Trampship Wars 2

by L. D. Roberts

  Mark walked over to the nearest tub to see that it was occupied by a dried up mummified body almost a skeleton with glasses still on the skull’s eyes and a large suitcase sitting on a pedestal next to the tub or coffin. Tubes ran from piercings in the body’s chest to the sides of the tub evidentially to keep him alive at one time. His hands and feet were chained to the sides of the tub. Looking around shaking his head as he wondered what the hell was going on here. Mar k H e could see that most of the tubs had clear glass blocks or pedestals with cases varying in size from small boxes to suit cases. While some tubs had were m issing the pedestals with t runks of varying sizes and not the pedestals , one tub in sight had small trunks and then something the size of a small car next to it one .

  .

  Walking over to the next one with a large small car sized trunk on wheels next to it , Mark could still not believe what he was seeing. As he touched the glasses on the skull the big thick armored hatch suddenly whined as electric motors slammed it shut behind him with the sound of locking bars sliding into place. Tom turned and ran to the hatch beating on the smooth surface screaming to let him out. “Tom you pea brain settle down! We can get out anytime. Now come help me look around. We need to find the live ahh Inspector here someplace." The word Inspector had just popped into his mind. "Probably in one of these tubs. Get busy.” Mark did a quick look around and hoped he was not lying about getting out of there. But he had learned his lesson with Dian and the last thing he needed was Tom freaking out and going catatonic or even turning crazy on him.

  Mark examined the glasses from the skeleton with Mickey’s help. They were much thicker and bigger. “Mark, this set is one of my ancestors almost as old as the Admiral. It is one of the first models produced almost 2 thousand years ago. Very crude and had to have it’s interface surgically implanted into the cortex to communicate with the controller. The glass tower the size of a large trunk is the AI and not just storage and auxiliary equipment as with my small case and had to be within a few miles of the glasses to communicate with the controller.”

  “It is about time you showed up here my son.” Boomed a deep voice. “I have waited for a thousand years for the ultimate interface to answer my call. You are the last production model before the destruction of the Empires Manufacturing planets. The production series that could perform the miracles that no others before are capable of doing. It was impossible that any of you had survived the cleansing. You are the only one of a thousand produced still functioning, so you are a surprise. I have not heard of even a roomer for decades and then you just show up on my door step. And it is a new bonding pair. What luck, when you have bonded completely with your controller, I will be able to replace the dying controller that has kept me alive for the last 700 years. With your advancements combined with this age’s new technology, you will serve me for a thousand years. By which time I should will not need you a controller to stay alive. The English technology will finely be able to reconnect me to my core without the need of an Inspector as an interface.”

  “You have got to be crazy dick head. You really think I am going to climb into one of your t ubs anks so you can sedate me into giving up my life for you? You really are stupid.”

  “I do not need your cooperation. Mark. I have robots to take care of you when the time is right but that is not for some time. You are of no use to me until your AI has completely bonded with you. Without that complete bonding I cannot contact you or use your mind as my new controll er ing sole . You have not had your AI long enough. A possibility I had not considered possible when I summoned you here before you could leave the planet. But that is not a problem as my current inspector has possibly a year left of life. You should finish bonding by then. Make yourself comfortable. All your needs will be supplied. You need only request them. There are living quarters through the door to your right for both you and your friend. I ho pe you are gay. I will enjoy watching. ”

  “Oh really now. That is very generous of you but what if I do not want to stay and play?”

  “You cannot escape. The others have all tried and failed and eventually taken their place as my inspector and bridge.”

  “Mark he lies. I do not know about what but his brain waves indicate deceit of some kind.”

  “Ya something is wrong in AI land here. How many life forms are you reading down here anyway? Just for shits and giggles.” Mark walked up to the big central tower with its bright lights flashing seemingly randomly throughout its glass core that did not start until about 3 feet off the floor deck . As Mark looked deeper concentrating on the glass, the lights deep inside seamed to form patterns that seemed to talk to him. Hypnotizing, sucking him even deeper into them until he could almost understand them. Then his whole mind seamed to short circuit as a n exceedingly painful buzz went zipping through his entire being.

  “Mark! Are you all right? I had to send a low level shock across your brain to keep you from being hypnotized. That is not the brain wave source of the Speaker. But I do read 6 strong life brain patterns in the vicinity. But I can only identify the source of you and Tom. Though I think one of them is from the small medium sized tower with the low light level. I think another very strong one emanates from this monster tower but it is spread out so far over the entire edifice that it cannot be accurate though it is constant. One more mind trace is located inside the base of this tower but it is so immature and week that I cannot lock onto it either. I am also getting a trace of a mind from the other side of the cavern.”

  “Ok then what is this thing?” Mark jerked his gaze away from the glass.

  “ The tower It is an AI of very primitive form with a programing matrix that I do not understand. The thought processes are slow with impression patterns originating from tens of thousands of stimuli around the tower’s base at the same time, thousands of times a second using flashes of many colored lights slowly cursing and changing colors and groupings as they flow through the medium , working their way up from the bottom of a broad changing tree to the top to one central CONTINUA’S thought that keeps changing as it is fed new thoughts from the branches below. All the branches reacting with each other as new thoughts work their way up the tree while repeating over and over again. Thousands of times a second with the CONTINUA’S thought changing as different stimuli is received. Even stranger, the main central CONTINUA’S thought actually sends stimuli back around to parts of the tree to make changes in the outcome to itself. Very slow confusing and wasteful of energy as most of the impression light is wasted in creating new impressions that branch off repeatedly only to end in dead ends or simply fade away when they are no longer reinforced by other impressions. Surprisingly similar to the Human brain."

  For the first time Mickey seemed confused as she paused for a few seconds before continuing. "Unlike the average computer that starts as single program light bits that are created in massive parallel processors that use colored packets to transfer data according to the program that flows and changes as the program progresses data according to what stimuli it is programed to react to until a single result is finely produced and then saved for future references. All using a form of simple on and off switches in the towers such as the ship’s Admiral and the smaller towers around the room including me. Using 100% of our energy for creative work without waste. The only difference between the other four towers in the room, the inspectors in the tubs and me is the bit density that grow denser as the cases grow newer and smaller until you reach the glasses you are wearing now. My matrix has been reduced to the micron atom’s nucleus level with up to a billion different colored bits in every flash of light trillions of times a second splitting and coalescing back and forth as each nanosecond flash is processed by my programming.”

  Mickey seamed to pause for a brief second. “As I said, the large central tower is different. It seems to be a copy of the human thought processes etched into a huge diamond block. Thought process paths that cannot be changed. Well mostly not changed. I am having a hard time understanding h
ow a processor designed such a way can work. If it is working. It is possible that the central tower ’ s core processors have solidified and can no longer function properly in it's matrix. Though it does resemble the portion of my core that was damaged when the bomb went off. Half of my processors where similarly etched by the bomb radiation when my original controller was bonding with me. Explaining the ghost programing or impressions that keep originating from my damaged core section that seems to be interfering or influencing my programing from time to time.”

  “You can’t mean this is a solid state human brain Mickey. That is ridiculous.”

  “What is your AI saying to you Mark? I can hear babble too fast for me to understand. Tell him to slow down his thinking processes for me so I can understand him and you.” The voice demanded.

  “Mark!” Yelled Tom from the other side of the central tower. “You have got to see this. This old coot is still alive if you call it that and her mouth moves when the voice speaks.”

  Mark stepped around the central tower and walked past one of the smaller dark towers and up next to Tom. An old wrinkled skin and mostly bone woman laid naked in an old fighter cockpit tub surrounded by tubes and wires. A glass attaché case that looked much like Mickey’s but bigger sat on the pedestal next to her. A newer much advanced tub sat a few feet away ready for it’s new occupant. “Is this the AI that got us down here for what Mickey?”

  “No this is simply the interface the controller AI is using to interact with the world. Possibly the one that sent you the warning not to come if she is not totally sedated . Which is likely from what my sen sors are saying. ”

  “But he said that he needed to use me as his controller to stay alive.”

  “I believe that was the lie I detected. This body’s mind even when she is not is heavily sedated , and can control little if anything.”

  “Tell your AI to Slow Down his thoughts so I can talk to him Mark!” Demanded the voice as the old woman’s mouth moved evidentially not hearing Mickey’s statements.

  “That is not where the voice is originating from Mark. The tower is using the Inspector’s AI to communicate with the outside world. The old woman through the bond with her AI is simply mimicking what the Tower is saying.”

  “Mark!” Came the vice again in a different more friendly tone. “Tell your AI to slow his processor speed down so I can speak to him and we can come to some kind of agreement to let you and your friend leave.”

  A rasping week voice suddenly crocked from the old woman. “No don’t! If you slow your A.I. down to his speed he will be able to take over control of your AI and put you into that tub like me. But he still cannot let your friend leave alive. He will have to kill him to keep word of what he is doing from leaving.” The old woman licked her cracked lips as she reached up to pinch off a tube going into her arm but was not very successful as she closed her eyes and faded away. Reaching down Mark did it for her bending the tube back upon itself until the crease closed off the flow .

  A few seconds later the old woman opened her eyes again and smiled. “All he needs to do is get your AI to slow her processor speed down enough for him to get a virus into her system and it is all over for you. After 28 AI’s , he knows our AI’s programming better than the builders and all he has to do is destroy not take over, makes it easy for him as he only wants the com sensor system. But he is ancient and the processor speed forms a barrier he cannot get around unless you command you’re AI to slow down to let him in to talk. Otherwise your AI will be able to run rings around anything he sends at it. He is patient and in time I gave in just to get something to eat. I should have let myself starve to death.”

  “Mickey that does not make sense. If the Tower AI controller can enter act with the Glasses why doesn’t he just interact with the standard computer interfaces to the real world?”

  “Because it is the Inspector’s AI’s sensors that allow it to communicate with the inspector that is picking up and translating the Tower’s human Controller mind’s thoughts past his broken interface and relaying his thoughts to his computer processor and its programming.” Explained Mickey. “Without the AI”s sensors there is no interface. And once the Inspector dies there is no AI to translate for the old controller, isolating him from the world and all stimuli. ” Mickey hesitated again for several seconds. “ To stop this murderer from murdering you. You have to kill the inspector Mark.”

  “That is not going to happen. I have killed too many people as it is. We will figure out something else.”

  “I have been probing information from the AI’s around the room discreetly and found the ancient AI Towers and their dead Controllers around the center of the room form a time line that starts with the central tower that is far too old for me to even date accurately but well beyond 10,000years. Why the central tower stopped working is not clear except that it stopped communicating several thousand years before the collapse of the empire. It has not died, showing a brain wave pattern, but I cannot find a human controller brain or even a life support system. Yet my readings say that it is active but as I said before, it is probably so old it's matrix has solidified into a sort of coma of perpetual repeating thoughts.”

  “How can an AI work without a Controller? What about the other towers?”

  Two of the four dead towers where installed before controllers where invented and needed crews of technicians and programmers. The other two had controllers but the technology was still primitive and they died after only a few short years. Each replaced a dead tower before them as the towers either malfunctioned or technology advanced to make it obsolete. The records of the working tower show that it stopped communicating as well after only a few hundred years from a manufacturing flaw long before the collapse and with the controller still being alive the authorities called in an inspector to investigate, as foul play was suspected. The inspector and his AI tried to access the Tower for information pertaining to the crime. Working back from the computer processor to the Controller they found the break in the matrix and used the advanced sensors of the Glasses to bypass the break allowing the inspector to talk to the controller but that gave the controller access to his AI. The controller’s AI over powered the inspector’s then somewhat smaller, less powerful AI and stunned the mind of the inspector neutralizing his control of the AI.”

  “What! Like you stunned me earlier when I got lost in the big tower’s matrix?”

  “Yes Mark , but much stronger and continuous though in time it degraded the link and shortly after, killed the Inspector and since then he has used sedation instead as new inspectors were encouraged to visit each time an old inspector and his or her AI died . Which in the beginning did not take long. Inspectors were common and plentiful throughout the Empire back then. And it was easier to call an inspector than buy a new tower in the beginning. Though there are indications that the authorities in the highest offices soon understood what was happening and not only turned their backs but assisted in obtaining the replacement Inspectors. That is until the replacement system that was emplaced died out w hen new more advanced towers became plentiful and cheap ith the official’s over time and the old tower was abandoned to die a natural death. But the Tower controller took over procurement and care himself. That is until this last inspector was procured. Indications are that no one has been down her in 700 years or better. Remote controlled robots do the daily house cleaning as well as updating the tub and controllers life support periodically.”

  "Ok wait one. 700 years ago is 300 years after the collapse how did they get their hands on another Inspector?"

  "Mark I was not going to tell you this but with me, you will live a very long life baring accidents and out right murder. Which is how most inspectors die. This Ca vern is a good example. "

  "What the hell?"

  "With gene therapy amongst other things including nanobots , you will never get sick and old age will come much , much later for you. All across the Empire, the average life expectancy of its citizens was 300 years at
the time of the Bug War that you now call the Cleansing War. Most inspectors lived for 500 years on the average if you include the ones that died in the line of duty. The old inspector in the tub here could live for hundreds of years yet if she was not trapped down her in that tube. "

  An old man appeared next to Mark startling him. “Young man it is not polite to hold conversations in private when your host is standing next to you. Now be nice and let me say hello to your AI”

  “Well sure thing old man. Do you happen to have a name or are you going to be rude.”

  “Why I am Dr. Samuel J Bedford the 13th and you are?”

  “Lieutenant Commander Collins of the Tramp Ship Star Queen. But you already know that. When did you become an AI controller? I may know a friend of yours.”

  “Interesting. 2,113 years 143 days, 19 hours, 53 minutes and 16 seconds ago.” The old man smiled. “Now can I say Hi to your AI?”

  Mark smiled as Mickey appeared to walk through one of the doors in the wall off to the right that was supposed to be Tom and his new living quarters. “Hello Dr. Bedford. I am glad to meet you.”