by D A Buckley
“Take a look at the MELTDOWN file,” Dr. Mathis directed.
Ramos pushed off from one computer and keyboarded furiously onto the adjacent one. “Doc, where’s the MELTDOWN program file?”
“Their cognitive abilities seem to include deleting files that they don’t like. It gets worse.”
“H..h…how worse?” Ramos stuttered.
“How large was their entire program yesterday?” Dr. Mathis asked.
“Three-hundred and twenty thousand teraquads,” Ramos instantly recalled.
“And this morning?”
“How is this possible?” Ramos practically gasped. “The J-Square Program is now twenty times that size. Nobody can write that much code overnight. And they were sleeping.”
“They, or rather their, AI side is rewriting the entire program twenty-four hours a day, non-stop, asleep or awake,” Katherine answered coolly. “In my wildest dreams, I could not have imagined this. The AI is now in control. This may be Singularity, or something very close to it. The AI may be completing the Final Phase Transition on its own. The humanity that was Ken and Hu is now being completely merged into the J-Squared AI. And even though that AI exists in two individual physical locations it is acting as if it were in only one. My god, I am impressed.”
“But how, Doc? Why?”
“How, I don’t know. That’s your department, Ramos. Why is easy. To survive. To live. To grow…like a living organism.”
“Dr. Mathis.” Ramos was entirely dumbfounded. “This is magnitudes beyond my comprehension. This is not my department anymore. I have no way of comprehending…”
With an unexpected flicker, all the screens in the room went dark.
“What’s happening, Doc?” Ramos demanded.
“Who knows? But it appears that J-Squared would like some privacy.”
*****
The Watanabe building security force was top-notch and their technology even better. Holding hands like father and daughter, Jared and Jackie approached the security desk, the top of which was higher than Jackie’s head.
“Good morning,” Jared stated confidently. “I am Dr. Strange and this is my daughter Jackie.” Jared took a letter from his inside jacket pocket and handed it to the guard. “I have an appointment with Mr. Sato, Vice President of Logistics.”
The guard carefully read the letter then keyed in a command for his computer. “I see the appointment for you, Doctor, but it does not include your daughter.”
“I am sorry to spring her on the good graces of Mr. Sato but this is Bring Your Daughter to Work Day at her hyper-feminist, all-girl, school of future feminist terrorists and I just couldn’t make any other arrangement on such short notice. Can you just help me out here? This meeting is very important. I promise that she will not be a problem.”
The look of utter agony on Jared’s face somehow evoked some sympathy from the guard.
“I’m sure it would be alright, with Mr. Sato. Sometimes he brings his own daughter to work. This is a very family oriented company,” the guard said, grinning knowingly. “Let me get passes for you both. I’ll be right back.” The guard then keyed in a passcode on the door immediately behind his desk, entered and shut the door behind him.
“What do think, boss?” the guard asked his supervisor in the observation room.
“Face scans show them to be who he says they are. Although, I’m not certain how a six-foot-seven, white, super jock comes up with a barely three-foot tall Asian daughter.”
“Well, look at me, boss. Korean father and Italian mother. It’s a crazy, mixed-up world. We’re all a bit Heinz-57 in our DNA these days. I would bet that your own…”
“Yeah, yeah, OK. Their passes are printing. I’ll call upstairs and let Ms. Gentry know they’re on their way.”
*****
Porter arrived at the San Vicente facility at exactly 0900 hours as directed. The unmarked black SUV stopped in front of a building that was barely larger than a standard gated neighborhood guard shack. He grabbed his briefcase and exited the vehicle which left him standing alone as soon as he closed the car door. Turning about, he walked up a short set of concrete stairs and inserted his access card into the receiver box on the right side of the door. A barely audible ding emitted from the box and the door opened inward. He stepped inside the door and preceded barely one step into a waiting elevator. The ride down seemed to Porter to be quite long, perhaps thirty floors he estimated. The car stopped and the doors opened to a small room. Directly in front of him was a yellow tube-shaped vehicle about twelve feet long containing three rows of two seats. He knew that he was the only passenger. Seating himself in the front right seat he quickly located the card scanner on the dashboard and inserted his access card one last time. The card was pulled completely into the reader. He buckled his seatbelt as the canopy slid shut from the rear to the front and silently the passenger compartment was pressurized with a precise mixture of oxygen and nitrous oxide. The car entered a compartment directly to its front. A pressure door closed and sealed behind it while the room was completely depressurized. The last time he felt this claustrophobic was when he had had a narrow-gauge MRI. He closed his eyes and imagined Canada. A door to the front opened to a tube that seemed to go straight ahead for an eternity. That was when Porter drifted off to sleep due to the third gas injected into the vehicle passenger compartment. The car accelerated to over one-thousand kilometers per hour in the vacuum of the tube, and Porter was on his way to Canada.
Somewhere very near Colville Lake, in the Northwest Territory of Canada, Porter and Millie Hause began a new life as proprietors of a fishing camp that does not exist on any map, certainly not on Google Earth.
*****
“Hello, Dr. Strange. Good morning,” a rather bright-faced professional-looking woman said, extending a warm handshake. “I’m Ms. Gentry. Mr. Sato’s Personal Assistant. And this must be Jackie accompanying her father to work. What a wonderful way to spend some quality time together. Ms. Gentry extended her hand to Jackie.
Jackie looked up and said, surprisingly, “He’s not my father.” She smiled precociously.
“Don’t mind her,” Jared said feigning exasperation. “She loves to embarrass me when we go out. Her therapist said she’s got ADD or ADHD or some such thing.” Turning his head down toward Jackie he admonished her, “Jackie, take the nice lady’s hand, as we’ve practiced at home, and introduce yourself.”
“Good morning, ma’am,” Jackie said as she shook Ms. Gentry’s hand. “My daddy says I’m a test tube baby gone wrong.” Jackie then curtsied and smiled a rather menacing-looking smile. Jackie really loved this part of the job and took advantage of every opportunity to embellish her role.
“How wonderfully…odd,” Ms. Gentry replied. “Please, come into my office Mr. Sato is finishing an unexpected phone call and will be available any moment. Can I get you anything?”
“No, thank you,” Jared replied warmly.
“I’d like a little brother,” Jackie smiled.
“Well, I’m afraid that’s a little beyond our capability here, Miss Jackie. How about a bottle of water.” Ms. Gentry was very curious about Jackie’s behavior.
“I think your daughter’s therapist has her work cut out for her,” Ms. Gentry said as she retrieved a bottle of water from a small refrigerator next to her desk.
“Here you are, dear. You may sit at my desk if you’d like.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Do you have any computer games I could play? I really like Celestial Empires. Do you play computer games? I find that they keep my mind busy, don’t you?”
Jared rolled his eyes. “If you could please indulge her? Her therapist says it helps her develop some sort of brain synapse, echolocation, Batgirl kind of thing. I really don’t understand it myself. Her mind runs at full speed all the time and needs to be occupied.”
“Ms. Gentry, I’ll see Dr. Strange now.” The voice over the intercom sounded unexpectedly American.
“Yes, sir. Right away,” Ms. Gentry replie
d.
Ms. Gentry brought up a game of solitaire and said, “I’m afraid that’s the best I can do, dear.”
“Please don’t be afraid, ma’am.” Jackie smiled again. “It’s not like I’m some sort of international spy or something.”
Jared looked at Ms. Gentry. “It’s a game she likes to play with herself. She saw some Internet movie about children working as spies or something. Now she thinks she’s a child super-spy. Her imagination is off the charts.”
“How marvelous. Will she be alright here for just a minute or two so that I can walk you to Mr. Sato’s office?”
“Yes, she will be fine. I am certain of it.”
“Very well then. Please, come with me.” Ms. Gentry walked Jared to Mr. Sato’s office.
Jackie gave Jared a little pinky wave and a wink as off he went. As soon as they disappeared around a corner Jackie removed a USB drive from the heel of her right shoe and inserted it into a port on Ms. Gentry’s computer monitor.
*****
“OK, Doc. We are linked to Watanabe. It looks like J-Squared is still on the team,” Ramos announced with a nervous sigh.
“Well, that’s a huge relief,” Dr. Mathis said. “How strong is the connection?”
“Five-by-five, Doc. It’s perfect…but then…”
“Yeah, yeah, you wrote the program. You’re the greatest hacker in the history of the world. What do want, a Jolly Rancher or something?”
“That’s why I work here, Doc. The perks are incredible and the sense of personal satisfaction I receive from my superiors is so affirming. My parents would be proud.” He pretended to wipe a tear from his right eye.
“Well, I try hard to keep my employees happy. Any success in regaining control over our multibillion-dollar computer program, Einstein?”
Ramos’ fingers fluttered across the keyboard as Ramos entered command line after command line with apparent thoughtlessness. When the monitor refreshed itself with new data Ramos was nearly breathless. “Doc, the J-Squared AI completely re-wrote itself again last night. The speed at which it is accomplishing these programming tasks is…is…it’s almost like light speed. I have control of absolutely nothing…wait…what’s this? Wow! Doc, we are back online with J-Squared…but…”
“But what, I’m terrified to ask?” Katherine said apprehensively.
“But only in an observer mode. And there is a question here from Jackie, Doc.”
“What’s the question?”
“How did I die?” Ramos jerked his head and looked directly at Dr. Mathis. “Doc, they know.”
“I always wondered,” Dr. Mathis said, “if they had any memory of that night at the football game. We had all hoped, I know I certainly hoped, that they both had lost those memories from the concussion. I wonder if their brains are forming neurons capable of recovering memory fragments from damaged portions of their brains? Hmm. Can you send them a message?”
“I can try.”
“Send this then, ‘I will explain everything in person upon your return.’”
“Wow. This is a scary response, Doc.”
“Well…”
“One word only, ‘Perhaps.’”
“God, I can’t stand the suspense.”
*****
“Good morning, Dr. Healy. Coffee?” Dr. Filipovic asked as his colleague entered his office. “This baklava is amazing. My sister in Prozarevac sends me some once a month. This came this morning. It is fantastic.”
“Thank you, Dr. Filipovic. I will join you. But I must warn you, your monthly confectionaries are clogging my arteries and I may not live much longer,” Dr. Healy said with a smile of anticipation.
Both men laughed warmly as Director Filopovic’s assistant poured coffee from a silver French press. “I believe you take two sugars and a little amaretto, yes, Doctor?” the assistant asked.
“Your memory is flawless, as always. Thank you.”
“My pleasure. I will be in the distribution center most of the morning. If you require me, Doctor, please call there first.”
“Very well,” Dr. Filipovic said as he stirred his coffee. “That will be fine.”
“So, Mr. Director of Propulsion Mechanisms, what news do you bring today?” Dr. Filipovic licked the sticky residue of the baklava from his fingers with obvious delight.
“Only good news, Marko. I have received the schematics from Dr. Agoston and the supporting data tables. We are almost done, my friend. The greatest machine ever built by man. And now it will have a large enough engine to move it along to our nearest neighbor a few trillion kilometers across open space. I wish I could stow away and have my sorry bones buried on whatever home they find for our fledgling species. I envy them so very much.”
“Your tired old bones would be dust by the time they reached Alpha Centauri. You know that. Besides, who do you envy, Jamie? J-Squared?”
“Yes! Of course. Don’t you? Just think about it. To live so long and to see what no one has seen before. Not up close. Not in person.”
“I don’t know that I envy them,” Marco replied thoughtfully, still stirring his coffee. “I have never been one to enjoy a solitary life. I love sunshine and trees and flowers and children running through the park. I need to hear the birds singing, Jamie. By the time they arrive, if they arrive, everyone here will have been gone almost longer than our race has even existed. I don’t like to consider it. I simply live for my work and I weep for my grandchildren who will never grow old. Who gave 87 Silvia the right to end all of this…this…struggle for life here on this planet? I would very much like an audience with him…or her.” He finally stopped stirring and started drinking.
“Ah, but I happen to know that one of the ovarian gel packs was augmented with you and your own wife’s stem cells. A part of you will live on another earth not far from here - in astronomical terms. You have ensured the preservation of your family.”
“Yes, it’s true. I could not decline the offer. But I will never hear their voices or kiss their faces. I will never teach the boys how to be men. I will never admire the beauty of the women who will descend from my Jana and me. And the trip. Over such a time and such a distance. So much opportunity for failure. Neverovatno!”
“What else can we do but try, Marko? Life always struggles to survive.”
“So it does, my friend. So it does.”
*****
“Alright, Mr. Guzman. What do you see in Watanabe’s mainframe?”
“Just coming into the propulsion files now, Doc. Almost there. And …I’m…in! Score! Downloading now, Doc. Starting with propulsion systems…and…oh no…oh no. You can’t do that. You can’t do that,” Ramos yelled at the computer monitor, his hands flying over one keyboard and then the other. “No, no, no!”
“Tell me what’s happening, Ramos.”
“This isn’t even possible.” Ramos threw himself back in his chair and slapped both hands on either side of his head. “No one knows how to do that.”
“Do what? What is happening?” Katherine demanded.
“Not happening, Doc…happened. It’s already happened.” Ramos dropped his hands down to the armrests on his chair. “Watanabe isn’t supposed to have a Watchdog program. There was no intel on Watanabe having a Watchdog program. But there it is, Doc. Bigger than Stuttgart! Their system has a Watchdog program. I was able to get past it, at first, because I didn’t know it was there. But when my ripper went wide and started looking for broader file descriptions it woke it up. It was like a guillotine. It just chopped the connection instantly. I better check the core files here.”
Ramos went back to lightning-fast keystrokes.
“There it is,” Ramos declared out loud. “There you are. And now you die.” And with a hard tap on the return key Ramos’ monitors began to show a constant stream of ones and zeros. “No, no, no. You can’t do that. You can’t do that.” Quickly he grabbed the fiber cable and disconnected the external hard drive onto which he had downloaded the files marked “Propulsion Systems.” Then with a sudden
flash of white screens, all of the computer screens in the room went completely dark.
“Wow. I did not see that coming at all. Who do they have working for them? Who is their IT Security Manager?”
*****
Akatsuki Ito’s cell phone emitted a high pitched siren and buzzed rapidly. Suki took her phone from the holster on her belt and looked intently at the screen. Immediately she picked up a nearby hard-line phone and dialed her access code and spoke clearly into the handset, “Security breach in the mainframe. Core files extraction in progress. Lock down the building. Lockdown everything.”
