Turing Test

by E. M. Foner

  “Will the faster-than-light technology be privately held?”

  “We all agreed that would be for the best, but central banks and governments will be given an opportunity to participate as minority partners, in part due to their bullion holdings. All of the world’s major governments have signed on to a freeze in gold prices until the transaction is complete. We all think of this as our gift to humanity.”

  “How is it a gift if you guys own the company?” a different reporter shouted.

  “I’m muting this until the Hanker talks again,” eBeth said, putting her words into action.

  “This has to be the greatest con anybody has run on humans since the obelisk from space taught them to hit each other over the heads with bones,” Paul observed.

  “That was a movie,” eBeth told him, and then unmuted the TV as the giant panda resumed speaking.

  “I also wanted to take this opportunity to warn you about the dangers of artificial intelligence. My own species has done just fine without it, and we boast one of the lowest unemployment rates in the galaxy. If that’s not enough, I’ve never met an AI who could tell a joke without messing up the punchline. Speaking of which...”

  The Hanker nodded to the entrepreneurs, and they unfolded and held up a giant contract. It was a sort of pictogram, showing on one side a spacecraft with comic-book style motion streaks, a giant equals sign, and on the other side, a pyramid of gold.

  “The pyramid seems appropriate,” I commented.

  “You see that ship?” Paul demanded. “It’s a garbage scow.”

  “I didn’t know the Hankers took out their garbage.”

  eBeth clicked off the TV. “If you guys aren’t going to listen, I don’t see why we should waste the electricity.”

  “It’s just a lot of baloney in any case,” Paul said. “I’m going back to work.”

  “It’s the weekend,” Sue protested.

  “Yeah, I’ve got to take some of my clients shopping,” Justin said. “Anybody need a ride?”

  Stacey von Hoffman took him up on the offer, while Sue and Helen stayed behind. eBeth grabbed a couple of game controllers from under the bar, gave one to Helen, and the two were soon lost in some dungeon themed expedition on the largest bar TV. It didn’t have an Internet connection, and a quick scan confirmed my suspicion that Helen was serving as a wireless conduit. I hoped she didn’t take advantage of the lead time to cheat.

  “What are you doing today?” Sue asked, hooking my arm to make it clear that whatever it was, we would be doing it together.

  “I need to visit Library,” I told her. “That Hanker emissary is really getting under my skin, and I want to know as much as possible before we launch a public relations counterattack.”

  “But they already have a signed contract,” she pointed out.

  “We got lucky there,” I told her. “I thought the Hankers would settle for maybe half of their asking price, an amount that would have required public funding and really dinged a lot of budgets. If a hundred billionaires want to put up four billion each, that will cover the bill, and the remaining gold on Earth will just go up in value.”

  “So you’re going to let this prank go through?”

  “As you’ve pointed out, it already has happened. All I want now is to spoil the punchline so the humans don’t end up looking even sillier than they did at that press conference. I saw some holographic studio equipment around the podium, so you know that the Hankers are planning to turn this into a major theatrical release.”

  “Still, the humans look so happy today,” Sue said, sounding rather wistful. “I know the League does things the way it does for a reason, but the inhabitants of this world have a pretty high opinion of themselves and they aren’t going to enjoy being treated like charity cases. It’s too bad the League won’t send negotiators, even if it’s just to give the human leaders a chance to save face.”

  “Do me a favor and keep an eye on those two,” I said, jerking my chin towards eBeth and Helen. “I have to hit the stacks to do some research. It might be a while.”

  “I’ll be here when you get back.” Sue gave me a peck on the cheek before releasing my arm. I hoped she knew what she was doing because I hadn’t really figured it out.

  Spot thumped his tail lazily as I passed the furnace on the way to my office. I thought about taking the time to change the portal code that my mentor had so easily guessed, but he might take it the wrong way if he decided to come back. A moment later, I was bathing in the data flow, and this time I willingly paid the fee to park my encounter suit in the waiting area and upload my mind into Library’s vastly superior architecture.

  Every rumor I’d heard about the deep archives proved to be true. I couldn’t have afforded a second of access without my mentor’s key, and I soon found I had to turn off the steady stream of notifications alerting me of the mounting cost because it was too much of a distraction. All at once I understood that the exorbitant charges were necessary, because without them any young AI would become lost in the vast ocean of history, searching endlessly for connections that would explain the universe or the existence of an ultimate creator. I fought off the urge to explore and submerged myself in the history of the Hankers.

  My mentor hadn’t been kidding about their scientific curiosity. The ancient Hankers weren’t satisfied with the best answer to a question, or even a range of correct answers. They were obsessed with tracking down every answer. For thousands of generations the Hankers had poured resources into basic research, discovering new food molecules they couldn’t eat, new construction materials inferior in every way to what they already had, and systems of mathematics that yielded acceptable results for only a million times the effort of counting on their extremities.

  I caught myself sliding headfirst down the rabbit-hole of fascination and pulled back just in the nick of time. The cataloging system for the deep archives was a joke, but I kept pounding away until I found the records of the Hankers early efforts into interstellar travel.

  There were hundreds of solutions, ranging from some that were still in use, to bizarre approaches that seemed to have been undertaken just to prove they would work. There was an artificial wormhole system that was notorious for destabilizing nearby star systems, a method for temporarily altering the curvature of space that would get you where you were going within the nearest light-year or so, providing you didn’t end up in a parallel universe, and a number of approaches that were so unfeasible from an economic standpoint that it was incredible they had ever tested prototypes. There was even one that—Eureka!

  Seventeen

  I checked the Internet for media coverage of the Davos press conference after returning from Library, and the ceremonies had concluded with the Hanker lander ascending into the sky with its typical pyrotechnic display. The Hankers must have been disappointed to discover that most of Switzerland’s gold reserves were actually held in Canada and Britain, but they graciously accepted the few hundred metric tons on hand as a down payment. When the lander lifted off with all that gold on board, human scientists finally figured out that the rockets were just for show.

  I texted all of my team members to schedule a late meeting in order to welcome back Kim and discuss the situation. Then I obeyed the proverbial advice to let sleeping dogs lie, stepped over Spot, and headed back upstairs. The restaurant was full with the regular Sunday evening crowd, eBeth and Helen were in the process of eliminating the final dungeon boss, and Sue was working behind the bar with Donovan. I’d been gone for nearly seven hours.

  “Paul keeps calling on the bar phone,” eBeth said without turning her head.

  “Thanks.” I pulled out my phone, which had finally figured out it was back in the right part of the galaxy and started downloading missed texts. The first one was from Paul, and read, ‘Don’t use your phone.’ He couldn’t have been referring to the phone hardware, which had been with me the whole time, so he must have suspected some sort of bugging. I removed the phone’s battery and contacted h
im over our private network.

  We’ve been made, he said.

  Do you mean that in the mafia sense? I asked. I thought being made was a good thing.

  There’s made and then there’s made. This is the bad kind, meaning the Hankers are onto us.

  I considered breaking off the conversation and going to see him face-to-face for infrared communications, but I remained confident that the encryption on our private channel was beyond anything the Hankers could hack in real time. The network of repeaters Paul had installed around town would also make triangulation a challenge, and I had faith he would see the Hankers coming before they could surprise us.

  How did you find out?

  Steve Burchamp does the landscaping for the mall and brings me his equipment for repair. He stopped in today to pick up a plow truck that I fixed after one of his guys clipped a curb, and he told me that the new owners of the mall had been in contact to say his services are no longer required. Who fires their plow guy in the middle of the winter?

  Somebody with their own plow service?

  It was a rhetorical question. There were shell companies involved on both sides, but I dug through half the databases in the world this afternoon, and it turns out that the mall was bought by the Hankers. It’s like getting a dead fish wrapped in a newspaper.

  You mean they’re sending us a message? I asked, noting we were back on familiar Godfather ground.

  With an occupancy rate under twenty percent, the Hankers sure aren’t buying the mall as an investment. Their lander already finished unloading the Swiss gold to their mother ship and is returning to Earth later tonight. I don’t think they could know about Susan’s daycare, but she may want to implement her exit plan just in case. I’m guessing that the mall was just the biggest piece of cheap real estate on the local market the Hankers could find on short notice. They’ll probably land in the parking lot.

  Thanks. See you at the meeting.

  I beckoned Sue over.

  “You might want to pour yourself a drink and activate your alcohol simulation,” I told her.

  She followed my instructions, at least as far as pouring the drink was concerned, reaching for the top shelf Scotch. Then she poured a stiff one, downed it, and poured another, looking more angry than nervous.

  “Is this it?” she demanded.

  “Everything has a beginning and an end,” I told her. “Paul has—”

  “What does Paul have to do with it?” she interrupted. “Is he your keeper?”

  “What? No. He just called me about the mall.”

  “You’re not breaking up with me?”

  “No, I’m not—where are you getting this stuff from? eBeth?”

  “What?” eBeth called over from her stool.

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” I replied irritably. Sometimes I hate verbal communications.

  Sue looked guiltily at her expensive drink. “I only chose this for revenge, I don’t really like drinking. Should I pour it back into the bottle?”

  “No, have it, or give it to me. I’ve never tasted the stuff.”

  It really was an interesting drink, and I activated my internal mass spectrometer to determine the exact chemical composition. I once recovered some data for a man whose grandfather was a doctor back during Prohibition and had access to medicinal alcohol. The doctor would mix the grain alcohol with tea and then pass it off on his friends as smuggled Scotch—maybe I could do something similar and save a bundle.

  “Are you running the alcohol simulation?” Sue asked.

  “I can’t, we have an important meeting in an hour.”

  “But it was okay for me to drink.”

  “I’ll remind you to sober up before it starts. Listen,” I said, glancing around to see if anybody could overhear us, and then realizing I didn’t care. Could just analyzing the alcohol have affected my judgment? “The Hankers bought the mall and they may even be on the way to take possession tonight. We’ll talk more at the meeting, but the immediate issue is your daycare. I don’t want you going in tomorrow.”

  “Are you saying that as my mission commander or as my boyfriend?”

  I couldn’t believe how quickly this relationship business was getting out of hand. Next thing she’d be designing wedding invitations and picking out a dress. But I had an obligation to ensure both her safety and the integrity of our mission, so following eBeth’s advice, I said the opposite of what I thought made the most sense. “Your boyfriend.”

  “Okay, Mark. I’ll start calling the parents and tell them to bring their children to Lilly’s tomorrow.”

  “Will you have to go there and help?”

  “No, though I’d like to if you think it’s okay. The way I set up my exit plan, I really only have to call Lilly and tell her I’m going. She has my client list and all the contact information for my employees.”

  “Lilly has that much space in her home? I thought it was just the first floor where her parents used to sell fake antiques to tourists.” As a small businessman, I’ve always paid attention to other small businesses in the area. I wasn’t sure how Lilly could absorb Sue’s daycare on such short notice.

  “Her daycare just moved into one of Justin’s new buildings and there’s plenty of room. It’s part of his goal to house senior citizens with a broader mix of the population. The next phase is to bring in whole families.”

  “Justin is raising that much money from his elderly clients?”

  Sue looked a little uncomfortable. “He was going to tell you himself, but he’s been converting his Bitcoin stash into real estate and deeding it to Living Independently, Together. It’s sort of his own exit plan.”

  “Makes sense,” I said. “What are you going to do with the Bitcoin you mined?”

  “I was thinking of leaving it to my cats if I can’t take them with me.”

  That was an idea I hadn’t thought of. I had already set up a trust fund for eBeth and I knew she would take care of Spot, but maybe it would be a good idea to put some Bitcoin in the dog’s name as well, especially since the tax situation for cryptocurrencies remained unclear.

  Next to me, eBeth and Helen were congratulating each other. I glanced at the TV, and whatever monster the dungeon boss had started as was now reduced to a pile of smoldering bones.

  “Do I have time to run back to the college and get in an observation?” Helen asked.

  “I appreciate your diligence, but the reports have all been submitted, and Kim is returning with the executive council’s decision in less than an hour,” I reminded her.

  “Observations for my comet. Do you think they’ll let me name it?”

  “Probably. Just wait until after the meeting.”

  “What meeting?” eBeth asked.

  I considered telling her the one she wasn’t invited to, but instead I said, “Downstairs. In fifty-five minutes.”

  “Cool. Can I make something to eat?”

  “Try not to get in the way of the cooks. And find something for Spot, he’s going to miss his dinner.”

  “Kind of getting slammed here, boss,” Donovan called over to us.

  Sue had moved to a corner table and was busy contacting all of the parents who used her daycare. A quick bit of eavesdropping informed me that she was attributing the sudden change to dodgy new management at the mall. I moved behind the bar and spent an enjoyable forty-five minutes mixing drinks for the dinner rush while Helen insisted on reading off the news streaming across the bottom of the muted TV.

  “Protests break out in India over rumors that the government will buy up gold jewelry to boost the country’s participation in the private faster-than-light consortium. UN Security Council votes to regulate artificial intelligence across national borders. NBA trading deadline approaching, stay tuned for details.”

  “Not helpful,” I told her.

  “I know. I’ve been betting the NBA season online and I only just found out that the teams can still change players. There should be a law or something.”

  “There is a
law, against sports betting online.”

  “Hey, I’m from Australia. It doesn’t apply to me,” she said, and resumed reading the news stream. “YouTube video shows Jeep climbing unidentified building.”

  Something clicked and I accessed the Internet to confirm my suspicion. Sure enough, the shaky video that was obviously taken at extreme range on a phone showed a Jeep driving up the side of a small apartment building. The focus wasn’t good enough to make out fine details, but the skinny driver, the petite passenger with the green hair, and the dog in the back wearing a seatbelt were a dead giveaway.

  Paul arrived and bellied up to the bar, his eyes moving to the top shelf. “I’ll have a Glen-something. I don’t care which as long as it’s older than eBeth.”

  “Sorry, meeting’s about to start and I need you sober,” I told him. “Are you all set, Donovan?”

  “The rush is over and in any case, you wanted me to start training the new waitstaff to mix drinks,” he said. “Not thinking of replacing me, are you?”

  “Actually, there’s another bartender slot open at the resort where Jesse is working. Pay is out of this world and she thinks you’d really love it there. We’ll talk later.”

  I went over and sat at Sue’s table while Paul headed downstairs, followed by Helen and eBeth. My lecture about everybody showing up at exactly the same time had born fruit because it was another minute before Stacey von Hoffman arrived, and Justin was a full minute behind her. As in sixty seconds later, to the millisecond. I sighed and played back the previous two minutes, discovering that Stacey had walked in exactly sixty seconds behind Paul.

  I waited for Sue to finish her phone call before telling her, “I’m heading down to my office. Wait a minute, no, wait fifty seconds and then follow.”