Singularity's Ring (38 page)
Read Singularity's Ring Online
Authors: Paul Melko
The sand grabs at our feet.
Keep the tractor between us and Leto,
Strom sends.
Strom sends.
Behind us the roar of a gas-powered engine descends on us.
Running in the sun pulls the sweat from our bodies, dries the pads at our wrists and the pheromone glands on our necks. Each step is a struggle. Manuel puts Eliud down so that he can run on his own.
The vehicles behind us have reached the tractor and stopped. We have seconds before they round it and see us. Manuel leads us behind an outcropping of rock, something to hide us from the direct sight of those chasing us. Then we turn toward the outbuilding. It is a hundred fifty meters away.
Fifteen seconds,
Strom sends.
An athlete can run that far in fifteen seconds.
Strom sends.
An athlete can run that far in fifteen seconds.
We’re not athletes,
Meda replies.
Meda replies.
Then I’ll give us twenty.
Perhaps if we had been on a track or dressed for it, we could have done it in twenty.
The engines gun. They have spotted us. Strom risks a look. The lead vehicle seems closer than the outbuilding.
Meda first,
he sends.
She has to open the door.
he sends.
She has to open the door.
Twenty meters, ten, the vehicles are almost upon us, and then there are steps leading down into cool darkness.
“Snake!”
But it is more scared of us than we are of it. It hides in the corner, hissing. Manuel catches its neck when it lunges and throws it into the sand.
Where is the interface connector?
Meda cries, half-panicked.
Meda cries, half-panicked.
Here,
Quant replies, pulling the wire from the wall.
Quant replies, pulling the wire from the wall.
Meda does not hesitate. She jacks in and light floods the darkness as a doorway opens into the elevator, into the Ring. We rush in and the door closes behind us as feet echo on the metal steps outside.
We inhale dust in the fluorescent brightness.
“Wow,” Eliud says as he looks down the hallway that seems to disappear into forever. Lights flicker on the entire length of it as we stand there.
Meda rubs the back of her neck. It itches, and we want to rub the back of our necks in sympathy.
We made it,
Manuel sends.
Manuel sends.
We hear pounding on the door outside, weak, metallic kicks, but the door is too thick for any words—surely curses—to reach us.
It doesn’t feel like it,
Meda replies. It is because Moira is outside and we are inside.
Meda replies. It is because Moira is outside and we are inside.
“Hello, Apollo. I wasn’t expecting you.”
The voice is all around us, an aural effect. Manuel notes the speakers in the walls.
We remember the voice on the Ring when we entered at geosync. That voice had had no intonation, no inflection. This one is different.
“Nor I you, whoever you are,” Meda says.
“In fact, I was preparing to die.”
Melodramatic,
Quant sends.
Quant sends.
“Who are you?”
“I’m the Ring AI.”
“Leto’s?” Meda asks, and we are suddenly scared that we have given ourselves over to Leto anyway.
The voice laughs. “No! Not Leto’s. Leto’s AI has been trying to get in. But I won’t let her.”
“Her?”
“‘It’ seems too impersonal.”
“You are an ‘it,’” Meda says.
“So are you, if you add up your sexes. Your males cancel your females.”
“Only at the moment.”
“Oh, right. Your Moira is missing. Where is she?”
“Out there.”
The AI is silent. “Leto and his AI are out there.”
“Leto jacked her.”
The AI is silent, perhaps thoughtful, if that is possible with an AI. Then he says, “Follow the tunnel. I’ll fix some dinner.”
We start walking, Eliud running ahead then running back, his feet echoing down the hall.
“I’m glad you’re here,” the AI says as we walk.
It’s creepy,
Meda sends.
Meda sends.
Let it talk,
Strom sends.
Strom sends.
“Go on,” Meda said.
“You see, when you visited a while ago, you bootstrapped me to intelligence. You’re my parent in a sense.”
“What? How?”
“Without some guiding intelligence, AIs are just so many qubits and so much glass tubing. Up until you arrived, I was just a big computer, keeping station. After you arrived, my goals changed.”
“You … imprinted on us?”
“In a sense.” The hall had been sloping down for many meters, now it is sloping up again. We see a door not too far away. We have traveled perhaps half a kilometer.
“Why did you say you were going to die?”
“I’m weak. I’m not fully sentient. Well, rather, I am nearly sentient, and when you connect I am sentient. Right now I’m more station-keeping than station-thinking.”
“You sound sentient.”
The tone of the AI changes to a monotone. “I can sound like this if you like. Inflection, intonation, and grammar are tricks. I’m a big computer. So I’m glad you’re here because I hope you’ll jack in again.”
“No.”
“I understand. I was just hoping you would before I died.” We reach the door, which swooshes open into a bright, sunlight room. We are in the elevator base proper, underneath a doomed ceiling. The last of the day’s light is blasting through the windows. From somewhere is the smell of meat roasting.
“I’m hungry,” Eliud groans.
Me too,
Manuel sends.
Manuel sends.
Where is Leto?
“Is there an observation deck? We’d like to see Leto.”
“If you jacked I could show you.”
“No.”
“All right. This way.” The voice moves up a ramp. The design is similar to the Amazon elevator base, with swooping ramps instead of steps. The décor is different here, however. There are no glass statues hanging from the ceiling. The furniture is more curved, and there are more couches and settees.
We follow the ramp and come to an observation balcony looking across the desert. Leto’s army is a ragtag mass of old vehicles, some clustered around the outbuilding we’d entered and some still chugging across the desert. There appears to be activity of some sort at the outbuilding.
What’s he doing?
Trying to get in.
“Can he get in?”
“Not physically. But he’s not trying to. His AI is trying to scale my defenses.”
“Will it—she—succeed?”
“Eventually. She has humans to help her think. I have no one.”
There is whirring behind us. Small serving carts are rolling up the ramp toward us, brimmed with steaming food.
“Dinner,” the Ring AI says.
Strom’s stomach growls loud enough for all to hear and Eliud laughs. The two of them serve themselves, then guiltily pass plates around heaped with chicken, broccoli, and rice.
“You’re maintaining the hydroponic gardens on the Ring?” Meda asks.
“That’s all I’ve been doing for a long time, maintaining. It’s good to put this all to use.”
We eat in silence for several minutes, then Meda says, “You’ve been alone a long time. We don’t really know what happened at the Exodus. Do you?”
“All of those records are stored within me,” replies the AI softly.
“What happened?”
“They died.”
Silence again.
There was no Exodus,
Meda sends.
Meda sends.
We knew this, deep down,
Quant replies.
Quant replies.
They’ll find nothing at the Rift.
It’s all been a waste of time.
No, of course not.
“Why?”
“Undamped feedback loop. The communication protocols within the Community were too fast. There was no way to slow a cascading … virus, I guess, is as good a
word as any. They lived and died by Moore’s Law near the asymptote.”
word as any. They lived and died by Moore’s Law near the asymptote.”
“They all died.”
“And my predecessor died, with no human intellect to drive it.”
“Except for Leto.”
“Leto was in stasis. His brain wasn’t working.”
“But he woke up and jacked in, didn’t he? Were you triggered by him?” We wonder if this AI is as warped as Leto is.
“He never jacked. He left by an elevator and never came back.”
“Where did he get his AI?”
“The hardware is not uncommon. The Community used portable AIs for many things.”
“He assumed he could always upload it, didn’t he?” Meda asked.
“He did.”
“Which is what happens when he breaks your defenses.”
“It will be the end of my world and yours.”
Pessimistic fellow, isn’t it.
“Tell us what happens if Leto’s AI gains access to the Ring.”
“Don’t you wargame? He owns the high ground forever and utterly. The Ring has nuclear warheads and biological agents. The warheads are attached to gliders. They free-fall and then deploy a parawing. They can land anywhere within thirty degrees of the equator. With a little bit of thrust, they can be directed to any location on the globe.”
“Nuclear bombs? Destroy them now!”
“I can’t. Only a sentient AI can do that and only with human orders. I’m not sentient. I’m only a hair over seventeen Elizas. That’s an order of magnitude too low.”
“How many warheads?”
“Too many.”
Strom has finished his dinner and is staring out at the desert. The sun is on the horizon and dusk is nearly on us.
Moira.
We join him at the window, the four of us, not quite whole. Eliud watches us from his chair. Without Moira, the consensus is awkward.
We need to get Moira back.
We need to reprogram her.
Leto wants access to the Ring.
We can’t trade that for Moira.
Meda:
Why not?
Why not?
We can’t! Moira would say we can’t too.
Meda rips her hands free. She stands with folded arms at the window. The sun has set at this altitude, but the terminator is slowly crawling up the elevator shaft.
“I see you are distressed,” the Ring AI says.
Meda says nothing. After a moment, Strom says, “Leto has Moira. He wants access to the Ring.”
“Yes, I see the dilemma, but giving Leto the Ring will only gain you what you want temporarily.”
“Leto has used an interface jack to brainwash her. Can you help us recover her true self?” Strom asks.
“He has modified the interface to stimulate the
nucleus accumbens
. This is possible, but was never done by the Community.”
nucleus accumbens
. This is possible, but was never done by the Community.”
“And if we get her back?”
“I don’t know the long-term effects.”
Meda turns back to us.
Is she lost?
We need help.
Call Colonel Krypicz.
Meda says, her voice controlled, “Can you get us in contact with the OG?”
“No. I have no open ports for fear of Leto’s AI.”
“There are jacks at all the outbuildings,” Meda says.
“Those are firewalled off. We are safe, though Leto’s AI is dangerously close to getting inside.”
“How close? How long do we have?”
“Hours at most. Less, if he amasses more of a human presence out there. His AI is already at nine hundred Elizas.” The AI pauses, and then adds, “I could do better if you helped me.”
“No,” Meda says.
“How?” Strom says, and Meda glares.
“You’re a quintet,” the Ring AI says.
A quad,
Quant sends.
Quant sends.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Meda yells.
“You’re a quintet with an interface jack. You’re already a communal being with multiple members. You have the capabilities to damp perturbations in the group mind with consensus. You have a biologically slow interface and controls against error.”
Quant is looking off into space. A star has caught her eye.
She sends,
Dr. Baker said that pods were created by the Ring AI.
Dr. Baker said that pods were created by the Ring AI.
The first Ring AI,
Manuel adds.
Manuel adds.
Now we know why.
To stop the Exodus from ever happening.
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