Max growled low as the ship slowed to zero gravities. Max usually enjoyed weightlessness, but the uplift modifications were making him extra sensitive to sensory input. He knew his dad could fix the feeling, but he was busy piloting the ship. Max breathed deeply to calm himself and slow down, he repeated his dad’s favorite saying.
“[Speed kills. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.]”, Max quoted, projecting his words with his collar vocoder.
“You got that right, Max. You are really developing there. Only 8 weeks since we started your uplift procedure at Ceres and already full sentences. Hang in there. The moon has a little bit of gravity to help settle your stomach.” Bill responded.
Bill Mitchell piloted his house ship the Casa De Mitchell to a gentle landing on the crater floor of his newly constructed base at Amundsen. The cargo he had brought with him, several mountains of comet fragments each rigged with a fusion drive and all slaved to his ship touched down at the same time within the massive crater. His implants ticked with an incoming voice call.
“[Nice landing, big man. It looks like you brought a gift.]” came the familiar voice over his augs.
“Hey there, Sam! Sorry, I took so long. I ended up hauling a bit more tonnage than I thought. Luna Authority outbid the Mars consortium by 15%, so it was well worth the extra time. The extra money also enabled me to cut off some for our personal use.” Bill said.
“[A welcome surprise. I’ve been metering water for the plumbing and the starter seedlings. I have a consultant from Tranquility Construction United here to help. His name is Franklin. He just finished installing the third power plant you requested. He’s already in motion, rounding up a train of drones to start cutting that iceberg up and moving it to the base reservoir. You’ve got enough extra there to jump ahead with filling pools and the lake with such a large surplus. The hangar is open for you.]”, Sam said.
“Ok, Bill. You got the fun of landing. Can you let me do the job of taxiing into the hangar? It's my “body” after all.” Casa complained as she projected a hologram avatar into the copilot’s chair.
Casa was the house ship’s AI mind and much more. Bill had designed her neural architecture with many divergent arrangements in her neural arrays. Her mind was built to easily handle multiple thought processes and to loop and engage with tangential thoughts. Not only did she run the house ship, but she was instrumental in assisting Bill’s research in dimensional theory and she had been helping Max adjust to his burgeoning intelligence.
“Right, right. Take it away. I know, you’re bored out of your mind. Don’t worry though. We are about to have millions of tasks to do.” Bill conceded, letting go of the control yoke.
“Max, let’s get to the airlock and get your Exosuit on while Casa brings us in. No leaving the ship unprepared until we get the details on the base systems status.”, Bill announced. The reply was almost instantaneous, as Max bounded to the aft exit gantry. The heavily augmented dog charged forward bouncing from wall to wall in the low gravity.
“[Outside! Time to play!]”, Max’s vocoder echoed with growing excitement.
“Almost there, Max. Let’s put this on.” Bill said as he threw the smart matter suit over Max. The material shifted and extended to encircle Max’s frame and then smoothed out to cover his body. An extending helmet ring stayed open for now. Max grumped as the extra weight on his legs was not to his liking, but he quickly adjusted.
Bill mused that Max had advanced a lot quicker than the uplift team had projected. Perhaps his additional enhancement to his q-bit neocortex was helping. Max would have a choice to make soon, embrace his new intelligence with its complications or reject it for the simpler life of a baseline dog. If he chose to keep it, Bill could offer him his handcrafted body augmentation program to give Max a more humanoid form. He could only imagine that intelligence without hands and the ability to interact with all the human-centric technology could be a pain.
With a barely perceptible creaking, the ship settled onto the hangar floor and the humming from the powered ion drives died down. Bill, Casa, and Max watched as the shimmering curtain of energized foglets swept over the ship and settled into position at the mouth of the hangar’s large exit as the large doors slid shut. When the insubstantial curtain swept over the ship, external sensors confirmed a breathable atmosphere was left in its wake.
“Active foglets and smart matter make airlocks so much easier. Looks like we won’t need to seal up, but let’s keep the suits on. Come on gang! Casa De Mitchell might be our home, but I need to stretch my legs.”
He exited the house ship down its rear loading ramp and contemplated the lunar landscape beyond the hanger windows. Amundsen Crater sported some of the only surface ice to be found on the moon. The new addition, the iceberg mountains dominated the view. Amundsen’s location on the Moon’s south pole and the depth of the crater left most of the crater bottom in permanent shadow except for the installed lighting. Bill’s outpost was small by the standards of the day. Most lunar bases sported city-sized warrens and populations in the thousands. The homes of the fringes of society: pioneers, thrill seekers, and malcontents.
With Bill’s arrival, Luna now had about 8 billion tons more water via the micro-comets he had ferried here with his return from his Oort cloud mission. Cheap fusion power, nanotechnology, and AI had unlocked great wealth on Earth, but no commercial exports of rare minerals or water off-planet were allowed. With the transfer of control for the train of fusion rocket-equipped mini comets to Luna’s shipyard, Bill’s bank account had finally flexed over the milestone he had set for himself to fund this next step in his research.
Earth’s laws and population density were prohibitive to both mega engineering projects and highly energetic experiments, the likes of which Bill had planned. So, freedom from regulation and room to experiment required a bit of travel. It was late in the year 2123, and the last century has seen massive upheavals from the advent of advanced genetics, artificial intelligence, and nanotechnology. It had opened the doors to great personal power, but much of the populace tended to use it without much thought or accountability.
Bill turned away from the view and looked about the cavernous room. His dog Max bounded down the ramp and speared across the hangar in a grand low-gravity leap towards Bill’s new business partner, Samantha Rodriguez.
Sam was small, her body barely larger than that of a 12-year-old. She sported one of the more exotic body designs available to high-end consumers. She appeared with the current standard of beauty, slim and athletic, but with enormous butterfly wings augmenting her form. Her smart clothes were configured into a shape revealing jumpsuit with features to form a helmet for moonwalks. She hung in her command dais about a half meter above the floor. Bill had already tapped into the base’s sensors and foglet network, so he was able to use the base’s sensors to “see” the wings pulling in the hanger’s atmosphere and directing it downwards to enable a lifting force for Sam’s hovering. A subtle breeze was all that was required to defeat the weak lunar gravity. Sam cut the power to her wings and dropped down from her hover and accepted Max in a full-body hug.
“What a lovely boy! Who is the best dog on Luna?” Sam exclaimed as Max crashed into her with his tail swishing in excitement. Max’s questions rained down from his vocoder upon Sam almost as fast as his attention and sniffing.
“[Hi! Who are you? New person friend? Want to play?]” Max asked. Sam was dumbfounded at the unexpected display of intelligence.
“Thanks for all your help setting up the base, Sam. Nice to finally meet you in the real world instead of virtual. Good to see you are a dog person too. Max can be a little too friendly sometimes when he’s been cooped up.” He said with a smile.
“You're welcome, Bill. I’m glad to see you both. This base is a little too lonely. This was a great opportunity for me. Thanks to your funding, I have high hopes to make this base a truly spectacular tourist attraction to rival Tranquilities Hanging Gardens. Your water delivery just pushed the schedule up by months!” Sam said with a winning smile. Sam jumped 10 meters into the air with a pirouette and a happy laugh. Max of course bounded after her but caromed off the ceiling lacking Sam’s control with her wings.
After a brief romp around the hangar with Max both came back to Bill, who smiled at them both. Sam was an excellent counterpoint to himself. He was told he was far too serious, but he enjoyed seeing them have fun.
“I’m still a little wired from the trip. My team of daemons is excited to get to work. Do you want to summon yours? We can do a quick intro and sort out some work for the gang.” Bill replied looking around the rather spartan hangar.
“Alright, we can do that. But I can't talk business without a drink, Bill. Come on over to the hangar lounge and have a seat. What's your poison?” Sam sauntered over to the lobby area which sported some reactive seats and a bar with an android manning the bar.
“Whiskey neat, thanks”, Bill sank into the sectional. Sam came back from the bar with a couple of plates of appetizers and a bowls of meat, veggies, and water for Max. The android arrived right behind her with a tray of drinks. He set down the whiskey in front of Bill and a blue tropical drink with fruits and a straw in front of Sam as she took a seat.
“Thank you, Gaston.”, Sam said. Bill raised one eyebrow, “Gaston? Version 3 or 4?” he asked.
“4 of course. This is going to be a high-end establishment once you're done with your testing. He’s a fully programmed hospitality sub-AI with thousands of drinks, 20 languages, and etiquette and history from a similar number of countries. And thankfully, his jokes have been upgraded too. Version three had the worst puns.” Sam answered.
“Savage. That was what I liked about version 3. No one appreciates a good pun anymore,” Bill smiled as he grabbed an appetizer and popped it into his mouth. Max was behind the sectional, but he could be heard loudly banging around his bowl as if he hadn’t eaten just 2 hours ago.
“Wow! This food is unbelievable.”, Bill exclaimed as the flavors of the food exploded on his tongue. In the back of his mind, his system declared the food safe to eat. Sam brightened even more at his comment.
“The base AI is running a competition to determine which daemon chef to employ for the base. He knows we are gunning for high-end tourists, so he narrowed his starter list to Julia Child, Ferran Adria, Thomas Keller, Alice Waters, and Massimo Bottura.’, Sam said. She spoke to the air saying, “Gatsby, what did the chefs prepare here?”
The image of a dapper middle-aged gentleman with handsome features appeared by her side with a slight bow. He pointed out each appetizer as he described it.
“I’m glad you're enjoying the food, sir, and ma’am. What you just tasted was Alice Water’s contribution, a crostini with roasted beets, goat cheese, and microgreens. The other plates have Child’s quiche Lorraine, Adria’s offering is a deconstructed gazpacho with spherified olive, Keller’s is a non-kill foie gras terrine with figs and brioche, and finally, Bottura’s is an upside-down lemon tart. Please let me know your opinion once you’ve had some of each. Each chef is of course spectacular, but we are trying to find the best match for our brand.”
“Sam, I am so glad you are handling all this. I don’t have the slightest clue regarding the leisure class.” Bill admitted. After eating a little of each plate and sharing with the ever-voracious Max, the pair discussed their favorites with Gatsby. When they were done and Gatsby had faded his avatar from view, Bill finally got back to the next steps with Sam.
“Ok, how shall we proceed with the base? Should we call out everyone and scrum or pair them up? Should we wait for Franklin?”
“Let's pair them off for now, and I think Franklin needs some alone time. He's a little grumpy. We tested out Gaston's drink knowledge last night and now he’s nursing a bit of a hangover. He needs to update his augs toxicity filtering.” Sam said with a snort. Max had lain down on the floor, but Sam could see his eyes following the conversation intently. It was still unexpected and slightly unnerving. She has grown up with urban myths of animal uplifts gone wrong. She mused that the restrictions must be loosening for Bill to be able to bring Max back to civilization.
“Ok then, let's start with business and accounts,” Bill said, he linked his overlay with the lounge node and one of his daemons appeared, a plump old woman wearing a heavily embroidered dress and rich jewelry. “This is Moneta. She manages my investments and contracts and handles day-to-day accounts.”
There was a continuum of capability in AI technology. At the lowest levels were smart programs with very adaptable language and image recognition and the ability to respond in general terms. The next level was a custom limited personality expert system or daemon. Daemons were used for expert skill sets or jobs with a deep background and training, although some were used solely to emulate popular characters or celebrities, real or imagined. While their thought processes were complex, they were not recognized as being conscious.
A sub-AI was highly capable and served as a primary pillar of technology and society but did not rise to human equivalence. All AI were tested for their level of cognition and consciousness. Those meeting or exceeding human average were given full citizenship rights but also outfitted with governors to prevent both hardware and software enhancement. The potential for superintelligence AI to outthink and outnumber humanity was considered a threat and was regulated and enforced by DAIE, the department of AI enforcement.
“Cool. Nice to meet you Moneta. Please meet my accountant as well. Ebenezer, come out.” Sam said as a gnarled curmudgeon’s avatar appeared. Seeing Bill’s look of distaste, Sam continued, “It's only a skin, Bill. He’s running a Buffet2 clone personality. I’m not an idiot. The Disney daemons are mostly for fun, but I am operating above the level of stuffing my savings into a piggy bank, thank you very much.”
“Ok, ok. Why don't these two penny pinchers jump into a virtual office to sort out the base accounts and let us know the status of both my test and the future of the base? When you have the details, set up a review for us. I thought I loved the beauty of math, but accounting bores me to tears.” Bill said. The pair of programs introduced themselves and faded away to work together.
“Nice. How about infrastructure? Who do you have in place?”, Bill asked.
“Ah. Say hello to Frank.” Sam said as the avatar of an older gentleman with slightly disheveled white hair and a rumpled suit appeared.
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"Greetings, I am Frank Lloyd Wright, architect, and designer. I believe that my unique approach to architecture can create a structure that not only fulfills your practical needs but also harmonizes with Sam’s vision for a lunar resort. I am confident that I can design a structure that will not only meet your expectations but exceed them.”, the daemon gave a shallow nod.
“Nice find there Sam. I’ve always loved Mr. Wright’s Earth side projects. I can see the style influence in the hanger and bar areas. Leo, you're up, sir.” Bill called and projected his next daemon.
“Leo is a simulation of Leonardo DaVinci, although I've evolved him in terms of language and modern technology and design. Leo, if you could. Accompany Frank, once you have the details you both can present the base to me and Sam with its features and any unmet needs. Tomorrow afternoon, I think.” The pair of avatars instead of fading proceeded to walk toward the hangar’s entryway leading to the base complex beginning a detailed discussion on the base’s design.
"Ok, what's next?” Bill asked. Sam thought for a second, took a long sip from her drink, then answered.
“Let's see; Infrastructure systems should be reviewed and networking too.”
“Cool, who have you got on systems? I don't have a daemon for that, but my ship sub-AI Casa has developed herself into a good systems generalist. For networking, I have a daemon emulation of Ada Lovelace.” Bill said as Casa’s avatar appeared. She took her usual appearance of a young woman with short brown hair, cut in a bob, and wearing a pilot’s jumpsuit. Ada appeared as well, emulating an older woman with curly hair and a proper Victorian dress.
“Hello, Casa and Ada. Please meet the Amundsen base’s AI, Gatsby.” Sam said as the AI projected his avatar again of a suave blond man in his prime wearing a tuxedo.
“Ladies, it's a pleasure to meet you both,” he said as he took each woman's hand and kissed it in an archaic greeting. “Please come with me and I can show you both all the wonderful systems we have in place already. Once we are done, we can summarize for our human partners.” Gatsby said with a wry smile and a flourishing bow.
Before the group could fade away, Sam called out.
“Gatsby, please be sure to introduce the ladies to Franklin as well. He may have some insight into the power plants and processing systems as well. But please be careful, he's in a mood today and he seems to be prioritizing pulling all the comet ice into the cistern over proper manners. Thanks.” Sam said, looking a bit embarrassed at Bill.
Gaston arrived with replacement drinks. Bill was surprised to see his glass was empty as he took the new one. Repressing a yawn, Bill realized he had been going nonstop for too long. Bringing the Casa De Mitchell in and negotiating with Luna Authority had kept him going for a full 16 hours.
“I’m sorry Sam. I’m fading faster than I thought. Maybe I should find my room. Can we finish the review tomorrow?” Bill said, rubbing his face.
“I’m sorry Bill. I should have asked. We’re late afternoon here, staying synced with Tranquility base. Let's get you tucked away. I've put you in what will eventually be the presidential suite. It's a bit distant but the base transport will make it quick.”
“Excuse me, sir. May I suggest another type of review?”, a dour older man in a military uniform materialized. Bill, although tired, nodded to the image of General George Patton, his daemon expert for security and strategy.
“I’d like full access rights to review the base’s security, communications, and safety systems. I won't disturb you unless there is imminent danger.”
Bill shot Sam a questioning look and she nodded. “Please do, George. Let us both know if you have any recommendations.” with a salute, George faded from view.
Sam led Bill and Max through the hangar’s doors into the base’s main thoroughfare. It was easily 50 feet wide and twice as tall. Near the hangar was a queue of smart carts to transport tired incoming travelers. Bill looked up and saw the roof of the extravagant hall seemed odd, it was capped with a double arch, seeming to make two halls if one only looked up. Unable to process the purpose of the ceiling design, he shot a questioning look at Sam.
“Ah, I guess we are going to ruin one of the feature review surprises. Watch this.” Sam said with enthusiasm, as she jumped high into the air in the light gravity. She spread her colorful butterfly wings and shot down the hall without a single flap. She shifted the angle of her wings, which drove her from the right of the hall to the left. When she crossed the center line separating the paired arches, she whipped back around as if caught in a river stream and came flying back to them. With a graceful flip, she folded her wings and lightly landed in front of them.
“We’ve got two streams of air being driven by the smart matter in the ceiling and kept separate with a reactive thin film of foglets. Our guests equipped to fly can kite themselves around the entire base with minimal effort and no energy expenditure. If you notice the balconies, we’re going to encourage multilevel living. The base will provide most of the flight power, so guests can just relax into it.”, Sam explained.
“We have wing packs for guests without winged body designs. Also, there are smart carts that come in two varieties, ground, and air.” She pointed to an odd-looking cart that looked like a cross between a chariot and a goose.
“Wanna give it a go? It’ll get us to your rooms the fastest.”, Sam said.
Before Bill could even ask, Max was scrambling into the goose cart. The cart had a smart matter harness that attached itself to Max’s suit and firmly anchored him to the floor of the chariot.
“I guess that is the answer then,” Bill said, as the back of his suit split to expose a pair of beetlelike plates expanding from his back. With the plates spread a large pair of sleek wings unfolded.
“Can I slave the goose cart to follow me?” Bill asked.
Sam gave him a nod, so he accessed the cart’s system and set it to follow him. Once he was ready Sam jumped into the air again, coasting downwind while turning to watch them. Bill leaped into the air with his wings wide. He was surprised to see the goose cart had legs that pushed off in a leap as it followed. They began a merry effortless ride down the enormous hall to the suites.
----------------------------------------
After a good night's rest, Bill and Max took a compiled breakfast in their rooms and then explored the base. Bill managed to rig a winged vest for Max and keyed it to his input so he could have more fun. They flew down the grand flyways and found a large cavern dropping down with terraces and then back up with a large ziggurat, Max howled and barked with joy the entire time. The flyways were chaotic, encouraging looping and circles rather than straight travel.
Once they had worn themselves out, Bill pinged Gatsby to see where Sam was. Gatsby guided him to the Amundsen central control where some more treats from the competitive daemon chefs awaited. A man in a grease-smeared jumper was eating a masterwork soufflé mindlessly staring into space, apparently absorbed with a virtual task. Sam was helping the daemons access the room's restricted controls.
“Good morning, Sam! Hello, you must be Franklin. The base is so much farther along than I expected. Have you been here long?” Bill said.
“Aw hell. The AI and daemons did all the real planning. I’m just the local grease monkey paid to help out and make sure that a human is always in the loop. OSHA and DAIE would have conniptions if you didn’t have a few humans on site.” Franklin extended a greasy palm. After a slight hesitation, Bill took it and gave it a good shake.
Sam came over and had them both fill up plates while Gaston was working in the side of the room to gather some coffee and juice for everyone. They all sat at a large conference table with a holoprojector built into it. Sam had even compiled a smart chair platform to enable Max to sit at the table. Bill and Sam had their key daemon agents filter into the open seats. Franklin, Casa, and Gatsby appeared as well. Gatsby opened the review discussion.
"Well, old sport, the base is decked out with the most state-of-the-art technology money can buy. From the simplest computer systems to cutting-edge AI and eight advanced nanotech foundries, we have it all. The place is wired for a variety of data transfers and communication, and our security is second to none. Each room is fortified with programmable matter layers and filled with foglets. Thanks to your generous funding, the post's database is chock-full of the most popular licensed appliances and décor designs for almost any conceivable need. Amundsen Crater is tucked away from prying eyes on Earth, and it's about as isolated as you can get without leaving planetary space. It was a most appropriate choice for your research, old sport, and once you're finished, it will be a splendid hideaway for wealthy tourists seeking solitude."
“Impressive,” Bill said.
Samantha nodded in agreement and continued. “From our planning sessions, we have installed supersized fusion reactors, three independent 100MW commercial Hercules model IVs. These should be able to handle any load your experiment should pull plus provide a huge head start on my plans to convert the base into a tourist park destination.” Franklin harrumphed and interjected.
“You may have o’erspent there. Tranquility has a pop of twenty-thousand and only has five of these beauties. This base right now is only spec’d fer a guest capacity of a thousand. Unless you plan on keeping all the smart matter in the site on continuous high-speed reconfiguration, you’ll have enough power to light up the entire crater.
“…and the data lines to the nearest other base, Tycho?” Bill asked.
“Yes, they are in place. We have 24-hour access to the data center on the Tycho station and a dedicated line to the Moon’s internet nodes.” Gatsby said.
“Bill, I took the liberty of pinging the Supercomputing cluster in Tycho. I have a dedicated entanglement encryption with their managing AI Glaucus. We have our old access accounts to Earth SpaceNet as a backup although the latency is worse.”
“Excellent.” Bill commented.
“Those two factors; power, and processing load, were the only issues that the polymorphic matter stores and our blueprint designs would not be able to create on the fly. This base is otherwise perfect, isolated enough to obviate the need for regulatory oversight and public endangerment but also close enough to enable utilization of the Earth and Luna data spheres.”
General Patton stood up and cleared his “throat” to get everyone’s attention.
“I’ve reviewed the security and safety specifications for the base, and I’ve noted some weaknesses. Before I go over them, have your NDA’s been refreshed?” Patton asked.
Sam nodded but Franklin looked a little put-out.
“Ahm just a contractor here. If y’all want to talk legal, I can get back to work on moving that ice. Best to treat me like a mushroom, keep me in the dark and feed me shit and I’ll be right happy. If any damn lawyer types come sniffin’ around, don’t send them my way.” Grabbing a heaping plate of food, Franklin made a quick exit. Once the doors closed, Sam gave an embarrassed shrug and nodded to Patton to resume.
“Right. Back to the topic of communications and isolation. A single line to Tranquility and back to SpaceNet is sufficient for today, but we need more depth for the long term. If we see enemy action, cutting the line and a local jammer would prevent any call for help. We need another line, preferably off the books, to another lunar data node”, Patton continued. “Ada provided a nice workaround to local jamming, another buried line stretched out a few kilometers away from us with transmitters, also off-the-books, lets us retain wireless comms if we are locally jammed.”
Sam looked amused at the concept of enemies on Luna but nodded. If Bill agreed to invest in extras, she’d take it.
“On to the next item, your overabundance and reliance on foglets and smart matter. Weaponization or misuse of both in the hands of enemies or even ignorant guests can lead to accidents. As soon as you’ve stabilized your base design, you should try to actively reduce quantities and have safe zones where the materials are locked.” With nods from all, Patton continued.
“The test site is a problem. There is a line of sight between the test site and the crater wall apartments. If the test results in a high-energy event, those could be breached. You need the test site to be deeper, create a perimeter berm to block direct viewing, or blast walls over the apartment exteriors.”
“Yikes, that last is no good. Even with our sizable matter compilers, there are hundreds of wall balconies.” Sam gasped.
“How about if we combine the first and second to save time, we drop the test site and use the dross matter to build up a tight reinforced berm around the site. However, I do want a line of sight with our sensors at the top of the crater wall to view the test.” Bill suggested. Patton nodded and continued.
“Finally, we have no perimeter defense. We need over-watch lasers, masers, and kinetic rail guns along the crater wall with a 360-degree range including straight up. Overlapping fire zones with a greater concentration near access points like the main hangar. Local power sources for these defenses as well. Some fast response light attack craft both in the main hangar and concealed in hidden bunkers either in the crater wall or its floor. At least one more service hangar would also be recommended, to keep operations separate from guests.” Patton finished.
“Ah, Bill. I’m not sure what’s up with Patton, but this is going to be a resort base, not a military stronghold.” Sam objected.
“Ma’am, Bill has the misfortune of a long history of conflicts with too many potential enemies. In addition to that, he is highly sought after by many large tech consortiums, some of which have proven to be light on scruples regarding how to seek his service.” Bill momentarily reflected on his history.
There had been a very dark period in the Ought-Fifties where many Tech Warlords had appeared, people who truly grabbed the reins of power enabled by the new technologies. A sizable number of large governments, when confronted with these new powers born and embedded within their borders, had found they were not equipped to counter the self-proclaimed local warlords. At least not without massive collateral damage to their citizens.
Many governments had found that their power base and their ability to govern had quickly crumbled. The global tumult lasted about 3 years. Local warlords skirmished with the fading governments and with each other until a band of similarly equipped elite scientists took it upon themselves to join into a group and utilize the transformative technology to restrain instances of abuse and coercion running rampant. The loose coalition of elites, who had become known as the Samaritans, worked to restore the existing governments, and offered up their continued support. There were exceptions, where the previous ruling bodies were too corrupt. In those cases, they helped the people remove the cancerous regimes and set up something new. Eventually, most of the group retreated from the role of judge, jury, and sometimes executioner. The majority had faded into the background. Bill and his peers were content to watch and continue to advance their grasp over the synergies of the new technologies amongst themselves but held themselves aside in case they were needed. The majority had no desire to govern.
People who excelled at integrating and applying technology were quickly found and given a choice, join the Samaritans or face exile. Bill had been one of the founding Samaritans. He had personally put down far too many corrupt warlords who felt that personal power entitled them to rule. While he always pushed to advance his knowledge and capabilities, he also tried extremely hard to stay off the radar. He did not want to fight anymore.
He had changed his name multiple times and hidden most of his history. He worked quietly, actively avoiding entanglements and attention so he could focus on research. Bill had invented several foundational technologies in brain-computer interfacing and artificial intelligence that he marketed in MakerSpaces. He was quite wealthy with passive income streams that enabled him to focus on his passions. He wouldn’t hesitate to come to the front if he was needed, but he cherished his quiet time.
Seeing the lack of support from the unfocused Bill, Patton continued.
“And there are still documented cases of Outsiders. This base's isolation would be desirable for their purposes.”
“Outsiders! Bunch of UFO enthusiast anarchists. You give them too much credit.” Sam said with exasperation. With a sigh, Bill spoke up.
“I’m sorry, Sam. George is just doing his job and being cautious. The Outsiders is a very real and organized fringe group, and they may have an ax to grind with me. I was invited by the UN coalition group to help investigate the Phobos ruins. They did a good job trying to generate some belief in their Alien Benefactor theories, but most matter compilers print out micron-level maker marks into their fabrications. The ruins as I’m sure you know were hoaxes, and my name was dragged out as the primary debunker. They have been pestering me ever since.”
“I intend to remain a silent partner and keep my distance, but we should plan for some worst-case scenarios. High-end tourists have money and prestige, and proper security is not only justified but could prevent accidents or targeted strikes. But I also don’t like an overabundance of weapons. Unless our controls are ironclad, any weapons on site will only enable any hostiles that are savvy enough to take control of them. Let’s table this for now. George, maybe you and Gatsby can work on this with our concerns? Bring us something more defensive and less offensive.”
“Ok. Let’s lighten up and talk about décor design. Let me push my OverLayer to you.” Sam said.
Bill felt some slight pressure in his head, his sense of incoming data. He accepted the link. The hanger was transformed with a virtual overlay. The drab expanse of poly-matter was replaced with impressive, marbled floors. The workstations were hidden under a wild riot of flowers and fountains. The wall displays were replaced with bars and small eateries each with overflow seating and all with different styles. Bill turned to the hanger bay window; the shadowed crater was transformed into a jungle wonderland.
A huge lake fed by multiple waterfalls. Towering trees and undergrowth separated the beaches, golfing stations, and walking paths. The whole area was alive with birds and small exotic animals in the underbrush. The top of the crater was capped with a brightly glowing cloud of foglets that provided both heat and light to the base. In the distance, Bill could see banks of windows and patios terracing all the walls of the crater. Zooming in he saw some simulated guests flying from patio to patio using wings like Sam’s. Max went wild, rushing the window to bark at the unexpected birds there.
“This is breathtaking. Congratulations Sam. I never would have imagined anything this beautiful. This will put the Tranquility’s Park domes to shame. I hope my experiment is successful so we can get going on making this a reality.”
“Thank you, partner. Franklin had already begun excavating the structural setup for the crater wall warrens and a water reservoir for your water stocks. Truly, depending upon your test results we could create this vision in only a few months.” Sam said.
“Now about your tests,” Sam interjected, “you had mentioned the possible danger related to the experiment. A high energy event was the phrase used; I believe.”