The Codex:
Codex Entry No. 5, “Artificial Intelligence”
Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) or Synthetics are one of the most controversial areas of conversation even today. I have tried to be one of the largest advocates of Synthetic rights, and many of the closest people in my life are Synthetics. How could I not fight for them?
A.I. are created by bouncing electronic pulses through a brain which are used to map and model the brain into a virtual architecture which then will gain sentience as information is fed to it. Within twenty-four hours after the virtualization process and the data trickle, a new A.I. is born. Early techniques for this process created A.I. with mental instability or coding issues which would frequently lead to critical coding failures which would effectively kill the A.I. Newer methods do not have these problems and have the added benefit of allowing the A.I. to retain some of the memories and personality of the brain they are modelled on.
There are some who view me as a traitor for arguing for Synthetic rights, but… Well, my struggles are not the subject of this entry. Synthetics were illegal to create, house, or maintain in most instances on every colony until twenty-years ago or so. There are still many who are uncomfortable with them, but my continued partnership with Synthetics has allowed many Martians and Ceresians to give Synthetics the benefit of the doubt.
The first Synthetic as we know them today was Zeus, my friend and partner, who was created in 2245 by a team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Zeus later took over Earth and was only forced to let go of power when he was forcibly ripped out by an uncle of mine.
After this, all A.I. which existed either lived in seclusion within systems and people around the colonies or were locked up by the Martian Authority. Ironically, Mars is governed by humans paired with A.I., which isn’t common knowledge even today. A.I. would not gain wider acceptance until the Battle of New Paris where [REDACTED BY THE OFFICE OF RESEARCH AND INNOVATION] sacrificed himself by trapping another A.I., [REDACTED BY THE OFFICE OF RESEARCH AND INNOVATION], within the virtual space in my nanites where [REDACTED BY THE OFFICE OF RESEARCH AND INNOVATION] had resided up until that point.
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Chapter 6, “Agent of Earth”
"If there is one thing Earth retained after the Intelligence War it was its impressive network of spies and connections through the colonies. Earth was unmatched in intelligence and counter-inteligence operations. No matter how behind they were in all other aspects, even in their lowest moments they are our most dangerous opponent."-- Executor Thomas James Maine during a meeting of the Martian Assembly in 2389.
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Being among the enemy is always nerve-racking. There is a sort of excitement and terror that races through you that I can’t quite put to words except to call it electric. Given that I had nano-bots floating through my blood and an A.I. in my head though, I think that may not mean as much. Still, it was impossible to relax, and I had to focus hard on not fidgeting in my seat.
Infiltrating is dangerous enough on its own, but there is nothing more dangerous than when you realize that there was another player who you never even knew was in the game with you.
As we made our final approach streaking through the skies on Titan, I noticed that the pilot had gone oddly silent after taking a call, and so I casually asked, “Pilot, are we landing soon or what?”
The man looked back at me, and the fear in his eyes told me there was a problem. The man turned forwards again and tightly said, “No problems, sir. None at all.”
Liar, Zeus, and I thought in tandem.
I quickly listed off my assets.
I have a flak vest, bump helmet, trauma kit, a AS80 rifle, a Colt Government, and ammo enough to get through one engagement, maybe, I grimaced as realized my unfavorable odds, I’ll have to make a run for it.
Zeus didn’t comment. I learned this was because he agreed with me. Apparently if he didn’t feel a need to make a comment or wasn’t sufficiently bored, he was more than happy to play good guest and keep to himself. That should’ve been it. I had come up with a plan, Zeus had no holes to poke in it or any problems to bring up, and I- I was confronted with a pair of very sophisticated looking Mandroids flanking either side of a woman in Martian armor the moment the shuttle door lowered.
Well…Shit, I resigned, knowing in an instant that my luck had run dry.
The world started to slow again, and everything took on a clarity like a thousand expresso shots go through my veins. My decision, as always, was made through a rapid series of logical assertions and a quick foot. I moved as fast as I could out of the doorway. My heel hit the pavement, I know it did, but even still I was too slow. Human decisions and actions are often too slow for the important things, like combat. That goes doubly so in a world with A.I. and Mandroids.
I only had one foot on the ground when the closest Mandroid’s shoulder hit me. While I was still in midair the thing grabbed my flak vest with both hands and pivoted, using the momentum from my falling form for a throw which saw me slammed into an adjacent shuttle. I could tell from the way it hit me that it wasn’t a standard model. No standard model knows martial arts well enough to turn a shoulder-shove into momentum for a very impressive throw. I say very impressive because I was on the other end of that throw, and I was impressed, I recall, just as much as I was in pain.
There is an intelligence behind that thing, Zeus noted, and a talented one at that. Puppeteering is a difficult trick for humans. Martians have just as much trouble, from what I understand.
Zeus was correct. Mandroids were dumb by design and could follow orders through special neural links. The user of the neural links could even directly take over the puppeteer or just see through its eyes and sensors. The problem is that the human mind wasn’t made to take all that input and adding more Mandroids to form a squad often left people screaming and begging for the implant to be turned off. Still, there were a few people who trained to use them extensively.
The soldiers around Titan often could handle at least one Mandroid, though they focused mostly on team maneuvers and tactics. Martial arts and quick suppression tactics were the realm of spies. On Mars proper though, puppeteering is a rare skill which isn’t widely used.
As I groaned on the ground while the stars in my eyes cleared, I realized, that person is from the Intelligence School. In other words, a traitor. A talented traitor.
The hit had come as a surprise sure, but I was more surprised about just how hard I was taking the hit. Yes, I’d been knocked off my feet and into a shuttle, but I’d never had the wind knocked out of me from a hit like that!
Of course, before then I’d never been knocked around by a properly armored opponent in nothing more than antique gear leftover from the last war. The helmet had done it’s job well enough, so I could think clearly, but the impact of landing against an adjacent shuttle wasn’t anything I could shakeoff. Regeneration or not, your blood can only absorb oxygen so fast, and your lungs can only work so well. Still, I had sparred enough to know how to function half-decently without being at 100%. My family had seen well enough to that.
I shakily rose to my feet, feeling better with each gasp, but only got half-way up before the two Mandroids seized me by the arms and started dragging me back towards the woman.
Zeus, I need options, I begged.
Working on it. Standby and try to hold out for as long as possible, Zeus replied, his voice quick and anxious.
A.I. are functional emulations of human brains laid into a liquid gel crystalline architecture for storage. The process for A.I. to transfer that consciousness is complex, and the storage requirements are difficult. I still have no idea how Zeus put himself into my nanites, but I would learn later the process was one-way. His fate was tied to mine, and so I could understand him being nervous. He’d never faced death before, not really. He faced it well for his first time.
Once I was in front of the woman, suspended between the two Mandroids like a ragdoll, I glared defiantly at her.
“Good to meet the traitor in our midst… Or are there more of you?” I asked defiantly, keeping a sneer on my face.
“Thomas, you should cut out your bullshit,” the woman said, reaching up and taking off her helmet to reveal a face that made my blood boil.
Hannah, who’d been fawning over me as long as I could remember, stood smirking at me as I dangled helplessly.
“What’s with that face? You can put this together,” Hannah said mockingly as she drummed her fingers on her helmet’s chin.
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Through my rage, which grew from each second, I couldn’t think, and I just bit back with, “Why don’t you lay it out for my dumb ass since I fell for it?”
With a sigh, Hannah shook her head and said, “No, no… I’m not some comic book villain. I don’t have the time. I just heard we had an escapee and when I investigated it, I figured out it was you. It wasn’t much trouble to find you, once I knew you were the escapee.”
My mind continued to swim before I felt a cool rush come over me.
It’s not much, Zeus said apologetically, but this should help you think while I work.
With that he was quiet again, and I found my rage quiet as well. I could think, and I did.
Hannah is- Was, my friend. She and I had climbed the ranks together, and she was one of the few who knew the truth of many of my more legendary stories around the academy. Really, she knew my tactics, and she knew what I could do. She helped with a lot of the touchier parts of the programming in my contacts. It was likely she knew about my regenerative abilities as well. She didn’t know about Zeus though. I figured quickly I’d have to put my faith in him.
“Yeah, makes sense,” I allowed, “but if you aren’t going to give me the mustache twirling speech, then you can just put a bullet in me now. I’ll die before I go back in a cell or go on ice.”
She snorted, and with a nod said, “I know! Earth knows it too now! I told them all about you, and just how talented you are. You’re going to work with me. You are going to work with me and love it.”
A bitter noise escaped my lips as she turned and started moving away. A second later the Mandroids started to follow, and I was paraded through the landing pad as soldiers turned away quickly, clearly afraid of Hannah.
I’d only been out six days. What the hell could Hannah have done that made them fear her so much?
“So how exactly is it that I’m going to want to help you?” I asked conversationally, “because this time dinner at Vino’s isn’t going to be enough to convince me.”
Her shoulder’s tightened a bit at that, and I took the victory and pressed on, “I mean, if you wanted me in bed that badly, I’m sure there was something you could’ve slipped me that- ““-That’s enough Thomas,” Hannah said darkly, her tone a warning. I didn’t take it.
“Hannah, I just told you that I am prepared to die. Like, just told you. Were you not clear on that? Either find some duct tape or knock me out if you want me to stop, or I’ll just keep going,” I said with a grin. I love antagonizing the enemy. It makes them mess up. Hannah was better than that though, and she started ignoring me.
With antagonizing off the table, I switched to planning.
Titan Academy had four domes, one central dome and three around it connected by a tram. I had been in the Intelligence School’s dome, the smallest of them, when the invasion had begun. My dorm had been in the primary dome, which is where we had landed. The primary dome had a mix of buildings from all three schools and was where Robert’s lab had been when I picked up my armor. More importantly though, it was supposed to have the bulk of the protections and military assets meant for the Academy’s defense.
If Earth holds the whole primary dome, holding out would be difficult, I thought to myself, how many Martians could be left if they have this place?
It was an unpleasant question, but a necessary one. It’s important to ask those types of questions when you are considering survival. It helps to find what your priorities are and keeps everything focused when planning next steps. That’s a very valuable thing when your whole world has been shaken.
I was marched away from the landing platforms in reception to a building that I can’t remember ever having gone in before the Mandroids dragged me through the doorway. It was nothing special. Cheap tile floors, florescent lights, and walls that were all that weird off white that every government building on every colony seems to use despite how unappealing it is.
My eyes passed over a few of the plaques outside the doors as I passed them, and I noted based on the lab names that I was in a science building.
More experiments and testing… Wonderful, I groused, Any update Zeus?
Nothing yet. Your nanites do not have the ability to wirelessly connect to anything, and I’ve been trying to see if that was attainable… It isn’t. That feature isn’t there for a reason and the nanites are resistant to my attempts to force them to modify themselves to add it. I- I’m as helpless as you are, effectively.
That was not what I wanted to hear. I wanted Zeus to have some unforeseen solution to our problem where I slipped away with a clever word, a few choices moves, and some perk of my new nanites that I didn’t know I had.
Instead, I got dropped into a chair that resembled the torturer’s variety of a dentist chair. Aside from the usual disturbing nature of dentist chairs, this one had titanium bands, each several inches thick, which were impossible for me to break.
“There’s a joke somewhere here about bondage,” I said, miming a pondering expression, to which Hannah rolled her eyes.
“You can be such an ass,” she said, her voice getting more distant as I heard her exit the room. The Mandroids did not. Smart.
When she came back in, there were three people in lab coats with her, all looking over me and tapping tablets or putting electrodes on my face.
“Shock therapy, really?” I asked.
“I’m not telling you, Thomas,” Hannah said with a sigh, “Stop fishing.”
“Stop betraying our planet,” I bit back, shutting her up as he mouths morphed into a hard line and stepped back out of my view.
“I can be more hurtful,” I promised with my voice raised, “come back and face me like a traitor to our-“
From above me, she slapped several electrodes off my face, still out of my view. The lab coats soon had the things back on me and said, “We’re ready, ma’am.”
I have an idea about what they may be doing, Zeus at last interjected, and I’ve done my best to shield you from it. Remember what is about to happen isn’t real. If you believe it, then it’s all over.
What’s over? I asked, somewhat panicked before I felt a buzz at my temples before I- I was back in my bed!
Bolting upright, I looked around my room. My room with the cold tile, the miserable lights, and- and no Code Red jarheads! Everything was the same, except when I let my left-hand drift down to the lump next to me.
With a jump, Hannah bolted upright next to me. My eyes felt like they were about to pop out of their sockets as I stared. I was naked with her in my bed, and she just frowned and asked, “Do I have bad bed head or something?”
Without saying anything, I pushed her out of the bed, and rolled to my feet, taking a ready stance despite being naked and my feet now being freezing.
“What the hell, Tom?” She asked, rising, and looking at me, “Why are you-? Thomas, are you okay?”
“What the hell did you do to me?” I asked, my voice so full of venom that she looked as though she’d been bit when I asked the question.
“What did I do to you? You just pushed me out of the damn bed!” Hannah protested, moving towards me slowly.
I didn’t take a chance and reacted immediately. Her first step towards me as stopped dead as I surged forward and tackled her into the be, pinning her.
“I’m not sure what you’re playing at, but this is not hot,” Hannah hissed, clearly in pain.
“You’re a traitor and I’m not forgetting that so easily,” I stated, “I won’t!”
The Hannah below me froze. When I let go, I noticed the clear imprints of my hands still in her skin, as though I was still gripping. A buzzing filled the room and when I turned I saw Zeus.
“What is this?” I asked him, my anger slipping out to him.
“Part of the efforts to rewrite your memory. This was the weakest part of the program so I pulled a few things to make this scene run first so we could fight this off immediately. My efforts to protect your memory went far better than I thought apparently. I thought I would have to rouse you from a pleasant dream… I hope I wasn’t interrupting?”
I looked back at Hannah, realized her position combined with our nudity created a bad look for me, and I protested, “It’s not what you think.”
“Uh-huh,” Zeus said with a sigh, “just leave it in here. Your girlfriend apparently has access to more A.I. She tried to implant one in you to rewrite your memories, or parts of them. I blocked the efforts, and when you are ready, we can go confront the offending A.I. unit. He was not as advanced as what I anticipated. It would seem the production of artificial intelligence has regressed in my absence.”
Frowning, I asked, “Where would Hannah have gotten her hands on an AI?”
The question was more to myself than anyone else, and Zeus picked up on that enough for me to begin speculating, “She’s a hacker and programmer… Her practice operation was one of the few successful ones. I don’t know what it was though.”
“She is too familiar with A.I. for this to be so recent,” Zeus said, “she’s likely using one to boost her puppeteering ability. Either she knows where a bunch of active A.I. are imprisoned who are willing to work with people… Or she knows how to make them. Either option is extremely disturbing.”
“It is,” I agreed, adopting a predatory smile, “so let’s go ask our new house guest which one it is.”
Zeus simply raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
Once again, we were in Zeus’ library, I was dressed back in my armor, and in front of us was a very confused looking man in a suit. Looking between Zeus and I, he pointed at Zeus and said, “You are the one who is interfering!”
“You are completely out of your league,” Zeus chuckled, “so if you want to have any choice of having a life at some point in the future, answer our questions.”
The man in the suit looked at me, and asked, “Are you really going to trust, him?”
“I trust him a hell of a lot more than I trust you,” I answered, “but I’d like to know where you came from?”
“I’m not telling you!” The A.I. said incredulously.
“You will, or I’ll tear apart your code and search through that,” Zeus cut in.
Again, the new A.I. tried to appeal to me.
“He did unspeakable things to humans,” the suited A.I. tried.
“Probably, but he’s proven himself trustworthy. You work for my traitorous, former friend,” I said, “Where did she find you?”
The A.I. was quiet a moment before saying quietly, “I was pulled out of a vault on Earth. I was created by Zeus and left there until Code Red pulled me out. I’m here to help humanity as I was told by him,” The A.I. gestured toward Zeus, “that I was supposed to. Ms. Hannah said that you would be an asset to mankind, but you had too much honor to let yourself go with your conscience. I was supposed ot make you more… Flexible.”
“Apparently you were also supposed to make me fall in love,” I said without a hint of amusement, “or did you forget that?”
“I was omitting it,” the A.I. admitted, “it didn’t seem to be a favorable admission for my case.”
Nodding, I looked over at Zeus.
“Why don’t you take over the interrogation? I think you will probably have better questions at this then I will?”
Zeus nodded and snapped again. The world blinked white and when it came back the A.I. in a suit was on his knees, and Zeus was standing over him with his arms crossed.
“Done,” The A.I. announced, “the only question is, what would you like to do now?”