POD (The Pattern Universe)

by Roote, Tobias

Despite the voice uttering his name quietly behind him, Osbourne still leaped out of the chair and swung around as if to defend himself. He was locked inside his laboratory, and nobody should be able to come up behind him.

  He couldn’t see anything, but he knew someone was there. Whoever it was, had called him by name. How did they get into his lab? All of a sudden, his shoulders dropped, relaxing as he realised who it was, and his relief gave way to the weakness in his legs from the burst of adrenalin. He sat back on the desk to ensure he didn’t fall.

  “Pod? are you cloaked?” Osbourne asked.

  “Yes, would you prefer me to uncloak, Ossie?”

  “Absolutely, Pod. I would like to see you; it's been some time.”

  The small craft uncloaked to show that it was hovering four feet in front of him at eye level. As he watched, it moved in front of his screen; a light beam scanned the papers on his desk.

  “You are working on modifications to the shields?”

  “Yes, yes, Pod, I am. Thanks to you getting those blueprints, I can see where there are improvements to be made.”

  “You don’t have much time to get the work done, Ossie. There is more going on than you realise. You have nobody helping you...? is this because of what I said about your equations being correct?” Pod asked, in its slightly mechanical voice.

  “Pod, you implied that since my equations were right, I should look elsewhere. It is apparent from the plans they have been adapting that someone, in here, is their spy, or in their pay. If they find out we have these plans then things might happen before we are ready to defend ourselves. I have to do this without the rest of the team, Pod!”

  “I have visited some of their secret locations. I have sent you the details of their shield modifications. They are suitable. I think you can copy their work.”

  “Great, Pod, all I need is some way of fabricating the modifications and installing them. Are you able to help me do that?” Osbourne asked.

  Since discovering that Pod had become sentient, Osbourne had tried hard not tell it to do anything, he would rather suggest it and hope that Pod’s programming and growing awareness would trigger the right responses. He hadn’t seen Pod since that day on the beach, but he had known it before Zeke realised it.

  After that day, to this, Pod hadn’t been seen. Osbourne noticed scorch marks at the back of the shell as if Pod had been shot at with something. He realised that Pod had not come by these plans without some level of risk to itself and nodded quietly as if making a decision.

  “Pod, I need your help on this. If I cannot get these parts fabricated secretly, then we are going to lose and Ferris will win. Zeke might be at risk from Ferris again; then Zirkos’ plans will fail. There is a lot riding on us getting the spaceships out there.”

  Pod’s shell seemed to bob up and down, as Osbourne made these points. It seemed it too was making a decision.

  “I can build the parts you need and install them from here in the laboratory. However, I do not want to be seen because Ferris knows I exist, but doesn’t know that I came from here, or belong to Zeke,” Pod explained almost animatedly.

  “If Ferris knows I am from here, your time to prepare will be reduced to zero as he knows I have seen the inside of his complex. He will draw deductions that would not help you. It would provoke an immediate attack.”

  “Fine. Pod, you’re welcome to live here, just don’t go away and hide again. Zeke is in the US and won’t be back for ages. He would like to know you are okay though.” Osbourne tried to reach out to Pod. He felt the AI would need someone to help talk through some of its issues as it became aware of itself as a being. His life of working with intelligent machines put him in an unusual position of being happier with them than with humans.

  Pod bobbed and moved into a corner away from the door and out of view of any cameras that Osbourne used.

  “I will stay, but I have other duties so may disappear often,” Pod explained, not realising the level of change to his behaviour that made him seem human on so many levels.

  Osbourne, seeing this, just smiled and resumed work while chatting to Pod as if he was a friend who had never been away.

  It took two weeks to include the modifications to all of the shields and insert the code and the hardware into place. There was no re-training required since none of the other scientists were party to the work, so security was at its highest.

  Pod and Osbourne now buried themselves in the camouflage conversion and a few days later they sat in A-Grav sled, four thousand metres away from the Island, and switched it over by remote. They were stunned at its simplicity. It was a replacement of the code for a mirror surface, with one of an organic representation of the physical area. When they installed it across Space Island they were amazed when the Island just disappeared, replaced with blue seas.

  Pod had an innovation of its own and set an oscillating frequency modifier in place so that anything or anyone measuring frequencies with a view to jamming or slipping through them, would get, at most, a tiny way through before being chopped. It increased the security considerably and, if the shield itself was attacked; it would ensure that the effect of any weapon would be nullified.

  Pod quietly upgraded all of its own shield technology, within its small shell, to a new level which was considerably enhanced beyond Ship’s and any patterns it had stored. It also decided that it would never stray far from the scientists and their innovative approach, as it felt the solution to defeating the Nubl would eventually come down to superior science.

  There had been no further testing of the shields, many of the updates were switched to passive mode and could be changed to active in a split second. The software had been told to ignore incursion attempts if originated from the inside.

  They did, however, continue to report them; Pennington had narrowed down a section of the maintenance crew, four people in total, whom they suspected of being an insertion team that had, possibly, taken over identities of original workers. He was working on backtracking the team without alerting them to his activities.

  They hadn’t traced the spy yet, but they were now tightly monitoring communications and they believed, that prior to attack, there would be some communication between the spy and Ferris’ team. A warning, perhaps. An instruction, maybe.

  Pennington, Garner and Osbourne were having one of those unique ‘end of day' moments, where everyone had done their bit to get to that point, and all were quiet and drawn into their own thoughts as if waiting for something to occur.

  Pod materialised in the corner of the room, inconspicuously and without fanfare. Immediately seen by Pennington and Osbourne, Frank with his back to the corner didn’t but turned around anyway to see what they were looking at.

  “Ferris has spaceships that appear to be ready for launching,” Pod paused, “Pennington, please turn your monitor around, I have some video for you to see.”

  The monitor immediately changed to a long distance view of a scene, not dissimilar to Space Island. There were numerous large buildings which, at this moment in time, as their individual camouflage shields melted away, had no roofs. From the cloaked globe’s high position, it was easy to see inside the structures to the ships that had been built under cover, in total secrecy, and in breach of Space Council regulations.

  As they watched, one of the ships lifted from its gantries, the A-Grav kicking in while they were obviously running tests. The ship rose a few hundred metres, negotiated a three hundred and sixty degree turn with the nose up, then down while weapon mountings evolved from a smooth section of the hull; then retracted again.

  “They are using nanites within their ship to reduce mass. They have to build their weapons systems every time they want to use them. It can’t be any slower than an automated system; the streamlining helps them in-planet, and those ships look designed to operate in both environments,” Osbourne informed the group.

  “Those are dangerous looking ships,” Frank surmised.

  Pennington looked on silently and wat
ched as the guns trained through a full rotation with, at least, a one hundred and eighty degree arc. These were going to be punishing in a land war. Most of the weapons he was looking at, would be ineffective in space. The calibre was too small to hurt anything.

  As he watched, the gun systems resolved back into the hull and, in their place, massive tunnels grew out of the skin and formed into what looked like missile, torpedo and rail-gun launchers. There were some nasty looking lasers in the mix, as well.

  He wasn’t happy.

  As the ship completed its full test, it returned to its start position and dropped back into the cradle inside the hangar. In a few minutes, the shields came back on, and nothing more could be seen. The monitor switched off.

  They sat there in silence, totally blown away by what they had seen. They had nothing close to being in the air yet and certainly not with that much fire-power

  They were going to get hammered.

  - 5 -

  The Nubl Crystal Queen stared excitedly at the blue iridescent metal wafers. There were thirty of them, and they were hers. Well, they would be once she inserted them. To do this, she needed to shunt data around, reduce her mental activity and close down sections of her hive. During this time, she would be vulnerable to attack or assassination by one of her clones who, despite being loyal, might take it upon themselves to mount a takeover. It had happened. The Queen was overly cautious.

  She wouldn’t admit it to her workers or clones, but she was nervous. The Queen found it necessary to actively suppress her telepathic emotions so they wouldn't sense it and react negatively. She needed them calm right now so she could work uninterrupted. Casting her neural feelers out across the network, she sensed the mood. It was quiet, as she anticipated.

  Her scientists had recovered the Alacite from the Silver being’s ship, its atomic properties strangely different to the usual metal alloy. The rare exotic metal, needed to create lightning fast processors and storage capacitors for their AI brains, had been altered at the molecular level by an, as yet, unknown process. The results, her scientists informed her, were a tenfold increase in processing power and efficiency.

  The Queen had ensured that no other AI had a single sliver of it; the potential for another to gain the power to usurp her was incredibly high. The scientists involved were now dismantled, to be utilised as spare parts. Their Alacite processors had been destroyed.

  The time of Nagar’th approached. It was an accepted period of rest that allowed the workers to meditate and adjust their self-management processes. It was the safest time for her, as well as the quietest, which allowed her the opportunity to exchange the processors without dropping network connections.

  She began the complicated and private encrypted sequence of personal disassembly. No other could perform this task although she had the ability to do it to others, her drones included.

  The security and protective protocols initiated would shunt her core activities to a small part of her memory banks. These processes would then be protected while essential maintenance programs activated and cleansed the processors she had earmarked for transfer. Of the thirty, she had selected only six. It was a simple matter of self-preservation to ensure results were ‘as computed’.

  Her chest plate appeared to melt, its shape altered as her personal nanites bored themselves to the surface. They carved out a circular groove on her armoured and decorated exterior and quickly formed a recessed ridge.

  When they were finished, an electronic whine emanated from within the Queen’s chest and the newly created ridge clicked outward and sat proud of the plate. Then, as if being pulled by an invisible hand, it slowly extended outward on a slide rack into the Queen’s view.

  The Queen’s crystal eyes, flecked with silver veined strands, floated within sockets of liquid silver. This intricate web centred on black pupils that contained an electronic iris. These eyes now zoomed in with precision on the extended platform as they critically inspected the glowing orb at microscopic level.

  The thin metal wafers embedded with complex micro-circuitry were arrayed in a star-burst shape around a central hub. Each one, held in place from below, with one edge embedded into the main circuit hub, established a connection on two sides. The fanned display of processors provided for cooling and easy maintenance.

  Twenty-four still glowed, flashing as her positron brain continued to run outside her body. She detected the six, two from each sector, that were dark and inactive. On a mental command, they clicked and raised upwards and outwards on their mountings to offer themselves up for replacement.

  With growing tension, she replaced the six. Then, without returning the brain to its secure cavity, she ran initial diagnostics. When completed, she noted the new levels and analysed the probable total increase in power to intelligence ratio once all thirty chips were replaced. The Queen smiled, her mouth clicking in satisfaction.

  After a further hour of replacement and analysis, the Queen returned the module that contained her brain to the security of her chest where the shielding would protect it from everything, including an electromagnetic pulse. Nubl had reason to be cautious, in the past there had been attempts by biological enemies to eradicate them.

  With the chips now secured inside her, the Crystal Queen resumed her normal relaxed posture on her throne of silver and crystal which provided added power to control her hive. She was powerful enough without the throne; it did, however, allow her to bleed off some of the more mundane tasks to the lower caste AI that was enslaved within. This gave her the opportunity to isolate her private thoughts, which she now needed to do.

  When the diagnostics had been completed, the Queen remained still for the remainder of Nagar’th. She needed this time. There was much to be done inside her complex systems. The speed and dexterity of her new power meant she was now looking at her situation with a fresh perspective.

  As her new, incredibly powerful brain re-sorted and reviewed her race’s past, it re-analysed everything with a tenfold increase in power. The more she delved, the more intense her analysis became. She retraced their history back in time and where others before her had only managed to absorb some of the vast knowledge, her new Alacite processors allowed her to absorb all of it. What was more she was able to extensively analyse the data as she combed through it.

  She began at the beginning of the archive, where much of the early information of her races’ past was recorded in retrospect and in report format. The attached files to the report carried vast quantities of analytical data and whilst she concentrated on the basic report, her mind took the attached information and absorbed it all. She mentally read the record...

  The Nubl were born long, long ago through a zealous civilisation who believed that everything in life, the planet, the survival of species, had a solution in technology. In the continuing search for a final solution they developed their belief system to such an extent that they began to find beauty in an artificially generated flower, rather than that of a naturally grown bloom. The Nubl who followed this new almost religious doctrine referred to themselves as Technoists and disavowed all things natural where artificial could replace it.

  As the technology continued to develop, the full extent of their obsession with artificial life grew to epidemic proportions. The Technoists cults developed a compact and reliable neural network which caused large numbers of them to transfer into artificial forms. They were allowed to retain their status and possessions so quickly became integrated into Nubl society.

  Soon, they pressured friends, family and companions to join them in becoming synthetic - the ‘life’ balance became imperilled and eventually tipped in the favour of fabricated bodies.

  As Technoists didn’t need to eat, drink or procreate, watching biological beings involved in these activities was soon deemed uncivilised. They developed a social distaste for biological forms which, over time, grew into an abhorrence of all life that wasn’t artificial.

  Finally, the world in which they lived became overcrowded w
ith artificial entities that never died. In an effort to find a means to survive and feed themselves, the biological Nubl began to introduce viruses to eradicate whole sections of the now artificially sentient population.

  As time went on this developed into a fully fledged war between the Technoists and the Traditionalists. The Traditionalists lost and what now remained of them fled in small cryogenic ships to distant stars to re-start their civilisation. They were never seen or heard from again.

  The Nubl Queen halted her internal review and looked more closely at the records that had accompanied this section. There were over two hundred recorded departures in different directions. Her enhanced memory and processing allowed her to impose the known Celnista Nubl map of Space over the historic records from her Hives’ current position. She could see clearly the paths of the Traditionalists exodus, of which as many as four ships traveled in the approximate direction of the silver being’s ship origins. Could they have survived?

  The Queen considered the ramifications of dealing with descendants of Nubl Traditionalists and shuddered. A picture of a biological male imposed itself on her inner vision, it looked horrendously inefficient and unsterile. The thought and image in her mind would not leave, it somehow drew her. Disgusting she thought, but no matter what she did the image of the being stayed with her; sensing a thrill that was unfamiliar to her, different to when she had the silver being in her thrall. No, this reminded her of its escape which soured her mood. In the end unable to delete the image, she minimised it into a small section of her prodigious memory, resuming her reading of the narrative.

  Centuries passed, evolution of artificial life diverged into tribes of differing attributes. As these tribes became centred on their leaders, so they also evolved hierarchies that promoted differing levels of subservience. Ability to reproduce clones was introduced, but only for those deemed worthy, usually the closest clone members who acted as Councillors.

  Further centuries onwards, the leaders removed this ability from their Councillors, retaining it only for themselves, thus ensuring they could not be overthrown by large numbers of offspring not loyal to them.