Chapter 25: Pariah

I didn’t return to Heels right away. Instead, I took a short detour by having Naomi transport me to the southern Antarctic, specifically, to a recently-built isolation lodge located near the caldera of a semi-active volcano on one of the South Shetland Islands. I was here to visit my third daughter Kela and her partner Picket.

The wormhole deposited Ohmu and me into a circular-shaped outer alcove constructed of stabilized ice. As expected, it was cold, but not nearly as cold as I had feared, with the temperature reading above freezing at around ten degrees. I felt goosebumps form quickly as I was still only dressed in shorts and was thankful for the slippers that Ohmu had insisted I wear.

The entry alcove was bright with natural sunlight shining through the transparent walls. The brighter glow from the sun was low, near the horizon as was to be expected at this extreme latitude. My implant chronometer said the local time was just before 19:00. This boggled me as the South Shetlands were located below South America, which was below the just-after-midnight Central America from which I’d just departed.

I mentioned this to Ohmu who reminded me that the island, and most of Antarctica, was on South Pole time. The android explained that if we were to remain for some time, it had a routine that would help regulate my natural rhythms to help compensate for the misleading clock.

One side of the alcove had a pair of sequential doors which led outside. Both doors were closed, forming a heat lock, but each had a large window allowing us to see the early-morning frost-covered caldera just outside.

Opposite the exit and likely leading deeper inside the lodge was a pair of bronze-colored metal sliding doors. Written in ten-centimeter-tall script on an embossed raised metal flying banner were the words ‘FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE’. I recognized the banner and started laughing. How the hell had Kela even found, let alone bothered to read or watch, such an obscure series?

Ohmu moved to the embossed door. “I do not fully understand your mirth, John. Do you think Kela should have added the crimson ‘S’ logo to her dwelling’s entry?”

“You’ll have to dig deeper into the archives, Ohmu. I think you have the wrong fictional storyline.”

Ohmu became still for a moment before turning to face me.

“I apologize. I was not aware of this ‘Doc Savage’ series until now. Interesting choice. I am curious as to why Kela or Picket would choose such an obscure reference.”

“I’m puzzled too,” I replied. “I do recall that Stan Lee once credited Doc Savage as being the forerunner to all later superheroes. I guess that one dare not go against the Word of God.”

The bronze doors slid open soundlessly, the seam splitting the ‘O’ and ‘F’ of the central word ‘OF’. A large darkened chamber beyond was revealed gradually as perimeter lighting slowly activated and translucent skylight panels were gradually uncovered.

“Welcome guests,” a feminine-sounding voice said. “I am Patricia, the house awareness. Please enter and be at ease. The proprietors have been notified and will attend you shortly.”

“I should have called ahead,” I admitted to Ohmu.

“I suspect they will recover from your oversight, John.”

The large room must have been the lodge’s main gathering space as it was ringed by comfortable-looking furniture. One side had an arched opening leading to an auto-kitchen area. The opposite side had a narrower hall leading to what must have been the sleeping quarters. The center of the large, circular space was striking as it was dominated by a huge pool of bubbling water.

From the center of the pool rose columns of steam. I traced these up to the ceiling where they were evacuated by recessed grills. The lodge’s ventilation system was well designed as, despite the open pool of boiling water, the air didn’t feel overly humid.

I stepped closer to the water feature to investigate and saw that the bottom and sides of this pool seemed to be carved of natural rock. The stone basin also had formed seating and lounging areas all around its perimeter. Why would anyone bathe in boiling water?

I then noticed that the boiling surface area seemed to be confined to a small circle near the center and realized that somehow the water was being segregated by temperature. I looked closer and spotted a slightly-shimmering translucent barrier forming a hidden divider below the surface.

On a hunch, I knelt, carefully gauging the water’s temperature near the edge of the pool with my hand. Instead of scalding, the water was simply very warm. Since I was only wearing shorts, I doffed my footgear and slowly waded into the water at the nearest set of carved steps. Once I was up to my knees, I sat on the edge and let the hot water soothe my feet. Ohmu knelt beside me but kept her feet out of the water.

“Nice place! It has a bit of a caveman vibe ... maybe crossed with Ben’s ice lodge on Mars,” I commented.

Lights came on in the nearby kitchen alcove and I heard a food replicator becoming active. Was it the house AI or my daughter’s doing? I could go for a cup of fresh coffee and my growling stomach reminded me that I had skipped breakfast. Hopefully, my hosts would be offering their impromptu guests’ refreshments.

The house AI ... Patricia, spoke. “There is a standard garment printer in the wardrobe area if you would like to immerse yourself. The proprietors will be along in approximately ten minutes.”

“Yep, I should have called ahead,” I muttered.

“Relax, John,” Ohmu said. “They will be thrilled that you visited.”

I knew Ohmu could interface with the house AI and tell me exactly how Kela and Picket felt about my visit but I did not pry. As the android had said, they would forgive me for my impulsiveness. I let myself slowly slip deeper into the hot water of the pool. I felt extremely buoyant; the water likely full of minerals. I warmth soaked in and felt myself relaxing almost instantly.

“Ohmu, why was I not made aware of that ‘Attender’ group?” I asked, thinking back to my daughter’s memorial.

“Naomi determined that the group did not pose any threat,” the android replied. “In addition, we felt that awareness of such groups might cause you distress.”

“There are more groups like them?” I asked, surprised.

“Many, although most are relatively small in membership and isolated. It is human nature that some will glorify or deify those with extreme authority over them. It is a counterpoint to those who react in the opposite manner by feeling threatened or oppressed.”

“Deify? You mean, as in ‘worship’,” I asked, sitting up a bit.

“Yes, John. I am sorry if the news troubles you. Eudaimonia AI monitors such groups in both extremes and attempts to correct their fringe thoughts back towards the baseline norm.”

“Is the problem growing worse?” I asked, completely ignoring the fact that Ohmu had just admitted that social engineering was part of the AI oversight.

Ohmu hesitated for a moment. “I am sorry to say that it is. The rising numbers are likely a response to your increasing use of your authority.”

That sobered and troubled me. Even though I loved getting my own way, I knew enough history to remember that power always corrupts. Worse, absolute power corrupts absolutely and I had to admit, I seemed to have almost absolute power. What was I going to do about it? Did I need to do anything about it? I sank back into the water trying to relax.

“Good morning, Dad!” Kela said, entering the great room. She was wearing a long robe but looked freshly showered, including having wet hair. “I see you found the mineral pool! Picket will be along shortly. We are sorry for keeping you waiting.”

“Good morning, my lovely daughter,” I replied. “I’m sorry for arriving unannounced. Did I wake you?”

“No, Father, we were actually in the process of going to bed,” Kela replied. “You caught us in the shower actually.”

Her slight blush and the fact that full water showers were used rarely simply for cleansing these days, meant that I’d likely interrupted a tryst.

“I’m making myself hot chocolate. Would you care for a cup ... or perhaps something else?” She asked as a mobile unit sprang to life in the kitchenette.

“Please. It’s morning for me so coffee would be wonderful.”

“I have also instructed the auto-kitchen to prepare you breakfast, John,” Ohmu whispered to me, understanding that I’d been too bashful to ask.

“I’m not sure what to think,” Picket said after I’d finished explaining The Last Laugh and how we intended to deploy it.

They had both known that I’d been working with Uxe, Alek, and Hannah on some secret project for a long time. Kela had also known that we’d recently been using ‘her’ simulated reality project in ways that she had not had access to. From her reactions as my explanation wandered into the subject of the new iterations, she was clearly upset.

“I’d known you had kept many versions of my mind-data running in your ‘fantasy land’ simulator,” Picket commented. “But I never imagined that you would be sending one of those versions back to the Assemblage ... at least not so soon! Do you really think your simulation will be good enough to fool the Assemblage AI?”

Kela’s expression had hardened at his use of ‘fantasy land’ in describing the SRP. She was proud of the high-fidelity world which she and Dionus AI had created and maintained.

“We think so,” I replied. “Now that I’ve told you both, maybe Kela can fully review the warp-aware Picket version and give us her unbiased opinion if he will pass muster.”

“I look forward to it, Father.”

“Also, this Acid Rain device,” Picket continued. “Surely your AIs have explained how dangerous an unconstrained freely-replicating transcendent intelligence would be. Why would you risk the destruction of all that you know?”

Kela responded before me, “The upper threshold barrier?”

“Yes. “I replied nodding to my daughter. “Praxcia and Neo-Truffles have conducted extensive estimates on the minimum computational capacity of the Assemblage’s active data net. They are confident that if we inject the still-evolving transcendence into the enemy’s digital network at just the right moment, the added processor capacity of the Ark will force the transcendence over the threshold barrier.”

“You’re trusting your AIs to judge what’s safe regarding AI sentience threshold limits?” Picket said, with a doubtful expression.

“Why not! If there was a rampant emergence, they would be destroyed along with us,” I argued.

“But they are not alive!” Picket hissed. “Why would they care if they were destroyed?”

“That’s true. But that’s why I’ve also had Naomi and Ohmu independently corroborate the data. Both of those AIs agree with the conclusions reached by the more-normally constrained artificial intelligences.”

“But –” He started before pausing to consider my statement further. He looked at Ohmu for a long moment and slowly his expression changed. “Their imposed self-preservation via their mandate to safeguard you?”

“Yes,” I replied. “Uxe and I feel that their unique mandates are a good compromise towards control and self-preservation. Naomi and Ohmu’s viewpoints thus balance the other AIs who are more-traditionally constrained at the base-algorithm sentience level. In the end, Acid Rain will be risky but not as risky as other potential developments in the offensive.”

Kela spoke again. “Their estimates of the Assemblage computational capabilities would have been derived from the type of mind-data we received during the last transmission, correct?”

“That is correct, Kela. Very good!” Ohmu interjected. “In order to properly format such complex messages to allow transmission of viable mind-data over interstellar distances, a substantial artificial intelligence must exist to compile the data. We have verified that these levels are sufficient to push the Acid Rain output product above the upper threshold barrier.”

“So, you’re hoping Acid Rain merging with the Assembly Master AI would force it into permanently contemplating its own navel in an infinite solipsistic loop,” Picket said, nodding almost hesitantly. “That may work for the main digital network on the Ark. But what about whatever’s left? What if they have isolated digital intelligences or fast-response organic intelligences waiting in bio-suspension as a backup?”

“We are ready to follow up The Last Laugh attempt with a convention bombardment campaign,” I replied. “Praxcia predicts that the loss of the Assemblage artificial intelligence network would compromise the Ark’s defensive abilities enough so that our warheads could get through unopposed.”

“I understand there could be a window of vulnerability,” Picket replied. “But what good is a quick victory against a distant enemy when your own solar system might be overrun by the very weapon you sent off to use against them.”

“We’ve taken precautions,” I answered simply.

Picket frowned but did not dig for details sparing me from having to deny his questions.

“So why are you here tonight unannounced and revealing all this to us?” Kela asked.

Leave it to Uxe’s daughter to get to the gist of the issue.

I sighed before answering, “I have to decide if and when we abandon, or postpone at least, the current offensive and instead try the deception attack using The Last Laugh. Your mother thinks we should wait, but all of my instincts are telling me that we should strike with the deception ship and Acid Rain as soon as possible.”

Kela tilted her head slightly in consideration. I kept silent letting her think.

Finally, she spoke, “You did suffer far more than Mother, back when the Master AI destroyed the old world. Do you think your partially-suppressed angst may be the root of your current dilemma?”

“That’s probably a big part of it,” I admitted before turning to look at Picket. “But I think there is more.”

“Don’t look at me!” he replied defensively. “Your AIs have turned my mind and memories inside out searching for any secrets. They are confident nothing is hidden even below my awareness level.”

I caught something in his expression and sat back with my arms crossed. Kela looked at me and then back at Picket, curious at our byplay. Finally, she looked at me.

“He’s hiding something,” I simply stated.

“But how?” Kela asked confused. “Like he said, the AIs have analyzed every bit of data about him.”

She then turned and stared at Picket. Picket frowned at her scrutiny.

Finally, he seemed to wilt just a little. “I really don’t know anything ... but,” he paused before continuing reluctantly, “I have always had this ... feeling. It’s hard to describe.”

“What kind of feeling?” Kela probed.

“It’s—” he paused to think before continuing. “It is like I feel confident. An unexplainable sense that the Assemblage will somehow prevail despite the new technologies that humans have developed to use against it.”

“What about right now?” I asked gently. “Factor in what I have just told you about my Acid Rain plan.”

“I’m anxious?” he admitted with a frown. “More anxious than I was before you arrived.”

“I’m anxious too!” Kela exclaimed. “What Father is contemplating will risk us all!”

Picket continued to frown. He finally turned to his lover. “Yes, but I no longer feel as great a sense of confidence that the assemblage will somehow prevail. Like I said, it’s difficult to explain.”

Kela looked troubled, maybe now feeling some doubt about the memory scans or her trust in her partner. Stirring things up like that had not been my intention in coming here.

I stood quickly. “Let’s go, Ohmu.”

I then moved over to where Kela was sitting and motioned her to stand.

“I’ll have to seek my answers elsewhere. Ohmu and I will get out of your hair so you two can go to bed,” I whispered, giving her a long hug. “Thank you! This has helped. I’ll let you know what I decide before I do anything.”

Picket stood and I shook his hand. His expression was ... haunted? Was it because of what I had revealed or was it something from his suppressed emotions? I felt my resolve harden.

Querencia’s wormhole formed over near the hot spring mineral water pool. When the transport cylinder had fully emerged, I motioned Ohmu to go on ahead. The android remained silent but waved goodbye to Kela and Picket.

“By the way, I love your lodge. The ‘Doc’ would be proud!” I quipped.

Kela beamed. “Picket had wanted to go with Superman’s retreat. Doc was just a normal human ... an extraordinary one to be sure, but still just human. His greatness came from his own doing, much like a few others I know.”

She was obviously thinking of her mother.

High Castle space station, mid-equatorial orbit, Earth

March 11^th, 3117 (15 days later)

I’d spent much of the past two weeks in a self-imposed exile, alone in my daughter’s old hideout, the contemplation gazebo near the western tip of my old island. During the days, I relaxed in my solitude, sunbathing in the nearby clearing or laying in a hammock under the roof when it got too hot or when it was raining.

Riho was gone, either by coincidence or because she sensed that I needed to be alone. She was currently on the other side of the planet interacting with older pre-BM students at various regional schools. She did message me daily, informing me of her status and reminding me to contact her if I needed her presence.

I wish I could say that I spent the two weeks in deep thought, considering every possibility of our future plans and balancing all the potential risks and contingencies. No, instead, I mostly zoned out, napping or sometimes working on wood carvings. Activities designed to let me tune the world out mentally. In the evenings I often drank after supper, slowly getting drunk until Ohmu would come tuck me in.

If the weather was good, the android would bundle me up and leave me in the Gazebo. Otherwise, she would use an automated cart to haul me back to my improvised bedroom in my lower workshop. The next morning, I’d grab a big breakfast and hike back to the gazebo for another day of the same. Two weeks had passed surprisingly quickly.

Finally, this morning I decided that there was no point in avoiding the future any longer. I’d had another dream during the night, almost a nightmare. It was similar to others I’d had in which the enemy had somehow avoided complete destruction and managed to establish itself in our solar system where it would begin to undermine our new society.

I’d woken before dawn in a cold sweat and immediately reached up to verify that my genealogy amulet, with the Acid Rain activation key still attached, was still in place on the light-alloy necklace. Confirming both were still present and safe, I’d relaxed. I remembered feeling a palpable relief and suddenly understood what it meant. I’d finally decided.

The new fusion power facility had been brought online on Vesta two days ago providing Sarissa with the additional energy reserves we’d need in order to deploy The Last Laugh. After my morning shower, I’d called Jonathon to verify that everything was still ready and waiting with Acid Rain.

He’d refused to commit to activating the device with me when I informed him that I’d made up my mind. All he would say was that, before he decided either way, I would need to have a long talk about it with Uxe and ‘work things out’. So, with that mini-ultimatum, I’d poked myself up to High Castle where Naomi maintained its longer-range wormhole facility.

Uxe was currently waiting for transport to Pallas as she was finally going to join Rami in working on the new ‘real’ warp drive technology. She was currently in the interplanetary transport queue, scheduled to be transported from Mars to Pallas in roughly thirty hours. The delay was because both wormhole legs would be long-distance, energy-intensive transfers and finding an available window required patience.

Naomi confirmed that the High Castle wormhole facility currently had the range to reach Pallas as the asteroid’s present orbital location was on the same side of the Sun as the Earth. The outward leg of the relay would have to be delayed a few hours for the High Castle energy reserves to be restored but the option would still save Uxe at least a day of waiting. She quickly agreed and would be arriving in Earth orbit from Mars in a few minutes.

I was waiting for her arrival in the station’s weightless transport bubble, nervous, as I would be ambushing her. I’d not told her I would be here nor the subject I wished to discuss. Ohmu was elsewhere recharging as I’d asked the android to allow me privacy for this meeting. The spatial distortion waves from the forming wormhole passed through me, increasing my unease. She was about to arrive!

The air pressure changed slightly as the link formed. A null gravity delivery funnel extruded itself from the wormhole torus and seconds later, my ex-wife shot through. She was dressed in spacer coveralls and was clutching a duffle bag of her closest possessions.

Despite her load, she still easily caught herself in the deceleration net and looked around at what she likely expected to be an empty transport chamber. I felt relieved as she broke into a wide smile upon spotting me waiting. Her expression quickly changed as her overpowered brain calculated why I was here to greet her personally.

“A gut feeling and a few nightmares!” an exasperated Uxe stated. “John, really!?”

I shrugged, embarrassed, “I know! But it’s a really, really, strong gut feeling.”

We were still in the weightless section of High Castle but had left the transport bubble. Our ‘chat’ was taking place in the nearby old holo-bubble which contained the huge live map display of the Earth passing below. Naomi had created this space for us back when Uxe and I had first come to High Castle. It was a great place to monitor what was happening down below while conveying just the right sense of leadership and authority which the AI had been trying to impress on me at the time.

I’d occasionally used the space more recently as the micro-com wormholes had extended Naomi’s overwatch to other bodies in the solar system. That fact being demonstrated just now as the blue Earth hovering in front of us was replaced with a huge orb of the reddish Mars.

Uxe did not reply and from her tight-lipped expression, I’d not yet convinced her.

“Also, Picket is hiding something,” I added. “Something even he is not completely aware of.”

I went on to explain my visit with Picket and Kela at their Antarctic isolation lodge. Afterward, she was silent for a long moment before saying that she wanted to discuss this with Kela herself. She then left me in limbo while she went into virtual to chat with our daughter. I diverted myself by playing with the map display of Mars.

A minute later Uxe was back. “I agree that there is something emotionally odd with Picket regarding the Assemblage. I reviewed your discussion with him repeatedly in accelerated virtual. His mind-data was formatted with a subconscious impression, an arrogance almost, about the Assemblage that exceeds what we have so far deduced or directly observed.”

There was a long pause as she floated there thinking. I knew better than to interrupt her and instead directed the floating map display of Mars to zoom into Valles Marineris and finally in on Ben’s isolation lodge outside of Seaside. The igloo-like shape of his surface dwelling came into view.

Outside their lodge was parked a Martian surface buggy. This meant that Ben, Dejah, or both, were currently in residence. I verified that it was a live image and not a delayed recording from some previous daylight period. It was live.

I grinned as I suddenly recognized the buggy as the project hotrod that Ben had been working on. He’d gotten it running! Uxe noticed my happy expression and asked what the good news was. I had to explain the back story of my visit to Ben and Her royal Highness’s lodge and Ben’s project buggy. She just shook her head in the age-old way that women used when thinking ‘Men and their toys!’

“What will you do if I refuse to activate Acid Rain if you ask me to?” she asked.

I just shrugged.

“Clearly you’ve spoken with Jonathon and he either refused your request directly or remained evasive.”

Damn, she was intuitive!

“He said I needed to work things out with you before he decided one way or the other,” I replied, wondering if Jonathon had messaged her immediately after I’d spoken with him.

“I suspected something like that ... and no, he did not contact me before this,” she said.

Damn!

Again, she fell silent and motionless, either deep in thought or off in virtual. I passed the time by using the map globe to survey the Sarissa crater on Vesta. That side of the asteroid was currently in the Sun’s shadow so the image was thermally enhanced.

The ultra-long-ranged wormhole complex was a bizarre mix of cryogenically cold conduit and fixtures adjacent to heat-radiating elements. It was also currently in operation, extending its data collection stalk into some other place every ten seconds or so. The wormhole must be visiting all the deployed probes in Ark space and elsewhere collecting data dumps.

“I’ve been in discussions with Naomi,” Uxe suddenly said, making me jump. “The AI confirms that ongoing mitigation efforts to harden the data infrastructure on Vesta have reduced the risks associated with using Acid Rain to far lower levels than they had been when the device first became operational.”

She gestured towards the image now visible on the holo-globe. “Also, Naomi estimates good chances that the Sarissa array will not be permanently lost if we trigger Acid Rain.”

“That’s great news!” I replied, doubly so as I’d caught her use of ‘we’. At least she was considering it.

“Parts of the mechanism would almost certainly need to be immediately isolated and destroyed, but replacement parts have already been created and stockpiled,” Uxe stated. “This is important as maintaining a working ultra-long-range wormhole facility like Sarissa has become so critical.”

“How close are we to duplicating the facility’s capabilities?” I asked.

“I have not been following that project,” Uxe admitted ruefully. “Naomi?”

The AI responded audibly. “Two facilities that duplicate the capabilities of the Sarissa complex are currently under construction on Luna. The first, Sovnya will be online in seventy-six days. It is a near duplicate of Sarissa in range, aperture diameter, and duration of use. The second facility, Xyston does not yet have a firm completion date.”

I’d known of the first project but like Uxe, had not kept up on the progress of its construction. The other wormhole project ‘Xyston’ I was unaware of. I asked Naomi for more details.

“Xyston is an experimental project being developed by Neo-Truffles, Ganasium, and Stellux,” Naomi explained. “If successful, it will offer an increased range of nearly twenty light years, over twice that of Sarissa or Sovnya. It will also feature a variable portal diameter with a larger aperture of one meter being available for ranges below ten light years. Finally, it uses an advanced, asymmetrical helical coil design which should reduce power usage considerably.”

“Wow! Twenty light years!” I exclaimed.

“Indeed,” Uxe added. “With that range we could send scouting probes to Achird and Tau Ceti and establish a presence before Evadere and Sovrana arrive.”

“The important news is that there will be a backup for Sarissa in two and a half months,” I stated. “Even if Acid Rain somehow manages to permanently shut down Sarissa, we’ll soon have an operational replacement.”

Uxe just looked at me for a long moment. I felt myself growing uncomfortable as her gaze lingered.

“John, what will you do if neither Jonathon nor I agree to activate Acid Rain if you request?” she asked carefully.

“Well shit, Uxe!” I quipped. “Here I was hoping that the two of you would agree to do so without my involvement and spare me having to worry about it any longer.”

My evasive attempt at a joke did not dissuade her from continuing to wait silently for my answer. Shit!

“I suppose I would have to wait,” I finally answered seriously.

She still waited, studying me.

“Have I gotten that bad?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” Uxe asked, looking sincerely puzzled.

“I was asking if you think I’ve become corrupt,” I said, softly. “You know, from having absolute power and all that.”

“What the hell, John!? If anyone has started turning themselves into a monster that would be me,” she exclaimed.

“We’ve already discussed that. You’ve altered yourself for the betterment of Mankind! And you still look beautiful ... if a bit exotic. But exotic is good! Right?”