“I was just following orders, ma’am. Like you were when you rigged your bombs.”
“You must not be a fan of history. ‘I was just following orders’ ceased to be a reasonable defense in World War II. That was more than nine hundred years ago.”
“Let’s cut the bullshit. You made a threat; I assume you have a corresponding demand to make?”
“I do. Leave this ship and go back to Earth where you belong or I will blow it up and no one will get it.”
“You’d kill your own crew?”
“Rather than let them be captured by Terrans? Yes. They’ll go back to their real lives when they die.”
“You’re a Simulist,” Alexander said, as if that explained everything. “Now I understand your suicidal impulses. What if you’re wrong and this is it?”
“Either way I won’t regret it.”
“Because you’ll be dead and incapable of reflecting on your stupidity. Trade your immortal life for an empty void of existential gibberish. Sounds like a fair exchange to me,” Alexander said. “You must have a lot of faith in said gibberish.”
“And you an utter lack of it. You can argue with my beliefs all you like, Admiral, but it will do nothing to weaken my resolve.”
“Then let’s try this. Your captain is safely away aboard the Adamantine along with the Crimson Warrior’s data core. All you’ll deprive us of is a few prisoners and a derelict dreadnought.”
The woman facing off with him regarded him in silence for a couple of seconds. “Even if that’s true, we still win,” she decided.
“No, you don’t, and here’s why. I’ve already checked your ship’s logs, and it’s clear to me that you couldn’t have launched the missiles that hit Earth and the Moon, but by destroying your ship and killing your crew, you’ll make it look like you had something to hide. It will seem like the Solarians really were involved even though there’s no proof.”
Silence answered that argument.
“We still have a chance to prevent this war,” Alexander went on.
“Do we? You assume that Terrans are reasonable people. There are only three options here, Admiral: one, aliens attacked you, which seems doubtful; two, we attacked you, which I know to be false; and three, your own government attacked itself and now they are framing us so they will have an excuse to go to war.”
It was Alexander’s turn for silence. That hadn’t occurred to him. Would the Alliance really do something that terrible? How many millions had died in the attacks? And their already bankrupt government was having to shell out trillions of Sols in emergency relief funds.
Alexander shook his head. “That’s absurd. The Alliance is dirt poor and you’re suggesting we plotted to burn down our own house. How stupid do you think we are?”
“Then you’re in favor of the alien invasion theory.”
“It doesn’t matter what I’m in favor of. If you’re right and your government had nothing to do with what happened, then the truth will eventually come out. But in order for that to happen, we need witnesses like you to still be alive. The Alliance is a democracy, and if we can prove that our government killed millions of its own people, any war that gets started now will end in the fires of anarchy back on Earth. Stand down, ma’am. You’re more use to your people alive than dead.”
Silence answered that last request as the enemy officer considered his arguments. “I may have misjudged you,” she said at last. “All right. We’ll do it your way.”
“Thank you.” Alexander watched as marines moved up cautiously to take her and the remainder of the Crimson Warrior’s crew into custody.
Alexander contacted McAdams while he waited. “Any updates from Fleet Command?”
“Our orders stand, sir. They’re sending reinforcements to meet us halfway and head off those Solarian destroyers.”
“Who’s going to reach us first?”
“Depends who pushes their ships harder, and what kind of Gs we can pull while we’re towing the Crimson Warrior.”
“That’s not the answer I was hoping for, Commander.”
“It’s the only one I’ve got, sir. We’ll do our best to keep them out of range. Maybe you’ll be able to talk them out of attacking us.”
“Hah!” Alexander scoffed. “Very funny.”
“No, I mean it. The way you talked that Solarian woman down was genius. I particularly liked the way you made fun of her for being a Simulist when you’re one yourself.”
“I didn’t think it wise to let her dwell on the idea that the universe as we know it could be one big mindscape. And I never said I was a Simulist—just that what they believe is plausible.”
“Well, I don’t care what that woman says—you definitely deserve your Peace Prize.”
Alexander grunted. “Doesn’t feel that way, but thank you.” Alexander looked up at the stars, trying to decide which one of them might be Earth. “Do you think she was right?”
“Weren’t you listening? I just said—”
“No, not about me—about the Alliance attacking itself.”
“Your analysis was on point, sir,” McAdams replied with an audible frown. “We can’t afford to attack ourselves.”
“True, but there might be more to it than that. It wouldn’t be the first time a government conspiracy bit us in the ass, Commander.”
“Operation Alice was different. The conspiracy was to attack the Confederates, not ourselves. Besides, what could we possibly gain from a war with the Solarians?”
“I don’t know, Commander. What I do know is I don’t want to get blindsided again. At the risk of contradicting what I said to you in the Officer’s Lounge earlier, I really hope the Solarians are to blame.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because with the alternatives being aliens and friendly fire, the Solarians look tame by comparison.”
“Aye, sir. That they do. Are you coming back to the bridge now?”
“Not yet. I want to see the prisoners to their G-tanks and make sure they’re all safely sedated first. Soon as that’s done we can dock the Adamantine and get back to Earth.”
“Hurry, sir. Every minute we spend drifting out here is another minute that those destroyers have to get to us before our reinforcements do.”
Alexander gave a mental grimace. “Don’t remind me. See you soon, Commander. De Leon out.”
Chapter 17
Dorian Gray stood on the sidewalk outside Mindsoft Tower looking up at the hazy white curtain drawn across the sky, wondering how much of that haze was from old world pollution and how much of it was clouds—maybe even clouds that had formed in the wake of the recent Gulf impact.
Bringing his gaze back down to Earth, he sighed and folded his arms. Peripherally, he noted his bodyguard bots scanning the area.
“Professor Arias… I don’t have all day.”
“One moment, please, Mr. Gray… I’m sure it won’t be much longer.” The professor flashed a hesitant smile from where he stood on the curb with a new bot prototype. The bot looked like one of the service industry models—humanoid with a pleasant, holographic human face, and soft, human-looking skin. It even wore clothes: a black sports jacket over a plain white T and blue jeans, topped off with a black bowler hat to make him—it—look like something that had stepped out of a time machine.
The professor looked up and down the pristine blacktop with wide, bloodshot eyes. His team stood off at a distance, hands in their white lab coats, shuffling their feet nervously. Arias looked every bit the part of a mad scientist—complete with overgrown, unruly brown hair, and augmented reality glasses, which he preferred to lenses for some unimaginable reason.
Phoenix had hired him because he was one of the world’s foremost experts in artificial intelligence. Now she’d asked him to attend this demonstration of a new AI that Arias promised would soon replace all the others.
Dorian tapped his foot and checked the time in the top right corner of his lenses. “We’ll schedule another demonstration when you’re bett
er prepared, professor,” Dorian said.
“Wait! There!” Arias pointed across the street to a dark alleyway. His bot turned to look. So did Dorian.
Something was moving between the garbage dumpsters. Something small. A stray dog, Dorian realized. It looked like one part Jack Russel and two parts shaggy street mutt. The dog was scrounging for food in the garbage. Professor Arias snapped his fingers at one of his team members. The man hurried forward, producing a roasted chicken leg from his lab coat. He handed it to the bot.
Dorian’s nose wrinkled. How long did he have that in there?
The professor turned to the bot and said, “I’m hungry, Ben. Could I have that chicken, please?”
The robot regarded the professor with an apologetic smile on its holographic face. “I’m sorry, Father. Someone else needs it more than you.” With that, the robot set out across the street toward the dog, whistling and calling to the stray in a pleasant voice, servos whirring as it went.
The dog looked up from the garbage and cocked its head, studying the bot’s approach as if to decide whether it should stay or flee. Then a stiff breeze blew in and the dog lifted its snout, obviously catching a whiff of the chicken. It wagged its tail once, but did not approach. As the bot drew near, the dog crouched low and growled. Ben stopped in the middle of the street and carefully peeled the meat off the chicken bone, scattering the bits on the ground. Placing the bone in its jeans pocket, the bot got down on its haunches and beckoned to the animal once more.
“Come on, boy! Don’t be scared!” the bot said. When the dog wouldn’t budge, the bot stood up and backed away slowly, returning to his side of the street. The stray remained frozen for a split second more, and then a breeze blew again, and he caught another whiff of chicken. The dog’s mouth opened and his tongue lolled out. He ran for the chicken. Upon reaching it, the starving animal greedily gobbled the meat. Ben watched, grinning.
Dorian sighed again. He knew this had to be some test of the bot’s abilities, but so far he was not impressed. If Mindsoft wanted to spend good money feeding strays, there were cheaper ways to do it than having fully-autonomous, humanoid robots hand out chicken legs.
A rising whirr caught Dorian’s attention. A hover car had turned the corner and was now roaring down the street toward the dog at high speed. Rather than hover up higher to pass safely overhead, the driver kept going, adjusting his course so that he would hit the dog more squarely. The dog was so intent on his meal that he didn’t notice the car’s approach. Dorian frowned, looking at professor Arias to see if the man would intervene, then at Ben, and finally back to the stray.
The dog finished eating, but rather than run to safety, he stuck around to lick the chicken grease off the pavement.
Dorian snorted and shook his head. Survival of the fittest.
The car came within a few seconds of hitting its target, and the driver sped up. The bot noticed; his smile faded, and he ran out into the street, its limbs blurring with the speed it moved. Ben moved so fast that not even the dog had time to react before he was swooped up and carried safely across the street. The car whizzed by, buffeting their clothes with the wind of its passing. Ben set the animal down and patted it once on the head.
“Did you see that, Father? That driver tried to hit this animal!”
“I saw it, Ben.”
“I recorded his license plate,” Ben said as he crossed over to the professor. The dog followed him, tail wagging and eyes bright as it stared at the greasy chicken bone poking from the bot’s jeans’ pocket. “We need to contact the police so they can catch him.”
“It’s not a crime to run over a stray, Ben—or in this case to attempt to do so.”
“It’s not? You mean people can kill as many stray dogs and cats as they like and nothing will happen to them?”
“There are laws to prevent the mistreatment of animals, but the driver could simply claim that it was an accident and no one would question him.”
“We would question him! We witnessed it!”
Professor Arias shook his head. “Even if we could prove his intentions, the worst he would get is a fine, and at his next opportunity, the driver would probably take it out on some other stray.”
“That is not right! The desire to intentionally harm living things is indicative of psychotic behavior. That man could be dangerous.”
“How do you know it was a he?”
“I scanned his face.”
Professor Arias smiled. “That was quick thinking, but we don’t arrest people with the potential to commit crimes, Ben. We would have to arrest everyone on the planet to do that. We all have the potential to do something wrong, but that doesn’t mean we will. Do you understand, Ben?”
“I think so, Father.”
“Good.”
Did you get all that? Dorian Gray thought at the silent observer watching the sensory feed from the InteliSense Implant in his brain. Those implants, inserted via nanite injection, were used to receive sensory data while people were in the Mindscape, but in this case his was sending data collected from his senses to a remote observer—his wife.
Yes, darling, she replied. Professor Arias has created a bleeding-heart AI. Go speak with him. I want to know what he thinks he just showed us.
Dorian nodded and walked down to the professor, clapping his hands in mock approval. The professor mistook that for real praise and beamed up at him.
“I give you, Ben,” he said, gesturing proudly to his creation. “Short for Benevolence. What did you think of his performance?”
Ben’s honey-colored eyes widened. “This was a test? You ordered someone to run over the dog just to see what I would do?”
“No, that part was unexpected, Ben, but you performed brilliantly there as well.”
“What exactly do you think he did that was so special?” Dorian interrupted.
Professor Arias turned to him with a bemused expression. “I asked him to give me the chicken leg, but he chose to give it to the stray dog instead. He disobeyed me because he saw the greater need—the greater good—but it’s not just that. He felt genuine empathy for the stray. That proves that Ben has two things—free will, and the desire to use it for the good of those around him. He is a Benevolent AI. Fully conscious. Creative. Better, faster, and smarter than any of us.”
Maybe he should have devised a test to show us all of that, then, Phoenix quipped.
“Empathy can be simulated,” Dorian said. “We do it in health care models all the time. That’s nothing new, professor.”
“But it wasn’t just simulated. He’s a conscious AI, and I can prove it.”
“How? You’d have to define consciousness first.”
“Conscious is as conscious does. He has thoughts, freedom, complex emotions, dreams, fears… you name it! He’ll pass any test of consciousness that a human would. What other proof do you need?”
It doesn’t matter. If what he says is true, then where does that leave us? A bot like this is exactly what the Human League is afraid of, and with good reason. Set enough models like this one loose and they’ll even put mindscapers out of work. Ask the professor for proof of creativity.
“You said this bot…” Dorian looked at the bot, struggling to recall its name.
“Ben,” the professor supplied.
“You said Ben is creative. How do you know that?”
“He created a mindscape. Would you like to see it? We also had him write a novel, but that was an earlier test. The story was quite entertaining, but not very useful since no one reads novels anymore.”
“Assuming that’s true, then he’s as creative as any human. Would you say that’s true?”
“Even more creative, Mr. Gray!” Professor Arias said, smiling and nodding. “And better at it, because he’s better at learning the skills he needs. For example, he learned all about mindscaping in a day. Humans spend years learning how to write synaptic code the way he can.”
“Then I suppose I could train a bot like Ben to take my job.”<
br />
“Well, you might not want to, but yes, I don’t see why not.”
“Then while we’re at it, we could train others to replace President Wallace and the senate. I wonder what the Human League will think of that?”
Professor Arias belatedly saw the trap he’d just walked into. “People would have to vote for bots before that could happen… A lot of laws would need to change.”
And they never will, because this project is over. Tell him that, Phoenix instructed.
Dorian poked a finger at the professor’s chest and repeated that line. She went on feeding him the words to say, and he went on repeating them.
“You’re going to deactivate Ben and reformat his core. Then you’re going to delete all of your research and all of the backups. If I see so much as a single paper published on the topic of conscious AI or benevolent AI with a conscience, then I will fire you and make sure you’re the very first to experience the consequences of your creation.”
Professor Arias gaped at him. A suspicious glint entered his eyes and he cocked his head a little to one side. “Are those your words, Mr. Gray, or your wife’s?”
“Does it matter? She has given me her authority. Now do what you’ve been told, or else.”
“It is not nice to threaten people, Mr. Gray,” Ben said in a pleasant tone, dripping with naivete. “You will accomplish more with incentives for good behavior.”
Dorian glanced at Ben, suddenly remembering that the bot was there, listening. Dorian’s eyes narrowed as he regarded it. Did Ben understand that he was about to be killed? Most bots didn’t have more than a basic sense of self-preservation, but most bots weren’t creative or self-aware.
Turning back to the professor, he shook his head. “This demonstration is over. Your job was to create an AI that could more effectively simulate human behavior, something we could safely use for non-player characters in the Mindscape, but this… this was far outside the project parameters.”
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