Scattered Graves

that’s fine, but if you don’t, then maybe it was meant for me to be home free.’’
‘‘Free from what, Caleb?’’ asked Mr. Wilson.
‘‘The things I’ve done,’’ he said.
‘‘Did Spence Jefferies recruit you?’’ asked Diane.
‘‘Not the way he did other people. He recruited Malcolm Chen. Malcolm was my friend. He’s the one who came up with the Black Light thing. I thought it was kind of silly, but he thought it was cool. He knew
    I like the movies WarGames and 2001: A Space Odyssey .’’
‘‘You wrote the AI program?’’ said Frank. Caleb nodded. ‘‘I wanted to write a program that
could be used maybe to help the disabled use comput
ers more easily, or maybe in business. Like it could
just flow around in the network keeping track of what
people are doing. And if someone on the fifth floor
could use the information that someone on the first
floor had, the program could tell them. That kind of
thing.’’
‘‘It seemed real,’’ said Diane. ‘‘For a long time we
thought it was someone using some kind of instantmessaging program.’’
Caleb smiled. ‘‘I started by writing a chess-playing
algorithm. Playing chess is one of the best things to
start programming with. It has pure rules, but it also
has strategies and thinking ahead, and personality.
There’s lots of chess programs out there, but I wanted
to write my own for the practice. It looks for people
to play with; you may have found that out.’’ ‘‘Yes, it found its way to Jonas Briggs’ computer
and asked him to play. He was rather surprised,’’
said Diane.
Caleb smiled. ‘‘It’s almost become a bug in the pro
gram,’’ he said. ‘‘I started by teaching it to look for
people who play. I tried to change it, but it won’t stop.’’ ‘‘But it’s more than a chess program now,’’ said
Frank.
Caleb nodded. ‘‘I gave it a database of information.
A fairly large one. I was trying to get it to learn, so
when it gets new information, it compares it to what
it knows. If there is no conflict, it keeps it and stores
it according to a hierarchy of probable accuracy—
another algorithm I worked out.’’
‘‘How did you make it sound human?’’ said Diane. ‘‘It parses sentences and conversations, so when you
ask it a question, it not only analyzes what you asked,
but analyzes everything that was said previously. There
is a little problem in changing topics sometimes.’’ Caleb’s eyes grew bright when he talked about his
program. Diane was seeing just how very gifted he
was. She was starting to feel heartsick.
‘‘I made algorithms from interrogation techniques
and from the way some psychiatrists do therapy—you
know, kind of Rogerian—by making a statement and
then asking what the person understands or what they
think it means. That kind of thing. Or
question with a question. I also put in
answering a a small-talk algorithm. If certain concepts or phrases come up in the conversation, it searches for references in pop cul
ture or movies.’’
‘‘We noticed that,’’ said Frank. ‘‘We were all im
pressed. My name is Frank, and the other guy working
on it was Dave.’’
Caleb grinned for the first time. ‘‘Did it recognize
that? Did it say something?’’
‘‘Yes,’’ said Frank. ‘‘It said it was funny and asked
us if we knew why it was funny.’’
Caleb laughed and slapped his thighs. Diane could
hear the joy in his voice—like a parent enjoying what
his child had learned to do.
If the sheriff or the Wilsons were getting impatient,
they didn’t show it. The sheriff appeared to be content
to let Caleb’s story unfold the way he wanted it to.
Diane felt that it was important to understand his pro
gramming abilities, for that seemed to be the basis for
the crimes.
Caleb hesitated a moment, as if he knew he needed
to get to the topic at hand. His face grew solemn and
he looked as if he was about to tear up.
‘‘Malcolm Chen, as I said, was a friend,’’ he said,
‘‘and I killed him.’’

Chapter 52
    Arlen and Mary Wilson sat up straight. She put a hand over her mouth.
‘‘No,’’ she whispered.
‘‘You are entitled to have a lawyer,’’ Diane re peated.
‘‘You need to do that, son,’’ said the sheriff.
‘‘Listen to them,’’ said Arlen. He started to rise from his chair.
Caleb shook his head violently.
‘‘Look . . . Let’s just say that everything I say is hypothetical and leave it at that. Will that be all right? Everything I’m