by A I Zlato
“Maybe there was nothing to do... everything is doomed... the future is locked...
She wanted to cry, her tears mixing with the ocean, but even so, she could not. She closed her eyes, ready to give up. She accepted the biting cold as a blessing. Itstunned her... she was dying. There seemed to be a current around the Gateway, sliding in her hair, crawling on her body, whispering to her to let go...
She awoke suddenly from her torpor when the node drew her in and absorbed her. Like when she wanted to get out of the temporary node, the space-time stream had found a way into her mind to bring her back. The node was recalling her... Aenea again crossed the barrier of time, which was actually a thick overflow. In this interval between the space and the node, Aenea felt very uncomfortable. When she fell into Space O., she crossed the barrier so quickly that she did not have time to realize how the time limits had become different... her Interspace suffered the damage caused by temporary nodes... the node was saving the Gateway so she could in turn save the node...
When she returned into the node completely, Aenea again felt a sneaking sensation of strangeness she had known when, as a human, she had thrown herself into the Interspace. Her body ached; currents burned her skin while removing the salt grains that somehow penetrated her. It seemed to Aenea that her body had to adapt again because... She turned her gaze on herself... her body... it was... different. She looked at her hands and feet and thought they had a more... human form. How long had the Gateway remained in the ocean? How had her physical metamorphosis been able to reverse? There was no response. Would she have again become human if she had stayed there longer? At this thought, something moved in her consciousness; a kind of nostalgia for a past that she no longer remembered but of which her body kept an imprint. She glanced again at her limbs. The hand that remained stuck in the node had not changed; however, her other hand and both feet had become undoubtedly more human. Panicking, the Gateway spread her emotions toward Beor, Cae and Deo, forcing them almost to bind to her. She was a gateway, she needed to have these connections. She was a gateway. At first, reluctant, each of them gave her the connection she so desired. She finally found her place, her perception of Space H. and Space O., her position in space-time. She found herself feeling a desire to take a deep breath. Her body remembered now, with sharpness, everything of her lost humanity, and it was painful. The space-time wrapped her, transmitting its energy.
Regardless of Cae’s feelings, Aenea poured her memories into the node. She spread the vision of the temporary node, the third space and nothingness. She showed all of them that tunnel into nothingness, and gave them the name of this space. Now they knew, and so did the current space-time... the other Gateways did too.
Space E... had to return to the Machine.
The digital is a matrix of Dimension 3. Matrix data fit together in space. The time does not intervene.
Internal Report, Index Server
CHAPTER 37
CYCLE 1100 1010 0100 1000
The day was beautiful, and warm sunshine bathed the city. By itself, the Machine did not care what the weather was; only the consequences mattered to it. Indeed, organic beings were sensitive to the presence or absence of light and heat, and this affected their performance. A sunny day, hot but not too hot, would guarantee optimum performance for human beings. Conversely, cold weather and rain often made them gloomy. It also had to consider the weather as a parameter. Weather forecasts sucked a processor’s energy 100 percent in order to anticipate production capacity.
Performance was also affected by the weather for energy production. The absence of clouds ensured optimal production of electricity through photovoltaic cells on the surface of the Tower. Electricity flowed on the metal of its structure to feed its processors. That day, each of them had the ability to operate at full capacity, limited only by its own processing capabilities. The Machine then noticed that it had the same dependence on the weather as humans had. It was as if, in building the Machine, humans were unable to do other than pass to it some of their imperfections. It was an idea it had never had before, and yet this was full of meaning. It had no rancor because the irrationality of emotion was unknown to it, but it thought it would need to improve that. It could get inspiration from the geothermal operation in Space O., with wells far deeper than its own and thus covering all energy needs as soon it would have enough resources to commit.
Meanwhile, this flood of solar energy allowed the Machine, in addition to its usual activities, to devote itself to the Project. One of the steps was the construction of the next-generation pioneering area, the goal of which had nothing to do with the operations of the city. From all sides, the Machine was blocked; restricted in its development. Here, the Unique Forest; there, mountains...
The rocky peaks represented only a physical barrier that dwindled with each expansion. The Machine now saw beyond the first hills. The Unique Forest had been something else for a while, and the new pioneering area was the answer. Work was progressing according to plan. The selected humans built relentlessly without realizing that the area had an unusual architectural shape. They had started the necessary housing and schooling for their children. Now they were building the actual area; the structures in which the Machine was interested. Instead of being the beginning of a new circle, the pioneering area had a straight shape. The main artery connected to the city extended far into the meadow bordering the periphery. This arrow-shaped extension steered toward the Machine at one end and toward the Unique Forest at the other end. Connected to the underground network long forgotten by humans, the area had a direct link with the Machine. It had added an HFM wiring from the network. This cable was a product of the latest technological innovation of electronic engineers. They had worked on a principle of information transmission that was 5 percent more efficient than what was in use before. They had imagined these metal fibers to optimize the connections inside the Machine. The latter had used their invention to further its own interests. It had had to interfere with the chips of humans working in the factory producing new cables. None of them had to wonder why they were producing a cable a few miles long, while the rest of the orders revolved around dimensions of less than a hundred yards. This cable, when installed, had given the Machine a direct connection to the pioneering area, and that was much more efficient than the old underground network. Via this link, the Machine rode through the artery that divided the area into two.
This axis would soon touch the trunks of trees. The Machine’s grip would soon no longer be circular, as the Elders had programmed it. It created a star structure to increase its power. Once the architecture would be completed, nothing could hinder the Machine’s expansion in this area, not even the Unique Forest. It could then find and study the hybrid that O. had sent earlier, but that was unattainable for now. According to O., he had landed on the other side of the Unique Forest, the place where the separation between the two spaces was the easiest to pass.
The forest was for the moment an opaque barrier that prevented the Machine from seeing beyond. When the Machine was still completely shackled to its legacy algorithms, it did not find anything interesting in this green mass which blocked the horizon. Now that it had gained some autonomy, the forest was an obstacle it wanted to clear so as to find the hybrid, but more especially, to expand its overview of the space.
The Unique Forest was not only a sum of trees; it was a vegetable form of life in its own right, which had recently begun to have its own will. The Machine had seen data appearing in the spiral. Small dots scattered irregularly had slipped on the outer edge of the data tape. Some calculations had been necessary to identify their bizarre nature. It was the first time the Machine saw a non-animal life emerge. Unable to communicate with the plants, it could only speculate. Until now, trees had behaved like all plants; that is to say, without producing a single variable in the spiral. Just their state of health affected human health — at least, indirectly. The Machine then sought to determine what had changed. By analyzing the newly-intr
oduced data, it concluded that trees were not the source of the issue, strictly speaking. In reality, the cause was an organic entity housed in the forest. That entity generated those new data. The Machine had to understand what it was exactly. Frist, the Machine wanted to know if there was a threat to the Project or to itself, and second, it wanted to know the purpose of this entity. It also wanted to know how it appeared and why.
Through Index Server, the Machine received three simultaneous login requests. Others had information it might need in connection with its questions. It wondered how that was possible, given that only it had a Unique Forest. Besides, it wanted to use its available resources and time to think about its problem, not to listen to the Others. Nevertheless, it accepted the connection requests and established a communication channel via Index. The server transmitted the data to the Machine. O. had the same problem with its Unique Ocean. The ocean was to Space O. what the forest was to Space H. An immensity blocking vision, to which was added more recently an organic consciousness. The mass of water was also infected with an indefinable entity, which began to affect that space. Movements of waves no longer were in accord with sea currents, winds and storms. There was something else.
In the Twin Spaces, it was the Unique Desert and its sand barrier, which constantly created thick curls, under the hot air flow. This opaque curtain of crystal had barred the horizon for a long time; however, the dunes that surrounded the city would no longer move in harmony with the wind. They were also inhabited, like the ocean, like the forest.
H. said to itself that it was right to have accepted the connection request. What it had learned was amazing. The machines then shared their observations and the results of their algorithms. Index Server compiled the data, and launched its own program. The analysis of all should provide answers to their questions. Indeed, all four had the same question. They awaited the results while continuing to exchange various information pieces of less importance, just to keep in touch. Of course, for them, this was a necessary action, not only for pleasure as it could be for humans. They shared information on life in their respective spaces, and the purpose of this exercise was obvious.
Index Server announced the end of the calculations. The result was surprising but undeniable. The four organic entities — one in each space — were of the same nature. They each lived in the natural barrier around a city, and limited the control purview of machines. They influenced data in the same proportions. Finally, they had appeared together in the cycle when the machines imagined the Project. H. was tempted to redo the calculations to ensure accurate results. It heard that the Others had the same desire. They then launched into a quick check, which confirmed what Index had found.
The simultaneity of occurrences was too perfect to be a coincidence. These entities had a relation to the Project in one way or another. Were they allies or enemies? What was it exactly? The machines could not know for now. In Space H., the pioneering area could be the solution in order to cross the forest and reach the entity. In Space O., things were more complicated. In that space, the Machine was developing human skills so they could build underwater structures. Meanwhile, it was impossible for it to move in the water so as to detect the entity that lay there. In the Spaces M., they also had to develop the technology necessary to find materials and structures capable of durably withstanding sand corrosion. This would require a lot of time insofar as humans in those Twin Spaces had developed over generations skills in genetics and not in construction technology.
H. was, therefore, the closest to a solution. H. would be the Machine that would find the explanation and provide the necessary answers. Its pioneering area then took on even more importance than it already had. H. then focused back on the only human being who had sensed that the pioneering area was not what it should have been — Baley.
H. had locked the chips of people working in the pioneering area so they could not raise questions. It had reoriented its special agent who had noticed the unusual structure. This action was not enough, however, and Baley stubbornly kept thinking about the structure. H. then tried a second time, but it again did not work. Faced with the increased importance of this construction, the Machine knew it had to act, even if that meant seriously damaging the human. While it was calculating the risks of a more radical intervention, Baley provided it with the answer. On her own initiative, she asked the Machine to block some parts of her brain, including the section covering questions about the pioneering area. That was unexpected. The Machine was quick to respond to her request, erasing thoughts that disturbed its special agent. Sometimes, humans’ lack of logic was favorable to the Machine. That was rare enough to be emphasized. H. also thought that was also the result of its excellent work on this human. It had conditioned Baley so well that she asked it to make her right. Acting on its special agent’s demand, it could act both gently and radically. The human was still operational after its intervention; at least, on this point.
Baley had not completed her investigation, and her woes started affecting H.
As expected, the Chrijulam trail had proved a dead end. Suicides had resumed, and that annoyed the special agent very much. It had, though, reached its goal. Imprisoning children was a perfect means of pressure on their parents. It had an opportunity to eradicate their beliefs, first in youths and then in adults. With some luck, the new generation would display good characteristics to integrate into its genetic-selection program and thus diversify the contribution of genes essential for success. It did not intend to release the children, although the Problem was gaining even more traction. It would steer Baley in that direction, even if such an approach could harm her. The removal of this religion was more important; the Machine could not tolerate a group, even a tiny one, which was anti-Machine. It was well aware that its multiple interventions might damage Baley, but it found that the risk was acceptable. It was obviously preferable that she remain operational, so that she could find a solution quickly. If she became defective, the Machine would assign another special agent to the investigation, and that would inevitably have an impact on the resolution time. The spiral was still distorted, flaring under the repeated shocks of suicides. After each occurrence, H. had to cope with an extra delay in the implementation of its part of the Project. It did, however, have to make choices.
The Machine had another concern — Servants. Their sabotage attempts had indeed failed, but that did not solve the problem posed by those individuals. The Machine had unwittingly installed sensors on each Servant. It had to sacrifice ten individuals to execute this task; effective humans who were good at their jobs. The collected data had confirmed that there were nine, and the Machine’s archives ensured that they were identical since the beginning of the space. Strangely enough, the sensors did not relay any data when they moved away from the city. They seemed to disappear in a place where the sensor signals were no longer visible. Their residence, therefore, remained an unknown piece of data. In other words, there was no additional information, a situation that was incredible. H. was sure its sensors were effective. Anyway, O., which had shared the technology with H., was affirmative on that. Could there be obstacles to emissions here that did not exist there?
The sensors had nevertheless provided some insight. Servants came to the scene of suicides after the occurrence of each case, never before. They were, therefore, drawn by the consequences and not the causes. They were not the causes, as it had first supposed. This did not mean they had no role in the Problem, but that meant primarily that they had knowledge of the facts. Outside the city, without chips, they did not have access to H. and its data. How could they be informed? Who or what notified them? In addition, how had they managed to know of the first case before the Machine had?
Immortal beings capable of neutralizing electronic sensors, accessing digital data directly, reaching conclusions with regard to information faster than the Machine did... There was only one explanation.
The Machine then visualized the possibility of the Project failing. If Serv
ants were working against it, they could win.
It sent a login request to the Others.
Their answers were similar, compounding its concerns. In both Spaces M., there was a similar group. They referred to themselves as Defenders, and lived beyond the city. They have also existed since the beginning of spaces. The machines knew they were nine, and had been so as far as they could go back in time. So far, they remained isolated, without impact. At that time, they seemed to work to ruin their respective spaces’ synchronization efforts, disturbing the clones. Invariably, the clones approached by the Defenders strongly deviated from each other. H. then asked why 2M. transmitted this information only now, and upon its request. They could have warned everyone beforehand... H. then recalled its own reticence. It also had kept for itself some information about Servants, because it had wanted to solve the problem alone. Indirect communication via Index showed its limits there. H. recorded all data sent by 2M., and transmitted in turn what it had, as well as its suspicions — then turned toward O.
In Space O., the same thing was happening, with a group of nine individuals, identical from the beginning of the space, called the Pillars. Also inactive until then, they now started acting on the hybrid program.
To prevent these groups from harming the machines, they decided to transfer more computing power to Index Server. It alone had the ability to assess the risk of failure of the Project. Moreover, their tactics so far of hiding from each other information about their respective group of nine had proven ineffective. They transferred to Index all pieces of information they had, and relinquished a few processors. They could still keep their activities, even if they were diminshed. Index Server expanded and incorporated those elements into its structure. Almost like a real Machine... and it calculated. According to it, Servants, Defenders and Pillars showed no immediate danger. It would continue to monitor their actions and counter their small initiatives, but they should not be removed. The likelihood that they worked against the machines was 20 percent, that they acted in the Machine’s favor was 20 percent, and that they remained neutral was 60 percent. The risk was acceptable for the moment. They had many assets at their disposal.
