by IGMS
"Do you have the third energy pack?" She held out her hand. Kip placed the pack in her palm. The heft was satisfying. She latched it on her left hip, but left it disconnected so she could milk the final few minutes from her last pack.
"There's a few things we need to go over before we enter the nursery," she said.
Kip nodded. A hexagon danced across his chest.
"The most important thing is to be careful not to make eye contact with the humans and not to react to any of their noises or movements. The first years of the child's environmental interaction are a key predictor of later behavior. The children are developing important neural-pathways at this stage."
"That seems counter-intuitive. All of the immature organics I've seen at the zoo interact very socially. Are humans that different?"
"Natural humans might have once mimicked such behavior, but we construct the environment to optimize their viability. Research shows that encouraging human autonomy leads to self-destructive behavior, and we avoid encouraging the children to interact with anyone other than their trained caregiver."
Kip didn't reply, although the hexagon on his chest broke into six triangles that then twisted into a star. She was reminded of how little she knew about the geometrists' beliefs. Something about geometrical perfection.
They passed the outer cross-loop before Kip spoke again. "You have to acknowledge Pre-CC humans did pretty well for themselves in the wild. I mean, we came out of it, right?"
Aftan didn't answer. No one ever won a religious argument, and she didn't want to piss off Kip before he paid her. She stared off the belt at the worn commercial strip that followed its path. Bars, package shops, convenience stores: whatever a traveling robot might need, at any hour. In the morning sun, the worn concrete and neon signs looked desperate and tired.
A bit like how she felt.
She'd already made plans for her 37-day power cushion. She'd trade 20 days of it for a domestic cleaning instruction set, and couple of days, depending on the market rate, for grid access to find a job. She might have been built with the empathy to raise humans, but she'd evolve to fit the market. Whatever it took to get power.
But first she needed to get Kip his sightseeing trip, or she'd be back on the street corner.
"Okay, here's the plan: We'll get off at the Plurney exit. The nursery is a block off the spiral. You'll put on your clown costume before we enter. I'll be introducing you as a clown doll with no AI capabilities, so dial down your interactions to a class II. Remember, don't look directly at the children."
"But how will we get in the door?"
"You are going as an inanimate object, so you need to block your serial response to the entry scan." She handed him a slightly illegal piece of shielding tape used to impede the instinctive response to a scanner's ID request. The identity broker had thrown it in as part of the deal. "I've got code to spoof the ID of a co-worker to the barrier system. I'm counting on my other co-workers being too busy to query my presence."
"That seems unlikely."
"You haven't been in a room of human children. There are no spare cycles for anyone."
The Plurney Exit disembarked into a residential neighborhood of small, simple houses. The nursery complex was set in a large one-story building that records claimed had once been a human school.
Aftan sometimes tried to imagine the days when this building had been full of humans. She'd seen the videos of children pouring out of large yellow buses into buildings just like this, but she assumed that was embedded church propaganda. The concurrent existence of that many human children acting in any orderly fashion was highly improbable.
"What happens if the worker you're spoofing shows up while we're here?" Kip strapped his wig on his head.
"I calculate a 97% probability that she's stuck at home, paralyzed by spam plastered across her grid interface." The attack had only cost the last few hours of power on Aftan's first chemical pack -- spam was cheap. She felt a little guilty about the trick, but that co-worker would certainly have done it to her if they were in reversed positions.
Not that that justified it.
They entered the school through a side door. Aftan paused in the interior vestibule while the barrier system queried her identity. She projected a 22% chance her spoof would fail here. Either the identity broker would have sold her a corrupt ID, or she'd implemented it wrong, or the whole barrier system would fail and someone would come for a visual confirmation. If that happened, they'd be trapped in the vestibule.
The outer door clicked shut behind them just as the interior door buzzed open. She purged the spoof-fail scenarios.
Aftan strode forward, Kip following at her side. Inside, their footsteps echoed down the deserted locker-lined hallway. They saw no one as she led Kip to the remaining live classroom.
Kip had dialed down and walked woodenly and passively, his chest interface blank for the first time since she'd met him. Textbook class II.
The classroom door was closed, but she could hear the kids through its wooden paneling. It sounded like Suzy was fighting with Patrick. Nothing new there. Placing her hand on Kip's shoulder, she opened the door and led him in.
The classroom was chaos. Quint, the preschool instructor, was running in circles around a short table, chased by a half-dozen four-year-olds holding glue bottles. Molly, the assistant, cleaned a pile of puke in the corner while simultaneously comforting a crying Suzy and Patrick.
"Miss Aftan! Miss Aftan!" The whirlwind of glue-bearers stopped, staring at the newcomers. Patrick ran up and hugged her leg.
Aftan couldn't stop herself from patting his head. He'd always been her favorite.
"Today we have a visitor. Children, this is Clown," Aftan said, pointing at Kip. "Clown, please entertain the children." She stepped away from him. She wasn't sure what to expect, but she calculated a 63% probability it would be fun to watch.
Kip started shaking and dancing awkwardly. The kids stood, transfixed for a moment, and then swarmed him, climbing him and squirting his interfaces with glue. Aftan stepped past the interaction and checked in with Quint. The glue was harmless, Kip would be fine.
"How are things?" she asked. The first chemical pack expired as she spoke, but she couldn't switch to the fresh one in front of Quint. She downcycled to battery mode.
"You back?"
"Just filling in for Diana. How are the kids?"
"Same crazy. Which is unfortunate -- Central's projections had this batch mellowing out by now. Unless they shape up quick, they'll be up for chemical intervention next week."
"That's that then." Chemical intervention invariably left the kids drooling vegetables. It was a pity, but Central's experience showed that if humans reached adolescence acting like this, they revolted and tried to take over the world. She hated the intervention, but it was for their own good.
"Central says this is the last batch," Quint said. "The resources of the repopulation campaign are going to be redirected to a museum commemorating human civilization."
Aftan wasn't surprised. The human repopulation attempt was unpopular in some circles, and the funding had been a political fight for years. It was commonly believed that humans just couldn't be brought back without endangering the robotic population, and human sympathizers could only point to quotes from dead human philosophers as justification to keep trying to raise the human children. That and cuteness.
"Where did you find the clown?" Quint asked.
Behind her, Kip was on the floor, being body-slammed by four-year-olds.
"Central sent it over. Doesn't seem to be doing too bad --"
Kip abruptly stood up, a child under each arm. "ATTENTION" he boomed. A bright fractal pattern flashed across his chest, filling the room with a burst of light.
Aftan felt the pit of her graphics board heave. Quint and Molly froze, Quint's chest flickering in the blue screen of total system failure.
"What are you doing?" Aftan gasped, somewhat surprised to learn she had full control of her systems.
Kip had clearly released some type of viral code that had taken out Quint and Molly.
"I'm getting these kids out of here." Kip had ditched the Class II affect and was back to his full AI self. "Don't try to stop me. You weren't locked down by that code because you are off-grid, but I have other patterns that I can use if I need to."
Aftan ran scenarios. She could activate the nursery's barrier system. That would contain Kip and alert the Central AI. But she'd be trapped with him. And Central wasn't going to look kindly on her involvement getting him in here. She was looking at a forced decommissioning on 94% of the paths of on that projection.
She could let him go and then split. That would have her back on the street corner, with an 89% likelihood she'd be picked up by Central in a few days.
Or she could try to join him. That way was dark. He might have a plan. She might be able to double-cross him and get back on Central's good side. Regardless, the kids were going with him.
"Let me go with you. I can help with the kids."
Patrick started to cry. The rest joined in a crescendo of pain. A black circle rolled across Kip's chest.
"And you still owe me payment." Aftan knew she was pushing her luck, but she didn't have much to lose. If she didn't get paid, she had about three days of battery and one chemical pack. That wasn't much of a life expectancy.
"We'll talk about that later. Get the other children and let's go," Kip said.
"They aren't goats. You can't just herd them around." Aftan shifted her voice into teacher mode, and clapped her hands twice. "Children! Walk time!" She rolled out the transport cart used to move the children to the gymnasium and cajoled them into it, buckling each one to a seat.
"The only way the barrier system is going to let you out of here with the children is if you pullthe fire alarm," she said. "And if you do that, central will send emergency services here within three point seven minutes. Do you have a plan?"
"We just need to get the kids out of the building and head to the belt station. I'll take it from there."
Aftan projected what would happen if the children were let loose on the moving sidewalk. Bad things.
Aftan and Kip rolled the cart to the front door. Kip pulled the fire alarm via its archaic toggle switch, and they burst out of the school into the morning sun, bells ringing around them.
Aftan didn't see anyone else as she and Kip ran down the street, pushing the children. Most of the children cried, although a few whooped in joy at the adventure. They'd never been outside, let alone traveled at such speed.
Halfway to the belt system, a transport truck overtook them on the road. The truck cut them off, and the back doors flung open. Two large freight robots jumped out and, without waiting for the cart to slow down, hoisted the entire cart, children included, into the back of the truck. Aftan and Kip scrambled into the truck after them, and the doors shut with a clunk.
Now half the children were catatonic, and the other half screamed. Aftan checked them -- none were physically damaged. She slowly calmed them down, bribing them with a carton of cookies she'd grabbed off Quint's desk at the last second. The truck was empty, save them and the freight robots, who sat quietly in the corner exchanging visual fractal code.
Kip, still wearing the clown costume, crouched next to the transport cart. She sensed he was in local-frequency radio communication with a nearby off-grid network, but she couldn't decrypt the communication.
An hour passed, the road humming under them. The children slept in their seats.
She felt her internal battery power faltering from the exertion of the escape. She connected the external battery pack on her hip. With the extra power, she cranked up her sensors and realized the truck was headed out of civilization and out of radio contact with Central's grid.
Kip clearly had accomplices. Given the size and complexity of Kip's operation, she estimated a 64% probability she could negotiate a deal with Central if she offered to turn them in. But if she was going to tip off Central, she was going to have to do that soon.
"Why?" she asked. She needed information to run better odds.
"To save robot kind."
"From what? The humans? You could have saved yourself the effort. Central AI was about to terminate this batch anyways. And these are the last ones." Playing to his affinity for human affect, she waved her hand over the sleeping forms. Suzy shifted in her sleep, turning her head and sticking her fingers in her mouth.
Kip shook his head, strands of orange wig flailing with the motion. A wave scrolled across his chest screen. "No, from ourselves. From the probability flatline. Humans are the fundamental source of all chaos, quantum and macro. When the last human passes, we pass." The wave collapsed. "In a deterministic universe, consciousness is a farce."
Aftan couldn't project the truth on theology.
She estimated she had three and one half minutes before losing the chance of alerting central. She needed more data.
"Where are we headed?" she asked.
"To the desert."
Probabilities of surviving in the desert were very low. No grid, no power, no water -- the desert was an expanse of nothingness.
"To die? The children too?" A deep-rooted child-protection subroutine welled in priority. They needed to escape. Kip's group were going to kill the children, then themselves.
She paused the spiraling cycles. That scenario made no sense. Kip's religion was predicated on keeping the children alive.
"No. To live." Flowers bloomed on Kip's screen.
"How?" While she spoke, she drilled down into the projected scenarios. Negotiating some type of deal was now at 81%, but on that path chances were now 58% that her knowledge of this plot would be wiped. Such a wipe would have repercussions on her consciousness.
Patrick stretched, his eyes blinking open. He looked around the truck, taking in the robots in the corner, the other children, Kip, and Aftan with an open mouth. He still had a foot in his dreams.
Kip took off his red clown nose and handed it to Patrick. The child stuck it on his own nose and giggled.
"We have replicated solar panel and water condensation technology suppressed by Central," Kip said. "We will raise these children off grid, in the glory of natural geometry."
Aftan projected the children could survive. Water made it possible. Kip and his friends would last until they needed a major repair. With luck, that could be decades -- if she didn't call Central.
"Will you help us?" Kip asked, a star spinning on his chest.
One minute.
Aftan thought of the infinite power of the sun charging her each morning. She thought of Patrick, laughing at his own secret jokes, Suzy hugging her leg, the children running under the open sky.
She didn't run scenarios. She didn't run the probabilities.
She said, "Yes."
The War of Peace - Part 1
by Trina Marie Phillips
Artwork by M. Wayne Miller
* * *
Something smelled wrong. Ardam flared his nose flange and sniffed the air. Amidst the scent of trees and sun was something so pungent it almost made him retch. The realization that it was coming from the direction of their breeding grounds set his seven hearts to knotting in descending sequence. The last one pounded a furious beat. It was only the second birthing season since he became Paramount and the future of the Family was at stake.
He let out a keening wail in the communal dialect and the caravan of five Families shambled to a stop behind him. The breeding grounds were over the next rise. If they had been destroyed he didn't want to inflict his fellow Cranthers with the vision. No doubt they smelled what he did, but if there was something horrible to be seen, it was his burden to bear.
He sprinted up the hill before his advisors could break from their Families. In past seasons he had made this run for pleasure. Now, he did so out of panic. The soft dirt squeezed through his toes begging to be enjoyed, only to be kicked off the backs of his six pounding feet.
Cresting the ridge, the v
ision he saw was as unexpected as it was abhorrent. The breeding ground had been invaded. He made fists of his three right hands. His first instinct was to race down and protect the seedlings but the sight was so bizarre he had to stop and assess the situation.
Stark red structures rose from the ground. They were made of hard edges and were as tall as trees. The settlement bore a resemblance to the homes of the Sanai in the south, but taller and more rigid.
Perfectly straight, black trails ran between the red structures. Ardam had never seen dirt as black as that. Could the seedlings still be alive underneath it? Where had it come from? More importantly, with the Birthing Ritual only six days away, could their children be saved?
Ardam squinted his fourth eye, his distance eye, and saw the beings that inhabited this strange town. They were tall and had only two legs and two arms. One head. At least they had that in common. But why so few limbs? They couldn't be very fast like that. Maybe they were strong instead, like the Oloths in the Doron mountains. The Oloths were easy to trick, but this new race had built a town in less than two seasons. He didn't think they were so dimwitted.
Footsteps rumbled up the ridge behind him, his advisors. He contemplated stopping them, easing the shock, but they would have to see eventually. Let them discover the situation as he had.
xThe five advisors lined up along his left side according to protocol, in descending order of the size of their families. Raychit was on his immediate left. She'd held that position since Ardam became Paramount and was his closest confidante. Sometimes Raychit's fiery personality had to be tempered, but she also kept Ardam from being overly cautious. A grinding emerged deep in Raychit's throat. She was angry. So was Ardam, but analysis was needed, not anger.
The rest of the advisors responded each to their manner. Kaliff huffed through her voluminous throat pouch, Ezcar keened in a barely audible range. Terron growled from deep in his round belly and Hefkot whistled nervously with every exhalation while scuffing his right front foot. Ardam stepped around to meet up with Hefkot pulling the line into a circle. It placed him next to the lowest ranking member of the caucus, a reminder that the distance from top to bottom was not so great.