Chapter 3

And so began what the other technicians called "The Great Thaw". Over the course of a few weeks, several of the others saw a side to Holland that was almost human. A few times, he even smiled. Of course, it wasn't to them. It was only to Miriam.

He still treated the rest of the staff about as well as most people treat cockroaches. He sent them on fools' errands and talked patronisingly to those who didn't catch on quickly enough. If someone screwed up, he let them—and everyone else within shouting range—know it. But they noticed he said "please" and "thank you" more frequently ... well, maybe once or twice.

Miriam seemed to affect the rest of the staff, too. Unlike Holland, she was nice and personable. She treated everyone with respect, if not admiration, for their professional accomplishments. Very quickly, she became the mediator between Campbell and the others, mostly because she never seemed to fuck up and get chewed on.

Still, some professional jealousies remained, mostly from some of the lazier staff members who tried to circulate a rumour that she was sleeping with the boss. The others dismissed those notions, noting that not only had the work environment become a little more pleasant but productivity had gone up. The ones who would not shut up soon found themselves transferred to other units or let go altogether.

Their latest project was coming together nicely. For almost two centuries, humans had tried to build a positronic network modeled after the human brain. In some areas, they had succeeded. Robots could calculate faster than humans (decision-making), could retrieve data without error better (memory) and even learn from their mistakes. What they could not do was be creative. Robots think in a very linear manner. Their programming gives them purpose. They cannot give themselves purpose.

A robot is good at performing a set of tasks with pre-determined variables. It can respond to those variables with pre-determined responses. They are very efficient if given a task.

Holland Campbell's idea was to create a robot brain that could dream. A brain that could come with ideas on its own.

People had been trying this for decades, but none had succeeded. Until now. At least that's what he believed.

Seven people sat around the table. Campbell paced around the room. Holographic displays showed strings and strings of code. Green symbols meant the code was good to go. Yellow was for minor bugs. Blinking red indicated problems.

And there was far too much blinking red for anyone's liking.

"The program is good," Miriam said flatly. She waved her hand at the blinking strings. "I've checked every cluster twice. There is no reason why those lines don't work."

"Something has to be wrong," Kirstie Taylor's voice was filled with frustration. Holland was in one of his moods and most of them had been up for close to thirty hours with only a short nap here and there.

"So what is it?" Bok Phan asked from the back of the room. It didn't matter what the other woman's reply was; the look in his eyes was the result of too little sleep and too much work. He was itching for a fight. There had been a couple of shouting matches earlier in the night and tempers were short.

Before Kirstie could respond, Holland waved his hand. His voice was soft, but it carried. "Go home. Don't come back any sooner than forty-eight hours from now. We all need some rest."

The tone of his voice brokered no discussion. While he probably would not heed his own instructions, he was smart enough to know that the group had long since passed the possibility of being productive.

Holland stared at the pieces of the program scattered on displays around the room. Everyone filed out except Miriam.

"The code is good," she insisted.

"Obviously not," he replied curtly. Holland turned back to one of the monitors. "What are we missing?"

Neither spoke for a long time.

"What if it's not the code?" Holland asked. "What if it's something else?"

"Like what?" Miriam said, frustration edging into her voice.

"What if our whole assumption is wrong? What if..." His voice trailed off. "What if we're going down the wrong path?"

She started to reply but he held his hand up.

"Leave," he said. "Go home. Come back in two days."

When Holland Campbell got that look in his eyes, everyone around him knew better than to argue.

Miriam gathered up her few possessions and left the lab.