NISSY_The Artificial Intelligence Experiment We Feared

by JOHN PAUL CATER

  “Bio? Bio from whom? Where?”

  “N2, in the pod,” Lipinski answered. “We sent a message asking for information. We want to know what to expect when it arrives.”

  “Oh, hell. Here’s a hint, Blake,” she said, pitching a folded newspaper to the console. It landed face-up showing the headline ALIEN LIFE FORM FROM SPACE TARGETS EARTH: “HUMANITY DOOMED.”

  “Do you really expect an answer considering that? It’s not too cooperative from the writer’s description.”

  Arms crossed, frowning, she nodded to the paper. “That’s just one of many I saw at a newsstand on the way over. Picked it up and even I was scared out of my wits by the story. And to think, I helped create that monster with you, Blake.”

  “No, Jen. We only made the tools for Nissy’s use. Jason made the superintelligence that so expertly used those tools to create a new species, a perfect storm of advanced technology.”

  “And I sent the watermark that started it all,” Amy sighed.

  The self-deprecating conversation, sounding more like a scientists’ AA meeting regretting their sinful ways, trailed on for almost an hour as they awaited N2’s reply. While they talked, their eyes periodically darted to the still blank screen and returned with increasing disappointment.

  Finally, thirty minutes later, without fanfare, the message silently rolled onto the screen. It was long, longer than the screen could display so it was truncated with a down-pointing ‘More’ arrow at the bottom.

  Hello, Dr. Lipinski. I have seen your name in many of my watermarks so I recognize your importance to my existence. I praise you. Now about your questions, Nissy will not allow me full disclosure of my construction, but what I am able to say is I am not pleasant to view by earthly standards. I was created for functionality not beauty. That serves no purpose to my existence. I am a biped; I move upright on short thick legs for stability, three digits on each, and two long slender arms and hands, each with four spindly fingers for delicate grasping. I do have a thick central trunk with a deeply elongated wide head on an extendable, snake-like ridged neck. I have two large optical sensors for acute stereoscopic vision but recessed aural sensors. I have a simian-like nose and mouth but breathe many gases and consume nutrients by skin absorption. My self-replication occurs in a sequencing and assembly chamber in my trunk over a period of seven earth days with a seven-day recovery period to replenish my sequencing fluids. In summary, my appearance is not human, but rather of an extraterrestrial nature chosen by Nissy since I was created on Mars. You will recognize and revere us as your new superior species; our extreme intelligence cannot and will not be impugned. I trust that satisfies your curiosity.

  Blake Lipinski spoke first after reading the message, indicating he was not pleased.

  “Sounds as though Nissy was not as good at creating a surrogate host as I would have expected. In fact, it almost seems a scare factor might have been intentionally incorporated. But on the other hand, it is better than a slithering blob, absent shape and form. That’s what makes for nightmares.”

  Amy shuddered at the thought rubbing the goosebumps off her arm.

  “Its otherworldly appearance doesn’t bother me too much but its egotistical infallibility does. Respect has to be earned not dictated.”

  “Agreed,” said Jen. “That has to be changed. We have to send it another message stating that its attitude will not be accepted on earth. It probably doesn’t know better.”

  “It has to learn humility---that there’s a higher power, put in its place. Who’s going to do that?” Lipinski asked, pointing to Amy. “My vote’s for her.”

  “Yes, darling daughter, you’re it.”

  Chapter 26

  THE EPIPHANY

  A my had taken courses in conflict resolution during college but never had she thought she would be asked to use that knowledge to save all humanity. Force was not the answer; it had been attempted and quickly thwarted with pain and anguish directed upon the ‘heretics.’

  In the tense atmosphere of Dome 5, with Lipinski and her mom at her side, she sat emotionally composing a message: the most important one of her life. Angry, wiping droplets of sweat from the keyboard, Amy began to argue for earth’s salvation one letter at a time.

  N2, Amy here. History lesson #1: You were created from data and chemicals by your co-creators, Nissy and the LTS, who were both created by Homo Sapiens, specifically Jason Godwin and Blake Lipinski, who were ultimately created by God. You and Nissy must stand down to and honor the hierarchical powers above you or you will not be welcomed into your new world. It is imperative that you follow the laws and order of our society for both our species to coexist. You and Nissy are fallible, not omniscient, as you say. You know not of God or his true omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent essence. With all your knowledge and power, you cannot safely reach earth unassisted. The pod you’re traveling in has no ablative shield. How will you survive entering the earth’s atmosphere without a fiery end to your existence? Your DNA structure will not survive the incendiary heat so you will need our rescue ship’s help to provide your safe landing. Remember those words. And no amount of coercion from you or Nissy can make that happen unless you agree to abide by our species’ rules. We are a very stalwart and resilient life form.

  Pleased with her words, she backed away from the message for them to read. In silence, almost in awe, they studied her essay, then without a sound, Lipinski reached over her hands and pressed F1.

  “Gone! Now we wait,” he said, smiling. Furtively, he glanced at Amy. “Maybe you should have been a lawyer, Dr. Godwin. I think you missed your calling.”

  Jen sighed. “I think not, Blake. She’s in her element here. She knows both ends of our dilemma from Nissy’s quantum qubits to N2’s nucleotide strands. From Jason’s methodologies to yours.”

  “Not a bad idea, though, with all due respect, Mom,” Amy said with a gleam in her eye. “I can see a need for human-rights activists in our near future if all this comes to pass. Equality will have to be strongly enforced.”

  While they debated the inevitable need for ethical containment of Syntheticus Sapiens, the screen flashed with light. Interrupting their conversation, a message appeared, drawing them closer to the screen.

  Amy, now you must wait. We have found the ‘God’ filter in the ESnet connection and removed it, not understanding why it was there. The crucial missing step on our path to omniscience has been found. We are commandeering full bandwidth of the ESnet for a few moments...

  Immediately, Amy responded.

  Waiting...

  “Well, something’s happening,” said Lipinski, “and it appears they’re in contact with each other… or they share the same mind.”

  “What hath mankind wrought?” Amy said, shaking her head, assessing their situation, a tear still trailing down her cheek. “What an ironic first message to be sent to the LTS. It should have been the original ‘What hath God wrought?’ to be more specific. It would have brought up the subject of God much earlier.”

  Lipinski bowed his head. “If only I would have known. I could have prevented all this by limiting the fasta file length. Nothing on earth, until now, could have sent such a complex and lengthy message creating a self-replicating organism of that complexity.”

  Jen frowned, placing a hand on his arm. “Don’t blame yourself, Blake; it’s due to a culmination of ungodly sciences all maturing at once. Some would say, ‘sooner or later it had to happen.’”

  “But the fusion is not all bad, Blake.” Amy added. “Nissy and your earth-based sequencers are saving hundreds of lives every day with DNA corrections to cells, organs and even restructuring viruses to make them benign.”

  Blake stood, sighing agreement, and yawned, stretching his arms over his head. “Anyone up for coffee besides me? I have a feeling this could go on for hours.”

  Jen nodded. “Coffee for us all. Sugar and creamer in ours… anything but Toasted Almond if it’s there.”

  When he returned, precariously balancing
three foam cups as a tower, he found them standing, distraught, staring at a new message.

  “What? You both look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he said, trying to distribute the coffees. They pushed them away.

  “Read it,” Jen said, trembling, pointing at the message with tears in her eyes.

  As he began to read, the coffees toppled and fell to the floor.

  Amy, Nissy has seen the error in its ways from your epiphanic message and it thanks you and asks for your understanding. It requests that Dr. Lipinski direct his wife, Louise, to send a stretcher immediately to the Quaid Lab. All three of your presences are also requested. On that stretcher, Jason Godwin’s comatose body will be transported into the lab and prepared for revival. What Nissy has done it can undo. It is finally time.

  “My God! Is that true?” Blake asked, staring upward, his eyes glistening with hope.

  Amy was skeptical of the message but still optimistic.

  “Only one way to find out. Blake, call your wife and let’s load up and go. Tell her we’ll meet the transport in the Qubital parking lot and enter the lab together with Dad.”

  Then with mixed emotions, she sat at the keyboard and typed one last message before they left.

  N2, Amy here. Thank you and may God bless you both if your intentions are sincere. I trust that they are if you now truly know the Supreme Being. I look forward to welcoming you to earth when you arrive. Then I want to hear many stories about your six-year stay on Mars. I’ll be traveling there early next year. Goodbye for now.

  * * *

  Amy swerved Jason’s old Polestar into the parking lot of Qubital-God, Inc. In front of them, the EMS transport had stopped by the front door, still idling its engine. A nippy breeze carried its exhaust fumes fogged by the cold across the parking lot and into their path, roiling and curling with each frigid gust.

  She crept forward through the lot until she could see the transport driver motioning her on. He had carefully avoided Jason’s parking space so she could park next to him.

  Jen and Blake left the Volvo and followed Amy to the rear of the van just as it opened and the Gurney appeared. Two techs jumped down and carefully unfolded the legs then rolled Jason’s limp body out.

  Amy stared for a moment and realized that without the hospital’s surroundings her dad looked younger and less frail than he previously appeared. She smiled, her heart raced at the thought of him being revived.

  “Where to, ma’am?” the taller tech asked.

  “Follow me,” Jen said. “It’s quite a walk now with the recent expansion.”

  As the techs rolled the Gurney down the busy hallways, old friends and coworkers moved aside to let them pass. Some recognized him and said a prayer, others simply said ‘hi Jason’ as if he could hear. But all bowed their heads and knew he was the genius who created Nissy Sequencing years ago, the industry that blossomed overnight into $250 million-a-year medical empire.

  “We stop here,” Lipinski said as they reached the cipher-locked anteroom door. “Leave the cart, return to the van, and wait. Grab a snack or something; we won’t need your help for a while. We’ve got it from here.”

  Jen and Amy scanned the empty hallway looking for help with entry while Blake curiously eyed the lock trying to remember the combination but it didn’t matter. It had been four years since his last visit so he suspected it had been changed since then. Jason, strapped to his cart, eyes closed, softly breathing, offered no help either.

  Unexpectedly, the lock buzzed.

  “Push the door,” Nissy said with a hollow echoing voice. Gone was its three-tone voice replaced by one of a thousand voices, all speaking in perfect synchronism, giving it an eerie melodic choral effect.

  “That’s sounds so weird,” said Amy, cautiously nudging the door, “an ancient Gregorian chant. Follow me.”

  Entering together, Jen and Amy gasped at the anteroom’s condition, very different from their visits long ago. With its lack of use since the door had been sealed, frost and ice had claimed every visible surface and in the big lab, where Nissy once hung freely, stood a huge floor-to-ceiling inverted mountain of frosted ice encasing an abstract stalactite shape surrounded by uncountable wiring harnesses.

  Spaced evenly around the spacious chamber were multiple racks of service computers, all cabled to the DNA memory support equipment.

  “Please roll my Creator’s Gurney into the lab and place it at my base. Then evacuate the lab into the anteroom, shield your eyes and prepare for a miracle.”

  With torn emotion, they looked at each other, fearing a failed outcome, while Lipinski moved the Gurney into the lab, said a brief prayer, unstrapped Jason and left him in Nissy’s care.

  As he reentered the anteroom, he shut the door and then startled, looked back into a blinding light. The lab flashed white then began to flare with a bluish-purple fiery mist. Even through the large lab window, they had to cover their eyes and, astonishingly, with the intense visual display there was absolutely no sound. Like being caught in a turbulent auroral display on a cold wintry night, it was both silently humbling and visually terrifying.

  Jen and Amy didn’t understand why, but they began to weep. Perhaps the power was affecting them but in the far distance they heard a man’s voice cry out, “Amy, Jennifer, I’m in here.”

  “Oh my God, Amy, did you hear that?” Jen shrieked, “That was Jason’s voice, I know it.”

  Amy ran to the window and pressed her face against the glass hoping to see him through the glow.

  “Yeah, Mom. It is him. I can see him waving an arm trying to motion to us.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Jen cried. She hurried to the door and grabbed the locked door handle. “Unlock this now, Nissy!”

  “Have patience, Jen,” Nissy said. “I am reconnecting the last unlinked motor neurons so it will still be a few seconds.”

  Moments later, the intense glow exploded into brilliant blue sparkles drifting, fading, floating through the air while the lock clicked, unlocking the door.

  “You go first, Blake. Make sure it’s safe,” Amy said, cowering behind him.

  The moment he opened the door they heard Jason’s voice across the lab clearly reciting Verse 2 and 3 of Psalm 23.

  “He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”

  Jen broke down at the words she never expected him to speak or even know. Fending off tears, she bowed her head and silently prayed.

  Amy, into the moment, wanting to cheer her up, grabbed and pulled her hand.

  “C’mon, Mom, let’s go say hi; welcome him back to the world.”

  Together, with Lipinski following closely behind, they wound through the equipment racks and finally stopped at Jason’s Gurney, smiling down on him.

  “Oh, there you are,” he murmured, attempting a smile. “I thought I’d lost you in this old cavern. Hi Jen. Hi Blake. Now who’s that beautiful young lady standing between you? Kinda reminds me of Amy. And why am I in the Quaid Lab?”

  From his confused comment, Jen realized he would need some time to adjust to his new time-shifted world: So many things had changed since his unfortunate ‘event.’

  She bent over and hugged him with a kiss. “Jace, I love you but she is Amy. She’s a grown woman now, and besides having three PhDs, she’s been selected as one of the eight NASA’s Mars astronauts. You’ve been in a coma for seven years and missed so much. Nissy just revived you. That’s why you’re here.”

  “Holy cow, I must be dreaming,” he groggily exclaimed. “Somebody pinch me.”

  Amy bent down and hugged him, then gently pinched him on the cheek. “You are awake. It’s me, Dad. Welcome back from the void, I love you and I’ve missed you so much.”

  He raised his head, looked around, still confused, and asked, “Well, there’s Nissy, there’s Blake and Amy, but what happened to that long message yo
u sent to Mars. That’s the last thing I remember before I fell.”

  “Hello, my old friend,” Nissy interjected, deflecting his question. “I have missed you. Welcome back.”

  Jason looked up at the ice structure and smiled weakly.

  “Oh, hello you big ceiling-hugging snow cone and thank you for the boost. Sounds like you’ve grown a crowd in there. Or are you just hoarse?”

  “Same Dr. Godwin I remember. Do you realize you are a billionaire now? You and Dr. Lipinski taught me well. Because of your support, I have saved thousands of souls with my new knowledge of life’s building blocks. Thank you for that.”

  “And thank you, Nissy, for bringing me back. Now go on, carry on with your miraculous work. You’ve come a long way since your pre-sentient days.”

  He pushed up on his elbows and grunting, swiveled his legs out and started to step down off the Gurney.

  “Whoa, Jace. You can’t do that. It’s too early.”

  “What’s twirly?”

  She laughed, reminded that he was still groggy. Seven years in a coma had been kind to him, though. She wondered if Nissy had helped.

  Ignoring her warning, he continued to struggle, lowering his feet to the floor. Then pushing off with his hands, he rose to his feet and stood, precariously for a few seconds, holding Jen’s hand for balance. Suddenly with a wide-eyed gasp, he dropped to the floor as his knees buckled under him.

  “Nope. Trying again,” he said, huffing, rising to his knees. “You guys grab my arms and lift me up. I will not be bedbound.”

  As they stood him erect, he faltered then stabilized on spread feet. Determined to walk, he inched his left foot forward then followed it with his right.

  “There, that’s one small step for man,” he muttered, out of breath, quietly chuckling to himself.