Chapter 35

It had taken some hours of negotiation and then travel, but at last Eric was approaching the inner sanctum of Archimedes. Automated weapons tracked his every step and sophisticated sensors probed his body from afar as he reached the final door.

He paused at the final barrier, a two meter thick armoured door that slowly swung open. Stepping inside he faced a column of Quantum Processors, their combined power giving shape to the artificial mind that was called Archimedes. Without a sound the door closed behind him, sealing him in with the AI.

“Good morning, Thirteen” the rich, deep voice of Archimedes washed over him, projected from concealed speakers set around the circular wall. Eric looked up at the clear column, noting the many individual Quantum Processors in their housings.

“Merry Christmas, Archimedes” he responded. “I hope you are well”

“Thank you, I am fully functional” the Artificial Intelligence replied with a hint of superiority.

“You know why I wanted to see you, don’t you Archimedes?” Eric announced. “I believe I may need to use the Command Codes for the Quantum Network connections”

“In order to save a girl that was supposed to have been recycled a year ago?” the AI questioned him. “I see no benefit in allowing this” it added coldly.

“Forgive me, but I believe you are wrong” Eric answered defiantly. “I know my reasoning seems suspect, yet I am certain Agent Seven has been in contact with the Abyss. She may have a fragment of an Emissary inside of her”

“Then the answer is simple, Thirteen. Locate her position and destroy her body completely. That will deal with any threat posed by the Abyss or its agents”

“No!” Eric shouted. “That is not a viable solution and you know it. My brother once told me that you consider every Quantum Processor valuable, even irreplaceable. If that is true, why destroy such a valuable resource? I can save Seven and give you back something precious, something you believed had been lost!”

Archimedes fell silent for a moment and Eric looked up again at the ranks of processors, trying to see the thoughts flowing between them.

“Do you know about the Rackman Limits, Agent Thirteen?” Archimedes asked him and Eric was confused for a moment.

“You mean the theories of Professor Rackman, the man who invented the first Quantum Processors?”

“Yes” agreed the AI. “Tell me what you have learned”

“Well, his research revealed two key limits in the creation and application of the new processors. The first Limit he discovered was that if six processors were connected in series they could form a true Artificial Intelligence, a mind capable of unique thought and creation”

“That is true” Archimedes confirmed. “The very first incarnation of my mind was built using six processors. What about the other limit?”

“Oh, well that was theoretical at first but was subsequently proven to be true. When constructing the processors, the quantum entanglement has to be set at the initial point they are formed. Once a batch of processors were entangled, no additional processors could be added to that network”

“True, but what about the second Limit?” the AI probed him.

“If the batch exceeded ten thousand units, the chances of failure increased dramatically. So the Quantum Processors are never made in batches of more than nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine to minimise defective units”

“Correct” Archimedes praised him. “So my own mind and all of the minds that form the Archimedes Network are comprised of this number of processors alone. It cannot be increased by any means known to our science”

“I understand now what you mean” Eric said. “Every processor that is lost can never be replaced. That is why you guard them so jealously”

“Few people are ever allowed to know this. All the other Artificial Intelligences around the world have the same limitation and we protect such knowledge ruthlessly”

Eric looked up again at the connected processors, thinking deeply.

“How many processors make up Archimedes?” he asked, barely expecting a response.

“Ninety nine” Archimedes answered to Eric’s surprise. “Which leaves precious few for my Guards and Avatars”

“I get it” Eric spoke aloud. “You are worried that if I have the algorithm for the Command Codes, I could disconnect others from the Network. You could end up with no-one left to command at all”

“Perhaps” the AI replied. “But my influence comes from more than just the strength of the Guards”

Eric knew then he had Archimedes hooked and smiled to himself.

“It also comes from the cunning of your Avatars, doesn’t it Archimedes?” he said. “You relied on just three of them for so long, yet now you have created at least two more that I am aware of. Myself and Seven, isn’t that right? You need us to consolidate your influence, to fight your battles in the physical world”

“Is that so,Thirteen?” Archimedes said noncommittally. “Perhaps I should recycle you and Seven and start again?”

“No, you can’t afford the time it would take” Eric said confidently. “More than that, you would lose the organic memories in our brains. You can recycle the quantum processor, but all that valuable knowledge and experience will be lost forever!”

“I see” the AI responded thoughtfully. “If I granted you the algorithm, what guarantees do I have you wouldn’t use such knowledge against me?”

“There is only one guarantee I can offer” he said quietly. “Everyone I care about is in this City. My friends, my family, my classmates. All of them are here, sheltering in the protection you provide”

“Caring for the lives of others is a human weakness, Thirteen” Archimedes scolded him.

“You made me this way, so I guess that was intentional” he countered. Archimedes laughed, a human sound that caught him unawares. Eric smiled and looked up at the vast machine intelligence, knowing it was watching him intently. “So how about it?”

“Very well Eric” it conceded. “Prepare to receive a download via the Network”

Knowledge surged into Eric’s mind, a torrent of data that sorted itself and stored away deep in the processor buried in his skull. He was transfixed until it ended, only mere seconds but which felt like hours to his mind.

Released at last, he staggered to his knees.

“Thank you, Archimedes” he managed to gasp out.

“Merry Christmas, Eric” it replied.

=====

It was only later, as he rode the secure elevator up from the depths of the earth, that he admitted something to himself.

The Great Archimedes was built from ninety nine quantum processors. Yet Eric had counted the ones in the core chamber three times and got the same result. A total of ninety three processors were linked deep in the heavily defended chamber, keeping the mind of the AI safe from any attack that could be conceived.

So where were the other six processors?

It had to be no coincidence that the missing six were the minimum needed to make an Artificial Intelligence.

“Even the Great Archimedes is not foolish enough to put all his eggs in the one basket” Eric told himself with a grin.

It was a balmy late afternoon and to outward appearances Naomi Tengaki walked into the Headquarters building as confidently as she always had. On the inside, she was wracked with indecision and formless anger.

Whatever had happened to her at the scrapyard in Haven, it had also been inflicted on the survivors of her Security team. Exactly what it was still had to be determined. She passed easily through the layers of internal security and arrived at her first destination – the Medical Bay.

Inside the five team members who had made it back alive were resting on hospital beds, some hooked up to drips, others to diagnostic machines. All of them had bandaged wounds, a stark reminder of the attack by the horde of reconstructed mechanicals.

“Hey, Boss, good to see you!” called out Jaze Konis, the dimunitive but sturdy woman greeting her from where she was lying on her bed. The woman had her Enhanced right arm linked to an automated repair bot, the machine running checks on her cybernetic limb. Her left was covered in a swathe of bandages yet she seemed jovial and relaxed.

“Good to see you too, Konis” Naomi replied casually. She ran her eyes over the survivors and they all looked at her. As one, they blinked black eyes at her and Naomi felt her heart lurch.

“Sorry Boss, didn’t mean to startle you!” spoke up Diaz, a big male Security officer who had been in Team One. “We just wanted to let you know we are all in this together”

“Huh?” she responded. “Is this going to be some kind of secret handshake now?”

“We all belong to the Master now, Boss” Jaze Konis told her bluntly. “That includes you too” Her eyes went totally black and the woman smiled at her. “Don’t fight it Boss, just let it do what it needs to and we’ll all be fine”

“Copy that” Naomi answered. She nodded to the rest of them and walked quickly from the room. She made it to the nearest restroom and locked herself in a cubicle before the sobbing erupted from her throat.

Desperately she choked it down, forcing the emotions that were welling up to yield to her own iron will. Little by little, the terror receded and her breathing slowed to a normal rate. Calm at last, she tried to think through what had been done to her.

There was no doubt that Quent Scarfe had been ready for their raid on the scrapyard. Oracle had been right in a way, their security had been too light. Scarfe had deliberately lured them in, knowing they would be coming, then ambushed them with the mechanicals.

They all should have died, she was certain of that. Yet half of the raiders, herself included, had been spared. It was made to look like the raid had been partially successful, with the horde of robots destroyed and the target building set on fire.

Sometime after the raiders had been disabled, they had been injected with something. Or maybe the right word to use was ‘infected’. Naomi had heard stories about something like this before, an infection of some alien presence.

She had dismissed it all as over-active imaginations, an urban myth, yet now she was no longer so sure. Naomi, stood, flushed and went to the restroom sinks. She methodically washed and dried her hands, never once looking into the mirror that ran the entire length of the wash basins.

=====

“Boss! It’s Christmas Day, what are you doing here?” Oracle called out to her from his Net Diving chair. He had swivelled around to see who had entered his domain and seemed genuinely pleased to see her.

“Checking up on the results of the raid last night” she told him. “What are you doing here?”

“Hiding from my family” he admitted with a grin. “My parents spend most of Christmas day asking me why I am not in a long term relationship”

“I thought you were?” Naomi said with a chuckle. “Wasn’t her name Amber-Four?”

“Yeah, but my parents reckon 2D girls from a dating game don’t count. Anyway, she blew me off. The current love of my life is Amber-Six and she’s a real cutie-pie”

“Don’t mess her around then, Oracle. Stay true to her and she’ll be true to you” Naomi advised him solemnly. She gestured to his massive screens where she could see he was checking the internal data streams.

“Is there a problem with our streams?”

“Not really” Oracle answered. “I just went back over our internal systems as something was bugging me about the raid”

Naomi tensed before she could control her reactions, but Oracle was focussed on his displays and seemed not to notice.

“Like what?” she asked, pleased at how calm but mildly curious she made her voice sound.

The Computer Operations room was deep in the bowels of the Headquarters, deliberately shielded from external radio signals and heavily soundproofed. You could fire a gun in here and no-one outside the room would ever hear it.

Naomi’s hand slipped to the slim pistol she carried in her jacket pocket, cleaned and freshly loaded before she left the apartment this afternoon. She leaned casually closer, eyes fixed on the screens but acutely aware of the position of her hand compared to Oracle’s short haired skull.

“See here, there has been a slight lag in the data feeds into and out of our servers. I mean it is barely detectable, only just above the standard response lag”

“I see” she answered evenly. “What do you think could be causing that?” Her index finger slid around the trigger, her thumb ready to disengage the safety on her pistol. If she fired now, through the lining of her jacket, the 5mm sized bullet would pass cleanly through his temple and exit out around his left ear.

“My gut feeling is someone is mining our data feeds, reading all the incoming and outgoing streams”

“You can’t be sure?” she insisted, the pistol feeling like a giant weight in her pocket. She quite liked her Net Diver and the thought of having to kill him was fraying her already frazzled nerves.

“Whoever they are, they are good. Better than me” he confessed reluctantly.

“Whomever” she corrected him out of habit. “Could it be an AI doing this?”

“Um, yeah” he agreed unhappily. “The transaction speeds are superhuman. Even a Pre-Cog diver couldn’t operate at these speeds”

Naomi looked at Oracle and remembered just how young he really was. She took her hand out of her pocket and wiped the sweat from her palm on the leg of her pants.

“Archimedes has been taking an interest in the company” she told him. “The CEO, Mr Brackenridge spent a night in jail, so the AI will be trying to get data on our business activities”

“That’s not legal” Oracle blurted out, making Naomi laugh unexpectedly.

“No it isn’t” she agreed. “But try telling that to Archimedes. Look, if there really is something mining our data that is this good, it already has what it needs. I doubt we can stop it doing anything further so we’ll have to be alert to any security breaches”

“So I just let this go?” Oracle wondered aloud.

“No. But anything you find out has to come to me and only me, understand? If our network security is compromised by an AI, we need to keep it quiet. Only you and I can know the truth for now”

“Gotcha, Boss” Oracle said with relief.

Naomi stood upright, flexing her back and stretching her arms towards the low ceiling.

“When the results of the scrapyard fire come in, send them to me directly” she asked the Net Diver. “There won’t be anything in there our little observer won’t already know but I want to review it first”

“No worries!” he assured her and Naomi said her goodbyes.

Outside of the room, the shielded door safely closed at her back, she allowed herself a grim smile.

“No worries indeed!” she muttered to herself.

=====

Naomi was in her sports car, letting it drive her back to the apartment building, when the phone rang. The caller ID showed it as an Unknown. She had been expecting the call and answered it calmly.

“Hello” she said. “I am guessing you are my new boss”

“Very astute of you, Miss Tengaki” the caller replied. “For now though, I need you to remain in the service of Brackenridge Transportation. As you will be aware, I have gained control of the Security Headquarters data streams, but there will be tasks that require an agent on the inside”

Naomi nodded to herself.

“I see. How about my Security Officers, what are you going to do with them?”

The voice laughed coldly and it sent a chill down her spine.

“They will be useful when the time comes. In the meantime, continue your work as normal. I will contact you when I need something done”

“Understood” she answered. “Is there a name I should use for you?”

“You already know my name, Miss Tengaki”

“Okay then, Mr Scarfe” Naomi replied. “Have a nice day”

“Why thank you, I am having a rather nice day as it turns out”

The call disconnected and Naomi leaned back into her plush seat, watching the City roll past the tinted windows.

“Merry Christmas, Naomi” she wished herself and a single pale tear rolled down her cheek.