The image on the Vid changed to what looked very much like a riot. Civilians, many of them wearing bandanas or even gas masks, carried signs and marched on a line of riot police. The picture changed to what was evidently another demonstration of some kind, then another.
…Demonstrations turned to riots in six major cities today as various factions protested apparent government inaction, or at least government failure to respond as those factions demand. These different groups, united only in their distrust of the official releases…
Wow. New York, Athens, Geneva, Berlin… These weren’t third-world cities.
Pausing the picture periodically, Ivan was able to zoom in and read some of the signs and placards. It appeared to be about a third religious-themed, a third government-conspiracy-themed, and a third everything else.
He let the Vid reset to real-time as he pondered. There didn’t seem to be anything new out there, in terms of the public knowing something they shouldn’t. At least not anything that could be put into a few words. But the level of panic was being being fed by something. And it would continue to spread.
Ivan hoped his family had found a new, safer location.
Screaming
Ivan sat up with a start. If he had still been capable, he would have broken out into a sweat. He was sure he’d just heard a scream of fear or pain. Or both. And the really odd thing was that it had sounded like his voice. Had it been a nightmare? But he couldn’t even fall asleep.
He glanced up at the security camera, then stood and looked down the hallway through the observation window. No one was coming. So no one else had heard the scream.
Ivan sat down, shaking his head. This probably came under the heading of things not to mention.
This hadn’t felt like whoever was looking over his shoulder, though. So did Ivan have multiple guests in his head? I am Legion. Great.
Well, one upside at least. This kept his mind off his family and his future. Assuming he had one.
So, items. One, he had an invisible friend looking over his shoulder. One who possibly moved Ivan’s limbs for him occasionally. Two, he had another tenant who was a screamer and sounded a lot like Ivan. Three, he’d developed an unexplainable hate for dishwasher mechs. Maybe it was professional jealousy, since he seemed to be a mech now. Sort of.
Ivan felt the bones of one hand with the other, pressing his fingers aggressively into the, uh, flesh. Doctor Kemp had really freaked out when he’d done that. Ivan wasn’t a doctor, but he was pretty sure the skeletal structure of his hand was different from when he was human. He wasn’t sure if that should be surprising or not—with a sample size of one, he couldn’t really form much in the way of conclusions about how metal men should be made.
Perhaps it was time to try digging into what was happening in his skull. If there was someone or something else in there, he might be able to contact it. Maybe it had been trying to contact him, and that was a scream of frustration. If so, it had a temper.
Ivan lay down on the bed, hands behind his head, stared at the ceiling and tried to relax.
Images began to form, of strange creatures parading through his view. All in chrome, like him. Their physiologies ranged from mildly exotic to indescribable and even terrifying. Interestingly, these weren’t mental images—they were actually projected in some way onto his field of view. That meant that someone was trying to communicate. Was it the Screamer, or the Watcher? Not enough info yet. Ivan tried to relax and just take in the show. Understanding would come later.
* * *
He was watching the news when it happened again. A mental scream. Agony, fear, something. And, although he still wasn’t sure how to explain it, it sounded like him. It was followed by a jolt of something—anger? No, maybe frustration. Irritation.
The images were getting more frequent as well. Indescribable creatures, with different numbers of limbs, eyes, and even heads. Including zero, which was especially weird. And all in chrome. Except, strangely, the bear cub, which was always the last image in the group.
Then, another image. Ivan, this time, chrome and all. As he watched, the Ivan image became two, then three, then four. One at a time, the duplicates screamed and disappeared, leaving the original Ivan image.
Well, that’s interesting.
Whatever else this might be, it was communication. Or an attempt, anyway. One of the occupants in Ivan’s brain appeared to be trying to explain the screams.
Again, the images of Ivan went through the sequence: cloning, screaming and disappearing.
It’s making copies of me. Then torturing them? Not likely. Okay, Ivan. You’re a computer geek. You were top of your class. Time to make use of that Nerd Fu.
Then a third time, but this time with a change. Several clone images screamed and disappeared, but some stayed. Then the ones remaining were cloned. This was repeated for several cycles. Then all vanished except one.
It’s using an evolutionary process or some kind of simulated annealing to…to something. To build communications? The screams—those are versions of me that failed. Maybe failure is catastrophic?
That was interesting, but there was implied information there as well. For this process to work, for the host to be able to duplicate him and run multiple instances, Ivan had to be running as a virtual machine on top of some other computing layer. So there was a computer, for want of a better word, hosting Ivan. And, therefore, a lot more in his head than just him.
Scary thought. It meant Ivan was not the owner of his own body, but a tenant. A guest. And he could be suspended or even deleted.
Best be polite to the landlord.
* * *
Ivan carefully watched the video of a computer being disassembled. This was the third run-through, which he hoped would clue in his host to pay attention. As soon as the video finished, Ivan lay down on the bed to stare at the ceiling. This was his signal that he was waiting for communications.
Within moments, an image appeared. Ivan recognized it as one of the nanites that Dr. Kemp and Chief Engineer MacNeil had identified. As he watched, the nanite was joined by others of its kind. Then the image zoomed in on one particular nanite, scrolling inward until the edges of the nanite were off-screen, so to speak. An image of a CPU and memory modules from Ivan’s video appeared, overlaid on the nanite’s innards. Then the picture zoomed out to show that every nanite had the same parts.
Oh, wow. Alien computers 101. I’m getting a guided tour.
The first takeaway was that there wasn’t any kind of centralized processing. Each nanite contained a full computer system, which meant everything ran on a distributed network. There was no “brain” as such. Ivan might not even be, strictly speaking, in his own head anymore.
The train of images continued, becoming more and more detailed, and less comprehensible. Ivan quickly realized that lesson two was going to involve new technology, if not outright new physics. This could take a while.
Discussion
Dr. Kemp had been dozing off when his phone rang. He sat up and grabbed it. “Kemp.”
“Hi, Doc. You busy?”
It took Kemp a moment to recognize the voice, with the sleep fog still making his thoughts fuzzy. Finally, it clicked. “Oh, hi, Ivan. What’s up?”
“Well, last time we talked, you said to let you know if things came into focus. Or if things changed.”
“Okay. Of course, I’m not really in charge of your care, anymore. But I’m still interested.”
“That’s okay, Doc, I think I’m just looking for a familiar voice. The ICDC doctors are all business, all the time. I’m a specimen to them.”
“They’ve never known you as a human, Ivan. They probably aren’t quite sure how to deal with you.”
“Well, maybe, although I get the feeling they’re all about the disease and not so much about the patient.”
“Could be. But that’s their job.”
There was a chuckle on the other end, followed by a short silence. “I
phoned my wife.”
“How did that go?”
“I wish I actually had a fatal disease, Doc. At least then, I could say goodbye properly, I could explain to her what’s happening to me. This…this just leaves me hanging. No resolution. I almost wish I hadn’t made the call.” There was a moment of silence. “I’ve talked to her several times since, but I’ve got nothing new to offer, and there’s no resolution that I can see. I might as well be lingering in a coma in a hospital bed. I’m no use to her, I’m making her life hell, and I’m keeping her from having a life.”
Kemp nodded, silent. He’d been around for too many deaths, watched too many family members trying to wrap their minds around the abrupt passing of a loved one. He’d also seen too many instances of people being given bad news—something lingering, something with an indefinite conclusion sometime in the future. Persistent comas, dementias, cancers, neurological degenerative diseases, all ultimately death sentences. In some ways, that was worse.
Ivan moved to fill the conversation gap. “I heard the Consolidated Industrials ship confirmed all details of the claim.”
“Yep. Escrow’s been removed, funds are released. We’re all rich. Including your family. Captain Jennings asked his lawyers to make sure it got taken care of properly.”
“Good. I’ll have to thank him if I talk to him. If I don’t get a chance, let him know I appreciate it, okay?”
“Will do.”
The conversation ground to a halt, as tended to happen with people who weren’t at ease with each other. After a moment, Kemp said, “Anyway, Ivan, what were you going to tell me about?”
“I’m starting to know stuff.”
“Huh?”
“You know all the tip-of-the-tongue stuff that I couldn’t put my finger on? Some of it’s starting to gel.”
“Okay, that’s interesting. So the nanites are telling you things?”
“Sort of. There’s a computer in here with me. Or an A.I. It’s sort of both, and neither one. I’m running as a program.”
“You’re what?”
“I’m a program. Or an emulation. I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise, really. There isn’t a human brain in here, and Ivan Pritchard was an entity who grew up on a specifically wired set of biologically-based neurons. The computer, or whatever it is, simulates the human brain, neuron for neuron, impulse for impulse, and there I am. Possibly with some improvements, since I don’t need to sleep anymore. This is pretty standard A.I. stuff. I mean, I’m sure this version is way more advanced, but the basics are the same as what we learned in Computer Science classes.”
“Okay, but the bottom line is you’re still you.”
“Yes, I’m not a computer pretending to be Ivan. I’m Ivan. I’m just not running on wetware anymore.”
“Well, that’s good, right?”
“I think so. I get the impression it might be temporary. I can’t explain why.”
“Ouch. Can’t you ask the computer?”
“It doesn’t really work that way. There isn’t a conversation going on. It’s more like information is leaking my way. I think the computer is still figuring out how to communicate. And since the human brain is a dog’s breakfast of emergent properties, it’s slow going. The computer can’t afford to break something in the process. It’s doing simulations—making copies of me then trying to modify them for communications. Not going well, so far, though.”
“How is the computer able to handle that? How powerful is it, anyway?”
“Pretty damn powerful, Doc. I’m getting computer-related stuff faster than anything else because of my background, I guess. The computer system seems to encode information directly on the fabric of space, at the Planck level. In principle it could encode the state of every particle in the known universe in a cubic micrometer of vacuum. Of course, processing all that data is another matter. No matter how you shuffle it, light-speed delay is a limiting factor. And that’s the trouble it’s having with me. Apparently, humans are extraordinarily messy.”
“Will you be able to talk to the computer at some point?”
“I think so. I hope so. I’ll want to ask it if it can make me human again.”
Enemy Threats
Moore settled into what he privately called his command chair, took a sip of his coffee—nothing beat the first sip from the first cup of the day—and picked up the briefing notes from Bentley. One of the advantages of a personal assistant was that you didn’t have to wade through the news channels and all your emails to figure out what was critical and what could be ignored.
As he read the first item, his eyes widened and he almost choked.
Multiple news items about the quarantine. Not all details correct, but enough to suspect a leak.
Oh, Great God in Heaven. “Bentley!”
The lieutenant appeared within seconds. He’d probably been anticipating the call.
“First item. Summary, please.”
Bentley took a breath, and began. “Multiple news stories appeared overnight with concrete details about the Astra and the crew. Enough accurate hits to make it more than conjecture. Enough similarities between the stories to indicate that someone sold the story multiple times.”
“Reaction?”
“About what you’d expect, sir. Public hue and cry, demands that the government do something, a couple of demonstrations already.”
“Anything from HQ?”
Bentley shook his head. “Not yet, sir, but I am expecting—”
The ringing of an incoming call interrupted him. Moore recognized it as the ring tone Bentley had assigned to Naval Intelligence. “Get that, Bentley. Update me afterward.”
Bentley nodded and sprinted to his desk. Moore picked up the cheat sheet, hoping the next item would distract him from Bentley’s single-sided conversation.
Before he could get properly rolling, Bentley was back in front of him, holding out a printout.
Ted—
I don’t know what kind of clusterfuck you guys have underway up there, but the politicos are going apeshit. We have a directive, direct from the office of the President of the United Earth Nations, to provide all pertinent information. It takes something truly extraordinary to unite the entire peanut gallery, but this has absolutely everyone, from the looney left to the environmentalists to the fundies to the rabid right screaming for blood. The President can’t ignore that large a united front, which means Naval Command can’t either.
There will be a formal request for more information coming in a short time. Suggest you don’t try to stall or dissemble.
George Fredricks, Admiral
SSC/UENN
Moore looked at Bentley with one eyebrow raised. The lieutenant had a gray cast to his skin that Moore found disquieting. “Something else, lieutenant?”
“Yessir. Just heard it on the office wire. The SSE has announced that they are sending a flotilla to Lagrange Four Naval base to inspect and evaluate the threat.”
* * *
Dr. Narang looked like she’d been struck with a club. Moore waited a moment to be satisfied with the effect. She needed a dose of reality, and this might just be a kick in the right direction.
“You aren’t going to cooperate, Admiral, are you?”
“Of course not. Imagine us letting a foreign military march into our territory while we bow and scrape and say Yes, sir and No, sir and Please, sir. I’d be court-martialed—at minimum—and rightly so.” He hesitated for a moment, wondering if he should soft-pedal his next point, then decided not to. “If the Sino-Soviet Empire forces the issue, there will be a battle. They are sending a full flotilla, and we don’t have the hardware in place to hold them off. So if push comes to shove, we won’t be surrendering. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Narang nodded, slowly. “To the death. Ours, if it comes to that.”
“That is correct, doctor. Please relay to your staff as appropriate.”
* * *
Twelve
SSE warships, including two full destroyers, stood at zero relative motion in the monitor. Facing them were nine UENN frigates and one cruiser. It was a David-and-Goliath moment, and Moore had no illusions about the outcome, if things went bad.
The voice of the SSE flotilla Commander, one Captain Chekov, came over the monitor. “You have insufficient forces to hold us at bay, Admiral. I suggest you step aside and accept the inevitable. You cannot win.”
Moore set his jaw. “We don’t have to win, Commander. We just have to make sure that you don’t win. This is not a symmetrical situation. In the worst case, we will blow up our assets rather than surrendering them. And if we can hold you off until the UENN strike group that we both know is coming gets here, so much the better.”
“Destroying yourselves will remove this supposed alien threat. How is that a loss for us?”
“Which might or might not remove this supposed alien threat, Commander. Without anything left to study, you won’t know. And you’ll have a war on your hands in any case. You may have the advantage here, today, but you know as well as I do that the UENN has you outmatched overall.”
“I know no such thing, Admiral. That is your opinion only.”
“Have it your way, Commander. Your choices remain unchanged. As do ours.”
There were several seconds of silence. One of the monitoring techs commented, “Radio reflections from local dust, sir. It’s probably a tight-beam signal. They’re phoning home for orders.”
Moore nodded. “Noted. How long until reinforcements get here?”
“Three hours, sir. They’re on emergency deployment protocol, all personnel cocooned for high acceleration.”
Moore knew that particular tactic always resulted in a certain number of permanent disabilities. Those would be on the heads of the SSE military, and ultimately on whoever was responsible for this situation. He was keeping score, and if someone needed to pay, he’d make sure it happened.
The Singularity Trap Page 14