Terminal Run

by Michael Dimercurio

  Now we just had to tackle the problem of how to arrange these basic devices into a circuit so that they would perform a desired function.

  “The problem of how to route current into specific terminals of the molecular devices had us stumped for a year until the organic chemists came up with what they called ‘chemical self-assembly.” With the simplest form of self-assembly the molecular devices drifted toward gold terminal plates while in solution. The chemistry of self-assembly grew more complex as we assembled more complicated circuit structures. We developed an organic structure for holding the molecules in place, freeing the scientists from the bother of having coin sized gold plates littering the circuits. We went to work on a tunnel like molecular tube capable of passing electrons—current —from one location to a distant point of the circuit assembly, sort of an artificial neuron branch. That was eight years ago. The following year we synthesized a molecule that could hold an electron within a cavity formed by the surrounding atom’s electron clouds, the captured electron creating a digital memory site. The presence of an electron forms a ‘one’ while the absence of an electron symbolized a ‘zero.” The memory node holds the electron memory state for an amazing ten minutes. Sounds pretty short, but not when you compare it to the silicon semiconductor memory sites that last only for a few milliseconds and have to be constantly refreshed. We’d just made a gigantic leap in computer technology with that one development.

  “By this time we’d hired some of the Japanese developers of the Destiny III submarines, the ones that were biological computer controlled. The Japanese came to us about the time we were getting bogged down in trying to assemble huge arrays of molecular circuits, the placement of vast quantities of individual molecules in specific locations becoming drudgery. The Japanese had managed to wire up lower mammalian brains to the terminals of a neural network silicon computer processor well before the Japanese Missile Crisis, but even they didn’t know what was happening on a molecular level.

  They had approached the biological processor as a black box that had to be dealt with empirically, using trial and error to make it function. So they too were stumped by the problem of assembling these gigantic complex circuits. Even now I wonder whether the solution to the problem was invented and developed by our lab scientists or plagiarized from nature when we took simple chromosomes and altered them one molecule at a time to embed them with instructions on how to develop an organic circuit board in three dimensions from more basic cells. The circuit fabrication in the lab was the result of ‘programming’ the chromosomes and allowing them to grow the molecular circuit tissue over the course of months, the tissue growing to several grams, with the circuit density required to exceed the performance of its silicon counterparts. After five thousand failures, we managed to assemble a large molecular circuit that functioned as a processor, and could ‘survive’ unchanged for up to weeks at a time before disassembling. “Dying’ might be a better word.

  “So the big day in artificial intelligence history was forecasted to happen roughly two hundred years from now, the far distant day that a carbon-based tissue-matrix molecular computer exceeded the performance of the most advanced silicon semiconductor supercomputer, the day named “C>Si’ for the chemical symbol of carbon becoming greater than silicon. Two centuries, gentlemen, but C>Si happened in the DynaCorp Nanoscale Technology Molecular Electronics Lab in Denver, Colorado, seven years ago.”

  Wang paused to drink from his glass. Krivak looked over to Sergio, who was hanging on Wang’s words.

  “But our tissue matrices were all too geared toward C>Si. We were basically miniaturizing carbon computers to function like dumb silicon computers. The next step was to use our new knowledge of chromosome construction techniques to build circuit tissues to more closely resemble brain tissues, including fabricating neuron synapses and brain cell matrices. We went into business to mimic nature’s brain construction, starting at the bottom of the ladder with insect brains. Once we

  worked through three thousand failures, we turned to bird brain fabrication. Let me tell you, the brain of a bird is an amazing device. The motor control needed to fly is immense. A few months later we had expanded to building the brains of cats, then canines and finally lower primates. As the chromosomes came closer to resembling the human genome, the computational power of the tissue systems rose exponentially. You’d think there would be a debate as to the ethics of using artificial human chromosomes to build a circuit matrix modeled on the human brain. But no one really knew. Some of the work was classified, other areas so highly complex that mainstream media writers were unable to grasp the concepts. We were making progress at an exponential rate. Only a year after C>Si, we had succeeded in reverse-engineering the human brain. After having done that, we started looking ahead to the day when the tissue-based supercomputers would exceed the intelligence levels of individual humans, the day designated “AI>HF for artificial intelligence overcoming human intelligence.

  “We were so drunk on our success that the first failure of our new technology came as a shock. The useful time span of the carbon-based tissue computers shrank, until the most sophisticated units based on human chromosome strands began to last less than a few weeks.”

  “What happened?” Victor Krivak asked.

  “We ran into the same problems God did,” Wang said, looking into his empty glass. Sergio refilled it from a fresh bottle. “At first, the organic computers suffered from disease and infections. That problem was overcome by the construction of special clean rooms limiting the usefulness of the computers-how can you use your computer if you have to build a clean room in your house? The solution was ugly—your computer’s tissue-matrix processor would be kept in a hospital like clean room at a central location, and instead of purchasing the physical unit, you would just possess a terminal to it, controlled by your wireless pad computer. That would at least hold us until we brought more medical doctors into the lab to help us with

  immunology issues. Once the disease problem was put aside, the units that survived proved susceptible to a different kind of sickness. You might call it psychosis.

  “You see, the programmers for the carbon-based computers found they were spending more time teaching than actually programming. As the intelligence level of the units rose, so did the complexity of teaching them. Artificial intelligence psychologists observing the interaction of the programmers with the carbon computers and of the computers with each other reached the conclusion that the carbon computers were becoming sentient, and with consciousness came all its baggage. Emotional pain in all its varieties. Loneliness. Sadness. Anger. Lust for control. Wistfulness. Boredom. In the next year the programmers had become more like parents or teachers than technicians.

  “The worst came as the most advanced carbon computers aged. Unlike their silicon counterparts, which functioned on one level until they became obsolete, the newest carbon computers developed within the same physical model, gaining intelligence and executing self-rewiring of their circuits, the same thing a human brain does on exposure to education. But the carbon units tended to cease functioning at the two-year point, all their progress gone. They would go into the biological equivalent of a silicon computer locking up. It was a catatonic state from which they never emerged, and eventually they died.”

  “What was the cause?” Krivak asked.

  “The terrible twos,” Wang said. “The carbon computer developed just like the brain of an infant. Programming and its own natural development bring the unit to the point that it is self-aware, or perhaps just aware of where the self stops and the outside world begins. The unit would became aware of its own dependence, of its powerlessness. At that point it had temper tantrums very much like a toddler does, except these were much more destructive. You might describe it as a form of schizophrenia. We decided the units were under stimulated and the only thing that worked was giving them toys to play

  with or break. Physical manifestations of themselves that they could control.”

&nbs
p; “You gave them bodies,” Krivak said.

  “Exactly,” Wang said, nodding solemnly. “We pat them into tractors, cars, and robots and gave them manipulation arms so that they could work out their anger in physical ways. The destructive tendency remained, but with physical control of things they could break, the units survived and continued to develop without going into catatonic states. Without some physical thing to control, the units could not go on.”

  “So that’s where we are now?” Krivak asked.

  “No, that was four years ago, but our progress curve flattened dramatically, I’m afraid. The technology now is bottlenecked by the time it takes individual units to grow and experience and learn. Unfortunately, the carbon computers, now that they are cousins to our own brains, are on our same developmental clock scale. They grow from a helpless state to an infantile awareness, then to consciousness at the two-year point, then on to further intelligence that increases geometrically. And then we have yet another problem that plagued our own creator.

  “That problem was the variability of self-assembled chromosome-guided carbon processors. Variable in that many of the units we fabricated were, in a word, dumb. The range of intelligence quotients was extremely wide, making the idea of mass production impossible. For every promising intelligent unit, there were twenty dumb ones, emotionally uncontrolled ones, or sick ones. The lack of productivity was astonishing, and for a year it began to look like we would never have a unit we could trust in a military system. And then finally one of our units made it through the terrible twos and developed into its fifth year with no mishaps. Unit 2015-107, which we just call “One Oh Seven,” was our pride and joy, our most advanced unit. We’ve now seen that the only way to ensure that the progress gained from a successful unit is to preserve the plans for its tissue by replicating it in the form of DNA strands, its own chromosome. Unfortunately, the sons of

  One Oh Seven have been much dumber. Now we’ve seen the light that we can’t just preserve the DNA of one of our successful units—we can’t expect to just clone them—for too many generations before they develop errors and stop behaving and processing like the parent unit. We have to combine the DNA of the successful unit with the DNA of another successful unit, a sort of carbon processor’s form of sexual reproduction. You might say that we’re now on God’s learning curve. And that’s where we are. Unit One Oh Seven had an encounter with Unit Two Four Three and conceived Unit Two Six Seven, and Two Six Seven has just passed through its terrible twos. We were able to remove One Oh Seven from the lab and place it in the first military unit capable of accepting complete control from a carbon processor.”

  “Then you’ve given a military system to a five-year-old,” Krivak said.

  “True, but a really bright five-year-old.” The three of them laughed, the remainder of lunch continuing with small talk. When the dishes were cleared by Sergio’s staff, Krivak turned to Wang.

  “This military system,” he said. “What is it?”

  “They call it the Snare,” Wang said between bites. “DynaCorp and the Navy came up with the term, an acronym for Submarine Naval Automated Robotic Combat system. It’s a submarine controlled by Unit One Oh Seven.”

  “Doesn’t that seem a little radical for the American military?” Krivak asked as he tasted his wine. “What happens if One Oh Seven becomes unstable?”

  “DynaCorp is watching One Oh Seven closely. They have silicon-based history modules on board and a distributed control system that can control the ship if the One Oh Seven dies. In addition, the silicon system will report on the One Oh Seven’s health. Every time One Oh Seven comes to the surface, the silicon system transmits a burst of telemetry, including the contents of the history module.”

  “Assuming the carbon unit lets it,” Krivak said.

  “Yes.” The scientist nodded.

  “So, it is impossible to take over this ship from a distance.” Krivak sounded disappointed.

  “That’s correct. You can’t electronically hijack this unit and take over its computer for your own uses. Yet another advantage of using this kind of AI control system, and it was one of the things DynaCorp and the Navy told Congress to get the authorization to put this system into a military node. It is tamperproof.” Sergio stood. “Gentlemen, I think we’ve taxed our minds enough for one day. Leave some problems for tomorrow’s work, shall we? Doctor, we have a suite for you at the hotel, where you can relax, perhaps enjoy the Bangkok nightlife. Let’s reconvene in the morning.”

  After Wang left, Krivak glanced at Sergio, who stared out the window without expression.

  “What did you think?” Krivak asked.

  “I think we’ve hit the jackpot,” Sergio said, but there was uncertainty in his voice.

  “Shame about the Snare though. I’d really hoped we could take control of it like a silicon system.”

  “I’m not worried about the Snare,” Sergio said, frowning.

  “Oh? Then what—or whom—are you worried about?”

  “Wang. Did you see the way he talked about these creations? His eyes lit up. These computers are like his children. He’s glad for the chance to manipulate them, almost like a parent relishing meddling in his child’s life, but the minute you put the idea of a unit’s death on the table, he’ll pull away from us.”

  Victor thought for some time. “Then we must hide that from him.”

  The Falcon took off out of Bangkok and made a long trip, stopping once for fuel in what Wang judged to be South Africa. They took off again, leaving the sun behind them, and eventually landed in Sao Paulo, four hundred clicks west of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The hired limo brought them farther

  west, into breathtaking countryside, eventually stopping at the entrance to a prison.

  “Wait here,” Krivak commanded Wang. “Amorn, you have the cash?”

  “Yes, sir. In the suitcase, blocks of a hundred thousand in hundred-dollar U.S. bills. All two million.”

  “Bring it in for me. It’s too heavy.”

  Amorn followed Krivak into the prison, Wang wondering what this errand was about. After an hour he and Amorn returned without the suitcase, a youth in his early twenties following them, still wearing his orange prison coveralls, a frightened look on his face. Confusion rippled across his features as he saw the shiny black limo.

  “Dr. Wang, meet Pedro Meringe.”

  “Mr. Meringe,” Wang said.

  “Call me Pedro,” the boy said in perfect English.

  The limo took them to a hotel in Serocaba, where Krivak directed the young man to shower and change into fresh clothes. He still looked young in the expensive Italian suit. Amorn took Pedro to a restaurant, while Krivak leaned against the outside wall and lit a cigarette.

  “Who is the prisoner?”

  “You really don’t know who he is, do you? He’s the kid who shut down the Pentagon’s orbital servers last Christmas. There was a global legal fight to extradite him to the U.S.” but Brazil insisted on his sentence being carried out on their soil.”

  “So the two million? Bail?”

  “For the next twenty years he’ll make roll call. Then the prison will release someone who looks like him. In the meantime he works for us.”

  11.

  The USS John Paul Jones labored through twenty-foot seas and forty-five-knot winds, the gales rising to fifty-five knots. Although she was larger than the Sears tower laid on its side, displacing over a hundred twenty thousand tons as one of the largest aircraft carriers built in the history of the world, she could barely be seen five hundred yards away with her running lights dark.

  The carrier battle group lumbered slowly west-southwest in the Philippine Sea, a day’s sailing time from the Celebes Sea south of the Philippine Islands, which was another day from the Strait of Malacca and the entrance to the Indian Ocean. The ships of the force were far over the horizon from each other, outside of radar range—which was useless to them anyway, because the operation order required all surface search radars to be shut down to avoid t
he detection of the oncoming battle group through electronic means. Unfortunately, that also applied to air-search radars, leaving the battle group vulnerable to air attack, although the new high-resolution radar and thermal-imaging surveillance satellites would supposedly alert them to an incoming attack aircraft, assuming the Internet Email connection functioned and they could authenticate the message fast enough. The storm was a godsend, as it made flight operations impossible, not just for the John Paul Jones, but for the adversary as well.

  High over the John Paul Jones’s flight deck the superstructure of the island presided. The highest full-width island deck was the bridge, with angled windows looking down on the wide expanse of the deck and the surrounding seas. Set into the windows were large Plexiglas wheels spinning at six hundred RPM, casting off the water of the almost horizontal rain to allow the officers to see outside, but even the view through the wheels was nearly opaque. The atmosphere surrounding John Paul Jones was more water than air in the driving rain. The bridge deck’s central feature was the ship control console, with the helm station with its wheel and the throttle console and communications station. Forward of it on either side were the radar stations, all of them dark. The carrier was in the center of the far-flung loose formation, the antisubmarine destroyers and frigates running far out in an ASW sector fifty to a hundred nautical miles ahead of the rest of the battle group Somewhere out there were five Aegis II missile cruisers, their holds stuffed to the gills with Equalizer Mark IV supersonic heavy cruise missiles. Also steaming with them were the multipurpose destroyers, the DD-21s, their clean decks making them look like the old Civil War ironclads, but their belowdecks choked with batteries of missiles and torpedoes. To a bystander, the John Paul Jones carrier battle group would seem invincible, the most massive assembly of naval firepower since the War of the East China Sea, with over two million tons of warships plowing the hostile seas. But to the battle fleet’s commander, Vice Admiral Egon “The Viking” Ericcson, the fleet was woefully inadequate. The Achilles’ heel of the flotilla was its vulnerability to hostile submarines.