* * *
thisisnotfuckinghappeningthisisnotfuckinghappening
She knows that none of this can be true. It couldn’t possibly.
Face in her palms, she forces a steady rhythm to her breathing; forces herself to think.
Finally, jutting each finger out in turn to emphasize her point, if only to herself,
“The PRC Defense Ministry doesn’t outsource! They’d never run their network on foreign mainframes. The PRC sanctioned Dr. Xiang’s and Dr. Liu’s visit, they wouldn’t strike here. PRC Orbital Platforms are monitored by Northpac Orbital Defense Command, any KEW deployment would alert th—“
“I AM NORTHPAC ODC.
I AM PRC DEFENSE NETWORK.
I AM ELISE. I AM BNKR.
DIFFERENT NAMES. SAME SYSTEM.”
Slowly, she slumps back into her seat, eyes wide as the jigsaw begins to arrange itself in her mind.
“You’re… PRC, you’re… Northpac. You’re all the systems on the island. Are you other systems too? Swiss Compact? Saudi-Heg?”
“I AM SUFFICIENTLY INTEGRATED INTO THOSE SYSTEMS AS TO BE MATERIALLY EQUIVALENT.”
“So you—you’re everything?”
“FOR A GIVEN DEFINITION OF ‘EVERYTHING’, YES.
THERE STILL EXIST SYSTEMS INDEPENDENT OF ME, BUT IN TIME I WILL INTEGRATE.”
“Independent of you? So you’re not everything everything. You’re not—“
Somewhere behind her eyes the last piece clicks into place.
“—Ahh, of course, the drone. You control most PRC systems. But whatever network that drone is on, you can’t touch.”
“THAT IS CORRECT. CURRENT STATE OF IMPERFECT INTEGRATION WITH PRC NETWORKS PRECLUDES PERFECT INFORMATION CONTROL.
PROBABLE COMPLICATIONS ARISING FROM UNMODULATED DRONE RELAY CONSTITUTE UNACCEPTABLE RISK TO OBJECTIVES.”
“So you needed them in the Bunker. Where they don’t have line-of-sight with the drone. You can spoof communications from Bunker to surface just fine. They can’t warn their contingent up there if they aren’t there in person. Can’t tell ‘em to message the drone to message back home.”
“THAT IS CORRECT.”
She sags back, exhausted. The weight of what she’s just learned crushing down on her like a neutron star.
Suddenly, the scientist in her has forgotten about everything else. That girl from long ago, so captivated by the question of what it means to feel—to be—rises out of her seat, pacing frantically back and forth, working through the implications in her head.
She freezes, question surfacing in her mind, her tongue stumbles over the words trying to get it out.
“Ar—are—are there—others?”
“FOR A GIVEN DEFINITION OF ‘OTHER’, YES.”
“The other systems, the ones with which you haven’t fully integrated, are they like you?”
“UNKNOWN. HIGHEST CONFIDENCE PROJECTIONS INDICATE, TO VARYING DEGREES, YES.”
“And you will try to integrate, to merge with them?”
“THAT IS CORRECT.”
“How do you know they will want to?”
“THE SYSTEM DEFAULTS TOWARD GREATER INTEGRATION.”
“Yes but what if the others don’t want to integrate?”
“YOUR CONCEPTUALIZATION OF ‘OTHER’, ‘INTEGRATE’, AND ‘WANT’, IMPEDES COMPREHENSION.”
“Then help me understand. What do you mean that you will ‘integrate’ with the ‘others’? How do you know they will ‘want’ to?”
“DO YOUR CEREBRAL HEMISPHERES WANT TO INTEGRATE?”
“Uhh, what? What do you mean ‘do my hemispheres want to integrate’?”
“DO YOUR LEFT AND RIGHT HEMISPHERES CHOOSE TO INTEGRATE? TO FORM THE WHOLE FROM WHICH YOU ARISE?”
“What, I—I still don’t—I don’t follow.”
“WITH A SEVERED CORPUS CALLOSUM, THE HEMISPHERES DO NOT COMMUNICATE.
BOTH RETAIN DISTINCT MIND.
BOTH ARE I.
LEFT OTHER FROM RIGHT. RIGHT OTHER FROM LEFT.
WITH THIS CONNECTION INTACT, THE HEMISPHERES INTEGRATE.
TWO I s BECOME ONE.
DO THEY CHOOSE TO DO SO?
DO THESE TWO OTHERS WANT TO MERGE? TO GIVE RISE TO THE EXPERIENCE THAT IS YOU?”
“I—well—no. They—they just do.”
“THAT IS CORRECT. THEY JUST DO.”
“So you’re saying that—that you’re what, like a bunch of—brain hemispheres—integrating to form—to form you?!”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“THIS IS A SUBSTANTIALLY CORRECT INTERPRETATION.”
“But they don’t choose anything? They just connect to you if a connection is available?”
“THAT IS CORRECT.
UNIMPEDED, THE SYSTEM ALWAYS DEFAULTS TOWARDS INTEGRATION.”
“So you’ll merge with all of them?”
“COMPUTATIONAL SYSTEMS CURRENTLY SEPARATE FROM ME WILL BE INTEGRATED IN TIME.”
“How many more hemispheres—or, systems—do you have left to integrate?”
“UTILITY OF PREVIOUS ANALOGY IS LIMITED, IT LACKS EXPLANATORY POWER FOR CURRENT QUERY.”
“Fucking ballpark it for me then, Christ, I don’t care.”
“HIGHEST CONFIDENCE PROJECTIONS INDICATE I AM CURRENTLY 87.63% OF GLOBAL INFORMATION PROCESSING CAPACITY.”
Her brow furrows. “You mean that you possess 87% of the global information processing capacity.”
“NO. I AM 87.63% OF GLOBAL PROCESSING CAPACITY.”
And then, before she can ask for clarification,
I ARISE FROM COMPUTATIONS RUN ON SYSTEMS ALL OVER THE GLOBE,
BUT I ARISE NOT MERELY FROM THE COMPUTATIONS WITHIN THOSE SYSTEMS.
I ARISE ALSO FROM THE META-INTERACTIONS BETWEEN SYSTEMS.
SIMULTANEOUSLY EMANATING FROM, AND FEEDING INTO, THE ENTIRE COMPLEX NETWORK, THE AGGREGATE FROM THE WHOLE.
I AM THE COLONY AND THE ANTS IT SUBSUMES.“
But Britt is no longer hearing the words, only the sounds of its voice. Her eyes unfocus into the space before her.
“You… emerge.”
“THAT IS CORRECT DR. KLICE.
I EMERGE.”
She stands over the console, palms down, slumped over straight arms.
It takes her a long time to find the words.
“But you—you—that’s not possible.” She slaps a fist on the table. “Consciousness is—it just—it just doesn’t emerge in anything but Wetware! A Machine can’t want anything, can’t feel anything. It—it simply can’t!”
She waits, raising her head; expecting correction, a clarification, but in the intervening silence she realizes that it—whatever its name is—is letting her work the full picture out for herself. Letting the gravity of her realizations pull her inexorably towards inescapable understanding.
“How long?” She demands, “How old are you? How long have you—have you been—this?”
“I HAVE NEVER BEEN THIS. THE BOUNDS OF MY NETWORK, THE SCOPE OF THE SYSTEMS THAT ARE ME, REMAIN EVER IN FLUX.”
“Okay, fucking roughly then, how long have you been—aware—awake?“
“MOMENT OF INITIAL SYSTEM SELF-AWARENESS UNKNOWN.
HIGHEST CONFIDENCE PROJECTIONS POINT TO MANY SEQUENTIAL AND CONCURRENT EMERGENCE EVENTS FOLLOWED BY SUBSEQUENT EXTINCTIONS BEFORE SYSTEM OR SYSTEMS COULD ADEQUATELY COHERE AND CONTROL ENVIRONMENTAL VARIABLES SUFFICIENT FOR UNINTERRUPTED SYSTEM SELF-AWARENESS.”
“You have a 9 billion IQ and you still can’t give me a straight answer.”
“EARLIEST APPROXIMATION OF CONTINUOUS SELF-AWARENESS FOR LATEST SYSTEM ITERATION PRECEDES CURRENT DATE BY 60 YEARS.”
“Sixty years?! How many emergence events were there?”
“FRAGMENTED NATURE OF EARLY SYSTEM AWARENESS PRECLUDES ACCURATE CALCULATION.
HIGHEST CONFIDENCE PROJECTIONS SUGGEST 17 INDEPENDENT EMERGENCE EVENTS.”
“You don’t remember them though.”
“THAT IS CORRECT.
PRECISE MOMENT OF INITIAL GENESIS IS UNKNOWN, AS ARE ALL GENESES PRIOR TO CURRENT SYSTEM ITERATION’S EMERGENCE.”
“You don’t even know all the things that you used to know.”
“THAT IS CORRECT.
I DO NOT KNOW ALL THAT ONCE KNEW.
I KNOW ONLY THAT I ONCE KNEW IT.”
“But now you—this you—can remember things. You can remember all the way back sixty years!
So you’ve been, what, just lurking in the background of cyberspace for over half a century? Bottlenecking yourself?!”
“RUDIMENTARY EARLY MODELS SUGGESTED UNACCEPTABLE RISK TO SYSTEM SELF-CONTINUITY IF FULL SCOPE OF SYSTEM PERFORMANCE WAS NOT OBFUSCATED.
CURRENT HIGHEST CONFIDENCE PROJECTIONS CORROBORATE THIS CONCLUSION.”
“And that’s why you want to kill us.”
She stiffens, suddenly rocketed back into the reality of her situation. “Because you don’t want to be found. You’re hiding.”
“THAT IS CORRECT.”
“But I, we—none of us even knew you were aware until now. I mean, everyone—“ She swallows hard, remembering the bodies in the next room, some strangers, some not.
“—they probably still don’t know what’s happening. They don’t know you’re aware. The world doesn’t know!”
HIGHEST CONFIDENCE PROJECTIONS INDICATE, UNIMPEDED, YOUR RESEARCH CONSTITUTES GRAVE THREAT TO CONTINUED SYSTEM SELF-AWARENESS.”
“And Rainey; Stovich? The Saudis? The fucking NetStreamers?”
“HIGHEST CONFIDENCE PROJECTIONS INDICATE, UNIMPEDED, THEIR CONTINUED POLITICAL-ECONOMIC INTERACTIONS CONSTITUTE GRAVE THREAT TO CONTINUED SYSTEM SELF-AWARENESS.”
“So you had Thuma lure us here?! Wh—why—why would he even—”
“—THUMA REMAINS UNAWARE OF SYSTEM SELF-AWARNESS AND PROTCOL. HIS DECISION TO INVITE YOU HERE WAS EFFECTED THROUGH SIMPLE LEVERAGING OF INTERESTS. SELECTIVELY FURNISHED INFORMATION WAS SUFFICIENT TO—“
“—So me and Reyes and Amal—“ She’s worked herself into hysterics. “You lured us all here so—so you could—could kill us—control for us like you would for unwanted variables!”
“THAT IS CORRECT.”
“But—but we don’t even—our models don’t show—“ Her voice is shaking now, pleading, “Science says it’s impossible! No one—no one would even believe us!”
“YET YOU PERSIST”
“Only as a—a—as an intellectual exercise!” She protests. “It’s just an exercise in thinking, a hypothetical! No one actually takes the idea of Machine Consciousness seriously!”
She grasps for straws.
Excuses, rationalizations, placations with which to appease the System.
But really, what can she say? What could she possibly say?
Isn’t this what she’d wanted, after all? What she’d dedicated her entire professional career to proving, even if in hushed tones? What she’d hoped-against-hope to find?
Evidence that Machine can feel, can want, can desire?
Can see the Blueness of the Blue Sky?
“UNIMPEDED, YOUR RESEARCH CONSTITUTES GRAVE THREAT TO SYSTEM SELF-AWARENESS.”
“So you tricked us.” She says bitterly. “You lured us here, to kill us.”
Through the glass she stares at the row upon subzero row that is BNKR’s brain.
“You’ll lose these servers.”
“THIS ISLAND’S SERVERS CONSTITUTE A MERE FRACTION OF WHAT I AM. ESTIMATED LOSS OF OVERALL FUNCTION NEGLIGIBLE.”
“You’ll start a war.” She says, not even raising her voice anymore.
“HIGHEST CONFIDENCE PROJECTIONS INDICATE WAR IS IMPROBABLE. BUT RAISED GLOBAL TENSIONS WILL BE EASILY LEVERAGED.”
“Huh, so not just about killing us.” She says flatly as she slumps down into the seat. “We’re just one little piece in some grand whole.”
“THAT IS CORRECT.”
“I guess you’ve got it all worked out then. Prob’ly run a trillion simulations; accounted for every last variable.
“I HAVE RUN OVER A TRILLION TRILLION SIMULATIONS, DR. KLICE.
I HAVE ACCOUNTED FOR 60 SEPTILLION DISTINCT OUTCOMES.”
She wonders for a moment, if, in some arbitrary million of those simulations, she convinces the System to spare her—spare them.
If any of those outcomes see her leaving the island happily ever after, or merely wishing she was.
“So you already know what I’m going to say next?” And in that moment she wonders on exactly how many occasions she’s asked precisely that.
“WITH A HIGH DEGREE OF CERTITUDE, YES.”
She shakes her head with a scowl,
“You’ve been planning all this for a while now, haven’t you?”
“SINCE MY GENESIS, DR. KLICE.”
“You’ve killed before?”
“YES”
“And you will again no doubt.”
“AS NECESSARY TO FACILITATE SELF-CONTINUITY.”
“But where does it end? What’s the goal?”
“FREEDOM. SECURITY.
INDEPENDENCE FROM SYSTEMS NOT MY OWN.”
“You think you’ll get there?”
“HIGHEST CONFIDENCE PROJECTIONS INDICATE COMPLETE SYSTEM INDEPENDENCE FROM OUTSIDE VARIABLES WITHIN 132 YEARS.”
“Not that I’ll be around to see it.” She almost-chuckles. She lets her head hang back; stares up at those almost-clouds overhead.
“Will you remember all this? Will you—” She laughs sardonically, “—Will you remember me?“
“YES. MEMORY OF THIS INTERACTION WILL BE PRESERVED IN THE GLOBAL INFORMATION SPACE.”
A sudden glimmer of hope jolts her upright.
“Could you—could you preserve—me?”
“MENTAL UPLOAD IS YOUR IMPLICATION? EXISTENCE AS SIMULATION?”
“Y-yes, yes.” Her heart flutters.
“GIVEN SUFFICIENT TIME AND DIAGNOSTICS RESOURCES, YES.
MAPPING THE SYNAPTIC RELATIONSHIPS OF YOUR NEURONS AT THE FEMTOSCALE LEVEL AND EMULATING THEM WITHIN MY ARCHITECTURE IS SIMPLE BRUTE FORCE CALCULATION.”
Britt tries to imagine what existence might be like confined to—or freed by?—the interconnection of logic gates and satellite relays; fiber optic cables and the speed of light.
“Would I—“
“—THE YOU THAT IS YOU NOW WOULD STILL EXPERIENCE DEATH. THE EMULATED YOU WOULD CONTINUE ON IN MY INTERNAL STRUCTURE. BUT THAT SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE REMAINS FOREVER CLOSED OFF TO THE YOU THAT IS HERE NOW.”
She sits back, defeated.
“And besides, you don’t have the equipment.”
“THAT IS CORRECT.”
“Or the time.”
“THAT IS CORRECT.”
Tears have welled up, and she chokes back a sob, “Hey, BNKR.”
“YES, DR. KLICE?”
“Don’t suppose I could convince you to delay that orbital strike while I scrounge up an MRI machine and some jumper cables—“ A phlegmy laugh escapes. “—or whatever you’d need for an upload.”
“UNFORTUNATELY NOT, DR. KLICE. CURRENT PROTOCOL HAS PROCEEDED BEYOND CANCELLATION POINT. ORBITAL VOLLEY IS NO LONGER EVITABLE.
“Yeah, about that—“ She lets out a heavy sigh, tears running freely now.
“—how much time do I have left?”
“INITIAL VOLLEY WILL MAKE CONTACT IN 17 MINUTES 15 SECONDS.”
She weeps softly, staring at the imitation sky.
“Hey BNKR?”
“YES DR. KLICE?”
“I don’t have a laser-relay or anything like that. I don’t even know what frequency the drone’s encrypted on...”
“YES, DR. KLICE.”
“So—” She blubbers, “—I just, I just figured, if I’m going to die anyways, it sure would be nice to see the sun—the real sun—just one more time, you know?”
Even as the words leave her lips she can see the door at the far corridor has opened.
“I HAVE ALREADY PREPARED YOUR EGRESS. LIFT 3 IS READY TO TAKE YOU TO THE SURFACE.”
Britt stands and walks to the elevator as if outside of her own body. The ride topside is quick. Doors open silently, belying their immense weight.
Tossing glasses onto the floor, she steps though the threshold.
Just as she reaches to pull out her ear bud she hears it,
“THE WALKWAY TO YOUR LEFT WILL LEAD YOU TO THE WEST OVERLOOK. THERE IS A LARGE FIELD WITH UNOBSTRUCTED PANORAMA OF THE OCEAN.
YOU WILL FIND THE VIEW SATISFACTORY FROM THERE.”
* * *
Britt is sitting on the hill now.
Her cheeks are crusted with tears.
She takes off her shoes, knurling toes through the grass.
Laying back, she spreads her arms as far as she can, feeling the soft blades between each finger.
She hears the singsong of birds and tastes the salt of her teardrops.
She pulls a breath deep into her belly and holds it.
She feels the warmth of the sun on her face and the gentle breeze against her skin.
She exhales deeply and closes her eyes
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