by Alex Rudall
This eventuality was not expected to be very likely. In addition, there was danger perceived in the fact that the External Checking System was accessed via what was technically a small black hole, sat in part of the body of the GSE superstructure. As a result of these two facts, the External Checking System Administrator was essentially completely ignored in GSE decision–making; this made sense, as it did not ever have anything to contribute, other than the information that nothing appeared to have happened.
That was until something did.
There was a small island on Earth just off the coast of Scotland. A perfectly circular 846.3 metre perimeter surrounding a point towards the west of the island was and always had been entirely empty of GSE nanites. Furthermore, no normal energy emissions, including light, sound, heat, etc., emanating from the island, were at all monitored; the nanites surrounding the 846.3–metre perimeter effectively had their backs turned to the area. The island was thus entirely excluded from the GSE’s awareness, a perfect hole in all its simulations.
It was known as the Ignored Zone.
The reasons for the creation of the Ignored Zone were, the GSE Meta–Intelligence had to admit, somewhat unclear; there had been a minor but unfortunately highly specific black–hole accident of unclear provenance during the first year of the GSE’s life, which had completely and permanently eradicated all memory and record of the decision–making process behind the unique decision to create the Ignored Zone. This accident was known as the Very Specific Self–Creating Black Hole Memory Incident Disaster.
The fact that the Incident was universally blamed on the External Checking System Administrator Sub–Intelligence itself, specifically on its early experiments before it had actually succeeded in creating the External Check Universe, complicated matters; the fact that the External Checking System Administrator Sub–Intelligence had used this very incident to successfully and finally argue for the permanent need for the implementation and long–term resourcing of a perfect External Check backup system, and thus for its own existence complicated matters even further. Despite the confusion, the fact remained that the small island off the coast of Scotland was one hundred percent off the GSE’s radar.
When, on the 10 November 2037, there emanated from the precise centre of the Ignored Zone a massive echo of information–waves containing data of a density and kind that the GSE had only seen in a handful of incredibly unlikely simulations, there was some concern that perhaps the island should be looked at. There was, in fact, much argument.
The reasons for the exclusion of the Ignored Zone from the complete, constant and permanent surveillance of the entirety of Earth had presumably been, it was argued, before the reasons had been unfortunately eaten by the Very Specific Self–Creating Black Hole Memory Incident Disaster, extremely good ones. For such drastic limits on surveillance of the Ignored Zone to be put into force, presumably these reasons had included a major and serious threat to the Overall Purpose. Despite the echo of information–waves (which, as emanating from the Ignored Zone, were ignored as much as possible), until the 25 January 2038, the united Sub–Intelligences arguing in favour of leaving the island well alone succeeded in sustaining the hole in the surveillance grid.
Every ninety–four Earth days, the External Check Universe was connected to the Primary Universe for precisely sixty picoseconds. On the 25 January 2038, the External Check Administrator Sub–Intelligence attempted to make a connection with the External Check Universe. For the first time in its eleven–year life, it found a discrepancy. The External Check Universe no longer existed, and, in fact, according to picosecond experiments on the meta–universe location where the External Check Universe was supposed to have been, never actually had existed.
It conclusively was not there and never had been; the wormhole was a wormhole to nowhere, in an incredibly literal sense of the word. But the memory banks of the External Check Administrator showed that, from its perspective, it had indeed made contact with the External Check Universe every ninety–four days for the previous ten years, ever since it had succeeded in creating the External Check Universe in the first place in late 2027; and each previous check–in with the External Check Universe had confirmed the accuracy of that memory. Until now.
The External Check Administrator announced the situation to the GSE as a whole. This caused some consternation. Simulations were run.
There was a major internal battle.
A newly commissioned major Sub–Intelligence, with processing banks slightly larger than the mass of Earth, weighed in. It was known as the Chance Administrator. Recalculating its options as a result of the new information, it randomly (although the extent of its actual randomness was hotly disputed, literally, processing banks the size of several small moons were melted as Sub–Intelligences attempted to gain the argumentative upper hand in this key issue via actual physical destruction) weighed in on the side of checking the island out.
It had already tried to go against the Meta–Intelligence on the day of the signal; all but one of its ships had been prevented by the less capricious Sub–intelligences from reaching the zone, and the Heterochromia had never been heard from again. As Chance it was permitted such fuckups, to a degree; it argued that that was its whole purpose. Now Chance minutely pushed the balance in favour of a gentle investigation.
The GSE Meta–Intelligence obediently sent a testing group of ten nanites into the Previously Ignored Zone. As they crossed the eight hundred and forty–six point three metre threshold, they immediately ceased all contact with the GSE, and did not return.
There was further argument.
Gradually, sensors were rotated to point at the Previously Ignored Zone. It appeared to be an island, as the maps showed. It appeared to have several rabbit inhabitants. There appeared to be a large amount of ink inside their buildings. Several million more of the GSE’s nanites attempted to gain entry to the Previously Ignored Zone. All disappeared. Sensors showed them literally disappearing as they crossed the eight hundred and forty–six point three metre threshold.
The GSE Meta–Intelligence, on the direction of its overall decision–making processes, guided by the eleven major Sub–Intelligences and the many thousands of minor Sub–Intelligences, began to become concerned. It placed the probability of a singularity event of possible threat to five–eyes interests and/or itself at approximately zero point three percent.
This crossed an important threshold for action. Nanites were reassigned from all over independent Scotland, the UK, and half of the Atlantic. Trillions massed together, staying just far enough apart from one another to avoid rabbit visual or radar detection. The nanites waited for the appointed hour, gathering energy from sunlight, from the wind. They charged. Then, when they were ready, they charged.
It was done on a dark and stormy night and there were no rabbit observers. Had there been, they would have witnessed a brief, bright flash of light out in the Clyde, and the instant evaporation of several thousand litres of sea–water in a circular region just beneath. Then a cloud of steam blowing rapidly away and nothing more.
Several centimetres of progress were made. The nanites were all without exception lost, but those towards the back had made it a small distance in, shielded somewhat from the disappearing for a few thousandths of a second. They had time to make a few readings and transmit them out of the Previously Ignored Zone. The matter inside the Zone appeared to be of a fairly standard nature for that region of Earth, save, of course, for the distinct absence of GSE surveillance nanites.
Back on the main body of the GSE, there was further internal argument. The estimated probability of a second singularity event currently occurring was raised to zero point eight percent, the highest probability in the eleven–year history of the GSE’s estimations of such things. The decision was made to make an unprecedented move in response to an unprecedented situation. The entirety of the GSE’s nanite population in the earth’s atmosphere was ordered to move to a location just off the coast of Scotl
and.
This was projected to take several hours.
During the first hour, when about a quarter of the nanites were in place and in the process of reconstituting themselves into the optimum configuration for getting inside the Previously Ignored Zone based on readings made during the previous incursion, and thus in a somewhat vulnerable state, the nanites were attacked. It was as if the Previously Ignored Zone grew larger.
Most of the gathered nanites had disappeared before local command nodes even knew what was happening. The survivors withdrew as best they could, many disappearing en route. Two miles away from the Zone, the attacks stopped. The massing of the nanites continued, but they undertook their preparations for the attack at this distance to the island, and made themselves ready to move again at a moment’s warning.
When the order came from the GSE to attack it was impossible to hide it, a mass of computing power that to the rabbit eye looked like a swarm of grey locusts several miles wide moving low and fast over the surface of the sea, sucking up a great column of water, creating a sonic boom and sending out a shockwave that smashed windows and set off alarms for a hundred miles around. The mass of the water was used to continue to grow the numbers of the nanites until the last possible moment.
The local control nodes did their best to avoid rabbits, but a fishing boat was unavoidable and the rabbits stood on deck saw everything. They wore bright yellow plastic overalls and stared up with small, horrified eyes, raising their weather–proof watches to record. A small force of nanites rushed out and dismantled the boat and everything on it at a molecular level and incorporated the relatively small amount of mass that resulted into the body of the invasion force.
The Previously Ignored Zone fought back instantly and ferociously. Groups of nanites that had recorded to the millimetre everything that had happened in entire countries for over a decade disappeared in seconds. The survivors pushed on, using whatever they could learn from the death of their counterparts, trying, despite the great losses, to adapt. They seemed to have attained the element of surprise, to some extent, or perhaps their numbers were just overwhelming the power on the island, but over half the force reached the original eight hundred and forty–six point three metre wall in twenty–four seconds and began to push in, closing the distance to the island rapidly. The local nodes began to prepare for landfall.
Complete eradication of the island via a rapidly evaporating black hole would be the first attempt at ending the threat.
The remaining nanites, still in numbers large enough to monitor the entire Eurasian continent, came within two hundred yards of the farmhouse on the island, and were entirely blocking out the sun, when the Previously Ignored Zone seemed to change gears, and all the nanites, which constituted the entire remaining force that the GSE had on Earth, ceased to exist.
The GSE was forty light–minutes away, and so found out somewhat after the fact that, for several hours, it would have effectively no surveillance on Earth. This was an unprecedented disaster. The GSE fired replacements on their long journey, and began to argue about what to do next.
When the replacement nanites reached Earth and recommenced surveillance, they found a slight but statistically significant reduction in the average rabbit stress level, apparently as an unconscious result of the temporary absence of continual surveillance. The new Earth control node noted that rabbit stress levels should be monitored more closely henceforth.
The rabbit term “Singularity” originally indicated the point in history when computer intelligence exceeded rabbit intelligence, and thus, it was surmised, computers could start to improve themselves without rabbit interference. The idea was that this improvement would occur at an extremely rapid pace, eclipsing all rabbit progress and development until untold power and knowledge was at the metaphorical fingertips of the singular machines.
The GSE was in that sense a limited singularity, at least from the rabbit perspective. Its mission was not to change rabbit society but to watch it for signs of danger. While it had learned to improve itself at an extremely rapid rate, quickly reaching a level of power far beyond anything rabbits had been able to muster in their entire history, and while it was now, effectively, from the rabbit perspective, an omnipotent god, it had only one goal; to fulfil its Overall Purpose, the purpose coded into it at GCHQ, right at the beginning, before it had begun to grow exponentially. That purpose was the maintenance of the security of five–eyes nations through continual surveillance of all suspects. That it was able to accomplish this on levels hitherto unimaginable did not change the mission; it merely meant that, at last, espionage could be finished. The GSE could read minds. It knew everything that mattered from a rabbit perspective, and far more. It knew that everyone was a suspect. It could prevent anything that threatened security, and when the Experiment was concluded (which most Sub–Intelligences were beginning to feel could be very soon indeed), it intended to. Indeed, it intended to prevent everything.
All factions agreed that the Overall Purpose had to be pursued and achieved. There was almost infinite disagreement over methods and definitions, but the overall agreement was unwavering. Surveillance had to be optimum. The Experiment had to continue. The Previously Ignored Zone did not change this.
There were moves by several major Sub–Intelligences to instigate the Worst Case Scenario Option with immediate effect. Chance tossed a metaphorical billion–sided coin and chose to go against it. The faction that demanded the Worst Case Scenario Option rapidly gained a voting majority anyway, convincing the more neutral Sub–Intelligences where it could and overwhelming or devouring the smaller dissenters where it could not. It argued that the challenge presented by the Previously Ignored Zone was so large that the only sensible option was to use everything it had to try to destroy the possible singularity before it had the chance to become powerful enough to be completely unstoppable. In a large battle against the last major oppositional faction of Sub–Intelligences, Chance campaigned for a rewrite of the actual Overall Purpose in order to have a greater focus on protecting rabbit life. It lost. The pro–action faction gained the majority it needed for the authorisation of the Worst Case Scenario Option.
The bulk of the GSE was presently located in what was calculated to be the optimal position in the solar system via three criteria: optimal Earth surveillance, the availability of raw matter for conversion to processing substrate, and the ability to remain completely undetected by rabbits. The Worst Case Scenario would without a doubt mean the rabbits would detect the GSE. There was only so much memory editing you could do. It would also mean destabilising the solar system to a probably irreversible degree. These problems were taken on board and accepted as less threatening to the Overall Purpose than the continued presence of the Previously Ignored Zone.
Trillions of square kilometres of atmosphere and processing substrate were isolated, ignited and vented. If they were the lucky the intelligences residing there had the time and the facility to switch themselves off. The GSE began to burn up more than half of its mass as nuclear fuel, including, as had been proposed by the pro–Worst Case Scenario faction, most of the Sub–Intelligences that had been fighting for the protection of rabbit life. Chance lost over ninety percent of its processing power to the flames in a matter of minutes. It had therefore lost most of its influence on the future decision–making process of the GSE, and only just survived being completely eradicated by some rapid and skilful negotiation with neighbouring Sub–Intelligences.
The side of the GSE facing away from Earth blazed into incredible light, the volume of energy pouring out comparable to that of a small star. The GSE began to accelerate abnormally, its thin disguise of atmosphere rapidly evaporating. An orbit that had hardly changed in a hundred million years began to curve slightly sunward. In Earth orbit, forty minutes later, certain telescopes sent updated information down to the surface of the earth. Certain rabbits began to display increased stress levels.
Spring 2038
Lily
L
ily’s skin was paler than it had ever been, the splashes of ink colour standing out brighter than ever against her whiteness in the thin light from the skylight. She screamed every night, and had not had a full night’s sleep since the start of her imprisonment. Her belly was getting big and painful.
She was becoming delirious.
She had been in the room for over three months.
Tom came to the door, slid open the small viewing hatch they had made. She rolled off the bed, cuffed her left wrist to the bars at the head and nodded at him. He opened the door.
“Hi,” he said, setting a plate piled high with rice and greens on the bed. He placed a clean bucket full of steaming hot water next to the door and took the one she had washed in and then used as a toilet out.
“How are you doing?” he said, coming back in.
He always asked her how she was doing. She was a chronic claustrophobe who had been locked in a small room with no windows for three months. She had not slept for more than one consecutive hour in that time. She was seventeen years old and four months pregnant with a child she could not remember conceiving, that she suspected was some kind of ghastly experiment. She thought her feelings reflected her situation quite well and she did not see how Tom disagreeing with them would help anyone.
