All the Birds in the Sky - Charlie Jane Anders Page 0,44

panicked, thinking someone had hacked in and deleted everything. But after an hour of frenzied port scanning, he realized that CHNG3M3 had just simplified its own code, down to a short string of logical symbols that made zero sense to Laurence.

What if Patricia was right?

“I mean, it’s worth a try,” Laurence said. “CHNG3M3 is smart enough to hide pieces of itself in the cloud. Maybe it’s smart enough to do something for me, if you explain the situation clearly enough. I can’t think of anything else that you could possibly do to help.”

Patricia chewed her thumb. “So do you have any ideas for how to nudge CHNG3M3 into sentience? Is there some hardware I need to sneak into your house and install? Or something else?”

“I think … I think you just need to talk to it some more. Force it to adapt to input that’s so weird and illogical that it just breaks CHNG3M3’s brain.” Laurence tried to think of something specific, but his brain was an undercooked stew. “Like nonsense. Or riddles.” Something came to mind, something that had been stuck in the back of his mind since he came to this school. “Wait. There was a riddle I was saving, which I thought might work. You could tell the computer the riddle, and maybe it’ll shock it into sentience.”

“Okay,” Patricia said. “What is it?”

Laurence spoke the riddle: “Is a tree red?”

Patricia took a step back. Her eyes widened and her mouth hung open. “What did you say?”

“‘Is a tree red?’ Red, as in the color. Why? It’s just a thing I heard somewhere. I forget where.”

“It just … sounded familiar. I think I heard it before somewhere.” Patricia tilted her head one way, then the other. “Okay, I’ll try that.”

“And if CHNG3M3 stops just making witty replies and starts talking constructively, tell it I need help, and I’ll be ridiculously grateful if it figures something out.”

“Fingers crossed,” Patricia said. “Wish me luck.”

“Good luck, Patricia,” Laurence said. “Good luck, with everything. I know you’re going to be amazing.”

“You too. Don’t let the bastards get to you, okay? Goodbye, Laurence.”

“Goodbye, Patricia.”

The door closed, and he was back in the dark, trying to keep his balls off the floor.

Laurence had no way of measuring time in the dark closet, but hours seemed to pass. He tried not to obsess about the foolishness of staking his future on the dumb computer in his bedroom, while he hugged his bare knees in the ammonia-soaked closet. What kind of jerkoff was he, anyway? He stared at the barely perceptible underside of the door and made a bargain with himself: He would give up hope, and in return he wouldn’t mock himself for having ever hoped. That seemed fair.

The closet opened. “Hey, Dirt,” said Dickers. “Stop goofing around naked, you pervert. The C.O. wants to see you.”

Laurence tried not to feel a surge of gratitude when Dickers handed him a jockstrap, a pair of shorts, and a gray T-shirt with “CMA” fake-stenciled on it. Plus Laurence’s own sneakers, from home. It was ridiculous to be thankful for amenities like clothing and not being trapped in a closet, and gratitude for such things was another step toward being broken. Or broken in, which was worse.

Commandant Peterbitter was staring at his computer screen, scratching his head. “I wouldn’t have believed it,” he said without looking up. “I just would not have believed it. The depths to which an individual could sink. The lengths to which a depraved mind would go.”

Just walking down the noisy steam tunnel from the closet to this room had reawakened the jackhammers inside Laurence’s head. He clutched the back of his head and tried to make sense of Peterbitter’s speech.

“Alas, your comrades have been both resourceful and remorseless,” Peterbitter said. There were several more sentences that meant almost nothing to Laurence, and at last the Commandant turned his ancient monitor around and showed Laurence the e-mail he had received.

It read, in part: “we r the committee of 50. we r everywhere & nowhere. we r the 1s who hacked the pentagon & revealed the secret drone specs. we r ur worst nightmare. u r holding 1 of our own & we demand his release. attached r secret documents we have obtained that prove u r in violation of the terms of ur settlement with the state of connecticut, including health & safety infractions & classroom standards violations. these documents will b released directly 2 the media & the authorities, unless u release our