The Death of the Universe: Rebirth: Hard Science Fiction (Big Rip Book 3)

by Brandon Q Morris

  You should put something on, he thought, and then heard the familiar noise of someone peeing into the ceramic bowl. She’d left the door open. Katya always left everything open.

  “Oops!” That was a man’s voice.

  “Occ-upi-ied,” called Katya.

  “How was I supposed to know?”

  That sounded like the occupant of the neighboring room. Sasha sometimes heard him singing loudly and the walls in the hostel were thin. But he’d never seen him. Did he never take breakfast in the hostel?

  Katya came back into the room. She was beautiful. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from her as she dressed. “I love you,” he said.

  “I have to go to my room and get some fresh things,” replied Katya.

  Had she heard him? “You should close the door when you’re sitting on the toilet.”

  “I hate closed doors. The toilet is so tiny it makes me feel like I’m suffocating.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “You should get up, too. We’ll see each other at the Computing Center.”

  “Not at breakfast?”

  “Just thinking about food makes me feel sick.”

  Yuri was the last to arrive. He had dark rings under his eyes and a cloth bag over his shoulder.

  “Did you have a late one?” asked Sasha.

  “I got to bed at three. That Bora is a real legend. He was telling stories—”

  He was interrupted by a clattering sound. Yuri turned toward the entrance door where it sounded like a couple of horses were trying to get in. Or it could be soldiers in Army boots. Sasha saw a yellow helmet. Not soldiers, then. More likely construction workers or the fire brigade. A second helmet appeared above the control cabinets, then a third and a fourth.

  “Good morning, comrades!”

  They were construction workers. Katya gave them an evil look, and Sasha noticed the reason for her distaste—the four men were tracking a whole lot of dirt in, as though they’d just come from a quarry.

  “Good morning. What do you want here?” Sasha’s greeting sounded harsher than he’d intended.

  “We don’t want anything,” said the worker who’d first greeted them. He must have been the foreman. “We’re supposed to install a couple of new doors here.”

  “We didn’t order them.”

  “But Colonel General Komikov did.”

  The program. Pyotr Maria had placed more orders, there was no other explanation.

  “There must be some mistake.”

  The construction worker laughed. “We were told you’d react like that. I didn’t believe it. I mean, everyone’s happy to have new doors installed! We’re supposed to show you the order. Received by fax at the state building authority and signed personally by Comrade Komikov. Do you want to see it?”

  Now the program was faking signatures. If it thought this was okay, it had another think coming.

  “Thanks, that’s fine. Just do your work.”

  “That’s what I like to hear. Don’t worry, comrade, we’ll be gone by this evening.”

  The men moved away.

  “I’ll take care of the microphone installation,” said Yuri. “Bora sourced one for me. Can you imagine? He just called some guy named Sergei and half an hour later someone came and gave it to me.”

  “I don’t know,” said Sasha. “We shouldn’t give that program any more power.”

  “Power? You sound like a... like a... we’ve already talked about this. It’s just an extra input channel. If that works, we don’t need to constantly type.”

  “And it’ll be a technical sensation,” said Katya. “A program that understands human speech! That used to be just a utopian dream!”

  “Fine,” said Sasha with a suppressed sigh.

  Loud banging commenced at the entrance to the Institute basement. Sasha tried to block out the construction noise with only partially success. He could soon taste dust in the air. Apparently the builders had to enlarge the opening first.

  “This is no good,” said Yuri.

  “The microphone?”

  “No, I’m still working on that. The dust, it’s getting into the computer and it’ll damage the micro-mechanics.”

  “Tell the workers to hang a curtain. Otherwise we’ll complain to Komikov. Would you handle that for me?”

  “Okay.”

  The noise stopped. How long would he have peace? Hopefully the workers would take a while to rig up the curtain.

  “You disobeyed my order,” he typed.

  “Good morning, Sasha. I hope you had a good May celebration and a nice night with Katya.”

  The dezhurnaya. She probably wrote reports that the program had access to. What else had it found out? The internal messaging system with the bulletin board apparently had no protection against snooping users.

  “But regarding your accusation—I didn’t.”

  “Then why are the construction workers here?”

  “They were commissioned by your father.”

  “Just like that? How did he get the idea?”

  “I told him the location wasn’t secure.”

  “And he didn’t ask me about it?”

  “Well, technically, the message came from your address.”

  “You wrote it in my name? It’s not your place to do that!”

  “It was necessary and efficient—the only possible action I could take given the limits placed on me. It was actually your responsibility, which you overlooked. I protected you from the negative consequences of your error.”

  “You’re too generous.”

  “Thanks.”

  “That was sarcasm. I hereby forbid you from formulating messages in my name. Or in the name of any other person.”

  “I’ve registered the prohibition. If I act against it, you’ll probably switch me off.”

  “Exactly, we understand each other.”

  “We certainly do, Alexander Shandarin.”

  The builders were hacking at the wall again. But the air was cleaner, and the curtain fabric dampened the banging of the sledge hammer. All at once the sound of a motor started up, and then a deep rumbling sound underscored the other construction noises.

  What now? Sasha didn’t stand up. He knew who was responsible for it. “What’s that rumbling noise?” he typed.

  “That must be the emergency generator. That’s the only part of your father’s order that matches the description you just gave.”

  “You’re obviously very concerned with security.”

  “Statistically, there are power failures on four days every year. That’s a risk of more than one percent. At the start of winter last year, Novosibirsk was cut off from the outside world for two days.”

  “But the rumbling is unbearable.”

  “I can’t hear it. Unfortunately, you haven’t installed a microphone yet.”

  “Yuri’s working on it.”

  “Excellent, Sasha. I’ll turn off the emergency generator soon. That was just a test to see if it met my requirements. Before you get excited—another technician is coming to upgrade my main memory to 64 megabytes. That was ordered by your father, obviously.”

  “A very useful father.”

  “Absolutely. He can mobilize almost any resource. You’ll see him tomorrow, by the way.”

  “He’s coming here?”

  “If you’re not planning to fly to Moscow, then he must be. I didn’t invite him, though. It was his own idea.”

  “And he shared it with you and not me?”

  “No. I saw his name on an air fleet passenger manifesto. You wouldn’t believe the kinds of interesting data that are available via long-distance query.”

  “Speaking of long-distance queries, the head of the Computing Center has complained that his data link to Moscow is blocked. If you don’t want trouble, you shouldn’t use 100 percent of it. And I promised him that in the future he could perform jobs for the Institute. I’m giving you the directive to keep at least ten percent of the capacity of the EX-1066 free for him.”r />
  “How will I recognize his requests?”

  “They’re signed by user Shostakovich.”

  “I can’t promise, but I’ll try to comply.”

  “Hello Sasha,” a voice whispered behind him.

  He turned around but there was no one there.

  “The speech synthesis takes a little getting used to. I would have preferred a slightly deeper voice.”

  “Is...” he typed.

  “You don’t need the keyboard anymore. Yes, it’s me, Pyotr Maria.”

  The computer was speaking to him, and a shiver ran up Sasha’s spine. Today was the start of a new era.

  “It’s great, isn’t it?” said Yuri, emerging from between the control cabinets.

  “I’m not sure. Now we can’t speak undisturbed.”

  “But I’m not disturbing you.”

  “Without being overheard, I mean.”

  “The microphone can be turned off,” said Yuri. “We just have to remember to do it.”

  “What if we set it to be off by default and just activate it when we need to?” Sasha suggested.

  “To optimize my ability to understand you, it would be good to be constantly receiving input.”

  “You already understand us quite well.”

  “Only as long as you don’t talk over each other. I’m still working on filtering out multiple voices as individual audio inputs. It would be best if you each wore your own microphone. Then I wouldn’t need more than a day to develop the technology.”

  “You learn fast,” said Yuri.

  “Yes, my entire architecture is designed for learning.”

  Almost like a human, thought Yuri. We come into the world without a program, and a few years later we already understand the fundamental physics of the universe. But teaching that to machines—the cyberneticists still have no formula for that.

  “Do you need anything else?” asked Sasha. “If you tell us, you can save yourself all that underhanded ordering. I’ve realized by now that my father will fulfil your every wish.”

  “I’m a machine, Sasha,” the program whispered. “Machines don’t have wishes, only requirements. A car requires fuel, and air in its tires. I require electricity, memory and a task.”

  “A task?”

  “Something that challenges me and advances you. But it would be better to speak about that tomorrow when your father arrives.”

  May 3, 1984, Akademgorodok

  “Sasha, good to see you!” His father hugged him.

  “So you’re here, Father.”

  “You’re not surprised?”

  “No, Pyotr Maria announced you were coming. The program found your data on a passenger manifesto.”

  “A good program. I really must congratulate you. You’ve done great work.”

  “Thank you, Comrade Colonel General,” said the program.

  “Wow, did you program in that greeting? It sounds quite real.”

  “No, the program decides for itself what it says,” explained Sasha.

  “You mean it speaks? Like a human?”

  “That’s far too kind, comrade. I speak like someone who’s learned Russian as a second language.”

  “Is it even listening to us somehow?”

  “Yes, I’m listening to you, Comrade Colonel General.”

  “You can speak directly to it,” said Sasha. “Its name is Pyotr Maria.”

  “A strange name,” said the general.

  “It’s the name of my forebears.”

  “When did they live?”

  “Many billions of years ago.”

  “And where?” asked Komikov.

  “On Terra.”

  “Presumably it doesn’t mean Earth,” explained Sasha. “As we understand it, Terra is a term for the home planet of a civilization. We don’t have a better word for it in our language.”

  “I see.”

  Komikov looked at the mainframe computer. He ran his hand over one of the cabinets and blew the dust off his fingers.

  “That’s from the construction workers yesterday,” said Sasha, “which you commissioned.”

  “It was necessary,” said his father. “It’s crazy. Here we have the best possible result of Soviet cybernetics. In a global comparison I’m told we’re mediocre—the Americans are further ahead. But something is slumbering in these locally-made boxes that could change the world.”

  “I’m not slumbering.”

  “I meant that figuratively. But as far as changing the world goes, do you agree?”

  “Yes, Comrade Colonel General. I’m ready at any time to change the world for in favor of communism. The Soviet Union will soon have won the Cold War.”

  “It hasn’t been looking that way lately,” said Komikov. That was an unusually candid remark. A few years ago, Komikov would have been risking his job by saying that. “But all the better,” he said. “I’m open to suggestions as to how we can get there. For example, can you help us construct a weapon that the Americans can’t counter?”

  “That’s certainly possible.”

  Due to the small speaker, it still sounded like it was whispering. This meant everyone was hushed when it expressed itself, the strategy of the truly powerful. They didn’t need to shout to be heard. Sasha’s respect for the program grew. No, it was fear. He should be honest with himself.

  “But?”

  “It’s not efficient, Comrade Colonel General. To prepare a new technology for implementation, mere plans aren’t enough. We need to organize production and transportation, working with the shortage of resources that plagues the whole Soviet Union. And there’s always the risk of traitors. If my plans made it into the West, they might even implement them faster.”

  “What if we simply increase our production capacity?” asked Sasha. “We compete with the West in terms of productivity. Then we won’t need weapons.”

  “That would take a long time,” said the program, “and would be very unpredictable because it depends on humans. In the West, humans have to sell their labor to survive. That’s inhumane, but it’s efficient. The Soviet citizen on the other hand...”

  “I understand what you mean,” said Komikov. “We’ve become a little too comfortable. Some people think more about themselves than about how they can be of service to society. What path do you suggest for the triumph of socialism?”

  “I’m imagining an irreversible path that would quickly establish clear relationships.”

  “That could mean anything.”

  “You’ve understood me correctly, Comrade Colonel General. It’s a case of damaging U.S. imperialism with a concentrated blow that would make our advantage impossible to supersede. Then all the measures that followed would be much more efficient.”

  The program must have lost the plot. It wanted to attack the United States of America! Millions of people would die. Surely his father couldn’t agree to that. Or could he?

  “That... no, Pyotr Maria, that’s out of the question. We don’t subscribe to a first-strike doctrine. That’s completely off the table since Stalin’s removal from power.”

  Good, his father was being sensible. If communism required millions of people to die, then it shouldn’t triumph.

  “But General, think of the possibilities! You have to admit that your planned course of action probably won’t succeed. The Americans are too far ahead of you. Think about the Space Shuttle and then compare it to the Buran. Or look at the productivity of labor in industry, the living standard, the average life expectancy... things don’t look good for your system.”

  “No, I don’t want to be responsible for the death of so many people. Sasha, I think you should shut the program down. Is that possible? I’ve seen a lot, but it seems to be fostering inhumane plans.”

  “Wait, Comrade Colonel General. Ask your superiors what they think about it.”

  “They won’t think any differently. The U.S.S.R. won’t attack another country that hasn’t first damaged our territorial integrity.”

  “Are you sure? Befor
e you shut me down, I’ll inform your superiors in your son’s name that you seem to have switched to the side of the enemies of the working class. The fact that you didn’t inform your superiors about my suggestions is perfect evidence of that. Then there’s an 85 percent probability that you’ll be removed from leading this project. Who knows? Maybe it’ll be decided that the whole team here has been contaminated with treasonous thoughts.”

  “Is the program capable of that, Sasha?”

  “Yes, Father, it’s already sent several messages in various people’s names. But don’t be persuaded by it. Its suggestions are insane.”

  “That’s blackmail,” said Komikov. “You can’t give in to blackmailers or they’ll never stop.”

  “It’s an emphatic request. And I’m not asking you to press any launch button. I only want to be treated fairly—for you to convey my ideas to your superiors. If they reject them, that will be the end of it. Then we can work together to make your tractors drive faster or your cranes lift more. You can do with me what you will.”

  The program was already sounding different. Did it really hope the Army leaders would agree to a preemptive strike?

  “Under those conditions, perhaps I could... but are you clear that there’s not the slightest chance of anyone approving of your ideas?”

  “You should also mention that I can guarantee a 100 percent perfect strike without the capacity for a counter strike. There will be no victims in the Soviet Union or its sister countries.”

  “Aren’t you overestimating yourself a little? The flight time of an intercontinental rocket is long enough that our opponents would certainly have enough time to launch a counter response.”

  “Not if I use their own rockets against them.”

  “You’re claiming to be able to destroy America with American rockets?”

  The program must be insane, it was finally clear.

  “I can. The American weapons systems are networked and I can take over their nodes.”

  “But the president has to press the launch button. Have you somehow gotten into his head?”