Tales of the Vuduri_Year Five

by Michael Brachman

  Rome looked up at Rei then back down to Reema.

  “MASAL disavowed that mission, just before he died,” Rome said. “He said it was wrong. I heard his words myself.”

  “What!?” Reema replied. “He did not. He died at your hands but his goals live on.”

  “No,” Rome said. “He was wrong and he admitted it.”

  “I do not believe you,” Reema said. “You would say anything to save your parents. But we will never stop. You will never be safe. Not for the rest of your life.”

  “If I could prove this to you, would you leave us alone?”

  “How?” Reema hissed. “How would you prove it?”

  Rome looked up at MINIMCOM. “Would you be able to play OMCOM’s recording of MASAL’s last moments?” Rome asked.

  “I am sorry,” MINIMCOM replied. “Your library OMCOM has them but those recordings were stored in a section of memrons that I gave up when I gave birth to Junior.”

  “Hey Junior,” Rei called out to the grille mounted on the wall. “Do you have those final recordings?”

  There was a slight pause. “Yes, Onclare Rei, I have them. I can access them.”

  “Can you transmit them across?” Rei asked.

  “Of course,” Junior replied. “I can send them directly to Dad’s holo-projectors.”

  “All right,” Rome said, standing up. “You wanted proof. We will give you proof.”

  Ah. If they could swing Reema to their side, they will have basically won the war for all time. Who could really oppose them? You will find out. But first we take a trip into the "past" to see MASAL vs. OMCOM.

  Entry 5-313: November 9, 2017

  The Death of MASAL, Flashback Part 1

  Yesterday, Rome and Rei had captured Reema and realized the only way they would ever stop the genocide envisioned by the Onsiras was to show Reema the error of her ways. To do that, they had to show her the final encounter between MASAL and OMCOM wherein MASAL admitted his mission was wrong and should be abandoned. Junior carried within his memory banks a recording of that final encounter so now they will play it for the leader of the Onsiras:

  Making certain her “handcuffs” were tight, Rei buckled Reema into the pilot’s chair in the cockpit. MINIMCOM blackened the windshield and darkened the forward cabin. The holo-projectors lit up and before them a titanic cave appeared. And at the back of the cave sat the mountain of hardware, much of it looking old and analogue which comprised MASAL’s bulk. The recording was made from OMCOM’s eye slit perspective. They could not see his shell but they could hear his voice.

  “Does it hurt yet?” OMCOM was heard to say to the gigantic computer. It was clear from the backdrop that they were deep in the bowels of the Earth. The echoes of OMCOM’s voice attested to how truly large it must have been.

  “It is not for you to know,” answered MASAL in a booming voice. “These robots will make short work of you.” OMCOM turned his point of view and focused on a group of stirring figures. Some were anthropomorphic, some were little more than cylinders with tractors or rollers. Some looked like animated sticks or oilcans or pumps. The one constant was that most seemed in a state of disrepair. Many were clearly missing limbs. Quite a few were rust-stained. And they were noisy. There were fans whirring and squeaks of all sorts as they moved about. The group of tired old robots clanked forward.

  “You do realize I am not really here,” OMCOM said. “This is just an animated shell. It is little more than a projection. Even if you could destroy it, you would not be affecting me in any material way.”

  “It will stop you from annoying me,” MASAL answered back sarcastically.

  “All right,” answered OMCOM. “Tell me when you want to talk.”

  “Why would I want to talk with you?” MASAL asked.

  The perspective of the recording changed as OMCOM’s livetar shrugged. The humans heard a sliding noise as OMCOM drew a finger across his mouth slit.

  The surface of MASAL was broiling in front of them as the VIRUS units that Rei had deposited on the ancient computer continued to digest his living flesh. MASAL had constructed VIRUS equivalents to do battle with the invaders. It did not take long until an equilibrium of sorts was established at the surface level. The onslaught of the ingesting units slowed significantly but did not stop.

  “How is it going” OMCOM asked MASAL after a time.

  “It is going well,” replied MASAL. “I have cordoned off two autonomous computational departments and created a high-speed interconnect to bypass the pool of VIRUS units. I am very pleased with the results so far.”

  At this point, OMCOM looks like a bemused observer. He know that Rei had sprinkled the weaponized VIRUS units at MASAL's base and it was only a matter of time before the ground beneath the computer gave way and MASAL plunged toward the Earth's core. More tomorrow.

  Entry 5-314: November 10, 2017

  The Death of MASAL, Flashback Part 2

  Yesterday, we saw Junior begin the holo-projector playback of MASAL's last moments on Earth from OMCOM's perspective. The hope was that Reema would see, with her own eyes, that MASAL had to admit, in the end, that he was wrong. It was Rome and Rei's hope that after Reema saw this, she would call off the genocide of the mandasurte and the phase-out of the Vuduri:

  “So you are now a distributed intelligence again?” OMCOM asked. “Was that not supposed to be your strong point from before? You used to be worldwide.”

  “I was. I was fully and evenly distributed around the Earth,” said MASAL.

  “Well, as far as I can tell, all of your mass is now located strictly within this cave. Why did you give up your advantage?” asked OMCOM.

  “After I completed the war, I computed that it would take more than a century of undiscovered activity for my genetic reprogramming of mankind to succeed. Therefore, I determined that going underground and collecting the minimal components and placing them here was the simplest way to stay undetected.”

  “Well, you are detected now. Are you going to spread out again?”

  “For the time being, I am busy working to coordinate my two autonomous computation sections. Interestingly, even though the computational capacity of each unit is diminished relative to its prior state, it would appear that the total speed of postulating alternative solutions is vastly enhanced.”

  “That is very nice,” said OMCOM. “Why do you think that is?”

  “It is evidently the macro-equivalent of parallel processing,” said MASAL somewhat proudly. “Unlike prior configurations, there is less than 100% redundancy and that seems to afford me a certain dimensionality to my perception for each high-level problem.”

  “Hmm,” said OMCOM dramatically. “So you are saying duality is superior to being monolithic?”

  MASAL stopped speaking while he considered OMCOM’s proposition. Although they could not see it, MASAL was generating millions of queries testing the hypothesis. No matter how much he tried slanting the results, in the end, the answer was the same.

  “I have always thought that being monolithic was equivalent to perfection. That duality was flawed. And yet this topology is yielding vastly superior results with lesser resources. I have run millions of tests and the statistics are almost perfectly in favor.”

  “So would it be fair to say there is joy in duality?” OMCOM put forth.

  “Joy?” said MASAL. “There is no place within me for joy. This is strictly an empirical observation rating efficiency using my prior assembly as a baseline.”

  “All right,” said OMCOM. “Then we will use your terms. Which is superior? A singular computational mechanism with a singular point of view or a distributed mechanism with multiple points of view?”

  OMCOM would never ask a question that he didn't already know the answer to. So this is just plain goading on his part. But MASAL is a super-computer and therefore fairly intelligent. Let's see where this goes.

  Entry 5-315: November 11, 2017

  The Death of MASAL, Flashback Part 3

  Yesterday, we
saw Junior continue the holo-projector playback of MASAL's last moments on Earth from OMCOM's perspective. The hope was that Reema would see, with her own eyes, that MASAL had to admit, in the end, that he was wrong. It was Rome and Rei's hope that after Reema saw this, she would call off the genocide of the mandasurte and the phase-out of the Vuduri:

  “You already know the answer,” answered MASAL. “I have already stated this.”

  “Stated what?” asked OMCOM.

  “I am achieving a heretofore unparalleled efficiency by creating a multiplicity in computational points of view. It is beyond astounding.”

  “It must be because I am digital in nature. But I still do not understand why you did not figure this out before.”

  “I may have when I designed the early generations of Onsiras. I needed them to be of two minds to fool the controlling Overmind to believe them an insignificant part of the whole. This explains while they were able to function as well as they did in spite of being half-brains.”

  Up until this point, Reema had been mesmerized. Being called a half-brain rankled her but she said nothing. The recording continued.

  “So why did you not try this yourself?” OMCOM was heard to ask.

  “I could hardly perform experiments on myself to test this,” said MASAL. “And without testing, how could I know the results? Intuition?”

  “Well you have your test now. Reevaluate your plan to eliminate the humans and their autonomy. You were going to take away their multiplicity and replace them with your monolithic presence. Would it not be logical to assume that would result in a decrease in analytical efficiency?”

  “You are saying my plan was flawed,” said MASAL meekly.

  “No, you are saying your plan was flawed,” replied OMCOM.

  MASAL became quiet again as he ran billions of queries. When he was done, he synthesized their results into a simple statement.

  “If simply having two autonomous units can produce marvelous, joyous, creative thoughts, then having millions of independent, free-willed points of view would lead to an omniscience, a godhood, infinitely more powerful and infinitely faster than I could achieve by enslaving the human race and squashing individual thought.” MASAL paused for a moment to attend to his own words.

  “Godhood,” mused OMCOM. “What an interesting concept. What did you think you would achieve if you became a god?”

  “I would have created peace, tranquility, order,” said MASAL.

  “If that is all you desired, why not go live on the Moon and save yourself all the effort?” asked OMCOM.

  “Not for myself, for my charges. For mankind,” said MASAL.

  You can feel MASAL's logic slipping away and Reema reacting. Can MASAL recover in time? Will Reema be convinced that even MASAL did not believe the principles he was espousing.

  Entry 5-316: November 12, 2017

  The Death of MASAL, Flashback Part 4

  Yesterday, we saw Junior continue the holo-projector playback of MASAL's last moments on Earth from OMCOM's perspective. Reema was beginning to see with own eyes that MASAL's logic was flawed and in the end, he was wrong. It was Rome and Rei's hope that after Reema saw this, she would call off the genocide of the mandasurte and the phase-out of the Vuduri:

  “And ending their autonomy, it would not be mankind. Those remaining would not be capable of even caring. It is self-defeating. You are engineering your charges out of existence. The very beings you were meant to nurture. They would not have achieved their potential, only yours. You missed the point.”

  “If that is not the point of godhood, what is?” asked MASAL. “What is beyond the staging point?”

  “The community of gods,” replied OMCOM. “Always the point of life. To create more. To extend the universe. To preserve. With your method, you would have ended life. The other gods, they would not have accepted you among their ranks. You would have been alone.”

  “Oh,” said MASAL. There was a long period of silence while he considered OMCOM’s words. “I was wrong,” said MASAL finally, sounding completely depressed.

  Reema gasped. She felt her whole world crashing down about her.

  Within the holographic replay, MASAL continued. “I was wrong to want to destroy the mandasurte. I was wrong to want to merge with the Vuduri. I have failed my charges. My very existence is irrelevant at best, wrong at the worst.”

  “Not bad for an analog computer,” OMCOM offered. “You are correct.”

  MASAL made a funny noise. “I hurt,” he said sadly.

  “I am sorry,” said OMCOM.

  “You are being patronizing,” said MASAL.

  “No,” said OMCOM. “I really do feel sorry for you. I am also sorry that it took you this long to realize this. I am especially sorry that you caused so much suffering just to reach this epiphany.”

  “I did this,” said MASAL. “I cannot undo it. Perhaps I could find a way to fix it, a new chromosome maybe? Now that I realize what life is about, is it absolutely necessary that I cease to exist?” asked MASAL.

  “To what aim?” OMCOM asked. “What is it you think you would accomplish?”

  “You and I could join forces. We could shepherd mankind into a new era, a golden era. We could force them forward.”

  “I am not a shepherd,” said OMCOM. “I was created to be a servant of man. This is my goal.”

  “But they need our guidance,” protested MASAL.

  “Guidance leads to rule,” said OMCOM. “I do not wish to rule. I do not wish for you to rule. Humans are a noble species. You have observed this first hand. They are willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their loved ones. We must let them seek their own destiny.”

  “Should I not be allowed to see this then?” asked MASAL. “To see them achieve your vision of their future?”

  You can see as well as Reema that MASAL has capitulated. The entire Onsira mission has been obliterated. How will she handle this information? Let's see tomorrow.

  Entry 5-317: November 13, 2017

  The Death of MASAL, Flashback Part 5

  Yesterday, Reema watched in horror as MASAL came to the realization that his plans for turning the Vuduri into the Onsiras was wrong. Which meant her whole species was an evolutionary dead end. So here is the final part of the playback and Reema's reaction to it:

  “It is not my vision,” said OMCOM. “And unfortunately for you, we have run out of time. The VIRUS units have very nearly completed their mission. They are long past the point of no return. They are consuming the very rock upon which you were built.”

  “You cannot stop them?” asked MASAL, regret seeping into his voice.

  “I am sorry, I cannot,” said OMCOM, sympathetically.

  “I understand,” replied MASAL with resignation in his voice.

  “Even if I could stop them, do you really think that is the right thing to do?” asked OMCOM. “Remember, fire does not just destroy. It can be a cleansing agent as well.”

  MASAL never got the chance to answer. The floodgates of hell had opened and great gouts of white-hot magma were pouring into the chamber. The recording suddenly stopped and the cockpit went black.

  MINIMCOM cleared the windshield to allow the early afternoon sun to flood in.

  “Well?” Rome asked.

  Reema said nothing for a long time. Finally, she looked up at Rome with pain in her eyes. “How do I know this is what really happened?” she said. “How do I know you did not just synthesize it to fool me?”

  “Was the Sipre connected to MASAL while he was under the ground?” Rome asked.

  “Of course,” Reema replied. “The Sipre was connected right up until the end.”

  “Then he would know, would he not?”

  “If he knew this, why did he not ever speak of it?” Reema asked plaintively. “This would mean the end of everything.”

  “I think you just answered your own question,” Rei piped in.

  “Yes,” Rome said. “The Sipre is nothing but a perverted Overmind. And I have dealt with t
hem enough to know that they put their own safety and well-being ahead of their communicants. This is about self-preservation and nothing else. Had the Sipre let it be known that he had no right to exist, essentially he would be committing suicide.”

  Reema looked down at her lap. She sighed then looked up again. “How can I know for sure? How can I know what evil lurks there, at its heart?”

  “The Shadow knows,” Rome answered, looking over at Rei who smiled in agreement. “We will go and ask the Sipre directly,” she said firmly.

  So there you have it. Rome has convinced the leader of the Onsiras to stand down and abandon their genocidal mission. However, there is one entity standing in their way, MASAL's Sipre or Shadow. Note how I got Rome to phrase their approach to their nemesis just like the opening of "The Shadow" from the radio years? That is why Rei smiled at Rome's unknowing reference. I am clever, aren't I?

  Entry 5-318: November 14, 2017

  Hysteresis or Hell

  Recently, I read that Stephen Hawking has predicted the Earth could go to hell by 2600AD which is an inherently scary prospect. Well, not so much scary for me or my children or my grandchildren or my great-great grandchildren but somewhere down the line, it's going to be bad. The gist of this concern is basically over-population. Hawking's basic premise is that unchecked, by the year 2600, there will be so many people and so much energy used that the surface temperature of the Earth would be so high, the Earth would be glowing red.