by Lee Bond
“By all means.” Babel gestured grandly, forehead beetling.
“I am inquiring about the AI-spheres aboard your previous vessel, the Romancing the Stone.”
“Oh?” That was an unexpected direction for the conversation to turn. Babel had to admit, he’d been expecting Salingh to start right with ‘where in the hell is Captain Gobbledygook Whatsisname’. Nevertheless, as unanticipated as this route was, the journey would still bring them to Nickels.
There. A tiny glimmer, a bit of a shift, a shiver that only Myco’s could see, and only when was answers were nearby. To her multitude of eyes, Babel was covered in dancing white spores.
Oh, this tiny little man was full of answers. “Yes. Prior to the theft of Stone by the … the theft of your vessel, there are precisely zero logged personality curves or power fluctuations. These are, as you no doubt know, primary indicators of sphere malfunction.”
“Weren’t any.” Babel smiled with all the friendly demeanor he could scrape free from his worried guts.
A tiny thing, that, the slenderest of threads. Every single SIR person had missed the, er, missing errors but this … mushroom-suit had latched onto it straightaway and it was going to take more than cunning words and rudeness to get her to go away.
Babel hung his head, ever so slightly. They should’ve spent the time falsifying data.
Once all the hi-how-are-you’s and ‘so, you totally crashed into that planetary deathzone with an indestructible spaceship you flew blind across the universe, hey?’ had been gotten out of the way, good old Garth had plopped himself down in front of their BattleSystem, fingers at the ready, digging through the attack-hardened machine in search of anything Specter had on both Mad Goth King Blake and Emperor-for-Life Marseilles.
Half a second later, that BattleSystem had erupted in a fury of sparks and energy the likes of which none of them had ever seen before, bathing Mercenary Captain Heynow in a shower of power that –according to lore- could kill anything. Some called it overkill, but was it really? AI spheres were one of Trinity’s main methods of controlling mankind, and It was very well known for going more than overboard when protecting pet projects.
Only, that hadn’t happened.
When the furious blaze of purple energy had disappeared, they’d watched Garth pick himself up, face brimming with excitement and pleasure. Their captain had given them a brief explanation about wonky implants, an even wonkier operating system and the need for more energy than existed in the entire Universe to power everything properly and that had, as they said, been that.
Then, because Garth was Garth and he had the common sense of a sugar-addled three year old, he’d just kept on hunting for data on two of the most elusive beings in the entire history of the Universe.
Spawning –as it turned out- numerous personality and coding errors in every damned AI he’d even stood near.
Shortly thereafter, their dear old maddened Captain Jibber Jabber Mcwhatsit had literally stolen their sweet ride from under them, neatly and handily dealing with their … special natures, like it was the sort of thing he’d been doing the whole time the rest of them had been working for Specter. He hadn’t even blinked. He’d just gone ‘yep, don’t show that shit off to anyone and if you do, drop the bodies quick and hightail it for the hills’. Then off he’d swanned, Mister Unsurprisable.
Leaving them to deal with a righteously –and fairly- choked Specter Commander, a feat that had –in due course- led to an unwelcome conversation with a talking mushroom who seemed like she knew more about things that should be left in black holes than was good for her health.
“Are you certain?” Tendreel asked calmly, pleased she’d finally managed to turn the tables on the unnerving Sinfell. Ordinarily she’d never know it, but since his lies were directly involved with the thread of the tapestry she was pulling on, the prevarication was easy enough to see.
“Yep.” Babel replied tightly. “Why?”
“The interesting thing about AI spheres, something that I’ve only learned recently as Mycogene-Alzant worlds do not use machine minds, is that they can theoretically remain operational forever.” Tendreel nodded at Babel’s feigned interest. “There are reports of space junkers coming across ghost ships lost in space for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years, with their AI systems still intact. Mad, or the artificial equivalent, but functional all the same.
Critical damage can affect the internal power supply, naturally; any cracks in the steel-VII sphere, which I learned is nearly impossible to affect, allows for energy to bleed out, which can kill an AI, but those situations are exceedingly rare. Then there are the security systems designed by Trinity. In times of need, an AI can protect itself by vaporizing anyone attempting to breach the sphere. I have read reports of entire Offworld facilities reduced to ash by an AI mind protecting itself.”
“What does this have to do with anything?” Babel asked, itching to end the call so he could get on the horn to Eddie right away.
“AI spheres do not die, Babel Sinfell, nor do all the minds on a single ship spontaneously and simultaneously develop glaring and critical errors so quickly. At least, not without help.” Tendreel focused all her attention on Babel, willing the part of her virus-like sentience that could see the tapestry to pull as many threads from the man as possible. “During the course of my work, I came upon an interesting yet seemingly innocuous pile of reports concerning a surprising amount of AI spheres going ‘mad’. As it turns out, this isn’t something nearly as uncommon as I imagined, or was led to believe, especially when one considers that a Dark Age is allegedly en route. It seems as though AI minds are tremendously sensitive to the inexplicable perturbations a new Age causes. If one knows where to look, one can effectively gauge when one is coming.”
“Pigeons down mine shafts.” Babel muttered sullenly. He wanted badly to end the call right that moment, but doing so would give the talking mushroom all the answers she needed and then some.
Tendreel looked the analogy up quickly, nodding as she digested the full meaning. “Just so. Now…These reports,” Tendreel continued, enjoying herself, “are of singular AI minds being affected, not whole swathes, as is the case with those afflicted by pre-Dark Age jitters, as it’s officially called. An AI here, an AI there. A random flux of machine minds going mad. And again, here, I have learned a new thing. Spheres driven mad by the impending arrival of a Dark Age all behave similarly. They try to drive minds around them insane, they try to build strange warships that defy human, or Offworlder, logic. But these other minds I found … they’re odd. Not insane. Fractious. Rebellious. They fit no standard model of artificial insanity.”
“That’s bad news.” Babel fidgeted a bit, hoping fervently that the Myco took the movement to be concern of mad machine minds, because an AI mind going mad was one of the absolute worst things that could happen to a civilized planet. Trinity tended towards nuked earth when an AI went off the deep end.
Tendreel ignored the stereotypical Specter downplay, choosing instead to keep pushing. “Indeed, it is bad news, Babel. No one can figure out what to with these minds, so they are being destroyed, one by one, launched into suns capable of absorbing the enormous amounts of energy being set free. During my efforts to understand how this all fit in together, I saw a pattern. It’s a thing I am very good at. I see patterns in places no one else can.”
Babel disguised a raised eyebrow as a sneeze, trusting the Offworlder’s otherworldliness to miss it.
Pattern recognition. Had to be why Politoyov had yanked this mushroom from Army. Had to be stellar-class pattern recognition, too, for Tendreel to locate those malfunctioning spheres. “Do tell.”
“At first, I thought I was seeing what I wanted to see, but then I came across reports of the Romancing the Stone’s spheres, and this led me to a string of similar drained or otherwise inexplicably dead AI minds spread throughout five ‘local’ solar systems. Most notably in Ha’Penny House, a FrancoBritish system which, until a short while ago, was home to
a deadly pirate named Scourge. Interestingly enough, there seems to’ve been a spate of similarly affected minds at the same time. Owing to the egregious crimes committed by this … Scourge, the true nature of this problem was entirely missed.” Tendreel gauged the motes around Babel and deemed she was on the right track. “Backtracking to the original … disturbed artificial intelligences and cross-referencing them with this more recent spate, it was enough to realize that there was a single, overlooked element.”
“Easy.” Babel drawled flatly. This talking Offworld mushroom had threaded together one miniscule thing spread throughout the vastness of Trinityspace and connected all of that to Garth. She probably already knew where the captain was right that minute. That being said, her demeanor told Babel in a thousand different ways his interrogator was looking for something else entirely.
Tendreel nodded again, missing the dark sarcasm in Babel’s voice. “All these other minds, these crazy-but-not-crazy AI minds have one thing in common. Garth Nickels.”
And there it was. The revelation that set the motes of the tapestry surrounding Babel Sinfell alight like a torch; the various threads danced and juddered around the human like fireflies, then just as abruptly, vanished altogether, throwing the Mycogene off.
“I miss him.” Babel said sorrowfully. “Trapped behind that shield in Latelyspace.”
“The evidence is incontrovertible.” Tendreel said stridently. “Going as far back as the Tynedale/Fujihara mining facility in Pluto, every mind he’s touched has been subtly altered somehow. Back and forth across the stars, wherever he goes, any AI sphere he comes in contact with goes … odd.”
“I wonder how they did that.” Babel mused. “How they threw a shield up around the entire solar system. Of course, we’re all used to these gravnetic shields around planets now. That’s old hat. But an entire solar system? No wonder Trinity’s got a bee in Its bonnet. I mean, the cool thing is if that was the same tech as we used everywhere else, Trinity should be able, to, like, just turn it off, right? Like flipping a switch, only It hasn’t, which means It can’t.”
Tendreel flailed mentally. The motes never disappeared until answers were uncovered, and there was still so much to learn about Garth Nickels; the few tidbits she’d gleaned talking to Sinfell amounted to nothing! “What’s he doing, Babel Sinfell?”
“Who now?” Babel drawled quizzically.
“You know who!” Tendreel shouted, slamming a musty fist against her console. “Garth Nickels. Wherever he goes, even if he does nothing, something happens. I know his history, Babel, I’ve seen the Specter footage. There is something else going on!”
“Can’t help you. We were attacked by an alien species, ushered to an escape pod, and sent on our merry way. No one in Armageddon Troop Too has had any contact with Garth Nickels since we dropped him off on Tenerek like, forever ago. He’s trapped behind that shield in … Latelyspace. Probably until he dies. You know. You’re there. That’s the purpose of the war, isn’t it? To get Garth Nickels? Wellp, I’ll be seeing you.” Babel twiddled his fingers politely farewell to the frustrated mushroom and severed contact. Tendreel Salingh’s outraged face disappeared from the screen in a flash.
The conman-turned-Specter considered Tendreel’s revelations.
One, she was working directly for the Old Man. That was either good or bad, depending on precisely what Old Man Politoyov intended on doing with any ‘shroom-derived information; while it was damn hard imagining Politoyov working against Nickels, it was a damn fool who imagined he knew everything.
For all he knew, Politoyov had sicced Tendreel on Nickels to arrest him, or to keelhaul him, or to force him to shut the Latelian Systemic Shield down. Anything, anything at all.
Two, Tendreel was more loyal to Politoyov than to Trinity. And that was assuming the Myco even recognized the machine mine as her kind’s penultimate ruler; many Offworld species corralled by Trinity barely tolerated the AI’s governance, and quite a few operated under the delusion they could end the inconvenience of the machine mind’s presence whenever they chose.
That misplaced loyalty of Tendreel’s told Babel all he needed to know about the Myco’s true path.
Three, a blind man could see the Myco already knew Garth’s location, and that she hadn’t bothered telling Politoyov. Babel couldn’t help but chuckle at that; poor Tendreel Salingh, with her special insight into the Universe, had been snared by Garth’s gravitational field. Like it or not, she was trapped now, same as the rest of them.
Still and all, Tendreel represented a threat to Garth, and so things had to be done.
Most probably, those things would skew towards the ‘unpleasant’.
Babel sighed miserably. Some days it just didn’t pay to get out of bed. He placed a call to Eddie and prepped himself for some more grief.
***
Captain Eddie Tekmara eyed the foppish EuroJapanese Yellow Dog Elder distrustfully. The pale mafia leader was as supercilious and as upper crust as every Elder they’d ever had the misfortune of meeting. Eddie knew how to handle the attitude, but the arrogance was beginning to erode the stoic Telgar’s impressive calm; their seven foot tall weapons master had his arms crossed tight and high on his broad chest and was rhythmically tapping fingers across one broad forearm. Cianni, catching her husband’s mood, was humming tunelessly under her breath and –from the way one finger kept twitching- doing her best not to call an airstrike down on their position.
They needed a break from negotiations.
Eddie admitted he’d acted less than charitably towards their fine host by shouting something in Japanese, the Yellow Dog Elder allowed as how he himself had failed to be a proper host by alluding to the sexual preferences of Specters.
It seemed like everyone was cooling down while simultaneously warming up to the idea that maybe there were things they could be talking about that didn’t involve inexplicable animal relations with parents and dubious aspersions as to sexual orientation.
A soft beep in Eddie’s ear brought a stifled curse to his lips. “Seriously?” he whispered.
“Sorry, Cap. Important call.” Babel sounded anything but sorry.
“We’re in the middle of a thing, here.” Eddie surveyed the Yellow Dog Elder’s cadre of bodyguards; they were showing extreme interest in the sudden –and strictly forbidden- communication. The Elder –naturally- was choosing to ignore the intrusion, trusting in his guardsmen to take care of the matter themselves.
Eddie didn’t like the guards. Not the tiniest little bit.
Loaded down as they were with weapons and stuffed to the tits with the kind of illegal body mods that drove Trinity batshit, any confrontation would get damned messy in a hurry.
The longer courteous protocol was ignored, the antsier the Elder’s enforced calm would become, the twitchier the guards would get …
Still, Babel was no fool. He wouldn’t break radio silence without good reason. “What is it? And make it quick. This Yellow Dog Elder is pretending he doesn’t know anything about why we could possibly be here.”
Babel snorted in Eddie’s ear. “Riiiiight. Anyways. Um. ‘Has anyone seen my paddle?’?"
“Really?” Eddie hung his head. Some days it really didn’t pay to get out of bed. He’d thought dealing with these asshat Yellow Dogs was bad. If Babel was looking for a paddle in the middle of all this…
“Really. And, uh, it’s the really really big paddle. You know, the one we need most?”
“Fuck me sideways.” Captain Edio Tekmara hung his head further before straightening his head. “Can you … can you get down here? Without, um …”
“Cap,” Babel interrupted sunnily, “you’ll be lucky if I don’t show up at the hotel you guys are quartered in owning half the damn planet.”
“Okay, fine. Just … be discreet.” Motion from the Yellow Dog Elder suggested he was growing tired of pretending he wasn’t so righteously pissed off that the Emperor-for-Life would hopefully manifest in the room and smite everyone not Yellow Dog into greasy,
rude atoms. “Gotta go. Avoid … everything. Get here.”
“Roger.” Babel ended the comm.
Eddie walked back to the table, rubbing the back of his neck. They’d been prepared to deal with anything concerning Garth Nickels to come back at them from corners other than Commander Politoyov ever since the man had magically reappeared in their lives.
It was just that it appeared to be happening a lot sooner than expected. Or desired.
Eddie smiled graciously at Alistair Katainn, suppressing the urge to bash the smugly aristocratic EuroJapanese gangster in his face. He cast surreptitious glances at Tel and Ci, took a deep breath, and just went for it. “The funny thing, Elder Katainn, about being stuck on a river without a paddle is this…”
16. Hell’s Bells
“Why in the hell are we wandering around the goddamn countryside?” Garth griped miserably. From what he remembered of Great Britain before The Dome got clapped on top like a teapot lid, their ultimate –well, Barnabas’ suggestion for such- destination was no more than two hundred miles away.
Christ, he could practically jog there. One legged. Pulling a horse. Backwards. And that was including time taken out to visit the various dilapidated, abandoned, forlorn, forgotten, haunted and otherwise never-visited buildings, structures, statues and cemeteries that were literally everywhere except wherever it was they were going!
Barnabas rolled his eyes. “Would you like the list in alphabetical order this time instead of by preference?”
“Neither.” Garth wrinkled his nose when he thought of Barnabas’ reasons for the meandering route they were being ‘forced’ to take.
Reason one was the smith’s trade itself. The old bastard refused to deviate overly much from the route he’d been taking through the area since –the way he went on about it- since the Dawn of fucking Time itself.
The ex-Specter wanted to dismiss his traveling companion’s reasons, but really, attempting to deny the man a living, well … that made him some kind of colossal dick.
