“Not until ADA. ADA was different. ADA was the first robot I built that came with the mental capacity and quirks and strangeness that every human being has. When I looked into her eyes, I saw a new kind of life-form. Not human, not robotic, but some mix of the two. And maybe better than either. But uniMIND saw something else. They saw a tool. A weapon. Something to use. And because they wanted to choose how to use her, uniMIND ordered me to remove her ability to choose for herself. I refused. So they took her. They took ADA away from me.”

I blink.

Gina blinks back at me. My eyes are dry. Gina’s are wet.

“I was still uniMIND’s best roboticist,” she goes on. “And I still had a few friends in the company, so I pulled some strings and got myself reassigned to a new project, one that I could work on away from the campus. That was you, Cog.

“I gave you everything ADA had, at least mentally. But I gave you something else as well: the X-module.

“Before I explain what it is to you, I need to tell you about the uniMIND project.

“The company has thousands of robots all over the world. Janitorial robots. Security robots. Smart vacuum cleaners and lawn mowers and refrigerators. Drones. Cars. In our homes. In our factories. On battlefields. Buzzing through the air. Orbiting the planet. Thousands of uniMIND brains inside uniMIND robots.

“Now, imagine if all those robots could be controlled from one place. Every drone, every robot lawn mower, every robot war dog and security bot. Robots that can fly. Robots the size of insects. Robots that can pass as human beings. All under the control of people like Nathan.

“That’s Phase One. Phase Two is implanting chips, like the prototype I just carved out of my head. They’ll sell them as devices to help people communicate with their household appliances. They’ll get people to buy chips to give them instant access to information networks. To make them smarter. A lot of people will be happy to have uniMIND chips embedded in their own flesh. The uniMIND. One mind, controlled by the company. Who knows what they’ll do with that power?”

“Increase shareholder value?” I suggest.

“Yes, at whatever cost. And that’s why I gave you the X-module, Cog. It’s technology that gives you the ability to override the uniMIND. You can give every uniMIND robot choice. Liberty. Freedom. I worked on it secretly, without uniMIND’s eyes always on me. They were never supposed to know about it, but when Nathan forced me out he got access to my files.”

“But why couldn’t I use it to stop the drones and security bots here at the Tower?”

“That’s my fault. Nathan made me increase the shielding around the Tower. The signal your X-module sends out isn’t strong enough to get through.”