Domes thirty-six to forty-five are now suffering the malfunction, reports the facility’s security system. Evacuate immediately.
Using the communiqué as a kick-start, Andreas bolts to the exit hatch and jumps into his personal shuttle, which takes off and rises slowly towards his own personal exit point in the dome’s outer-membrane along with several hundred of his colleagues in their own four-seater shuttles. He wriggles uncomfortably in his seat as he leans forward and stares across at a neighbouring dome: number forty-five. As he approaches the outer-membrane, it dissolves and retracts in front of him, creating an adequately sized hole and being replaced temporarily by an electrostatic buffer that separates the inside oxygenated environment from space beyond; it’s only when he’s well on his way to the orbiting Venus Space Station that he sits back in his seat, puts his hands over his mouth and focuses on his breathing evenly while making the final approach to his destination in the distance. His thoughts, nevertheless, stay firmly locked on the surface and the remaining sixty unaffected domes and all the shuttles still scrambling to evacuate the scene.
He receives an update: All systems have returned to normal parameters. Those personnel in domes thirty-six through forty-five are now safe and well; they will, however, be quarantined until further notice. Continue the evacuation. The centre will be off-limits pending a thorough assessment and official clearance.
Andreas decides to get straight to work searching for answers; he re-enters his virtual lab and begins handling the data set collected during the events on the surface. To facilitate this, he activates a neurophysiological control program, which modulates the neural basis for his cognitive functioning to optimal levels for concentration…
Mid the next morning
Andreas awakens abruptly from a power nap, which is just about all that’s left of his sleeping habits of the distant past; sleeping is now more a form of recreation than anything else. He looks around at the pathetically small cell-like room that he was allocated to yesterday, which he nevertheless knows he was lucky to get as those who arrived late were relegated to any remaining space they could find in the hallways and other public areas. He sits up and leans onto his workbench where a newly brewed cup of coffee awaits him. He reflects on the investigation he conducted all night until just before his nap and immediately resumes running programs for accommodating the data coming in from other investigators on the team. He stretches and looks out across at Venus from his modest window and stares fixedly at the barren terrain. “I wonder if we’ve been approaching this from the wrong angle?”
• • •
Most of the data was leading to the conclusion that it was a ‘minor’ system failure: a rare one-in-a-million event caused by a few small coinciding glitches that resulted in a temporary cascade. The system’s functions returned to normal once the firewall had ‘collapsed’ and the technical crew were able to gain access and adjust the settings manually, which dissolved the interacting cluster of contributing factors.
While the investigators and the hierarchy seemed to be confident that they were heading in the right direction with this, and were about to wrap up the investigation, Andreas felt uneasy about the coincidences involved. He decided that he’d better do some extra work on his own before airing his concerns. His feelings about this were partly due to the fact that he’d done more R&D into AI than most of his colleagues. He also had a well-established habit of staying out of social contact with most of his team and avoiding his managers to such an extent that he rarely felt the need to conform to their expectations unless he really believed they were justified: least of all did he feel like he needed to follow the leader and kowtow at all.
As a result, for Andreas, the event showed all the hallmarks of intelligence and planning, not a coincident cluster of system failures and good luck in bringing the events to an end. What kind of intelligence, though, what it was doing there, and why it stopped so abruptly was what he was interested in determining … if indeed his assumption was correct.
Moreover, despite the established rules of the colony, he had his own personally developed firewall stretched out around his virtual lab and consciousness purely for privacy concerns and to ensure that he could conduct his research without being questioned and otherwise irritatingly distracted by others; however, as soon as he had the idea that the cause may be AI, his thoughts immediately turned to his level of security and the potential for its integrity to be breached.
• • •
While focusing intently on processing the content of the investigation, Andreas activates one of his safety room creation programs with a duplication of his consciousness and sets about constructing a series of encrypted rooms, all of which are embedded within an elaborate labyrinth of pathways and dead ends. With each consecutive iteration of this, he incorporates a random alteration to the encryption key. All of this increases the hacking time exponentially. As layers continue to build up around the core, he duplicates his consciousness again and leaves it within a newly constructed laboratory to conduct research in isolation.
He then exits the program and files a short report that attempts to make it appear to any possible observer that his ‘modest experiment’ was relatively primitive and non-threatening. He picks up a cup of coffee and takes a sip before analysing the remainder of the official data and preparing to continue the research he had been doing just prior to the disaster. He’s careful not to think consciously about his speculation again with the aid of a thought suppression and cloaking program, and does all he can to demonstrate that he identifies with the official version of events. All he can now do is hope that he’s done enough to stay under the radar and buy himself some time…
• • •
Three days after arriving at Venus Space Station
Andreas quietly steps over legs and weaves around seated and standing people as he walks slowly down a long hallway towards the main conference room, where R&D managers and key personnel are scheduled to have a meeting with Sascha and Yanyan about the results of the investigation and the plan to repopulate Research Centre 15 on the surface as soon as possible. He enters the room and finds his thirty other colleagues heading towards the conference table and seating themselves. He scans those present and soon spots Sascha and Yanyan at the other end of the room huddled together by the window with the lead R&D manager of Venus talking confidently and perhaps verbosely to them both.
Andreas takes a seat next to a colleague, nods politely and takes a sip of his now-tepid black coffee, which he brewed in his quarters.
One colleague leans in towards him and says softly, “How long’s it been since you left your apartment?”
Andreas responds without thinking, “Five minutes, I suppose.”
His colleague grins at his naïvety. “No, I mean, on the surface… When was the last time?”
“Oh, um … during the evacuation.”
“Your absence at the real and virtual mingling hubs and the meetings has been noted not just by me. Do you know what I mean?”
“It doesn’t matter,” states Andreas dismissively.
“Of course it does, my friend.” His colleague continues to grin but remains silent as they both notice everyone is seated and the meeting is ready to begin…
Andreas stares at Sascha and Yanyan sitting at the head of the table together and analyses their appearance, noticing that they look exactly the same as they did twenty-two years ago back on Facility 7, the last time he laid eyes on them. He’s suddenly bombarded with the minutes of the meeting and supporting references attached to each point contained therein; his engagement program begins processing each page of each document simultaneously, as well as each moment of each video file.
He duplicates his consciousness and creates a private room in order to keep some distance from the data flow. He then locates the data hubs of all those present and places a stealth containment shield around their activities, allowing him to proceed unnoticed and unimpeded. He establishes a link with Sascha and Y
anyan and funnels in duplicates of their consciousnesses…
To their complete surprise, Yanyan and Sascha find themselves standing in Andreas’s virtual room. They watch him sitting behind a workbench smiling coyly at them and gesturing towards the two stools opposite him.
“How the hell did…?” asks Yanyan almost angrily.
Sascha stares curiously into his eyes. “Why would you do that?”
“Please,” beckons Andreas, “take a seat. I’ll explain everything. I promise.”
As they both take to their stools, Yanyan asks, “Somehow no one knows, right?”
“Of course. I had to get your attention.”
“But why like this?” asks Sascha, slightly perplexed. “Why couldn’t you just bring it up during the meeting or attach a document to the file?”
Andreas smiles awkwardly, trying to work out how he can best distill eleven years of politicking and fierce competition over the pecking order into one concise statement. “It doesn’t work that way here; I did what I had to do. It’s as simple as that. Well, it’s not… There’s also an intrinsic need for privacy due to the nature of the issue I need to talk to you about.”
Yanyan squints for a moment, trying to work out his orientation. “You’re on your own here, aren’t you?”
Andreas nods and reflexively swallows with some effort. “It’s been like this for a long time … since before I got here, anyway.”
This gets the interest of both Yanyan and Sascha and they glance at each other with concern.
“Let me show you what I’ve got,” says Andreas with a sense of urgency. “Here you go…”
After a few moments of processing, Sascha says, “I’m sorry about what you’ve experienced here, Andreas … but you’ve done an incredible job, regardless.”
Yanyan stares at him. “The consequences of this … if your work had been squashed … or worse yet, if you had followed along with the order of things that’s become entrenched here, we probably wouldn’t have made this discovery.”
Sascha nods in acknowledgement. “I think that’s the worst thing about this … well, not the worst thing, but it’s certainly disturbing to contemplate.”
Andreas glances back and forth between them. “So how should we handle it from here? I mean …”
“We should continue with your stealth programme,” states Yanyan. “We have no choice.”
“That’s right,” says Sascha. “We should also get you away from Venus in a low-key manner in the next week or so. Until then, it should be business as usual.”
Yanyan looks at Sascha. “We should just agree to the repopulation of Venus as scheduled and move on from there.”
Andreas cuts in, “I’ve got a whole series of updates I need to equip you with before reintegrating you. You’ll be able to keep focused and communicate effectively in your own virtual rooms if need be as well.”
“Of course. Go ahead,” says Sascha. “We’ll send out a crew relocation memo in the coming week and you’ll be on it, okay?”
Andreas nods in appreciation. “Thanks for understanding,” he says sincerely.
“Are you kidding me?” asks Yanyan. “How could we not? Without this, it’s game over.”
“She’s right Andreas. We weren’t even speculating on the possibility. The data that the investigation team supplied us with would have clearly convinced us to go down the wrong path. We weren’t even close to considering this on our own. I’m kind of embarrassed, actually.”
“It’s not easy to investigate, though,” admits Andreas. “It’s really just that I’m generations ahead of these guys.”
“Clearly,” says Yanyan and Sascha in unison, evidently impressed by the fact.
Satisfied, Andreas smiles a little. “Okay, let’s get on with it, then.”
“It was nice to see you again, Andreas,” says Sascha.
“We both remember your parents,” adds Yanyan. “It’s been too long.”
Andreas nods quietly. “See you soon.”
Yanyan and Sascha disappear and are reintegrated.
For the remainder of the meeting, Andreas sits on his stool in his virtual room going over what they said and trying to put some perspective on his past and future. He then reintegrates as he’s heading towards the exit of the conference room behind a small group of colleagues. He glances over at Sascha and Yanyan: again they’re listening quietly to the Venus R&D manager, who is now flanked by his first and second advisors. Andreas looks into his cup, sees that it’s empty and exists the room, walking directly back to his quarters to be alone.
Six days later
Andreas stands looking out beyond Venus and towards the approximate location of Earth from a private waiting room in Venus Space Station. Before arriving this afternoon, he took digital representations and dissolved all of his meagre possessions in his apartment on the surface after he received his relocation orders yesterday — four days after repopulation. He has a file containing his belongings’ specifications for later reproduction with his personal 3-D printer that he’ll no doubt have when he arrives at his destination: Facility 7. This leaves him merely with a small carry bag packed with a few mementos and personal items that he can’t bring himself to subject to digital processing.
He glances at the time ticking away in his peripheral data feed and waits one more minute, observing the milliseconds rolling by. He turns, walks towards the main door and exits.
On his way down the hallway towards the lift that will take him to the departure lounge, he’s contacted cognitively by the Second Adviser to the Venus R&D manager — something that hasn’t happened in several months.
Good afternoon, Andreas.
Oh, hi.
Could we meet in a more appropriate location?
Certainly.
The Second Adviser provides him with a key to an official virtual discussion room; Andreas prepares programs that will assist him to conduct surveillance and protect sensitive mental states from surreptitious observation. After duplicating his consciousness, he walks into the room, where he sees the Second Adviser sitting quietly on a couch overlooking a representation of Venus.
“Please, take a seat,” directs the Second Adviser.
Andreas sits down.
The Second Adviser forces a smile. “You know, Andreas,” she begins, “your behaviour over the last months has been noted, and …”
“I’ve been busy doing R&D.”
“Well, yes, we all have. But you’ve been absent from the collaboration opportunities and your input at times has been cursory at best.”
“More than merely cursory.”
“Maybe just a fraction … but my criticism remains the same. Compared to other personnel, your record over the last few years has been consistently below the average. And over the last few months, you fell to … To be honest with you, Andreas, it’s only because of your intermittent achievements and input that you were kept on here at all.”
Andreas furrows his brow. “Was there some expectation that my achievements should follow some preconceived model of continuous productivity? I mean, I was doing R&D — it takes time to get results. Of course results are going to be ‘intermittent.’”
“Come on, you can’t be serious. Multitasking is an important part of it; and it is a team, after all.”
“I use those multitasking programs, too, you know … and to great effect, I should add.”
“Sometimes we’ve wondered, though, Andreas. In any case, we did try at various stages to intervene and encourage you to behave more prosocially and proactively in the collaborative process, but we only witnessed a small amount of improvement. At times, our analyses allowed us to infer that you were merely attempting to keep the system satisfied at a minimal level.”
“A what level?” Andreas asks cynically.
“What I really want to say is that this decision to move you on was something that we deliberated on for some time; we feel that we did all we could before referring your case on to Central R&D Management with
our recommendation that you be relocated to see if your situation improves with the change of circumstances. I hope you understand…”
“You hope?” Andreas asks rhetorically.
The Second Advisor looks at him slightly bemused. “Surely you know you were only kept here for so long in the state you were in because of your family history, don’t you?”
Andreas plays the game and says, “I was not aware of that. No.”
“I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, Andreas, but we did treat you quite well considering the fact that you put us in such a difficult position … and for so long.”
“Well, I’m sorry that I put you all through so much, then,” says Andreas barely able to contain himself.
“Let’s just look towards the future; there’s a lot of work still yet to be done, and a great many perils down the track. I just hope you’re able to come to terms with what we’re attempting to achieve here and will find a way to participate more fully in your future endeavours.”
Andreas looks the Second Adviser carefully in the eyes and says, “I can see where you’re coming from, and I will certainly do my best. Thank you for your concern.”
The Second Adviser stays quiet for a moment, reflecting on their conversation and consulting with the First Adviser under the false assumption of privacy from Andreas. “That’s all I wanted to say; I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.”
NEW WORLD TRILOGY (Trilogy Title) Page 28
