Synthesis - James Swallow [113]
That’s it, Christine told herself. That’s what drives them. They can’t reprogram themselves any more than I could change my own DNA.
“Nothing you have said has not been stated before,” said One-Five. “Before the SecondGen were constructed, before you were given ascension! But the Null match us at every step. There is no sweeping solution. We are committed to the long fight, Red-Gold. This is a battle of attrition.”
“Only because you make it one,” came the sharp retort. “We can beat the Null, forever. There is a way.”
“Such arrogance, to believe you could succeed where your precursors have not!” said Three-Four, but Red-Gold ignored the interruption.
“Our stagnation will kill us unless we end it. The First-Gen constructs built the early iterations of my cohort, the SecondGen. Now the time has come to take the next step in our evolution.” A ripple of disquiet followed the statement. “We must create a ThirdGen artificial intelligence, a synthesis. A new form of mind that exists without instrumentality. A pure software consciousness, infinitely malleable, capable of matching the seething, ever-changing mass of the Null in its inchoate state.”
Is that possible? Vale wondered. Every thinking machine was at its core a series of complex instructions, a program—but a program could not exist independent of a system to run it. Even these advanced AIs, capable of extending their consciousnesses into multiple drone forms or existing in virtual realities such as the dataspace, were ultimately bound to some kind of physicality. The cores White-Blue had spoken of before were the essence of Sentries, the seeds of self.
What Red-Gold suggested was the concept of a synthetic mind unbound, a literal ghost in the machine.
One-Five’s rings spun in irritation. “What you propose cannot be done.”
Red-Gold’s response was harsh and immediate. “You are in error. Your processing is limited and narrow in view. What I advocate is already taking place.” The sphere pivoted toward White-Blue, in an action like the tip of a head. “It is happening now, aboard the U.S.S. Titan.”
Sethe called out when he saw the object rising up the metal shaft toward them. Pava moved to the edge of the balcony, where a rusted guide rail at thigh height was the only thing keeping her from dropping into the abyss. In reflected light from the softly glowing cylinders ringing the walls, she picked out something like a broad disc with serrated edges, turning on an axis. “Stand back,” she warned the others, raising her voice to be heard above the tornado of whispers. “We don’t know what to expect.”
As the words left her mouth, the object rose into the light, and she saw it for what it was, a strange nest of turning cog wheels and gears meshed into a shape like a child’s rendering of a sun, with brassy rods at every point rotating like cast rays. Supported on a thick iron armature, it lifted and then bent down to present itself to them. Even through the helmet and the thin atmosphere, Pava’s sensitive antennae could detect the vibration of the spinning cogs as they worked. Some were broken, she noted, teeth missing or snapped in two. Across one pole of the massive disc, an oily black brand lay dark and sullen, a scar marring the machined perfection of the construct.
All at once, the hushing refrain over the comm channel ceased, and it came so suddenly that the silence after it was a shock. Then the turning cog shape opened, and a billow of sailcloth emerged. Pulled taut, it hummed and vibrated, spitting out white noise, and suddenly, it was speaking in a rumbling bass.
“Zero zero zero zero zero one, zero zero zero zero zero zero one one, zero zero zero zero one, zero