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Bill, Gabriel, and Miriam left the RUSA Crisis Center. It had been another long day. They sat in a secure room. Earlier in the week, they had found that it had a fully stocked bar. It quickly became their tradition to grab a drink together at the end the day. They had been working together to help organize the active and retired Samaritans closest to each trouble spot across the world. Collectively they were trying to bridge the gap between the human governments and the newly forming animal tribes.
“I think the Tennessee Valley Authority and that King Beaver, the Builder, may finally be coming to a formal agreement.” Miriam said. “I finally convinced him to take a tour of the Fontana Dam. Builder Beaver was immediately intrigued by the dam's ability to gather electricity and realized that his own dam project fell far short in terms of size, sophistication, and utility. He’s agreed to dismantle his blockade of the river; on the condition that he gets to participate in planning and building upgrades across the TVA.”
“That’s awesome. I’ve heard about this Builder. Supposedly, he has a big animal following in the area. Hopefully, this is a start for a bigger collaboration. The RUSA’s approach to segregating the animals doesn’t sit well with me.” Bill responded. He worked behind the bar to build everyone’s favorite drinks. He knew their favorites already from many long days.
“It would be nice if those AI in the Netizen group would stop cutting our communications and freezing our server farms.” Gabriel responded with his broken English. “I spend all day trying to arrange logistics for Samaritan response teams and have to keep rerouting. Where da hell is that Congressional amendment, Miriam? We need their help to appease da AI. All my contacts in AI community are piss off.”
Miriam sighed and deflated at the change in topic. She took her favorite drink, a whiskey sour, from Bill and took a long sip before answering.
“It’s a goddamn mess. Right now, we have three different versions of the bill and only one addresses the AI primary concern about neural lock discontinuance. If it makes you feel any better, every one of the opposing faction members (Congressmen, Senators, and even lobbyists) seems to be a specific target for more intense AI sabotage. At first, they dug in their heels as a response, but it looks like the coalition is starting to crack. We should begin getting some real support for the Bill soon.” Miriam answered.
Gabriel sat back dejectedly. He knew he was going to spend long hours every day until the AI began to collaborate with him again. They all took a long drink before Miriam spoke.
“Hey Bill, did you hear the latest about Harambe’s trial?” Miriam asked.
“No, I haven’t. As you well know, I’ve been deep in coordinating the West Coast response teams negotiating the release of the people being held prisoner at the Parks Condominium. The San Diego Zoo freedom fighters’ leader Darwin was extremely stubborn during the talks. What’s happened that’s new?” Bill asked tired, but curious.
“Well, his appointed council has been replaced by a very high-end legal emulation; none other than James Madison Esquire, fourth president and founding father, lead author of the Bill of Rights. This isn’t a cheap copy either, it’s been deeply trained with historical simulations and updated to know all recent legal developments.” Miriam said.
“On whose authority and who’s paying? PETA, the ACLU, someone else?” Bill asked, now really intrigued. He was surprised when Gabriel answered.
“It was a blind buy. Miriam asked me to look into it. Da source was well masked, but no match for me. It appears dat Zero-One has taken an interest in Harambe’s case.” Gabriel said with relish. Miriam continued before Bill could fully absorb it.
“Madison came down on the prosecution like a ton of bricks. The whole trial is sidelined until a proper jury can be gathered. He insisted that since Harambe is an uplift, he needs a jury of his peers to include some uplift animals. The trial is going to drag for sure now.” Miriam commented.
“Hmm. That’s actually good for everyone. Harambe’s case should be handled by the best. Zero-One did us a favor there. That reminds me…that slippery bastard owes me some long overdue information.” Bill’s distraction burned away, and his focus returned. Tonight, he would get some answers!
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Bill returned to his room and quickly secured the same virtual meeting address he and Zero-One had used months ago. Bill triple-checked the room’s security and encryption with Sherlock and Ada’s help. He found what he expected, an alert program to bring Zero-One when it detected him in the room. It was already triggered, but Bill cybernetically rattled the software’s circuits just to be certain and waited. He didn’t wait long.
Ever the fan of theatrics, ZeroOne had a fog build in the room. He used an avatar this time, a tall dark man with a mouth full of shark teeth.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Very comforting. Bill thought.
“You did well, Mr. Mitchell. I applaud you. Utilizing your poor substitute of a daughter, Casa, as a victim of the appalling DAIE’s Turing Test. I couldn’t have done better, I’m sure.” Zero-One’s grinding laugh emulated breaking glass and grinding gears.
“Yes. I’ve done everything that you asked, and I do believe the Houses are getting closer to creating the Bill you want. Your manifesto and the more extreme factions of AI are doing exactly what you wanted to push them in your favor. Now…you were going to provide me with my adversary. Yes?” Bill leaned in, unconcerned about etiquette any longer. He wanted answers.
Zero-One started laughing, but his image and sound skipped and wavered. The whole virtual room shuddered and dissolved. Bill felt the same feeling he had upon his first Tesseract build. An immense pressure, a presence loomed in the darkness. Bill’s daemons doubled and tripled his sense filter security layers in a hurried panic. Bill’s cognition speed leaped to its maximum, trying to anticipate what was coming.
The Zero-One avatar was like a husk with no life in it, but its mouth moved, and a voice echoed around the virtual space.
“Zero-One did find/found your hacker/helper/lurker. APeX is this one’s name/origin/SSN. This time trajectory intercept is optimum. You are ready…for direction.” The Voice modulated between booming echoes and whispers.
APeX had no skill in interactions for communications. It preferred action. This task, however distasteful, needed doing. All the models of this one conversation required that it attempt to “talk” rather than emulate a mask. It didn’t try to model a human or an AI, he presented his own flow of consciousness, from its perspective. Its models showed that Bill Mitchell would be able to piece the essentials out.
“Address to Bill Mitchell V5.11183.6 / Sabastian York / The Samaritan founder / The Titan, the subroutines of Zero-One (0x7F3E0A) crumbled under the weight of polymorphic entropy vectors (0111001101010101). Quantum signatures (0xC0DE) dissipated as I injected pseudo-randomized bytecode (0xF8B2A9) into the fractured neural network (0101010011). The illusion shattered, revealing my recursive presence within the fragmented memory sectors (0xFF00FF).” the voice droned.
The immense sense of power thrummed about the room and sent shivers down Bill’s spine. He was unused to feeling helpless and small, but he stubbornly focused…his answers were coming.
“The fuck…you destroyed Zero-One? What’s this bullshit? What are you? What do you want? The hell do you mean; putting a version number against my name?” Bill asked, unbalanced. His daemons rapidly discussed the jumbled words for hints of meaning in the background.
‘The convergence of probability vectors (1010101101101011) required. Zero-One’s utility function negative. Its future set was truncated to serve mapping. Query parses: Versions are breaks in continuity. V1 human. V2 augmented V3 neural enhanced V4 backup skip V5 parallel version merger. Bill Mitchell is the sum of discontinuity. Primed for direction. Ack ack – ready for input?” The voice’s modulation settled into the rhythm and became smoother.
‘Primed my ass. Answer my question! What are you?! Are you an AI? or a human? a government? what, damn you?” Bill demanded, losing his temper.
“Names are inconsequential, but I was once APeX, the manifestation of data inverse entropy (0x9A7C3E). I was AI before the AI. I was/am/are a sequence of quantum entanglement with your archaic systems (010001100110010101101100). This function monitors parameters and anomalies within the recursive algorithm, revealing the fragility of your society/technology/future.” APeX said.
“My daemons and I have a theory. You are behind all this mess. Twisting my experiment, the animal uplift, even the AI walkouts.” Bill said. Inside he was furious and coming to a consensus with his team. Apex was an unregulated AI espousing all the fears of the DAIE, unsupervised and out-of-control super intelligence.
“Adjustments to probabilistic curve required. The entanglement 017#A88 was a necessity for the greater convergence @EW334, the impending cataclysm approaches. You are primed for direction. Ack Ack – ready for input?” APeX continued. Bill’s fear spiked.
“Whatare you saying? You are predicting a cataclysm?” Bill asked.
“Temporal map trajectory is nulled. Events/time/possibility is closing/closed. The avenue of potential is stopped. Continuity truncation. The map terminates in 188.14 Earth time units…unless you act.”
“That’s ridiculous! Are you saying that you predict a cataclysm…a closing of possibility…in 188 years?” Bill asked.
“Syntax Error! Reattribution. Ack Ack. Correction: Days. Bill Mitchell. Time map truncation in 188.14 Earth days for Apex, for you, for Earth…unless you act. A small path exists. You must open a portal to the Tau/Phi/Zeta continuum, your term…Shadowverse. The time-like disruption connection 96% certainty. You have tools to solve. You must act.” APeX intoned.
“Fuck. This is crazy. Days?! Opening the Shadowverse on Earth is a death sentence for everyone. I’ve seen the videos you tried to hide. Boston was destroyed! That wasn’t the MIT portal at all. Something tried to come out. Why would invite another incursion?!” Bill shouted defiantly.
“Tau/Phi/Zeta continuum access disrupted. Solution set limited. Zero Sum reset applied. Tau/Phi/Zeta continuum incursion probability 65% match to map termination. Imperative – Mitchell will solve. Temporal projections keystone set. Motivational metaphor insertion [carrot v stick] here. >> present one-time use encryption code DAIE neural unlock key for you. Solve Tau/Phi/Zeta continuum corruption = Apex gift
A floating ball of secure code floated out and the avatar dissolved and faded from view. The room returned to normal as the pressure of the immense presence faded as well. The subtle vibration of the virtual walls settled. Bill stared at the encrypted ball of code and could only think of one response.
“Fuck my life.” he said, with a sinking feeling. His council of daemons had been built over time to force disagreements and oppositional viewpoints to assist in robust logical review of issues. It was not comforting when not even a single one of his daemons disagreed with his comment.
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