by Jaym Gates
I don’t give them a chance to get settled. I need to get through this calmly and quickly.
“Thank you all for meeting with me so quickly after I got back. You all have a sense of my prior work, so I’ll spare you a re-iteration and come right to my latest effort. Based on the success of re-integration with my fork without the necessity of psychosurgical correction and only short-term, incidental stress responses to knives, the endeavor should be viewed as not only successful, but repeatable.” I can’t help but smile slightly.
“Additional ego back-up states were taken before the trial was performed and can be made available for use with our academic peers under other controlled scenarios where alternately signified constructions of the experience can be explored. For example, the assignment of different combinations of physical gender(s) to the aggressor and victim instances and/or the introduction of ideological or sexual components—”
“Yes, yes, Professor Rokuzawa, do give us some credit for coming into this meeting prepared,” Noomi scowls. “We all read the proposal, and you think that just because you killed your own fork and merged with it afterwards—without coming out an emotional disaster or schizophrenic—that we should bless your egotistic nihilism with special support so you can do it again. With sexual components.”
“There’s nothing to bless, Noomi, because there aren’t any disorders. That’s rather the point. I have no interest in play-acting a snuff scene for my own gratification.” Though I might make an exception for you. “Changes to context change the impressions and memories made, and that lets us study how that impacts the merger.”
“Both of you, please, let’s keep this a civil discourse,” Jonas rubs his eyes. “There’s no need to be so confrontational, Dr. Chowdhury. Now then, all matters of tone aside, we’ve read it Chi, and it’s … challenging work. We want to talk to you because, frankly, we’re concerned about what you’ve already done.”
As expected, Dr. Samuelsson is here to play peacemaker. If I can keep calm and let Noomi look overly aggressive, Jonas might side with me out of his own reflex to help the underdog. “You’ll see I’ve included quite detailed information from the psychosurgeon who oversaw the reintegration, so if you’re questioning the accuracy of my claims about a stable outcome I’ve—”
“The only ‘stable outcome’ from this is the certainty it will be condemned by damn near every serious academic in the field!” Noomi interrupts. “This is a sado-masochistic farce at best, and there’s no reason we should facilitate it happening again. I’ve seen your neural map, and there’s nothing going on that can’t be modeled cold in VR. It’s memory grafting, and it’s been covered before. If you were still in my department I wouldn’t even let you waste the board’s time with this nonsense.”
“Well, Noomi, I suppose it’s for the best that I left your department.”
Her eyes narrow and she sniffs. “We’re in agreement there.”
I continue. “There’s more to it than just memory grafting: it looks clean because there have been fundamental changes in the process of neural mapping. The dynamic contrast of simultaneously having and lacking knowledge of context, the perfect experience of a moment from multiple perspectives—” the feel of the knife in my hand and in my flesh simultaneously “—the extreme emotional responses strengthening and clarifying the experience and memories—” the cold creeping through me as I bleed out, the look of peace supplanting that of panic as it steals the light from my eyes “—those are parts of a living psychology that cannot be produced solely through modeling.”
The barest crackle over the audio system. “So your work is only relevant to those who are physically instanced? Only biomorphs? That’s a narrower field of study than it used to be.”
I hate it when Trieste isn’t visually present at meetings. A disembodied AGI that doesn’t use an avatar is easy to accidentally leave out of a conversation, and he knows it. Even Samuelsson is wincing for me. I need to stay focused.
“No. The goal is to push past what has already been done, both physically and digitally. By proceeding with this experiment instanced in a biomorph, every factor was used to increase the intensity of the experience and increase the strength of the memory to give a more stable foundation to work from during the re-integration. Surprise, anger, assumed betrayal, panic, pain: I will remember every one of those moments vividly—even the ones I’d rather not.” I treasure all of them. “The fact that I have competing and conflicting emotions from both sides of the act, and that I’m holding them together, stably”—god, let it be true—“is something that any psychosurgeon you care to name says shouldn’t work successfully.”
“That’s precisely why we’re concerned Chi.”
“Trieste, even working purely digitally, most experts say you can’t code for fallacious or inconsistent thought. Even the best AGIs can only choose to mock up false beliefs, they can’t truly believe them. Humans excel at contradictory thinking. If I’m able to provide source data for a sane personality that holds mutually exclusive understandings of an event, that could be a boon to many areas of non-seed AGI research, correct?”
“Potentially.”
“This is only the start, Trieste. The specifics are unusual, but the approach is standard: experiment, learn from it, and take the next step.”
“You’ve made your point. Unless you have some other specific questions, Drs. Samuelsson or Chowdhury, I’m satisfied we’ve heard enough to deliberate.”
I close the presentation windows and thank them for their time and consideration. Noomi stares at me coldly, and the chill is more than the usual distance over the loss of what we once shared. Jonas looks like he’s losing a friend. He doesn’t understand why I’m doing this, but he sees some of the potential benefits for his own field of study and there’s a flicker of excitement at what I’ve shown him. I know Trieste is the only one whose judgment won’t be clouded by emotion. He doesn’t care what I do to myself, only whether or not what I’m doing has an interesting outcome.
I leave.
—
Hours later, and still no word from the review board. I give Yesterday the night off and free rein on my social networks. I don’t want to deal with anyone. I parse and pick over each phrase and glance from the review meeting, hopeful and despondent in turn. I try to catch up on reading, idly browse the mesh, jack into some mindless XP, but none of it holds my attention. Unconsciously, I remove the coin from the smart linkage on my necklace and flip it, watching it glitter and spin slowly in the low g. I pluck it from the air and don’t care which face is showing. Each side ends in blood.
The Fukuda Cube
Kim May
Keb sat in their simulspace “apartment.” Live video and sensor data from the probe streamed into their consciousness. This particular probe was a small egg-like pod with basic video and audio functions and two extendable arms. If Cap’s ship had been in proximity of the right relays they would have egocast their fork directly into the probe. Unfortunately, Cap liked to scavenge in the more out-of-the-way places that were lucky to have basic data relays. At least the lag was tolerable this time.
Keb wasn’t happy about the situation but flying out to the Main Belt wasn’t an option either—not having a physical form had its drawbacks. Besides, an abandoned pre-Fall ship was a find that couldn’t wait.
The probe floated behind Cap and his team as they descended through the boarding tube that connected Cap’s ship to the derelict Fukuda. The Fukuda was a streamlined high-velocity SLOTV that had been hastily retrofitted with additional HO rockets. Cap had attached the tube to the forward boarding door, located just behind the bridge.
The team’s standard vacsuits disappeared in the dark ship. Keb hovered above the entryway. This brought back unpleasant memories of their own near escape from Earth. From the ship’s specs, it was entirely possible that this was the sister ship of the one they were evacuated on.
Keb switched the probe’s cameras to night-vision mode and entered. The team crept down the main hall toward the bridge. Val and Tav, in their fury skins, barely fit in the narrow space. The bulkhead groaned with their every step. The door to the bridge was covered in scorch marks, dents, and a few dark smears that they didn’t care to identify.
“I need to patch into the main computer before you proceed,” Keb said. The probe’s speakers used the default male voice, which irked Keb. Someone really needed to create a gender-neutral synthetic voice for this thing.
Val covered the closed door to the bridge while Tav guarded the rear with his submachine gun. Cap shifted his heavy pistol to his left hand and pressed the door release button. Nothing happened. Cap had his muse run a quick diagnostic scan on the door.
“It’s locked from the inside,” Cap said a moment later.
Val passed Cap her automatic rifle. “I got this.”
Val gently tugged on two wires. Using only the immense strength in her hands, she severed the wires. With surprising dexterity, she spliced them together and the door slid open.
Cap swept the room. “Clear.”
Keb nudged the probe around Val’s head and slowly panned the room, pausing halfway through. They zoomed in on something on the floor—a booted foot—and guided the probe closer.
A woman lay on the floor with her face pressed against the forward air vent, her fingers curled into the grate. Her leathery flesh must have been stuck to the floor. Keb couldn’t think of any other reason why her body wasn’t floating around.
Her dried-out open eyes were enough to send Cap running. Strange how that man could skirt the edge of a black hole without a second thought but the sight of a mummified corpse sent him over the edge.
Keb sent a still of the body to Val and Tav’s optic relays so they understood. It wouldn’t do for them to flay Cap without knowing why he bolted. Besides, sooner or later they would both try to squeeze into the narrow bridge to get a look. While the spectacle would be worth the price of admission, it was a distraction that none of them needed right now. To their credit, neither of them lost their breakfast and Cap managed to regain control of his stomach before he fouled his suit.
Keb floated over to the main console and extended one of the probe’s arms. They activated the screen with a swipe of a latex-tipped gripper. While the ship’s AI woke up from its long slumber, Keb activated their best security measures. It might not be enough to stop whatever could be lurking in the circuitry from infecting them (it certainly hadn’t helped Keb’s predecessor), but it at least gave them a moment’s warning.
They established a wireless link with the ship. Before it could say “Hello, Dave,” Keb had it completely under their control. Within five minutes, the entire ship’s log had been transferred to one of their most secure databanks.
That was too easy. There should have been at least three more security protocols. Clearly this wasn’t the first time someone’d been in there. Given how long the ship had been drifting, Keb wondered if it would be worth the time to discover who or what had.
They floated over to the door. “I have everything I need here.”
Keb kept one proverbial eye on the team while they checked both forward cabins and the galley. The other was fixed on the last entries in the ship’s log. The cabins and galley were clear but the log was a puzzling jumble.
In the first relevant entry, the captain, whose body they had likely found, spoke of a systems breach of unknown origin. The next and last entry concerned problems with the crew. Apparently they would only obey commands from the perpetrator and quickly became paranoid. When the crew locked themselves in the cargo bay, she shut off the life support in that section. The last line was a brief note about locking herself in the cockpit and changing the access codes just in case.
If an ASI’s fork took control of the crew’s mesh they could easily gain access to the ship’s systems through them. Unfortunately that scenario also made the captain’s demise far more disturbing. What was so important that they would kill for it? It was enough to make a synthmorph shiver.
Perhaps the perpetrator attacked at that moment? Not a comforting thought. Timing like that meant they were spying on the captain. But why didn’t they simply infect the captain’s mesh? Unless she unmeshed before they could. A smart move but to lobotomize your ego like that was almost unthinkable.
“There are at least two crew members unaccounted for,” Keb said. “It’s likely their sleeves were terminated.” The warning was more to steel them against another gruesome find than to warn them of a potential threat.
Speaking of threat …
Keb sent a quick message to Charlyse, one of their Firewall associates, with encrypted copies of the collected data. She had more experience with pre-fall AIs than they did. Hopefully she could tell them what may have been responsible for this.
The final cabins were as empty as the first. That left the small cargo bay at the aft. Cap stood next to the cargo bay doors. This time Val came forward to take point with Tav close behind. Cap silently counted to three with his fingers before opening the door. When the door slid open, Val and Tav rushed in, each sweeping a side. Keb flew the probe in, keeping it close to the ceiling. Cap stayed by the door to guard the rear.
Static obscured the video feed for a second. The probe must have bumped into something. Keb pulled the probe back and panned up.
The bodies of two men hung from the ceiling. Electronic rope lashed them to the beams. Each had a submachine gun pointed at the doors—one aimed at the shipside door and the other at the bay door—and both men were very dead.
“Damn,” Keb said. “I’ve found the crew’s sleeves.” The team spun around as one and their skin became a bit pale.
“All right, which of you thought it couldn’t get worse?” Cap said. Val and Tav raised their hands.
Keb zoomed in on the corpses. Neither of these bodies had a mark on them, nor were there any signs of panic or desperation. They kept their sights on the doors until they blacked out.
Keb scanned the cargo bay with every sensor the probe possessed. Forty shipping containers were stacked and lashed to the port side and on the starboard there was storage lockers for tools and vacsuits. There were no hidden compartments, no depressions or residue indicating a removed object. It was maddening!
Perhaps there hadn’t been anything to begin with? This wouldn’t have been the first time viruses and AIs skewed reality. Though a fraudulent threat wouldn’t explain the captain’s demise. [Incoming transmission.] Their muse put the alert across their field of view. [Decryption in progress.]
Cap and the team started searching the containers. Val had to tie down her rifle to help Tav move them into the open. Most of the crates held spare parts for the antiquated ship and supplies destined for Ceres.
Keb guided the probe in closer for a good view of the last and largest container as Cap opened it. Inside was a large data storage cube one foot across. A small screen on the top read 107 saved.
“We just struck the mother load,” Cap said.
[Decryption completed. Transmission Source: Firewall agent—Charlyse. Audio only.]
[Good,] they told their muse. [Put it through in the apartment only.]
[Damn, that’s some creepy shit!] Charlyse said.
[No kidding,] Keb said. They sent her an update concerning the cargo bay. [It just got weirder.]
Tav and Val searched through the spare parts for anything they could sell or swap. Keb didn’t pay much attention to them. They were more interested in the list of egos that Cap scrolled through on the cube’s screen. Please be there, Keb chanted in his mind as he read the names. About a third of the way down they finally saw the name they were hoping for: Eiko Takahashi. She was the only friend whose fate they hadn’t discovered.
[Keb, can you zoom in on the base of the cube?]
They silently cursed
. Only the note of fear in Charlyse’s voice kept them from screaming “not now!”
[Yes. It will take a minute for the probe to respond.]
When the probe did they saw what Charlyse spotted. A translucent ecto hung from a port on the back. A slight glint from the solar cells gave it away. That could have been how the crew were infected. Of course it could be coincidence too. But if that was the source, than Eiko could be infected too. Keb immediately dismissed the thought. She was a dormant file. The chances of her being infected were slim.
[A technician probably forgot to remove it in the rush to get it offworld,] Keb said.
[Possibly,] Charlyse said. [I recommend the cube be taken to Valles-New Shanghai. They have the proper security for this. You should also send the team in for a resleeve.]
For the first time since joining Firewall, Keb questioned their associates’ motives. This order didn’t have a veil of anonymity to pacify their morals. That Eiko got caught up in this only made it worse.
[Keb? Is there a problem?]
Yes, there was. Keb turned their attention back to the cube. If they obeyed orders, Eiko would be just another infugee, lost in the system. She deserved better than that. But there were other ways to help her. Ways that were only accessible to an infomorph.
