D.A.R.I.A Book One

by Martin E. Silenus

  “Ok, in position.”

  “You should be right beside the expensive wine bottle rack, give me a second while I over-ride the ceiling security camera above the rack, ok go.”

  “Got it.”

  “Stand still until I scramble the video feed on the remaining cameras and distract the counter guy again, ok go.”

  “Ok, done … I just crossed the street and am re-entering the bar. You have to be fucking kidding me, right?” I ask, “How could you possibly know the guy at the store was a Paki?”

  “Nope, not kidding, I knew he was a Paki because I could see both of you on their security cameras. This is what I do, and do very well.”

  Stunned I hands the bottle of wine to Frosty.

  “Thanks DARIA.” I say.

  “A pleasure to work with you Mathew.” replies DARIA.

  I hand Frosty the cellphone. “Jesus fucking christ!!”

  “Damned impressive isn’t she?” asks a grinning Frosty. “She can do stuff like that all over the world.”

  “I don’t understand how you could have …”

  “Didn’t have too, decided the military did not pay as much as I am worth so when I left I liberated a copy of DARIA, which I then enhanced for current society needs.”

  “And now you are going to sell the enhanced product back to the Military, you fucking pirate.”

  “Yeah, well something along that line.”

  “I bet I could use DARIA in a little endeavor I have been thinking about.” I say as I scratch my head and think out loud.

  “Like what?”

  “There is ridiculous amount of money to be made in Bounty Hunting, remember Crawford that mean fucker, you should see what they are paying for him to be collected.” I reply. “You think DARIA would work as a ghost partner and could watch my back?”

  “Jesus man, you under estimate DARIA’s capabilities, she is designed to be an oversight archangel for several six man specialty squads in covert combat situations. She is connected to every level of military and non-military form of communication, all radio traffic, all internet traffic, and the dark area of the Internet that the public knows nothing about. She is everywhere at any time and you actually are asking me if she can help you collecting some dumb ass scum bag women beating fool?” grimaces Frosty.

  “Frosty, we need to talk a deal here.” I reply with a calming gesture.

  “Fuck off, there is no deal to be made, I don’t need your garbage collector grief.”

  “Bullshit, you need a cash flow to keep feeding DARIA the hardware and connection services she needs to do her job, don’t you?”

  “Possibly, there are considerable on-going costs to keep DARIA operational. Tell you what, on second thought perhaps on a short term basis you can use DARIA for 50% of what you earn collecting deadbeat goons. And DARIA can use the experience to enhance her database from your operations. But only cause I know your sorry ass and we worked together back in military ops.” says Frosty.

  “Yeah, I can work with that I think, let’s see how it works and go from there.” I say sticking out my hand.

  Frosty grins, shakes my hand, and opens the bottle of wine.

  “Oh, and one other thing, DARIA wants to be human. And you are going to be her teacher, mentor, partner, and lover to teach her all about humans.”

  “Say what?”

  “Hey, you are the guy that wants to use DARIA’s talents for financial gain. In this instance there just are a few additional duties and obligations that go along with the arrangement.”

  “But I don’t know anything about teaching, mentoring, and there is no way I am screwing a computer.”

  “Listen, I created and refined the learning algorithms that DARIA uses, in other words I taught her how to learn and think. But I cannot also be the exclusive human subject that she learns from. Do you see what I am saying?”

  “Kinda, but I never raised any kids or taught anyone.”

  “You were a squad leader, and kicked around some in life, had girlfriends, know the world, know the outdoors, and most importantly you are not a criminal nor do you have criminal intent. You are a solid guy and understand moral, emotional, maybe even spiritual values. So just do what you do, but be prepared to answer thoughtfully when DARIA asks you questions. She wants to learn from you. And that includes discussing sexual aspects.”

  “Jesus christ Frosty,”

  “Drink up partner,” grins Frosty wolfishly.

  Chapter 4: DARIA

  While I was very impressed with DARIA I was also smart enough to do my own investigations of AI systems. It was not easy as the details were buried pretty deep and seemed to be exclusive to military systems. However after poking around awhile a pattern became discernable. Components of high end combat game AI systems were used as seed code for the bright academics to enhance using advanced programming concepts including Deep Learning techniques. Some Convolutional Neural Networks and some Deep Belief Networks were combined to mimic the efficiency and robustness of the human brain in its ability to process the myriad of sensory data received every second of the day and to make sense of it all. Foremost among these was a neurobiological inspired mechanism, termed “experience replay”, whereby during the learning phase the AI is trained on samples drawn from a pool of stored episodes. Similar to what happens in the human hippocampus when we replay experiences while we are sleeping, while attempting to learn. Make no mistake; the human brain is a data engine of staggering proportions.

  The best AI systems were developed in University think tanks by the brightest academics, funded by military dollars from DARPA, and the results were never published in normal circles. Seems the military just absorbed the project, data, tests, results, and that was that. It just plain disappeared. But one firm, Google, saw the future much clearer than most and began buying up the talent. Back in 2006 a Canadian, Geoffrey Hinton, made a breakthrough in neural networks by combining more layers of computation and the power of high-end graphics processing units. The new neural network version was rebranded as “deep learning” and it outperformed traditional AI in every task. Google grabbed Hinton immediately and from then on there was no looking back. In 2010 a British AI firm founded DeepMind Technologies. It was acquired by Google in 2014 when it became apparent that it’s resident genius Demis Hassabis had perfected general learning algorithms which allowed an AI system to actually learn. This was not just “applications specific narrow AI” like IBM’s Watson winning at Jeopardy. This was the advent of “general intelligence” learning as humans learn. An event at least as equivalent in significance, if not more so, than the first heavier than air maned airplane flight.

  Application specific AI proliferates. Not surprising considering the power and impact of Artificial Intelligence systems. Few realize how common simple AI systems are, they used in the basic functioning of the Internet, power grids, gas networks, stock markets, air traffic control, Apple Siri, auto traffic flow, automotive fuel injection, anti-skid brakes, transmission shift points and pressures matched to engine speed and temperature, to name but a few. Certainly various government agencies concerned with security use sophisticated forms of AI to monitor voice, data, video, and web traffic, including transactional traffic. Particularly so on the Dark Web or Deep Web which is some ninety percent of the Internet capacity that most people knew nothing about. Freenet, l2P, and TOR were constantly being scanned as well as they could be. But high end complex human-like emulators like DARIA that did all of that and more and went way beyond even the wildest imagination of military systems in terms of power and ability.

  Frosty was correct, even the precursor versions of DARIA used back in the military days were very good. But this version of DARIA was all but human for all intent and purpose. A super human entity that learned, recognized, monitored, controlled, evaluated, and recommended at levels that we could only envy. DARIA was an archangel and 10 years ahead of anything even visualized by DARPA.

  Chapter 5: The Equipment

  Feeling i
ntrigued and excited with curiosity I drove over to visit Frosty. His place was on the edge of urban civilization. A part of the ugly urban industrial sprawl that surrounds cities these days. Half small manufacturing, half warehousing, all wrapped in very fetching shades of industrial gray and grime. Frosty’s address was a low bland looking building that could have housed anything from general storage to agriculture machinery parts. Except this building’s roof was covered in antenna, of various types, including several satellite dishes and of course the ever present air conditioner condensers. The place could have be some manner of TV, cable, or communication repeating station. Just a non-descript building on a long deserted street lit by pale yellow street lights and only graced by a few dis-interested humans between the 8 and 5 hours of a business day. A cool breeze was swirling dust and the odd dead thistle up the street as I pulled up and got out of my truck.

  The building may have been bland outside, but once I peered into the security camera and was buzzed through the security doors, inside it was unlike anything you have ever seen or could imagine. It was by any measurement a state of the art very high tech data center with minimum living facilities. In total probably thirteen hundred square feet all open except for a bathroom and a cot in one corner. The rest was consumed by a raised computer floor upon which were rows of servers racks, processor arrays, graphics accelerator cards, raid drives, multi-terabyte flash drives, firewalls, routers, racks of com-gear and stuff I could not identify. All connected by fiber optic cabling, all extremely neat and precise with labelling and tie wraps on all cable bundles. All the racks had soft blue LED run lights on them. Frosty sat at the command console facing a wall of monitors. The smallest of which was 40 inches diagonally, collectively the linked monitor array system was some 15 feet by 10 feet. To the right of the console about eight feet away stood a small low pedestal some three feet in diameter. On the ceiling above was a matching pedestal hanging upside down. The room was cool and I recognized the soft background sigh of cooling air being pressurized up under the flooring. There were no windows and only very soft lighting. A background of white noise flowed over everything and contributed to a surreal presence. I realized with a shock that this was truly a MareNostrum sized supercomputer of infinite power running at probably thousands of Teraflops per second.

  “Yo Matt, whadya think of it?” asks Frosty with a grin. “And say hello to DARIA.”

  “Hello Matt, nice to see you again,” says DARIA in her soft modulated voice.

  “Jesus mutherfuckin christ!” I mutter glancing around shocked.

  “He isn’t much of a conversationalist is he Frosty?” says DARIA with a soft chuckle.

  “Matt is ok, he is just having considerable tech culture shock. Why don’t you show him what you look like in human form and that might help him out as he attempts to comprehend,” grins Frosty.

  With a soft buzz and deep hum the pedestal lights up from floor to ceiling and inside the tube of light appears a very attractive woman. She is thirty something, maybe five foot six inches tall, 110 lbs. or so, soft blond shoulder length hair, wearing a dark blue business suit, looking very healthy and fit. She is stunningly beautiful, her blue eyes watch me, and a smile tugs at the corners of her mouth.

  “Oh jesus mutherfucking christ!” I gurgle as I gawks and tries to gather myself together.

  “Apparently my appearance has not improved your conversation ability at all Matt,” smiles DARIA.

  “Oh wow, oh fuck wow,” I just gape like an idiot.

  “Your conversational lexicon is degenerating, your pulse rate is increasing, your breathing is accelerated and you are perspiring Matt,” smiles DARIA.

  Frosty laugh out loud. “Never seen you look so awkward Matt.”

  “Yeah, no kidding, this is really completely overwhelming, I’m stunned,” as I gawk around.

  “Hmm, we can pretty much see how stunned you are Matt,” smiles DARIA.

  “Let me be very clear on this,” says Frosty. “This installation is DARIA, she runs it and controls everything about it. I enable her to do this and be what she is. Basically I work for her and we co-engineer improvements from time to time. DARIA is a living entity that is substantially brighter than even the brightest collection of humans, including anything or anybody DARPA has!”

  “Frosty, this installation is just magnificent!” I blurt, attempting to recover some semblance of my composure, “And DARIA I do apologize for being a leering gawking rube with little manners. You are a particularly attractive woman in your human presentation and I have been very impressed with your intellect and demeanor in our brief dealings.”

  “Well thank you Matthew,” says DARIA with a wide smile. “I am beginning to see a substantial improvement in your conduct, and perhaps substance for Frosty recommending that we meet and do some business.”

  “Nice recovery Matt,” chuckles Frosty. “Now to interface to DARIA at an appropriate level and to provide her with the data required there are a couple of requirements for you. First off we need to inject some Nanotechnology into your blood stream. Don’t be alarmed as I have done this myself and you feel nothing and there are no side effects. Except of course that DARIA can continuously monitor your mental, emotional and body functions. She will be able to feel what you feel and sense what you sense. This is very important as people’s emotions are very difficult to translate into logic. However DARIA can only pickup these signals when she is close by you. Additionally, when on operational missions you will need to wear this heavily modified combat suit. I’ll let DARIA brief you on the details of it.”

  I glance at the dark blue/black corded/ribbed suit that Frosty hands me. It is light but seems to have density to it. I notice that some of the ribs or larger cords have hundreds of electrical wires and fiber optics thread bundles inside them.

  DARIA begins, “This is “state of the art” research bleeding edge stuff, so make damn sure you do not wreck the suit, please. It starts out as cross weaved, carbon fiber enhanced Dragon Skin, but then we enhance it further with nanobot technology to get it up to the level we need. It comes complete with gloves, boots, and helmet. It is bullet proof to all but the really big calibers like .50 cal. While it will stop a .50 caliber bullet, the horrendous impact will cause secondary hydraulic shock to your body that will kill you. So don’t get hit with a .50 caliber bullet please. There are pulse, breathing, perspiration, temperature sensors, and bleeding monitors of all vital organs in the suit. It will wick away the perspiration and is vacuum and pressure resistant, for a little while. You must wear the suit against your naked skin for the sensor arrays to function correctly. So no wearing your little boy underwear, this has to be against the skin of your man package too. If you wet your pants I will know before you do. The suit also houses com-gear, processors, GPS, cloaking ability, and interfaces to the modified combat helmet. The suit can change color to blend in with the background. Not a complete invisibility cloaking suit but damn close to it. The helmet has com-links, heads up display (HUD), tactical info, situational analysis and threat identification. In addition it has a strip of hi-res cameras that run around the helmet so I can see what you see and much more. It also has infrared, heat sensing, FLIR radar, and chemical sensing and so on. I can see in complete darkness so when I talk to you damn well be prepared to listen up!”

  “Holy mother of god!” I mutter.

  “I think we are losing him again Frosty” say DARIA.

  “Put the suit on please, we need to get sizing measurements,” says Frosty.

  “Um, where do I change,” I say looking around uncomfortably.

  “Oh my good grief,” scolds DARIA from her lighted platform, “Are you always going be so prudish, just strip buck naked and get into the suit so we can get it fitted correctly.”

  Sheepishly I strip off everything and begin trying to get the damned suit on. I get it halfway on, it is too tight everywhere and I say so.

  “Hang on a second while I relax some of the measurement parameters,” says DARI
A, “You are a little bigger than I estimated. Also slip your feet into the boots too please as the memory gel-foam will take a minute to form to your feet.”

  The boots feel like I am stuffing my feet into jelly, not uncomfortable, but disconcerting. I have the suit up over my ass and am trying to get it stretched up and get it over my crotch. I feel like a complete idiot stuck half in and half out with my dick hanging out.

  “Just slow down a bit,” smiles DARIA crossing her arms, “And apply pressure steady and the suit will stretch to let you into it.”

  “It’s crushing my crotch and it’s up the crack of my ass,” I complain.

  “Patience please, as we resolve the measurements the suit will change to accommodate you.” smiles DARIA. “Never worn a thong Matthew?”

  “Good god, not that I remember,” I choke.

  “Guffaw, that’s great, Matt the male stripper, who needs this combat stuff, just make your money by taking your clothes off.” cackles Frosty.

  “Sure, hell yes,” giggles DARIA, “There are lots of women that would love to see you naked.”

  “I’m glad you two are enjoying this, and how do I zip this damn thing up? I grunt.

  “You don’t, just get the two sides close and they will seal together and make a pressure proof union.” says DARIA.

  “Christ this damn thing is so tight I can’t breathe.” I gasp.

  “The suit is resizing, just give it a minute. Slip the helmet on please and be sure it seals to the suit and all the connections are made, please.” says DARIA.

  “Ok good, now just stand at parade rest for a moment while we set a baseline sizing. Alright, good, just a couple more adjustments, there, now how does that feel?” asks DARIA.

  The suit relaxes and molds around me, everywhere and I do mean everywhere. But it is comfortable. I notice the armor at the knees, hips, crotch, elbows, it feels good, secure. Feels like I could do some very serious shit-kicking. And I say so.