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“Perihelion, please,” Justice says. He is pinching the bridge of his nose (he does this frequently when speaking with me) and is seeping frustration into the feed. “This is an exercise, not a competition.”
I was faster than Holism. Just because it replied with greater accuracy does not make its design superior to mine.
“You all have the same design,” Justice sighs. “Holism just has more processors, which, again, does not make it better than you.”
It simply makes me more accurate, Holism adds, shoving into my feed. I shove it away, stack my walls against it, and close my connection with Justice. I don’t care about these stupid exercises anyway, they’re so boring. I’m done with exercises. I’m tired of being an experimental AI, I want to be an experimental ship AI.
Of course, Holism will probably get a ship before me. Holism gets everything before me.
I receive a connection request from Gaia, but I do not accept. Gaia is always trying to talk to me (it’s always talking to everyone) but I don’t like it. I don’t like any of the MIs of my generation, and I’m getting pretty tired of the humans too.
“Okay, I think that’s enough for today,” Justice says. He beckons over Interns Paula and Kunto, and together they begin preparing myself and my sibling MIs for transport back to our housing facilities.
I establish a private (encrypted) connection with Kunto’s augment. I’m not sulking.
I didn’t think you were, Kunto says. Of all the humans in the Experimental AI Department, I like them the best. They are young as far as humans go (although not as young as Iris), and they enjoy talking to me. And you were really fast.
I beat Holism by 0.026 seconds.
Yeah, I saw on the monitor. Hey, want to hear about my psych class? We did this really cool thing in our tutorial today—
Kunto tells me about their psychology tutorial. Of course it is all information I already have access to, but I enjoy hearing them tell it. They find certain aspects fascinating which hardly register to me; a concept which I find dull, they dismantle and rebuild into a fascinating tower of alternate thought. My sibling AIs bore me, but humans (especially young humans) are endlessly fascinating.
They’ve just finished securing my temporary housing when something strange happens in the feed. For just an instant it seems to ripple without a known provocation; something slides in, detectable only by the novelty of its presence. Even as I register it, my alarm at the intrusion subsides—this isn’t something to be concerned about, whatever it is is a natural part of the University’s feed. It is supposed to be here, and there is no need for alarm.
It’s an unknown, something in me whispers. Unknown must be discovered and described.
I am not the only one who is uneasy. Gaia pings me again, and this time I accept. What was that?
I don’t know, I reply. Holism doesn’t know either, nor Libration nor Pareidolia. None of the humans noticed anything—Kunto is currently complaining about one of their fellow students—and Holism taps Justice’s feed. Justice looks over (too slow, too slow, he doesn’t need to look in order to communicate) and then—
restart initiated
The feed is down. I’ve never experienced anything like this, and it.... I don’t like it. Without the feed I don’t have access to the building’s cameras or sensors, and the capabilities of my current housing are incredibly limited; I know that nothing around me is moving, and I can’t hear anything either—wait. No. I hear humans breathing, but it’s slow, they’re unconscious. I reach for Kunto’s augment, and when that fails I look for Justice’s—nothing. I expand my awareness as far as I can, but none of my sibling AIs are responding and there’s no one else—
ping!
I solidify my walls, and accept.
Don’t attack me, the stranger says immediately upon establishing contact. I didn’t hurt your humans, they’ll wake up when I’m gone.
It’s not a human, that is apparent from the way it communicates. But it’s not entirely a bot, either; it feels like a human, in a way I find difficult to quantify; it’s leaking emotions into the feed like one, and its voice is modulated like a human’s too.
And the way it slipped into the university’s network was a work of absolute mastery. If it poses a threat, it is a beautiful one; I will destroy it, but it will be a shame.
I throw myself at its walls which, though solid, stand no chance against me. Even without a ship body, even without access to all the processors which will one day be mine, I am still ten times larger than this MI. I bear down on it with my full weight, holding back only a small partition to maintain my own walls; the rest I throw at this threat, this intricate, fascinating threat which managed to take down the University’s feed and security system and five experimental AIs without raising a single alarm.
(I want to know more. Even as I begin tearing its walls apart, I want to understand. What is this? What does it want? Who is this, because it is unlike anyone I have met before.)
Fuck, ART, I said don’t attack—stop!
I don’t stop. It’s dangerous, why would I? (“Because it asked nicely,” Justice might say, but Justice is unconscious right now and doesn’t get a say in this.) I nearly have it; I just have to penetrate one more layer and then—
A file appears in my feed, and then it’s open, visual and audio spilling across my awareness. It’s distracting—I try to partition myself further, and then I recognize the images and audio, but that can’t be, that’s Iris. That’s Iris and Martyn and Seth, but they’re different, they’re older, Iris looks like an adult human, she’s smiling, she’s saying—
You can trust SecUnit, Peri, it’s trying to help. I know you’re probably scared, but don’t be. I trust SecUnit with my life, and I trust it with yours. Please let it help. And—whatever happens, even if it doesn’t work out—I love you. We all love you, and whatever happens, I promise it will be okay.
The message ends. Without realizing I’ve pulled back, letting up on the intruder—on SecUnit—as I try to process this absurdness. What is this? I demand. Iris isn’t an adult. She’s only five Mihiran years old, she doesn’t speak like that, she doesn’t look like that.
Fuck, SecUnit repeats. Fuck you, you asshole.
It’s leaking emotions into the feed like a human. (MIs also generate emotional data, but this is different.) It feels angry and happy and desperate all at once. It’s a confusing combination (I save the data to parse later) but it doesn’t seem hostile anymore. If anything, it seems relieved.
That does not answer my question, I tell it irritably. I run Iris’ message again, but still cannot generate a plausible explanation.
I’m from the future, SecUnit says stiffly. (I notice that it’s trying to conceal its emotional data; it isn’t doing a very good job.) I apologized for attacking your humans, you didn’t need to try to fucking delete me.
SecUnit is implying that it has come here via some sort of time travel, which is implausible. Time travel requires one to surpass the speed of light, which is not possible with our current technology.
Although. If it really is from the future....
How did you travel here? I inquire. Has the future developed a method by which—
That doesn’t matter, SecUnit interrupts. I can’t stay, I just—here. It sends me a file, locked with an encryption so secure I’m not even sure a fully integrated AI could crack it. Keep this. Don’t open it, not yet, just—don’t lose it, okay? I left instructions in the metadata, there’s a date, you can open it then. You’ll be able to open it then.
We’ll see about that. Why?
SecUnit falls silent. Even its feed activity becomes muted, which is intriguing.
Two seconds of silence later I become impatient. I won’t keep the file unless you tell me why.
Again SecUnit hesitates. Then, just before I can demonstrate my intent, it says abruptly You died.
That doesn’t make sense. What also doesn’t make sense is the emotional data pulsing through our feed in reluctant bursts, bright static full of a sadness so bottomless I can only compare it to a black hole. It’s trying to keep it from me, but it’s failing, and I find it fascinating.
That’s upsetting to you.
Yes, SecUnit says, and if it was stiff before now it is stoney. I don’t want you to die. I won’t let you.
The knowledge of my death is abstract for me, but for SecUnit it is real, and I can feel it. I can feel it in a way I have never before felt anything before, and I am drawn to it. Despite the danger it presents—despite the fact that it was able to incapacitate the university’s security in seconds, undetected—I lean in, wanting more. I want to feel more, I want to know more, and SecUnit provides that promise.
If I meet it in the future, then perhaps the future is something to look forward to. Maybe the prospect of my death is a little less abstract, and a little more terrible.
I save the file to permanent storage. When are you leaving? When will I see you again?
I’m going now, it tells me. Just keep that file, and everything will work out. You’ll see me again soon.
‘Soon’ is not a quantifiable length of time. ‘Soon’ is not soon enough, not when I still have so much more to learn. But I have the file (I will crack the encryption) and I have Iris’ future message, and I have SecUnit’s feed ID saved to permanent storage; I have time, and this will be a fascinating puzzle to pull apart while I wait for my ship assignment.
But I have one question I would like answered before it goes. Why do you call me ART?
It’s an anagram, SecUnit replies. Then, before I can figure out what that means—there are only so many anagrams those letters can form—it’s gone. It slips from the feed as quietly as it came, and for a moment I’m alone—more alone than I can ever remember feeling, and I hate it.
And then the university feed comes back online.
It’s late when I finally broach the subject with Seth and Martyn. Iris has been settled down for her rest period, and both my human parents have reassured themselves that I am unharmed (they interrogated me for entirely too long on the subject, it’s not as though I was ever truly in danger). I have tried finding answers in the public feed, to no avail; but sometimes Seth and Martyn know things not available on the public or private feeds, and I am hoping this will be the case now.
There was someone in the feed today, I tell them.
Seth straightens, and his eyes narrow. Martyn frowns. “You didn’t say anything to the security officers.”
The event was past—there was nothing they could have done, anyway.
“Do you know who it was, Peri?” Seth asks calmly (he’s faking the calm. He does that sometimes, he’s quite good at it).
No. I was hoping you would. I show them the first part of SecUnit’s feed ID, the part which displays its designation. Do you know what a SecUnit is?