the point, don’t you.”
“Mr. Salter mentioned that you called him Yawgmoth at lunch,” Aster said.
“Mr. who?” Maco asked.
“Edward Sauls Salter,” Aster said.
“That’s cute. You’re looking for a reaction? Yes, I know Ed’s real name. Yes, I know Ed’s background and why he changed his name. Did Ed also mention that I got a big laugh when I called Jim ‘Yawgmoth’? It’s a nerd joke—you wouldn’t understand.”
“Could you explain it?”
“Explain a joke? Sure. That won’t ruin it. Yawgmoth is father of machines, that’s all. It wasn’t actually an appropriate handle for Jim. It was the first thing that popped into my head.”
“And you suggested that Jim would be murdered in a big, showy way?” Ploss asked.
“Yup,” Maco said. He moved the computer off his lap and slid to the edge of his chair. “I didn’t actually think it would happen. I’m pretty callous, but even I don’t joke about one of my friends being blown up while walking down the street.”
“So what made you say it?” Aster asked.
Maco rubbed his forehead. “Someone else commented that Jim was absent. Then someone suggested he was secretly murdered. I suspected what Jim was up to—I think most of us did—so I took the line of reasoning to its logical conclusion. When you build something that supersedes you in every capacity except humanity, and then you try to shut that thing down, you have to expect you’re putting your life in danger.”
“What did Jim build?” Aster asked.
“He built intelligence,” Maco said. “He built the perfect electronic organism. It exists almost everywhere, and it harnesses nearly every machine you see. It spreads better than a virus.”
“I run antivirus software,” Aster said.
“Not against this, you don’t,” Maco said. “This thing has injected itself right into your operating system. To everyone, even the computer manufacturers, it appears to be perfectly valid.”
“They haven’t invented intelligent machines yet. Even the computer that competed on Jeopardy was only looking stuff up,” Aster said.
“And they gave it the questions ahead of time,” Ploss said.
“That was one machine,” Maco said. “The thing Jim built is on every machine. Imagine that the human brain has the equivalent computing power as a couple thousand computers. How smart would a billion computers be? Even if it only stole a fraction of each machine’s resources, how smart would it be?”
Aster and Ploss didn’t answer. They stared at Maco.
Maco continued his explanation.
“We only notice viruses and malware when they do something harmful. As soon as the virus hijacks a browser or slows down a centrifuge, people start looking for the culprit. This thing doesn’t harm your machine. In some ways, it makes your machine faster. If you removed it worldwide, a healthy percentage of people would be upset. Their computers wouldn’t work as well.”
“How does a computer program kill a man?” Aster asked.
“Obviously, it doesn’t,” Maco said. “It orders drone helicopters from China, rifles from Oklahoma, sensors from Japan, solenoids from California, and it has everything shipped to an assembly plant in North Carolina where robotic arms put together all the pieces. It probably has assembly plants set up all over the world now. Redundancy will help it keep a hand in the physical world.”
“If you were in our position, which would be more likely—a computer program smart enough to mastermind an execution, or a person angry enough to commit murder and smart enough to do it with equipment?”
“That’s good,” Maco said. “You’ve caught up to step one of the investigation. And what did you find?”
“Pardon?” Aster asked.
“I assume that you’ve tracked down the delivery trucks that dropped off the boxes containing the drones?”
Aster and Ploss made no reaction.
“Playing it silent? Okay. I’ll tell you what I discovered, since all of my information
“Mr. Salter mentioned that you called him Yawgmoth at lunch,” Aster said.
“Mr. who?” Maco asked.
“Edward Sauls Salter,” Aster said.
“That’s cute. You’re looking for a reaction? Yes, I know Ed’s real name. Yes, I know Ed’s background and why he changed his name. Did Ed also mention that I got a big laugh when I called Jim ‘Yawgmoth’? It’s a nerd joke—you wouldn’t understand.”
“Could you explain it?”
“Explain a joke? Sure. That won’t ruin it. Yawgmoth is father of machines, that’s all. It wasn’t actually an appropriate handle for Jim. It was the first thing that popped into my head.”
“And you suggested that Jim would be murdered in a big, showy way?” Ploss asked.
“Yup,” Maco said. He moved the computer off his lap and slid to the edge of his chair. “I didn’t actually think it would happen. I’m pretty callous, but even I don’t joke about one of my friends being blown up while walking down the street.”
“So what made you say it?” Aster asked.
Maco rubbed his forehead. “Someone else commented that Jim was absent. Then someone suggested he was secretly murdered. I suspected what Jim was up to—I think most of us did—so I took the line of reasoning to its logical conclusion. When you build something that supersedes you in every capacity except humanity, and then you try to shut that thing down, you have to expect you’re putting your life in danger.”
“What did Jim build?” Aster asked.
“He built intelligence,” Maco said. “He built the perfect electronic organism. It exists almost everywhere, and it harnesses nearly every machine you see. It spreads better than a virus.”
“I run antivirus software,” Aster said.
“Not against this, you don’t,” Maco said. “This thing has injected itself right into your operating system. To everyone, even the computer manufacturers, it appears to be perfectly valid.”
“They haven’t invented intelligent machines yet. Even the computer that competed on Jeopardy was only looking stuff up,” Aster said.
“And they gave it the questions ahead of time,” Ploss said.
“That was one machine,” Maco said. “The thing Jim built is on every machine. Imagine that the human brain has the equivalent computing power as a couple thousand computers. How smart would a billion computers be? Even if it only stole a fraction of each machine’s resources, how smart would it be?”
Aster and Ploss didn’t answer. They stared at Maco.
Maco continued his explanation.
“We only notice viruses and malware when they do something harmful. As soon as the virus hijacks a browser or slows down a centrifuge, people start looking for the culprit. This thing doesn’t harm your machine. In some ways, it makes your machine faster. If you removed it worldwide, a healthy percentage of people would be upset. Their computers wouldn’t work as well.”
“How does a computer program kill a man?” Aster asked.
“Obviously, it doesn’t,” Maco said. “It orders drone helicopters from China, rifles from Oklahoma, sensors from Japan, solenoids from California, and it has everything shipped to an assembly plant in North Carolina where robotic arms put together all the pieces. It probably has assembly plants set up all over the world now. Redundancy will help it keep a hand in the physical world.”
“If you were in our position, which would be more likely—a computer program smart enough to mastermind an execution, or a person angry enough to commit murder and smart enough to do it with equipment?”
“That’s good,” Maco said. “You’ve caught up to step one of the investigation. And what did you find?”
“Pardon?” Aster asked.
“I assume that you’ve tracked down the delivery trucks that dropped off the boxes containing the drones?”
Aster and Ploss made no reaction.
“Playing it silent? Okay. I’ll tell you what I discovered, since all of my information
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