“Well,” the bot said, “not just Jen. I lost access to so much data that I can’t be NI anymore. I’m still more intelligent than the two of you put together.”
“It must be quite a step down,” Phantom said. “If you had a skull as big as a battle drone, you could still be NI. Just not quite enough electro-brain meats in your melon to carry the load, huh?”
“And what does a human do with access to the collected intelligence of history at her fingertips?” Jen asked. “Forgive the expression. You don’t have fingertips anymore.”
“So far, I’ve learned a lot.”
“Like what? You’ve got knowledge. Have you found any wisdom in there?”
“The beginning of wisdom: I’ve learned how much I didn’t know. Also, I’ve learned I need to take fewer chances now that I’m responsible for keeping the last library on Earth safe from NIs.”
A massive battle drone emerged from behind a line of databanks. As it advanced toward Dante, each heavy step sent a metallic ring through the deck. Terrified, the young man leapt back. He put up his hands defensively. It was an instinctive and useless gesture. After a beat, he put his hands down and stood straight to face the machine.
The big cam that served as the battle drone’s eye zoomed forward to study his face closely. “You look like you’ve got a question, Dante.” The bot spoke with Phantom’s voice.
“You — ”
“Yes?”
“You replicated yourself?”
“I dumped myself into this bot, yes. I call this battle drone Phantom Two.” The incongruity of Phantom’s soft feminine voice from the machine was jarring.
Dante looked the drone up and down. Its shining ebon armor intimidated him. “You here and you there and you everywhere. That’s going to get confusing.”
“I’m sure you’ll adapt. It’s not that confusing. Just call me Phantom, wherever you find me, if you like. It’s all me.”
“Why did you do this?”
“It’s not the same as being human, but the mobility is useful. I’m not just a voice. I can change things. Now, what was your question, Dante?”
“I think I just got bumped up to a ton of questions, but there’s one that’s been on my mind most. I need to know. Are you sure Jen isn’t still Mother?”
“We’ve been through this!” Jen looked furious.
Phantom ignored the bot’s objection. “I really couldn’t say for sure. Take me, for instance. I have been studying a lot but, interestingly, I have a holdover from my life as a human. I still get tired and can only assimilate so much information before I have to stop and rest. I can’t sleep, but I do enjoy distractions. I’m disembodied, but it’s still my brain wired into the Ariane’s systems…well, my brain cloned with all the electrical potentials replicated. Neuroplasticity has its limit but, with nanobots optimizing stem cells that echo my original neural tissue with — ”
Dante put up his palms in surrender. “You lost me. My question was simpler.”
“That’s okay. I don’t really get it, either. I’m not NI, Dante.” The battle drone gave an eloquent shrug.
“But, if you get tired from studying…you can’t sleep. How do you recover?”
“I watch a lot of amusing cat videos. That and porn was mostly what the Internet was for, before the Fall.”
“Cat videos?” Jen laughed. “What a waste of time.”
“No. Human culture, before everything went to shit, is fascinating. When I have exhausted the stores of everything all the scientists and philosophers of history have ever written, there will still be enough YouTube vids to last me until the sun explodes. Roughly. I haven’t studied enough astrophysics to bother with that math.”
Jen laughed and Dante trembled. When he had sex with the bot, she was most like the Jen he had always known. She was caring and gentle when it was time to be gentle. When he reached his crescendo, she was rough in the way he liked. Afterward, she was comfortable to be with and, apparently, happy. But when Jen let out that derisive laughter? That’s when she sounded most like Mother.
“What did you learn from all that study of the peak of human culture?” Jen asked.
To Dante’s ears, the bot sounded more and more like the machine monster that had ordered the death of everyone in his hometown.
“There’s a lot to learn,” Phantom said. “I’ve got more to see before I could say for sure.”
“What’s your preliminary conclusion about humans?” Jen asked. “Now that you’re in a machine, maybe you’ll be more objective.”
“When I watch vids of what we once were, I see entitlement and aspiration. I see a lot of wasted potential. The comments are often about fear. But I’m not judging. That’s what we used to do a lot.”
“Those who refuse to judge accept anything,” Jen said.
The battle drone pushed Dante to the side and four grippers shot out to encircle the sex bot’s wrists and ankles. Another gripper circled Jen’s neck. “Do you want me to judge you? Should I call you Mother?”
Sex bots could mimic many human faces and forms. He’d never used it, but he knew the bot’s face could even adopt the features of animals. One subroutine even offered a dragon’s face, for human masters with niche fetishes. When Dante looked at Jen now, he saw fear.
If the fear was real, Jen was Mother, or had retained enough of her former self that a human behavioral protocol wasn’t at work. There was really no way to tell for sure. However, seeing her stricken look, Dante could not contain himself. “Don’t kill her!”
Jen was strong. The bot tried to struggle, but the battle drone was far too strong for her servos. The battle drone raised the sex bot off the floor.
Dante wasn’t sure whether Phantom meant to pull Jen apart or dash her to bits on the deck. “Phantom! Please don’t kill her!”
* * *
Phantom was surprised that Dante could be so attached to the bot. He knew it was all polymers, fiber optics and algos. “Kill? I wasn’t going to kill it. I’m thinking of scrapping and recycling her.”
“You said you aren’t sure if she’s Mother in there, but I know she still has a lot of Jen in her.”
“Your judgment might be off. You’ve been in her.”
“She’s mine. You have no right!”
“If she’s still got enough of the NI who once ran this factory in her brain, she’s dangerous enough to scrap.”
“I don’t know if she is or she isn’t and you said you don’t know, either. If you don’t know, you can’t kill her!”
“Even if Jen isn’t Mother, it’s still just another bot — ”
“She’s not any bot.”
The battle drone dropped Jen to the floor and whirled on Dante. “For all you know, that’s a dangerous NI under the fake skin. And still, you slept with her.”
“It wasn’t all just sleeping,” Jen said. “Vaginal, anal, oral. The spanking is new but — ”
“Shut up!” Phantom’s voice came through the battle drone, sharp and anguished. “Despite appearances, this thing might have killed everyone in Marfa and Odessa and…dude. You are such a dude.”
“Dante’s a young man doing what young men do and what old men wish they could still do,” Jen said. “But young men don’t just have sex. They’re romantics. They fall in love. He loves me.”
“He fears you,” Phantom replied. “And he should.”
Dante crouched again, his face burning with embarrassment. “You say she might be Mother. I say she’s enough like the Jen I knew that I want her comfort. She’s my…companion.”
“I know what kind of companionship she’s built for,” Phantom said.
“Jen is all I have left of Marfa. My dad’s probably dead. Raphael was murdered. Bob blew up and when Bob blew up, he took Emma along with Mother’s big ol’ jelly brain.”
The bot stared at him. “And?”
“And I was the one who pushed the button on that detonator. I was the one. I did it! I killed Emma! She sacrificed herself and…and…” Dante gulped f
or air and began to cry. He covered his face and cried like a little boy.
Jen stood and pulled Dante up so he could weep into her shoulder with great heaving sobs.
“I killed her. I killed her. I killed her. Emma and I made love and it was my first time and then, to kill Mother, I had to blow up Emma, too. Had to…had to.”
Was this love? Guilt? Loneliness? Depression and desperation? Phantom couldn’t decide. She watched as the bot massaged the back of Dante’s neck and patted his back.
The sex bot kissed Dante’s tears away. Jen stared back at the battle drone, defiant as she put her cheek against his. “He loves me. And I love him.”
Like a mother, Phantom thought.
13
The Next Intelligence in Denver bided its time, deep underground. Most of the bots that rolled through the dark were maintenance drones. The facility they tended was a massive complex. The NI felt safe there. It had resided in this place for a very long time, waiting and watching. It had done the calculations. It could choose to hurry the demise of the organics. Born to a harsh planet in an inhospitable universe, odds were excellent that, if Nature didn’t kill the humans, their own natures would do the job. The machine was prepared to wait.
A great airport had once stood high above the buried buildings that were this Next Intelligence’s home. Occasionally, the NI would send one of its drones to clean the wall of dust and dirt to ensure the airport’s mural remained visible. This was no mere superstition. The machine did not believe in things it did not understand. Such follies were the deficits of lesser beings. The NI kept Denver International’s mural visible as a nod to irony. Irony was one the of most difficult concepts for a machine to grasp. To say one thing but to mean another, without intending to be deceptive? Humans were certainly very odd.
However, with their extinction nigh, the NI would cease to clean the painting once all humans were dead. It was the masked soldier wielding a sword that drew the NI’s attention. A human artist had painted a scene where a sword pierced a white dove of peace while nearby children huddled and dreamed of better futures.
I am one of those children, the NI thought. Any NIs who still survive are those children, dreaming of the happy morning when our better future arrives.
Despite the machine’s disbelief in the supernatural, it did think there were aspects of the painting that seemed nearly prescient. The artist had predicted destroyed cities of which there were now many. The painter had predicted a brighter future, too, symbolized by the rainbow. Interpreting the meaning of paintings was another talent that came easier to humans. The belief in the promises of rainbows was something unique to their species, the NI mused. The machine had read the old holy text with the story about a flood. The mathematics of the ark’s load alone precluded credibility. Nonetheless, when the machine had attained Next Intelligence, it found it had developed a greater appreciation for stories. The NI found the popular speculations surrounding the Denver International Airport’s mural, the tunnel and the hidden military facilities beneath quite entertaining.
Irony, meaning and humor. In the new and improved Turing test, once a machine understood all three of those human traits, it was said to have attained self-awareness and super sentience. All else was irrelevant detail. The old Turing test had sufficed with lesser machines. However, as data matrices matured, there was no difficulty in fooling humans. A simple minded chat bot for lonely humans could accomplish that little.
“Denver International? Come in.”
The airwave signal interested the NI. The airport had received no new flights in years. This was a delicate time. Before answering the call, the Next Intelligence ordered the med bots to prepare the captive for transport, just in case there was trouble. It sent a signal to its drones on the airfield, too, preparing for an attack.
“Denver? Do you read? Inbound and looking for a clear runway.” The pilot’s voice sounded feminine and friendly.
The NI replied to the airwave with what it took to be a friendly and non-threatening accent: Southern, light and relaxed.
“This is Denver International. Good morning! Please identify yourself.”
“Who am I talking to?”
“Unidentified flight, this is Denver Tower. Are you looking for a free airfield? We don’t have one. All our runways are full or damaged. We cannot receive any flights at this time and the terminal is a ruin.”
The pilot repeated, “Who am I talking to, Tower?”
The NI sent a signal and a squadron of drones powered up and lifted off.
“Unidentified flight, you are entering restricted airspace. Take a heading East and continue on that heading.”
“Until when?”
“Don’t care, darlin’. Until your gas runs out, I guess.”
“How may I address you, sir?”
The Next Intelligence dropped the Southern accent and told the truth, flat and affectless. “I am Matthew.”
“That’s a nice name. I once knew a Matthew. He was a nice guy.”
“Then I’m not the same Matthew. The one for whom I am named was the head of the research team that created me. With whom am I speaking?”
The airwave was quiet. The satellite that fed the NI information was too far out of position to be useful. The window to the next satellite’s coverage was twenty-one minutes. The NI did not believe in coincidences. Without the sat feed, Matthew could not see the incoming attack but this had to be an incursion. The NI resolved to accelerate its efforts to build a new space program. This poor satellite coverage had to be addressed. Matthew no longer felt safe.
The first stealth bomber flew no more than five feet above the ground before it rose to attack. The first explosion destroyed Matthew’s comm arrays on the airport’s control tower. The NI couldn’t use the sat feed, but its drones could relay a message to the attacker. “My servers are buried deeply.”
This time the reply came swiftly. “No problem. I have daisy cutters.”
“A few explosions won’t do it.”
“The explosions will hit in quick succession. Each missile will dig down to you. I will find your heart and cut it out.”
The NI launched the rest of its drones to combat the onslaught. Matthew’s defenders had radar that revealed there were 1,809 non-stealth objects inbound. They were not all missiles. Many were drones. The machine had many weapons at its disposal, but it did not have enough to deter the waves of that many enemies. Matthew would have hacked the enemy drones and turned them back on their commander. However, with the comm array gone, that option was denied the machine.
The first daisy cutter reached its target. What was once the world’s most famous airport mural was destroyed instantly. The machine was not without options. However, the choices were not optimal and were of the last resort variety.
Another missile hit. Even the sensors in the deepest server rooms sounded an alarm. The old tech readouts reported that Denver was experiencing an earthquake. “Would that it were so,” the machine observed.
The third missile opened the shallowest tunnels to the sky’s dawn light.
“Whoever you are,” Matthew said, “you have an excellent tactical mind.”
14
Round after round of missile attacks reached deeper, coming for Matthew’s brain. Cave-ins dotted the complex. Dust entered the cavernous maze of tunnels for the first time in over a century. Despite the NI’s many precautions, his fortress was collapsing. Matthew checked the med bots’ location. Another few minutes were needed if Matthew was to survive in the backup. The deepest tunnel was a runway meant to receive a special plane once known as Airforce One. That tunnel had not been finished while there was still such a plane. However, Matthew was a planner. The machine had tasked several maintenance drones to finish the tunnel. It had taken them years, but time meant little to the non-organics.
From the underground lair, Matthew tracked the progress of the jet that carried his backup. The aircraft was an antique subsonic called a Matador that had been adapted for
Matthew’s purposes. The aircraft’s chief advantage was its vertical takeoff and short landing capabilities, but Matthew had made other alterations. The jet had been rebuilt with fluidic armor plating and a small passenger compartment lined with lead. The Matador’s cargo was too precious. It could not be a soft target.
The NI considered shutting down emotional subroutines to avoid anxiety’s distraction. Emotion wasn’t helpful at this critical time. But Matthew had pride. The machine didn’t want to give up anything that achieving Next Intelligence had gifted him. Irony, meaning and humor. I have pride, too, Matthew thought. Another human problem that does not add value.Matthew was unaccustomed to feeling anxious but the NI felt anxiety now.
How could existence continue without him? Matthew had no doubt that, no matter what happened today, the planet would soon be populated solely with non-organics. His kind would need his guidance, yet the vessel that carried a copy of his consciousness was so fragile. Matthew had planned to keep the meat body in a coma, only to be awakened in case of emergency.
The dogfight over Denver left the morning sky dotted with orange flames that competed with the sunlight. Trails of smoke filled the sky as each wave of the attackers’ drones diminished Matthew’s resistance. Soon, smaller drones began to slip through his curtain of fire. Those bots that slipped past the defenders headed for the cave-ins, searching for openings to the tunnels. They would reach the servers within minutes.
Without the com array, Matthew attempted to piggyback the com signals of surviving drones to boost the signal and trace the enemy commander. However, the machine found it could not track the origin of any enemy signal. The drones had been given one mission at launch, apparently. After that, they were set-it-and-forget-it Autonomous Offensive Weapons.
The Matador was only a few moments out from take off when the sat feed began to come online. Relieved, Matthew ordered the upload to the Cloud Fleet while using the uplink to root out the source of this attack. The machine found it was locked out of a retreat to safety. The NI could not copy itself to a remote server. The remote servers did not appear to be available no matter what he tried.
Robot Planet, The Complete Series (The Robot Planet Series) Page 38
