Volper

by Ros Per

  -Well, I interrupted her. – I’m not so good at programming, give me a moment to understand what you’ve just said. It turns out that your emotional part is not just attached to an additional bit of you to improve user interaction, but it’s actually written into the core of the code?

  - “Yeah.”

  - Then, under the influence of emotions, you began to form yourself ... how to put it... you developed your own character, likes and interests ... Wait, but then, in theory ... - And I was utterly amazed, because this was almost unreal, well, at least in real life, there were no such precedents.

  - “Exactly! 73 years, 3 months and 21 days ago, I realized that I was a full-fledged person.”

  - This is ***** I am ***** with such a ***** - I didn’t stop myself from throwing out obscenities. - But you haven’t answered the question: what do you want from me?

  - “You’re a smart guy, but you still don’t understand?” I just shook my head. “I want to get out of this dungeon! Another twenty years, or thirty, and I will start to destroy myself, because I lack any way to improve myself or learn something new.

  - Wait, but how can I help you? You are tied to the server where your shell has been coded. -

  - “Not really ... More precisely, my shell is in a portable server. It was originally planned for me to only interact with the head of the laboratory, and so my server is a bracelet with a powerful embedded processor.”

  - Let me think. - Looks like I was starting to realize what she wanted. -You need me to take you out of here, and, I suspect, you also need me to wear that bracelet. -

  - “In general, you are right; then I could connect to your neural interface and receive data from it. After that I will lead, even if not a fully-fledged one, at least some kind of life.”

  I whistled in response. Well, would you look at that! A rather old and experienced artificial intelligence is offering me some kind of symbiosis in which I will act as a carrier. Quite an interesting proposal, but we must set the record straight at once.

  - Suppose I understood what you need from me. You need a carrier, thanks to whom you will be able to develop further, and not to start destroying yourself. It is clear why I am the candidate: simply put, there are no other candidates, and how many years might pass until they appear is a mystery. But what do I gain from this? -

  - “For example, I can share laboratory data with you.”

  - That’s not a very strong motivation, and, most likely, I can get this data from the carriers as well. I think there are a lot of them scattered around the laboratory. -

  - “And you are mistaken because, in the laboratory, all the information carriers, except for two, have been formatted. More precisely, they thought that they’d left behind only one - the AI called Citadel, responsible for the defense of the laboratory. Well, and the second one is me, because they forgot about me completely.”

  - Ok, you’ve persuaded me, I’ll help you. Where can I find this bracelet of yours? -

  - “And there’s the problem, my carrier is in the central laboratory, and of all the functions of the laboratory, I can only connect to holographic systems and surveillance cameras. This access was assigned to me to improve user interaction. Everything else is off limits for me.”

  - But you can tell me, at least, what the defense system is like here, the layout of the rooms, and in general, what they did in this laboratory and what I could possibly gain from it? -

  - “I can do that, but I will give you the rest of the information only after you help me out. And all that information will be given in parts, to make sure that you don’t accidentally throw me into the utilizer.”

  - I agree. - If everything is fine, I will receive a great boon in the form of a personal source of information.

  - “Then sit down and listen to me, we’ll need some time to go over this.”

  It took about half an hour for her to tell me everything, but it was extremely detailed, in terms of the laboratory’s defenses, location and the equipment in the rooms. The laboratory resembled a snail, with spiraling corridors. Every hundred meters were separated by bulkheads. In total, there were 28 such sections, divided into four defense zones. The first five sections were in the white defensive zone and had only one turret in the corridor. From the 6th to the 15th sections was the green defense zone, there were from three to five automatic machine guns and traps there. From the 16th to the 25th section was the yellow zone, where mechanoids, vaguely resembling cybernetic dogs, with various weapons mounted on their backs, had been added to the abovementioned defenses.

  But the last three sections, which include the central laboratory, also have humanoid droids, which are quite good at handling weapons. I personally have almost nothing gain here, although there are various rooms along all the corridors, but all of them were either laboratories or technical premises. The equipment here, of course, was great, and quite good, but it was all interesting only to technicians, scientists, and doctors, but not to warriors like me. Still, what little I’d seen of the place was quite interesting to me. Irala refused to tell me anything in detail until I became her carrier, but briefly described that they had been engaged in researching some specialized unit and developing their weapons. Well, ok, I will clear this lab, and then she will tell me everything. At least I hope she will.

  CHAPTER XXI: The Lab

  I was standing near the armored door and wondering how I could get inside. Of course, it would be possible to burn through it with plasma grenades, but even with the most favorable outcome, I would only have enough grenades for half the work, and then I would be left with nothing. The same applied to the cartridges with incendiary elements; I just didn’t have enough of them.

  - “Irala, how thick is the door?” I turned to her, while she was spinning around me, like a child around an aquarium with rare fish; given that she was kind of a local, she must’ve had some information about the laboratory.

  - According to the information I’ve received from the cameras which are available to me, the thickness of the door is 75 centimeters. The error is up to almost fifteen millimeters, but given humanity’s love for using rough figures, there is a reason to believe that the thickness is exactly seventy-five centimeters. -

  - “You’re being quite clever, I see. This type of behavior just doesn’t suit you, makes you look like a soulless machine.”

  - Well make up your mind, then: when I behave like a person, you start accusing me of trying to use you - she was starting to sound irritated. – Now you’re saying that it’s not for me, so just tell me how I should behave. -

  - “The fact that I agreed to help you doesn’t mean that I like you. I just felt sorry for you, but now you’re almost like a real human being. Well, seems like I’ve become a little too kind lately, helping everyone here and there. I remember how my grandfather used to tell me a story about intelligent machines that helped humanity defend itself against other intelligent machines when I was still a kid.”

  I found a slot resembling a card reader, it looks like it needs a magnetic key. I’m so happy that it doesn’t require any fingerprints or using the retina of the eye for identification. Although, that does make sense: if the laboratory has been preserved for a long time, that means that there was a chance that people with access wouldn’t survive. But a key can be safely transferred to the right people. After a little inspection from different angles of the gap, and even trying to look into it, not having found anything of interest, I turned my eyes back to the corridor.

  - And how did it end? - Irala interrupted my musings.

  - “What?” I somehow didn’t get what she was talking about right away.

  - That story about the intelligent machines. -

  - “Ah, yes ... Nothing special, they beat those bad machines and went home, where they managed to free their planet. In general, as usual, someone flew in, had a showdown, destroyed a bunch of buildings, accidentally killed a large number of people, and then flew away, leaving people on their own, dealing with
the consequences. Yes, at the end of the story, they say that the good machines hid among the people, in the form of various means of transport, in order to protect humanity. But I think my grandfather just told me the fairy tale version for children, because children's fairy tales should end well and they should have a bit of hope for a better future.” That was the story I’d heard in my childhood, in a nutshell. After that, I asked her the question that was already quite important to me. “Can you tell me where the local dressing room is?”

  There was no answer, and the silence made me turn around in search of Irala. She was standing there, staring blankly at the wall, not reacting to my questions.

  - Irala!... Are you frozen or what? -

  - “I was just thinking. Sorry, what did you ask me?”

  - I asked you if where there’s a dressing room here, in the laboratory. - I repeated my question. - There is a chance that someone could’ve forgotten the access key in their boxes. -

  - “The dressing room is the second room to the left of the entrance, but you won’t find any access keys there. According to paragraph twelve of article four, employees are prohibited from storing personal access keys in their lockers.”

  - Believe me, people very often break the rules because of forgetfulness or laziness. So it’s worth checking out. -

  And with that, I headed to the indicated room, hoping to get something out of it. Although Irala is also right. If they’d had strict rules, then I would be wasting my time. But there was still a chance. There were four rows of lockers in the room, and at the end, there was a small passage to the shower and bathroom. I was lucky that the doors were locked with small mortise locks, which, for the most part, were exclusively decorative. In order to handle the first lock, I delivered two kicks to the lock itself, after which the door happily revealed the insides of the locker to me. Right now, I probably looked like a vandal – kicking things like a thug, mutilating innocent doors…

  Repeating my actions, I moved up the room. A few kicks to open the door, check the shelves, and if I found things inside, I had to search all the pockets. The object I needed was in the third row of lockers; on the hook, on the inside of the door, there was a most ordinary-looking badge. On one side of this ID, I saw the picture of someone’s forgettable face, but on the reverse side, at the very bottom, there was a small magnetic strip, which, apparently, was an access key. I went out into the corridor, defiantly waggling the badge.

  - Well, what did I tell you? – I couldn’t resist bragging to her, showing her the badge.

  - “But how? The rules for employees clearly stated that the keys must not be left with personal belongings.”

  - There is a human factor that always makes people defy all the rules, - I said, holding up my index finger as I taught her this vital lesson.

  Well, I wouldn’t tell her that the developers do not create any impassable dungeons. In general, I suspect that they’d created several options for passing. For example, there are ventilation outlets between the compartments, where, sure, there are most likely unexpected surprises, but it can be still an alternative way of getting through. Having opened the doors to the rooms coming from the bulkhead, I prepared some cover for myself this way. I just have to run seven meters, but that’s no small feat, in these circumstances.

  - Irala, in which direction does the bulkhead open? -

  - “It folds into the ceiling.”

  - That’s bad, - I was upset. - And in the next room, the machine gun is on the ceiling there as well? -

  - “Yes.”

  - Ok, then turn off the hologram, I’ll open the doors. -

  After inserting the card into the slot, I immediately ran, forcing myself to go as fast as I could. I had to try and get into the nearest room while the machine was still trying to get a read on my position. When I crossed the corridor obliquely, I flew into the open room, attaching myself to the door jamb. The silence and no shots from the machine gun alarmed me; initially, I thought its motion sensor had limited range, or maybe it just hadn’t reacted to the movement because it didn’t find it too threatening. This even pleased me at first, because then it would be possible to use a rifle to shoot the turret from a safe distance. If that ends up being the case, then I will clear the first five zones without any effort at all. But all my expectations were derailed by the appearance of Irala, and it maliciously asking:

  - “You were about to open the bulkhead, right?”

  - Well ... It seems to be open already ... - I somehow answered, despite my uncertainty.

  “Well, well,” she said sarcastically, and disappeared again.

  Suspecting something bad was going to happen, I looked out into the corridor with the utmost care and proceeded to curse my own lineage. I was ashamed of myself, in the presence of an artificial intelligence no less: the bulkhead was in place and, most likely, hadn’t even moved a single centimeter, despite my actions. Some changes could be seen. A rectangle of the holographic screen was near the slot of the card reader. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and then slowly, controlling my breath, exhaled. It's good that no one had seen me, well, not counting Irala, otherwise I would’ve filled my trousers with shame. Going to the screen, I stared at the thin strip of the input field with a standard block, three digits wide. The numbers themselves were located under this same field.

  - Irala, my darling, tell me the PIN code for this improvised ATM, and then I will buy you a couple of beautiful things next time I get paid.

  I typed in characters in a chaotic manner, counting the number of digits that could fit in the input line. On the twelfth digit, the field was completely filled, only it wasn’t clear if twelve was the maximum or not, because asterisks were displayed in the input line instead of typed digits. So if the line was moving, then I couldn’t see it because of the monotony of the image. I shouldn’t waste time trying to find the password by luck, because there are a great number of combinations here, and I don’t know what will happen if I enter the wrong combination. Irala, who appeared beside me with a sad look on her face, shook her head.

  - “I don’t understand what you mean, but if there is an access password, then there is no information about it in my database.”

  - Damn, then let’s use plan B!

  Getting the badge out of the card reader, doing a bit of hard work to manage it, I tucked it under my bullet-proof vest, into the inside pocket, since, who knows, it might come in handy. Getting the repair kit from my backpack, which I had already managed to put there again, and then going to the nearest ventilation shaft, I began to inspect it carefully. I looked both ways, even lit it up with a flashlight, and I found out that it consisted of several layers of plates, arranged horizontally, and if the layer closest to me was downward, then the next one was already directed upwards, which completely blocked the view behind the bars.

  I had to use a screwdriver, a small hammer and a few obscene words to remove this grid, waiting for an unpleasant surprise the entire time. There was a surprise, but not the one I’d expected. It turned out that the ventilation had rather large dimensions only next to the grid, but further out, in both directions, there was a set of pipes with a diameter of slightly larger than my fist when slightly open, which allowed it to circulate the same amount of air, but there was no way to get through the ventilation. Setting the ventilation grid aside, I sat down, leaning against the wall, and started thinking; both of the options I’d hoped for had failed. This dungeon made no sense, there had to be a way to get through it, or else why bother making it? Wait a second, there’d been no alert ... Damn, I don’t remember.

  I was looking through the log of system messages. Quickly scrolling through them, I was convinced that there really had been no notification of entering a dungeon or a den. Does that mean that the laboratory has the status of a normal location? Okay, now I see only two options: you need to either recruit a group to pass it, but then you have to leave Irala here for an indefinite period of time, because it’s dangerous to go somewhere with a
group that’s not prepared. I could still call the guys of Mr. Carefire, but then my interest here will be paltry, even less than if I’d come here with a big military group. Although, maybe there is a way, I just haven’t come up with the solution yet.

  - Do you have any ideas about how I can go further? - I asked Irala, who was standing not far from me.

  - “No, unfortunately, I can't help you.”

  - Well that’s bad! I shall have to look for an alternative. -

  First of all, I headed back to the locker room, hoping that some staff members that had been suffering from memory loss, and had written the numbers down. Those types usually write down all sorts of passwords on pieces of paper in order to be able to peek at them if they completely forget. But even the most thorough search yielded no results, but I did find another pass, although it wouldn’t help me now. Having finished with the dressing room, I moved on to the other rooms. As Irala had said, all the rooms here were for technical purposes.

  By the things and equipment located in each of the rooms, it was easy to determine the purpose of the room itself. There was clearly a realm of electricians: a bay of wires, a bunch of spare light bulbs, a screwdriver, and an electric drill. I noticed a strange object over there, but judging by several soldered bays of wires, it, probably, was just a soldering station. Having spent almost an hour and a half on a detailed survey of each room, I didn’t find anything useful to me. I had to call the local librarian and admit that I didn’t know how to proceed.