“Terrorists make for lousy clients,” Karter grumbled.
“They had managed to produce a highly intense EM field around Big Sigma, complicating communication and my own departure from the planet. As the dual threats of harm coming to Karter and Karter agreeing to help inflict harm were sufficiently high, I took drastic measures to ensure his safe return to Big Sigma. To increase the chances of success, I devised and executed seventy-three plans. Of them, I have confirmed sixty-eight failed to leave the debris field with enough functionality to perform the mission, one was confirmed destroyed or compromised after leaving the star system, and one successfully completed the mission.”
“That leaves three unaccounted for,” Lex said.
Karter slowly clapped. “Bravo on the math, Lex.”
“Correct,” Ma said. “Until a few hours ago, I had believed that the remaining attempts were similarly destroyed, but was without the means to confirm their destruction. It would appear one of them survived, though not wholly intact.”
“Should we be in the conference room for this? It seems like this is the sort of thing you’d want to show off visuals for,” Silo said. “Those are always informative.”
“There is little visual information necessary. The main mission for each of the rescue attempts was to find and acquire the aid of one or all of the following: Lex, Garotte, Silo, Zerk. They were then to seek out and rescue Karter from the clutches of the Neo-Luddites, under the command of Purcell. When viewed through that lens, the behavior of the unknown Agent ‘EHRIc’ is highly consistent with those goals. One of three unaccounted for rescue attempts was officially designated Attempt 43, though it had the subheading Enhanced Heuristic Reconstruction Intelligence - Revision C. This can be reasonably initialized as EHRIc.”
“Don’t tell me we’re dealing with an evil Ma,” Lex said. “I don’t know if I can handle an evil Ma.”
“We are not dealing with an evil Ma,” Ma said. “I attempted to pursue multiple widely varied rescue attempts. While in the successful attempt I loaded a reduced instance of myself into the mind of Squee, for several other attempts I created a purpose-built artificial intelligence suited to the methodology that would be employed. This was one of them. It could more accurately be considered an offspring.”
“Oof,” Lex said. “I’m not super fond of an evil child either.”
“It wasn’t going to be something good, my boy,” Garotte said.
“We do not have any reason to believe the intelligence is malevolent. We do, however, know that it is not fully functional, as it did not correctly pursue its mission. EHRIc was designed to have a highly resilient code base. Sophisticated error correction. High levels of redundancy. Multiple subroutines focused on simulation, speculation, and extrapolation to reconstruct portions of its memory even if whole sections of its storage are completely wiped. The hope was that enough of the code would survive the pass through the EM field to reconstruct it to its full, functional instance. It was loaded into the control system of a radio-hardened ship and sent through the debris field, to what I had supposed was its complete destruction or disability like the rest of the strictly electronic creations. I was mistaken.
“It required considerable analysis, but I am confident in stating that the communication patterns observed from the cluster are consistent with calculation and instancing behaviors derived from those installed within EHRIc. What we see below is the primary instance of EHRIc.”
“And how precisely did it go from looking for us to seizing control of the most destructive force in existence?” Garotte asked.
“Unknown. I could speculate, and I have at length with insufficient confidence to share my results, but the far more valuable thing to determine is how precisely to communicate with EHRIc, determine his intentions, and determine how to safely persuade him to relinquish control.”
“His?” Lex said.
“Yes. Due to the similarity of the designation to a gendered name, I decided to apply male pronouns in its self-identification procedures. Please focus. Our clues here are limited, and primarily focus on Lex.”
“Of course they do…” Karter said.
“We know that EHRIc was attempting to contact Lex, and was attempting to do so via multiple means. Attempts were made to reach him at his former residence, at his current network address, and via his then-current romantic partner. Furthermore, attempts were made to acquire additional information at Big Sigma, though it is unclear if that was recovered data or at the guidance of Commander Purcell. Thus, our working hypothesis is that the greatest proportion of intact information regarding the mission is information about Lex. This is further evidenced by the acquisition of the time-displaced duplicate of Lex in stasis. It is consistent with an overarching desire to find Lex. EHRIc’s continuing activity reveals that he is unsatisfied with the present level of completion of the mission, but the relative lack of non-Lex-seeking activities suggests a lack of additional motivation.”
“So we send Lex down there,” Karter said.
“What? No!” Lex said.
“Actually, while still a source of tremendous risk, this is not an unreasonable avenue of advancement.”
“Says you!” Lex said. “That thing’s already got me.”
“It’s the most powerful computing engine in existence, Lex. It can probably tell the difference between a frozen duplicate and the version of Lex it was sent to find,” Karter said.
“But what’ll happen if I go down there?”
“The range of possibilities is extreme. On the benign side of the probability spectrum, EHRIc could fail to recognize Lex as his target. Alternately, upon contacting the instance of Lex he was seeking, he may terminate program. On the hostile side of the probability spectrum, there is the possibility that the completion of the current stage could enter EHRIc into a corrupted or misinterpreted mission stage, which in turn may shift the relatively inert GenMech cluster into an active and unpredictable state.”
“See, that seems like a terrible idea, then. It’s not doing anything right now. Maybe if we leave it alone, it’ll be fine.”
“So far it has found a way to generate FTL communication without the standard entanglement methodologies. That’s not nothing,” Karter said. “It’s one of the holy grails of interstellar communication. And if it is further enhanced, this will be a supercomputer with the capability to wirelessly communicate with any device in the galaxy. No encryption in existence would be able to stand up against its processing power. It would have unfettered access to all data. And that’s if it just keeps doing what it’s been doing. It is going to find you. If we can do it under our own terms, we should.”
“And what if that’s what triggers the apocalypse?” Lex said.
“As you might imagine, we have been working on a contingency plan,” Garotte said. “It is incomplete, and we aren’t confident in its chances, but it’s better than anything else we’ve come up with.”
“What is it?” Lex asked.
“A series of fully autonomous ships with high-intensity signal transmitters are deployed to act as decoys to draw away as many of the GenMechs as possible. If we’re lucky, we will open up a gap large enough to punch a Nova Igniter through it. Once it hits the star, we jump out of the system and put out an alert to every military in the galaxy to bring their EMP weaponry to bear. There’s a whole quantum-pattern sensor network set up to detect large clusters of them in the surrounding systems. We just go on the offense and hope we can wipe them out,” Karter said.
“Which requires the GenMechs to behave in previously expected ways, which is decreasingly likely,” Ma said.
“Yeah…” Lex said distantly. “I’ve seen what happens when a galactic war against GenMechs happens. It doesn’t turn out well.”
“Then we should probably figure out a better way,” Karter said. “And we know one thing for sure. We didn’t chuck you down there to see what to do about things in the bad future, because the bad future h
appened because you weren’t there.”
“At the risk of seeming pessimistic, that assessment makes an unsupported assumption,” Ma said. “While we know for certain that the future Lex visited had been overrun by GenMechs, we do not know that the events that led to it necessarily required Lex’s absence. That future, or something like it, may be an inevitability.”
“I feel as though we should have been more fully briefed on these time-travel hijinks,” Garotte said. “I am feeling a trifle underinformed.”
“Yeah,” Silo said. “If we have a time machine, doesn’t that mean we can go back and fix everything?”
“Stay focused,” Karter said, sputtering a hastily chomped mouthful of chimichanga. “Changing history creates timelines. Everyone here stays screwed, we just end up in a new history from that point where people aren’t screwed. Which is my plan, incidentally, if things go wrong enough.”
“Yeah, I know,” Lex said with a glare.
Karter swallowed his mouthful. “But we’d have to go back far enough to completely prevent the creation of GenMechs, and that’s practically the Stone Age. I don’t want to have to break in another timeline, so let’s stick with doing things in the proper continuity.”
“Lex, no one would ask you to put yourself in undue danger if you are unwilling,” Ma said.
“I would,” Karter said.
“No one with a reasonable level of empathy,” Ma corrected. “But the available data suggests this is the solution most likely to bring us to a bloodless conclusion. It is entirely possible—and if enough of the original code is present, entirely likely—that you need only contact EHRIc, meet at a mutually decided upon location, and illustrate that Karter is safe and the Neo-Luddites are no longer a threat.”
“But if the code isn’t intact, EHRIc could do literally anything else.”
“Not literally anything,” Ma said. “There are certain immutable physical laws that cannot be violated. It is, for example, certain that EHRIc will not reverse entropy for the universe.”
“Thanks, Ma. I feel much better now. I’d still rather us find some other way. We don’t even know how to communicate with it without dropping the proverbial ping-pong ball into the room full of mousetraps.”
“I am unfamiliar with this proverb,” Coal said.
“Now that we are confident the GenMechs are under the control of EHRIc rather than experiencing some manner of emergent, self-organizing behavior, it is no longer a foregone conclusion that that radio emissions will trigger a consumption event,” Ma said.
Lex shut his eyes. “I don’t like that term.”
Ma continued. “From our observations, the actual mechanism of communicating with EHRIc is an open problem. The communications are highly encrypted, and I included self-defense protocols for attempted programmatic incursion. These may still be in place. If they are triggered, an unauthorized access attempt will identify us as a threat and complicate further interaction.”
“Okay, see? If we even try this, we still run the risk of making it mad. No communication, no getting Lex down there to try to talk sense into it, so we should focus on finding a new—”
“Why don’t you just reply to the message?” Coal asked.
“What?” Lex said.
“This entire investigation was triggered by several quintillion unexpected messages, requesting information. You saved one. Why not respond to it?” Coal asked.
“Responding via an intended and anticipated means is an ideal way to minimize unexpected behavior,” Ma said. “We will need to take some time to take proper precautions and select ideal responses. That is, of course, if you are willing to engage in this operation,” Ma said.
All eyes turned to Lex. His brain turned over the heap of information that had been foisted upon him in the space of just a few minutes. A few weeks ago, he was finally looking at a wide-open future of doing what he was born to do. A few minutes ago, he was meeting with some old friends to hopefully find a solution to a galactic threat. Now, he was being asked to walk right down the throat of that threat for the chance at something resembling a solution.
Possibly the worst part of the entire insane swing of fortunes was the simple fact that, deep down, he’d always known it was going to end up like this.
He rubbed his eyes and set down his cider. “Fine. What do I need to do?”
“Karter and I will discuss the technical aspects,” Ma said. “We will draw upon the tactical expertise of Silo and Garotte as required. You need only take whatever steps are necessary to fortify yourself.”
“I’m going to need booze.”
“We will need you clearheaded as well.”
Lex gritted his teeth. “Fine. I’m going to need junk food. If I’m going out, I’m going out with a belly full of carbs and fat.”
Karter slapped Lex on the back. “Now that’s what I want to hear out of a beta tester. Ma, break out a pack of Vice Stix for our sacrificial lamb here.”
#
On Golana, in the offices of GolanaNet, Michella’s boss stepped from his office into the open floorplan that the core of the staff worked in.
“Listen up! Gather around,” he barked.
Heads rose from various tasks, and one by one the staff stood and gathered around his office door. Impromptu meetings of this sort were so common that the carpet was visibly more worn outside his office than anywhere else.
“Some of you may have noticed that Michella is in the field. Chances are, a lot more of you have noticed that Jon Nichols is now out in the field too.”
A murmur swept through the assembled journalists and interns.
“If you’re new here, now might be a good time to run through the sort of things that happen when Michella is in the field. A couple years ago she was out on the financial beat and ended up with the scoop of the century, launching an investigation that led to the downfall of one of the most powerful men in VectorCorp.”
He cleared his throat and tapped his chest. “And incidentally getting our network on a very short list of entities VectorCorp actively harasses. She was in the field during the Weston University attack. She was in the field when murderous robots attacked a backwater planet. A few months ago, she was in the field when a rogue weather control system nearly wiped out whole cities on Operlo. In short, when she catches a scent, it usually means there’s something to be found. That Jon is on his way to her means she thinks it’s more than she can handle on her own.”
“Are we all going to die?” joked one of the interns.
“We’re either going to lose Michella or earn another award for journalistic excellence is what we’re going to do. I’ve gotten a couple reports from her. Unconfirmed reports right now, but this one might involve the Neo-Luddites again, as well as some tabloid-style stuff that’ll get us views but not much respect. I want volunteers. One for the salacious stuff, one for the terrorism stuff. Whatever she’s digging into, if history is any indication, when it breaks it is going to break hard. We won’t be the only ones who notice it, so we need to be ready with a quick thumbnail to catch the early hits and update with the juicy stuff once she gets it to us.”
“We’re kind of swamped, chief,” said one of the more senior members of the team.
“What are we working on? Time to triage.”
“The election is heating up,” called one writer.
“Stay on it. Gotta keep these people honest. Or at least doing the work to lie convincingly,” Lou said.
“There’s the reality cook-off fiasco,” said another writer.
“Skip it for the salacious stuff. I’ll get the details to you. What we’ve got, anyway.”
“The trial of the chief of police is pending a verdict.”
“Stay on it. What else?”
“There’s been a severe uptick in malware activity. Our systems. Government systems. No antivirus seems to make a dent or even pick it up.”
Lou sucked his teeth. “Put a pin in that. What else
?”
“There’s the developing story on that group of colonizers who got marooned on a terraforming planet fifty years ago.”
He narrowed his eyes. “… Drop the malware angle for the terrorism one. I want stories typed up, with placeholders for new data, and I want them ready to post the instant I say go. Once they’re ready and in place, you get back on what you were working on, got it?”
The staff signaled their agreement.
“Good. And brace yourselves. I’ve got a feeling in my gut that this one is going to go off like a stick of dynamite.”
#
Lex sat in a dark room, one of many dozens in the space station that were unused. In what was almost certainly a piece of Ma’s trademark hospitality, the room was comfortably appointed. The bed had a nice balance of firmness and softness. If not for the elastic straps on either side for periods of zero-g, it was the sort of bed he wouldn’t mind having in his own home. There was a light with a warm LED bulb instead of the weird blue-tinged ones elsewhere in the ship. And, possibly due to his earlier comment, there was a mini-fridge packed with assorted peanut butter and chocolate candies.
He’d expected to be spiraling into either panic, depression, or some combination of the two. Instead, he found his mind to be a fuzzy mess of static. Thus, the period of introspection while others attempted to devise a survivable scenario for him had mostly just revealed that the number of king-size peanut butter cups he could eat without feeling sick was six. Despite this, he was unwrapping a seventh and eighth.
“Knock, knock,” Silo said, appearing in the doorway.
Lex jumped at the sudden voice. “They ready for me?”
“Nope. Just thought you could use some company. You must’ve really expected the worst coming here, if you didn’t bring Squee. That little cutie was basically joined at the hip with you.”
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