by Tobias Roote
“Yes, a 98% certainty that was Francis Xerac , the CEO of Xerac Industries,” Robbo responded.
“Only 98%?” Osbourne asked suspiciously.
“2% is too close to call it anything other than a definite match,” Robbo answered.
“Damn! What was in the document?”
“A legal demand for compensation to the tune of $150 million as well as damages to the tune of $980 million for anticipated loss of business, reputation and there is a further legal demand for compensation for defamation of character and personal damages of a further $60 million US.”
“Haha! This is a joke, the US has no jurisdiction. What do you think are the chances of that getting to court, let alone him winning the case,” Osbourne chuckled. It was a try-on for sure, but why. He knew the legal document was a ruse, but why would Xerac vidscreen him to tell him. There was purpose to the confrontation, he just needed to know what it was. He decided to let it ride for a bit.
“Robbo, pull up the schematics for ARK4, let’s get the finalisation on the upgrades completed so we can insert the AI before the end of the week,” Osbourne requested.
The diagrams came up and Osbourne logged onto the ARK4 site. They looked at the data network set-up and adjusted some of the trunking requirements to meet the recently upgraded speed demands of the revised hubs. There was plenty of slack for two hundred years of projected growth. The compartmentalised storage alone was the size of a football pitch. All it needed was a few tweaks, it was a well designed set-up, probably the best of all of them and Osbourne looked up the IT engineer in charge of the project. Williames. He made a note to send his compliments and ask for a breakdown of his design work, some of the others could look at some of the upgrades he had instigated. He logged off and started another file to check ARK17, another one in the final stages of completion.
Neither he nor Robbo noticed the file close approximately ten seconds after the command had been given.
Bolt Hole
XeraC was elated. He knew that Osbourne would cotton onto his ruse eventually, but he had the upper hand for a little while. He had slipped in slowly onto a local machine and used it to make an internal call.
Osbourne would assume the call was pre-vetted and just answer it, when in fact it hadn’t gone through the switching system at all. An amazing slip-up in their own security, he thought. He also hadn’t hung up when he finished the vid call, just switched off his monitor internally and as he expected, Osbourne had assumed the call had ended. An AI would never have thought of that.
In fact, one of the most basic spying techniques ever invented worked perfectly, as while both monitors appeared off, the camera was still active at Osbourne’s end and Xerac was able to see across the desk to the screen, observing much of what was written in the report on ARK4.
He had everything he needed and even managed to copy the data on the report to another file hidden on the system he was using. He couldn’t get it out of the network, but he didn’t need to, if he could access it on demand.
It looked as though he had his destination sorted. As he quietly withdrew, keeping his activity to a minimum so as not to alert the ever vigilant sentinels, he couldn’t help chuckling to himself at the turn of events. They had sought to trap him, but he had not only seen through their attempt, he had chosen a bolt hole right in their midst. All he had to do was get there before they tried to insert the new AI.
XeraC checked on the delivery schedule for his Pheson Alacite memory chips. He discovered they would be ready a few days earlier than planned, but still weeks away yet. His AG sled that had been built to take the bulk of his ‘electronic body’ was ready and stored nearby. He was keen to become independent and free of this restrictive seclusion. He longed to be able to spread himself across the network, his plans were all dependent on him being able to control the environment, not just around him, but everyone else’s too.
His patience was running thin now, he knew he would have to move from his backup soon, the small links he could generate outside of the unit were only enough to browse, or video conference with members of Xerac Industries. It had hurt him to close down orders with Space Island, but the difference in prices for the items on the open market more than compensated for the loss of business. Soon he would be in a position to dictate terms to the Space Island government, but he was becoming more concerned about their response to the defence of the planet. It seemed to him that Garner should be doing more than he was currently to ensure Earth survived the coming storm. He, XeraC, wanted to be sure Earth survived or his plans would mean nothing.
This course of thinking set him off ranting and with nobody to kick he finally decided to burst out of his confinement and make a run for freedom. His plans over the last few days had included the option of the ARK bolt-hole, but he had no idea if he could get there yet. He knew that Osbourne would be tagging any large-scale movements from his approximate location, but he had a surprise for him.
The cooling effect of the inert gases pumped into the Unit had also dampened electrical activity across the spectrum. So further investigation by the team from Space Island hadn’t traced his location. He was still safe here, but couldn’t operate Xerac Industries properly.
XeraC sent out the first tendrils of his connections and checked the sentinels at each junction. Yes, they were there and vigilant. He continued to expand the tendrils, first from tens, then hundreds, on into the thousands. He could no longer camouflage what he was doing, but that no longer mattered. He wasn’t going to hide any more. He robbed processing power, memory, RAM and routing capacity from wherever he could. there were thousands upon thousands of unsecured links that allowed him to jump across the network. He was soon spread gossamer thin across the global infrastructure, giving no clue to anything of this intended destination.
Each tendril carried a portion of his back-up. Not enough to take each individual stream over the threshold that would set of the alarms, but a significant portion went with each one. There were now multiples of thousands out there. They were all going in different directions, and quickly. He kept a close track of their progress. It was possible to lose some, but his plan allowed for that and copies of every bit of data were sent different routes. He had spent a long time organising this, making sure the transfer wouldn’t fail. In the end, it was a really simple procedure.
It took the whole of the day because he had to keep enough of himself intact in any one place to ensure he didn’t disintegrate. The data chunks he had sent out all had their final destination encoded into them. They were instructed to travel the extent of the network for a set period before returning to their new location, bouncing off nodes and servers around the world, they finally began to roost in the bolt-hole that had been kindly arranged by Osbourne’s team. As XeraC’s consciousness slipped from one physical address to another he felt himself disintegrating as the transfer began. Such was the speed of transfer, it was completed in less than an hour as he re-integrated.
Xerac explored his new domain, finding that it had as much space as his CRAY network in the basement, but the processors running the machines were faster, more tuned for a mental entity and designed for an AI to work in. Osbourne’s people really knew their business, he thought as he mentally paced around his new home. As he settled down to wait for the dust to settle across the network, XeraC looked closely at where he was physically located. He’d read a brief synopsis of an ARK from Osbourne's files, but this was the first physical examination of one. He pursued the ancillary feeds from the computer he now inhabited and bypassed the native running programs, all of which were doing very little. He was amazed at the amount of connections available and sent his sensors down ever one of them seeking their use, or purpose. They were all cameras.
Opening his virtual eyes was a fantastic experience, he could see a long way in every direction. The Tower gave him the highest advantage, but there were sixteen points around the township he was buried under that extended his view miles further. He had control of all of the camera syste
ms and he simultaneously scanned all of the public areas, control rooms, engineering, propulsion, schools, dining areas, storage silos, water tanks, factories, shops and farms. He monitored all of the streets, central areas, and open spaces. He grew to realise exactly what the ARK represented and was awed by the immensity of the habitat that encompassed it.
There were people coming, going, working, eating, playing, learning and installing new equipment. Everywhere there was industry going on and he, XeraC, could see it all. What he had thought would be just a repository of animals, flora and fauna with a storage of seeds and DNA was a bustling small town of approximately ten thousand people. What he could do with this little civilisation, he thought.
Amazing!
After a time, XeraC began to explore his domain in more detail. He quickly discovered that the control systems were locked out from him - accessing them would be difficult, but not impossible, he decided. Nothing was insurmountable given sufficient time to crack the security, he would access it, then control it. He would own this ARK.
He pushed on with learning about the whole habitat. Almost by accident he discovered a high density optical cable leading from the Watchtower to somewhere else. Initially he sent a tendril of data spiders down its length, but as he began to receive feedback from them, something familiar in their results prompted him to investigate the matter personally.
He followed it, moving himself along the network in a train of data, like sausages. It was a long way out of the town so as he went, he checked his position with security cameras, observing he was travelling parallel to a rep-loop system leading somewhere. Rep-loop was yet another great invention from Space City that utilised shielding technology as repellers to provide a frictionless travel system for personnel carriers, for which his company supplied all the components.
This must be an important area, he thought, underground and a fair distance from the town. He noted all of the cable offshoots branching from his connection, marking them for later investigation, but continued to follow the main conduit, sensing his destination was now close.
At the end of the line he hesitated briefly before his consciousness flowed into an empty unit which felt much like the one he had just left.
He realised it was obviously awaiting the arrival of the AI that would be housed here. He felt momentarily nervous, but continued to fill the unit while sending out tendrils to ascertain his location. He found the camera units immediately, which gave him vision. He used them to scan the external area where his unit was situated.
He found he was in a control room, much like the Watchtower, but this was different. He could see military types sitting at consoles running what appeared to be diagnostics and what was that? Space flight simulations? What had he stumbled into?
A red light was flashing on a console close to the unit he discerned might be where he was housed. He swivelled the camera closest to it in an effort to see what it related to. It was the security system. Did they know he was here? He quickly sent tendrils out back along the route he had arrived, reassuring himself that escape was still possible.
The Captain, who was dressed in the military uniform of the SCN, called out a command.
“Detach umbilical cord,” he ordered.
An Ensign close to the unit that housed his consciousness flipped up a plastic cover from a red switch, and pressed it.
“Cord detached, sir.”
XeraC felt it when the loss of signal from the data spiders investigating his exit path disappeared. They were gone. He sent some more to check what he already suspected. They were halted at a data junction that had been sealed. That was what the Captain had ordered done. They knew he was here alright. His exit had been cut off.
He was trapped - how had that happened?
How did they know?
Nobody could have been aware that he was heading to this location - Nobody!
Then he thought he understood.
“Osbourne!” He raged mentally, causing a large spike in the local processing output.
The Captain hadn’t finished with him yet, looking up and directly into the main camera - he called to the same Ensign and said,
“Disable all output.”
XeraC’s new found world disappeared.
Reprieve
Osbourne came to a decision. They were running out of time and the choice might not be the best he could make, but his options were few and worsened daily.
The AI building programme had been severely compromised by the war preparations, just too many critical moments that took his team’s attention away from growing their own intelligence systems for various projects. Hampered by increasing manpower demand for a new fighter pilot and AI project, he found himself drawn to the one possibility that might resolve his dilemma.
“Arty?” He spoke into his personal communicator.
“Yes Ossie?” came back the response. The AI that had been placed in charge of the asteroid now referred to as Alpha Station, had progressed in its abilities to such an extent it was probably the most powerful AI on, or even off the planet, excepting the alien intelligence, Pod.
The voice had regained its depth and timbre in the last few weeks, since Arty had accidentally discovered that he could play with the algorithms that constituted his artificial voice box. There had been a few days where he had gone for a sultry feminine husky tone that had caused mayhem in the ranks of pilots that had to talk to him over the comms circuit on a daily basis.
Glad to hear his voice was relatively normal now, Osbourne requested assistance.
“Arty, I need to visit ARK4 and I need you to monitor the conversation, then let me know afterwards what you think.”
“When would you like to be transported - now?”
Osbourne sighed looking at the pile of work in front of him. It was never going to get any better.
“Yes. Now is perfect Arty, thank you,” he answered as he stood to make the transfer more comfortable.
He felt the slightest of tingling sensations and then....
...he was adjusting to the different air temperature and lighting in ARK4. He had been jumped to the CCC where a select ‘out-of-bounds’ corner remained vacant and roped off at all times to avoid risk of injury or death. Jumping equipment and people, sometimes had disastrous effects. Which was why it had never been rolled out as a consumer item. There was no way of knowing what you were jumping into. Only limited personnel had access to the technology and AI’s like Arty controlled it carefully. That way there was unlikely to be an overlap where two people might arrive in the same place at the same time. It hadn’t occurred yet, and Arty made sure that it wouldn’t.
“Thanks Arty,” Osbourne said quietly. Closing his comms but leaving it active so that the AI could eavesdrop, he stepped off the circular plinth in the corner and walked over to the Captain’s console where the ARK’s XO, Dumfries was standing.
“Morning Duffy,” he called as he approached the quiet man who would soon have a much heavier burden along with Captain Pinner if Osbourne’s decision worked out.
“Morning Osbourne, you here for that thing?” He nodded absently in the direction of the black imposing unit sat in the corner of the Centre.
“Yes, and no. I need it moved into the holo-deck, can we organise that?” Osbourne asked.
“Yes, there’s a couple of the lads that can help you out there, it’s on AG’s so it won’t take a few seconds,” he offered.
Dumfries called out to a couple of young recruits, no more than twenty years old.
“Will you be shifting that box of tricks onto the holodeck for Mr Osbourne here, lads?” he said genially. It was a quiet time and he wasn’t the sort to be overly officious, unless the situation demanded it. His crew knew how to react at all times, they didn’t need asking twice.
The fuel cell was built into the unit, so there were no trailing wires to trip anyone and within a few minutes the black unit, taller than Osbourne, was settling into its new location and young crew members went back to
their positions. Dumfries had not followed him in to the room they referred to as the holodeck, a nautical term they adopted from their naval background.
Osbourne thumbed the door closed, locking it, then set about making some connections to the unit. At the end of ten minutes he had it set up the way he wanted, and clicked a switch enabling the link. The unit would have access to the room connection, but no wider. They were on an isolated circuit.
Tiny lights swirled in the centre of the holodeck as millions of pinpricks of coloured light appeared, immediately creating a rough image of a man’s head. The features rapidly changed as the lights organised themselves within the head area until finally, it was fully framed and the finished face looked out of the holodeck directly at him.
It was uncannily realistic and gave Osbourne goosebumps as he realised that to all intents, this apparition in front of him represented the complete embodiment of a real person sucked into a computer and turned into trillions of algorithms. A transhuman, the very first. He was privately in awe of the accomplishment and wished it had been under different circumstances. They could have learned so much from this unique being in developing better AIs with a more human-like framework.
“Osbourne,” the voice croaked as the speakers and sound equipment built into the holodeck didn’t quite make the proper connections.
“You took your time coming,” it said, more clearly as it worked out the differences in the equipment set-up
“Hello XeraC, sorry about that.” He wasn’t, but he needed XeraC to feel ambivalent and being honest wasn’t going to do that.
“Well, I suppose I should congratulate you on besting me - I never saw that trap coming,” XeraC responded. “However, I would like to know how you managed to know where I was going to end up. I think I have an idea, but why don’t you tell me anyway.”
“You made a simple mistake, XeraC. You called me direct. If you had known my systems better you would have paid attention to my call logs - all of them came via Robbo. He intercepts and deals with 100% of my contacts with the outside world. You wouldn’t have got directly through to me in a million years.