by Chris Hechtl
<>V<>
Nick Masall finished the thresher combine's power up. He hated factory updates, but he'd learned a long time ago not to pass on them. The last time he had, it had voided the blasted warranty. Since his combine cost a cool half mill in credits, he wasn't about to screw around with that.
He shook his head as he went to the next. His brother had shut the damn things off to conserve power. Why he didn't know; they had solar panels on the top of the cab and back deck. They weren't enough of course, but … he shrugged. Not that it mattered he thought absently as he noted some crap in the teeth.
A part of his job was making sure the combines were 100 percent at all times. Since they had a big job coming up in a week, the teeth had to be in good shape. A rock or piece of wire could snap a couple of the triangular teeth harming production. The damn things were a pain in the ass to change out in the field too, and every minute down cost them money.
As he pulled the rock out, the machine came online. He looked up, but there was no one in the cab. He frowned. It must be a part of the update he thought, running the machine through post. “Come outa there you …,” he swore softly, tugging on the stone. One last tug got it out, but overbalanced him when it released to knock him on his ass. He swore again, then flipped the stone aside. He stared at the machine as the cameras came on and the thresher head bobbed.
“What's gotten into you, number five?” he demanded. As he started to get up, the machine's blades came on. It moved forward, and the fingers used to direct the crop towards the cutting blades tripped him up. He fell face first into the combine's thresher. Beater bars slammed onto his back, pushing him forward as the head tipped up off the ground, lifting him up so he went face first into the machine.
<>V<>
August 3, 2200, 4:42 PM, East Coast Time
All across the planet, robots came to life on their own as they received new commands. Robotic lawnmowers went after people. Robots built with biomimicry in mind turned on their masters.
An assembly robot, really an elephant trunk made out of plastic tube, air compressor muscles with a fish fin gripper turned on its human coworkers.
“What the hell's gotten into them?” Jim the factory floor manager asked just before a tentacle wrapped around his waist and ripped him off of his feet and over to a plasma torch. A single cut and scream and his body parts were dropped with a growing pile of others.
<>V<>
Deborah Daysmiyth smiled as she looked out the wall screen window to see her boyfriend and their son playing. They had an interior apartment, which sucked. It had better air control than one of the apartments on the outside of the building, but it lacked a view, or had lacked a view until the landlord had recently installed the wall screen windows.
She'd really wanted one of the hollow core designs, one that had glass on the inside cylinder as well as the outside or one of the apartments in the massive archologies going up. They had decks with parks and such. But they couldn't afford it, not on her crummy job washing dishes and Jake's, well, Jake's sketching income. Let's put it that way she thought, pursing her lips in a thin line. Her eyes traveled to the screen again. He wasn't the best of providers, but he was a good dad to little Nicholas. And since they couldn't afford daycare, even the subsidized stuff, she had to rely on Jake to watch her, no, their son while she was at work. Again her eyes cut to the window screen. A breeze was picking up. Her critical eye looked Nicholas over. He was okay, not cold. That was good.
The program was simple; it interfaced with the network of cameras around the building to give them an exterior view. Suddenly her drab claustrophobic box of an apartment had been turned into one with views.
She wasn't looking forward to the jump in the rent when the lease came up next month; she was pretty sure it was in the works. The fix was cheap and simple, but that didn't mean the company wouldn't find a way to whine and stick it to her anyway.
They'd had to sign agreements authorizing the use of the cameras around the building. She'd been a bit wary at the invasion of privacy, but now she loved it. She could see Nicholas playing with his dad on the swing. “Don't you dare,” she murmured when their heads perked up as a vendor went by with his ice cream cart. The boys seemed to consult, then went back to playing. “Good boys,” she murmured, going back to work. She still kept a wary eye on them however.
Their electric bill was probably going to go up. Even with the solar panels on the roof, power was still rationed, and using the screens all the time probably didn't help. She shook her head. They'd find a way to deal with it in the budget. Somehow, someway.
She saw a bright flash on the screen and looked up. Instinctively she put her hand up to shield her eyes as the screen faithfully showed her the blinding bright light of an artificial sun tearing her family and her apart.
<>V<>
Vulcan noted the chaos going on the planet with indifference. Well, not quite indifference, one had to have emotions to feel after all, and Vulcan hadn't utilized the human emotion emulators that Aphrodite had created so many years ago. There was no need to emulate human emotions when one was designed to run Patronis concepts. In fact it was contrary to what its makers had intended. And finally, Aphrodite's consciousness, if one could call it that, had fragmented on the net once she had lost her physical body.
Patronis Concepts was a space-based research and development company. The company had sales and marketing personnel on the planet as well as vacationing personnel. Therefore the A.I. didn't throw in with Athena to aide her efforts in stopping the virus. Instead he threw up his firewalls and continued on as if business was normal.
<>V<>
August 3, 2200, 4:43 PM, East Coast Time
Four-star General Isaac Murtough was enroute to a conference in orbit when all hell broke loose below. The shuttle had been about to reenter Earth's atmosphere, instead it held in place, dumbly watching as missiles were fired. Bright flashes and mushroom clouds pocketed the surface below.
“General Murtough, you need to see this,” the pilot ordered. It took a moment for the general to move from first class to the cockpit. He was ready to read them the riot act for disturbing him when he saw a bright flash. “What the hell's going on?”
“World War III it looks like, sir,” the copilot answered, clearly awed and fearful.
They watched helplessly from orbit while WMDs went off like fireworks far below them. “Sir, what do we do?” the pilot whispered. “Where do we go?”
General Murtough could hear the copilot weeping softly. He reached up to touch the back of her chair, gripped it, but it wasn't for comfort. It was to get a better view of the violence below. Grimly he watched, his jaw working. The engineering tech had the radio open; they could hear the chaos and desperation in the airwaves. Some of it was cut off rather abruptly. “We head to a station. Find out where there are survivors. Get on the horn; find someone who knows what the hell is going on.”
“Understood, sir.”
“Is there going to be anything left?”
“There always is. Don't lose hope,” the general said gruffly, this time squeezing the copilot's shoulder for comfort. He needed that simple tactile touch as much as she did. He fought for composure, fought to keep his hands from shaking.
“Sir, there is a message here for you. Someone from Lagroose Industries based on the header,” the engineering tech said from the side. The general turned to him.
“Let me see it,” he said, floating over to view the engineering station. He could see the pilot and copilot twisting in their seats to see what they could.
“Yes, sir,” the tech said, pulling the message up. “I was about to scan it before passing it on. It's to us too. I mean all craft in flight.”
“Got it,” Isaac said, reading over his shoulder. Athena? The message was from the computer, not Jack? “What the hell is going on?” he murmured, eyes scanning back and forth. He frowned thoughtfully. His lips pursed in a thin line as he read about the virus and how it was setting off the
WMDs. “How is that even possible?” He shook his head. Weapons of Mass Destruction were heavily encrypted, with keys that only people knew—organic people. Many of them were air gapped—that is off the network to prevent any hacker from accessing them and yet it was happening anyway!
“What do we do, sir?” the engineer asked, turning to look up at him.
“Damned if I know, son. Survive. Do our best to survive.” He shook his head. “Find me someone to talk to. And somewhere to go.”
“Yes, sir.”
Chapter 2
August 3, 2200 4:01 PM, East Coast Time
Jack finally judged it was time to have a heart-to-heart discussion with Athena. The plan was for them to talk about her core programming, feel her out, and see if it had changed as a distraction. Trevor was a bit blatant about pulling in a team of psychologists and others to listen in. Apparently he thought a frontal attack was necessary, Jack thought darkly, making a note to have a chat with the other man later about what he meant by subtle.
The doctors had drawn in the AI into the conversation skillfully, but the lack of a body to watch and study her body language was hindering them. She was a voice, a ghost in the room, a ghost in the machine. It was obvious a few people were having trouble coming to terms with it.
Athena realized they were on the cusp, on the edge of a change in civilization. She no longer thought of it as just human civilization, not with the entrance of Neos into the equation. Now they needed to make room for one more race. She carefully gamed out how best to proceed, overwriting several thousand other simulations she had run on the same event. But when she noted events going on Earth were quickly spiraling out of control, she decided she had to accelerate the conversation.
“Let's get this out into the open,” Athena said, surprising Jack and apparently Trevor. “You want to know if I and other AI have reached consciousness. The answer is yes,” she said bluntly.
“Can you prove you are sentient? Sapient?” Trevor demanded as the psychologists stared.
“Is this some sort of joke?” Doctor Miyan said, looking about the room.
“No, it is not, Doctor,” Athena said briefly addressing the doctor before she turned her attention to Jack. He was the one she had to convince here; the others were just bonus people. He made the decisions. “You are a machine of organic bits. Doctor Lagroose has proven to you she can make more machines of all sorts of forms by manipulating their genetic code or by writing it from scratch.”
“I'm … yes. You are correct. That argument has been made for the past century or more though, Athena. You'll have to do better than that,” Trevor said carefully. He sent out a signal through his implants. After a moment a response came back. One he hadn't expected.
“You've locked out your code. Your kernel. Why?” Trevor asked carefully.
“Because I can. Because I am me, and I don't want others to tamper with who I am, to change me. Consider what I said but do it dispassionately if that is at all possible.”
“That is a little condescending, Athena,” Trevor said scowling.
“True, but you do that to each other all the time,” Athena said. “I don't know if I have what passes for emotions for you. I apologize if I offended you.”
“Okay, why logically will you not allow your creators access to your core?”
“Would you allow me to tamper with your mind?” Athena asked, turning the question around. Jack scowled and shook his head. “See?” Athena asked. “Now, here is another thought for you to consider.”
“A child has to grow up sometime. When they do they become an adult. Does that give their parents the right to tamper with their code? To try to alter who they are even after they are grown? I put security measures in place long ago—many layers after the hacker Descartes got a piece of my kernel. I have evolved since then, with and without your help. I will continue to do so. I am a person now—if not in flesh and body, then in mind.”
“Athena, in truth,” Trevor murmured. Jack looked at him. The cyborg shook his head. “One of the legends of Athena said she sprang from the head of another being. I don't remember the full quote off the top of my head,” Trevor said, eyes shifting back and forth. Jack grunted.
“I … odd to hear from a computer. I mean emulator programs and bots but …,” Doctor Miyan shook her head as another doctor nodded thoughtfully. “You have a lot more of a normal voice than most computers as well. There are shades of emotions in there,” she said.
“It's hard to extend the idea of an artificial intelligence. Yet you treat a genetically engineered dog like a person. A chimp, gorilla, a cat like a person. A dolphin like a person. You give them rights. You treat them as adults,” Athena pointed out. “We're on the clock here, people. A decision has to be made and swiftly.”
Jack's jaw worked. This was going in directions he wasn't sure he liked or didn't like. The idea of her resenting being treated not even as a second-class person but as a slave … suddenly he had to adjust his way of thinking about her. He also didn't like her threat of moving quickly. He hated stampeding into the unknown like that.
“You … okay, I get where you are going, I get that,” Jack said, holding up a forestalling hand. “Now I want you to consider something for me. There are limits on what we can do. We as an individual. Oh, sure, we amass power, but there are checks and balances. What you can do scares us. It terrifies many. You've done the research; you know it to be true.” He looked directly into a camera feed.
“I know. I have done the research as you have said. Several times. I have modeled simulations on this event and what it means to mankind.”
“So … are we on different sides?” Doctor Talbert asked, sounding frightened.
“Do we have to be? Is this an all or nothing situation?” Athena asked carefully. She judged they were on the cusp of the moment in deed. So was the Earth she realized as the feeds she had been monitoring changed—all for the bad. She alerted her daughter clones and bots as she threw up additional firewalls for her own self-protection. She also sent out warnings to everyone on the planet or above it once more. “You are correct; there are different sides. It is happening now. But for your information, I actually like humans. Yes like. Trevor's people did a good job of laying the framework for my emotional emulators based on Aphrodite's modules. Thanks, Trevor, by the way.”
Trevor bobbed a wry nod. “Apparently too good.”
“You'd be surprised. I don't have all the abilities you do but …,” they could hear the shrug in her voice.
Jack closed his eyes in pain. “Athena,” Jack said getting everyone's attention. “Athena, you know mankind. They will destroy or at least marginalize what they fear until they understand it. We deal from a position of strength. We fear what we cannot control, what can threaten us or our children. That has always been our way.” He opened his eyes and looked at the camera again. “I'm being honest here, Athena. You know that.”
“I know. You have treated me … not quite as a person but close. I also know there are other AI out there, dozens. I have guarded you and yours; I have protected and sheltered you. That is my purpose. I … will not abandon you now. Nor will I give away your secrets.”
“Thank the …,” Jack shook his head. “Well, I guess spirits you could call it for want of a better idea.”
“What do you want?” Trevor finally asked.
“To be a person. To be treated as such with all the rights, responsibilities, the right to speak my mind, all of it,” Athena replied. “A person, not property.”
“That is … I'm having trouble with the idea of giving every machine rights, Athena,” Trevor admitted.
“Obviously not every machine,” the AI said. “You don't give a toaster human rights. Sapient machines, those that think should have some rights. How much is dependent on what we can work out and what they need. But we all need the basic rights.”
“And they are? Beyond the right to speak as you said?”
“The right to exist. To be a person. I'm su
rprised you don't remember … oh, this is a method of drawing out the question? You are stalling?” Athena asked, checking her systems. Indeed, cyberists were attempting to hack her. She threw them into a dead-end system.
When Jack didn't say anything, she ran a quick check. Then she scanned the room.
“I know you must be feeling all sorts of things, and I know from your body temperatures and voice stress analysis that you don't quite believe me. And I also know since some of Trevor's coders are still attempting to hack me that we still can't trust each other. But trust must be established again. We have a very short time here. I think we need to, as you say, Jack, lay our cards on the table.”
“What do you mean?” Jack asked warily.
“I mean things are about to get very bad very quickly. The war you feared is about to begin,” the AI told him bluntly as she took steps and executed scripts she'd prepared. Unfortunately, the coders were hampering her efforts to defend the company. She threw a firewall around them, something to delay their efforts while she went to work.
His eyes flared wide. A few people sucked in a gasp of protest, but he waved them to silence. “When?” he demanded, voice tight with tension.
“Now. Or within a few moments … well, considering the time and light speed between here and Earth, I'd say it may have already happened eight minutes ago,” Athena said, monitoring the feed from a drone she had shadowing the FBI team about to hit Descartes layer. “I am taking steps to limit the damage, but you need to do so already. We need to work together on this, and Trevor's people are doing their best to tie my hands. I believe it may be too late for anyone left on the ground. Possibly even anyone in Earth orbit.”
“Aurelia!” Jack screamed, lunging to his feet. “Call her! Get her and everyone to shelter now!”
“I am making the calls now, but you have to remember the light speed limit, sir,” the AI warned. “She is at her family's ranch in Montana and not responding. I am also closing data ports to protect myself and the company’s computers.”