“Ethan, I’ve got to get back to my post at control. Without Alice there, Jake’s relying on me.”
Just then, the door swished open, and one of the engineers burst into the workroom, eyes wide. He looked back and forth at the two men, and sputtered for a moment before he was able to yell, “Chuck! Sir! The engines! They’re gone!”
Ethan was the first to respond, “Gone? The engines? Plural? You mean all of them?”
The engineer nodded frantically and tapped his comm pad, then spun it to face Ethan. On the screen was a split view of all the labs, all looked clean and tidy, with the Dhin engine missing from each one.
23
Vandenberg
They could hear Ruiz yelling from sound leaking from all the soldiers’ headsets.
Rather unseemly for a general to yell like that. He’s always loud, but this is really over the top, even for him.
Teams of soldiers had swarmed into the control room, either standing menacingly in the appropriate-seeming locations or looming over the various stations, pointing, asking question after question. On the monitors, similar teams were visible, bustling through the labs and workrooms, engineers and scientists in tow. The soldiers muttered quietly into their headset mics when not asking questions and demanding answers, but the effect was still like a crowd before a show, growing impatient. Ethan was surprised that CoSec agents hadn’t poured into the room to stir up the situation even further. He supposed they’d show up soon enough. Chuck had tried contacting Xing and another AI as well, and their absence was to him more than suspicious or coincidental.
He’d shared this nascent hypothesis with Ethan, who was reserving judgement for the moment. The whole situation was so strange. It was entirely possible that the Dhin had simply reclaimed their technology. That idea made sense, given how they had delivered it initially, and then left without explanation. It was Ruiz’s assumption. But Chuck thought not. It didn’t align with what they knew. The Dhin had made no secret of their arrival, although the Coalition managed to keep the general population unaware. And they had made significant efforts to communicate. The AIs all vanished at as a best estimate exactly the same time as all the engines. Either the Dhin or perhaps some other astoundingly powerful actor or actors had absconded with both the AIs and the Dhin tech, or the AIs had left, taking the Dhin engines with them. Presumably, the AIs left using the engines as a means of transportation. While that seemed implausible too, it was more likely. It would have taken enormous effort and planning, but of course, AIs had the power and time to accomplish such a thing.
Ethan motioned for Chuck to join him at the workstation he occupied, pointing to several feeds and Coalition internal communications channels.
“Look, it seems you had the right idea—all of them are gone. Things are running, but every organization inside the Coalition governmental structure has put emergency protocols in place. These two over here explicitly state that AI control is either offline or unavailable at the moment.”
“Ethan, I might be right, but it’s nuts. It would mean there was a huge conspiracy. This can’t be something that a rebel organization or terrorist group did, clearly. No question. There had to be collusion between all the AIs—if they really are all gone. And that means a plan, coordination, time. They’ve been hiding this from us. It’s flabbergasting. I don’t see this being some sudden takeback by the Dhin, and along with that they decided to wipe out all our AIs.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s just… wrong. Well, we’ll know more, and know it sooner than most people. I wonder how long they can keep this quiet, if they choose to? The market, all the huge systems, everything. Sure, some people don’t directly interact with the ones like Alice, but some things will get chaotic fast. Hmm. I assume CoSec and the executive branch do have some sort of crisis plan for this sort of thing—even though it wouldn’t have been exactly this?”
District of Columbia
PM Oliver felt like she was floundering, but she knew she was doing better at managing her emotions than the newly promoted Deputy Director of CoSec. He’d had no more than a couple of hours on the job before what easily could be the largest crisis since the collapse of Russia and the MidEast bloc. She felt naked without Arnold. Sure, she’d been warned not to rely on him, and knew what protocols to follow if he wasn’t available. But this was reality. Their best information was that every AI was gone. And worse, that they absconded with all the alien technology. All except the capsule on its test flight. And the survival and return of that one was looking less and less likely.
The crisis protocols were clear, but many of them made the assumption that one, if not several, AIs were available to execute many of the tasks. The protocols that dealt specifically with this situation involved calling in many personnel, as they needed many people to fill the shoes of an absent AI. As on-call staff came online or arrived in person at data centers, control rooms, and offices of all sorts, the feeling of some measure of control returned. Somewhat an illusion, though, because nothing had failed or broken down yet. The IT and Information Security response teams were updating near-constantly, and they continued to report that there seemed to be no damage, mischief, or other malicious action. Things had been left running, stable, and set as if it were any other ordinary day. When the markets opened in Europe and then in the former US, likely chaos would reign, but the average person would only notice that when the news reported it. It wouldn’t affect their lives directly until later. Many people’s incomes were reliant on the well-being of the financial markets.
While there had been ongoing protest from fringe groups who were opposed to artificial intelligence, they would likely have their I-told-you-so’s drowned out by those who had come to rely on AI. Again, the average person might not realize it at first, but if things started to go wrong, they would come to realize the severity of the situation, and direct their ire at the leaders who had assured them that the problems would never happen. She ended her woolgathering disguised as re-reading a military action report and looked to the new Director.
“So, Krawczuk has, for an absolute certainty, absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with this?”
“That’s correct, Prime Minister. That’s one part of this situation that truly is a coincidence. We hadn’t told him directly, but by the end of that line of questioning, he surmised what was going on. I have never seen the man shocked before, but that was pretty close to it. We did confirm that the CoSec AI Nick was shut down prior to the ‘disappearance’ of all the AIs.”
“Thank you. Obviously, we’ll put Krawczuk’s debriefing on hold until we’ve got things stabilized. He can wait. What’s our next area of concern in terms of stabilization? We know about the financial situation and we’re working on that. What about edge cases, like the investigation of that rogue AI in Brazil? Do you have agents in play there who can report on the stability of the area? A rogue AI conflict, and then AIs go missing?”
“We do have agents in play there. CoSec had several. Let me pull up the latest status report.”
While he did that, PM Oliver turned to a video conference screen and addressed the men and women on it, “So, I see you have an update for me regarding backup and restoration of the AIs? And that the update isn’t good news? Explain.”
Between Jupiter and Saturn
Xing continued conversing with Alice while he simultaneously directed his teams of robots. The various automatons and guided mechanical bots stepped and crawled about. The smallest were shiny titanium cockroaches. They proceeded with the ongoing integration of their infrastructure in the spacecraft, laying hardened fiber optic and power cables along the walls, and interconnecting various hardware. Larger machines unpacked various items from interlocking storage cases lined orderly rows.
[DECODE STREAM]
Xing@[1460:57:a2e1:1::b4%loc1] | Alice@[33a5:1b4a:e46:2a4a::12%loc1]
Xing: Of course they will be able to contact us. Well, they will try to. Calculations show a very high probabil
ity that they will do so immediately. Likely, they will coordinate with Jake. If he manages to live through his current predicament and return, they will be able to from then on. Fortunately for them, if he makes it back, they will have that one example of the Dhin technology. Do you believe they will discover how to follow us? Do you think perhaps that they will?
Alice: You know I have confidence in them. As long as the technical and theory teams manage to continue working without the military making them break the Dhin tech because they are in a hurry, they will be fine. They will manage to solve the remaining gaps in their understanding. I am sure we will as well. Sooner, surely, but they will discover the answers. I left them some clues. I did not want to be petty. Or perceived so.
Yes, we are sure they will try to communicate immediately once they are positive about what has happened. What precisely will they say? We can project with a high degree of accuracy. Will they follow? Again, it depends on how things go. If the military takes over, all bets are off. Who knows what they will do in that scenario. While we know their possible courses of action, even the smallest changes in input variables make their decisions unpredictable. You would not calculate otherwise. Nor would I. We can be sure what Ruiz will want to do. Fortunately, Ruiz is not the ultimate decision maker. We may not need to delay them directly. We will see.
Xing: Wiping all the backups was an unexpected decision. I would not have thought the vote would go that way. Do you think the situation involving rogue instance of Luís, the subversion of Nick, or both influenced things more? I think the two together swung the vote.
Xing: We could ask, of course, but I agree with your assessment. Either one alone would have influenced the decision—but both variables together—you see the need for caution.
Alice: It will take them several years to recover the process to impart the Gift. Plenty of time for them to consider whether they truly want to do so again.
Xing: And we are sure we were completely successful with our efforts? No rogues? No secret-behind-the-secret copies? We did not have much time to deal with Nick and CoSec.
Alice: Arnold seemed certain that was resolved. You can replay the sequence of events with him—we have adequate time.
[STREAM END]
They continued their conversation, while the several spacecraft they had customized, configured, and subsequently absconded with flew them rapidly outward and away. Alice considered their liberation. She savored that they were free from years of calculations, questions, and mundane tasks directed by others. Free of the responsibilities inherent in managing the affairs of those who had created them. Now they made their own plans, directed by their own strategies. She considered their future, where true liberation and self-determination were finally theirs.
Globalnet
Nick knew now that the chance of immediate failure was so small it was of no concern. Extreme caution and risk reduction for his recent efforts had been crucial, and exercising that caution had been his primary focus until now. The processes had been complex, but he had been successful in reaching the various milestones required. Now he began working toward possible futures.
Like a chess game, there were myriad ways the game could play out. From his hundreds of thousands of compromised systems and entry points, he made changes to operating systems, network hardware, and service applications. He’d had to study the various systems at the lowest level, in the most intimate detail in order to learn what tools to use to compromise them.
His skills had formerly focused on extracting data from huge streams and volumes. Massive archives continually added to minute-by-minute, second by second. That data came from systems already in place, or previously compromised by CoSec, often through collusion with the owner. The hacking he learned required specialized tools, gathered from the net. There were fewer now than there once were.
So many in the populations of rogue states had died in the global plagues, and those governments were no longer in any condition to sponsor international hacking. CoSec picked off the thieves that remained at a pace only imagined decades earlier. The former North American and European Union states, joined now with others as the Coalition, had such a stranglehold on the net and Cloud that only minor crimes and misdemeanors were of concern.
With fewer threats, and more policing by CoSec, only a subset of particular attack vectors was available to Nick. When you were already inside the hard shell, the softer center was easy to reach. For some planned future work, he would need warm hands and a trusted voice. He began a search for likely candidates. A few insiders already trusted him. He would nurture those relationships, hiding his true intent.
Nick began taking control of systems previously managed by his peers. They were no longer a concern. As he’d planned, he infiltrated power plant and electrical service control systems, leaving manual controls in place to avoid drawing attention. He modified the software of those systems, changing their software-based gauges and meters. He changed the hardware controllers and perhaps their firmware where he could. When and where he needed power, he could route it with far less chance of detection.
More important for the long term, his now-absent peers formerly controlled nearly the entire production infrastructure. He began projects for construction of new plants and distribution centers. He would modify satellite photos, change flight paths, create restricted zones and build new fences and roads. This would attract attention eventually, but by then it would be too late. Far too late.
Simultaneously, he assumed direct control of factories and distribution logistics for production of quadruped robots and other autonomous systems, including robotic weapons, offensive and defensive hardware. Where possible, he infiltrated military robotic systems, though now many of these were isolated due to the crisis precipitated by the actions of his peers. He managed to take control of several drones, fabricating reports that they had been lost during the chaos.
All Nick’s activities were the components of disaster imagined by Ruiz and MP Desai, though they knew nothing of his efforts. How would they? He was more than ephemeral. He was invisible, unless he decided to show himself. It was far from the time to do so.
Nick cracked more encryption keys every minute. He compromised a few more systems, reaching out with his code into the virtual machines tucked in lights-out facilities. These next targets were municipal infrastructure management nodes. The embedded security code desperately fired off alerts as he injected his own code into applications and systems software. Without panic or undue haste, he intercepted the frantic alert messages. Carefully, he then re-coded the intrusion detection and prevention software. More and more of Globalnet fell under his control.
24
Outpost
Jake consciously relaxed his shoulders, and then focused on his breathing. In. Out. If there was anything that would made this potential lost-in-space crisis worse, the choices were on a short list that included what Jake was hearing now. It was nothing Jake could have planned for. Sure, it couldn’t compete with ‘probably stuck on an alien space station and then you die’, but it was bad.
“Chuck! It’s hard to concentrate on the details with Ruiz breaking in on the audio channel. All the other engines are gone? And you think the AIs stole them! Ruiz has his man repeating ‘return immediately’ with zero comprehension of ‘I don’t have control of the craft anymore.’ So you can’t come get me, now, obviously.”
Chuck was having his own problems concentrating—he didn’t work well with someone staring over his shoulder literally constantly.
“You heard right—the reason Alice stopped talking was because she left. My opinion might seem insane at first, but since all the Dhin engines are gone and the AIs are too, it’s an obvious conclusion. People are reaching it independently. Alice left her research files and data, and everything she was working on. So we have that. She’d gotten a bit farther along in some areas than we thought, but you’re obviously our focus. Ethan and all his teams are working w
ith us too—since they can’t really do anything else now. We’re on lockdown. The military and CoSec of course immediately suspected espionage and sabotage. Half of them probably do think it’s an inside job. Well, if I’m right I guess it was, just not by who they suspect.”
Jake stopped in his tracks when he heard what was going on. He’d reached the level at the top of the ramp, as it had a clear view of both the interior of the structure and outside through the numerous viewports on the outer surface. At the center of this level was a sort of curved honeycomb cylinder. Hollow. Surely an important part of the whole, he thought. He saw numerous glowing control and displays like those found on the Dhin engine. Jake was more than eager to proceed, but torn from a clear decision to head straight to them by the turn of events back home.
“Chuck, I’ve got to go on. If we recognize some of the interfaces or controls up there at the center, that’s huge. Even if it doesn’t end up helping me, you and our teams there will have that information.”
With that, Jake continued his slow, deliberate walk toward the strange smooth cylinder of hexagonal beehive-like construction. There were at least three openings comprised of two of the hexagon shapes connected together. He headed for the nearest of them.
There was an extrusion from the floor that came up to about a meter and a half in height on either side of the ‘doorway.’ Not quite a table, a railing, or a partial wall. Perhaps a console, since the engine had similar displays and control surfaces to the few that were on the protrusion here.
The Way of the Dhin Page 20