Unstable Prototypes

by Lallo, Joseph

  "Lex? Who you talking to?" asked a man sticking his head out of a nearby hatch.

  "Nobody. How's it going, Blake?" he replied.

  "Just fine. Thanks for helping overhaul that bigwig's racer last week."

  "Overhaul? I messed with the timing."

  "Whatever it was, he said it knocked 0.5 off his lap times."

  Blake, who had known Lex back when he was an up-and-coming racer who had been tagged with the unfortunate nickname "T-Lex" by the press, ran the stardock. Aside from giving people a place to keep their ships when not in use, he also performed standard maintenance and tuning. The man was a wizard with his tools, and could get even a third-hand, used and abused engine running again, but he never could get the knack of some of the finer tweaks that racers used to give themselves an edge. Thus, when someone brought him a ship that needed some tender loving care, he would call Lex. In exchange, he put Lex on the crew list and let him keep his ship in one of the spare docks, when there were docks to spare. It was an arrangement that worked out pretty well for both men.

  "You never struck me as the 'accessory pet' sort, Lex," Blake said, eying Ma. "Or is this Mitch's?"

  "Nah, but she was all over it, so I'm sure she'll want one."

  "Women."

  Ma narrowed her eyes.

  "Uh, so anyway, I'll just be in and out. Need to tell Son of Betsy to drop herself off somewhere."

  "You've got a fully autonomous autopilot?"

  "Apparently."

  "Huh. Well, go ahead. I'll let you know if I need you for anything."

  "Sure thing," Lex said, making his way into the hatch and nudging his way along the walls to the dock that held his ship.

  "What did your friend mean by his statement, 'women?'" Ma remarked sternly.

  "What? I don't know. It is just something people say when they don't understand women."

  "His tone indicated he was utilizing the term as an indication of fault."

  "Yes. I cannot imagine why he would want to indicate that women could be difficult to deal with sometimes."

  "Are you indicating that I am difficult to deal with?"

  "Maybe."

  "... Thank you, Lex."

  "For what?"

  "For the implicit indication that you think of me as a woman rather than a machine."

  "Oh. You're welcome. OW!" he yelped, after receiving a nip to the hand.

  "And that is for speaking disparagingly of my gender."

  "I'm sorry. Jeez."

  "I trust that it was not disproportionately painful. Owing to a prior lack of the appropriate anatomy, that is the first time that I have bitten someone, and I am not confident that I have achieved proficiency in the nuances of the act."

  "Don't worry about it," he said, drifting up to the view window overlooking his ship and pulling out his slidepad. "There's the SOB. I'll open up a secure connection, and you do what you need to do."

  Lex rubbed his hand as the red light on Ma's neck flashed furiously. It had been eight months or so since he'd met her, and whereas he and Karter had been in contact strictly for business reasons, Ma kept up a correspondence with him for seemingly no reason beyond keeping in touch. While his first impression hadn't been a good one (he'd indicated she wasn't a good computer and that he would rather deal with a real person), she'd quickly warmed to him when he apologized and began treating her as an equal, something that no one else had ever done. While this may seem strange behavior for a computer, it helped to realize that Ma wasn't your standard AI. She did not have the traditional Three Laws of Robotics governing her actions. Instead, she had been programed to act in what she determined to be the best interests of Karter specifically and humanity in general, and to strive to improve both her understanding of morality and the quality of her interaction; a so called Altruistic AI. Somehow, despite having one of the most self-centered and unstable people Lex had ever met as her primary point of reference, she had developed into a reasonably well adjusted personality. Somewhere along the way she had also decided that she had the reasonable expectation of proper treatment, and tended to be petty and bitter toward those who she felt were disrespectful. Considering her lack of the Thou Shalt Not Kill and Thou Shalt Obey aspects of the Asimov Laws, it was probably best to stay on her good side.

  "Command upload complete. The SOB will arrive at the rendezvous point in approximately sixteen hours. Our flight will be leaving in twenty-one minutes and will arrive there in twenty-three hours," Ma explained as the ship's engines began to flare and the de-docking procedures kicked in. "You are to be commended. The ship's systems are in an excellent state of repair, and it remains cosmetically flawless."

  Lex watched anxiously as the ship left the dock and maneuvered into a transit lane. "Yeah. The SOB is the nicest ship I've ever had. I'd like to have it for a long time. Are you sure it will make it okay?"

  "It is programed for maximum safety. It will take fewer risks than you yourself would," she explained.

  "That's not saying much. Let's get going, what flight are we on?"

  Chapter 4

  A shuttle ride to the appropriate platform and a short wait later, Lex and Ma were boarding an interstellar passenger ship. It was something that Lex hadn't had to do for years, ever since he'd gotten his own ship, and he did not miss any part of the process. The lines, the terrible music in the waiting areas, and as he was currently being reminded, the security checks. They had already scanned his bag, his body, and Ma. They then had asked him to confirm that he wasn't carrying any forbidden substances and devices, presumably just to waste a little more of his time since they had already done the scans. His slidepad was checked for the proper identification and documentation, his reservation was checked and verified, and, after a short argument, his bag was accepted as carry-on rather than being checked. The only thing that made the entire process tolerable was the fact that the middle aged balding man administering the gauntlet was clearly enjoying it even less than Lex.

  "Do you have an exotic animal transport authorization for that creature?" the man asked.

  "Uh, let me see..." Lex said, taking his slidepad out for approximately the eighth time.

  "Check your inbox," Ma informed him.

  An instant later the appropriate message arrived.

  "There we go."

  The man eyed it, then looked to the creature at Lex's feet.

  "A 'Funk?' Never heard of it."

  "They're very rare," he said.

  That much was true. Until recently, Lex had thought that there was only one... Well, only one at a time, at least. When there are dozens of duplicates of various ages standing by to replace the original in the event of mishap, the appropriate census count becomes a little more muddied. Squee represented only the second named creature he was aware of, and it was almost certainly the only one to leave the planet of its birth.

  "Mmm, yeah, I remember hearing about them now," the man said with a nod.

  "I'm sure," Lex replied.

  "Okay, you're in first class, so you can board now. Cabin three. It looks like you'll be getting off after the second stop," he said, bleeping Lex through the checkpoint and into the entryway of the ship.

  Space travel in general is frequently treated as though it is functionally identical to the air travel of old, but the reality is closer to a cross between trucking and rail. Science may have bent the laws of physics to its whims and broken the light barrier in terms of travel speed, but the sheer distances involved, along with the complexities of regulation and safety, meant that travel time still tended to be measured in days. Thus, rather than the cramped rows of airline-style seats in coach and the plush easy chairs in first class that populated the short distance shuttles, full scale passenger haulers gave the coach folks a hallway and dining area as well, and the first class passengers got full rooms or suites. Despite a brief brush with celebrity, Lex had never actually had the opportunity to ride in a first class cabin. At first glance, he was impressed.

  "My God..." he remarked.
"It is almost as big as my apartment."

  Opposite the door was a flatscreen, in the place where a window might have been if the cabin was anywhere near the hull. To one side was a couch, to the other a narrow bed. Thin sliding doors led to a minimal bathroom (complete with shower) and a closet, respectively. Lex tossed his bag on the bed and flopped down on the couch, which put his own futon to shame. A moment later, an attendant knocked on the door, providing him with a complementary glass of champagne, and asked if he needed anything for his dog.

  "Water would be appreciated," Ma informed him.

  "You heard the lady," Lex said with a grin.

  "I'm sorry?" said the attendant curiously.

  "Er, water would be appreciated," Lex repeated sheepishly.

  Ma probably would have snickered, if she'd had the appropriate audio file. A moment later a dish and a bottle of spring water were provided. He poured it out for Ma, sprawled on the couch, and sipped at his sparkling wine.

  "You know, Ma? As rescue plans go, this is a good one."

  "Thank you, Lex. I hope that your opinion of it remains positive through to completion. Now that we have a moment. Please remove one of the new slidepads, attach the reinforced case, and affix it to my harness."

  "Okay," Lex said, digging out the items and, eventually, clipping an activated slidepad to one of the harness buckles.

  The screen flipped on, then switched to a diagnostic screen and began to scroll commands unreadably fast. As it did, Ma tipped her head back and closed her eyes, looking for the life of her as though she'd just felt a refreshing breath of air conditioning after a long hot day.

  "Thank you, Lex. I feel considerably less restricted now that I have a co-processor and externally maintained network access."

  "No problem."

  "The next phase does not need to occur for over twenty hours. How would you like to spend the time?"

  "Actually, there are a few things that were bugging me. Care to answer a few questions?"

  "Certainly."

  "First off, why don't you stink? I mean, the only other funk I've ever met had... well, a funk about him."

  "I administered one of Karter's odor control pills prior to my departure. It should last for several months. I presumed that travel would be simplified if I were not the source of a distracting aroma."

  "That's for sure. Speaking of your departure, you never really went into detail about Karter's kidnapping."

  "Karter was demonstrating a scale prototype of a device called a CME Activator."

  "What is that?"

  "What is the subject of your inquiry? A CME, or the CME Activator?"

  "Both."

  "A CME is a coronal mass ejection, a massive dispersal of stellar particles caused by the release of energy stored in the magnetic fields of the atmosphere of a star. The release is a result of the reconnection of magnetic field lines. The particles released by such an event distort and react with other magnetic fields. If a planet is bombarded, the resulting terawatt magnitude energy release and the associated geomagnetic storm can have effects ranging from intense aurora activity near the magnetic poles to massive damage to electrically sensitive devices. An intense enough CME could theoretically interrupt the functioning of all electrical devices, as well as permanently damaging electrical infrastructure. The CME Activator is a device that Karter designed for the Earth military decades ago. It manipulates the field lines of a star into an alignment that will produce a sequential reconnection, ideally expending all magnetically suspended energy in a series of CMEs."

  "Wow... That was a lot of words."

  "A CME Activator can be used to cause, at the very least, a planet-wide blackout that lasts for months."

  "Whoa."

  "That is an appropriate response. Three men representing an anonymous group were interested in a full scale CME Activator. Following the successful deployment of the scale prototype, the men attempted to renegotiate the agreed upon services. They then deployed EMP devices, resulting in my incapacitation and the kidnapping of Karter. I am uncertain as to how they were able to leave the planet."

  "Do you know who the men were?"

  "I do not possess enough information to produce reliable hypothesis, but their behavior is consistent with highly organized political extremists. Please note that much of this information was disseminated in a prior interaction between us."

  "I guess it didn't sink in. Just to be clear, when you say extremist, you mean terrorist."

  "Terrorism is a likely goal, and the CME Activator is an effective tool in that regard."

  "Then why were you selling to them!?"

  "I had no evidence to be certain of their intentions, and Karter bares no political, ethical, or moral bias with respect to prospective clients."

  Lex rubbed his temple. Suddenly, first class cabin not withstanding, he was having doubts about the mission at hand.

  "At what point did this lead to you donning a funk suit and tracking me down."

  "I was only able to restore myself by shifting primary processing duties to a backup server in the lower levels of the complex, isolated from the EMP assault. From there I polled the limited array of sensors that were still active. I determined that Karter had left the planet, additional EMP mines had been deployed liberally throughout the debris field surrounding the planet, and the debris field did not appear to have been significantly disturbed. There were also at least three patrol craft outside the debris field. Any attempts at communication failed. In order to deliver a message to the outside, I would need a means to deliver the message that was immune to EMP and able to react to changing conditions."

  "And the best idea you could come up with was downloading yourself into a funk?"

  "That remains to be determined. I deployed seventy-three concurrent operations, eighteen of which involved contacting you. Have you received any messages from me in the past few days?"

  "No."

  "I have not received any messages from any of the other operations either. It would thus appear that downloading myself into a funk was indeed the best idea I could come up with."

  "So the entire functionality of a super computer can fit in the head of a funk?"

  "Not nearly. Though the processing and data retention capacity of an organic brain are impressive, the instance of my program with which you are now interacting represents an extremely small subset of my full capabilities. It is limited to the entirety of my behavioral engrams, a short list of modules I anticipated would be indispensable during our trip, and a highly compressed archive of relevant data. In essence, that which is unique about me is present. With time and resources, my full self could even be reconstructed from the contents of this brain, but I am not currently all that I could be. Where possible, existing behavior and capabilities of the nervous system were maintained. Pattern recognition and trajectory calculation in particular were quite efficiently achieved in the existing synaptic pathways, but do not expect me to be calculating the trajectories of a planet-scale field of orbital fragments."

  "I'll keep that in mind. How did you even know how to download yourself?"

  "I was the system executing the simulations utilized to design the funk, and thus have an understanding of the structure and function of its brain at the genetic level. I further had aided in the creation and application of the technology used to read and write Solby's memories, for the purposes of restoring him from backup. The difficult part was determining how to port my logic patterns to a biochemical processor, but Karter and I had done preliminary research into just that subject when he was considering shifting the computer system of his complex to an organic or 'wetware' system. The project was abandoned when it was determined that data fidelity issues begin to arise after approximately two months. While the replacement of exact memories with approximations is not a problem for an organic creature, for software based on digital logic, it would lead to corruption and eventual failure."

  Lex squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. "That was a lot
of words too. Are you saying we need to hurry up or you are going to start going haywire."

  "I have only been operating on this platform for approximately eleven days. There is plenty of time."

  "Well that's good," he said, finishing his champagne in one long drink. He looked down at Ma again. She was sitting, her eyes turned steadily to him. "Hey. Why are you sitting on the floor?"

  "I was told that I should not climb on the furniture."

  "That was back when I thought you were just an animal. You paid for this flight cabin. Hop on up!" he said.

  "Thank you," Ma replied, leaping effortlessly to the soft microfiber seat. After a moment, she sat, remarking. "This is indeed preferable to the floor."

  Lex thought for a minute.

  "Okay, let me ask you this. YOU made it through the EMP stuff they had in orbit because you were made of meat, but how did you get a ship through? You can't tell me you made an organic ship."

  "No. I gained control of a secondary fabrication facility in the lower levels of the laboratory portion of the complex and outfitted a small FTL capable escape pod with a heavy armored shell and delivered it to orbit with a mass driver in our northern hemisphere. The shell absorbed some minor debris impact, and the trajectory carried the pod beyond the patrol range of the ships in orbit. Once enough distance was between myself and their patrol sweeps, I ensured that the electronics had recovered, ejected the shell, and piloted to a shipping transfer station, where I stowed aboard a transport heading to Golana, where I met you."

  "A what delivered you to orbit?"

  "A mass driver."

  "A what?"

  "A rail gun."

  "... A wh-"

  "A fancy slingshot."

  "Ah," Lex said, finally understanding, "Doesn't that strike you as a little Wile E. Coyote?"

  "I do not know anyone by that name."

  "It is a classic cartoon character, from a long time ago."

  "I am afraid that I did not include my full cultural database."

  "Well he was-"

  There was a tone over the ship's PA system.