Fri 09/30 19:03:52 EAT
Four waiters bustle around us, laying out a traditional and very delicious spread of Ethiopian cuisine. The large shared plates of flatbread feature a dozen different kinds of meats and sauces in neat little piles. I tear off another piece of the spongy base and use it to grab a chunk of raw beef. I follow it up with stewed chicken, then lamb. The spiced lentils light my tongue on fire for a moment, but a piece of soft crumbly goat cheese balances everything into a perfect medley in my mouth.
Focusing on the food helps me not look over at Father. I put on my smile, laugh at Marc’s jokes, and try to enjoy our last meal in the country. Jeff, Evan, and the girls are all playing it cool too. Hopefully Father doesn’t suspect anything. No one so much as frowns when he raises his voice to get everyone’s attention.
“My children,” he begins. The murmur of my siblings’ voices quiets. “You have all done so well these last three weeks. We accomplished more than I had hoped, and I am so proud of each of you. Chad, you have been my strong right hand, making sure that I had everything I needed and taking care of your siblings. Marc, you have kept us all entertained and made the hard days of work fly by. Jeff, you’ve been a real workhorse. Without your help we couldn’t have done nearly as much good here. Andrea, you’ve been a ray of sunshine. Your flourishes made the structures that we leave here more than just water and power, but also installations of art and beauty. Louise, your dedication and attention to detail made sure we didn’t miss a thing at any of our stops. Evan, your steady demeanor has grounded all of us.”
He pauses for a moment and lets his eyes rest on me. A broad, crooked smile creeps across his face.
“And Noah! My first-born son! Lost to me for so long and finally returned. You have shown so much growth. You came to us with no background for the work we’ve been preparing our whole lives for, but in just a few short months you’ve joined us as a fully capable member of our family.”
I give him a nod of acknowledgement, careful to keep the smile on my face. I expect Chad to scowl at this praise but instead he looks right at me and gives me a little smile too. Are we not hating each other anymore? I never got the notice. Maybe I’ve proven myself a loyal enough disciple of the cult that he’s finally OK with me existing.
“You have each accomplished so much,” Father continues, “and shown to me, and to the world, that you are all worthy successors to my legacy. We’ll be talking over the next few months about our next steps. We’ll have trips like this across the globe on a regular basis going forward. I’ll be training you to protect yourselves, even if I’m not with you. In the coming years you will be entrusted with all that I have. You will do all that I now do. Each of you will be essential in bringing your younger siblings into the fold of those entrusted with these amazing abilities. Together, we will save the world!”
We all clap. Dammit, even knowing what I do, it’s still hard to resist the appeal of just going with this. We did a ton of good. Even if he wiped out a couple dozen soldiers, we’ll have saved more lives than that by the end of the month with the work that we’ve done. I know he’s a monster, but he’s just so good for the world. Unless Jeff is right, and he’s secretly harboring an AI that wants to literally eat everything. Then he’s a much worse monster. Why am I still having these conflicted feelings? I thought I was over all of this.
“Thus far,” Father proceeds, “each one of you has only been allowed to access a fraction of the potential abilities of your clouds. When we return home, I will begin the process of removing the limiters for each of you. I will teach you how to harness your full capabilities. Soon, you will be able to do everything that I can, and much more.”
Maybe Jeff is right and he’s totally going to hook us up to the swarm brain. No. Jeff’s just paranoid. But it’s a useful paranoia. I smile and clap with the others, trying not to exchange looks with any of my co-conspirators.
After dinner, we drive to the airport and say goodbye to our guides. Ibrahim gives Evan and I each a big hug. Bashir does the same with Marc and Jeff, much to Jeff’s discomfort. Kofi shakes hands with the girls, and Ahmed does the same with Father and Chad. They’ve all been great. We’ll have to look them up later if we’re ever around here again.
Cindy greets us as we board the jet and get settled in. The sibs crash into the recliners and most of them sack out quickly. Father connects to each phone and shuts down our clouds. My turn is next.
SLEEP-MODE
Sun 10/02 12:32:07 PDT
Catching up now after the implant downtime. It’s amazing how much I’ve come to rely on this constant journaling for everything I need to remember. The flight back went a lot better than the flight out. Louise kept her cool. She didn’t even need to retreat to the plane’s bedroom. We all kicked back and watched movies during the day, then passed out in our chairs all night. It was smooth sailing all the way back to the campus. After a shower to get rid of the gross smell of two days in the same clothes, I felt pretty good. Chad and Father went straight to the Research Center to start working on an update for Chad’s cloud, because of course he has to be first to get the new capabilities Father promised us. Marc went right to the cafeteria to tell all the younger sibs about the trip.
So now I finally have some time to talk with my cabal of conspirators. I scout around the campus with my bot eyes and see the computer lab is empty. That’s as good a place as any, so I lead my siblings there. I leave a couple of eyes in the hallway so I’ll be able to see anyone coming this way. A paranoid part of me wonders if we’re being bugged here, but Jeff seems at ease, and he’s much better at paranoia than I am. If there were any recording equipment in this room, he would have known about it a long time ago.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“So, what are we going to do about Father?” I ask once the door is shut.
“Turn him in to the police?” Louise suggests.
“And what exactly are you going to report him for?” Evan replies, settling his massive body into one of the rolling chairs. “Killing people in Somalia? They don’t have jurisdiction. Murdering Noah’s mom? You’ll never prove it. The Butler Treaty laws? He’s the one they call in to investigate those violations. He’s not dumb enough to leave evidence for any of this.”
“In any case, the criminal justice system is not equipped to deal with a man like Father,” Jeff adds. “His nanotechnology aside, he has a small army of lawyers in his employ. Even if we could somehow gather sufficient evidence to prove wrongdoing, he would tie any proceedings up in appeals indefinitely. And even if we were to secure a conviction, no one could keep him incarcerated unless he was willing to allow it. They cannot take his cloud away without an invasive surgery that stands a good chance of killing him. If they tried, it would be decades more in the courts. He will continue to have all of his powers for the foreseeable future. If he believes we are threats to him, I think that you can all imagine the regrettable outcomes that would befall each of us.”
Andrea nods and with a dance of fingers materializes a green toy soldier in the air in front of her, then melts it away into a red puddle.
“Exactly so.”
“You’ve clearly put a lot of thought into this, Jeff. What would you suggest?” I ask.
Please say kill him. Please.
“I believe that nothing short of his death would restrain him.”
You’ve never been my favorite brother Jeff, but you’re fighting hard to get into that spot.
“That seems extreme,” Louise says, shaking her head.
“You have a better idea?” Evan asks.
“What if we just keep him from killing anyone else?”
“That seems unlikely.” Jeff declares. “He has demonstrated that he is entirely willing to breach any constraints when it suits him. Given his history, it is almost certain he will do it again should a situation arise when he finds it convenient. Besides, his homicides are the least of my concerns. The man is a danger to the existence of all life on earth. His current focus on updating Chad’s cloud rather than addressing the threat from his own indicates that he is certainly not making haste to ameliorate the risk of an emerging artificial sentience. Pending his failure to update his cloud software in the coming days, I do not see another alternative.”
“I don’t either,” says Evan gruffly. “Even if he updates his software, it doesn’t make him any less of a murderer. Or a dirty old man.”
Andrea nods sadly and looks at me pointedly.
“He killed my mom. Of course I’m in.”
“You’re all convinced there’s no other way?” Louise asks.
I nod, as do my brothers.
“Even you, Andrea?”
Andrea’s fingers begin weaving. A pair of stick figures appear in the air. One points at the other and the second one falls down, releasing a holographic pool of bright red blood. The first one smiles as the fallen one fades. A cage appears around the killer stick figure. He waves one hand and the cage breaks apart. A blindfolded statue appears, a perfect recreation of the famous one with the scales in one hand and the sword in the other, only the scales it holds are fully unbalanced. A question mark pops over the statue’s head. Five new stick figures appear, surrounding the Father figure. They point at him, then hang their heads as the Father image falls with a new pool of red. The scales in the statue’s hand move until they find balance, and the statue’s mouth turns into a sad smile. The whole image fades and Andrea gives Louise a long look.
“I see your point,” Louise says, sighing and shaking her head. ”I was hoping to talk you all into something less drastic, but I can see that your minds are made up. I’ll help. But we need to be careful. If Jeff is right, and he’s running a learning AI in his cloud, he can probably stop anything we throw at him. Even if he’s not, he’s had decades of experience with his implant, including with other people trying to kill him. Let’s think this through before we do anything. He’s not going to kill anyone else today.”
“Agreed,” Jeff declares. “This execution will require precise execution.”
He barks out a weird noise, somewhere between a dog and a seal. It takes me a second to realize that he’s laughing. It goes on for a while. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him laugh like that before, and I hope I never hear it again. He finally trails off as he catches his breath.
No one says anything for a while.
“In the meantime, he’s going to start updating our clouds,” Louise says. “Do we just go along with it? I don’t like the idea of the world-eating AI being hooked up to my implant.”
“I don’t know what else we can do,” answers Evan. “If we balk at it, he’ll know something’s going on. Besides, we don’t know if anything is going to take effect right away. If Jeff’s theory is right, it shouldn’t be a problem unless we grow our clouds huge anyway. The original swarm’s AI was an emergent property that only manifested when it hit a critical mass.”
“Plus," I chime in, “how else can we figure out the limits of what he can do? We’ll never know what they are unless we get full access to the same software load he’s running.”
“You’re right,” Louise acknowledges. “But let’s defer it until we know Chad comes out all right. If I see him acting differently, I’m not going in. I like my brain the way it is.”
“As do I,” says Jeff. “We will observe him closely. Evan is correct. The danger to each of us should not be imminent. Also, I suspect that this update requires a new calibration comparable to that required during the original implantation. We should have ample time to observe the effects on Chad before the next one of us is called in. I suggest we follow Noah’s advice and determine the full capabilities of the upgraded cloud before we commit to any particular plan of action.”
The others all nod grimly. I nod as well.
I let myself feel a sliver of hope. This could work. At least there’s a chance. Or maybe it will get us all killed. Or turned into robot mind slaves.
But it could work. I’m not alone anymore.