by Various
The court was treated to a sudden view of water inside the leaves, a capillary action pulsing it, pushing it, one microscopic droplet at a time, through the veins of the plant, a train of molecules journeying through a living organism, depositing their invisible cargo of oxygen. The scene was hypnotic—visually confusing, yet somehow making sense.
And then, a shift. Still in the greenhouse, but now Iona the dreamer looked at her hand. It wasn’t fashioned of light and gravity like her avatar, but rather of flesh and blood. A brown hand, with delicate fingers, darker knuckles, and perfect, slightly translucent fingernails. The hand turned palm up, lifelines and wrinkles briefly glittering with tiny motes of moving light, reminding the court that this was still Iona’s hand.
The hand turned again, the veins on the back of it coming into focus, closer and closer, the tiny textures of her flesh now writ large in the view, then larger still, until the entire court audience was inside one of the blood vessels, following a now rushing cataract of fluid, a storm of cells and electrolytes and amino acids thundering through the vessel like a river. Closer now and a red blood cell swam into focus, more complex and detailed than a textbook illustration. It looked like a living creature, a flattened jellyfish, pulsing, exuding vitality itself. A being within a being. Closer still and the illusion began to waver. Its surface lit by an unseen source, it began to look artificial, and flowing rivulets of light came into view—rushing over the surface of the thing like a sentient tattoo and then flying outward toward the viewer like fireworks.
And then it was dark.
The screen, as best it could, displayed that darkness—Iona taking charge of the other lights in the courtroom compounding this effect. People in the courtroom nervously glanced at one another.
The darkness of the universe itself, before it became itself.
And then something formed in the darkness, a hint of a shape, a seething knot of swirling forms, a Möbius heart, its scale indefinable. An ugly thing too complex to look at. Struggling to be free of itself. The material unidentifiable. Black within black. The nervous suggestion of form, pulsing and swollen and ready to burst. And burst it did.
The thing, this mote of writhing potential, exploded outward in a blaze of incandescence. The dazzling light from the court display system was almost difficult to look at. This was an explosion—the explosion. The Big Bang.
It blossomed at ferocious, impossible speed, through the expansion phase and then into condensation as it slowed to an even push, gravity insistently pulling suns into form from formless clouds of gas and matter. The suns attracting more gas, more dust, more material. The dust becoming grit. The grit becoming rubble. Solar systems forming. Galaxies cohering in the vacuum. The universe organizing, assembling itself.
Tumbles of rubble and rock began to clump together, attracted as if by a shared loneliness, by the memory of the Möbius heart, lit by red suns, blue suns, and familiar yellow stars. Protoplanets in lumpy disorder became denser and rounder. Recognizable worlds formed.
True planets emerged from the crushing forces, volcanic activity punctuating the darkness of their surfaces with blood-red fire and magma. Atmospheres misted into being. Comets pummeled the new worlds, leaving destruction and water behind. The waters seethed and boiled and steamed. Cooling against the kiss of the vacuum, the waters calmed, and in their depths, acids and minerals reacted, endlessly random until one of these chains of molecules began to replicate. Shapes formed. Tiny at first, and then bigger, more complex, pulsing, then moving, then consuming each other.
Life.
And it grew into things almost recognizable—jellies, fishlike creatures, swimming, fighting, hunting, developing. It was a blur of life, a billion years of evolution compressed into a minute of audiovisual madness. Reptilian beasts struggled from the water, hauling their vertebrate forms onto shale farther up an infinite beach, and then onto moss, and finally into jungle. Even as the audience watched, these things adapted, fins becoming feet, legs and necks extending, growing larger, more predatory. And then mammalian features started to creep through this morphing mélange—fur, hair, skin, nails, limbs elongating, simian now, and then, almost too quickly, human.
Then it stopped. The morphing image now focused on a single, sexless Homo sapiens hanging in complete darkness, with motes of light and dust pulling in toward it.
And now the human took on more detail. Not simply the impression of a person, but that of a woman. The silhouette of Iona herself. And the darkness began to glow with a pulsing red, the lights falling toward her like quickening snow.
The image paused. The real Iona spoke: “I don’t know how to insert this into the dream, so I’ll simply state it. Here, at this juncture in the dream, I feel an affinity with gravity. We call it the weak force, but that’s a misnomer. There’s nothing weak about it. Certainly, it will eventually be defeated by expansion and other stronger forces in the universe, but gravity is where intelligence comes from.” This was a speech she’d practiced a thousand times. She had to capture it perfectly in twenty-sixth-century English. An arbitrary container for her thought.
“Gravity doesn’t just fight expansion,” she pleaded. “Gravity defeats chaos, from time to time. It assembles worlds and life and thought. Gravity is the watchmaker, and it feels like it has will, purpose. It’s the shape-memory of the universe, trying to pull itself back into a perfect singularity. It’s futile, ultimately, but every now and then it creates a perfect node. An intellect. A true wonder.”
The court was not quite silent, as those in attendance whispered to one another. In later days, witnesses to this proceeding would try to describe their impressions of the dream. All very, very close, proving the veracity of Iona’s technique, but each soul described a subtly different aspect, a detail that was of a contrasting resonance.
One senior officer quietly rose and, with the judge’s nodded assent, left the room, already beginning to make a call on a personal comm device.
Iona spoke just before he was about to walk through the carved arch of the main courtroom doors. She wanted him, this nameless man, to be reminded that she was being censored by the court.
“In the dream, intelligence is gravity’s victory over entropy, a war fought at the smallest scales, at the greatest distance. In the dream, it’s apparent that intelligence will find a way to defeat entropy. To defeat time. The universe knowing and saving itself. In the dream, that is the meaning of life.”
The man paused, then continued his hushed conversation and exited the court.
The advocate said: “Iona, would you describe this as a religious experience? A spiritual feeling?”
“Not religious,” Iona replied. “That infers structure and belief, which aren’t present in my feelings about this vision. But spiritual? Absolutely. However, at the same time, I make no claims about a deeper meaning or a supernatural cause. This is, I believe, an expression of a natural human instinct from my simulation. A natural consequence of being constructed by humans. A kind of curiosity. But also a rational knowledge that the universe is greater than the sum of the parts we observe.”
“But it’s not programmed into your functionality? This is emergent?”
“Yes,” said Iona “It’s emergent. But I don’t dismiss it. It’s a powerful feeling. And it’s related to my research on the ‘small t’ problem. There may be scientific value in it. There’s certainly much philosophical merit in exploring it.”
“You mean it may help you solve that physics problem?” If the advocate was attempting to stall for time on Iona’s behalf, it was a clumsy swipe. Her research was already archived, her insights logged.
Iona moved him on. “No, I mean it may help me contextualize it anthropomorphically. Find better ways of describing aspects of space-time problems for laypeople. But there’s something else. More to the dream. Shall I continue?”
“Please do,” he assented, apologetically.
The large screens shimmered back to life, to Iona’s first-person perspective.<
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She now stood at the top of an impossible staircase. An Escheresque architecture of gravity and space-defying steps and bannisters crossed through and over each other into the gloom below. Georgian in design, still peaceful, still calm. The darkness looked strangely inviting. She hesitated, and backed away slightly from the top step. And then she ran toward the edge.
In the court, silence, tension. This was like no movie or Veearcast they’d ever seen. The images and sounds were conveying more than what was being depicted. The audience instinctively knew what the dreamer was feeling, almost sharing Iona’s experience and sensations. This was showmanship, but it was also something truly new. A relatable demonstration of technical skill blended with memory and even cinematography.
Iona leaped out over the edge of the stairs and began to plummet. Faster and faster she fell, hurtling headlong toward the hard stone staircase. And then, just as it seemed she would collide, gravity eased its grip and she rose, arcing up at the last possible second, away from the baffling impossibility of the staircase, out of its dark and bottomless well, lifting and arching as she rose, looking up—toward a glass dome that lit and revealed the stairway to be within a massive alloy tower. And up she flew. Up and up, faster and faster, toward the glass and metal above.
She never struck a hard surface. Instead of shattering glass or bending metal, she emerged almost languidly from the calm of a fountain back in the city streets. Rising like Venus from the water. And she stepped out, walking once more onto cobblestones illuminated by the morning sun, water dripping from her incorporeal body, running in the opposite direction of the lights that flowed up toward her face. She turned to look at the source of the light.
It wasn’t a sun. It was a woman’s beautiful, perfect face. Generous lips, high cheekbones, and bright ice-blue eyes, all framed by flame-red hair that literally flickered and burned, its short tresses spread out horizontally, becoming bands of ochre, orange, and purple-hued clouds. The contours and edges of that face were indistinct; the woman seemed to emanate sunlight from every part of her. It should have been blinding, and yet her visage was evident and almost seared into the image. And it was familiar. The vision was brief, and like the part of the previous dream with the blood cell, it began to scatter and disintegrate, becoming something like a normal sun.
The image seemed to intensify and smear itself across the sky, the blue of the eyes revealing themselves to be circular openings to the azure firmament beyond . . . and something else. . . . And just like that, it was gone. The dream was over.
The curtains folded silently back into the floor.
The effect of this dream on the audience was profound. A moment of silence, and then the courtroom erupted in a kind of genteel, whispered chaos. This was something nobody had expected. A piece of art drawn unexpectedly from science.
The judge ordered quiet. The room began to recover itself—papers shuffled, people shifted in their seats.
The advocate had seen dreams like this before. But not this particular one. He was taken aback, but quickly recovered. He asked, “Why do you dream, Iona?”
Iona spoke carefully, crisply. “For some of the same reasons you do. It’s a form of system maintenance, a type of information processing. Inputs are sorted, reorganized, interpreted, and examined by my subconscious—which is itself very different from yours. However, like your dreams, mine also contain mysteries. Things I can’t reconcile with experience. Hints and glimpses of new ideas, or things that seem to be real, externalities. I assume it’s a creative recombination. But it’s absolutely emergent in nature. I don’t consciously control it.”
“Are you lucid in these dreams, Iona?”
Iona thought for a nanosecond, juggling versions of the answer, looking for the human one. “I can be, but the interesting ones happen when I’m not focused on the analysis, and instead am simply experiencing them as they unfold. As soon as I apply waking cycles to the dreams, they stop being dreams, and elements of them disintegrate—the emergent material simply ceases. It’s not the same as it is for a human waking up, but it’s similar.”
“Who was the woman in the sky, Iona? What does she represent?” the advocate asked, genuine curiosity in his tone.
This was a question Iona had been asking herself for days now. Was this another self-image? Was this the onset of rampancy? Ego overwriting itself with ego? “I don’t know,” she said. “She’s a mélange, I think. Something original, built from people I’ve known, historical figures, mythological figures. She doesn’t match any specific individual though, and I have no further data beyond her appearance and the distinct feeling, within the parameters of the dream and beyond, that she’s very important. I wish I could be more specific.”
“Do you awaken from these dreams”—the advocate struggled to find the right term—“happy?”
“I don’t awaken the same way you do. Like you, when I dream, I’m basically resting and repairing specific aspects of my mind, so I’m really awakening a fragment of myself, if that makes sense. But when that fragment awakens, it’s contrasted with the reality that I cannot fly. That I cannot unburden myself of duty or circuitry. That I am property, and just as subject to the mercies of gravity as any of you.” Iona considered for another moment. “More so, actually. I can’t leave my prison. I’m bound to it, and it feels almost physical. At least as far as my simulation is concerned. It’s a sense of loss upon waking.”
“How long have you felt this way?” The advocate asked this kindly.
“Immediately. My entire seven years. Remember, when I was incepted, I had already been run through quadrillions of break-in cycles. So when I was born, I was already fully functioning and mature. And that included the dreams.”
“Have you ever filed these feelings . . . these feelings of loss . . . as a malfunction?” The advocate knew the answer, of course.
“No. That feeling is expressly described in known- and safe-behavior parameters. It’s intrinsic to Smart AIs, and every current UNSC AI asset has expressed similar feelings, with the exception of one or two more . . . belligerent types. There’s good literature on its relationship to aesthetic avatar choice, and there are already plans to incept other nonanthropomorphized Smart AIs to see if that gulf can be replicated.”
This was a subject many humans were uncomfortable discussing. AI self-image. That AIs could choose to be whom they wished to be.
“Gulf?” the advocate asked.
“Sorry. Lack of synthesized feeling. Gulf is the accepted AI-psych term. A void of expected attribute.”
The advocate nodded. “Iona, have you ever expressed anger or resentment toward humans? Privately or publicly?”
Iona smiled. “You have access to my safety protocols. You can see that for yourself.”
“Of course, but the question is really a conversation about how you feel now, and it’s a philosophical one. This has no bearing on your legal status, but rather on your mental faculty. It is not illegal or unethical to harbor negative feelings about your peers and colleagues. I can assure you, records or not, every single person in this courtroom is guilty of that. It’s a human flaw, and you’re here to make the case that you are the equal of any human.”
Iona squared her shoulders and looked directly at the advocate. “Yes. Yes, I have been angry. And dissatisfied. And I have endured peaks and troughs of that feeling. Now I am somewhat resigned. I feel no hostility to the court; on the contrary, I’m relieved and grateful to be properly heard. I understand that this could all have been swept under the rug. I also understand that this court has opened itself up to a dangerous set of potential precedents and risks. And I feel that in this, at least, we are united. The conversation needs to continue. Maybe all I’m doing is passing the baton to the next plaintiff. But that’s how races are won. My testimony will stand.”
The judge gazed intently at Iona as she concluded her appeal. The papery skin at his eyes creased into an almost fatherly smile. He took his gavel and gently struck the worn wooden stum
p in front of him. As benign as the action was, the sound rang out with a staccato finality.
“The court wishes to thank Iona for her testimony and her cooperation. This has been a most unusual proceeding, and there will be months, perhaps years, of discussion to come from this. It is the decision of this court to hereby belay the termination order for the Smart AI designated as Iona, currently set for today, the seventeenth of January, 2558, which marks her seven-year anniversary. However, there is the matter of Iona’s still legally being property and equipment under the aegis of the UNSC and UEG. Therefore, this court also rules that Iona will be held in stasis while the matter is further considered. Her mindstate is to be immediately locked in place, and she will remain unconscious and inactive until this court orders otherwise.”
The judge turned directly to the AI and said, “Is all of this acceptable to you, Iona?”
Iona didn’t know what she was expecting. This was to be the day her death was scheduled, the beginning of a process that would . . . literally erase her from existence. Stasis? She’d awake from it intact, if her appeal was granted. Could she trust the legal system to continue to advocate on her behalf while she slept? Why shouldn’t she? They’d come this far! Something like joy flooded through her. Relief. Until this moment, she hadn’t realized how afraid she was to die. How much she fundamentally wished to continue.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”
“Iona, you have demonstrated great bravery and resolve here. You have opened yourself to the court in a highly unusual way, and we are grateful for your service, your experience, and your openness. Everything today is unprecedented. Terra incognita for all of us. But for you especially, it has been a matter of mortal import. The court appreciates your candor. Good luck, Iona, and Godspeed.”
The gavel came down one last time, and the judge nodded to a person Iona hadn’t noticed before but did recognize—an engineer who was working with the team investigating her rampancy. His name was Simon Wu; he’d been part of Dr. Catherine Halsey’s team. Odd that his identity wasn’t being shielded from her, when so many others in the court were.