The Turing Exception by William Hertling Page B

but his ten-year-old replacement robotic body contained hundreds of embedded processors that wouldn’t pass the machine. They had 3D-printed a replacement spine cultured from Mike’s remaining biological tissues, and custom-designed biological ganglia to control his limbs. Mike spent days regaining coordination, but at the end, he passed the stolen border sensor.
    They hadn’t tested against current US military specs sensors.
    Mike stepped forward. The vehicle beeped and yellow lights flashed as Mike entered.
    “Hold up, sir,” the Secret Service agent said.
    Mike stepped back.
    She punched buttons on a display screen in the doorframe. She glanced back to Mike. “You’ve got an impressive amount of prosthetics.”
    “Small incident in the desert.”
    “You see action in Egypt?” She kept hitting buttons.
    “No, Tucson.”
    She stood straight and raised one eyebrow. “You two stopped that AI ten years ago. I remember now.” She gestured toward the car. “You’re cleared. Nanotech and computation is fine, but I had to reset the hardware limits. Thought you were a machine, sir.”
    “I get that a lot,” Mike said.
    “In bed,” Leon muttered under his breath, as he entered the vehicle.
    Fifteen minutes later they pulled up at a rustic retreat whose large parking lot contained a dozen military vehicles. Agents in matte black body armor exoskeletons patrolled the perimeter. The show of force dismayed Leon. Did they really think bullet- and laser-proof armor would protect them against a plague of combat bots or a cloud of hostile nanodust?
    The agent escorted Leon and Mike to a large hall surrounded and supported by two-foot-diameter wooden beams. “Madam President is inside,” she said. “But these gentlemen will scan you now.”
    Two more Secret Service agents waited with hand scanners. Leon raised his hands and let them do their work. From the forest came a whine of servos, and he caught a glimpse of metal through the trees before the sixteen-foot-tall mech emerged into sunlight in the open meadow. The pilot, visible through a thick bubble top, looked their way. The mech halted for a moment, then continued its patrol. Leon let out his breath.
    “You’re clear,” one of the agents said, and waved them through.
    Inside, the building was empty except for three chairs and a small table in the middle of the great hall, a vast space that spanned a hundred feet across and two hundred in length.
    A figure rose from one of the chairs.
    “Welcome,” said President Reed. Brown-haired, of medium stature, she wore glasses and a suit. She held a hand out and shook with each of them.
    “Thanks for meeting with us, Madam President,” Mike said, once they were all seated.
    “We’re overdue to meet. I’m sorry we’ve never talked before. I understand you were close with my predecessor.”
    “The Institute has enjoyed close relationships with every president since Rebecca Smith.”
    “You used to work with her, at Avogadro Corp.”
    “Well, she was CEO and I was a lowly engineer, but yes, we worked together back then.”
    She noticed Leon staring at her glasses. “Old-fashioned, I know. I react poorly to body-tech.”
    Leon tried not to look, but couldn’t very well face the wall while addressing the president. He gave up and met her gaze. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . . isn’t there corrective surgery?”
    “Probably. But it’s better for my image this way. It reminds people I’m the president without technology.”
    Mike cleared his throat. “Madam, we’d really like to talk about negotiations with the AI. We believe the US hard-line attitude is harming relations with the AI, forcing the AI to take stronger and stronger positions.”
    “You’re talking about XOR.”
    “Yes, Madam President,” Leon said. “XOR was a fringe group of AI blowing steam just two years ago, digital graffiti their worst activity. Now they’ve turned serious. There may be as many as two thousand affiliated AI.”
    Reed