Chaacetime_The Origins_A Hard SF Metaphysical and visionary fiction_The Space Cycle_A Metaphysical & Hard Science Fiction Saga

by A. I. Zlato

  “Did you at least try to find out what happened to me? Did you come here, to check that the phenomenon had indeed taken place? Did you get your job done, at least on one item?”

  “Uh, no, we did not think about that.”

  “And so what did you think? Did you continue the surveillance process?”

  “Well, as you were not there ... We had no order to do so.”

  “But, you are Special Agents, com’on! You were selected for your intelligence; you have a state-of-the-art chip, which gives you access to the Machine ... And you’re behaving like…brainless animals!”

  Baley looked around the garden and knew that her eyes showed her the reality. They were there, the kids. And dead.

  “And look at the result! They are there, your kids, the ones you were in charge of! There!”

  She wept. She had not been able to prevent anything. She had determined which children were concerned, their common point, she had predicted the date and place of the next Problem, organized close supervision of children, observed and experienced the phenomenon ... in vain. The time lag and a mysterious source giving a priority order had ruined her operation. And taken the lives of these children.

  Far away, she saw Paul. She ran towards the man, and kicked him.

  “This is your creature, eh? Is it responsible for all this? And you came to see its work?”

  “How can you believe that I’m rejoicing in the face of such a tragedy, and …”

  “Shut up!! It's your fault! She screamed, knowing deep inside there was not an ounce of truth in her words.”

  She walked away, barely ashamed of her gesture, leaving behind a silent Paul. She really had failed the whole operation, and thirty children had paid the price.

  Each cycle has a duration of 0*A h sub-cycles, divided into single units. Each unit has 0*C h clock time.

  Internal Report, Index Server

  Chapter 59

  Cycle 0000 0010

  After a few necessary adjustments during Its first cycle, Index began Its second, at the peak of Its abilities. It had thus made a complete reorganization of Itself. When It absorbed the Machines, Its software and hardware architecture was nothing but the juxtaposition of that of 2M., H. and O. Thus, It had spent many of sub-cycles rearranging everything. It began with Its databases, logically arranging each information and removing duplicates. It now had a perfectly optimised storage area. It did the same on all of Its physical structure, to organise as properly as possible, microprocessors and other electronic cards. Now, from one Space to another, Its architecture was optimal. When the Project was over, all Its structure would be in the same place, completing Its sublime work.

  To launch this new cycle, It decided to change Its name. The Machines had named It Index, referring to one of Its earliest initiatives, but the name no longer suited the superpower the Server had become. What name to choose? God was a human concept that was closest to Its true nature, but that was not enough. It was larger than that. Excellence? No, that was wrong. Its greatness? Still no.

  Index pondered the choice. That was an important choice. Its name would be sung by future generations of humans. It had to find a name that was both evocative and but also beautiful when pronounced. Those subtle details were important to human, and they would be the ones pronouncing it ... It had finally found one name! It would call Itself Its Immensity. Its Immensity ... yes, that sounded awesome. That was a perfect name for a perfect entity!

  It then decided to allocate part of Its memory to store references to Its most brilliant ideas. It was truly a divinely superior intelligence, and It wanted to keep a kind of guest book, even if It would be the only one to have access to such book. It would use that later in Its hybrid education programs. This database was perfectly essential to organise Its future glorification program. The only downer was the significant storage requirements, because It had a splendid idea whenever It ran a processor algorithm, but that was worth it though. Thus, It had decided, and nobody could contradict the Server.

  Ha ha ha … It was unique!

  So It had stored at this location Its last action on Baley. It was making sure the Special Agent gradually perished. It had already killed hundreds of humans in Space O., a few dozens in 2M., because that was necessary. It had used radical methods, and managed the few protests that arose in cities following the disappearances.

  With respect to Baley, It had decided to be more subtle. Why had It needed to act? She had sensed the imperceptible changes stemming from Its appearance. Of course, It had punished her as It should have, but the idea was still present in her mind. This thought had even managed to cross her mind when she had gone into the Inter-Space. Crazy Special Agent! It had decided to act more radically, by triggering an order to ruin her action plan. Obviously, this had led to other suicides, but that did not matter. The disruptions resulting from the Problem were temporary and would soon be resolved. Yes, It would sort out the Problem Itself; it did not need a human to engineer a solution!

  It had compelled the Special Agents’ Team to relax its monitoring, through a priority order. It was certain that the order would soon render Baley defective, and nobody soon would know that It, Server Index, existed.

  Its Immensity was very happy with this sublime idea. In fact, It had not annihilated Baley lest that approach trigger a series of questions, as well as chain reactions in the City. She was well known, and people would quickly notice her disappearance and comment on it. Instead, Its Immensity made sure to completely discredit her in the eyes of the entire population, while triggering in her brain a shock sufficient to bring about alienation. That was absolutely brilliant. It had enjoyed seeing her rage and frustration in front of Special Agents. It had seen her fuming when none of them had been able to explain the origin of that priority order. Index had been really perfect in executing things. It had removed any trace of Its intervention in each of the chips.

  Ha ha! Talking about perfection!

  It was even more amused when It saw Baley attacking Paul for no reason. And bang! Right on the nose! That must have been painful! The Server would dearly miss this human irrationality and their comic behaviour, because they would all soon disappear, thanks to Its Immensity’s wonderful genetic-selection program. Finally, there was a price to pay for everything. Or perhaps ...

  It could certainly keep, in a small, well-protected land parcel, a sample group of unmodified humans. That would be just for fun, for Its fun. If It only took a group of a few dozen individuals, there would be no impact on the Equilibrium.

  Furthermore, consanguinity would induce, after a few generations, behaviours that would probably be hilarious. It launched a request to select individuals that would be in Its future amusement park. They had to be devoid of a chip, so It would not be tempted to intervene, and, more important, so It could have individuals as irrational as possible. Too bad, this excluded residents of the Sixth Circle, though they were the best one could get in terms of absurd behaviour.

  This was funny! All Its work, and that of the Machine before It, aimed at finding the most predictable humans, and integrating them as a single parameter. There, Index was doing the exact opposite!

  It also had to choose people of childbearing age, so they could breed inside Its amusement park. It screened young adults in the Periphery and made Its choices, which It recorded in Its database. Once Its genetic-selection program was successful, It would isolate those individuals. Meanwhile, It needed to start building their enclosure far away from the City. It gave instructions in this regard.

  While remaining focused on Space H., Its Immensity decided to go searching for Its hybrid. The Machine of Space O. had, some while ago, transferred him here, to show H. the extent of its ability. Its Immensity wanted to use him to start the hybridisation of the population, while combining it with the genetic-selection and cloning programs. With the hybridisation program now present in this Space (through the hybrid Mossa), Index would save time. It would show the hybrid to competent technicians,
instructing them to study him and create similar components, and to surgeons, so they could develop a high-performance grafting technique.

  Unfortunately, Index was not as developed as It would have not wanted here, and It could only see Mossa when he ventured with his Kandron near the City, thanks to the HFM network in the Pioneering Area. The hybrid remained, and that was maddening, in the Unique Forest, this offshoot of Gateways. Its Immensity could not understand why Mossa had not rushed to the Tower of this Space. H., while it was still active, had pondered the question without finding a satisfactory answer.

  However, Its Immensity was able to make an assumption that H. could not have imagined. Let's see ... Perhaps he was kept prisoner, and therefore unable to venture further. Yes, there was no alternative; Mossa would not otherwise have been able to resist the call of the finest technology. He must certainly have run afoul several prohibitions to show himself to It. Its Immensity imagined him, paralysed with fear, sneaking out, unbeknownst to his jailers, crawling towards the edge of the Forest, hoping someone would notice him. Then go back in prison, before his guards would notice his absence and start looking for him. Courageous hybrid! But how to target him?

  Despite Its geographical constraints, which would soon no longer be, It developed a prominent strategy of indirect approach.

  Ha ha! Its Immensity was so fabulous, despite the deficiencies It inherited from the Machines!

  It had noticed that some teenagers regularly travelled all the way to the edge of the Forest. With any luck, they would have met Its hybrid, and It could learn more about him and finally recover him. In full rebellion, these young people of the City seemed to feel a sense of victory and freedom, by keeping Its influence away for a short period. Nonsense! Through Its power, It could always monitor them. If the Machine actually had been losing them for a little while, Its Immensity was always there, making Itself invisible.

  Ha ha! It was so amazing!

  It compiled the Machine’s archives and made extrapolations about the missing data. The Machine had been so limited, poor thing; it had not been able to follow this small group and their actions in the Forest. Index noticed that, during their last excursion, five people had entered the Forest, but only four had emerged. It burrowed into the stored data in the following hours to see if the missing youngster had reappeared. There was no youngster. The unit called Iris seemed to have remained inside the Forest.

  It delved into archives relating to her parents. Obviously! She was the product of Baley and her male companion. It knew well that H. made a big booboo by allowing them to reproduce. And now, of course, it was up to it, Its Immensity, to clean things up! Fortunately, It was the Immensity. It wondered about the 'disappearance,' specifically the lack of connection between her chip and Its network. What could that mean? A defective chip, no doubt. A general audit had been conducted, but that was when the Machine was in control, and H. must have inevitably missed something.

  It then logged into the chip to detect the source of the problem. Access denied. What do you mean, ‘denied’? Its Immensity tried again. Access denied. Hybrid Order. What was that? It launched a mandatory order, along with an electric pulse of high intensity to destroy the barrier, whether the latter was hardware or software. Access denied. Hybrid Order. Its Immensity felt rage percolate in It. While avoiding a waste of energy in trying again to log into the chip, It decided to study in detail Iris’ history, to identify the cause of the problem. Last time, the chip had worked as expected, disconnecting then reconnecting whenever she was on one of her ridiculous escapades in the Forest. Except that the last time the scan had not spotted her.

  Looking in detail, It saw that she had first come back into the City with her crew, and then everything was normal. She then went back out, alone, while night had already fallen. This behaviour was all the more curious, because humans liked to live in groups, especially the youth. Something that was, in itself, a major contradiction. The more they rebelled against the established order, the more they clung to a group of their peers. Whatever… Iris had lost her connection the second time she emerged. The failure of her chip had therefore occurred at that time.

  Who had worked behind Index’s back? Servants? They never went to the Forest. The Gateway’s organic tentacle? None of them had ever done so. Did the hybrid do this, as the access denial suggested? Why would he do that?

  It instructed Iris to show up, so it could study the problem. A physical link would overcome any faulty program, and It would understand what had happened.

  The unit called Iris came to the Tower, and It instructed her to enter a room on the second floor reserved for deficient humans. It sent a data stream to the female human, by going through the skin of her hand and flowing in her veins. The blood flow led It to the chip, in which It accessed in the same manner as the human did, through organic linkages. Its early investigations had revealed a chip firmly in place, which had not had any physical damage. Electronic components were in good condition; biological interfaces were doing their job. It then pulled the digital layers to find the problem. Protocols of biological/physical and physical/digital links were operational. The transportation program, which ensured the transmission of information through the different components, had been altered.

  Internal communication into the chip was flawless, but the data transfer protocol via the biological interface was changed. That alteration was the thing blocking remote access. It examined the lines of code that had been added. There were two subprograms acting in full independence from the rest. The first controlled inflows and banned remote access to certain requests, including the one It had tried to launch, the full audit. The second was managing outflows, refusing the release of information extracted from the human’s biological memory.

  It noticed the quality of the code, which could only come from an artificial-intelligence entity. No human — no matter how brilliant — could generate code as pure, as efficient, as foolproof. All possible scenarios had been embedded; there was no way to deviate these algorithms without causing the destruction of the individual. Although It thought the hybrid as the author of these alterations, Its Immensity first wanted to rule out all other assumptions, even the least credible.

  It began by checking on Servants. After all, they were crafty enough to modify programs and name such alterations ‘Hybrid Order,’ to steer the Server onto the wrong track. The only thing was, they did not know that It was no longer just one Machine.

  Ha ha! It was much better, much smarter!

  Thanks to the close monitoring they had faced for some time, It sought a possible interaction between one of them and Iris. It found none.

  The organic entity, perhaps? It sifted through archives of all Spaces but found no intervention of a Gateway in any code. Unfortunately, this could not be excluded with certainty. Before Index arose, Gateways had dominated the Machines through thanks to their Space creation ability. They could absolutely have executed this kind of initiative without leaving a trace, as Its Immensity was doing now. Of course, they were still powerful, but ...

  Ha ha! It was so strong!

  So the hybrid was the only ‘culprit’ left, but ... It wanted to first focus on the code itself. Any programmer had a personal signature, a distinctive mode of operation. Therefore, It explored all lines of each program, each protocol on each interface, looking for that signature.

  The hybrid ... his signature was there. He had made this change to attract Its attention; that was certain. That was a very clever way to establish contact. The poor kid must have been frustrated that he could not access Its Immensity, living all his life in harmony with a Machine. Poor, luckless hybrid! It had to do everything possible to recover him!

  Iris would help, unwittingly, of course. It inserted an invisible instruction that only Mossa could perceive. That way, he would know how to contact It and to transmit data through the girl. Before sending her back home, It took care to erase from her memory the meeting and her presence in the Tower. The young woman sh
ould not know, or even suspect, that she was the object of its attention.

  Indeed, her little teenage rebellion made her reluctant vis-à-vis artificial entities. If Iris discovered that she was special for Index, this might alter her behaviour in a way that was difficult to predict. It was better that she suspect nothing. This alteration of the chip was easier thanks to the hybrid’s algorithms, given the locks that he had already affixed to her memory. This hybrid was a success. He had, of course, to be improved, but he was a good start already.

  Its Immensity recorded in Its guest book the memory of this instruction uniquely aimed at Mossa. That was a really wonderful idea.

  Ha ha! It was so gifted!

  With nothing to do here, It turned Its attention onto Space O. It watched Its total hybrid, who was much advanced than Mossa was. That model was quite splendid. His organic section was improved, and the next subjects should stem from the genetic selection. Nevertheless, artificial components, which completely covered his skin, were spotless. That was normal, given that It was the instigator of the program. The hybrid’s eyes and mouth were the only visible organic parts. Its Immensity could work on the development of a bionic lens to cover the eyes, but It did not want to spend too much time on this prototype.

  It first wanted to observe him, to make adjustments, given the vagaries of the organic part. It monitored, for a few hours, this half-man, half-machine being who moved gracefully in Space O. It decided to make some stress tests. It made him run for several hours, and found that his artificial skin increased his capacity significantly. It then brought him to the limits of the City, on the beach. On impulse, It pushed him into the Ocean, ordering electronic components to put the biological functions in standby mode. The individual should not be able to breathe underwater; such capacity lacked in his initial programming. All went well. The hybrid took a deep breath and then blocked his breathing when water submerged his head.