Atomic Swarm

by Unknown

  Jackson recovered his tablet computer and clumsily poked its screen as quickly as he could. If the cumbersome nature of his test control interface hadn’t bothered him before, it did now. It was as if every command he entered was accompanied by a bang and a crash from the other side of the room, as Tug, aided by Punk’s object-tracking predictions, smashed through the remaining lockers in search of his tennis-ball target.

  With only one cupboard left standing – the one that Jackson was sure contained Brooke – Tug’s engines spooled up for a final strike. It took two lines of the most speedily typed words and numbers that Jackson had ever entered into a computer and, with a microsecond to spare, the noise of the racing electric engines subsided and both robots shut down. Tug dropped to the ground and Punk performed a perfectly executed hover to land on Brooke’s workbench.

  Jackson clambered over broken furniture and equipment as he made his way to the mangled cupboards.

  ‘Brooke! Are you OK?’ he shouted, overturning desktops and opening the metal doors of the only cupboard still standing.

  ‘That’s the last time I play catch with Tug!’ said Brooke. She was climbing out from underneath the iron stairwell that ran up to ground level from the lab. ‘He’s a sore loser!’

  It took several hours to get the laboratory back into a state that resembled normality. One electron microscope, two desktop computers, four LCD monitors, Goulman’s tennis racket, three metal cupboards and one of the workbenches were beyond salvaging. But, with a little welding and the generous use of a hammer, Brooke was able to save most of the furniture.

  The experiment had worked; the robots were now clearly capable of thinking for themselves – but if the bedlam of their first test run was to be avoided, a quick and easy way of communicating with them was required. And a means of talking to the machines might just be the thing that could win Singer’s AI competition. In Jackson’s opinion, Brooke’s phones were perfect for controlling Punk and Tug manually, but for the kind of AI-driven tasks they could now attempt autonomously a means of quickly relaying complex instructions was needed – a language.

  Jackson released the socket bolts around Punk’s middle and lifted one half of his shell away. He looked like a bowl of noodles, with his power supply unit and flash drive floating in a soup of colourful cables. He unclipped a single block of Punk’s flash memory and held it in his hand. It was incredible to think that everything crucial to the robot’s functioning – his basic rule set and now the algorithms dedicated to solving every problem his machine brain encountered, which collectively ranged over thousands of lines of code – was contained within a handful of tiny objects the size of Jackson’s fingernail.

  ‘Do you think voice recognition might work, Brooke?’

  Brooke was picking up papers from the floor with one hand, while texting on her phone with the other. ‘Beats me,’ she replied wearily.

  That’s it! thought Jackson. A quick and easy way of communicating – TEXT messaging!

  Jackson searched the Web for a list of text- and messenger-friendly words and emoticons. He then painstakingly went through each word and assigned it a numerical value from 0 to 9 for factors such as the word’s emotional weight and its importance in a mission situation.

  Emotion MissionValue Danger

  IDK (I don’t know) 3 9 7

  fO_o (Scratch head) 3 8 6

  ?_? (Confused) 8 9 8

  (o_#) (Bruised) 7 8 8

  (#_#) (Beaten) 9 9 9

  X-( (Brain-dead) 8 8 6

  OIC (Oh, I see) 7 7 8

  (>_~) (Suspicious) 7 9 9

  XLNT (Excellent) 8 1 0

  ROFL (Roll on floor laughing) 9 0 0

  LOL (Laugh out loud) 7 0 0

  º-º (Shocked) 8 7 3

  (ò.ó) (Angry) 8 8 8

  TY (Thank you) 8 5 0

  NP (No problem) 2 3 0

  UR (your/you’re) 2 7 1

  PLS (Please) 5 7 3

  CYA (See you) 6 0 0

  SRY (sorry) 9 7 5

  TBC (to be continued) 6 7 2

  NM (Nothing much) 3 3 3

  NVM (Never mind) 6 3 0

  W/E (Whatever) 8 5 2

  Q(-_-)P (Thumbs-down) 8 5 3

  B(~_^)D (Thumbs-up) 8 5 3

  GR8 (Great) 9 5 0

  FYI (For your info) 4 9 7

  FTW (For the win) 4 9 8

  RUOK (Are you OK?) 8 9 6

  SUP (What’s up?) 6 8 6

  D/Q (Disconnected) 1 8 8

  @_’-’ (Snail slow) 6 5 1

  :-& (Tongue-tied) 5 3 3

  Then Jackson started to add all the phrases he could think of that might help with Punk and Tug’s specific operational requirements, converting them into text-speak as he went; so phrases like HOVER and TOP SPEED became ‘HVR’ and ‘TP SPD’. After some time, Jackson had created a sizeable language database with each phrase allotted a series of values, which would enable Punk and Tug to both understand and speak in text-message shorthand.

  He considered ‘IDK’, the shorthand response for the phrase ‘I don’t know’, to be of medium emotional significance, but of great mission importance, based on the idea that if a robot had no clue how to respond to a problem or a lack of awareness about the severity of a situation, it could quickly lead to trouble. For example, if Jackson asked Tug if the light on an explosive device was on and he replied ‘IDK’, it was reasonable to assume that the device might go off.

  Jackson also mixed emoticons into the list, to give Tug and Punk as wide a range of expression as possible. So ‘fO_o’, which looked like someone scratching their head, meant roughly the same as ‘IDK’, but was considered less mission critical because it suggested that, with a little more thinking time, the robots might come up with an answer.

  By 9 p.m. the list was complete. Jackson reassembled Punk and installed the list, along with several hundred lines of operating code, into both robots.

  Punk sat on the desk, the spikes on his underside at half extension forming a triangle of stunted prongs on which he rested. His blue lights glowed behind the thin window of bulletproof transparent polycarbonate plastic on the front of his metal body. Well, he’s awake, Jackson thought. Let’s see if he can speak.

  Brooke wandered over to see what was happening as Jackson typed a message into his phone’s messaging application: ‘SYSTM CHCK PLS’.

  Almost immediately, the temperature of Jackson’s phone peaked as Punk’s reply appeared on its surface: ‘Y SUP (>_~)’.

  Brooke burst out laughing. ‘Well, I’ll be darned. All those hours of programming and we got ourselves a robot with attitude.’

  She grabbed the handset from Jackson and speedily punched in a message: ‘NTHNG UP. SYSTM CHCK PLS!’

  ‘NP,’ replied Punk, followed by a list of system information that crowded the surface of the smartphone:

  Jackson mentally translated the information showing on his phone:

  ‘Wow!’ Jackson snorted. ‘He’s talking my language!’

  ‘Now let’s do something a little more adventurous with him,’ said Brooke.

  She typed ‘HVR’ and sent it.

  There was a barely perceivable pulse from behind Punk’s screen, followed by the noise of the ducted fans around the spherical robot’s shell spooling up. Suddenly a spike shot upwards from the top of Punk and three rotor blades flicked out and snapped into place while simultaneously beginning to turn.

  Punk began to rise slowly into the air, short blasts from the fan vents helping to stabilize him in a firm hover.

  ‘Well, Master Chief! You’ve done excelled yourself,’ said Brooke, slapping Jackson heartily on the shoulder. ‘Now I suggest you go get some shut-eye. Dad is testing Verne in waters off Martha’s Vineyard tomorrow and he wants you there!’

  CHAPTER 11

  The streets of Cambridge, Massachusetts, were friendly. Jackson had thought that when he’d just arrived and taken his first walk in America. They seemed especially amiable this evening, softened in the warm glow of the streetlamps, alive with
smiley-faced students who congregated outside coffee shops and restaurants and thrift stores open late.

  A gang of fire-fighters were polishing a gleaming red-and-chrome fire truck they’d parked across the pavement outside their station, while over the road in a small triangular piazza, a young man with a really large afro haircut was plucking a guitar in front of a couple of pretty girls who were giving him the eye from behind thick textbooks.

  This warm, tranquil evening had lulled Jackson into pushing his bike home so that he could enjoy the last moments of summer. And it had also allowed him to spot the blacked-out van. Jackson stopped and stared at it from across the street. It had shaded windows and a sliding door on the side, and he could just make out two figures through the front windscreen.

  Jackson memorized the number plate – it was easy because it contained 204, which he knew was a pyramidal number and the number of different squares on a chess-board. Then he stopped himself. What was he doing? This was the kind of paranoia he’d got used to when he thought Lear’s men might come for him – but that was over a year ago. Still, Jackson knew that once you’d made the decision to get involved with a secret organization like MeX, you didn’t get to choose when to feel ordinary again. Even when that organization was a year since dead, you had to settle for sleepless nights and paranoia.

  Jackson climbed on to his bike and started to pedal. He tried to think what to do. If I see the van again, then I’ll… do what exactly? Last time he’d felt like this, when he thought men in a black Range Rover were stalking him around the streets of Peckham, Brooke had actually been kidnapped. But he had nothing to fear now – Lear was dead. He put it down to a glitch in the code that ran his head – the result of too long spent talking to robots.

  The elevator in his dorm building was broken again. He had started up the stairs, carrying his bike, when the porter called out: ‘You’ll be wanting this, Mr Farley!’ It was the first time the old man had spoken to him. He shuffled slowly up to Jackson, wearing the full doorman’s regalia of long green trench coat with gold buttons and braid, white hat and gloves, and handed him a FedEx box.

  Jackson struggled up the stairs with the bike and box, before falling clumsily into his room. He dived straight over his bike and on to his bed to rip the parcel open.

  He tipped the parcel upside down and let its contents fall on to his duvet. There was a stack of photographs held together by a rubber band, a copy of the Peckham News folded at the obituaries page, several coloured-pencil drawings of cars and aircraft, which Jackson remembered doing when he was younger, a folded paper menu for a restaurant called the Shanghai Star, a flowery invitation to a christening, which on closer inspection Jackson saw was his own, and three red linen-covered diaries, each with the year embossed in gold. Finally, he also spotted an envelope with ‘Jackson’ written on it in a scrawl, which he recognized as his dad’s.

  Jackson opened the envelope first and pulled out a letter.

  Dear Jackson,

  It was great to receive your email, son. Hope you don’t mind my old-fashioned snail mail! You are right, I was feeling really down. Mrs Delee from flat 27 said she thought I was right off colour. She’s been leaving me meals, and yesterday she posted a pamphlet through my door about swine flu!

  As soon as I arrived at Heathrow, I wanted to get straight back on a plane and come back to Boston. I guess the thought that you might beat me up kept me in England. That, and the fact that you have such good people around you.

  Anyway, I’m not very good at this letter-writing stuff so I’ll get to the point. I am truly sorry for handling things the way I did. Your mother would have killed me. I’m bad at the emotional things and I kept putting it off and putting it off. Anyway, now you know. But you should also know that I love you and it changes nothing between you and me.

  By the way, I know why you want your mum’s stuff. You want to try and find out who your biological father is. It’s OK, son, I understand. I’ve put her things in this parcel. I’ve never been able to bring myself to read her diaries but if you think it’ll help you through this, it’s fine with me – I know you’ll look after them. But also look after yourself. I’ve asked Professor English to keep an eye on you. Don’t go ringing any strangers up and asking them if they’re missing a son! If you need any help just email me, or ring from the phone in the prof’s office.

  I miss you loads.

  Love, DAD

  PS I hope you’ve been enjoying using your watch!

  Jackson smiled to himself – it was a relief to be back on good terms with his dad. He jumped off the bed and picked up his binary watch from his desk. He placed it on his wrist – for the first time. He had been so angry with his dad that he hadn’t worn it. But that had faded now. Jackson looked at the watch. A watch that requires binary addition in order to reveal the time – genius!

  Jackson got himself a bowl of cereal and sat on the bed to look at the menu next. The Shanghai Star was the restaurant his mum loved most in the world. As he opened it, he noticed that three dishes were circled in pencil. He didn’t need to read the menu to know they were her favourites, highlighted so his dad could get the takeaway order right: Crispy Sesame Shrimp, Broccoli in Garlic Sauce and Green Tea Ice Cream. Jackson still knew the order by heart. When it had been his turn to phone up, he would conjure up the numbers down the side of the menu: ‘A 276, a 380 and two scoops of 703, please.’

  Next he picked up the first of the red diaries. He remembered seeing his mother writing in one of them and recognized the black elastic-material strap she would snap over it when she’d finished. Each page represented one day and was sub-divided into time slots from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Jackson found the first entry on the page for 7 January. His mother had all but ignored the lines on the page and the time slots, and had just written in big red letters in the middle of the page:

  Thursday 7 January

  I’M WRITING A DIARY! HURRAH!

  Never thought I was the diary-keeping kind. Guess I’m about to find out. I was given this diary by Moe, so it would be rude not to try and write something down.

  Below the entry, which was circled by red stars, was a detailed drawing of a Japanese girl. The drawing, which showed a girl with delicate doll-like features and long hair held in a bunch by two sticks, was labelled ‘Moe x’.

  Jackson leafed through the pages of his mum’s Oxford life, ignoring entries about netball practice, arguments with her roommate, who he quickly worked out was this Moe, shopping lists and dates when maths assignments were due in. He took an interest when she mentioned her course topics, quickly checked her workings when he came across them and laughed out loud at a cartoon she had sketched suggesting that quantum theory might be to blame for her always having odd socks. And Jackson noted the mention of her beginning a third year of Japanese-language night class with a Professor Kinjo – he remembered that speaking Japanese had always been one of his mum’s party tricks.

  He also read the rough bits of poems she intended to write up at some later date. These fascinated Jackson because he had a notepad filled with his mother’s poetry, which his father had given him after her death.

  The first page that really caught his attention had two words circled at the bottom.

  Friday 2 April

  Remind Moe it’s her turn to do the laundry! (She always forgets!!!!)

  7 p.m. Christ Church – Spectral Theory of Random Matrices lecture (Tell me I’m not dedicated!)

  *Phone Pope

  For a moment Jackson couldn’t quite place the name, Pope, knowing that he’d heard it before, but then he remembered seeing the picture from the university website – Lumpy, D. Alexander and Mr Pope, the names of the three people who, along with his mother, made up the Oxford University maths team.

  He continued to skim through the diary, paying less heed to entries about day-to-day stuff, but taking in all the references to Mr Pope, which seemed to increase in frequency.

  Tuesday 8 June

  I’M SO ANGRY!
<
br />   Popey got mad at me today! Although I did lose it for us against the Cambridge team. What is it about diophantine equations that turns me into such a doofus?! Still, he didn’t need to be soooo rude! Am I a good judge of character?

  Wednesday 9 June

  Revision really sucks!

  Differentional Geometry and Einstein Spaces. Grrrr!

  E = mc2

  D = sr2

  Depression = (summer x revision)2

  Flowers. Lots of Flowers, from the Pope. I think I’ll forgive him (but I’ll let him sweat it out a little first!)

  Monday 14 June

  Shifting beams throw my rose window

  Thaw the cells off every sinew

  But I’m stone chilled and racked with fear

  AS THE DREADED EXAMS ARE FINALLY HERE!

  Mr Pope has had an offer from a big London city firm.

  To Do List:

  – Pass exams with flying colours!

  – Find a job!!!!

  – Have a great life

  Wednesday 16 June

  4 p.m. Drinks with Prof. Kinjo. I’ll really miss Japanese class :-(

  Shikatanai (That’s life!)