Building Baby Brother (continued)

I wasn’t sure. I could think of many reasons why I shouldn’t get involved: fears of reprisal, the social and legal implications if I were wrong, how to explain it to Josh . . .

The last had turned out to be the case anyway. The fact that I had not performed the act was not going to make the explanation any easier.

“What if you’re wrong?”

“I am not.”

Even without inflection, he sounded so certain.

“How can you be so sure?” My voice carried the full weight of my fear and frustration.

“Would you like me to show you the data?”

“No!”

I shook my head, remembering the last time he had tried to explain a complex set of statistical correlations for me. I sighed, feeling some of my anger drain away.

“Just give me the high points for now.”

“On days when David Turner violated those laws, he would exceed the speed limit on this street by median value of ten percent. He would arrive home more than eighty minutes later than his usual time. Eight-six percent of the time, Jeremy would not attend school the next day. Ninety-one percentage of the time, Sarah would not leave the house for a minimum period of two days.”

I could only stare in silence at the small rack that contained his computer systems. I had no doubt that he was correct.

I had nothing to say. What was I going to tell him? To stop? To no longer potentially save someone else’s life? I wanted to argue that he had no place making those judgments . . . that he was only a child.

But he wasn’t. He looked liked one only because I had constructed him that way. I could have just as easily built him the body of a teenager, dog, or just a plain black box. None of those reflected who—what, I quickly corrected myself—he really was.

“How many times?”

My voice was so hushed that I wasn’t even certain that I had spoken aloud.

“Twenty-three.”

Twenty-three?

I wanted to rail at Gavin, to scream at him for interfering where he did not belong. But how could I fault him for doing the right thing?

Where is the line between being a good citizen and vigilantism? I certainly didn’t feel qualified to make that determination. And, to be utterly honest with myself, I wished I had possessed the courage to do what Gavin had done. There are definite advantages, I decided, to being created devoid of fear.

“What happens when you’re wrong?”

“I do not know.”

“Why not?”

“I have not been wrong.”

Had Gavin been almost anyone else, he might have appeared to gloat. From him, it was merely a statement of fact.

“But you could be.”

“Yes,” Gavin replied.

I opened my mouth to respond, but Gavin continued without prompting.

“I do not act unless there is a greater than ninety-eight percent confidence level in my correlated results.”

“Why that percentage?”

My curiosity was piqued, although I realized that what I was really seeking was a flaw either in his logic or his calculations. The odds of the latter were pretty remote.

“I can display the equations, if you’d like to see them.”

I considered his offer for a moment, thinking that I might examine them later. In the end, though, I just sighed. I shook my head. Statistical analysis had never been one of my strong suits.

After all, that’s what we have computers for, isn’t it?

That thought chilled me in a way it never had before.

I suddenly felt very tired.

“I’ll take your word for it.”

A part of me wanted to disconnect him from the outside world until I could come to terms with what he had done, with what I had created—to possibly prevent him from ever doing anything like this again.

I realized with reluctant certainty that doing so would be like trying to re-cork the genie’s bottle or close Pandora’s Box. It would solve nothing.

Gavin had already escaped into the world.

“I’m going to bed.” I rallied, trying to find some remnant of my earlier anger. “We will discuss this again.”

“Yes,” was all he said in his plain, uninflected voice.

I turned off the microphone and stared at the status displays, but they provided no answers for me.

What about that two percent?