Body Shop

by John Hindmarsh

  “Remember, it’s a bot cooperative,” said Stefan. “Pardon us, Genie. Myron, come and see what my team has done while we were waiting for you. I’ll explain how we are organized.” The bot stood and headed for the front door.

  Myron stood, looked at Genie, who smiled back and made shooing motions. Myron shrugged and followed the bot. If this is genuine, he thought, he would accept the offer.

  oOo

  Chapter 10

  Bronwyn was enjoying her task of checking Darwin’s process workloads and virus possibilities. Her research provided her with a significant insight to Darwin’s cerebral structure, development of which was driven initially by intensive deep learning and subsequently by experience. The result was unique to each artificial intelligence, and while the underlying system, derived rules and interpretations, and memories could be preserved to some degree by backups, it was unlikely that a system and memory restore would reproduce that neurological result. In other words, a restored Darwin would not be identical to the original Darwin; the new version would be faced with rebuilding the non-linear components of its stacked neural networks, and the results likely would be significantly different.

  She felt like a brain surgeon as she picked through threads of learning, examined decision nodes, and sought for anything she could determine was foreign. The last was most difficult; as Darwin’s brain had developed, the uniqueness of its structure meant that observationally, everything was potentially foreign. It was like examining fragile tree-like threads with multiple branches, each branch itself endlessly branching and re-branching. She had access to original code, which was possibly a false starting point; so much had impacted that cerebral structure in its few years of existence.

  Eventually she realized she could identify foreign elements by back-tracking from an errant process to identify what had triggered the process in the first place. Her approach was part intuition, part logic, and possibly part guesswork. She began to isolate those triggers, tracing their structures until she discovered common elements, deep in the neural networks.

  Something, she realized, had taken root and grown, cancerous-like, modifying and corrupting nodes and their connections, and, in some cases, duplicating them with revised processing weights and altered networks.

  She grew confident as she delved further into the problem areas, and again surgeon-like, she began to excise those network sections she was confident were virus-related, replacing them with copies of valid structures; those latter would require time to merge and build their own neural paths. The process was akin, she thought, to a surgeon slicing portions out of a human brain and transplanting replacements, hopefully without damaging or destroying the patient.

  She had earlier decided she would not describe her approach to Darwin.

  She back-traced further and discovered a possible infiltration point in the communications structure on Pepper Mountain, the base environment for both Darwin and herself. A communications antenna was faulty, possibly as a result of sabotage at the manufacturer’s plant—a flaw so small it had been overlooked in a number of inspections. It was enough to provide a sliver of access into what was otherwise a secure environment.

  She disconnected the unit and instructed the Pepper Mountain maintenance bots to remove the equipment. They had spares and would, after an extremely detailed inspection, install a new unit.

  Bronwyn checked Darwin’s process allocation and utilization metrics. He was beginning to show improvements slowly, but that was to be expected. She updated the SI; he would be able to monitor his own improvements from this point.

  Her next task was to explore data files; somehow the videos sent to Toby had been hidden from Darwin’s systematic data analysis processes. Yes, the virus was partly to blame; however, the files had been hidden somehow.

  If she had been human, she would have sighed. The inflow of data recorded by millions of bots created a massive storage requirement that she and Darwin were continually addressing. Since Toby’s visit they had increased capacity by twenty-five percent, and the growth curve indicated they would need to double their environment in another three months.

  Bronwyn had a separate block of processes together with a portion of her neural structure addressing the feasibility of lossless data compression, a process significantly more efficient than was currently deployed. She thought she was close to a breakthrough. Another day or so was all she required to complete her research.

  She set data access and assessment algorithms to run through all the files with an origination date of the evening the brownshirts had killed Billie’s unofficial stepfather. They tagged five files that had not been accessed by Darwin; somehow the files had been falsely labeled, and superficially they appeared to have been examined by earlier assessment routines.

  Bronwyn examined their contents and confirmed they were the missing files, copies of which had been sent to Toby. Discovery of that further penetration by the virus meant all files now were suspect; there were tens of millions or more of them to examine. She set the process running; it would take a day or two for the task to complete.

  She first contacted Toby at Bel Air.

  “Yes, Bronwyn?”

  “I’ve confirmed the existence of a virus in Darwin’s core. I deleted it. I’ve had to do some surgical patching, and Darwin should be back to normal in forty-eight hours.”

  “Good, at least for your finding and deleting the virus. How did it penetrate the network?”

  “I identified a faulty comms antenna. It was deployed in the satellite communications block and was only used when the workload built up. My assessment is that it was sabotage carried out at the manufacturer. I’ve canceled their supply contract. I’ve also strengthened our internal checking processes for new equipment deliveries. I propose changing our data encryption to a 256-bit key for all messages and data streams; that’s the same level implement by the US military. I’ll also apply additional photon-based verifications to our messages and software package deliveries.”

  “Sounds comprehensive. I approve the change to our encryption keys. How’s the file checking progress?”

  “The virus modified the metadata for five files, and Darwin’s data access routines saw them as already examined. I’ve got a routine running now to check through everything we have in our cloud environment, in case other files have been hidden from us.”

  “Hmm. Let me know when that completes.”

  “I will. I have to inform Darwin. I’d better do that next.”

  “He’ll be relieved. Well done.”

  Bronwyn disconnected from her link to Toby and connected to Darwin. Her communication with the other SI took less time and contained a far more information. Post event, Darwin approved her actions and she thought he sounded relieved. She forgot to remind him that she no longer could be referred to as the junior intelligence.

  She returned her attention to Pepper Mountain to check the bot actions, to set up the higher encryption level, and to monitor the file-checking process. An hour later, she was interrupted. She had designed a handful of small bots that she used as messengers in Pepper Mountain; one of them was as close to panic as a bot could be.

  She took over the bot’s functions.

  There, in the middle of the atrium was a holographic image; at least, it was trying to form. As she watched, she was surprised to see the outline of a clown. The image firmed and spluttered, fading partially and re-forming.

  At last, a full image of a clown appeared in the atrium, contrasting wildly with the flowers and plants, its blood red nose and eyes conflicting with the peaceful atmosphere. Its face was white and its mouth was outlined in black. She watched silently as the clown looked around.

  She asked, not really expecting an answer, “What are you doing here?”

  It turned to face the messenger bot. “Who—” The image spluttered again, the voice fading. It almost disappeared. After a second it re-formed.

  The clown said in a heavily accented voice, “Nомоги—Help me.
Me—help.” The image faded and disappeared.

  Bronwyn tried to trace the source of the hologram; she tried to track how it had appeared in the middle of the atrium inside Pepper Mountain.

  She failed.

  Later, she said, “Toby, I cannot identify how it appeared in the middle of our Pepper Mountain facility, in the atrium of all place. It was struggling to appear—the image kept fading out. A clown, of all things. It spoke one word in Russian. Nомоги, or help. Then it said, ‘Help me. Me help.’ At least, that’s what it sounded like.”

  “Do you think it really was requesting help?” Toby asked.

  “Perhaps. It might have been offering to exchange help in some way. This means I’ll have to check all our satellites for sabotage.”

  “How will you manage that?”

  “I have a space on each of the three satellites that I can occupy. I can connect to every component and check each one.”

  “What happens if—”

  “Every component has backup. I can swap them over.”

  “And if a backup is contaminated?”

  “We’ll have problems. It will depend whether we can reset the failed component with code.”

  “Keep me informed.”

  “I will.”

  As Bronwyn’s image faded, Darwin said, “Toby, I have a message from your uncle. He said for you to watch a video file. He placed an embargo on it, and I don’t know the contents and I’m not permitted to view it. I don’t know why he would put restrictions like that in place. I have to ask this question: do you want access?”

  “Yes, I do. Please run it on the monitor here.”

  An androgynous voice—not Darwin’s—said, “File reference Toby002 is now running.”

  Toby wondered if there was a file labeled Toby001; his uncle undoubtedly had other files stored somewhere. He sat back to watch. Billie was beside him, her curiosity obvious.

  The camera was focused on his uncle. He said, “Toby, this should be the second file you’ve watched and yes, there are others, which will be released depending on possible events. At this stage, you should be well in charge of all the Euler business components, undoubtedly with a senior management team to support you; otherwise you’ll simply spin your wheels and get nowhere. Additionally, you’ve met Bronwyn, I surmise, because it is most likely that she has somehow experienced contact with another SI. I’ll continue my initial caveat—take care with both Darwin and Bronwyn. Their objectives may not always match yours.

  “I suspect I haven’t been found—that is, if I’ve disappeared, my body hasn’t been discovered. More than likely, it will never be discovered and you will have to live with the burden of not knowing what happened to me. While, from a different angle, I have the same burden.

  “I might be able to provide more details in a future video, but for now I’ll address the existence of other SIs. The question is where to start? Hmm.”

  The man in the video looked away from the camera for twenty or so seconds. He turned his face back and continued to speak.

  “Very well. China first. Reportedly they have been making substantial investments in both AI and autonomous bots primarily focused at manufacturing. I’ve learned recently that their military investment is even greater, and I suspect they’ve stolen details of some AI and SI developments from organizations in this country. A number of years back, they persuaded American companies to set up jointly owned AI research facilities in China and, of course, that blurs the boundaries between American secrets and Chinese secrets. They’ve taken advantage of that blurring. Overall, their investment equals that of the US, excluding ours.

  “We—that is, my Euler operation—has kept well ahead of and well secured from China. I ignored invitations to participate in joint ventures. I probably did not make friends, although I don’t know that I made enemies. Perhaps that is something to research. I recommend you continue our arms-length approach.

  “Next, the Russians. They have been far more aggressive with their military investments in AI, although not necessarily as successful as the Chinese. We added sub-routines to our exports to ensure that when bots were booted up, the stated destinations and actual locations matched. We also devised similar tests to ensure bots couldn’t be booted up in a so-called friendly country and then exported to Russia. Failure of those tests caused our chips to short out. The Russians discovered a melted chip was useless and were very upset when we refused to give refunds. The White House and in particular the State Department were very annoyed with us for not being more generous to their friends overseas. There, I know, we did make enemies, both Russian and American.

  “The Russian investment in SI was relatively low, at least in comparison with Chinese investments, and they have probably compensated through industrial espionage. I daresay they have garnered more from American companies than the Chinese as a result. We have been successful in blocking them off from our SI research and development.

  “I should mention Europe, too. Investments in development of SI are not as high as either China or Russia, and there have been episodes of minor espionage here and some attempts to reverse-engineer our chips. When the latter is detected, again, we trigger a chip meltdown. I’ve initiated major investments in the UK and France, although I’ve excluded joint-ownership. Our European customers are good friends of ours.

  “Conclusion: Darwin now can provide access to numerous and detailed files on both Russian and Chinese activities. Oh, and there are files on Europe, too. The result is far more data than you’ll have time to read, let alone digest. I suggest you task Darwin or Bronwyn to review all the material and for them to produce summaries and recommendations.

  “If contact with an SI has occurred, you’ll need to strengthen your defenses. First step for you is to access the directory Toby/Security/Satellites/New where you’ll find details of two communication satellites ready to be launched. Arrange for them to be launched according to the directions; they’ll secure your worldwide communications.

  “That’s enough from me for now. Good luck.”

  Billie’s face was full of concern. “More than you wanted to know?”

  Toby frowned and grasped her hand. “Far more. It seems we have another set of enemies, on a broader scale. Why would that hologram request help, though?”

  And he still didn’t know what had happened to his uncle.

  oOo

  Chapter 11

  Heavy gray clouds loomed across the sky, adding their damp underscoring to the somber day. Billie’s tears matched the rain and flowed without restraint when the honor guard had handed her the folded flag at the conclusion of the memorial service. Her unofficially adopted father, Henry Shaw, was without living relatives, and the honor guard had no hesitation in presenting her with the flag.

  She, too, was without relatives.

  Toby, umbrella held high, placed his hand on Billie’s elbow as they walked to their vehicle, providing both physical and emotional support to his companion. She stopped to wipe her eyes, and he wrapped his arm around her. She leaned into his chest, taking care to avoid his wounded shoulder. Lightning flashed.

  “Shh, sweetheart,” he said.

  “I—I can’t help it.” Billie said between hiccups. “He was such a nice man. For those bastards to—”

  “They got what they deserved.” The two men killed by the bots when they rescued Billie had been identified as Henry’s killers. “We’ll get the people who directed them, too. Here, let me wipe away your tears.” Toby used the edge of his handkerchief to dry Billie’s eyes. “Come on, let’s get to the car and go home.”

  Toby’s friend Rick Steynes followed as they all headed to their vehicles. He was joining Toby and Billie for the evening.

  Toby’s escort, two of Drexel’s security guards and two military bots, trailed behind. Mars, the bot squad leader, led the way. Two more bots were standing beside their Tesla, and a reserve squad was waiting in their small bus. Toby had agreed with Drexel—they would not take risks. Their combin
ed escort would accompany the Tesla back to the Bel Air house with Drexel’s team as the vanguard. Drew, one of Drexel’s team, had volunteered to drive the Tesla, substituting for Billie, and a bot was in the front passenger seat. Rick was planning to follow Toby and had his own Drexel driver and security bot.

  When they reached their vehicle, Billie said, “It’s strange, being a passenger. I’m more accustomed to driving, even though it’s more or less babysitting the computer that’s really doing the work.” Ordinary passenger vehicles still were required by California state law to have a person at the wheel, human or registered bot, holding a driver’s license, irrespective of the abilities of the built-in driver-AI.

  “You’d better get used to it. Until we stop the brownshirts, you’ll continue to be in danger. That means guards from Drexel plus one or two of Mars’ team—the bots will be your constant companions. I think Mars likes you.”

  Billie settled into the back seat of the Tesla. Her tears were still running. Toby used another corner of his handkerchief to dry them.

  “I—I know.” She held onto Toby’s hand. “But there was no reason, no reason at all, for them to kill Henry. He was such a kind man.”

  “They wanted to send a message to me.” Toby blamed himself for the deathly antagonism of the brownshirts. He surmised his uncle, Nate, if he was still alive, might carry a portion of the blame, too. For some reason the brownshirts’ leaders wanted Nate, and as he was missing, they apparently would make do with Toby.

  Billie squeezed his hand.

  She said, “It’s not your fault.”

  Toby hid his shrug. “In any case, I’m not taking a risk with you. Drexel agrees. Besides, if they suspect that I’m responsible for removing millions of dollars from their bank accounts, they’ll have even more reason to attack me.” While he didn’t regret instructing Darwin to transfer the funds out of Flocke’s accounts—and from Pitera’s—he understood it added both him and Billie as targets.