“It almost sounds as if we should be dealing with this entity as if it were mentally unbalanced,” said Dr. Lee, the representative from PIW. “Sociopaths lack empathy and are motivated primarily by self-gratification at the expense of others. This Mekhos sounds similar to a person with a common personality disorder.”
“It would be a mistake to analyze Mekhos in human terms,” Dr. Persaud replied. “While there are superficial similarities, the difference is that human sociopaths use their lack of empathy to manipulate others for personal gain, and sometimes solely for their own amusement. Human neurosis and psychosis are still subject to basic human desires and an individual’s specific emotional traits. Mekhos has none of those failings. So while we can safely assume a lack of empathy, we can also conclude it acts out of logic and not malice or psychosis.”
Some members of the panel nodded. The subject was fascinating even for those who had very little background in science. For the military and intelligence communities represented in the room, Mekhos was a powerful enemy no matter its motivations, and they wanted to know as much as possible about its thought processes.
“From what we’ve seen so far, Mekhos seems determined to defend itself and its planet, and the humans inhabiting that planet.”
“In that order?” said Dr. Lee.
“Yes.” Persaud nodded to emphasize the point.
Roger Mellor, a computer engineering specialist from MIT, had been conferring in urgent whispers with a Russian engineer and they were both shaking their heads.
“But the machine must be taking instructions somehow,” Mellor said. “Even if it is independent from humans, its basic programming must dictate its actions. It should therefore remain predictable.”
Persaud shook her head. “I believe it would be dangerous to go forward with that assumption. According to members of the Envoy, Mekhos has regularly surprised its designers with new capabilities. The most obvious example is the risk it took by harnessing control over space-time to transfer its planet to this universe. No human on FLO could have thought of such a solution let alone constructed a set of orders to feed to Mekhos. Quite the opposite actually. Mekhos created idea and the necessary mathematics and was able to initiate the process completely without human involvement. Mekhos is a self-aware, self-determining individual, one that possesses far more intelligence and power than even its designers thought possible, and perhaps even more than its creator Norman Stravinsky thought possible.”
The room was silent for a moment. Doug spoke up to press the itinerary forward.
“Thank you Dr. Persaud. I would now like to introduce Dr. Jack Wilson, a planetary scientist and geologist who has been with us since the beginning of the crisis. Dr. Wilson will be speaking about the ecological impact we are facing.”
Dr. Persaud moved to stand by Doug as Wilson positioned himself behind the lectern. He didn’t speak right away, shuffling through his notes. There was a cough from one of the Joint Chiefs. Finally Wilson spoke.
“Good morning everyone, I will now talk about the geological implications—”
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs interrupted him.
“Pardon me, Dr. Wilson, but I want to hear more about the supercomputer. It is a massive threat to our security. I don’t really care if the mating patterns of sea turtles will be impacted with the loss of the moon.”
Some of the other Joint chiefs murmured in agreement. Wilson straightened up, glaring at the audience.
“Sea turtles, Mr. Chairman?” Wilson said. “Let me assure you that none of us here today are so deluded or foolish that we think, with the planet’s existence at stake, that this is somehow the time to announce our support for the suspension of the annual sea turtle egg hunt. I’m here to provide you with facts. Specifically, I’m here to confirm that if you all – if we all – don’t play our cards right, there not only won’t be any viable sea turtle population, there also won’t be life-sustaining ocean for them to swim in.”
There was an uncomfortable silence as Wilson looked around the room. Doug stepped forward.
“Mr. Chairman,” Doug said flatly, “we appreciate that you are very curious about the supercomputer. We all are. But it is important to impress upon all of us the far-reaching results of its actions, even if the effects will not be immediate. Some members have voiced skepticism that the loss of the moon will have a great impact. If you are fully informed, we can all make much better decisions. Hear Dr. Wilson out.”
Doug stepped back to give Wilson the floor again. Wilson started speaking again as if he’d never been interrupted. Doug could barely suppress a smile. Wilson wasn’t daunted by all the brass in the room.
“As we learn more and more about the ecosystem of the Earth, one inescapable fact keeps rearing its head, and that is that everything is interconnected. Take away one species and it affects another. Introduce an invasive species and it can drive the native species to extinction. Dam a river and whole colonies of marine insects, fish, and their land-based predators are now left without a food supply.
“Here’s what we’ve discovered in only the last few years. The circulation of ocean currents affects the ebb and flow of ice at the poles. The rate of melting ice at the north pole is far greater than recent temperature increases predicted. The reason is the slight global temperature increase has also affected the path of ocean currents, resulting in far more warm water than usual encroaching on the north.
“The deserts of Africa are ancient sea beds that contain millions of tons of nutrients from sea life of a hundred million years ago. The prevailing winds pick these nutrients up as dust, blowing it out to sea, which nourishes plankton. Do you know what organism is responsible for half the oxygen we breath? Plankton!”
“That’s all fine Dr. Wilson,” said the Admiral with a trace of contempt. “But my understanding is that life will adapt. Hasn’t the planet already gone through several major changes? The end result is the same. Life adapts to the changes.”
Wilson stared at the Admiral.
“Why yes, sir, you are absolutely correct. Life will adapt. In about a hundred thousand years, a new species will likely rise to dominate the planet. Only it won’t be us! When a catastrophic change occurs, there is a catastrophic impact on existing species. Preliminary evidence suggest the lack of tides is affecting the prevailing winds over Africa, so less of those essential nutrients are reaching the sea. It will affect plankton, the first link in the food chain, and their production of oxygen on which we rely so much. Eventually plant and animal life will adapt, as you say. But I, for one, don’t have a hundred thousand years to wait. Do you? Do your grandchildren?”
The audience was silent, regarding Wilson intently. He had jolted them back to a reality that most of them had suppressed.
“This is more than the extinction of a few species,” Wilson said, louder. “Your own people have briefed you and all of your colleagues about this, repeatedly, over the past few weeks. You haven’t paid attention. The loss of the Moon means we have no tides, which thousands of species depend on. The loss of tides also affects ocean currents. The degree of change to the ocean currents and marine life is uncertain at this point, but one thing is certain. Without our moon, ecological disaster is waiting around the corner. Mekhos has lifted all of FLO’s problems and dumped them on us.”
The room was silent as Wilson gathered his notes. Doug moved to replace him at the lectern.
“Thank you Jack,” Doug said, looking at the audience as he spoke. “We face a stark reality. The situation is urgent.”
The audience watched Wilson as he strode out of the room. They were suitably chastened. Leach closed his laptop and walked to the front of the room.
“Arthur Leach will be our final speaker,” Doug announced.
“Thank you Professor Lockwood. Ladies and gentlemen, the President is working very diligently with his counterpart on FLO to arrange for our team to meet with Mekhos. As Dr. Persaud advised, nobody on FLO seems to be in charge of the machine, but they
have also gone out of their way to claim Mekhos is not in charge of them, something we don’t believe to be entirely true. We’re hoping for face-to-face contact, so to speak. We need to know what to expect.”
“You mean, we’re going to send a diplomatic team to FLO, to talk to Mekhos?” asked Dr. Lee.
“Among other things, yes. We’ll use the Copernicus, the Envoy ship. After a refueling it will be ready to go. Dr. Persaud will prepare the team on how to best interact with Mekhos.”
“We can’t let that craft go,” the Admiral had turned his chair to face Leach. “I said it in committee and I said it directly to the President during our conference call with the heads of state yesterday. We still need to reverse engineer it to gain access to its technology!”
“Admiral, you know as well as I do that the ship is rigged to self-destruct if it detects any tampering,” Leach said. “So far we haven’t been able to figure a way past its safeguards, and we probably never will, given its advanced nature and the professed lack of technical expertise on the part of the Envoy. Our immediate need to solve the crisis supersedes any long-term technological gains. Let’s not presume or let military ego get in the way. We do not have the technology to extract the secrets that ship holds, and the Commander in Chief won’t permit any attempt to do so, covert or otherwise. Please drop the matter. We’re assembling a specialized team tasked with traveling to FLO and making our case.”
“To what end? To beg for our lives, to beg for mercy?” the Admiral asked.
“If we must. But that is not our intent.”
– 46 –
In the corner of an aircraft hangar at Andrews, behind a guarded and cordoned-off section stood the Copernicus. Its hatches were sealed and locked, its interior dark. Despite appearances several complex ship systems were active.
Using radio frequencies designed to blend in with background broadcasts, the ship used encrypted commands to link with Earth’s communication satellites. From there it analyzed every signal broadcast by the satellites, gaining access to messages and information from many sources, including those thought by their senders to be protected from eavesdropping.
The satellites sent the information to FLO via small relay stations in close orbit around the Sun where there was sufficient interference to hide the transmissions from Earth’s probing eyes and ears.
– 47 –
That evening in his apartment Doug listened to the radio. In the preceding days most broadcasts had concentrated on quake damage reports and information on where to obtain food and water for those areas hit hardest, as the infrastructure was repaired. A talk show was in progress, and some of the callers were commenting on the rumors that FLO was ruled by an intelligent machine called Mekhos. Doug grinned despite his alarm at hearing the information in such a startlingly public forum. There’s no such thing as top secret when it comes to something this big, he thought.
“I’ve got Louie on the line,” the talk radio host said. “Yes or no, Louie. Do you believe in the super machine?”
“Thanks for taking my call. This is inevitable,” Louie the caller said. “This is what’s waiting for us too. Look at the progress of technology, and how we depend on our tablets and smartphones for things we do every day. We use them to communicate, ask them for directions, and even talk to them like they’re people. My friend talks to her phone when she’s depressed, and the phone answers her back!”
“Sure,” said the host. “But people are aware they’re just tools. I’m always buying the latest electronic gadget. So do you and a hundred million other dutiful consumers. There’s no psychological or emotional attachment, no more than people are attached to their coffee maker.”
“You’re missing the point! Appliances are one thing, a talking phone that learns your preferences and habits is something else. A bond is formed. Not only that, we're all jacked into the Cloud. Technology is the new church. It’s the natural order of things, and Mekhos is the next step in that evolution. Some people claim he’s dictating economic policy, is in charge of world decisions, and whatever else you can think of on that planet. People respect that. They look at the thing for guidance. It has added stability and made their world safer, and made people’s lives better. I hope he will have influence over us, too, and get rid of some of our bad leaders, which will make Earth a nicer place to be. The machine has practically become a god. He is the new God.”
“Do you hear yourself, man?” the show host replied in his usual baleful drawl. “Are you trying to start a new religion on my show? You’re not only giving this computer the status of a person, but elevating it to a god? What nonsense.”
“Listen, he’s been able to do the impossible – end war and poverty. No human could do that. As far as I’m concerned, he is a god. People think he deserves the title of a god.”
The radio host was becoming annoyed.
“It’s because of nutbars like you that cults exist! You’re paranoid and enjoy stirring up people’s fears and their desire to be safe. Only you are also demanding allegiance to something, which in this case is a machine, a powerful machine that doesn’t know what it’s like to be human. That’s dangerous, and you, sir, are a menace!”
The caller started to reply loudly but was cut off as the host went to commercial.
The conversation on the radio show prompted Doug to pick up his secure mobile phone to call Leach for an update on a subject they had discussed earlier. Leach answered immediately.
“The Alfred Chan situation. What have you found, Arthur?”
“We tracked down the alternate Chan. He’s a florist in Chicago. Owns a shop with his wife. His educational background is business administration, a diploma from a community college. It’s amazing how different they are,” said Leach.
“So he’s of no use to us. How are things in the lab?”
“Nayar is excited about the possibilities, but on that subject he’s starting nearly from scratch. Chan says our manufacturing infrastructure is inadequate, but I’m confident—”
Doug cut him off.
“Listen, Arthur, be realistic. Even assuming Chan truly wishes to help us, and we gave him everything he needs, it will take years to complete the project. I know the White House and the NSA and everybody else has a singular fixation on getting our own thinking quantum computer, but chasing that dream is complete folly given what’s facing us. Chan’s knowledge is better spent trying to find a way into Mekhos. We need leverage to convince the QC to help Earth. We need to know what Chan knows.”
“The powers that be will take some convincing of that. And I’m not sure I agree with you, Doug.”
“Tell them that a quantum computer is impossible, at least for now. We all need a dose of reality here. We only have months, and resources are better spent in other ways. If things go our way, we’ll have plenty of time to build their computer later.”
– 48 –
Dr. Stan Foley, co-discoverer of FLO, was in the base infirmary recovering from an operation to remove his appendix. He had collapsed the day before at his workstation while monitoring Earth’s orbital perturbations. After a quick diagnosis he was rushed to the operating room. Doug learned of Stan’s condition soon after arriving back on the base, and dropped by the infirmary to check in on his old college friend. Foley was awake but still groggy with the aftereffect of general anesthesia.
“How are you Stan?”
Foley squinted up at him. “Doug? It’s Doug ... I’m just lying here ... it hurts. How are you buddy? I’m loyal, like you. Completely loyal, but they treat me like crap, and treat you like a prince ... all because I had an affair. Don’t tell my wife! Please, don’t let them tell her ...”
“An affair?” Doug replied. But Foley had passed out again. Doug had no idea his friend was cheating on his wife. But then again we all have secrets, Doug thought. General anesthesia is best avoided whenever possible for a number of reasons.
Despite Stan’s admission, Doug felt guilty. He was so caught up in other issues over the
past few weeks that he had barely noticed how emotionally weak Foley seemed to be. Stan wasn’t the confident man he’d been prior to the discovery of FLO. Learning there was an entire new planet in the solar system, and that the inhabitants were nearly identical to us was one thing. Learning that your entire planet counted on you to save them from this other world was a lot to bear. Still, Doug was surprised at Stan’s uncharacteristic simpering.
Doug felt badly about ending the visit, but there wasn’t much he could do except promise himself to be more aware of Stan’s situation in the future. He would check back on his friend later. He strode out of the infirmary and headed to his office.
– 49 –
Norman Stravinsky was preparing to exit his Seattle apartment for a late breakfast. As the inventor of Mekhos he was in demand for enterprise consulting and speaking engagements, and as usual had spent the first part of his morning on the phone. Though he still liked to think of himself as a hardware engineer, in truth he had become more of a spokesperson for government, educational institutions, and various companies. He was a board member of several organizations and spent many of his days on conference calls in his apartment office or shuttling between various meetings in the greater Seattle area.
He valued his downtime. Designing the first fully-operational quantum computer was considered one of the supreme accomplishments of the post-industrial age. Mekhos was two generations removed from that first working prototype, and had effectively designed itself. Nevertheless, without Stravinsky’s genius Mekhos wouldn’t exist and Norman was quite proud of that fact.
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