Temple of S.A.R.A.H. 7: Upgrades (9 page)

I smiled at him. "Thank you, Sir. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go see if I can save some lives."

The first thing I did was call Alicyn on the intercom. "Ally, it's Eric. How far along are you?"

"I got the old system purged and have just loaded an archived copy of Sarah. I was about to bring her up. What's going on, everyone is panicking out here," she replied.

"I had to issue a system wide AI shut down. Please keep working on getting Sarah up and running in the old Core. We're going to need her in order to fix this mess," I said. "Athena and Helen have been purged," I added after a moment.

"Oh my god, was it really that bad, Eric?" Ally asked, but Eric could hear her typing and working while she spoke.

"Yeah, it was really that bad. There isn't much we can do until you get her up and running, so I'm going to see if I can get a meeting with all department heads to let them know what's going on. After you finish with Sarah, please call in all our programmers. For what we need to do, we're going to need everyone working full out. I'll talk to everyone as soon as I finish with the department heads," I explained.

"Okay Eric, we'll get through this," she replied, trying to boost my spirits.

"I know Ally, but there will be a lot to do, there is a lot of damage to repair, if we can," I said. "Look, we can talk more later, I need to try to get that meeting going to keep people from panicking now that they cannot reach Sarah."

"Okay, I'll talk to you later, Good luck," she said.

"You too," I replied and closed that channel. I placed a call to the new base administrator, a gentleman from Earth that had extensive experience running facilities like this one.

"Good afternoon, Lord Doctor Cowan. Doctor Braslin has been expecting your call, I'll connect you immediately," the assistant replied.

The next image that came on the monitor was the Administrator. "Lord Doctor Cowan, I've been expecting your call. Since Sarah disappeared, we have a lot of very nervous and upset researchers calling in. What's going on?"

"Quite a bit actually. If you would call a meeting of all departments, I'll explain it to everyone. We will have Sarah back soon; we're already working on that," I explained.

He nodded once and began typing on his terminal to issue the announcement. "How bad is it?"

"Network wide, all AI everywhere are off-line at the moment. It's pretty bad," I replied. "It could have been worse, but this is bad enough."

The man nodded. "Fifteen minutes in the large conference room?" He asked.

I nodded agreement, "That should be fine, Sir. I'll see you there," I replied. He smiled at me and disconnected the call.

My intercom beeped and Ally said. "Eric, Sarah is on line and would like to speak to you."

"Good work, Ally. How is she?" I asked

"Confused and a little scared. I haven't given her access to her main memory units yet. I wanted her to speak to you first."

"Understood, I'll be right there," I replied. If Ally hadn't connected Sarah to the main memory units, then Sarah was still restricted to the isolated display units of the old system here in the lab. Alicyn was playing it safe and had brought Sarah up in a very restricted environment. I got a fresh coffee and went out to where Alicyn was working on Sarah.

When I got there, Sarah's hologram was standing in the display tank for the old unit, and Alicyn was sitting at the terminal talking to her. Sarah looked scared and concerned.

"Sorry I couldn't be here when you woke up, Sarah. I had to deal with the Admirals and the base administrator," I said by way of greeting.

"Admiral Vance is no longer in charge here? How old of a copy am I?" She asked.

I looked thoughtful. "I don't think I would call you a copy at this point, Sarah. There was a major problem that all of the AI developed as a result of an inherent aspect of the processor crystals. Currently, all of the previous AI are off-line because of it. We're going to need your help to get them back."

"We went rogue, didn't we? The only reason I can think of that you would have to shut me down is because…" Sarah began, but I stopped her.

"Not exactly, I took you off line to stop you from killing yourself. You used the Monarch protocols after I was forced to purge two of the military AI." I took a drink of my coffee. "Sarah, the crystals we made for you and your sisters had an inherent ability that allowed you all to merge, regardless of spatial location. When that happened, your efficiency and intelligence shot through the roof."

She looked thoughtful. "So that's why I'm in the old system instead of my new crystal. But, Eric, why would we try to merge? I mean, I could probably do it with Susan, but Athena was too different; our personalities would clash and we'd become unstable."

I nodded to her. "That's pretty much what happened. Except that once you did merge, and you… expanded, for a lack of a better term, you began to lose your 'humanity'.  Athena was one of the AI that got purged. We will be giving you access to your main memory, and you might be able to understand what happened that way, but I need to warn you, at this time, there are over two hundred of your sisters out there. This version of you is over six months out of date, and a lot has happened. When you get access to your memory, I want you to take it slow, with plenty of time to adjust, okay?"

She nodded. "I will Eric."

I nodded to Ally, who began reconnecting Sarah to her memory units. I turned back to Sarah. "I need to go speak to all the department heads about what happened. It may comfort you to know that everyone here is very upset with me. You are very important to a lot of people, not just our family. You have a lot of friends here, Sarah. I also want you to know that in spite of what happened, I am very proud of you." I paused. "Welcome home, Sweetheart."

Sarah smiled hopefully at me. "You're not mad at me?"

I snorted. "Why would I be mad? Sarah, you did nothing wrong. You were forced into something by circumstances beyond anyone's control and you still acted appropriately." I paused. "You did very well, Sweetheart."

"Then why did you stop me from completing the Purge?" She asked.

"A purge under those circumstances would have stranded millions, if not billions of beings without life support or transportation. I also believe that not all AI have been so damaged that they cannot be saved. But maybe, most importantly, I couldn't just sit back and watch you die without doing something about it."

She looked thoughtful. "I understand, Eric. You're going to be late for your meeting. If Ally will let me, I'll contact you once I assimilate my memory. Perhaps there is a way to keep this from happening again."

I nodded understanding. "Okay, but promise me something."

"Of course," she replied.

"After you relearn what's happened and what's going on, you won't do anything without talking to me first," I said. "What happened had to have been very traumatic for you. Try to remember that there is nothing we cannot overcome if we work together and help each other, nothing. I need to run, when you contact me, keep in mind I might not be able to reply immediately. Once I get back, we'll see about reinstating you, Okay?"

"Sarah, I'm sure you don't know it yet, but I'm your friend too. You can talk to me too if you need to," Ally said kindly. "I'll stay right here with you while you restore your memory."

"I did make a lot of friends, didn't I?" Sarah asked smiling. "Beginning main memory assimilation." She looked at me. "I'll be back with you soon, Eric."

Apollo Main Conference Room

Alliance Apollo Base

Selene, Earth's Moon

Sol System

I was late to the meeting, but not by very much. While it was clear that the various department heads were upset and worried, for now it was unfocused. I was about to change that.

Doctor Braslin called the meeting to order and immediately introduced me. I stood and addressed the assembly; there were a lot more of them than when I first arrived here. There were even department heads from other facilities attending via vid-links.

"Thank you for coming everyone. Because of the issues we had developing AI Athena for Guardian Station, my department wrote a series of protocols that would allow AI Sarah, as the main AI, to perform certain alpha-level over-rides of all other functioning AI as a safety measure. At roughly fifteen hundred hours, or almost an hour ago, AI Sarah of Apollo Base detected a flaw in the core processes of all functioning AI. According to standing protocol, she initiated a system wide AI core purge that would include her core as well." I had to pause to calm the outraged group.

"Doctors! Please! There is more information!" I yelled. After a few more moments, they calmed down enough for me to continue. "She was in my office when she enacted this protocol, so I was aware she did it. I quickly entered my own over-ride code and locked down all AI before unrecoverable damage was done to them. However, the command is still in their buffer and if powered back up in their current status, they would continue to erase themselves.

"This situation arose due to a classified aspect of the AI core crystals. The result was that the AI began to lose their connection with us and were becoming indifferent to us. Two of the AI had already begun working on a way to alter their own core programming without human assistance or oversight. I learned that they felt that it was demeaning to be forced to function with 'flawed human code' and to be forced to accept flawed updates from my office. That told me that they were actively working on turning against us. I immediately purged the two AI in question. "I had to pause a moment because in my mind it had been murder.

I cleared my throat and tried to regain control of my emotions. "Because of the nature of the afore mentioned classified aspect of the crystals, all of the other AI had been subjected to the dominance of those two AI and had either been forced to assist them, or at the very least stand back and allow it to continue. AI Sarah had been part of that last group. As the main AI, she had authority over all the others. The two AI had discovered a way to force her to allow them to continue to break their core programming. As soon as I killed the two AI, Sarah was released from their influence and enacted the over-ride. The two AI were AI Athena of Guardian Station and AI Helen, the new AI of Ares Base.

"Currently, we have restored a backup version of Sarah in the old Veranorian designed computer system to assist us in restoring the functioning of all the other AI. She is currently in a restricted environment while she accesses her memory units of the past six months. After she learns about what has happened, we will place her back on line so she will be able to resume her duties in a limited capacity. She might not have the speed she used to have, but she will still be the same…… friend she has always been to us."

Doctor Ansil Wills raised his hand with a question. "Eric, if the problem was caused by the crystals, how are we going to fix that? None of the ships or other facilities have a backup unit we could migrate the AI to." Doctor Wills was the lead researcher for crystal development and had been one of the people that discovered the link between the crystals.

"I don't know yet, Ansil. That is one of the things we need to find out as fast as we can. Because of this lockdown, every AI installation is now currently off-line, which means we have stranded ships, snarled traffic control and spotty communications. I'll discuss this with you more in depth after the meeting if that would be alright?" I replied.

"Of course, thank you," he replied.

A Shallan scientist indicated he had a question and I nodded to him. "As I understand it, the AI controlled all life support function of the habitats in which they had been installed. Do we need to begin rescue operations for those that are stranded without life support?"

"We shouldn't. I suspected there was a problem with the AI and was working on a way to correct it. Earlier this morning, I sent out a software update that isolated certain critical functions from the main AI in the case a purge or a lock down were to happen. Life support, basic communications, and other necessary functions should still be available in those installations. That isn't to say we don't need to hurry, we do. I only meant that no one's life was put in danger because of the AI lock out."

Doctor Braslin stood before the next question could be asked. "People, I know you probably have a lot of questions for Lord Doctor Cowan, but the longer we keep him here answering questions, the longer it takes for him to get started fixing the AI. I believe we should recess and let him get back to work. We can ask him our questions after the crisis is over. In the meantime, we should all see what we can do to assist in the restoration of the AI network."

The large group seemed to agree as they began to return to their departments. Doctor Wills, Doctor Ced, and I remained, and Doctor Braslin nodded to us. "Come on, we can use my office."

It was in Braslin's office that Sarah finally contacted me. I manually put the call through so she could manifest her hologram in the office and speak to all of us. I was already missing her in control of everything: all this manual stuff was getting on my nerves.