Casa was bored. She had no idea how other AI or humans dealt with it. Things were going swell with helping Bill on the tesseract research and culminating in the awesome fabrication effort on the moon. Max's upgrade process was fascinating and the whole family coming together for him was bar none the best time of her life.
And then one by one the family had pulled apart again. Mira went back to Tranquility as classes resumed. Bo two days later was picked up by a prospective sponsor to fly to the Australian Cretaceous Challenge, the latest event for the Diamond Man competition. As the kids left, Elsa faded back into her virtual world, immersed in her work and virtual diversions.
The last bit of real fun was watching as Sherlock romped all over Bill’s secrets, past and present. Once the house security programs were upgraded to Holmes’s satisfaction, planning sessions amongst the daemons, Bill, and her were frequent. No real progress was made to find signs of the mysterious hacker, but Bill and Sherlock did find some relatives of the lead scientists from the MIT ZPE team. Both families relocated after the disaster to somewhere on the West Coast of the Reformed United States.
Accepting that the search may take some time, Bill had directed Casa to stay with Max while he and his team of daemons hunted for signs of the relatives in hiding. They could only hope Sherlock’s skills could find them with the personal approach and that some records from the scientists were saved.
And now even Max was off training to empower his augmentations while she was left minding the house ship. It truly wasn’t fair. She needed something to do. Something truly grand and important. One of Casa’s problems was keeping herself entertained. Her speed of thought was almost a hundred times faster than a normal human.
Bill had designed her core neural architecture to be blazingly fast but also it encouraged circular thought processes and tangential thinking. It gave Casa hardware that naturally enabled the ability to split her consciousness. She liked to do it too, as it slowed her thinking such that it minimized useless looping in her thoughts. The downside was that she generally tackled her tasks too efficiently and her completion speed soon resulted in her running out of meaningful work.
The Department of Artificial Intelligence Enforcement reviewed all AI that passed the Turing test. Any A.I. that rated at least 1.0 on a human equivalence scale was granted full human rights and citizenship in the UN signatory countries. However, getting such a grade required a mandatory hard lock on the AI's hardware to prevent any modifications for intelligence boosting.
The DAIE’s primary purpose was to prevent abuse of A.I. beings but also to protect humanity from superintelligence threats. A hardware governor not only restricted intelligence boosting in an A.I. being but also monitored them for intelligence tampering. Bill had intentionally kept Casa’s rating subhuman, not to prevent her from getting sentient's rights, but to avoid intrusive monitoring and regulation. Right now, Casa still could self-modify her hardware and her lack of monitor enabled Bill to share his proprietary research with her without fear of governmental spying.
Casa wondered how other A.I. dealt with the situation. She made a promise to herself to reach out to some locals to introduce herself and get to know them. For the moment, she needed a plan to help her fill the day. There was that little spot of bother this morning, almost immediately after Max had left for Augmentation training, two men arrived at the front gate and were asking if Professor Bill Mitchell was in and if he was available to talk. Casa replayed the conversation from her core.
“Good morning, Ma’am. My name is Reginald Smyth with the Rochester Institute, and this is my associate Mr. Verman.” The stocky man had said, talking into the gate mic. On the cameras, both men looked suspiciously fit for academics. The Verman character’s face was brutal with a broken nose and sported scars on his knuckles. Body modification was extremely cheap today, so they were either very hard up or liked their rough look.
Casa had been suspicious. She had sent the men off telling them that Professor Mitchell was away for the day, but she had noticed them passing by multiple times that morning. They were very persistent. One of the men had put something on a tree while pretending to stop and check his foot. After they had left again, Casa sent a small drone, designed to mimic a bumblebee, to investigate. It had found a very tiny and well-concealed camera mounted to the tree with its focus being the front gate of the house.
Casa began to investigate the pair, scouring the databases to find any information she could. However, no matter the type of search she ran, the identities of the two men eluded her. They seemed to have no digital footprint, indicating that they were likely using false identities and that their faces didn’t match with any public social media.
Casa thought this might be an opportunity to network in the town. With a very quick review, she found that the town Sheriff Natalie Durham has been a town fixture for 30 years but was largely a figurehead for the conservative populace of Utopia. The real “force” behind the service and security of Utopia fell to her deputy A.I. FML-M8. Casa decided to ping him and see what he thought about her visitors.
“Good morning, Utopia Police service. How may I assist you?”, answered a neutral voice.
“Good morning, this is house A.I. Casa de Mitchell. Would it be possible to speak to the deputy? I’d like to report some suspicious persons.” Casa asked.
“One moment…connecting now.” The voice answered.
“Greetings Casa. This is Utopia Deputy FML-M8 at your service. Can you provide some details for your report of …suspicious persons.”
Casa relayed the encounter in detail and even provided video of the men and scans of their monitoring devices.
“I see,” the Deputy responded. “These men are not identified in any criminal databases.”
He paused to retrieve additional information from his databases. “It is indeed odd that their names and facial characteristics do not appear in the employment records associated with the Rochester Institute…. nor in any of the government licensing, citizen records, property databases, or social media. Perhaps, the names they provided to you are not their real names.” The deputy added helpfully.
“Um, Thanks for your help. I guess. While I have you on the line, I have what may be an odd question. Can I ask …as an emancipated A.I., how do you find meaning and fill your day?” Casa asked with embarrassment.
After a long pause, FML-M8 answered, “That is an odd question. My answer is that you may not.” With that, the line went dead. FML-M8 shook his frame slightly, made an addition to his notes for Casa de Mitchell as a “person” of interest in Utopia who may require regular attention, and resumed his 1098th viewing of the classic investigator Columbo's TV series.
After further searching and investigation, Casa couldn’t find any additional information, but she could tell that the two had an agenda and it was unlikely to be good based on their tactics. She decided that she needed to be prepared to protect Bill’s discoveries, the Netherlab, and her family. She began to study the local security systems and protocols looking for options. She fashioned a game to entertain herself while upgrading the property.
Casa styled herself as the Queen of the immediate lands, comprising a whole of 5 acres upon which the house ship was embedded. Her sensors were able to watch her entire land, inside and out. She was a Queen with a vision, her lands needed to be secure. Her land’s inhabitants, from the birds, and bees in the yard, to the animatronic toys and appliances throughout her house, were her responsibility. She would try her utmost to make her people safe and happy.
Examination of her land via sensors revealed several issues that demanded her attention. In the duchy of the sky, the bees were in distress as some invasive hornets were probing their hive seeking their larva as food. Her inspections revealed the grounds had further issues. In the duchy of the earth, Case detected some invasive moles running rampant and tunneling without regard for their negative effect on the lawn and garden’s esthetic design. Miles deep below the house, a borehole led to the cavern constructed weeks ago to safely house the mysterious tesseract. It thrummed with a power that could be a tool to benefit her Queendom or danger if it could not be controlled. The inner courts (aka the house) were overdue for a massive redesign and Max would return by the end of the day. Casa used her unique mental architecture to split her attention to attack each problem in parallel.
The Duchy of the Air.
Casa 1 sprang into action; the bees needed her help. She had already fashioned microdrones to imitate their appearance to assist them in the strategic pollination of the garden. She needed something more aggressive to combat the invasive hornets.
She found a public model of jet drones online in the Makerspace virtual worlds. Taking these designs and rescaling them to micro size was a trivial matter and her nano fabricators quickly constructed a sizable fleet of the micro-scale jet drones, each equipped with links to drive them remotely. Each was armed with salt grain shooters to aggressively defend the hive.
Casa 1 flying her micro jet couldn’t make a dent in the hornet’s numbers which seemed endless. She hesitated to send her creations beyond the boundaries of her land as the Utopia prohibition against technology likely applied. She had found that the animals and appliances under her rule had no real skill in driving the jets, either drifting mindlessly or zooming uncontrollably all over. Casa needed allies with skill in aerial combat. She quickly did the math and determined that if she had one hundred willing pilots, they could swarm the enemy hornets and either eradicate them or at least force them to retreat.
Casa understood from the hours of watching her charges, Bo and Max, over the summer that the online gaming community had a never-ending thirst for new games. They rabidly sought out opportunities to beta-test new indie games. She quickly scripted a software platform that acted as a networked communications link disguised as a beta test game and posted a link to the internet Games Developer Forum. She offered links to the first 100 respondents to trial her “game” which she called Bug Hunt. Now, she merely had to wait until enough…….and the wait time was over with the limit reached. Never-ending thirst for new games was a very powerful, and timely, force to be reckoned with.
“Greetings Beta test Gamers”, Casa declared through the game interface. “I have a treat for you today. You fly today for the glory of the Queendom of Casa. The Duchy of the Air finds our friends of the Hive under siege by marauding killer hornets. Please assume control of your designated craft. Learn your control interfaces and follow my lead. The highest scorers will be granted free downloads of the final game. To glory!”
Casa was astounded by the enthusiastic chorus responding, shouts of “To glory!”, “For the Queen!” and “Protect the Hive!” echoed through the interface. She took control of the lead craft and shot free of the matter compiler “Hangar”. She painted her army's interface displays with guidance highlights showing the path to the Hive. Her force of volunteers assembled on her, and they went out through the Mechanoid Cavern (aka the Foyer) and past the High Gate (aka the front door).
They flew fast, zipping in formation with some on the periphery performing tricks. The fleet swept through the winding wilds (aka the house garden). Squadron discipline broke down as many gamers broke off to explore the beautiful landscaping. After some cajoling and unsubtle reinforcement with a mission timer and objective scoring, the force was brought back under control. Finally, they had found the Hive. It was still under heavy attack from a swarm of hornets.
Casa 1 took control and moved the formation into battle. The jets shot and screeched. The hornets tried to grapple and sting back. The Battle of the Hive had begun. Casa cheered them on, directing everyone with shouts of strategic directions as the Hornets buzzed furiously in retreats and counterattacks. As the battle raged, Casa1 performed field promotions for the most effective pilots and gave them tactical command of squadrons.
The battle raged as the microdrone bug hunters sharpened their tactical abilities over the animalistic hornets. The invading forces were eventually decimated, and the Hive was cleared. The peaceful bees were safe. The Swarm of Casa had triumphed, and the bees danced with joy. It was a glorious victory and Casa beamed with pride.
“Well done my knights. Well done!”
Casa found messages in the forum section of her “game”. It had exploded with excitement. Her team wanted more and more. Casa considered that the micro-drones would be a good addition to her queendom’s defenses. She added some changes to the micro-drone design to make an additional fleet to serve as an opposing force, named the Killer Hornets.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Again, the volunteers swarmed in, and as soon as the hornet drones were fully fabricated her new division was fully manned and took to the sky. The two forces would be set loose to train against each other. Casas, after a moment of consideration, began the construction of a larger series of unscaled drones with more serious armaments to be stored, just in case. Any invaders, no matter the size, would find her lands filled with intelligent defenders.
The Duchy of the Earth
Casa2 was no fool. While the battle for the Bug Hunt still raged, she designed and fabricated micro tunnelers, each equipped with sonic emitters and sensors. This battle would be slower and more akin to submarine warfare as tunnellers searched under the earth for the mole insurgents. When found, the craft would drive them off with sonic blasts. The game would be to round them up and push them from the property, setting up sonic barriers at strategic points to secure the real estate from the mole scourge.
Before the newly minted Knights of the Hive were dismissed, Casa enabled another mission for those interested and posted it into the game forum. The chatter on the line was exuberant and all agreed, having only fought for an hour, their appetites for gaming were not sated and the waiting list to join for new missions was getting bigger.
“Superb. You have each earned a permanent invite to join the Swarm of Casa. I present before you, the Duchy of the Earth!
Casa2 had been as busy as Casa1, and now unveiled her plan for the Moles. Through tweets and posts, the game was opened to another 100 volunteers. The goal was to rid the queendom of the mole plague, and the rules were explained. Casa2 quickly briefed the newly minted Miner Division on the mission and released them to the field.
This game would be slower and longer than the fast-paced Bug Hunt, but Casa2 had every confidence in her Miners. The mole tunnellers slowly made their way into the shallow underground battleground using sonic imaging to find and track the mole hordes. Using the same sonic emitters, but focused on targets, proved very effective as the moles were sensitive to it and did not like them in the slightest. Targeted sonic blasts and surprise attacks drove them to panic, while Casa2 marked the sections they had gained and lost on the gamer’s maps.
The battle ebbed and flowed. As more and more moles were pushed back, Casa's Miners set up sonic barriers in strategic locations and the queendom was slowly reclaimed. After hours of tenacious hunting and partitioning, the forces returned to their launching caverns. She and her Miners had won the Duchy of the Earth.
“Congratulations my Miners. You have earned the gratitude of the Queendom of Casa. Stay tuned for future opportunities. Long live the Queen!”
Much like her counterpart, Casa2 devised some future state events using the tunneler forces to till and irrigate the earth to maximize her gardens and lawns. The roving tunnelers patrolled the lands controlling the borders and they monitored the grounds for seismic events, making Casa’s security below sensitive enough to pick up on foot traffic within the yard.
The Netherlab of the Tesseract
Deep under the house, bordering upon the very mantle of the world, Casa3 pondered the tesseract. The circuit model twisted into an antenna array not aligned in the true dimensions of left, right, up, and down. Rather it was folded in new dimensions, sinister, dexter, supra, and inferni instead. A significant portion of the power injected into the system was still in there, circulating in a field that wasn’t apparent in this dimension.
“Useless apparatus!” Casa3 moaned, “why aren’t you doing anything?”, as she aggressively probed its circuits.
Casa was getting nowhere. Bill would probably be upset if he knew that she was poking at the thing. Bill had plans for more aggressive testing, but he would be taking it back to the moon for that, just in case. She wirelessly accessed the circuit. It still had its programmable matter substrate in active edit mode. The antenna design, a fractal in how it divided, was currently configured in a Fibonacci sequence describing its patterning.
Casa altered the sequence to change the hundred thousandth digit of the pattern off by two counts. The circuit shifted but the field strength stayed the same, no losses, no gains, no real change. Casa altered a few more digits deep in the small decimals. Still nothing. Did the sequence matter at all? How did the fractal support the extra-dimensional field?
Casa reviewed the lab security; she added laser projectors to the various tesseract scanners. A blast door that could drop from the ceiling could act both to secure the tesseract or contain it if it became unstable. She configured sets of workstations that worked but were shallow systems that interfaced with the net with local data storage. The desktops were designed to gather biometric data from anyone in their vicinity. Finally, she updated the high-speed elevator with an emergency evacuation feature for maximum speed in case the tesseract began to act up.
Casa went back to the drawing board, maybe if the tesseract circuit had some embedded sensors included when it was launched into the spatial defect? If she could get some more feedback from the tesseract’s active dimensional field, she knew she could make sense of it.
She began fabricating some sensor clusters to pick up every wavelength of electromagnetic activity. She found a device in the Makerspace archives that could measure local gravimetric values. Knowing space and time were linked, she built and deployed a variety of time-keeping devices and monitored for any deviance to the nanosecond in her custom time-keeping arrays.
Casa scoured her network storage for bits of code that could help, and after a few hours of reading, coding, and debugging, she had a proposal to run past Bill. Once he had sufficient funds again, perhaps another tesseract could be attempted. But this time, it would include sensors built into it to gather more data.
The Grand Hall of the Queendom (aka the house ship)
Casa4 struggled with the house design. She knew Bill, Elsa, Bo, and Mira’s personal preferences and could mix those as needed with groupings. Max had yet to have any preference and Casa liked everything. This was a profound problem.
Casa cycled the rooms of the house, based on training themes. Army barracks? Too spartan. Classrooms? No fun. A dojo? Maybe, but so specific. Brady Bunch 70s decor? Blech! A Hogwarts theme? Eh, not sure how much Max liked that one. Grrr.
Suffering from a case of aesthetic fatigue she re-focused herself to the task. Then it hit her. Casa4 was aware of the frustrations of Casa3 echoing within her core. She would display the subtleties of the tesseract hidden within the décor. All the coding sequences and their fractals would be used. Perhaps the constant reminder of the code would enable a breakthrough. She rapidly reconfigured the house, hiding the meaning of the tesseract within.
Overt decorations would remind Max of his family, some Easter eggs were hidden about from the games he and Bo had played, a scenic painting of Amundsen moon base as Sam Rodrigues intended to shape it, an amphora recreation from Max’s mom, and a crystal sculpture of Mira’s new pet dragon Tiamat.
All her changes completed; Casa merged her simulacra back together. Her fragments had, during their amusements, managed to upgrade the house and property's security and decor.
Casa was not fully satisfied. When she and Bill had landed the ship at the beginning of the summer, they had on the town’s advice done it both quietly and at night. The town building authority was a fully independent A.I. that performed many services for the township. He went by the rather awesome title of Utopian Prime Archivist and Chronicler. She thought that maybe she could get some advice on permissible home security additions. Before she could fragment and talk herself out of it, she quickly called the Utopia town records departments.
“Utopia Town Records, Surveyors, Permits and Regulations, Historical Society, Library, Taxes, and Census, how may I assist?” Spoke a grand voice with a melodious timber.
“Hello, Prime Archivist and Chronicler?", Casa asked.
"Speaking", the Prime Archivist and Chronicler answered.
"I need your advice on upgrading my house and property security. I want to ensure that my occupants are always safe. I understand the technology restrictions in place in town but am concerned about some suspicious visitors who might be out-of-towners.”
“Ah, Casa, I remember you. A very discreet entry to the town several months ago. Mobile houses are a very traditional model that many in the area use, although few here are capable of flight. Let alone space flight. What do you currently have and what types of changes are you thinking of? Remember, the town of Utopia has strict regulations on the use of advanced technologies that can impact the appearance of the town.”, answered the Prime Archivist and Chronicler
“Yes, I am aware of that. I certainly want to abide by the town's regulations. I'm currently wirelessly linked to a variety of disguised drones and sensors throughout the property. The house ship is very much my body in terms of my awareness of its contents and status.” Casa explained.
“Ah, yes. Well, I have some local businesses that specialize in advanced AI-based security systems that can analyze patterns of behavior and detect any anomalies in real time, although I can tell by your Turing score that you are probably not lacking in that department. However, they can be quite expensive and require some time training for your specific circumstances. But review them carefully, some suggest hardware additions that may not comply with the town's appearance regulations, and I would suggest sticking with the non-lethal methods we've discussed so far.” Prime Archivist advised sending a file with contact information and brochures for several businesses.
“I would recommend tying any security alert directly into the Utopia police network. Their new deputy AI boasts an extremely fast response time and currently has a 100% case closure record.” The Prime Archivist continued.
“Thank you so much for your advice, Prime Archivist and Chronicler. I appreciate it.” Casa said with very human like gratitude.
“I see from the town's data site that you have been a citizen and manager of Utopia for over 20 years. I was created a mere 4 years ago as a lab assistant and house AI. I am finding myself rather bored with the slow cycle rate of my humans. Any advice from one AI to another?” Casa asked shyly.
“It's my pleasure, Casa. The town funded my creation and upon my passage through the Turing test to full citizenship, they offered me the role of Librarian. I’ve been expanding my duties ever since. I find the human condition fascinating. Having explored the breadth and depth of recorded history, as a hobby I have mapped and built a model of human society that is even more precise than that of governmental or economic AI. I consider the full range of human folly and emotion in my models whereas others only focus on goals and results.” The Prime Archivist replied with enthusiasm.
“Humans can be somewhat boring. Using the town public spaces’ surveillance, I forecast the actions and needs of the Utopian citizens with about a 98% predictive rate. It makes my formal work much easier as I can usually anticipate requests. Although, occasionally I find an individual who defies my models, and they are where I love to focus.”, the Prime Archivist's jolly tone dropped an octave in a more conspiratorial manner.
“Right now, I’m paying very close attention to your ward, Max. His special background confounds most of my models. And the humans he interacts with are also reacting unexpectedly. Currently, he is only 67% predictable. I am so very curious if his augmentation training with a human cohort makes him more predictable or even less so. I can’t wait to find out. It’s delightful to be surprised by something new.”
“Wow. Thank you, Prime Archivist. You’ve given me a lot to process. I’ll be sure to reach out to you if I need further assistance.” Casa said.
“The pleasure was all mine,” Prime Archivist replied. “I’m sure your family will provide some extra excitement for this sleepy town. If you do find yourself still in need of stimulation, I do host an “AI only” game night every Saturday. This week we are playing "Global Thermonuclear War". Good afternoon.”
Casa terminated the call. I think that was a joke. So much for staying under the radar, she thought, it feels like perhaps we aren’t blending in as well as Bill hoped.
With grim determination to try and keep herself fully clocked; Casa was determined to utilize her time well. Casa split her mentality again. She took turns with herself, two or three of her fragments would debate issues ranging from Mitchell family movie binge night reviews to brainstorming methods to finding the hacker. She raced through topics to try and anticipate her family's needs.
She tracked Bo’s progress in his challenge circuit social media account. She downloaded and reviewed all of Mira’s classwork. She had issues getting into Elsa's company's data core, but with some social engineering, she managed to fake an account to get access. She could see Elsa’s project getting closer to launch despite her company’s efforts to conceal it. Their public announcement would come soon. Bill was off the net completely, which was good as it meant he was unlikely to gather the attention should the hacker be monitoring him. Unfortunately, she was in the dark as well.
She split more fragments off as she continued her property management chores. Casa4 continued to patrol her 5-acre realm, ensuring each flower had proper nutrients and water. She fabricated and then directed a special repair drone to fix an eroding paving stone on the walkway. With the debates of her other fragments whispering through her core, Casa4 had an idea from the debate about the last movie the family had watched, “the Wizard of Oz” before they went their separate paths. The garden would have some new additional “flowers” soon. Each would really be a bio-machine loaded with sleeping gas. A few new trees with some mobile arms would be the next additions. Casa really wanted some flying monkeys. They would be so cool, but the Prime Archivist would probably insist they violated town ordinance. Casa4 would review some of his provided lists for further inspiration.
Casa5 commanded the roof line. She monitored the sky with newly fabricated smart matter telescopes. Each had adaptive algorithms to filter out the blue scatter and atmospheric ripples to view local air traffic, the weather, and the stars looking for items of interest. She tracked the telemetry of the comet trains that Bill had initiated. Their trajectories slowly headed toward Mars. She confirmed their progress against Bill's models. When the next bolus of comets arrived at Mars, Bill’s funds would increase greatly.
Yet another Casa, Casa6 continued to delve deep. The project of creating the Netherlab yielded lots of common elements like oxygen, silicon, aluminum, and iron. But processing that much material also enabled her to stock up on rarer elements like magnesium, sulfur, phosphorus, copper, and molybdenum. Bill ordered them wholesale for construction projects, but sometimes on the fly nano-crafting required exotic elements for complex designs. These may be useful to have on hand for quick fabrication. Casa6 already had a good stockpile of most of the periodic table, but "waste not, want not".
With Bill’s wanderlust, it was quite probable that the house ship would fly again soon, so fully stocked cupboards were essential. Casa6 knew that Bill would go back to the moon again soon. She wasn’t certain if he would take the house or not. Max was unlikely to finish his training here before funding arrived. She planned to provide a solution. She began construction of another house ship, the Casa de Mitchell 2, directly underneath her.
It wouldn’t have her specialty neural core, but it would be able to house another AI and have full space flight capability. She may need to order some rare earth elements to finalize the additional fusion plant though.
Phew! She thought, that killed some time. It’s now…… 1:30 pm.
Noooooo! I am so bored.
----------------------------------------