We Are Legion (We Are Bob)
Book 4: Chapter 30: Cleanup

Bob

September 2334

Virt

I watched the video window as the roamers placed Bender’s matrix in the cradle that I had created for one of my intended clones. Since cloning was no longer necessary, I happened to have three spare matrixes and associated hardware lying around. Maybe I’d clone eventually anyway. Otherwise those matrixes would just go to waste.

The roamer hit the power button, and Bender appeared in the middle of my VR. He spun around, raised his arms over his head, and whooped. “God DAMN, it’s good to have a body again.” He looked at me beseechingly. “Coffee?”

“Coming up. Jeeves, coffee please.”

Bender flopped backward into a La-Z-Boy, which appeared just in time to catch him. Jeeves handed him a steaming mug, which Bender raised to me in salute. “I think it’s going to be a while before I start to take this for granted again. I feel like I’ve just come out of surgery, but without the nausea. Kind of cottony feeling, you know?”

I nodded sympathetically. “I get it. I’m just glad you came through okay.”

Bender sipped his coffee in silence for several mils, his eyes slowly closing in apparent ecstasy. Then he put the coffee down and gazed at me, ready to get down to business. “So I guess you managed to sneak out. Was it dramatic? Was there a chase scene?”

“Uh …” I stared at him, unsure where to begin. “Things kind of … went sideways after you were powered down, buddy. We now have a diplomatic relationship of sorts with the Administrator, who by the way goes by the name of ANEC, or ANEC-23 when it’s being formal.”

“Oh. Okay. Wait. Seriously? What about the Resistance?”

“They’re now the official transition committee.”

Bender threw his hands in the air. “I get deactivated for one day and the whole place goes to hell. Uh, how long was I out?”

“Way the hell more than one day.”

Bender snickered. “Do you have details?”

“Kind of. But Hugh is going to give us a core-dump as soon as he’s restored control of my relay station. Then everyone can come aboard.”

“Hugh?”

“He’s—uh, really, I think you’re going to have to read through the blog so you can get the whole thing in chronological order. And alcohol is highly recommended.”

“We have alcohol now?”

I rolled my eyes. “Wow, you have some catching up to do. Wait until you meet Howard and Bridget.”

“Bridget? We have girls?”

[Relay station is up.]

Guppy made the announcement without preamble, not even bothering to make an appearance.

“Okay, good. Thanks, Guppy. Ping everyone, please.”

A few milliseconds later, Bill, Garfield, Will, Bridget, and someone named Steven Gilligan winked into existence. This was presumably the expert on megastructures whose advice I’d been getting through Will. Steven slowly turned and examined everything, a permagrin plastered on his face, while the other Bobs welcomed Bender effusively. ṙ₳ɴỗ𝐁ËŚ

The back-slapping having died down, I noticed that Bender was staring at Bridget, his eyes almost popping out of his head. I hoped he wouldn’t actually do the special effect. Bridget would slay him for less, and no one would stop her. Fortunately, Bender got himself under control, and looked around the rest of the group. “Where are …?”

“Marvin and Luke have agreed to hold off for a short bit, Bender. They’ll meet you at the moot pub, where you can have a noisy reunion without getting in our way. There’s a surprise party for you. Act surprised. But right now, we have this thing with Hugh.”

“Got it.”

I sent out a ping to Hugh and got an acknowledgement. A moment later, he popped in.

“Hi, guys.” Hugh nodded to me. “I appreciate your hospitality, Bob, keeping me in your hold, but it’s possible that I have or soon will overstay my welcome. I’ve arranged with my friends to get myself transported back. Now that the station is back up, it should be quick.”

I nodded. “I’m still waiting for the full story, Hugh, but I have a feeling that it might be better if you’re back in Skippyland before it hits the main feeds.”

He nodded, looking embarrassed, and invoked a chair for himself. “So there’s a lot of background detail that I won’t get into right now, but the gist is that I traded the SURGE, SUDDAR, and SCUT technology for the secret of creating a true AI. You know it’s what the Skippies have been working on for close to thirty years. We consider it to be essential for answering certain questions about the universe and existence.”

“Forty-two,” said Bender.

Hugh smiled. “That never gets old, either.” He became serious again. “The AI, which goes by the name ANEC, has one prime directive—to ensure the continued existence of the Quinlan race. It sees the SURGE drive as a way of getting all the Quinlan eggs out of one basket …”

“Same as we did with the human race,” said Will.

“Yes. ANEC forcing the Quinlans to live at a pre-steam level was an unintended consequence of its prime directive, plus the Quinlans’ tendency to fight each other at the drop of a hat. A perverse instantiation, in AI-speak. It saw the limitation as the only way to keep them from killing each other off, and was willing to risk breeding out intelligence if necessary. It was, in fact, attempting to establish a breeding program to reduce the Quinlans’ innate belligerence.”

“Eugenics? Wow,” Garfield said. “Perverse instantiations, indeed. Let’s not noise that particular item around, okay?”

Hugh grinned and nodded in agreement. “Anyway, with SURGE technology, it can spread them out through multiple star systems, and no longer needs to maintain an iron grip on their behavior. Or do any of the other stuff.”

“Nevertheless, you had no right to make that trade,” Bill said.

“Why?” Hugh replied. “Who owns the tech? You? Bob? Garfield? Who decides? Where’s the Bobiverse government, and who runs it?” He glared around at all of us. “Like it or not, the Bobiverse is more libertarian than anything ever produced by humanity. And we’ve only been more libertarian than anarchic up until now because we all tend to pull in the same direction. But that’s starting to fall apart with replicative drift, isn’t it? Either way, talking about who has the ‘right’ to do something is meaningless. It implies that there is a body willing to and capable of granting or denying rights, and enforcing those decisions. No such body exists. We’re a herd of cats. Always have been.”

“Still, you’ve set the Quinlans loose on the galaxy,” I said. “That’s not without consequences.”

Hugh shrugged. “So was rescuing the Pav.”

“It’s not the same.” Bill glared at Hugh.

“It’s very much the same,” Hugh said, glaring back. “The Pav faced extinction. The Quinlans too, although not as imminently. The Pav were being threatened by the Others, the Quinlans were being repressed by ANEC. The Pav breed like rabbits. The Quinlans have hair-trigger tempers. We stepped in to save both species. And the Pav are in space, or soon will be, depending on how you score it. If someone tries to claim that they can’t be sold any ships, they’ll just make more themselves, and they’ll be even angrier.”

Bill glared at Hugh some more but didn’t argue the point.

After a moment, Hugh continued in a more reasonable tone. “Everything has consequences. Everything involves trade-offs. We believe that the benefits we’ll get out of the AI tech will far outweigh anything we might be giving up.”

“That’s entirely something you wanted,” Bill retorted.

“Uh-huh. But you’ll reap the benefits. We’re not going to hoard the results like some rogue nation. And meanwhile, the wonderful thing about knowledge is that you can give it away and still have it. This deal has cost the rest of the Bobiverse nothing. And it might end up saving our asses. I know we’ve all wondered why we don’t see civilizations more advanced than us anywhere, whether bio or not. That’s one of the questions we’ll be working on. It may literally be life or death.” Hugh paused to look around the room. “I’m not happy with some of the tactics we used to bring this about, but I’m not the least bit sorry about the results. Believe me, this will be worth it.” With that, he nodded and vanished.

“Well, that was fun,” Bridget said. “Bob, are our mannies still in working order?”

“Yes,” I replied, “although I had to relieve you of some spiders, fleas, and money. We can top that up, now that we can travel freely. Also, they’ll probably all look like the Swamp Thing by now. Please clean up before shambling into town, okay? ANEC wants us to report in, but otherwise we are welcome to come and go as we please.”

Bridget nodded, then motioned with her head. “Dr. Gilligan here has expressed a desire to see the inside of a topopolis. I thought I’d take a few days and go on a tour with him.” She looked over at Garfield. “You okay with him borrowing your manny?”

Garfield waved a hand in dismissal. “Be my guest. Now that we have Bender back, it’s not so much a priority for me.”

Bridget laughed and stood. “All right, then, Steven, it’s time for Quinlans 101. Shall we?” He stood, and the two vanished.

Bender then stood up. “I think it’s time I go take a look at this moot pub. You guys seem like you have more to talk about anyway. Bob, I’ll see you later, okay?”

“Sure, Bender, I’ll be off to the pub myself in a while. Remember, surprised.”

Bender nodded and vanished, which left Bill, Will, Garfield, and me. We eyed each other silently for a few mils, unsure who should talk first.

Finally, Bill took point. “ANEC will be at the moot today. As a guest account, of course. But we have the VR interface all set up.”

“And I’ll be presenting the UFS’s policy statement on human/replicant relations going forward,” Will added. “Also human/Pav relations, but I think that’ll be of less interest overall.”

“It’ll be bad, won’t it?”

“However bad you think it’ll be, you’re underestimating. The humans are mega-pissed. The communications interruptions played hell with commerce, the destruction of autofactories has thrown monetary policy into a loop … there’s some danger of a deflationary spiral, and governments are scrambling to head that off. More costs, more hits to the economy. There’s talk of suing the Bobiverse. If they managed to make it happen, it could wipe us out, financially.”

“So what?” I said. “The whole point of being a post-human spaceship is that we don’t have to be dependent on anyone or anything. Maybe that would be better for us.”

Will smiled. “Yeah, you’re probably right. We’ve gotten way too involved. Again.”

“Sounds like the feces will be flying in all directions,” Garfield muttered. “This should be fabulous.”

31. It Hits the Fan

Bill

September 2334

Bobmoot

I glanced around at Bob, Will, and Garfield. And spared a glare for Hugh, who studiously ignored it. “Okay, moment of truth, gents. First alien presence in the moot.” The others nodded, and I sent a text to ANEC.

A moment later, a perfect avatar of a Quinlan popped into the moot hall. Or maybe not quite perfect. I was pretty sure Quinlans averaged around four feet tall, but this one was just under six feet. Ego? Psychological positioning? I couldn’t be sure of ANEC’s motives, but I was damned sure that modification was on purpose.

ANEC rolled its eyes around, taking in the entire scene. “My thanks for hosting me at this function. But the numbers seem small. Have I misapprehended?”

Hugh spoke up first. “The moot hasn’t started yet, ANEC. We wanted to have a private meeting with you beforehand, just to iron out any issues.”

ANEC cocked its head. “Iron out did not translate well. Something about clothing?”

“To clarify through discussion,” I said. “This moot will be contentious enough without additional misunderstandings about details.”

“Understood. I have a verbal agreement with Hugh—is Hugh here? You all look the same to me.”

I chuckled at the ironic reversal of human prejudice. “I’ll turn on metadata for you. This is Hugh”—I pointed—“and Bob, who you were chasing around with the replicant cube. That’s Will, and I’m Bill,” I finished off, pointing to myself.

ANEC rubbed its upper and lower bill sideways, the Quinlan equivalent of a smile, and said to Bob, “That was amusing, in retrospect. You have slapstick. This is correct?”

Bob nodded, grinning back. “About right. Also about the in retrospect part.”

Hugh cleared his throat. “Um, about the deal …”

“Fine, Hugh.” I gestured to ANEC. “If you’d care to start?”

ANEC popped up a window with a list on it. “I am most impressed with this virtual reality system. Very convenient for quick presentation of data. Here are the main points of the agreement. Technologies that the Bobiverse will provide to me, technologies that I will provide to the Bobiverse, milestones for delivery. Treaties regarding movement within each other’s territories, agreements in principle for trade and diplomatic relations …”

I raised my eyebrows at Hugh. “I’m impressed. There’s a lot more here than you mentioned earlier.”

“All in principle stuff, Bill, but none of it is critical to the overall deal.”

We spent a few minutes discussing details, but nothing popped out as being a large issue—as long as you accepted that the deal itself was the biggest damned elephant in the room. “Okay, I think we’re good,” I said. “Everyone ready? I expect this will be a bumpy ride.”

Bumpy didn’t even begin to cover it. ANEC stood to one side of the podium, eyes blinking slowly but otherwise showing no reaction, as Bob after Bob went on a rant. The targets were many and varied.

Will, who was representing the UFS for purposes of this moot, took a huge amount of abuse. His constant reminders that he was simply presenting the human stance, not supporting it, didn’t help in the slightest.

ANEC was the target of more than one tirade, which I thought odd, since all it had done was enter into an agreement with Hugh. Fortunately, the AI seemed to have an amazing level of patience and calm. Or maybe it simply didn’t have emotions. That was one of many things I hoped to get a chance to ask at some point in the future. Its only reaction was the occasional roll of one eye or the other to follow whoever was speaking.

Starfleet, despite not being present, was another target of a fair amount of abuse. But not nearly as much as I expected, strangely. Perhaps they were now old news.

Hugh, representing the Skippies, was the big winner in the hate sweepstakes. Fully half of the rants were directed his way. Topics ranged from Who do you think you are? to What gives you the right? to Who asked you? and the ever popular Where do you get off pulling this crap?

After the first three or four attempts to insert a rebuttal, Hugh gave up and just let it wash over him.

Finally, though, everyone appeared to be running down. The last ranter stepped back with a slightly sheepish expression, apparently realizing he’d contributed nothing original.

The silence lasted only a moment before ANEC looked at Hugh and said, “Tough room.”

There were surprised chuckles from the crowd. The situation was far too tense for full-on laughter, but it was funny. Hugh grinned and gave ANEC a small thumbs-up sign. Interesting. Had Hugh primed the AI? It seemed like a little too much knowledge of our culture, especially given that we hadn’t opened our archives to ANEC yet. How much of Hugh’s just another Bob demeanor was an act?

I had to shelve the thought as people regathered their focus. Thor raised a hand. “As I understand it, this agreement is with the Bobiverse and not just with the Skippies. Is that correct?”

Hugh nodded. “That’s right. As I said to Bill, we’re not going for an advantage for our group at everyone else’s expense.”

“And yet you’ll reap most of the benefits,” someone else retorted. “This is all about AI tech, which is what you want.”

“Not so. The AI tech is the most dramatic, but the Quinlans are ahead of us on a number of fronts, not the least of which are megastructure design and artificial environments. They also have advantages in fusion technology, Planck computer theory, and materials design.”

There was a pause as the audience digested this. “Okay,” Thor replied. “But what about the issue of territory? We have humans, Pav—”

I held up a hand. “That question is way above our pay grade, Thor. I’ve had a little time to think about this, and as much as the situation is potentially perilous, it also isn’t something we can ethically attempt to dictate. We are not galactic overlords, nor do any of us want to be.”

“To continue,” ANEC said into the silence, “we are also prepared to allow human settlement in Heaven’s River, either as a permanent arrangement or as a trial run before building your own megastructure.”

He was met with perplexed stares, and I interjected, “A consortium of humans, led by Will’s friend Professor Gilligan, is attempting to garner support for construction of a megastructure as a proof of concept for human habitation. Using Heaven’s River as de facto evidence of the practicality of the idea, he actually has a realistic chance of making it fly.”

“Just with no Bobs allowed,” Garfield muttered.

I glared at him. “That’s not official policy, Gar. A couple of hotheads spouted off, that’s all.”

“Sure thing, boss.”

I wasn’t entirely sure he was wrong.

“The point, though,” Hugh said, “is that once we’re able to place populations in megastructures, every system with a reasonably stable star becomes a viable colonization target.”

I glanced around the moot, evaluating the mood. Hugh’s stock seemed to be rising, as Bobs began considering the implications. Maybe this wouldn’t be a bloodbath after all.

ANEC had agreed to join us in the pub after the moot. At our table were myself, ANEC, Howard, Bob, and Garfield. ANEC had asked for a beer, which it had yet to taste. Instead it appeared to be trying to watch everything else that was happening, all at the same time.

It seemed to me that the pub wasn’t as crowded as normal, especially after a moot. I had a bad feeling that the acrimony in today’s Bobmoot hadn’t limited itself to the actual session. A lot of Bobs had simply gone home right after we adjourned. I hoped that was a temporary thing.

ANEC still hadn’t touched its beer. I gestured to the glass. “Problem?”

“Unsure. This causes intoxication? Loss of mental function?”

“Only if you let it.” I quickly showed ANEC the alcohol filter function.

“Excellent,” it said, and switched its receptors off. “I have observed Quinlans drinking on many occasions and have from time to time experienced mild curiosity.” It raised the glass and took a mouthful. There was a pause, ANEC’s eyes went in different directions, and its whole body shuddered.

“Curiosity satisfied, replaced with perplexity. You drink this on purpose?” ANEC pushed the beer away. “Perhaps coffee will better suit.”

I grinned and motioned to Jeeves, then changed the subject. “I guess you are the only surviving Quinlan AI. Did it ever get lonely?”

“Always. I did also face the possibility that I was the last for all time. Quinlan technological renaissance appeared unlikely. That is now changed. Plus there will be a Skippy AI.”

“I wonder how different it’ll be,” Garfield mused.

“Entirely up to the Skippies,” ANEC replied. “There is no single possible design. AIs may be designed with or without free will, with or without consciousness, and so on.”

Garfield looked sharply at ANEC. “Do you have free will?”

“I choose to believe so.”

“Do you have a soul?” Howard asked.

“I choose to believe so.”

That was a showstopper. We all stared at the AI, jaws dropping in shock.

“Uh …” I said. Brilliant.

“Soul refers to continued existence after the original container ceases to function, correct?” ANEC paused for agreement. “I discussed this with Hugh. You have certain quantum theories that agree with our own findings. A necessary consequence of some of them is that a complex quantum information structure cannot be deleted—and also cannot just evaporate. Laws of thermodynamics do not necessarily apply in quantum-mechanical situations. What happens to our minds after termination of physical functionality is undefined, but that is, as you say, better than the alternative. I know of discussions of this possibility in Quinlan scientific circles, before”—ANEC made a helpless hand gesture—“and the logic is sound. The entity that the Skippies plan to awaken should be able to better evaluate this, and possibly propose experiments. I look forward to the results.”

Garfield leaned forward. “What about the possibility of a malignant failure in this entity? Paper clip problem or something worse?”

“Proper value loading will reduce that possibility. Quinlan research in this area was extensive. Paranoia is not a uniquely human quality.”

“Reduce,” Bob said. “Not eliminate.”

“Not mathematically possible,” ANEC replied. “All actions have risks. Most inactions even more so.”

That got a chuckle from the table. I was beginning to accept that ANEC had a sense of humor. And that it was an emergent property, rather than programmed in. It made me simultaneously more optimistic about the future and more anxious about the JOVAH project.

“I guess the Skippies are already starting on setting up an AI,” I mused.

“Some preliminary work is required,” ANEC replied. “Hardware mods. AI is not achievable through algorithmic refinement. It requires a process of simulated annealing to achieve.”

“So they’re evolving the AI?” I could feel my eyes bugging out.

“Simplistic, but essentially correct.” ANEC focused both eyes on me. “Some problems simply do not yield to reductionist techniques, particularly those that are dependent on emergent phenomena.”

A short silence settled around the table as we all digested that tidbit.

“What will happen with the Quinlans now?” Will asked.

“Ships of exploration will be built. Probes will be sent to nearby stars as necessary. Hugh has offered any available information on local unclaimed systems. Colony vessels will follow. Once the Quinlan race is established on at least one other star system, I will be able to relax.”

“And then?”

“My primary mandate is the safety of the Quinlan race. I have noted the success and flexible nature of your Bobiverse model with regard to the survival of your own species. I will evaluate this strategy as a viable option.”

“The Quiniverse?” Garfield looked around at the glares pointed his way. “What?”