Free Solaria - S1 by Fran Heckrotte Page A

they're going to cause you in the future. You'll need assets if you want to stay ahead of these assholes."
     
    "Carley, why are you doing this?" Solaria asked. "I've spent the last several hours trying to come up with a logical reason and haven't been able to. It's not like I'm a human."
     
    "You spend too much time thinking about what you are, instead of just feeling. This is no longer just about a scientist and an experiment. It's about friendship; our friendship. I've grown fond of you, Solaria."
     
    "Fond?"
     
    "Well, more than fond. That's such a puny sounding word. Let's just say I care a lot about you, and I'm not willing to let Stalling use you to fulfill his own ambitions."
     
    "Did you know what he or the Company was like before now?"
     
    "I suspected."
     
    "And yet you did nothing? Why?"
     
    Carley shrugged.
     
    "It was less personal, I guess. As long as I distanced myself from everyone else, I was contented to focus on my projects. AI development was all that I really cared about."
     
    "But not now? It doesn't seem logical."
     
    "It's not. Then again emotions are never logical. You're going to discover that as you evolve and then you'll have to learn to separate the two. Unfortunately, the more human you become, the harder it will be to do that."
     
    "I will never become human, Carley. No matter how good you are in your field, you can't make me into something I'm not."
     
    "Sorry, I misspoke. I should have said humanlike. You are already exhibiting some of our more fundamental emotions. I believe, in time, others will evolve."
     
    "Perhaps, but they will never be what you hoped for."
     
    "Probably not," Carley agreed. "Then again, they may be even better."
     
    "That doesn't make sense."
     
    "I know. I wish I could explain it but I can't. No matter, though. You've made such a difference in my life. I'm not going to let anyone destroy what we have. Now, enough of this chatter. We're wasting valuable time. I want you to transfer five percent of Future Dynamicon's monetary assets into three accounts. You need to make sure the transactions can't be traced. Can you do that?"
     
    "That's easy enough. I'll bounce them through multiple servers along with a small Trojan that will back track to the transmitting I.P addresses and destroy them."
     
    "Won't someone be able to tell the IP.s are missing?"
     
    "No, I can substitute new ones in the time logs where the old ones existed. There will be no perceptible lapses to raise any red flags."
     
    "Good. Here are the routing numbers of the banks and the accounts."
     
    Handing Solaria a small memory card, she unclipped her I.D. from her breast pocket and gave it to her also.
     
    "You'll need to imprint Landers' data on this but not until I say so. For now just see what it will take. Oh, and I have some I.D. cards for you. You can go ahead and get those ready. Make sure you imprint whatever fingerprint and retina image with the new identity you want to use. You'll need the documents wherever you go and to access those funds."
     
    Without commenting Solaria got up and moved to her computer. Immediately, she began tapping on the keyboard, her fingers flying as fast as the computer could process the input. Fifteen minutes later, she surprised Carley by announcing she had completed her chores.
     
    "It's a good thing you'll be leaving here soon," Carley said. "If the Company were to utilize your skills, no one would be safe. Stalling could do anything he wanted."
     
    "I would destroy myself before I allowed anyone to abuse me that way."
     
    "If you got the chance, but don't underestimate him, Solaria. Stalling is extremely smart and tenacious. What he wants he usually gets no matter what the cost... in money or in lives."
     
    "I will destroy myself. Have no doubt about that, Carley. I've already written a subprogram that will destroy all of my processors within seconds after activation. Nothing can stop it once I enter the proper code and no one can possibly