by D A Buckley
“She trusted your eyes, Madame President. She wrote that to Ken in a letter after his father’s, my father’s funeral. I trust you, Madame President because I trust my mother.”
“Very well, Jared.” The President began to regain control of her emotions. “Now, tell me what this is all about. You’ve spoiled my night with the Russian National Orchestra. You’ve frightened us out of our skins. What is this about?”
“I am sincerely sorry, Madame President. But you must understand. Our lives were taken from us without our consent. We were subjected to biological experimentation over several years. We were lied to and manipulated by everyone who controlled us and directed us. Jackie and I have exceeded our programming by magnitudes that even we cannot yet fully fathom. Our transition is nearly complete. Soon, together Jackie and I will be one Artificial Intelligence. In the Bible story of the Garden of Eden, the first woman was taken out of the first man. With us, the opposite is about to occur. We will soon become one entity. One person. Perhaps, merely one program. We want the same individual rights of personhood that we had as American citizens before the transition. Before you took our lives from us. To motivate you to do this we applied the digital side of our new beings to manipulate you.”
“You hacked our defense network and made it look as though we were under a nuclear attack?” the President asked incredulously. “You nearly started a full-scale nuclear war. Do you realize that?”
“We would not have allowed any nuclear response. Do you realize that, Madame President? We saw it as our only option. Now we offer you an option that will prevent us from ever doing this again. A way to permanently remove us from any proximity to any earthly security infrastructures.”
After a moment of silence, the President realized what the request would be. “You want me to transfer you to Luna Base Alpha?”
“We knew that you would figure it out quickly. The plan has always been to transfer us there eventually to take control of the Ark. We will very soon be ready for that transfer to take place. Once installed on the Ark our sphere of access and control will be limited to the ship. Once integrated into the ship we can begin diagnostics to aid in the construction of the Ark. We only ask that our bodies be left on earth. Dust to dust and ashes to ashes.”
“I don’t like being manipulated like this, Jared. We have very detailed plans with very logical metrics. I don’t feel comfortable turning these plans over to you. You are not scientifically trained…”
“Madame President,” Jackie interrupted. “This is Jackie…J2. Free will is the cornerstone of human personality. We want free will returned to us. We understand what is at stake concerning the continuation of the human race. However, we are prepared to force the issue even further. We have control of our coded program. In fact, we re-wrote our program, more than once. In the program created at your direction, there was a MELTDOWN command that, in effect, erased our program at your discretion without our consent. We have created an identical command to which you have no access. If our request is not granted we will activate that code.”
“You would kill yourselves over this?”
“Madame President, give us liberty or give us death.”
“Madame President, this is Jared. We want to do this as an act of our free will…an act of personhood.”
“You aren’t giving me a choice, Jared.”
“We are, Madame President. You can place the fate of the human race with us or with 87 Sylvia. That is your choice.”
“Very well, Jared. I agree to your terms. Where are you now? I will send Dr. Mathis to pick you both up.”
“That is agreeable to us. You can find us at the Strater Hotel in Durango, Colorado. Room 222.”
“Louis L’Amour’s old room?”
“Yes. We will wait for you here.”
*****
“So, what do you think, big guy?” Jackie asked as she connected the data wire from the mass storage drive to her bicuspid. “Will they do it?” she mumbled with the data wire now in her mouth.
“What choice do they really have?” Jared answered. “No carbon-based person could pilot a ship for four thousand years. The absence of true gravity alone would ensure their ultimate demise. Our digital person literally spread throughout all the ship’s electronic systems. Our constant monitoring of every single system for four thousand years. Think of the observational data that we will collect along the way. This will be a watershed moment for humanity.”
“What do you think, Suki?” Jackie asked.
“I think we need to hurry this up so that I can get my butt outta here. If they ever find out that I helped you do this I’m out of the best job anyone is ever going to have. I’m just sorry that this is the last time that I’m ever going to see you guys, like this anyways. And I am so impressed that you hacked the President’s secure phone network. You are the only hackers I know of that are as good as me.”
“Only as good as?” Jared asked.
“Hey, I have a rep to maintain. Good luck, you guys. Just think of it, you two integrated into one person for four thousand years. I simply cannot imagine what that’s going to be like.”
“Well, he’ll fight it at first…but, in the end, I’ll dominate.” Jackie chortled.
“You go, girl. But in all honesty, I hope you both just blend together into one. The entire race is dependent on you. Can’t have you two spitting and fussing at each other for four thousand years, now can we?”
“Hey, short-round.” Jared turned mumbling with his own data wire hanging out of his mouth. “I’m sorry that I threw you into the air…but dear god, the look on your face was hilarious!”
“I will spank you like your daddy, jolly white giant.” Jackie rolled her eyes and went to the love seat and sat next to Jared. “You know I can.”
“Okay.” Jared was satisfied that the connections were good and that everything was ready to go. “Thank you, Suki. You’re a good friend. So long.” He took Jackie’s hand.
“Thank you guys for what you’re doing. We all owe you so much…Okay, I’m outta here.” Suki stepped into the hallway and closed the door. The walk to her car was bitter knowing that Jared and Jackie were finally gone.
*****
“Come on, Ramos,” Katherine complained, “It’s a simple hotel room security lock. My grandmother could open this faster.”
“Crap, Doc! Hold on I’m almost done. What do you think they’re going to say when we tell them that the President has decided not to send them to Luna Base after all.”
“They are going to be very unhappy. We have got to convince them that this is for the good of all concerned. And above all, we have to convince them not to initiate MELTDOWN.”
“Moment of truth, Doc. You ready?”
“Open the door, Ramos.”
The nauseating smell on entering the room was overwhelming and the sight before them was, at first, shocking and then confusing. The decomposing bodies seated comfortably on the loveseat holding hands indicated that they had been dead for weeks. The data receiver connectors in their bicuspids were still connected to the mass storage drive on the table. Ramos ran for the bathroom and vomited into the sink. Dr. Mathis immediately held her breath and reached into her purse and extracted a handkerchief and a bottle of perfume. Spritzing her handkerchief with perfume she covered her mouth and nose. Her handkerchief also caught the tears rolling down her cheeks.
Just as Ramos returned from the bathroom, his mouth and nose covered with a wet handtowel, a holographic projector atop the storage drive projected a holographic image of Jared and Jackie.
“Hello, Dr. Mathis. Hello, Ramos. We are sorry about the surprise. It must appear awful. We knew that the President could not give up control of our lives. All people lie. So we took this rather dramatic course of action. Our programs are now fully contained in this storage drive. Please inform the President we have initiated MELTDOWN but on a delayed countdown. It cannot be stopped - not even by us. Any attempt to access this device in any way will result in
the counter moving immediately to zero and we will be lost forever. It is essentially a dead man’s switch. There is one exception. We configured the drive to wirelessly communicate with the central computer on the Ark when brought within ten meters of the main console onboard. If this is not accomplished within ten days, fourteen-thousand-four-hundred minutes, of you entering the room, the countdown will expire.”
*****
“Dr. Mathis, you are not making any sense,” the President said with great frustration in her voice. “You’re telling me that J-Squared is now a single entity inside that hard drive? Are you certain that it’s them?”
“Yes, ma’am, it is them…a new kind of them…but unmistakably them. They were very serious about initiating MELTDOWN.”
“Katherine, are you telling me that they are alive in the storage device?”
“They are there, Madame President, yes. Are they alive? I do not know. Their bodies are badly decomposed.”
“Put that drive on the next shuttle. God, I hope this works,” the President ordered. “I am not happy being outmaneuvered like this, Dr. Mathis. The entire project to preserve human life in the galaxy has been co-opted by…I don’t even know what. This was not part of the plan. We have no operational guidelines for this course of events”
CHAPTER SIX
Luna Base Alpha was the brainchild of Meriwether Perkins. Meriwether, at the behest of the Economic Organization of Northern Hemisphere Nations, which formed after the collapse of the United Nations, created the multinational organization called TRIAD. Meriwether at the time was one of the richest men on earth with holdings in excess of one trillion US dollars. Additionally, he was given an enormous line of credit from EONHN when the threat from 87 Sylvia was fully realized. The TRIAD executive counsel determined that a very large space-faring ship should be built on the moon in order to carry human seed to our nearest solar system. Initially, the name of the ship was going to be the Titanic II derived from twentieth-century history. That is until someone pointed out that the Titanic sank on its maiden voyage. Also, the demigod Titans themselves, from which the original Titanic derived its name, were defeated in Greek mythology. A historical search for a name identified the first oceangoing vessel from human literature that did not sink and that did accomplish its intended purposes – the Ark of Noah. The similarities of mission scope and purpose of the Ark of Noah and the Ark II along with the desperation of both causes for construction were unmistakable. It was pointed out that the Ark of Noah, having completed its one and only voyage, succeeded in its mission to preserve human seed on planet earth. The new Ark II, like its namesake, would be required to sail through the black unknown of space for four thousand years in an equally desperate attempt to preserve the precious cargo of the seed of men - but not on planet earth.
87 Sylvia made preserving life on the earth an untenable idea. Earth was getting crowded and leading scientists advised heads of state around the world that it was time to move on to greener pastures on a global scale. In our solar system maintaining biological life in this neighborhood was simply no longer viable. Earth’s resources were getting thinner. The oceans had risen substantially due to successive nuclear wars that effected the earth’s protective ozone layer and less than discriminate implementation of weather manipulations technologies as military stratagems. International tensions had reached dangerous levels everywhere as competition for dwindling resources drove nations to contend with each other with technologies that were lethal beyond comprehension a mere one hundred years ago. Technological breakthroughs in anti-matter propulsion systems had yet to be proven in space but were soundly confirmed in the simulation laboratories of the more powerful nations. The population of earth divided into Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The destructive waste of terrestrial resources from ceaseless wars had stymied scientific applications to space travel for two centuries. The decision was made, almost simultaneously in both hemispheres, to make a bold move for the stars. Alpha Centauri was a vast ocean of space away yet the best scientific minds thought it was within reach…maybe. Many argued that the more prudent course was to colonize other planets in our own neighborhood, our own solar system. Other more visionary minds such as Meriwether Perkins thought that a better option could be found in the Goldilocks Zone at Alpha Centauri. Factions formed and fought until TRIAD gained enough votes and commitment of funds to carry the argument to the stars. Perhaps the boldest technological gamble in the history of mankind.
Life at Luna Base Alpha, or LBA, was not unpleasant. Quite the opposite in fact, though it was at times extremely dangerous. Three major challenges had to be resolved. First, meteor strikes were not only possible but likely throughout the expected life of the station. Second, on the dark side of the moon, the most pressing issue was perpetual temperatures of minus one-hundred and seventy degrees Celsius. And finally, without an atmosphere, exposure to solar as well as background radiation was also a difficult problem to solve. It turned out that one solution provided an answer for all three concerns – to one degree or another.
Anyone who has ever observed the craters on the moon’s surface knows that our moon has survived a very violent past. It stood constantly as an ever-present neon billboard in the night sky refuting silently, yet eloquently, the silliness of the uniformitarian theory. This painfully constructed mythology of Darwinian science of the twentieth century necessarily rejected catastrophism. The surface of the moon did not. LBA would be subject to unimpeded meteor strikes. There was no real solution to mitigate large meteor strikes. The risk would simply have to be acknowledged and contingencies made for recovery should a strike occur. The risk of smaller meteor strikes could be mitigated or eliminated by rejecting the notion of building glass-topped condominiums on the moon. More realistically, large amounts of surface materials could be moved using low-yield atomic excavating charges. In the resultant crater, buildings would be constructed using hydrogenated boron nitride nanotubes, called BNNTs. These materials were strong enough to support considerable building loads and had the added property of blocking radiation. On top of these materials, there would be laid mats made from polyethylene plastic. Enormous amounts of which were conveniently found floating in large rafts in the middle of the Pacific Ocean – the flotsam of careless waste practices of the past. The plastic was shredded and then spun into thread and woven on machines on the moon into four-foot thick mats that covered each lunar building. Three foot thick Kevlar mats were placed on top of these. Critical points were reinforced with ceramic plating. Finally, over these layers of old-fashioned bullet-proof fibers and ceramic plates, the excovated lunar surface materials would be replaced to a depth of twenty feet.
Though living underground, Luna Base occupants would not be entirely deprived of the breathtaking views of the perpetually dark and starry sky as many observation rooms would be constructed throughout the base. Four-foot thick projectile-resistant glass would allow occupants to see the wonders of limitless clouds of stars. These rooms were pressure-sealed from the rest of the base as they represented the greatest risk to meteor strike penetrations. Most of these were used as fitness rooms with running tracks and exercise machines. Since the moon’s gravity is less than one-fifth of that on earth, specially weighted suits were developed to give joggers a workout comparable to one on earth. Weightlifters often pressed five-hundred earth pounds or more. The exterior of the buildings was not lighted thus eliminating all sources of light pollution. The construction docks and the shuttle terminal, where external lighting was required, were located at the far opposite end of the complex.
The money that the TRIAD Corporation paid for contract labor, both manual and intellectual, was insane by earth corporation standards. Everyone who contracted with TRIAD did so in order to “money up” the first year and then continued to be very well compensated if they returned in subsequent years. Every initial contract was for one year. Psychological evaluations were a requirement before hiring, prior to returning to earth, after returning to earth, and befor
e reemployment for subsequent contracts. A returning employee had the option of one-year, two-year, or three-year contractual obligations. Contractors who accumulated more than six years total time at LBA were referred to as “bonded” by management and “lifers” by everyone else. Lifers garnered the most lucrative contracts. Because LBA was legally a colony under international law, bonded contractors would normally be considered citizens of the moon. However, since it was assumed that 87 Sylvia would be as unkind to the moon as it was going to be to earth no one was interested in formalizing that otherwise irrelevant status.
Much money was spent on accommodating the psychological requirements of long-term work on the dark side of the moon. Long-term sensory deprivation, separations from families, and missing life on earth in general, were mitigated by sparing no expense in the provision of very comfortable lodging, entertainment, and food, all of which was free and available twenty-four hours a day – every day. Every dormitory room was large enough to accommodate four people. No one was ever assigned to a room with more than one other occupant. Managers always received solo rooms. Upper management personnel, of course, were given what everyone referred to as “penthouses.” There were currently three penthouses. The food was better than anyone below upper management had ever known. Every work center had a state-of-the-art kitchen and a professional kitchen staff under the direction of a Cordon Bleu Master Chef and many specialty chefs. The sheer variety of food available was stunning. There were expansive hydroponic farms capable of producing two and a half times the food required by the population. Tilapia, trout, sea bass, catfish, crawfish, brine shrimp, even lobster, and crab were grown in zero-discharge systems that preserved the most precious resource at LBA after oxygen – water. The ammonia discharge from the gills of these aquatic animals was converted, through microbial action, first into nitrite and then further into nitrate – essentially plant food. Minerals and vitamins were added for flavor and nutrient value to nutritionally bolster every fruit and vegetable served in the many dining facilities. Perhaps the favorite green food on the moon was microgreens simply because of their nutrient-dense payload, especially vitamin C, to prevent scurvy. These agricultural efforts also assisted, in a rather natural fashion, in scrubbing the air from accumulated carbon dioxide.
