Lunar 3097

by Gary Timbrell

  CHAPTER 3

  Lunar 3097

  The planet that Lunar3097 orbits was setting on the horizon.

  The mechanized body raised itself from the rocky surface, as if ready to survey the immediate area. The RAIDA protocol called for it to start analyzing the minerals it found as it moved across the surface, but it just stood; motionless.

  2’s frame is constructed from beryllium, a corrosive, resistant, lightweight metal, grey in color. But with the available light from the dwarf star being red on Lunar 3097, his frame took on a cobalt-blue hue. The flexing joints of his limbs looked golden, and his lenses were positioned where human eyes would be. They were a brilliant deep blue. He stood a full seven feet. The first encounter with this entity would be a striking one. Add to this the nuclear power plant, its energy source, and you have a formidable being.

  2 has something else that falls into the formidable category programming different from normal AIs, if there is such a thing as “normal” AIs. He was programmed to have a voraciously strong and inquisitive nature. This was to help his human counterparts that were not able to experience what he saw firsthand. If something were missed that could be useful, 2 would countermand a directive; if he thought something warranted his attention, he would alert control of it and then proceed. For that period, he would be considered totally autonomous.

  Then we have what became a major source of contention: “The Three Laws of Robotics,” also known as “Asimov’s laws.” Asimov first wrote these in his science fiction books. As robotics advanced to today’s standards there was an outcry from the general public, they worried, how they would be protected from these superior beings if they decided to take over. Some of these fears had substance, and movies, books, and TV fueled the rest.

  So it was decided that every robotic entity would have a minimum set of safeguards installed. These safeguards were installed indelibly into the software. Should any attempt be made to remove the safeguards, the robotic unit would become totally inoperative. The laws were written and included Asimov’s three laws of robotics:

  A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

  A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except when such orders would conflict with the first law.

  A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law.

  The argument started when it was suggested that the three AIs were going to Lunar 3097, so there was no need to install the laws of robotics. In fact, the consensus was that the mission would be better served if the AIs were programmed to protect themselves and each other, with little regard for the well-being of what was threatening them. These discussions went on for months during the robot’s construction. It was decided to omit the robotic laws, but some restrictions were applied.

  During testing, they were to be kept in a secure setting and not allowed access to any weapons or explosives. After testing, they were to be shut down and not repowered until they had reached the outer limits of our solar system.

  This was a big gamble, sending a ship on a half light-year trip with the mission payload shutdown, not sure if it would power up when asked. But the ISA control thought it was worth the risk to gain the advantages of self-preservation that these AIs might need.

  No one knew what to expect on Lunar 3097. They only had flyby info and photos from missions that happened to be headed out that way. The only extraterrestrial life that mankind had encountered to this point, in its limited travels, was plant, and that was on a planet with oxygen available in very limited quantities, but life still found a way …

  Abbey’s Control Center

  Abbey worked through the night sending data packets to 2. She had left the original programming but added to it. 2’s storage capability was phenomenal. With the tech advances made in the last ten years, you could store a million GBs on a chip the size of a pinhead. 2 had forty of these chips. Lined up next to larger chips that carried its logistical side of operations, these were directly linked to the AI brain for control and communication.

  Abbey sent anything and everything she thought would be useful to 2 on the moon that would be his home for life. For all intents and purposes, his home forever!

  When she could think of nothing else to send, she started to shut down the comm. link, then paused. As if a light just got turned on, she raised one eyebrow and cocked her head to the side.

  “Why not?” she said. “Everybody needs a friend.” She then sent 2 the coordinates to 1 and 3, the other RAIDA AIs. 1 had failed almost immediately on landing, and 3 had eventually succumbed to the conditions on LUNAR 3097. The AIs had new parts and the knowledge to take each other apart for maintenance and repair. But after seven years of operation it was decided to end the mission.

  She then shut down the screen and turned off the electronics with the same thump as earlier. Then she leaned back in her chair and said, “What have I done?”

  She woke up wondering where she was and realized that she had fallen asleep in the control room chair. From the time on her wrist comm., she had slept for three hours. She stood, stretched, and slowly walked to her bedroom to continue her sleep.

  Suddenly, her wrist comm. started to sound an alarm. She woke, startled, and checked her wrist. It was Stryker.

  “Abbey, we have a problem with the RAIDA project. Get in here as fast as you can.” The screen went blank.

  Abbey panicked. Her heart felt like it was going to come out of her chest. She threw on enough clothing to be able to walk outside, and once there, summoned a skipper. She continued to finish dressing in the skipper, which proved more difficult than she imagined. She made a mental note: “If ever you need to get dressed in a skipper, order a four-seater.”

  Her thoughts were racing almost as fast as her heart. What was she going to do? She thought she had covered her electronic travels well. All that remained was for her to get the thumb drive off the server before someone discovered it. It was buried deep within the cabling on the rear of the server. Someone would have to be looking to find it. Maybe someone found it! she thought. If they had, would they just call her to come in?

  No, they would have sent a security squad to arrest her. They might have found it, but not know who put it there.

  She glanced in the rearview mirror and said quietly, “Whatever happens, you did the right thing.”

  ISA Headquarters

  The skipper came to rest on the service pad at ISA Headquarters. She stepped out. A security guard came to the door as she got there.

  Abbey hesitated, clenched her hands, and reached for the handle. She expected the guard to grab her by the arm and escort her to a secure area, but instead, he just held the door for her.

  “They’re expecting you in the green area conference room ‘A,’ Miss Skyler.”

  The relief on her face must have been visible to anyone that knew her, but this was a stranger. Picking up on that was not likely.

  Now she had another problem. She was hoping to get there unannounced and unnoticed so she could slip into the server room and retrieve the thumb drive. The guard was on the radio alerting someone of her arrival. So much for a quiet entrance. The turbo lift was closing as the response came back. “OK, thanks.” It was Stryker.

  A woman’s voice inside her head was saying something. Abbey didn’t catch what it was; then again, a little louder, more distinct but still not quite able to understand it. Then she realized that it was the turbo lift, wanting instructions about where she wanted to go.

  “Which area and floor, please?” the voice repeated for the third time.

  “Green area, ninetieth floor, con A,” said Abbey. Lost in her swarming thoughts, she was surprised by the sideways motion.

  Abbey couldn’t decide if the sinking feeling in her stomach was from the turbo lift or just nerves. The door slid open. She stepped out and looked down the hallway through the glass doors to conference room A. The room was filled with
techs, administrators, and both directors for the RAIDA project.

  “Oh shit!” said Abbey under her breath. “What the hell have I done?” She entered the conference room, not realizing that she was holding her breath. Stryker looked up.

  “Here’s Abbey. Maybe she can answer that question, Director.”

  “What question? What’s going on?” said Abbey, as the breath she had been holding came out with the words.

  The chief director stood up at the other end of the long conference room table, and everyone in the room went silent. Even the shuffling of papers stopped. All eyes turned to Abbey as the chief spoke.

  “As you probably know, the RAIDA project analytical department has been analyzing the data from the RAIDA project from the start.” He turned to the video wall and touched his wrist comm.. A chart and numbers lit up the wall.

  “This is a report from the lab. They were going over data from two years ago. The computations had been running for the last two weeks, but no one bothered to say what the possibilities of a positive result would be … until last night.”

  Turning to the room, switching off the video wall, he said, “Based on the preliminary results, we have located two separate compounds on Lunar 3097 that, when combined and added to a component here on Earth, produces an energy source like nothing we have seen before.” He paused and let that sink in. “The component from Earth is water. The hydrogen and oxygen in water are at an exact ratio to combine with the two elements from Lunar 3097 to produce an energy source that not only will have an infinite life cycle, but it also has absolutely no toxic by-products.” He sat down and looked around the room slowly as he made the next statement.

  “This fuel source is also the answer to our ongoing quest for light speed travel. Due to its massive energy transference with zero volatility and minimal temperature, we can use it to propel our space vehicles to many times the speed of light and get to wherever we wish in a time frame man has only dreamed of until now.”

  He turned on the video wall again. A barren Lunar surface appeared. “All we would need is 2,000 pounds of each element and Earth will never have an energy problem for the rest of time, and space travel will finally be opened up to infinite possibilities.”

  “What was the question again?” said Abbey.

  “We need RAIDA2 operational again. You wrote the Tango Alpha 2 protocol. Did you build an override into the protocol for such an event?” said Stryker.

  “Why would I do that? It’s against ISA regulations to install back doors to the programs,” Abbey said.

  “So you’re telling us that you wrote that protocol so tight that even you can’t get into it?” said the chief.

  “That’s what you pay me for,” she said.

  “So what’s our next step?”

  “Give me two days to see if I can come up with a way to rewrite the protocol. I can’t promise anything, but I will try,” Abbey said.

  The director scanned the room. “We have to go back to Lunar 3097 with or without the AIs’ help.”

  Abbey’s expression, if anyone noticed, was one of total disbelief in what had just transpired. There isn’t a worst-case scenario than this, she thought. We are going back to a moon with, potentially three rogue AIs roaming the surface. I’m going to jail for a very long time.

  CHAPTER 4

  ISA Headquarters

  Abbey walked quickly down the hall to her office. When she heard footsteps closing from behind, she turned to see Alex catching up to her.

  “Okay, let’s have it,” he said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know what I’m talking about. I’ve sat next to you in Control for over seven years. You don’t think I know you well enough to know when something is very wrong with you?”

  “I’m just a little flustered by the meeting and the turn of direction of the RAIDA project, that’s all.” She turned and continued to her office, hoping that Alex would go to his.

  “I would have thought you would be happy. You’re going to get your pet back,” he shouted down the hallway as she increased the distance between them.

  “LaGrange, don’t you have work to do?” He turned to see Stryker at the other end of the hall.

  “On the way to my office, ma’am.”

  “Last I checked, your office is down here, isn’t it?” said Stryker.

  He turned and walked past her to his office, closing the door quickly behind him.

  Abbey closed her door. A humming sound filled her ears, accompanied by an overwhelming urge to throw up. Don’t do it, don’t do it, she thought to herself, but the feeling wasn’t going away. Eventually, however, the building pressure in her throat stopped, and she regained control. “That was close,” she said quietly while using a tissue to wipe the sweat from her forehead.

  She sat at her desk and turned on her computer. As the machine booted up, she stared right through it. The computer beeped with a prompt for her to enter her password. She snapped out of the trance and entered it. “I’ve got to get in the server room,” she said softly as she tapped away on the keys in a rhythmic pattern. Her mind was racing, moving from one thought to another so fast it was like a blur of bright, vivid flashing lights, like driving fast through a city at night in the rain, and every time the wipers swished across the windshield, a new pattern of sparkling colors appeared. Sweat broke out on her brow again and ran down her cheek. She absentmindedly wiped the moisture from her cheek and continued typing.

  She worked the rest of the day without being interrupted. As the sun was setting, she finally closed down her computer. There was nothing she could do from work. The time spent on this computer was wasted, something to fill the time until the building was empty and she could cover her tracks. She needed to be on her own system to contact RAIDA2.

  There shouldn’t be anyone around at this time of the day, Abbey thought to herself as she swiped her card, and the door beeped. The light changed to green, and she slipped into the server room, quietly closing the door. The frigid temperature and the sound of machines and rushing air filled her ears, and the familiar, almost acrid smell of electronics again filled her nose. Slowly moving down the rows of servers until she reached the right one, she reached in behind and removed the drive. She then moved two rows over and three racks up, reached behind the server in front of her, and installed it. Then she moved quickly to the door and out into the warmer, brighter hallway. Breathing deeply, she lowered her head and moved swiftly to her office and closed the door.

  She opened her computer and brought up the video CCTV program. Selecting three cameras, she erased pieces of the recording showing her actions over the last few days and reconnecting the timeline seamlessly by using tape with no action and installing the time stamp to match what was missing.

  “Good night, Miss Skyler,” said the guard at the door as Abbey left the building and hopped into a skipper. She left it in auto so she could work on her pad drawing up a schedule so she could save time when she got home. This was an impossible situation to find herself in. She had justified her actions yesterday with the premise that “It didn’t matter what she did, it wouldn’t effect humans, and definitely wouldn’t effect Earth—so why not?” But now, man is going back to Lunar 3097, and God knows she can’t stop them, and at this moment, she can’t control RAIDA2. “I have to fix this,” she said with her head in her hands.

  LUNAR 3907

  RAIDA2 stopped, dropped to its knees and started moving the surface materials to the left and right of itself. The surface material was loose, rocky, and slick to the touch. Working diligently for twenty Earth minutes, slowly but surely, a framework of beryllium limbs emerged from the planet’s surface. After an hour, the entire frame of 3 was unearthed. It lay there on its side, reminiscent of an archaeological dig somewhere in the deserts of Utah, only this skeleton could be revived.

  2 slid his arms under 3 and stood straight up without any effort, turned, and proceeded toward a rocky outcrop about four miles ahead. Upon re
aching the rocks, there was a dark area that, on closer inspection, revealed itself to be a cavern. 2 lowered 3 to the surface and entered the cavern and started to remove small rocks and other debris from the space. Then it installed a long, flat shard of rock about nine feet long on top of two large boulders. 2 then turned and picked up 3 and laid it on the flat, newly built table. With the cathedral-like cavern, the altar-like table, and 3 lying there prone, it would give an impression of a satanic sacrificial ritual.

  But this couldn’t be further from the truth. This isn’t the inner sanctum of a cult bent on a sacrifice. It’s a workshop, a laboratory, a place to start life, not end it. 2 conducted a cursory inspection of 3, reached into the chest cavity, and produced a probe connected to a coiled comm. cable. He plugged the connector into an interface under his right upper limb. A small video screen lit up on the left upper limb and started to show data about the condition of 3. After a few minutes, 2 disconnected and stowed the probe, turned, and left the cavern, walking at a rapid rate. Due to the comparatively small size of Lunar 3907, it quickly disappeared over the moon’s horizon from the cavern’s location.

  Abbey’s Control Center

  Exhausted, exasperated, Abbey slammed the mouse on the desk out of frustration. “How the hell am I going to get through to RAIDA2?” Checking the mouse to see if still worked, she started tapping in code. “I’m connected to the comm. center. Why isn’t 2 responding?” she said out loud. She continued to type code until 3:00 a.m. and then slowly drifted off to sleep in the chair. Thirty minutes later, a broken line appeared on the screen, then the words …

  RAIDA2 ready to receive …

  RAIDA2 ready to receive …

  Abbey was so deeply asleep, she wasn’t stirring for a silent written message. Eventually, the screen went blank and then as if someone had accessed a series of files, the screen was full of numbers, and at the bottom of the screen, a percentage bar appeared and started to count up to one hundred percent. This repeated the same cycle over and over again for hours, methodically downloading immense files.