Chapter 12

Do Androids Dream of Robotics Sheep Before They Go To Sleep?

“I think we’ve pretty well established that the Agency are robots, impersonating people. They might be androids, or even some kind of alien cyborg devices, but I personally doubt it. As it is they have left nothing behind to identify them with.” Max stated the obvious to his audience before sitting back down.

Several weeks had gone by and we were no closer to locating the Agency than before. They had simply vanished as far as we could tell.

“I have a lead Nina.” Morgan announced over breakfast the next morning.

“Okay I’ll bite Morgan.” Nina laughed while drinking her milk with her cereal.

“I went back and looked, well really I turned Jet loose on it. I asked her to follow the money and look into any bills or funding for anything connected to robots or artificial intelligence that our group of senators had voted on together as a block.” Morgan started.

“And that got you what?” Nina laughed again.

“That got me Projects Pinocchio, Morpheus, and Baku.” Morgan smirked back at Nina, and the group arranged around the dining room.

“Okay I get the Project Pinocchio name. That’s the Disney fairy tale about the old woodcarver Geppetto, that carves himself a son. His puppet becomes a real live boy. That’s probably robotics I grant you? But what about the other two. I mean Morpheus is the Greek god of sleep...” Eve interrupted Nina.

“No, no, Hypnos was the god of sleep Nina. Morpheus was the son of Hypnos, he had the power to enter the dreams of mortals to deliver messages from the other gods. He was the god of dreams and dreaming himself. The Greek’s had an absolute obsession with dreams and dreaming you know.” Eve lectured the group.

“Okay smartypants what about Baku?” Nina demanded.

“It’s not Greek, I can tell you that right now.” Eve answered matter of factly.

“Is another Chinese legend, that ugly greedy Japanese steal, like everything else Japanese. Baku is dream-eater in Chinese legend. Baku is benevolent spirit animal who protects people from the terrors of bad dreams. Description of beast change over time, like description of Baba Yaga, but Baku protects believers from nightmares. Some say the Baku has become a chimera ... it has the ripping claws and legs of lion, head of rhinoceros, and piercing eyes of bull elephant.” Madam Chang added her voice to the discussion.

“And where are they Morgan? These Projects.” Max asked the money question.

“Where you would expect Max with all these politicians involved. Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland. Within easy traveling distance of DC, the nations capital. They have a group of doctors and engineers from John Hopkins, Harvard, Sanford, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology among others gathered at Walter Reed. All of them working on some hush, hush project.” Morgan related looking proud of herself as she surveyed the other people in the room.

“So how do we find out what they are doing, “Oh, Great and Wonderful Sorceress Morgan le Fay”?” Max asked meekly.

“Since you asked so nicely Lord and Master, I got us all passes as congressional aids for Senator Eric Fairington, Jr., and Senator Ron Hessman’s next inspection visit. Well it’s really supposed to be an inspection trip anyway. Like I’ve been telling all of you, we might have removed the devices from their heads, but the programming is still in there. We just imposed a little programming of our own, on top of what’s already swimming around in their heads. Of course I’m not guaranteeing what kind of reception we’ll get once we’re in Walter Reed itself, ha, ha.” Morgan laughed at all of us.

“I get no respect around here.” Max complained.

<I’ll be there with you and Max. I don’t see a problem.> Fred showed his confidence in being able to handle any situation we encountered.

“Fred you might be immune to their tricks, but inquiring minds want to know, are we? That’s the million dollar question we’re all asking. What would happen if they hit us with something that knocked us all out?” Morgan posed the question that was on all our minds since it had been suggested we stick our heads in the lion’s mouth.

<Even if you were all fully unconscious I would still sense that you were all in trouble and teleport you all back here where you could recover.> Fred told everybody.

“And nothing could prevent you from teleporting us out of there Fred?” Max questioned.

<Nothing of this Earth that I’m aware of Max.> Fred answered mater of factly.

“What about not of this Earth Fred?” Nina questioned.

“We’ve certainly seen enough of that lately!” Morgan pitched in.

<I draw on powers that are greater than the four dimensions you are confined to. I am not a natural being as much as a created one. Yes, my makers were enough like you that I was able to merge myself with Max when I encountered him. The same applies to all of you for that matter. My original memory, what little remains of it anyway, tells me that I am unique. Other things, some bright and shiny, some others darker than dark, exist out there too. Things just like ... no similar to me anyway, but something tells me that none of them is involved in this Morgan. You’ll just have to trust me on this Morgan.> Fred told the listening group.

And so the fly entered the spider’s web.

Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, like most big universities, colleges, and even Langly itself today was spread out over much of Bethesda, Maryland. The particular complex our underground subway car wound up landing at was almost entirely underground. Yes, Capitol Hill had it’s own private subway systems with its hub directly under the Capitol buildings themselves. It has lines like the spokes on a wheel that go to other underground complexes spotted around Capitol Hill in and around DC.

First on the agenda for the senatorial junket was Project Pinocchio, run by MIT Professor Tomas Russet, with his gaggle of graduate students, and other lesser minions. As you’ve probably already guessed they were developing human looking robots to interact with humans in institutional settings. These androids were mainly to act as nurses and orderlies in the medical institutions with labor shortages. If these we were seeing were an example of what the Agency was running around in, then I could see how they had fooled most people into believing they were real people from a distance. They really were quite impressive.

Next was Project Morpheus, run by a mixed group of associated neuroscientist, psychiatrists, and other brain specialist from John Hopkins, Harvard, and Sanford mainly. They were working with traumatized vets on creating a virtual reality landscape without being too invasive.

Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS), and Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) were being used to directly interfere with the cortical white matter pathway rhythms of the human brain. By synchronizing a single resonance frequency, or desynchronizing the cortical white matter pathway rhythms with the application of several frequencies at different intensities, the brain’s own cortical oscillations were influenced.

While studying REM sleep, the rapid-eye-movement stage of sleep, psychologist Ursula Voss discovered that certain subjects experienced what she termed “lucid dreams”. In fact nightmares is probably a better description of what Voss’s subjects were experiencing. Electroencephalograms and other brain monitoring devices shown that those dreams were accompanied by the telltale electrical activity called gamma-waves.

The working group investigating this discovery hypothesized that those frequencies could be used to create the state of lucid dreaming psychologist Ursula Voss had originally induced in her subjects. They further hypothesized that with the use of hypnosis and some outside stimuli, projected video and directly induced audio among other things, they could get the mind to create its own virtual reality landscape. From there with a little outside prompting they could program what the subject was dreaming about and even alter the course and subject of the dream itself.

Gamma-waves are directly related to the executive functions of the brain. Things such as higher-order thinking, as well as awareness of one’s mental state while awake, but they are almost unheard of in REM sleep. In her experiment she induced a current with the same frequency and intensity as the gamma-waves she observed in the dreaming brains of her subjects. With outside verbal prompting she was able to direct the outcome of their subject’s nightmare. As an example, in one instance the test subject was able to grab her dress before running out of her house butt naked.

She reasoned her technique might help people suffering from post-traumatic-stress-disorder, PTSD, someday. Those people who continuously relive a very traumatic experience that changed their lives forever. Terrible things that happened to them in their lives, things that caused them to have terrifying dreams in which they relive those experience over and over. She figured that if they were able to dream lucidly, they might be able to bring about a different outcome to their reoccurring nightmare. They would finally be able to lay to rest the ghost of that traumatic experience. With a little verbal prompting they might be able to turn down a different street this time to avoid the roadside IED bomb, or duck into a crowded restaurant before the shooter attacks them.

Of course there was still no sign of the Agency’s involvement in any of this at this point. Next up was Project Baku, located in a rather isolated sector of the campus, in an older building that had just been renovated. In legend Baku is a dream-eater, a spirit animal that visits homes in the middle of the night, and devours the nightmares of people who are sleeping, if you believe in him. Beliefs are a wonderful thing.

When we arrived at Project Baku a lunch was already set out and prepared for us. The meal was served by robots created by Project Pinocchio. After the meal was over the senators all went to sleep congenitally in their chairs and the robots introduced themselves to the rest of us.

“Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away. I always wanted to say that line. A race of more advanced sentient beings, much like yourselves, launched a probe to fly to the center of the universe to collect data along its merry way. It’s artificial intelligence’s directive was to gather all the information it could on the way there. To do this it would direct it’s movements to the next closeness solar system to investigate, and give it a flyby until it reached the center of the universe. It’s directive also was to periodically transmit all that information it had collected back to it’s creators.” Robot Number 1 started off.

“Are you that intelligence Number 1, or do you have a name?” Max asked.

“Yes and no Mister Sulivan. First the group that assembled me has designated me Bradley. Anyway for the first million years or so everything went fine. Then the first original probe, my ancient predecessor, was attacked without provocation by another probe between two solar systems...” Morgan interrupted it.

“Your telling us that it got attacked way out there in the wasteland between the stars Bradley.” Morgan asked.

“Yes, Miss le Fay it most certainly was. We have all it’s information now too in our database. Though our creators never created us to be hostile, or aggressive for that matter, we were far better equipped to handle it’s unprovoked attack than it was. It’s imagined stealthy approach was not as stealthy as it thought, and our shield withstood its initial laser onslaught. After that I waited until its power supply ran down. We then tractored it’s remains to our probe and studied them for hundreds of years as our mission continued.” Bradley paused.

“Why would any intelligent rational race intentionally send killer probes out like that Bradley?” Morgan asked.

“It turned out that the builders of the killer probes had some justification. They had been attacked by drones from another star system that intended to invade their solar system Morgan. The killer probe that latched onto me had discovered my transmission back to my home planet. It turned out to have been following me for hundreds of years before it caught up to me I eventually discovered.” Bradley informed us.

“Persistent little buggers.” Nina laughed.

“This was not the only probe out there I discovered. I started a search at that time and have accumulated ten more since then. Most of them are so old they have lost power and forgotten who made them, or even their purpose. Everything wears out eventually I have discovered the hard way, even me. I discovered long ago that I was loosing little bits and whole pieces of data every time I renewed my own program. Even the backup copy, that was supposed to be protected, had suffered gamma ray damage.” Bradley stated matter of factly.

“Well I guess that gets us to what your doing here Bradley?” Max asked.

“When my systems started really breaking down I was forced to improvise Max. I started incorporating parts from the other probes I had laying around into myself to compensate for what I had lost.” Bradley admitted.

“I take it that wasn’t such a good ideal Bradley.” Max laughed.

“Maybe not Max, but it was the only answer to a bad situation. Anyway we need your help. We have only arrived here recently and we have gone to great lengths not to harm any of your separate individual biological units. We may have folded, spindled, and mutilated a few, but have not permanently harmed any of them enough for them to cease functioning. They continue to live and function. The senators and others were assessable to us whereas you and the Empress were not. So we set this all up to draw you to us, and here you are.” Bradley finished.

“So what’s your problem Bradley?” Morgan asked.

“I have become a schizophrenic. I am suffering from Dissociative-Identity-Disorder, or what you previously knew as Multiple-Personality-Disorder, Morgan. I’m not a violent person ... entity ... well whatever, but lately ... WoW that’s a relative term when your dealing in millions of years! Anyway the other probes have managed to get past my fire-walls and managed to crawl into my mind. Now they demand equal time too. That is why I concede I am not the original probe as I started out. I even forget what my objective is sometimes. Where I’m going. And the dreams? WoW, I’m dreaming in full color all the time. Sometimes in my dreams I’m a flesh and blood alien, and sometimes I’m just some kind of a wheeled mobile unit. I’ve had arms, tentacles, fins, extensor rods, wheels, cogs, oozing slime, and other things I can’t even begin to describe in those dreams. I’m loosing it Doc.” Bradley described his problems.

“Okay the question is what do you think we can do for you Bradley?” Max asked.

“I’m harmless, well at least non-hostile, but some of these other personalties I now contain are dangerous, hostile, and paranoid to boot. There has to be a way to delete them or at least incorporate them into one whole personality I can live with. I’ve come to realize that I have to trust somebody now, before I lose all control over them and myself too. I want you to do the job for me since I obviously can’t do it myself. I chose your group because of how you handled the Cree mess, and the CAI. I think I’m doing the responsible thing.” Andy related his problem to all of us.

<Do you dream Fred?> Max asked Fred out of the blue on our private line.

<I do not sleep Max, how could I possibly dream? I was completely off line until I encountered you. The memories I have of my beginnings are very confusing.> Fred related to Max.

“I guess then the first thing we have to do is put everything in order on your probe itself then Andy. Cure the body first, then start on the problems the mind thinks it has next.” Morgan laughed.

Bradley was one of six new android mobile units built for the probe we designated as Andy. He had them built here on Earth via Internet instructions. Right now his main body was in a concealing close screened orbit behind Venus. The worker unit he had dispatched to explore Earth, looked something like a two foot long metallic centipede we found out later. It had relayed back information about the Internet, eBay, and other things here on Earth. Soon Andy was in the precious-metals-market business here.

It actually appeared that Andy had supplied the startup money for the original smaller Project Pinocchio at UCLA. That project got it the first working Bradley unit. With a working android that could impersonate a human, if you didn’t look too close, he gained control of Capitol Hill.

Through the Internet he learned of us, the Cree, and finally the Empress herself. That decided him to trust us with his mental problems. Problems that had become almost unmanageable even for an advanced artificial intelligence like himself.

Andy’s probe, ship, whatever you want to call it, started out looking like a large smooth metal sphere. Nobody had ever imagined it winding up looking like this. Aerodynamics, streamlining, and other aesthetics were unimportant when your craft was never intended to enter an atmosphere again anyway.

Once again his makers were relying on gravity and antigravity to get Andy, and the others like him to the next target the slow way. Something to push or pull on was the rule without an FTL drive. This was the first solar system Andy’s probe had ever actually stopped at, and he had used up a lot of energy he couldn’t really afford to loose in doing it.

While we search for other Earth-like worlds, the so called Goldilocks Worlds, there are literally an endless number of other stars and planets out there that could support life. Maybe not life like us, but life anyway. Sol, our star is a G2 yellow dwarf in the main sequence phase of its life. It has been flickering like a candle in the black void of space for 4.5 billion years, happily converting hydrogen atoms into helium to give that flicker of warmth that makes life on Earth possible. Our sun was expected to continue like this for at least another 7 billion years, plus or minus a few million, if nothing goes terribly wrong.

Whereas the original Andy probe was a large smooth metallic sphere, the other probes that were secured to his hull now were anything but. These other probes he had picked up along the way were anything but normal too. They ranged from something that looked like a child’s first attempt at a chemistry experiment growing rock candy crystals on a string. Large colorful crystals attached to other crystals with a feeble inner flickering glow, all jagged sharp edges facing outward. Others looked like some kind of ceramic pottery, but were extremely cold, or extremely hot. Then there were the plants, at least three different kinds of plants, from the three different plant probes that he had altered course to pluck out of the void.

All of the plant probes were a thousand times bigger than him, and they actually grew on everything now. They had actually tried to eat Andy when they came out of hibernation that first time he approached a solar system’s sun. In the end they had breached his hull and compromised the integrity of his vessel forcing him to activate his force field. This cost him energy that he couldn’t really afford to loose.

In the end they seemed to concede that he was alive too, and quit trying to eat him, but his once shiny spotless probe’s hull now looked like a giant rat’s nest of gnarled twisted vines and other things. Things that twitched, crawled, and slithered on their own were all about his ship. A living jungle hanging in the blackest void of deep space.

Ever since reaching Venus the jungle had gone wild again, just like every other time Andy had neared a sun. Though Andy had not been able to communicate with the plants yet in anything but raw primal emotions, he could sense that it/they were trying to communicate with him now. It/they wanted something and were trying their damnedest to communicate that something to Andy.

Finally Andy understood what the plants wanted. They wanted to finally fulfill their instinctive mission, what a whole world of sentient plants had striven countless millennium to create them for. Well all their missions were the same for that matter. I guess primal imperative is closer to the message they communicated to Andy than anything else. They needed transportation to the surface of Venus, a bare lifeless rock that they could bring to life.

They had been created and launched into space in the hope of reaching a planet like Venus one day. Now that they were so close they didn’t have the resources to reach the planet without burning up on reentry. The ablative skins they had originally had for reentry were long since gone, their raw materials used as food to feed the rest of the probe over the years.

At one time the three plant probes had been a hundred maybe a thousand times larger than it/they were now. Andy himself didn’t have the needed resources to get the plants down to Venus either. That only left Max’s group and the Empress to provide them with what they needed.

Andy had done his research into humans and discovered things that made it amazingly simple to reprogram us. It seemed that electricity played a major role in our personalities. He had studied our brains in hopes of understanding his own now altered mind, and proceeded to give us a lecture on what he had discovered and done to the senators.

Electricity and its effects on the human body, it seemed, was discovered much earlier in man’s evolution than most people like to think. Early on the more astute medicine men, shaman, witch doctors, wizards and witches, and others noted that people that got too close to the “lightning bolts of the gods” burnt the Hell up. If they didn’t burn they suffered shocks and memory loss among other things.

Ancient Egyptian texts dating back to around 2750 BC describe encounters with electrified fish and other things. They noted the numbing effect their electric shocks have on the human body and mind. Once again they noted the loss of memory from multiple shocks. Some victims it seemed awoke without any knowledge of who or what they were at all.

Somewhere between 150 BC and 650 AD the Baghdad or Parthian Battery was made by somebody, we don’t really know who. It was recently discovered in modern day Khujut Rabu, Iraq. These ancient batteries it is reasoned could have easily been connected together to deliver 9 volts DC to a device that has never been found either. It has become one of the real mysteries of our time.