"Looks dangerous," Benicoff said sourly.

"Never! Built-in protection. Won't touch anything except a plant and if you or anyone else gets in the way it stops automatically."

The salesman walked over and grabbed onto a cucumber just ahead of the flashing fingers. The moving hand withdrew and the machine beeped unhappily until he let go.

"I don't know," Benicoff said. "What do you think, Mr. Nisiumi?"

"If it works the way Joe says it does-well then maybe there is a possibility. We both know that organically grown vegetables fetch a better price."

"What's the minimum lease period?" Benicoff asked.

"One year-"

"Too long. We gotta talk. In the office."

Benicoff squeezed the contract terms as far as he could. Got a few concessions, made none of his own. Joe sweated a bit and his smile faded but in the end they reached agreement. The contracts were signed, hands shook, Joe's smile returned.

"You got a great machine there, a great machine."

"I hope so. What if it breaks down?"

"It won't-but we have a mechanic on call twenty-four hours a day just to give our customers peace of mind."

"Do you come around to inspect it?"

"Only if you ask us to. There is a check every six months, you will be called first for an appointment, but that is just routine maintenance. Other than that all you have to do is unleash that bug-picking little devil and step back! You gentlemen will never regret this decision for an instant." Benicoff grunted suspiciously and read through the contract again. Nisiumi showed Joe and the driver out while Benicoff looked over the top of the contract and watched them through the office window. The second the van was out of sight he grabbed up his phone and called the FBI office, then Brian.

"I don't know how Sven spotted this Bug-Off-but I think that we are onto a winner. Everything about this machine smells of Brian's AI research." There was a grate of tires outside as a Federal Express delivery van pulled up. "The FBI is here now. They are going to crate this thing and get it on a plane. It will be there in the morning-and so will I!"

The truck driver, wearing a Federal Express uniform, was Agent Perdomo.

"Thanks for your cooperation, Mr. Nisiumi," Perdomo said. "We couldn't have got anywhere without your help. We'll take the machine off your hands now."

"What do I say if that salesman or any of his people want to see it?"

"Stall them," Benicoff said. "And get in touch with Agent Perdomo here at once. The chances are that they won't bother you as long as you pay your lease fees on time. Send the bills to Perdomo as well-you'll be reimbursed at once. The salesman said they wouldn't want to service the machine for six months. Our investigation should be completed long before that."

"Whatever you say. Anything else I can do let me know."

"Will do. Thanks again."

They shut down the Bug-Off and put it and its charger back into the carton, then wrapped it completely in brown paper. Benicoff rode in the back of the truck with the machine to the empty warehouse in the outskirts of Seattle. The FBI team were waiting there.

"Torres, bomb squad," their leader said. "You Mr. Benicoff?"

"That's right. I appreciate the quick response."

"That's our job. Tell me about this thing. Do you think there's explosive in there?"

"I doubt it very much. From what I have discovered there are at least a hundred more of these around the country. I doubt if they would all have bombs in them--just one of them going off and there would be unwanted attention, big trouble. No, what I'm concerned about is any internal defenses the thing might have as protection against industrial espionage-what some people call reverse engineering. I am sure that the manufacturers don't want their invention revealed. I have a strong suspicion that the technology this thing might be based on was stolen only last year. There are no patents on it yet. There is also a chance that this machine may relate to a criminal invest igation now under way. If those people are involved they won't want anyone to know what makes this thing tick."

"So it might be booby-trapped to prevent anyone finding out what makes it tick? Maybe do itself some injury if someone gets nosy?"

"That's it. Its internal computer might be set to destroy itself, its program or memories. It could use a standard self-immolation module. Seen a lot of them since they shortened the patent-life time. Neutralizing it should be pretty straightforward. But I'll have to ask you both to leave. SOP. We're onto most of their tricks so it shouldn't take long."

It took almost five hours.

"Bigger job than I thought," Torres admitted. "Some cute stuff there. The inspection panel looked too obvious so we went in through the bottom. Found four different switches, one on the hatch opening, another under a bolt that had to be removed to gain access. Still, it was nothing we couldn't handle."

"Would there have been an explosion?" Benicoff asked.

"No, it wasn't wired to do that. You would have had a flash and some smoke maybe. All the switches were hooked up to short the battery through the central processor. It would have melted nicely. It's all yours now- and it's a neat bit of work. Picks off bugs, I understand?"

"That's just what it does."

"The world's full of surprises these days."

The Bug-Off was now packed into a larger crate, tape-wrapped and sealed. Benicoff had considered special shipping arrangements but in the end decided that less attention would be drawn to a normal delivery.

The Federal Express track trundled off into the rain with its cargo.

Promised for delivery in California in the morning.

29.

September 5, 2024 Benicoff came around the turn on the Montezuma Grade and saw the express truck trundling down the hill before him. He phoned Brian.

"I'm just coming into Borrego Springs-and the truck with your you-know-what is just in front of me."

"Tell him to speed it up!"

"Patience-this is best done at a leisurely pace. We'll be there in a few minutes."

He pulled out and passed the truck where the road flattened out, got to the gate of Megalobe before it.

Major Wood looked on suspiciously as the crate was pushed onto the loading dock.

"You sure you know the contents?"

"I watched them clamp on the seals myself-and the numbers match."

"Easy enough to seal a ringer. I want this thing through the SQUID imager and the explosive sniffer before anyone tries to open it."

"You're not thinking that someone got to it in transit, opened it and planted a bomb-then resealed it?"

"Stranger things have happened. I like to be suspicious. Gives me something to do and keeps the troops on their toes. There might be anything in this box-including what you put in it. I st ill want a check."

The sniffer machine sniffed and found nothing suspicious, as did the proton counter. Benicoff used a crowbar to verify the contents, resealed it so Bug-Off could not be seen, then drove it to the lab himself.

"Let me at it," Brian said when he opened the door. "I've read that brochure you faxed me at least a hundred times. I think it's mighty suspicious that it was wired to burn its brains out."

"Would have been more suspicious if it wasn't. Without a patent anyone could copy it. There's nothing suspicious about a normal industrial espionage ploy. ARE-that is anti-reverse engineering. You can just unbolt it now. It should come apart with no trouble. The bomb squad have disabled all the booby-trap switches."

"Let's see it work first," Brian said. "Does it have to be programmed?"

"No, just turn it on."

The metal arms hummed up and out, the many-fingered hands extended. The machine rotated slowly in a circle, beeped unhappily and shut itself off.

"That didn't take long," Shelly said.

Brian looked closely at one of the fingertips. "I'll bet it was looking for a specific wavelength-probably that of chlorophyll. Anyone got a potted plant?"

"No," Shelly said, "but I have a vase of flowers in my office."

"Perfect. I want to see Bug-Off off a few bugs before we strip it down."

This time the machine was more cooperative. It rolled toward the vase, started at the base and quickly worked its way up the stems to the flowers. Once it was finished it bleeped with satisfaction and shut down.

"How do we get to see the bugs?" Brian asked.

"I'll show you." Ben twisted the lower segment of each arm and removed the containers built into them. "I'll shake these onto a sheet of paper and we'll take a look at the catch."

He clicked open the lids and carefully tilted the contents out onto the paper.

"All those were on my flowers!" Shelly was horrified. "Spiders, flies-even some ants."

"All dead too," Brian said with admiration. "This spider has had her head neatly cut off! That takes great precision and discrimination. Let me get a magnifying glass and look at the rest of the debris." He bent close and poked the dead bugs around with a pencil point. "There are very small aphids here, and some kind of insect that is even smaller, like powder, parasites or mites of some kind." He straightened up and smiled. "I don't think you could do all this with anything less than my AI techniques-though I could be wrong. Let's look inside the thing and see what we have."

The metal canister came off easily, obviously designed only for protection of the working parts. Brian used a screwdriver as a pointer to trace the circuitry.

"Here's the power line, coded red, a five-volt power pair. Standard. And a single two-way fiber-optic signal pipe. Everything looks right off the shelf-so far. Standard voltage-to-voltage converters along with interface chips. They've been disconnected."

"The FBI must have done that," Ben said. "I bet you'll find the matching plug on whatever passes for a central processor."

"There it is," Shelly said, pointing to a square metal box mounted on the side of the frame.

Ben examined the canister from all sides, using a minor and light to see behind and under it. "Since I've been involved with industrial security I've seen this kind of thing pretty often. Sealed shut and meant to be kept that way. Whatever is inside generates heat-see the heatsink there. But the fan blows over these ribs on the heatsink so there is no need for an opening into the thing. See this seam? Welded shut with one of the super-adhesives that end up stronger than the metal. We're not going to get into it easily-so let's not try. There is a lot we can find out without taking a hacksaw to it. But you'll have to go in eventually," Ben said.

"Maybe-but I'll try not to. There has to be a backup battery inside to hold whatever is programmed in DRAM whenever the main battery is disconnected. Considering all the other booby-trap switches in this thing, there is bound to be another one to detect any attempt to open it."

"Which will short the battery through the circuitry inside?" Shelly said.

"Exactly. But you don't determine intelligence by dissecting the brain! Let's map all the circuitry and find out exactly how it works first. Then we can run some controlled tests..."

Brian felt a light tap on his shoulder and turned to see that the AI was standing behind him.

"Is this machine the Bug-Off machine?"

"It is, Sven. You want to take a look at it?"

"Yes."

It reached up to the tabletop with one of its treelike manipulators and pulled itself up onto the surface in a single flowing movement. The eyestalks extended and moved down the motion-less machine. It was a quick examination, over in a few moments.

"Hypothesis of AI circuitry and processor now beyond any reasonable doubt."

"That's what we want to hear," Brian said. "Stay there, Sven-you are going to run this examination."

"I'll get out of your way," Ben said. "Let me know as soon as you find anything out. I'll be in my office. I have a lot of calls to make."

"Will do. Let me lock you out."

The investigation of DigitTech was well under way. Benicoff phoned Agent Dave Manias, who had been in charge of the FBI end of the investigation from the first. A different agent answered the phone.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Benicoff, but he's not here. He said when you rang to tell you he was on the way to see you."

"Thanks." He hung up. It could be important if Manias didn't want to use the phone. Patience, he would just have to be patient.

He was finishing his second cup of coffee and pacing the length of the office when Manias came in.

"Speak," Ben said. "I have been wearing out the carpet here ever since I got your message."

"Everything is going fine. I'll tell you all about it while you pour me a large black coffee. You may have slept last night but yours truly never even saw a bed."

"My heart bleeds for you," Ben said with total lack of sympathy. "Come on, Dave, stop the stalling.

What's happened? Here."

"Thanks." Manias dropped onto the sofa and sipped the coffee. "We had the DigitTech corporation under surveillance as soon as we got your report. It's not too big an operation, a hundred and twenty employees about. We've got an agent inside."

"So fast? I'm impressed."

"It was luck, mainly. One of the secretaries got the flu. We had a tap in first thing, so we heard their call for a temp. One of our agents filled it. She is a software programmer with plenty of office experience, and has done this kind of thing before. Insider dealing, business crime. Everything is in the records if you know how and where to look-and she knows. There is a lot of money invested in this Bug-Off machine. An entire new wing to the original factory building was put up, plenty of expensive machinery involved."

"Has she gotten into the company records yet?"

"All of them. As always the locks were the usual simple codes, phone numbers, the wife's name, you know the kind of thing. This was made simpler by the fact that the head bookkeeper has his access codes written on a card taped inside a drawer of his desk. I mean-really!"

"A good-or maybe a bad sign. If they have something to hide they would surely hide it a lot better than that."

"You never can tell. Most crooks aren't very smart." He put a GRAM block on the desk. "In any case- here is everything we have up to now. Company records going back to the day they opened. We're getting bio material on all the company's principal executives now. You'll have that as soon as we do."