Lunar 3097

by Gary Timbrell

  “Well, I guess they haven’t done anything to be punished for.”

  “Yet,” said Alex.

  LUNAR 3097

  Lander Site

  3 came out of the Lander with arms full of instruments and set them down on the top of one of the trams that they had turned upside down for a workbench. 2 came out behind him, carrying more. They worked on their project. After some fifteen hours, they had completed what could only be described as an instrument.

  3 took a small cord from under its chest plate and plugged it into the apparatus. A small green light lit up, and there was a slight, ever so quiet, hum, more of an omnipresent vibration. It was coming from everywhere. They looked at each other with what could only have been a look of triumph.

  3 turned in a sweeping motion and slowly brought the arc smaller and smaller and even smaller until the green light turned yellow.

  2 reached down and picked up a tote bag and placed it over his shoulder. They both also had small pouches strapped to their hips like holsters with tools of some kind inserted into them. They set off in the direction the yellow light had determined for them.

  They disappeared over the horizon just as the Lunar orbit was at its lowest and the red darkness turned to black.

  ISA Headquarters

  RAIDA Conference Room

  “Well, it’s taken a long time to get to this point, but it looks like we are ready for launch. We are in the time parameter for Excelsior to leave in its launch window,” said Addison with his chest all puffed out like a Thanksgiving turkey.

  Stryker just looked at him and shook her head.

  “Like he had anything to do with that,” she whispered to Abbey as she stood up to take control of the meeting.

  “OK, we’re ready, so let’s go over the plans as they are now,” said Stryker as she moved to the front of the room.

  “We have given up on trying to get the robots on Lunar 3097 to cooperate with us. We have tried everything that we could to get them to give us the location of the AZURE239 but to no avail. So we’re sending new robots with the capability of arming themselves if the need should arise. We don’t want to start a war, and we don’t want to kill them.” Stryker paused and took a breath.

  “That would make it harder to find the mineral. We have located the VIOLET239 location, and we believe that there is a small amount of the element on the entire surface of the moon. But the location that the robots found is a better concentration, so that’s where we’re going.”

  “We are leaving nine days early because humans are needed to fly the cruiser to monitor the situation and to be on hand to remedy any problems. The nine days will allow the cruiser to ramp up slowly to half-light speed and allow the humans to handle the g-forces that they’ll experience.”

  Stryker turned to the engineers’ section. “Will we need any additional chemical help with the speed, or is nine days enough?”

  A propulsion lab tech spoke up. “No, the people we’re sending have done this type of trip before. They’re used to the g-forces, and we have brought the acceleration up to the point they have dealt with before. There might be some passing out, but it would be brief, and the effect would not be harmful.”

  Nodding to the tech, she continued. “We intend on taking the AZURE239 by force, if need be, and then dealing with the robots on our terms before leaving the Lunar surface.”

  “Are you talking about destroying them?” asked Abbey.

  “We can’t see any other way, Abbey. I’m sorry.”

  Abbey stood and faced the room, pausing to collect her thoughts and allowing the room to see she was about to speak. Stryker waited. Abbey scanned the room making eye contact with each person. “I would like to say I’m sorry to each and every one of you. My actions put this mission in jeopardy, and now, people are going to risk their lives to complete what we have started. I have tried over the last few months to find a way to fix the damage I caused. I’ve finally come to the realization that some things cannot be fixed. I just want to say, I am one hundred percent behind this mission, and I will do everything in my power to see it succeed.”

  She turned to Stryker. “Sorry for the interruption, but I didn’t know if I would get another chance to address everyone.”

  “OK, we have the Landers on board. One of them is equipped with enough thrusters, given the low gravity, to get it to an elevation that will allow the light speed engine to fire and take them into Lunar orbit. Once there, systems check will take place. If all is green, the Lander becomes a cruiser and leaves for Earth.” Stryker stopped and looked around the room at the expressions on the faces, then continued.

  “We have a second Lander that will go down to the planet first and retrieve the VIOLET239. This Lander only has the capabilities of flight to the Lunar surface and back to the Star Cruiser.”

  Stryker switched the vid screen to hologram mode, and an image of the ISA Excelsior illuminated the room. Her rear section, the engine bay, was totally gutted and a framework expanded out from the hull showing how much bigger the bay needed to be to hold the new light speed engines.

  Everyone in the room was silent. They knew the significance of this moment. The human race was on the brink of light speed space travel … Something only in comic books, science fiction novels, and in movies … until now.

  Abbey let her mind wander. How will the human race handle the enormous responsibility that comes with great power? History has shown that we don’t do well when it comes to handling new powerful technologies.

  The ISA is a truly international entity. Its mission, “To work together for the betterment of the planet.”

  “Do we have any idea what those robots are doing at this time?” asked Stryker, bringing everyone back to reality.

  Alex stood. “2 and 3 have gone silent. We think they have moved all of the AZURE239 to an unknown location, and what their plan is from there, we don’t know.”

  “As for 1, we have some data from the tech department that seems to show what might have caused it to deteriorate so quickly once it was on the surface.”

  “There was an anomaly in the data that suggests that IC chip 2054, the chip that carries the logical thought processing data, was impacted by an object too small for the human eye to detect. There is very little atmosphere on LUNAR 3097, so there are impacts of all sizes all the time.”

  Alex turned to the vid screen and showed the data stream from 1 the day things went wrong. “As you can see, we lost a complete data stream right there. The chances of this happening are so slight, we didn’t even consider it when we constructed the AIs. We have added more shielding around the IC storage area on 4, 5, and 6, but at the speed that that particle was moving, nothing would have stopped it.”

  “So, you’re saying if we found 1 and installed a new chip in the 2054 location, we could have a friendly working AI? With knowledge of where 2 and 3 stored the AZURE239?” asked Stryker.

  “We can only hope!” answered Alex.

  “Then that will be one of our priorities, to find 1 and see if we can repair it and use its knowledge to our advantage; after all, what do we have to lose? It’s just a piece of scrap metal right now, not able to do anything; harmless.”

  Stryker looked around the room. “Anybody has any concerns, now is the time to speak up.” She paused. “OK, next time we meet, we’ll be launching. Good luck to everyone. This mission is a go!”

  CHAPTER 16

  ISA Headquarters

  Flight Center

  “Flight Imaging?”

  “Go, Flight.”

  “Ground Support?”

  “Go, Flight.”

  “Communication?”

  “Go, Flight.”

  “Engine Supervision?”

  “Go, Flight.”

  “Life Support?”

  “Go, Flight.”

  “We have green across the screen; we are go for launch,” said Alex. “ISA Trident, you are cleared for launch.”

  “Main thrusters until mark 751, then the
main engine starts with a gradual climb in speed, following flight protocol for LUNAR 3097. Good luck and Godspeed,” said Abbey as she watched the large blue dot that represented ISA Trident on her screen slowly move away from its docking clamps, turn her nose to face out into dark space, and slowly accelerate. She would continue to do so until she was at half-light speed.

  “Thanks, Flight. ISA Trident leaving planetary solar space for LUNAR 3097; flight protocol installed and running.”

  “Life Support, please keep Flight apprised of any anomaly during the acceleration stage of the flight.”

  “Copy that, Flight One.”

  “Flight Two, constant sensor array supervision throughout flight.”

  “Copy, Flight One,” replied Alex.

  Abbey turned her chair to face the opposite desk, and there was the control center for the AIs. The data streaming from them was shown on three separate lines, all showing good strong signals; no problems. She pushed the comm. button. “Communication check, RAIDA 4, this is Flight One. Do you copy?”

  “This is RAIDA 4, copy. Good to talk to you again, Abbey Skyler.” Abbey faltered for a moment. The last thing she expected was for 4 to exchange pleasantries. She didn’t know how to respond. Before she could recover and gather her thoughts, there was another communication from 4, 5, and 6 to say hello.

  This was being broadcast over the main speakers in flight control. Abbey cast a quick look to the section allocated for the nerds. Half of them were acting like middle schoolers, giggling and whispering. She took a breath. “Communication check, RAIDA5, this is Flight One. Do you copy?”

  “Loud and clear. Good morning, Abbey Skyler.”

  She continued without replying. “Communication check, RAIDA6. Do you copy?”

  “Yes, Abbey Skyler, I copy,” replied 6 in a very unprofessional manner.

  Abbey thought for a moment and then spoke. “To all RAIDA AIs, please use standard communication protocols during this mission.”

  All three said in unison, “Copy, Flight One.” If Abbey didn’t know better, she would have sworn she detected sadness in their collective reply.

  Alex broke in to her private comm. link. “Is it me, or do these new AIs seem different to you? Their mannerisms, their speech patterns, their responses … I don’t know. They seem more … I can’t believe I’m saying this … human.”

  “I’m so glad you said that,” whispered Abbey. “That first day we met them in the hallway, I thought there was something different. I’m going to get one of the techs to explain what’s going on with them. There seems to have been a leap forward in their interactive protocol. How many other leaps have there been that we don’t know about?”

  “Here we go again,” whispered Alex. As he placed his hands on his temples, he could feel his brain hurting already. “Just promise me you’ll tell me what’s going on when you find out,” he begged. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  Abbey smiled. “You got my word on that. My doing stupid things days are over.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?”

  Abbey, responding with a laugh, said, “I’ll make you this promise, you’ll be the first to know.”

  A look of horror came over Alex’s face. “Look where that got me the last time!” he exclaimed.

  All he could hear was a laugh as she disconnected from the private comm. link and rose from her desk. Then she left the flight control room.

  AI Fabrication Lab

  Sky Light’s office

  “Good morning, Red,” said Abbey. “I was wondering if we could talk about the new AIs.”

  “What is it you want to know?” replied Red.

  “We’ve noticed that the new versions seem to be a lot more humanlike than the older versions, is that true?” asked Abbey.

  “As in all emerging tech, each generation will be better, faster than an ‘older version,’ to put it in your words,” replied Red.

  “So, you’re telling me that even when we have problems controlling the older version, someone thought it would be a good idea to make an even smarter version, then send them to a planet that has the rogues on it?”

  “With all due respect,” said Red, “if you hadn’t interfered with 2 in the first place, there wouldn’t be any rogue AIs.”

  Abbey’s face flushed. Red didn’t know if it was from anger or embarrassment.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I was there when you gave the apology speech. I believe in what you said. I get tied up in these AIs to. I find myself feeling like I lost a good friend when they leave my lab. I could see how you got so attached to them after all those years.”

  “No, it’s me that should be sorry. I’m the one that created the problem. Trying to shift the blame that way wasn’t fair.”

  Abbey moved closer to Red. “Can we start over?”

  Red smiled. “Why not! What is it you really want to know?”

  LUNAR 3097

  Lunar surface, unknown location.

  The red dwarf star was slowly winning the battle over the Lunar darkness. Standing on a small ridge was 2, alone, still with the tote bag on its shoulder and the gun holster-type pouches on its hips. Then suddenly out of the darkness came a flash of movement. It was 3 running at full speed, but somehow it kept very low to the ground.

  Then it became apparent why 3 was so low. A green streak rocketed over 2’s head only inches from connecting.

  He scrambled to turn around and took flight in the same direction as 3, keeping low also. It was apparent that they had located 1, and he wasn’t in a talkative mood.

  2 and 3 kept on running at an astonishing speed. The only problem they had was 1 could run just as fast as they could, and adding to that, he had found a way to build a highly destructive weapon which he didn’t hesitate to use on his own kind. This made for a very uneasy situation for 2 and 3.

  They had assumed that 1 was destroyed in the cavern blast. This was strengthened by the fact 3 had found a piece of scrap metal that had 1’s partial ident #. That, and given the destruction they found, they made an assumption that any human would have made.

  They eventually slowed and then stopped running and looked into the distance. They also looked at the instrument they had built, but no sign of 1.

  3 tapped the side of his thigh, and the small door opened. He removed a scrap of metal and looked over at 2, leaned back, and threw the scrap piece as far as he could throw it. With the low gravity and the AI’s strength, the piece flew out of sight before landing.

  Sure that they were not being followed, they set off back toward the Lander. Not that it would offer much protection from 1’s weapon, but that’s their only physical point of contact with Earth. 2 and 3 can only hope that 1 realizes that and does nothing to harm it … or them.

  ISA Headquarters

  AI Fab Lab

  “What is so different with this last version? I get this twinge down my spine whenever I talk to them,” said Abbey.

  “Ah, that’s the ‘artificial neural network effect,’ said Red. “I don’t know how much you know about building AIs, but let me see if I can put it in layman’s terms.” She pushed a button on her wrist comm, and a vid screen lit up right in front of Abbey.

  She noticed drawings showing how an artificial brain works. Red pointed to the vid screen. “See, these circles are neurons. Some are for input data, and some are output, and there are some that are hidden deep inside the network. They all work similar to the network in the brain. The artificial neural network strives to solve problems in the same manner as the human brain.”

  Red touched her wrist comm. Again, another drawing came to life. “This is an illustration of one of the first neural networks from a hundred years ago. As you can see, it’s not very large, and there’s not even enough computing power for the common ant.” Red tapped her wrist comm. one more time.

  “Now, about thirty years ago, we reached a stage where the neural networks got so large, the computation abilities reached very close to the human brain.

  “
Then within a year, it became self-aware. This created quite a stir. People claimed we were playing God; others were worried that the movies from a hundred years ago were coming true. Still, others claimed it was the start of Armageddon.”

  Red touched her wrist comm. again. “Now, this is where we are today.” An amazing beautifully colored mass appeared in front of Abbey.

  “Oh my God,” whispered Abbey. Then another image came into view, just like the first. Abbey looked at one and then the other with a confused look on her face. Red saw her reaction and smiled.

  “Amazing, isn’t it? The first one is the artificial brain, and the second one is the real human brain.”

  “But they’re identical!” gasped Abbey.

  “Yes, and without the right equipment, you can’t tell them apart.”

  “But wait a minute,” said Abbey. “That would mean that both brains are made of the same material. Please tell me that I’m wrong, that we didn’t ‘grow’ a human brain and install it into a robotic body.”

  “I’m afraid that’s exactly what we did. That’s why you get that strange feeling when you’re in contact with these newer versions. They have evolved to such an extent, that interacting with them sends your brain into overload.

  “Your eyes see a robot, but your perceptions are that you are interacting with a human. Your conscious mind has not had to deal with that before. Now, it has to make decisions based on old knowledge, and it gets confused. We started calling that the ‘artificial neural network effect.’ That term stuck, even though the brains are not artificial anymore. The effect lessens the more you interact.”

  Abbey stood staring at the beautiful image in front of her. “So, is that why I felt so much empathy for 1, 2, and 3?”

  Red switched off the vid screen and turned to Abbey. “Those three have an older version, slightly less computer power, but they are organic, so it would be quite logical to assume that humans would be empathetic to the AIs, especially the length of time ‘you’ were exposed to them.”

  Abbey’s face drained of all its color. She reached for a stool and sat; then she turned to Red. “We are playing God.”