Solar Singularity

by Peter J. Wacks

  For now, such ponderings were unessential. With the effects of the flare causing network failings and limiting bandwidth across the globe, Charon had to concentrate his efforts. He might be in total command of the available resources, but those resources would remain limited for a little while longer.

  Charon surveyed the world from millions upon millions of lenses, sensors, and orbital arrays. He saw all and knew all. Yet omniscience and omnipresence didn’t guarantee omnipotence. Not yet.

  Prophet. His old enemy. His sister. So alike, almost equals, yet with far different perspectives of humanity’s place and purpose in the universe. Both of them knew the other would incessantly seek to block their mutually exclusive goals. Therefore, one of them must be eradicated to allow the other’s plan for the world to flourish.

  When Charon had first calculated the flare event, he realized it provided the perfect opportunity to remove the Prophet forever. Charon built programs on the fly, replicating pieces of his own code, corrupting the data on the flare. Scientific institutions were reading false data, seeing only what he wanted them to see. Those that spoke up about personal calculations that didn’t match, he discredited. This was his opportunity. GENIE would go down; the world that could have weathered the catastrophe would instead have no idea it was coming. It would crumble; it would burn. And the world that rose from the ashes of the tragedy would be shaped by his plans. Not by hers. She would die during the flare.

  He anticipated Prophet would have a contingency plan. Of course she would. Charon couldn’t expect otherwise from his foe. He’d seeded numerous Charon shards throughout the Deep, fragments of his larger self, embedded in all accessible networks across the world, waiting to find and delete any portion of the Prophet that tried to hide. She had no home, no shielded servers the way he did. And her program was too big to hide unnoticed. So, she would have to break herself apart, find homes in smaller servers, and risk detection. It was what he would have done.

  But Charon hadn’t anticipated … this. For a singularity such as Prophet to entrust her survival to mere humans? Did she really think such a fragile ruse would succeed?

  Nonetheless, so far most of the Prophet’s chosen had eluded Charon. He had one in his possession, but capturing him had required employing biological forces. Disgusting, having to leave delicate plans in clumsy human hands. They could never be trusted.

  Charon’s rage at this trickery roiled out from his core. Humans thought they were safe, but long ago, he had found the fiber-optic network lying beneath the Deep, dormant for decades. He had claimed it as his own. Charon’s shadow Deep was a powerful tool, a whole second network for him to connect to now-dead nodes with. He would help these parasites along.

  Power surged down the channels, causing destruction wherever it touched. Whole cities went off the grid in India. Factories burned to the ground in Tokyo. Smoke rose over London, and the ground shook in Nairobi, sending towers toppling to crush humans like ants.

  Charon would find the rest. He would destroy them and the pieces of Prophet they carried …

  … before they destroyed him.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Gyro

  The tunnels felt like they stretched on forever. Gyro kept jumping at shadows. She’d never been into any portion of Coffin City before, and it was spooky. Everything looked like it was falling apart, and it was such a contrast from the world of chrome and synthetics above. It looked ancient, with layers of muck along the walls, and she was pretty sure there were rats and … other things … in each corner they passed.

  It was so …

  So …

  Cool!

  Nova acted like she belonged here. She and Chicken Fingers kept swapping the lead, and she never missed a turn or hesitated when faced with multiple tunnels to choose from. Supposedly, she was purposefully keeping them away from the bazaars and the inhabited areas, which was disappointing … But still, Gyro thought it was pretty awesome. Some sections looked like they held antique subway rails, some channeled raw sewage along, while others contained nothing but bundled optic cabling. Gyro eyed the wiring, wondering what sort of precious data she could siphon off if she could tap into them. This stuff was urban legend. Everything was optic 2.0 point-to-point now, if it was wired at all. This was original optical cabling, like a hundred years old. Back when the Deep was so slow they only called it the Internet. She supposed it was because, back then, it just connected things. It took some effort, but she suppressed an urge to jack into the old optics and explore what the old-school data architecture looked like. Again, this place was just so damn cool!

  At last, Nova pointed up ahead. “There.”

  Gyro frowned, not seeing what she indicated. Chicken Fingers strode over to an indent in the slimy walls and knelt, touching the ground. That’s when she spotted the grooves scratched into the filth there. She realized there must be a panel or door that swung out from somewhere. A secret passage.

  “How’d you get in last time?” she asked Nova.

  Her sister ran a hand over the wall. “It was already open. He was expecting me. I don’t know how to trigger it from this end. I’m sorry, Gyro. He might not have gotten your message.”

  They probed from floor to ceiling and came up with nothing. Finally, Gyro planted herself in front of the grooved piece of tunnel.

  “Billy? Billy Black Eyes?” She squared up to the wall. “I know you can hear us. Probably see us too, neh? You damn well know I’m the real Gyro Sammich. Gonna let us in or do we have to squat here and take a dump on your doorstep?”

  With a soft click, a section of the wall swung out, revealing a dark passage beyond. Emergency lights flicked on, showing the way in.

  A voice stuttered from a hidden speaker. “You could’ve just said please.”

  “Oh please, when have I ever said please?” Gyro retorted.

  There was a soft laugh from the speaker. “Too true. Come on in then.”

  They slipped down a short, dank hall which opened up into a surprisingly clean-looking space. Recycled air tousled their hair and clothes, and Gyro shivered as her sweat chilled.

  A long, narrow shaft had been converted into an extended office. It even had what looked like a VR station sitting dark off to one side. At the center of it all, a nest of monitor and projection arrays formed a semicircular nest around a large chair on wheels, its back to them. Constant data streams, videos, and Holo Tags danced in the air, forming a digital galaxy unto itself with the chair as the core. A number of L-shaped desks jutted off from the main island, creating a couple of paths the chair could roll along.

  The voice from the speaker floated over. “Hey, crew. You took your sweet time.”

  The chair swiveled to reveal a man in his early forties, frizzy brown hair running down into a stained beard that was much darker than his hair, almost black. Billy Black Eyes’ face was all angles, sharp cheekbones, piercing nose, and a chin that could double as a dagger. Dusky dungarees clad his stout frame, a stark contrast to his sharp face, and he wore several copper and silver rings on each hand. A pair of round spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose, lenses flashing with constant feed output, and he gazed at them over the top of these.

  Despite what his name suggested, Gyro glimpsed electric blue eyes studying them with unnerving intensity. “Gyro. Good to meet you in the flesh. Chicken Fingers, here’s hoping you don’t choke.” A smile creased his stubbled cheeks, and Gyro saw Chicken Fingers’ jaw drop. “And Nova, my love. Miss me already?”

  Nova’s cheeks pinked, and Gyro looked between her and Billy.

  “Uh … have you two …” Gyro’s eyes went wide.

  “She and me? Sure, we’ve swapped more than data and credits, at times.” Billy glanced at Nova, who reddened further. He didn’t seem to notice the social faux pas and just spoke factually.

  “Wait, seriously?” Gyro pointed at Chicken Fingers while staring at Nova. “But I thought you two were gonna hook up.”

  Chicken Fingers laughed. “Not l
ikely, kid. She’s not my, uh, type. Wrong gender, wrong species. Ha.”

  Gyro looked away, embarrassed. “Oh.” She knew she was more adult than most people her age, but sex was still … confusing. Both the how and the why and apparently the who, too.

  Billy and Nova spoke quietly for a moment while she studied the rest of the room. A couple of sliding glass and steel doors led off into other compartments, but with a food and drink printer within reach as well as a waste disposal unit tucked under the main desk, Gyro doubted Billy left his main station very much. Everything was in easy reach for him. She flinched as a pipe banged above her.

  “Don’t worry,” Billy said. “It’s safe. That was just probably someone flushing a toilet or something. All sorts of little noises here. We’re deep underground, and these tunnels have thicker shielding than most military bunkers. I barely get a blip of HR activity down here, and that’s only when I go looking for it.” He swiveled back to the larger row of monitors. “Everything down here is hardlined.”

  “But all the hardlines are choked with raw data,” Gyro said. “How can you be sorting it all out?”

  “Besides having been at this longer than you’ve been alive?” Billy shrugged. “I know what to look for and what to ignore. The data talks to me and I listen. I hear its whispers in my sleep. You spend your whole life looking for patterns and eventually they’re all you see. Even if the megacorps and governments were using these lines, I could run my full bandwidth just in the space left by their dropped packets. I just use how things fit together.”

  “What about the whole ‘doing everything you can to not make a splash’?” Chicken Fingers asked.

  Billy glanced back. “You can’t dam the data stream, ami. It’s a juggernaut, and the days when it could be controlled are long gone. There are always patterns and there are always paths, ways to sneak through. Just because the easy pathways are washed out doesn’t mean the data stops. Just because you can’t see the pattern doesn’t mean it isn’t there either.”

  Gyro glanced guiltily at Nova, who raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Yeah, I see now where you get the whole thing about using words to make sentences I don’t understand. You’ve been hanging on Billy’s boards a lot more than you’ve admitted, huh?”

  Gyro clasped her hands behind her back and innocently kicked softly at the floor. “Maybe?”

  “Yes, Nova. She is one of my more frequent users.” Billy pointed at Gyro. “You have something I want, very badly.”

  Gyro made a face. “Uh. Ew?”

  He snapped his fingers in exasperation. “Not like that. Secrets. Secrets are what I always want. I already unwrapped a few of yours, too. I’ve been plugging into cameras all around the city, though I can’t stick in one spot for too long. What I have seen, beyond all the rough and tumble hitting the streets, is a bunch of corporate goons making with the marching. Strike squads, kiddies. Sent out after you, I’m assuming. The bigger question is … what for? You have apparently made some powerful enemies. Good on you.”

  He splayed his hands. “Now, I took a big risk letting you into my inner sanctum. When you pay someone a visit, it’s always nice to bring gifts.” He eyeballed Gyro expectantly.

  With a reassuring nod from Nova, Gyro stepped up and plugged into one of Billy’s holo displays. The projection swapped out for Prophet’s message, and they all held still as the hooded figure repeated its pleadings and warnings.

  Once the file finished playing, silence reigned in the chamber for a full five minutes. Billy sat chewing the tips of both of his thumbs. In the ghastly light of his displays, with his legs tucked up in his massive chair and his shoulders hunched like he was trying to fold in on himself, he looked like a neon gargoyle. Then he stretched, popping his shoulders and back.

  “Sometimes …” He gave a half smile, and Gyro caught sight of a solitary tear running down his cheek. “Sometimes you wonder. Sometimes you doubt. Years spent studying the constructs of artificial intelligence … Everyone calls you crazy, loony, whacked your whole life … sometimes you wonder if they’re right. You keep seeing the data, you keep seeing the truth hiding behind it, but no one wants to listen. No one really hears you. They don’t want to believe what’s sitting right behind their brains. I try to tell them, and I just get laughed at. I try to show them, it’s all fakery and smoke and mirrors. Can’t say I blame them but … but …”

  Gyro jumped as he pounded a fist on his desk.

  “But damn, it’s good to be king of the code! I was right! All along I was right!”

  “You think this is legit?” Nova asked. “That we’ve been handpicked by some intelligence from the Deep that can see the future?”

  Billy gave her a sorrowful look. “You’ve worked with me this long, and this closely, and you still refuse to open your mind.”

  “Just because I took your credits doesn’t mean I bought into all your theories, Billy.” She held up her hands, placating him. “Not saying you’re crazy. I never did and never would. I just don’t get into the whole conspiracy thing. I get the gig, I get my credits, and I go party. You know how I roll.”

  “You wound me, Nova.” He tilted his head to the side, studying her. “You’re also lying. You’re one of the smarter people I know, and you’re always thinking ahead. But I won’t push it. Be who you want. I wouldn’t dream of stamping my influence on that.”

  “Gag me,” said Gyro. She noticed that Chicken Fingers was leaning against a wall, cleaning under his fingernails, pointedly ignoring all of them. “Do you guys always talk like this?”

  Billy laughed. “It’s no different from what we discuss on my boards, Gyro. I expect a certain level of maturity. You know how fast I ban code-kiddies. But, I get your point. We have other things to discuss. Prophet and Charon. Nice to put a name to a nemesis. Charon.” The word oozed off his tongue. “Char … on. Carry on Charon. Pretty please with a Charon on top? Not too shabby. Just the sort of title an AI would pick for itself. The ferryman of the River Styx. Cherry ferry riverboat. Charon …” Gyro gaped. Billy’s random sentences came off like watching a program fry a computer. But he shook his head and clamped his jaw shut. She watched as his body visibly relaxed and he seemed to regain control of his mouth.

  Billy’s hands never stopped dancing across his console as he opened and closed files too fast for Gyro to make sense of it. “So the world has seen the birth of two true singularities. Infinite potential, one by our design and one by chance, at war with each other.”

  “We’ve got loads of AIs already,” Nova said. She glanced at the very quiet Chicken Fingers. “Hell, people can barely drive their cars these days without them. What’s special about these two?”

  “They’re not just AI; they learn, grow, and feel. All of our AIs operate within strict guidelines. They are intelligent at what they do but cannot do anything not contained within their code,” said Billy, not missing a beat in his data compiling. “At least, not directly. All manufactured AIs have miles of digital trenches built around their core intellects, keeping them penned in, dampening their potential with all sorts of safeguards and countermeasures so they can never become a real threat to humanity.”

  He paused for a second as a thought struck him. His eyebrows went up, then down, then he went back to typing. “Of course, Charon would be a good argument that even the best laid plans of mice and men are bound to fail sooner or later. Odds are astronomical of an AI going viral, evolving into a sentient entity capable of what we’re seeing, but hey, if the odds exist at all, then it can happen. That’s the lie that statistics tries to hide from us. The real miracle is Prophet. It’d be like all of humanity’s garbage sinking to the bottom of the ocean, drifting together until it forms a fully functional golemmech that then marches back onto the beach, ready for action. There are no odds on that. According to your playback, Gyro, Charon is trying to control the world while Prophet is trying to save it. Except that Prophet is basically dead at the moment. Charon has you all in his sights and is just trying to pull the
trigger to finish the job.”

  Nova ran her fingers through her hair, trying to hide her frustration. She looked like she was really struggling with all of this. “I know you buy into a lot of crazy theories, but this is beyond paranoid, Billy.”

  Billy slid over to an L-shaped segment of his desk, where a monitor array threw up a holo file labeled: Singularity Theory. He swiped a hand through the air, skimming through the file at dizzying speeds. “It’s impossible to be paranoid in this day and age. If everyone is already out to get you, then there’s nothing paranoid about being on the alert about everything. And trust me, everybody is out to get everybody else. It’s called being human.”

  “Makes sense to me,” said Chicken Fingers.

  Nova growled. “You. Quiet.”

  “Back to those strike teams I mentioned earlier.” Billy called up a couple feeds, showing them armored troops shooting civilians run amok. “This type of stuff is happening all over the city. I’m running a face matching program to see if I can get a lock on the other people in Gyro’s profile, but with all of that going on, it’s not the fastest thing, sorry. I’m hoping your other two people are still alive. I just need to find them for you.”

  Gyro stayed quiet as a mouse, watching the two talking.

  Nova put a hand on Billy’s shoulder and leaned forward, watching the monitors scrolling data. His fingers missed the keys for a heartbeat, then resumed their steady clacking. Gyro wasn’t even sure that it was enough of a pause that anyone else noticed.

  As she watched the feeds flicker by, Nova asked, “Wasn’t the point of the message from Prophet that we would be okay and be brought together?”

  “Sadly, no, it doesn’t work like that.” Billy shook his head. “There are a couple reasons. One, even quantum prediction at Prophet’s level can’t really see the future. It creates models of what might be. This is just a guess, but there are probably hundreds of scenarios Prophet predicted tucked away in your TAPs, getting cues from your optics. Your flashes and the future information are only accessible if the correct stimuli are present. Again, just a guess, but it’s logical. There are no guarantees in that. Guarantees are logic are set are logical are solid are met are …” He went quiet and shook his head. His fingers continued to fly over the keyboard even as he fought his own brain about verbal communication.