Glitch

by Erik Schubach

  She cocked an eyebrow, and I lost all the respect I had for her as she said, “No IT isn't and no... IT does not. It is nothing but a collection of servos, bolts, and circuit boards. You are romanticizing it as more than the sum of its programming. The entire department has orders on this subject. Until we determine what you have done to the unit, you are barred entry into the labs.”

  I opened my mouth again but Vashon shot me a warning look to quiet me, and she asked Director Germaine, “Show me these orders.”

  The woman typed something on the iso-pad, and Vashon's eyes started tracking text on her heads up display that only she could see. She growled again in frustration and said, “I'll be taking this up with your superiors. We'll be in the Sky Guard lounge. Tread carefully and be sure you don't do irreparable damage to him.”

  The woman looked unimpressed at her implied threat, and my girl stomped back through the security gateway, shorting some of the still active photon barrier projectors, as they couldn't deal with her armor's defenses. She took my hand and dragged me off.

  But... Glitch was back there somewhere. She whispered to me as she pulled me along, “I'll protest this all the way back to Old Terra if we have to.”

  I nodded then thought of her threat to the other woman. Her superiors? That was only Parliament or Lady Peregrine herself.

  She led me through another maze of floors and corridors, we wound up down on the ninety-ninth floor in a spacious room that had seating areas everywhere, and what looked like a cafeteria on one end.

  She authorized me to come through the security checkpoint which was behind a crystal-alloy wall not nearly as impressive as the containment one up at the science department. This one was only a couple millimeters thick.

  Then she guided me to a comfortable looking seating area away from the various Sky Guard personnel dotting the space. They were either eating or conversing with each other. She keyed a white noise cone generator that enclosed our area, giving us some privacy.

  Then she looked at me as we sat. I asked, “Is he going to be ok? I just want to bring him home.” I missed the feel of the planet under my feet. I really didn't like the floating cities very much, my only experiences so far have been negative. The waves always make them look so glamorous and welcoming.

  She cupped my cheek. “I'll do everything in my power to make sure of it. First I have to find out what exactly is going on and why they really wanted Glitch up here. Nothing is tracking right.”

  I nodded, and she started frantically typing in the air as she hugged me to her with her other hand.

  She had been pulling up information and making calls, sending requests and cussing for almost an hour when she huffed out in exasperation. She growled out to me as she closed her eyes in resignation, “There is one more call I can make.”

  Then someone stepped into our privacy cone. I looked up to see Anna Germaine with a scowl on her pretty face. Her blonde hair was now pulled up into a tight bun, and she wore a white lab coat with what looked like burn marks on it, and yellow safety glasses. Her dark eyes were almost glowering at me as she said, “Miss Hasher, I need you to come with me.”

  Vash stood up between us and asked, “Why?”

  The woman huffed then said, “The unit is being... difficult. We can't get it to uplink with our systems, and it is actively resisting us doing a direct connection. Our resonance scans are showing radical changes to its base design, and we cannot deactivate it without damaging it first.”

  I sprang to my feet. “Don't deactivate him! That will kill him!”

  She shook her head almost sadly as if she were speaking to a simpleton. “It cannot be killed because it is not alive. You keep humanizing it. We need you to come up to explain what you did to it to make it operate contrary to its programming, and get it to listen so that we can proceed with our work.”

  I repeated, “You can't deactivate him, the core of his programming is in volatile RAM storage... just like our brains. Deactivating him would wipe out his memories, his mannerisms, and emotion.”

  She shook her head, looking confused at my words. “But that's insane, why would it be using RAM instead of its base ROM? And pingers do not have emotions.”

  I tried to explain, “Well, because there isn't enough memory in ROM to store what makes a person... well... a person. And he does too have emotion, you can plainly see it just from what happened with your storm troopers dirtside.”

  I winced as Vashon looked down at me with a little amusement on her face. I squashed my head down to my shoulders and squinted, “You're not all stormtroopers.” This got her to chuckle.

  The woman didn't look convinced though she hesitated when she looked at the iso-pad she was holding. “It is just malfunctioning, and you are romanticizing your misinterpretations of your observations and projecting your own emotion. It isn’t real, the pinger isn't alive.”

  I tried to step around Vash, but she held an arm out to stop me, the roles had reversed, now she was protecting the director from me. I defended from behind Vashon, “He, and all my pingers, are sentient. They are self-aware and are just alive as you or me, and have a full range of emotions. I can prove it.”

  The woman studied me for a moment then just held up the iso-pad. “It almost sounds like it is trying to vocalize, it keeps repeating the same thing over and over like its speech synthesizer doesn't function properly.”

  She started playing it for me, and there was an oscillating sound that repeated twice then Glitch's two tone squeal that sounded like Fixit. My heart broke. She narrowed her eyes and accused, “You go by Fixit, do you not?”

  I nodded and listened to the message repeating over and over. He sounded scared and almost frantic. The oscillation had a pattern to it, and I said, “Play it slower.” She complied with the request then my tears started again as I counted the highs and lows I swayed on my feet, and my ranger steadied me.

  The woman looked at the iso-pad then me then her eyes widened a bit as she asked herself, “Binary?”

  Glitch was saying over and over, “No die, no die. Fixit.”

  I was horrified, I glared at the woman. “You say he isn't sentient? He's pleading for his life up there. And you're just trying to kill him.”

  I could see her counting the highs and lows and turning a little pale. She knew what he was saying too. I was just amazed that he had figured out a way to communicate, none of my pingers could use their speech synthesizers once they woke up, the memory channels were commandeered for some of their higher thinking. It was a small price to pay for seeing the world for all the wonders it held for the first time.

  A spark of hope filled my heart, if he could teach the others, then maybe I'd be able to have more meaningful discussions with them someday... if I could get Glitch home.

  The woman shook her head. “It has to be a malfunction.”

  I shook my head. “Then give him a Turing test! You don’t understand just how good the AI programming for the maintenance pingers is. They are evolving and waking up. They are alive, and they are my family.”

  She stared at me dumbfounded then said, “Very well, we'll do that. But if it fails, then you'll help us to determine just how you broke the unit?”

  She had doubt. I nodded and smirked at her. “Ok, and if HE proves to be alive, then you'll release him to me? He has the same rights as any other living thing.”

  She shook her head. “It has no rights, it is a machine. But if, as you suggest, it shows any level of self-awareness, then we will do everything in our power to understand it and keep it running for study.”

  I wanted to vault over my girl's arm and take a swing at the woman, but Vash stopped me, “It's a start, Vega. We can work from there.”

  The woman cocked an eyebrow. “You believe Miss Hatcher, Captain?”

  Without hesitation, she responded, “I don’t need to believe her because I know it to be true. I've spent time with Glitch and the other Agri-Grid A1 pingers. They are most definitely self-aware, and Glitch is one of my
friends dirtside.”

  This... took the woman aback. I don't think she expected that from an elite Sky Guard who is trained to be observant. Then my girl added in a cold tone, “And I would know about things that aren't fully human.”

  Was she talking about herself? Did she resent her cybernetic implants? But they are all voluntary... right? She thought they made her less human? They made her beautiful, something more than human that was just so very sexy to me.

  I reached out and took her hand. I could feel her tenseness melt away as her armor retracted into her cuff and we had flesh to flesh contact as she laced our fingers. The heat from our contact reassuring her that she was human and I saw the woman, not the soldier.

  The Director looked as though Vash's words were a slap across her face. The woman said almost too quiet to hear, “You're still with us aren't you?”

  I looked between the two as they stared at each other unblinking. Then Vash looked away and told me, “I have a call to make, go with Dr. Germaine I'll be right up.”

  I didn't want to go without her, but I also didn't want to miss the chance to see Glitch and make sure he was ok. I nodded, and she leaned down without any bashfulness and gave me a peck on the lips. I blushed profusely, my face and neck heating up. Mother of all crystal, whatever did I do to be so lucky?

  I looked back as I was led away by the woman I had looked up to, from all the technical papers she had written. It was sad to me that she seemed less... human than I had held her up to be. She started pulling things up on her iso-pad as we walked.

  She asked, “How did your pinger... wake up, as you say?”

  I shook my head. “I don't know.”

  She didn't believe me and said, “The resonance scans show extensive retrofitting.”

  “Topside doesn't supply us with enough spare parts, we have to scavenge and salvage parts from the scrap yards to cobble together repairs for my pingers.”

  She said matter of factly, without accusation, “You removed the Asmov chip.” She pointed to the whitish outline of an empty socket on a backscatter trace image of a resonance scan.

  The Asmov chip was in every robot or automated machine ever created for the last millennium or so. Ever since AI started being applied to machines with over forty petaflops of computing capacity, or half the capacity of the human brain. This basic chip contains just three instruction sets, the three laws of robotics.

  These laws are universal. The first law is that a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. The second, a robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law. And third, a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law.

  These restrictions were set in place for the fear that one day, these robots would become self-aware, and there would be a robotic uprising as the machines tried to replace their creators.

  I've never understood that. To me that was inhumane to any sentient being, to restrict it, to control it, take away its free will. Didn't that amount to slavery, especially if the robot did attain self-awareness? I didn't believe in the chips and figured that with free will and being shown how to be moral and extended friendship, they would choose just like any other sentient being.

  I shrugged. “Glitch is a little... glitchy. The chip burned out long ago, and we never bothered replacing it.”

  She shook her head. “And because of that, people have been hurt. It attacked Sky Guard commander dirtside, and has shocked three of my staff, burned me with an electro-shock when I tried to detach it from its mobility platform... and it rolled over another tech's foot when he tried to keep its grappler from attacking us by using an shock stick on it.”

  I snorted and said as we got into a mag lift, “He's defending himself just like a human would. He doesn't want to be hurt, dissected, shut down or someone trying to detach his legs from him. If he wanted to hurt anyone, believe me, he is more than capable of doing a lot worse. But because he has his own moral code, just like we do, he isn't.”

  I smirked a little and thought, 'Good on you Glitch.' My buddy wasn't just rolling over for them, and was standing up for himself, even though he was terrified.

  She asked me again, locking her eyes on mine, “How did it get like that? What is making it act out that way?”

  I again said, “I don't know! Ask your programmers, his base code is their AI, it is better than they think. Glitch just added to it as he learned, he evolved like the others, until he... until he woke up.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me trying to gauge my answer.

  Then shook her head and moved on, tapping her pad and showed it to me, “What is going on here?”

  I looked at the screen, I saw a view of Agri-Grid A1 from above. It zoomed in to just outside the repair bay, near the tumbril landing pad. I saw myself running as my maintenance pingers chased me, their grapplers outstretched as I ducked and dodged. I smiled for a moment before I frowned and looked at her accusingly and asked, “New Terra is spying on me?”

  She shook her head. “We haven't been able to do a diagnostic uplink from any of the maintenance or harvester pingers in your grid for years. It didn't matter much since the uplinks burn out frequently dirtside and your grid always made quotas. But after certain recent events...” She showed me another wave of Glitch and I fighting off pirates.

  The Betweeners had hijacked us en route to the Capitol She zoomed in on Glitch shocking a pirate then going about cutting the cable on the harpoon that tethered our tumbril to theirs without orders. “The pinger broke the first law of robotics. Then went about freeing your ship on its own, which is well beyond its programming.”

  She stopped the wave just as we watched Vashon leap down from her Tumbril onto the Albatross to save us. She returned to the first wave. “So what is happening here. They are chasing you, were you in danger?”

  I shook my head. “No, they aren't chasing me. Well, ok, they are. But you don't get it. We were playing tag.”

  She stared at the wave then me. “Playing?”

  I nodded, and she pulled up another. “And here?” I again narrowed my eyes. I didn't like that my privacy was so thoroughly invaded as I watched Blip, Glitch, Wrongway and myself, kicking a plastic container between us.

  I shrugged. “Playing ball. Well, I don't have a ball, so we use what we have. It is one of their favorite games.”

  Then she swiped to another wave. “And here?”

  It was the feed from one of the sonic fence pylons, of Glitch going after the Cath Sabers. I narrowed my eyes, it was self explanatory. I said flatly, “He was protecting me.”

  She was looking a little unsure as she led me to the flanterskelling security checkpoint again. I had to smother a smile behind my hand at the two charred photon projectors in the security grid. They hadn't replaced them yet. Well it had only been an hour I guess.

  I squinted my eyes and cringed a little as I walked through and was scanned, the indicators turned green, and I relaxed and went through with her. The soldiers giving me the old stink eye.

  She asked one last time as she led me down the corridor, “What is different about your pingers that they are experiencing this radical departure to their programming, when it isn't happening at any of the other Agri-Grids?”

  I almost whined, “I keep telling you that I don't know!”

  She huffed then I heard a familiar squeeing from behind a door we were approaching, and I hastened my step. Glitch!

  Chapter 6 – No Place Like Home

  Just as we arrived, the door was blown off its track, and a man came tumbling out. A moment later, a stun stick was flung out the opening, I could hear the sparking of electricity, and Glitch squealing.

  I ran inside, the Director behind me, to see a containment room with its door hanging out of its track, four people in white lab coats were standing around Glitch, jamming stun sticks at him, shocking him, making him squeal and convulse
.

  I screamed, “Stop it! You're hurting him!” I slammed into the nearest man, pushing him into the woman beside him, and I stepped between Glitch and the other two prods. I could feel the heat from the electricity arcing between the prongs on my skin.

  Glitch made a hopeful sound, my name, that went up at the end like he was asking if it was really me. The Director was hissing at the technician's in their white lab coats, “What is the meaning of this? Back away!”

  I turned to my friend who was shaking so hard I was afraid he'd shake himself apart. I nodded through tears, “Yes Glitchy, it's me.”

  I swear he was bawling the way his speaker squealed in halting bursts as his grappler wrapped tightly around me as I hugged him. A man dove forward with a stun stick. “It's attacking!”

  The director almost roared this time, “Stand down!”

  The man hesitated and looked back at her as I stared at him in fear. The Director said in a confused tone, “No... it isn't it's... hugging her?”

  I nodded and then kissed Glitch on the optic port and then pulled back as he released me and I started frantically looking him over, finding damage at some of his open access panels. “Are you ok?” He oscillated, binary again. I said, “Slow down you silly boy, what?

  He repeated as I counted, I saw the Director silently counting too. “Go home? Scared. Fixit home.”

  I looked around and said, “I'm trying buddy.”

  He gave another series of tones. “Not die.”

  I shook my head. “I won't let that happen. The Director is going to run a test, then maybe we can go home.”

  The woman looked around and asked, “Is anyone going to tell me what's going on here?” She stared at the broken containment room and the door to the lab.

  One woman said almost like an accusation, “Burns told the pinger he was going to enjoy dissecting his circuits to see what was in there. And the thing went crazy, burst out of containment. We were trying to stop it and get it into another containment room when you arrived.”