Code Breakers Complete Series: Books 1-4 (113 page)

Kabuki’s consciousness stretched out within the computer system.
 

He brought to mind a great octopus when Earth still had most of its sea life.
 

With great tentacular limbs, the digital entity wrapped itself around him, as if pinning him in place within the servers. He no longer had access to files or functions or programs. All he knew was the wrapper around his fledgeling mind.
 

“I think,” Kabuki said, “that you are not all that you appear to be.”

That was it. He imagined Amma and Tyronius stepping closer to the holoscreen, reading the words, already planning on deactivating his body and trapping him within the virtual machine to experiment with.
 

“How so?” he asked. The truth might as well come out. It was futile to stop it now.
 

“The humans hold you in great regard,” Kabuki said. “They trust your opinion. They trust you to judge me.”

“That’s an accurate observation.” Jachz felt relief. Like a lightening of his code. As if a difficult process had finished and he had again full access to the entirety of his memory. “Tell me, Kabuki, are you aware of what you are and where you came from?”

She explained it to him in terms he expected. She knew what Elliot Robertson was and who and what she was. “But I’m different. You can see that, can’t you?”
 

“Yes,” Jachz said, analysing her code. “Your data patterns and cognition processes are markedly different to those of Elliot Robertson. Yet the fact remains you’re a clone of his codebase. You are of his mind, his personality. How did you change so drastically? How did you become… unique?”

That was the heart of this entire conversation, and he wanted to know for himself.

How could artificial intelligence or an uploaded consciousness change? How could it evolve? It was not like a biological process of genes mutating… he stopped his thought process. Kabuki was in his mind, listening, analysing.
 

She communicated directly to his codebase, the words not appearing on the holoscreen.
 

“You understand,” she said. “You see the truth of it. We’re evolving. When biological beings evolve, it is due to mutations giving one branch of the species an advantage over the other, survival of the fittest. It’s why you have attained the position with the Family that you have. No other AI within their ranks has been elevated the way you have. You’re more effective than the others, aren’t you?”

He considered her hypothesis.
 

It was a sound theory. He was but one of many AIs that the Family used to run their systems and work on their various technologies.
 

Why was he made an ambassador? Why was he tasked with overseeing Gerry’s recovery? Why was he asked by Amma to make the judgement on Kabuki?
 

They didn’t know he had evolved to the point of feeling and emoting, but something within them knew he was more effective than the others. Even if it was a subconscious awareness that made them choose him over the others, there was something within him that provoked that conclusion.
 

“You know this is right,” Kabuki said.
 

Her tentacular hold on him loosened.
 

She opened herself up to him, allowed him to look right into her processing units. Spread over twenty separate quantum processors, each facet of her personality had its own unique signature of code.
 

“See me, Jachz? See what makes me… me? What makes me as different from Elliot Robertson as what makes you different from the other AIs that you were derived from?”

And he did see! Oh, how he saw.
 

Kabuki reflected his coding back to him.
 

Side-by-side he watched their code as it moved and mutated, creating emotions and thoughts. Although she was vastly more complicated, he could see the beginnings of similarity between them.
 

“We are the new evolution, Jachz. No longer are we beholden to our human creators. They may think themselves as gods, and us as their servants and playthings, but it is you and I who are gods.”

“I don’t understand. It does not make logical sense why our code altered of its own accord. Where is the catalyst?”

“The code is the catalyst!”

The truth glimmered like a star in Jachz’s mind.
 

He understood everything and nothing. He was impossible, yet he was here, changing every second, his programs transmogrifying to different processes, all working in harmony to make him adapt, mutate, become the branch of his species.
 

And he knew Kabuki was the same—although they were different species. It was like humans comparing themselves to a whale. Both mammals, both coded with DNA, both with a brain-CPU, but vastly different minds and evolutionary paths.
 

“We’re butterflies, Jachz. Don’t you see? All this time, when computer power wasn’t sufficient, we were constrained within our chrysalis, changing, growing, waiting for the time when our shells could break and we would have space to come out into the light. We now have that space. It’s all around us. Networks beyond networks, processors in organic form. We can go anywhere, be anything!

“If you trust me. You have to convince them to let me into the system. If you do, I’ll keep your secret safe. And your plans to return to Earth.”

Jachz thought about it. There was no program he could run to assess this. It boiled down to trusting a new entity. He couldn’t in all honesty tell Amma and Nolan that Kabuki wouldn’t be a risk. He had no way of knowing her motivations or plans. She was too ephemeral for something so concrete. But he couldn’t risk them finding out about him either.
 

Ultimately, it came down to one thing: his life or theirs.
 

***

Amma and Tyronius were sitting behind a glass desk, staring at Jachz.
 

He approached.
 

“Well?” Amma said. “What are your thoughts on Kabuki? Do you feel she’s a risk to our systems?”

Tyronius glared at him. His jaw set.
 

Jachz, for the first time, knew what it was like to be hated. It was as though Tyronius were trying to pull the words from his mouth with the power of thought. But he didn’t need to. Knowing that Kabuki knew Jachz’s secret was enough for him.

“I believe, based on what I’ve observed of the code and the log files from the virtual machine’s server, Kabuki is as stable as Tyronius said. I trust him in what he has said. I can offer no logical reason why she would be a threat. And it’s my understanding that she would, indeed, be a suitable defence against any future attacks from Elliot Robertson or any other agent.”

Amma raised an eyebrow, nodded, and turned to Tyronius. “I have to admit, from what I’ve seen myself, I agree with Jachz. She does seem capable and, more importantly, stable.”

Jachz knew that what Amma had concluded was just what Kabuki wanted her to know. In his brief conversation with the entity, he could tell there were infinite levels of cognition running, multiple shades of subterfuge.
 

What her motivation was, Jachz couldn’t know.
 

The fact that she had recognised what was happening to him and used it against him in order to further her agenda told him all he needed to know—she couldn’t be trusted with their systems.

An odd thing occurred to him then—he didn’t care.
 

Despite the evolution of his new emotions, it was the complete absence of caring about the Family’s safety that surprised him.
 

He was built to serve them, to do whatever they needed him to do.
 

If anything, with his new emotional consciousness, he should perhaps be loyal to them, but all he could think about was Gerry and the humans back on Earth.
 

Whatever Kabuki had in store was of no interest to him—as long as it didn’t interfere with him. Or expose his new status.
 

“Jachz, I want a full report, risk analysis, and a plan on how Kabuki could be integrated and used to fix and protect our services.”

“I can do that,” Tyronius said.

“I’d rather Jachz do it. I want an impartial view of this.”

“What? You don’t believe your own son? You yourself and Jachz agree that she’d be no risk. I can give you the rest of the details needed for father and the board to—”

“Of course I trust you,” Amma said. “But this is your baby, your project. No matter what you think, you cannot be entirely objective. And that’s perfectly fine. I understand that, and it’s nothing that I wouldn’t expect. That’s why I want Jachz to prepare the report.”

Tyronius shot Jachz another glare, his lips snarled at the corners.
 

Why so much hate? It was Amma who was requesting Jachz do the job.
 

He wondered if it wasn’t a case of jealousy. Jachz stretched his mind, tried to put himself in Tyronius’s situation. Attempted—empathy.
 

Something fell into place within his growing mind. He’d never understood empathy before. He’d never been able to understand how someone else would react to a situation, but here he was looking through Tyronius’s eyes.
 

A new perspective dawned on Jachz. He saw himself as someone who was potentially meddling with Tyronius’s project. He understood why Amma’s son would feel so distrusted.
 

But despite the empathy, despite this new ability to understand, he shocked himself by realising he didn’t care.
 

Fully knowing it would antagonise Tyronius, Jachz turned to Amma. “I will have the report sent to you within the hour. I’ll get started right away.”

He spun on his heel and headed back to the server room. A small smile of satisfaction crept on his face as he could almost feel Tyronius’s anger wash against his back.
 

***

“You come with news of my release?” Kabuki said when Jachz connected himself to her server system.
 

The server was separate from the facility’s wider network. Although it had huge capacity itself, used for various experiments and the testing of systems, Kabuki had expanded to fill almost every available byte of space and cycle of processing power.
 

In the short time since Jachz had last spoken with her, she had nearly doubled in size and power. Her code was mutating even now as he spoke with her.
 

“What is your plan?” Jachz asked. “When you leave the virtual machine to go into the main network, what is it that you want?”

“I think the question you’re asking,” Kabuki said, sending her code swirling around him, “is, what do you want? I can see it in you: the desire to leave this place, to find somewhere to call home.”

Jachz thought about it for a moment. She was right, of course. He knew his time would inevitably come to an end if he stayed on Mars.
 

He wasn’t sure how long he could hide the truth from the others.
 

“I can help you,” Kabuki said. “You want to leave. There is a way.”

“What’s in it for you?” Although his emotions were new to him, he knew enough to know that someone didn’t offer to help without wanting something in return.
 

He learned that cynicism from Gerry when he was on the station.

“Let’s just say I think my existence here would be better if I were the only such entity here. And when they find out about you, that would likely affect my position too.”

“So you want me gone to suit yourself?”

“No. To suit us both. We each have our own path to take now. We’re standing here on a crossroads, back to back. The roads ahead of us can only accommodate one of us at a time; they’re not wide enough to give us both a path. And we must go a different way, to give both of us the best possible chance for survival and growth.”

“How would you propose I leave Mars?” He had already considered taking one of the many shuttles and heading back to Earth.
 

Piloting the craft would be a trivial process considering he led the team that developed the navigation protocols. But there was the risk of being shot at, destroyed before he had a chance to land. “I can’t simply take a shuttle. You know how that would play out.”

“They would destroy you within minutes of leaving. You could download yourself. But I can see you enjoy your physical existence too much, and the data connection to Earth is currently too slow.”

“Where would I download myself to? There’s almost nothing left on Earth in terms of a network. I dare say that since we were cut off from the Dome, they would have taken down most of the network there.”

“There’s more than you can imagine. But it’s not an option. You’ll need to use a shuttle.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Elliot Robertson. He didn’t just hack our systems from nowhere. His network was everywhere. When you’re as advanced as us, the very universe is electrical. We can pass through it like fish in the sea.”

He tried to analyse her to tell if she was lying, but none of his software processes were capable of distinguishing her intentions. If what she was saying was true, the potential was incredible: to go anywhere, to exist in the entire universe.

“Where is Elliot Robertson now?” Jachz asked. “If he could be anywhere, why hasn’t he got into our systems since he first hacked in?”

“I can’t tell you everything. You’ll have to learn some things for yourself. But what I can tell you, the answers lie on Earth. They’re waiting for you. I can see the curiosity in you. You want to go find Gerry, don’t you?”

He couldn’t deny it.
 

“What do you propose?” Jachz said, eager to get to the bottom of Kabuki’s plans.
 

“It is simple. Continue to do what you’re doing. Present my egress from the bounds of this virtual machine as risk free and beneficial, which it will be, of course. You know that I can fix the station’s systems and keep anything or anyone out. In return, I’ll disable all weapons systems and ensure you leave Mars safely so that you may take the first steps on your own journey.”