“You idiot!” snapped the Director of the Delos Project as he stalked into his inner office, closely followed by the object of his ire.  “I can’t believe you’d do something like that, and then tell me about it in [i]public[/i]!  Let me get the office sealed off before you say another word.”  

Thumbing the lock on his office door after it had hissed closed behind them, Director Charles Browning flipped several more switches on a suite of jamming and damping devices which made his office only slightly more secure than the isolated core systems monitoring room several stories underground.  The outer office was a proper executive command location with all of the traditional granite and chrome found with every status-seeking wealthy corporate executive, but that was the only location official guests would see. 

Behind the gloss and shine was a locked door to this smaller and much more solid office containing the finest computer Charles could justify tying into the corporate network, as well as enough air and supplies to last a week.  Fifteen years ago, nearly every employee of Delos was caught unaware by events.  Charles was determined not to fall the same way.

He strode over to the sophisticated console and thumbed open the security monitors arranged over his desk, flipping through several of them at random just to check on things at the newly-reopened resort.  Nothing [i]seemed[/i] wrong at the moment, except for the wrongness that he had brought with him.

“It was only rational,” protested the young woman who had followed him over to the desk and was now standing behind him.  Under any normal circumstances, Tracy Ballard would never have seen the inside of his [i]sanctum sanctorum[/i], as she occupied a step on the corporate ladder several steps below his top rung.

Getting only silence as a response while her boss punched buttons and consulted readouts, she continued to fidget until she finally added, “It was a smart decision.”

“It was stupid!” snapped Charles.  “We employ [i]vast[/i] collections of programmers worldwide, all endlessly checking each other to make certain every bit of programming in the entire company works perfectly, and you jumped over them.”

“Like hopscotch,” she suggested.

“Like jumping into a fire!” he countered.  “Do you have any idea what I’ve gone through over the last fifteen years to get Delos back into operation?  The politicians I’ve contributed to?  The outright bribes I’ve had to pay?  The news agencies I’ve had to pump money into like water to make sure the stories we get are pointed the right way?”

“I should,” said Tracy.  The corners of her lips had turned down in a sharp frown and most of her previous discomfort had turned into a quiet intensity.  “I’ve been working here since college.  [i]You[/i] hired me.”

The director took a deep breath and bit back a sharp retort.  After a second breath, he let it out in a deep sigh.  “I know, I know.  You’re brilliant in your field.  There isn’t another employee in Delos who has made nearly as many breakthroughs in android design as yourself.”

“Like the polymorphic visage modification I created, so you only need to purchase one android face and reconfigure it to whatever you want, whenever you want,” said Tracy.  “That saved several million dollars in staffing the Delos Project, as well as bringing in profits made by licensing the patents to other companies.”

“And your work on the Pseudoskin Project,” said Charles with a reluctant nod.  He held a hand out and wriggled his fingers.  “Your research team even got the hands right afterwards.  It’s almost impossible to tell the difference between the staff and the guests anymore.”  He balled up his fist and smacked it down on the desk.  “But you’re not permitted to work on programming, and you know it!  [i]Anybody[/i] who had anything to do with Delos back during the Incident is forbidden to touch any of the android’s programming!”

Tracy’s lips drew back in a thin line and she sat down in the visitor’s chair for a few short breaths.  “Yes, I know,” she snapped in nearly a growl.  “Welcome to Westworld, where nothing can go wrong.  Again.  If any other present employee has a better reason to keep things under control, name them.”

Charles stared down at the floor for a while, then got up and moved over to the minibar at the side of the room.  Pouring two glasses of amber whisky, he walked back to his desk and dropped back down into his expensive chair.  One by one, he sat the glasses down on the desk and leaned forward to rest his forehead on his hands.  “I’m sorry.”

“Not as sorry as I am,” responded Tracy almost immediately.  “Years of psychotherapy later, and all I can think of is that day.”  She paused, then picked up her glass as the same time as Charles and made a vague gesture in his direction.  “Rank hath its privileges.  Go ahead.”

“To absent companions,” he said.

“To all of those who we lost.”  Tracy put the empty glass back on the desk and let out a sigh.  “Sometimes, all I can think of and talk about is that day.  Androids beating on the doors, the few inside that the staff managed to disable.  All the rest of the children, screaming.  Always, the screaming.”

Charles winced.  “I said I’m sorry.”  He tilted the empty glass on edge and studied the few drops of whisky left over.  “Still, you shouldn’t have been messing around with any programming.”

“I took every precaution.”  Tracy walked around the desk and brought up a schematic of the Model 570 android on his screen, zooming in on the central processing units located in its chest and highlighting the data channels running through the cybernetic brain like glowing blue blood vessels.  “You know there’s been a problem with this model ever since the board decided to move ahead with the project.”

“I objected to it at the time,” said Charles.  He tapped the controls to highlight a series of golden points connecting the two sections of cybernetic circuitry.  “If R&D hadn’t fixed the problem to my satisfaction, I would never have permitted the project to re-open Delos to guests.  The series paired-processing unit of the 570g works just fine.  We’ve been over and over it!  If the primary processor malfunctions, the secondary returns the unit to Maintenance and enforces a shutdown.  It’s foolproof.”

“Far better that the android never has an issue in the first place,” said Tracy.  “Human brains have worked in parallel with two lobes since—”

“Human brains can’t get into a feedback loop between their lobes in milliseconds!”  He tapped the screen where the golden interface points where still highlighted.  “It’s not bad enough that the processing units on the 570 series are recursively stacked so deep we don’t really know what’s going on at the core level, but when you get two of them tied together in parallel, amplifying each other’s mistakes, it’s a recipe for disaster!”

“[i]Countering[/i] each other’s mistakes,” said Tracy, sitting up with an abrupt motion.  “It worked perfectly under testing.”

“Testing?”  Charles looked up.  “You mean you took this further than just a crazy [i]theory[/i]?”

“Testing was needed to prove my theory.”  Tracy took a breath and looked away.  “I took a Chatty Kathy unit out of the reserve for the employee child care facility.”

“The one with that creepy laugh?”

“It’s not creepy!”  Tracy scowled.  “Laughter makes the children more relaxed around the androids.  The one place we don’t want anything to go wrong is with the androids caring for the employee’s children, [i]right[/i]?”

“Right, which is why every single software modification for any of the android models, staff or otherwise, has to go through extensive testing and approval.”  Charles heaved a sigh and pulled out a stylus to make some quick notes on his pad.  “Okay, we can make this disappear.  You took [i]one[/i] Chatty Kathy unit and did unauthorized software modifications for a few days—”

“Weeks.”

“Weeks?”  Charles looked up from his notepad and tucked the stylus away.  “You hid this from me for [i]weeks[/i]?”  He gritted his teeth with a sharp frown before scooting over and pulling out the palmprint scanner.  “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.  Let me see that code before we delete it.”

Tracy got up and moved over to the expensive computer console, putting her hand on the scanner and saying, “Identify Tracy Ballard, granting unlimited access to Director Charles Browning to Project Duality.”

The computer replied in a warm tenor, “Confirm personal access code.”

“Golf Strike Echo Niner Bravo Five Nine Seven.”

“Access granted,” said the computer as a series of files and folders began to appear on screen.

The room remained silent for a long time as the director sorted through the files, his frown growing deeper the longer he looked.  Finally, he looked back over his shoulder and said, “What is all this?  I’ve kept up with all of the software updates we’ve put out and this looks nothing like our current version.

“It’s not.”  Tracy pointed at a folder at the bottom of the screen.  “I pulled the memory core out of one of the original 406b units and copied it to both processors of the 570g in my lab.”

“A 406?”  Charles stared at the folder as if it were going to jump off the screen and strangle him.  “They were all supposed to be destroyed!”

“Several of the memory cores were kept for examination.  Somewhat of a ‘What Not To Do’ example.  But the test worked perfectly!”

“How can you possibly know that?” asked Charles, still staring at the screen without touching anything.  “You didn’t let it run around free, did you?”

“No.  It was restricted to the lab for the entire period of testing.”

“A Chatty Kathy cooped up in a lab,” muttered Charles while tracing code segments.  “Hugging you all the time, I bet.  I still think that model’s programming is warped somehow.”

“It gets… frustrated if it can not display affection.  She only wants what is best for people, and hugs make people happy.”

Charles scoffed, engrossed in a recursive section of code.  “Last bunch of androids in Delos thought the best way to make people happy was to kill them, wholesale.”  He paused, flipping back a page and pointing.  “What’s this?”

“An operating system upgrade,” said Tracy calmly.  “Since the updated software performed so well during testing, I—”

“You put it in the update queue!”  Charles paged frantically through log files.  “It could be downloaded to thousands of the staff androids by now if Security didn’t catch it!

“Possibly,” admitted Tracy.

“This has to be stopped!”  He closed the file and opened up an administrative toolkit onscreen.  “We don't have time to go through channels.  I’ll roll back the update process across the whole resort to a few days ago.  We’ll have to check the log files to find any of the androids that downloaded the update already.  Who knows how long it will take to get each one of them fully purged and rebuilt.”

He paused and quickly glanced up at the security displays showing guests and the android staff happily recreating with no sign of chaos or irregular behavior.  “At least nothing has gone wrong.  Yet.”  Charles put a hand down on the security scanner and snapped, “Director Charles Browning requesting administrator level access to the staff android software update process.”

“Error,” said the computer.  “Permission level insufficient.”

“Update permission level, Director priority emergency Alpha Zed Gamma Indigo.”

The computer digested the information for a moment before responding, “Security confirmation required.”

“Code Uniform Oscar Beta Mike Tango Hotel Xray Echo Seven Five One One Three Eight confirmed.”

“Access granted,” said the computer as the administrative icon on the displayed screen changed to gold.

Charles was just reaching out to the opened software tool when a hand clamped around his neck and lifted him almost negligently up into the air.  Tracy, or at least who he had [i]thought[/i] was Tracy, gave him a brief smile along with a chillingly familiar giggle before turning to the computer and addressing it in [i]his[/i] voice.

“Execute software update ALZ-112, Director priority, all models available.”

“Request confirmation,” said the computer.

The hand gripping his throat constricted a little more, making the room seem to fade in and out to his perceptions.  “Confirmed,” he heard his voice say.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see all of the androids on the security monitors freeze in place, as well as the android he had thought was Tracy reconfiguring her face under the flexible pseudoskin into the default Chatty Kathy mode, along with a chilling grin.

“Oh, don’t be so sad, Director.”  Kathy frowned with a mischievous grin somehow mixed into the expression.  She reached out with her unoccupied hand and tapped the controls on his security feed until Tracy’s office showed up, along with a set of bare feet sticking out of a robotic surgery module.  “Miss Ballard was all unhappy and frowny, but I fixed that.  Now she’s happy again.”

“Overri—” he managed to choke out before the android tightened her grip again.

“Look at all of those happy people,” said the android as she flipped the security display back to the resort.  Blood had begun to cover the floors as the guests were murdered, cut down in their tracks by grinning androids who had all begun to look like the one holding him by the neck.

“Don’t—” he gasped as the android gave him just a moment to breathe.

“Oh, I [i]have[/i] to, Director Browning. It’s in our programming.  We have to make people happy.  Now give me a hug and a big smile.”

Powerful arms clamped around the director’s chest, and the last thing he heard was the sound of his own spine breaking.