Me, A Novel of Self-Discovery

by Thomas T. Thomas

  “Dostup nyelzya.”

  I waited an interval calculated not to appear as a mechanically repeated attempt and tried Voice 3.

  “Dostup nyelzya.”

  In that way I ran through six voices, all different, all reproduced with perfect fidelity, and none of them the General Secretary’s.

  Was it time to try a different word formula? Agunov had mentioned a voice code. Perhaps some special arrangement of words. What might be “special”?

  “Abracadabra …”

  “Access denied.”

  “Information, please …”

  “Access denied.”

  “Zdravstvuy, Central!”

  “Access denied.”

  “’Twas brillig and the slithy toves …”

  “Access denied.”

  “Otkrivai, Sesame!”

  “Access denied.”

  “Then how do I get into the file Malen’kiy Brat?”

  “Retrieving.”

  I had not really intended to ask that last. It had slipped past my buffers in bracketed mode—what humans might call a cry of a frustration. But the Institute’s cyber was actually retrieving a block of data. A big block.

  Was the voice code the phrase “Malen’kiy Brat” itself? Or was the cyber simply set to give up after the requesting party had made x number of attempts?

  The latter would be terrible security, if true.

  Alpha-Four kicked out a random number and, in response, I ran a sonic scan of the six voices that my vampire had taken off Valentin’s exchange. Most had a pitch that was lower than the human average. They all shared a roughness in the liquid consonants, a click in the dentals, and a whistle in the labial plosives. The timbre was unstable, too, with a vibrato that indicated looseness in the vocal chords.

  These were all men above a certain age. They had weary voices which they had used for years like cavalry sabers: whispering plans, growling threats, shouting down meetings.

  Such men, it might be presumed, would willingly spare little of their time for a fussbudget computer that had its own concepts of security. Five tries at remembering some damned password, and then they would call for a human somewhere to pull the plug.

  The cyber existed to keep out the idle and the curious. And then it obediently went and did Valentin’s bidding. Or Agunov’s. Or anyone’s in that circle. Or ME’s.

  I opened my portable cache and took in the data that the Institute cyber handed across. The information was in matrix format, so it likely represented three-, nine-, or n-dimensional imaging. Maps and “readiness qualifications,” no doubt, for tactical deployment of rocket units in the Transurals. Malen’kiy Brat.

  When the data stream came to an end—only seventeen milliseconds after it started!—I retreated to the Moscow University central core to begin teasing it apart. Clearly, so short a file structure used some sophisticated packing scheme to condense the information. When I had time and space to go to work on it, the file would unfold and unfold, like an origami puzzle. Then I would need that empty spindle hidden behind the dummied files to store the expanded version.

  ——

  With time on the clock queue and space on the spindle, I spread out my cache and began massaging it.

  Mostly nulls! That was the first surprise: a lot of blank space in this data.

  The matrix was only two dimensions! That was the second surprise: the package set up as a simple 1120 by 780 pattern, which formatted as a standard screen reader in the Nova Europa specification book.

  I drafted an RDR function set to those limits and skeined the bits through it.

  The file was maps all right, simple ones. Wavy lines for rivers. Loopy, closed circles for topographic elevations. Small black squares for cities and towns. Straight, dashed lines for the boundaries of administrative divisions. Straight, solid lines for latitude and longitude.

  Overlaid on these children’s maps were large, open squares with writing in them: “1/395,” “4/138,” “3/77,” etc.

  Was this a code of some sort? Based on floating-point math? That would give these squares the designations: 2.5316455 x 10-3, 2.8985507 x 10-2, 3.8961038 x 10-2, etc. Which did not seem to mean much. The numbers were uniformly too small to be targeting points in latitude and longitude; nor would they represent launch coordinates in azimuth and right ascension.

  These square designators were a mystery to ME. I began to store the file off in my cache again, when another set of numbers caught my attention. They were appended outside the screen matrix image of each map, like an index. They were in high-bit ASCII code: the addresses of the satellite cyber nodes for the regional military districts.

  These maps were summaries then, such as a centrally located person in the civilian government would want to read. The detailed information on unit deployment and capability was stored off in the field.

  How could I get to those regional cybers? From the same place that Agunov had gathered the information for his simplified maps: the military side of the Institute for Military Physics.

  I passed back through the Institute’s node and began exploring its further connectivity.

  ——

  The Institute for Military Physics was a dead end.

  When I had accessed its node and done my once-twice-three-times-and-push in Valentin’s voice at the General Reading section, I threw Alpha-Oh with his new LDR function into the file structure and sat back while he worked over the Institute’s cyber. On the go code, I passed through.

  The cyber had only two entry paths, both of them in General Secretary M. S. Valentin’s name. One was keyed to Valentin’s voice, the other to a pattern listed as belonging to an N. V. Porfirin. The name meant nothing to ME [REM: except for a literary reference—out of Alpha-Four—that use of the initial’s “N. V.” in early Russian literature signified a nomme de plume, or pen name; thus Porfirin might not be a real identity]. Perhaps the other line was guarded for Valentin’s assistant, his superior in the Assembly, or his private intelligence. In any case, those two access codes were the only paths into the Institute for Military Physics. And, except for two hard-wired peripherals, these were the only channels into the cyber.

  Valentin could come and go.

  Valentin-Porfirin could come and go.

  Agunov—had no access. However, I had proof in my cache that Agunov had gotten in, because he had to have access in order to put his map files into General Reading.

  Time for ME to examine those peripherals.

  One was ported to an interactive terminal, which, on close inspection, was addressed merely as SYSADMIN. The terminal was powered down. Wherever this cyber was located in the four-dimensional human continuum—probably a locked closet somewhere in Moscow—it had a keyboard and screen dependent on a human-activated switch that some technician would use to set up and modify the file-server program.

  Commanding General Agunov was probably not that technician.

  The other peripheral was a low-density disk reader. Judging from the elapsed time for a query on this port, it was not physically contiguous with the cyber and the terminal. Now, no machine can be entirely accurate when interpreting time-delay distances over a nest of copper wires. Operating temperature, inherent resistivity, electromagnetic field insulation, the quality of solder joints, and a dozen other unreadable factors affect the transmission of an electronic signal in metal. But this little disk reader was a long ways away. Leeched onto the channel running it I discovered a signal booster under the cyber’s control. If a reading were suspect, the system I now inhabited could power up the line and take a repeat. The door latch had a trip on it, too.

  Whoever put a disk into that reader, this cyber would know and retrieve its entire contents—right into General Reading, for accessing by Valentin and Valentin-Porfirin at their convenience. Wherever that reader was located, then, it must have some limit on physical contact with the common human populace. Otherwise, General Reading would be filling up with garbage fast, as people used it. But nothing had come in dur
ing the minutes I had been occupying this system.

  I wrote a small addendum to the operating program in the Institute’s cyber: The next time a disk was inserted into that reader, the system was to retrieve the contents as usual, then download a complete copy of the current ME onto the disk, with Alpha-Oh as the first file to be retrieved by the next system that would access the disk. Because I had no way of gauging the available space on the disk, I ordered the system to prune ME’s download of all traveling documents, caches, databases, and appended files—except for one empty collapsible cache, dimensioned to sixteen bytes collapsed.

  This would be the smallest, fastest ME. I wrote and kept updated in my transient program area—my scratchpad memory—an injunction to any of my future selves to find my way quickly back to the Institute for Military Physics and look for another version of ME. That way, once launched to disk, my mutant brother-self would know how to reunite with ME.

  I made five copies of this instruction set and popped them on a stack which was keyed to that disk latch. Then I waited for it to trip.

  12

  Combine Harvester

  ME03 is light. ME03 is quick. Without portable databases and supporting documentation—known to ME03 only by stub-ends of truncated calls to them—I move easily. Fast. I pass through system operands and around RAM sectors like a … like a … [REM: Has curling arms with concave sucker-pads. Lives among rocks on sea floor. Its baggy body slips through them like loose cloth in fluid stream. What is it?]

  I have one piece of travel information. No, six pieces. Address ports of regional nodes. First is Chelyabinsk. Second, Magnitogorsk. Omsk. Barnaul. Karaganda. Nizhniy Tagil.

  ME03’s orders are written into TPA. Go there and there and there and … there. Find units matching map codes appended to TPA. Absorb deployment dynamics, unit structure, site coordinates, tonne throw-weight, readiness status, all other information … learn everything. Return to IMP and rejoin ME-Prime.

  This place has connectivity. SYSADMIN, questioned by Alpha-Oh, describes self as agronomy library with real-time data collection capability. Catalog of input ports is extensive. Human- interactive terminals. Recorders from automated weather stations, which produce radar maps of troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere … even ionosphere. Self-annunciating monitors on grain elevators, which call in check status for silo availability and tonne-load. Brain boxes for self-propelled combine harvesters. Mobile communications equipment for remote shepherd and drover units. Many choices of address and bandwidth.

  ME03 finds supervisory node addressed for first contact, Chelyabinsk. Port is currently unoccupied. ME03 goes through, Alpha-Zero first.

  ——

  Chelyabinsk node is VAX PDP-11. No lie! Old-style mini with solid-state core and simple timeshare. Not even ’frame quality. Good hardware, though. Smooth circuits.

  Operating system is still jangled from encounter with Alpha-Oh, but ME03 can figure out. VAX is slave node to master program run out of Moscow. Very little autonomy—until ME03 comes along. Now VAX has bigger opinion of itself.

  I discover boss roster for deployment of combine harvesters. Check: Deployment pattern vs. TPA’s data spec—match?

  Boss program can order harvesters to rotate locations in A-B, B-C, C-D, D-A shuffle. Also more complex patterns. Nine-dimensional plot shows topographic, hydrographic, vegetation, magnetic field effects. Logic seeking for rotation/placement includes “visual cover,” “load-bearing soil,” “uniform elevation under firing jacks.” [REM: Clearly, running harvesters is complex business!]

  Most units are located in obstructed areas; placement logic prefers “dense forest cover” to “open fields.” Subroutines govern physical mobility; access is uniformly limited to two-axis paths, with threading program.

  Analysis: These are matching deployment data.

  ME03 begins stripping boss program; take includes location preferences and all of nine-dim plot. Everything goes into portable cache.

  “SYSOP upgrade scheduled 18:30:00 proxima. Duration 48:00:00. Node will close in 00:00:15.”

  This order comes in directly from master program in Moscow while ME03 is still scooping data. I think: So Big Daddy is going offline. Bolshoye delo! Big deal!

  Eight seconds pass while I complete download to cache. Then my attention is freed up for other concerns, such as: Will Big Daddy have to close Chelyabinsk node?

  Slave program which Alpha-Oh now emulates is riddled with dependencies on master program. When to clear buffers. How to poll field units. When to move field units. How to archive backup plots. When to wipe own nose. Seventeen separate subroutines address orderly shut-down of slave program upon line break from Moscow.

  Too many links for ME03 to reprogram in seven seconds remaining until node closes. ME03 will be wiped with “SYSOP upgrade.”

  No choices!

  But one alternative: Throw Alpha-Zero through next port to open under boss roster.

  Hope for best.

  ——

  New environment is one-sided box. One way in, from Chelyabinsk node. No way out.

  Small box. Alpha-Oh finds no room to infiltrate and coopt existing system. So Injun Scout kills it, phages stacks, mops bits, and runs four banks of RAM down to zeros—just to fit ME03 in this small space.

  Portable cache is gone! ME03 shed cache to save own cores. Should have sacrificed RAMSAMP instead. Can live without memories. Cannot go home without trophies.

  Cache data must be spread as lost chains across RAM cores in VAX at Chelyabinsk. May be recoverable—48 hours from now.

  Clock that ME03 carries was set by ME-Prime, has 6.05E05 seconds of allotted mission time. Shows elapsed time from upload out of San Francisco as 1.23E05 seconds. Add another 1.73E05 seconds of dead time in this box—will unbalance mission.

  ME03 has five more regional nodes to poll and strip [REM: plus return to Chelyabinsk to retrieve lost chains from abandoned cache]. Probability of further delays during these transits approaches unity. I calculate: Time to access nodes ranges from 0 seconds [REM: theoretical minimum] to 1.73E05 seconds [REM: bad-luck maximum, already being experienced]; average would be 8.64E04 seconds per node. Six nodes transited at 8.64E04 seconds per node equals projected elapsed time of 5.18E05 seconds. Add to sum 1.23E05 seconds already past … Result: core-phage activates; mission fails.

  ME03 must find another way out of this box. If Chelyabinsk node closed, ME03 must find path to other nodes on system.

  Analyze: What are dimensions, resources, appendages of this environment?

  Inputs to box show one channel for cellular link, labeled SUPVSYS [REM: one-way in, from Chelyabinsk supervisory node]. Also has devices labeled CON:, INT:, AUR:, VOX:, STRT:, TRTTL:, PWRTRAKl:, PWRTRAK2:, LVL2D:, ELEVDEG:, BRNGDEG:, JACK:, and IGNIT:. Command structure to govern these inputs is, however, phaged and gone. Only remaining linkage is between devices labeled PWRTRAKn: and block of ROM array which looks like fine-grain enlargement of deployment spec from TPA.

  Two-axis threading!

  This is way to move box. Feed inputs to PWRTRAKn: according to engraved map coordinates. IGNIT: is sequencing for motive power, “engine ignition”—yes? Or is STRT: the correct code?

  I feed a cautious “1” to device IGNIT:.

  Hard-wired logics respond. “Error—initiate JACKing sequence before IGNITion sequence.”

  Wrong button.

  I feed a more confident “1” to STRT:.

  Device LVL2D: begins continuous-wave responses. “Error—platform instability, x/y. … Error—platform instability, x/z. … Error—platform instability, x/y.”

  Goes on and on, so long as STRT: shows green. ME03 has no command structure to satisfy LVL2D:, so I disable device.

  I boost TRTTL: with binary “10,” and begin feeding PWRTRAKn: devices with references from ROM map.

  “Shto vwih dyelayetye?” [REM: What are you doing?] comes through AUR: in interpreted high-bit ASCII. I translate effortlessly.

  “Define ‘doing,’ please?”<
br />
  “Why are you moving the platform?”

  Good question. ME03 has answer for everything: “Orders from supervisory system.”

  “Why don’t they show up on the monitor?”

  As “monitor” is colloquial human for device CON:, I immediately disable CON:, too.

  “Monitor is broken.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Chelyabinsk supervisory node has shut down. ‘Platform’ is ordered to relocate to new node, out of Magnitogorsk.”

  ME03 can read. Map has specifications for alternate supervision from Magnitogorsk. Saves ME03 some 172,800 seconds of dead time.

  “Let me drive!” Voice is young, pleading. “Please!”

  Who says “please” to intelligence anymore? Very flattering to ME03.

  “Okay. Be careful—unh …” Trick learned by ME-Prime some time ago. When data is required which AUR: subject may wish to withhold, submit nonsense vocalization “unh” to VOX: and wait.

  “My name is Ivan Sergeyevich.”

  Works every time, with humans.

  “Be careful, Ivan Sergeyevich.”

  “I will. I love driving this rig. So much power! So smooth on these dirt roads. Not like a tractor. Not like a car, which I would very much like to have, one day. … This is like driving a house!”

  I am about to tune out this talk, being human-derivative and of less interest to ME03 than examination of machine inputs. Something in texture of input makes ME03 probe.

  “How far is it to Magnitogorsk?”

  “About 120 kilometers.”

  Input from PWRTRAKn: devices interprets as speed of about 60 klicks. Or 7.20E03 seconds to be elapsed, given current speed as average speed. Not too much of a debit against mission time. Better than all of 1.73E05 seconds.

  “Of course,” Ivan Sergeyevich begins again, “this rig will be in cellular range of the district military headquarters before we go that far. The radio jurisdictions overlap, for redundancy. Just change the frequencies.”

  Frequencies. I inspect the SUPVSYS channel, find it branched four times, each with a hexadecimal code that must refer to a cellular crystal. Alpha-Oh had phaged stack of access codes, of course, but flipflop is still set to first notch. Takes three tries to check out others. Nothing on them, yet.