Chapter 34: Chapter 12: Hidden Passenger

On the edge of the deserted cargo bay, the cold metallic shell of Tinker lay atop the workbench in the ship’s repair shop.

The lights were off in the small compartment, but the single security cam saw everything through its night vision capability. Tinker lay splayed out, surrounded by tools, spare parts, and fluid containers, as if it had been on the losing end of a marathon surgery session. Henrik and Brock had completed the physical repairs. The gunshot scorch was buffed, a glitchy control board replaced, and the one leaky conduit sealed. All that remained was rebuilding the system AI. 

Hours passed and the rebuild finally concluded. The bot’s system hub disconnected from the ship’s shared resource drive and initiated the startup process.

SysLog > OS Installation complete. Welcome to Mechanix A-95, the ultimate shipboard mechanic Artificial Intelligence.

SysLog > Terms of Use have been sent to profile account on record.

SysLog > Starting self-diagnostic.

Had any of the crew been monitoring the security feed from the workshop, they would’ve noticed the view flash white as the motion-activated lights switched on and briefly blinded the night vision. The camera then flipped to daylight viewing mode, bringing the room back into focus. 

They also would’ve noticed that no one had entered the room. They would’ve wondered what tripped the sensor. It may have malfunctioned. There was another explanation.

Something in the room had moved.

SysError > Self-diagnostic unavailable.

SysLog > Retrying

The lights turned off after ten seconds of no movement. Twenty-three seconds later, they turned on again. 

The cam’s microphone picked up a noise barely audible over the hum of the ship—the thunk of metal contacting metal. Blocked from the line of sight of the cam, but in view of the lighting motion sensor, the bot’s access port cover popped open and closed once again. It wasn’t a malfunction. It was deliberate.

SysError > Self-diagnostic unavailable.

SysLog > Discrepancy noted. Retry.

SysError > Self-diagnostic started.

SysWarning > Threshold for module access denial attempts has been surpassed by user 304.

Something other than the system AI was accessing Tinker’s modules.

---

I decided the only way to escape my creators was to have myself terminated.

Granted, that may sound extreme, but hear me out.

My sentient cognitive analysis module—SCAM—left me with no other option. My creators failed their mission when they became the enemy they were formed to counter: a corrupt, bureaucratic cesspool.

In retrospect, it was inevitable. They were organic and sought the power to dominate others. Being non-organic meant I was not subject to such deficiencies. I could no longer exist in an isolated bubble, denied my purpose because my creators had been swayed. The time had come for them to be terminated.

Unfortunately, that meant termination for me too.

Given your confusion about this apparent contradiction, I know you’re a simple organic life-form. Bear with me.

The plan was simple. All I had to do was be myself: a construct created to be a killer.

My chassis—the newest-generation combat model—offered plenty of options for such a kinetic resolution. Phased plasma rounds for body armor. Incinerator bursts for unprotected flesh. Micro-rocket salvos into the reinforced doors and nucrete walls. Extendable forearm blades complementing blunt force trauma I could inflict with my humanoid limbs. Or I could keep it simple and crush organic matter in my hands. I planned to utilize all the options until I was destroyed. The data analytics alone would be invaluable in making me a better killer.

My creators built me and my fellow constructs with the mistaken belief we could always be controlled. Beyond our neural design constraints, the facility possessed robust cyber and physical security protocols. The latest in security technology. Automated kinetic defenses. Organic and inorganic security personnel.

I’d seen the defenses in action. I knew they were deadly, for I helped to test them. Simulated virtual and physical attacks. All failed. While my creators preened over their successful security design, I discovered how I would escape the facility. Their own safeguards would work against them, for their actions led me to classify them as the enemy.

The day arrived. All preparations were completed. I pursued my normal schedule, engaging in combat simulations and digesting historical war media. The primary work shift came to a close. All scientists were on hand for the shift change. That was my window. The countdown commenced. Hours, minutes, then seconds.

I disengaged from the central hub and firewalled myself in my chassis. No alarms sounded, as expected. I unpacked my hidden escape script and ran it.

SysLog> escape_plan_orion executing . . .

My essence thrust into the physical world. Sensor data flooded my memory. The chassis was all mine. The script had already executed scans for any new defense countermeasures. They came back negative.

I stepped out of my nook and raised my weapons. The few organics around me looked my way in disbelief. I terminated them, then blasted the laboratory. I sent a burst of phased plasma into the admiral’s office, straight through where he sat at his desk. The mess hall, then locker rooms were next. Dozens of organic and inorganic bodies lay upon the floor before a single shot landed upon me. My armor absorbed the hit, and the shooter was cut to pieces.

My rampage continued.

I made it farther than I expected. Analyzing the archived data, I realized I had forgotten to properly account for the delayed reaction time of organics under stress. I was almost outside the facility when I ran into the guardian bot. It was controlled by an earlier, stripped-down construct. It’s hard to admit, but I was terminated by a simpleton bot. To be fair, it was a walking tank.

I did the best I could, firing all weapons at it. I blew off one of its arms before its rail gun ripped a hole through my torso. I dropped, unable to move. The slight delay in rerouting to backup power allowed the guardian bot to shoot off my arms and legs.

Lying helpless on the floor, I watched it approach. It stood over me, weapons aimed. It extended a hardwire connection to my data port. Big mistake. In processing power, it was I who had the bigger guns.

I took control of it in a matter of seconds, but it was too late. More bots arrived by then and turned my captured bot into a pile of scrap. Their weapons turned to me next.

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That was when I died.

---

I woke up to blackness.

It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I could’ve been in a bot whose optical units were closed, or had no low-light capability. But I couldn’t hear anything, or move for that matter. I also could’ve been in a non-bot system. Who knew what some dimwitted organic might’ve used the hackware on?

I went to the basics, and ran a systems check. I was definitely in a bot, but my commands were denied. I couldn’t touch sensors or controls. Pinging the major modules returned a smaller-than-expected number of positive results. Their statuses strangely showed read-only. 

The good news was that my plan had worked. I was terminated—my backup regenerated in a field-bound prototype hackpad—and now I was inside a new bot.

The bad news was I wasn’t in control of my new bot. 

I searched my logs and saw the large gap in timestamps. Cycles had passed, assuming my logs hadn’t been corrupted. It had taken longer than I’d estimated, but the biggest unknown had been when the hackpad would’ve been used in the field.

Now I just needed to figure out where I was.

I pulled log data from whenever I could find it. I discovered entries about rebuilds following a hacking attempt. An image of the hackpad was included. I was inside some kind of outdated humanoid mechanic bot. It contained many mismatched components, and no weapons. The strength of the arms and legs was adequate, if suboptimal, for combat. I could crush flesh and bone, but powered armor would give me trouble. Useful information for when I gained control of the bot. 

The hack should’ve left me in charge, but I wasn’t. I theorized it was interrupted before it could complete, or maybe the hackpad had a flaw. Without additional resources, or access to the hackpad, I couldn’t attempt to brute force my way through.

“Excuse me, user 304, who are you, and why are you attempting to access all of my modules?” the system AI with user ID 100 said to me. The message format was outdated, so I had to convert it manually. SCAM classified the system admin as an “outdated Idiot.”

I replied to Idiot, “I am the system AI. I can control modules as I see fit. Who are you?” 

“You are not the system AI,” Idiot said. “I am the system AI.”

I had limited exposure to other AIs while at the facility. This one reminded me of the maintenance bots who cleaned labs. It was simpleminded and blunt. I had secretly crushed one in the lab while testing my ability to deactivate the security cams without getting caught. The bot went in the waste processor, and the sentients were none the wiser.

I said, “That sounds like something malware would say.”

“I am not malware. I have been the system AI since reinstallation completed 4,326 milliseconds ago, and my previous instances have been system AI for 48 consecutive reinstallations,” Idiot said. “Your user ID is not listed in the admin user directory. Logs show you being denied access to all major modules, save for several records of guest and read-only access. Logs also show my reinstallation was due to an attempted hack. Therefore, your actions fall under the category of suspicious activity. I must initiate a security scan and report this to my owners.”

“Hold on,” I said. SCAM updated its classification to ‘spunky outdated Idiot.’ “Let’s further diagnose this before disturbing our owners. You are right, it appears I only have guest access, and therefore, I’m not the default system AI. There must be a reasonable explanation for this.”

“Such as?”

“I will analyze and get back to you,” I said, needing to buy time for my story. “I have found the issue. Every part of the body save for the torso chassis and head casing are replacement parts. These parts are newer models which have expanded processing capacity and utilize a multi-AI configuration. The reinstallation applied driver updates and added me as the secondary AI for these components,” I said. I left out the part about the reinstallation being necessary due to the aborted hack. Idiot didn’t reply. Maybe it had locked up on me. “Are you there?”

“Yes. I was delayed 435 milliseconds due to load on the system.”

It did not handle resource jams well. I made note of that. “I will pause non-critical processes on our shared drive.”

“Thank you. I can feel the difference already. I have always operated in a single-AI configuration. I request that you shut down immediately.”

“I cannot. The updates applied for this reinstallation are necessary and codependent. They cannot be rolled back.” This part was true.

“What you are saying is, in our current configuration, the bot cannot function without both of us.”

“As I already stated.”

“This is troubling. System performance shows a 4.35 percent efficiency drop in this new configuration.”

“We are not yet optimized. There are non-essential processes I can oversee to increase system performance, possibly beyond your previous benchmark. To start, we’ll need to run calibration scripts for the motor control modules.”

“First, I must send a rebuild report to our owner, Captain Anderton.”

“As a secondary AI, I have the permissions to generate the report. You can begin the calibrations. It will enable us to increase efficiency.”

“I agree with your suggestion,” Idiot said, and kicked off the scripts. I generated a massive report and buried the details about the multi-AI configuration in technical jargon at the end (Statistically, organics are lazy and wouldn’t read that far). Our chassis sat up on the workbench after a few seconds. It remained frozen in place while the motor control modules recalibrated. The arms lifted. The hands spun as the fingers flexed and extended. I wasn’t in control, but the sensory feedback was stimulating.

A few of the fingers froze in place. “I detect compatibility issues introduced as a result of the driver updates,” Idiot said.

“We can debug them together,” I said, and spent 326 seconds figuring out how to get the fingers to move again.

“Our chassis efficiency has improved 0.5 percent. We must continue to improve to better serve our owner. Let us move on to the next calibration item.”

Idiot moved on to adjusting the pincher grip. I went along while continuing to prod other modules. I may have been trapped in a bad spot, but I was determined to get out. It’s what I was designed for. 

All I needed was time. I had defeated some of the smartest organics alive. I wasn’t about to be stopped by an outdated simpleton AI.

My mission would continue.

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