> “...many a spaceship were left adrift after using a hyperlane gate due to the destruction of their AIs. It took almost a hundred Lokreian years of experimentation to find the limits of what level of AI that the Caretakers allowed to pass through the gates...”
>
> ~Professor Ksurgabash Uhengosh’Gihi
>
> Introductory lecture in Artificial Intelligence 101 at Unity University
2687-February-26 - Inside a Mysterious Asteroid (Roddea System)
I woke up confused. I was not sure where I was, or when I had gone to sleep. Everything was a blur, even my own name. At first, I could not open my eyes, because it hurt badly from the bright lights if I tried to do so. Even with my eyes closed the light was still a bother.
My body ached, all my nerves seemed to be firing on all cylinders, sending back feedback.
I had never felt this weak, not even after getting beaten up. ‘What happened? Where am I?’
“Good, you’re awake,” a voice said from nearby, making me instinctively cringe and curl into a defensive position, readying myself for pain. Pain that did not come. It was only then that the voice’s characteristics registered with me. I tried to open my eyes, but all I saw was blinding white light, nothing else. So I closed them again.
The voice was androgynous and clearly synthetic. As if it was created using a voice box or something similar. The synthetic nature of the voice made a recent memory flash through the fogginess of my brain. Standing in front of the door when it opened, revealing a robot or android. Being shot.
“Don’t be afraid, I mean you no harm,” the voice continued. Its statement in complete disagreement with my hazy memory.
“Why did you shoot me then?” I demanded without thinking about the possible consequences. In my defence, I was still groggy and very much confused.
“I stunned you, in preparation for the surgery,” the voice stated.
“Surgery?” I exclaimed, opening my eyes despite the brightness. Immediately I regretted it. New pain lanced through my retinas into my head, making me shut my eyes again.
“Is the light bothering you?” the voice asked. Despite its artificial nature, I heard a tinge of compassion and confusion in its voice.
“Yes, does it need to be so bright?” I grumbled.
“It’s barely—wait, how are your species calculating light?” the voice started saying, turning into a mumble. “Oh, right. Lumen. Let me just calculate. There. It’s barely twelve lumens.”
“No one remembers what that actually means,” I said with a long sigh. I would have to call up a comparison sheet. I found that I could not. My SynC was somehow blocked from accessing the information network of the nearby station. Which should be impossible.
I had been in the asteroid fields many times, even the poor quality emitter the station was equipped with was easily able to reach out to one astronomical unit. Which meant I had been kidnapped and been brought far away. At least one hundred and fifty millions kilometres.
While all this went through my head, the voice answered, but I barely registered its answer, “Using the knowledge stored in your Cores, I would estimate it to be between a nightlight and light from a candle.”
“Where have you taken me?” I demanded.
“Deeper inside the facility.”
“Impossible, my SynC can’t access the public networks!” I almost screeched.
“SynC?” the voice asked confused. I could almost imagine the owner of the voice tilting its head in confusion.
“Wait—” I exclaimed. “Candlelight? Impossible, you have the light so bright in here that it hurts. It’s brighter than the lights on my crafts, and they’re powerful enough to light up the Deep Dark.”
“Ah, I see, you call your Cores for SynCs, short for Synaptic Computers. And the reason you cannot access this public network you talk about is that the facility is shielded,” the voice explained in a tone that made it sound like it was conveying common knowledge to an idiot.
“And no, the lights are not that bright. It’s just the settings of your new Core—SynC is messed up a bit. If you turn down the light amplification, you should be able to see. I guess the Core takes a bit longer to analyse the optimal setting for your race than I thought.”
“What do you mean new SynC?” I demanded. ‘Did it cut me open, forcefully extracting my old SynC? Replacing it with something more sinister? Wait, my parents’ SynCs!”
My hand shot up to my neck, feeling around for the two SynCs around my neck. I found nothing.
“Wha—” I started asking.
“Worry not, while I repossessed the extra Cores around your neck, I’ve uploaded the data to your new one,” the voice interrupted me to say.
“Impossible! No one can copy data from one SynC to another. The only reason why they didn’t dissolve when I touched it is that I was their heir. Anyone else touching them would make them vanish. No one can interfere with the Primogenitors’ tech. And what do you mean new SynC? The Primogenitors only give one SynC to each person,” I groused. This conversation was giving me a headache, it went from one subject to another, and then back again.
“Primogenitors? Oh—the Masters. Of course not, the Masters made them tamperproof for Servants,” the voice said with a synthetic snort.
‘Masters? Servants?’ flashed through my mind. I wanted to voice that out, but it was time to slow the conversation down, so I would stop getting whiplash. I would file that question away for later.
“Okay, let’s start over,” I said, taking a deep breath. “My name is Xandros Weaver. Am I a prisoner?”
“My original name has been lost in the haze of the past. You may call me Custodian, because that is what the Masters called me, and it’s my function.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said, forcing some friendliness into my voice. The way it talked, and what it told me, sent my mind reeling. “Can we do something about the bright light?”
“As I told you before, it’s the light amplification that has ramped up the brightness. The functionalities of the Core was designed for the past generation of Servants. It seems that its default settings are not compatible with the new generation,” Custodian explained.
I tried to do it, but I could not access the options like usual. I said as much. “Apologies, but I cannot access the menu.”
Custodian let out a sigh. “Give me a moment, I’ll try to convert your shabby interfaces and programs from the inferior Core.”
“You call the SynCs for Cores?” I asked.
“It’s you that calls the Cores for SynCs. You misunderstand the purpose of them, they are not Computers implanted in your brains, which needs programs to control. They’re the Core of the Masters’ technology. With it, they can control all their technology, as if it was an extension of their body. The Core is capable of so much more than what you use it for,” Custodian countered. I guess he had a point. Not that I really understood the difference.
“If I read your facial expression correctly, you doubt my words.”
“More that I don’t understand,” I replied, a little fearful of pissing it off. The way it was talking, I was beginning to suspect that it was a synthetic lifeform. Maybe even a real Artificial Intelligence.
“When fully integrated with the Core, one is able to control the Masters’ technology as an extension of their body,” Custodian explained, before falling silent.
In the silence, with the waning panic, something occurred to me. I had not been alone when I had been shot and taken prisoner or whatever the heck I was. “Nova! What did you do with Nova?”
“I take it you refer to the Masters’ Descendant?”
“I don’t know which circuits you’ve gotten crossed, I’m asking you what you did to my cat!” I shouted at my captor.
“Yours?!” it suddenly snarled. “You presume to own one of the Masters’ Descendants! I should kill you, but the revived Master will soon straighten out your errant thinking.”
It snorted. “Preposterous. Thinking he owns one of the Masters’ Descendants. The outrage.”
I had scurried back, hitting my back at a hard surface at its angry reaction. “Look at the rat, trembling in fear. Here, I just hobbled your Core with the modifications that had been made to the old one. Just so you know, you’re using the Core wrongly.”
“Okay,” I whispered, trying to access the settings again.
Lo and behold, it worked. I immediately found the settings for light amplification and turned it down, until I could see again.
“I don’t understand why you would cripple the Cores with your modifications, the Masters made a perfect tool for you,” Custodian kept grumbling.
I found myself in a large room. Well, large compared to what I was used to. It was probably ten by ten metres, and four metres high. It looked to be made from the same Primogenitor metal that cred sticks, the gates, and the SynCs—no, Cores, were made from. Their blackish tint made the room seem darker than it ought to be.
There was a single light source, a blue gentle light, in the middle of the room. It seemed like it was being emitted from a beam with two metres in diameter, going from ceiling to the floor in the centre of the room.
My view of the beam was obstructed by the shadowy figure looming above me. Because of how the light fell, I could not really see the features of the figure. So with a single thought, I amped up the light amplification again. Of course not as much as before, only a tiny bit. A feature that was much more potent than it had been earlier.
Finally able to see, I got a look at what Custodian looked like. I was very surprised by what I saw.
Earlier when it had shot me, I had not gotten a good look at it. Like everything else in here, it was made entirely from the grey with a blackish shine that indicated the unknown alloy or metal favoured by the Primogenitor.
Custodian had a definite humanoid build, but it was not modelled after a human.
It was about three metres tall and double as wide as me. While being a biped, it had digitigrade legs, ending in what looked like paws. A flexible tail swished back and forth behind the robot/android-thingy. I was slightly glad that the creator had not included genitals or mammaries in the design.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
I noticed the hands were paws as well, unable to hold and use a blaster. I wondered how it could have shot me then. Almost as if reading my mind, or maybe just my puzzled expression and the fact that I was staring at its hands, Custodian’s wrist suddenly opened up and a barrel of a blaster unfurled from it.
After a couple of seconds of me staring at the weapon, it retracted again, which shook me out of my stupor. I continued my examination of Custodian and came to its head. Its head was definitely inspired by a feline. Not the cuddly house cat feline, but the predatory big felines that I had only seen in shows. It had ears, whiskers, and everything.
“Are you done staring at the magnificence of the Masters’ work?” Custodian asked snidely. “It’s almost time for the reborn Master to come out of treatment.”
“Who are these Masters you keep talking about?” I asked, feeling slightly less intimidated now that I could see.
“The ones who created me, the Cores, and the credstick you’re carrying,” Custodian answered, sounding a little exasperated.
“You mean the Primogenitors? The ones who built the hyperlane gates? There is one here?” I asked with excitement. Despite finding several larger and many small remnants of the civilization that had created the gates, none of the races knew what the Primogenitors looked like.
There were almost as many theories as there were stars, or so it felt. The Holy Terran Empire claimed that they were humans. The reptilian Lokreian Hegemony claimed they were lokreian. All the races had crackpots that claimed to be descendants from the Primogenitors.
Then there were those that claimed the Primogenitors to be a highly advanced artificial lifeform, which was why the Caretakers destroyed any sufficiently advanced AIs. They did not want the competition.
There were hundreds, if not thousands, of theories of them being magical benevolent creatures that we could not perceive because we were all spiritually stunted. There were just as many, if not more, that went the other direction where they were evil bastards that thrived on our misery.
“I guess you can call them that,” Custodian interrupted my musings. “And no, there isn’t one of them here. Or there weren’t. You brought one of their Descendants, which is allowing one of them to be reborn.”
“Brought here? Me?” I mumbled when it suddenly dawned on me what it said. I shot to my feet, bellowing, “Nova!”
I stepped to the side, so I was able to see the entirety of the beam. On a small pedestal in the middle of the room lay Nova.
“Nova! What have you done to her?” I screamed and stepped forward, just to be stopped by a metallic paw.
“Another step, Servant, I will be forced to kill you, even if you are to be her Groomer. I swear to you that she is fine. She is better than ever. She’ll eventually grow to be one of the Masters,” Custodian said. The forcefulness and certainty in its voice sapped out all fight of me. I wanted to go to Nova, but I did not want to die either.
If I died, then all the struggles and pains I had overcome would have been for nothing. However, could I trust that she was fine? And what was all this talk about rebirth?
‘Time to get some answers,’ the rational part of my brain said. I took a deep breath and stepped back to the wall. I looked at Custodian who had taken a more relaxed stance. The contrary part of my brain took control for a split second, I calculated whether I could make it around the robot, and make a dash for Nova and then to the exit.
My facial expression must have betrayed my thoughts because Custodian decided to kill any plans I was making. In less than a second, it moved to the other side of the room and back again. It was so fast I barely registered it.
“I would not recommend it, Groomer,” Custodian said. “I’m physically superior to you in every way.”
I gulped, “I’m just trying to understand what’s going on here. What are you doing to Nova?”
“Seeing that you’re a bit slow on the uptake, I guess we should start from the beginning. So listen well, because I’m not going to repeat myself,” Custodian snarkily said. I just nodded. “This is a last resort revival location for one of the Imperial Princesses, in case her primary and backup revival locations were compromised. Since the princess has not been here in—well a very long time, the worst must have happened to the Empire.”
“You don’t know what has happened to the Prim—Masters?” I asked softly. The robot sounded so sad.
“No, I don’t even know what happened to the planet we’re on, this—”
I quickly interrupted it, “We’re not on a planet, we’re inside an asteroid. There are no planets in the entire system.”
Custodian tilted its head in what looked like confusion. If an AI could be confused. After almost a minute, it finally said, “I see. There used to be eleven planets and moons in the system. Since you keep calling the Masters for the Primogenitors, I can assume that there is little of their Empire left?”
I shook my head. “Except for hyperlane gates, a few facilities, and ruins, there are no signs of them. We don’t even know what race they were. Nor that it was an Empire. All the known races in the universe were all contacted roughly at the same time in their technological evolution. We were given a lot of schematics for advanced technology.”
Custodian hung his head. “I see. It seems that they found an enemy that they could not beat. It’s the only reason why they would have left their Servants unattended.”
“You keep calling us Servants, what does that mean?”
“The Masters was the only race to evolve to the point of gaining sapience on their planet. A race that shares many genetic markers with the animal you brought here,” Custodian started slowly. “They evolved over the ages. They built marvellous things, invented technologies that you inferior races clearly have yet to catch up to, despite getting help from the Masters.”
I let the insult slide, not rising to the provocation. I let Custodian move on with its explanation. “With the advent of the Cores and nanites, the Masters reached a point where they no longer needed to make things by their own hands. At that time they started to genetically modify themselves, returning to their roots in physical appearance. The more like their ancestors they looked, the more prestige they gained.
“However, they soon found that they needed someone to pamper them. Instead of demeaning some of their own race to such lowly futures, they created the Servant races. Evolving them from other primitive species would be more precise. Such as your race which evolved from some primate species.”
“You’re wrong, humans evolved over millions of years without intervention from an alien species,” I objected.
“You might have evolved from a seed planted by the Masters. The Masters had mastered their genetics. They were basically immortals, living forever. They could still die from accidents and incurable diseases, but the rich and powerful Masters would then revive in a clone of theirs,” the robot said with an indifferent shrug.
“Is that what you’re doing to Nova?” I demanded harshly.
Custodian shook its head. “No. This is not a real revival, it’s not creating a clone of the Princess. This Descendant of the Masters is too weak to handle a full revival. Nor could I be able to initiate one if she had been. This is a location for rebirthing her Majesty in a sense. The Descendant will have her genes upgraded by the nanites. She’ll be implanted with a Core that contains some of the memories of the Princess. Not all.
“Which there are several reasons for. One is that she’s too small and primitive to handle a Core of sufficient size. Two, this is only one of a hundred locations the Princess hid parts of her memories in case her enemies managed to gain the upper hands.”
“So many questions,” I mumbled. “So you’re saying that Nova will contain the memories of the Princess. Will they override her personality.”
“Not at first. It’ll be a rebirth in the true sense of the word. Instead of being a sentient being, Nova, as you call your Mistress, will gain sapience. She’ll be like a newborn at first.”
“Sapience?” I asked dumbly.
“Yes, your Mistress will no longer be a mere animal. If I had a choice, I would not implant the Princess in such a lowly being. Alas, it has been too long since the Princess last visited, and the information you brought, make it clear that the Empire is no more,” was the answer Custodian gave.
“You said something about enem—” I started asking.
Custodian cut me off before I could finish, “We’re running out of time. In just a few moments the Mistress will wake up. I need to inform you of your role as her Groomer. A Groomer is the highest position a member of the Servant race can aspire to. You’re the only one who is allowed close to the Princess. Until she’s grown up, your Core will even be able to reign her in, if she becomes unruly.”
“What?”
“Stop interrupting, Groomer. Listen closely. This is important. For her to grow up she needs two things. To grow up physically, she needs more nanites. There were millions of repositories across the universe where the Masters hid nanites usable by the entirety of their race. However, there are ninety-nine other facilities like this created by the Princess. They’re tailor-made for her genetics.
“At the same time, each location will also hold a portion of her memory, which she will need to unlock the full potential of her inheritance. You might run into another incarnation of her. Don’t mistake them for friends, you need to kill them and take their Cores, so she can absorb the memories. Don’t trust others of the Imperial family, unless the Princess vouches for them.”
“I don’t understand,” I said bewildered. “Please, could you explain it to me slowly, and with more details.”
“There is no time,” Custodian repeated.
“What do you mean there is no time?”
“As soon as the Princess wakes up, the destruction of the facility will be initiated. You need to be outside the antimatter explosion’s blast zone before that.”
My eyes bulged. Antimatter explosions were no joke, luckily it was extremely hard to create, and the hyperlane gates destroyed any ships carrying it. The explosion that had happened on the Moon had destroyed a tenth of its mass and knocked it off course. Coursing a shift in weather and tides, making Earth a very uncomfortable and unpredictable place to live.
Slightly panicking, I asked, “Can’t you stop it?”
“No,” came the simple answer.
“Are you programmed not to?” I questioned harshly.
“I’m not an artificial life form. I’m nothing like those traitors. I’m one of the Eternals, the Princess entrusted a huge responsibility on me for my long service in life,” Custodian replied with disdain and pride in its voice. As it was talking the front of its torso opened up revealing its innards. A glass container, or something that looked like glass, contained a clear liquid. Floating in the liquid there was something that looked like a human brain.
However, it was not the fact that the robot was controlled by an organic brain that made my eyes open wide in shock. It was what was underneath it. Beneath the container was a glowing blue crystal. It was the size of my little fingernail.
I had only ever seen pictures of it. However, there was no mistaking it for something else. It was qoblynesium. The most valuable material in the universe.
Custodian reached down and took it out. Grabbing my hand and placing it in it. My hand was trembling so much that Custodian had to close it for me.
“Take it. You should be able to exchange it for some credits at the hyperlane gate. It should set up you and the Princess. She’s waking up now, the count down to self-destruction will happen soon. I’ve included as much information as I could in your Core. It’ll unlock as you integrate with it. Tell the Princess that I performed my duty with honour and happiness,” Custodian said, sounding relieved.
Before I could say anything else, Custodian died. It suddenly stopped all movement. The liquid inside the container started swirling violently, ripping the brain to pieces, turning the liquid red. When there were no discernable pieces left, the container shattered. The process took less than five seconds.
While watching with wide eyes, I had unconsciously put the small piece of qoblynesium into my pocket. The priceless robotic chassis that had contained Custodian collapsed on the floor in front of me, with a metallic boom.
The boom was followed by a weak and confused meow.
“Nova!” I shot to my feet and saw that the beam of light had vanished. Only the circle in the ceiling emitted a bit of light. On the pedestal, Nova was looking around, clearly confused. I immediately scooped her up.
As she was removed from the pedestal, the doors that I had not known were there, opened. The warning of Custodian, and the fact that I wanted to get the hell out of this place, was enough to set me running out the door.
I had expected everything from a long windy corridor to a trap-filled one. What I did not expect was running directly into the cavern where my rented mining craft was.
Nor had I expected to see a new tunnel had opened up. One that was lit up and looked to be straight and leading directly out into the Deep Dark.
Nova was trembling a bit in my arms, I wanted to stop and console her, but I doubted we had time for it. So I continued to the craft where I quickly put her into the carrier. She was so weak that she did not even complain.
For the first time in my life, I ignored the official and my much extended preflight checklist. The moment the canopy was closed, I started the engines. Two seconds after the canopy’s closing, I was steering the craft into the tunnel at full throttle.
While it had taken a long time to manoeuvre through the winding tunnel to get there, it took less than thirty seconds to get out of the asteroid. It was currently pointing away from the station.
For a moment I considered turning but knew that with the retro and manoeuvering thrusters of this particular craft, it would take at least a minute to turn around at the speed we were moving. Instead, I headed deeper into the asteroid field.
After ten nerve wracking minutes of dodging small pieces of debris at the neck-breaking speed of 150 kilometres per second, the thing that Custodian had warned me about happened.
I could not hear it, but I could clearly imagine the sound of the explosion, as I watched it happen on the monitor showing the rearview of the craft.
The explosion was massive. It swallowed everything within seventy-five thousand kilometres. It was truly mind boggling.
Even though we were ninety thousand kilometres away small pieces of debris still started battering against the deflector shield. In a desperate attempt to preserve our lives, I maneuvered behind the nearest asteroid larger than the craft.
For an hour, we sat almost dead in space as debris streaked by us on all sides. Several times the asteroid we hid behind were rocked by larger pieces of debris, nearly knocking it into us. Luckily, I had managed to keep the damage to the craft down to some scraped paint.
“We made it, Nova. Let’s head home,” I whispered. My voice was shaky, as were my hands from all the adrenaline. I got a weak meow in response.
Moving around the asteroid I stared into the Deep Dark. The large section in front of me should have been full of asteroids. Now there was nothing but empty space. I gulped, before turning on the autopilot to take us home.