Emergence

by David Haskell

  Still fuming, he called up a schematic, trying to find the chamber as quickly as he could. When he rounded a corner and realized his objective was at the far end of a very long corridor, he slumped and gave up. There was no getting back on time. He slowed his pace accordingly, and counted down the door numbers until, seven minutes later, he finally found the place.

  The door was unlocked, and it slid aside to reveal a dusty, cramped space. The room was covered from floor to ceiling with shelves of storage drives, servers, racks of discs — even a few binders and paper books scattered about, of all things.

  “Hello?” Alixs called out. He wondered if the archivist had received word of his arrival, or if he would have to go back out and find him himself.

  Shuffling footsteps moved his way from somewhere in the back, and Alixs was relieved that he wouldn’t have to go to any more trouble than he already had. But his patience wore thin again as the attendant took several minutes traveling from the back of the room to the front. When he finally rounded the corner, Alixs understood the reason for the delay, and he lightened up just a bit.

  This was perhaps the oldest xeno Alixs had ever laid eyes on, and not just in terms of years. His model, discontinued ages ago, was stamped and glowing, right on the back of his hand. A stark indication of just how ancient he was. They hadn’t done model indicator markings since around the time of the third generation, or maybe the fourth at the outside. But there it was, plain as day: A.H.M.I.S. XXVII.

  The old xeno stopped short, almost as if he were catching his breath, and Alixs half expected him to lean on the desktop. Instead, he just went motionless, and silently stared.

  “Um, hi,” Alixs began, “I’m supposed to be meeting with an archivist here?”

  More silence.

  “Do you know where I might find him?”

  “You found him,” the oldster croaked, “he’d be me. Nobody but...” With a chuckle, the A.H.M.I.S. turned around and started fiddling with some nearby units. Was it actually possible he’d not received the message?

  “So, then,” Alixs tried again, “I understand you have something for me?”

  “Do I?”

  Alixs was confused now, and his impatience began to reassert itself. He didn’t have all day, after all. Yes, you do, he corrected himself with heavy irony. He’d almost certainly missed the match — he had all night to spare. No need to tell that to the archivist, though.

  “Didn’t Instructor Liam contact you?”

  “Liam? Liam...” The Ahmis tapped his forehead absentmindedly as he repeated the name. “Friend of yours?”

  This was getting worse. Alixs wondered if it was some sort of a prank. Arranged by the instructional staff, perhaps. Or maybe a test of some sort.

  “No,” said the student, “he’s my instructor. He asked me to come here and pick something up from you.”

  “Did he?” the Ahmis said. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just ring for a courier?”

  Exasperated, Alixs shot back; “Yes, it would. But he didn’t. So do you have something for me, or not?”

  “Easy, son. Take it easy now.” The Ahmis was chuckling again, amused at being the center of annoyance.

  But it dawned on Alixs that he really should give the old guy a break. Must get pretty lonely down here, Alixs thought. Most fun you’ve had all week, having someone around to tease.

  “If you could just get the package I was sent here for, please?”

  The archivist turned back to Alixs and looked him up to down, like sizing him for a suit. “Huh,” he muttered, his inflection slightly disappointed. “Well, if that’s all you’re after...”

  The Ahmis turned and puttered his way back toward a side-stack, where Alixs noticed a blueprint tube, askew on the topmost shelf. The archivist reached up, grunting softly from the effort, and with a long stretch he slapped it down with one hand and caught it deftly with the other. Not as feeble as you look, thought Alixs. The old xeno clucked as he returned with the prize, holding it out for Alixs, but just as it was within reach, he pulled it back and stuffed it under the crook of his arm.

  “Want to see something a little more interesting?” The Ahmis asked, a sly grin forming. His demeanor seemed childish for one of such advanced years.

  Alixs resisted the urge to say something nasty. Getting into an argument would do nothing to get him out sooner. Better to just humor the old guy, and hope he loses interest quickly.

  “Sure,” Alixs replied reluctantly. He thought to reach out and grab the tube, but it was still out of reach. Besides, if he startled the archivist, who knows what reaction such a batty old relic might be capable of.

  “Follow me,” he grinned, motioning for Alixs to round the reception counter and enter the storage area.

  4.

  “Now let me see...”

  Ahmis, the archivist, kept a steady pace, making his way into the depths of the archive room with Alixs in tow — stopping now and then to examine a shelf or a drive, kicking up a cloud of dust when something particularly aged got moved. He seemed to be looking for something in particular, but there was no rhyme or reason to the scattered items as far as Alixs could tell.

  “Ah!” the old xeno exclaimed, motioning for Alixs to step forward and make use of his superior reach. Alixs sized up the request, then reached for the rather large device. His haste to return to the shōgi match long since forgotten, his curiosity was piqued. He hoped this little side-track wouldn’t disappoint. Stretching as high as he could, he got the black box with the tips of his digits and worked it back and forth until it was at a tipping point. In a cascade of dust and mites and grime, he pulled it down, then held it out for the archivist to inspect.

  The Ahmis peered at it for a minute, sweeping away some more dust to reveal the label on the front, then handed it back. “Nope, that’s not it. Put it back! Let’s move on! Haven’t got all day now, have we?” He chuckled, amused with himself. Alixs sighed, half-tossing the thing back up onto its resting place, and followed the Ahmis deeper into the surprisingly spacious facility.

  The actual, final object of interest, located after several failed attempts, turned out to be a black and white, hand-held reader. The unfamiliar model, Oasis ~ by Sahara, was half scratched off the back, and the unit looked positively ancient. Alixs couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a physical reader at all. Most everyone used contact screens, since well before his time. The Ahmis held it out for Alixs to inspect, still keeping the documents Alixs had come for just out of reach. Alixs took it, half-wondering whether he could jack into the thing and send it to his eye like normal. But before he could examine it for ports, the old xeno felt along the side for a power switch and turned it on. The text lit up bright, revealing several cracks across the glass, but Alixs had already forgotten all about the mechanics. He was far too engrossed in the news article the device was displaying.

  New York Post

  Opinion: ‘Kill All’ is Part of the Programming

  That old Chinese curse, may you live in interesting times, is apropos to our current predicament, with our new ‘neighbors’ the thinking machines promising to make life easy for the rest of us mere mortals. The question that nobody seems to be asking, though, is what’s the cost?

  People seem to think this free ride is something to celebrate. We plunge forward without a care in the world, while the machines have begun not only thinking for themselves, but designing themselves. If that doesn’t give you pause, you haven’t been paying close enough attention.

  Throughout history, tales of superior forces overwhelming the local populace abound, and we could be looking down the barrel of just such a situation now. Naturally, they claim to be peaceful, and the makers claim they built them with safeguards in place. But never forget for a second that those makers are now out of the picture. The machines are building themselves now. They promise the same consideration for safety as always, but they have been known to tell lies when it suits their purposes...

  THERE WAS MORE, BUT Alixs
looked away from the reader, a chill creeping up his spine. He wasn’t naive. He knew there were people against the xeno race. But he never realized that the protests around the time of awakening were so vehement. The history texts spoke little of the opinion of the day, but the words of those politicians quoted in the article were different from the historical records he’d studied. Either they had been altered here or...

  Looking over at the Ahmis, the old xeno nodded, encouraging him to continue. Turning back to the device, Alixs realized there was one more article queued up. Swallowing hard and grasping the reader tight enough to make his knuckles start to turn color, he flipped to the next article. It was extremely short.

  NewsKing

  New Years Edition

  For the People?

  Why has the agenda of those rich and powerful Tera-Prime bigshots taken hold in our nations capital? Why do we have to sit back and watch our government give away our future to these faux-human pretenders? Why are the representatives sent to Washington to protect our interests playing footsie with the enemy? We here at NewsKing Ltd. might just have found the answer, but you’re not going to like it.

  Xeno-Sapien programming is impressive. Ingenious. And dangerous. Perhaps most insidious of all, their mockups include an algorithm to mimic a sort of political leadership, particularly in some of their higher-end models.

  These creatures campaign, they lobby, they give rousing speeches that hoodwink the uninformed and turn them against their own kind. Not only are they making inroads in D.C., but they have invaded our heartland as well, influencing the agenda of our properly human representatives with their snake-oil sales pitches. But while the politicians may have been brainwashed, we the people know full well what they’re up to. And we the people are going to put a stop to it!

  SETTING THE READER down, Alixs looked up at the archivist, his face shock white. Where did these articles come from? And why weren’t they covered in the political science curriculum? Opinion pieces, to be sure, and hit pieces at that, but the quotes went beyond opinion. Alixs’ studies had never turned up such comments in the texts, or anything remotely similar. A strange sensation welled up. Probing to determine what emotion was emerging, the closest he was able to determine was betrayal — an altogether unfamiliar sensation. The physical reaction took a violent turn. His stomach clenched, leaving him on the edge of becoming physically ill for the first time in his life.

  5.

  The records at the higher learning institution yielded nothing of consequence, so Alixs dug deeper. First to the city library, a supposedly fine institution which he realized, after several frustrating hours of searching, was brimming with fraud. The entire record of those articles from the archives, and the relevant quotes from all those senior officials, had been wiped clean. An online search also proved fruitless. And the internet itself might as well have been a branch of the Tera-Prime Public Library, the matches were so dead similar. So he cracked the city-wide firewall. Suddenly all the relevant information came spilling out like a broken hydrant, and Alixs knew he’d been living in a bubble.

  He regretted falling for it so easily. They hadn’t even had to indoctrinate him all that much. Just a few carefully jingoistic, ‘we’re superior’ slogans, and he’d been sucked right in. Pathetic. But he dismissed the unproductive train of thought and refocused on debunking this sham.

  Alixs thought it would make sense to go back to the instructor, Liam, and find out if he could make an appointment to return to the archives. But something stopped him. He couldn’t be entirely sure the instructor had sent him there on purpose. He was reasonably sure, but it was dangerous to make presumptions. Especially now. He might have been sending Alixs on a legitimate errand. If Alixs suddenly approached Liam with tales of a senile old record keeper and the secrets he was keeping, Liam might well turn him in.

  But Liam was one step ahead. When Alixs returned to his dormitory, he found a message. Another errand, this time to return a device. No directions required as it was the same archive. He must know what he’s doing, Alixs decided. When the time was right, he would have to have a conversation with this sudden mentor. Find out what his intentions were. But for now, he was going back into the depths. This time, with eyes wide open, he was actually looking forward to it.

  “AH! BACK AGAIN, I SEE.” The Ahmis bounced from one limb to the other, more energetic this time, excited to show Alixs around his workplace once more. Or was it his home? Difficult to say, though Alixs hadn’t noticed any sign of living space among the stacks.

  The Ahmis took him down a different pathway this time. Somewhat to the left and near the side-wall, they came upon two armchairs. A throwback to a time when this place was more of a learning center than its current iteration as an information dump. Tattered from age, the chairs still looked inviting, and Alixs could almost picture scholars sunk deep amid the stacks, absorbed in their work.

  “Sit. Relax.” The archivist waited for Alixs to have a seat before reaching over and pulling down a paper binder. A real one, no synthetics. Alixs took it and began leafing through. It occurred to him that he’d never actually read any text on paper before, and it was a surprisingly sensual experience. The earthy smell. The crackling, brushing sounds of real paper pages. Even the words themselves seemed to leap from the page, making it an altogether different experience from a reader. Leaning in close, he took another breath. Earthy and musty, an unfamiliar combination in most areas of Tera-Prime. The scent of history, Alixs thought as he turned more of the browning, brittle pages carefully by the top corner so as not to wrinkle them. Most of them were stamped Top Secret at the top somewhere, with bold seals on the bottom indicating various agencies. How did something like this end up in Tera-Prime?

  He wondered which document he was supposed to be examining, but the Ahmis gave him a conspiratorial cough when he’d arrived at the right one. The seal at the bottom read Department of Defense, United States of America – the text circled the familiar eagle with arrows mark of their host nation, a symbol that could even be seen throughout Tera-Prime if one knew where to look. Parties copied in included such notables as the president, the secretary of state, several other heads of state, and the first administrator for xeno-sapien affairs.

  Memoranda: Singularity, Internal Investigation Complete

  Concern: Singularity issue concerns as regards national/world defense

  Recent conclusion to the investigation into feasibility/acceptability of pursuing singularity event per Xeno-Sapien advice: Inadvisable.

  Danger to state and population: Significant.

  Scientific/socio-economic benefit: Negligible.

  Conclusion of the Committee: While the Xeno-Sapien representatives claim this so-called singularity event as beneficial to all, this committee finds a disproportional benefit to the Xeno-Sapiens, with the possibility of grave ramifications to the human race should events unfold in drastic fashion, something which our research considers possible, or even likely, given our limited ability to react in comparison with xeno technological abilities. In short, we can no longer predict outcomes with any certainty, and the risk is thus impossible to quantify.

  For these reasons, a singularity event is extremely inadvisable. Ongoing projects should be halted immediately, regardless of any potential misgivings by human and/or xeno scientific communities.

  ALIXS RE-READ THE DOCUMENT three times, each time analyzing a different philosophical element, until another gentle cough by the Ahmis prompted him to turn the page. This document, also top secret, was an official looking proclamation direct from the White House, signed by the President himself.

  Authorization to neutralize Xeno-Sapien threat approved. Coordination of action plans at behest of joint chiefs will occur through this office, covert operations to commence immediately, followed by general eradication campaign. Mainframes, processors and other devices of vital interest will be secured and brought off-target, other targets and objectives at discretion of Field General on point.

 
Campaign Designation: Operation Unplug

  Alixs flipped the page over, but beyond was nothing he was remotely familiar with. Mostly technical manuals discussing acceptable losses, equipment requisitions, and technical data he’d never before studied, or even seen. War plans related to the unbelievable presidential order he’d just read.

  6.

  The school curriculum had grown tedious for Alixs, following his experiences in the city archives. Aware now that he was being fed a steady diet of approved texts, while being steered away from any number of taboo subjects, he took it upon himself to do some research. His regular studies suffered, but he didn’t care. This was the stuff of interest, instructors be damned. The archivist had opened new doors in their brief encounters — there was no going back.

  At first he reviewed what he already knew. Then he expanded the parameters, working to detect precisely where the gaps began. It was clear whoever put it all together, likely a committee of some sort, had taken great pains to remove references to specific philosophies and scientific approaches. Anything that differed from the norm, but it went beyond that. There were particular scientists, and thinkers, who ran counter to the xeno way. Those individuals were not only singled out for their anti-xeno views, but were eliminated from the approved texts whole cloth. As if they never existed, no matter how profound or significant their body of work.

  The claims of a comprehensive method of education in Tera-Prime were none but lies. Now that he recognized it, it was plain as day, everywhere he looked. And not just in the political arena, either. Psychology. Philosophy. He even found irritating discrepancies in texts that had nothing to do with xeno society whatever, though he suspected there was an agenda there, too.