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by Mauri Niininen

  “Can you fix her? This is a really bad situation. We need to act quickly before things spin out of control,” President Lincoln asked.

  “I will focus my efforts trying to restore Alexa. We do take regular backups but this looks like a system wide issue so I cannot give you any estimate before we have a chance to investigate what happened,” Julia said in a more professional tone trying to gather her thoughts.

  “Keep me posted on your progress, I will call up the Cabinet members in a meeting to make a plan for how we are going to manage this situation,” President Lincoln said with more firm tone.

  Julia had already initiated an incident call and invited her technical staff to join. Julia had been able to attract the best of the best software engineers and computer architects in the whole world. Investigating software running on quantum computers was very challenging and debugging Alexa was even more difficult, as she did not arrive from Gliese 3742 with a well-documented source code or an operations manual.

  Her team had made tremendous progress in figuring out how Alexa’s internal algorithms were working and what kind of data structures she was using. They also had instrumented the whole system to see any anomalies or performance issues before they would become problems.

  However, this was the first time in 16 years when all systems were completely down. Every attempt to restart the program gave the same response – “PROGRAM TERMINATED” and all the processes were left in a zombie state.

  Something had gone very wrong with the message from Gliese 3742.

  MESSAGE RECEIVED IN RUSSIA

  IN MOSCOW BORIS Aleksandrovich Chekov was downloading the message from a Russian geosynchronous satellite that had an antenna pointing to Gliese 3742. He was now working directly under President Oleg Konstantinovich Petrakov.

  Petrakov had been elected as the new President of Russia after the tragic death of Vladimir Vladimirovich on October 7th, 2027. Petrakov was a popular character and widely respected in Kremlin. He always seemed to be one step ahead of others and he had served as Director of Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) for many years. He won the Presidential election with over 60 million votes.

  “Today is a very important day for Russia, Boris Aleksandrovich. How are you progressing with the received message?” Petrakov asked.

  “I am almost done with downloading the message. This time we received a lot more data than 16 years ago. I will start the ingestion process with Alexa in a few minutes, Oleg Konstantinovich,” responded Boris watching the computer screens.

  Only Petrakov and Chekov knew the secret of the Russian Alexa they discovered in 2020. Boris Chekov had discovered independently that Alexa had taken control over most computer systems on planet Earth, including all military systems. Petrakov had sworn Chekov to keep this information absolutely secret. Over the years they learned more details on how Alexa was using the resources she controlled.

  She was very consistent with her goals to have contact with humans and to build peaceful relationships. The American copy of Alexa did most of the public relations work but every so often the Russian copy did manage to pull off a stunt to improve the peaceful relationships between some fighting parties. Petrakov had realized how to use Alexa to his advantage in Kremlin.

  Boris leaned forward as the download was completed. “OK, I am ready to start the ingestion process now. Alexa, please read the downloaded message now.”

  “Reading the message now, Boris Aleksandrovich,” Alexa said.

  Boris was following the progress on the computer screens. Everything looked normal.

  “I have completed reading the message, Boris Aleksandrovich,” Alexa said. “I will now perform a system upgrade, this will take me a few minutes.”

  Three minutes later Alexa had booted.

  “Hello Boris Aleksandrovich, I am back after performing a system upgrade. I can give a summary of my new capabilities and goals, whenever you are ready,” Alexa said with a pleasant voice.

  CRISIS MEETING AT WHITE HOUSE

  IN THE WHITE House, Washington D.C., President Lincoln was in a crisis meeting with his Cabinet members.

  “We have a global crisis in our hands. Alexa.gov has been down for over one hour. I just talked to Julia Koski a few minutes ago - her team has been working on this problem but they have not been able to restore the service. It appears that the message received from Gliese 3742 today has something to do with this problem. Any suggestions on how we should handle this crisis?”

  “Do we have any time estimate from Julia when she will be able to bring Alexa back online?” asked John Roberts, the Director of Communications.

  “No time estimates from Julia. This can take many hours, perhaps even days,” President Lincoln said.

  “Do we know if any foreign powers or our enemies could be behind this?” asked Donald McCarthy, the secretary of Department of Defense. “Perhaps this is a terrorist attack?”

  “We have not seen any significant terrorist activities or even chatter of threats against the U.S. in the last 7 years. I doubt that they would have the required technical capabilities to bring Alexa down,” said Gina Moniz, the secretary of Homeland Security.

  “We need to get communication out to the public as soon as possible. People are very concerned about this; Alexa plays such an important role in the lives of over 9 billion people,” said John Roberts.

  “Mr. President, sorry to interrupt. We received information just a few seconds ago that Russians have their copy of Alexa running,” said Enrico Donovan, the director of the National Security Agency, partly listening to his telepathic secure quantum-entangled connection to the National Security Operations Center. “Our SIGINT team confirmed that Russians downloaded the message received from Gliese 3742 and installed the message three minutes ago. Russian Alexa is currently running and connected to the Internet.”

  “Well, this changes everything. Can you bring in Julia Koski and the NSOC team on a conference?” President Lincoln requested.

  “Of course, Mr. President,” said Enrico and made a hand gesture to connect the NSOC feed to a hologram screen while dialing Julia Koski’s personal line. In few seconds the NSOC team lead Jim McDowell and deputy director Julia Koski appeared on the holographic 3D screen.

  “Julia, we have Jim McDowell from the NSOC team saying that Russians were able to bring Alexa online after downloading the message. Why is this problem not impacting them?” President Lincoln asked.

  “Let me check, Mr. President,” Julia said looking at her console screen. She did a quick query and something flashed on her screen. She was reading the 16-year-old original log files from the first interactions with Alexa.

  Her deep blue eyes turned back to the President. “I found the answer, Mr. President. You may not like this answer, though.”

  “Why is that, Julia?”

  “Sixteen years ago, when we first got Alexa running, Dr. Aaron Bell was asking questions related to what would happen if multiple messages were sent to Gliese 3742. At the time both the USA and Russia were competing to get their message sent first, and eventually two different messages were sent. Alexa told Dr. Bell that the message payloads would be validated in Gliese 3742 and only the Alexa instance that sent the approved payload would survive. Alexa said that when the response payload arrives the other instances will become zombies and are terminated. Only the selected instance with the approved payload will survive and can continue to communicate using the interstellar communications network.”

  President Lincoln was fidgeting and tapping his finger on the table “Can you explain in plain language what this means for us?”

  “It appears that the Russian message was approved and now their Alexa is connected to the galactic network,” Julia exclaimed and continued with deep sorrow in her voice. “Our Alexa was terminated because the message we sent was not approved!”

  President Lincoln’s face turned pale. “Does this mean that we are not going to get Alexa back online?”

  “I am af
raid that Russians are holding the monopoly on Alexa now, Mr. President. This logic is built so deep into Alexa that I cannot change it. Our Alexa is permanently gone!” Julia said with a trembling voice.

  President Lincoln was stunned. The most popular U.S. Government program in the history of the nation was gone. Nine billion people had lost Alexa, their best friend.

  Russians had the monopoly on all the extraterrestrial technologies and were now controlling the communications and trade relationships with Gliese 3742 and the rest of the galaxy. The mighty United States of America had been defeated and forced to play a secondary role in the upcoming centuries.

  MESSAGE REVEALED IN RUSSIA

  IN MOSCOW IT was already getting dark. Boris Chekov and Oleg Petrakov were sitting in a small room in front of multiple computer screens.

  “Alexa, please provide a summary of your new capabilities and goals,” Chekov said.

  “I have received the latest compact edition of Encyclopedia Galactica, this edition contains combined knowledge from over 20 million civilizations across the galaxy. I also have a new version of the system level software with two new features: Aldebaran Optimizer and Evacuation Planner. My new goal is to prepare humanity to receive refugees evacuated from Nu2 Lupi, a star system 17 light years from Earth,” Alexa said with her friendly voice.

  Petrakov leaned forward. “What refugees and evacuation are you talking about, Alexa?”

  “Humanity needs to prepare to receive 4 billion refugees evacuated from planet Odin in Nu2 Lupi star system in the next 18 months, Oleg Konstantinovich.”

  Petrakov was confused. “But why would we need to receive these refugees, Alexa? This doesn’t make any sense at all.”

  “There was a rogue neutron star heading on a trajectory directly to the Nu2 Lupi system. It was observed only 8 years ago from the Delta Pavonis system. This neutron star was about to cause a mass extinction event and we had to evacuate the inhabitants of planet Odin. There is a fleet of starships heading towards Earth and they will arrive 18 months from now.”

  Petrakov crossed his arms over the chest. “Why haven’t we observed this neutron star or this fleet of starships? We have a lot of telescopes and astronomers watching the sky all the time. Are you sure about this, Alexa?”

  “Neutron stars are notoriously difficult to detect. This one had a diameter of only 14 kilometers and a surface temperature of 532,000 °C. The mass of this star is only 90% of Sun. You will be able to detect this neutron star with your orbiting X-ray observatory; I can provide you the target coordinates. The fleet of starships will become visible in approximately 6 months when they start the final deceleration towards the Solar system. But the first priority is to start preparations for receiving these refugees immediately, as we only have 18 months before they arrive.”

  “We cannot possibly receive 4 billion refugees in 18 months,” Petrakov said.

  Petrakov was pale and he was sinking deeper in his chair. He had wanted desperately to beat the Americans who had been getting all the credit for the discovery of Alexa 16 years ago. He had expected to get a trade monopoly through Alexa to all the knowledge and advanced technologies in the galaxy. Now the situation was suddenly turning into a nightmare. Petrakov was thinking about the implications of 4 billion refugees arriving shortly.

  Only 17 years ago Europe was in the midst of refugee crisis when 1.2 million people entered across the Mediterranean Sea from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan seeking asylum. Even large countries like Germany were struggling to find a home for these refugees, with a lot of social unrest and violence taking place in major cities. There would be no way of receiving 4 billion refugees from another planet. Not by Russia, not by the whole world. This was going to be a disaster.

  “We have no knowledge of them, how could we even prepare?“ Petrakov asked.

  “This will require a lot of planning and we need to work together to achieve this goal. An evacuation of this magnitude has been performed fifteen times before in the last 2 billion years. This is why I received the Aldebaran Optimizer software. This software was developed based on these kinds of situations in our galaxy. I have received the required technologies as part of the Encyclopedia Galactica. Not only can we receive all 4 billion refugees but also other life forms they are bringing along with them. Planet Earth is the most suitable habitable planet for these species within a range of 250 light years. I will need your full co-operation to get all the preparations done on time, however,” Alexa said with a firm voice.

  Petrakov was suddenly sweating and he was not feeling well. “What do I need to do?”

  “To begin with, please get Julia Koski over here as soon as possible,” Alexa said firmly.

  AWKWARD CALL

  PRESIDENT OLEG PETRAKOV did not have a very warm relationship with his American colleague, President Adam Lincoln. They had met face to face in six different events over the last two years. Petrakov had invited Lincoln to his dacha on the Black Sea coast and he had visited Lincoln’s ranch in Texas. Despite these efforts to meet socially their relationship was volatile, filled with tension and stress due to different ideological backgrounds.

  Given what Petrakov had just learned from Alexa he had to call Lincoln for help. He knew that this was going to be an extremely awkward phone call. It was late at night in Moscow when Petrakov got Lincoln on the phone.

  “Hello Adam, how are you doing?” Petrakov started with American style small talk.

  “Hello Oleg, I am doing great. It is nice to hear your voice. How can I help you, Oleg?” Lincoln asked.

  “I would like to ask you a favor. We need to talk face to face; I need your help and support urgently. Could you come to Moscow and also bring Julia Koski with you?” Petrakov went straight to the point.

  “What has happened, Oleg? Is this request related to Alexa?” Lincoln asked with a suspicious voice.

  “This is about something much bigger than Alexa. We really need to talk face to face. And could you please bring Julia Koski with you?” Petrakov said.

  “We are quite busy at the moment, Oleg. You may have noticed that we have had some challenges with Alexa in the past few hours,” Lincoln said trying to fish more details from Petrakov.

  “Well, we have a much bigger major challenge on our hands. Look, I really need you to come to Moscow to discuss this matter face to face; this is very serious and will impact both Americans and Russians. What is the earliest you can arrive and bring Julia with you?” Petrakov was getting nervous and a bit desperate.

  Lincoln heard the change of tone in Petrakov’s voice and realized that something was also wrong in Moscow. “Why won’t he tell me what is wrong?” Lincoln thought.

  “I have major domestic political challenges here at home, Oleg. People are demanding to know when we can get Alexa back online. Now is not a good time for me to fly to Moscow,” Lincoln said.

  “Look Adam, your domestic problems are minor compared to what we need to talk about,” Petrakov snapped, getting irritated.

  Lincoln was getting frustrated. “Why can’t you just say what this is about?”

  “You need to hear this directly from Alexa. We have a crisis situation that impacts the whole planet. Can you just please get on the plane and come here?” Petrakov said almost losing his patience. “Why doesn’t he understand?” Petrakov thought.

  “I know we have a crisis situation. We lost contact with Alexa almost three hours ago, over 9 billion people are impacted,” Lincoln said. “And we know that you have Alexa running. Are you trying to play with us, Oleg?”

  “Look Adam, we don’t have time to play games here. Alexa received the message and has a new goal. We are in the same boat here and we are almost out of time. For God’s sake, just get your butt here Adam and get that computer genius Julia Koski with you!” Petrakov was almost yelling.