Henry Gallant Saga 2: Lieutenant Henry Gallant (20 page)

He grew concerned by her pensive manner.

“I think it’s time to go,” said Gallant.

As they stepped outside the café and onto the main street intersection, they saw an SSP officer carrying a plasma rifle guarding the entrance to the Elysium Council building.

Alaina stopped in her tracks and bristled at the sight, as if she had come to a sudden realization. Her facial expression took an ominous turn.

She faced Gallant and harangued, “Handguns weren’t enough? Now you’re supplying Wolfe with rifles? What’s next, artillery? I thought you were supporting PUP.”

Flustered, Gallant said, “Our agreement with Wolfe was confirmed by the Elysium Council and approved by a vote of the Elysium citizens.”

“That vote was engineered, like all Wolfe’s elections.”

He said quietly, “I intend to deal with Wolfe and help the people of Elysium when the time is right. Trust me.”

“I thought I could trust you. Now I don’t know anymore.” She stalked away.

He stood in the street watching her leave.

Damn.

Workers at the UP facilities on Elysium were on tender hooks, watching and waiting, but nothing happened. The equipment ran well, including the tractors and excavators. Raw material accumulated, metal beams and parts were fabricated, and the superconducting liquid-helium-cooled magnets were placed along the accelerator’s trajectory path. The additional guards, alarms, and monitoring equipment offered a sense of security. The crews were returning to a semblance of normalcy.

Junior’s local security force protected the most sensitive buildings around the accelerator, mine, and forge, but he continued to disallow the UP personnel to carry arms. His men were a constant source of interference and frustration with daily operations.

Then disaster struck.

In the dark of night, machines and computers began to malfunction and produce bazaar rogue actions.

Vehicles and people were smashed as if crushed under a gigantic malevolent fist, when runaway equipment crashed.

At the mines, ventilation fans failed, forcing an evacuation by the miners, some of whom required medical treatment.

At the forge, ovens overheated and temperature safety controls failed, melting molds and finished products alike.

At the heavy-water extraction facility, key valves malfunctioned, cross-connecting different supply lines and contaminating heavy water storage tanks with salt water.

This time not only was equipment destroyed, but four UP men and seven local citizens were seriously injured.

The damaged machines could all be replaced, but the injured workers were taken to the hospital and there were no replacements.

Gallant had further proof the local AI control systems were being remotely hijacked and misdirected as an act of cyber-sabotage. In addition, the monitors and surveillance cameras overseeing the systems were overridden and shutdown. The security system Gallant had arranged through the
Intrepid
was also blinded by interference.

The most troubling finding was from the
Intrepid’s
main AI computer, called GridScape. Signals to and from this AI were bazaar and erratic.

An utterly outrageous thought occurred to him, but he couldn’t let it go, and after a while, he came to believe it to be true—
GridScape is under cyber-attack.

When he considered the cyber-attack’s objective, he concluded, once again most of the equipment malfunctions were designed to misdirection and to disguise the real target.

He found the specifications for the accelerators magnets had been slightly modified—modified so slightly so as to seem innocuous, but enough so dark matter could not be produced.

Gallant repaired the problems and put security monitors on the magnet design specs.

He went from site to site, to speak to the workers to keep their morale up by promising intensified security measures. Nevertheless, a number of the local citizens decided to quit and return to town.

Gallant implemented a three step computer security process that started with first putting in place preventive measures to forestall a threat. Second, timely attack detection was necessary to intervene when possible. Finally, after an attack, the response included an assessment of the damage and followed by the recovery process.

To forestall a cyber-attack, an extensive effort was made to install a multilayered ultra-strong secure operating system based upon segregating the system’s kernel technology. This was intended to guarantee security policies are unequivocally enforced within the operating environment. It offered a secure operating system capable protecting its own execution, as well as application code, and also protecting against subverted code. Designed this way, secure operating systems were the primarily protection for the most important system objects, such as AI control systems.

By using a high level of system encryption, in addition to kernel technology, he proved a powerful defense for the AI control systems. However, few of the site’s mechanical equipment had this high level technology installed. As a result, many pieces of less sophisticated equipment were vulnerable.

The next day, Gallant called the
Intrepid
for reinforcements and small arms, but Junior vetoed it. He reorganized his crewmen and the remaining colonists to keep on schedule.

He confronted Junior. “Your men were responsible for security and they failed to prevent this act of sabotage. Your men must have left their station and allowed a saboteur to get into the control rooms.”

“The monitors’ recordings show no penetration into the facilities’ perimeters by an outsider and my men have all been accounted for. This was accomplished through remote access,” said Junior.

“Okay. Then allow me to bring more men from the
Intrepid
to strength the security team and expand our electronic monitoring perimeter, and I’ll need them to be armed.”

“That’s not going to happen. The Elysium Council has been explicit about this. Only my men carry arms and the numbers of crewmen you’re allowed to bring down is limited. I will increase the number of SSP guards at each location, but I’ll need additional plasma rifles to properly equip them,” said Junior, squirming with every sentence.

“I’ll present your request to my commanding officer,” said Gallant, shaking his head.

Then he asked, “What’s your theory of how the sabotage is being accomplished?”

“Easy. Hallo citizens sympathetic to the PUP movement have uploaded virus software into the control system. They’re determined to cause chaos and undermine President Wolfe’s authority,” said Junior.

Gallant waved away the hypothesis. “The PUP group lacks the sophistication technology to mount a cyber-attack, especially an attack extending to GridScape.”

“You can’t be sure of that.”

“What can you tell me of the technology President Wolfe uses to control the planetary force field?”

“That information is top secret to Elysium.”

“But the level of technology of the shield could be a source for these attacks. I need to know at least who can access it.”

Junior shook his head. “I’ll relay your request to the president, but I don’t expect he’ll share the information with you. You should restrict your activities to monitoring the sites.”

Gallant continued examining the evidence and conducted a thorough neural interface with each of the AI control systems of the sites and machines. What he felt through the neural link was something beyond his experience; a powerful mind had left its imprint on the circuits—a residual presence—something sinister.

“The cyber-attacks are sophisticated and damaging. They required a high level of AI coordination both in the planning and in the execution. This last one seriously injured eleven men, sir” said Gallant, standing at attention across from Neumann’s desk in the captain’s cabin aboard the
Intrepid.

“Cyber-attacks targeting GridScape are a serious threat to the
Intrepid.”
Neumann got up and walked to the viewport. It showed a magnificent image of the blue oceans of Elysium rotating in space.

GridScape was the nerve center of the
Intrepid
—a strong-AI wireless grid supercomputer network consisting of over one million parallel central processors performing a billion-billion operations per second. It controlled ship operations in coordination with the crew. The crew had comm pins to connect to local resources which in turn could connect to the centralized AI.

“At ease,” he said quietly. “Your natural neural abilities to interface with AI systems makes you essential to evaluating this threat.”

Standing at ease, Gallant looked directly at Neumann, but didn’t say a word. He was surprised genetically-engineered Neumann would acknowledge his unique talent.

Neumann turned back to him. “Our AI-techs have conducted a preliminary check on our microprocessors and systems. They found the cyber-attack failed to penetrate the supercomputer’s CPU core. However, several peripheral units which were directly responsible for monitoring the mining operations were compromised. The memories of those units were wiped and new operating systems had been installed. We need to uncover the source of the attacks.”

“Yes, sir,” said Gallant. “I’m suspicious of Wolfe’s force field technology. I haven’t discovered any equivalent knowledge or technology among the Elysium citizens. The unexplored technology I have found is in the ruins in the jungle.”
“Did it appear to be highly advanced?”

“I didn’t have an opportunity to evaluate it, but I suspect Wolfe may have control over it and given its performance it may be AI-based.”

Neumann nodded, “Ancient machinery under Wolfe’s control may be a threat.”

“The type of AI control I’ve witnessed is extraordinary—perhaps even independent.”

Neumann relaxed into his desk chair and waved Gallant into a seat opposite. “GridScape is our most advanced AI and while it understands human language, solves complex problems, and helps us navigate through space, it could never pass Turing’s Test. GridScape doesn’t think in any real sense, it’s merely computational brute force looking through millions of possibilities before selecting an optimal solution. People are still arguing about whether computers will ever be able to think independently. I don’t think it’s a serious possibility.”

“What do we know about thinking?” Gallant crossed one leg over the other, ready to challenge Neumann on this comparison. “Because humans are not consciously aware of searching millions of possible solutions, doesn’t prove they don’t. Individuals are generally unaware of what does go on in their minds. Patterns can suggest solutions based upon a lifetime of experience—millions of past possibilities. It may all be invisible to the human mind. Still, if the unconscious human mind produces the same intelligent results as an algorithmic AI, why can’t I call AI intelligent too?”

“I’m sorry, but for me you’ve overstated your case for GridScape or any other AI. It may be intelligent enough to carry out operations, but no AI will ever be self-aware or independent.”

“Nevertheless, while human thought processes are different from GridScape’s processes, their performance can be similar.” Gallant uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, warming to the subject. “After all, GridScape’s decision-making ability is similar to the team of scientists who designed it. Much like a computer, a human’s brain uses its billions of neurons to carry out many operations per second, none of which, in isolation, reveals intelligence. It’s possible for a human to process information like a computer by memorizing and analyzing thousands of possible solutions to existing problems.”

“So what do you conclude from that? Because we don’t know the limitations of computers built by ancient technology on Elysium, we should consider the remote possibility they represent an AI threat?”

“I think we need to investigate it.”

Neumann looked thoughtful. “I’m setting up an AI-tech security team to protect the
Intrepid
from further attacks. I want you to invest the possibilities of cyber-assault from Elysium. In particular, I want you to investigate the citizens PUP group and Wolfe along with his SSP.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Leaving Neumann’s cabin, Gallant went to the CIC room in the Operation’s compartment. He nodded an acknowledgement to the duty technicians who were engaged in scanning the star system. They looked busy conducting minor repairs on sensitive equipment.

He punched in the top secret security code, placed his eye in the retinal scan slot, and opened the hatch to the internal control pod for GridScape. Neumann was the only other person aboard the
Intrepid
with equal access. Gallant placed the neural interface cap on his head and felt the multi-probe sensors touch. He became mentally aware of the ship’s AI and all its control systems. He addressed it by name to get its attention.

GridScape, classify this session as top secret—compartmentalize under black ops: “Counter Espionage”—Gallant’s eyes only.

“Session classified as: top secret, black ops, ‘Counter Espionage,’ access Gallant only,” reported GridScape.

This level of classification would exclude access to everyone except the ship’s captain. Neumann would always have final override authority; so to discourage Neumann’s curiosity, Gallant had selected an innocuous title based upon what he had perceived by Neumann’s indifference.

GridScape, entitle this session: Engineering Personal Family Problems.

“Session entitled: Engineering Personal Family Problems,” reported GridScape.

GridScape, provide a detailed evaluation of this code snippet.

Gallant mentally pictured the hidden code segment he had found embedded in the accelerator’s control room AI code after the first mishap. After GridScape described the capabilities and function of the snippet, he pictured the new segment he had found after the most recent attack.

GridScape, can you identify any unique characteristics of this code?

“Yes. The deviations the saboteur introduced to the accelerator design are all multiples of Planck’s length which is the square root of the quantity: Planck’s constant, times the speed of light squared, divided by Newton’s gravitational constant.”