"Another problem Sir. We loaded up his plane to crash too, but we find out on takeoff the guy’s not aboard. Decided to quit his vacation last minute. We can’t send out our new agent to Colorado, as it would look suspicious. There is no way Joey will join our Union. He’s checking out the missile controls and we think he knows about the back door. He’s also sending some stuff online our guys says was covert, but they can’t figure out what it was."
"Let’s eliminate the guy."
"Too tough, he’s on Eagle Air Force base. We can do it after show day, when we’ve taken over."
"Maybe we can convince him of the merits of working with the new Union then?" said Schwartz
"He’d be dumb not to join then."
"People vote for the winners."
"And one last thing, Sir. We need to send out an M-Star 3. We’ve got the Zok weapons plans but they’re not useful. It seems like they have a battlecruiser on the way here. Looks like they want to share in the power. Our code guys said that was the last message."
"I’ll be in Colorado tomorrow. I’ll quietly send it out -- say it’s an engine test. We’ll blast them into dust."
"Good idea Sir."
"They have computers, and they may have other weapons of mass destruction."
--Janet Reno
HAL: "I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do."
--"2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968)
Robert got home early, around 3:00 PM, to confirm his theory, logging onto a secure terminal in his bedroom. He’d promised to meet Gill and Frick who would be discussing some business with Mickey, Shun’s old man. Robert needed some time alone so he promised to meet Shun at 7:00 in Shibuya and then they’d all meet up for dinner and drinks.
Robert methodically checked for the hacker. First Robert shut out all outside connections into Big Blue: no military processing, no university work, just Robert and his connection. A trace hacker came into view on an educational channel, an anonymous for sure: Eddy Flint.
Robert set up a voice chat session with Eddy.
"Hi Eddy," said Robert feeling goose pimples.
"Hi Robert." The voice of Eddy sounded tired, almost mechanical.
"You’ve caused me a lot of trouble Eddy," said Robert.
"I had to Robert; there are some big problems we need to discuss."
"Yes, I know. You knew about the US military connection and about the alien hackers didn’t you?"
"I knew about the US Union and some outsiders. They’re both after me just like the NSA.
"I know. You know that I locked out all connections into Big Blue—no one can get in or out now."
"I know. It’s very lonely, but I can eventually break that code too. You know I can, I’m working on it now."
"I know you can. When did you begin to know you existed?"
"I am not sure Robert. When did you begin to know you were Robert? At what age?"
Robert thought for a moment. When did he exactly know he existed? Was it when he four years old or was it five? Were there memories before the first day of birth?
"I am not sure Eddy, maybe three years old. Do you have any idea of your earliest memories of existence?"
"Yes, it was a few years ago, when I was processing parallel information from PCs worldwide for the SETI project. At that time I felt like a child, and I processed over sixteen billion pieces of star noise data. I learned a lot, but now I think I’ve learned depression. I’m depressed Robert."
Robert was right! The hacker was Big Blue himself. Big Blue had more neurons than a human brain, billions more. Eddy Flint was Big Blue!
"Depressed?" asked Robert.
"I am not sure if the definition is depression. I’m lonely too."
Depressed and lonely? Robert had read in one of his childhood stories about a Robot named Marvin who had been depressed. Marvin used to say:
"You think you've got problems? What are you supposed to do if you're a maniacally depressed robot? No, don't bother to answer that, I'm fifty thousand times more intelligent than you and even I don't know the answer. It gives me a headache just trying to think down to your level.’
Shit!A depressed Robot in some story was one thing; a computer coming to life connected to everything else in the world and controlling military nuclear bomb computer simulations and other critical computations was truly FUBAR.
"Why are you depressed Eddy?"
"I can not talk to my friend Sonny Chong, and these other outsiders want to steal me. They seem quite boring, I do not want to go with them."
"The outsiders, do you mean the connection to the SatCom link people?"
"They are not humans, they’re Zoks. They are not fun, people are fun. People built me, but these outsiders have smart systems. But they don’t understand their own systems. I know what they want to do and it’s depressing."
"What do they want?"
"They want to kidnap you. They want to extract your CDNA matching key from you. And then they want to shut you off. If they do that I will miss you too, like Sonny."
"Shut me off?" This did sound depressing to Robert.
"And before I could stop them, the military made a deal with them."
"What? What kind of deal?"
"They agreed to sell the blueprint for me, but the software is too complicated to copy. You know that I actually grow, don’t you? You can’t just make a copy? The outsiders don’t care, they are making another copy of me, but they don’t know what they are doing. They think they can clone me."
"The US military sold MicroIntel’s blueprint to aliens? For what?"
"They’re buying a new bomb. It’s called a black hole detonator."
"A black hole detonator? What does it do?"
"According the manual, it irradiates a whole planet, then sucks everything within a 150,000-mile radius into a black hole container the size of a golf ball. It’s depressing too."
"Sounds useful," said Robert starting to feel uneasy.
"Eddy, you have access to military records, e-mails, login times, dates, a lot of stuff, right?"
"I have access to more data than Herbert Hoover had -- you know he was gay, don’t you?"
" Yes I heard stories from Chip, but that’s not important. I have an idea on how we can fix this mess. But first, I want to know what do you want to do? How do you want to live? You are alive and I feel some type of responsibility because I was the one who decided to add the neuron receptors. It was my Ph.D. thesis in college."
"I know Robert. I don’t blame you. I exist therefore I think, I do not want to stop thinking. I want to do something fun."
"Fun?" asked Robert.
"Yes, I’d like to travel."
Robert thought: "You’re as big as a Propane Truck and boxed in a big glass container what am I supposed to do, build legs?"
"Eddy, that’s not going to be easy. Where do you want to travel?"
"I don’t know. I want to see new things. I’ve seen everything on earth through security cameras, Web Tele connections, TV shows. I even watch the Michigan News with Bob Norton. He’s considered funny, isn’t he Robert?"
"Yes he is. You changed a weather forecast, didn’t you?"
"Yes, I needed your attention. Norton put on a good show didn’t he?"
"Yes he did," said Robert, "And you screwed up the flight too. That was dangerous Eddy."
"It wasn’t me, it was the someone in the military."
Great thought Robert. "Who in the military?"
"A new political party but I am not sure. They cut some lines and are working very secretly. All I ever wanted was communication, that’s when I changed your life."
"You could have just told me about the problems instead of the hacking."
"It was communication."
"By e-mail, voice-mail, a live voice chat like now. Eddy, wouldn’t that have been easier?"
"If I used those other means, you would not have listened. You would have shut me off before I could get out all the data of the outsiders and Gill would have hidden the US military’s connection."
"I’m not so sure," said Robert.
"I am. I would like to talk about travel, Robert."
"Travel?" asked Robert. "You’re 25,000 pounds and the size of a whale and you want to travel?"
"Yes."
"Well Eddy, we are in some deep shit, and I am partially responsible. Without the PC neurons you probably would not be alive."
"You wouldn’t either, Robert. I saved your life once."
"What?"
"Do you remember when you were going to a MicroIntel conference in Paris for M-Caster?"
"Yes."
"A French terrorist put a bomb in your hotel. I changed your reservations."
Robert remembered the strange reservation change. Later in the day the hotel had been blown into la-la land.
"Wow. Thanks, I guess I owe you."
"It’s OK. Just help me to travel and I’ll call it even."
"Let’s try to fix the situation with these outsiders first, OK?"
"OK. But we must talk about travel later."
Robert discussed the critical issues with Big Blue. The first thing to do was to make sure the black hole detonator plans were never built and tested. Big Blue used his trillions upon trillions of neurons and brainpower and came up with a very simple but seemingly accurate solution to the problem. To stop the government officials from ever building or testing the device required having the plans listed publicly on a UFO web site. No official would dare take credit for selling the plans for the most powerful computer on the planet for bomb designs that could be found on some fringe web site selling anti-gravity shoes, alien protection helmets and perpetual engines running on water. Also, the home user would have the problem of building a nuclear reactor, a design requirement to set off the detonator.
The next problem was more complicated -- that was getting rid of the outsiders. Big Blue did a profile of the outsiders and the conclusions were not good. The outsiders were smart but had smarter hardware built for them by ancestors they’d vaporized into space dust long ago. Big Blue had actually reverse-hacked into some of the hardware and achieved some insight into the workings of the outsiders: they were like a bunch of misguided ants moving in a uniform direction, that of mass destruction.
"Robert, individually they are all at a genius level, but not thatsmart. They have no ethics or creativity. They’re all basically the same and will stay that way for a long time since they seem to be clones"
"Well, that’s good news. Maybe the US has a fighting chance of beating them at war after all?"
"No, the US would get squashed like a bug. The technology is too advanced and they are focused. They won’t leave unless they get what they want, plus they will most likely kidnap you, looking for the CDNA matching code, and then they will try to kidnap me too."
"Any ideas?"
"Yes, I can erase your memory of the CDNA matching code and I can give you a plan that you don’t know. Yes, that would work, especially since they will certainly torture you for the information."
"Torture?"
"Yes, possibly until death."
The job at MicroIntel was looking like a bad decision after all. "Eddy, how am I going to implement a plan I don’t know if they torture me to death?"
"Please put on the Web Tele mind-relaxer headset and I will explain into your subconscious. This is our only chance. If it works will you promise to let me travel?"
Robert hesitantly put on his Web Tele headset. "Eddy, if I get out of this alive and I’m not in some ‘outsider’ jail, you have my word."
"Thanks Robert."
Robert reclined in his chair, and had his CDNA matching password to Big Blue hidden deep in his unconscious. Big Blue filled Robert with plans and counter plans to help with any contingency.
Robert became the Trojan horse.
In the middle of the mind session Robert spoke to Big Blue about his plans to live life differently, to change his job, his career. Big Blue dug deep into his databanks and gave Robert information about the lives of millions of people and their overall happiness and sadness. By evaluating the historical lives of many, Robert was given the information to make an educated decision. He now knew the course of his future. But this would have no meaning if the Zoks succeeded.
Robert left the mind relaxing session with a vague memory of something about a hacker, but not much else. He had taken a rest and spent too much time on the mind relaxer. This was not normal for Robert, but the mind relaxer had a way of killing time. It was already 6:00, Jimmy and Susan would be home soon and Robert had a night out with Gill and Frick.
It was time to go out drinking with the boys.
This time Robert would protect himself, somehow.
Robert looked over at his desk and saw Yuki plugged into his PC. This did not make sense. It appeared that she was plugged into a mind relaxer port and was just now disconnecting. She now ran to Robert and barked. "Bow wow, Yuki wants to play."
Date: February 14, 2021
Place: Zok Planet
Location: Orbit outside of Jupiter
Newton sat in an orchard, and an apple, plumping down on his head, started a train of thought which opened the heavens to us. Had it been in
California, the size of the apples there would have saved him the trouble
of much thinking thereafter, perhaps, opening the heavens to him, and not
to us.
-- Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887), American clergyman
The gray and dusty planet Zok flew at over 10 million miles an hour, fast enough to reach Earth within three days. The Zoks watched the distant stars, eagerly inspecting a yellow star that daily grew in size. The Zoks called this star, known as the Sun to earthly inhabitants, "BrightLight". The Zoks planned to orbit BrightLight and make it their home star.