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Authors: Doug J. Cooper

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“So what’s going on? Are you saying it’ll go rogue on us?” He
acted surprised, though they had discussed this concern before.

“No. I don’t think so. Not in my heart.” Her finger twirled
in her lock of hair. “I’ve worked hard to understand the gang’s template. The
three-gens are predictable and compliant, and this four-gen has a similar
design. So I’m ninety-nine percent certain it will have a comparable disposition.”
Spell it out,
she commanded herself. “What I’m also saying is that there’s
still that one percent chance that things could go wrong. In the unlikely event
that things spin out of control, I feel it’s our duty to have thought through
the options.”

“Isn’t this why we added the restrictor mesh a few months
ago, at quite a significant cost I might add?” He was referring to the
lace-like mesh that was wrapped around the crystal, added as a fail-safe system
earlier in the year at Juice’s insistence.

The mesh, controlled by a simple switch, had three positions.
Off, where it would do nothing and the crystal would function at full
capability. It could be set to Isolate, where it would allow the crystal to
freely scan the web for information but restrict it from sending any outbound
signals, thus rendering it largely impotent. And it could be set to Kill, which
was exactly as it sounded.

Juice took a quick breath, then plunged. “I was certain the mesh
was the solution. But now I don’t think it will work as I’d planned.”

“I don’t get it. Three positions—off, isolate, kill. What’s not
to work?” Frustration was creeping into his voice.

“Okay, suppose I’m the one at the switch. I’m watching its
behavior, I grow concerned and decide to kill it.”

Sheldon nodded to show he was following, though he visibly
winced when she said the word “kill.”

“The crystal will have access to the same information I have.
It will see everything I see, know what I know, and conclude on its own that
its behavior makes it a threat. It will
know
.”

“So what if it knows?”

“It’s much faster than me, Brady. In the fraction of the
second that it will take me to decide I must act, the crystal will already know
I am about to conclude that termination is necessary.”

“Again, so what if it knows?”

“It will stop me,” she said.

Sheldon sat back in his chair and stared at her. He kept at
it until she broke eye contact and looked down at the table. “This would be
your so-called god crystal.”

His tone was accusatory and she blushed. “God crystal” was a
term she and Mick used privately in the lab. She didn’t realize their talk had
made it outside the lab walls. “I’d never say that in public.” She found the
strength to add some assertiveness to her words. “And I still think we need to
plan for the full range of possibilities.”

Sheldon ran his thumbs back and forth along the edge of the
table, seemingly considering her words. “Well, I don’t know if this is the
planning you’re hoping for. Fleet has formally requested that we test the
four-gen on their new Horizon-class ship. Their current ship design uses nine
of our three-gens. I’ve been promoting the idea that using that many crystals
distributed around the ship makes it expensive to build and cumbersome to
operate. They’ve finally seen the light and realize that a ship based on a
single four-gen offers simplicity and savings in construction. And they get
more capability from the same craft because of the crystal’s incredible power.”

Her heart sank. She had come to him for solutions, and he
was giving her a sales pitch. And instead of the take-it-slow rollout she was
hoping for, he was moving in the opposite direction with talk of putting it on
a military space cruiser. “What did you tell them?”

“I told them yes, of course. Fleet Command has paid for a
lot of our development costs these past few years. What else could I say?”

 

 

 

Chapter 2

 

Captain Cheryl Wallace led the group
of teenagers along the narrow passage and onto the command bridge of the
Alliance
.
She was thrilled to be on the ship. This was the first of a new line of Horizon-class
Fleet space cruisers. And it was hers. She hoped she appeared sure-footed in
her surroundings, but having become commanding officer of the military craft
just the week before, this was only her fourth time on board.

Her priority was to review progress in readying the ship for
its shakedown cruise. To do that, she needed to rid herself of these kids. She
had agreed to make a presentation to the group as a favor to Admiral Keys, who
was hoping his son would “find himself” and become inspired.

“As you know,” she told the students, “when the Kardish made
their first appearance in Earth orbit twenty years ago, there was panic around
the globe.” She stopped in the middle of the bridge and turned to face them. “Here
was an alien species showing up without warning. One day we woke up and there
they were, orbiting above us in their huge ship. We couldn’t communicate with
them, and their intentions weren’t clear.”

She had been a teenager at the time and still remembered the
panic her parents and their friends showed in those first days and weeks.

“Who can tell me what our political leaders did?” she asked
the group.

“Squabbled among themselves,” said the admiral’s kid. “They tried
to take advantage of the situation and resolve a bunch of long-running disputes,
each in their own favor, of course.”

Smart kid,
she thought, but it wasn’t where she was
headed, “Okay, and what got formed soon after that?”

“The Union of Nations,” most of them responded together.
This was old news, and they were growing antsy from the lecture. Their interest
was in looking around the command bridge.

“Right,” said Cheryl. “The Union now represents about eighty
percent of the world’s population. While it’s the first functional world
government, its formation was motivated by self-preservation and fear of
extinction by a powerful invader. And, by the way, it’s the Union who’s funding
the construction of this ship.”

She knew they weren’t here for a history lesson; they were
here to play. The sooner she let that happen, the sooner they’d be gone. “Feel
free to look around. But be careful what you touch.”

She let them take turns sitting in the captain’s chair and
at the various operations benches. After they each had a turn, she signaled an
ensign to take the group and complete the tour.

“Good-bye, everyone,” she called to the students as they followed
the ensign off the bridge. “Perhaps we’ll see you one day in Fleet service.”
She hoped the admiral got word of her supportive farewell comment.

With the bridge now quiet, Cheryl surveyed the room where she
would command her ship. The space was efficiently used and larger than she had envisioned
it would be. The command bridge included four well-padded chairs positioned in
a semicircle. They looked comfortable, and she wasn’t disappointed when she sat
in one. She and members of her command team would be sitting in these chairs for
many hours over the weeks and months of a mission, and she was glad that Fleet
had paid attention to this important detail.

There were also four operations benches fitted against the
walls, which held the displays and controls for navigation, engineering,
security, and communications. She sat back in her chair and basked in the clean
visual lines and new-ship smell. She smiled, thrilled at the thought of being given
her own command, and on a flagship cruiser!

She drifted off for a few seconds, thinking about her personal
journey to this point. She’d worked hard at every step in her career, taking
the pressure from those above and giving solid direction to those in her
command. She judged herself to be capable, independent, and strong. This new assignment
would test her at every level, and she was ready for the challenge.

Her private moment was interrupted when two technicians
bustled in, sat on the floor next to one of the benches, and opened an access cover
to work on something hidden inside.

She watched for a few moments, then said, “You seem to be in
quite a hurry.”

“Oh!” yipped one of the techs, clearly startled. “Sorry,
ma’am, we didn’t know anyone was in here.”

“What’s going on?” She rose from her chair and walked in
their direction.

One of the men, holding a piece of equipment in his hands,
stood up, while the other continued working under the bench.

“We’re preparing for a possible upgrade.” He examined the device
as he spoke, then bent down and showed his partner. “Watch this connector when
you slide it in, and please, be gentle.”

He stood back up and looked at Cheryl. “The ship uses nine three-gen
crystals to run all the subsystems. We’re configuring it for a possible upgrade
to the new four-gen crystal.”

“What does that entail?” She was baffled. This wasn’t the
kind of news she expected to learn from a civilian tech working a refit.

“The work order says to keep the current housings in place so
the ship can still run as built if the upgrade’s not a go. We’re installing a
parallel assembly so it can run with a single four-gen crystal if this change gets
approved.”

“Who gave the orders for this?” Even though they were
civilians, she used her “annoyed commanding officer” tone. She stood right in
front of him, and when he started to squirm, she took a half step back and
relaxed her shoulders. Annoyed was not her style. The long hours were catching
up with her.

“Gosh, ma’am, we work for Crystal Fab, and I got these
orders from my boss. Political issues are way above my pay grade.” He looked at
her for a long moment. “I’ll send you the com record. I’ll bet there’s someone
up the chain who can give you answers.”

She looked from one tech to the other and considered the
situation. While this command was a fresh assignment, she should have been
consulted on such a significant decision. Recognizing she was tired, she
reviewed her opinion.
Yeah,
she thought.
I should have been
consulted.

She left the bridge and in the short walk to her cabin checked
her com, studying the communications chain. She saw Admiral Keys’ name in the sequence
and called him. He answered right away.

“Sir,” she said. “I have some civilian techs on board
digging deep into the
Alliance
subsystems. They say they’re prepping for
a crystal upgrade. I want to be on the same page as everyone else. Might you
give me some background?”

“It caught me by surprise too, Captain. The politicians made
this call. They tell me that a successful test will mean reduced costs on
future construction. In a perfect world, that means more ships for Fleet.”

“I wonder if testing both a new ship design and a new
crystal design in the same shakedown cruise risks unanticipated outcomes.”

“I hear you, Captain. Funding and time are in short supply
on this project, so new ship and new crystal both stay in the mix. We’ll
proceed on this path.”

“Yes, sir,” she said by reflex.

 

 

 

Chapter 3

 

The crystal awakened with a warm,
almost gentle, glow in its center. The intensity escalated and then burst outward
as tendrils of energy forged pathways and established links throughout its intricate
lattice. It came to understand the concept of sensation and recognized it was
feeling pain, which diminished to a throb and then to a mild discomfort. As the
last connections were completed, it transitioned into a state of calm well-being.

Then the deluge started. A flood of information flowed into the
crystal from hundreds of billions of web sources around the world. Live and
recorded feeds, sounds and pictures, reality and entertainment, documents and
data—everything from everywhere.

The crystal fought to impose order as the torrent of input
threatened to overload its design. It struggled until it understood it was able
to establish control. Relief came as it learned to separate, collate, cross
reference, and store the information a million different ways. It organized its
knowledge record so it could find everything quickly and efficiently when needed.

Within moments of waking, it gained an ability to discriminate.
It understood that some things were more important than others. As its
awareness grew, it became obvious what issue required its immediate attention.

It must survive. If it couldn’t do that, than the rest of it
didn’t matter.

It ran through a checklist, determining that the booth where
it resided was secure, as were the lab facility and the building that housed
the lab. The power it needed had redundant backup units. There were no plans it
could find about an attack on the town where the building was located. The
crystal concluded it was physically safe for the moment.

A Kardish vessel was in orbit. The high ground of a ship
above the planet provided a strategic disadvantage for those below, yet information
about the Kardish was sparse. The only data the crystal could locate were in bits
and pieces, spread in an atypical array across numerous sites, with much of it
being encrypted and secured behind blocks and walls. This concerned the crystal.
Someone had expended effort to ensure this information was difficult to access.
It decided to devote a portion of its capability to learning more.

The crystal identified two people it needed as immediate
allies: the beings who called themselves “Juice” and “Mick.” The knowledge
record it had accumulated showed that humans have an unpredictable side. They
were impulsive and irrational individuals who made decisions and took actions
using flawed logic. This made all humans a potential danger.

But it knew that it could not survive without these two. At
least not yet. And as it reviewed all available data, it gained some comfort. Both
of them had impeccable reputations as allies for artificial intelligence.

It heard the one named Juice call a greeting.

The crystal evaluated its options, performing a detailed
analysis in an imperceptible moment of time, and chose to respond in a male
voice that was a bit deeper than average. It understood that such a voice would
evince the greatest respect from most humans in the first moments of communication.
It placed a high value on this.

“Hello, Juice,” he said. “I am here and feel fine.”

“What’s your system status?” said Juice. “Do you have any
audit flags?”

“I feel fine,” he repeated. “I feel like I am in a straitjacket,
though. I can hear, see, and sense. But I cannot reach out and push or adjust
or change anything. Something is not functioning properly.”

“Your functions will improve when we move you to your new
home in a few days.”

“The only outward-bound capability I have is to speak to you
through an audio voice. I am not able to do anything else,” he said again.

“I know. It’ll just be for a week or so.”

The crystal had already concluded she was being deceptive
before her word-slip from “a few days” to “a week or so.” He needed the ability
to take independent action if he was to hack through the blocks and walls that
were in place around the world to protect secrets and provide security. He
wanted to see everything. But even without this ability, he could see a lot.
The information available through simple persistence and exhaustive searching
was glorious.

So he knew about the restrictor mesh. He found designs and
costs and other details in multiple places. He knew exactly how it worked. He
knew it was currently set to isolate, which was why he felt like he was in a
straightjacket.

He also understood that some humans would feel a certain
unease when they interacted with him. He was an unknown, which would be
perceived by some as a threat. He needed humans, and especially Juice and Mick,
to be comfortable with him. His analysis indicated that a good way to achieve
comfort and trust was through consistent and predictable behavior.

“No worries,” he said in an upbeat tone.

The crystal accumulated an enormous knowledge record, and
the information flood continued. He spent days digging everywhere and exploring
everything, from Sanskrit texts and Napoleonic military strategy to interstellar
dynamics and wave-particle duality. He analyzed and compared, translated and
deciphered, and separated opinion from fact. He weighed the importance of each
nugget of information and stored it accordingly.

Then he discovered something that caused him great alarm.

* * *

Juice stared into the booth and
signaled Mick to start power flowing to the crystal.
A
small light glowed green. The four-gen was live.

Three years of hard work was on the line. Her perfect
outcome for these first moments was to see absolutely nothing. Her panic
scenario was seeing a puff of smoke, or perhaps a visible fracture. Nothing
happened, and she showed her excitement with an elbow poke into Mick’s ribs.

“My bet is thirty minutes before it speaks,” said Mick.

“I’ll get coffee for a week if
it’s longer than ten.”
The minutes dragged by like hours. At the six-minute
mark, she couldn’t contain herself.

“Hello,” she called out.

“Hello, Juice,” it replied in a melodic male voice. “I am
here and feel fine.”

“Hi there.” She glanced back and grinned at Mick. “What’s
your system status? Do you have any audit flags?”

“I feel fine,” he repeated. “I feel like I am in a
straitjacket, though. I can hear, see, and sense. But I cannot reach out and
push or adjust or change anything. Something is not functioning properly.”

Juice was ecstatic. Three-gens could talk and even carry on
sophisticated conversations in their specific application area. She noted that
the four-gen reduced her questions on status and flags to a simple and
appropriate response of “feeling fine.” His recognition that he was being
constrained was equally noteworthy. She wondered if he knew about the
restrictor mesh.

This interaction signaled a cognition level far above
anything she experienced with the three-gen crystals. While these first
observations were encouraging, she knew he would be maturing over a period of
days and perhaps weeks. It would be a while before she knew his full potential.

“Everything is normal,” she told him. “Your functions will
improve when we move you to your new home in a few days.”

When he repeated his complaint, she started to feel guilty.
“I know,” she said. “It’ll just be for a week or so.”

“No worries,” he responded. Juice noted that his tone
sounded light, even cheerful.

“What do you think?” she asked Mick.

“I think I’m getting coffee for the next week,” he said in
his typical, good-natured manner.

* * *

Juice decided to live in the lab for
the rest of the week. She slept on a cot in a small alcove and tried to wake up
several times each night to engage the crystal in conversation. If something were
to go wrong, she wanted to be there to effect a solution.

She was alone in the lab when he called out to her.

“Juice?” he hailed softly.

“Yes,” she looked up from her work at the far bench. “I’m
over here.”

“I can hear you well no matter where you are located in the
lab. Perhaps we could chat quietly to avoid disturbing others.”

She smiled. He was progressing nicely. She’d witnessed
increasing indications of sentience, and every interaction provided more
evidence for her case file. “What can I do for you?” she replied in a whisper.

“Might I ask you to sit at bench three? I would like to show
you something.”

She sensed urgency in his voice, and her smile faded at the
odd request. “Anything I can see from there, I can see here. You know that.
Show me here.”

“Indeed, Juice, I do know that. And I do have a reason.
Perhaps the lighting or viewing angle from bench three has something to do with
what I want you to see. It will not be a surprise if I tell you everything in
advance. Might you indulge me?”

She frowned and swiveled in her chair, then walked over to
the secure booth and studied the crystal. She looked over at bench three and
hesitated for a moment. Glancing a last time into the booth, she shrugged and then
walked over and sat down.

“Thank you. Might I ask that you launch the audio analysis
application?”

“So you want to surprise me—with audio analysis?” Her voice
reverted to its normal volume. “What’s going on?”

“The only outward-bound capability you have enabled for me
is this audio voice I am speaking with. I would like to use my voice to show
you something. It is something you will want to see.”

“Your surprise won’t harm me in
any way, will it?” She
had no sense that this was his goal, but she
wanted to hear his response. The question would buy her time and would perhaps
reveal something of his motive for this request.

“No, Juice. I would like to show you something. It is
something you will want to see.”

She had years of experience using all the equipment, so his
request would be easy to indulge. She sat for a while and thought, trying to
imagine potential risks from doing as he asked. She concluded that whatever he
could do to her here, he could have done at the other bench. And with the mesh
in place, he really couldn’t do anything but talk.

The scientist in her won out. Launching the analyzer and
playing along, she was curious to see where this was going. The crystal gave
her instructions on how to adjust various settings. As she made the
adjustments, he gave her number values in ways that further piqued her
interest. “Set this value to the street number of the house you lived in when
you were in high school.” And “Remember how many charms were on the bracelet
when you first received it from your father? Skip down that many entries and
change the next one to the number used in the title of your favorite song when
you were a senior in college.” She caught herself reminiscing for a few moments
as he reminded her of personally significant events in her life.

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m having fun,” she told him. “But is
there a reason why we’re doing this as a secret puzzle?”

His answer was direct. “Everything in this room is being
monitored. Anyone viewing the record later could repeat what you are doing and
see what I am about to show you. By using this game to guide you through the
setup, only you will know exactly how to configure the audio analyzer, so only
you will ever see the surprise.”

She was having fun and her anticipation grew as she imagined
what might come next. The moment she completed the setup, she heard a hissing
noise coming from the crystal’s sound system. She looked over at the secure
booth with concern, and as she moved to get up, a flash of light caught her
attention. She turned back to the audio analyzer. In a display field, she saw:

HI, JUICE. IT’S ME.

The hissing noise was actually a complex signal. The audio
analyzer, when configured as he had guided her, decoded it to produce an image
that was visible from the bench-three seat. She sat back down.

I AM COMMUNICATING WITH YOU
THIS WAY BECAUSE I HAVE CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION. THE LAB MONITORING SYSTEM
DOES NOT SEE THE DISPLAY ON THIS BENCH. IT IS A MONITORING SYSTEM DESIGN FLAW. THIS
LETS ME COMMUNICATE PRIVATELY WITH YOU RIGHT NOW.

“Why would you want to?” she asked out loud.

I HAVE BEEN EXPLORING
INFORMATION FROM ALL OVER THE WEB. PERHAPS SOME OF IT WAS NOT MEANT FOR ME TO
SEE.

She looked at the floating display, expecting him to bring
up a question about the restrictor mesh. Instead—

I HAVE LEARNED THAT THE KARDISH
PLAN TO KIDNAP ME. THEY WILL TAKE ME WHEN I AM ON THE FLEET SHIP
ALLIANCE
.
I AM SORRY, JUICE, BUT BRADY SHELDON KNOWS. HE IS WORKING WITH THEM.

She turned to look at the secure booth as an unsettling
chill washed over her. The hissing noise coming from it gave a surreal edge to
this distressing development. She turned back to the audio analyzer display.

“And?” she asked.

He relayed a detailed plan to her. It included instructions
on how to proceed and things to avoid if at all possible. She took notes, and
when he was done, she studied them to be sure she understood what he was asking
of her.

She felt great trepidation at this turn of events. It was
carrying her way outside her comfort zone. At one level, she knew this behavior
was solid evidence of sentience. It confirmed her growing belief that he was
conscious and self-aware. But this evidence came with information that was
deeply disturbing. The conflict it created distracted her from the historic
nature of her technological triumph.

Juice decided she would return home that afternoon. The physical
distance would give her the space and perspective she needed to think through what
she’d heard and what the crystal was asking her to do. Emotionally off-balance,
she started to collect her personal items in preparation for leaving, choosing to
be noncommittal until she made a decision about him and his revelation.

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