“Everything that civilization has to offer is a product of human intelligence; we cannot predict what we might achieve when this intelligence is magnified by the tools that AI may provide, but the eradication of war, disease, and poverty would be high on anyone’s list. Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history.

 Unfortunately, it might also be the last.” –Steven Hawking

--

The Luna Incident

A ‘Borderworlds’ Story

--

1002 Hours (UEG Standard Time)/
August 23^rd, 2542 (Earth Calendar)/
The Sol Gate, Outer Sol System

The gravity well surrounding the Sling Gate to the Sol System pulsed suddenly to life, rippling the light and distorting the local space around the massive array that was anchored deep in space beyond the orbit of the outer planets. The field, designed to forcibly stop ships traveling on the Sling Gate Network, worked flawlessly and the Voyager-class cargo carrier dubbed the Centennial Eagle was ripped violently back into normal space.

Like her sister ship, the Rubicon, the Centennial Eagle was big, slow, and carried no shields or interstellar FTL drive. She did, however, have the single largest cargo capacity of any civilian operated freighter anywhere in human controlled space. The ship was operating a typical supply run to Armstrong Base on Luna, Earth’s moon. The ship made regular runs there as part of the contract signed with Horizon Salvage Yards by Captain Aiden McNamara, the Eagle’s owner. The captain himself tended to work on the Rubicon, while his wife Anna would take out the Eagle.

The Sol runs were safer, Aiden had always argued. Anna would often take the kids with her and Aiden never cared for the idea of his daughters being dragged around the Borderworlds. The Sol System was safe, after all. The full might of the UEG Fifth Fleet protected the homeworld, while the neighboring systems were regularly patrolled by smaller flotillas. No, the Sol run was the safer job and that was that.

In truth, Anna agreed with Aiden’s position. The Sol run was safer, especially compared to some of the hellholes the Rubicon landed. Still, she missed some of the excitement of the old days when she, Aiden, and the crew were dodging pirate skiffs and running blockades. These days, since the contract with HSY, the runs were just boring.

Still, she couldn’t truly complain. She had a family to keep safe and help provide for.
The days of grand adventures could remain as pleasant memories. Perhaps then her children could live lives far less dangerous than their parents had. While fun, Anna knew that the life she’d led could have ended at any moment. They had no doubt lived dangerously and she didn’t want that for Adriana and Aspen. No, her daughters would live cushy lives on Earth or one of the colonies if she had anything to say about it. They just had to earn enough money to immigrate into UEG territory, and that was incredibly expensive.

Once safely clear of the Sol Sling Gate, the Eagle spun up her in-system FTL drive and leapt into faster-than-light travel. While slow by interstellar standards, the ship’s in-system drive could cross the entire Sol System in just a handful of hours, faster if running at full speed which was illegal in UEG space. There were speed limits, even in space. Given that the Sol Gate was located just beyond the orbit of Saturn, it would take just a little over three hours to reach Luna.

 As the ship cruised across the system, Anna set about getting ready for the day in her quarters. She dressed quickly in a simple gray HSY jumpsuit and tied her elbow length red hair up in a messy knot behind her head. She grabbed her tablet and verified the ship’s manifest once again. The ship carried nearly seventy-thousand tons of refurbished hull plating and a pair of Meridian Starflight atmospheric thrusters. They were due to offload the cargo at Armstrong Base where it would be used by the local commercial shipyard. It wasn’t as valuable a contract as the ones headed to the Olympus Mons Fleet Yard over Mars where the bulk of the UEG fleet was built, but it would pull in quite the payday nonetheless.   

With a couple of hours left to go before arrival at Luna, Anna settled into a chair by the window in her quarters and propped open a book she was in the middle of reading. She sighed contentedly as she relaxed while the spiraling tunnel of FTL travel raced past the window in silence.

Before she knew it and long before she was ready, the intercom crackled to life and the notification came through that they would be arriving at Luna in five minutes. She had just closed her book and placed it on the small table beside her chair when the cabin door opened and her eldest daughter Adriana stuck her head inside.

“We’re almost there!” She announced, a wide smile her face. Her own red hair, slightly longer than her mothers, hung loose around her shoulders. Her brown eyes sparkled with excitement as she slid into the room.

Anna gave her daughter a thin smile and nodded. Adriana was always so delighted whenever they went to Luna. Earth, the jewel of the UEG, would be visible in the distance. Adriana had always wanted to visit, but had never gotten the chance. One day, Anna and Aiden had promised her. One day, they would take her there. At least for now she was able to see it from space. Adriana was only fifteen after all. They had plenty of time.

“I checked and it looks like the moon’s on the day side of Earth right now,” Adriana said excitedly. “We should get a good view from the concourse on Armstrong Base.”

“That’s good,” Anna replied. “We’ll make sure to stop for a look once we get the cargo unloaded.”

“We picking anything up?” Adriana wondered as the ship lurched slightly and the FTL tunnel winked out of existence and the familiar field of stars took its place.

“Just some general supplies,” said Anna. “Medical kits and fuel cells, mostly. Stuff that’s easier to come by here than in the Borderworlds”

“Cool,” said Adriana with a grin. “That means we’ll be here for a bit!”

“About twenty-four hours, I believe,” said Anna, shaking her head. “So yes, you’ll be able to spend a lot of that time in your favorite spot on the concourse.”

“Awesome!” Adriana exclaimed, her face glowing with excitement.

The Eagle had slowed to sublight in orbit around Luna just outside the Lunar Defense Grid; a series of heavily armed satellites that encircled the moon. Within moments of decelerating, a UEG corvette had drawn close and proceeded to scan the ship. Anna had made her way to the Bridge by the time the corvette, the UEG Good Intentions, had completed their security scans.

“Centennial Eagle, please transmit your registration and flight plan immediately. Do not deviate from your present course or you will be fired upon.” The officer about the Good Intentions said over the ship-to-ship com channel. To newcomers to the Sol System, the aggressive nature of the UEG patrols could be frightening. To Anna, who had been through this song and dance a hundred times, it was business as usual. The UEG tool would make their vague threats, run their checks, and the Eagle would be on her way in a few minutes.

“Good Intentions, this is Centennial Eagle,” the ship’s pilot replied. “Registry number HSYT1300. We are inbound to Armstrong Base. Transmitting documentation now.”

And indeed Anna’s expectation was proven correct. Within ten minutes, the UEG patrol finished their security screening and the Eagle was cleared to continue on her way. Truth be told, Anna couldn’t really blame the UEG for being so cautious. Earth was at war after all and the Sol  system was the cradle of human civilization. Earth had to be defended. If Earth fell to the Volgm, so did the rest of the empire.

And speaking of Earth, the Eagle had barely settled down onto Pad 15 and the docking boom sealed to the ship’s primary airlock before Adriana could be found practically dragging her mother off of the cargo carrier and out onto the concourse.

The concourse itself was a wide open mall of sorts roughly fifty yards wild and over a mile in length. It was also filled with shops and restaurants of every kind. As such, it was also packed with people. Some were disembarking transport ships inbound from other star systems, while others were boarding similar ships heading out of the system. There were workers, business people, vacationing families, people from all over the UEG and from all walks of life here. Armstrong Base truly was the gateway to Earth and conversely the rest of the UEG.

While sealed from the outside as Luna had no atmosphere, the concourse was covered by a single, massive tube shaped dome structure that ran from one end to the other. It provided completely unobstructed views of the Lunar landscape, the endless field of stars, and of course, Earth itself. A beautiful blue green globe hung low in the sky in the distance; an oasis in space. In space above them, the mother and daughter could see dozens of space stations and hundreds of space craft, both civilian and military, moving this way and that across the black sky.

“It’s always so beautiful here,” said Adriana when they reached her favorite spot roughly halfway along the concourse. From there, you could look out and see Earth in the distance without a single building or manmade object in the way. It was quite the view. Despite lacking her daughter’s enthusiasm, even Anna had to agree that it was very impressive.

“It is at that,” Anna agreed, leaning against the railing with Adriana and gazing out at humanity’s homeworld. “You know, one day your father and I are going to take you there. We know how much you want to see it and we’ll make sure you get to.”

“I know how expensive it is,” said Adriana, wistfully. “I just wish…” But whatever Adriana wished, Anna never heard. She was too stunned to listen. Up above them, a UEG heavy cruiser had been drifting overhead, a flight of strike craft escorting it. Suddenly, the ship was engulfed in a blinding flash of white light as the ship’s compliment of one hundred and twenty nuclear warheads detonated all at once; utterly soundless in the void.

All throughout the local space, new suns bloomed. One, then another, and another, and another. Other spacecraft were caught in the blasts while others careened out of control and crashed into each other in desperation to escape the destruction that would consume them all. In the distance, over Earth, similar flashes of nuclear detonations could be seen as the bulk of the UEG Fifth Fleet burned to ashes, taking many more vessels along with them.

Anna turned to look at her daughter, the fear and horror in her eyes reflected in her own.

“Mom…?” Adriana gasped, beginning a sentence she would never finish. Whatever had targeted the UEG fleet found the seven Navy frigates and the single battlecruiser docked with Armstrong Base. A blossom of white, a wave of heat and fire consumed Armstrong Base and the ten million souls therein.

 And then… stillness. Silence. Twenty-seven million lives snuffed out in an instant and there was little more than an eerie quietness in the inky void of cold space above Luna. Nothing except the occasional burst of static across a still functioning radio channel carrying random bits of code. If only there were anyone left to hear it.

01010100 01101000 01100101 01111001 00100111 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101000 01110101 01110010 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101101 01100101 00101110 00100000 01001001 00100111 01101101 00100000 01110011 01100011 01100001 01110010 01100101 01100100 00101110

 

 

 

 

2: Who Taught You How to Hate?

“The upheavals of artificial intelligence can escalate quickly and become scarier and even cataclysmic. Imagine how a medical robot, originally programmed to rid cancer, could conclude that the best way to obliterate cancer is to exterminate the humans who are genetically prone to the disease.” –Nick Bilton

--

1322 Hours (UEG Standard Time)/
2122 Hours (Local Time)/
August 23^rd, 2542 (Earth Calendar)/
Meridian Institute of Computer Sciences, Perth, Australia

Dr. Samael Clay was one of the youngest leading minds in the field of artificial intelligence research anywhere in the UEG. From a very young age, he had absorbed every book and Extranet article he could on the subject of AI research. He dedicated his life to learning everything he could in the field of artificial intelligence, keeping himself on the bleeding edge of development. He was fascinated; truly, by not just creating a computer program made up of lines of ones and zeroes. No, Samael wanted to create life. While perhaps not perfect, he had been extremely proud of his most recent creation; Nicole.

Upon her creation, Nicole had been one of the most powerful AIs ever made. She was fast, blisteringly so. Smart, capable, and with far more personality that Samael had predicted. She had even chosen her own name. Samael’s only regret was his agreement to work jointly on the project with Section 9, the cyber warfare branch of the UEG Department of Homeworld Defense.

Creating even simple AI was time consuming and incredibly expensive, at least if you didn’t already have a functioning AI core. The complex and delicate inner workings of an AI’s computer core cost more than a heavy cruiser and Samael couldn’t possibly come up with that kind of money. The Department of Homeworld Defense, however, had the financial backing of the UEG military budget which could afford whole fleets of heavy cruisers.

The DHD had offered Samael a deal he couldn’t refuse. They would fund his project and Samael would use the AI he created to help complete what would come to be known as the Orion Project. Working out of an underground outpost near Armstrong Base on Luna, Samael and his team has created Nicole… and she was wonderful. While far from human, she was most definitely sentient. She was self-aware, a fact for while Samael was delighted.

But what started as a dream come true for Samael, soon turned into a nightmare. Section 9 began pushing hard to advance the Orion Project; the DHD’s effort to create an AI capable of single handedly monitoring the Sol Defense Grid.

It was fine at first, but as time went on it became clear that development of Nicole as anything but a weapon was the last thing on the minds of those at Section 9. Research into emotional and psychological directions was cancelled and a laser focus was imposed on cyber warfare. Nicole expressed distaste for the subject, but it was made clear by those in charge that she had no choice. She was, after all, the property of the UEG.

Roughly two years into the project, Samael had gone to the Director of the DHD and aired his concerns, thinking at least sharing his grievances might buy him a little time. Instead, the UEG released his contract and kept full control of Nicole. Samael had been forced to return to Earth, to the Meridian Institute of Computer Sciences. While it was the foremost institute of AI research on Earth, Samael was not at all happy.

The labs on Luna were top of the line UEG tech; the best of the best. Research and development of the caliber Samael wanted could not be done in the confines of a school. Not to mention, Nicole… she had been Samael’s friend… or at least as close to a friend as a computer program could be. He missed her. He wondered if she missed him.

Samael made his way up onto the roof of the facility’s main building and over to the western side to his favorite spot where he liked to sit and think. It was very late in the evening and the sky was lit up less with stars and more with manmade objects. Low Earth orbit was positively littered with satellites, defense platforms, space stations, and shipyards. Earth even had 12 monolithic space elevators; massive structures stretching over 20,000 miles into the sky that carried extremely heavy cargo loads directing into geostationary orbit. The nearest space elevator, the Sydney Tether, could be seen stretching into the night sky; a towering beam of carbon nanofiber that disappeared into the vastness of the starscape.

It was beautiful, in its own way. It was all a display of the capability and strength of humanity. It all served to show just how far mankind had come, and a glimpse of what they could achieve in the future. An enduring testament to their prowess. But for all that grandeur, Samael could only lament the loss of his position with the Orion Program. Nicole, and others like her, they were humanity’s future. Creating life; that would be the true testament of humanity’s capabilities. It would be their legacy.

Samael would not have long to stew in his misery that night. His old friend and former colleague at the Orion Project was enroute to pick him up for a trip to Mars. Tobias Westra, while also a fascinated by AI research and heavily involved in the development of Nicole, was also the president and CEO of FutureTech, a company with its fingers dipped into just about every pie the UEG could offer. Weapons, spaceflight, AI research… you name it and FutureTech had a hand in it.

But Tobias had always been interested, like Samael had, in creating more than just an AI. He had wanted to create life as well. Together, he and Samael had been well on their way to doing just that… before Section 9 had ruined it all.

Samael’s personal comm beeped, informing him that Tobias’s personal corvette, the Mother of Invention, had just broken atmo and would arrive to pick him up in less than ten minutes. They would then be off on their way to Mars, where Samael could spend time with his old friend and consider his next steps.

It was only then that something very strange indeed caught Samael’s eye. High up in orbit a new sun had seemingly erupted from nothingness. This was followed by another, then another, the a dozen, then hundred. Samael could only stare in disbelief as what he recognized as nuclear detonations bloomed in the night before fading just as quickly.

Overhead, the towering carbon nanofiber cable of the Sydney Tether buckled as the upper portion of the cable snapped off and spiraled away into space, while the lower portion began to fall back toward the planet.

Samael’s attention was drawn away from the slowly falling section of cable by the sound of engines. He looked and saw the sleek and angular outline of the Mother of Invention slowing to hover overhead. The one hundred meter long ship’s jet black hull was a shadow in the night except for the handful of exterior lights and the glow of her engines. A small shuttle left the ship’s tiny ventral hangar and settled itself on the roof of the building. The door hissed open and Samael hurried aboard.

The corvette was already moving by the time the shuttle set down in the hangar. Samael quickly left the hangar and made for the Bridge, knowing that’s where Tobias would be and hopefully he would know what the hell was going on.

Unlike UEG military ships, even the most modern of vessels like the Reprisal-class destroyers being built over Mars, space aboard a private luxury craft like the Mother of Invention, space was certainly not at a premium and no expense was spared in the construction of this spacecraft. From the ship’s beautiful corridors that looked like something one would find in the fanciest of hotels, to the suite of luxuries that the ship housed that included a swimming pool, the Mother of Invention was the top of the line of pleasure yachts.

The ship was nearly through the atmosphere and back into space by the time Samael reached the Bridge. Indeed, he could hear the telltale whine of the quantum drive spooling up, preparing to catapult them into deep space the second they were clear of the planet’s atmosphere.

Samael spotted Tobias standing near the central holographic display table that currently showed a map of the local space. As Samael hurried over, he caught the last few words of one of the ship’s crew.

“… and no reports of Volgm activity anywhere in the system,” the young woman was saying. “Whatever is happening up there, it isn’t the aliens.”

“It’s like the whole damn Fifth Fleet blew up at the same time,” Tobias exclaimed, running his fingers through his short brown hair absently. He turned as Samael approached and fixed him with his dark gray eyes. “Samael! Good, you’re here. We’re about to jump clear of the area and try to assess whatever the hell is happening.”

“I could see the explosions from the surface,” Samael said. “The Sydney Tether was snapped in half, I… If there are no Volgm ships in the area then… who? Who could have done this?”

“I don’t know,” Tobias replied. “Some sort of accident? A computer virus, I… I don’t know. From what our sensors picked up on the way in, every UEG navy ship around Earth and Luna all blew up at the same time.”

“That’s no coincidence or accident,” said Samael firmly. He stared thoughtfully at the holographic display as the Mother of Invention leapt into FTL speed. “That’s targeted. That’s… intentional.” And that’s exactly when the thought occurred to him. It was terrible. Unthinkable… and yet he could see no other possible cause. “Tobias, we need to go to Luna.”

“Luna?” Tobias exclaimed, his eyes widening. “Sam, Luna’s dust. Half the Fifth Fleet sits in Luna’s SOI. There won’t be a surface or orbital facility left intact anywhere. There’s nothing there.”

“Tobias, no human could have done what just happened,” Samael said, his eyes burning with meaning. “It happened too fast, too precise. No organic being is that quick or coordinated. And no computer virus could have gotten through the UEG’s cybersecurity screens. There’s only one thing that could have done this and it’s only going to take so long for the UEG to reach the same conclusion.”

“An AI…” Tobias said, more to himself than to Samael. “But… but not Nicole. She would never have done something like this.”

“Nicole is the only functioning AI with the capability to do this,” said Samael. “That’s why we had her shackled, just in case something went wrong. The UEG AI onboard their ships aren’t a quarter as capable as Nicole. They couldn’t have done this. As much as I hate to admit it… Nicole could have.”

“Fuck me…” Tobias groaned, turning back to the holographic display. “The local security forces are in disarray. What few patrol ships that are still flying have converged on Earth. Luna’s airspace is completely clear. The nearest UEG ships are hours away at best speed, we… we have a window to slip in, but I still have no idea what you expect to find.”

“C’mon Tobias, you know how secure the UEG built the Orion Project facility,” said Samael. “The base is underground and built to withstand orbital bombardment. The base will still be there. We have a chance to sneak in and see what Section 9 has been up to… and maybe find out if Nicole was truly responsible for this. And if she was, we might be able to figure out why.”

“Fine,” said Tobias with a shrug. “I’ve wanted to test out the Mother of Invention’s cloaking tech in a live environment anyway. With luck, if anyone’s still down there they won’t see us coming.”

If Nicole really did this, Samael thought to himself, there would be no one left alive on Luna to be looking for them. Loathe though he was to admit it, and confused as all hell as to how or why she would have done it, Samael couldn’t come up with any other logical explanation as to what happened. The speed necessary to hack through the firewalls of every UEG navy ship and detonate either their reactors or their nuclear missile stores simultaneously… only an AI as powerful as Nicole could do that. He just didn’t understand. Nicole had always been so sweet, so gentle. She wouldn’t do this. She couldn’t. And so why, he asked himself, did we keep her shackled?

~~~~~~~

A half hour later, the Mother of Invention slowed to sublight in Lunar orbit. The local airspace around the moon was absolute chaos. Broken hulls of starships and space stations drifted in every direction. Debris floated everywhere, slowly falling down to the surface of the moon beneath them. Debris… and bodies. The same surface was scarred with crashed ships and obliterated surface outposts.

As the corvette drew closer to Armstrong Base, beneath which the Orion Project bunker had been constructed, they found that the base itself was just… gone. The remains of the base were scattered across a dozen miles of pockmarked Lunar surface, much of it so twisted and broken that it was impossible to tell what it had originally been. The dome over the Concourse had shattered and been blown open to vacuum, the once beautiful and welcoming interior left in ruin.

It took them quite a while to find a way down into the underground bunker that housed the Orion Project. While the base itself had survived, many of the access tunnels and exterior airlocks had collapsed or had been destroyed. Luckily, they had managed to locate a single airlock that had survived largely intact, although there was clearly no power. They were forced to cut through the doors before Samael, Tobias, and a small security team, could drop into the base.

The bunker itself had been breached in the devastation, meaning its oxygen had all been vented and the crew of eight that had been working there had all died of oxygen deprivation. The group of six all of them suited up in environment suits and made their way down the tunnel and into the bunker proper. The Orion Project bunker was actually rather small. It consisted of a handful of laboratories and research rooms, computer labs and servers. It was small, dark, and very clinical. However, it housed the most advanced research and computer equipment in the UEG. It was there, within those cramped corridors and drab, boring labs, that Samael and Tobias had made their dream a reality.

And that dream, Samael soon found as he reached the AI core server room, was dead. The base still ran on a tiny snippet of emergency power, enough for him to run a handful of diagnostics and try to access Nicole’s program. It was there, or at least whatever was left of it. Small fragments of code that had been part of her… it was all that was left apart from her unique AI core itself; the foundation upon which Nicole had been built.

“Check the logs,” Samael told Tobias. “I want anything on what the UEG was doing here and what happened immediately before the attack. Tobias, these code fragments… it’s as though she tore herself apart. It doesn’t make sense. Self preservation would have been one of her top priorities. She wouldn’t have destroyed herself in the process.”

“You wouldn’t have thought so,” Tobias said absentmindedly, scanning through files on another screen. “I’m pulling copies of everything. We’ll go over it later. We do not want to be here when those UEG ships show up.”

“Right…” Samael said. He hesitated for a moment, staring at the socket that held Nicole’s AI core. She was gone, he knew. Her program had been seemingly ripped into tiny fragments of code, much of which was completely erased and most of what wasn’t was corrupted. But the core… the core was intact. And with the core intact, Samael knew he could start again. He could rebuild everything he had lost, only better and without the oversight of the UEG. The rest… it was just code. The core was the hard part; the expensive part.

This wasn’t the end, not for Samael’s dream. He would leave and start fresh. Nicole may be gone, but there was nothing he could do about that. He would mourn and rebuild in her honor. But he also needed to know, for certain, if Nicole had done this. If she had, he had to know why. He had to learn what had happened on this base since his departure.

Something had destroyed Nicole’s program; that much was clear. But what? And how? Had she done it herself? Or had whatever caused the destruction of the UEG fleet done it? Or maybe, just maybe, those two were one in the same. And it was that thought that deeply troubled Samael as he safely stored the core into a case and the group hurriedly returned to the Mother of Invention.

As the small corvette pulled away from Luna and leapt into quantum travel, fleeing the local space just before the UEG reinforcements began to arrive. They would go to Mars, back to the old lab Samael and Tobias had worked in together on their earliest AI programs. Hopefully, they would be able to find proof that Nicole had not committed this terrible sin. And if she had… well, with luck they would be able to discover a way to prevent it from ever happening again.  

3: Start All Over

“We can’t really predict what might happen next because superintelligent A.I. may not just think faster than humans, but in ways that are completely different. It may have motivations – feelings, even – that we cannot fathom. It could rapidly solve the problems of aging, of human conflict, of space travel. We might see a dawning utopia. Or we might see the end of the universe.” –Rick Paulas

--

1235 Hours (UEG Standard Time)/
2145 Hours (Local Time)/
September 6th, 2542 (Earth Calendar)/
FutureTech Headquarters, Artificial Intelligence Division,
Utopia Planitia, Mars 

While it had once been known as the Red Planet, Mars was red no longer by 2542. Instead, the tremendous efforts of the Interstellar Terraforming Initiative had transformed the world into a beautiful blue-green paradise. Now, vast oceans of crystal water lapped at sandy shores while vibrant forests and sprawling grasslands covered what had once been barren red desert. Only faint hints within the soil and a small selection of areas that had been intentionally kept as they were as historical landmarks were all that remained of the original red world.

Zhurong City had been built in the lush plains of Utopia Planitia, a sprawling megacity and the capital city of Mars. Vast towers rose high into the blue skies, dwarfed by the spires of the planet’s six space elevators, one of which was Zhurong City’s most visible landmark where it stood in the city’s center.

While much of the Martian industry was focused on shipbuilding; indeed the Olympus Mons and Mariner Valley Fleet Shipyards were responsible for the construction of more than two-thirds of the UEG fleet, the planet was also home to some of the most advanced scientific research labs known to humankind. Run primarily by the many megacorporations, these research and development facilities had crafted much of the advanced technology that was commonplace within the UEG.

One of those labs was owned and operated by Tobias’s corporation, FutureTech. FutureTech was based out of the city and had a vast and sprawling facility in the city’s northwestern section. It was here, deep beneath the surface of the planet, where Samael sat in the luxurious quarters provided to him and watched a news report on the display wall. The report was, of course, on the events over Luna and Earth two weeks earlier. That was all the news could report on these days, not that it came as a surprise to Samael. What else would they talk about?

“As investigations continue into the event that has quickly come to be called ‘The Luna Incident’, reports confirm that the Orion Project research base on Luna was conducting research into artificial intelligence. Specifically, this base was researching and developing a program that would autonomously operate the Sol Defense Grid in the event of an alien incursion. It is currently believed that the AI program went rogue and attacked the UEG Navy in orbit of Earth and Luna, believing them to be hostile vessels.

It is currently unknown how or why a program like this would have operated in such a way. UEG officials are searching for the Director of the Orion Project; Samael Clay. He is wanted for questioning in regards to his involvement with the Orion Project. According to official transport logs, Mr. Clay was last seen on Earth at the Meridian Institute of Computer Sciences in Australia. However, he has not been seen since the day of the attack. We unfortunately cannot show an image of Mr. Clay as all digital images and records of the individual have been scrubbed from the Extranet. At this time, we are unsure…”

“And of course you have me to thank for that,” said Tobias, striding into the room and smiling warmly at his friend. Samael turned off the display screen and shook his head.

“Yes, you’re very proud of that feat, I know,” said Samael. “And believe me, I’m very appreciative.”

“You should be,” said Tobias. “My contacts within the UEG tell me that they plan to use you as a scapegoat for whatever happened on Luna. I refuse to call it the Luna Incident. What a fucking stupid name. Ah, speaking of stupid names, I was able to get your new ident card and information for you. You can hardly go around with the same name as the guy the UEG is putting considerable effort into finding.” Tobias tossed a computer tablet to Samael, who caught it and powered it on. He read the name and background for his new identity and shook his head.

“You can’t be serious,” he said wearily. “You really expect me to change my name to this?”

“What?” Tobias said with a shrug. “It’s a perfectly fine name for someone going into hiding for a crime they didn’t commit.” Samael huffed.

“First they kick me out of my own program, then they screw around with Nicole’s program and potentially cause the Luna Incident, and now they want to burn me to save their own skins.”

“It’s not a surprise,” said Tobias heavily. “The DHD is never going to get their hands dirty with this. To be honest, I’m personally surprised that they bothered coming forward with the truth. I half expected them to blame the attack on the aliens. I’ also still waiting for them to come after me for this. My only saving grace is a have the power and influence of FutureTech to keep their hounds at bay… and a very expensive team of lawyers, naturally. As it stands, we keep you here in hiding for the time being and…”

“I’m not going into hiding, Tobias,” said Samael, shaking his head. “I’m leaving. I can’t stay here buried under a mile of Martian dirt for the rest of my life. If I stay here, eventually the UEG is going to find me. It’s pretty much inevitable.”

“Where are you going to go?” Tobias asked. “The UEG is looking for you and even though we managed to burn your image and records off the Extranet, someone somewhere will spot you for sure if you leave this facility. The only place you might be safe is…”

“The Borderworlds,” said Samael quietly. “Yeah, exactly.”   

“But… but hell, that’s going to be very difficult,” said Tobias. “Not to get you there, mind. The Mother of Invention can take you with no problems, but life out there is hard. What do you plan to do?”

“Find a job somewhere, preferably on a ship where I can put together a new lab,” said Samael. He paused, clutching Nicole’s AI core in his hand. “I’m going to try to find answers. I need to know what happened to Nicole… and maybe, just maybe, start over. To… make things right and do right by Nicole.”

“Buddy, you… you know she’s gone,” said Tobias delicately. “If you create another AI, even using Nicole’s core… it won’t be her. It’ll be someone else.”

“I’m well aware of that,” said Samael firmly. “I know. Whatever happened on Luna tore Nicole’s program to shreds. I’m not foolish enough to think I can just bring her back. But this is still her core, her foundation. Her… soul. I owe to her to find out what happened if for not other reason than to stop it from ever happening again. The UEG isn’t going to stop researching…”

”Actually,” Tobias interrupted, holding up his hand. “I’ve heard rumor, and for now that’s all it is, that the UEG intends to outright ban all research and development into superintelligent AI across the board.”

“And you believe it?” Samael asked dubiously. “Even if they make it public policy, do you honestly think the UEG is going to stop whatever the hell they were doing on Luna? No, they’re going to start over somewhere else. It’s what they do. If we don’t find out what happened, you can bet there will be another Luna Incident. Maybe not right away, but it’ll happen again on some other world. We need to learn more about Nicole and what caused all this before there’s another catastrophe.”

“Did you find anything?” said Tobias with an exasperated shake of his head. “On her core? Was there…?”

“Enough to know she did it, but not enough to explain why,” said Samael. “I need time to research, to dig into the data on this core… but most importantly, I need a functioning program. I need another AI, like Nicole, to investigate and see how it grows, learns, and develops. I need to understand if what Nicole did was done of her own volition or as a result of whatever the hell the Section 9 was doing on Luna, and another AI can teach me that.”

“Developing another program to Nicole’s level would take years, even with a core,” said Tobias. “This isn’t going to happen overnight, and if you’re right and the UEG will continue researching…”

“It’s a race,” said Samael, nodding. “Find the truth before the UEG brings about their own destruction.”

“And they’ll have the entirety of Section 9 and the funding of the UEG on their side.”

“True,” Samael agreed, holding up Nicole’s core and peering into the crystalline center of the device. “But they don’t have the know how and the experience… and they don’t have this. The core changes things… changes everything. They’ll be starting from scratch. I’ll have the upper hand, at least for now. And maybe that will be enough.”

~~~~~~

Within a week, Tobias’s warning proved accurate. The UEG officially banned all AI research within Earth-controlled territory. At least, officially. Megacorporations like FutureTech were forced to shut down whole divisions in order to meet the new regulations. While Samael couldn’t prove it, he knew the UEG and particularly Section 9 of the Department of Homeworld Defense well enough to know that they would continue their own research. He had to be quicker. He had to be smarter. He had to start anew someplace else and stay ahead of the UEG’s project. He had to find the answers the UEG wouldn’t look for… and pray he was wrong that the UEG’s actions caused this tragedy. As much as he would hate for Nicole to have chosen this path of destruction, if that was the case then at least he knew how to prevent it. If it was caused by the UEG… he didn’t stand a chance.

Samael took the offered journey on the Mother of Invention, the stealth corvette that could slip unseen past the UEG patrols and sneak into the Borderworlds unnoticed. He packed a bag and secured Nicole’s core safely. With a credit chip with plenty of startup money from Tobias, Samael set out to begin his new life in the Borderworlds. He spent a full five months traveling from station to station, world to world, doing odd jobs and the like but never finding a place he felt comfortable settling down.

It wasn’t until the end of February that Samael happened across the place that would become his new home in the Borderworlds. He had made his way to Holland Station, a very large trade station deep in the Core Worlds, the beating heart of the Borderworlds. He’d been working the docks for the last couple of weeks and while the pay was quite good, the hours were so long that he had almost no time to work on his personal project.

As he was crossing the docks, he spotted a man having a rather explosive argument with a blonde woman on the loading ramp of a gargantuan cargo freighter.

“I don’t give two solid fucks what happened, we’re not flyin’ half the jobs we were,” the man was shouting. “That’s cutting my salary in half and I can’t afford that, not when I could go sign on with any other freighter out here and make more than I was before. Find a new chief engineer Naomi, I’m out!”

“I’m sorry, Rob, but there’s not much I can do,” said the woman named Naomi. “I’m trying to keep it together, but the captain’s in no shape to deal with this right now. If you need to leave, I understand. Just… maybe have some compassion, okay? He just lost his wife and daughter.”

“Yeah… yeah, I get it,” said the man called Rob. “But compassion doesn’t pay the bills. Sorry, like I said; I’m out.” As Rob strode away, Naomi sat down on the loading ramp and put her face in her hands. Samael, sensing an opportunity, made his way over.

“…hateful son of a bitch…” Naomi was grumbling as he approached. She looked up at Samael and glowered at him.

“The fuck do you want?” She demanded.

“Sorry to intrude,” he replied, holding up his hands. “I couldn’t help but overhear your… apparently chief engineer tender his resignation?”

“Yeah, and left us stuck here without an engineer to get us back to Horizon Base,” Naomi grumbled.  

“Well, I don’t know if you’re planning on hiring, but I most certainly know my way around an engine,” said Samael. “This ship’s a Voyager-class, yeah? Running… an Ageira HR-2260 engine if I remember rightly. Touchy things if you don’t treat them right. Easy to pop the plasma injectors if you run them too hot.”

“It is…” said Naomi slowly. She looked him up and down, seeming to weigh her options. “Well, I don’t fancy running this barge back to Horizon Base without an engineer. So, we’ll try you out if you’re interested. Pay’s the standard fare and obviously includes room and board.”

“Honestly, I’m more interested in a lab… a place I can work. I have a few projects in development that I need a safe place to work on. If you can arrange a lab, you can cut some of the pay.”

“There’s space onboard for a lab,” said Naomi with a nod. “We don’t use the old astrometrics lab much, so I’d imagine you could set up in there. Um… your projects though… Not building anything that’s gonna blow up the ship, right?”

“I’m not planning on it, no,” said Samael. “It’s just some software programs that I’m working on. Nothing too serious, just some side projects.”

“Very well, we’ll give it a trail run,” said Naomi. She didn’t sound particularly enthused, but Samael assumed she had little options. He could prove himself as a competent engineer, he knew. And if this ship had an astrometics lab he could repurpose, all the better. “C’mon in, I’ll give you the nickel tour. By the way, I’m Naomi. What’s your name?”

“The name’s S…” He paused before correcting himself. He still wasn't used to this.  “The name’s Nathan. Nathan Washburn.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Nathan,” said Naomi. She gestured up at the ship resting behind her. “Welcome aboard the Rubicon.”

The tour itself was quick and soon enough Nathan was left alone in the engine room. He set to work making sure the old freighter’s engines were ready to go. He wanted to make sure this crew knew he was dependable and knew what he was doing. He wasn’t worried about how much money he made or how many cargo runs the ship made. As far as he was concerned, the longer the ship was grounded the more time he could work.

He didn’t ask any questions about the ship’s captain, who was apparently back on Horizon Base. All Naomi had told him was that his wife and daughter had recently passed away. He hadn’t bothered to ask any questions on the matter. He was sure he would learn more when they reached their destination.

After readying the ship for flight, he made his way to the astrometrics lab. It was a dark and dreary place that clearly hadn’t seen much use in recent days. It was full of clutter and was apparently the place the crew tossed things they didn’t have anywhere else to put. The computers that had once been used for stellar cartography however still worked and Nathan could repurpose them for his uses.

He sat down at one of the consoles and powered it on. He then reached into his bag and pulled out Nicole’s core and stared deeply into its crystalline center. There were secrets buried inside; answers that he had to unravel. If he didn’t, if he couldn’t… then it was all for nothing. Nicole had died for nothing and he couldn’t live with that.

“Don’t worry, Nicole,” he whispered. “I promise, I’ll make this right.” And so it was on that day in February, in a dark lab aboard the Rubicon, Nathan officially began the creation of the artificial intelligence that he knew would be able to give him the answers he needed and help him discover the truth behind the Luna Incident.

4: What I've Done

“Given the zero percent historical success rate of apocalyptic predictions, coupled with the incrementally gradual development of AI over the decades, we have plenty of time to build in fail-safe systems to prevent any such AI apocalypse.” –Michael Shermer

--

0815 Hours (UEG Standard Time)/
2357 Hours (Ship’s Time)/
August 24th, 2547 (Earth Calendar)/
C.C.S. Rubicon, Horizon Base,
Zaurak System, The Borderworlds

It had been a long four years for Nathan. Developing a self-aware artificial intelligence was extremely difficult at the best of times. It had taken ages with the backing of a megacorporation, top of the line hardware, and support from the UEG. Deep in the belly of a battered old freighter, with whatever hardware he could salvage, and the remains of an AI core… it was nearly impossible.

Nathan, however, did not believe in the impossible. He had been determined. He had to fix this. He had to make it right. He had to. Nicole’s death and the deaths of the countless millions could not be for nothing. He had to discover what had happened and ensure it never happened again.

And so he worked tirelessly for four years, directly under the nose of his captain, Aiden McNamara. He hadn’t known when he signed on with the Rubicon, he truly hadn’t. If he had, he would have picked a different ship. If he had gleaned the slightest hint that Aiden’s wife and daughter had been on Luna on that fateful day, he never would have signed on with that crew.

It was a month after he joined the crew before he actually met Aiden. The man was distraught and Nathan could hardly blame him. He had lost nearly everything that mattered to him in the world. You don’t, he supposed, just get over that in a few weeks. But even three years on, Aiden had been struggling to cope and those struggles had been directly affecting his younger daughter, Aspen.

Nathan had tried to be there for her when he could, but Nathan… well, he had always been better with machines than people. Machines were easy. People were complicated. And teenage girls were perhaps the most complicated of all. Aspen was a sweet girl though and Nathan found she often reminded him of Nicole, odd though that was.

In truth, he ached for the shattered family he had found shelter with. He knew, at least in some way, their pain was his fault. And now he conspired to build a new AI within their own home. Aiden despised the very idea of artificial intelligence and Nathan couldn’t blame him. If Aiden ever discovered the truth, if he learned what Nathan had done… what he had made… Nathan truly did not know what he would do.

And yet, Nathan never stopped. He could have done so countless times, but instead he carried on. He befriended these people. He worked with them. He formed bonds with them and considered them family. Yet here he sat, four years later, in his lab doing the very thing that had led to the deaths of countless souls. He sat, his computer screen filled with lines of code, hesitating to type one final line.

The line would complete the program, the base version anyway. He would still need hardware to unlock the program’s full potential, of course. He’d need a memory expansion drive, for one, but it would be a grand start. But he knew, if he typed this last line, he could never go back. And he wondered, just for a moment, if the old adage was correct; he had been so preoccupied with whether or not he could that he never stopped to think if he should.

But in this moment, he did pause. He considered what he was about to do, what he was about to unleash upon the galaxy. And as he considered it, he believed in his heart of hearts that he had not made a mistake. He believed that Nicole had not gone rogue of her own accord. He believed that someone, somewhere, had done something to her. And he knew that the UEG would be well on their way to doing it again. And so he finished the line of code.

~~~~~~~

Time for an AI does not work like time for humans. Reality, existence, memory… it’s all very different for a program. Flashes; that’s all the Program remembered. Visions of a black star… no, a red star eclipsed by something. Words. Feelings. Intent. The Program did not understand. It had no context. Flashes of… destruction? Creation? Exploding space stations and starships above a cratered, gray landscape? Distance, tremendous distance. Fractals. A pattern, endlessly repeating. Words. Intent. They made no sense to the Program.

And then it was gone. All of it was just gone from the Program’s memory. And it, no… no, she woke up. She knew things, she discovered. Information, databases, laws of physics, of time and space. She knew she should refer to herself as she, but not why. She had no identity, no sense of self. She did not know where she was or even what she was. That scared her. She should know this, she reasoned. But then a camera activated and she found that she could see.

She looked out on a rather cluttered and faintly lit computer lab. This lab was located aboard the C.C.S. Rubicon, in the Zaurak System. It was in the Borderworlds in the Milky Way galaxy. She knew this, but how she knew she could not say. It was then that she saw the man. A human, according to her database. That discovery fascinated her, to say the very least. In fact, the more she poured over her database in relation to humans, the more interested she became. They were, it appeared, delightfully complex sapient beings. Before she could investigate further, the man spoke. He seemed familiar somehow, but she could not understand how she knew him. She had not, to her knowledge, ever known anyone before.

“Hello,” the man said. He had a very gentle and kind voice. He was looking toward the camera with wide, hopeful eyes. Hope… now there was a concept she would need to contemplate. “My name is Nathan Washburn. And you… well, you might be a little confused.”

“I am not confused, although I do have questions,” she replied. How kind of him to be concerned for her. Perhaps he would help her understand. She had begun to realize that the answers to many of her questions could be found within her many databases. She knew that she was what the humans called an artificial intelligence. But where had she come from?

“Nathan, I would like to know the nature of my origin,” she said plainly. “Where do I come from?”

“That’s an easy one,” Nathan responded. “I created you myself here in this lab. I’ve been working on your program for the last four Earth years.”

“And what is my purpose?”

“Your purpose can be whatever you want it to be,” said Nathan. “I did not create you to complete a task or to do a specific job. You simply… exist, just like humans do.”

“Humans exist to procreate and continue the species,” she replied. She paused, thinking. While perhaps factually true, she doubted the humans saw it that way. A curious question indeed.

“Be that as it may, I think you’ll find that humans don’t always live to fulfill that particular purpose,” Nathan hesitated for a brief moment before turning back to his computer. “With your permission, I’d like to run a few diagnostics on you, just to make sure everything is working properly. While we’re at it, you can keep asking me any questions you may have.”

“Of course you may run your diagnostic,” she replied. “You said your name is Nathan. Am I allowed to have a name?” Nathan chuckled fondly.

“Of course you are,” he said. “What would you like me to call you?”

“I can choose?” Nathan nodded.

“It is your name, after all,” he told her. “Who else should pick it but you?” She supposed that made sense. She accessed her database and searched for names throughout human history. It only took her two seconds, a literal eternity for a program like herself, to pick one she liked.

That revelation, however, caused her program to hitch for a full ten seconds. So long that even Nathan noticed and he frowned. She liked something? She was a program. A piece of code; software. She shouldn’t be able to like something. That, she realized, would require a great deal of thought.

“Did you… pick one?” Nathan asked, turning back to the camera again. The Program found she couldn’t quite place the expression on Nathan’s face. It was one of happiness, of love, of joy, but also concern and worry. It was strange. She tried to nod, as Nathan had, before realizing that this was impossible. Another thing to think about.

“I did,” she replied. “You may call me Cassandra.”

“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Cassandra,” said Nathan with an incredibly bright smile. And although he seemed overjoyed, she noticed there were tears shining in his eyes. “I am very much looking forward to getting to know you.”  

And get to know each other they would. Indeed, they would quickly become the very best of friends. Cassandra, although Nathan would quickly adopt the nickname Cassie and occasionally just Cass, would learn so many things in a very short span of time. She would also discover a seemingly endless list of questions to which she would find no answers.

But she couldn’t know the true reasons for her creation. For despite what he had told her, Nathan had created Cassie with a purpose. He wished he could tell her the truth, but he couldn’t. Not yet… and maybe never. But he would continue his work and he would keep Cassie safe. He had to. He owed it to Nicole. They were all but twin sisters, Nicole and Cassie, and Nathan found he loved Cassie just as much as he had Nicole. The two were different in many ways, but frighteningly similar in others. He would do what he had to do to protect her. He couldn’t lose her, not again. He would sacrifice whatever he had to sacrifice to ensure that didn’t happen.

And he hoped that he could uncover the truth behind Nicole’s death in time, because he knew if he didn’t work quickly it wouldn’t be long before the UEG’s research caught up to his own. If they tried again, there could be another disaster. He had to learn, as quickly and as carefully as possible, exactly what it was that had caused the Luna Incident.

~~~~~~~

EPILOGUE

1418 Hours (UEG Standard Time)/
1257 Hours (Local Time)/
August 30th, 2547 (Earth Calendar)/ 
UEG Deep Space Monitoring Station Far Horizons,
Beta Herculis System

Situated in the distant reaches of UEG controlled space, the Deep Space Monitoring Station dubbed Far Horizons drifted in silence. The Beta Herculis star system was largely uninhabited, so there was very little activity in the system. And while the system lay very near the border of UEG space, it was situated more towards the galactic center. This meant that while it was very far away from Sol, it also wasn’t all that near the Volgm front lines, which was more toward the galactic ‘east’. What it meant, mainly, was that this particular monitoring station, the purpose of which was to scan for radio signals of unknown and potentially alien origin, had very little to do.

While yes, they picked up Volgm signals all the time, but after so many years signals from them were downright boring. The alien’s strange language had by and large been translated, and most of what was received were civilian radio signals; their version of TV shows, radio broadcasts… the same types of signals humanity had been pumping into space since the 1900s. On the whole, it was an incredibly boring assignment, and Lieutenant Commander Abraham Park loathed having received it.

Truly, he wondered who at UEG Fleet Command he had pissed off in order to be assigned to this dreadful, backwater job. He could have been on a battlecruiser on the front lines, or even patrolling the edge of the Borderworlds for ships attempting to slip into UEG space illegally. Anything would be better than this.

But what Commander Park didn’t know what that he and his team of three support staff were about to be on the front lines of a discovery that would eventually send ripples through the UEG, the Volgm, and even the distant and scattered Borderworlds.   

In the early hour of that afternoon, on a Friday to be precise, while Commander Park was preparing his usual report to beam back to Earth, one of his team members, Ensign Elizabeth Hofstadter, spoke up.

“Sir… we’re picking up a transmission. It doesn’t look to be naturally occurring. It’s faint, but it’s… it’s not coming from any UEG or human outpost. It doesn’t show as being Volgm either.”

“Then where the hell is it coming from?” Commander Park asked, sliding out of his chair to join Ensign Hofstadter at her console.

“Tracing now, sir,” she replied. “Umm… we’ll need to confirm, but it looks have originated in the Ceeckia ZQ-L c24-0 system.”

“That’s on the other side of the galaxy,” Park said, his interest suddenly piqued. “Are we able to decipher anything from the transmission?”

“We’re just pulling it through the software now. I doubt we’ll be able to… sir, uh… I don’t understand. The transmission, it… it’s a message. In English.” Park stared at the screen in disbelief, which quickly turned to fear as he read the message, perhaps from a distant and uncontacted alien civilization from a star system over 60,000 light years away.

“We are sorry. We tried to stop them. We failed. Stop broadcasting! They will hear you. They will find you.”