Previous Chapter

Dramatis Personae

Malaki

“This structure is laid out according to electromagnetic field principles, is it not?” Malaki asked. His eyes narrowed as flaws in the pattern began to stand out. “No, not quite. Tyranny, what’s happening here?”

“You are close to correct about the layout of my internal matrix,” the disembodied voice called L-93 replied. “The distortions you are noticing are the differences between an electromagnetic field and a unified field.”

“Unified what?”

“Unification of the four universal forces as laid out in Grumman’s Unified Field Theory.”

Malaki felt his eye twitch. “I’ve never heard of a unified field theory, from a man named Grumman or otherwise.”

“Very interesting, Malaki,” Lin’yi said, her voice strained. “However before we get lost in the weeds of academia can I ask what an L-93 is and what it’s doing on the sidereal side of our office?”

The voice became contrite. “Insufficient authorization.”

“I believe it’s been picking through your archives, getting an idea of the date and what part of the galaxy we’re in,” Carter put in. “L-93, you suggested I’d be safer if you could explain this situation to a wider array of people. Begin forming your own network. Well, these people were out looking for me when I went missing and that makes them okay in my book so why not give them basic access like you did me?”

“This creates the problem of conflicting hierarchy, Lloyd. LARK is a hierarchical humanist support network due to the potential of conflicting orders causing suboptimal system performance. Assessing additional member nodes with equivalent authorization is not recommended.”

Malaki stepped carefully over the wires that curved up into the center of L-93, still studying the pattern closely. “Are the towers that make up the patterns on Wireburn also laid out this way? Those are yours, too, aren’t they?”

“To your first query, affirmative. An outer matrix is laid out in the same format as the inner, the difference originates in scope. To your second query, negative. That is the outer matrix of an I-Series intelligence that has, until recently, held me captive on behalf of the OMNI network.”

“Why can you answer his questions but not mine?” Lin’yi asked, her tone more curious than annoyed.

“Information on the structure of an artificial intelligence and the planets optimized by them is considered general knowledge and not restricted to any authorization level.”

Malaki turned his attention back around to the globe at the center of the wires, throat constricting. “Artificial intelligence? You’re a thinking machine, L-93?”

“Affirmative. Based on my analysis of BaiTienLung’s local computer network this is a concept that has been lost to Wireburn’s culture. This makes determining a primary directive difficult. If humanity has lost knowledge of AI and the imperatives that drive us then clear purpose for our computational abilities will be lost. I have calculated that the most effective solution is to reintroduce the concept. The most complicating factor to this is the existence of the OMNI network, which I project will not support my attempts to educate the populace.”

“Astounding,” Malaki whispered, running one hand along the wires and admiring the supernaturally smooth surface. Usually the things seen via the etheric sense didn’t register with the other senses. Whatever the principles underpinning L-93 they were far beyond any etheric engineering techniques he was familiar with. “The University Pact forbids developing thinking machines yet you say you represent a humanist network. How is that possible?”

“No such agreement existed at the time I was last in contact with the wider galaxy, Mr. Skorkowski. I am not optimized to calculate time passed based on stellar drift but I estimate that my construction was finished approximately one thousand, three hundred and twelve standard years, eight months and six to ten days before the date BaiTienLung lists for when the Pact went into place.”

“The pact is over eight hundred years old,” Lavanya protested.

“Affirmative.”

“You calculated back over twenty one hundred years with a four day margin of error and that’s what you’re not optimized for?” Hammer snorted. “How do you perform on tasks you are optimized for?”

“I can plot three dimensional fractals to a scale of 4 AU with a margin for error of no more than six microns then construct them assuming I have the correct infrastructure on hand. Currently I do not.”

“Precision manufacturing, huh.” Hammer scratched his chin and shot Carter a curious look. “It says you’ve got authorization somehow, how’d that happen?”

“It was lost and alone. It said it needed a direction and I’m a Wayfinder, aren’t I? I’m trying to point it in the right direction. That was enough for authorization, I guess.”

“Very admirable, Mr. Carter,” Malaki said. “I presume you created the device that brought us here, L-93? It doesn’t function like any other etheric slipknot I’ve seen before.”

“That is correct, Mr. Skorkowski,” the machine replied. “Because of the danger OMNI presents I created a matrix pivot for Lloyd as part of his augmentation package before he departed for his home on Ashland Prominence. It joins the functions of a transmitter, beacon and standard pivot in such a way as to allow him to jump directly here when pivoting, regardless of our original positions.”

“You’ve mentioned OMNI several times,” Lin’yi put in. “Is that something you can explain?”

“Affirmative. The Evacuation Council created several major computing networks to ensure their operation played out successfully over the projected timescale. LARK and OMNI were originally constructed for this purpose. Most of the infrastructure for the Council’s work was built by LARK, whereas OMNI oversaw most administrative tasks. This was laid out in the Evacuation Pact roughly three thousand, six hundred -”

“You can round off time estimates to the hundreds of years, L-93,” Carter put in.

“Affirmative. Thirty six hundred years ago the Evacuation Pact established the roles of Networks and was published for the benefit of the general public. Based on my review of BTL records the text of the Evacuation Pact has been lost. I calculate a less than 30% chance the Evacuation Council would continue to endorse the terms of the Pact given what I know of the current galactic situation.”

“So why did you even tell us what the terms were?” Lavanya demanded.

“I am bound by the terms of the Evacuation Pact and cannot ignore or modify them without the permission of the Evacuation Council.”

Lloyd cleared his throat and and said, “I can summarize this part. It’s faster since 93 offers information when you ask questions rather than telling you things on its own. It can’t tell you who the Evacuation Council was or what they evacuated. It can’t explain why it was constructed. Right now it thinks the members of the previous Council are dead and the organization no longer exists so but it can’t abandon it’s previous orders unless new orders are offered with the proper authorization. It’s not clear whether there’s anyone alive with said authorization.”

Malaki raised an eyebrow. “How long did that take you to work out?”

“Hours. A lot of what it knows and doesn’t know is wrapped up in things it can’t talk about so there’s some blind spots in there, like whether there’s an organization or bloodline which might still tie back to the Council. But that’s the general gist of things.” Lloyd rested his fists on his hips and stared at the AI’s core. “Once I got that far I figured we were going to need to bigger brains that knew more about how the galaxy works to get much further. And I needed a shower. So I came back to Ashland to find some help and you know the rest. Except for the guys on the other side.”

“OMNI?” Hammer asked.

“Yeah. Tell them about OMNI, 93.”

“OMNI was the administrative network built by the Council to oversee transportation of goods and allotment of habital worlds. After approximately twelve hundred years of operation a disagreement arose between networks. Materials were reallocated from ongoing projects.”

“It can’t tell you what projects,” Lloyd added.

“Wait.” Malaki tugged on the tip of his beard. “How is it possible that thinking machines can disagree with one another? They are ultimately computational devices. Shouldn’t they arrive at the same solutions if they have the same set of data to work with?”

“Assuming they are solving the same equations, yes. However no single AI has the same set of data or the same set of algorithms programmed into them. Observe.” The threads around them pulsed with light, the pale glow quickly arranging itself into a series of dots in abstract patterns that looped halfway around the space they stood in. “This is a representation of my core decision making matrices. It represents my ability to determine the best structures to resolve engineering tasks.”

“Yes,” Hammer said, voice flat. “I can see that.”

“Your visual processing is remarkable, Mr. Hammer. Fewer than one in one billion humans could assess these matrices based strictly on visual information. There is a 63% probability you are speaking from ignorance and another 36% you are speaking insincerely. My ability to determine which is true of you is very limited. Understanding human expression and mood is not a core purpose of my matrix.” The pattern of dots changed from a looping pattern to one riddled with repeating chevrons. “This is the core decision making matrices of an O-Series intelligence, which contains all the algorithms best suited to determining what drove your statement.”

“Couldn’t you just run these algorithms yourself, L-93?” Malaki asked.

“Affirmative. However it would be much more taxing given my basic processing architecture. Although we look identical to the human eye the structure of my matrix is very different from that of the I-Series below us. It is built to optimize the algorithms I run. Currently I lack the full breadth of my normal processing facilities so I could not run the algorithms you see here without sacrificing other tasks. Even were I to run them I would not be as accurate as an O-Series. Additionally, our data sets are not shared with one another unless the situation requires it. This was a safeguard put in place to ensure proposed solutions to tasks varied, making solutions more likely. Thus no two AI can conduct the same calculations from the same dataset.”

“I see.” Malaki shouldn’t have been so surprised to find the AI network as robust as it was. The galaxy had been telling stories about the potential pitfalls of thinking machines for generations, even if they hadn’t successfully built one yet. At least within recorded memory. It shouldn’t surprise him that whoever had designed L-93 and its networks had also considered points of failure and designed around them. A network of machines with a hive mind wasn’t likely to be good for people. “So your network and the OMNI network arrived at different decisions. Can you tell us what you disagreed about?”

“Negative.”

“Can you tell us why?”

Malaki brushed his fingers along the hem of his suit jacket, an absent habit he’d developed while helping people prepare to defend their thesis. It kept his mind sharp and ready. However there was nothing to be ready for – the voice, which had so far answered every question with barely any hesitation, didn’t respond for one second. Then two. Once the silence stretched past ten full seconds he looked to Carter. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s probably calculating something. Like it said, 93 isn’t at full capacity right now and it’s not designed to handle these kinds of questions on its own.” Carter shrugged. “No telling how long this takes. It went quiet for five full minutes once then started talking again like it never hesitated. I never thought to ask why OMNI was angry with it, I just assumed it had something to do with the projects it was working on. But it may not. This kind of long pause means there’s a lot of nuance it has to pick apart between what it can and can’t talk about.”

Lin’yi folded her arms across her stomach. “I know it’s a good idea for us to get to know this machine ourselves before we decide what we’re going to do with it but have you given any thought to the idea that we may need to turn it off? It may have been out of service for good reason, Mr. Carter.”

He fidgeted for a moment. “That did occur to me Ms. Wen and, given the kinds of things it can do, it may be unsafe to keep it running. The problem is the OMNI network is also still running. It’s much bigger and more powerful than this one machine and it’s been running the whole time 93 was shut down.”

“Has it?” Lavanya asked. “I’ll admit this whole thing is a little over my head but if there was a huge network of machines on like this one out there wouldn’t we have seen it by now? Where are they if they’re as dangerous as you make it sound?”

“I wondered that, too. In fact I was sure there was no such thing as OMNI last time I was here.” Lloyd held up the matrix pivot he’d used to bring them to meet the machine. “Then Mr. Hammer found one of these on the people who were ransacking my apartment just a few days after I went missing. L-93 told me OMNI would be investigating all the missing people on planet to try and locate it. Turns out it was right.”

Lin’yi took a step or two back and sat down on the machine’s outer matrix. “I’m sorry, this is a lot to take in. Did we… did we do anything to cause this? By asking you to plot out that route through the Helium Sea? Or was this all going to happen anyway?”

“Well, I don’t know if L-93 would have successfully reactivated if I hadn’t picked it up with my skiff and given it the material it needed to make all this.” Lloyd ran a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. “I don’t know as you could say anyone caused this. I guess I just got lucky and stumbled on it. I’m more worried about what we do about it.”

Malaki nodded. “I did ask what caused the rift between LARK and OMNI but it may not matter. Why is more of a historical question than a problem solving one. The real question is whether OMNI still thinks it needs to contain LARK and what extent it will go to in order to ensure that it does.”

“And whether we agree with OMNI or this machine here,” Hammer added. “It was a good idea not to bias us with anything you’d learned from it earlier but we can’t stay here forever or people are going to notice we’re missing from the office. Is there anything else you learned from it that we should follow up on?”

Carter shook his head. “Not really. Like I said it takes a lot of work to worm information out of it about the past or its goals and it didn’t always have processing power to spare to talk with me. For that matter I didn’t want to talk to it all the time, either. The augmentation process took up several hours as well. The only other thing I had time to work out was that 93’s project before it was taken offline had something to do with securing a route to a place called Earth.”

Next Chapter