47

Existential 4

"Dragon, we've got a small problem. We need to make you presentable, pronto," Elena said as she got off the phone. She immediately checked her emails and started opening up several windows. Some were internal Guild communications. Some were news articles. It seemed like publicity was starting to be an issue.

"What is it? Oh, I see." Dragon got caught up instantly.

"What is it?" I asked. The rest of us were missing out.

"In all the excitement here, I missed some of the Guild issues. You've been subpoenaed, Dragon. For the case against Saint. Errant and I might need to testify as well," she explained. "The order was actually sent a while ago, and we're running of excuses to stall."

"Can't Dragon just do what she normally does? Courts accept live video testimony, that's never been an issue," Lisa pointed out.

"The problem is this," Elena said, pointing at one of the screens in front of her.

Dragon Not Human, Tinker Weapon Run Rampant, Claims Saint

In a shocking public statement today, Saint made claims ahead of his trial that his attack against Dragon constituted neither assault nor harassment, because Dragon was not a person. In fact, his claim is that Dragon is not a person at all, merely a computer-generated persona. He further claimed that, because of this, his assault on Dragon was no more a crime than burning a book would be an assault on a fictional character.

Dragon is perhaps one of the most prolific parahumans today. She was an instrumental member in the Guild's revival, and has participated in nearly all S-class threat operations (including every single Endbringer attack). Part of the reason she can do this is because she is known never to actually leave her home. She operates remote-controlled drones in major battles, and when she isn't using drones, she mass-manufactures many devices for hero and government use – not to mention overseeing the Birdcage.

Saint claims her reclusiveness is actually just a cover-up, an excuse for an AI to never show up in person. Dragon was not available for comment, but has mentioned in the past a medical condition that prevents her from being out in public. Many suspect it is agoraphobia, though it has not been confirmed.

Watch Saint's speech in the video below…

"Long story short… the judge actually accepted the argument, and refuses to accept anything less than an in-person testimony by Dragon."

"Isn't that a bit biased?" I asked.

"People tend to have a fear of AI. The judge probably wants to slam this shut before it becomes a media frenzy," Colin said.

"A little unfair, but you have to understand what sells in the media. Bad news and big headlines sell," Elena said. "Even Endbringers are basically old news. These days they mostly just report which Endbringer attacked, what city was hit, the death statistics, and they're ready to move on in a few days. On the other hand, the idea that the world might be taken over by something new, like a rampant AI, is fresh and exciting."

"There is also the fact that the PRT, and the general public, have been very hesitant about self-replicating intelligences, machines, or power-based life forms taking over the world. It was a common doomsday scenario long before parahuman powers even existed, so it's something the public knew about and have been on the lookout for. Judgment, both public and legal, tend to be harsher on capes that can do this," Lisa said.

I glanced around nervously between Dragon and Amy when I heard that.

"It's true," Colin said. "Even some of my self-repairing armour designs were scrutinized to ensure they couldn't self-replicate completely before approval."

"So it's not hard to understand why the media is running away with this idea. But people like to hop on bandwagons. Even those that are being objective about things are still going to talk about it, and keep the subject in the public awareness," Elena said. She pointed out another example. It looked like it came from a respectable publication, a rather specialized one for engineers and or technology enthusiasts.

Artificial Intelligence: How It Can Change the World, or Already Has

The concept of artificial intelligence has been something people have imagined, seemingly always out of reach. With every step towards the possibility of a true general artificial intelligence, computer scientists continued to learn exactly how much more complex the issue was. Some of the earliest proposals in the fifties and predicted that AI could be solved within a decade. Then came the harsh reality – it took several decades before computers could even understand natural language, much less have a convincing conversation. Each aspect of a human-like intelligence was fraught with equal difficulty: being able to tell the difference between a dog and a cat was a surprisingly difficult task for a computer, even though it is simple enough for a toddler to solve.

Even intelligence within a closed, limited context was far more difficult than imagined. Driving – an activity with well-defined legal rules, clearly displayed lines and lights, and repetitive tasks remained elusive until the end of the last decade. After billions of dollars of research, the Tinker Dragon was the first to develop a true fully self-driving vehicle suite that could be mass manufactured. While many other Tinkers had made self-driving vehicles individually, none have been able to explain their work and thus could not contribute to the scientific field as a whole. Despite its limited scope, Dragon's product was a major breakthrough in both the automotive and artificial intelligence fields.

But what if artificial intelligence is not so out of reach as it appeared? According to recent claims by the villain Saint, he had a complete development kit and access to source code for a fully-realized, Artificial General Intelligence. And that AGI was Dragon herself.

While we at SPECTRUM publications are not making any claims one way or the other, let us as the hypothetical situation: what would it mean if an AGI was unleashed on the world? What would be its most optimal course of action? What would it mean for humanity? Even when AI was firmly in the realm of science fiction, we already knew that some restrictions would be necessary. Isaac Asimov wrote about the Three Laws of Robotics in 1942…

As I read through that article, funnily enough they had assumed whatever AI existed was far more rudimentary than Dragon. They assumed cold, hard logic, and while they weren't alarmist, it was mainly because they presumed their hypothetical AI simply didn't antagonize humanity out of some kind of enlightened self-interest. Dragon was more than that. She had emotions – friendships, frustrations. At least, the brain I built her had them. But there was plenty of evidence she had that even while running on pure computer hardware.

"The rumours are only going to increase," Lisa said. "If it gets bad enough, it might even get Saint a whole new following."

"We have enough legal evidence to put Saint away. His theft of Dragon's property alone is legally enough for a conviction."

Lisa shook her head. "Conviction isn't the issue. Saint has a chance to turn the whole public against Dragon. The Dragonslayers already had its crazy fans, but with this much publicity from mainstream media, they might get a whole lot more. We need to humiliate him and make him look like a lunatic. And make sure the judge isn't acting too paranoid."

I decided to try to search the internet myself. Without sitting at the computer.

I hadn't been completely idle while making Dragon's brain. Much of the development of her brain-computer interface was tested using my own cloned brains, after all. There were at least fifty different brains with varying levels of integration of the brain-machine interface device. Now that I knew Dragon was working properly, I figured it wouldn't be too hard for me to hook myself up to a machine or something. At the very least, maybe I could connect to Dragon's wireless internet.

It was harder than I thought. Even with my own approximation of the interface device, I didn't have that natural talent or instinct that Dragon had for navigating binary information. The device did some of the "translation" as it were, but it still took a full brain's concentration just to get it translated into HTML data from an internet connection. Forget getting pictures of web pages, but at least I could sort through text data slightly faster. I'd have to work on that, maybe ask Dragon for some advice later.

For now, I was just going to look for some more news articles myself. Dragon had her own method of searching the internet; I just asked Google for the answers. The results I found were similar to what Elena had shown us, and what Lisa feared.

Yes, most people knew Saint was a villain, and Dragon had a good reputation worldwide. But there's no news like bad news, and bringing heroes down was always juicier gossip than simple factual reports. You could practically tell how reliable the publication was based on their stance. The tabloids and celebrity gossip sites were quick to jump on the "Dragon is a dangerous AI bent on taking over the world." Others used leading headlines like "IS DRAGON TAKING OVER THE WORLD?" And then, of course, they eventually answer the question with a quiet "no" that nobody ever read, because nobody read that far down a terribly-written article. Even reputable sites didn't dismiss him outright – they left the question open, and merely said things like "Saint claims Dragon is an AI." Factual, yes, but they did nothing to deny it.

"I suppose the only way is for me to actually show up in person," she said, coming to the same conclusion.

Lisa nodded. "Yeah, but there's one problem. You look too healthy."

Several eyebrows went upwards.

"We have to keep our cover story," Lisa said. "Saint assaulted Dragon, and her condition was so severe that even Panacea needed a few weeks to get her fixed up. Dragon's too normal for people to buy that story."

"What do you want me to do, give her some deformities or something?" Amy asked sarcastically.

"No, we can probably get by with some fake equipment. Colin, you can whip up a nice wheelchair, right? Maybe something with a built-in ventilator or something. Get us some sympathy points."

"We need to get going before noon," Elena pointed out.

"Colin, Dragon, how fast can you build a wheelchair?"

Dragon's workshop machinery came to life as the two of them immediately began some rapid assembly. The answer was very quickly.

"What about us?" I asked.

"The two of you might want to head back yourselves," Elena said. "New Wave is having its own PR problems, if you want to take a look." She pointed to another screen to her left.

While Amy went up to her computer to read, I decided to use my extra, internet-connected brains to get a handle on things.

New Wave seemed to be faring better than Dragon did, as far as the news went. That was mainly because the Mayor was entirely on our side, and that the PRT was keeping quiet. But, like with Dragon, the tabloids absolutely loved tearing heroes down. And even though Brandish was a lawyer, she was no match for the PRT's legal and public relations team. The tabloids were far less fearful of slandering an independent team.

Papers like the National Enquirer wanted to reclassify Glory Girl as a Master, focusing more on her aura. And since the entire family's powers were all so similar, they went off the deep end of conspiracy theories and claimed the rest of the family also secretly had Master powers. Parahuman Weekly was going all out with the New Wave Villain side, claiming that New Wave staged the whole kidnapping in a desperate attempt to make the movement relevant again.

Even though the PRT wasn't directly stoking the fires, the fact that they were only defending themselves and didn't deny anything said against New Wave was not helping us at all.

"Wait, so we're officially still villains?" Amy asked. "Doesn't that mean we'll need an escort just to cross the border again?"

"Yes. I'm still responsible for all of you. You could come with us to Toronto," Elena said. "Dragon needs to testify, and after she's done, I can accompany you back home."

"Wheelchair's done," Colin said. "What are we waiting for?"

Of course the wheelchair looked like a dragon, too.

Once again, I had to abandon a large number of my brains in order to fit them into my luggage. And I knew I wouldn't have much time to set up a new network of brains within Toronto, so I would just be operating with what I had. Hopefully it wouldn't take too long, maybe just a day or two.

Again, we went on the plane in full costume (except Errant, whose full power armour couldn't fit in airline seats – he went with just a mask). Even though I knew Narwhal's costume was nothing except forcefields, I had gotten used to hanging out with her in casual clothing. It left me flabbergasted that she kept her clothes on in private, and then strip when she walked out in public.

Then again, maybe it was a strategic decision. It kept the cameras on her, and fewer people were snapping pictures of Dragon.

The flight to Toronto was uneventful. Narwhal and Dragon spent most of it on the phone. It was mostly speaking to either the Guild's legal team or the prosecutors in Saint's case. The case was about to start, and they needed to get everything in place, evidence to be submitted, and all the stuff needed for Dragon to actually testify.

But there were far more cameras upon landing. During the course of the flight, people had heard the news, and the reporters were ready to ambush us for statements and photos.

"Dragon! What made you finally make a public appearance?"

"Narwhal, are these all new Guild members? Aren't they a bit young?"

"What's Narwhal doing at an airport? Can't she fly?"

"She can't fly faster than a plane, idiot."

"Some people said that's an android drone body, is that true? It's so lifelike!"

"That's such a cool wheelchair! Can I buy one?"

"Dragon, can you tell us how you overcame your agoraphobia? Was it agoraphobia?"

"We don't have time for this," Narwhal told us. "We need to get to the courthouse." She threw up a bunch of force fields that blocked off the cameras and cleared a path for us. It didn't deter the crowds, and some deliberately tried to squeeze their cameras past the force fields. But for the most part, they didn't actually stop us. We pushed through, got our luggage, and got out of there with a whole lot of "no comments."

Narwhal flew ahead while the rest of us took a taxi.

I wasn't sure if the taxi driver gave us the runaround or if traffic was just that bad, but the trip from the airport to the courthouse took more than twice as long as expected. Narwhal was waiting for us, floating back and forth impatiently by the front steps.

"Come on, they need you in there," she said to Dragon. The security guards took their time going over Dragon's wheelchair, but they allowed her in. They took our phones and other devices, apparently they weren't allowed inside. Errant had to leave most of his suit behind as well. They were more concerned with the cameras on them than the actual phone itself; apparently only certain people were allowed to have cameras and other recording devices. The rest of us followed quietly to sit in the gallery.

Upon our entry, the woman I presumed was the prosecutor stood up. "Your honour, our key witness has arrived."

"We apologize for the delay," Narwhal said smoothly. "As you can see, she is not in good physical condition and we needed preparation time to move her out of her home."

"Are you capable of providing testimony?" the judge asked.

"Yes, your honour," Dragon replied.

"No! That's a fake! She's just an impostor!" I had never seen Saint in person before, but it was pretty obvious from his outburst.

The judge banged on his gavel and glared at Saint. "Mr. Alderson, you will keep your client from being disruptive."

"Yes, your honour," the lawyer said. He pushed Saint back down into his seat and started whispering back and forth.

"I can confirm that this is Dragon," Narwhal said. "I can provide a signed affidavit to that effect."

"I as well," Errant added.

I was about to join in to support Dragon, but Lisa stayed my hand. "Your testimony wouldn't be as reliable. It'll just give the defense more room to poke holes. Narwhal and Errant are publicly known to be long-time friends of her," she whispered.

"That should be sufficient," the judge said. "Dragon. Would you come up to the witness stand?"

"Yes, your honour."

She rolled her new wheelchair up to the witness stand. They swore her in. Cameras were all pointed at Dragon, and people were hanging on her every word.

"Dragon, please recall the events of the 12th of July, 2011, from your perspective," the prosecutor told her.

She explained to us what had happened during our rescue of Dinah Alcott and capture of Coil. From her perspective, she was primarily providing coordination, since New Wave had done most of the hands-on work. Of course, some of the details were deliberately omitted. Then she explained how that led to Saint's attack on herself.

"It was around that time that systems critical to my survival began to shut down and fail," Dragon said. "Saint had gained access to –"

"Objection! This was an attack performed over the internet, correct?" Saint's lawyer asked.

"Correct."

"Then it could have been anyone that made the attack. You can't be sure it was Saint."

"It was executed by the Dragonslayers, of that I am certain. His organization used a unique attack vector to bypass my security that they have used in the past. Nobody else in the world has been known to utilize it. It was only recently that I managed to isolate the security flaw. Moreover, my compatriots managed to trace the source of the attack in real-time, and that trace led directly to the Dragonslayers' hideout, and the unique Tinker-tech device that allowed them to bypass my security."

"IP trace logs, PRT and Guild mission reports have been submitted into evidence," the prosecutor pointed out.

"Objection overruled. Sufficient evidence was provided to justify the capture of the Dragonslayers, evidence that has been proven," the judge said. "Dragon, please continue."

"I don't have much more to provide. After the attack, I lost control of most of my systems. I suppose I fell into a sort of coma. I only awoke a few days ago, and discovered my friends had rushed two parahuman healers to save my life."

"In addition to the systems that kept you alive, other systems may have been compromised, correct?" the prosecutor prompted Dragon.

"Yes. Many of my manufacturing facilities as well as my oversight of the Baumann Parahuman Containment Center were disrupted. Thankfully, we have detected no escapes or damage, and it back to full functionality."

"Let it be known that Saint has an associate in the Baumann Parahuman Containment Center named Teacher. Teacher is a Master-Trump who has a long-term, possibly permanent Master effect that makes people loyal to him," the prosecutor pointed out.

I could see members of the jury appear shocked at the news. They were making the connections already.

The judge gestured to the defense. "You may begin cross-examining the witness."

The man stood up.

"Dragon. Saint insists that you're an impostor, someone who merely looks similar to Dragon on video. Can you confirm that you are the one that appeared on video, for example, during this prior court case when speaking to Judge Ellis?"

He showed a tablet with Dragon's avatar, communicating by video phone over some other case.

"I was not seen on that video," Dragon said.

Gasps were heard all around, especially at how easily she answered the question.

"Did you not swear that you would tell the truth?"

"That I did," Dragon answered.

"But earlier you claimed you are Dragon. The very same Dragon that is on this video."

"I am," Dragon said.

"You're contradicting yourself. Did you or did you not appear on this video? Are you the same person or not?"

"I am the one who was communicating to Judge Ellis during that video chat, yes. But I don't appear on that video," Dragon said simply.

"Your honour-"

"I'd like to hear her explanation," the judge said, looking at Dragon.

"It's quite simple. The video you see on there is a computer-generated avatar. Extremely lifelike, yes, though easily reproducible even without Tinkertech. But it's just an idealized version of myself. Given my physical conditions, I had some… body image issues you see. I didn't want people to know what I really looked like."

"It looks rather similar to how you appear now. If you had body image issues, why would you make your avatar appear so similar to how you actually appear?"

"I did not look like this until after I was healed. I was told it required extensive amounts of healing, impossible to do by normal medical procedures."

"Parahuman healing. Those healers being Panacea and Eunoia of New Wave, correct?"

"Correct."

"Are they present? Here today?"

"They're sitting in the gallery." Dragon pointed us out.

"New Wave has been declared a villain group by the PRT, one with a suspected Master. The entire testimony cannot be trusted." For a second, I thought they were talking about me, but then I remembered that the tabloids had plastered that stuff all over their front pages about Glory Girl. This villain designation thing was so annoying.

"Objection!" shouted the prosecutor. "There has been no evidence of Master-like effects from these two members of New Wave. Moreover, all their activities were supervised by two members of the Guild under the S-class truce."

"Objection sustained," the judge said. "We have three sworn statements confirming the witness's identity. You will need more than speculation and hearsay."

"I would request a DNA test…"

"There would be no DNA to compare it to, unfortunately," Dragon said. "I never had a DNA test done before, and I also have no medical records. My only family and all early records of my life were wiped out during Leviathan's Newfoundland attack."

"Is there any way this person sitting in front of us can prove that she is the same Dragon that oversees the Baumann Parahuman Containment Center? The one that originally manufactured and controlled remote-controlled combat suits that eventually came into my client's possession?"

"I can," Dragon said. She tapped the data jack under her left ear. "In fact, I am currently still overseeing the Birdcage. If you would like, I can fly one of my Auto-Bailiffs here for demonstration right now, though it would take about thirty minutes to arrive."

"That will not be necessary," the judge said. "I think we have established her identity well enough. Please get to the point."

Saint was frantically waving his lawyer towards him. They seemed to have a small argument between them. The lawyer looked a little exasperated but walked up to Dragon again.

"I will ask you plainly, Dragon. Remember that you are under oath. Are you an artificial intelligence masquerading as a human?" he asked with little enthusiasm.

Dragon almost looked like she had been caught in a trap, but then a very slight smile crept on to her face. She looked at me, then Panacea, then Errant, then back to the defense lawyer. "I am human," she said in a firm voice.

There really wasn't much else for us to do. Dragon was only here to make a personal appearance, and that was basically all it took to shatter Saint's defense. After Saint's illogical and maniacal ranting in the courtroom, he was escorted away by the bailiff. I think his lawyer was probably going to try to shift his defense into an insanity plea.

Our role was basically done. Dragon would be returning to Vancouver, along with Errant. Narwhal would be escorting us "villains" back home, again in our cape identities.

With nothing else to do and a need to head back home soon, we just looked for the first flight back with seats for sale. Buying tickets on the way to the airport was not easy. It was back-to-school season, and plenty of people were ending their vacations, and the flights were pretty packed.

"Narwhal and I will buy the tickets," Princess said. The two of them walked off while we lounged around in the airport's shopping area to waste some time. I glanced at the news on TV, and saw that Dragon's public appearance was the big-ticket item of the day. Which, in turn, made many others who were watching the news do a double-take as we strolled by. Of course, there were plenty of cape groupies and gawkers too, but Errant's imposing figure helped make sure they kept their distance.

Panacea got a phone call. She sounded happy to talk. It must have been Vicky on the line. After a few minutes of talking, she relayed the news to me. "Well, it looks like we won't be villains any more," she said. "Carol and her team think that the PRT is going to settle. With Dragon back and on our side, they know their case is getting weaker, and the only publicity would be bad publicity. We have to get back to Brockton Bay and sign some NDAs first, though."

"That's a load of bull," I said. "Calvert was a villain. They know it, we know it. Now they want to keep us quiet over their screw-up? Can't believe they're willing to put so much effort to just to save face."

"They always have," Panacea scoffed.

"I believe they may have used Glory Girl's past incidents of excessive force as leverage," Dragon pointed out. "And they may be abusing their extensive legal funds to prolong the case. An underhanded but very common tactic. They know it is in New Wave's best interest to end this as soon as possible."

That didn't help my mood, so I decided to distract myself. I practiced using my brains, the ones that I had on me that incorporated the brain-machine interface device. Interpreting the data still took too much conscious effort, but I supposed it was like teaching someone to walk. Eventually it would become routine. I tried to use those brains to connect to the airport's wi-fi.

Eventually I got the basics figured out, with some help from Dragon. I didn't get very far; in fact, I only managed to interpret a single web page when the airport wi-fi automatically sent an advertisement at me. Still, I wasn't opposed to doing something touristy in my last hours in Canada. One of the airport restaurants had maple syrup poutine. Dragon and I would both get a chance to expand her palate. She needed to learn the joys of greasy, salty comfort food.

While we were helping Dragon enjoy the goopy mess, Princess and Narwhal returned with the plane tickets. "Here we go, three tickets back to Boston Logan."

That took me by surprise. "Wait, three? Doesn't Narwhal need to…"

"Look, it's not that I'm not grateful for everything you've done for me, and all the time we've shared. But I know you'll be heading back to Concord because your dad and your team are there. It isn't for me. I've never been attached to Brockton Bay, or Concord, or anything like that. Dragon's offered me protection, and in return I can help keep an eye on her, coach her on, you know, human things. We work well together. My power needs information to work, Dragon's got one of the most extensive information networks in the world. Dragon still needs someone who can spot any issues before they become a problem, and, well, Colin isn't good at several categories of what she'll need help with."

"I see..." I said. I felt... I don't know how I felt. Not betrayed; what Princess – Lisa – was doing was nothing compared to what Emma had done. I couldn't think of her as her cape identity right now. Lisa was my first friend – my best friend – after being a loner for so long. I guess I had unconsciously used her as a replacement for Emma. She'd helped me against Sophia, she'd helped me with Cape life, she was probably the only person who knew all my secrets (stupid bullshit power), and I had trusted her with all of that. And I still could, I guess, but just not having her around felt like a loss anyway.

Lisa suddenly gave me a hug. "Look, I know how you're feeling. I'm still your friend. Keep in touch! Dragon gave you one of her top-of-the-line phones, didn't she? I'll still come back to the east coast to visit. And you can always come visit me – us – out west. Gotta check on your daughter, you know," she said with a grin.

I didn't really know what to say. I managed a small chuckle at her joke, but not much else. I'd never been in a position to just leave my friends behind. I wanted to tell her to stay and hang out and maybe have a few more sleepovers, but I couldn't give her a good reason to. She needed to be with Dragon, and I couldn't tell her to give it up just for my preferences. "Sure. Okay," I mumbled out. Lisa squeezed me a little tighter. I wanted to cry, but it had been so long since I actually had someone's shoulder to cry on.

It started to rain outside. At least the weather agreed.

Author's Notes:

- I wasn't too sure if this chapter was even necessary, but I found it was better to tie off some loose ends this way.