Vanadium Dark

by Ben Sheffield

  W: I don't see the connection. The Vanadocams are non-programmable. They have one purpose and one purpose only: transmit a constant stream of data to the nearest sensor until they break down and die.

  E: The cells in your body are non-programmable, too. Yet together, they make Enoch Wilson.

  L: You have to remember the Vanadocam creation process. Their design isn't set in stone. They're constantly being adjusted and improved upon. The current design has more than two thousand graphene atoms than the first generation Vanadocams. Did you know that?

  W: Yes, I still don't see how they can be used as a computer. They're fucking cameras. And even if they can, what do they do that a regular computer can't?

  E: Let's take that in two parts. They can be used as a computer because that's basically all they are. Computers. Yes, we're currently using them as cameras, but that's neither here nor there. There is no qualitative difference between the Vanadocam network and phone I play Solitaire on during board meetings. They take analogue input and make digital output. They are the same.

  L: Think of it this way. A computer is made of millions of transistors, each of which has a binary ON/OFF state. If you zoomed down and looked at each of those transistors, it would seem impossible that such primitive devices could be capable of computing. Yet when you put them all together, they are capable. From little things, big things grow.

  W: I understand that, but...

  E: Your second question is 'what can the Vanadocams do that a normal computer can't?' The answer: self-improving artificial intelligence.

  L: By way of metaphor, how much memory do you have on your phone?

  W: Two exabytes.

  L: Then it was two exabytes yesterday, and will be two exabytes tomorrow. It's limited and unchanging.

  W: Well, I could swap in a bigger card.

  L: You've just moved limit forward a little bit. Eventually, you'd reach a point where no bigger memory cards are available. And the point is, you would have to do it. The phone is incapable of improving or upgrading itself. Do you see what I'm saying?

  W: Yeah.

  L: Now tell me, how much memory is in the Vanadocam network? Assume each Vanadocam represents a bit of data—which is way too small—but do it as a thought experiment.

  W: I don't know. There are too many of them. Our best guess was a hundred quadrillion all across America, and that's years out of date.

  L: Exactly. New ones are being made all the time. Their potential computing power is theoretically unlimited. And the French will soon launch their own network. How long before the Vanadocams blanket the Earth? There's no upper limit to how many we can make, how many bytes of data the computer cloud can store.

  E: And where there's no limit, there's potential for runaway artificial intelligence.

  W: But it won't just happen. How do we get artificial intelligence?

  E: Oh, that's the beauty of it. They program themselves.

  W: Explain.

  E: The Vanadocams are assembled from graphene-loaded goo via the Vanadium Assemblers. The graphene atoms are joined together through a complicated series of filters and gates. Every now and then, one comes out different. Normally, they fail to work or die. But every now and then, the mutation helps them survive.

  W: You're talking Darwinian selection.

  E: Basically. From time to time, the receptor pylons receive unusually strong beams at unusual wavelengths, and from this we can reverse-engineer its design and use it as a template for new nanocams.

  L: Well, we don't do it. It's all automated. The bots improve themselves now.

  W: You're joking.

  E: Wilson, Wilson... you do not know how far we've come. We would not have kept this a secret for so long if there were humans involved at this step.

  W: Well, damn.

  L: Quantum-scale impulses and actuators move tiny gears forward and backward, adjusting the ways in which the graphene atoms collide. These are all controlled by the main computer. The computer doesn't have a goal in mind. It just picks up on successful mutants and makes more. Who knows what the next generation Vanadocams will be able to do? It's completely out of our hands.

  W: Communicate, nanocam to nanocam? That would be a survival enhancement trait. Ah, I see where this is going. They're becoming a computing cloud...

  L: Precisely. A computing cloud the size of America.

  E: Don't underestimate the power of a computer that can improve itself, Wilson. It creates a positive feedback loop. The computer improves itself and now has a greater capacity to improve itself. What happens next is an intelligence explosion.

  L: Imagine a pencil balancing on one end and then destabilizing so that it falls down. It might not be obviously tipping at first. It might not even move. But as soon as it crosses a certain point —whoosh! —it falls all the way. And this happens very fast.

  W: So in other words, what happens in the next months will be very exciting.

  E: Weeks, Wilson. Maybe days. The Vanadocam-powered AI has already started to improve itself. As you've seen evidence of already.

  W: Ah, you're talking about Robertson. The Handler who quit his job... among other things.

  L: Did you ever compensate his widow?

  W: We tried to get in contact, but she disappeared after her husband's death. She was a private in the USMC, then one day she didn't show up for roll call. We have no idea what happened to her.

  L: Anyway, Sean Robertson is a great case study. The Vanadocam AI fucked with him. It showed him disturbing things through the goggles until he went right over the edge.

  W: It wasn't only that. It managed to give him persistent hallucinations, no matter where he was. He thought he'd gone mad. He spoke about this in confidence with his psychiatrist.

  L: Not very strong confidence, apparently.

  E: Anyway, it was fantastic. All those years of research were bearing fruit. It was like watching your child take its first baby steps.

  W: More like watching your child tear the limbs off a bug. That Vanadocam computer of yours... it was perverse, what it did. Goddamn perverse.

  E: Don't worry yourself about the ethics of this situation, Wilson. A supremely smart cloud computer —which the Vanadocam network is evolving into —will have a supremely smart system of ethics. We're sure of it.

  L: On the subject of handlers, who have you got in the Zoo now? Who's Robertson's replacement?

  W: Viktor Kertesz, a signals intelligence guy from the CIA.

  E: I've heard of him. Done a few stints in the Zoo at the Pentagon before, right?

  W: Yeah. Used to be the most reliable guy on Earth.

  E: You're implying that he isn't any more?

  W: He's been acting funny. Not keeping to his regular hours. Backtalking. They talk about people who have a problem with authority. Kertesz is more like a guy who makes sure authority has a problem with him.

  L: Is the Vanadocam AI going to give us a repeat performance? Two dead Handlers in two weeks?

  E: Someone should bring popcorn.

  [Le rire de tout]

  W: He's also been looking around in places that seem unrelated to his casework. I accessed his logs a few days ago.

  L What's he looking at?

  W: Robertson's death. I told him that Sean had suffered a mental breakdown, and I guess that didn't pass muster with him.

  L: Well, this will be interesting.

  E: Do you have a replacement lined up in case he kills himself too?

  W: I can find new Handlers any time. They overrate their importance. I can find any number of warm bodies to sit behind the seat, and when that amendment passes, I'll make that the case. I'll have a hundred assholes in there wearing goggles.

  L: So the AI will have a hundred Elephant Handlers to torture?

  E: Honestly, I think the AI will make the job of Elephant Handler redundant. It's only a matter of time before the Vanadocam AI becomes fully sentient, if it isn't already. And then it will be able to conduct spy work without human inte
rference at all.

  W: If it isn't already? You mean we might just have built the first sentient thing on earth that isn't a human? Holy shit!

  E: I don't think it is. We've taken steps to see if this is the case. It still behaves like a machine, albeit a Machiavellian machine. But of course...

  W: A sentient being is capable of faking non-sentience.

  E: Exactly. Maybe it's just playing dead.

  L: Maybe the lights are off, but somebody's home.

  E: Well, keep an eye on Kertesz for us, Wilson. Robertson was Exhibit A. Kertesz is Exhibit B. What happens to him will provide clues as to how clever the Vanadocam cloud has gotten.

  L: No wonder they call that place the Zoo.

  E: If he reports anything odd, tell him whatever bullshit will calm him down. The Elephant Handler has a level of knowledge that we are not, uh, altogether happy about.

  L: There's still the possibility for him to turn into another Sun-Hi Shin situation. We could probably survive a press exposé, but why take the risk?

  W: Why, indeed. Approval for the Project's funding slipped another three percent in the polls. By the way, you mentioned the French earlier, didn't you?

  E: Yeah.

  W: Put my mind at ease, Engeld. They've ended their wiretaps, haven't they?

  E: Yes, and Project Elephant can take partial credit for that. We shared early designs for the Vanadocams so they can start building their own line. Not the latest designs! We're not stupid. In exchange, the President extracted the promise that the DGSE would end their espionage of Federal offices. Speak in peace. The French aren't listening.

  L: At least, we don't think they are.

  [extrémités audio]

  DIRECTION GÉNÉRALE DE LA SÉCURITÉ EXTÉRIEURE -

  INTERCEPT FILE # 5235735 -

  C / O AGENT SPECIAL MATHIS DUFRESNE

  The Hospital

  He had a little ritual.

  He'd go to the reception desk after hours, already smelling the antiseptic cleaning solution from the ward beyond, and ask if it would be a problem if he paid a visit.

  All the women who worked the front desk knew him. He was a part of their lives, just as they were a part of his.

  Of course it wouldn't be a problem.

  “You don't have to ask,” they told him again and again. “Just go straight through and introduce yourself to the nurse on duty. They know you. We all know you.”

  But he still asked every time.

  Politeness. Idiosyncrasy. Neurosis.

  Beyond the front desk, his feet retraced the path to the ward. He'd walked it hundreds of times. He wondered how long it would take before he noticed a visible rut on the route from the front desk to his mother's room. It did not seem right that he could make this journey so many times and leave no trace behind.

  The sounds of his footsteps were tinny and sharp, as if the hospital abhorred bass and loved treble. The dehumidified air seemed to cut his lungs as he sucked it in. Every wall was a different shade of white. He had not thought that white could come in different shades. Make white darker, and it is no longer white. But somehow, the description fit.

  Make a hospital wall dark gray, and it will still be white.

  His footsteps preceded him as he walked, announcing his presence. Occasionally an orderly would wave and say hello. He'd wave back.

  Finally, he reached his mother's room.

  The nurse on duty looked up, saw his face, and unlocked the door with a DNA scanner. It was after hours. Only she had these privileges. If he went to the room and the head nurse wasn't there, he would wait until she was. There was no other way to get in.

  He went into the dark room. At the threshold, as he crossed from white into black, he turned to the nurse.

  “Anything I should know?”

  She shook her head.

  He nodded. “Thanks.”

  This was another part of the ritual. He did not really need to ask that.

  Any notable changes in his mother's condition would result in an immediate phone call. He'd requested it—all but insisted on it.

  But still, all of his movements had inertia on their side. He could not stop asking for permission because he'd done it hundreds of times. He could not stop asking after his mother because he'd done it thousands of times.

  The nurse shut the door behind him, leaving him in near dark. Soon, his eyes adjusted.

  He wondered if his eyes were picking up on his daily routine. Ten years ago, it had taken several minutes before he could see enough to make out the frail figure on the bed, bedclothes wrapped around her like grave shrouds.

  Now, it took only about twenty seconds.

  Maybe his pupils started to expand in anticipation when he walked through the corridor.

  The shape was fully visible.

  He saw the outline of his mother's body and once again, was surprised at how wasted it was. He thought the word it was dehumanizing yet appropriate. The thing in the bed was a simulacrum, a replica. His mother had inhabited that body once. God willing, she might inhabit it again some day.

  But she wasn't there now.

  It.

  The body was unworthy of the woman his mother had been. It was lanky and bony with skin that seemed to hang off her with only slightly more cohesion that the bedclothes. She had not used her major muscle groups in ten years.

  The nurses stimulated her muscles to some minimal level with jolts of electricity.

  Or he hoped they did.

  They could be completely neglecting their care of his mother, and he'd never know. The thought upset him a little, but what could he do? He couldn't be in this room all the time.

  He stood in the dark, feeling a sense of closeness. Not just to the memory of his mother, but to himself.

  Normally, his mind was a spastic wind-up machine of ideas, analysis, and concepts. He was a CPA by trade. These late-night visits gave him the chance to indulge in a slower, more languorous kind of thought.

  He did not rush himself. He let colors, senses, and textures from memories unweave themselves in his mind, while he contemplated their unraveling.

  He thought back to when he'd been twelve.

  He'd been smaller then, although not by much. He was a short man. He told people he was 5'6”, but he was really 5'4”.

  Back then, the world had been smaller too. From nine to three it had been the size of a classroom. After hours, it had been the size of whatever room his succession of after-school tutors had wanted to use.

  He’d travelled a lot as a kid, yet he couldn't remember anything about those states or countries. His mother had contracted herself out to a variety of defense firms across several continents, but she'd always ensured his education had taken priority. He’d once spent two weeks in Vanuatu. He'd spent all of half an hour outside the hotel room.

  Then, it had happened.

  He split his life into two halves. Before That, and After That.

  He’d finished school and taken the bus back to his living quarters. He was on his own for a brief moment.

  He’d thought about the rest of his day. Tutors until five. Dinner at five thirty. If he ate quickly, he could manage four solid hours of revision. Then he'd allow himself half an hour's recreation time to play chess. His ELO ranking had tanked, and it annoyed him.

  Then the phone call came.

  “Hello, is this Kwan?”

  “Yeah. What's up, man?” He hated his fresh-off-the-boat accent and usually found himself over-Americanizing it.

  “This is Steven Michaels, from the United States Department of Defense. Your mother works for us. Are you alone now, Kwan?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sit down. I've got something to tell you about your mother.”

  He still recalled the conversation that had followed, perhaps not word for word, but emotion for emotion. He had not experienced much emotion in his life up to that point, and each new one felt like the key turning the rusted lock of a long-sealed chest.

  Anger. Blin
ding, brilliant anger.

  He was angry with the man on the phone, for playing such a stupid joke.

  Then, as he heard the story a second time, an awful vacant feeling took over, as though he was an egg sucked free of yolk.

  Next, the sensation of falling. His feet were on the ground. The phone was still in his ear. But he was in free-fall, plunging straight down, with nothing below him and nothing to catch him.

  Anguish bloomed like a flower. It grew inside him, second by second, spreading beige petals.

  Last, he had a sense of being outside of his body. His voice seemed to come from someone else, far away.

  “Who did it?”

  The man on the phone paused.

  Obviously, he was trying to decide whether he could discuss these matters with a twelve-year-old boy. Probably thinking about security clearances and such.

  Kwan’s anger returned.

  “Tell me who. Please.”

  “A man on the security detail. A thirty-three-year-old sergeant called Kris Osterman. Just pulled out a ceremonial sidearm and started shooting.”

  “Is he alive?”

  “Dead. Another member of the detail shot him.”

  Now it was Kwan's turn to be silent. He did not want to be alone with his thoughts, but he could not think of anything else to ask. He wanted to extract every piece of information from this fellow, wanted to grill him and interrogate him, wanted to fill every crack in his head with facts and dates and police reports and anything else that would stop him from hurting.

  “Your mother's still alive, Kwan. She's unconscious, but she's under the best medical care in the world, and we're doing all we can. I know this is a shock, but I want you to be brave. I want you to... ”

  Click.

  He disconnected the call, brought up some numbers on his phone, and cancelled his tutoring sessions for the evening, one after another.

  “Is anything wrong?” The question they'd all asked.

  “No.” The answer they'd all gotten.

  He called the family lawyer and asked what he should do.

  He flew out to Washington on a plane later that night.

  Among the thousands of events that packed the next few months, his aching, hurting heart was the only constant.

  He was passed from guardian to guardian, a legal hot potato, while the DOD tried to determine what to do with him.