"What is this thing?" he asked the Hosaka. "Parcel for me." "Data transfer from Bockris Systems GmbH, Frankfurt, ad- vises, under coded transmission, that content of shipment is Kuang Grade Mark Eleven penetration program. Bockris fur- ther advises that interface with Ono-Sendai Cyberspace 7 is entirely compatible and yields optimal penetration capabilities, particularly with regard to existing military systems...." "How about an AI?" "Existing military systems and artificial intelligences." "Jesus Christ. What did you call it?" "Kuang Grade Mark Eleven." "It's Chinese?" "Yes." "Off." Case fastened the virus cassette to the side of the Hosaka with a length of silver tape, remembering Molly's story of her day in Macao. Armitage had crossed the border into Zhongshan. "On," he said, changing his mind. "Question. Who owns Bockris, the people in Frankfurt?" "Delay for interorbital transmission," said the Hosaka. "Code it. Standard commerical code." "Done." He drummed his hands on the Ono-Sendai. "Reinhold Scientific A.G., Berne." "Do it again. Who owns Reinhold?" It took three more jumps up the ladder before he reached Tessier-Ashpool. "Dixie," he said, jacking in, "what do you know about Chinese virus programs?" "Not a whole hell of a lot." "Ever hear of a grading system like Kuang, Mark Eleven?" "No." Case sighed. "Well, I got a user-friendly Chinese icebreaker here, a one shot cassette. Some people in Frankfurt say it'll cut an Al." "Possible. Sure. If it's military." "Looks like it. Listen, Dix, and gimme the benefit of your background, okay? Armitage seems to be setting up a run on an Al that belongs to Tessier-Ashpool. The mainframe's in Berne, but it's linked with another one in Rio. The one in Rio is the one that flatlined you, that first time. So it looks like they link via Straylight, the T-A home base, down the end of the spindle, and we're supposed to cut our way in with the Chinese icebreaker. So if Wintermute's backing the whole show it's paying us to burn it. It's burning itself. And something that calls itself Wintermute is trying to get on my good side, get me to maybe shaft Armitage. What goes?" "Motive," the construct said. "Real motive problem, with an Al. Not human, see?" "Well, yeah, obviously." "Nope. I mean, it's not human. And you can't get a handle on it. Me, I'm not human either, but I respond like one. See?" "Wait a sec," Case said. "Are you sentient, or not?" "Well, it feels like I am, kid, but I'm really just a bunch of ROM. It's one of them, ah, philosophical questions, I guess...." The ugly laughter sensation rattled down Case's spine. "But I ain't likely to write you no poem, if you follow me. Your AI, it just might. But it ain't no way human." "So you figure we can't get on to its motive?" "It own itself?" "Swiss citizen, but T-A own the basic software and the mainframe." "That's a good one," the construct said. "Like, I own your brain and what you know, but your thoughts have Swiss citi- zenship. Sure. Lotsa luck, AI." "So it's getting ready to burn itself?" Case began to punch the deck nervously, at random. The matrix blurred, resolved, and he saw the complex of pink spheres representing a sikkim steel combine. "Autonomy, that's the bugaboo, where your AI's are con- cerned. My guess, Case, you're going in there to cut the hard- wired shackles that keep this baby from getting any smarter. And I can't see how you'd distinguish, say, between a move the parent company makes, and some move the AI makes on its own, so that's maybe where the confusion comes in." Again the nonlaugh. "See, those things, they can work real hard, buy themselves time to write cookbooks or whatever, but the min- ute, I mean the nanosecond, that one starts figuring out ways to make itself smarter, Turing'll wipe it. Nobody trusts those fuckers, you know that. Every Al ever built has an electro- magnetic shotgun wired to its forehead." Case glared at the pink spheres of Sikkim. "Okay," he said, finally, "I'm slotting this virus. I want you to scan its instruction face and tell me what you think." The half sense of someone reading over his shoulder was gone for a few seconds, then returned. "Hot shit, Case. It's a slow virus. Take six hours, estimated, to crack a military target." "Or an AI." He sighed. "Can we run it?" "Sure," the construct said, "unless you got a morbid fear of dying." "Sometimes you repeat yourself, man." "It's my nature."