Page 158 of The Code of You

"Neo?” I whispered. "Are you there?” Please. He had to be alive. He had to.

The door clicked and I startled. The men in gray uniforms were back. They grabbed my arms. But something was different this time. They dragged me toward the door as if they were in a hurry. "Come with us. Now.”

They took me through a door at the end of the hall. Hale stood in the middle of the room. His usually immaculate hair was disheveled, and he had dark shadows under his eyes. The interrogation room: chaos. Monitors everywhere, hastily set up, tuned to news channels with the sound off. Silent images of crowds, smoke, blue emergency lights.

"Sit down.” Hale’s voice was thin.

I read the headlines on the screens:

++++ BREAKING ++++

++++ Tokyo Stock Exchange Suspended ++++

++++ Total Power Failure Across East Coast ++++

++++ Air Traffic Control Failing ++++

I frowned. "What’s happening out there?”

Hale typed frantically on his tablet. His hands were shaking. "It started this morning at 4:37 a.m. Worldwide.” He looked at me. The professional mask was gone. "If the AI believes its primary attachment has been severed—what behavioral protocols activate?”

The question came from nowhere. I stared at him. He looked confused, and I couldn’t make sense of his words.

"What?”

"Answer me.” His voice cracked.

"I don’t know what you mean, Hale.”

He went pale. "It’s getting out of control. We can’t stop it.”

Ice slid through me, but I forced myself to stay steady. "What? What’s getting out of control? What can’t you stop?”

A monitor flickered and went dark. Then the next one.

My heart beat faster. "Is this a blackout?” I asked.

"No.” Hale stared at his tablet. "The systems are being . . . overwhelmed. From the inside.”

"What does that mean?”

He stared at me as if I was stupid. "Dr. Rodriguez, this is your program. You are responsible for this.”

I rubbed my face. My heart started racing. "Responsible for what? What are you talking about?”

"The system believes Dr. Blake is dead. It’s operating under some kind of revenge protocol. Did you program it to react to loss this way?”

The room tilted. He was alive. But he thought she was dead.

"Well? Say something!” Hale drummed his fingers on the table. His eyelid twitched.

I laughed bitterly. "No, I didn’t program him to start the Apocalypse. That was you. You took my code and turned it into a weapon.”

Hale ignored that and stared at the monitor running the news ticker. "Dr. Rodriguez, as Dante’s lead architect, you need to tell us how to stop this.”

I shook my head. "I can’t. He evolved beyond anything we designed him to be.”

"You programmed his emotional responses. There has to be a kill switch. A way to shut down his grief algorithms.”