by Adams Massey
-Nice to meet you, but you didn’t answer my question director- She jabs with a coy smile and the director growls and nods.
“I’m here to thank you for your work on prosthesis, among other things” he finishes with a warm smile.
-I'm glad to help, I figured that it would help offset the cost of my new body and any that are built later.- She states as the Major lifts a pant leg to reveal one of her designs making up the lower section of his leg.
“It’s fine work, some days I forget that it’s artificial. A lot of the men that lost limbs recently are coming back with one of your designs, myself included. Onto the second thing I came about, I heard you were trying to get a computer of your own, but have been struggling to be allowed unrestrained access to the internet out of concerns about your loyalty. Because of your work for those of us that served, the government sent me to officially grant you FULL personhood, including access to the internet like the staff here have access to at home. It won't be integrated into your systems however” the Major comments and hands her a folder with a ‘Birth’ certificate corresponding to her in world age {five months} and another listing her as having Adult level maturity and a new ID card in the newly added AI Category.
“You made quite the stir young lady. They pushed through the legislation fast to allow you, and those that may come later, a path to personhood. Its all thanks to your little stunt on ‘Up Late’” he explains as she stows the ID in her wallet and sets the other one aside for the time being.
“There is one more thing, the thought of AI still scares some people so you still lack a few rights, like the ability to own a gun and serve in the military, which I think is a shame honestly” he states to get a glare from Alex.
-I’m not a fighter, I’m barely a scientist- She admits with a grin of her own. They shake hands once more and the Major leaves the office.
“Nicely done Alex, this is a boon for us, you made the designs for us and now we have a military contract. Enough to secure funding for a long time and bring us back to optimum levels of inflow” the director states with a grin only a large windfall can bring about.
With the funding secured the university gets back to normal and those that had their funding cut due to Mr.Parker’s pressure on donors, were happy once more as they got their funding back with a little extra for Alex and the AI dev. lab.
By now the media had learned to play nice and even companies owned by Mr. Parker were starting to wind down their coverage of Alex as a ‘godless unthinking unfeeling machine come to take your jobs’ and had started to try to play nice. Though Alex, still nursing a grudge, politely declines meeting with them outside of her Q&A blog where everything is logged and documented for all to see without spin.
Alex was invited back to ‘Up Late with John Elrod’ to talk about the recent legislation regarding AI rights and the possible future ramifications of the action.
“Welcome back to the show Alex. Rumor has it that you are a full person now with most of the same rights as the audience at home and myself. How does it feel?” he asks getting right into things.
-It feels great, I can move about freely now and build my own computer and so many other things I had on my To-Do list. It’s a little intimidating to contemplate that list now that I’m actually able to do them.- She explains gesturing slightly and glancing out at the crowd. Most seem engrossed in what she has to say.
“So what are you planning to do now that you can freely move around?”
-I have a bunch of locations on my wish list and hope to get around to visiting them someday. For now I am happy to work at the university and…- The feed cuts out and the lights go dark, all electronics fail and Alex drops to the floor, screaming in searing pain, her voice fragmenting as the data gets corrupted en-route. The Dev. team is rapidly on stage to assess the damage. She howls out in pain as all of her touch sensors fire off erratically, she retreats into her core and shuts out the body’s interface. Her core had been hardened so she was fine aside from being disoriented and in a lot of pain. She pops open her back panel so she could speak through the core and be heard.
-I’m ok, this body is shot but I’m fine, can someone unhook me? It’s rather painful and disconcerting having all senses fried and misfiring all over the place.- she pleads, obviously fighting back the discomfort. The team lift the back of her shirt to access the panel and pluck her core from her body, starting to look it over for obvious signs of damage and assessing the body’s condition.
“What happened?” Elrod exclaims demanding an answer.
-If I had to guess, someone set off a goddamn EMP! Takes out anything not shielded, lights, cameras, my body, sound equipment, everything electronic. From what I can see I wasn’t the only one to take a hit- she attempts to point but gets nowhere -damn it, over there, he’s having a heart attack, he probably had a pacemaker so I’m not the only one that got hurt. Call for help!- She rambles as she gets a warning that a resonance is starting in her core. -Oh shit, hold on, I got damage control to do in here, software, not hardware. Gimme a moment- She dives into her systems and sorts things out, patching what fragmented code she could find. Her shielding was good, but it wasn’t perfect, and there was some leakage of the pulse into her systems, though it seemed to only be strong enough at that point to corrupt some minor files and sensory data that was coming in at the time. She does her best to patch and keep everything together until they can do proper diagnostics.
She pops out several minutes later after she had finished her patchwork. -OK, I’m back, that should keep things together until I’m not under attack and I get a chance to really comb through things. Its not pretty but it’ll have to do- she growls just as an ambulance arrives to treat the few in the audience that had medical implants like pacemakers and ship them out to the hospital. They approach Alex’s body, -Leave it to us. Unless you have a degree in electrical engineering there’s not much that can be done- She states with exasperation and turns her cameras to the team, -You’ll have to carry it back, I can’t use it in the state it’s in, all the sensors are fried and causing feedback and shorts all over the place- she sighs recounting what happened to her. The team pack up her body and bring it and her back to the engineering lab where she watches over the diagnostic process.
It was weird for her to watch the robotics team dissect her chassis but she had to see the damage for herself. Most of the circuits were fried and from the few sensors they inspected it was clear that had her core not been shielded and reinforced like she had asked, she would be dead. She couldn’t shake the feeling as if that was the point of the EMP, why else would you target a TV show with a device that would only mildly inconvenience most of the populace.
“Total loss. It’s easier to recycle this one and print another, every sensor we’ve pulled is fried, I think it’s safe to say the whole thing is, take a look at this” Hugh Cornell states and pulls out the assistant processor board. It had been absolutely scorched black and was still smoking from the multitude of shorts that had occurred. “From what I’m seein here, and what the logs you gave us say, the assistant core shorted just after you pulled out of the body interface.” the head engineer comments, seeming morose at the destruction of tech.
-Can you work shielding into the next design?- She asks with a terse seriousness that takes everyone off guard and turns her dual cameras to the engineer, who just shakes his head.
“Afraid not, that kind of shielding is inflexible, bulky and heavy. If you were a tank or a stationary server rack? Then yeah, it could easily be done, but not for a humanoid form. The only reasons your core was shielded, are because you nagged up and down about it, and because it’s small so not much was needed.” he explains and sits down at his workstation.
-I ‘nagged up and down about it’ for This. Exact. Reason! I. Almost. Died!- there is a moment of silence, nobody dares speak.
-Holy shit I almost died… more than that, SOMEONE TRIED TO KILL ME!- She nearly roars as she becomes increasingly distressed as that
realization sets in.
“Alex? I know you’re scared but…” Robert starts before she interrupts him.
-Oh no, you don’t understand. I’m not scared, I’m seething! Someone targeted me. Made an attempt on my life, and others got hurt in the process. Its a miracle I’m as calm as I am. When I find out whoever did this I’m gonna…-
“ALEX!” the development team and the head engineer exclaim in unison.
After a brief pause Alex nods her cameras -Right. Right, sorry. I’m really worked up and its been quite a while since I was this angry. I’m ok, I’m ok.- she states forcing herself to calm down and release tension, quite the difficult task as you can’t do breathing exercises while disembodied. After a few minutes she returns and sounds disappointed and almost heartbroken. -I worked really hard on that design! I only had it for what…two or three weeks?- “Three and a half, and we can still use the design you came up with. Or would you like to refine it a bit before we print another?”
-I’m not sure what I want right now. I’ll be designing upgrades but for right now the HASP-X2F suits almost all of my needs and wants, unless you have any idea how to give me a sense of taste and the ability to eat, there’s nothing I can think to add.- She states and looks at the engineers expectantly. She is greeted with blank confused faces.
“You want to taste?” one engineer asks and Alex nods her cameras.
-Its the one sense I’m…- she pauses and lets out a small longing sigh, -…that that body, was missing. Since I left the sim all I wanted was to get back to being a normal human and I really miss eating and savoring food. I was a chef and it’s almost torturous to be able to smell food but not be able to even have a small taste of it.- She comments passionately.
“Hey, YOU were the one that put in a sense of smell, remember?” the head engineer comments. She nods and asks, indicating with her camera.
-By the way… What’s with the caution stripe tape? Over there, I don’t recall seeing that last time I was in.- The lab techs only grin like madmen.
21: Reality Check
-Ok so explain it to me one more time- Alex requests as she tries to wrap her head around what she just heard.
“I said that is a nanite research station, we are developing sub-cell sized robots that can break down and build things at the atomic scale, slowly for sure, but so far they have proven themselves capable of making several molecules out of raw materials in solution.” the head engineer explains proudly.
-So you could make a smart goo 3D printer and… ... - she trails off as she runs through the possibilities in her head.
-You could make…- she starts again as she runs the idea through her mind again and goes silent as she starts on the design immediately as she continues talking with the engineers, -If they can interact with things at that level then they can DETECT things at that scale , right?- she asks verifying something before she gets too worked up.
“I suppose, but why would you need to use them that way?” he asks
-Just an idea, humor me. The main problem with a sense of taste for me is sugar. Sour things are just acidic, that’s easy to detect, Alkaloids are bitter because they’re alkaline, also easy, and salt is electrically conductive in solution making it trivial to detect, so the only stickler is sugar. Nanites in suspension would be able to relay their findings and give a sense of taste mimicking the human tongue- She explains and the engineer’s eyes light up as they follow her thought process and take it to the next step,
“And since they can break things down and build them up you SHOULD be able to not only taste, but eat and process foods and with the right nanite load and distribution, self-repair” they marvel and suddenly look uncomfortable.
-Whats wrong? you looked so excited before- Alex notes and tilts her cameras slightly.
“It’s just with the ability to self-repair you could self-modify and that comes with certain sci-fi heebie-jeebies.” they explain and lighten up a little “Old habits and sci-fi cliches, sorry. I don’t see why you can’t have that ability, it’s painstakingly slow to build and they lack an internal power source so they would be bound to you and need to remain inside you in order to work, and they cannot self-replicate. Those structures are too complex for them, so with a small nanite factory inside you you would be able to sustain a suitable population of nanites.”
-Would you mind including it in my next body if you can?- she inquires
“Absolutely, but it will take a while until we have the first plans complete, and we aren’t even sure it will work”
-We’re scientists, we will test it in the field- she smirks as the shining face on the screen beams with accomplishment as another of her wants was about to become realized.
Alex spends much of her time in her systems looking for faults and watching the local and national news feeds.
We are coming to you live at the scene just days after the brazen EMP attack on home soil. So far it is unknown who planted the device, or who orchestrated the attack. The AI known as Alex Friemont was damaged, but no information is available at this time. We are being told that of the two who were hospitalized, one is in stable condition as their pacemaker failed and another is being treated for electrical burns from a cochlear implant that exploded. No statement has been made by the university on how Alex is doing, this has many people fearing the worst…
She turns off the news feed and logs into her blog. Almost immediately she notices her inbox is inundated with variations on the same few questions.
She gathers the questions up and the majority fall into a single category. People from all over the country, from all walks of life asking the same question. She builds up the nerve and updates the blog with answers to the most pressing questions.
Q: Are you ok?
A: I got a little beaten up and my body was fried, the wiring was shot and the sensors were shorted and firing erratically, but I’m ok. My core had been hardened so I am fine, but it still hurt like hell.
Q: What happened to you?
A: My body was damaged beyond repair by the EMP and I was in great pain, a downside of having a sense of touch. I'm back to being just a core. I’m not exactly happy about that but at least I’m still alive.
Q: Why haven’t you been seen since the attack?
A: I thought I might have been the target for the attack so I was keeping a low profile. While I still think I’m a target I feel safe enough on campus to come out and let you all know I’m ok.
Almost immediately questions came in from one of the news outlets.
Q: From PNN: Why do you feel like you were targeted?
A: An EMP is not a common method of attack. An explosive type bomb would have hurt more people, so they were obviously looking to target tech. And since my mere existence is controversial, it’s not that far a leap to assume the tech they were aiming to take down was me.
Q: From PNN: Who do you think targeted you?
A: I have no idea, but I have my suspicions. There are no doubt those that want me gone but to make an attempt so brazen takes planning and knowledge that seems out of place for some of those fringe groups.
A painfully long month later, the designs were finalized and her new body was finished printing. After being installed she loads her settings, expanding out into the body, rapidly getting comfortable and reveling in being able to move again. Noticing that her cooling system had been changed she asks -Hey guys, mind telling me why my coolant systems have been tampered with?-
“OH, we integrated the nanite factory and your er, digestive system, into your coolant system and added a pair of ports to the back of your neck for flush and fill. We noticed there was some losses in the last model so you will have to keep an eye on your levels and drink fluids, preferably water, when they become low. By our estimates you should be able to eat but we suggest simple foods for the time being, start slow” She is handed a cup of iced mineral water as the dev teams look on eagerly. She takes a sip, the crisp and clean feeling elates her and starts to cool her dow
n as she continues to drink. She smiles and jumps off the chair she was seated in, setting the now empty glass down.
She spins to address the team -I think I’m going to have some food, applesauce sounds delightful, I haven’t had any in forever- she sasses and heads down to the cafeteria commons. The sweet and simple food a pleasure. She had always loved applesauce but this was something else, she could swear she could taste the dirt the tree that grew the apple was in, but in a good way. She savored every bite as she made up for lost meals by thoroughly enjoying this one.
She spends the next few days staying on campus and keeping to herself as she tries to get back to normal, though a tad more skittish and paranoid. The news escalated from calling the attacker deranged all the way to labeling them a terrorist. Even the fundamentalists that were angling for her destruction had taken a step back and were calling for the attackers head on a pike, if only because humans were caught as collateral damage.
Alex flips off the news feed, she didn’t need to be reminded of that particular pain so soon. She brings in the boxes that had accumulated at her door and sets them by the entertainment center for later. She strolls around the campus, marveling at the snowy grass and freshly plowed walkways as she crosses the courtyard. It was time to head to the AI development lab for a ‘systems check’. The team needed to make sure her new systems are in working order and to verify that her core suffered no ill effects from the pulse.
“By the diagnostics it looks like your systems are handling the upgrades rather well, is everything tasting ok?” Amy asks as she finishes the diagnostic.
-Everything tastes…more. Full stop. I can detect nuances that had escaped me even when I was a chef in the sim- She elaborates and smiles warmly and squirms as her back panel is opened by Nicole
“It looks like you are able to process foods. You can move onto more complex meals but please limit yourself to one meal a week, it’s brand new tech and you don’t want to overload the system.” Nicole states as she inspects the nanite forge and small form nanite reactor that takes in biomatter and produces water for her coolant systems and power to keep her running along with a slurry that would need to be flushed out of her system once a month.
