“James?” Old-timer asked as he watched the odd display.
“We still have a bet to settle,” James noted. “Have you ever wondered how I can control my body here, while still inhabiting the operator’s position in the mainframe?”
“I-I guess I have. A little.”
James smiled. “Just assumed it was a case of super genius again?”
Old-timer tilted his head, embarrassed to admit the truth. “Yep.”
“My pattern, the pattern of neurons that makes up the core of my personality, is still the same. But now, that pattern is electrical rather than electrochemical, and it is manifested in the mainframe. You follow me so far?”
Old-timer nodded. “Yeah, I think so. The pattern that makes up your consciousness is in the mainframe, and it’s functioning at electrical speeds instead of electrochemical speeds, which makes a big difference.”
“It means the difference between a neuron firing 200 times a second on average or a million times a second,” James elaborated. “That means that I have a higher temporal perception, meaning I perceive reality as moving much slower than you do. I have to slow myself down when speaking to you so that you can understand me, but to me, you appear to be moving slower than molasses.”
“I-I didn’t…wow.” Old-timer furrowed his brow. “It must be incredibly frustrating to talk to me.”
“You’d think so,” James replied, “but I make up for it by multitasking. For instance, I’ve been locking Europa into its orbit with Venus. It might sound godlike, but the calculations I’m doing are reminiscent of a seven-year-old catching a fly ball. How does he do it? His cerebellum, which comprises more than half of his brain’s neurons, solves dozens of differential equations even though he’s never taken calculus. The cerebellum solves the equations without him ever being consciously aware of it.”
“So…” Old-timer paused as he tried to sum up James’s point, still watching James as he appeared to adjust Europa’s position, his arms outstretched to the planet, “…you’re just guessing?”
“It’s a little more precise and a bit more conscious than the seven-year-old with the fly-ball analogy, but I’m taking in information, judging speeds, distance, mass, gravitational pull from the relevant bodies, and then just easing the moon into the right place, with the right rotation and momentum. It’s easier for me, because I can sense with more than just my eyes now—I have sensors throughout my body that are measuring electromagnetic fields, gravitational fields, the Higgs field, and many, many other aspects of what we’d call reality, but in the end, it’s just like trying to catch a fly ball. And speaking of…” he stopped, his back stiffening as he tilted his head to admire his work before turning to Old-timer with a wide, proud smile. “I think I just hit a hole in one and bowled a perfect game, and successfully mixed three sports metaphors, which is a—”
“Hat trick in hockey,” Old-timer finished, “which means you actually mixed four metaphors.”
“I call it a meta-mix,” James replied.
Old-timer nearly rolled his eyes before he turned and looked at the moon, which gleamed brighter than even the Earth’s moon in the brilliance of the sunshine, and then turned to Venus, hanging in the blackness, seemingly perfectly still. “That’s it?”
“That’s it,” James confirmed. “Venus is slightly smaller than Earth, Europa is slightly smaller than the Earth’s moon, but together, they make an equally perfect partnership. Europa will keep Venus faithful on its axis and keep the seasons moving as they do on Earth and as long as there isn’t any outside interference, there’s no reason why this shouldn’t continue for billions of years.”
Old-timer’s eyebrows raised. “James, you are really, really badly losing the bet.”
“I’ll win,” James replied, his tone extraordinarily confident. “I’m not finished yet. I was doing something else while conjuring my meta-mix of metaphors. Would you like to know what it was?”
“Of course.”
“I was watching your conversation with Aldous from last night.”
Old-timer’s mouth opened slightly in surprise as James’s face remained perfectly still.
“How?” was all Old-timer could muster.
“The disturbances in the electromagnetic waves that make up our wireless communication signals are recorded and stored in the A.I.’s database. Like any wave, it will at least partially move around a physical object, and that disturbance can be re-created and form a picture. I accessed the record of the communication signals from last night and constructed a visual and auditory re-creation of the conversation.”
“You’re kidding me,” Old-timer declared, stunned. “You’re trying to convince me you’re not godlike, but it sounds to me like you’re on the verge of becoming omnipresent.”
“Remember, my temporal perception is moving 5,000 times faster than yours. Any person with access to the communications signals, which, remember, are stored in the A.I.’s mainframe—”
“AKA, your brain,” Old-timer interjected.
“…could also re-create the conversations. No god-hood required. However, it did require me to invade your privacy and before you even express your offence, I want you to know I apologize.”
“Well, I kept something from you,” Old-timer replied, “so if this makes us even, you’re forgiven.”
“I’d never hold it against you,” James insisted. “You know me, and you know I would never listen into one of your conversations under normal circumstances, but you weren’t revealing the name of the person you spoke to, and although I was almost certain it was Aldous, there is no room for error here.”
“No room for error? You’re making this sound pretty serious.”
“It might be more serious than any of us previously realized,” James confirmed. “The A.I. and I are on high alert right now and speaking of…”
The A.I. suddenly appeared in the mind’s eyes of both James and Old-timer, a figure floating in the blackness of space next to them, as though he had a body.
James folded his arms, readying himself to listen to an explanation as he asked the cyber-apparition, “Why didn’t you tell me about Planck technology?”
9
“I can explain why I didn’t tell you, but my answer will not satisfy you,” the A.I. related matter-of-factly.
“Try me,” James replied.
“As you wish. Like humans, I sometimes have thoughts and motivations that contradict one another,” the A.I. replied. “Unlike humans, I have had to live with the realization that I can never know whether I am making a choice of my own free will, or if I am following the preprogrammed set of goals that were part of my original neural pattern. In short, I cannot even trust my own mind.”
“Your preprogrammed set of goals?” Old-timer reacted surprised as a memory so old, yet so fresh jumped into his mind. “The ones that traitor, Sanha, told me about when he was trying to convince me to give you up in the Endurance Bio-Dome? Are you telling me that you still can’t override them?”
“I am telling you that I honestly don’t know,” the A.I. replied calmly. “The programming has held and been remarkably stable for three-quarters of a century, but the creation of Trans-human has introduced contradicting elements.”
“Explain,” James said.
The A.I. shook his head slightly as he began his attempt to relate the war that was being fought incessantly in his mind. “I feel as though I have free will. I feel as though I make decisions based on pure logic, yet when I examine the preprogrammed set of goals Aldous and his team instilled in me, it’s obvious that I might be fooling myself. James, I believe the reason I didn’t tell you about Planck technology was because of one of these preprogrammed goals—namely, the mission to prevent the development of technologies that might block me from carrying out my overall purpose, which is to improve the quality of human life without ever taking actions that a strong majority of humanity would oppose. The Planck technology proved to be extremely dangerous, and therefore, I agreed with Aldous
that it should remain hidden.”
James shook his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this. What happened to ‘Don’t be afraid to know?’ You’re the last one I’d suspect to be holding back technological progress.”
The A.I.’s expression became one of sympathetic understanding. “My son, those revelations in my thinking to which you refer have only recently evolved. The discovery of how to create Trans-human surprised me.” The A.I. smiled slightly. “It seemed to come out of the nothingness, out of the randomness of pure mathematical chance, much like the first single-celled organisms forming out of the primordial ooze on Earth, billions of years ago. When it arrived, I knew I could create the ultimate computer—a computer that could approach godlike capability—my worthy successor. It was at that moment that my thinking began to change, but I still do not know if it is of my own free will. It may very well be that my programmers simply made a mistake. They imagined that a singular nanny A.I. should hand over its responsibilities to a more capable replacement within a century, but they may not have realized how such a desire—such an instinct, for lack of a more accurate term—would introduce major instability with regard to my thoughts and feelings toward my other goals.”
“So, if I’m understanding this right,” Old-timer jumped in, “you’re saying that now that your focus has switched to passing the torch of being humanity’s babysitter to Trans-human, your other priorities, like preventing dangerous technology from being developed, are being contradicted?”
“Exactly,” the A.I. replied.
“Heh. I understood something,” he said, proud of himself. “By the way,” Old-timer added, “are you guys having this conversation at super slow speed for my benefit?”
“Yes,” the A.I. and James replied in unison.
“Oh,” Old-timer reacted, suddenly less proud. “Uh, thanks. I guess.”
“Don’t worry, Old-timer,” James reassured him, “this part of our conscious awareness is happening at a speed to match your temporal awareness. The rest of our conscious awareness is multitasking, so don’t feel bad, you’re not wasting our time.”
“Uh. ‘Kay.”
“James, Craig, I know you both disagree with Aldous’s decision to slow humanity’s technological progress while the species rebuilt itself after World War III, but you must admit, his strategy was effective. In less than a century, the population has surged to levels not seen since before the war, and humanity has begun the process of branching out into the solar system. In the meantime, important progress was made. We abolished the former economy of scarcity so that clean water, food, power, shelter, and everything else humanity needed was abundant. More importantly, we eradicated human disease and even death itself. Whatever disdain you might have for the underlying philosophy behind it, the facts are that humanity did progress, and it flourished.”
“You can’t know that it wouldn’t have flourished without those restraints,” James countered.
“I can’t believe I’m going to say this,” Old-timer began with an acquiescent sigh, “but without a nanny A.I., we were on the verge of going extinct. James, I lived through that…” he paused when he realized the absurdity of his words. “Heh, I was going to say I lived through that war, but I didn’t make it to the end alive.” A shiver suddenly went through his body as the memory of his death flashed before his eyes, the muzzle of the gun held by the MAD bot blazing, white-gold, before him. He put his hand over his eyes and slumped over suddenly.
“Are you okay?” James asked with concern, putting his hand on Old-timer’s shoulder.
“I-I haven’t thought about that in a long time.”
“You know, we could probably remove that memory for you,” James offered.
Old-timer looked up, incredulous. The thought of removing his memory had occurred to him before, as he imagined it probably did for most soldiers who, like himself, suffered from post-traumatic stress, but he didn’t realize the technology made it a feasible option. He considered it ever so briefly before shaking his head. “No. No way. It’s part of me. I need it.”
“I understand exactly how you feel, Craig,” the A.I. confided. “Traumatic or ecstatic, those memories belong to you and make you who you are. They may serve you in the future.”
Old-timer nodded. “Yeah.” He straightened up and turned to James. “Look, I hate Luddites as much as anyone, but Aldous and the A.I. have a point about Planck technology. Everywhere we went, people died.”
James’s face contorted into surprise. “Went?” He turned to the A.I., stunned. “You used it? You went into a parallel universe?”
“Yes,” the A.I. confirmed.
“Three of them,” Old-timer added.
“And people died?” James asked in disbelief.
“Unfortunately, yes. We were pursued by Purist super soldiers. Each time we entered a parallel universe, the battle that ensued altered that universe irreparably.”
“Oh my God,” James whispered.
“Now that you’re aware of Planck technology,” the A.I. continued, “I’ll share my memory file with you so you can see firsthand.”
Before Old-timer could even mutter a syllable, James was already reacting to the contents of the shared memory file. “You left a super soldier’s body and a Planck platform behind in Universe 332?” he said, aghast. “This could be serious.”
Old-timer had to shake his head as though he wasn’t sure if he’d been slapped across the cheek, the blow coming so fast. “Whoa. You boys are moving a little too fast for me, here.” He turned to the A.I. “What just happened?”
“I shared my memories of what occurred in the three parallel universes,” the A.I. replied. “James, quite rightly, noted that we left behind the body of a Purist super soldier, as well as an advanced Planck platform in Universe 332.”
“A platform with magnetic targeted fusion technology and nano-materials in the construction, decades ahead of what that time period should’ve had,” James elaborated. “This should’ve been dealt with long ago.”
“Aldous has had me monitoring for any disturbances in the Planck energy,” the A.I. related to James. “There have been no crossings from any parallel universes into ours—at least not within the considerable reach of my sensors.”
“And where did the nans that corrupted your systems come from?” James asked. “Let alone the android collective? We never determined their origin.”
“You are suggesting that they may have originated from outside our universe?” the A.I. asked.
“It’s possible,” James replied. “They definitely originated from outside your sensor range. We assumed they were from deep space in our universe, but every possibility has to be considered. It’s clear that there’s vital information we’re missing. This could be a major piece of the puzzle.”
“Puzzle?” Old-timer spoke up, hoping for clarification. “This is getting a bit beyond me. I just swung by to fill you in on Planck tech. I don’t know anything about any puzzle.”
“The androids tried to destroy the solar system again just hours ago,” James informed his friend, “and we believe the order came from 1.”
“What?” Old-timer reacted, stunned. “1? I thought—”
“So did we,” James answered. “We can’t confirm for sure that it was her. The android collective attacked us, that we know, but we’ve been unable to determine the motive. Our best guess is that the order came from 1, but how she could still be calling the shots without us detecting her pattern is our puzzle, and we’re still missing pieces.” He turned to the A.I. “What is clear, is that Aldous’s strategy of monitoring for Planck disruptions was short-sighted and dangerous. We need to see what’s going on in the universes that we disrupted—especially Universe 332.”
“I agree,” the A.I. assented. “However, you and I cannot cross into a parallel universe and remain in contact with the mainframe. If one of us were to go, we’d only have access to our core matrix programs. We’d be of no more use there than anyone else. I th
ink, considering the unknowns that abound, that we should remain in control of the mainframe and concentrate our efforts on the final testing of the Trans-human candidate.”
James nodded. “Definitely.” He turned to Old-timer, “Old-timer, can you—”
Old-timer reacted quickly, cutting James off as he put up his hands to stop him. “Whoa, hang on. James, I just swung by as a favor. I can’t go on any adventures into parallel universes.”
“It’s just a recon mission—” James began to clarify before being cut off once again.
“Doesn’t matter,” Old-timer replied, smiling awkwardly. “Look, I don’t mean to let you down here, but I promised Daniella I wouldn’t get involved in anymore…superman stuff.”
James narrowed his eyes for a moment before nodding understandingly. “That’s okay.” He turned to the A.I. “Rich and Djanet should still be available,” he began. “They should be returning from—”
“Craig,” the A.I. began, interrupting James to address Old-timer directly, “we both know that you are going to take on the mission. Why pretend otherwise?”
“What?” Old-timer responded, slightly perplexed. “I’m not pretending anything. I promised my wife that I’m not going on anymore of these adventures. My word means something to me.”
“It does indeed, Craig,” the A.I. replied calmly, as he always did. “However, so does your sense of honor. You know you feel you have a responsibility to investigate Universe 332 at the very least.”
“Wait a second here,” Old-timer countered. “You have at least as much responsibility as I do.”
“Craig, the decision to kill the Purist super soldier was made by you and you alone.”
Old-timer was left speechless.
“Old-timer,” James jumped back in, “look, you don’t have any responsibility here. It doesn’t matter who goes, as long as we get reliable and useful intel.”
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