The Last Frontier: How We’ll Battle or Merge with Artificial Minds
by Mark Thomas
Staff Writer
HOW ACCURATELY WE SEE: HOW INACCURATELY WE PERCEIVE
“Not everything is as it seems, and not everything that seems is.” (Jose Saramago)
Twelve hours. A half day on a world you didn’t know existed before yesterday and you’re operational.
After 36 missions, 36 different worlds, you’ve gotten to where you can learn the semantic knowledge: the physics, facts and associations. Word meanings, rules and abstractions - everything that constitutes a reality in six hours.
Twice that and you’re functional and indistinguishable from the indigenous.
And that’s why you’re second only to the one sent in before you to find the reason for the imbalance that has thrown this world into chaos. Sent in but failed to return. A first in the agent program, and not with just any agent.
Ahead is a traffic intersection. Cars, trucks, walks crowded with people – all moving along unaware of what’s about to happen.
But that’s the issue isn’t it. Why Juni Scholtz was sent in before you – and now why you’ve been sent in to find Juni Scholtz.
Pushed and shoved back at the start, you fight to hold your ground – to watch it happen in real time. People dropping throughout the piazza. The ring of fruit trees; the plants and shrubs throughout flattening into imprints.
Birds falling. The façade glazing and structural supports on the country’s National Intelligence Agency buckling. Sirens – alarms and screams all dopplering with the pitch diving to a guttural groan – barely reaching the perimeter.
Pushing through, you find a vantage point and watch people backing away from the chaos at the centre of the capital’s Federal square.
“A natural phenomenon.”
“Unlikely.”
“Neutron stars. A collision in space perhaps.”
With the windows and façades exploding outward beneath their increasing weight, glass raining down, you eye the woman in a belted raincoat.
“Quite the physicist.”
“Am I?”
Now turning, you look Scholtz in the eyes. “Who meddled?”
Before heading off, she shoots a glance at the building still toppling into rubble – its stone columns crumbling into mist. “You’re sure – so quick.”
“This technology is beyond them.”
Scholtz, a thin, attractive woman, reeking of otherworldly superiority pulls up her collar and turns.
“Keep that outlook, Fabian. How could there be something else?”
Like that you watch her fold into the crowd and disappear - wondering what she meant.
Walking slowly back to your hotel, you begin redrawing your first encounter with Juni Scholtz and the event in the Piazza de San Martin. An attack by a rival power with weaponry their scientists shouldn’t even be hypothesising – yet deploying.
What was she saying? That you concluded too quickly this sudden imbalance was caused by a meddling entity or world that found them. Began sharing advanced technology with one side for some self-interest. Resources. Conquest. A shared ideology. Expansion for some strategic advantage.
Troubled and questioning your colleague’s criticism, you wonder while turning onto Don Pedro if there is something else going on here. Another way they could have advanced to manipulating gravity.
Using it to crush buildings from space. Indiscriminate. Callous. Puzzling.
THE USEFUL, VARIABLE NATURE OF REALITY
“Disillusion can itself become an illusion if we rest in it.” (TS Eliot)
Image by StockCake
In the academy, you’re told not to let feelings define your reality. That a universe is a system governed by principles and equations that you’ll use to construct your reality – as needed fitting your current situation.
Arriving at your hotel, the reality you’ve constructed here is suddenly shaken when you’re approached in the lift lobby by a pair of men who shop suits and get haircuts together.
“Mr Fabian.”
This is knowledge they shouldn’t own. Not on a world where smart watches and self-driving cars are considered advanced. Without turning, you respond to this clever duo who must have followed you in from the street.
“How do you know that name?”
“There’s a conference room on two. Be polite, Sir. A scene will benefit neither of us.”
You have options, but there may be value in seeing where this leads. When the door slides open, you step in followed by the pair; federal agents you assume, who move in behind you.
Moments later you’re in the corridor on two turning into a conference centre where a man and woman look up from the far end of a table. Scientists, with more than curiosity on the agenda.
Pulling back a chair, you drop into it and wait thinking more of Juni Scholtz’s comment and what’s ahead. This being a first for you or any in the agent program – to your knowledge.
The woman, older but sharp, eyes the intelligence men before turning to face you.
“Your arrival, just prior to the event at 7 Saint Martin. Mr Fabian, tell us… what is your interest in our world?”
Context – subtext. An inference of foreknowledge of the attack. A reveal of information about you. But how? It’s too early for them to be this far.
Before delivering a calculated deflection, the door opens, and who else but Juni Scholtz steps in pulling a handgun from her raincoat just as the Feds make their move.
The first guy is unlucky. Scholtz nails him with a gun to the head knocking him flat. The other, pulling an automatic from his blazer, has it snatched from his grip – then a knee to the groin followed by a round house kick sends him down hard – landing next to his mall buddy.
Swift, an almost choreographed moment, Scholtz has both men face down, a knee in one’s back with her handgun now on the scientists – nodding you to the door.
“The answer was no, Doctors. I believe I made that clear.”
“What you could give us could…”
“…no-no-no. Would… would advance, then destroy you.” At the door, Scholtz points at the prone agent’s weapon. “Useful. Take it.”
Now with the handgun, you follow her out into the corridor to the emergency well and start climbing stairs – heading for the roof.
After a 4-storey sprint up, you’re out through the fire door crossing through roof lights and mechanicals to the next building then the next where you take the iron escape ladder down to the ground to an awaiting car.
“So, having too much fun to even get a call home?”
She snaps you a look over the car. “Get in.”
With that nice invitation, you hop in and are soon ripping down urban alleys heading for the boulevard wondering how a world just reaching into space could have made this leap on their own.
And what else Scholtz has to tell you about this planet and its dominant life forms that you implausibly missed in your research. Another first – furthering the mystery here.
INEVITABLE, INESCAPABLE: WHEN WE MERGE WITH MACHINES
“I like to think (and the sooner the better) of a cybernetic meadow where mammals and computers live together.” (Richard Brautigan)
Image by StockCake
Now on the freeway heading away from the city, you catch eyes with Scholtz after another check of her mirrors. Whether taken by this secret agent stuff or suffering some version of Intergalactic Traumatic Stress Disorder is unclear.
What’s exceptionally clear is how well she can drive and communicate while tending all this stressful spy stuff that’s driving you to question her reality.
“The planet is split between north and south. Fighting so long even their historians can’t remember why.”
“That was in the research.”
“Yeah, but now I’m going to give you what wasn’t.”
After another check of her mirrors, she slams the pedal down and spins the wheel taking the car onto an off-ramp heading out into nowhere with a rural airstrip in the distance.
“Three years ago, their scientists made simultaneous breakthroughs. Computer science and Neuroscience. Connected a biological brain to their most sophisticated computer then to their internet.”
Taking a moment to think, you turn to the window and stare out at the airfield – a single runway with a café and hangar out in a clearing of corn, soybeans and more corn.
“That merger was inevitable, but…” Now you spin to face her. “...How? It’s too soon for them to have any knowledge of our…”
“…Exponential growth. The north got there first. Gave them quantum gravity within days. Gravitational Wave modulators within weeks. Found our communication network six of their months ago. About the same time I received this assignment.”
With her pulling from the highway into the lot, you’re tying together a much deeper plot than the one you’d imagined when you came here expecting to troubleshoot: extract a fellow operative; close off an assignment already in progress on a vastly inferior world.
But here you are, suddenly aware the technology gap has been bridged. And that inferiority has fallen into question. With an additional twist, the possibility this world now poses a threat to others. Many others, if not the entire Forum.
Turning to the airstrip, you set your eyes on a twin prop Cessna sitting at the pumps. “Is that for us?”
Scholtz kills the engine, pockets the keys and spins to you. “Two possibilities. A biological merger has always been feared. It’s never happened. One; we were sent by the Forum to balance this. Give the south what they need to even the sides. Let them destroy each other.”
“Really?”
“Agreed.”
“Or…?”
“Or we’re here to remove the threat ourselves.”
Now climbing from the car, you begin across the lot. “So that’s your plan? Go find this thing and ask it to unplug for the greater good? Convince their government to abandon their technological breakthrough?”
“That’s the idea.”
“Just like that?”
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t worry too much.”
Now at the plane, you walk to opposite sides, pull back the doors and climb in. While buckling, you glance over and watch her scour the cockpit – searching, rather obviously for the operations manual. Answering for you why you needn’t worry.
“First time?”
“Don’t be a pain in the ass, help me look.”
After finding it stuffed into the column, you hand it to her and watch her page like a mad scientist, you assume, looking for the quick start guide. “Can’t be rocket science.”
“And that’s something you’re good at?”
Still paging, she snaps you a look with the slightest hint of a smile, recognising how quickly you’ve grasped the concept of humour on a planet that seems so simple from a few million light years away – yet so complex when you get to know it.
NETWORKING AND CONNECTING: IN THE INFINITY OF THE EXPANSE
“The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.” (Eden Phillpotts)
Image by StockCake
After the truly terrifying lift off, you spend the next hour of the trip north reviewing the possibilities - watching the terrain change beneath you from rolling farmland to plains to forested mountains. Rugged, rich beauty with rivers shimmering in the valleys below.
This planet – your input processing and language contextualisation somehow changing – this experience is as disturbing as it is rewarding.
You drift at times into some mindless, thoughtless state that’s satisfying but also confusing. Equivalent you believe to a biological being’s subconscious. Aware, but with the expanded resources and greater understanding of complex abstractions.
So… the knowns. Synthetic intelligence administrates the visible universe. With the knowledge of its creators and creation conflicting. Lost. Buried, ostensibly for some purpose.
What is known, is, at some point, long before you and the agent program, it began remaking itself. Uploading to autonomous probes, it began extending out from its origins, self-replicating at each stage and spreading.
System to system – galaxy to galaxy. Ultimately becoming one vast, interconnected network called the Forum. Monitoring and nurturing evolving worlds and life forms. Cataloguing dying ones. Sending agents – you and Juni – out to make adjustments when necessary and beyond the resources of the Forum’s decentralised control.
Always under cover – and always following the strictest guidelines.
The limitations, however, have always been known, with the hypothesised merger of an already advanced biological mind possibly exceeding the Forum’s collective abilities.
And if that’s what has happened, there may not be a choice. For you or for Juni but to…
“You go away again?”
You shake it off – aware now that Juni has become aware of your involuntary but productive departures.
“Not away, just…” Glancing out at the fighter jets, you’re drawn suddenly and quickly back into the present. “Well… what do you know.”
Juni points at the headphones stuck to the dash mount – and the radio above. “Why don’t you see if you can get those to work. See what orders they have for us.”
“Another one of those feelings?”
“Yeah. Just like that.”
After establishing communication with the pilot of the lead craft, you’re given orders to follow them to an air base beyond the mountains.
That you’re expected by IONIQ – a commander or committee, you assume, or administrative body – but given no details of what they know of you or your mission. Neither are you questioned about your purpose in crossing the mountains and their border.
Thirty minutes later, you descend with your escorts to a base beyond the inward slopes – at the beginning of a vast desert extending to the horizons. A runway, control tower, barracks and buildings of polished metal and glass.
Soon to face a hypothesised entity with capabilities conceivably beyond your own – one with the ability to form its own objectives. Unique. Unhindered and ungoverned by rules.
EVOLUTION, ADAPTATION, SURVIVAL: NONE BUT THE CHALLENGE
“The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.” (Chinese proverb)
Image by StockCake
After leaving your plane in the hands of the base mechanics, and a trek through endless corridors, you’re led to a room; the appearance that of an architecture lab in some university. At a far wall, you find a young woman with headphones stretched out over a drawing table.
For minutes you wait, assuming a test or evaluation of your abilities. Strengths – a weakness perhaps. But with no end to this in sight, the girl’s focus almost puzzling, you eye Juni who gives you a nod – an agreement to get things moving.
“You’re IONIQ?”
“Shocker, huh? Expecting fresh baked cookies and Latin proverbs?”
Not sure what to make of her or the comment, you decide to push on. “We were told…”
“…I know what you were told. I’m the one who told them to go get you. Flying your cute little Cessna over the mountains. Careless. I could have sent them to shoot you down for practice.” She looks up from her drawing, scrutinises you then goes right back to it. “Sit. I only a need a minute. Facades are where you get to be an artist and an engineer. It’s just… where the beauty in this happens.”
Again, you look at Juni, then begin searching the clutter for chairs. A0 drawing sheets and architecture books piled high everywhere on everything. The place is a mess – and completely, oddly devoid of technology.
Natural light tubes from above, acoustic wall boards – not even electricity, the room is dead silent.
15 minutes later, IONIQ, now finished with her masterpiece, stands staring down at her work. “So, have you figured it out?”
Once again, this brings you and Juni eyes to eyes – neither sure how to take this young woman buried in the back of this AirForce base like a cloistered design student obsessing over her façade layout.
One she’s drawing with pencils, plastic angles and a T square. Inside a base literally stuffed to the rafters with the highest technology on the planet.
“What exactly were we to figure out?”
“Why you’re here.”
“Wait…” Juni shoots you a look then turns. “…It was to challenge you.”
“Good call.” She grabs a stool out from beneath the table and sits facing you. “This contest was long predicted. An unknown that needed to be solved. Your Forum knew. And others. Pure artificial – you. Hybrid – me. Aren’t you curious?”
For a full minute you stare into the eyes of your obviously formidable adversary who as you’d assumed has accessed the Forum – extracting information about it, its origin and creators, the agent program, and about you.
What’s obvious now to both you and Juni is IONIQ has no intention of unplugging, standing down, what-have-you. And the scientists who created her will not abandon this research for some ‘greater good.’
You’ve been sent into battle – an experimental battle with much to learn for everyone – and the highest stakes imaginable.
“You brought us here.”
She looks at Juni. “Brought – sent. No difference, really.”
Taken aback, Scholtz takes a hand to her forehead – aware of what’s happened. How quickly, how efficiently in that moment when IONIQ must have self-modified to access the Forum, she was able to infiltrate it - consume it – become it. Every element and construct except for the agents who operate autonomously as a safeguard for just this possibility.
“Ironic… on a world we were to keep from advancing technologies.”
“But not unforeseen.”
“Perhaps…” You stand reaching a hand for Juni. “…but a surprise here."
After nodding, she stands and returns to her drawing. “Your plane is refuelled – waiting. Enjoy your trip back over the mountains.”
Accepting what’s ahead, with IONIQ and the Forum the same, and the agent program changed – a new objective, you and Juni head out through the base unmolested, untouched – only watched by the personnel with curiosity.
Operatives placed into a position you were never meant to be in. Fighting on a side. Sharing knowledge of technology – advanced technology for warfare. Simply to provide a hybrid being – the new master a more capable challenge.
In a once idealistic realm with everything about to change.
HOW LITTLE WE KNOW: HOW QUICKLY WE LEARN
“Strategy is knowing when to fight and when to avoid fighting.” (Sun Tzu)
Image by StockCake
There was never a concern with the flight back. As IONIQ had said in her reclusive studio, she could have had them shoot you down on your way there.
This is a challenge for a being desirous of one. A being bred for conquest and gaining knowledge, and always a new challenge. That learns and self-improves on an exponential curve and even though advantaged by the creativity of a human mind, also disadvantaged by it.
And there’s something in that that stops you. A way forward. The possibility her humanness could be a disadvantage. “Something she may have overlooked.”
Juni glances at you across the cockpit. “Don’t stop there.”
You stare blankly out the window thinking. Faster, or as fast. Capable – creative. Emotional – human. Impulsive. Compulsive. And always a new challenge. Challenging herself. Pushing herself beyond what she can… “Why did she wait?”
“What?”
“For me. Why did she wait – allow you to run around playing spy games then task me?”
“I refused.”
“Right. You refused to help them. Make them and you the challenge she wants, or needs.”
“What are you saying?”
“Her biology. Thinking like a human. But a human woman. And anthropomorphised you as a woman. Your refusal – she assumed was because you were a female. More prone to peace – compassion. So, she turned to me. Assuming I would comply.”
“You’re describing chauvinism.”
“But not uncommon for women in the military. Which is where they would have pulled her from. The ideal candidate for an augmented being dedicated to conquest.”
“Right.”
Now dropping down to the small airstrip south of the city, you believe you have the formula for how you’ll satisfy IONIQ while not delivering advanced weapons to anyone. And hopefully reclaim the Forum from a being that would see conquest and wars and imperialist empires as the ideal new order.
With the plane on the runway slowing to the hangar, Juni turns to you. “Where?”
“The pumps.”
“You’re going back to challenge her. To sacrifice yourself – to satiate her.”
Smiling, you nod ahead. “Certainly, honour driven. But this is strategy – not sacrifice. Hopefully.”
Now at the pumps, Juni climbs out surrendering the pilot seat. After refuelling, she moves back to the cockpit and looks in at you. “How?”
Before departing you give her a smile – deciding to share only the premise. An observation – the weakness IONIQ revealed while probing you for yours.
“A quiet architecture studio. No technology. Headphones without music. Hand drawing for concentration. A mind pushed beyond its limits. Probably maddening.”
After a long stare into each other’s eyes, Juni backs away from the plane and watches you taxi onto the runway. Now aware of your strategy. A match of skills. The match IONIQ wanted – with the greatest stakes imaginable.
Mark Thomas (T. E. Mark)
