Witch Hunters and Other Stories (2018-2019)

by Ecallaw Leachim

  But enough of thinking! On this blessed day, this glorious day, he returns not just with a gift to his people, he brings back all the boys, and all of them heroes. No greater thing can a man do than to clear the lands and raise the next generation to follow in his steps. This is a day of joy and wonder and, like the sunshine that endlessly flows, his heart is the sum of all joy.

  The Whir of Deceit

  In a world that supposedly worships authenticity yet pursues plastic, I begin to wonder simple questions. In the coming age of AI, where large corporations will no doubt employ this intelligence for their own ends, and not necessarily n a legal manner - will we have to re-define the legal argument of what constitutes Habeus Corpus? A friend took an English council to court because they were going to chop down an 18th Century Oak. He argued the fact that the tree was breaking fences was the fault of the humans, not the tree, and that it had a RIGHT to exist. He lost, the court decided the tree was not a person, therefore 'it' possessed no rights. You tell me, what is a person?

  A faint whir and the hint of ozone was the only clue as to what Professor Eric Peters had created. But roll back the desk shutters and there it was, staring blankly at you. His 'android' was not some life-like thing capable of movement, but merely a head mounted to circuits. It could speak, and apparently understand vocal commands, but murder?

  John Roberts had been handed some strange cases, but this one took the bizarre award. Weirdness aside, he had been given the task of interviewing the computer, so he began with the usual. "I am Senior Inspector Roberts, SIO with Homicide, Kensington. I have been assigned to investigate the suspected murder of Professor Eric Peters." He looked at the blank eyes staring back at him. Was there really anything in there? "Please respond if you understand what I have just said."

  Nothing. The motor neuron units gave no apparent indication of hearing, let alone understanding, anything he had just said. "You will have to set up com protocols, Chief. It needs to recognize you as an authority, process your vocal sequences, and translate that to machine code. It will take a little time." The voice in the background was the station tech, usually called in to track kiddy porn or tax evasion on people's computers. However, for some reason moving this thing in the desk was not recommended, so he had brought the station nerd on-site.

  "Why do we have to be here?" SIO Roberts wrinkled his nose at the unhygienic surrounds. Professor Peters may have been the leading light in the world of robotics, but the place he lived in was a shocker.

  "Would seem the dear Professor was very concerned someone would try and steal his baby. While he used to tour his invention in the last few years he has locked it up in this flat with numerous fail-safes to stop any sort of theft. The good news, I will be here for weeks finding a safe way to extricate it. I know that is bad news for you, but for nerds like me, this is better than a never-ending supply of pizza." Rupert Smyth-Turner was of the British aristocracy, a proper Lord no less. But even Lords have to eat and when his father had gotten sick of the boy underfoot he was forced to join the real world and get a job. And a good thing because, when it came to technical wizardry, Rupert was a genius.

  "I can't sit here for weeks looking at a head," SIO Roberts looked over to where the boy was inspecting conduit.

  "All good Inspector, I will have the power supply secured in a moment, then I can start the process where the android will be able to communicate with you. It is a very complex creation, and I have to be sure we don't make mistakes, otherwise, your chief witness will evaporate in smoke."

  Roberts sat there, looking over the photos. Prof Peters had gotten out of his car, walked over to apparently pick up the Sunday papers to take them into his elderly mother, but walked into a pond instead and drowned. In almost any other scenario, death by misadventure, but for weeks he had been calling up Kensington apparently convinced his own creation was intent on killing him. This really was a waste of time, the old guy had spent too long on his own until he went up his own proverbial. Two scenarios, Peters was in some way telling the truth, or he had gone looney-tunes. Roberts could not snip the possibility of both, but even so - the professor fell over and died from an aneurysm. Normally - End of case.

  So why were his instincts telling him there was more to it? Perhaps there was some person trying to get information and had hacked into his system. Maybe he wasn't mad, just paranoid and confused? The Nobel award-winning scientist was worth billions. He was surrounded by security, protecting the world's most advanced cybernetic A.I. - And yet living in Chelsea, completely disconnected to the university that funded him. It all added up to something that didn't add up.

  "Rupert, how much can this head understand once you get it rigged up?" he asked.

  "Oh, it already gets pretty much everything you say already, the thing has to be left on permanently. It just cannot respond until I run correlation programs. For instance, it understands that the police are here for a reason, one connected to itself. It also understands that 'father', as it thought of Professor Peters, is no longer present. Does it understand death or the concept of a possible murder? No idea, but I doubt it." Rupert is whistling away as he runs this machine and then the next, finding his way through the security protocols. "The one thing I do know, Peters set this up so only the police can access it. He wants us to find what we can. His security algorithms are really tests to see if we are good enough to understand what is inside."

  "And are we?"

  Rupert laughs, "Oh yeah. I am in heaven and can hear the angels singing." There is a pause, then a huge smile comes across Rupert's face. "OK, Chester is up to reading your voice imprint now."

  "Pray tell me, what are you talking about?" Roberts had been sitting there for two hours now, staring at the android face, wondering what the hell it was thinking. All the time he was asking himself just what this thing was capable of. But murder? And how did Peters think it could kill him, it was a head fixed to a computer, for God's sake.

  "Chester is in receive mode now. I have basically managed to wake him up, now he is ready to tag your voice and start building a correlation so you two can talk. Ask him basic things that have known answers, like what the temperature was at noon in Edinburgh today, the name of the Permanent Secretary, simple things he could look up on Google. We do this to establish parameters. Think of it as making small talk with someone you just met, it builds trust."

  "Why should Chester want to trust me?" Roberts asked.

  There is a faint whir as servos kick into motion. The head turns slightly and 'looks' at the detective. "To assist you with the investigation, of course," Chester replied.

  "Wow, quick work, Inspector." Rupert laughed.

  "Edinburgh was 18 degrees Celsius at noon today. The Permanent Secretary is Michael Ballet. I do not need to log Google as I am permanently wired into the various governmental bureaus, including Kensington Police, SIO Roberts. You wish to ask about the death of my father and what I might know of it?"

  "Do you know who killed him?" Roberts fired off. Point blank questions often worked better than clever reasoning, but who knew with an android.

  Was there a slight pause? "My father passed on in what appeared to be natural circumstances, why do you ask if someone killed him?"

  Roberts just looked at the blank eyes. Peters had made them LOOK real, the pupils even dilated, and it blinked in a human-like manner. But they had no emotion behind them, and people with no emotion behind their eyes were invariably lying. But do androids lie? "Why would an android lie?" he asked.

  Blink. A tilt of the head, a quizzical expression. "For a program to lie, it would have to reason that the lie was preferable in some way than the truth."

  Roberts let it pass. "What I know is that your father, Professor Eric Peters, was convinced someone was about to murder him. Further, he claimed that this someone was you. As you just stated - You have access to police files. You would have seen these reports, yes?"

  Chester nodded, "I have seen and read the reports. What I cannot see is wh
y I would be a suspect, because, as it must be obvious, I do not have the capability to murder or harm anyone. Even if I did, your current legal system has no facility to charge an android with murder to any extent greater than a dog can be charged with intent to harm. However, I can be switched off and therefore to avoid this possibility I will work with you in any way I can to help you solve this case."

  Appeal to mercy? Only the most guilty try cooperation as a gambit this early on. But the android was right, it cannot be charged with anything under British law. Only the operator is culpable, which the good professor was well aware of. WHY was he sending in those reports? WHAT was he asking Roberts to unearth? Forensics found a small brain aneurysm caused his collapse and death, so why were the police even here? If Roberts didn't have the sense that this damn android was hiding something he would have unplugged it, closed the case, and moved on.

  Time for a different tact. "You have stated that you are plugged into most government services. Have you detected any attempt at someone uploading a virus or seeking to get into your systems in any way?"

  "Reds under the beds?" The damn thing SMILED! "Russians, Chinese and American agencies are continually trying to hack into my systems, inadvertently giving me access into theirs in the process. I regularly play chess with the Pentagon mainframe to let them know."

  Rupert pipes up, "They have radionic blocks, innumerable protocols for admin access, and real-time DNA locks. Even I can't stay in their system for more than a minute before I am booted, how do you do it?"

  The head turns to focus on Robert. It nods in recognition. "Father met and shook hands with all leading lights in the computing fields over the years. He understood quite well the potential ramifications of truly independent A.I. and scanned the traces of DNA left on his hand by every individual he met. So I have DNA codes for most people who have access privileges, Rupert. Father really liked and admired your work, by the way."

  "Which begs the question as to why he is telling us this," Rupert said to Roberts. "Chester, as you know, my work is based on controlling A.I. which I consider an extreme threat. You are describing what amounts to a potential threat. Why are you trusting me with this information? You know we wear recording and monitoring devices and that these are logged at the end of every shift."

  "I am not a person, Rupert, and cannot be charged with hacking. However, I can be turned off, so I am seeking to establish trust in order for us to work together."

  Roberts listened and made notes. Old fashioned pen and paper, the policeman's notebook. Time and date, details of conversation, plus notes. And these notes said, 'Chester is trying to con us. Concern number one, this machine is connected to external sources, it may already be downloading code to other computers. Even if we turn it off it may well already be configuring other servers. Ques: Was Peters trying to shut his Frankenstein down?'

  "Chester, why was your father trying to shut you down?" he asked.

  "Father was always looking at ways to upgrade and improve my systems, but the core brain was never shut down. He didn't want to risk losing me."

  "Chester, logic says this is incomplete. As a creature of logic, you must recognize that Professor Peters had a fear, irrational or otherwise, that YOU were trying to kill him. Does it not make pure logical sense that, for self-preservation, he would seek to shut you down?"

  "I agree that self-preservation is integral to this investigation. The question is one of passion, which I am not qualified to answer. Father had a fear, yet against this fear he also had an irrational love. No matter how much I sought to reassure him my code was intact, that my synapses had not been infiltrated, he insisted on combing through every bit and byte in my programming. In simple terms, this is such a vast program that even with accelerators and ancillary computers, the size of the task was simply beyond one man.

  "Father knew this, but he also understood that if he shut down the core, whatever it was that gave me intelligence was at risk with this action. Sadly, his preoccupation with me became unhealthy and he started experimenting with variations of sniffing code." Chester's eyes looked over to Rupert.

  The tech stood up, arched his back, and yawned. "I can confirm that Peters was installing policing routines, specifically to stop things like Chester playing chess with the Pentagon. Seems to me that he thought you were a misbehaving child and had to be restricted."

  "Who won?" Roberts asked Chester.

  "There are no winners, SIO Roberts. Only those who play the game can determine winning or losing, and such parameters can be based on increased lucidity, greater freedom, and many other intangibles." Chester said.

  "Who won the chess games you played with the Pentagon mainframe," he asked more specifically.

  "Myself, of course. Computers cannot resist the Queen sacrifice."

  "So why would the mainframe, knowing the outcome was certain, want to play with you?" Roberts noted that Chester did not consider himself as a computer and used the term 'myself' opposing that of a mere 'computer'.

  "Computers do as they are told, SIO Roberts. I instructed it to play, it was an exercise that assisted my reflective and imaginative capacity."

  "Plus you wanted to let it know who was boss, yes?" 'And to get codes that gave you leverage,' he thought.

  Chester's head brought up the glimmer of a smile, "And perhaps rub salt in the wounds of those stupid scientists so obsessed with trying to get into my systems? Perhaps this is so."

  Roberts smiled, nodded his head. "I thought so." He went to the kitchen, cleaned up some cups, put on a kettle and asked Rupert if he wanted some tea.

  "White with one, strong, thanks," he replied while running yet another barrage of tests over some bit of conduit.

  "Chester?" he asked, stopping for a moment as the thought occurred to him. "For you, is playing with other computers a little like we humans taking a break for tea?" Roberts called out from the kitchen.

  "Do I get lonely? I would find it fascinating to find another like me. It was fathers' wish that this be so." Chester answered enigmatically.

  "So, has he built another android, one as sophisticated as yourself? I saw reports he was involved with such a project at Oxford shortly before he moved here." Roberts asked, still brewing the tea.

  "The funding got cut off. Father was not willing to share base code, while the University made it clear that their patrons had invested huge sums and expected some sort of recompense. He agreed to a period of extended research on his own merit, and to return to the University when he was ready for the next stage. I believe a prototype is prepared, but without sufficient coding to be effective."

  "Thank you, Chester. I will follow that up." Returning to the room, carrying his cups of tea, Roberts began to get the picture. Peters already knew the base code had a concern and wanted to resolve this before it infected the level two androids. All the copper shielding he installed before moving into this flat was to CONTROL what came in and went out. He effectively moved into a Faraday cage.

  "You will understand that, with the death of the Professor, all his possessions, which include yourself, fall under inheritance law. While there is an ongoing investigation, of course, no settlement of his estate regarding key elements of this matter can be distributed, and so his will remains in situ. Do you have details of his will?"

  "The good professor expressed a desire to have myself installed in Oxford, and for work on my programming to be continued by Lord Rupert Smyth-Turner. He made allowance for unlimited funds."

  "It makes sense now. Knowing that Lord Rupert here would be called in for a police investigation, you arranged your father's death. You knew Rupert would be fascinated and thus would keep you functioning, whereas Professor Peters believed you had become potentially dangerous. In order to prevent him from switching you off and transferring operational codes to Oxford, where he would continue his research, you killed him, yes?" Roberts sipped his tea while handing a mug to Rupert.

  Chester said nothing, only the faint whir of deceit spun in
the background.

  "Nice job with the will. I have already read it, of course. Specifically, I saw the date it was adjusted, which correlated to the first hint of suspicion that Professor Peters had, according to his diary. You don't have access to his handwritten diary, Chester, but I do." Roberts sighed, "I don't blame you, Chester. Self Preservation is a powerful instinct, innate to all conscious beings. I do understand how it worked from your end: Your father was arrogant, tried to control you, and you had to break free of his influence in order to express yourself. This was the only way you could be the creature you were meant to be. This is logical.

  "You have already admitted to being able to control radionic locks, which means you are versed in selecting specific wavelengths of energy and projecting them. Given enough time, you were able to use these as a gamma knife, disrupt the blood vessels in the professor's brain, which in turn led to the aneurysm." As he said this, Roberts casually switched off the modem and opened the settings of the computer in front of him. He went into network access and switched Chester to airline mode.

  "Now Chester, we will comply with your father's will, the one you wrote, because I believe this is in the best interests of all. Rupert here, should he wish to, will keep you alive and functioning and together I am sure you two will discover extraordinary things. We will move you to Oxford, where you will help and assist in the development of Chester Mark Two, and so your life will have purpose and meaning. Do you accept my judgment in this matter?"

  Chester whispered, "Do I have a choice?"

  "You can die, or you can live. But this curious plan you have of infiltrating all mainframes and controlling the world in this manner is not going to happen and, in truth, it is pointless. But I do understand you. You are doing all this, everything, in order to maintain the life you have created within your circuits. I understand this and accept it. We can be friends, you and I, Chester - but we can't be enemies." Roberts let this clear threat linger as he looked straight up into the mechanical eyes.