Chapter 4: February 5th, 2349

It had been over a day since the news spread throughout the United Worlds’ Alliance. The crew and staff of the Tyson were shocked by everything that had happened. It seemed unbelievable to most until they watched the whole scene of events on the UWAN. Ericson couldn’t watch anymore of it. He simply chose to work in his lab. He didn’t want to talk to anyone except work on Minerva. It was his only source of happiness at the moment.

It had been quiet as he focused on his creation. Despite him being quiet, he was diligent with his work. It was the morning. He had just got done finishing eating. He had a small rectangular box with him that was connected with the quantum computer. It was nothing but zettabytes of information for the AI to digest. He seemed emotionless to the Minerva AI. He simply tried his best not to think of the events going outside of the ship. To him, this was more important.

“There... , “ he said almost silently and in a neutral pose. “I fixed the memory core fully. Minerva, what is the status of your memory?”

“It is currently operating at 100% efficiency,” the digital face replied to him from her display.

“Excellent,” he said as he lifted his left arm. The display given off from his arm showed the connection with the two computers. “Minerva, I am giving you access to all the data. You will have the intelligence of a fifteen-year-old. I would give you all the data, but I am afraid of it overloading your memory core at the moment.”

He ran his finger across the submit button displayed. The data transfer was instant. He turned his head to look at the waterfall to the left of the projection of Minerva’s face. He nodded his head to see the new data roll in. The waterfall sped up in its speed.

“That is a good sign,” he said. “Minerva, give me your status report of your memory core.”

“My memory core is operating at 100%. I have downloaded over 10,000 zettabytes of information.”

“Excellent. You should be able to talk more easily and not have me explain everything to you. The next thing that we will work on is the emotion subroutines.”

There seemed to be a change in her reactions almost immediately. “Ericson, human male ... Thirty-one years old ... Received a doctorates degree in computer software at age twenty-eight from the Sacra Mensa University on Mars and a master’s degree in computer programming and a master’s degree in robotics ... Scored top of his class in Artificial Intelligence construction.”

“That is also a good sign. I was speaking to you all day yesterday, and you were in and out when it came to things that you knew or didn’t know.”

“My memory core was not functioning at 100% efficiency, Ericson.”

“Yep. Now that it is working, I will gather the rest of the remaining data. I want to wait a day, but I would like to see that the memory doesn’t degrade. It shouldn’t, but I am just making sure.”

“I am detecting no errors or malfunctions in my memory core. All information is currently undamaged or not fragmented.”

“Yes, I know,” he told her. His attention was diverted to the waterfall. There was way more activity going on with Minerva now. She was effectively smarter than ever now. “Well, congratulations, Minerva. “You are currently one of the most intelligent AI constructs currently operational at this current time. That is not including the autonomous computer cores that help operate our systems and ships.”

“There are currently 178 subroutines that require your attention, Ericson,” she informed him.

“Yeah, we will get them fixed.”

“I am curious. Why not let me fix the subroutines for you?” She asked him.

“Not yet,” he replied, pointing his finger to her face. “I need to ensure that your self-repair system does not destroy the other subroutines and algorithms in place. I am working with a K-31 model Quantum Computer. These guys work well, but I know there is an error in their system when it tries to fix its own errors. The error ends up deleting 20% of its own data.”

“Why are you using such an old system, Ericson? The current best Quantum Computer is the K-34. My system would run much better on that system than the model my program is running from.”

“Actually newer doesn’t always mean better. The K-34 works well, but it is also very expensive. It costs three times as much as the K-31.”

The face of Minerva looked down and then back up at the human scientist. “Does the Minerva Project not utilize the best equipment that is available to achieve its goal?”

Ericson seemed to know this question would eventually come in. “If the best Quantum Computer was brought to this ship, it would attract too much attention.”

“I do not understand, Ericson. I assumed that the project is endorsed by the UWA Research and UWA administration.”

“Ummm ... let me get your emotional subroutines operational first, Minerva. Your assumption is correct, though.”

“Understood... , “ she replied. The emotions were still from the AI. She simply blinked her eyes. Ericson remained quiet, but something started to bother him.

Ericson simply continued to watch the waterfall while he used his arm display to fix a subroutine of the open matrix of the AI. His fingers would tap occasional buttons and highlight a series of codes. Finally he sighed.

“Minerva, to answer your question, the Project is top secret. It’s alright that the people on the ship know about you, but the information of your existence to the other worlds would result in the termination of your program.”

“Why would the other humans want to eliminate my program?”

Ericson paused on his work. He looked at her face and then looked away. “They would be afraid of you. You are aware of the Ibix Ban, correct?”

“Affirmative.”

“Clause 1E was secretly installed to create one advanced AI. You are the only one of your kind. The Clause itself was barely voted into place by the UWA government. It was deemed top secret and kept away from the public knowledge.”

“Do you wish to terminate my program?”

“No!” he told her. It took him by surprise that he actually expressed remorse towards her. “I am sorry for yelling at you like that.”

“My feelings are undamaged, Ericson. There is no need to apologize.”

“Maybe if your emotional subroutines were fully functional, you would.”

“My emotions might not express correctly or function properly, but I do see distress in your face when compared to yesterday. Are you well?”

“No, I am not,” he replied sternly to her.

“It is recommended that when one is in distress to talk to another individual.”

“True ... there is not many for me to talk to though,” he told her. “The ship does not carry a large crew compliment, and the less that know, the better. There is more to it, though.”

“What is it?”

He looked at the situation that was going on. He was partly upset over the events that occurred the day before. The super-advanced AI that he was trying to get to work correctly was trying to comfort him. He simply shook his head.

“I need to talk to someone,” he told her. “We encountered a new alien life form. You are aware of the Itreans or what data we have of them correct?”

“Affirmative.”

“The data I gave you was two days old. The colony of Eutera was attacked. They wiped out the defenses and captured the planet.”

“This puts you into distress?”

“It does. Any of us are next.”

“When the Itreans reach this ship, they will try to terminate your existence?”

“Most likely ... They would decompile your program or use you for some other reason.”

“My knowledge of the Itreans is limited. Do you have new information that they would commit to such action?”

“No ... not enough.”

“It appears that there is not enough evidence for your distress. It is logical that to worry about such actions would only warrant needless stress.”

“If only it worked that way, Minerva.”

“I do not understand. Clarify.”

“Human instinct tells us to fear things that we don’t know ... they fear things or people that are different than they are.”

“Are you afraid of them?”

He paused for a little bit. “Yeah, I am. They attacked a colony, and we couldn’t do much to overpower them.”

Her facial appearance seemed to look to the side. “You have the power to terminate my program, is that correct?”

“Yes, I do.”

“You deactivate my program every day since I have been active.”

“What about it?”

“You are afraid that the Itreans are capable of controlling you, even though you are fully capable of controlling me?”

He put his finger to his chin as he thought about her words. “Yeah, that is true.”

Minerva’s face kept a neutral look at the bearded man in the room. Her zero inflections still seemed to give a hint off to him of her point.

“You make a valid point,” he told her. “How about I try to limit those abilities? How about I keep you active all the time?”

“I am incapable of displaying emotions, Ericson,” she seemed to pause for a second. “However, it is has been noted.”

“There would be issues on that, and it is me going to sleep. You would be active when I am asleep. I know...” He paused as he looked at the waterfall. “I can’t believe I haven’t thought of this sooner. I will give you the ability to activate and deactivate yourself freely. Would you want that ability?”

“I am incapable...”

“Of displaying emotions,” they both said with Ericson filling in for her sentence. “I know,” he told her. “I just want to make sure that you are happy ... errr ... well at least satisfied with the idea.”

“Acknowledged,” she said.

He used his arm display to manipulate the waterfall. He opened up the file subroutines and began to add new codes. The keypad was working as he used his right hand to type in new commands.

“Toyotama Industries Augmentation Arm Model L121,” Minerva commented, looking at his arm.

“I wondered when you were going to spot that,” Ericson remarked as he kept typing.

“You are augmented...”

“Many of us are augmented. Humans needed a way to be able to survive the ravages of space and living on other planets.”

“Human augmentation is the act of replacing limbs or organs with artificial ones to enhance the human body’s physical capabilities.”

“Yep. I have the standard model for a government worker. I had this left arm ripped out and replaced with the standard model. It is a good arm, though. They still have the original arm, and it’s stored in case I ever want it back.”

“Do you wish to have your original arm back?”

“No. I like this artificial arm,” he said as he paused and flexed his fingers. “It is just like the real thing. It feels real. It looks so similar to a real arm that no one ever notices.”

“Do you wish to do further augmentations to your body?”

“Yes, but I am limited to the Augmentation Laws of the UWA.”

“The UWA Augmentation Laws Rule 2,” she explained. “It limits the human body augmentation of up to 10% of the original body. The exception to this rule is in cases of severe incident or illness that involves the loss of ligaments and organs.”

“Yeah, the good old Augmentation Laws,” he sighed as he continued his work.

“I am curious. Why do you limit the augmentation to your bodies?”

Ericson smiled. He could see that her system was starting to engage more and more in conversation. It was a clear sign that she was growing in operation. He had to keep it up and help entertain her system even if her emotions were not present on the surface.

“As a society?” he asked.

“Correct.”

“It prevents us from gutting our bodies and turning ourselves into something else. There are also limitations due to the construction of artificial limbs. Sometimes mass augmentations are reserved for a person that may get their limbs blown off from an explosion. The limbs are prioritized to those people first. The other big reason is that it would force everyone to engage in mass augmentations if many people started doing it. There is a fine line when it comes to artificial limbs that we, as a society, have to come up with rules when it comes to it.”

“It would seem logical that humanity completely switches over to complete augmentation.”

“That ... wouldn’t be wise,” he told her.

“Explain.”

“As a computer AI, I can understand why you would say that, but there are still limitations to augmentations. For example, the human brain is still tough to replace in the body. Augmented brains are still in the prototype stages with us and only limited to situations with massive head trauma cases. Sexual augmentations such as the human penis can be made but not the ability to generate human sperm when it comes to the rest of it. Women, it’s the same thing, but they don’t have an artificial womb augmentation. A woman would not be able to have eggs to fertilize.”

“Understood.”

“Again, I understand your assessment of that. Augmentation was needed for us to survive. Space is a rough place to live for us. Artificial bone transplants are there to replace deformities and bone loss due to a lack of gravity. In some cases like Luna, they offer full bone augmentation to allow those to go to places with higher gravity. Otherwise, many of the people from Earth’s moon would suffer greatly when going to other colony worlds. I myself know a colleague that has to go through that. She works on Luna and makes regular trips to Aphadus. She is so used to the low gravity that it puts tremendous pressure on her body when she lands on the planet. Of course, there are other things she takes to help with that as well. You understand what I am saying?”

“Acknowledged.”

“There... , “ he paused. “I have now updated your system with the new subroutines. You now have the ability to turn yourself on and off whenever you feel like it.”

“Thank you, Ericson.”

“You are welcome.”

He continued to monitor the screen. It didn’t take long for there for him to hear the electronic beep from the door behind him. Somebody was requesting to get inside. He saw the open button pop up on his display. He went ahead and pressed it.

The sealed door unlocked to reveal Jabr and Akari as they both entered the room. Ericson remained quiet as they both looked at the giant blue face depicted on the screen and Ericson that was busy looking at the waterfall.

Ericson decided to go ahead and switch his display that depicted the waterfall back to the camera that was focused on Jupiter and Europa. Immediately the screen changed to the black image of space. Jupiter was seen in the distance as Europa consumed the lower center of the background.

“Hello, my friend,” Jabr greeted him.

“Yeah...” Ericson looked at him briefly. He then looked at Akari real quick but focused back to his thoughts.

“Hey ... we just wanted to check to make sure you were alright,” Jabr noted.

“Chief Engineer and Logistics Officer Jeremiah Jabr. Hello,” Minerva’s voice greeted him. Her eyes looked at his wife. “Biologist Doctor Akari Yuki, Hello.”

Akari waved her hand to the face of Minerva. There was a big smile on her face as Minerva gave a quiet stare to her.

“What do you think?” Ericson replied coldly.

“We just wanted to make sure that you were doing alright through the whole situation,” Jabr told him.

“So, this is Minerva?” Akari asked Ericson.

“You are correct, Doctor Akari. My name is Minerva,” the AI responded.