumble beneath her feet. The ocean breeze picked up at the same instant and was now blowing hard in her face. Her hand reached out for the wall, but encountered only empty, unresisting air.
Then her gaze was drawn from where Freddie’s little point of light danced in the air to the hillside beyond. There was something moving out there, something hard to focus on, but already close and coming closer.
Timah took a few quick steps back. Turned to run. Too late.