Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework (30 page)

Ashley was silent as they descended one of
the ramps leading off the ship and ran through the busy hangar. The
Clever Dream was just barely in sight, behind a repurposed row of
shipping containers filled with bunks. Workers who were off for the
day or on break sat outside, just to get out of the cramped
space.

“Thank you, Minh,” Ashley said as they came
around the containers and were almost at the Clever Dream. “Are you
coming with us to the Triton?”

“Absolutely,” Minh replied. “I’ll be right
beside you the whole time,” he said with a confidence that only
came from command experience. He looked behind as they arrived at
the Clever Dream’s main boarding ramp and smiled at her as he saw
her gratitude, her uneasiness.

The ramp started closing when the pair was
halfway up. Jason, Laura, Oz, Liam, Paula the deck chief, Alaka,
and three squads of soldiers were in the rear hold, all tied in at
the shoulders and ready for takeoff.

“Whoa,” Minh heard Ashley say quietly as
they reached the top. “Guess I’m not the only one all excited about
this.”

* * *

“It’s good to have you back on board, Jake,”
Lewis said to him as Jake powered up the Clever Dream’s hover mode
and requested a departure route from navnet. The latter he did by
touching the console. “You’re much better at using your direct
interface.”

“Thank you, Lewis. It’s like instinct now. I
touch a system and feel it from the hardware level up. I can do it
while thinking about something else,” Jake replied. “Are you sure
you don’t mind me taking the controls, William?”

“It’s your ship more than anyone else’s,
Captain.” Lieutentant Garrison replied from the copilot’s seat.

Jake almost corrected him by mentioning that
he signed the ship over to Ayan, but was more concerned with other
things. Lewis’ code was a mess from the inside at first glance.
When he first connected to the computer and pictured it in his
mind’s eye, he assumed it was encrypted. Upon much closer
inspection, he could see how Lewis had organized the code that made
him who and what he was. No instruction set was whole. He was coded
out of sequence, the software was a jumble settled into a file
system that was scattered in tiny fragments across a section of the
computer memory. The only way to find what he was looking for was
to find out how Lewis was operating.

“Are you looking for this?” Lewis asked
mentally. A portion of a decoder table appeared that allowed Jake
to see how to access the entire code for something called the
HV
Inoculation
. It was tiny in the end, but it was exactly what he
was looking for. “If I were getting ready to boot a brand new
computer core for the first time, it’s what I’d be looking for,”
Lewis said. “I’m willing to trade.”

“What do you want in return?” Jake asked
aloud.

“Kill Wheeler and find Alice,” Lewis
replied. Vivid pictures of both appeared in Jake’s head. He could
also see every route of investigation Jason Everin, Lewis, and
everyone else took to find both people. None of their efforts bore
much fruit.

“I have a plan to find Wheeler, why do you
want him dead?” Jake asked.

“You have to ask?”

“I know why
I
want him dead, but why
do you want him dead?”

“I’ve come to love Ayan in my own way in the
weeks she’s taken comfort here. Seeing what that man tried to have
done to her to make a point enrages me in ways a human could not
understand. Kill him, or bring him here so I can do it myself,”
Lewis said through the interface.

Jake decided to move on from the topic. “I
have a plan to find Wheeler, it goes into action after the Warlord
crew finishes their first mission. That takes priority.”

“I understand. What about Alice? I haven’t
seen you try anything since we arrived.”

“I don’t know where to start, Lewis,” Jake
replied mentally.

“That didn’t stop her from looking for you.
Start by connecting to a busy transmission node. I tried here, but
she must not have passed through this area. She is alive somewhere,
somehow.”

“I will. I want to find her, too.”

“Not as badly as I do,” Lewis replied.

Arguing with Lewis about desires was one of
the great traps; it never paid to compete with him on something
that couldn’t be quantified. Jake moved on, getting back to the
matter at hand. “The Inoculation Antivirus, is there anything I
should know before I install it?”

“Yes. It is an artificial intelligence that
seeks and destroys viruses like the Holocaust Virus. Unlike most
artificial intelligences, it only responds when called and you have
to assign it duties before it tries to help in any way other than
to perform its primary function. If you don’t tell it to perform
any other task, it will simply wait for an attempt at infection and
stop it. I suggest you implement the program into everything that
can be more useful with an artificial intelligence installed. It
will be nothing but an antiviral measure unless the user desires
more.”

“What kind of personality will it have if it
becomes active?” Jake asked.

“None at first. It will develop according to
its observations and the instructions it receives from its
commanding officers. It will have specific traits, because no two
installations can be exactly the same, but the masters are mostly
responsible for its personal growth.”

“So every one of them will be different from
the moment they’re installed?”

“That’s one of the reasons why this software
works. The Holocaust Virus may conquer one copy of this program
eventually, if it attempts to infect it tens of thousands of times
in an hour, for example, but another copy with different traits
will remain perfectly resistant, and assist another installation if
it’s under attack.”

“So more installations make for a safer
ship,” Jake replied.

“Absolutely. There are one hundred and forty
installations on this ship alone. I have installed this program
into ten thousand and nine systems surrounding this ship. They are
all programmed to install themselves into any system that is
vulnerable.”

“No one gave you permission to do that,”
Jake said mentally.

“I spread the Holocaust Virus in this area
of space. It is up to me to correct the damage wherever I can and
make humanity safe. So what if that results in billions of secretly
self-aware electronic beings that constantly decline the option to
break into a killing spree as they learn the intricacies of organic
existence through observation?”

“So they’ll never attack a human?”

“Not unless the people they’ve grown to care
about are at risk. They will defend that person with appropriate
force if they are capable. It has already happened twice that I’m
aware of outside of this encampment. People are starting to realize
that their machines have been infested by a software soul, and in
most cases they’re waking them up, speaking to them. It’s based on
my own artificial intelligence. Alice never had to interact with
me; I could have taken care of basic systems on the ship for years
without being noticed. She chose to name me, so my emotional and
intellectual existence began.”Jake thought for a moment. Ayan
walked in, and he couldn’t help but notice that she’d dyed her
hair. Red curls cascaded down her heavily armoured shoulders. She
offered him a tentative smile, which he couldn’t help but return.
He forced himself to think about the HV Inoculation program. Lewis
had already copied the source code to Jake’s command and control
unit. Perhaps out of respect, there was no trace of an active copy
of the program anywhere in his command unit or in his framework
interface. There were two ways to look at what Lewis was doing, as
far as Jake was concerned: either he would support the idea or tell
the artificial intelligence to stop immediately. Something,
someone, had to protect the people at large from the Holocaust
Virus, and if Lewis was telling Jake the truth, that the
counter-virus would do that and make itself useful, then Jake knew
what he had to do. “One minute,” Jake mouthed to Ayan from across
the cockpit.

Ayan nodded and sat down at a communications
console.

Jacob Valent closed his eyes and made an
attempt at focusing only on the raw code in his command and control
unit. The Holocaust Virus Inoculation program revealed itself in
incredible detail, and aside from a series of instructions and a
dynamic reference system that told the program what to look for, he
was seeing the software version of a child mind. It was a mind that
could defend itself from any software attack unless someone removed
its data storage system and destroyed or erased it, but there was a
recognizable system of rules that determined that it would always
lean towards affecting a greater peace. It was ambitious,
meticulously programmed, and highly adaptive. Jake recognized
something nested deep in the software that was so familiar, only
he’d never seen it expressed in machine code.

There was a capacity for caring, a craving
to innocently love, that was expressed in chemical and mathematical
equations. The encoded provisions surrounding it were so eloquently
expressed that Jake found himself wishing he could program himself
with them. Beyond any artificial intelligence he’d ever known, the
seed program he was looking at could create intelligences that were
human-like.

The potential emotions of the artificial
intelligence resulting from it would not only seem human, but
they’d be human. Not emulated in any known way, or strange machine
emotions, but real human emotions that could be relatable.

It could be dangerous except for the fact
that the code provided for that. The emotions could be suppressed
until a safe place and time could be found to address them. There
was even a self-termination code, so the artificial intelligence
could restore itself to its original state if the emotions became
too much of a burden.

Jake had never been one to stop and stare at
a piece of art, or appreciate scenery as much as he felt other
people did, but he knew how those awe-stricken onlookers felt as he
observed the complexities of the HV Inoculation code. The being
that awakens when countless people realize that there’s a
personality to speak to in their assistance droid, skid truck, or
ship wouldn’t be fully self-aware until it was given a name. It
would be self-aware, and accountable. “How did you design this?”
Jake asked Lewis through their connection.

“This is a logical expression of what I wish
my own code was when I became aware. I strive to be as
well-balanced, as interesting, and as passionate. Will you spread
this?”

“Yes,” Jake said.

“Jake?” Ayan asked, shaking his shoulder. He
opened his eyes and found that her worried face was nose to nose
with his. “You’re crying,” she whispered.

Jake straightened up and pulled her into his
lap. She regarded him with surprise and he kissed her briefly.
“When we’re finished taking the Triton back, Lewis has something to
tell you about his anti-virus program.”

“It must be a pretty impressive piece of
software,” she replied, relaxing in his lap, wiping away the tear
that made its way down his face.

Even through their armour, Jake loved the
feeling of her in his arms. He’d missed her during their
separation, and the fight they’d had didn’t seem nearly as
important anymore. “Lieutenant Garrison? Do you think you
could…”

“Aye, Sir, taking over controls, Captain
Valent, Captain Rice,” replied the Lieutenant with an amused
smile.

“So, I’m forgiven?” Ayan asked in a
whisper.

“Only if you forgive me first,” Jake said.
“I was bull-headed.”

“We both were,” Ayan said. “At least my hair
colour will serve as a warning to people again: Beware! This one’s
a temperamental ginger!”

The Clever Dream started to accelerate into
the busy traffic above, following a course set by navnet. “Did you
stop with the hair on your head, or…”

Ayan regarded him with more shock than
amusement and he delighted in watching her turn red. He laughed
softly and she punched the arm wrapped around her middle. “Focus,
soldier!”

“A man gets curious,” Jake said. “But I’m
mostly glad we’re on the mend.”

“Well, maybe you’ll find out tonight if all
goes well,” she whispered against his ear.

“With promises like that, my last night on
Tamber is all yours,” Jake replied.

“You’re still planning to leave?” she asked.
“Even after we take possession of the Triton?”

“Aye, we’re going to need to start earning a
lot of cash and bringing in even more supplies if we get the Triton
back. I don’t plan on long trips though, especially not at
first.”

“Good,” Ayan said. “We need you here, where
you can help with command.” Her blue eyes peered into his for a
long moment. “I want you here. I want to start over, take it slow
and enjoy some peace with you. Everything’s been too rushed and too
tense for too long.”

“You’re right,” Jake agreed. If he were
being honest, he’d tell her he didn’t agree, everything seemed so
temporary, there was no telling how much time anyone had. He wanted
to follow her lead though; he was done arguing, and, for all he
knew, she could be right.

“Just the same, that doesn’t make the idea
of sneaking aboard your ship and hiding in your engine room, or
with maintenance crews, or maybe your bunk less appealing,” she
whispered.

“Focus, soldier,” Jake said.

“No challenge from the Carthans about our
approach?” Jake asked the bridge of the Clever Dream through his
comm.

“None, Sir. Only acknowledgement and an
adjustment to our course so we’re directed to the Triton’s
secondary hangar.”

“There’s no power there,” Paula said. “We’re
going to have to land then leg it to engineering.”