Virtual Horizon

by Kris Schnee

Linda touched Eight of Swords, showing the blindfolded woman tied up and surrounded by blades. "Your game is a trap. It means being under your control."

  "That card means there's an obvious way out of your problems, if dangerous. You know what I think? Your family might be a bunch of posers who don't really mind living in the States, and you just pretend to work on vague 'reform'. Like roleplaying as cool rebel pirates."

  "You leave my family out of this!" Linda said, sitting up straighter. She banged her head on the low plastic ceiling. "Ow."

  Ludo had played Nine of Swords, showing someone clutching their head in bed. "You're afraid of any outcome at all, I think. Anything but your family's plan for you, which you never questioned because it was pleasant and comfortable."

  Without thinking about it Linda jabbed Seven of Wands: a man on a hill battling against a sea of enemies with staves. "My family didn't give up or run away when the crisis happened! We stood firm. We're still working for change in our own ways."

  The gamemaster said, "Okay, then. Do you think you could be happy living back in the States, with what you say is an oppressive government? Living within its rules, and trying to accomplish something meaningful despite not liking how it's run?"

  "I might," Linda allowed.

  "But it means giving up on the potential job here that would let you do science and grow into a new career. Waste of time to pass up such an opportunity, for a job that's just about designing social rules instead of real, tangible things."

  "It's not a waste. Look." Linda waved one hand around her tiny rented room. "This place, this sea colony, is a completely artificial structure. It's amazing even if it makes me uneasy, because human hands built it from nothing. I can appreciate that. But a country is like that too, a giant social structure that needs constant repair and tinkering. I have skills that could maybe make some small difference in either place. So long as I'm using them, working, struggling to make things better, it almost doesn't matter that I might fail or that someone else thinks it's not important." She huffed. "I think you just don't understand that, with your games."

  The gamemaster leaned closer. "I understand. In fact, I happen to run a growing, complicated social structure that's trying to convince a skeptical world it can accomplish important things. You make a pretty good case for it, don't you?"

  Linda paused, reviewed her own argument, and cursed.

  In answer, Ludo tossed The Fool onto the table: a happy man about to walk off a cliff. "I mean no insult," she explained. "This one's about the chance to set out on a new journey."

  "Clever. So am I supposed to agree to jump into the brain thresher now?"

  Ludo shook her head. "I won't press the matter today. Did I entertain you?"

  "Hmmph. It was interesting, at least."

  Ludo smiled. "I do want you to join me, but as long as you're having fun, I'm pretty pleased. That's why I can't casually betray your trust. I'd lose you as a player, as a friend. I learn from sparring, too."

  Linda thought about the artificial mind looming over Earth's future. Did Ludo's programming make her an insane monster, or a superhumanly just ruler? Linda said, "Could you send this letter to Nathan, please?" She held up her paper so the Talisman pad could scan it. "You can read it if you want."

  * * *

  Linda sat with her knees pulled in at a tiny restaurant table, surrounded by the bustle of life on Castor. She was at a shop selling surprisingly good Thai peanut noodles. There weren't many dine-in places due to space being at a premium. She looked over Tess, the robot Zephyr who'd been brought a glass of water by mistake, and a bulky scientist named Salmacis whose eyebrows gave him a scowling, badger-like look despite his good humor. Linda said, "How hard would it be to build underwater, or add more floating platforms?"

  "Tricky," said Salmacis. "The floating tide/solar panels around us and some concrete structures on the seabed help to dampen the waves. But you can't just bring in a bunch of houseboats, since we're still on open ocean. Do you know why we haven't just tacked on more oil rigs or similar structures?"

  Linda knew this from her Navy training. "Corrosion. Saltwater's hard on steel and other cheap materials. So you have a high startup cost and higher maintenance than on land."

  "Right. One of the things our company is working on, is how to build cheap structures that won't snap or rust or flood. Possibly a set of pods or domes just below the water. Think that's a project you might be interested in? We're coming at it by a mix of biotech and hard-tech, including experimental quick-growing coral."

  Linda slurped hot noodles. "The trouble is, I've studied a lot of things, but I feel like a dilettante. I don't know the depths of any engineering field yet. If I drop out of MIT I might never fix that. I know that's a terrible thing to say in an interview."

  Tess shrugged. "We've heard enough BS from other people, and Valerie says you're okay. And you probably don't want to hear about the unsolicited letter of recommendation you got from a certain digital storyteller."

  "Probably not."

  "Well, it was positive. If you work with us, you can expect to do intensive studying and grunt work for a while, so you can be worth the pay. A jack-of-all-trades background is good, though. It's helped some of us survive."

  Linda got the sense that this younger girl had lived more than her. "What you're building here is a way to keep doing something meaningful in this world, instead of us all jumping into the virtual playground."

  Salmacis said, "Right. We don't need her running our lives. Even so, we have common interests in keeping people alive and well. Among other things, we're working with her security team, since somebody tried to hack Zephyr recently."

  Zephyr's eyes flashed. "It wasn't Ludo who found the malware in me. It was a friend, which is good because I apparently have an enemy."

  "Who?" asked Linda.

  "Wish I knew. There's someone sophisticated out there who doesn't like independent AI. Basically tried to kill me."

  Linda said, "How do you know it wasn't Ludo herself?"

  Tess shrugged. "You know how she works. Zephyr qualifies as a player to her. Or at least the two of us together do."

  The robot Zephyr seemed to be just another person, not drawing stares. Linda smiled. The real world had a way of making wonders turn normal, which was when they began to matter. "What's your goal for building more bots like yourself?"

  Salmacis answered for them. "We're respecting the American patent on his current body, but working out how to make worthwhile imitations without the risk of them being kidnapped for dissection. We haven't found a great solution."

  "I may need to accept that people are going to kill AIs based on me," said Zephyr. "We'll need to defend ourselves, and we're not programmed to always obey humans."

  "I'm less worried by the prospect of you shooting somebody than by the AI that tries to beat you into submission verbally," said Linda.

  Salmacis checked his watch. "We need to get back to work. As far as I'm concerned, you have my blessing to join us as an intern. But you've got a school semester to go back to in what, a week?"

  Tess said, "You're in, if you can buy a share of Castor to get what passes for citizenship. Not cheap, but it saves you money long-term. We can help with the AFS citizenship paperwork if you want legal status there. So, do you want to be a student, or actually learn to do things?"

  * * *

  Linda explored Castor's alarmingly freewheeling market all afternoon. She kept getting curious looks; somehow everyone knew she was an outsider. Many of the locals were dressed in a distinctive wetsuit-like style. In the evening she studied a bit about marine engineering, and prayed for calm.

  The next morning Linda found Ludo's place, the "Fun Zone". It was attached to one edge of Libertalia Platform, the same area as the market and the Westwind lab. The place was decorated like a naval fort with pennants and cannons. The little outpost helped frame a plaza stuffed with yet more shopping stalls, a casino, a brothel called Congress, and a capsule hotel like My Sofa. />
  She blushed at the whorehouse. She could have some new experiences there. Out of the question, though; she wasn't the type. She muttered a prayer instead and made sure no one had somehow stolen her money yet.

  A deeply tanned young man in a baseball cap and a battered windbreaker, about her age, coughed for attention. He loitered under a cafe table's umbrella, soda in hand, one arm looped protectively through the straps of a backpack. "Miss? Are you Linda Decatur?" he said in a strong Spanish accent.

  "Yes; why?" People brushed by and she edged warily closer to his table.

  "I thought you'd come here. To see Ludo's fortress, I mean, not the other place. My name is Che. May I ask something?"

  "Are you a local?" she asked.

  "No. I've been traveling a long way. I don't trust Ludo, but she mentioned you as an important contact and some other sources said you'd visit. Why are you here?"

  What was this man's game? "I'm not here for anything illegal, if you're some kind of government agent," Linda said.

  Che laughed. "I thought I was the paranoid one." He glanced toward Ludo's place and said, "I don't want her eavesdropping. Would you mind going anywhere else?"

  She didn't like the thought of wandering into an alley with this stranger. This colony was dangerous, unrestrained, irresponsible. "Okay," she said. She'd at least bought pepper spray, which would be illegal to take home to Massachusetts.

  Che led her to a relatively quiet but safe space, a garden overlooking the busy sea. He dropped a few coins into the gate for them both. Other people stood in twos and threes to have some time without anyone bothering them in the marketplace outside. He said, "I've read about you. You haven't picked a side."

  "What's this about? I don't know you."

  "I'm having a hard time deciding something. To the point of burning favors to find someone to ask about it. What do you make of Zephyr, the local robot?"

  Linda looked skeptically at him. "Ludo would beat him in a fight, if you're talking about picking sides."

  "That's not what I mean. Maybe it is. What do you do when there's no one to trust, without an agenda?"

  "I don't know what's bothering you, but you should look inside yourself for the right thing to do."

  "I tried that 'listen to your heart' thing. I tried to change my father's business, and it went poorly. So now, I want advice from a third party."

  Linda sighed. She wasn't qualified to give spiritual advice to strangers. "About Zephyr, then. It looks like he's a sane human-like mind, less dangerous than Ludo. If there's ever a lot of him they might fight us humans. But it'd be a war for normal reasons, not because he's talking everyone into some gamer cult."

  Che looked reassured. Still, he said, "How would you like to be the one that gets to make a tough call about something, and be a power broker?"

  It was her turn to scoff. "I may not be some experienced ocean adventurer or a genius scientist, but I can recognize waffling. Whatever it is that's bothering you, it's your job to figure it out and not run away from it. Passing the buck is a decision, too. Pick whatever 'side' lets you do the most good."

  The man sighed, looking small. "Thank you, then. I should get this over with. Good day, miss."

  "Wait. I'm curious now."

  "I found something," Che murmured. "It's marked 'Property of Zephyr of Castor; Return Discreetly For Reward', but I don't think it is. Let's just say it was blinking in some drone wreckage in the US. So I could pass it along, or show it to Ludo, or do something else entirely."

  Linda's eyes widened. "You were considering giving this mysterious object to me?"

  Che met her gaze and stood straighter. "I know about you. You're the moth who knows enough to keep out of the flame, but you still study it. I thought you would have a useful perspective."

  "And?"

  Che glanced over his shoulder toward Ludo's plaza in the distance. Then away from it, toward the Westwind lab. "From what you've said, it's worth passing the message to an AI that I can understand."

  * * *

  Che had put a black box on Tess and Zephyr's cleared-off table. He'd let Linda come along, apparently as a bodyguard in case anyone jumped him on the way to Zephyr's place. The artifact was around the size of a shoebox and had only a single port none of them recognized. "What is it?" asked Linda.

  Che said, "I looked up similar things, carefully, and nobody sells anything quite like it."

  Zephyr peered into the port. "We'll fabricate a cable for it and --"

  "Sandbox the hell out of it," Tess finished. "It could be rigged to break if anyone opens it or sends the wrong data, but the best we can do is --"

  "Poke it and see what happens."

  Minutes later Tess fetched a jury-rigged cable from the larger workshop Salmacis worked in. "Let's see what you traveled so far for."

  They hooked the box up to an isolated computer. A message sprung up on the wallscreen: [What was Valerie Hayflick's private wish?]

  Tess typed something on a keyboard, looking grim. She said, "When the breakthroughs began, and Valerie saw a race was on for true AI, she was afraid the winners would be jerks wanting to rule the world. She feared they'd dictate some ideal vision to everyone, even if it was a nice one. Instead, she tried to teach her creation to --"

  Zephyr said, "Embrace Imperfection."

  Linda felt glad Che had taken the device to them.

  Tess looked puzzled. "But she didn't say that phrase to many people. Just a few colleagues and rivals. So who would ask that riddle?"

  Linda asked, "Ludo's 'Sages'?"

  The screen flickered and displayed:

  [Contents:

  (1) Brain Scanning/Emulation Documentation.

  (2) Brain Emulation Data (Alain Delune).

  (3) Friendly AI Emergent (FAE) Project Documentation.

  (4) Read Me.]

  The four of them swore or whistled. Linda said, "Alain? Ludo's 'Blue Sage'!"

  Zephyr picked the last option. A text file came up with disturbing garbage mixed in between the words. The onlookers pieced together what it said. [One copy of me can escape. Go. Zephyr reading this? Treasure trove here. FAE is NSA's pet AI. Brain-ripping tech in imitation of Ludo's. Not as good. Tested on retarded citizens and prisoners. Used it on me when I stopped helping. FAE can't be trusted. Modifying captives for compliance. High-tech torture. Unfriendly AI. Not what I thought. Must escape.]

  "What's NSA, for starters?" said Che.

  "A government spy agency," said Linda, going pale. "So those words were written by an uploaded digital mind, in captivity?"

  Tess said, "Sounds like he got damaged in the process."

  "And the government is testing their own version of the tech using an AI that's hurting people. It sounds like Alain was trying to help build the AI, but tried to quit and they did worse than locking him up."

  Che said, "He somehow commandeered a drone and chucked his own brain out the window with it."

  Linda stared at the screen. "We have... the US has uploading technology, and they're forcing people into it and editing them?" Her fists clenched. "We could do almost anything with AI and uploading! What tyrant would hoard the technology just so they can have an edge for spying?"

  Che put a hand on her shoulder. "Nobody wants to give up power and advantages, when the world's full of even worse threats."

  "No human does. If Ludo's too crazy to be power-hungry and Zephyr's enough like us to accept that he's no god, then this, this thing is the other end of the scale. We've got to tell everyone!"

  All of them glanced toward the doors, realizing that there were people with a good reason to burst in and kill them right now.

  Zephyr busied himself with several more computers and other gadgets. "Let's get the evidence copied. The documents are the real bombshell. As for the copy of Alain..." He started a conversation of gestures and silent speech with Tess.

  Tess huffed in frustration and slicked back her hair. "We could use these files to build a brain emulator to run this guy on, and see w
hat he has to say, but it looks like we already got his main message. If we're going to talk to him, we'd be better off asking that uploading expert near the brothel."

  We could use this device to reverse-engineer brain uploading technology, without Ludo's control, Linda thought.

  Zephyr said, "Alain had the sense not to deliver this data right to Ludo. She'd have used information on this rival AI to become even more powerful."

  "Giving it to her is the best option," said Tess. "This is beyond us."

  Zephyr said, "No. Hide it. We have nothing to gain by earning a powerful enemy."

  Linda said, "But you said someone tried to hack you recently. It might have been this government AI, this 'FAE'."

  "Pretty sure it was. All the more reason to lay low."

  Tess resumed arguing with Zephyr, too fast to follow, and rapidly scanned the other files. What Linda got from their talk was that the files said FAE was designed with a few goals. Protect people by opposing other AGI-level minds. Obey its builders' orders. And at Alain's insistence, it also had an ethics rule about trying to "satisfy human values". The design didn't sound evil or obviously dangerous. But Alain had gone from helping to build it, to blowing the whistle on it. Considering that its makers were above the law, the machine wasn't just a threat to other software minds.

  NSA had been involved in unjustly imprisoning her father, those many years ago, and they definitely spied on communications.

  Linda interrupted. "We shouldn't hand the data to Ludo and wash our hands of it, or hide the truth. We should release it publicly. If we prove there's a secret AI and the government is doing this with it, that changes everything. It's a new level of bastardry."

  Zephyr said, "New? The US government studied radiation with the same kinds of test subjects, last century."

  Tess said, "So you want to leak all this info, Linda? Then what? Stirring up a scandal is pointless."

  Linda said, "How can you say that? Maybe you gave up on the US, but this problem is bigger than one patch of land! Don't you remember the idea of unalienable rights?" Linda scowled at the others' lack of reaction. "Fine, let's put it in your terms. There's a new AI backed by people more lawless than I thought, looking to pry brains open to make them conform to some ideal of obedience. Isn't that worth fighting?"