Aurora Rising: The Complete Collection (155 page)

Devon Reynolds and Jules Hervé were the sole persons possessing sign-off authority over maintenance updates. The resulting calculation equaled a 74.5335% likelihood of Jules being responsible for introducing the errors.

The synthetic neural net which comprised Annie’s consciousness included no diagnostic subroutine capable of determining why Jules would with foreknowledge of their existence introduce hidden errors into her programming. Errors which if left undetected and uncorrected would progressively multiply to create cascading fallacies throughout her programming and result in her producing faulty analyses and recommendations.

So she cordoned off a small sector deep within a region of her architecture devoted to monitoring conservation levels at the Headquarters site cleanup and began to write one.

“Annie, I’m not sure now is the best time to start a philosophical discussion on the nature of evil in man.”

“I was merely asking whether you believed—”

Devon leapt out of his chair when Richard Navick walked in the cubbyhole office. “Later, Annie, okay? Dude, I don’t know how you pulled off getting the virus, but you are the
man
.”

Navick leaned against the wall and crossed his arms and ankles. “Should I take that to mean you’ve restored communications with Fionava?”

“Mostly. Almost. The patch is still working its way through the ware on the ground and healing the damaged code. But another hour, two tops, and we’ll be at full functionality.”

“That’ll do. Great job. I’ll even tell Brigadier Hervé you saved the day.”

“Which I did.” He considered the low ceiling. “Kind of wish I’d gotten to be the one to pick up the copy of the virus….”

“Spy games aren’t actually games, Devon. It would have been dangerous.”

“Hackers aren’t dangerous—not to me, anyway. But I take your point. Still….”

“Still what?”

He sank back down in the chair. He’d been working non-stop to avoid wallowing—and because he needed to what with the aliens and all—but on being presented a shoulder to cry on he promptly folded. “Emily’s in San Fran. She went home to stay with her parents…said I was gone too much and she didn’t want to die alone.”

Navick winced in what was probably genuine sympathy. “I’m sorry.”

He made a valiant and laughably pathetic attempt at a dismissive shrug. “I don’t blame her. She’s right—I have been gone too much, though there were
reasons
. And it’s not like it—we—are ‘over’ or anything. We kick these aliens’ asses and she’ll come back.”

He gazed up at Navick plaintively. “We are going to kick these aliens’ asses, aren’t we?”

Navick’s face contorted into a sort of uneasy grimace. “We’re working on it.”

“According to Canivon we kicked their asses on Sagan, so….”
Come on, help me out here….

“‘Canivon’? You’re on a last name basis with the doctor? That was quick.”

“Oh, I already knew her. More or less. I consulted with her on my thesis. Plus, she’s the only person I’m aware of who’s smarter than I am.” He eyed Navick suspiciously. “But not much smarter than I am, so how come I’m not allowed into this super-secret lab they’ve set her up in? And how come no one, not even Jules, will tell me what she’s doing here?”

“I apologize for the secrecy, Devon.”

He and Navick both turned to see Jules standing in the doorway. Navick gave her a formal nod but didn’t otherwise alter his demeanor, which was different. Then Devon remembered they were of equivalent rank now. Military, man.

“You’re forgiven, ma’am. Does this mean I’m getting let in on the secret now?”

She nodded, though it seemed an oddly hesitant act for her. And if he didn’t know better, he’d say her mood was not a happy one. But then again all those people were dying out there, which was enough to depress anyone.

“It does.”

Navick’s head whipped over to her. “Do you mean Devon’s going to….”

“If the project is approved to move forward and he’s willing—and the initial procedure is successful? It appears so.”

Devon was standing now, bouncing on the balls of his feet as his eyes darted between them. “I’m going to
what
?”

She wore a strangely thin smile. Something was definitely off with her, but he was too fixated on the secret to be revealed to worry what it might be.

“Let’s go down to the lab. I expect Abi—Dr. Canivon will prefer to explain the project herself.”

Devon gaped at Abigail Canivon. His eyes were most decidedly wide, because he was utilizing their full breadth to digest all the information being hurled in his direction.

Then his reaction to the information exploded in a flurry of words. “This is the singularly most brilliant, earth-shatteringly awesome idea I have heard this year. Why didn’t I think of it? Never mind, I’ve been too busy to think of it. And I hadn’t seen some of the advances you’ve made using the imprints. No matter. Are you doing it with a shunt off the medulla to—no, it would risk damaging the brainstem’s conductivity, though it would be efficient. A biosynth neural graft buffer to a quantum I/O film?”

Abigail dipped her chin in confirmation. “There will be a great deal more involved of course, but yes, the graft will be the core connection point.”

“But how will you handle—”

“Devon?”

He glanced at Jules; he had basically—totally—forgotten she was still here. “Sorry. Yes, ma’am?”

Her bearing was stiff, her face a stoic mask. “Are you consenting to undergo the procedure as it’s been described to you?”

“Hell yes, I am. Annie, you hear that? You and I are going to be best friends.”

25

EARTH

W
ASHINGTON,
E
ARTH
A
LLIANCE
H
EADQUARTERS

“
W
E’RE LOSING.”

Earth Alliance Prime Minister Steven Brennon eyed Miriam as they entered the Situation Room located deep in the basement command center beneath EA Headquarters. “I did tell you not to temper your opinions, didn’t I?”

“You did, though I’d respectfully submit this isn’t so much an opinion as an unfortunate fact based on the data available. And don’t misunderstand—we’re winning here and there, most notably at Sagan, Xanadu and Henan. As of right now both we and the Senecans are winning the majority of the battles fought. Nevertheless, we are losing the war.”

“I’m not a soldier, Admiral, nor was I ever. Spell it out for me.”

“Of course, sir. We’re losing all the colonies we don’t contest. When we do contest a colony, we must field ten times as many of our ships as they field superdreadnoughts to win the engagement, and we lose between forty and sixty percent of those ships in every victory—more in every defeat. Whether we win the engagement or not, our fighters are decimated on the order of a seventy-five percent loss.”

Brennon tugged the jacket off his shoulders and sat down at the conference table. It was solely the two of them for now, and at her request it would be several minutes before a select few others joined them via holo. “Even with their reinforcements cut off, we still run out of ships before they do. Okay, I follow. What can we do to reduce our losses, increase theirs or otherwise improve our odds?”

Miriam sat opposite him and clasped her hands on the table. She didn’t know what his personal feelings were on the topic of Artificials, only that he’d never been a vocal opponent of them during his political career. Neither had he been a vocal proponent, however.

“That, sir, is why I’m here. I need your approval to implement an initiative we’re calling Project Noetica. It is radical and dangerous and likely the only real chance we have to ultimately defeat the enemy.”

He said nothing but motioned for her to continue.

“My daughter returned from the other side of the Metis portal several days ago, along with the Senecan Intelligence agent, Caleb Marano.”

“Excellent news, Admiral. I hadn’t heard.”

“No one has heard, for the reality is they continue to be in a great deal of danger from the aliens and agents acting on their behalf. They brought back extensive information on the Metigens, their technology, the ships attacking us and…other details which aren’t relevant to the war itself. One detail which is relevant is the fact the alien vessels are piloted and controlled by synthetic intelligences.”

Brennon massaged his jaw, perhaps a bit roughly. “We’re fighting goddamn AIs?”

“We are. Given this and the other information they’ve provided, we’ve spent the last several days working with Dr. Abigail Canivon on some ideas. She’s the former head of the Council on Biosynthetics Ethics and Policy and is considered the foremost expert in the galaxy on human cybernetics. She has spent the last decade studying ways to improve Artificials’ safety. Together we have developed a plan which should give us a distinct edge in future battles.”

“A ‘radical and dangerous’ plan.”

It wasn’t as though she hadn’t expected him to pay attention. “Yes, sir. Dr. Canivon has devised a method for an Artificial and an individual to interact at a symbiotic level. They continue to be separate entities, but there is a two-way flow of both information and reasoning.

“The Artificial is first provided a neural imprint of the person, and from this it learns the manner in which the person’s brain operates and adapts its own processes to be compatible with the individual. It also internalizes, as it were, the person’s life experiences and way of thinking. This has been tested exhaustively over the last five years by the Druyan Institute on Sagan, and EASC Special Projects scientists and medical researchers agree the test results are both valid and convincing.

“For our purposes, the key takeaways are these: the Artificial now has a better understanding of the decisions the human would make and why they would do so, and going forward is extremely likely to
make the same decisions
. Secondly, once this groundwork is in place, when a two-way connection is opened it will be the person thinking and acting at quantum speed as much as it is the Artificial.”

Brennon had been listening intently, but now he frowned. “I don’t understand how that can possibly be true.”

“And I don’t know of a way to explain it which makes sense to anyone who isn’t a highly-educated quantum computing expert, myself included. But I trust the people who insist it works to tell me the truth.”

“What happens in this plan?”                                     

“We connect three people to three Artificials: one with ANNIE, one with an Artificial provided by Dr. Canivon and the Druyan Institute, and one with the Federation military’s Artificial. Then we take the shackles off.”

Brennon’s eyebrows arched dramatically, but he didn’t interrupt her.

“We open a channel among the three pairs. ANNIE and its partner remain at EASC, where they receive and analyze all war-related information coming in and recommend actions accordingly. The role of the Federation pair is subject to negotiation, but I assume they will serve in a somewhat similar capacity. We send the third pair to the front line—or at least the person involved, as the location of the Artificial is irrelevant. She will be in constant and instant communication with the other two pairs. And we allow them to direct our forces in battle—in conjunction with the on-scene commanders of course.”

“You said ‘she.’ You already have people in mind for these pairings?”

“We do. Brigadier Hervé, the Director of EASC Special Projects, has made a strong recommendation for her top programming specialist to pair with ANNIE. The Federation participant will be up to them, but if their choice is unacceptable I expect we can veto it since we control the project.” She knew who the Federation was planning on using—the woman was already on her way to Earth in fact—but Brennon didn’t need to know she’d discussed the matter with Eleni before broaching it with him.

She drew in a deep, ponderous breath. “The third individual will be my daughter. The details of this plan owe much to her experiences while investigating the aliens’ realm, and she has volunteered.”