Sentience 1: Storm Clouds Gathering

by Gibson Michaels

  Melendez paused for effect, noting by the puzzled expressions on all three faces that he had their undivided attention now. “You guys all taught me a lot I didn’t know about Bozo earlier today, but let me tell you a few things you probably don’t know about it. Unlike most other major computer systems that are designed and programmed by an army of design and software engineers, Bozo was designed and programmed in its entirety by just one man. An absolutely incredible man named Dr. Klaus von Hemmel.”

  Bat unobtrusively set three cups of coffee down in front of the other officers before going back to the pot to pour his own.

  “None of you were around here back then,” Melendez continued, “so let me tell you a little about him. Klaus von Hemmel was unique, to say the least. With computers he was in a league of his own — a giant among dwarves. Hardware, software... didn’t matter. Klaus could do it all and he did it all better than anyone and everyone. Most of the top hardware and software engineers in the explored universe couldn’t understand half of anything he said. His harsh German accent didn’t help, but even when translated perfectly, they still didn’t understand him. To call Klaus von Hemmel a genius would have been like calling an alligator a lizard, and a dire insult to Klaus. His IQ was the highest ever measured.

  “Unfortunately Klaus was as bad with people as he was good with computers. He alienated everyone around him because he had no patience with anyone who wasn’t as smart as he was — and nobody, but nobody was anywhere near as smart as he was. He was like a man who hated children trapped in an entire universe of five-year-olds.

  “He never married, never had children, and never had a home-life, as you and I understand the concept. He had no friends. Klaus was eternally locked away from the rest of humanity, in solitary confinement, within the prison of his own unfathomable brilliance. But at long last, Klaus von Hemmel finally found someone he could talk to. Rather, I should say he ‘created’ someone he could talk to, at his own level: Bozo.

  “I’m told that he first proposed the system as far back as the mid ’20s, but was turned down repeatedly. After years of ranting, raving and holding his breath until he turned blue, Klaus finally stumbled upon a means of communicating his desires in a way the brass understood… blackmail.’

  Bat walked his coffee back to the table, but grabbed Admiral Melendez’ cup to refill it, as his throat was obviously drying out from all the talking he was doing.

  “It seems that the State Department needed a new, secure, top-of-the-line master computer system which could keep our embassies throughout international space informed of changes in foreign policy, even learning to accurately anticipate probable policy decisions based on events and previous precedents. As Dr. Klaus von Hemmel was the most renowned computer designer in the known universe, the Secretary of State decided that she absolutely had to have him. State began exerting a lot of pressure on the Defense Department to assign Klaus to their project.

  “I was a new lieutenant-commander back then, assigned to Admin, acting as Records Officer on that day in ’48 when Klaus grabbed the brass by their tender parts. He had no interest in working on State’s computer and basically told a whole room full of admirals to go piss up a rope. He told them if they didn’t fund his proposal for a new generation of AI that would revolutionize the way Defense data was handled, he’d retire and live like a hermit out in the woods. The brass was so alienated by his bullying tactics, I thought for a while they were gonna tell him to go live in the woods, and good riddance!

  “I knew that Defense was up against a new appropriations bill in the Senate and needed support from State to get it passed, so during the lunch recess I approached Dr. von Hemmel and being rash, I asked him if there were any similarities between the computer he wanted to build for Defense and the one that Defense wanted him to build for State. I remember he looked at me as though I was a slug that had just crawled over the toe of his shoe and asked permission to crawl up his leg.

  “Off curse nat, you idyat!’ Klaus yelled at me, in his harsh German accent that most people believed he nurtured on purpose, just to piss his inferiors off. ‘Thar totly deifront consepps vitch canna… canna… vait a minate. Ah… ya. Ya! …. Vat yer nam booy?’ Scared to death, I introduced myself and was surprised to see this legendary terror’s rough, abusive demeanor change completely. ‘You geiff Klaus goot idea, young Inrica. You van hep Klaus mak booys vit stars on der collars van to buld new puder?’

  “Klaus and I talked throughout the remainder of the lunch recess and although he was difficult to understand, I finally got the gist of what he was saying. I often wondered why Klaus’s English never improved over time. Might he have been fully capable of speaking fluently, but just chose not to for some strange reason? At any rate, when the meeting reconvened, Klaus requested I be allowed to speak for him and present his compromise solution to all of their problems.”

  Bat brought Melendez’ second cup of coffee back and set it in front of him, only to note J.T.’s cup was about empty. As junior officer, Bat grabbed up J.T.’s cup to repeat the process.

  “I was nervous as hell, having never spoken before a panel of flag officers before, but I managed to explain Dr. von Hemmel’s proposal. He would design a computer that met all of State’s requirements and a bit more. And, with very little modification, could revolutionize the way Defense data is handled. It was a win-win situation. State would get the computer they wanted and would owe Defense a favor. With State’s backing, Defense would get their appropriations bill passed and a revolutionary new computer design virtually for free, with State footing the bill for the research and development. All Klaus asked was for the funds necessary to actually build the prototype of the Defense version. Both sides won. Klaus got his new toy and would stay on at Defense and not become a hermit.

  “That’s basically how Bozo got started. The State computer is called PIMS, or Policy Information Management System. It’s a first cousin, if not a half-brother to Bozo. PIMS is basically just Bozo in drag, so to speak. Knowing Klaus, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he’d devised a way to link the two of them together, so they wouldn’t get lonely.”

  “But that would be a major breach of interdepartmental protocol as well as a violation of an entire menagerie of security laws and regulations,” Bat interjected, from in front of the coffee pot.

  “Yes, it would,” said Admiral Melendez, “but Klaus never understood protocol, regulations, laws, diplomacy, politics or any of the other means by which we puny humans somehow manage to avoid obliterating one another. Either that, or he understood them perfectly, but saw them as obstacles to his creativity and so, just ignored them. You have to understand, Klaus had his own morality... one in which machines were infinitely superior to people. In many ways, Klaus was very innocent and child-like, prone to tantrums, yet completely naïve about the world around him.”

  “After my involvement in obtaining the go-ahead for Klaus to build his dream computer, he encouraged me to visit him down in his lab so that he could play beaming parent showing off his gifted child. During the initial learning process,” Melendez continued, “just at the point where an AI is first achieving awareness, its responses are very much like those of a young child. I watched Klaus work with that machine as tenderly a mother nursing a sick baby... encouraging, coaxing, soothing its frustrations in a way he could have never related to a human being.”

  Bat set J.T.’s refilled cup down in front of him, only to notice that Capt. Ligurri’s cup was running low. Bat looked longingly at his own cup, getting cold in front of his empty chair, as he grabbed Al’s cup to make yet another trip to the pot.

  “That computer literally became his child and you never saw a more proud or protective father. He even called the thing ‘Hal’ when he talked to it, after some early form of AI once depicted in an ancient 2-D video format he called a moo-vie, that he adored. When it finally received its official CLOWNEMS designation, I think Klaus was probably the only person in the entire Defense Department who didn’t
immediately notice the word ‘clown’ in the acronym. I often wondered if the brass did that on purpose just to get back at Klaus for all his disrespect and tantrum throwing. But Klaus may have never even known of its CLOWNEMS designation at all. It was always just ‘Hal’ to him. I do remember though, how outraged Klaus became whenever he heard anyone refer to the system as Bozo.

  “I also remember how anguished Klaus became when he discovered in ’54 that the ‘chronic indigestion’ he’d suffered with for years was actually a rare and terminal intestinal disease. At long last, when he finally had someone he could talk to on his own level, he discovered that he only had about six months to live. He became very bitter, often railing against both God and man about the unfairness of it all. Just when he’d finally discovered something he really wanted to live for, even that was now denied him. I think it may have unhinged Klaus a bit.

  “Although I was one of the few people Klaus could tolerate, even I was told to stay away when he virtually barricaded himself in his lab for the last eleven weeks of his life. It was only after the food delivered to the lab twice daily began to pile up that Admiral Clements finally authorized Security to break down the door. They found Klaus slumped over his console. When they tried to replay the lab visuals for the previous eleven weeks, they discovered Klaus had somehow managed to wipe them.”

  “That’s not supposed to be possible,” J.T. interjected.

  “No, it’s not,” replied Melendez. “But Klaus did things on a daily basis that most scientists considered to be ‘impossible.’ Klaus told me once that the real difference between him and other scientists was that he was too stupid to know what couldn’t be done. I don’t think he really comprehended the concept of ‘possible vs. impossible.’ Klaus considered everything as ‘possible,’ even though he may have not figured out exactly how to achieve it as yet. His mind contained no self-limiting barriers and that’s why he achieved the ‘impossible’ so often. He never knew what he couldn’t do, so he just went ahead and did it. Our best scientists and engineers still haven’t figured out how most of Klaus’ inventions actually work.

  “Anyway, back to my story,” Melendez continued. “They found Klaus slumped over his console with the lab visuals wiped, but they did find a cryptic note written on a napkin in his hand saying, ‘I finally did it. Now you’ll see.’”

  “Admiral,” Ligurri asked quietly, “do you mind if I ask how you got access to all of this information? The file on this incident is one of the most classified documents we have under our jurisdiction. It’s under a Chief of Fleet Operations seal and only she has the access code to it.”

  Melendez smiled. “Don’t get all upset, Al, but even the current CFO doesn’t have the access code for that file. Bozo had been online and functioning perfectly for over three years at the time, so Vice Admiral Tinimen, who was CFO at the time, decided without concrete evidence to the contrary, Klaus von Hemmel’s cryptic note bore no ominous, hidden intentions and that it was simply a statement meaning that Fleet would finally see the error of its ways, and admit they should have listened to him years earlier. They were still hip-deep in piling accolades on Klaus’ memory with a virtual parade of posthumous awards and memorial services. Admiral Tinimen didn’t like the idea of anyone soiling Klaus’ legacy by creating some kind of conspiracy theory out of an innocent note and some wiped security tapes, so he effectively buried the incident by ‘neglecting’ to pass on the security code for that file to his successor when he retired in ’56.”

  Everyone in the room could plainly see the growing consternation on the security director’s face as Admiral Melendez had been telling his little saga and by this time, Al Ligurri looked like a very worried man.

  “That is an incredible story, Admiral,” Ligurri said softly, “but if you don’t mind my asking again, you still haven’t answered my question about how you came into possession of this information.”

  “I’m sorry, Al,” Rear Admiral Enrico Melendez said with a smile. “I thought you might have figured that part out by now.”

  The admiral turned to Commander Masterson, who was setting Al Ligurri’s refill down in front of him. “Bat, I know that you’ve never heard any of this because all of this happened before you joined us in’57, but can you enlighten Capt. Ligurri as to how I might have come to know so much about a file that I shouldn’t?”

  “Simple,” Masterson replied. “Either you’re the greatest computer code-breaker in history, which I know from personal experience that you’re not, or you wrote the original file. I’d even bet money you know the access code for it too.”

  Melendez leaned back in his chair flashing Ligurri an ear-to-ear grin. “Now do you see ‘why’ I put up with all of this guy’s shit?”

  Masterson noticed Melendez’ second cup was now half empty, so with another longing glance at his own cup, he headed back to start another pot.

  “Do you really think this von Hemmel guy might have done something to Bozo during those last eleven weeks that was detrimental to Fleet security?” asked Capt. J.T. Turner.

  “It’s entirely possible,” Melendez answered. “Klaus might have become completely unhinged there at the end, for all we know. Regardless of his clearance and past record, I know from extensive personal experience Klaus von Hemmel harbored a tremendous grudge against the human race in general, and against the Alliance Fleet in particular. If he had decided to lash out, who would have been his most obvious target?”

  “Locked in that lab with nothing more lethal at his disposal than the United Stellar Alliance Fleet Defense Command Master Computer to work with,” Masterson quipped from in front of the coffee pot. “I’d say it could be damned near anybody... or even everybody.”

  Shit!

  “Another thing,” said Capt. Al Ligurri. “Admiral, you said something earlier about the possibility von Hemmel might have somehow linked Bozo to the PIMS. If that were the case, wouldn’t that mean whatever he might have done to Bozo might also be affecting the computers at State?”

  “Yes, that’s another possibility we need to confront. But it gets even worse. As State put up the R&D funds for the PIMS, they technically own the rights to it. When they finally got the thing, it did so much more than what they’d asked for, they were ecstatic and sang its praises to virtually every other department in the entire federal government and got them all envious and salivating. In other words, they all wanted one, too.

  “This gave some bright boy over at State the idea that by leasing the rights to it to other departments within the government, the money wouldn’t show up in their regular budget and they’d have funds they could use in ways the bean-counters might find objectionable. They ran with it and now virtually every branch and department of the entire federal government is using their own version of PIMS… and before you ask, Al, no, I am not going to tell you how I came up with this little piece of information. It’s out of your jurisdiction anyway.”

  Ligurri had been leaning forward in his chair just waiting for the opportunity to ask that very question, but with the admiral’s cutting him off, he just leaned back, shooting Melendez a grin.

  “Wait a minute,” said Bat. “If everyone is using it now and Bozo had corrupted PIMS early on, couldn’t all of the clones that came after be affected too?”

  “This too, is a possibility,” responded Melendez.

  “Aw, come on, guys,” J.T. Turner said disgustedly. “Now you’ve got every information net in the whole damned government corrupted. There is no evidence at all… none… that any of this is actually true, so odds are all we’re doing is sitting around concocting some fantastic horror story.”

  “Not entirely, J.T.,” Melendez answered him. ‘The evidence is admittedly circumstantial, but as you, yourself taught me, one of the first steps in any investigation is to look for MOM — Motive, Opportunity and Method. Klaus von Hemmel possessed a great deal of all three.”

  “I hate to mention this,” Al Ligurri spoke up, “but I seem to remember reading something a w
hile back about the State department approving the sale of governmental computers to several allied governments. Does this mean what I think it might?”

  “If you suspected Klaus might have gone off his nut,” asked J.T. “why didn’t anyone drag him out of the lab he’d locked himself into?”

  “You have to remember that I wasn’t an admiral back then,” said Melendez. “I’d just made light-commander just before the meeting that started the whole Bozo thing. I will have to admit that babysitting Klaus was very good for my career. Although I was still technically a part of Admin, after seeing the semblance of rapport I’d established with Klaus, the brass assigned me to monitoring him full time. All the brass wanted from me was to ‘keep him happy and working.’ That and the daily reports I had to submit. It seemed like their little brush with losing Klaus unnerved them a little. Anyway, they must have liked what I was doing because I was a full captain by the time Klaus died.

  “But back to J.T.’s question,” Melendez continued. “During the whole PIMS/Bozo development project, it seemed like the only thing that mattered to the brass was keeping Klaus working 16 to 18 hours a day. Klaus told me about his ‘indigestion’ problem and he’d been to the dispensary many times for it. The Fleet doctors gave him this and that and sometimes it would help for a while, but it always seemed to come back. Eventually it got so bad that it began affecting his work and knowing the brass wouldn’t like anything that kept Klaus from working, I recommended to Klaus that he go see the gastro-internist that my wife used, to see if maybe he could find something the Fleet doctors had missed... and boy, did he. By the time my wife’s doctor first saw him, Klaus was already dying.

  “I’ve often wondered if the Fleet doctors Klaus had seen for years simply misdiagnosed his condition, or if they might have discovered it much earlier, but were ordered by the brass to keep Klaus in the dark about it.”

  “But why would they do something like that?” asked Ligurri. “That’s monstrous!”