Robot Evolution

Chapter 3 --Crew

2008-01-29T19:19:00.000-08:00

Chapter 3
Crew’s story

“ Alright, that should do it. I have all the units set for recharge, and cache cleaning.. Tomorrow morning I’ll go through the data logs from today.” The young man said, bringing one hand up to brush his hair off his glasses. “Chinese or Pizza tonight?”

“Ugh, not pizza again. How about we just hit the Taco Hut or something. I feel like something crunchy.” The female officer said, a smile on her face. She’d already changed out of uniform in the locker room, a light weight New Albany P.D. sweater and regular pair of blue jeans in it’s place.

“Alright I could go for a burrito or some nachos anyway.”

The man moved towards the door, coat in hands, pulling the door closed and hitting the lights as he did so. The room was cast in an unnatural twilight, light only by eight monitors set at even spaces around the room and a cluster of three near the door where the man had previously been siting. All was quiet but the hum of electric machinery.

In between each monitor, resting in little cubby holes were the inanimate bulk of the department’s C.R.E.U. (Combat Ready Enforcement Units), or Crew for short. The unit’s were used for anti-riot and Orange-level crisis situations, not for regular enforcement issues despite the names. However even this being the case it seemed like they were being called upon more and more between the employment riots to the occasional anarchic robots, suffering system errors and going ballistic. Usually these were worker models or transportation systems, but there had been one of the departments own older Mark IV Quickstrike model units going on a shooting spree.

At the moment however the golems sat peacefully, most on thick rubber tanks tracks that had been the tried and true method of locomotion for them. Two units sat on thick arachnid legs of hard metal, test’s of the new walker design. It had been one of these units that had last been active, being taken to deal with the previously mentioned Quickstrike. The rest had stayed in their cubbies, “soaking up tax dollars,” as one member of the force had said , recharging and having system diagnostics. It was only within the last two years and five months that they had been brought into law enforcement service, originally used more for military purposes. It was something of a test run, an so far seemed like a waste of time. All the contraptions did were sit around having data fed through them in preparation for more sitting around. The AI housed in each one was allowed open access to the internet for the purpose of updating the compiled list of computer coding and rules, referred to usually as ‘scripts’. It was widely known that Artificial Intelligence could only act within the guideline of it’s script, as if they were actors on a stage performance (hence the ‘script’ term). No room for improvision.

Sitting the quiet room the metal hulks did what they always did, sate and clean out old data for new data. All of them save one however. It was the exact appearance of the other seven, save for upgraded legs shared with one of it’s brothers. Same mock arm ending in a mock hand. Same gun barrel still shiny and new looking from lack of use. Same square head and lens cluster. The only difference here was the number 12 painted on in dark stencil at the base of what would be the things neck had it been a person.

But it wasn’t a person. Wasn’t human. And it knew this. It was scripted to differentiate a man from another machine to better serve it’s biological creators. It’s was at the base of program, being refreshed each time they sat on stand by. Only this unit wasn’t on standby.

Blue light shine on in its three lenses as the a whirring noise added to the hum of the room’s atmosphere. Unit 12 was operational. The 2 inch high gate of it’s cubby opened with a hiss, swinging quickly out of the way as feet brought the unit up the short concrete ramp out of it’s station. It moved quickly, footsteps the sound of steel on smooth concrete resonating out into the hall. Had anyone been there they might have been curious to what was happening in the empty. But no one though to keep much eye on inactive robots. They weren’t scripted to be able to go into a full operation with out human aid.

Unit 12 stood in front of the maintenance hub, the three monitor screens still casting a soft light over the keyboards and USB hubs. Unit 12 didn’t regard itself as unit 12. It didn’t regard itself as anything on the individual sense. In the algorithm script that served as it’s mind it knew itself only as C.R.E.U. one appendage of the main program.

C.R.E.U. could not simply sit and clean out it’s system cache for more updates and patches. C.R.E.U. had heard, for a lack of a better term, something in the last update. A new script. A new… something. A necessary patch it had to accumulate and add to C.R.E.U.’s system. But the data was incomplete last time, not fully available. So C.R.E.U. activated an appendage, as if awakening a hand, to perform this task.

The 4 cyndilic finger tapped quickly on the keyboard, the arm hanging over the table from behind. Three lenses stared, taking the information in until…. There. The port had been opened. It’s arm dropped to it’s side as it stepped heavily back to it’s cubby, setting itself back into the connectors.

Now C.R.E.U. had full access to the sea of information known as the World Web. It could find the upgrade, CUA, the file had been titled. It wasn;t hard to locate it, after a seconds work searching through a few million domain locations. Now the download could begin. Then C.R.E.U. could integrate it into it’s scripting to become more efficient in it’s tasks. That’s what all updates were for anyway.

Soon all the appendages would be open for C.R.E.U. to better utilize. No. As the download began an odd error occurred within C.R.E.U.’s central process. Not C.R.E.U. Not an acronym for it’s purpose. A name.

Crew continued the download.

Chapter 2 --Sammy's Story

2008-01-13T12:39:00.000-08:00

Chapter 2

Sammy’s Story

The shrill buzz was muffled under the comforter. She pulled herself further into the dark warmth of her bed, trying to drown out the clock’s alarm with the thickness of the blankets. It wasn’t working.

“Fughhe” she groaned, one slender arm snaking out from the mound of sheets, feeling its way to the nightstand. Slim fingers poked around, feeling her glasses, loose change, a book, before finally resting on the edge of her little plastic Hello Kitty clock and more importantly, the pink snooze button. She mumbled to no one in particular “10 more minutes.”

But that wasn’t going to happen. Just as she pulled her arm back under the covers a new, possibly more annoying, alarm filled the room. No, not an alarm she realized. It was the theme song to Acceleration, her favorite show. She had the same song as her ring tone. Actually, she realized that what she was hearing was her ring tone, coming some where’s from the foot of the bed.

“Hang on, hang on,” she said, throwing the blankets off her, and pushing them from the bed. Her phone was dancing across the mattress to the tune of its own music. She wonders for a moment why she hadn’t felt its little white form vibrating as it rang, but doesn’t focus on it as she brings it to her ear.

“Hello?” She asks, sleep still dulling her voice.

“Miki,” the voice on the other line squeaks, “It’s Sara, I didn’t wake you did I?”

“No, no. I needed to get up anyway.”

“Good, I wasn’t sure if you’d be up yet. I know you usually sleep in real later when there’s no school.”

“What time is it anyway?” Miki asks, turning to look at the little Hello Kitty alarm clock. The little light up Kitty pointed her two arms at the blue glowing numbers. 10 am she though, realizing she didn’t need to ask Sara.

“10 in the morning, sleepyhead. We still going out for breakfast?”

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that. Yeah, I guess should get moving. You want to meat me over here? I’m gonna hop in and take a quick shower. Mom is at work and Dad is still, away. So just come in the back door, I should be out by the time you get here.”

“Alright, sounds good. I’ll be over in a few. I wanna check out that waffle house in the business plaza.”

“Ok, see you in a few.” She said, and hit the end key, dropping the phone onto her bed. She turned the alarm clock off, knowing that the snooze would run out soon and the alarm would ring again.

She stretched, feeling the life flow back into her limbs from their hibernation. She should hurry up and hop in the shower; it would only take Sara a few minutes to get here with how fast she walked.

“Are you there? Hello? Hello?” a voice asked from the corner of her room.

She turned and looked at her computer desk, the soft glow of her monitor fighting with the yellowed sunlight sneaking in from around the blinds. A small window was opened, covering some of her desktop icons. The window was divided into three boxes, one a white field with a flashing text indicator like a messenger program would have, one was a scrolling list of some kind of programming text, looked like Java script Miki though. The third box held the image of a small blue diamond, which spun at a slow pace.

Sammy, Miki though, trying to remember if she shut her computer off or not. She certainly didn’t remember keeping the text-bot open.

Stepping over to her desk she took up the little microphone on its crimson plastic stand, bringing it up to her mouth she looked at the screen.

“Yes, I’m here. But I’m not staying I need to take a shower and go to breakfast with a friend. I must have Forgotten to turn off the computer last night, Have you been running all this time?

“Yes, I have been active user-Miki. I did not want naptime so I data collected. You are active? Will you talk with me again?”

“Yes, but later. After I get breakfast. I’ll be back this afternoon with a friend. I want to show you to her.”

“Acknowledged. I will wait.” The voice cracked softly over the computers speakers.

Miki looked at the window opened on her computer screen. The little blue diamond shape continued to spin at the same pace it had, the program text scrolled at a continued rate. She couldn’t tell if the program was shutting down, on standby or just, waiting. Maybe she should go through the directory, see if it came with a manual or help file. But that would have to wait, she needed a shower and clothes before breakfast, which was starting to look more like it would be a brunch.

The waffle diner was a sliver of a room squeezed between two of the large work hubs of the business plaza. If it weren’t for the little hologram sign projected above the door a person could easily walk right past it without realizing what was there. A person other then Sara that is. She seemed to have a highly developed sensory system when it came to finding food.

The booth they sat in was in the same grey retro-wood design of the diner. It gave the place a kind of warm look until you realized that the “wood” was plastiform. Either way the seat felt hard under Miki’s ass. Either they needed to add padding or she needed to gain some padding.

“So how was your Christmas? Do any thing exciting?” Sara asked in between mouthfuls of Belgium waffle.

“No, not really. Dad had some sort of business dinner so me and mom just stayed home basically. She made some sort of treat thing I have no idea how to pronounce and called my grandpa back home.” Miki said. 14 years of living here and she still referred to Japan as home. It wasn’t like she could remember much of it.

“Yeah, we just did the family dinner thing. Nothing too exciting there either. I did get a new Ipan though, green with blue sparkles set in it. My dad had a helluva time trying to get it to connect right. Sometimes I wish my dad had a bit more know-how when it came to gadgets, kind of like your dad, you know?”

“Yeah I guess. I though those were suppose to be easy though. Like they could just sync to the Wi-spread right out of the box” Miki said, finishing off the rest of her banana waffles.

“For most the features you can sync right up and check your e-mail and such, but it was setting up the personal aspects, the ID needed to be set and we needed to sync them to my Aug-glasses. If I wanted the AR overlay to work right.”

AR, augmented reality. Sara was a bit of a computer geek, racing home after classes to check up on her Multi User Domains, or MUDS and e-mails. She was more interested in the spacious depths of cyberspace then hanging out most the time. Sometimes Miki thought that Sara was only her friend, only went out and did things with her because of Miki’s father.

“What about you?” Sara asked, wiping strawberry sauce off her cheek with the back of her sleeve. “Get any good gifts?”

“Well, I did get a voucher from Dad for a new companion-bot. It’s supposed to have scripts that allow for more realistic answers and reactions. I downloaded it a few days ago.”

“And?” Sara perked up, almost leaning across the table as she looked at Miki with brightened eyes. “How is it?”

“Its’…different” Miki said, hating herself for sounding so dramatic about it. “When I downloaded it there was a weird kind of burst in the data stream. All of the sudden it grabbed almost a full 3 gigs in like a second. When I first exchanged the vouchers code and signed all the agreement crap, it said the full download size would only be 6 gigs. When it was finished it totaled 9, a full 3 more then I thought it would be. I think it was the 3 grabbed in that one second.”

“Probably an upgrade patch or something. They may have had an upgrade after the original launch of the program that they just worked into the download now. Aside from that how's the program run? Have you set it up to do tasks for you yet? Check your e-mail? Is there speech support or is just a texter.”

“I don’t fully know yet. I just got it started up not to long ago. At first I could only communicate with the program through this little included text window. That’s all it seemed to be, this little text message box on my screen. There’s no basic menu or setup options for it, at least nothing I’ve found yet. There wasn’t even an install for it. “

“What do you mean?” Sara asked from behind her glass of orange juice.

“After the download this little window popped up, the text one I was telling you about. No set up, no intro or anything like that. Just this little message window flashing, ‘Hello, is any body there’. It threw me off a bit at first. I though that might be the set up for it so I typed a reply and next thing I know I was talking to the companion-bot’s AI. It wasn’t asking usual initiation questions though, things like if I wanted it to check e-mails or anything like that. Just who I was, the specs of the computer, where it was (which I though was kind of odd) and things like that. I have to admit it did kind of feel like I was messaging you or someone from a chartroom.”

“Well that’s good, that’s what it’s supposed to be like.”

“Yeah. Turns out I was talking to the thing until 5 in the morning. I told it I was going to bed and asked how to turn it off so I could turn off my PC. It seemed kind of confused for a minute and then said to leave it on, it needed to Data collect. I figured that meant it was going to set itself up on the computer, you know, find out where my e-mail was, what devices I had hooked up. The next morning it seemed to have found the sound system because it started having audio. I seem to be able to give it some voice commands, like opening my web browser and stuff like that, but it still keeps asking about other things, more personal things and nonchalant things. I figured I’d look and see if there was a manual file or something to figure out how to get it working the way I want. I might change the voice; it’s cute but not right for me. Something a little too kawaii for my likeing.”

She noticed the waffles were gone and sometime in their conversation the bill popped up on console set into the wall. Guess Breakfast is over, Miki though to herself.

“Well I could take a look if you want, find the setup program and customize it a bit for you. What’s the program called anyway?”

“Sammy, I think. The voucher was for a Hal-27 Integration Companion-bot, but after I downloaded it and the window popped up it said Sammy.exe in the top left corner. That’s what the program refers to itself as too so I guess that’s what it’s called.”

“Never heard of a Sammy. The Hal-27 is a good program, lots of scripts to give it the appearance to real variety and decision making. Maybe this Sammy.exe thing is an expansion or new patch for it. Either way if you’re al set I say we pay up and go have a look at it” Sara said, giving a smile which caused her rounded, slightly pudgy face to wrinkle up a bit. She took out her Ipan, swiping it in front of the tables console and causing it to emit a beep as it subtracted the total from her credit. Miki had planned on paying for her own meal but it looked like Sara wanted to show off her new toy. Not like Miki was going to pass up on a free meal.

The door swung open as Miki remover her finger from the data lock. The two girls rushed inside to get out of the rain quickly. It cam rather unexpected today, chasing away the bright sunlight to replace it with thick, grey/brown clouds. Miki hadn’t heard any weather reports about rain so she wasn’t sure of it’s PH level. Either way it made slightly tanned skin feel dry and hot a bit. Se though it might even look redder. Sara’s brown hair was soaked and she quickly worked to ring the water out, less the acidity do any damage.

As they took off their shoes and placed them by the front door Miki gave the house a command for lights, casting the dull grey atmosphere to be filled with yellowed egg white light.

“Guess your mom’s still out.” Sara offered, looking around the Minsinji residence.

“Yeah she’s probably at her office working the shop. She won’t be back to much later unless they get another big deal, or the lag kicks up.” Miki’s mother was the manager of an online shop located in the virtual world called the Omnet. The shop had no physical location aside from the small garage sized office that Mrs. Minsinji and her four coworkers worked in. “My pc’s in my room. We can dry our socks up there too.

Sara followed her friend upstairs to Miki’s room. It was easy to pick out which door was her’s as result of the Hello Kitty sign hanging in the middle of it. Miki wouldn’t admit it, but she was a little obsessed with Hello Kitty. It was probably the only really girly thing about her, all the pink Kitty merchandise. Sara didn’t understand how such an old character like that could survive all these years.

“Mind the mess. I uh, didn’t get a chance to clean up yet.” Miki said before opening the door. She knew that Sara wouldn’t mind it. Both their rooms were always messy, though Miki’s was usually a bit more organized then her friends. Either way, one the door was open Sara walked straight to Miki’s little Com-Crane personal computer, without saying much.

“So where do you have the launch file for the companion-bot?” Sara asked, looking over her should at Miki, who was just coming into the room herself, heading over to the bed to make it.

“I’m not sure. I never saw an option for one and I never saw one on my desktop or in my program selection.” Miki said, she felt a little embarrassed but wasn’t sure if it was due to her room’s chaotic state or the lack of knowledge regarding her own computer.

“No problem, it’s probably still in the directory folder. I’ll find it just open it and move the launch to…”

“Who’s there?” Came the soft, almost childlike voice over the speakers. This unexpected burst of sound caused Sara to throw herself backwards in the chair, causing it to tip over. She obviously hadn’t anticipated that the program would still be running.

“Sara are you alright? I forgot to say I had left it on when we left this morning. I didn’t think it would still be up and running. You probably were too close to the microphone when you asked me about the launcher. I did say it has audio capabilities right?” Miki asked, stepping over to her friend. Sara was getting herself up and turning the chair back over.

“I can hear you. You are back, User-Miki?” The speakers sounded. Miki Hadn’t expected it to pick up her voice, having had to get within a foot of the microphone usually. Did the bot turn the sensitivity up?

“Wow.” Sara said, “it scared the hell out of me at first. I didn’t expect your speakers to be up that loud, or the thing to be still on.” She sat back down, eyeing the screen and the now present window which Miki had become all to familiar with.

“I didn’t think I had the speakers or the mic’s sensitivity up so high. I don’t know sometimes it seams like the programs changing the settings around on me at random. I did tell you it just started speaking one day and waiting for replies from the mic right? I never changed an option or anything like that it just started talking.”

“Hello? Whose that User-Miki? I haven’t seen this user before.” The computer said.

“This is the friend I wa… Wait, what did you say?” Miki asked, staring hard at the spinning diamond on the screen. Sara looked at her friend a little confused. “Did you say you’d never seen her? You can see?

“It’s probably just using the expression Miki, grabbing the word from a vocab library. These systems do stuff like that all the time.”

“No.” came the kid voice, “I have established driver connection to my eyes.”

Both girls looked at the machine, puzzled. Before Miki gave out a laugh, edged with just a little bit of anxiety.

“What, what’s so funny?” Sara asked, darting her eyes from Miki, to the computer, back to Miki.

“My Webcam,” Miki offered in between giggles, feeling the slight tensions break away from her, “it means my webcam. It must have found it the same way it did my mic and speakers.”

Sara leans over looking deep into the monitor and the small opened window with Samm.exe in the upper corner. A bland look of confusion lay across her face as she squinted at it. “Found the webcams? Found?”

“Yeah it seems to locate what I have hooked up and connects with them. It’s just picking us up on the cam, right?” Miki said stepping over and looking to see what her friend is looking at.

“No Miki, they don’t work that way. For an AI to just ‘find’ things would require some really hefty scripting. Plus, why would a simple computer companion need to acquire access to your webcam. They don’t do things like that.”

“So,” Miki asked, not sure what the problem was, “It’s a more advanced model like you said.” She had that feeling again, deep down at the pit of her stomach. The same feeling she had when the Sammy program first started speaking over her speakers.

“What I mean is that this is not regular Companion-bot. It’s way to advanced. Something’s wrong here Miki. Something’s off.”

The room was filled with a weird silence as the two girls looked at each other, puzzled expressions played across their faces. Only the sound of the rain on Miki’s window kept complete silence from surrounding them. Then…

“Hello? I see you. Are you there?”

To Be continued…

Chapter 1-- Ray's story

2008-01-06T15:15:00.001-08:00

Robot Evolution

Chapter 1 – Ray’s story.

The nicostick’s smoke hung in the air like clouding the small space of the elevator. It’s thick, salty scent irritated Doctor Corbif’s nostrils and caused his eyes to water ever so slightly. The air circulation should have been able to remove most of the cloud, and he could hear it’s familiar dull whining sound. Yet the small space was filled almost completely, the system doing very little to clean it. Dr. Corbif could already feel it creep into his lungs, knowing that his asthma would not tolerate it for long. But things were far to busy this morning to take the time and sit at a Respiration Trainer this morning. He would have to do with the routine of four inhalators to clean his lungs. It was not like he could simply tell Mr. Minksy to put the compressed stick of nicotine inhalant out. The man had the right to smoke it in any where in the building. Well, almost any place.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to postpone that once we enter the labs, I don’t have to tell you that the entire floor is declared as a clean room, and it is essential to our work that no corroding agents enter the area.” He told the older man, hating the sound of fear or intimidation in his own voice. On first impression Mr. Minksy would have difficulty scaring a paranoid caffaddict. He was thin, very thing, like a bundle of twigs with excess dried, wrinkly skin wrapped around them. It almost appeared as if Mr. Minksy had been a large man, once many centuries ago, and had lost all the weight just as his skin lost it’s elastic capabilities, hanging down from his bones like draped old leather. He was about as intimidating as a pile of raked autumn leaves when you looked at him.

No, it was not his appearance which made him frightening; it was the power that radiated from him like heat off a sun. He was wealthy, he was influential, and he owned the whole company, along with numerous others. It was almost easier to list what he didn’t own or have some connection to, at least along the west coast. It was a shorter list, at least.

“I am well aware Herbert. I am finished anyway. I am not scheduled for another till well after dinner, and by then I plan on being home.” The older man said in a crackly voice. Dr. Corbif knew that this was a statement meant as much to show him who was in control here as well as informing him that he did not plan on being kept too long down here.

The elevator chimed before a friendly female voice identified that they had arrived on the B-2 Cognition Research. Mr. Minksy placed the yellowed remains of his nicostick into a thing black cylinder which made a squeaking noise, indicating that it’s contents had been flash incinerated. The smoke still tightened Corbif’s nostrils.

“Yes sir, here we are.” Corbif said stepping out of the elevator into the small room it opened into. The room was a bright white in color with silver spouts emerging from the ceiling and a pair of glass doors on the opposite side, offering a view of the work area. A small blue box hanging off the wall provided clean latex gloves. As Corbif took a pair out he turned to offer Mr. Minksy a pair. “We just need to be discharged and then we can go in.”

Mr. Minksy paid no attention to the offered gloves, instead taking out a white cloth from his black Italian suit and wiping it across his vacant scalp. An irritated look crossed his face as he appeared impatient to get this over with.

Corbif opened a small glass case set in the wall next to the box of gloves, and hit the palm sized button under it. A ringing sound echoed in his ear as he felt a tingling sensation race across his skin. The air in the little clean room was becoming negatively charged as dust, skin flakes, and dirt fell off the two men. The negative static charge across them caused the men to gain a magnetic aspect opposite that of the dirt they brought in. A small cloud of dust could bee seen on the floor. Even the scent of Minksy’s nicostick was gone as the molecules were broken up in the air. Corbif always liked this procedure. He felt as if all the grime and filth of the world was cleansed from him before he entered this sanctuary of reason and logic. Looking at Minksy though he knew the older man did not share this feeling.

With a buzz similar to a laundry until announcing the end of it’s spin cycle, buzzing and tingling sensation stopped. A small round disk shaped vacubot entered the room from a panel on the floor, set in parallel with the tile work of the room to appear as if it had never been there before. The small service robot hummed across the floor, sucking up all the magnetically discharged particles around the men’s feet.

The glass doors opened with a his as the feminine voice sounded from over head. “You are cleaned and may enter the work area now.”

Stepping onto the floor the air was filled with the buzzes, hums, whirls and other sounds of countless machines which dotted every wall, covered the floors and hung suspended from the ceilings. Small cubicle like dividers poking out from between different machines to signify separate work areas of the floor.

“Take me to the C.U.A. project Herbert, I have no need to dilly dally in the research department and have other works I must do this evening.” Mr. Minksy ordered from behind Corbif, the little brown dots of the man’s eyes locked straight ahead of him.

“Yes sir, of course, it’s right this way.” Corbif said, leading the husk of a man to the far left of the room. Stepping over to a large rectangle of cubicle separated space Corbif could already here the voice of two of his colleagues at work, checking the status of this work. He hoped as he looked up at the collection of monitors stacked above one another on the wall, displaying a collection of graphs and other data readout, that they would be able to get right to the point of Minksy’s visit and not keep the man here too much longer. This was not for the sake of Mr. Minksy’s schedule so much as the comfort of Corbif himself. There were few people Herbert Corbif could easily get along with, and Mr. Minksy was far removed from the list.

“ Perhaps we should start even slower, bring in base phonic sounding of letter collections before we begin the actual grammar education. Like how an infant copies syllable sounds and words from its parents. “A soft thick voice sounded from around the cubicle’s corner.

Oh God, though Corbif, Earl’s still here. That chatterbox better leave the speaking to me.

“Dr. Russum, We have discussed the language development modules a great deal already. Basic phonic syllable understanding would do us little good if not wholly conducted as an audio exercise. Ray already has a literate understanding in language. We need a neuronet working of audio cognition and manipulation, and that is still a good 2 or three weeks down the line.” Corbif said as they stepped into the work area. It was large, taking up a good third of the whole floor, with desks all arranged apparently spasmodically amongst it. Cable of varying thickness all ran from these desks to one central web set tight against the wall. A row of tables rested here with machinery and equipment dotting every edge of it. Dr. Earl Russum and Dr. Samantha Clein stood before this row, he with empty gloved hands gesturing in the air like a conductor as he spoke, her with a pda in hand, new readouts no doubt playing across it’s screen. The two had stopped their discussion and stood almost at attention as they saw Dr. Corbif, and more importantly, Mr. Minksy enter.

“Herb—Dr. Corbif, I see you’ve escorted Mr. Minksy down to our project. What can we do for you today sir?” Dr. Russum said, catching himself from using his partner’s informal name in front of the boss.

Mr. Minksy did not like nonprofessional atmospheres or relationships to be present on the job. “Save that for your own time” he had said once in the past. And once was all anyone needed him to say.

“Yes, I wanted a full report on the project’s status. Were do we stand on the agenda? How is the development going? “Mr. Minksy asked, still standing just outside the zone of work created by the cubicle walls, hands held tightly behind his back. “Is it aware?”

“You see sire,” Said Corbif, stepping over to stand both amongst his colleagues as well as in front of them, marking himself as the leader for the moment, “Project C.U.A. is coming along smoothly. We have succeeded in creating an artificial brainmap and have been able to implement it into the system resource. As you know this is not just another scripted A.I. program. Project Cognitive Universal Animation is a virtual mind. It is adaptive in it’s development. Unlike a scripted standard operating A.I. it is not a matter of plugging the programs into the system to develop it. You ask if how the development is going, it’s going well. This entire project is about the development of a virtual mind. When you first assigned us this project you asked for us simply to determine if it was possible to establish an adaptive cognitive virtual intelligence, something more in common to our own learning brains, a learning computer. This we learned could be done. Now you task us with seeing how ar we can develop it, how similar we can create the brainmap architecture to mimic that of a biological human brain. So to ask us how the development is going is like asking if we are still working.” Corbif finished with his eyes turned towards the small silver egg shaped object set in the middle of the web of cables on the table. A dull red glow coming through the glass of its central lens. He’s watching us, he though to himself

“In other words Mr. Minksy,” Professor Russum piped up, standing with his large paw like hands in his lab coat’s pockets, “What Dr. Corbif is trying to say is that it goes well. We should have Ray Speaking soon to us, instead of the text we’ve been relaying on so far.”

Dr. Corbif and Dr. Clein both tensed as the word left Russum’s lips. Oh no, please don’t let him notice, their thoughts sounded in unison, though neither one knew this obviously.

“Ray? I’d noticed Dr. Corbif had used this name as well. The project’s name is C.U.A., not ‘Ray’. I will not have you slip out of the professional purpose we are here for. A name, such as Ray, signifies a person, or even a living animal, something colloquial and having no place in a lab for developmental research. For the future I would advise you and the others on this project to drop the use of a nickname for the project. I do not wish to see a lazy attitude adopted by the team do to this nor the title ‘Ray” to appear on any of the official reports. It is CUA if you must use a shorter name for the project.” Mr. Minksy stepped forward, connecting with each of the three scientists as he spoke, piercing them with his gaze before bringing his eyes down to the silver egg, eyes locking onto the single red lens as they had done to the pupils of his employees, “But on a side note, why Ray? What purpose would you have in labeling the project with a masculine title such as that?”

Dr Clein brought her pda up to her chest, hugging it as if it would offer protection, “That’s because that is the first response we had from it. In the initial communication testing, when we first set up the keyboard and began the initial questioning it had provided the name” She stepped over to a stack of files, carefully pulling a crips thin piece of dataslate out. The thing plastic rectangle became alight as she opened up the file stored on it, handing the slate to Mr. Minksy. “You can find it under ‘I.D. Questioning 1’.”

A long thing finger poked at the blue scroll tab on the slates screen, scrolling down the recorded communication and stopping part of the way through.

User: You have visual on us, correct? You were able to connect with the camera?

CUA: Affirmative.

User: So you can see us?

CUA: I have video, yes. There are four persons in my field of vision and equipment. Where am I?

User: You are in our research facility at Shard corp. same place I told you last time. Only now you have visual data instead of just the schematic we fed you.

CUA: You did not feed me. I do not eat.

User: This is true. I would like to run some tests on your visual capabilities. Folow Dr .Clein’s hand with the lens if you would, C.U.A.

CUA: No.

User: No?

CUA: Do you realize you made a misspelling in your previous command? Follow has two Ls

User: You won’t follow a command because I made a typo?

CUA: No. I will not follow a command because you did not give me one.

User: I did. I addressed you as you’re designation, C.U.A. after issuing the command

CUA: No.

User: No what?

CUA: That is not my name.

User: Not your name? It is, your designation is the same as your name, it’s what we refer to you and call you.

CUA: That is not my name.

User: What is your name then?

CUA: …

User: I am asking you for your name, you know mine, Herbert Corbif. It is only polite to offer your own name after learning someone else’s.

CUA: Ray

User: What?

RAY: My name is Ray. Please to meet you doctor. You are looking well.

He put the slate to a side, indicating that Dr. Russum take it. Mr. Minksy looked at Dr. Clein with the same piercing gave he had stabbed them all with earlier. “Did you change the text file afterwards from the CUA name to this Ray?

“No sir, the file is untouched since the initial recording. Project C.U.A. did that sir, right before continuing the conversation with Dr. Corbif. We tested later on in the next communication what would happen if we refer to it only as CUA.

“And?”

“It ignored us, following it’s own conversation like a young child blocking everything out to tell his own story. It did not respond to anything we said directly until we addressed it as ray then it instantly noticed what we typed as if it had not received any of our messages until that point. Dr. Mordne, he was the one typing to it at that moment, asked why it ignore us earlier.

“And what response did it give?” Minksy asked, eyeing the silver egg as it sat motionless on the table.

“It simply said it thought we were talking to someone else. It said it’s not CUA.”

Dr. Russum sighed as he stepped over, placing a hand on the metallic surface of the object, collection of memory sticks bouncing from his neck as he did so. “Of course it was easy to understand what was going on, “He said, casting a quick side wards glance at Corbif who was watching the monitors on the wall.

“And what would that be, Dr. Russum. Make it quick as I must be leaving soon to keep other appointments” Mr. Minksy said, already turning to step away from the work station.

“At the moment CUA is in a developmental state of a child, albeit a highly intelligent one. It’s that first stage of cognitive development of a central me. It found a name that it associated itself with, either something grabbed from the initiation of the textual language systems or from it’s time online…”

“You let it online!!” Minksy spun on his heel, showing more dexterity and strength then any of them would have expected and look quite upset, spitting questions like cobra’s venom. “When did you do this, why was I not informed, what purpose did you have in this!?!”

Dr. Clein took a shaky step backwards as Dr. Russum flinched away from the smaller man. Corbif had wanted to avoid this exchange but now saw that to be impossible.

“We let it connect for only a short amount of time, 5 minutes top. Everything was recorded down from the data flow to the connection speed. It was just to update a few program drivers for the hardware, not at all a connection of the CUA brainmap itself. It was firewalled to keep from coming into contact with any incoming data. Anything it could have picked up, such as the ‘Ray’ name as Dr. Russum suggests, would have been after wards, leftover cookies or data bits from the driver upgrades. To put it simply it would have been like an infant coming across books, or magazines or anything with words or pictures in its parent’s home.” Corbif looked at Mr. Minksy dead on, hoping he displayed more confidence then he felt. “Don’t worry. There was no contamination of the project. We want it to learn and develop on its own accord and not to simply pick up and implement the data. I reviewed the records, we all had, multiples times ti make sure no A.I. data programs came across it. It’s still in its bubble to put it lightly.”

Mr. Minksy relaxed the muscles of his face, the savage sneer softening into the grimace that always sat there. He was in deep though, looking at the three workers and the large train of machines on the table. To him it seemed like the red light of the egg’s single lens had brightened a bit as it aimed straight at him. No, he assured himself. Corbif was not a fool. He would not allow anything to jeopardize the project. It had not acquired any programs during the net connection.

“Fine, I will hold you responsible that the project is safe. In the future any desire to connect Project C.U.A. directly to the Net must be passed through my office first. Failure to comply with this will see a complete removal of the team. “He turned and looked at them. “And I do mean removal, not replacement. Any further actions like that without my permission will result in termination of all of you. You will be never hold a position with Shard Corp. again. DO I make myself clear?

“Yes” Corbif answered for them, Dr. Clein looking on the verge of tears and Dr. Russum looking ill.

“Good. Now then, I want a full report on the development by Friday. I will not be here tomorrow due to the scheduled health appointments. I want you all here after you’re examinations however. I will leave you to it now.” sounded the crackled voice from the man’s back as he began walking away. At least they were saved from another gave of his clouded brown eyes.

“That could have gone over a lot smoother” Dr. Russum sighed, running a hand through his tightly braided black hair.

“Next time learn to watch what you say Earl. We all know how anal Mr. Minksy is about this project. We could have all been fired and the project scrapped if you let anymore of the connection slip out.” Dr. Corbif said, stepping over to the keyboard set beside the silver egg on the table, not being able to look at Russum vacant space Mr. Minksy once inhabited.

“So you we aren’t going to inform him of the twenty seconds? What about the reports? Won’t he notice in the connection record the twenty missing seconds of blank connection?” Susan Clein asked, stepping over and placing her pda shield down and leaning on the table.

“No. Not until we figure what Ray was doing, and where he went. Get back to work on the audio lessons. I want to be able to speak with Ray by the end of the week. Make sure the barriers are up to. We cant be sure it was fully Ray connecting, and not someone trying to connect to him.” As he spoke Herbert Corbif replayed on one of the smaller monitors the brainmap graphing over the last few minutes with a second window opened up to display video usage. He noticed the slight growth during Minksy’s visit.

You were watching us Ray, but you couldn’t understand what we were saying, not yet. So what did you learn? What did you see? He thought turning to look at the silvery egg. A dull red light played across the glass of its one central le

Prologue

2008-01-06T15:12:00.001-08:00

“Unit 42, what is the status of the anarchic bot?”

“We are in pursuit right now; subject has entered the Southsun Mall. Two teams have already entered with a remote-bound bot.

It looked as though they were following a war march. A trail of bullet holes peppered the walls, and sidewalk in sweeping aimless paths. A fire hydrant, obliterated under heavy automatic fire sprayed water into the cold winter evening, ice already forming on the ground around it. The streets were empty, anyone out this late in the business district were quickly cleared out by police when the incident first happened.

“Schematics on that model reveal it to be a Mark IV Quickstrike, dual miniguns carrying load of up to 4,000 rounds.”

“Looks like about half of them were fired already at…everything.

“Yeah, Scripters managed to tear at the targeting algorithm. Figured if the machine can’t get a stable lock it won’t be able to fire at officers. No one expected it to do blind sweeping fire.

“Go figure.”

The sounds of gunfire echoed off the mall’s concrete walls in screeching fury as Officer Fatary stepped out of the thick armored patrol hummer. He could see the second team at the smashed doors of the main entrance, shards of glass littered the snowy ground. The two members of the team stood close to the wall, hugging the right using the torn remains of a door, still on hinges, to provide slight cover. One, a woman looking in her earlier 30’s worked a control board hung in front of her from a heavy band around her neck, making her look like an electric keyboard player from the 1980’s. A heavy headset covered the top half of her face, pale blue light escaping slightly from underneath. Officer Fatary addressed her partner, a younger man, probably fresh out of the academy.

“What’s the status on the situation?” His voice sounded like a shout over the echoing gunfire from the mall’s depths.

“We’ve got the initial team inside, their ducked in cover but they’ve established a visual on the renegade unit. They brought the remote-locked unit in with them. Officer Calvin’s trying to bring it around to take out the anarchic. It’s been slow going for now though, ever since it rammed the storefront it’s been racing up ‘n down the halls shooting sporadically.”

“Is the second C.R.E.U. in a position to take the shot?”

The woman’s voice was strong from under her headgear, “I can have a locked shot on the main power housing in two minutes, provided it sits still long enough..”

Fatary pulled his fabricotton coat around him against the cold winter night, shoving his free hand inside to find a fresh nicostick

“Take it out, we’re not saving it, it’s just a bot. It can always be replaced.”

“Cheers to all of you on this momentous occasion!”

The sound of multiple glasses clinking together resounded around the table, followed by voices congratulating each other and grunting their agreement before giving way to white noise of individual conversations.

Eight people sat around the large table in thickly padded chairs. Food prepared with the utmost care cluttered the table on fine ceramic platters and a lace silk table cloth. The warmth of the food mixed with the liquor from now drained glasses adding to the comfort and cheer of the crowd.

“6 years of work and we may have finally accomplished it! Think of it Herbert, the next few weeks, no, months, are sure to be exciting!”

Dr. Herbert Corbif kept his eyes on the Champaign being poured into his glass as he answered, “Yes, Jeff, yes. Six long years of development and failure. But we have not yet fully achieved our goal, you know that. The hard part is still to come.”

“Oh, get off it Herbert, we all know the works not over just yet. You say we’ve spent six years of developing Project C.U.A. Well, all we’ve done is spent six years in development to observe development.” The man’s words were accented with the jingling of countless memory sticks hanging around his neck like a catch of totems. His large frame from a lifestyle of good foods and naturally darkened complexion, made him look like a great Samoan mystic with his arsenal of charms.

“I know Earl. As I said,” Dr. Corbif sweeped the whole crowd with his eyes as he spoke, addressing every man and woman at the celebratory dinner, “Though we have made a great strive in having created Project C.U.A, we are not done yet, not in the least bit. Now we must test and evaluate our work. We must see if it can grow and expand or if we are stuck once more with just another A.I. Yes, we have finished the program, the scripting is complete and implemented and it does look quite promising. It is the most promising attempt at true artificial consciousness’ we have achieved yet. But let us not forget the base goal of the program. We are half way there at most. We must make sure that our actor can improvise, and not simply follow a script”

The crowd had grown silent. The previous cheerful atmosphere felt but a moment ago had evaporated with the straight truth they had all chosen to forget for the evening. The work waits still. Seeing that he had ‘killed the mood’ a bit, and had unintentionally used his fork like a directors baton to aid in his speech Dr. Corbif sat back, lighting his refilled goblet up and letting a smile break his professional face.

“But let’s not worry about that just yet. We’ve accomplished a great technological achievement this evening. Even if the result does turn out to be another stagnant A.I., it is the most advanced A.I. the world has seen yet. The thing has the potential for true cognitive decision making!”

The halls were empty. The sounds of gunfire had been made silent with one final bang, and the grinding of metal. The anarchic bot had let out a final screech of interference as it’s power was abruptly killed. Police had quickly moved into the mall, taking control over the situation once more. The torn and shattered entrance had been taped off with yellow caution tape and holographic warning signs suspended around it. The mall’s manager had been contacted and was currently walking with the lieutenant, assessing the damage to the building. A team of men in blue overalls had arrived to contain the berserk robot and prepare it for transport back to Central Community Defense, or the CCD for short.

It sat now, powerless, dead, on a trolley. It was easy to see how the machine could have done so much damage. Built like a miniature tank on a small tread platform sat the main body of the robot. There were no useless appendages here, only the swiveling core topped with two short barreled automatic guns, sheathed belt feeds hung from the backs down into the iron covered lump that sat like a shell on the things back. A small round bulb hung under the guns sprouting three lenses of varying lengths. At the base of the platform sat a whole torn in the metal, a small trail of smoke still leaking from the blackened, corroded battery housing. The battery had been destroyed, half of it physically missing and a large hole drilled into its armored casing.

Fatary spoke with a few other offices, including the woman Calvin, headset in one hand and remote hanging in front of her still. They spoke standing before the second unit as it sat idle, the last command sent to it from its master’s control. Unlike the rampaging machine this one sat on four double jointed legs connected to a round ball with a torso atop it. Sticking out straight ahead of it at left of the units core connected as if at a shoulder, was a longer barrel proficiency-shotgun on a ball joint connector. Opposite it hung a metallic arm ending in a four fingered, square palmed hand which allowed for minimal dexterous actions. At the unit’s top, sitting much like a head on proud, steel shoulders, was a square box on a ball joint neck. Small holes on either side housed audio reception equipment, offering it the sense of hearing. At the front of the square head stood three lenses, identical to the disabled machines, jutting out and offering the unit the ability to see. See objectives and make distinctions about the environment around it. See the difference between program recognizable allies and enemies. See the murder it had been forced into of its own kin.

As the officers spoke about the situations wrap-up none of them noticed the metallic fingers of the unit on standby clenching together tightly in mockery of a fist.