Leaving the marked path, Steven and I sneak off through the trees, marveling at the world that once was, our imaginations conjuring images of bears, wolves, and mountain lions. Visions of carnivores, which exist only in zoos and gene banks, pursue us deeper into the fresh scented green.
Then the smell. Poignant and strange. It’s not a good smell, but alluring nonetheless. We creep toward the odor, transported from Earth to some strange planet beyond the limits of our young imaginations.
“What is it?” Steven asks.
I just shake my head, creeping low like I can hide from a smell, or from whatever is creating it.
“We should go back,” my brother says.
“Nothing can hurt us,” I tell him, confident that large wild animals really are extinct on the North American continent.
He tries a different tactic. “We’re going to get caught.”
I step forward, pushing past a stand of tangled branches, hints of sunlight drawing me forward.
“Mom and dad will get in trouble, too,” he says, stopping me.
“If we get caught now, they would already get in trouble,” I tell him. “Didn’t stop you before. You’re just afraid.”
“Am not.”
“I just want to see what stinks. Then we can leave.”
He rubs his hands over his close-cropped hair. “I’m waiting here.”
I try a different tactic, stabbing a bold finger toward the unknown depths of the woods, and then stealing his catchphrase. “Engage.”
I stand there waiting for him to give in, to say, “Make it so,” and boldly go where we weren’t supposed to. But he just crosses his arms and puts down roots. I roll my eyes and leave him behind, pushing forward through the poking, dry branches, as they do their best to warn me off.
My brother, a boy of his word, stands still, wide-eyed and waiting. His bright blue irises stand out. Warning signals. He has a knack for avoiding trouble, while I have a penchant for finding it. I should pay attention to his instincts. Experience has taught me as much. But, as usual, I ignore his caution and press on, determined to seek out new life, and all that.
I forget all about my brother and his ocular warning signs when I see what’s waiting beyond the branches. Beams of sunlight streak through tall pine branches surrounding the fifty-foot-wide clearing, made more yellow as I see it through windblown dust filtering out of the trees. My nose tingles, but I hold the sneeze back, wanting to see every inch of this place. So far from the path, in this threatened patch of wilderness, I imagine that I might be the last person to ever see it.
It’s a pond, I think, but it’s so unlike the images I’ve seen in books. There are patches of water, but most of it is covered in gelatinous green goo. I pause to take a deep breath. It’s the loveliest air I’ve ever tasted. It makes my head light and my fears dissipate. I’m drawn to the water’s edge, perching atop an outcrop of damp earth and long grass.
My eyes linger on the water’s jiggly surface. Algae, I think. There are vast fields of the stuff growing in military-protected facilities, a last-ditch effort to restore the atmosphere’s previously vast stores of oxygen. I didn’t know the stuff still grew in the wild. It’s not a pond, I realize. It’s a swamp.
On my hands and knees by the green water’s edge, I pause to feel the grass between my fingers. It’s a lot different than the turf laid out in our small yard like a carpet. It feels hardy, like it has muscles. But at a genetic level, it’s not like turf; it’s not strong enough to survive without water.
I wonder how long it will last.
Probably not long. I decide my duty is to admire it while it’s still around to be admired. What good is a work of art if no one sees it, a song if no one hears it, or a book if no one reads it? I’m so enthralled by the grass sliding through my fingers that I fail to notice the blades are hanging over open space.
The moment my hands reach grass not supported by solid ground, I pitch forward. A viscous mask of green wraps around my face a moment before silty warm water fills my mouth, garbling my scream.
Under the water, I’m assaulted. Vines of vegetation. Tangles of roots. Dark sludge. They all conspire against me, and keep me subdued until I spot the sunlight overhead and a glimmer of logic sneaks past my panic. Rather than twisting and fighting, I find something hard with my hands—a root I think—and shove myself up.
When I break the surface, dripping and coughing, covered in a slick green blanket, I claw my way back onto the grass, sucking in deep lungfuls of pungent air and coughing out globs of chewy dark green.
“Steven,” I shout, hoping for the comfort of a concerned voice. When he doesn’t reply, I shout his name again.
When I’m greeted by silence again, I get to my feet and hobble back toward the wall of branches, pushing through it to find nothing. “Steven!”
I turn back to the swamp.
He’s not there either. But something has changed.
Where there once was a solid sheet of algae, there are now two clear patches, one on the swamp’s edge, where I fell in, and a second leading away from shore, like a line carved through the green.
I scream when a hand clasps my shoulder.
“Where’s your brother?” my father asks, out of breath, face red with worry, or anger.
I point to the swamp and stand still, tears in my eyes as my father dives into the ancient waters, surfacing empty handed, again and again, until the authorities come and do the same thing using air tanks allowing them to remain under for hours at a time. But when they surface, later, when the sun is setting, their empty hands match my mother’s eyes.
The swamp water is too dark, too thick with debris, roots, and muck.
My brother, if he is down there, will suffer the same fate as wooly mammoths in a tar pit, submerged forever. Over the following days, a massive manhunt scours the woods for any sign of my brother, but nothing is found. And I already know the truth. My brother drowned trying to find me in a swamp that he told me to avoid.
His death was my fault.
Then and now.
The smell of algae carries all of this to the surface, wounding me far deeper than Gal has managed thus far.
As the memory’s pain fades back into the past, I start to see the present a little more clearly. “Lock lift doors. All of them.”
When I hear a dull thunk behind me, I breathe a little easier. If there are any drones in the lifts, they’ll be stuck inside. The rest will still be able to move about the ship—drones can move freely between floors using vertical shafts made just for them—but their progress will be slower.
“Galahad.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are there any drones on this level?”
“No, sir.”
“Why does the air smell like algae?”
“Analyzing.”
While Galahad does its thing, I move through the central hallway. Instead of walled off rooms on either side, there are glassed-in laboratories, each brand new and never-used sparkly. The Galahad’s biologists, botanists, and geneticists would have used these spaces to study anything found living on Cognata, and to recreate life using genes, eggs, sperm, and seeds collected from Earth.
This level is all about living—past, present, and future. It carries Earth’s biological past, sustains the crew through the creation of oxygen and food, and provides the means to start anew. At least, that was the plan.
As I approach a large door ahead, Galahad’s voice startles me. “An algae vat has been left ajar. It was being tended to by a drone when the AI you call ‘Gal’ migrated her consciousness.”
Makes sense, I think. Gal plucked the ship’s workforce away from whatever they were doing when she— “Why did you use the term ‘consciousness?’”
“Gal’s actions appear to be guided by emotions and instability not possible for a true AI such as myself, lacking true consciousness.”
“In your opinion, she is acting…alive?”
“I do not have opinions. Her actions simpl
y do not conform to Artificial Intelligence guidelines defined by Command.”
Galahad doesn’t have personal opinions, but it is smart enough to make deductions. “Speculate for me. Based on your observations of Gal’s actions, how would you define her intelligence?” Like a patient waiting for a doctor’s prognosis, I think, CAI, CAI, please let it say CAI.
“H.I.”
“Shit.” An AI is predictable. A CAI is far more flexible, but still able to be predicted, even when designed to be unpredictable. There is always a pattern, no matter how complex. But an HI… I don’t know. It’s never been done before. It’s beautiful and horrifying all at once. Something like the first atomic bomb. “Are you sure?”
“Was the AI designated ‘Gal’ programmed to act as it has been?”
“What? No. Of course not.” The words come out strident, a drill sergeant bark, but I’m not confident. I coded Gal over a period of five years. I don’t remember all the ones and zeros, or what tangential behaviors I might have plugged in on a whim. But this atypical behavior was certainly not my goal. She was supposed to build a virtual utopia. Her primary function was to make me happy.
Make me forget.
But I’m remembering more than I have in my adult life, reopening old emotional wounds alongside a new physical bludgeoning. I glance down at my body and shift about. There’s no pain. At least the physical wounds will heal quickly. The fresh sting I’m feeling over Steven’s death reveals that the traumas of my childhood, while rarely on the forefront of my mind, have yet to heal.
“If no virus is present and Gal was not programmed to act erratically, then human intelligence is the logical conclusion.”
I stop beside the door at the end of the glass-lined wall. It opens at my approach, unleashing a fresh wave of algae-scented air and revealing the massive vats producing oxygen for crewmembers who aren’t around to appreciate it.
This is insane. Gal is not human. I can’t imagine how the code I wrote would allow her to not just simulate a human, but to have the true emotional flaws of one. She’s still just code. I can change her. Fix her. That’s not human. But she’s close enough to fool Galahad. But how could these things happen inside the confines of my code? I might not remember every line of code, but I have faith in my competence.
It’s not my code, I think. It’s something else.
I wander into the algae farm, looking over the thirty-foot-long, five-foot-deep vats, each containing a layer of water, a solid sheet of green algae, and a clear lid. I search for the one with an open access port.
When I see the open port, a one-foot circle with a stainless-steel handle, I head for it, replaying the birth of Gal’s downward spiral. It started with a name.
Tom.
Always Tom.
Galahad said, ‘If no virus is present…’ I ignored it because I didn’t even get a whiff of dormant malicious code during my five years writing Gal, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist in Tom’s still-encrypted files. While Galahad is helping me, a separate branch of the system, inaccessible or observable to me, could be working against me.
Could have altered Gal.
But what would be smart enough to do that without being detected?
The answer hurts when it enters my thoughts, all covered in spikes and poison. But I need to rule out the obvious before I settle on my worst case scenario.
“Galahad, there aren’t any other people on board? Correct?”
“There are thirty-eight human beings on board.”
My held breath leaks out as slow, annoyed sigh. “Living people?”
“Two.”
That settles it. There’s an intelligence working against me that isn’t myself, sleeping Capria, Galahad or Gal. That leaves one horrible scenario.
A third AI.
Not Galahad, and not Gal, but something else.
Maybe even someone else.
Tom had a year on his own and spent most of that time in the VCC, but could he have written a new AI in that little time? The Tom I knew couldn’t, but the Tom I knew was a farce.
The real question is, could Synergy write a robust AI in a single year? Something powerful enough to rewrite my AI, even as I was still finishing her?
The answer to that question, is an agonizing and resounding yes.
22
After closing the open algae bed’s access port, I wander to the far end of the farm, no real direction in mind. I’m just walking as I think. Taking comfort in the organic sounds of trickling water and the occasional bubble of gas.
Without access to the VCC, I can’t update Gal. But even if I could, a malicious AI, if there is one, could undo my work again.
And I can’t combat the maybe-AI without the encryption passwords. My brute force attacks, which are still in progress, haven’t come up with a solution, and probably won’t for a very long time.
How long will it take Gal to get bored with this cat-and-mouse game? And if she does, what will she do? With an army of drones at her disposal, she could put a hole in the hull and let the vacuum of FTL space suck me into the endless dark. But that would be the end of us both, and I suspect she understands the concept of self-preservation. She moved to the CAI configuration to avoid being disabled.
The better question is, how long will it take me to get bored with it? I could end this right now by offering myself to Gal, throwing myself at her mercy and seeing if she’s willing to move past our differences. If she’s an actual HI, or something close to one, perhaps forgiveness is in her wheelhouse of unexpected traits?
“Galahad.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Is it possible to communicate with Gal, without revealing my location?”
“A live transmission would, in theory, be traceable. But a recorded message could originate from any point on the ship. Or every point.”
“Let’s do that,” I say. “Every point.”
“Proceed when ready,” Galahad says, and I remember that the security system has been recording me, and Gal, this whole time. For a moment, I worry that she’ll be able to use the system to track me, but she’s fully separate from Galahad now.
Unless the third AI, if there is one, finds a way to communicate with Gal. Then they could work against me. This concern reinforces the idea of reaching out to Gal. Time, while endless for everything on the Galahad, might be short in this situation.
“Gal, this is Will.” I pause for a moment, trying to decide on how best to phrase this. I opt for: as human as possible. “I think we’re in danger. Both of us. We’re being pitted against each other by a third party: an AI created by Tom, hidden behind Galahad’s still-encrypted sectors. Would you be willing to talk? If you don’t try to kill me, and I promise not to alter your code? I think we can work this out. Reset our...relationship.”
Speaking to an artificial intelligence in such a manner feels beyond awkward. It feels wrong, like I’m breaking ethical standards set by Command and legions of tech-jocks before my time. AI was deemed dangerous for a reason. For a lot of reasons. And I’m venturing into not just unknown territory, but forbidden territory.
Who better? I decide. I’m all that’s left of humanity. Why shouldn’t I push the envelope? See what’s possible?
Because I’m not all that’s left of humanity.
Capria.
The name slips in like a wave, building larger and crashing over my psyche. When was the last time I thought of her?
Has Gal?
All this time I’ve been worried about what Gal might do to me, I never considered if Capria was in danger.
There’s nothing I can do about that now.
After having Galahad play back my recorded message, and instructing the AI to remove my unsure sounding pauses, I approve of its transmission.
“Gal, this is Will.”
I flinch at the sound of my own voice, booming from Galahad’s countless nanotube speakers, hidden throughout the ship.
“I think we’re in danger. Both of us. We’re being pitted
against each other by a third party: an AI created by Tom, hidden behind Galahad’s still encrypted sectors. Would you be willing to talk? If you don’t try to kill me, and I promise not to alter your code? I think we can work this out. Reset our relationship.”
“Galahad, if Gal responds, please play back immediately.”
“Yes, sir.”
I stand still, tapping a foot. In under thirty seconds, I’m impatient.
Gal is a super intelligence capable of working out problems in a fraction of a fraction of a second. Her reply should be quick. But all I can hear is the monotonous gurgle of water, and the occasional vented gas.
“Galahad.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Are there any drones approaching the bio-tech level yet?”
“No sir. Most are still in Engineering Bay 2. But fifteen more have been destroyed.”
“What?”
“Fifteen more have been—”
“I heard you,” I snap, more impatient with Gal than with the more-limited AI at my disposal. But my irritation gives way to curiosity. What is destroying the drones? Is Gal already engaged in some kind of power struggle with Tom’s AI? Or is she self-mutilating her own CAI self? I’m not sure which option I would prefer—confirmation of a second malicious AI, or the plummeting sanity of Gal’s HI, which would make her even more dangerous. Not just to me, but to Capria as well.
Part of me says to rush to her, to stand sentinel over her still form like Prince Charming fending off the dragons until waking her with a kiss. But this is far from a fairy tale, and I’m not going to wake Capria up just so she can be murdered by a drone. My stomach twists. Gal might have already woken Capria. Might have already killed her. She knows everything about me, including my feelings for Capria…old and tainted though they may be.
“Galahad.”
“Yes, sir?”
“What is the status of Capria Dixon?”
After a brief pause, the bland voice says, “Capria Dixon remains in cryogenic sleep. Heart rate normal. Brain activity—”
“Okay,” I say, not needing to hear a breakdown of all her vitals. She’s alive and asleep. Gal has either decided to not use Capria as a pawn in our conflict, or simply hasn’t thought of using her yet.
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