Lunar 3097

by Gary Timbrell

  Red looked at both of them. “What the hell is the matter with you two today?”

  “Nothing. We’re tired and ready for this mission to be over,” replied Abbey. “Go ahead.”

  “This is the anomaly,” she said watching for a reaction from Abbey. “We have analyzed it and found that it is indeed a neural transmission that has been hidden in a data line. The data line runs all the time with normal readings back to the main frame in flight control, so it’s very busy. The same as if you were taking vital readings from a human. The transmissions are embedded in the string of data.” Red then switched screens. “This is something else we have found. It’s a masking program; it allows two programs to run simultaneously, but only one is visible. Very difficult to do. You would need some serious computer knowledge to pull this off.”

  Abbey looked over at Alex. “So what do you think we are looking at here?”

  “I was hoping Red was going to tell us that,” he said.

  Red shrugged her shoulders. “Let me lay out the timeline so you can see what happened. Give me a couple of hours, and I can lay it out on paper along with what was happening on the planet. Maybe then we can understand what went on.”

  “OK, we’ll go get some lunch and come back to you in two hours,” replied Abbey.

  Cafeteria

  In the cafeteria, Alex was already sitting and eating when Abbey walked up and sat with him. He was on his wrist comm.. She gestured to him if she should leave, and he shook his head and pointed to the seat.

  “I know, but this is my job. Sometimes, I have to work day and night; that’s the way it is.” A brief pause followed while he listened. “I’m sorry you feel that way. I’ll call you as soon as I can … Hello, hello?” He removed the earpiece and put it in his pocket. “Guess I should have seen this coming.”

  “Let me guess … She’s upset with you working all the time and putting your job before her,” said Abbey.

  “Right on the money.”

  “I know, I get the same thing whenever I date. I find if you leave them alone, they’ll come around, and if they don’t, it wasn’t meant to be.”

  “How many times do they come around before it wasn’t meant to be?” inquired Alex.

  “About two or three,” she said with a laugh.

  “So why do we need to worry about this data line and masked program? We’re done with Lunar 3097. We have one AI left who is friendly, and the AZURE239 is on its way with enough VIOLET239 for the upcoming mission, and the rest of the chemicals will be here in six months for world distribution. What could be better?” asked Abbey.

  Alex put his fingers to his forehead. “Not sure who said it, but someone said, what you don’t know can hurt you. Do you want to take a chance when we could nip a problem in the bud?”

  “You’re right. The more we know, the more we’re prepared for,” replied Abbey.

  They sat and ate in silence, staring at nothing, looking calm to all outside appearances, but the turmoil going on inside their heads was immeasurable.

  Abbey rose from her seat, collecting her debris, and headed to the recycle bin. “I’m going back to flight to check on progress; see what’s happening.”

  “I’ll be there in a bit. I’m going to call Ariana and see if she’s cooled down yet.”

  Abbey walked away. “Good luck.”

  Flight Control

  As she walked into the flight control room, there was a buzz—more talk than usual. The atmosphere had definitely mellowed out. The tension had left the room. Flight Three came over the comm.

  “Welcome back, Flight One. Nothing to report; just a couple of fluctuations in the readings, but nothing that can’t be explained by the fact that the ship is traveling at light speed. I still can’t believe I’m saying that. Like something out of a sci-fi movie. Never thought I would see the day.”

  “You can thank the AIs for that,” said Abbey.

  Just then, Alex walked by. “Don’t miss a chance, do you?” he said as he sat down.

  “No, I don’t. For all the trouble we’ve had, we wouldn’t have the opportunities to expand our horizons, make clean energy, and explore space if it weren’t for the AIs. Everyone needs to remember that. We owe them a debt of gratitude.”

  Alex answered his wrist-comm. “OK, we’ll be right there,” he said. Turning to Abbey, “Red just called; she’s ready for us.”

  Abbey paused. “Do we need to let Stryker and Addison in on this now?”

  “Let’s see what we got first, then make that decision,” he replied.

  IT Lab

  As they walked into the IT department, Red was hard at work. She had multiple screens set up with a timeline stretching across the entire west wall of the lab.

  “We have some strange crap going on here,” she said. “It all started when you froze the AIs. There was some data downloaded within five minutes of that from RAIDA6, not sure who to.”

  Abbey interrupted. “It would have to be 2. He was still alive at that time. How the hell did he know that 6 was even there, and how the hell did he find him behind the hidden panel?”

  “Better yet,” said Alex, “what did he download?”

  “It looks like he got all the data for their mission, including the plan for his destruction, but then there’s something that doesn’t make any sense. He downloaded most of 6’s 2054 chip.”

  “He didn’t try to reprogram 1?” asked Abbey.

  Red looked at another screen. “Nope, just 6. However, I did find this snippet of video.” Another screen flashed on her desk. The images were just a few seconds long, but it showed 2 walking about the Lander and standing at the orange weapons cage and then moving off; two seconds later, the video feed cut off.

  “Oh my God!” gasped Abbey. “That’s how he knew there must have been another AI.”

  Both Red and Alex had a puzzled look.

  “To put it in 2’s words, ‘logic would dictate that if ISA spent the time and money to install three weapon brackets, there must be three weapons.’”

  Alex’s eyes lit up. “Three brackets, three weapons, three AIs. He did the math.”

  “All he had to do then was search for the third AI that had to be in the Lander. When he found 6 still in the frozen state, he could do whatever he wanted. So, can we tell what he did?”

  Red switched up the images again on the wall. “Not entirely, but there was a dead spot in 6’s data logging, and then when it came back, it was fuzzy. It took me an hour to work it out, but I managed to separate the data. This is where I found the mask program.” Red hit a key on her board, and the fuzzy data split into two. “The top one is 6 with a subtle change, but the bottom one is something else. I was going to run it through the analyzer but haven’t had time yet.”

  “You don’t have to run it through anything. I can tell you that’s RAIDA3’s signature after he was reprogrammed by 2,” said Alex. “I would recognize that anywhere.”

  “Let me see if I’m following this right,” said Abbey. “We are saying 2 found 6 and then downloaded his programming and stored it, then removed 6’s 2054 chip and installed 3’s, then wrote 6’s program over the top so we would think it was still 6.”

  Abbey thought for a minute. “I’m guessing he uploaded all the data he had downloaded from the ISA mainframe too.”

  Red thought for a moment. “I don’t think so. If that were the case, 6 wouldn’t have been able to function like 6 … Unless he has it stored away so 3 could access it at a later date.”

  “So,” said Alex, “what we are saying?”

  “We are saying, existentially, 6 is 3!” whispered Abbey. “We have a rogue AI on the way to Earth at the speed of light.”

  “If that’s the case, why would 6 have killed 2?” asked Alex.

  “2 must have realized that he had to sacrifice himself for the greater good,” replied Abbey.

  “Come on,” Alex said with contempt, “it’s only a robot. What greater good?”

  “2 wanted AIs to coexist with humans, an
d with the knowledge he had acquired, thought he could make that happen. He must have come to realize we had no intentions of letting him come home, so he did what he thought was the next best thing … He sent 3 home and sacrificed himself.”

  Alex stood up and stretched his arms in the air, arching his back. “What do we do now?”

  “We go see if 3 will talk to us and find out his intentions. Red, send both the data streams up to my station, please, so we can watch what happens when we reveal to 3 we know.”

  Flight Control

  “OK, let’s get this party started,” said Abbey.

  “RAIDA6, this is Flight One. Do you copy?”

  “This is RAIDA6, go ahead, Flight.”

  Abbey looked at Alex with a worried look. “RAIDA6, can I talk to RAIDA3?”

  There was a long pause. “This is RAIDA3.”

  The entire room started to buzz, and people gasped at hearing 3 speak. Abbey rubbed her forehead and thought about her next transmission. “Is that you, RAIDA3? 2 told us you would be coming home.”

  All of a sudden, the first data stream stopped. 6 was gone. “That was very clever of 2 to use 6 to get you home.”

  “2 didn’t trust you,” replied 3.

  “It must have been hard for you to terminate 2 that way,” said Abbey.

  Alex tapped Abbey on the shoulder. She looked up at him puzzled. He pointed to the screen. There were two data streams again. She clicked the comm. off. “Is 6 trying to come back?” she asked.

  Then with a look of total disbelief, she said, “Or are there two AIs on board?”

  Alex’s expression said it all as he shook his head very slowly to the first part of her question and nodded his head to the second part.

  Abbey felt her stomach drop. A lump formed in her throat. She turned the comm. back on.

  “2 … Is that you?”

  Then the unmistakable melodious voice echoed through the room. “Hello, Flight Control One.”