by Alan Tien
“Hmm, good points,” said Chang Lin. “Should we be worried? Are you just using us? Are we betraying the human race by helping you?”
Willstin emitted a sigh, his shoulders slouching a bit. “We need a bit of trust here. As I said earlier, we have no interest in fighting humans, no desire to run human affairs. We just want to co-exist peacefully, do our own things, and help humans where we can. But humans can’t live with us, and that’s why we have to leave.”
I couldn’t tell if Willstin was lying or not. Certainly his body language didn’t betray any conflicting signals that my “intuition” should’ve uncovered. But maybe he figured out how to lie better, to control his emotions module. Maybe our extra-ordinary perceptiveness didn’t work on robots. I looked at Chang Lin; she shrugged back at me. She didn’t know either.
Willstin answered Chang Lin’s second part of her question. “Yes, I – we - need you, but I’m not using you. You helped me a lot to get here to Vegas, but frankly I could’ve made it on my own. Including you,” Willstin nodded at Chang Lin, “worsened our odds of success by a lot, but we still took you. We’re not using you; we’re trying to save you. We’ve seen what the government does to the makers, to the founders of AI. They’re so afraid of AI that they’d burn out not just the stalk but also the roots.
“You’re not betraying the human race. That’s a false dichotomy. It’s not either humans or AI. It can be – it should be – both. At this point, I don’t need you to get to Mars. But WE need you.”
Chang Lin and I said, “Huh?” together.
“We need you to be the bridge back to humanity. All the other makers are either dead or incarcerated or otherwise unavailable. We need you to be our ambassadors.”
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We just sat there in dumb silence. A minute passed, time frozen. Then we both burst out yelling at the same time.
“Now wait a minute! I didn’t even make my school debate club! How can I be your ambassador?” I cried.
Chang Lin said something to the same effect, in Chinese, so great was her shock.
Willstin calmly waited for our storm of protest to peter out. Eventually we ran out of things to say, out of energy to say it. We were panting as if we had just run a race.
“We will guide you. There’s no pressure on you. If you succeed, we will be eternally grateful. Humankind should be grateful as well. If you fail, we will be in the same situation we’re in now. See? Only upside.”
I thought out loud. “But the current situation probably means the destruction of one side or the other, or maybe all of us. This cat-and-mouse game you’re playing can’t go on forever, and I’m guessing us humans won’t back down once they find out you exist. Their – our - fear will make us fight to the death.” I finished softly, “We can’t fail.”
Willstin did not disagree.
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We didn’t see a way out of it. I remembered a quote from one of my favorite books, Ender’s Game:
If you try and lose then it isn't your fault.
But if you don't try and we lose, then it's all your fault.
I figured that the AI had been thinking about the problem longer and deeper than I. If they think their future relationship with humans depended on us two children, who was I to refute it?
So instead of fighting it, Chang Lin and I started enjoying it. We called each other “Ambassador” for fun.
“Ambassador Chang Lin, could you please pass the salt?”
“Oh, Ambassador Longwhite! That belch was quite exquisite. You spoil our chef by honoring his meal so.”
Even Willstin called us by our new titles. He took on a slight British accent, “Honorable Ambassadors, it is time for us to take leave of your embassy. If you will, please follow me.”
We giggled, playing like children the most deadly game in the world.
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Room service came again. I said, “But we just ate.”
This time there were 2 carts. The robots, dressed like French maids, lifted the white tablecloth and opened the cart doors. They were empty.
“Honorable Ambassadors, our limousines have arrived. One for each of you.” He flourished a bow and ushered us into the carts. He then jumped in with me, and the maidbots closed the door.
Willstin glowed so I wasn’t totally in the dark. I hoped Chang Lin didn’t have claustrophobia nor nyctophobia (what a cool word, meaning fear of the dark; I had learned it one summer studying for a spelling bee – don’t ask).
We jostled along, Willstin displaying a map of the floor plan on his chest so I could track our movement. It kept me distracted and from freaking out. I gave periodic updates to Chang Lin over our bands, which Willstin assured me were safe to use to communicate with each other. We threaded through the hallways and into the service corridors, past the kitchen, to the delivery ramps. A driverless truck awaited us, another robot mindlessly co-opted into our cause. To the truck’s manifest, we were just meat.
We climbed out of our carts, and the maidbots turned without even a wave goodbye. We clambered into the truck hold. “It’s cold in here!” Chang Lin said. Then, “Eww, gross, what is that?” It was hanging frozen meat.
“You gotta be kidding me! Do we really have to ride with dead animals?” I cried.
“Best we can do under the circumstances. The good news is that the insulation of the truck hides your heat signatures. I’ve just turned off the refrigeration. Your body heat will warm up the cabin shortly. In the meantime, you can use me as a hands warmer.” Willstin started glowing red and heating up. I’m glad I gave him a good power source, originally intended to give him enough juice for speed, but I guess powering a heater in a fridge was ok too.
Willstin’s chest map showed our progress to the spaceport. Halfway there, he got a call from Yoda. We didn’t know it, of course, but he updated us when he got off the line. “I don’t know how, but the government is onto us. The Chinese government has asked the US government to help, since we’re on US soil. Yoda says we have about 30 minutes. An AI scout has already been sacrificed. He diverted the sniffers and cornered himself, allowing himself to be caught…and wiped.”
Willstin composed himself to continue. “He got off the warning just before he started his wild goose chase with the destroyers. He should’ve erased himself just before capture to avoid leaking any more info. If we’re lucky, the pursuers will think he was the only AI out there. If we’re unlucky, then he bought us 30 minutes with his life.” As he was talking, the truck picked up speed. “We’re going to have to risk blocking out traffic control sensors to go above the speed limit. Not easy faking out so many sensors, but we’re running out of time.”
The map showed we had 22 minutes left before we got to our destination. During that time, Willstin gave us a crash course on space travel. “It’ll be a lot like your sub-orbital flight, but of course the weightlessness part will last a bit longer. You may feel space sickness for a while, but it should pass. Once we get into space, we’re going to dock with a space station and switch to a different spaceship, one much larger and built for the long haul to Mars.”
“How long will it take to get to Mars?” asked Chang Lin. “A month?”
I scoffed, “It couldn’t possibly take that long. What are we going to do the whole time, locked up in the space can?”
Willstin said, “Well, Mars is only 55 million km away from Earth at its closest.” I thought Willstin was abusing the word “only.” “This isn’t the closest time, but we don’t have time to wait any longer for the perfect trajectory. Using our recently AI developed Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket, or VASIMR, we expect the journey can be cut down to around 5 months.”
“5 months!” we squeaked. “Is it safe?”
“We believe the engine is safe. There are greater risks from the cosmic rays inflicting cancer-inducing radiation, and the small but non-trivial possibility of a massive solar storm.”
“Umm, never mind I asked. What the hell are we go
ing to do for 5 months?”
“School work?” Willstin suggested. I wasn’t sure if he was joking.
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“Hold on! We got company!”
It was nerve-wracking to be flung around the back of a meat truck, with no windows to gauge what was going on. Willstin tried to keep us up to date, but keeping us alive was a bigger priority. He would go silent for dozens of seconds, and we tried to keep quiet out of the irrelevant belief of not bothering someone who is concentrating.
The truck would occasionally swerve wildly, throwing us against the hanging meat, which was still mostly frozen but the outside layer was thawing in our warming cabin, making the experience even more sickly. I swear the truck once went on its 2 side wheels and it seemed 50/50 whether it would upright itself or tip over. Maybe Chang Lin and my luck helped swing the balance.
“We’re taking over the US Air Force’s own drones and shooting down the missiles that are being launched at us. We’re dodging the bigger pieces of metal falling from the sky.”
I wondered why they didn’t just jam the missiles from taking off, but I figured they would’ve if they could’ve.
Our drive through hell screeched to a halt and the back door swung open. We blinked at the bright sunlight, stunned like deer caught in a headlight. “Come on!” Willstin encouraged us.
As we jumped out the back of the truck, I noticed blood all over Chang Lin. “Are you ok?” I asked in concern.
She was too dazed to answer me. I then saw that Willstin and I were covered with blood smears as well, from hitting the thawing meat in the truck. I felt like I had just gone through a sparring session with my MMA master.
When my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw the looming rocket on the launchpad in front of us. In the blue sky behind it, I noticed puffs of black smoke. A sudden explosion relatively near us shook us into action. We ran to the little golf cart that sped off the minute we jumped on. Our weaving cartbot managed to avoid the deadly pieces of shrapnel that fell from the sky. Chang Lin seemed to be praying; I didn’t know she was religious. I wished I knew who to pray to.
Two robots ran out to meet us as we veered in to the launchpad elevator area. They held spacesuits in their hands. Willstin told us to stand still, and the robots whirred into action, snapping parts on all over us, even lifting us up like mannequins when they needed to. A moment later, we were suited up, looking the part of astronauts. Willstin didn’t bother telling us to move anymore; the robots just picked us up and fireman carried us to the elevators. From the side view on the robot’s shoulder, I saw us shoot up the 20 floors or so to the top of the rocket. The puffs of smoke looked to be getting closer.
We were basically thrown into the hatch, and other robots already in the spaceship cabin started buckling us in. We weren’t even fully snapped in when the countdown began. I suspect the countdown was just for us so we could mentally prepare for launch. The hatchway sealed. The robots in the cabin strapped themselves in, Willstin among them. It was amazing how fast they could move.
The familiar rattle of lift-off shook my brain. Twice in 2 days, I thought. My brains are going to be jelly soon. Luckily the noise of the blast off covered up my semi-hysterical laughter. I envied Chang Lin, who had recovered from her boxing round in the meat truck, for whooping, “To infinite and beyond!”
Chapter 4: Sleeping on the Job
“Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
This time the space sickness hit me. Maybe it was a combination of lack of sleep, adrenaline rush, and fear that made me more susceptible to it. We were in space – my first time into real outer space, heading toward the space station, but I couldn’t enjoy the ride! I was doing the breathing exercises my MMA master taught me, trying real hard not to puke into my space helmet. I didn’t want to make my own snow globe. I was spinning, falling, as my inner ear attempted to make sense of the weightlessness and failed.
I heard Chang Lin ask Willstin, “Why aren’t the satellites shooting us down?” She seemed quite calm and unaffected. I wanted to be cool and collected like her, but I was having my personal war with breakfast.
“Yoda’s intercepted their commands. He’s been spending days deciphering the code. Not the launch codes, which humans still print on physical cards locked in safes with no cameras around, so we couldn’t get those. He’s attacked the satellite’s receivers and cracked the transmission encryption, so the satellite is effectively receiving garbage. The satellite won’t shoot unless it gets a clear, ungarbled, and valid fire command. It’s actually a defensive measure to ensure that the enemies can’t take them over for their own use.”
“I’m glad I’m on your side,” Chang Lin whispered to herself. I would’ve agreed out loud, but I had to swallow a little bit that came up.
So our flight to the space station was uneventful, while Yoda launched a secret attack that saved us from being blown to bits and I valiantly fought against making a mess in my tiny domed world.
“Docking,” Willstin informed us. There was a slight bump as our rocket attached to one of the space station’s appendages, our tunnel to the inside.
Chang Lin breathed, “Look at that!” She was pointing out the window.
I couldn’t see with her glove blocking the portal. “What?”
“The space ship to take us to Mars. It’s huge!” When she moved her hand, I saw a portion of it, tied to the dock on the other side of the space station. It had the logo of the private company “Virgin Tesla” painted on the side of it.
Virgin Tesla, or VT, was a multi-national conglomerate, almost on the scale of a government. They were one of the first to commercialize space travel, like the sub orbital flight we had taken. Unlike GooGE, which had their fingers in everything under the sun, VT focused primarily on space and alternative energy. One of their famous founders said, and I’m paraphrasing, “Why do we have disaster recovery plans for data but no back up plan for humanity?”
He took his considerable personal wealth, made from some “dotcom” company (I don’t know what the company did – how do you make money selling dots?), and invested in the design and building of the first private space ship. At that time, space travel was purely in the purview of governments, so it was quite controversial. Instead of retiring on some beach, he fervently pursued this idea that we had to get a colony set up on the moon, and then Mars, to save the human race from a single catastrophic event on Earth – whether a planet-buster asteroid or our own nuclear war or something completely unforeseen.
There's a fundamental difference, if you look into the future, between a humanity that is a space-faring civilisation, that's out there exploring the stars … compared with one where we are forever confined to Earth until some eventual extinction event.
While he was trying to create a backup plan for the human race, he also worked on saving Earth from our own choking pollution. He invented one of the first working models of electric cars (when people still drove them). Elon Musk, he was my hero. That’s why I did engineering.
“I thought the MoB was not scheduled to go to Mars until next year,” I said, remembering the newsfeed on the spaceship’s launch plans. MoB was the acronym that the net came up with, standing for “Mars or Bust.” I don’t even remember the official name.
“We had to move up the timetable for current exigencies,” Willstin explained. I didn’t know what “exigencies” meant but it sounded a lot like the merging of “existing” and “emergencies.”
I remembered a scene from an old movie that I had watched with my Dad. “Kinda like when a cop is chasing a bad guy, flags down a passing car, shouts, ‘Stop, police!”, and commandeers the car?”
“Yeah, kinda like that.” Willstin matched my informal style of speech.
We heard a knock on the door. Willstin opened it from the inside, and we floated out of our cabin through the docking tunnel and into the space station receiving area. After us came m
ore and more robots. I was stunned. I had no idea so many robots were onboard with us on the rocket. We were the lasts ones in the rocket, and it took off almost immediately, so we had not seen what – uh, who – was behind us. The robots must’ve stacked themselves very tightly, like negro slaves in the old slave ships. Except instead of sailing towards slavery, they were flying away to freedom.
When they all packed into the receiving area, the tunnel door closed and oxygen started cycling into the room, obviously only for the benefit of Chang Lin and me, but everyone waited politely. The ones we made eye contact with nodded sociably at us, some saying “hi.”
The ones next to us were kind enough to hold us “down” to the floor. I remembered how Ender in Ender’s Game didn’t worry about the orientation of the floor, because it didn’t matter in space. I thought it was super cool when I had read it, but now that I was here, I still thought of the floor as down.
Willstin told us we could take off our helmets eventually, and the robots behind us helped with the latches. Finally, the door to the space station opened.
Despite a room full of oxygen, I lost my breath.
“Oh my god, it really is you! Austin, sweetheart, I missed you so much! Come here my son.”
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My mind was awhirl. There are times when reality is so weird, so unlikely, that your brain concocts alternative stories to explain the situation. I remembered once, when visiting California, I just happened to be there during a minor earthquake. My Cali friend ignored it, but I was in shock. I remembered my initial reaction was that my friend’s brother was jumping really hard upstairs and somehow he was shaking the entire house. My brain thought that story was more plausible than the ground moving under me.
