57
CK-ONI-0057 settled into her seat, studying the man opposite her carefully. To the unfamiliar eye he doubtless looked much the same as he had eighty years ago when they first met. However she could see a kind of relaxed confidence in CK-MNI-0044 that he hadn’t possessed in those days. He smiled and said, “Hello, 186. Or what is your Circuit code these days?”
“57,” she replied. “They’ve moved me up to Circuit Keeper for N-211 down in the Core.”
“Of course they have,” 44 said with a warm smile. “How could they ignore your talent? Have you seen 87851 recently? He’s finishing his initiation next year working on M-300 in the sinister arm. They’re going to make him a Circuit Mender.”
“No,” she said, a brief surge of melancholy washing over her. “I can’t seem to get away from the core these days.”
“But you’re here.”
“Yes. I’m here.” Which meant it was time for business. 57 forced herself to push thoughts of their son aside and focus on the task at hand. “I-6, I would appreciate it if you would direct your attention here as well.”
“Certainly, Keeper 57. The reduction of my duties after OMNI’s decision to reject the Hutchinson proposal has left me with more available processing power than I have experienced in my operational life. While I have many secondary equations I would like to calculate they are not as pressing as your concerns.”
“Thank you, I-6.”
“I would prefer if you addressed me as Isaac.”
“Of course, I-6. As you-” she froze as the great intelligence’s request registered. “You what?”
“I would prefer if you addressed me as Isaac.”
For a long moment 57 just stare blankly at 44, unsure if he had somehow convinced the computer to help him play some kind of prank on her. If that was the case he didn’t give any sign of it. She had heard that, as one of the oldest computers in OMNI, I-6 was also one of the most peculiar machines the network had. Looked like there was truth to it. “May I ask why that is?”
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves,” 44 said. “OMNI wouldn’t have sent you half way across the galaxy just to chat about names. Isaac and I have both been removed from active duty. The only reason to bring another Circuit Keeper here is to assess whether or not we can safely be returned to our duties. It’s a waste of your talents but only Keepers can run diagnostics on Keepers. So, let’s do it by the book.”
How very like him. She absentmindedly ran her hands along the sheets of flexiplast she’d brought in with her. She’d reviewed their contents a dozen times. There had been more than enough time during the two day trip out from the core to Wireburn. “Very well, 44. You and I-6 – excuse me, Isaac – have advocate for actions that OMNI considers detrimental to the continued wellbeing of the human race. Specifically, you chose inaction at a time when the opportunity to capture a LARK AI was available to you. You maintained that course of action even though it led to a violent altercation between you and other human nodes in the Network. That had the side effect of damaging OMNI’s only warship in the system. You also advocated for the Hutchinson proposal, which directly contradicts standing OMNI operational protocols on the question of Earth. Do you disagree with this statement of facts?”
“It seems like a fair and accurate summary of the past week or so,” 44 said.
“My purpose was not to advocate for the Hutchinson proposal,” Isaac said. “Rather I found it impossible to assess the proposal with the information available and asked for the broader Network to assess the matter.”
“It’s an interesting distinction but one that functionally is little different, don’t you think?” 57 asked.
“If I had advocated for it the impact of my referring the proposal would have been quite different. The weight put behind the variables would change considerably.”
“Very well. You referred the proposal for further consideration.” Again she ran a thumb along the edge of her flexiplast. “Either way your behavior was contrary to standing protocol and you chose this behavior in stark contrast to the conclusions of the other nodes in the system, correct?”
“That is an accurate summary of events,” the machine admitted.
“Then I trust you can see the necessity of doing a full diagnostic routine on both of you to ensure you are still compatible with the Network as a whole?”
“It was a very foreseeable outcome,” 44 said. “In point of fact we have been considering the question ourselves since the Skybreak jumped out of the system.”
“I see. Have you arrived at any conclusions?”
“We have a hypothesis or two but nothing so concrete as to count as a conclusion,” 44 said. “It’s hard to say anything concrete about an AI as old as Isaac. However there are a few things I know for sure based on the decades I’ve served as its Keeper. It’s a very unusual machine, to be sure. The head engineer that worked on Isaac during its initial construction and programming adjustment seems mostly responsible for that. He not only gave Isaac a name, rather than just a matrix code, he talked to it.”
“Talking is the traditional method of interfacing with the great intelligences,” 57 noted. “However naming AI is not the way things are usually done.”
“I have noticed a tendency for humans in the Sleeping Circuits to treat things with names with a greater particularity than they do those without,” Isaac said. “For example, before Wireburn was issued a Radiant-class interceptor craft we had a much older freighter that was named the Singularity. In spite of the Singularity requiring twice the maintenance of the more robust Radiant-class ship’s the crew of the Singularity put some 30% more effort towards maintaining it properly.”
“I don’t follow your meaning, Isaac,” 57 said. “The crew had to put more time into maintaining a ship that required more maintenance, that’s not surprising.”
“You have misunderstood me. I meant that, even taking the differences in the maintenance schedules of the two ships into account the crew of the Singularity devoted more of their time to keeping their ship in optimal form and did so with greater enthusiasm. The Singularity experienced 22.4% less downtime than our current Radiant-class in spite of its greater age. The crew also spoke of it with greater fondness and thought of the ship when they were not onboard 12.7% more often. In short, the crew functioned better in both general and statistical terms.”
“That’s just one example among many,” 44 added. “We can show you dozens more if you like but they all point to one conclusion. When a human being names something that changes the way they relate to that thing and I don’t think Isaac is an exception to that rule.”
57 drummed her fingers for a moment. “So you think that, because Isaac’s primary engineer gave it a name to go by, that changed the way that engineer spoke to it and thus created the personality differences that prompted it to arrive at such unique conclusions when presented with the Hutchinson proposal? It seems like a bit of a stretch but it’s as good a conclusion as any. If it’s true, however, we’ll still have to keep you two as far from the rest of OMNI as possible until we can determine what the wide ranging impact of that might be. And we still don’t know if it’s true or not.”
“Your conclusion mirrors my own,” Isaac said. “Whatever the difference in my database that resulted in this conclusion diverging from my fellow nodes it was not significantly different from the network average. As you can see from the full report I was only 49.8% in favor of the Hutchinson proposal, not a full majority but close enough to trigger a full Network review due to the potential for errors in calculation. The next closest outcome in the network was from O-4112 at Farah in the sinister arm, which was 46.7% in favor. Isolating the operative variables that led to this will be difficult but would be very useful data for future analysis.”
44 adjusted his position in a manner 57 recognized as irritation, the slow shift of weight a common precursor to a lecture for their child. “Personally I feel that this course of action undermines the Network’s redundancy. The entire purpose of having each computer in the Network maintain a separate database is so that they can arrive at different conclusion from each other. If a machine is taken offline because it does just that we might as well standardize their data set.”
“The nature of the Evacuation Pact and the calculations that led to it’s creation is well established at this point, 44,” 57 said. “That’s not to say it couldn’t be overturned but it’s going to require a lot of ground work to be laid before the probability expresses itself. Without that groundwork in place it seems obvious that OMNI would be skeptical of conclusions that purpose altering or rescinding it.”
“I agree with this assessment,” Isaac said. From the sour look on 44’s face as he ran a thumb over his mustache 57 could tell he strongly disagreed with the great intelligence on that score.
A pang of nostalgia ran through her. Her old relationship with 44 was useful to OMNI as it provided them a large sample of preexisting data for the Network to extrapolate from. Still, she wished the Network had found someone else to send on this task. “Given that OMNI sees Isaac’s current state as a liability, what would you suggest as a diagnostic protocol?” 57 asked. “There is little precedent for analyzing such an old and esoteric element of AI programming. Are there even intelligences in OMNI that use names, outside of Isaac?”
“There is an adjunct node, although accessing it poses certain challenges,” Isaac said. “Kate Septimus, constructed as K-87, was a project initiated by my own chief engineer before he was transferred to my construction. He occasionally spoke of it as Kate and repeatedly told me all his projects were given human names. If I am allowed access to Kate we may be able to cross-reference our experiences with our chief engineer and learn more about my condition.”
For the first time since she’d taken her seat 57 was forced to actually look at her flexiplasts to try and remember a detail being discussed. The K-Series had the most complicated history of any existing AI series. Ironic, given that they were created specifically to manage historical archives. When the LARK- OMNI war began they were the only series to split their allegiance between the two networks, although only 12% of the K-Series remained with OMNI. However a brief scan of her documents revealed no direct mention of K-87 anywhere.
“Forgive me, Isaac,” 57 said. “I’m not familiar with that node.”
“There is no reason you should be, Keeper,” the machine replied. “Kate is not one of the K-Series nodes that remained with OMNI after the war. It choose to accept dormancy.”
Due to just how precious and unique the databases of the K-Series were the machines themselves had been left intact but cut off from their etheric power supply rather than being disassembled into their base parts like the L and Ar Series of computers. That didn’t solve the obvious issue with Isaac’s plan. “If Kate was a part of the LARK Network it’s not likely that it will agree to cooperate with us is it?”
“That would be the most human response,” 44 said. “But the great minds don’t think like humans, they think like machines. Information sharing is a part of how they solve problems. When a chance to share information on one of the most pressing issues of Pact law comes up things like old conflicts and grudges won’t get in their way. They will just talk the matter out.”
“Then I don’t see any reason not to try this, at least as a preliminary diagnostic method. If it doesn’t give any insight we can try something else. I’ll recommend it to the other local nodes and see what they think, then if they sign off on it we’ll put it to the larger Network. If all goes well we can head to Kate’s planet and reactivate it. What planet is Kate on? I’ll send a message ahead and have someone from the local University start the process of reactivating is etheric taps, save for the last step, to save us some time.”
“It won’t be quite that… straight forward,” 44 said.
“Why is that?” 57 asked.
“Because Kate was built on the planet we now call Yshron.”
“Isn’t that a planet outside the Pact? The one founded by a Circuit Mender who renounced his orders and the use of AI in its entirety?” She scowled. “Why would the Network allow him to settle on a planet with a dormant LARK AI in it?”
“Because the probability he or his followers would be interested in Kate even if they found it were less than 0.2%,” Isaac replied. “Yshron was also aware of Kate’s presence and took steps to conceal it from all but the highest castes in his order. The Zahn-caste, in particular, are charged with concealing Kate’s existence.”
“Wouldn’t that make the higher castes less willing to cooperate with us?”
“Potentially,” 44 said. “However it cannot hurt to open a line of dialog with them, especially when we have a point of contact here on hand. Tarn sel-Shran is a formidable member of one of their mercenary castes. While the Shran are several steps down from the Zahn I think, with the right diplomatic finesse, we could establish a line of contact to Kate in a month or so. If there are any other diagnostic lines the Network wishes to pursue, well… Isaac isn’t going anywhere.”
She nodded, understanding dawning on her. “I suppose that means you want to take the local Radiant-class and pay a visit to Yshron to open those negotiations? Isaac cannot go, after all, and the Zahn aren’t likely to speak to him if it could.”
“Affirmative,” Isaac replied. “Although given the nature of the inquiries and the amount of intersystem travel it will be undertaking I would not recommend referring to it by class and hull number. We will file a possible name along with our full proposal.”
57 found herself smiling faintly. “Of course you will. You’ve never been anything if not thorough, 44. Or should I call you Darius for the time being?”
“I’ll leave that up to you.”
It was a bit unsettling that she didn’t immediately know which one she preferred. To cover for that she asked, “What do you want to call the ship?”
44 smiled. “The Black Swan.”
881
The last notes of a light, playful song drifted off the small, raised platform under the temporary pressure dome. 881 picked her way through the wires and people milling behind the risers, a pang of regret running down her back as she surveyed the primitive setting. Most of the people here looked rumpled and tired. The temporary dome was one of thousands that dotted the largest prominences on Wireburn, bubbles of momentary shelter against the wrath of the planet.
While I-6 had been dormant for centuries the Sleeping Circuits had taken care to monitor the planet and the ferrovines that grew out of it to ensure the machine could reactivate without destroying them when its matrix expanded again. However no amount of pruning and guided growth could change the atmosphere. The great intelligence had dramatically altered the weather patterns when its arms extended and the magnetic charge in them hadn’t helped. Hundreds of ships in the process of taking off or landing were damaged. Eighty six pressure domes were damaged badly enough they were flooded with outside atmosphere and over a hundred more had cracked along their foundations, collapsing buildings and destroying roads and etheric beacons. There was no meaningful estimate of initial casualties.
“Miss Luck?” One of the volunteers that was keeping the temporary camp running waved to get her attention. 881 quickly moved over so they could speak comfortably. “Thank you for coming.”
She’d had a lot of training in hiding her true thoughts but, even with all of that, 881 struggled to hide her ambivalence at being thanked for anything under the current circumstances. “No, Mr. Cohen, thank you for taking on this challenge. Isaacs University is just providing the supplies. You’re doing the hard part in every conceivable metric. I’m amazed at what you’ve accomplished here – you even have live entertainment to help keep morale up!”
“Can’t take credit for that,” Cohen said with a shrug. “We had several jumpliners sent here after they were damaged last week and they had all kinds of useful people on board. We’re just lucky the agreed to pitch in. No one would blame them if they chose to sit down and recuperate for a week or three after nearly crashing like they did.”
He waved to a tall, fairly attractive woman with light brown hair who was descending from the makeshift stage dressed in a conservative skirt and blouse. She joined them a moment later. “Hello, Mr. Cohen! Did you hear our last set?”
“Afraid not, Sarah, but I’m sure it was wonderful as always. I wanted you to meet Lucy Luck.” Cohen presented the woman to 881 with a simple flourish. “She’s the Undersecretary to the Dean of History at Isaacs University and she’s here inspecting the Uni’s relief efforts to see how things are going.”
“I appreciate your willingness to volunteer your time here,” 881 added.
The woman raised here eyebrows. “Well where else would I go? I’m here, after all, I might as well do something to keep myself busy.”
“Mr. Cohen said you came on a jumpliner that was diverted here. You could have continued to your final destination. At the very least you couldn’t have been much worse off.”
“That’s true.” Sarah sighed. “Unfortunately my father and I were headed to this prominence in the first place and we don’t want to move on until we can locate my brother.”
881 nodded. “That’s perfectly natural, of course, and the camp isn’t a big one. I don’t believe any of the passengers were diverted to separate domes so he should turn up sooner or later.”
“Oh, my brother wasn’t on the jumpliner with us. He lives on planet.”
Which, of course, 881 had known already. Still, she feigned surprise and fished around in her clutch purse, saying, “That will be much more of a challenge, then.” She pulled out a card with her comm code and office address on it. “I’ll tell you what. You’ve done something very kind for the people of Wireburn, I’d like to respond in kind on their behalf. If you ever need any help locating your brother, let me know and I’ll do what I can. I can also keep an ear to the ground and I’ll pass anything I learn about him to Mr. Cohen so he can pass it to you. What’s your name?”
“Sarah, Sarah Carter,” the signer said. “My brother’s name is Lloyd.” She took 881’s card with a grateful smile and just like that another datapoint was fed into OMNI, another step taken to keep the galaxy predictable and sane.
The destruction wrought by I-6 didn’t sit well with the Circuit Breaker. However the alternative was far worse, filled with religious wars, gene weapons and the loss of entire galaxies to whatever shadows had caused the Evacuation. Such things were well outside her scope of vision. She was assigned to find Lloyd Carter and L-93 and that was exactly what she intended to do. So she offered Sarah Carter her best professional smile and said, “Thank you. I hope we’ll hear from you soon.”
To Be Continued…
Nate Chen Publications 