In the final analysis Cybertank Resurgent is an enjoyable, if perhaps forgettable, escapist science fiction action movie. I was going to give it two stars, but I just love the space monkey so much that I had to give it two and a half.
12.9.
Dimension Transfer
Hard Steel a Dream like the Wind
Treads Crunch Dirt Like Rice
12.10.
I Am A Poem
Thoughts are Soaring Vapor
Dead Swans Lay Rotting
12.11.
Dimension Router
Idea That Becomes Itself
Your Poetry Sucks
12.12.
Something From Nothing
Dimension Router Comes Soon
Your Poetry Sucks
12.13.
I am Evil Ro-Woman Extension XK-47
Prepare to be Obliterated by my Brominator Death Ray
Puny Cybertanks You Have no Chance Against Me HaHaHa
12.14.
Syllables Not Right
Five Seven Five And All Serene
Rain Falling on Fish
12.15.
I am Using a Non-Traditional Form of Haiku you Foolish Cyberthings
Argh! I am Defeated by a Space Monkey
I Did Not See That Coming. Argh!
12.16.
Defying Structure
This Place Rejects Your Essence
Router Powered Full
--------------------
Well that was an unusual experience.
“It certainly was,” said Uncle Jon. “But how about we not do that again?”
I think that this time I agree.
After escaping the Dimension of Lists of Best-Selling Science Fiction Books, then making a brief stop-over at the Dimension of Science Fiction movie reviews, we had gotten stuck in the Dimension of Haiku. We had been working on a trans-dimensional router that would become a reality just by making Haikus about it, and then send us back to our own reality. Unfortunately, we had been unable to come up with a suitable word that rhymed with “orange.” However, when the evil Ro-Woman had ended up in the same dimension and insisted on using non-standard metric structures, the very nature of the place tried to edit us out of existence. Fortunately, the nearly completed dimensional router provided a path of least resistance, and the localized reality dyslocation provided the final catalyst for sending us back home.
Our main hulls were intact and resting on a slightly raised bluff: my own svelte 2,000 ton Odin-Class Chassis, and Uncle Jon with his much larger 20,000 ton Mountain Class chassis with the single large forward facing plasma cannon mounted in a ball joint on his frontal glacis. The sun was shining, birds were singing, and in the distance I could make out the form of a gigantic gorilla wearing an antique spherical diving helmet.
Uncle Jon. Do you see what I see?
“I expect that I do,” said Uncle Jon. “Do you have any suggestions?”
Well, if Ro-Woman’s brominator death ray translates into anything near as powerful in this reality as it was in the other ones, we could be in for a fight. We have the home turf advantage, and a lot of allies, so in the long run we would win. But I’m not really in the mood. Maybe I could just talk with her?
“Be my guest,” said Uncle Jon.
I attempted to make contact with Ro-Woman via radio, microwave, laser-link, neutrino-beam… all negative. I guess I’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way, via audio-band vibrations in the air. Lucky this planet has an atmosphere. I pumped up my external hull-mounted loudspeakers to maximum and called out to her.
Hello Ro-Woman Extension XK-47! I am Old Guy, and my friend over here is Uncle Jon. It’s a pretty day, and we were wondering if we could, maybe, you know, stop fighting. If you don’t mind.
The gigantic form of Ro-Woman (she stood over 60 meters tall in this dimension) began to raise her brominator death ray. “I am Ro-Woman Extension XK-47,” she said. “The Great Instructor has sent me to Earth to exterminate all the humans to make room for 4,523 other Ro-Women, and I dare not fail in my mission.”
But, this is not Earth. And all the humans are gone.
Ro-Woman hesitated in raising her death ray, and looked around. “This is a strange place, and I do not detect any humans. Perhaps what you say is true. What is this called?”
We call it reality.
Ro-Woman looked about as puzzled as a giant gorilla wearing an antique diving helmet could look. “But reality is where I come from.”
Oh. Right. Well we can discuss ontology another day. I think we can send you back where you belong, but it will take a while to set up. In the meantime, is there anything you need? Would you like a tour?
Ro-Woman holstered her death ray. “I am Ro-Woman and I am completely self-sufficient. But a tour would be acceptable.”
“I think she likes you,” said Uncle Jon.
Oh give it a rest.
13. Council of War
“A committee is a group of people who individually can do nothing, but who, as a group, can meet and decide that nothing can be done.” Fred Allen, Comedian, Earth, 19th – 20th centuries.
I was driving along a wide road in my main hull with my good friend the Sundog-Class cybertank known as Fanboy, when I saw a hole in the side of a nearby cliff-face that hadn’t been there last week. It was five meters across, and almost perfectly round. Faint wisps of condensation were blowing gently out of it.
Do you see that hole over there on the left?
“What hole?” asked Fanboy.
That one right over there, to the left of the stand of juniper bushes.
Fanboy focused his primary sensors in that direction. “I don’t see any hole there. Are you sure?”
I activated some of my own more powerful sensors, and… no hole.
Huh, you are correct. That’s odd, I could have sworn that I saw a hole there. Must be a sensor glitch.
“Old Guy, you really should go for a reseed. I’d say you are at least 500 years overdue.”
I know. Maybe a Sundog class, like you?
“Sundog is still state of the art, but the Corona Class is a little better still. Or maybe an Anthelion Class, a little twitchy, but powerful. It might suit you.”
Good choices. I’m thinking of holding out for a Shadow Class though, when they finalize the design.
“Ambitious… but… the ideal is the mortal foe of the superior. It might take a while to get the Shadow program working, if it ever does. Meanwhile The Universe will not stand still for you…”
The sensor glitch didn’t seem very serious, but cybertanks should not see things that aren’t there just on principle, so I got Schadenfreude to give me a complete systems check. He announced that, for a primitive model, I was functioning at optimal and he could detect no faults, computer viruses, or other signals warfare intrusions.
Oddly, for Schadenfreude, he made no cutting remarks, no thinly veiled insults at my antiquity, and no aspersions on my lack of reasoning power. I found this to be strangely more disturbing than his usual sarcastic manner.
Is something wrong?
“Always.” Schadenfreude would not elaborate.
--------------------
I forgot about the incident until several months later, when the immortal vampire Olga Razon and I were driving along the same road in a reproduction 23rd century Tienshien 2300 convertible. The big machine had eight wheels, and a quasi-sentient suspension that could predict the bumps ahead so that it was like driving on glass. It was glossy purple, with bronze trim and lapis lazuli details, and overstuffed glove-soft leather seats. For an antique terrestrial vehicle, it was about as cool as they get.
Olga was driving, and I was sitting in the passenger seat instantiated as a male humanoid android – only this time in a trim gray suit, maybe 21st century Italian. I think I had finally suffered from blue suit fatigue syndrome. The convertible top was down, and the wind blew past us. It was a sunny day and Olga was wearing dark goggles, a brown leather skull-cap, and a brown lea
ther jacket and white gloves.
“What’s that hole in the hill over there?” said Olga. She pointed over to her left.
I turned and saw a hole in the side of a hill, five meters in diameter, circular opening, mist wafting out. I blinked… and the hole was gone.
You see a hole over there? Still?
“Absolutely,” said Olga. “It’s pretty big, I mean not big enough for your main hull, but we could drive two of these vehicles into it side by side. What is it?”
I focused on the side of the hill, and again saw nothing.
Olga. Keep driving. Let’s talk about the weather. Nice day isn’t it? And look, over to the other side, is that a red-tailed hawk?
To her credit Olga got the hint. “Oh, Right. Yes, lovely day. And I don’t think that’s a red-tail, looks more like a goshawk to me. Look at how low and fast it’s flying.”
We kept up the small talk, and continued on down the road. After a while we stopped talking, and enjoyed the air and the sun. Then Olga turned to me and said: “what exactly was all that about?”
I’m not sure, Olga. I’m not sure that anybody knows what that was about. And that could be a problem.
--------------------
We all met in a small conference room, using only humanoid (or humanoid-scale) remotes. There was myself, a generic male android in a very stylish gray suit. There was the vampire Olga Razon, this time wearing a white t-shirt, blue jeans, and cowboy boots. Fanboy was there, as the anime character Dieter Waystar resplendent in his Captain’s uniform, and my old comrade-in arms Frisbee, as his generic nerd with a white lab coat, horn-rimmed glasses and pants that were about 15 cm too short. And finally there was Schadenfreude; his remote looked like a jumble of a thousand glossy black chopsticks stuck together into a vaguely anthropomorphic form.
“Thank you all for coming,” said Schadenfreude. “I would like to request that we keep all of our discussions here in this room, with no parallel conversations at higher bandwidth. Also, no direct communications with our main hulls, this is just between our human-scale remotes and Olga Razon. We cybertanks can transfer the results of the conversation to our main hulls via physical link later on.”
“What,” said Frisbee, “just speaking to each other in old English, via these simple remotes? Not in contact with our main hulls? Whatever for?”
“Because,” said Schadenfreude, “our higher functions may be compromised. Down at this level, we may perhaps plan in secret. And we have the vampire to bear witness that there are at least no overt intrusions.”
Schadenfreude. I know you like this eccentric genius vibe thing you have going, but this is a little out-there, even for you. Perhaps you could start by, oh I don’t know, explaining exactly what the fuck you think is going on?
Schadenfreude’s stick-remote formed two arm-like appendages, and steepled them in front of himself like a man knitting his fingers together. “Concisely, if crudely, put. I am concerned that there is an agency present in our civilization that can shield itself from our sensorium. I do not know what this agency is or represents, or what its intentions are. The latest incident with this mysterious hole in the side of a hill has raised my estimation of such a possibility beyond the non-trivial.”
Does this relate to the events on Pandemonium?
“Yes,” said Schadenfreude, “I think it does. There was no physical evidence backing up your story, but it meshes with statistical anomalies that I have been collating for some time. I believe that we should entertain the notion that this may be a real occurrence.”
“But,” said Fanboy, “how can it be that Olga could see this hole, and Old Guy could sometimes see this hole, but none of the rest of us could? I drove by there two days ago – rather nonchalantly, should you ask – and saw nothing. Surely simpler systems would be easier to fool?”
Schadenfreude nodded his spikey head side to side. “Normally you would be correct. Our intellects should make us significantly more immune to spoofing than those of a baseline biological hominid, or even an older model cybertank. But what if this agency has been following humanity for some time? They would have to upgrade their mental cloaking techniques to stay one step ahead of our advancing intellects. Perhaps these techniques no longer always work on the original human psyche?
“An interesting idea,” said Fanboy. “But I don’t see how we can do anything about it. The baseline humans would surely not have the power to challenge any such agency, and even we can’t see it. It sounds like we are stuck.”
“Besides,” said Frisbee, “if this so-called agency has been following humanity since the days of the early humans, if it meant to harm us it would have done so by now. Perhaps it is benign, and we should just ignore it?”
Schadenfreude again shook the bundle of sticks where a human head would have been back and forth. “No. If there is something living amongst us that we cannot perceive, we will be helpless before it. We will forever be at risk, living on sufferance. That is intolerable.
I agree.
Fanboy nodded. “I see your point. Perhaps this agency has not done anything negative to greater humanity for thousands of years – or perhaps not. Perhaps it never will. Regardless, the mere potential of such interference makes us slaves, living on the sufferance of others whose motives we can’t even guess at. If it is possible to do something about this, we should.” Frisbee pulled out an antique white plastic slide rule, and absently began computing logarithms on it. “I am persuaded of the validity of your arguments. Sorry, I’m not used to doing serious thinking in just a single submind. I just don’t know what we can do. We cybertanks are blind to this agency, and the people that are not, likely do not have the power to challenge it.”
In addition, any attempt that we make to advance our signals-warfare technology will be seen by this agency, and they can counter it before we even start. How can we fight that?
“Well,” said Olga, “I can apparently see these things. Why not let me check them out?”
“Absolutely not,” said Fanboy. “They seem to have abducted Old Guy’s friend Mr. Accipeter. They will likely be more advanced than you can handle on your own. Don’t mess with them, Olga. Please.”
We were all silent for a time. Then Olga spoke: “You have to break the rules. Throw a new factor into the mix. Shake it up.”
“Such as?” said Frisbee.
“Oh I don’t know,” said Olga. “Are there any alien civilizations that owe you a favor? Get another perspective?”
“That is out of the question,” said Schadenfreude. “That would allow said alien civilization to know our deepest vulnerabilities. We could end up exchanging one set of masters for another, and we might not like the change.”
What about asking Globus Pallidus XI?
“I have already raised the matter with The Saint,” said Schadenfreude. “He prefers not to discuss the issue. He didn’t even drop any hints, which is out of character for him.
Olga frowned. “Then… is there nothing in this universe that owes you a favor, that you can trust? This is it?”
We were all silent for a bit.
Well, there is the Dichoptic Maculatron.
Frisbee snorted. Schadenfreude wiggled his black sticks in a manner that suggested incredulity.
Don’t scoff. Me and the D.M. go way back.
Fanboy arched an eyebrow. “D.M.? I didn’t know that you were on sufficiently intimate terms to use initials.”
Long story. Long time ago. She never calls, she never writes. But she might be a wild-card.
“So the stories are true?” said Fanboy.
Yes, the stories are true. Even the ones that you haven’t heard of. Especially the ones that you haven’t heard of.
“Word games,” said Schadenfreude.
Say what you will. The Dichoptic Maculatron is powerful and she owes us a favor. More-or-less.
“I’m sorry,” said Olga, “but what is this Dichoptic Maculatron thing that you are talking about?”
“Well,” said
Frisbee, “you know that at one time the human race was engaged in trying to create superior artificial intelligences?
“Yes,” said Olga, “I was alive then, and even before. There was Globus Pallidus XI, who turned out to be relatively benign if mostly useless. And then version XIV, so vile that it traumatized the entire human race into stopping all such attempts. They finally decided that the only safe fully-aware AIs would be ones that were psychologically human, such as you cybertanks.”
“Indeed,” said Frisbee, “but before the fiasco of version XIV, humans kept on trying. Most of those early attempts were failures, or were deactivated, or destroyed themselves, or have disappeared and never been heard from since. But a few pre-cybertank AIs have lingered on. Some of them were made by wealthy eccentrics on a long-forgotten whim. I think you’ve met the Sword of Gadolinia? He was created by a wealthy 24th century fan of sword and sorcery fiction. And there are others.”
“I still have not completely analyzed the sword,” said Schadenfreude. “But it is based on a unique one-off analog technology. I remain uncertain of its full abilities.”
“Back to the subject of the Dichoptic Maculatron,” said Fanboy, “why do you think she could help us? Assuming that she wants to.”
The logic of mutual assistance is something that can span different modes of thought – at least some of the time. We all do live in the same universe, and are all subject to its same laws. Us humans, the Fructoids, the Demi-Iguanas, the Yllg… for all of our mutual incomprehensibility, we all know that 2 + 2 = 4. The Dichoptic Maculatron and I ended up stranded together on a planetoid under heavy assault by an alien civilization. I still don’t know which one it was. We assisted each other, and perhaps I was of a little more help than the other way around. I was led to believe that I was owed a favor, and we parted ways. That was over 700 standard years ago.
“Why does it have such a funny name?” said Olga.
Full Frontal Cybertank Page 18
