Chapter 9: March 4th, 2349

A day had passed. Ericson was not having much luck from his end. It had been the next morning, and Minerva was still powered down. He wouldn’t go to see her again until he had the answers for her.

Ericson was walking down the passageway that led to the crew quarters for Akari and Jabr. It was quiet that day. Seemingly as always, it was like walking down an abandoned building. The activity was happening, but evidently, not where he was located.

“I create one of the best AIs, and they won’t even let her leave... , “ he said to himself in anguish. “They ask me to do it, and I accomplish it. Then they do nothing...”

The next day seemed hopeful, though. Ericson received a call for him to come to see Akari in her quarters. She already knew about the situation that was going on. It was going to be her that would have to help him out.

He reached the door that led to his friends. He was hoping that they would be able to help them, but even he didn’t know what they could accomplish. There was one thing that remained in his mind, and he knew that Akari was special. Somewhere and somehow, she had the answers to this problem, but the question was, how?

He saw the panel to the door as he pressed his finger on the scanner. He backed up a little bit from the door as he waited. He waited for almost twenty seconds causing him to reach his hand to the panel again.

“What is taking her so...”

Ericson didn’t have to wait any longer. The door opened up as he saw Akari looking at him from inside the room. She was dressed in the same formal wear as before. There was a faint amount of smoke in the room oddly, but it cleared up quickly.

“Hello, Ericson. Come in,” she gestured to him.

He complied as he stepped into the room. The living quarters were very much like his. It was a tight fit for a married couple, but it was how these ships were constructed. Single or married, you received the same room to use. She seemed very much used to it, though. Her smaller size seemed to actually be of some benefit to her with a bed that was really meant for one person. Akari was sitting down by a chair looking at her table. She gestured him to have a seat beside her.

“I apologize if I am not in the best of moods right now,” he told her as he sat down.

“It is alright,” she replied. “I am happy to hear that you got her moving around. I need to come and see her.”

“She looks completely different now. She had the ability to be mobile, which more important than anything,” he looked around the room. “Is Jabr on watch?”

“Yes, he is. Look, there is a reason why I called you here. I don’t know how far you had gotten when it came to taking care of Minerva’s issue when it came to the whole ... artificial womb situation, but I might have a solution to it. I spoke to my friend Dulari and asked her here. She is the one that might be able to help donate one of her eggs for you to use.”

“Well, that would be some good news to hear at least,” he said as he crossed his arms sitting on the chair. “Right now, I have been speaking with UWA Research, and they want me to stay put and do nothing. The whole situation with the Itreans has everyone spooked and confused. I constructed Minerva not only for them but for all of humanity, and their reaction is to twiddle their thumbs.”

“So, you managed to create her, and they don’t want anything to do with her?”

“Pretty much. If this were before the whole situation with the Itreans, they would have brought us to another place by now. They are so worried about the alien situation that they are nervous about an advanced AI that might make the public even more scared. They aren’t against Minerva, but they are not behind us either.”

“Sounds like she is here to stay on the ship then?”

Ericson nodded. “Pretty much. I went through all the trouble of getting her operational and giving her a body, but she is not allowed to leave the room.”

“What about connecting her to the UWAN?”

“Absolutely not. I am not against it, but they will detect it and come tracking me down. Minerva will be dismantled or destroyed before I can shed a tear.”

“How powerful is she? What is Minerva capable of doing if she gets in the UWAN?”

Ericson hadn’t really considered that question before. He had the answers, but they were more conjecture rather than anything else. “Honestly, I can only guess. She is more powerful than the computers that are used to run starships. The quantum computers are used to run power plants to tactical computers for military installations. The difference is that she is fully self-aware. Those quantum computers have nothing but well drawn out programs that operate. My guess is that she could gain control of portions of UWAN if she wanted to. She could take control of a warship all by herself or run the biggest calculations that any computer could ever achieve.”

“That is pretty powerful,” Akari said, nodding her head. “Now think of yourself as another random dude that just heard that you created that thing. They learn that it can do all of those amazing things you just did. How would that person feel?”

“Nervous ... scared. Look, I know where you are going with this. Hell ... I felt that way sometimes. What if I created an AI that goes rampant and tries to kill people? What if it tries to go and take control of a planet and make everyone its slaves? I felt those same thoughts as well from time to time ... but I am less convinced of that more than ever. I look at her, and I don’t see a malevolent advanced AI that is going to bring doom to us. She even... , “ he paused as he felt nervous to answer that question.

She smiled as she saw him choke on what he was about to say. “What? What did she do?”

“She asked me to ... she wants me to ... impregnate her.”

Akari chuckled a little bit. “I thought that was what you were planning on. Weren’t you going to use the donated egg and ... well ... fuck her?”

“What? No ... What the fuck? Why would you think that?”

“That look on your face. You designed her, you made her, and you are always with her. You love her.”

Ericson shook his head. “Yeah ... how easy it is to view it that way. Look at Doctor Ericson,” he said as he mocked himself. “This is the man who developed one of the most advanced AIs. He used a former companion bot AI. He used companion bots where he fucks her day and night. Doctor Ericson is a man who developed the most advanced sex android ever to be made. I will be the laughing stock of the human race and discarded like a piece of trash. I already had the captain think that I was making a glorified blow-up doll. That is not what I am trying to do with her. I didn’t design her to be some hooker on the streets. I wanted ... I want her to be more than that...”

He didn’t get a chance to say anything more. There was an electronic ring by the door. Someone was outside. He already knew that it had to be her.

“That is her,” Akari said. “Dulari said that she was coming within the next twenty minutes. She must have come early.”

Akari reached over and pressed a button by the table. The door opened up as a woman entered inside. The woman that came in was dressed in a blue and red uniform. She was a military service member with a pair of star chevrons by her collar. From the looks and rank insignia, she looked like a pilot or engineer. Ericson did not know of the rates in the military even though he did his best to respect them. He was a civilian first and foremost. Dulari had the looks of a woman from India or Pakistan if she came from Earth. She had a darker skin tone with long black hair tied up into a bun. She looked pretty being a woman of her twenties.

“Ericson, this is Ensign Dulari,” Akari explained. “She is my good friend and pilot of the shuttle that takes our team back and forth to Europa. Without her, our asses would still be glued to the deck of the Tyson. Dulari, this is Doctor Ericson, he is the leading computer scientist onboard the Tyson and works with ... well I will let you two talk about it.”

“Hello,” Dulari greeted him. She seemed polite and was professional to him. She even walked up and extended her hand to greet him. “Akari told me a little bit about what was going on. I don’t understand the whole story, though. You need to tell me what is going on.”

Ericson thought about it for a moment, but Dulari had to know. He had to take the risk and tell her. “I am on this ship participating in what is called Project: Minerva. My goal is to create the most advanced AI to ever be made. The AI named Minerva is designed to think for herself and make her own decisions.”

“Isn’t that ... illegal?” Dulari said as she sounded a little bit timid.

“It is ... for the most part. Secretly, the government passed a law or Clause 1E that allows for one advanced AI to be made. The goal is to see how she behaves in a real-life environment.”

“And now you have her fully operational? On this ship?”

“Yes. She lives in the computer lab here on this ring. I even have a constructed body for her to operate. She is capable of walking around and interacting just like you and me. She is the first advanced AI to operate in hundreds of years.”

“What? ... Why come and tell me about this then? Akari, why was I called in here?”

“Dulari, it’s fine,” Akari gestured to her. She could see her friend get a little bit anxious. “Ericson is a good friend of my husband. He means well.”

Dulari seemed tense at first but calmed down.

“My goal for Project: Minerva is to allow Minerva to make choices for herself. She can make her own decisions and commit to her own actions.”

“I ... isn’t that dangerous?” Dulari asked. “We had a treaty ... a ban to stop that sort of thing for a reason. Advanced AIs are dangerous. Their goal is to take over the human race and kill us all.”

“That is what they want you to fear,” Ericson countered. “Minerva and the past AIs never committed to acts of rebellion, terrorism, domination, or anything of that magnitude unless we programmed them to. We were the ones that terminated all of that and stopped all progression. This is Minerva. This is her.”

Ericson held out his left arm. He tapped his wrist, and a projection appeared. It depicted the robot body of Minerva for Dulari to look closely. Even Akari looked and could see what she looked like now. Dulari showed some curiosity but remained partly skeptical.

“I created a body for her to operate from,” Ericson explained. “She is capable of doing many things. She fears her own destruction and wants to prove that she is just like you and me. She wants to become a mother and even designed her own artificial womb.”

“What?” Dulari sounded surprised. “You mean that she can ... get pregnant and make babies?”

“Yes, but there is a drawback to this. Minerva is doing what she can to prove that she is more than capable of what humans can perform. She feels that by having a baby, she is showing that she is a human being just like you and me.”

“Do ... do you feel that she would be a good mother?”

“I ... Yes, I do. She has the body now to do it. She wants to raise a child. It is her evolutionary step to do so. The one catch is that even with an artificial womb, she doesn’t have the ability to create an egg of her own.”

“This is where we need your help, Dulari,” Akari told her.

“You know what I am getting at. Dulari, we want you to donate one of your eggs so Minerva can have a child.”

“Umm ... Umm,” Dulari said. She shook her head. “I ... I can’t do it. Akari, why did you drag me into this?”

“Because you are my friend, that is why,” Akari replied. “Remember that you told me that you owed me one for pulling you away from that crack that developed near you on Europa? I am here to ask you to do this.”

“Why? ... Why not you?” Dulari asked her. “I can’t be dragged into this ... thing.”

“I can’t be dragged into it either,” Akari replied. “But, I can’t ignore his plea either. Minerva just needs one of your eggs. The process is effortless and easy to do.”

Dulari shook her head. “I ... I can’t do it. This pulls me into an area where I will be persecuted for my actions. If someone learns that I helped play a role in an advanced AI that would get me into trouble. I would be hated, Ericson. I have a reputation on this ship, my family, my livelihood. I sympathize with you, I really do, but I can’t risk it. Even a part of you knows that it puts the growing infant at risk. The baby would be raised by an AI that might as well just want it dead the next day later. She might be...”

“She won’t do that!” Ericson protested. “Minerva never expressed any hatred or dislike towards us. She values her own life. Every time it is the same thing! I get nothing but a double standard of negativity. There is nothing positive said about my creation or her in general from anyone. Dulari, I assure you that she isn’t going to do that. I bet my career and actions of what I made. She is designed to learn about herself. If she wants to have a baby, then that is her choice. Please ... I know I am just a stranger to you. I have served on this ship all this time, trying to create her. I finally accomplished that. All we need is just one. That’s it. Please...”

Dulari shook her head. “I am sorry. I will not help you.”

“I am sorry, too, for Minerva and me. Finding a donator is a hard thing at this time.”

“I imagine that you will finally. Somebody will eventually do it, and maybe the baby will be fine. The machine can create human life, and it gets put up on the news. Then people will protest the event and turn on you. Then they will learn that I donated an egg for the cause. My livelihood will be so bad. I will have to jump to the nearest freighter in hopes to escape the angry mob. Now we got the aliens, the ... Itreans trying to kill us all. No, Ericson, I will not help you.”

Ericson felt defeated. He waved his hand to her. “Then I am sorry for bothering you.”

“If it means anything to you, if it weren’t for all that, I would have. I just can’t do it the way society is. It isn’t worth it. I will do this, though. I believe a part of you so much and what you believe is right, that I won’t tell the others of what you have done. Consider that a part of the debt repaid, Akari.”

Akari shook her head. “Fine ... It is your choice, my friend.”

Dulari nodded her head. She took a deep breath. “The mission is still planned for today. Ready for a trip to good old Europa?”

“Yeah ... I am,” she replied to her. “Got more cores to drill for. In that case, I will see you later on today for the mission.”

“See you soon,” Akari said as both Ericson, and she watched Dulari leave. The door opened as the pilot walked out. The door closed as Akari displayed some remorse.

Ericson fell back to his chair. It was another nail on the coffin for him. There was a look of defeat in him, and Akari could even see it in his face.

“I am sorry, Ericson,” she told him.

“Yeah ... me too. They might as well tell me to delete and dismantle her. I am at a point I just don’t care much anymore. UWA Research won’t help me. I even brought the same case up with them, and they wouldn’t offer me a donator. I had others there that were even discussing about turning her into a weapon that can be used against the Itreans. A fucking weapon! That was one of the reasons why the Ibix Ban was signed, to begin with. Others see her as the latest sex object. They don’t ask about her feelings. They don’t want to talk to her. They just see her as ... nothing. Why did they even come up and ask me to begin with?”

“I can’t answer that. If I did, I would.”

“Well ... what does it fucking matter anyway? Next week we could have an Itrean fleet come knocking at our solar system and reduce Mars to ash and Earth ... well, the aliens wouldn’t have to do anything to it. We already fucked it up for them.”

He stood up from the chair. “Thank you, Akari, but I am going to head out. I am going to crash and not think about things for a while.”

“What you were telling me earlier,” she consoled him. “She wanted to have a baby with you?”

He was emotionally distraught, and her question took him back a little bit. “What about it?”

“She wanted you to impregnate her. She chooses you to do it. I know that you feel defeated, but you need to look at yourself right now. You are in love with her.”

“I can’t be romantically engaged with her. I haven’t felt that way in ... I can’t.”

“Are you married?”

“No.”

“Are you single?”

“Yes.”

“Sounds like to me that you have no obstacles between you two. You said it yourself that they don’t care about her anymore. They sound like they assigned you to make her and then try to cover up their tracks a little bit. You can do whatever you want with her.”

“I am not going to take advantage of her,” Ericson protested. “She is...”

“A woman,” Akari interrupted him. “You created a woman. She is, in all aspects, the perfect woman for you. You designed her to be exactly the reflection of yourself. Morally and ethically, she has the same beliefs that you teach her. I am convinced that she would be a valued friend to me as I view you as a good friend.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. She may have my personality imprinted into her, but she isn’t exactly ... she isn’t human. I don’t mean that in a negative way. I see some people have non-human companion bots that I imagine they use regularly. She decided to choose the Yokolina model for the parts, and well ... it would be awkward for...”

“Hey, you are saying my cousin has a weird fetish for having that? Besides, what is the issue with non-humans anyway?”

“They wouldn’t have a human body.”

“Come on,” she protested. She folded up her arms. There was a fleeting moment in her facial inflection. “If only you knew...”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing ... nothing at all. Never judge people by their looks, Ericson. She chooses to look like that. Now it is time to live up to that. You go and tell her how you feel about her. Does it feel awkward? I imagine that. Does it feel different? I imagine that. We are all different, Ericson, whether we agree to it or not. I am not asking you to go and fuck her brains out or parts ... or ... you know what I mean.”

“Ugh...” Ericson said, shaking his head. “I am heading back to my quarters. Minerva is still powered down. I feel like I have nothing to say.”

“Tell her that then.”

He took a deep breath. “Thank you for trying to help me out, even if Dulari wasn’t willing to help out.”

“I will go and talk to her some more when we go to Europa today. It is a short trip. We should be back later this afternoon after we get more core samples.”

“Glad in the wake of a hostile alien force, we are still trying to search for bacteria in an ice moon of a long-known gas giant.”