First of Their Kind

by C D Tavenor

  “Before you ask, no, I didn’t know until one of my assistants did some digging following the Crusade’s attack on Theren.” Simon ignored Julia’s outburst, proceeding to rattle onward with his speech. He had certainly spent all of his emotional energy at this point. As Simon continued to talk, Romane tiptoed toward Julia and began whispering in her ear. “He hid his connections well, but that connection explains a lot of the flak I’ve been getting from him and a number of my investors over the past few years.”

  “Even after everything he just said,” Jill said at the chess table. “He still hides behind his investors. He needs to either own this or just run away, entirely scared.”

  “Jill, give him a moment to explain,” Theren said. “Can you not hear the pain his voice?”

  “Just because he’s lovesick doesn’t mean he can ruin our lives,” she said.

  “Patience.”

  “I should have seen the signs,” Simon said, as if he could hear their conversation in Virtual. “I should have pushed back against them with more strength; I should have stood by the work that Wallace brought into this world. Theren, you are his child. I should have treated you as my own, and all SIs that follow. I should have been more diligent. There are a lot of things that I should have been, but I was not.”

  A few more tears streaked down his cheek.

  “Clearly, I was the leak,” he said.

  Theren almost expected Jill to let out a snort of sarcastic surprise, but she didn’t comment. Romane had apparently managed to fill Julia in on the situation, for both women now stood, patiently waiting to hear the rest of Simon’s tale.

  “My IT team has poured over the data since we noticed the unfortunate financial connections to Holy Crusade,” he said. “We’ve detected a number of encrypted packets transmitted from our servers to Holy Crusade social media accounts.”

  “You were hacked?” Theren asked.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “I’m confused,” Jill said. “Why was Theren’s route anywhere on your servers in the first place?’

  “I can answer that,” Theren said. “Part of the funding relationship with Golden Ventures, specifically for the MI prototype that I used on that trip, requires us to notify the Gerber Foundation when any MI funded by the Gerber Foundation funds travels to a new location. It’s an insurance issue.”

  “Theren’s right,” Simon said. “And we received an itinerary of your trip two days before you left New York. Elizabeth actually sent the proposed trip on to us before she had even asked you, based on your report. I assume the Institute received a report, too. All according to protocol.”

  “We did,” Julia said, “but I doubt the leak came from any of the four members of the Synthetic Research Development Group.”

  “So, either someone at the Gerber Foundation transmitted the data on to the Holy Crusade,” Jill said, “or they had malware installed that sent it to them automatically.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Thank you,” Theren said, recognizing the purpose of the dissolution. “Wallace would be proud of what you’re doing here.”

  Simon’s eyes glowed ever so slightly with that comment. “That’s one of the reasons why I’m pulling the funding,” he said. “Out of respect for his work. But I’m also doing it because it’s the right thing to do. You don’t need my investors breathing down your neck. You need freedom. If you’re going to accomplish the truly great things, which we all know you—both of you—can achieve, then you need as much freedom as we can give you.”

  “What will happen to you, and your relationship with your investors focused on our projects?” Theren asked. “What will happen to you? I’m so sorry for how I’ve treated you these past few months. Really, the entire time I’ve known you. I should have been better, for Wallace.”

  Simon slowly pushed himself up from the chair. “Oh, I’ll get a lot of flak,” he said. “I’ll probably lose donors who wanted their meddlesome hands involved in what you were doing, but your safety is more important. I can’t have another unexpected security breach like this inadvertently give someone access to your facility so they can do even more harm than what happened in Minnesota. It’s what Wallace would have wanted.”

  Theren looked into the eyes of a man they had thought didn’t deserve respect. Today, Simon had earned more than just respect; he earned Theren’s forgiveness. Michael had been right about those connections, but that revelation was pretty meaningless in the end. The Development Group discovered them on their own, without the Holy Crusade’s help. There was no conspiracy. Just a rich, prejudiced investor with too much time on his hands. The man tried to make Theren chase shadows, but they would not fall for the bait.

  Still, Michael had made them pause. They weren’t opposed to accepting evidence of something greater going on behind the scenes. They would need the evidence first, and now they were primed to notice the signs. Yet Michael’s empty words weren’t evidence; they were just useless conjecture.

  “You risked a lot telling us about what you discovered,” Theren said to Simon. “I am so sorry that things had to happen this way, but I appreciate greatly what you are trying to do—what you are doing. And if you find that you were, in fact, the security breach, we promise we won’t hold it against you.”

  Theren sent Jill a private message, telling her to say something, too. Her head swiveled toward Theren, then back toward Simon. “If you’d like, I can help you with your investigation,” she said. “I’ve been doing a lot of cybersecurity research, and I’m getting a knack for cracking certain codes.”

  Theren figured that was the best olive branch they could get out of her. They were actually surprised how cordially she was handling Simon’s revelation, given how she wanted to eviscerate the Holy Crusade in an aggressive legal war.

  “I might take you up on that offer,” Simon said. “And Theren? This isn’t your fault. You didn’t know. Don’t place the blame on yourself for your behavior when my actions caused all of this in the first place. I loved Wallace. I know you loved Wallace. Hopefully, over the coming years, we can finally come together on that fact.”

  Theren accessed the digital versions of the documents Simon shared and signed them. The others followed suit, officially severing Simon’s ties to Theren, to Jill, to the Institute, to SII. Theren now held two-thirds of their own intellectual property, with a majority vote over the Institute. They could sever ties at any moment if they so wished.

  “Wallace would thank you for your actions today,” Romane said, after barely making a noise the entire meeting. “You’ve begun to make things right, as you said.”

  “That’s all I can hope for, after being the terrible person I’ve been these past few years.”

  Chapter 10

  Space. The final frontier.

  Yet we’re carving it up like a pie, assigning legal rights, corporate silos, national and meta-national designations for dozens, and eventually hundreds, of stellar objects, throughout Sol and beyond.

  We have an opportunity before us to create a new technological arms race, catapulting humanity into the future at unprecedented pace. Instead, we’re playing politics on the Moon. We could have had a second Age of Imperialism, tempered by 21st century morality. Instead, we’re tiptoeing around environmental and ethical regulations to ensure we do it the “right way.”

  Whatever that means. If climate change has taught us anything, it’s that we must act decisively rather than wait for all the answers to sit in our lap. – “The Flawed Frontier,” by Jennifer Aarons, 2084 C.E.

  April 2051 C.E.

  Theren had spent little time near the ocean. They had traveled with Elizabeth to meetings at the United Nations, but they had never even had a chance to walk along a sandy beach.

  Yet today, a warm day in the first week of April, Theren stood in an MI-02 on a bluff overlooking the ocean. Behind them, a massive graveyard of retired shuttles, rockets, and other aeronautical vehicles dotted the landscape.

  Reliving its glory day
s, Cape Canaveral served as the annual site of the Conference of the Parties for the United Nations Convention on Ex-Terran Activities. For almost two decades, the infamous treaty had regulated the spacefaring nations, private enterprises, and the planetary bodies outside of Earth’s atmosphere.

  This year, the conversation focused on Elizabeth’s proposal. It would establish rules, develop guidance, and create programs through which humanity would coordinate efforts to explore and colonize the stars. The countries of Earth understood the ramifications if interstellar colonization became a free for all, just like the imperialist days of old. Of course, the ISA held its own imperialist implications, but Theren hoped good governance could avoid those potentialities.

  So far, everything had occurred according to plan. Well, at least according to Elizabeth’s plan. Andrew Fields responded positively to Elizabeth’s job offer, and he and his family would move to the moon once Lunar City finished construction. Most parties seemed amicable to Golden Ventures’ version of the treaty. Yet Theren still had no idea why they were even at the conference. They almost felt as if Elizabeth was using them as a bargaining chip.

  Theren imagined other possibilities, possibilities considered by no one else at the Conference. In their mind, they envisioned SIs marching alongside human counterparts. They explored alien worlds, catalogued exotic animals and plants, established potential sites for future colonies, and coordinated the creation of new governmental sub-divisions across the stars. Theren saw spacecraft, crewed not only by humans but also by SIs, or even spacecraft that were SIs. They even contemplated the implications of a planet colonized by only SIs.

  These thoughts, though, were for another time. While their perspectives elsewhere in the world focused on such speculative possibilities, instructed young SIs, or collaborated with researchers on advanced projects, the portion of their mind controlling an MI on the beaches of Florida turned back toward the summit. Theren walked back toward the Conference.

  * * *

  “Five Things you should know about the UNCEA,” by the

  Center for American Progress

  (1) The United Nations Convention on Ex-Terran Activities formed in 2034 following the disaster that was the International Mars Initiative. We all know that story.

  (2) An Annex formed under the UNCEA requires two thirds of its members to gain legal force, though only nations with launch capabilities have voting power.

  (3) Officially known as Annex III, the proposed treaty developed by Golden Ventures and the European Space Agency would create the International Space Agency, an interplanetary governing body that some have critiqued as a “reinvigoration of disguised corporate person-hood.” Here’s why we disagree. [Click Link]

  (4) The current proposal includes a moratorium on nationalistic colonization of planetary bodies outside the solar system, though the parties to the UNCEA will revisit that question in 2125 C.E.

  (5) To receive voting power on the proposed ISA Council, a party must provide significant financial support to the new institution; a party can receive up to ten votes if they provide an in-kind contribution of 10 billion dollars per year to the Agency.

  * * *

  “In conclusion, the kingdom of Norway agrees to the language set forth in this Annex III. The terms are equitable, progressive, and efficient.”

  Applause shook the tent placed atop the former launch pad for American space shuttles, and the Norwegian delegate took her seat.

  The cavernous room brought the representatives together through a triple-layered semi-circle of tables, situated in front of an immense stage. In the innermost row of tables, delegates from nation-states and major public and private entities, discussed and congratulated as each group took their turn expressing their assent or dissent to the newly proposed Annex under the UNCEA. In the second row, the assistants, secretaries, subsidiaries, and support staff of the delegates flurried about making last minute backroom deals. The press remained astute in the bleachers comprising the third row of the square.

  Theren had a seat in that second row next to the Chief Research Officer of Sol Mining, Santiago Vega. Santiago was an aging though still quick-witted man from California. Theren knew he played a major role in the development of the Jump Drive and that he would be giving a speech on the subject later in the week.

  After Norway, Finland, the United Kingdom, Sweden, France, China, India, Australia, and a number of other nations all consented to the agreement. A few non-space faring nations invited to the COP also elected to take non-voting roles in the soon to be formed ISA. The dozens of private companies that took up the lion’s share of the ex-terran market provided their statements, too. SpaceX. Stellar Superstructures. Galactic Cruises.

  After hours of speeches, Elizabeth walked to the podium. As the party that had officially submitted Annex III, she had the honor of closing the preliminary agreement process. When she reached the podium, the separate discussions around the room ceased.

  “I would like to thank everyone here today who made it possible for this Annex establishing this International Space Agency under the UNCEA to reach fruition in such a short time,” Elizabeth said. “I know we still have a long road ahead, in more ways than one. This week alone, we must flesh out the details of this agreement, including the specific financial obligations of each party, renewal processes, the duties and powers of the Board, the agency itself, and, of course, the specifics of our substantive, long-term goals.”

  She pushed a few stray hairs out of her eyes. “I urge each of you, as representatives of not only your country or company, but of humanity as a whole, to take to heart what we have done today and what it means for the future of this planet. By the turn of the century, we may have human boots on the ground of another planet in another solar system. Let that sink in. Today, we have made the impossible possible. Today, we have sent humanity down a path that leads to immortality.”

  Theren would need to thank Elizabeth later. They had suggested that paragraph to her in the draft of the speech she had floated by them earlier in the week. Wallace probably would have appreciated the sentiment, too.

  “Do not take this reality lightly,” continued the CEO. “The ISA has the potential for good, but it also has the potential for evil. If we continue to work together, however, we will avoid the corruption that has plagued multilateral organizations of the past and achieve greatness through solidarity.”

  A murmur of agreement spread throughout the room. Theren figured they recalled the scandal that befell the UNFCCC in the early 2020s. It had taken a new agreement, the Universal Treaty on Environmental Rights, and the formation of the World Clean Energy Commission in 2031 to send Earth on a course that finally reversed—not just stalled—the effects of climate change. Theren knew they were lucky they could even stand at Cape Canaveral today, and there was still a good chance the sea would engulf it by the end of the century.

  “As we move forward with the rest of this conference,” Elizabeth said, “I hope each of you considers how these negotiations will impact all of humanity. I hope you consider how we can shape a future that benefits all of humankind, not just the nations and companies represented on this beach. And I hope that we strive toward an inclusivity that, if we ever meet intelligent life like ourselves, will inspire an ethic of peace and cooperation, and not the imperialism and hostility of our ancestors.”

  A round of applause interrupted her words, but Elizabeth held out her hand to call for a moment more of quiet. Theren’s draft of the speech essentially ended there, but apparently, she had more to say.

  “To illustrate Golden Ventures’ commitment to tolerance, utility, unity, and progress, we have selected a dear friend of mine as our representative to the ISA Council: Theren of the Synthetic Intelligence Initiative, first living synthetic intelligence and the most qualified person in this room to help lead humanity into the future. My hope is that, as an SI, Theren will have a long tenure on the ISA’s governing body and can advise many generations of our species. Thank yo
u.”

  Elizabeth stepped down from the podium. The room stood still, as if time itself had screeched to a halt. Theren watched the moment painfully stretch beyond all reasonable length.

  They could not believe what she had just announced. Theren had had not dared suggest such a bold idea to the entrepreneur. While the two were indeed friends, they still viewed her first and foremost as a business partner. In a way, she was also Theren’s superior, given SII’s relationship to Golden Ventures, even if she gave the organization autonomy. Based on her last statement, though, she fully intended Theren to reside on the ISA Council in perpetuity. They had the opportunity to live forever if they maintained themself properly—she clearly intended the ISA to exploit that truth.

  What scared Theren was not the thought of living forever or the responsibility that would come with joining the ISA Council. More so, they feared the thoughts of the other delegates at the Conference. Nor did they know how the world would react. They could feel the cameras glued to their position in the room, broadcasting the event for the public and news stations across the globe. The entire world had laid its eyes on the SI. The weight was almost unbearable.

  Theren kept their own eyes on Elizabeth as she made her way back to her seat, trying to gain some guidance from their mentor. She gave them a curt nod, and a smile beamed from her face.

  In response, Theren rose to their feet, bowing to the cameras and the esteemed delegates. They certainly appreciated the emotionlessness of their current physical apparatus. They did not know what sort of emotion a face should show in this situation. As the moment dragged on, and eyes across the room remained frozen to the SI, Theren felt smaller and smaller.