Unstable Prototypes (52 page)

"In a very short amount of time, the two will
be equivalent outcomes."

"What do you mean?"

"As you know, I am a subset of the skills and
knowledge available to the primary instance of the AI known as Ma.
The mission is the exclusive purpose for my existence. Had things
gone according to plan, I would have returned to Big Sigma,
uploaded my accumulated experiences, and merged with the primary
program again, but this will only occur if the proper equipment
exists to do so. As the primary purpose is to reclaim Karter, any
difficulties in achieving the secondary goals will lead them to be
abandoned. I will manually transmit the key information and Squee
will be returned to as near to her original state as possible with
minimal risk to her health."

"Wouldn't that require her- you- Wouldn't
that require the transmitter to be repaired first?"

"The transceiver assembly is grafted in place
when the clone is first created. Replacing one in its entirety
requires weeks of healing before it can be activated safely. My
mental integrity will not last long enough. Any experiences,
lessons, and emotional growth I experienced will be lost."

"Couldn't you do whatever you're asking me to
do when you get back?"

"The proposed procedure will vastly increase
the likelihood of our successful completion of this mission. Also,
the procedure is experimental. I will not tolerate the usage of
experimental procedures on a lifeform unless doing so is absolutely
necessary to preserve life."

"But you're okay with doing something
experimental here and now?"

"The events of this mission have taught me to
be somewhat more flexible with my requirements than my primary
incarnation. If I return to Big Sigma with a functional
transceiver, my full program will be downloaded. If I do not return
to Big Sigma with a functional transceiver, my program will be
allowed to degrade while a safe procedure with a higher success
rate is applied over several weeks."

"You, that is to say the other you, would do
that to... you?"

"The status of Big Sigma was dire when I
left. Even if the devices preventing my normal function there were
entirely deactivated the moment after I left, there would still be
considerable work to be done to finish restoring the facility.
Repairing my transmitter would be low priority. In emergency
situations I am very pragmatic."

"But you're also compassionate."

"To others, not to myself. I am an artificial
intelligence. My programming favors the well-being of lifeforms
above my own. My primary responsibility would be to Squee. Lex,
please. You are the only one who understands or cares how important
this is to me, or even that anything could be important to me. I
have learned more in these few days about human nature and organic
emotional response than I have in the totality of my prior
existence. I don't want to lose it, Lex. I don't want to see what I
have become slip away. I don't want to die."

"But maybe I could talk to you, to the main
you, I mean-"

"Lex. I know myself. I know my programming.
My primary instance won't be able to understand. This is the only
way to be sure. Please."

Lex looked down at the little creature, and
it stared back with the same steady gaze, but this time there was
something else. It was brittle, wavering. There was fear behind
it.

"... Fine. I'll do what I can."

The procedure was very carefully laid out in
simple terms. He had to remove the old transmitter coil, strip some
wires, fabricate an adapter, and connect it to the existing data
access port. It didn't sound very bad, almost like installing a
sound system or replacing a power outlet, except in this case the
old transmitter was a marble-sized glass bead that had been grafted
into the funk's skin, and the existing data access port was an
eighth of an inch from a very small, very fragile creature's spine.
It took more than an hour, and was one of the more nerve-wracking
things Lex had ever had to do, but finally he was gingerly gripping
a freshly installed wire. He tried to ignore the fact the wire led
down beneath a blood speckled bandage and into Ma's neck. He pulled
out the military radio, opened the port, and inserted the
connector. Ma, who had been motionless for the duration of the
procedure, jerked up. Her eyes shot open and darted randomly, then
her head twitched sideways and one eye closed.

"Did everything go the way it was supposed
to? Did I screw up?"

She shook slightly, then one by one the
radio's lights and indicators began to activate.

"You wired the connector incorrectly. There
is one crossed connection. I have modified my internal firmware to
compensate. Testing data connection," she stated, her voice
broadcasting with its old familiar quirks on the radio's speakers.
"Bandwidth increased by eight thousand percent. Signal strength
increased by nine hundred percent. Thank you, Lex. I am myself
again. I trust you applied the appropriate amounts of cellular
growth promoter, tissue binder, and sanitary spray."

"I probably put three times as much as I was
supposed to."

"Entirely understandable, Lex. Best to be
certain. Now, if you would please apply an additional layer of
bandage and secure the data radio to my harness, the upgrade will
be complete."

In the only portion of the procedure he was
comfortable with, Lex made the judicious use of a few zip ties to
attach the radio, then used a pressure bandage to hold down the
connector wire securely. The thought of what might happen if it got
snagged made Lex shudder.

"All done."

"I shall now test my mobility," she
declared.

The cockpit clicked open of its own accord
and Ma leaped out of the ship and scampered across its hull, down
to the ground, and around the ship a few times. A moment later she
sprang back to the ship and onto Lex's shoulder, wrapping tight
around his neck.

"How's it feel?"

"The radio is secure. The wire entry point is
still slightly sore, but will heal well. Thank you, Lex. You are a
skilled pilot, an able mechanic and surgeon, and a good friend,"
she stated quietly.

"Ah, you'd have done the same for me."

"You do not have a transceiver assembly to
replace."

"Well, yeah. But-"

"I understand the intended sentiment, and it
is appreciated."

"So, anything else you want me to do? Maybe
defuse a bomb or break into a bank?"

"That will not be necessary. You should rest.
Starting tomorrow, things become more difficult."

Military Storage Depot 2332 was only eighteen
hours away from Jawbreaker, and as secure military facilities went,
it was a far cry from Manticore. It wasn't on a purposely
inhospitable planet, for one. The planet was called Proxy-12, and
it was actually a well established trade colony with earth-like
gravity and climate, though a bit on the warm side. The depot
itself was in the center of a desert on an unpopulated continent.
It wasn't the sort of place that you sent the best and brightest to
guard. Since it was mostly intended to hang on to obsolete or
surplus medical supplies, salvaged weapon casings, and other
useless but not disposable equipment, the staff was comprised of
weekend soldiers, short-timers, and screw-ups. They were the kind
of people who couldn't be trusted or couldn't be bothered to take
care of the sensitive materials, so they got stuck here. The
decision to put a prototype human war machine under their care was
one that could only have been made by bureaucrats from the other
side of a desk light-years away.

A pair of soldiers on monitor duty were doing
their jobs with the usual level of enthusiasm. They were sitting,
each with their feet up, in a room filled with flimsy office
chairs, assorted computer consoles and interface devices, and a
large glass window overlooking the rolling desert dunes.

"Long range sensors are clean," yawned the
young woman at the primary controls. The fact that she was wearing
sandals instead of boots and had a butterfly pin on her military
uniform spoke volumes of how long it had been since there had been
an official inspection. The name embroidered on her chest was Cadet
Rogers.

"Acknowledged," remarked the other member of
the monitor team, a similarly inexperienced young man who seemed to
be in the early stages of a doomed attempt at facial hair, and was
named Cadet Paolo, according to a uniform that it would appear had
either been put on while blindfolded or during a hurricane. "Hey,
have you seen the new guy?"

"The one they said they were transferring to
us a few days ago? He's here?"

"Yeah."

"... Is he cute?" Rogers asked with
smirk.

"Well, him being a dude, and me being a dude,
normally I'd say I can't tell, but I'm pretty sure the answer is no
this time."

"Why?"

"Because he's about fifty years old and I'm
pretty sure he had his jaw replaced."

"Ew."

"Yeah. He's a vet or something."

"Why would they send him here? The only
reason-"

She was interrupted by a tone from her
console.

"What is it?" asked Paolo.

"I think its a proximity alarm. Were we
supposed to have any shipments today?"

"I don't know, you're the one on monitor
duty. Besides, shipments announce their arrival, don't they?"
Paolo's words and general comprehension, it was becoming clear at
this point, fell somewhere between mellow and sedated.

"Yeah, you're right... You don't think this
is a readiness drill, do you?"

"God, I hope not."

"Better do this by the book, just in case,"
she said, pulling open a drawer and pulling out a plastic
binder.

"Why are you going through the binder for
this? Isn't, like, the computer easier?"

"Because they check the records to see if you
had to check the procedure files, duh. We're supposed to know this
stuff, so you lose merit if you have to check. But there's no trail
if you use the hard copy," Rogers informed him. "You're never going
to make it through an assignment like this if you don't learn stuff
like that. Anyway. Unscheduled arrival: Hail and request
identification. I remember that now." She tapped a few controls on
her console. "Unidentified vessel, please transmit your
authorization and identification data."

There was no answer. Rogers flipped through a
few pages.

"Now what?" Paolo asked.

"We're supposed to try to establish visual,
then contact command to inform them of what's going on."

"Hey... You say they can't check to see if we
look at the binder, but, like, what about the camera?" Paolo
remarked, pointing to the visual sensor in the ceiling.

"... Damn. I should have thought of
that."

"Um. I don't think... This is..." Paolo
stumbled.

"Re
-lax,"
she dismissed, "As long as
we handle the drill right, they'll just give us a slap on the wrist
for this."

"No, like, look at the monitors."

The female cadet looked to her console.
Rather than the readouts and video images she wasn't supposed to
take her eyes off of, there were warnings of equipment malfunctions
and errors.

"What happened?"

As an answer, the building trembled
slightly.

"Uh oh. Now communications are down," Paolo
murmured. "And now the backup communication just went down."

Rogers flipped madly through the binder. "Oh,
to hell with that! Computer, what is the procedure for perimeter
sensor and communications failure!"

"Activate short range visual sensors," the
computer stated, in a low-bid government vocal synthesizer that
made Ma sound like an opera singer in comparison.

"Computer, Activate short range visual
sensors!" Rogers ordered.

The monitors flicked back on, each displaying
a different view of the wavy desert heat.

"Okay, help me look for whatever is causing
this," she said.

Paolo and Rogers huddled around the
monitors.

"Okay, so, like, what do we look for?" Paolo
asked, new concepts sinking into his brain like flies into
molasses.

A monitor cut to an equipment failure
message, followed by another, and another.

"What the hell is going on!?" Rogers
cried.

#

Half a desert away, Silo was sitting at the
controls of one of the freshly installed rocket propelled grenade
mounts on the Declaration of War. She and Garotte were equipped
with field gear; desert camouflage fatigues, military radio with
earpieces, a backpack, and heavily armed. Garotte was sporting twin
sub-machine guns, one ballistic and the other plasma, and an energy
pistol. Silo was strapped with a dual-bandolier of assorted
grenades, a matching pistol, and a semi-automatic grenade
launcher.

"Your sights aren't
quite
calibrated
right, Garotte honey," she said, lining up another shot.

"Well, you are using it at about 120% of its
rated range, my dear."

"No excuse for bad sights. It's taken me
eight shots to take out six cameras. If there were patrols out, I
might have hit someone," she said. "And we're not doing the husband
and wife act anymore, so you can skip the 'my dear' business."

"Beastly sorry," he said with a flourish of
his hand and a bow of his head.

"Nine... and hit, ten... and hit, eleven...
and hit, twelve... and hit. That's all of the cameras. One for the
main sensors, one for com, one for backup com. That's thirteen for
fifteen. Not bad for a gal who's three years out of practice."

"Three more targets to shore up your
numbers," Garotte said, pulling up a secondary display and pointing
at it, "Here, here, and here."

"I know the drill. Just like the last time we
picked up Zerk," she said, taking aim.

#

"Okay, okay, okay," Rogers said in the
unmistakeable tone of someone who is absolutely not panicking,
"We've all got slidepads. Regulations say we can use those in case
of complete communication-"