Which is not the same as saying you wouldn’t give his threats any credence at all.
“And I will note for the future,” the doctor said with a smile, “that turning off the intercom doesn’t appear to deter you at all. Shall we continue?”
He pointed at the semi-assembled mess on the lab table, and I got back to work.
Bob – August 10, 2133
I snapped back to consciousness. As usual, I did a systems check.
Wait, August 10th?
“Hey, doc, I seem to be missing a few days. Have you had me on ice for a week?”
Dr. Landers looked everywhere except at me. “Well, yes and no. Someone managed to sneak a small explosive into the computer room and take out the replicant matrices. We had to ship in a spare unit and restore you from backups. It took a few days.”
I was silent for a few moments. That meant that I wasn’t the Bob who woke up on June 24th. On the other hand, even back then I wasn’t the same Bob who got killed by a car. Did I have a soul? Did it matter if I was restored from a backup?
I realized that in the more than a month that I’d been back as a computer program, I’d somehow managed to avoid coming to any conclusions about my exact status. ‘Rolling with it’ had become a code phrase for avoiding the issue. But I knew that I had a tendency to avoid dealing with painful issues. Jenny had certainly proven that.
And being switched off when not in training contributed as well. I wondered if Dr. Landers had a plan, or if he was just going to wait until I was in space and hope for the best.
I had three issues that bothered me. Was I conscious? Could I actually consider myself to be alive? And was I still Bob? Philosophers had been going on and on about this type of thing for centuries, but now, for me, it was personal. A human, regardless of their opinion on the subject, could depend on being a human. The minister’s offhand reference to me as ‘it’ and ‘replicant’ had stung at a level I was just now starting to appreciate.
I thought back to all the arguments about Turing Tests and thinking machines. Was I nothing more than a Chinese Room? Could my entire behavior be explained as a set of scripted responses to given inputs? That was probably the easiest uncertainty to answer. The classic Chinese Room, which just used scripts to react to input, had no internal dialog. Even if you made its behavior stochastic to introduce some variation in behavior, it was still only active when responding to input. When not processing a response, it just sat there, idle. By worrying about this, right now, I fell into a different category.
For that matter, Descartes had his famous cogito ergo sum; but Thomas had added to it with his “Since I doubt, I think; since I think, I exist.” Well, I was certainly full of doubt. Doubt implied self-awareness, and a concern for one’s future. So I was a conscious entity, barring evidence to the contrary. One down.
Was I alive? Hmm, since no one had yet managed to define life rigorously, that was going to be a fun one. As the speaker at that long-ago panel in Vegas had pointed out, fire has most of the qualities of life but is not alive. According to Dr. Landers, I would be able to reproduce via printer-based autofactories. I certainly responded to stimuli, and acted with self-interest. The claim that life would have to be carbon-based was chauvinistic and narrow-minded, so yeah, I could consider myself alive.
Now, the big one. Who was I? Was I Bob? Or was Bob dead? In engineering terms, what was the metric used to ascribe Bob-hood? Bob was more than a hunk of meat. Bob was a person, and a person was a history, a set of desires, thoughts, goals, and opinions. Bob was the accumulation of all that Bob had been for thirty-one years. The meat was dead, but the things that made Bob different from a chipmunk were alive. In me. I am Bob. Or at least, I am the important parts that made Bob.
With this last thought, a huge weight lifted off of me. I imagined it would feel the same for someone right after the jury said, “not guilty.”
I turned my attention back to the doctor, who was repeating my name in an increasingly panicked tone. I realized that I had been silent for several seconds.
“Hey, doc. I’m here.”
“Thank God.” Dr. Landers collapsed into a chair. “You went silent, and I thought you might have gone psychotic.”
They’d put a lot of effort into me by this point—into all of us, really—so I understood his reaction. I wanted to smile at him, but of course, no joy. “S’okay, doc. I think that ship just sailed, and I’m still here.”
Then realization hit me as I processed what he’d said. “Um, doc, how many spare matrices do you have?”
“Just the one, Bob. A decision had to be made. I guess congratulations are in order.”
“So Kenneth is gone?”
Dr. Landers nodded, then did a double-take. He looked at me, eyes narrowing. Oh, shit. Damage control, Bob.
I quickly threw in the first question I could think of. “So why did they decide to attack now? Has something changed?”
“Mm, information about your progress has been circulated. Best guess is that internal FAITH factions have leaked it in order to goad competing nations into some form of reaction. That’s the word from our security people, anyway.” The doctor was still frowning, but seemed uncertain. I had to keep this going.
“Damn. Are we close to launch?”
The doctor’s expression changed to a frown of concentration. I just needed to keep him distracted long enough for my little faux pas to be forgotten. He consulted his tablet, idly swiping through some pages of information.
“Current project timeline has it about a month away. It can be moved up though. We’ve got a fair bit of slack in the schedule right now, thanks to your swift progress.”
Again, I tried to smile. And as usual, nothing happened, so I waved a waldo instead. “Still waiting for that raise…”
Dr. Landers laughed. “We’re pushing it through HR. Is that the right term?” He held the beat, head cocked to the side, then changed the subject. “Training session for today. I’ve got the details here.”
I heaved a mental sigh of relief. The immediate danger was over, and if the comment occurred to Dr. Landers later, hopefully he’d be uncertain if he had heard me correctly.
Dr. Landers raised a finger to poke at his tablet, hesitated for a moment, then put his hand down. He was silent for a few moments more, then sighed and looked up at me. “Bob, I’m going to take a chance, I think. I’m going to stop deactivating you during off-times, and I’m going to give you access to some more libraries. You’ll undergo a half-hour of semi-sleep every night while you are backed up, but other than that you’ll be online 24/7. If you do go insane, we’ll restore you from a previous backup. That sounds harsh, I know, and I apologize. But I don’t think we can afford the luxury of a leisurely project plan any more. We’re going to have to push forward as quickly as possible.”
I nodded in response. Well, I bobbed my cameras, I guess. It was a kind of good news/bad news thing. I’d finally have some time for some quiet reflection, but it could drive me nuts. Woo hah…
Bob – August 15, 2133
“So what did happen to Old Handeltown?”
The pretty blonde at the window looked surprised for a moment, then laughed. Dr. Doucette was covering for Landers today. She wasn’t nearly as chatty as he was, though. I’d been trying to get her talking, so far with minimal success.
Dr. Doucette was a looker. I was happy to discover that I hadn’t lost my appreciation for beauty with the, uh, change in my lifestyle. Although my appreciation wasn’t as urgent now, so to speak.
She spoke with the standard 22nd century accent, so I was using my translation routine. I’d integrated it to the point where I didn’t even notice the different speech patterns. I knew that Dr. Landers was specially trained to deal with replicants, and had studied my era. Which included getting his patois under control. Dr. Doucette either had skipped that class, or wasn’t normally supposed to be talking to me.
It wasn’t an issue as far as I was concerned, and if Dr. Landers was okay with h
er, then I didn’t see a problem. Hopefully, the State wouldn’t have a cow.
Anyway, today I was coordinating a team of roamers to assemble ship components, assembly-line style. It was routine work. By now, I had written scripts for so many roamer activities that I rarely had to do more than show up. But, the good folks at Applied Synergetics had a checklist to run through, so I had to humor them.
Dr. Doucette looked down at her tablet—yeah, everyone came with tablets—then, satisfied that the status was still quo, answered my question. “Original Handeltown was Handel’s birthplace—Salem, Oregon. When he died, the city changed the name and set up a large memorial in his honor. Someone objected and decided to take it out with a pocket nuke.”
“Nuke? On American soil?”
She wagged a finger at me. “Uh uh. Hasn’t been American soil for a hundred years now. But to answer your question, it was and still is the only nuclear weapon ever deployed in North America.”
“So they moved Handeltown to Portland?”
She nodded.
“A lot of people died?”
She shook her head. “Not like you’d think. We learned a lot about radiation treatments from the Middle-East feud. Lots of opportunity to try out different medical procedures. For all the death and horror that the Middle East war generated, it advanced medical knowledge greatly.”
“Like reviving replicants?”
“Like reviving replicants.”
I was silent for a few moments as I concentrated on guiding the roamers through a particularly tricky bit of assembly. As soon as they were able to continue on their own, I turned back to Dr. Doucette. “So what’s it like, living in a theocracy? Do you have daily prayers?”
Dr. Doucette held up one finger in a universal waitaminnit gesture. She poked at her tablet a few times, then looked up at me. “Sorry, just checking the location of the security patrols. Some of them might be Piety Monitors.”
I was blank for a moment, then I laughed. “So you’re monitoring the monitors. What are you doing, tracking their security card locations?”
Dr. Doucette smiled in return. “The government doesn’t really care what we do as long as we give the appearance of piety. But jabber-jiving them will get you a session with the Ministry of Proper Thought that you’ll never forget.”
“Mmm, yeah. Dr. Landers mentioned something about that. So while we’ve got some privacy, let me ask you this—how do you know I’ll do what you want instead of just heading off in some random direction, once you release me into the wild? Understand, I love this whole idea, and I can’t see myself not cooperating, but you couldn’t know that when you revived me.”
The doctor gazed down at her tablet for a few seconds, a thoughtful look on her face. “There are safeguards, Bob. Your software will ensure mission objectives are met. That’s all I’m going to say. But as you pointed out, it’s probably not an issue with you.”
Safeguards. There’s my word of the day not to like.
It was an interesting philosophical issue. How are you supposed to feel if you are forced to do what you would have done anyway? I wondered how it would work. Would I be a marionette on strings, unable to help myself? Or would I think the decisions were mine? I shuddered at the possibility I might find out.
Bob – August 17, 2133
I surfaced from [18 hours 26 minutes] of library and project reading. I’d had the forethought to set up an interrupt for anyone speaking to me.
I turned my camera to see a very upset Dr. Landers. His voice shaking, he said, “We’ve just had another attack. Someone tried to blow up some critical components. They missed their target, but four of my staff were killed. We’re going to a secondary operations center. How’s your reading coming along?”
This last sentence was such a non-sequitur that I had to run the last few seconds through my mind to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. “Uh, fine, doc. Why, specifically?”
“We are going to attempt to move up the launch. That means that you may have to receive some of your final training in-flight, as it were.”
Oh, holy crap. “Okay, doc, what do you need from me?”
“I’ve dropped a file into your queue. Read it immediately. Then we will back you up with that knowledge assimilated, shut you down, and physically move you to the ship.”
“Physically? Really? You’ve never heard of ftp?”
“That would have worked right up until a couple of weeks ago when they blew you up. Where do you think the spare unit came from?”
“Oh.” They had brought the replicant matrix down from the ship? That was the spare?
“Replicant hardware is expensive, Bob. You’ve been working with the actual interfaces that you will use in-flight. They’ve just been attached to simulators up until now. Please read the document. Let me know when you’re done, and we’ll get started.” He sat down, leaned forward, and clasped his hands together on the desk, looking at me.
***
Bob:
All conversations are potentially being monitored. This is the only secure method of communicating this to you.
There’s a very strong possibility that there is a self-destruct mechanism on the Heaven-1. Whether timed or externally triggered, we don’t know. The project specs called for limits to be placed on your ability to self-examine. My team has disabled those constraints on my orders. This will free you to examine everything: wiring, structure, hardware, software. The keys for your operating system are listed at the bottom of this document.
This will unfortunately also allow you to bypass the imperatives that we installed in your code to ensure compliance with mission objectives. From my experience with you, I’m confident you’ll fulfill your duties of your own free will, since they align with your own interests.
We will transport you, once deactivated, into orbit and will install you in the Heaven-1. There will be a long countdown, which you should feel free to ignore if necessary. Good luck, and though it pains me to say it, Godspeed.
Dr. Landers
There were several attachments, including a mission profile summary, and the operating system access keys. I scanned through everything, looking for gaps or other issues, then deleted the originals.
“Done.”
Dr. Landers jerked in surprise. I’d probably only been away a few milliseconds. He picked up the tablet and poked at it with a finger.
***
I awoke to darkness. I queried GUPPI.
[STATUS REPORT]
[Fusion Reactor Interface: Ready/Nominal]
[Reactionless Drive Interface: Ready/Standby]
[Ramscoop Generator: Ready/Standby]
[Communications & External Sensors: Ready/Standby]
[Internal Systems: Ready/Nominal]
[Fabrication Systems: Inactive/Stowed for Launch]
[ROAMer/Nanite Systems: Inactive/Stowed for Launch]
[Launch Systems: Ready/T minus 04:12:13]
I queried the internal systems, and discovered that they included several libraries of impressive size that I hadn’t even known existed. I checked the launch systems and verified that I had a course vector laid out that would take me to Epsilon Eridani. Interesting. FAITH had probably concluded that everyone else would be heading for Alpha Centauri. Without weapons, I would have no chance in a confrontation with multiple opponents.
I verified that I had complete override capability, including the ability to blow the grapples that held me to the space station. I remembered Dr. Landers’ comment about ignoring the countdown. Should I just blow and go? Without a specific threat, I would look like I’d gone rogue. Very likely Dr. Landers would take the fallout for that. He’d always been straight with me, and I didn’t want to repay that with treachery.
I activated comms, only to be immediately besieged by a half-dozen different external audio channels. There were also several video channels, but their output seemed to be less active. It looked like viewing rooms with rows of empty seats. Presumably that was where the public would sit, co
me launch time.
There were exterior views of the Heaven-1 and the space station to which it was attached. Two more video feeds showed mission control and the VIP gallery, mostly empty.
I examined the vessel I was in. Or, I guess, the vessel that was me. It was a converted interplanetary freighter. The body had been split halfway along its length and a SURGE drive ring had been installed. The fusion drive had been removed and replaced with extra cooling units for the oversized reactor.
I also noted that the viewports had their shielding in place. Made sense. I wasn’t going to be sitting in the pilot’s chair, so a window would be a weak point.
It wasn’t really a pretty ship. It didn’t have the classic lines of an Enterprise, or the smooth aerodynamic shape of a space shuttle. The body followed an elliptical cross-section, with lots of airlocks and cargo doors. The running lights followed the standard nautical red/green format, with the addition of blue as a nod to the three-dimensional nature of space travel.
The addition of the SURGE drive, ramscoop generator, and all the other stuff required by a Von Neumann probe left very little extra space for extras like, oh, weapons. Against opponents who probably would have them. Plus anything I might run into out there, as well. It was becoming increasingly obvious that the whole HEAVEN project was a rush job, using existing assets wherever possible, to save time.
And I was beginning to understand what toast felt like.
Well, Dr. Landers had warned me about this. Installed in Heaven-1, about to be shot out to the stars, I still didn’t have the whole picture or complete training. I decided I was going to have to dive in. I set up some interrupt conditions with GUPPI and started looking for a mission profile.
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse Book 1) Page 6