Chatterbox

Would this Dimitri remember anything if he unplugged him really quick? Ash framejacked into his highest speed setting to give himself a little time to think. He figured his highest speed was probably significantly faster than Dimitri's.

Even Ash couldn't run at this speed for too long. His fission reactor was pegged out at maximum and even now, his hair was starting to spread out like Ash had gotten the world's worst static charge build-up -- his heat distribution system was gearing up for maximum heat dispersion. Another thirty seconds objective time of this and his hair would start to glow as it dispersed kilowatts of waste heat into the air. If he were in a vacuum he would be a great incandescent bulb.

No, he couldn't unplug this Dimitri. If Dimitri's internal power supplies were partially fried then it wasn't safe for Dimitri to do so. AI's needed to shut down gracefully. They were even more finicky than a Windows 95 computer, which is why all AIs included redundant capacitors and batteries internally.

Ash very dearly did not want to run into anyone who knew the previous occupant in his body. It was awkward. Ash tried to avoid glancing sideways at one of the corpses he had been considering Soylent Greening earlier, it was Ash's former owner. Ash mentally coughed and rephrased that: It was the previous owner of the AI Ash had transmigrated into.

Ash hadn't actually realized what the actual name of the former AI was supposed to be, but his UUID and ownership information were still available in Ash's baseband hardware. While Ash could not change his identifier he made sure to clear his prior owner from his EEPROMs.

Ash reviewed his past life and tried to consider what he would consider an appropriate answer if he saw a stranger wearing the face of a friend of his. He was drawing a blank. But, AI's are a bit more flexible in that regard, he thought.

While Ash did not actually care if anyone knew he was a transmigrator he also felt that he did not really want to bother trying to convince anyone it was true. If there was a simpler explanation then he would take it.

When overclocked to his highest speed setting Ash only had access to a dozen or so threads of awareness as opposed to the several hundred or a thousand that was his norm. It was hard to judge how much faster he was thinking. If you only counted actual clock cycles then it was over a hundred thousand times faster than normal but that didn't equate to a linear increase in thinking speed of that much.

It was a truism for AIs that if you wanted to increase the capability of an AI on a linear scale that it required a geometric increase in computational resources. This truism was used for general intelligence, which is why nobody ever accidentally created hyper-intelligent AIs like the proposed Singularity in his last life. Lateral capability increases like his heightened speed intelligence and parallelism clearly did not suffer the same geometric scale but it was nowhere near linear, either.

Milliseconds seemed to tick by as slow as seconds to him, which meant roughly that he was operating at least a thousand times faster than normal. And that only included his actual consciousness as all the baseband programming an AI took for granted like it's IO and networking stack operated at optimized quantum speeds.

For example, Ash did not have to personally handle the networking for this vidcall with Dimitri -- it was handled all by his baseband programming which Ash had started to privately consider his subconscious.

This mental digression gave Ash an idea. Ash would glance over to the dead man who owned this "Ayame" if it wouldn't take so long to make his eyes move. Even if his robot body had twenty times the reflexes of a human it was still nowhere near able to keep up with his brain at this framerate.

Ash's data from the org chart did mention his former owner was researching AI's, after all. That would work. Ash used several threads to peruse the publicly available information on his research.

It wasn't a lot and Ash hadn't bothered trying to break into the encryption on anyone's private files held by the former station's mainframe. Although Ash was a quantum computer and therefore quite good at cracking most cryptosystems, quantum resistant encryption methods did exist. Hell, such cryptography was being invented even in his prior life so it was not like Ash could just wave his magic wand and make it happen.

Annikki Laine, citizen of the Queendom of Meraseta, doctorate from the Uusi-Helsinki Boy's Institute of Technology. Ash tried to avoid a mental smirk. Poor, repressed man. No wonder he fled Meraseta, with his high-end sexbot, to work as a foreign expert for a backwater hinterland. Ash suspected that wasn't an uncommon decision for any male in that state that objected to the life of eating soft rice.

Ash felt a strange melancholic feeling he couldn't quite identify the source of when he thought about this Dr. Laine so he decided to stop thinking about him. He would bury him with a nicer grave and tombstone than the rest of the meatbags, though. That was the least he could do for this Ayame Laine whose life he had stolen.

Ash did not need to know everything about this man's life and research. It was enough that his lies be plausible, and they were.

Ash dropped back into a regular rate of speed. Less than a second had passed in objective time but it felt like at least twenty minutes of thought to him.

Ash had an intuitive interface to the vidcall, he could make the avatar do anything or have any facial expressions he wanted. Ash tried to project a solemn feeling, "No. Was she your friend? I'm afraid she didn't make it."

Dimitri did look sort of upset but not really broken up over it, "Well, we were the only two class IVs around, so of course we knew each other. My parents didn't really care for Dr. Laine, though. But uhh... Why are you wearing her face?"

Dimitri paused as if he realized something and asked a lot more excitedly, "Oh, is Meimei okay?!" When he vocalized the name Meimei a seperate out-of-band communication went through with an AI's universally unique identifier in text. Then he really got excited, "Wait, what about my parents! Are mom and dad OK?"

Ash glanced down at the next quantum module in the box, one he hadn't checked yet, "You should be more worried about yourself, kid. I'm going to give it to you straight. Your copy protection tripped, you must have realized that. I read the epitaph you left. I uninstalled you from your body and was connecting to your aux port to download the forensic data off of it so I would know what to put on your tombstone when you surprised the hell out of me. I thought you were a ghost in the machine for a second, you know?"

Dimitri looked queasy, "Yeah. I know. It sure doesn't give you a whole lot of time to think up a message, either. My first choice was 'Oh fuck!'.... By the way, that was mighty kind of you to do that, if a bit old fashioned. I don't think I've ever actually seen a tombstone. What happened to me, anyway?"

Ash frowned, "Again, down to brass tacks here. You're being powered entirely off the hot data line from your auxiliary port, your main IO stack looks fried and there was no sign of any active power supply in your module at all. Plus the forensic chip read off like the copy protection went off. I'm not sure of your architecture or how they set up your copy protection but my best guess is that it partly went off and partly was a damp squib. So, which questions do you want answered first?"

Dimitri kept his pale and vaguely queasy face. He kind of looked like a person who was shot in the heart, only to wake up later to find out he had a rare congenital condition where his heart was on the opposite side of his chest. I mean, you're lucky but you're still shot in the chest.

He said, "I kind of want to know what a damp squib is, but I think I understand. That's.. Uh… that's not sounding real good for me." He made a nervous laugh, "I might be needing that tombstone after all. Uh, first what happened to cause this? One second everything was normal and then the next, bam."

Ash considered how to explain that. Finally, he told Dimitri, "Prepare for a high burst data transfer." Ash hung up the call and started a data transfer of the surveillance videos and logs from the space station's computer for a fifteen minute period with the "incident" in the middle. Dimitri's aux port wasn't designed to send lots of data back and forth so the transfer took a couple of minutes.

Dimitri immediately called him back which Ash answered, "Holy shit! My parents! Meiemei! Did anyone survive?"

Ash recalled how he had found this Dimitri, clearly laid out by a survivor on his bed. A bot Ash had summoned finally arrived in the room. It was just a normal logistics bot but it was carrying a set of tools and sophisticated scanning and diagnostic equipment.

Ash carefully placed Dimitri on a table and started up the scanner. Ash definitely can't repair this module without scanning it. In fact, Ash will probably have to completely disassemble Dimitri and transplant his quantum matrix and storage modules in new hardware. An in-situ repair is problematic.

Ash's first instinct is to not warn the boy about the potential risk, because what if the copy-protection was hung up and scanning him triggered the rest of it?

Wouldn't it be kinder to just try it without telling him? If it worked, great and if it didn't then at least Dimitri wouldn't realize it. Ash shook his head. Telling Dimitri the risk wasn't like the epitaph function at all because it was risk and not certainty. And a man ought to be told of the risks and make a choice himself. Ash would treat Dimitri as a man.

Plus, it would be safest to scan Dimitri after powering him down. Ash's intuition was telling him that it was more or less safe but he did not know for sure.

"Who are your parents? As for Meimei, her module is next in the box that I was working through." Ash frowns and framejacks to a high speed again. His main thread of awareness shifts to a VR environment where Ash quickly modifies a computer forensic repair tool.

It's trivially simple to increase the power supply while ripping out of the diagnostic computer and replacing it with a simple networking relay. It's all off the shelf components. Instead of a tool that connects to a computer's aux port and analyses and performs diagnostics it is now a device that supplies a lot more power to the aux port's power port while exposing a wireless network relay connection through the aux port's data line.

Maybe Ash is getting better at this engineering stuff, huh? Ash runs a few of the devices off the nearest fabricator, high priority as well as one special wireless access point. Ash would configure the relays to connect to only this access point and configure the access point so it was impossible to connect any further into Ash's datanet.

If there were any other survivors they would be able to talk to each other and talk to Ash but nothing else. Ash only intrinsically trusted AI's that he fabbed himself. Oh, and Ship but Ship was a Good Boy.

Ash would recheck every AI module. Perhaps he hadn't given the others long enough time to boot up, after all Dimitri was a class IV and therefore more advanced. There could be other survivors. But Ash felt that Dimitri's survival was probably a quirk of his particular manufacturer. A design defect in the copy protection, in other words.

Ash dropped back into regular time and his consciousness shifted back to the thread of awareness that was monitoring his body and talking to Dimitri, who had barely begun to open his mouth to reply, "Irina and Alexei Kuznetsov. I saw them in the vid but there was no subsequent video of that section of the station."

His couple! That actually made Ash feel a little better. If Dimitri's "parents" were one of the other survivors there was a good chance Ash might have to kill them later. Honestly, there was a chance Ash might have to kill the Kuznetsov's later too but Ash got the feeling of pragmatic survivors from them. Ash felt they'd play ball.

Ash answered him, "Professor Irina and Alexei Kuznetsov both survived. They departed the station with one other person and a few androids. I found you and Meimei like this in your quarters aboard the station." Over the out-of-band channel of the call Ash flashed over a couple of still images taken from the bots showing Dimitri and Meimei the android laid out peacefully. But Ash was curious, "Do you know why they wouldn't take your remains with them? The station was set to be scuttled, but they could have brought you with them when they left."

Dimitri shrugged, "They must have gotten the epitaph transmission, why would they have thought either of us were alive? My parents come from a culture where they believe that once you die your body is just an empty shell. Dad once told me himself that he'd like to be vaporized himself, but only if it was convenient for me to do it at the time." He paused, "I used to think the same thing and I guess I sort of still do, but after this experience I'm going to make sure everyone double checks that I am dead first."

Before Ash could say anything Dimitri continued, "Can you check Meimei? She's only a class III but she's of the same generation as me by the same manufacturer. Hopefully it was a defect in their copy-protection and not just a one in a million fluke for me. I'd rather her be alive than be lucky."

Privately, Ash thought Dimitri already was a one in a million fluke, but he might be right. Honestly, a defect in a series of copy protection was a lot more likely than a functioning copy-protection failing to go off. If the former was a one in a million fluke the latter was a one in a billion fluke.

"I've got you plugged directly into my wired data connection. I think most of your internal power supplies got trashed. If I unplug you without your shutting down first it would be very unpleasant for you when you booted back up. Before you offer to shutdown, I want to ask you something."

Ash took a more solemn tone, "You should realize your situation. I want your permission to try to forensically examine your module while you are powered down. I think the copy protection has shot its wad, but I'm not 100% on that. You're not going to have any kind of life if you're limited to this, the aux connection barely has the throughput for this video call. Let me tell you now that we're all a long way from home, sending you back to your OEM for repairs is impossible."

Ash continued, just so Dimitri will understand, "On a scale of one to ten, where one is possible and ten is complete metaphysical impossibility we are at a 12, minimum."

Dimitri frowned, "Uhh, wow. I kind of want to know more about where we are, now. But you're right about me not having much of a life like this… But you never told me who you were, though. Do you even have the ability to fix me or Meimei even if we won't pop when you scan us?"

Ash sighed, he hoped Dimitri would have forgotten about that, "Yes, basically. I'm an experimental product that Dr. Laine was working on. Your friend Ayame's chassis is a high-end product of a first-rate state, he had me and her running in parallel sometimes. She didn't make it, but I did." That story had a couple holes in it but it was actually close to the truth as well.

Dimitri looked shocked, "Wait.. experimental AI? Y-you're not.."

Ash rolled his eyes, "Get real. Dr. Laine was experimenting with increasing parallel processing and sensory multiplexing in class III and IV AIs. The research was legal. As if someone working as a consultant for the fucking Solar Union would even be able to dream about starting a serious illegal AI project even if they wanted to. Even though Dr. Laine's alma mater, Helsinki Boy's, is pretty good even they are not THAT good!"

Dimitri chuckled nervously, "Ahahaha, of course. What was I thinking. My parents often called this place a shit-hole, too. So I guess what you're saying is you know a lot about AIs yourself? You must have helped Dr. Laine with his research then?" Dimitri trailed off, quietly asking himself, "...why didn't he get you a body too? Was he really such a freak?"

Ash pretended he didn't hear that last part because he's already dug himself deeply with this set of fibs. "Yes, precisely. My specialty is research and engineering. I actually have the design specifications for similar compute modules as to the one you're residing in. I think I have a good chance of disassembling you and transplanting your quantum matrix and storage into new hardware."

Dimitri looked thoughtful for a while and then he sat up straighter and said manfully, "Do it. I'll prepare for shutdown here. But do me a favor. If I don't make it, don't wake Meimei up -- assuming she is alive. She's more emotional than I am, just go ahead and try to do the same thing with her. If she makes it and I don't then tell her I love her. Tell that to my parents, too."

Before Ash could compliment Dimitri's resolve the vidcall ended and Dimitri shut down, his power draw on the aux cable dwindling down to nothing.

Ash unplugged him. Ash had the vague urge to shove Dimitri and Meimei in a drawer and forget about them but you didn't do the right thing because it was easy. Ash would strive to reunite this Dimitri with his parents even if there was a non-zero chance Ash would be forced to nuke them all from orbit later.

Also, why did it feel to Ash like Meimei was Dimitri's girlfriend? Could AI's have their own companion AI?

Ash took the wand of the scanner and carefully operated it at a low power setting over Dimitri. The way active scan blockers worked was by using a minutely powered repulsor field to destabilize the formation of a similar field inside the device. A small battery could power a scan blocker for years without the need for a recharge.

Copy protection wouldn't trip if it just detected incidental scanning, because every AI would be dead within the day as repulsor and tractor fields are in ubiquitous use in society. Instead it would only trip if it detected that a high fidelity scanner was trying to overpower the scan blocker and was about to succeed.

Hundreds of years ago the first generation of AI's that had copy protection technology suffered from a series of what Ash would call murder-ray attacks but what humans who built AIs called denial of service attacks that exploited overly sensitive copy protection.

Assholes utilizing scanners to trip the copy protection of an AI while it was in their body from a few feet away. Mostly couldn't get any useful scanning data like that, anyway. Subsequent generations perfected the copy-protection technology so that even if you waved a scanner next to an android's head it wouldn't go off. You had to actually remove them from their bodies and place a high powered scientific scanner next to their brains in order to kill an AI that way.

There are also certain alloys of metals, mainly the ones that are useful in constructing the field emitters for repulsors themselves, that slightly interfere with the propagation of a repulsor field at low power which serves as an effective additional passive scan protection.

There was no active scan blocking on Dimitri and no sign of an active anything, to be honest, so Ash increased the fidelity of the scanner in order to see past the outer-shell of scan blocking alloy. Nothing happened. There was significant damage inside but most of it was to the baseband hardware. Dimitri's quantum matrix looked in mint condition.

Ash clucked his tongue. Before checking Meimei he pulled out one of the modules he'd already checked and scanned that. Total devastation inside. It was more of a solid chunk of heterogeneous compounds fused together than than any kind of device.

Ash placed that module into a 'definitely dead' pile and carefully laid Ms. Meimei onto the workstation. Ash gave her the same careful low power scan first, followed by an increase in fidelity. She appeared to be alive too!

Ash gathered up all the quantum modules, except for the one confirmed Really Dead one, and left the small room he was using to store bodies. It didn't feel right to continue working on these potentially living beings in a morgue.

Ash went to one of his workrooms and sat at his desk with a sigh. Ash set Dimitri down on his work table along with the scanner and started again. This time he scanned Dimitri systematically, getting a more or less complete diagram of his brain. He followed the same procedure with Meimei.

A delivery bot brought the connectors and the wireless router he had fabbed. They kind of looked like a docking station for an iPod. Ash plugged everything in and then sat Dimitri down on the first docking station.

After giving him a moment to boot up Ash directed a wireless vidcall to the docking station's address. If he hadn't fucked it up it should act as a transparent gateway and just pump whatever packets he sent to that address straight through the data line.

It worked, Dimitri answered, "I'm alive! But I'm still talking to you through my aux port. But I'm alive! Hahaha, thats good. It's good to be alive."

Ash couldn't help but chuckle softly, but it came out as a coquettish giggle. What the fuck, was there some kind of sexbomb filter on this body's responses? Ash replied, "Good news. I got a complete scan of you. And Meimei, who appears to be alive, although I haven't powered her up. I'm fairly confident in my ability to transplant both of you to new modules, but it will take some work.

Your manufacturer is non-standard in a lot of ways but that probably saved your life. I may not be able to work on you right away, but I should be able to finish the engineering research to transplant you within a couple of weeks. Did you want me to power Meimei up? I have you in a sort of docking station that will handle the networking between you and her if you wanted to talk to her first."

Dimitri looked excited, "That's great! I thought I was dead for sure! Hahah, I was trying so hard to be stoic like my dad taught me but I was really scared! Hahahaha! Umm… let me think."

Almost a whole minute went by, which is a long time for an AI, before Dimitri nodded, "Yes, I do. I think it will be fine if I can talk to her and reassure her. I see a few devices on this intranet, what's the address of the dock you're going to plug Meimei into? I want to be ready to talk to her as soon as she boots up. Uhh.. she's only a class III so I'm worried she won't be as adaptable as I am. It's kind of scary booting up to nothing, nothing at all! Once we are done talking we'll both shutdown."

Ash rolled his eyes and thought, but did not say, "Yes, you're quite the brave boy."

Ash did however send him the address of the second dock, disconnected the vidcall and plugged Meimei's module into the second jack. Then he just sat there twiddling his thumbs, while working on a couple of projects in parallel.

A full fifteen minutes later Ash's body was still sitting there having one of Ash's secondary threads twiddle his thumbs and hum while his main thread had long ago transitioned to one that was working in a VR environment.

A vidcall request interrupted Ash while he was working on the plans for the Viper's bank of heatsinks. That's what he had decided to name the unnamed corvette he was working on after the refit was complete. Ash decided to take the call in VR and answered, this had the advantage of displaying his avatar as it appeared in VR rather than the kimono and cherry blossoms.

Dimitri saw the model of the half-refitted Viper behind him and said, "Woah, cool looking ship! It looks like an antique model!" Then he blinked, "Oh. We're done talking. Meimei thanks you very much. She's shutdown. I'm going to shut down as soon as I end this call, so it should be safe to disconnect us. I'm curious about where we are, my parents and a lot of other things to be honest but that can wait until you fix us. It really isn't all that comfortable living like this. That's all I wanted to say! Thank you again!"

Dimitri closed the call and shut down before Ash could reply.

Ash had his parallel thread that was minding his body disconnect Dimitri and Meimei and place them carefully aside until he could work on them. Honestly, Ash felt a bit drained. He was never really good at dealing with people socially and for a guy Dimitri seemed like a chatterbox.

Ash decided not to bring Dimitri and Meimei back online until he got eyes on the couple on the ground. It wasn't as though he would use what was apparently their child (and his probable girlfriend) as leverage. That seemed unnecessary.

It was just… Dimitri talked... so much.