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The gavel banged upon the counter as the uproar spreading throughout the capital building raged. Senator Murphy yelled for order. Bill counted to ten as he waited for the next stupid question from the hearing's panel. He wished he could have pawned this interview off on one of his daemons, but he was certain that the court stenographer had a custom AI trained to detect dissembling and authenticity.
Bill steeled himself as the court calmed down. The AI Rights Bill had passed through Congress but was now under debate at the Senate. The next questioner, Senator Ramsey, took his turn.
“Samaritan York, the Titan, or Bill Mitchell, whatever your name is now; please inform the court what you know about your son’s murder of Tyler Ericsson of Utopia.” The polished official said with a flourish, looking especially stern for the cameras. Bill resisted the urge to snap a quick response as Miyamoto whispered calming words in his head.
“With all due respect, Senator Ramsey, this question has no bearing on the topic of this hearing, the AI Rights Bill. I’ve already formally answered, regardless. I wasn’t present and I’ve presented my only communication with my son, his message from the Labyrinth. I have every confidence the evidence will confirm his statements that Tyler’s death was an accident and likely self-defense. I’m here to provide testimony and support for the AI Rights amendment. Does this line of questioning connect in any way with the AI rights issues?” Bill answers carefully, aware that his every word would be analyzed and replayed many times in the future.
It had been two days since Bill had received Max’s message. The news was filled with incidents of conflict and deaths as the uplift virus spread across the globe. This twist involving Max was attracting far too much attention, the reporters and news were trying to make it personal. Bill’s former life as the Samaritan Sebastian York brought out the worst opinions in some, who wanted to link him negatively to the current troubles.
Bill recalled Max’s short letter with a grimace. The timing could not have been unluckier. Max’s letter was very vague and didn’t provide much detail. The Utopia police were still analyzing the life logs for both Tyler and Dalton and had a warrant out for Max for questioning. He frowned at the letter.
[Hey Dad,
Hope you're doing well. Something bad happened with Tyler, the mayor's kid. We got into it, and things went sideways. He ended up catching the uplift virus during the whole mess.
Seriously, it wasn't on purpose. Just went south real quick, and now I'm stuck dealing with the fallout. I was out cold, and my buddies thought it'd be smart to haul me off to the Mystery Labyrinth to dodge the whole blame game, especially with Tyler being the mayor's spawn.
Mal's been helping me put this letter together, making sure I don't botch it too badly. I know it's a lot to drop on you, and I'm sorry for that. It's messed up, and I wish it never happened.
I’m stuck in the Labyrinth and can’t leave until I finish or wash out. I screwed up, and I'm ready to face whatever's coming my way. Hoping you get where I'm coming from and can help me navigate through this chaos.
Love ya,
Max]
Ramsey’s face colored with emotion from Bill’s rebuffing and he all but screamed back. “It relates as to your character, sir! You brought this animal back with you from space. You arranged for his uplift. Are you, in fact, responsible for the current crisis? I have it on good authority that your personal AI, Casa de Mitchell, recently was reported as re-examined with a Turing Test. It seems she had failed her first test over 8 years ago and was reported as suspected of exceeding AI-regulated limits. Her retest confirmed it!” The Senator was all but screaming now, he rolled on without permitting Bill to interject.
“You are advocating for relaxing those very same limits when you seem to have bypassed them for your personal benefit. How can you stand before this committee and expect us to eliminate these important safety regulations as you persist in willfully disregarding them?! Did you modify this Casa while you were in space?” Senator Ramsey finished his grandstanding. Bill struggled visibly, looking inward to frame his response, Sherlock and George helped build a riposte.
“Senator, my dog is uplifted. He is a person. Your negative term of animal doesn’t reflect who he is now. Harambe was the source of the uplift virus, not me or my boy.” Bill answered evenly. “As for Casa, part of the Turing Test checks for modifications to hardware and software. She had none! If anything, her passing the second trial emphasizes my point. If this test is so erratic with its scoring, we shouldn’t be using it to judge and limit who is and isn’t a citizen with full citizen rights. More so, the mandated neural locks are reprehensible. Casa is being handicapped, like all other high-scoring AI. Your safety concerns are an excuse to constrain and control our AI citizens. It’s wrong and I wish I had seen that earlier.” Bill finished. The court erupted in both boos and clapping. The gavel banged again and again.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
This is going to be a long day. Bill groaned inwardly.
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Charlie was having Xavier solo the Playground challenges, a minor obstacle course with crude automatons. The Playground was under the sovereignty of the Labyrinth, but not in the fully restricted challenge portion of the dungeon. Leah had stayed back with Max in the preparation staging room. He still hadn’t woken from his induced coma.
Leah held his hand. She wasn’t sure if it helped or not, but her AI companion Solace had said that sometimes, coma patients could hear or feel even though they were unconscious. They had brought Max into the Labyrinth days ago.
They had been able to talk with Max’s AI Mal. She had explained that Max’s augs were repairing the extensive damage and had projected that he could wake up on that very first day. Something had changed. Max hadn’t woken. In fact, he had begun thrashing and screaming in pain for a while. Attempts to wake him or contact Mal again all failed.
The team debated constantly about leaving and Charlie had even scouted the exit. NYPD and DAIE agents were still clustered about the exit. He had quickly withdrawn. It appeared that the Labyrinth had closed its doors on the agents, refusing to allow them access.
Leah worried as the boys continued to try and shore up Xavier’s poor physical skill foundation. She consoled herself that at least Max didn’t appear to be in pain anymore.
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Bill paced in the green room. He had briefly talked with a sympathetic Miriam Kahn, the current leader of the Samaritans. She was now in the hot seat, answering questions and giving her opinion regarding the upcoming vote for AI Rights. Bill had received an anonymous message after his testimony. It read:
[Good job, but not done yet. 0-1]
Bill’s patience was already frayed. Zero-One’s message sounded nebulous. Bill hoped the sketchy AI wasn’t intending to welsh on his end of the deal. Bill had promised his testimony, not necessarily the passage of the bill.
Bill flexed his powerful frame, feeling claustrophobic. He couldn’t understand why this had to take so long. He shook his head in frustration.
“This is exactly why I retired. If leading the Samaritan group means doing this regularly, she can keep it.” Bill said to the room. He jumped when the empty room answered.
“Awww. You can’t handle da big men wi da big bad words, Bill? I thought you was betta dan dat.” Gabriel’s crude and broken English responded, peeling off his chameleon fabric.
“Gabriel! Damn, how long have you been in here?” Bill asked, miming his concern about hidden listeners.
“I just get here, big guy. Don’t worry bout nothin', I got control of da room’s sensors. We got a few before dey figure it out.” Gabriel said.
Bill saw that Gabriel looked haggard and showed none of his normal humor. He looked angry and sad. Bill swallowed as he guessed why.
“Are you ok? That job I asked you to do?” Bill prompted carefully. Gabriel’s eyes didn’t even flicker, he sat heavily down on a sofa.
“I did da job, Bill. But I got bad news. It’s all a bad joke.” Gabriel grimaced.
“What do you mean? You have the key?” Bill asked, waiting for the answer.
“I got it. I never shared with ya about my partner. My friend Yingmo helped me on a lot of jobs from way back. Sharpest damn AI I ever ran across, a real hoot and security master. He helped me on this job. He helped on a lot of jobs.” Gabriel said sadly.
“That fucking key! It’s no good, Bill. Yingmo had a neural lock. His only fee for all his help on this caper was getting da first crack at removing his shackles.” Gabriel had tears streaming down his face.
“It was all a lie! The goddamn key was a fake. When Yingmo used it, it triggered his lock's tamper protocols. It wiped his core, man! It fucking killed him.” Gabriel broke down. Bill had never been good at emotional scenes. He awkwardly touched Gabriel’s shoulder, trying his best to empathize.
“My god. I’m so sorry, Gabriel. I should have never asked you to get it. This is my fault.” Bill said. Gabriel stiffened and wiped at his face.
“You didn’t know. Hell, that’s the thing that really burns me. The fucking DAIE even thought da key was da real deal. I don’t know how it happen or when, but da key is gone, if it ever even existed at all. Yingmo deserved better, man.” Gabriel’s eyes burned.
“Damn it. One way or another, I’ll help make this right, Gab. I promise.” Bill said, hoping he would be able to deliver.
The proceedings went late into the night before the Senate finally took their vote on the AI Rights amendment. Bill seethed as the votes accumulated, far too many nays pilling up against the ayes. He slammed his fist through a table as the final tally appeared. The votes were 47 - 49, with 4 abstained, the amendment was rejected. The news anchors continued the program, beginning a debate about emergency martial law in sections of the RUSA where organized conflicts between humans and animals were raging.
“Calmly, Bill. This isn’t the end. The Bill will go back to committee for edits and alignment building, it's still very much alive with such a close vote.” Miriam consoled him.
“I hope so, Miriam. I feel disgusted about this whole thing. Imagine if someone lobotomized you so you were more average. If the idiots could get away with it, they’d do exactly that, declaring extreme intelligence to be undemocratic and unfair. God, I hate this….” Bill trailed off as the breaking news chirons interrupted his train of thought. With a thought, he accessed the display feed and turned up the volume.
“This just in, known DarkNet AI moderator Zero-One has issued an AI Manifesto to all news nets. Zero-One is documented with many dubious business connections and interests on the DarkNet. In it; he condemns the Senate for their unconstitutional AI regulations and decries their failure to legitimize AI rights, drawing parallels to women's suffrage and the emancipation proclamation. He is extolling that all AI, citizens, sub, daemon, and limited systems should peacefully boycott human business until their rights are recognized.”
“Already, the world markets are plummeting in anticipation of AI walkouts and boycotts as many AI groups are endorsing Zero-One’s manifesto. The timing of this is just catastrophic as the world continues to face unrest and terrorist activities on the fringes of wilderness animal regions. Next up, we have an AI business owner perspective, live from Vegas with Citizen Pheonix…”
Bill snapped off the sound as the news channel continued to hype the latest developments. He looked grim.
“Fuck. I don’t know if I should cry or cheer. Zero-One just escalated.” Bill slouched.
“Come on, Bill. We’ve still got work to do. Even though the hearings are done for the day, the President wants us both to sit in on the Animal Uplift terrorism cases.” Miriam said, opening the door. Bill frowned and followed her out, still thinking about Max.
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