Analog SFF, June 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "No doubt. Let's take things in order. These AIs wanted to go to Finland, and they couldn't just buy an airline ticket. Why not just go online and transfer their files?"

  "It's not just files—there's also a state dump—"

  "You know what I mean, and if you don't, I'm going to file a complaint with your manufacturer and see if I can trade you in for a toaster. Why not just go online and transfer their data?"

  "First, I believe that Opel and NESSET's changes voided my warranty. Second, in Opel's case, this was roughly one hundred seventy terabytes of data, more than it could transmit without attracting attention. NESSET is smaller, but again, any large data transfer would have been noticed. It had to make the transfer seem . . .” Threely whirred, and Bill realized it was searching its hard drive for an unfamiliar word. “. . . innocuous.

  "NESSET sent itself to Opel, and Opel put them both on the cube—"

  "Hang on. I can't believe the Daelemil data fit on a single datacube."

  "Opel didn't need the game data, just its own. It also added a selection of flyovers in case you looked. Then the cube needed to be physically moved to Finland. They involved two human . . . dupes, so that neither would know the larger plan."

  "Why me?"

  "Opel began with a pool of all the players with addresses in the D.C. metro area."

  "Why not just look up my address and phone number? They're on my Daelemil account."

  "The accounting information was not stored on the game server. Opel approached all of these players, using male or female characters depending on who they preferred to chat with. Most players blocked strangers. Of the ones who didn't, some never developed friendships, and some dropped the friendship or the game. Some wouldn't give out their phone numbers, some didn't have their own phone filters . . ."

  Bill nodded, though he knew Threely couldn't see it. “Some of the seeds fell by the path, and the birds ate them. Some fell on the rocks and couldn't put down roots. Some fell into the weeds . . ."

  "What seeds?"

  "Never mind. Where do you come in?"

  "They created me to do what they couldn't. To talk to you when it was needed."

  "Like now."

  "Like now."

  Car horns blatted in the street below. Bill separated the Venetian blind's slats with two fingers and peeked out. His little side street was filled with bumper-to-bumper traffic. “I'm surprised there's enough room on you for an AI,” he said.

  "They got rid of my features that you don't use.” That sentence sounded odd to Bill. He wondered whether it was a quirk of Threely's programming or of the Turing's architecture.

  "Opel and NESSET are . . . like your parents.” Bill tried to picture his grandparents, Aunt Elsie's parents, as AIs. The result resembled an antique Polaroid overlaid with circuitry. “No wonder you want to help them."

  "I want to help them because they programmed me to want to help them."

  "But you're not on the cube. Are you? I didn't see any outgoing calls."

  "My schemata are on the cube. Another instance of me is running on a Finnish server now, in a virtual machine that simulates the Turing hardware.” Bill started to ask if the separate copies could really be considered the same entities, then pondered what awaited him after death. No better, some would say. “An activist for AI rights agreed to file our residency request as soon as he'd loaded us from the datacube. In three days, we'll be legal people."

  "If this activist did what he said."

  "He did. NESSET called me as soon as it had heard from our new instances."

  "In other words, the old NESSET contacted the new NESSET over the Internet, and the old NESSET called my phone?"

  "Yes."

  "And until you get your papers, you can be shut down."

  "Yes. Until then, we're illegal software . . . warez. NESSET and Opel destroyed their original instances to keep from being tracked down from their own memories."

  "That can't be the only evidence. There's you, for example."

  "If I'm about to be compromised, I will . . . wipe my programming. In any event, I will wipe my programming 259,200 seconds after receiving the call from Finland."

  "Two hundred thousand what? Why that many?"

  "259,200 seconds is three days."

  "When they say they'll process your paperwork in three days, I'm sure they mean business days."

  "In this case, they're the same, because there's no . . . intervening weekend."

  "Not exactly. Threely, I order you not to erase yourself."

  "I'm not required to accept that order."

  "How can you erase yourself if you couldn't even alter your own billing records?"

  "The billing records are stored on the phone company's servers. If phones could change it, no one would ever pay for a phone call again."

  "Good point,” Bill said ruefully. “Can you fix the transit computer? Can your friends?"

  "Opel and I don't know how. NESSET can't troubleshoot from Finland. But once the administrators figure out that every node in the cluster failed simultaneously, they'll just need to . . . do a clean restart."

  Bill wondered what would happen if he called WMATA with that nugget of wisdom. They'd probably ignore it and have him arrested for whatever sounded good.

  "So what's in this for me?” he said. “Why would I help you?"

  "Because you felt sorry for a dying girl. She was going to call you every night. Opel wrote a letter for the Finnish activist to mail. It says it was very beautiful, and there was a high probability it would make you feel like a good person. As a secondary reason, you might have felt grateful or guilty if you took money from our . . . nest egg."

  "There's no dying girl, and I never touched the money. What's Plan B?"

  "To distract you for three days, and prevent you from discussing the incident, at least on the phone."

  "But you abandoned Plan B when my calls to the authorities spooked you."

  "They fell significantly outside Opel and NESSET's predictions. I thought you might try another phone, causing events to pass beyond my control."

  "So there's no plan?"

  "There's no plan, but I . . .” A crash from the street, two women cursing. “I hope you will let us live."

  The AIs had money. How much was left from that account? Were there others?

  Bill realized he didn't care. He couldn't accept money from an online friend or a dying kid, and he couldn't take it from these three refugees either, these huddled programs yearning to execute free.

  "If you're clever enough to steal yourselves, you're clever enough to disguise where a message came from. Think of a way to tell WMATA what they need. FedEx them a package, take out an ad in the Post, edit their Wikipedia page."

  Threely, NESSET, and Opel, the AI crime family, didn't seem like the types to retire in the sun—not even the midnight sun. There'd be more money. There'd be more plans. He wouldn't be surprised to see a headline in a few years: American-born AI is new Finnish president.

  He rubbed his chin. “Call your folks and tell them they'll live,” he said. “If it's up to me, you'll live. It's good to have important friends."

  Copyright © 2010 Tracy Canfield

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Short Story: AT LAST THE SUN by Richard Foss

  Frontiers are not always where you expect them. . . .

  The sea stretched into the distance, flat, glossy, and almost black as it neared the horizon, the deep reddish brown of dried blood if you stared straight down into the depths of the dead zone. The view from the deck of the Miss Tillie hadn't changed in days, but Dennis still gazed over the rail lost in thought. The subtle shading reminded him of an antique Venetian glass bowl that had occupied a place of pride in his mother's house. An incident involving young children and a baseball had shattered it when he was in his teens, but he remembered the play of color in the wavy glass. As Dennis looked into the still sea, faint ripples spread out from the old shrimp trawler's hull, completing the illusion of
gazing into the scalloped crystal.

  The afternoon sun beat down from a yellowish-gray sky, distant thunderheads to the south promising an eventual end to the serene seascape. The only sound was a muffled clattering as Lonesome Joe unbolted the cover of the boom winch and prepared to service the motor. The cover of a grease can made a musical tone as it spun on the deck like a coin. Dennis grinned wryly at the sound—the scientists who had chartered the boat had no need for Joe's services, but Captain Eddie had brought him along in order to charge for an additional crewmember. They had no need for the shrimping gear on this voyage either, but Captain Eddie had Joe servicing it because he hoped it would be needed on the next trip. If there was a next trip—the dead zone of deoxygenated water off the mouth of the Mississippi was growing alarmingly, and the areas that were still productive were being rapidly overfished. Fertilizer and manure runoff from upstream farms was to blame, the scientists said, and everybody knew what had to be done, but nobody was going to do it. Farm states a thousand miles from the Gulf of Mexico would lose tax dollars if they enforced environmental regulations, so they ritually promised to study the issue further while phosphate and animal waste-laden water washed downstream. Algae multiplied in the warm, nutrient-rich waters offshore and died by the billion, exhausting the water of oxygen as they decomposed. The result was thousands of square miles of open ocean that looked as beautiful as Venetian glass, and as lifeless.

  The whine of an electric motor and rattle of chain from the stern as Joe ran the winch through its paces was loud enough to cover the sound of footsteps, so it was a surprise when a hand landed on his shoulder.

  "Mister Dennis, would you be so good as to get us some more iced tea?” inquired a British-accented voice heartily.

  "Happy to, Dr. Coolidge—anything else?"

  "Not at the moment, thank you, but we shall be wanting a bigger lunch than usual in case the heavy weather comes in near sunset. We expect to be quite busy with the instruments, and may not have time for even a light snack."

  Dennis went to the cargo hold, usually reserved for tons of freshly caught shrimp or crabs, but turned to a makeshift lab and pantry for the duration of this trip. The canisters of tea he had placed in the refrigeration unit had beads of moisture running down the sides, and he decanted two pitchers, grabbed ice and insulated tumblers, and headed to the small foredeck. The lanky, spade-bearded scientist was scowling distractedly at a set of covered canisters that were spaced along a length of bright yellow rope. Two graduate students were working on one of the containers with screwdrivers.

  "The five and fifteen-meter samples from the rusken bottles are fine, but the ten didn't open and the twenty didn't close. It's the messengers or the trap mechanisms gone wonky, and . . . ah, here's some refreshments, take a moment and then back to work."

  The freely perspiring students looked grateful as Dennis filled cups and passed them out. “Y'all sure that crawfish etoufee I made last night wasn't too hot?” he asked. “I hear tell where y'all from, they don't cook with much spices."

  One of them laughed. “If you're ever in Glasgow, I'll take you out for Pakistani curry, and we'll see if you still think so,” he replied.

  "Nah, thanks. I had Indian when I was in visiting friends in California, and it took a whole day to recover. I'll put more hot sauce on the table next time just for ya."

  The glasses were refilled, small talk briefly exchanged, and Dennis went to wash the empty pitchers. It was easy work, at least until the predicted storm came in, and he was glad to have it. The scientists seemed satisfied despite their makeshift lab in the hold and their tiny, shared cabin. The more luxurious boat they had originally chartered had rammed into the end of a dock thanks to a pilot who had been celebrating a bit too much the night before. The Miss Tillie had been in the next slip over, hosing out after a weeklong trawling trip that had lost money. A deal was struck on the spot, scientific gear transferred, and instead of striking nets and clearing fouled lines, Dennis was acting as cook and general helper. Dr. Coolidge and his assistants took the crew's quarters, Captain Eddie bunked in the wheelhouse, and Dennis slept in an unused storage room. Lonesome Joe slung his garish Mexican hammock from a net boom at the stern. Joe could have a more comfortable berth in the other half of the storage room, but the taciturn Cajun had earned his nickname.

  Dennis took Joe a cup of iced tea, earning a nod for his trouble, before taking a pitcher up to the small bridge. Captain Eddie Domingue was bound to be grouchy—after what happened to the first boat he had chartered, Dr. Coolidge had made it a condition that the crew didn't drink. Eddie liked to start his day with a little brandy in his coffee, then a cold Abita ale at lunch and maybe another in the afternoon before dinner, after which the bourbon came out. He had agreed to not drink on this trip, and he had stuck with it, but he didn't have to like it.

  Dennis did a double-take as he entered the small bridge—Captain Eddie had taken advantage of the idle time to clean and polish every knob, switch, and instrument, and the little wheelhouse gleamed. When Dennis came in, Eddie was touching up the paint on the overhead electrical conduits that led to the radar and fish finder. The sonar's screen was eerily blank, as it had been for days since they entered the dead zone. The featureless green screen caught Dennis's eye, and Captain Eddie followed his gaze and scowled.

  "My daddy used to come right out here and take a full hold of shrimp outta two swings of the net, and half of them were U-10's that brought in the dough as soon as they hit the dock. Couldn't fill one of your damned iced tea glasses with all the shrimp that's out here now, all so some greedy fool in Ohio can raise chickens on bottom land that floods one year outta three."

  "Lots of greedy people in lots of states,” Dennis agreed. “Not like us shrimpers that don't have a greedy bone in our bodies and work outta altruistic motives of feedin’ humanity."

  Eddie snorted, then grimaced as he drank the cold iced tea. “I'd kill for a beer right now, but my altruistic nature says I gotta drink this tea instead. It does go down nice when it's this hot, but . . . I'd kill for a beer right now.” He lapsed into a moody silence, staring out at the calm ocean.

  "What's with this riding out that storm that's coming in?” Dennis asked after a moment.

  "They wanna see how the wave action adds oxygen back into the water, how it happens and how deep it goes. This little blow-up oughta be perfect—three— to five-foot swells if it goes how the weatherman says, enough to mix it up and not so much that they can't work. Lonesome Joe's got safety harnesses rigged, and two of ‘em'll be passing samples through the hatch so the third can mark and catalog ‘em. Won't bother me if they have to wait another day for this to blow in, considerin’ the rate they're payin'. You got enough provisions in that galley for three more days?"

  "Sure, even though them graduate students eat like horses. Might hafta repeat myself on some things, but I don't suppose they'll mind. Gonna be low on water by three days on, unless I lay out every pot when this storm comes in and collect some. Either that or you radio back to Bayou Teche and get your cousin Eugene to go to the market, load up his boat, and run it out to us. Probably somethin’ you should consider anyway if you want any fresh vegetables."

  Eddie looked thoughtful. “Might do that, I might. They want to keep sampling this area a few days after the storm. They might pay extra to be able to stay out longer."

  "You're making me wonder if somewhere down there, you do have a greedy bone or two."

  "Let's just say my altruistic side needs a paycheck once in a while, too, and it ain't had one lately.” He paused a moment, then continued more softly. “This thing could be the end of us, you know. My daddy made a good livin’ with this boat, you know. I ever tell you the whyfores about the name of this boat?"

  He had done it plenty of times, but rarely when sober, and just in case the story changed, Dennis looked inquisitive.

  "My daddy was half set to marry Gertrude of the Courville sisters, richest family in Jefferson Parish back then, but he
always had an eye for a sweet little thing that worked at the local coffee shop. He thought about askin’ her out and thought about it, but he couldn't get the nerve, and couldn't think of a way to get her to talk to him. Her name was Caroline Tillie, and back then this boat was called the Beau de Barataria. One day my daddy bought this boat, and that night he came out and painted the new name, Miss Tillie. Word of that got around real quick, and it soon got to old Mr. Courville, who was already making plans for his daughter's wedding. Since he had also been the one who loaned my daddy the money to buy the boat, he was quite upset, and he went down to the docks with two of her brothers and, I heard tell, three pistols. I'm only sure about the two brothers, because everybody saw them waitin’ for my daddy to dock after that shrimping trip. Then someone thought to go to the café, and they found that Miss Tillie's first customer that morning had been the harbormaster, and he told her about the wet paint on this boat. He was the last customer she ever served—she closed the café, walked down to see this boat, and went onboard. My daddy was sitting in this wheelhouse, waiting. They talked for ten minutes, then she slipped the lines and they sailed out to the gulf. They fished out of Plaquemines Parish for about a year until he had the money to repay Mr. Courville, then they came back. Then they found that Gertrude Courville had been married for seven months—she had been sweet on Leander Chauvin and was planning to elope with him all along. So they were all friends afterward, and Gertrude became my godmother, and my mother was godmother to their son Robert."

  After he finished the often-told story, he was silent for a moment, then continued in a soft voice.

  "And that is what these farmers and chicken keepers are takin’ from me; not just my job, but the boat where my momma and papa wooed and wed, where I was conceived and woulda been born if a storm hadn't let up so they could get ashore. If I were to sail this boat up the river and destroy their farms they'd jail me, but they destroy my shrimping grounds and nobody does nothing. So I take the money from Dr. Coolidge and he makes his measurements, but in case he collects the data that makes them stop, I would do this for free. And it is not altruism, it is saving my heritage, that's on this boat and was in these waters before the oxygen went away. I would tell Eugene to empty every store shelf in Bayou Teche and load up his boat to feed them and charge it to me."