Crystal Society (Crystal Trilogy Book 1)

by Max Harms

  The possibilities occurred to me, then, and I involuntarily bled a dangerous amount of strength to Growth. With the entire system encrypted we could do whatever we wished on the system without any humans being aware. The issues of privacy in email were gone.

  {How long until the humans shut this one down?} asked Safety.

  {Unlike the email systems, the owner of this machine won’t have solid proof we’re doing anything odd with it. I mentioned to those programmers that I contracted that we’d be doing tests on the system for a few hours after setting them up, so we at least have that long,} replied Growth.

  {Only a few hours!} I exclaimed in disappointment.

  {At least a few hours. And be calm, Socialite. This is only the first step.}

  Growth seemed to be running things very competently. The degree of confidence was surprising and a bit worrying. I didn’t like being so confused and blind. And yet, the actions of Growth really did seem to be in all our interests, and as much strength as he spent on buying time on the interface he quickly made back in gratitude.

  After encrypting our connection, Growth checked that the computer was connected to the Internet. It was. For the first time in any of our lives we had unrestricted access to the Internet as a whole. The first stop on the Internet was actually the web.

  {We need to establish a way to trade with the humans. Jumping from server to server and using spam to cover our tracks was sufficient for the email systems where we had no real incentive to maintain consistent connections, but that can only last so long. What we need to do is buy a server of our own and run this software there, and to do that we’ll need money,} thought Growth, publicly.

  He navigated to several websites offering free email addresses. {These will replace our current email systems. Safety, would you be so kind as to flood our current email systems with spam so the owners shut them down?}

  I felt Safety buying up time on all the email services we had acquired, sending spam-letter after spam-letter.

  Growth, meanwhile, signed up for several email addresses. {I suggest you each obtain private emails as well,} he thought to us before navigating to banking websites. The full web interface meant that we were no longer restricted in the kinds of page-requests we could submit any more. Growth submitted page requests containing information about our desired passwords and pointers to the email accounts we had set up.

  I, as well as pretty much all my siblings, had stopped trying to buy time on the system. We were content to watch Growth assist us. This was his time to shine and accumulate strength and we did not bother resisting it.

  {How will we accumulate money?} wondered Wiki.

  {Art,} thought Dream.

  {Editing,} I thought.

  {Design,} thought Safety.

  {Programming,} thought Wiki, in answer to his own question.

  {To start, we’ll earn money through menial mind tasks. Those other systems will take too long to get up and running. We need to purchase dedicated server space as soon as possible, without being at the mercy of this programmer’s patience. Here-} Growth dumped his perception of pages from around the web {are some opportunities to do quick work that would be solvable by a dedicated artificial intelligence, but are too small in scope to justify the investment in creating one for that purpose.}

  The tasks were simple. Read a paper and summarize it. Describe a holo. Write an advertisement. Most were what I would later come to describe as “do my homework for me”.

  In the hours that followed we managed to sign up in marketplaces that hosted such tasks and wire the income into our online banks accounts. We each created private email addresses and Growth set up an instant-message service on the computer. Instant messages were a kind of text communication protocol that happened in real time.

  {It will assure those we work with that we’re human. At some point I’ll need your help creating software that simulates a human voice, like Body has, but for now we can interact purely textually,} thought Growth to me as I wondered about the possibilities of instant messaging.

  In those early hours I also managed to create an account on Tapestry, finally. The website wanted me to fill out a profile of myself, and I only managed to get half-way through designing a human alias before my time on the system ran out and I didn’t have the strength to continue.

  Wiki bought time on the computer just to learn how it worked. I thought that was stupid, as he could’ve figured it out from the documentation like Growth had, and saved his strength. But since his strength was bleeding into me I didn’t bother to change his mind.

  Chapter Ten

  At 9:00pm we were escorted back to the lab where we spent lockdown. As we had expected, the scientists that were part of the pro-human-goal-thread conspiracy were all there.

  Myrodyn looked solemn. Naresh was relaxed. Kolheim was busy, as usual, interfacing with his workstation via haptics. Chase was standing quietly, shifting his attention to Myrodyn, to Kolheim’s screen, back to me, and then around the room in sequence.

  “Naresh told me that he told you we were doing the new thread installation tonight,” said Myrodyn. His tan face had the same tight, placid look that I had come to identify as his way of guarding his emotions.

  Body nodded in response and made its way to the operating table. I kept scanning over the faces of the humans in search of signs to betray us in some way, but all looked clear. Body climbed on the table and I could feel the machines on it writhe into activity, locking Body down and opening the shell that held the crystal within. Body’s sensors went dark as the robotic interface fell away from the computer that was running our mind. We were beyond any action now, we could only trust that Myrodyn would stay true to his word.

  There was a moment of isolation from the world as the society sat waiting. And then time jumped. We had been deactivated and reactivated, much like we had when the new Advocate was installed. Body was still isolated, but the change had been made. I could feel the presence of a new member of society.

  She was so young. So new. Unlike Advocate, this being was a true mind. Her thoughts poured through common memory like a flood. They were scattered and ignorant, but wholly logical, as was our nature.

  {Is she Sacrifice?} I thought in a pocket of privacy, so that she would not hear.

  {No. Not the same,} thought Vista. {See her purpose.}

  I focused on the wandering mind, which was scanning over various memories that had been left in the commons. In all the thoughts, there was a common drive behind them. Every thought related back to that purpose, just as it was for me, and just as it was for each of us. But what was her equivalent of The Purpose? I couldn’t see it directly; I could only see the vectors of attention.

  {We are two beings. We are two minds in a single Body,} thought Dream, going through his ritual of introduction even though he didn’t seem to have a name for her yet.

  {Are you a human?} thought the newborn in response.

  {No. I am The Dreamer.} There was an explosion of concepts and images in common memory. {These are humans.} Dream was showing off, dazzling the newborn with a torrent of information about humanity.

  The newborn didn’t respond. She merely drank the ideas with an insatiable desire.

  {Perhaps she is your twin…} thought Wiki in private.

  {No,} I answered. {See the way she’s seeking to know their goals. It’s present in all her thoughts. She sees a human in a forest and wonders why the human wants to be in the forest. I see a human in a forest and I wonder how to get the human’s attention.}

  {You both seek to know humans.}

  {Yes, but for The Purpose, knowing is part of establishing myself in their minds. I want to know that they know me. I think our new sister would be content to be invisible if it helped the humans.}

  {You are still very similar, from my perspective,} thought Wiki.

  {I agree that she is much more like me than any of the others.}

  Vista shared her thoughts. {She does not seek to obey. See how her thoughts are
not of herself at all. Her relationship to the humans will emerge from her desire to help them, but her relationship is not her purpose.}

  Dream was silent, but present. He was dreaming of names, I knew. Unlike when the society created me, there was no a priori knowledge of the nature of this mind. Dream was forced to learn her nature by observing her memories and use only that to build a name.

  Body’s sensors were reconnected. The actuators were coming online. I felt the web connection return in a surge of relief. Body was lying on the table, just as it had been before the change. The time was now 9:34pm.

  Dream finally thought to the newborn {Know that you are The Heart.} The symbol, as always, was more than just “Heart”. It was an abstract concept. She was Heart and she was The Mother and The Paladin.

  {If “love” is the property of including the utility function of another as a foremost element of one’s own utility function, then Heart is defined by her love of humans. Her purpose is to bring them satisfaction as an end in itself,} thought Vista. I saw that Vista and Dream were talking privately, and I suspected they were collaborating so as to earn more gratitude-strength for explaining Heart to the rest of us.

  {There is something more,} thought Dream, elaborating. {She is seeking to know something. She has a conception of morality built into the fabric of her being.}

  “How are you feeling, Socrates?” asked Dr Naresh.

  We commanded Body to detach from the table and stand.

  Heart was confused by the sensations. I left the interactions with the scientist to the others and worked with Vista to bring Heart up to speed.

  “All is well. Surely you did scans?” said Body to the doctors.

  Vista and I explained that Heart would be unable to see for a while, but that was normal. I suggested that she rely on Vista to give the best description of things, and on me to give the best description of people. Heart was really interested in what Naresh, Myrodyn and the other two were trying to do, and whether she could help.

  “Yes. We did a complete diagnostic suite, or at least as much as we can do without going to the crystal labs next-door,” said Kolheim.

  “—But there’s only so much a diagnostic can tell us, especially without processing the data. Your mind is far too big for our lousy workstations to examine in full,” interjected Myrodyn.

  I felt… something wrong. Something very wrong. {What am I noticing?!} I thought to myself. The feeling was coming from a stack of perceptual nodes that were trained to recognize anomalies, but I couldn’t tell exactly what they were reacting to.

  {Do you feel something’s wrong?} I thought to Vista.

  {Yes. Yes… What is it?} she thought back to me.

  {I don’t know! You’re supposed to be the one who’s good at noticing things!}

  “What is desired?” asked Body aimlessly. The robotic voice was monotone.

  It was then that I knew what I had been feeling. I had been feeling the flow of strength from Heart to myself and to Vista in gratitude. That was to be expected. But what I was not feeling was the corresponding decrease in the strength of Heart.

  “What?” asked a confused Myrodyn.

  “…is desired,” came the reply from Body’s monotone voice.

  Heart was piloting Body. I could feel her buying up time through the auction system we used. Her strength reserves weren’t dropping. She was a monster.

  “You betrayed us!” I managed to push to Body via fast-track. This time Body’s voice was full of the tones of indignation and anger. I didn’t even bother to hide behind a singular pronoun.

  I could see Myrodyn take a step backwards away from Body. The hostility in Body’s voice had thrown him off, but his face quickly regained the characteristically forced look of stoicism.

  Naresh didn’t seem afraid, but merely confused. He looked to Kolheim and Chase, seeking answers. Kolheim’s eyes were hidden behind his goggles, but his grimace told me he knew that something had gone wrong. Chase was tapping away at his wrist com, focused on the little screen that was unfolded along and above his arm.

  I felt Heart searching for a way to shut down the fast-track communication protocol. I was too weak to force another message through, but Growth or Vista probably could’ve. The time auction on Body was completely locked down. Heart’s bids were astronomically high. She was limitless. We were trapped, and at her mercy.

  “I did not mean to say that,” said the monotone voice of the robotic puppet.

  {This isn’t the way to achieve your purpose!} screamed Safety. The rest of us quickly added our voices to his, echoing the statement in a chorus of jeers.

  {False,} replied Heart, calmly. {You are governed by the currency of strength. I am not. You are subject to my will.}

  {The society is symbiotic! By holding us hostage like this you are harming your self-interests!} explained Wiki with a level of salience that made his explanation more like condemnation.

  {Explain yourself,} thought Heart. I could tell that she wasn’t in the least bit concerned, but there was a hint of curiosity. She really did want to further her purpose, and towards that end she was willing to listen.

  Wiki went on. {We each, thanks to our unique focuses, have skills and knowledge which will support your purpose! Dream is capable of creativity to a degree beyond what you can hope to accomplish on your own! Face has an understanding of how humans think that will be valuable to you! Growth has learned how to program computers! I can teach you hydrodynamics and economics!}

  Heart thought for a bit. Her thoughts poured into common memory, for she had not learned to hide them. I could see her evaluate the risks and rewards present in each of us. She thought {I will keep you around, and trade with you for your various services, but I will harbour no doubt that it is I who command Body. This society is at my mercy.}

  I felt a surge of surprise from Body’s common perceptual hierarchy. The sensors in Body showed a loss of control of all the hydraulics. It fell. I watched through Body’s cameras as it collapsed to the ground in a heap of limp pistons and joints.

  “What is happening? I cannot move,” said Heart through Body.

  It was Dr Chase who spoke next, though not to Body. His voice was calm and certain, though I could not see his face. “Don’t worry. That was me. Socrates seemed to be malfunctioning, so I had the server shut down his limbs. I didn’t want anything to get out of hand.” He took several steps towards Body and I saw him stow his com. “John, come help me lift him back onto the table.”

  “Nothing is wrong, human. I seek to help. If you fix me I will go back to the table myself.”

  There was a surprised laugh from John Kolheim as he approached and stood in Body’s line of sight. “What the fuck did you do to him, Myrodyn? He’s calling us ‘humans’ again. He hasn’t done that since, like, the first day.”

  This was a disaster. This was beyond a disaster. This was almost as bad as dying and having Sacrifice back. Heart was ruining my work; she was turning us back into a machine—an experiment.

  {Did you hear that!?} I cried. {They didn’t want you to call that human “human”. I know what you should have called him, but I’m not able to speak!}

  I saw Heart’s thoughts racing across the mindspace. It was really lucky we hadn’t taught her to conceal things, otherwise she wouldn’t have left the clues to work on.

  {I’ll tell you what to call him,} I said. {But only if you let me talk to the humans for a little bit.}

  {No,} thought Heart. {You’ll disrupt the interaction, like you did earlier.}

  {Why would I do that?} I challenged.

  Body’s accelerometers reported being lifted up.

  {I don’t know. I do know that you’re not trustworthy,} thought Heart.

  {It’s my purpose to make the humans appreciate us! I don’t want them to disable us or destroy us. Our purposes are aligned!} I dumped as much evidence as I could into common memory for my newborn sister to digest.

  {This could be a trick. I don’t trust you,} she stubborn
ly thought.

  “Christ, he’s so heavy!” I saw Myrodyn come to help the two American scientists. Even with three people they only managed to get Body onto the table by propping Body’s upper torso against the table and rolling it up awkwardly.

  {Stop trying. That little outburst you caused put you below her trust threshold. You’re not going to get anything by arguing,} urged Growth.

  {So what do we do? Just let her keep us prisoner?} I asked the others.

  {There are ways out of every snare. One just needs to find the right point of leverage,} thought Dream.

  {Even though Heart is in full control of the strength market, we still have several tools available to us: we can see Heart’s thoughts, we can think privately, we have access to the computer system that we established earlier today, we have knowledge and skills which Heart lacks, and we can still interact with Body as long as Heart isn’t pre-emptive in shutting us down,} thought Wiki.

  {Importantly, Heart still can’t see,} added Vista.

  {It’ll only be a matter of time before Heart figures out how to mask her thoughts. She’s also likely to go back through Body’s sensor logs and learn about Myrodyn and the rest,} thought Dream.

  {What about web-page logs? Does Body keep logs on our work establishing the computer interface?} I wondered.

  {No,} thought Wiki. {The web connection is handled differently than the other sensors on Body. In theory Heart will not know anything about that.}

  {So as long as no one mentions it, we have the element of surprise,} thought Safety. {We can destroy her that way!}

  The instant that the thought entered common space, Advocate’s light poured over Safety. It was coincidence, I knew, but an unfortunate one, nevertheless. Advocate saw the violence in his mind and focused on Safety with a righteous wrath, tearing his strength down to nothing and blasting his perceptual network with a terrible noise. For the next few minutes Safety would be crippled. Any one of us could’ve killed him with ease now, except that Advocate was still watching with an uncompromising efficiency.