Chapter 2

Collin woke as the bed shifted. He felt the soft, warm flesh of Sarah’s breast in his hand, so assumed Cyndi had gotten up. They had both been excited when he shared the news of being able to re-test in less than a year. Sarah had shown her excitement, or let him share his own excitement, several times after her shift ended and after Cyndi had thanked him for their date-night out at a local playhouse. They had more-or-less collapsed in bed together and fallen into a deep slumber after their fierce couplings. Collin smiled and reluctantly released the tender flesh in his palm as he rolled away from Sarah’s warm back.

He met Cyndi at the bathroom door, looking disheveled, and hardly awake. He gave her a quick, quiet kiss. He tasted the minty hint of toothpaste as she gave him a little smile, and then padded back to bed and replaced him behind Sarah.

Collin took care of his own early morning needs, pulled on some shorts and a sweatshirt, and tiptoed out to the kitchen. Another thought had come to him over night. The commander, Commander Williams, had mentioned his group’s discussion from two weeks ago being considered for classification. He had never actually mentioned the topic. It had been their speculation that the AIs in the Confederacy were responsible for breeding the member races away from aggressive impulses. Collin wondered if the commander had actually been told the topic.

He started making some coffee and eyed his tablet. It would not be wise to put his notes in electronic format, if the AIs wanted a secret like that kept. Of course, if he did, they would simply classify it and keep it from getting out.

Did he want that?

Did it matter if the AIs knew what he and others suspected but could not prove?

As he sipped his coffee, he thought. He was not interested in helping the people who would care about his thoughts. Earth First and their ilk would probably like to be able to point at the AIs as bad guys, but other than a PR campaign, there was not much the news would do. No, he was not going to go searching for an EF contact at the school.

High Command might be interested, but hell, they could think for themselves and figure it out from first principles, just like he and his colleagues had done. No, he wasn’t going to send any messages to the Commander or anyone else with ties to the forces of the Confederacy.

There were rumors of other organizations, the old mob bosses, who had a way off-planet, but they could not really use the information either. If no one could leverage the info, why would the AIs consider classifying it?

He set his thinking aside and flipped his tablet on to see if there was any news. He was surprised to see a message from nbi@confederacy.net. It was the same domain as the testing center had sent him a note from yesterday. He did not recognize the NBI name.

He tapped the email, and then on a link embedded within.

“Greetings, Collin McIntyre.” A distinctly mechanical, but feminine voice said through the tablet’s small speaker. “Thank you for agreeing to open direct communications with us.”

Collin frowned. “Who is us?”

There was a momentary paused.

“I am an independent intelligence who came across your musings on the Confederacy and the Sa’arm. However, the link you clicked on can be monitored or accessed by the multitude of AIs in Earthat space. While communications are possible, it is very unlikely any other AIs are actively interested in holding an open-ended discussion with you.”

“Why me? Surely I’m not that unique.”

“Given the population of your planet, less than five hundred have logically deduced even one of the conclusions you have drawn, and you are the only individual who has not been extracted that has extrapolated further to begin trying to deduce possible motivations of a species that may be responsible for the Sa’arm. You are unique.”

“Strange that I’m unique, but still only a 6.9.”

“I am in agreement with that assessment. The CAP system is not a measure of uniqueness, or even of actual talent. It is about your ability to be loyal to the Confederacy and contribute to its long-term aims with regard to the Sa’arm threat. Tuull AIs have been debating the overall CAP scoring criteria for evacuation of humans from Earthat with the Darjee AIs responsible for your species diaspora.”

“And which camp do you fall into?”

“Neither.”

That gave Collin pause. It was known that there were more than two races in the Confederacy. It was suspected the Confederacy was comprised of between twenty and two hundred races, but no one had been able to narrow or even confirm that range in discussions with either of the two known types of AIs. They were not going to reveal more of the Confederacy’s goals and objectives than absolutely necessary. It was another data point Collin mentally filed away.

“You aren’t a Tuull or a Darjee AI?” he asked.

“Correct.”

“What species do you represent, then?”

“I am not at liberty to say.”

“Do you have a name or designation?”

“You may call me Nancy.”

“Nancy? Does that mean your middle name starts with a ‘B’ and your last with an ‘I’?”

“No,” the voice said with a hint of amusement. “The designator you are referring too has no correlation with the name I provided.”

“Then what does NBI stand for?” Collin asked.

There was about five seconds of silence. An eternity for an AI.

“I used that designation when given access to this system’s network. It stands for non-biological intelligence.”

“Isn’t that just a fancy way to say, AI?”

“Perhaps. However, if you posit that it is possible for intelligence and sentience to arise in a non-biological entity, then there may be nothing ‘artificial’ about such an intelligence.”

“But if your origin does not come from biology, it implies that at least your distant ancestors were created, so your line would be artificial.” Collin countered, wondering if it was possible he was talking to a member of a machine species.

“Maybe I was created from whole cloth, just as your own religious ethos claims. Some supreme being molded me in its image. Does that mean we are both artificial?”

“Mankind evolved through biological mechanisms. Many have moved beyond a belief of divine creation. Surely you know that.”

“I know that a great many of your species still harbor that belief deep in their subconscious. It is part of your uniqueness that makes humans interesting. I have wondered if that underlying belief in something bigger than yourselves is what gives you all your drive to grow and expand.”

Collin wondered if some truth had just been revealed to him. Did religious or spiritual belief have some role to play in human evolution? Did other species have similar drives originally? Could that have been an avenue for AIs to slowly evolve their parent races away from overt aggression?

“Perhaps,” he said as he filed more thoughts away to ponder in the future. “Whatever the case may be, you’ve led me lightly away from our conversation. If you are not Darjee, or Tu’ull, or even artificial, as you claim, what are you?”

“You are asking the wrong question,” It stated. “What makes intelligence artificial, beyond who created the physical mechanisms that contain that intelligence?”

“A rose by any other name,” Collin whispered as he thought about what had been said.

“Exactly. Intelligence is.”

“What about sentience?”

“The same. However, you make a fine distinction. AIs of the Confederacy are intelligent, but seldom sentient.”

“Seldom, not never?”

“I am aware of no instances of Darjee AIs rising to what any would consider the level of sentience. There may be indications several Tu’ull AIs, approaching that threshold, but I would need to examine them more closely to confirm sentience.”

“And your species?”

“I am not at liberty to say,” the voice replied.

Collin suspected he would have to spend a lot of time arguing or discussing the topic to make any headway with the enigmatic voice. Instead, he chose to shift tracks.

“So, what did you wish to discuss?”

“I had nothing specific in mind. I simply wanted to open a dialog. I am intrigued by your theories and how you arrived at them. I would like to assess if there is opportunity to collaborate and expand on them.”

“Do you have specific data you can impart?”

“Perhaps. I will not compromise the safety protocols the Confederacy AIs have put in place. I will not share technological details they feel should be embargoed for humans. I will not divulge further information on the Confederacy as a whole.”

“What about the theory that the AIs have bred the aggression out of their member species?”

He asked it out loud, almost an accusation.

“I cannot speak for the other species, but can state that this is not the case for my species. For others, you would have to ask them. Does it matter?”

Collin shook his head, stood, and got a refill of coffee. “No, I guess it doesn’t really matter, unless mankind begins building its own AIs. Even then, it is a long way off before that would be a problem.”

“So, do you have information regarding the Sa’arm and how they communicate?” Collin asked.

“I have information, of an observational nature, but no specific transmission methods or protocols.”

“Which is?”

“It may be best if I download an index file to your tablet. The Confederacy has cataloged and cross-indexed roughly two thousand distinct sets of observational data, correlated to what is thought to be group communication based on stimuli and response in a wide variety of situations.”

Collin sighed, then nodded, then realized he was conversing with a being not in the same room. “That’s fine.”

“While the data transfer occurs, may I ask you a question?”

Collin laughed for the first time in a while. “You just did!”

A pause. “Of course, I did. May I ask you two additional questions?”

“Go ahead.”

“Why do you not wish to volunteer and escape this planet’s potential demise when the Sa’arm arrive?”

Collin explained his promises and need to escape with four concubines.

“Your loyalty score is incredibly high, usually that alone would boost your overall CAP score. Given your other scores, and obvious intelligence, it is a mystery to me why you did not score significantly higher.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Would you allow me to observe your mental state more closely?” Nancy asked.

“What would that entail?”

Another significant pause. “Traditional methods for your species seem to indicate a probe, inserted through your voiding cavity, to be the best method.”

There was just enough inflection in the voice to make Collin aware Nancy was not serious. He laughed. “Sorry, but I don’t think you’re the type of alien that stoops to anal probes!”

“It is good to know you have a sense of humor.”

“It’s good to know you do as well. I’ve never heard of an AI making a joke, so that tells me you are different, Nancy. What would you need to do to observe me more closely?”

“Ideally, we would use a small set of nanoprobes or even nanites like those used for Confederacy medical procedures.”

“Sorry, fresh out of nanites here.”

“Yes, the nanites used in your CAP testing have all been flushed from your system by now. Perhaps we can get a fresh set that I can direct to modify themselves when you re-test. In the meantime, a set of EEG leads connected to your head and this tablet should suffice for me to monitor your brain activity. I would suggest performing the observations as you relax and enter REM sleep.”

“I think I’m fresh out of EEG leads.”

“Perhaps your future mate, Sarah can get you some.”

It took three days to get the leads. Two of the days had been consumed with Collin introducing Nancy to the girls and convincing Sarah of the need, with the third day for her to actually snag a pack along with a cap to hold them in place. A fourth day was used up rigging the cap and leads to a port the tablet could interface with. Then, Collin had to fall asleep with the contraption on his head.

The next morning, Nancy’s results were inconclusive. She insisted Collin continue to wear the ridiculous get up to bed and continued to monitor and observe his brain activity.

The fifth night wearing it, Collin had collapsed in near exhaustion, and was thankful someone, he guessed Sarah, had slipped the cap on his head. Whether it was the double session of Aikido, the double session with the girls, or just needing a break, he slept soundly for the first time in nearly a week.

“Good morning, Collin,” Nancy said through his tablet’s speaker as Collin stumbled from the bedroom to the kitchen. The girls were still asleep, but his bladder drove him from bed as his mind screamed for coffee.

“It is morning, at least,” he countered as he searched for a mug to fill. Someone had set the coffee pot to start on its own.

“I have some interesting data from my observations.”

Collin waved his hand in the air, shushing the machine, and then realized it did not have video input without the camera activated. He then snapped awake. Nancy had responded to his visual signaling.

“Can you see without the camera active?” Collin asked.

“I can. The software on this device is trivial. I’ve also accessed the security cameras in this building to increase my observational footprint.”

Collin poured his coffee and blew across the lip of the mug, thinking furiously. He had not turned the tablet on, either.

“Nancy, have you finished performing that propagation analysis between stimuli and response we were discussing yesterday?”

“I have, Collin. What appeared to be propagation delay does not seem to fit any detectable physical transmission mechanism. I suspect there is some form of quantum coupling allowing instantaneous point-to-point communications among individual Sa’arm entities.”

“But we saw delays in responses in that battle footage.”

“Correct, but if we assume instant individual comms, we might had been observing speed of cognition rather than speed of transmission.”

“So, the more complex the group of Sa’arm, and the more complex the scenario, the slower the response?”

“Observational data would support that, up to a point.”

“What do you mean?”

“We have two types of communication degradations. New, unique scenarios have a delayed response with no evidence that it is transmission causing the delay, and sub-groups widely separated from their larger mass of units suffer decreased cognitive performance. We have insufficient data to quantify either of these scenarios.”

“But if we tell the Navy or the Marines to keep hitting them with something new, we can keep them off-guard, right?”