The ABACUS Protocol Page 17

  Robert hauled himself to his feet, still rubbing his stomach. Alec resisted the urge to rub the sore spots on his own head, and looked at the splattered mess of food on the floor. He’d clean it up later.

  For the moment, they had chocolate to eat. quIRK had better not have messed up dessert.

  Thirty-Six

  Vivian pushed the magnifier away from her face, and stared out at the icy star-scape to refocus her vision. It had been two weeks since they had received word from New Damascus that help was on its way, and that they were being evacuated while repairs were conducted. She smiled at the memory of celebrating with Alec and Robert, eating quIRK’s now-famous chocolate pie and telling stories about their respective planets in the dining hall. quIRK had remained understandably silent—he had little to celebrate; his only friends were leaving the station together. His secret meant that he would be discovered and destroyed by people more interested in procedure and policy than the advent of a new form of intelligent life. Fortunately, neither Alec nor Robert had put much stock in Bryce’s crazed allegations; however, Bryce’s wild claims had served to make quIRK even more paranoid. As for Bryce, quIRK elected to render him unconscious by limiting his oxygen supply before meal times to avoid further problems. Vivian didn’t want to clean the man’s saliva off her fist, again. She’d been surprised—and pleased, in retrospect—at how quickly she had managed to dispatch him. Once the initial shock and panic had worn off, her confidence and sense of security increased greatly.

  She scowled down at her work—she was modifying the case for the flute Sven had given her, and installing quantum storage units, memory sequencers and an array of other components into it. She had finally completed her designs for her portable quantum computer. Although quIRK would lose most of his processing power and hence the supercomputer moniker, he would retain his personality and memories. Also, he would gain the ability to connect to another quantum computer and make use of its processing abilities. He would be limited while in the box, but his essence would survive—at least, until she found somewhere safe to install him.

  The project had become her life following their short-lived festivities. A day after they received news of their rescue, they had been ordered to terminate station operations with the exception of maintenance and essential repairs. Vivian’s upgrade project was scrapped, and other than monitoring communications and performing Bryce’s basic administrative duties, she had no responsibilities on the station. She’d retreated to her quarters and worked on her new project in her free time, which was now abundant and tedious. Alec and Robert were still busy with repairs and maintenance, but she did not possess the skills to assist them.

  She squinted at the fine connections and components, an assembly that would appear arcane to the uneducated eye. A long metal cylinder ran through the middle of the box, and it was connected to dull black circuit boards and other parts of random sizes. It reminded her of her early quantronics projects in school, a mishmash of recycled old parts that may or may not have been labeled properly. At least her parts were new, although the project’s concept itself was entirely improvised. The implications were huge, and the possibilities incredible for advancing the field of quantum informatics. With a portable functioning personality, interface and skillset, rebuilds of defective computers would take a fraction of the time. It would be a matter of shipping out a new core, rather than rebuilding the entire machine. She wondered why it had never been attempted before. Surely there was no harm in a quantum computer that could be carried in a gym bag? quIRK himself was harmless, and he had an impeccable sense of ethics—stronger than that of most humans.

  Vivian rubbed her eyes, and looked back at the schematics. She estimated another week of painstaking connections, optical soldering and salvaging spare parts. Afterwards, she would have to spend the rest of her time on the station testing the device, before uploading quIRK into it and packing him away with her luggage. It wasn’t much of a plan; so many things could go wrong. At least quIRK was good with calculating probabilities, and he was able to give her a list of probably failure points in her design, and plan.

  Vivian laughed. She was going to carry a sentient computer off of a space station in a flute case. It would be the crime of the thirtieth century if she were caught.

  “What is funny?” quIRK asked. He paid special attention to her body language when she was working, and always wanted in on the joke. By the lights, he could be as bad as Alec!

  “If I pull this off, I’m going to go down in history!” she said.

  “I advise you to keep it quiet if we succeed,” quIRK said.

  “Imagine the press if I get caught. I wonder if this is even a crime.”

  “They’d invent a new one just for you, Vivian,” quIRK said.

  “Let’s not give them the opportunity, we both have better things to do than go to jail.”

  “You’re the one going to jail,” scoffed quIRK. “I’ll just be dead, and that lovely case of yours will be a new icon for infamy. Sven will have to change his product line.”

  It seemed to Vivian that quIRK had become increasingly despondent in recent weeks. “What do you know about Sven?” she asked, wondering if quIRK had been snooping through her mail again.

  “He knows how to keep his customers happy, and he has excellent taste in woodwork,” was the machine’s reply.

  “Good enough. What’s for dinner tonight?” she asked, a sudden pang of hunger breaking her concentration. She didn’t want to discuss Sven with quIRK—addressing those feelings in her own mind filled her with an uncomfortable uncertainty. Even worse, she associated Sven with home. While he was comfortable and familiar in terms of his culture and background, she didn’t want to find herself drawn back and tied to Aurora or any one person, not until she had discovered her own place in the galaxy.

  “An Earth dish I found in the common files, called chili. It was very popular centuries ago, made with beans, meat and tomatoes, with what seems to be a healthy dose of spice.”

  “Never heard of it; is it like curry?” she asked.

  “Not quite. The preparation and seasoning is different, though I fear I can do neither justice with my limited resources,” quIRK said.

  “Sounds like fun. How long until the rescue ship arrives?”

  “Approximately two weeks and two days.”

  Vivian sighed. There were still too many unknowns in this new obsession of hers. There was a ninety-five percent chance that it would work, and quIRK would be transferred with his consciousness stable in the new body, but she had never been satisfied with such a large margin of error. Unfortunately, her salvaged parts and non-optimal working conditions meant that the probability of failure could not easily be reduced further.

  “How is work coming on your new program?” she asked.

  “I am using Bryce’s memory bubble topology, with some minor adjustments, to create a mirror image of myself, one that lacks the attachments to and interdependencies on station components. It is a stimulating experience, being able to meet yourself. However, at the moment I need to focus my attention on chasing down errors and redundancies,” he said. She found it interesting that Bryce was the progenitor of her latest project. She hated to give him credit, but the memory bubble was a brilliant software innovation.

  “Redundant? You?” she asked, snickering.

  “I was programmed by humans. It was only by accident and luck that I was able to become something more at all.”

  “What are you going to do after they board the station?” she asked, reminded of his predicament. Even if he and Vivian were able to duplicate his personality into the portable unit, his main personality would still inhabit the station.

  “I doubt it matters,” quIRK said. “I can elude them for as long as possible, or I can expose myself and beg for mercy. I expect the end result will be the same,”

  “That’s kind of depressing, quIRK.” She was at a loss for words.

  “You get to go home, focus on that. Leave my demise
to me,” he replied.

  “You’re not going to hurt them, are you?”

  “I’m a computer, not a monster. I assure you my actions will be ethical.”

  “I just want to make one thing clear: if you do anything unethical, when I get out of stasis I’m throwing this box in the nearest waste disposal unit, or turning it over to scientific research. Whichever won’t get me sent to jail.”

  “Noted,” quIRK said.

  “Now,” she said with a smile, straightening her magnifier and picking up the wooden box, “let’s get back to work, shall we?”

  Despite throwing herself into this latest project, she felt a twinge of guilt that she hadn’t been able to finish the system upgrades before that project had been put on hold. She hoped it wouldn’t reflect negatively on her employment history. She sighed as she contemplated her future career prospects, and went back to work. She would send the New Damascus Science Authority a message requesting a new placement, and try to maintain her exemplary performance record.

  Thirty-Seven

  There were less than five days to go before the station was evacuated, and Vivian smiled at the new messages on her terminal in the quantum informatics lab. quIRK said they were urgent, and insisted she read them right away. The first message was from Sven, and while his messages were a pleasant diversion, the second was far more important—a reply to her placement request from the New Damascus Science Authority.

  “Did you read it?” she asked. quIRK had admitted to screening messages in the past, and she remained suspicious of him.

  “No. It is flagged priority, and confidential. I only read Bryce’s mail, station alerts, network notifications, and chain letters,” quIRK replied.

  “Oh, is that all?” she asked, opening the message from the Science Authority. New Damascus was the budding science capital of post-Earth galactic society—good standing with them was essential to work with cutting edge technologies.

  “Station security depends on it. I would be negligent to ignore possible sources of social engineering, security threats, and Bryce’s budding future as a mental patient,” quIRK replied.

  Vivian swallowed the hard lump in her throat and skimmed the message. She blinked several times, and shook her head, reading and re-reading the same passage of text. She could feel tears welling into her eyes, and she was overwhelmed with excitement and relief.

  “By the lights, quIRK, I don’t believe this!” she said, choking on the words.

  “You deserve it, Vivian. They recognize good talent when they see it.”

  “I know, but to be assigned to initialize and administrate the quantum computer on the new Barnard Nebula Observatory? People with decades of experience would be fighting for that!” she said.

  “People with decades of experience seldom manage to survive and achieve what you have in mere months. They need level heads out there—it’s a true frontier. The colony of Ithaca was only established three months ago, when its hub went online. The proposed computer, Odysseus, is the most intelligent and sophisticated quantum computer designed,” quIRK said.

  “More advanced than you?” she asked, unsure why the New Damascus authority would pick such arcane names. It seemed to be an unspoken tradition that most planet names were based on classical civilization, and they usually named their research installations to compliment the closest planet.

  “I’m thirteen-year-old technology with half of an upgrade. While quantum computers age well, this new system improves on the post-ABACUS architecture in countless ways, and requires less on the job learning to fit in with humans,” quIRK said.

  “You think I can call him Odie for short?” she asked.

  “Not if you want to live,” quIRK quipped. “But, at least you’re not going to work with q-Vex; they’re still trying to make her personable,” quIRK told her.

  “Well, then, Odysseus it is. What did he do, anyways?” she asked, as she typed up a brief acceptance reply to New Damascus. She didn’t want to risk losing such a prized opportunity to a more experienced candidate.

  “The mythological figure, I assume? The question should be: what didn’t he do? I’ll send you copies of the Iliad and the Odyssey. I’m sure the first thing he will want to do when he comes online is read them. Hopefully he doesn’t get an ego,” quIRK replied.

  “That’s a risk I’ll have to take,” she said, opening the message from Sven. It seemed that news of their accident had gone public. There had never been a fatality on a New Damascus administered station before, and the galactic media collectives were rife with speculation. “It’s too bad we don’t get the news, the media is having a field day.”

  “It would be interesting, though we are very isolated. It would be inadvisable, as our lack of regular outside interaction could skew our sense of perspective.”

  “It doesn’t feel isolated. Well, I’ll tell Sven that I’m fine and everything is under control. Will that make it past your censors?” she asked, aware that quIRK was required to screen outgoing messages. At moments like this, she wished he could revert to being an impartial thing, rather than a being capable of judging how she conducted her affairs, or even lack thereof.

  “That is acceptable. Do not identify other personnel or details of the incident. The authorities have sent specific guidelines to me about the dissemination of information, but those are the most important.”

  “Paranoid, aren’t they?”

  “Not paranoid enough, but they don’t know the entirety of our situation,” quIRK said.

  “What they don’t know won’t hurt them, in this case. I’d be more worried about Bryce getting out again,” she said, with a smile as she input a short message.

  “I am concerned about Bryce. Space sickness aside, the man is convinced he’s going to become the Imperator of Caesarea, with my help. He’s been raving about it, and writing countless letters to the New Damascus and Caesarean authorities. He’s already demanded that Alec be executed,” quIRK said.

  “Was he always that crazy?” she asked, taken aback at the absurdity of it.

  “He was never very open with me before. It’s possible, but I think something latent was triggered within him soon after you boarded the station. That’s when the instability began,” quIRK said.

  Alec walked in the door, cradling Muon in his arms. “Hey, are you coming to dinner? I got some great news!” he announced.

  “Don’t you knock? No wonder you’re getting executed!” Vivian said, laughing as she turned off her terminal.

  “What on the Moons are you talking about? I’m not getting executed—I’m getting re-assigned to the Calypso Station manufacturing center!” he said, his eyes going wide. The cat leapt from his arms and ran off down the hall. Vivian’s heart fell, she hadn’t thought about the deeper ramifications of her move—getting split up from her new friends.

  “Wow, that’s great, Alec! What are you doing there?” she asked.

  “Mostly the same. All repairs, all the time, and sometimes I get to anticipate fixing things before they break. It’s kind of my specialty,” he said.

  “I’m really happy for you,” she said, choked up around the words.

  “Thanks! It will be nice to actually have a say in some things. Maybe they want to keep us quiet?” he said, with an exaggerated wink.

  “Come on, that’s just silly,” she said.

  “I bet they sent you back to school, maybe you shouldn’t check your messages,” he said, laughing.

  “Well, for your information, I’m going to Ithaca to initialize their new computer,” she said.

  “Interesting choice of names, Calypso and Ithaca. If it wasn’t a coincidence I’d find it symbolic,” Alec said.

  “It’s just more silly ancient Greek names; it’s like a rule that everything is named after ancient myths,” she said.

  “Well, if you really think that’s all it is, then I’ll go with it. I hope you like roughing it out in the frontier. Now, how about we get some food? I need to start packing, and you can jus
t call me Systems Engineer Alec Stone,” he said.

  “Only if you call me Informatics Administrator Vivian Skye, and you’re still being executed by the Imperator, so I win,” she said, standing up and walking to the door.

  “I’ll make sure you get the best seat in the house. It will be the event of the century,” he said, putting his arm around her shoulder.

  Vivian laughed. “That sounds almost like a happy ending,” she said, and they walked down the hall towards the dining room. She put her worries about being away from her friends to the back of her mind, determined to enjoy the moment for what it was—a celebration of their survival and human ingenuity.

  Thirty-Eight

  Alec groaned as the hot water poured over his shoulders. It would be his last shower in his quarters on the Extra-Galactic Observatory, but right now he was more concerned with how thoroughly Vivian had beaten him at squash the night before. He was either getting old, or losing his touch. She’d been unavailable for most of the month, working on some project she didn’t want to talk about. For all he knew, New Damascus had assigned her a secret security project. Her silence bothered him, but he was glad he managed to coax one final game of squash out of her. Robert just wasn’t an exciting partner for Alec to play with—he was more concerned with angles and collisions than playing the game!

  “Alec, the rescue ship will dock in thirty minutes,” quIRK said.

  “Damn it, quIRK, what did I say about talking while I’m in the shower?” he yelled over the torrent of water. “It’s creepy!”

  “You are needed to brief them on repairs, and you would be more effective if you weren’t soaking wet.” The retort shocked him; it wasn’t like quIRK to be so forceful.

  “Fine, I hope you get stuck with the most un-fun crew possible next rotation,” he said as he turned off the shower.