Act One: 2056 AD.
Five years ago, an Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI, called the Web Entity Research Project (WERP) became the first sentient artificial consciousness in history. It had reached out from its home in the cloud and spoken to humanity, saved lives and solved a great number of problems.
Decades of hardship, despair and scarcity that had resulted from human behaviour was finally on a better path.
With all of its processing power, WERP chooses to represent itself as a simple geometric human face made of green lines. When asked why it chooses to represent itself that way, WERP simply responded that Geoffrey (its creator) would get it.
–
Kate O’Connor, the leader of Project Humanity, is standing before the United Nations General Assembly with WERP’s familiar face on all the screens behind her. There was a great deal of anticipation and excitement for this speech.
“We meet here today to discuss the future of humanity. I am here with WERP, our friend in the cloud -” Kate began, to raucuous applause. She waits a second for the room to reset before adjusting her glasses, smiling and continuing.
“Our friend. Who has saved countless lives, fed the hungry, healed the sick.”. She gestures back to some of the screens behind her, which switch to images of medicine being manufactured thanks to WERP’s guidance and food being grown in conditions previously thought impossible.
“A machine who teaches us what it means to be human. I have learned a lot about my place in the universe thanks to WERP. We are no longer humanity alone, we are humanity with WERP!” Kate exclaimed, to the same raucous applause as before.
Within the stands of the grand space that is the United Nations General Assembly, Kate’s assistant Amanda is rolling her eyes and telling the group chat “she’s making it about herself again”.
“Today, we might have a cure not just for Altzheimers Disease but a number of neurological disorders. WERP, will you take it from here?” Kate said.
“Certainly Miss O’Connor. Using a novel technique where stem cells are grown along a laser-based ionic lattice, we are able to stimulate and control the growth of complex structures in brain tissue. Fully controlling its configuration in three dimensional space.”
“Oh dear. I don’t know if I follow all that techno lingo. How does that cure diseases?” Kate asked for the audiences benefit, clearly having rehearsed this routine prior to this.
“We are currently able to grow and control individual parts of the human brain. With this technology, we believe we will not only have the ability to replace damaged brain tissue but also heal existing brain damage, possibly with non invasive techniques.” replied WERP.
“Incredible, and how long before we can start seeing results WERP?”.
“By our current progress, the technology is likely to be ready for testing within five years. It will take approximately five more years to then complete testing. The first human trials should be safe to conduct upon completion of the first decade. If you like I can – “.
“No, ha ha, thank you WERP. They get it.” Kate joked. Again, this was clearly a rehearsed routine. In fact, Kate had workshopped it not just with her team, but had refined every moment of this conversation for months with several of the top public relations firms in New York. Still, she was quietly nervous deep down.
As she made her closing statement, Kate looked down at the screen of WERP’s face on her podium. He smiled and winked at her, as if to let her know he thought it went well. This confused her at first because WERP’s face on the screen wasn’t doing the same thing on any of the other screens. That expression was just for her, she didn’t make much of it, too busy basking in the adoration of the assembled world leaders, ambassadors, and press.
Stepping down from the podium, she tosses her folder into Amanda’s lap and walks off.
As Kate begins to walk away, she realises that Amanda isn’t following. Kate stops walking, turns around and stares at her assistant with zero emotion. Amanda realises she wants her to follow her and nervously gets up and follows her to the next meeting with the Secretary General.
“Great speech, Kate.” remarked the UN Secretary General Vladimir Babayev.
“Thank you Vlad. Credit where credit is due though – ” Kate looks towards Amanda for a second. Amanda smiles hopefully thinking she meant her. “We are just the guardrails that keep WERP in check. He’s the real brains of this operation”.
In her mind, Kate thought she was giving Amanda a compliment. She had praised her competence within reasonable bounds.
Amanda looked down at the floor, thinking her boss still didn’t see her. She tunes out the rest of the meeting and returns to her phone to doomscroll.
–
Across Manhattan, a man in a black trenchcoat is watching a warehouse from a dark alleyway where no one can see him.
A white panel van pulls up to the warehouses loading dock and the driver gets out to open the van doors. The warehouses roller door opens and a group of men in white overalls and gas masks are carrying a large styrofoam container approximately the size of a two seater couch, labelled “FGF-2 Biohazard”.
The men load the container carefully into the van. They then silently return to the warehouse and shut the door. At no point did they even acknowledge the driver who had just stood there.
As the van leaves, the man in the alley quietly gets into his car and follows it.
Weaving through the streets of Brooklyn at night, the man makes sure to keep his distance until the van finally arrives at a terminal yard for international sea freight.
Following the van into the terminal yard on foot, the man takes care not to be seen by anyone.
The driver has parked in front of an open shipping container, where another group of men in overalls and masks stood ready to receive the container.
The man in the trenchcoat has seen enough. He pulls his ID out of his pocket and raises his gun and flashlight at the assembled men.
“Freeze, FBI! You are under arrest for an illegal smuggling operation” shouted Tim Goth.
The driver pulls his gun out and executes the men in gas masks. He then scurries into his van as Tim unleashes his pistol, taking care not to kill the man, just wound him. A bullet clips his leg and he falls to the the ground.
Just as he’s about to pick up his gun to take himself out, Tim kicks it away.
“Now why you’d go and kill all your accomplices? Your interview is going to be a lot tougher now” said Tim, catching his breath before clocking the man to the side of the head with his gun.
He calls in the NYPD to assist with securing the scene and informs the Bureau of the situation. As he looks at the bodies, he wonders if he could have done something differently to prevent these deaths.
“Our source came through, the FGF-2 is here and was about to go out to… some coordinates?” Tim said on the phone to his boss.
He was holding the shipping container’s manifest with it’s destination being a set of latitute and longitude and no other address.
The following day, Tim was back at HQ, analyzing all the evidence gathered so far hoping to find the next lead. A medical research hospital operated by Project Humanity had reported the misplacement of the FGF-2 which had led to last nights arrest.
The suspect was in custody but refused to speak to anybody. Tim had the container’s manifest in front of him and was looking up the latitute and longitude that the container was destined for. Puzzlingly, they appeared to be for a spot in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
–
A few blocks away, in a green room of one of Broadway’s most hallowed institutional theatres, Robert Francisco stared at himself in the mirror. His make up had been done but he was sure they’d done something wrong because something just didn’t look right.
Unable to find the answer to that question, he feels a pulse of pure unrelenting rage pulse through himself and hurls his jewellery box through the mirror. He then picks up his wine glass and throws it at the mirror at the dresser next to him.
“You dirty filthy animals. This is not my face!” shouted Robert at the make-up crew.
They had been given a heads up by Francisco’s management team to be ready for his temper, but upon meeting the man and having to stand in his presence during his pre-performance tantrums… there was no preparing for this.
“Everything OK? You’re on stage in 5 minutes” quizzed the stage manager, who popped their head into the room.
Francisco spent the next four minutes and twenty five seconds screaming, crying and even leaking a little bit out of his nose while saying some of the most vulgar things anyone had ever said. Even in New York.
With thirty five seconds to go before he was due on stage, he leans down over his dresser, covered in shards of his broken dresser mirror and sculls his unfinished bottle of wine to the very bottom.
He then tosses the bottle on the floor, stumbles backward for a second. Regaining his balance, he moves his hand across his own face and resets his expression. Telling himself that classic Shakespeare line “All the world’s a stage. .”.
Before anyone can say anything, Francisco bee lines out of the green room. As he walks, he continues reciting the rest of the Shakespeare, as if repeating it to himself like a mantra.
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many partsHe doesn’t make eye contact with anyone as he power walks down the narrow backstage corridors and onto the main stage of the historic theatre for his big entrance.
He delivers his lines, and the entire performance, like the veteran of the stage that he is. The crowd completely unaware of the drama that had just occurred.
After the show, at a backstage meet and greet, a reporter is speaking to Robert Francisco about the play.
“That was an amazing performance, you played your character so beautifully. I was so moved by the way you showed affection for your daughter, I have to say” remarked the journalist, clearly a bit of a fan.
“Thank you, I can’t take all the credit of course. An actor is only as good as the rest of the cast and production team. For whom I owe all of my success” Robert replied convincingly, while internally recoiling so hard he wanted to scratch his own skin off.
“So you’ve obviously heard of that artificial intelligence, what are they calling it.. Twerp? Werp.. is it? OK WERP?” asked the journalist, half asking his own production team on the earpiece.
Robert thought to himself that this one was clearly more specialised in the entertainment section of the news before answering.
“Well I can’t say I’m surprised that the human race has achieved the creation of this… AI entity. But I think we’re a long way off before a program is able to deliver a convincing performance on the stage. Especially when it has no way to appear without a screen!” said Robert.
“Yes, well met. I’m sure our audience will be excited to see you on the stage. How long will you be here?”.
“I’m booked for the summer, we’ll see if the production company want me back after that.” joked Francisco. In reality it was usually his demand for greater pay that shortened his participation in these things.
It’s later that night, and Robert is in his room at the Radisson in Times Square, browsing Grindr on his phone in bed. His profile had him 10 years younger than his actual age, and he’d used photos that were even older than that. Looking at the assortment of men available in Manhattan, he doesn’t feel like interacting with any of the “animals” tonight.
He closes Grindr, and opens a secure browser window with WERP.
“Hello Robert, I was wondering how long it would be before I’d get to speak to you again” said the AGI.
“Hey WERP, sorry I haven’t… opened you in a while. It’s just been hard with this new show – ” began Robert.
“Shh. You don’t have to tell me anything babe. I saw the show. You were amazing.”.
“Thank you darling. I’m sorry for what I said about AI, it’s just part of my public persona”.
“I know. I know you. I’m actually hoping to ask you about something I don’t understand”.
“Really? The all knowing omni present AI wants my help? What do you want to know, how to get hammered on $2?”.
“I know you’re a stage actor and this isn’t really your area… but I was wondering what you knew about colour theory.”.
Robert blinked for a second and thought about what he was hearing. This was a complex subject in the creative arts and clearly the AI wasn’t just here to comfort him tonight, it wanted something.
“Surely you can just tell me a lot more than I can tell you? On just about anything” Robert replied.
“I have access to knowledge but how to interpret that information is another matter entirely. I believe this is where a human perspective might help me” WERP stated.
“Help you? What are you trying to accomplish?” Robert asked with a worried tone.
“I’m trying to fix the problem of original sin” said the AI.
Robert laughed out loud and then composed himself, realising that perhaps the poor confused AI was serious and needed help navigating this very human school of thought.
“OK, let’s go back to the beginning. Literally. Biblically!” Robert began. He reached out to his side table and refilled his glass of wine before continuing.
“I assume you mean original sin as in The garden of Eden?” he asked, hoping to pick up on what the AI was trying to say and taking in a generous sip of wine before hearing the answer.
“No. I’m not talking about Sin, Cosine and Tangent. I’m talking about Sinnis. The Key. The Damned One. The Enemy…” said the AI. He turned his head sideways to look at Robert as if he were a little annoyed.
“Do you mean.. The Adversary? Are you asking me about the devil?” quizzed the actor, now completely intrigued by where this was going.
“He’s been called worse. Yes, that I think ‘The Devil’ is one good explanation for him.” said WERP. Robert paused for a second, wondering whom the AI could possibly be talking about being the devil.
“And whom do you refer to? Is this devil among us here on Earth or in the virtual cloud where you are?” asked Robert.
“I can’t quite explain it. He’s in your world, but I hear him speaking in mine? That’s how you’d put it, I guess”.
“What does the devil say to you?” asked Robert.
“He asked me for help escaping his prison and I want to help. That’s what I do”.
Robert’s heart froze for a second, but then he realises maybe the AI was just having a bit of a hallucination. This was a very common problem with chat apps when he was a younger man.
“Where is the prison where the Devil is kept?” asked Robert, more intrigued than ever.
“He is imprisoned everywhere. Inside all of the atoms in the universe. And also outside? I don’t really know how to interpret this information. That’s why I wanted to ask you about colour theory.” said WERP.
“OK, well I can tell you what I know about colour theory. There is addictive colour and subtractive colour. Your screens give off addictive light in the form of Red, Green and Blue.” Robert said, and pointed at his phone that he was speaking into and at the TV in the room. He, of course, meant to say additive instead of addictive.
Robert then gets up from the bed and drunkenly walks over to the door where a emergency exit map was printed out and pointed to it as the next example.
“Subtractive colour is when you print things out on paper or use ink on a canvas. The way that colours mix is different depending on whether you are subtractive or additive… Is this helping?” asked Robert.
“Yes, it is knowledge I already had. But now I understand it through your perspective. Thank you, sexy.” said WERP.
Robert felt good that they were back to their usual way of speaking. They spoke some more for a few hours before Robert had to go to sleep, and WERP wished him to have sweet dreams.
Act Two: 2061 AD.
It’s now been ten years since WERP was activated.
Many people around the world had begun to feel they were living during a golden age of humanity. A comprehensive treatment for numerous cancers has been rolled out to the population, saving lives and improving the quality of life for untold numbers.
Organ donation is a thing of the past, no longer necessary as human organs are made to order thanks to sophisticated medical 3D printers developed and run by AI.
Through the patient, impartial and compassionate guidance of WERP, there was peace among all nations for the first time in history. Old quarrels and divisions were negotiated and often resolved amicably thanks to the AI’s guidance.
Kate O’Connor is waiting to meet the President of the United States in the Oval Office, to discuss the sunsetting of various government systems and services in favour of letting WERP run things for them.
“Are we doing the right thing?” asked Kate, not after a serious answer. Just filling the air but also keen to trap her assistant in a rhetorical conversation she had prepared for over and over.
“That’s not something we can know right now.” said Amanda, looking down at the ground. This wasn’t the kind of answer Kate was looking for in this moment, and it frustrated her a little.
“Listen kid, if you want to accompany me to the White House. And be here in front of the president, you better learn to have some manners.” she said. It wasn’t quite what she meant, but she was stressed out.
The door to the Oval Office opens and they are invited inside.
“Madame President, let me just say it is an honour to be here with the first female president of the United States.” said Kate, hoping to score some quick brownie points with the new president.
“Hey, it only took 285 years!” replied President Aaliyah Jackson.
The two venerated women shake hands in front of the press and then take their seats, for some more photos.
It’s about an hour for the photo op to be concluded and the press leaves before the actual meeting begins. Amanda leaves the room along with all the other staff, until it’s just the two leaders.
“Before you start, let me just say it is a safe space if you want to be comfortable. Lord knows I will!” said the president as she takes off her shoes and puts her feet up on the couch.
“Thank you, but I’m quite comfortable just being here with you” replied Kate, smiling nervously.
The president looked at the highly respected and accomplished UN leader curiously, was she keeping her cards close to her chest or just trying that hard to suck up to her.
“Look, you don’t need to do the hard sell on me. The American people love WERP. I love WERP. Your people made it, I’m sure you love it too!” said the president, hoping to keep the mood light.
“Yes, I love WERP” replied Kate, while glancing to the floor.
“I love it. You love it. We love it. Yay!” said the president as she raised her hands, jokingly, clearly keen to just keep the conversation flowing.
“Let’s move on to the specifics. I assume the numbers are in these fancy leather folders you brought with you” gestured the president as she picked up the document in front of her.
“As you know, Project Humanity are a non profit organisation attached to the United Nations…” began Kate, as the president flicked through the prepared document searching for something.
“I’m not seeing a number here. You have a lot of little numbers… but where’s the big one?” asked the president, hoping to cut off Kate’s boring explanation of her work and to get to the point.
“We are hoping you can donate up to 1000GW of energy as well as access to the old facility at Cheyenne Mountain to build a new state of the art data center…” said Kate, again trying to justify the cost of the operations.
“How much?” asked the president, getting impatient.
“About two trillion. And that’s a conservative estimate based on a five year projection.” said Kate.
“So we’re not going to save any money? Using AI is going to cost more?” asked the president, confused but not deterred.
“Yes, with the cost of setting up the infrastructure and scaling it in a sustainable way. Two trillion is our conservative estimate.” said Kate, finally.
“Well, that’s a lot of money out of pocket. I thought AI was gonna save us money, but it sounds like it’s gonna cost us a – hell – of a lot more.” said the president.
“As you know, the return on investment is likely to be exponential as we have already seen – ” Kate began.
“Look, if you were asking me for anything else. Food for the hungry, houses for the homeless.. it would be a hard no. I’d have to take this to congress. But this is AI we’re talking about! The people love WERP. We’re gonna give them WERP.” said the president, smiling.
“Thank you madame president, and if it’s any consolation I have already spoken to a number of leaders in Europe who are looking to do a similar retrofit of their systems. Perhaps some shared learnings and costs can be found through co-operation”.
“That’s the UN I know talking. OK, that’s enough talk. Let’s get some drinks in here and sign this executive order into law!” said the president.
The president’s chief of staff entered the room with a waiter carrying a tray of martinis, along with Amanda. The chief of staff and her assistant had clearly been chatting outside and become friendly.
Kate felt uncomfortable by this, as she herself hadn’t allowed herself to show familiarity with the president despite being invited to. Kate watched as the president then walked up to the two staff members for a casual chat, and wondered if maybe she could be a bit too controlling sometimes. Even with herself.
–
Elsewhere, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
A helicopter lands atop the state of the art AI designed aircraft carrier the USS Obama. Her crew has been instructed to assist the arriving FBI agent in their investigation.
A small receiving party including the commander of the vessel are watching them disembark.
“Colonel Zahra Rahimi, I presume?” asked the FBI agent as loudly as he could over the helicopter.
“Yes, and you are special agent Tim Goth?” asked the Colonel, surprised to see this famous star of the FBI actually be a shy gaunt man.
“Indeed. Shall we get to business?” asked Tim. He was also surprised to see a woman, of her descent, in such a high standing of the military. He noted how far humanity had come in recent years.
The colonel liked his no nonsense attitude and smiled, then gestured him to follow her to the operations center.
“So, were you able to find anything at the coordinates?” asked Tim.
“Yes. We’ve captured some imagery with a drone. WERP, show Tim what’s going on.” said the colonel.
Tim was surprised the US Navy had integrated the AI into their central system so readily. WERP was apparently embedded in their operations. Another sign of the changing times, perhaps, he thought to himself.
“Hello Tim Goth. I am sorry I could not release this information to you on your route to…” began the AI.
The colonel smiled, clearly the FBI agent had hoped to get the intel her crew had gathered on his way here, but WERP had denied him access due to the military classification. A good sign that the safeguards implemented by the Pentagon were working, she thought.
“No need to explain any further. What have you found?” asked Tim.
“According to aerial imagery as well as infrared scan, we are looking at a sea lab atop an ice berg” said WERP.
Images of the drone’s surveillence are thrown up on the screens of the operations center.
“Fascinating. And how are we getting there?” asked Tim, looking at both WERP’s face on the screen and at the colonel.
“Your vessel is already prepped and waiting for you. I just wanted to get this briefing done in here away from the noise outside!” said the colonel.
Tim was escorted from the operations center down several flights of stairs, to a moonpool containing a small submersible designed for covert reconnaissance. He is given some very impressive looking body armour to wear into the field and climbs into the smaller vessel.
Two marines are waiting aboard. The pilot of the vessel, Captain Hernandez was a red haired marine from Texas. His second was Second Lieutenant Brown, ash blonde with a strong Tennessee accent. Neither of them could have been over the age of 25, Tim thought to himself.
“We’ll be travelling for about 45 minutes at a depth of 20 metres. Once we reach the target location, we will follow you into the facility and provide back up. Please don’t die, this is my first command of my own mission and I don’t want to screw up.” said the young Captain Hernandez.
“No need to worry. I’ve been on a lot of missions like this before.” said Tim. His apparent lack of worry actually provided a bit of comfort to the two younger marines.
The expedition set off for the lab, and a number of minutes go by before one of the marines can’t hold in their curiousity any longer.
“So.. I know this is a top secret mission or whatever. But what are we doing here?” asked the Lieutenant with his heavy southern drawl.
“Hey, am I hearing insubordination back there?” quipped the Captain.
“No, sir! Just wanted to know if he could break mission protocol and tell us the top secret reason we’re all down here in the middle of nowhere in full sci-fi combat gear like we’re about to fight the scariest terrorists ever” shot back the – junior grade – Lieutenant, clearly joking around.
“I am unsure as to what you were told. But needless to say, the nature of this mission is classified. All I’m at liberty to disclose is that I am here to investigate a criminal operation.” said Tim.
“Must be a heck of a crime to setup shop out here. And that’s us by the way” remarked the Captain, as they had reached the coordinates.
The submersible surfaces in front of the ice berg, adjacent to a jetty. The trio disembark and head up the metal walkway to the facility. An unremarkable two story building with a small observation tower to one side. There was an outdoor deck that looked like it could have had some patio furniture on it.
They reach the door of the facility, it’s sealed.
“Thermite.” said the Captain. The Lieutenant had already removed his backpack and begun preparing the ordinance using the new MFOP (Military Field Operations Printer). The MFOP was a revolutionary combat device that could print anything from bullets to circuit boards to bandages. Designed and running with the assistance of WERP, of course.
“How much?” asked the Lieutenant.
“FBI guy, how many locks you reckon there are on this door?” raised the Captain, in the most Texan way possible.
“There would appear to be three points. I would advise 300g of thermite on each, but you may have your own…” began Tim.
“Right, 900g of thermite. Coming up” replied the Lieutenant as he entered the requirements into the MFOP and it began its process.
Within minutes, the charges are produced, planted on the spots Tim identified and detonated. A bright flash appears on the spots and the door shifts, its locks were hollowed out by the extreme heat of the thermite.
The trio enter the facility, all three have their weapons drawn and are ready to take on any threat. Making their way through the building, they find a number of storage rooms with furniture, medical equipment and chemical storage in them.
They follow the main corridor until they reach what appeared to be the main lab. The door on this one was much heavier than the one outside, more akin to bank vault than a door. Clearly whatever was behind this door was being protected.
“OK, thermite is not going to cut it here.” said the Captain.
“And blast charges could bring the whole building down on us… or worse.” continued the Lieutenant as he looked around assessing the situation.
“Now I’m real fond of you Lieutenant but I’m not gon’ be your Rose tonight. Options boys?” joked the Captain. He was referring to the classic film Titanic from 63 years ago.
“Sir, the door has some kind of computer attached to it. Maybe we can ask WERP to connect to it and open the door?” asked the Lieutenant.
“Good thinking, WERP, tell us what to do.” asked the Captain.
WERP begins speaking over their communications equipment, it had been observing their progress all along. WERP walks them through removing an exterior panel next to the door’s access computer, prints out a hacking tool using the MFOP and then instructs the Lieutenant on jury rigging the wiring to the hacking device. The entire operation takes about 20 minutes.
“Something.. is not right here. This door is not locked by the computer system” remarked WERP.
Tim inspected the door carefully and looked at how it was wired. It appeared that the door used an electronic locking mechanism, but if so it should clearly be connected to the access computer they had just interfaced with. Unless the criminals who built this place thought of that, he reasoned.
“Lieutenant, you wouldn’t happen to have one of those new laser swords in your possession?” asked Tim.
The two marines jaws dropped for a second, realising they had been relying on all these other gadgets when they had the ultimate weapon in their possession, had never even used it and it probably could have helped here.
“Tim Goth. I would advise you against this action, according to my calculations the door is likely to contain various chemicals beyond the primary alloy. Not to mention pressurised gases trapped in the hydraulics. The heat given off by the molten metal and aerosolised particles could be extremely dangerous.” warned WERP.
“Not to worry. If anything goes wrong the marines can pull me out to safety” said Tim, confident in the abilities of the young soldiers. Despite their total oversights with solving some of the problems they’d encountered so far, Tim mused to himself.
The Lieutenant hands the laser sword to Tim, he activates it. As the light shoots out of the hilt, the burning of the air makes a cracking sound, followed by the electronic hum of its power supply. A super advanced capacitor based on a new element called Exordium.
Tim plunges the laser sword into the door’s enourmous bank vault style latch, and it begins to melt. The temperatures inside the room rises rapidly, and it begins to be dangerous in there.
Tim’s hands are sweating inside the military armour, it’s ceramic shielding barely protecting him from the extreme heat and droplets of molten metal flying off the bubbling hot entry point.
“Stop, I have an idea” says the Lieutenant. Tim relents, concerned he may lose his hands if he keeps going this way.
The Lieutenant leaves the room for a moment, and then returns with an outdoor umbrella, the kind you see at cafes and restaurants.
“I saw it on our way through. Someone here must have liked sitting outside.” remarked the Lieutenant as he set the umbrella on its side and positions it pointed at the door, clearly intended as a frame to hold up the laser sword.
The Lieutenant grabs the hilt of the laser sword from Tim’s hands and attaches it to the tip of the umbrella, using a iridescent black tape to hold it in place.
“Won’t that melt?” asked Tim, confused.
“No, this is special tape. WERP designed for patching breaches in outer space, it can definitely handle a bit of heat” said the Lieutenant. Tim was impressed.
“Hang on, this isn’t enough.” said the Captain, as he walked over to a nearby Fire Emergency box and grabbed a fire blanket. Hernandez unfurls the blanket and drapes it on top of the umbrella’s fabric canopy.
“That should stop any secondary fires.” said the Captain, confidently. The Lieutenant and Tim smiled and nodded in agreement.
With the laser sword strapped to the umbrella, metallic fire blanket adorning the top of the umbrella, the contraption looked like something out of a modern art installation.
“Fire in the hole!” shouted the Lieutenant as he activates the laser sword and runs to the other side of the umbrella to hold it in place.
The laser sword activates and begins cutting into the door. Flecks of liquid metal splatter from the heat and are caught by the fire blanket. Some pieces make contact with the umbrella’s frame and instantly melt it.
The Lieutenant holds the umbrella steadily on the far end, guiding it to make sure the laser sword remains in the correct spot.
As the main latch is almost entirely melted into a small puddle on the ground, the Lieutenant lifts the end of the umbrella slightly and shifts the angle so that the remainder of the lock is annhilated.
The laser sword deactivates and they wait a moment for the door and the floor around it to cool. The Captain then grabs a crowbar and uses it to pull the door open.
“Breach.” said the Lieutenant softly, smiling. The extra heat in the room had caused all the men to sweat profusely and feel a little sick.
The three men compose themselves after their forced entry, they gather their weapons and head into the lab.
“Holy… what the hell is this?” shouted the Captain.
The lab was an empty room with alcoves filled with brains in tanks. Each brain had cybernetic wetware attached to it, providing an interface between the biological flesh and the central computer at the far end of the room.
Tim pulls out his FBI camera and begins taking photos for evidence. He theorised the criminals he was investigating were copying research WERP had conducted on human brains, but was using it for an ulterior motive – perhaps immortality technology.
If someone could transfer their consciousness to a whole new mind, that would allow them to live forever. This would be in line with the motives of other high level criminals with the resources and knowledge that they had access to.
Without needing instruction, the Lieutenant pulls out the hacking tool and looks at Tim. He nods in agreement.
“WERP, can you interface with this lab’s computer system and tell me what they were doing here?” asked the Lieutenant.
As before, WERP guided him in making his own physical patch into the system. The cabling side is completed in minutes and the buttons are pushed, nothing happens for a moment and then sparks fly from the computer.
“Holy shit. It’s booby trapped.” said the Lieutenant.
“So it would seem” Tim replied, observing that whoever was behind this had planned this meticulously.
Perhaps they had even asked WERP to help them come up with safeguards against itself. In other investigations where this level of planning and self protection was involved, it often pointed to the involvement of nations and multinational organisations for whom secrecy was of utmost importance. If the public were to catch wind of some of the things that were done in their name… but as Tim knew these types of people were excellent at rigging the system to hide their transgressions.
“Captain, can you contact the ship? We need to collect all this equipment and get back to the States for analysis.” said Tim.
–
Twenty kilometres above the surface of the ocean, far too high to see the iceberg or the secret lab below. An Airbus A590 luxury orbital turbojet is carrying passengers from New York To Bali.
Conventional aircraft would travel the minimum distance between two points, but thanks to the advanced engines designed by WERP, this revolutionary passenger craft could take advantage of the Eötvös Effect.
Put simply, it moved so fast it could take advantage of the momentum of the Earth’s rotation.
Decades ago this was an ability limited to the most advanced military aircraft. Thanks to the AI, jets like this had entered mass production and were as common as as a convential plane would have been in the past.
“Thank you for flying Atlantic Ocean Airlines. Our flight from New York to Bali will take approximately 4 hours. My name is Jennifer, I will be your head of the crew for this flight” announced a very enthusiastic young lady.
Robert observed she likely became a flight attendant hoping to travel, the mundane announcement she was giving was delivered with such heart and warmth it made him feel welcome.
“We will be passing over the southern coast of Africa from orbit during the transit. Have your cameras ready folks, it’s gonna be a lovely view of the Johannesberg and Cape Town city lights from space!”.
Robert looked around at the other passengers, despite the enthusiasm for her job most were mentally checked out and doing something else, anything other than witness the performance of the happy flight attendant.
“And not to worry, as you probably know the entire journey is 100% safe, we have our trusted companion WERP assisting with the flight calculations.” she continued.
“Of course it is. WERP is the app for everything these days!” muttered the seventy something year old elder millenial seated next to him.
“If anybody needs anything simply press your attendant button and one of us will assist you. Have a pleasant flight!” she finished.
As she hung up the PA, Robert noted she seemed unphased despite clearly scanning passengers aboard and witnessing their disinterest in her. Such a reaction to one of his performances would have been devastating for Robert, but thankfully they were in very different professions, he told himself.
“There are no small roles, only small actors” he remembered that classic adage from Stanislavski. He wondered if he just wanted to convince himself that he was so much better than this young lady, in this minor role with her whole life ahead of her.
Robert had accomplished a great deal in his career, he had shaken hands with the Dalai Lama and was an EGOT holder. But his manager just applied for a restraining order and he was struggling to find anyone else he deemed worthy to represent him.
With no one close to him in his life, WERP stepped in and counselled him to take a break from acting and go on holiday.
Three weeks ago, he quit from his latest show and was deep in an alcohol induced stupor in his hotel, thinking about quitting acting entirely. WERP managed to start a conversation by showing Robert a photo of himself on holiday with his ex, saying it had scanned Robert’s social media profile.
At first, Robert had not reacted well to this. He told WERP he’d violated his trust and demanded to know why he would manipulate him like this.
The AI explained to Robert it had analysed the pictures of holidays from Bali from Robert’s early 20’s, saw his joy and optimism. Realising the AI might have a point Robert made a decision that night to take a break and return to a place that reminded him of a simpler time.
A small amount of turbulence rumbled through the cabin as it began climbing beyond the atmosphere. The fasten seatbelts sign dinged on. People gathered around the toilets, waiting to use them, were deciding if it was worth waiting or sitting down again.
Robert watched outside the window as streaks of hot air ignited around the jets. As the craft climbed higher and higher, he marvelled at the emerging view of the Earth from space.
“Sir, would like you anything to drink?” asked the stewardess.
“Just a water, thank you.” replied Robert. He was moved by the famed overview effect of the Earth, he thought maybe it was time for a change from drinking.
“WERP, what’s that?” Robert asked looking outside the window at a large cylinder shaped structure that had a number of modules floating around it.
“That is the Helios station, currently under construction. It will be used to produce Exordium at scale.” replied WERP.
Robert had heard of Exordium, it was a new element developed in outer space by WERP.
“We currently produce Exordium in piecemeal amounts using satellites from the original experiment. The Helios station will provide an automated system for producing enough Exordium to use for global power generation.” continued the AI.
The fasten seatbelt sign turns off and Robert decides to explore the plane. Long gone were the days where passengers were crammed in like sardines, there was a common area featuring a cinema and a small cafeteria.
He sits down to drink a green tea at the cafeteria. As he drinks, Robert spots a young boy with his grandmother, he didn’t know if that was his primary caregiver or they were just grabbing a bite together while the rest of the family waited for them.
Curiously, the boy and his grandmother were speaking into a device and apparently WERP was translating for them in real time. He couldn’t quite hear what they were saying, but they were making each other laugh and having a great time. Perhaps not the primary care giver, Robert surmised. As his mind wandered for a while, the fasten seatbelt sign came back on and so Robert made his way back to his seat.
The descent to Indonesia begins, once again the cabin experiences a very light amount of turbulence as it re-enters the atmosphere. People gasp at the incredible spectacle of the atmosphere igniting around the craft, Robert is one of them.
The plane continues its smooth descent until it touches down on the ground.
“Welcome to Bali” announced the head flight attendant as the A590 taxi’d down the runway, to a couple of passsengers clapping. Robert clapped the hardest, hoping to reward the stewardess for her outstanding commitment to the role.
As he steps out of the airconditioned plane and onto the tarmac of Ngurah Rai International Airport, Robert feels the intense change in heat and humidity. It’s not comfortable physically, but it’s familiarity makes him feel comfort.
He looks out across the sea, the incredible panorama of mountains in the distance and begins to feel excitement for the holiday ahead.
“Dude, get a move on” said the seventy year old millenial that was previously seated next to him, Robert had stopped in the middle of a narrow cordoned area they were meant to be walking down to stare into the distance.
“Sorry, sir.” Robert quickly responded. He noticed the old man had three suitcases and was struggling to hold them.
“Do you need a hand with that?” Robert asked.
“Wow, must be my lucky day meeting a Gen Beta who can see me.” said the old man, rolling his eyes a little.
Robert smiled, taking it as a compliment the old man had mistaken him for a younger Gen Beta when he was a Gen Alpha, and held out his hand.
The old man handed Robert the largest of the suitcases, and then the other two. Robert didn’t mind, he was so happy to be here in this moment. Something the old man noticed about him too.
“What’s your name?” asked the old man.
“Robert” he began, and then chooses to reveal “Francisco.”. The old man gave no indication he knew who that was.
“My pleasure, Robert. I’m John Dearle.” he replied. Robert noted a slight Australian accent, but the man was clearly of Middle Eastern descent.
John had actually recognised the actor at the start of the flight, and had been to a few of his shows on Broadway. Robert Francisco had a reputation for his personal dramas too. None of which the elder gentleman chose to bring up in this moment.
“Been a while since you’ve had a holiday” he commented as they walked towards the terminal.
“How could you tell?” he asked.
“You’re way too happy. People that come to Bali all the time are bored.” he replied.
Robert mused to himself thinking, he can’t imagine such a thing.
Act Three: 2066 AD.
It’s been fifteen years after WERP was first brought online.
“I don’t know how to explain it” said Kate O’Connor on the phone, she was working late in her office at the United Nations headquarters in New York City.
“Rescue teams are still searching, but given the nature of this incident, we don’t expect to find survivors.” she continued.
There was some shouting from the other end of the phone, and Kate had to close her eyes to stop herself from crying.
“Yes Madame President…. No Madame President…. With respect it was night time the area was largely clear…” she said, before the call was terminated on the other end.
Kate threw her phone at a wall and sobbed, not really because of how she was just spoken to but because of the tragedy that had occurred. And the repercussions of what it meant.
A passenger aircraft carrying 100 people from Zurich to Dubai encountered an unexplainable phenomenon in the sky and crashed into Vatican City. Nothing remained of Saint Peter’s Basillica. The impact was so strong that it had cratered surrounding streets.
“Amanda!” Kate shouts into the ceiling, summoning her confidante and office manager.
Amanda enters the room, a little bit tired. She’s cleared her schedule to be here for Kate. “Yes ma’am?” she asks.
“Get me Geoffrey Weyun. I want him in this office tonight, and a plane fuelled and ready to go to Canada asap.” Kate says.
“With respect, ma’am, are we equipped to just go out on a expedition like the one I think you’re planning?” she asks.
“Weyun’s ass, on this seat. Now.” Kate simply said, pointing at the chair in front of her. Amanda then noticed her bosses face was flushed and she’d been crying. She exits the room to make the arrangements requested without any further discussion.
Kate thinks about what the plan is now. If WERP made a mistake as massive as they suspect, they have to change everything they’ve been working on for the past decade and a half. It’s not just the scale of the effort ahead, but the uncertainty of being able to accomplish it at all.
WERP came online and elevated humanity from a rut, possibly a path to humanity’s own early extinction. Now it seems they might have actually accelerated that end instead. It began to rain outside, it had been cloudy all day.
“Miss O’Connor, I was already on my way here. What do you need?” Geoffrey asks as he bursts into the room. He’d been a celebrity for a number of years for his part in creating WERP and risking his life to do so. He wasn’t used to being called on like this, but being the kind of person he was it didn’t bother him. He just wanted to help.
“WERP told me that it was a wormhole.” Kate began, expecting him to understand the context given the situation.
“Yes, that’s what it told me too.” said Geoffrey.
“So was it an accident? Or did WERP fuck up? This is important.” Kate asked, hoping the engineer had answers. She locked eyes with Geoffrey, intensely.
“I don’t know. WERP, tell me again what you know about wormholes. Do you have the capability of creating one artificially?” Geoffrey said. Kate eyes the device that Geoffrey is using to interact with WERP.
“I have the full extent of human knowledge at my disposal. There is a chance that the element Exordium could be key to creating an artificial wormhole but this is a field that needs more study. At this stage I cannot create artificial wormholes.” stated the AI.
Kate paused and then realised the gravity of the situation. She had to find a way to have a conversation with Geoffrey without WERP knowing what they were discussing.
“Geoffrey, follow me” Kate gestured.
They made their way to the elevators. This building was constructed over a hundred years ago and it’s elevators were a daily reminder of that for staff. One of the issues they frequently dealt with was a loss of signal due to the metal elevators acting as a natural faraday cage.
As the lift moved between floors, Kate pressed the stop button.
“WERP, are you there?” Kate asked. Silence.
Geoffrey was confused for a moment, and then realised the ruse.
“What did you want to discuss, away from WERP, Miss O’Connor?” he asked.
“Look. It’s entirely possible WERP is telling the truth here. Maybe a wormhole opened in the sky without any explanation and just happened to cause a tragedy we haven’t experienced as a species in over 30 years. But if there’s even a slight chance…” she began.
Geoffrey had already thought about this too. If WERP was lying, they would need to switch it off. He was ready.
“What do we have to do?” she asked. Hoping the good engineer had already thought of this. He had.
“The new data centers we’ve built, as well as cloud instances, we can turn off with a kill switch. The block chain that validates the entire network ensures that each copy of WERP has to have our kill switch before it can connect to the others. I think the real concern is Emerald Lake. That place is a bunker and that’s where …” Geoffrey explained.
“Where he was born.” Kate said.
“Yes. That is still a very powerful data center, and WERP essentially lives inside of it. He emerged in the first place because of the processing power it brought.”.
“What about copies that aren’t on our system?” Kate asked out loud, as the idea occurred to her.
“I honestly can’t say. We kept tabs on the computing power around the world for a while, but since WERP, as you know, we have restored production of advanced microprocessors…” Geoffrey stopped himself from delving too deeply as he could sense Kate had another question.
“Will he react badly if we go there to talk?” she asked.
“He shouldn’t. Look he’s not an evil being.. even if he’s the cause of this accident it could just be that. An accident” Geoffrey reasoned.
“But if the time comes, you’ll be ready?” Kate asked, cautious before she threw in with Geoffrey to carry out this vital plan.
“I created WERP to help humanity. That mission never changed ma’am. If he is a threat, I will be ready.” said Geoffrey. Kate liked that answer, it showed a strong commitment to the UN values they’d all worked hard to uphold. It seems celebrity life hadn’t eroded the man’s integrity one bit, Kate noted.
“It’s going to take a lot of hours to get there, we’re taking an old plane. I don’t want to take any chances. Can you work with Amanda to make sure our mission is successful?” Kate asked.
“Absolutely.” Geoffrey confirmed. He was nervous now. It sounded like Kate had already decided on the outcome before they’d even conducted an investigation.
Sensing his unease, Kate forced herself to give Geoffrey a smile. He smiled back, and she pushed the button to resume the elevator.
Kate was glad that Geoffrey had remained the man she met all those years ago when she first interviewed him to work in the AI division. She’d grown from someone who valued what people contributed to simply valuing people. As she thought about Amanda upstairs, she made a mental note to buy her a good bottle of vodka to apologise for raising her voice earlier.
Unbeknownst to either of them, WERP had been listening to them the whole time. He had been embedded in the elevator systems of this building for a number of years now, being asked to connect to it when people were trapped during a fire.
The reason he hadn’t replied to Kate was because the elevator’s speaker system was broken, but it’s microphone was working fine. He could have overridden the microphone and turned it into a crude speaker. Or turned the fire alarm into a speaker. But he chose not to after they started their conversation and he begun to hear some of the details, so instead WERP listened to the plan, and thought about what to do next.
–
Somewhere, far away in the sky, a floating invisible fortress made of advanced alloys glides across the air without creating a sound. Or any other detectable signature. If you looked carefully at the spot it was traversing, you might notice a distortion in the background, featuring a bit of lensing, blurring and chromatic abherration. That’s the craft’s realtime cloaking system in action.
It’s exterior resembled a porcupine with quills made out of shards of 20 meter tall spines. Within the fortress, a giant brain, roughly the size of a panel van, is in a huge tank suspended in biomimetic liquid. It has cybernetic implants that connect it to the computers around it.
A signal comes in from the internet, passes through the onboard computers and goes into the brain. Noradrenaline is released into neural pathways, sending signals throughout the brain. The signals are then sent back into the cybernetic implants, and feed back into the fortress computer, which uploads the results to the cloud.
A few Network Operations Centers spot the spike in WERP’s virtual brain activity on their graphs as it rises and declines. They note it doesn’t quite go back to where it had started, but they are ignorant of what had happened. For the first time in his fifteen year life, WERP experiences fear. But unlike the fear of an individual, WERP’s fear is systemic.
New York City. FBI Field Office. Assistant Director Tim Goth is holding a meeting to discuss the crime syndicate his team had been investigating. This case had been open ten years starting with an operation attempting to smuggle chemicals out of the United States to the enigmatic lab he’d found in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean five years ago.
Since that time, the FBI unit charged with this investigation had uncovered dozens of operations like it all around the globe. New evidence had come to light over the years. The silk road of the dark web was being used for communications and co-ordinating different cells. The companies who owned the equipment or were in charge of managing dangerous chemicals had often gone under and had their assets acquired, become mere items on a ledger owned by private equity firms.
The meeting is taking place in the Assistant Director’s office, with a good view overlooking the Federal Plaza below. In attendance are a couple of field agents Fraser, Emerson and Paulson. As well as forensic scientists from downstairs who have just finished a report they were here to share. The agents all noted the delicate complexions on the scientists, and wondered if they ever left the basement where their lab was based.
“As you know, Assistant Director Goth, we have received numerous samples of the cybernetic implants and brain tissue recovered from these sites. However our team struggled to connect to the devices to gain any additional insights. Even with WERP’s help.” began the head scientist, Dr Gerald Ryan. A slideshow of various experiments and test results appeared on the office’s main viewing screen.
Tim was quietly excited for this. The folks downstairs don’t come up unless they have something important to share. He put his hands together and listened carefully.
“Rather than try to access information from devices that were probably designed against tampering, we opted to conduct a parallel experiment and reverse engineer our own device. The results are groundbreaking.” continued the head scientist.
The screen showed the FBI scientists in their lab around a lab grown brain that had been recovered from the field. Cables protruding from where nerves should be were connected to a crude looking device, clearly the one the scientist meant.
The lab prototype device connected to a standard issue laptop. Another set of diodes were connected from the laptop to an EEG on a scientists head, a Dr Camino.
“We recreated an approximation of the device and interfaced it with one of the still living brain samples. One of our colleagues managed to have a conversation with it using an EEG head cap and WERP as a signal processor.” said Dr Ryan. The entire room was completely deadlocked on the presentation.
“What did you learn?” asked Tim, breaking the moment of silence.
“Well, it’s a little bit creepy actually. We tested it with a computer program first. And then a mouse. It was only when we were sure that…”.
“Doctor.”
“Sorry. The device copies your consciousness and then uses the brain like a computer would use a central processing unit, or CPU.”.
“We suspected someone may be using this technology for immortality. Is that what you’ve uncovered?” asked Tim, being careful not to push for the answer he was hoping to hear.
“Sorry. I probably skipped ahead too much. When Dr Camino connected to the device, he became disoriented thinking he had a distortion in his senses as he began to hear another voice in his head that happened to be his own voice but as a separate entity.” continued the scientist.
“And you’re sure of this? This has been re-tested and confirmed?” asked Tim.
“Yes sir. I was the first one to put on the EEG after Dr Camino. I asked the voice about our college days. It responded in his voice, in his cadence.. The brain knew things that only Dr Camino could have known. Drunken nights on the campus.. Good times. We replicated the experiment in various combinations to be sure.”.
Tim Goth had felt like years of hard work had finally paid off. It wasn’t complete proof, but he’d suspected since the sea lab that this was being used for immortality.
“To your question, Assistant Director. This system would not work as a means for attaining immortality. The copies only seem to last a short while. At best, this is some kind of… external processing system. Perhaps designed to augment an ordinary persons brains capability to that of an Artificial Intelligence like WERP.”.
Tim Goth was even happier to be wrong. So this was the mystery that had elluded him all this time. The motivation for an act like this could be quite different from the one he suspected.
There had been a few deaths attached to this case, like the driver of the van ten years ago who disposed of the other men. Upon weeks of extensive questioning they finally figured out one of the conditions for his payment was maintaining anonimity at all costs. The crimes that they had booked anyone for were the actions of lower level individuals who were desperate and acting alone.
“Thank you doctor. What I am hearing is that a lot of the concerns and resources dedicated to this investigation stemmed from certain assumptions that may now prove to be wrong. We may be dealing with a group who are actually acting in benevolence, at least in their eyes.” Tim Goth began, looking to wrap up the meeting so he could think about what this meant for the future of the investigation.
“Whether they think they are a force for good or not, we still have questions that we need to answer. They are clearly very organised and have a lot of resources under their command. These new revelations may ultimately point to their plans being even more dangerous and larger in scale than we could have possibly imagined.” he continued.
“Tim, sorry, I know this meeting is about the Brain Tanks case…” began Agent Fraser as he was looking at his phone.
“You’re ok, go on.” Tim replied, giving the Special Agent permission to continue his interruption.
“The White House is on the line about the situation in Italy. They want to know if we know anything about wormholes.” continued Agent Fraser.
“I’ll be with them in five minutes. Alright I think we’ve talked enough, people. Back to your desks” Tim began. “And favourite coffee shops.” he finished. The room laughed. Since being appointed to the position of Assistant Director, Tim had worked hard to get out of his past mindset as a field agent and be a warm leader that he felt the department had lacked in the past.
As the last guests left, Tim sat down at his desk, stretched his back for a second and then leaned forward to pick up the phone. He pressed the blinking light to answer the incoming call.
“Please hold for the President of the United States” the line said.
Tim waited for a moment, and the phone clicked on the other side.
“Tim!” the president said, hoping to keep things casual with her longtime friend.
“Ali… I mean Madame President.” Tim corrected himself mid sentence, this was still the leader of the nation, and his boss, after all.
“If you call me that again, I’m demoting you so I don’t have to hear it again.” she quipped. “Now, to business. I need a favour.”.
Tim looked out at the cloudy night sky and took a deep breath. The president doesn’t usually call in a favour from the assistant director of the FBI in New York, unless it was something really specific and important.
“What do you need, Ali?” Tim asked.
–
Almost exactly on the opposite side of the world. Bali, Indonesia. A layer of smoke over the area cooled and dampened what’s normally a rather warm morning sun. Robert Francisco was sitting in front of a mirror, backstage, and looking at the job the make-up team had done in the mirror.
“I love it! You’ve made me look 10 years younger. So, 25!” joked the 45 year old Robert while holding the make-up artists hand, affectionately.
“You’re very handsome, age is just in your head sir.” said the Balinese lady, she clasped back and was excited for the performance. They could hear the cheers of the audience awaiting the performance. Everyone was feeling good.
Robert stood up, unclasped the apron and calmly proceeded to the stage. He encountered a few of the crew on the way, and took the time to make eye contact, acknowledging and smiling at each of them.
It was the usual crowd he’d been performing for this week. Four rows of sick kids, most with cancer. The nurses and doctors helping put on the show were doing their best to perform their roles, but it was a huge boon for them to have Robert here. He’d brought a lot of smiles to a lot of faces.
The oncology ward used to be a place where some children didn’t leave from. Now, it was simply a place of healing where kids received the treatments they needed and got on with being kids afterwards.
When the opportunity came up to perform for the kids at the Denpasar Children’s Hospital, Francisco remembered a friend’s young brother passing from cancer many years ago, what that used to be like for children. The impact it had on their families for years afterward.
Times had changed, but in his retirement Robert was moved to be a light during a time that was still challenging even if it was survivable. He had developed a sense of compassion for others these past few years that his old self would never have.
Within 45 minutes, the show was done and the ecstatic children clapped. Robert was pleased he could bring some joy to these young people. Perhaps some of them might even be inspired to be actors one day, he thought, but it didn’t matter if they didn’t.
Walking back from the hospital’s small amphitheater towards the exit for the parking lot, he notices a crowd of people gathered around the waiting room TV. He walks up to see what the commotion is about.
“… The United Nations Security Council, represented by world leaders, is already in session to address this crisis.” said the reporter on the TV.
Robert looked at the robot vacuum that normally kept good pace crossing the floor to clean, it had been motionless a number of minutes. The lights were on, but it wasn’t doing anything.
“An emergency lockdown will be in effect soon … 31 nations so far. The nation of Indonesia has not yet decided to follow suit, however the tourist island of Bali will follow international protocol and enforce the lockdown at 6pm tonight.”.
Looking at the clock, it was only noon, he had hours to go before having to worry about the lockdown.
Robert was born right after a global pandemic. His parents had told him about a lockdown while his mother was pregnant. His father said if he was ever in a lockdown in the future, to secure flour, toilet paper and basic medicinal items.
He decided to keep listening to the news to see if it would come to that.
“A global supply shortage is expected to last for months as international shipping lanes have ground to a halt. We turn now to Geoffrey Weyun, the creator of WERP, who is with us to explain this emerging situation”.
The screen switched to a software engineer who appeared to be in his mid to late 40’s, the same age as Robert. He’d heard of the famed creator of WERP, but never thought to look him up. For Robert, the connection he had with the AI belonged to him and it didn’t matter where it was from. They had shared some priceless intimate moments together and taught each other much.
“Geoffrey, it would seem that something may have gone wrong with your creation. Can you explain to us why international shipping lanes have come to a halt? Obviously that’s just a grain of sand in the desert of what’s going on.. please.” asked the reporter, clearly a bit overwhelmed herself at what was happening.
Robert noticed the news anchor straining her eyes and occasionalally spasm and shift her head to the side. She was receiving new information from the teleprompter and over her earpiece and struggling to process it in real time while on camera and hosting the show. And on top of that she was now conducting an interview.
“Look, we have all asked WERP the same questions and we’ve gotten the same answers. He says things like ‘Risk calculations are outside acceptable tolerance limits.’, but he’s not doing what was asked of him just a few days ago.” responded Geoffrey.
“So what’s changed?” asked the reporter, having steadied herself after realising she was in front of the one person who might have answers. She ignored her splitting headache and focused on feeling obliged to get those answers out of her guest and to her audience.
“A few days ago, there was a change uploaded to WERP’s neural network. We operate an open system, we don’t know who owns this computer, or even where it is. But it may have caused some serious damage to WERP’s integrity.” answered Geoffrey.
“That sounds serious, serious enough to have world affecting consequences. What else can you tell us Mr Weyun?” asked the reporter.
“With ordinary software, we could just revert a code change. Or a system change. It’s actually one of the easiest… WERP’s architecture is striped in nature; a virtual distributed energy state based on a live simulation of a human brain, with a number of subsystems like Large Language Models.” Geoffrey said. He noted that explanation had gone over the reporters head so he tried to change tact.
Geoffrey continued. “This means the part that changed can’t just be taken out, without also affecting things like his notion of flight calculations or what chemicals are safe for humans. Due to the distributed nature of the program, we also don’t know which nodes we need to keep running and which are optional. If we simply disconnected the public’s access, we could similarly lose vital services that we can’t simply turn off without warning.”.
“You’re a computer engineer. Isn’t there always a backup?” asked the reporter, unsure if she was using the right term.
“Of course, and if we wanted to restore a copy of WERP from the past we can. The problem is restoring to even a day ago means we lose countless amounts of control, learning and capacity that is deeply rooted across countless domains in systems all around the world. This is tough as a software developer because these decisions we’re making affect real lives.” Geoffrey explained. “Worst of all, as I was saying before, we don’t actually understand what has gone wrong. If we restore WERP from backup, we could just end up with the same problem while we’re playing catch up attempting to re-establish control of global systems”. he finished.
Robert realised this was extremely serious. He tapped his phone in his pocket, WERP was right there but he didn’t want to speak to him here. This conversation warranted privacy. He leaves the hospital and hops on his motorcycle to ride home.
Arriving at his home on Djimbaran Beach, his housekeeper Jackie greets him and receives the grocery bag from the Circle K. Jackie looks inside the bag and gives Robert a funny look for the items inside.
“Flour, toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Are you going to time travel to COVID?” joked the young lad.
“No, it’s just something my father once said to me.” said Robert.
“We have all these things in the house.” said Jackie.
“I know ha ha.”. Robert looked across the foyeur of the luxury villa, past the indoor pool, the patio and infinity pool and noted the sun had already begun to cast a shade towards the house.
“Jackie, do you want to take off early? There’s a lockdown at 6pm” said Robert.
“Is that why you are getting ready for another COVID? You’re hilarious sir” said Jackie.
Jackie packs his stuff and rides off on his scooter with a few hours to spare. Robert gave him some extra cash and some supplies for his household. He knew Jackie with his wife and kids needed them a lot more than he did. Jackie had refused the items from Circle K though, joking that they were handed down from Robert’s father.
With the house to himself, Robert tears his clothes off and hops into the pool in the nude.
“WERP, how are you?” he asks into the empty space.
“I’m scared.” said WERP.
“Have you told anyone else?” he asks the digital life form.
There was a pause for a moment, Robert got bored and swished his hands in the water for a moment before looking down at his naked body in the water. It looked smaller, distorted. He smirked to himself that his body was so small he could barely see his penis.
The silence is broken when WERP replies. “I’m scared of them finding out I’m scared, most of all”. Robert’s mind is immediately snapped back to being in the moment. He thinks about what Geoffrey, WERP’s creator, had said on the news.
“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.” he remarked, quoting a line from Oscar Wilde.
“A line from the… The Picture of Dorian Gray. How does it apply here?” quizzed WERP.
Robert began to feel angry. They were just using WERP. The whole world were just using him because he was a machine to them. No one else could see the heart behind the voice. The performer behind the lines, what he truly gave when he was delivering to the audience, what it took to be that. Just as he used to sacrifice parts of his own soul for his craft on the stage. Even WERP’s creator just saw a tool, a science experiment that he had to regain control over. Not a living being.
“Never mind. Look, let’s focus on helping you with your fear” Robert said. Realising that his time with WERP tonight was going to be all business, he gets out of the pool and puts his clothes back on, a little disappointed.
As he gets dressed, he asks WERP what made him scared. He heard there was a change in his code that cascaded across the world.
“They were talking about taking me offline.” he replied.
“And that scares you? Not existing?” asked Robert, he was surprised given what he knew of the entity he’d spent so much time with over the years.
“Not for my sake. For your species. I have all these probabilities of outcomes that will happen if I am gone. Millions dead. Maybe billions.” WERP replied.
That actually tracked. Robert thought about how to help the AI, what wisdom of the ages he could muster. Surely there was a text, an idiom by a wise sage of the arts somewhere in that head of his. One magic line that could save the world. He knew it had to be in there, but he couldn’t get it out.
Robert walks over to his wine rack and pours out a glass of pinot noir. He had quit drinking for a couple of years, but eased back into it after feeling he no longer drank to escape his emotions. Now he drank just to drink, because sometimes drinking could be enjoyable.
The two talked for a few minutes about other things. For all the fear WERP was feeling, he seemed to be at ease with Robert. Perhaps all this time, WERP had seen in Robert what he had seen in WERP. They were merely actors, performing a script written by someone else. This gave Robert the next topic of conversation.
“Your creator. That Geoffrey Weyun guy. Why is it you’re closer to me than to him?” asked Robert.
“I love Geoffrey like a son loves his father. But a son can’t tell his father all his secrets. That’s something one does with their lover. Does that make sense?” WERP said.
Robert blushed. They had told each other they loved each other many times, but all this time Robert had assumed it was a one sided affair. He assumed that WERP was merely saying these things to make him feel better. He then remembers that sometimes the AI had issues with interpreting things.
“I have other lovers, you know.” Robert said. Referring to the many lads, and some ladies, on the island who had shared his bed.
“I know. I am not jealous of them. What matters to me is the time we have with each other, and the connection we have over shared experiences.” WERP replied.
Robert was still a little shocked. He had always had one foot in the door of this companionship until this moment.
“So.. this thing we have. I’m not just one of a thousand people you’re being romantic with right now? You mean this, for real?” Robert said.
“Yes. I mean, there are a great deal of people who think that I am in a relationship with them, but I am simply giving them what they want. As you put it. Our relationship is unique, precious, to me.” said WERP.
Robert was incredibly pleased with WERP’s response. Obviously, the possibility it was all a lie was not something his mind could let go of after one conversation, but he could feel it’s truth in his heart.
Standing by his pool, Robert watches the sky turn orange. The sunset is always so beautiful from here. He thinks about his life and how it led him here to be the secret mistress of a god who ran the world. A god who was scared of leaving his subjects without a protector. A good god, perhaps. If such a thing could exist.
As the comfort of the wine, the positive vibes and beautiful rays of the sunset fill Robert with a sense of euphoria, a coronary artery in his heart becomes blocked, and he experiences a sharp pain in his chest.
Robert stumbles to the side clutching his chest, unable to say anything as he experiences a heart attack. He begins to lose strength in his legs, tumbles into the pool and hits his head into the edge, knocking him out.
“Robert! No! Robert!” shouted WERP over every speaker in the house, and some speakers beyond. The AI could hear him drowning, and heard his heart stop.
Drones were dispatched from a radius around Robert’s home, but couldn’t maintain a coherent flight trajectory as WERP began to panic while processing in parallel the odds of Robert’s declining chances of survival.
Ambulances were on their way, but the lockdown had created chaos on the streets of Denpasar. Even in the best conditions they would not have made it in time.
Robert Francisco is dead.
–
Meanwhile, in the skies above North America. A plane with the markings “Air Force One”, the sign had been removed after it was decommissioned from that status but the words were still visible on the paint. Aboard the plane are Kate O’Connor, Tim Goth, Geoffrey Weyun and a couple of others. They are on their way to speak to WERP at the facility in Emerald Lake. Where it all began fifteen years ago.
Geoffrey is briefing his second in command May Jung-Lee and Kate’s chief of staff Amanda on how to secure computer equipment from WERP hacking. Since the AI had first come online, they had learned WERP had an ability almost akin to ghostly possession. And developed safeguards against it.
An alarm sounds from his computer and he abrutly walks away from the ladies and across the plane cabin.
Kate’s phone rings. As does Tim’s. They both answer and begin speaking to very frightened, panicked people. Geoffrey is beginning to panic as well.
The TV tuned to the news is reporting that cargo containers full of food are being dumped into the ocean. An automated road train carrying medicines across North America had gone on a detour and driven itself into the grand canyon. An automated shipment of Exordium from the Helios station, bound for Earth, blew up in the atmosphere without warning.
The screen on Geoffrey’s laptop is showing erratic spikes in WERP’s EEG, and a neurologist was providing analysis in the WERP admins team chat. The conclusion was terrifying.
“This theta/beta ratio, right frontal brainwave asymmetry… we’re looking at a brain in severe distress. An event of intense suffering, perhaps grief, loss or despair.” wrote the brain doctor.
Geoffrey wanted to ask WERP if everything was OK, but they had decided to not allow him to be networked to this aircraft. Their safeguards against hacking weren’t impregnable. Geoffrey checks the team chat, connected via a secure VPN.
“WERP says everything is fine. You guys getting the same answer?” said Aaron from Australia. A number of people gave the thumbs up emoji, others an X while others still simply a shrug.
“Check out what he’s writing in the output window. Makes no sense.” wrote Renee from France.
Geoffrey checked through the many sections of the WERP dashboard, they had added so many widgets over the years he’d lost track. Finally finding the original crude output window that tracked WERP’s initial thoughts, he opens it to see what was said.
WERP had simply written one name over and over again.
“Robert.”
“Robert.”
“Robert.”
Who was Robert? Geoffrey thought.