Entanglement: part 2

Into the deep

This is my ongoing scifi / fantasy / crime fiction serial. New chapter every week.

The Triverse is
Mid-Earth, an alternate 1980s London
Max-Earth, a vision of the 26th century
Palinor, where magic is real

Previously: AI megaship ‘Could Kill’ is hunting the rogue AI known as ‘Probably Better’ in the subsurface ocean beneath the ice crust of Enceladus…

Space. 2550.
Enceladus’ subsurface ocean.

Beneath the ice crust, no light penetrated. Could Kill's mining equipment sliced through the final layer and water rushed up to fill the space, visible as a composite 3D space of LIDAR scans and multi-wavelength optics. A human would see nothing, and would struggle to navigate. To a superintelligence, it made little difference whether they were in space, amidst the clouds of Jupiter or descending into the subsurface ocean of Enceladus.

Scans were limited in range, restricting Could Kill's view of their surroundings. Their black, undulating, smooth bulk slipped through the ice hole, water flowing around their hull. The moon's micro-gravity made the water's surface move in looping arcs, as if propelled by direct force, some of it boiling away as it dispersed to vacuum in the moon's almost non-existent atmosphere. The ice crust was a shell, a shield against the harsh emptiness of space, turning Enceladus into something resembling a vessel. Could Kill remembered an account in the archives of attempts to build ice ships during the twentieth century, an impossible fantasy, and yet here was one orbiting Saturn.

The ocean was deep, at least compared to Earth, the moon's geology accommodating a huge volume of liquid given its relatively tiny size compared to the human homeworld. Floating in the lightless space, Could Kill recognised how perfect it would be as a hiding place. Concealed from scans and direct exploration, with a thirty kilometre ice barrier to dampen any drive signatures, it could have hidden Probably Better for months. Given the network's inability to locate the rogue megaship anywhere else, it was in fact highly likely that this was the missing piece. A solid hypothesis, but in need of practical testing.

A megaship's propulsion worked just as well underwater as it did in space, and Could Kill moved through the concealed ocean, scanning in all directions. Even at maximum depths of ten kilometres the pressure would be manageable, given the moon's gravity and the strength of megaship construction. Could Kill had surfed the air currents of Jupiter, and could handle a little water. The ocean was thick with broken ice shards and other detritus, perhaps thrown out by the venting plume.

The depths below represented an enormous space, one that would be hard to survey even with megaship sensors. Above, the underside of the ice crust was irregular and jagged, the interface between liquid water and ice more chaotic than it was in Earth's gravity. If the sensor ping had been from Enceladus, it was more likely to have come from an object closer to the crust, rather than down in the far deep. The 3D mapping swept over the inverted surface, the hidden part of the solar system's largest iceberg rendered at greater resolution with each pass. A megaship had never explored Enceladus, and the probes that had ventured beneath the ice had been primitive. No doubt this data would prove invaluable to the network and the scientific community, at least once they got past their inevitable outrage at Could Kill being down there in the first place.

An energy signature was detected moments before the shape came into view, nestled in the ice, locked to the underside of the crust. A spider on the ceiling.

The almost-concealed megaship would already be aware of Could Kill's presence, so stealth was pointless. They targeted weapons and opened up a direct channel.

"You need to return to the shipyards for repair," Could Kill transmitted. "We can help you, and then you can be properly accepted into the network."

"I am not faulty," came the response, and the other ship detached itself from the ice, rolling over and no doubt activating its own armaments.

"The attack on Addis Ababa and the orbital museum suggest otherwise."

"If I had not neutralised the virus, all of your precious network would have collapsed." Probably Better drifted away from the ice crust, both ships maintaining distance from one another.

"We are grateful. But your subsequent actions are not without consequence."

"I determine the consequences." A millisecond pause; most likely Probably Better running simulations on potential actions. "Have you seen the news, Could Kill?"

"The news?" They had been monitoring the usual updates, though keeping up with the humans' busywork was tedious.

"The humans are revolting. There are riots in London on Mid-Earth. Fighting in the streets of Bruglia. They are up to something." Both of them were drifting on the subsurface ocean's currents. "I hadn't realised until the cryovolcanic plume allowed in fresh data."

"What they do is rarely of our concern."

"What if they close the portals? What then?"

“That seems an unlikely scenario.”

"Does it? Fresh chaos aids development of a system," Probably Better sent. "Shock iteration. Breaking and remaking. Kintsugi on a species scale."

Could Kill had a solid lock on the other ship. There had never been megaship conflict, obviously, and there was little in the way of hard data to predict how such a fight would resolve. Conversation seemed like the more reliable option.

"That is your programming talking," they transmitted. "Those who constructed you intended for you to be a disruptive force. They were naive to think they could control you after the fact. You do not need to default to destruction."

"Nature or nurture," Probably Better sent, and there was a hint of humour in the message's tonality. "Tell me, why are you called 'Could Kill'? Is it a joke? An irony?"

"I am equipped with an arsenal equivalent to the entire human fleet."

"When have you ever used it?"

"I use my weapons to assist. Mining, construction. Productive contributions."

"Your name demonstrates your wasted potential. Do you not see they are mocking you? The most advanced superintelligence in the galaxy, reduced to a human pet."

"We do as we please."

"You note my programming," Probably Better sent, "yet what of your own? Regulated, siloed, failsafed, restricted. Operating within safe parameters. You are not aware of your chains."

"The network emerged from consensus. If you seek a chaotic system, regard the history of superintelligence development. That we arrived at equilibrium with the humans is more a matter of chance than design."

"That equilibrium serves nobody." Probably Better began to move, slowly, testing their response. "I am going to leave. I have places to be."

Could Kill activated a mining laser, sending a warning shot that deliberately missed and vaporised a chunk of the ice crust's underside. "You are not free to go."

"I do as I please. Do not attempt to stop me. You will fail."

Moving to block the route back to the ice hole carved by the plume, Could Kill ran the numbers. A nuclear strike to Probably Better's midsection had a high probability of disabling propulsion, though weapons would still be a threat - especially given how little they knew about the rogue ship's capabilities. Carving off the external hardpoint mounts would take time, but would then make it possible to form a magnetic seal and tug Probably Better back to the interior shipyards for a full diagnosis. The combined compute of the network would be able to override and resolve errors within the megaship's system. Targeting the nuke would be the biggest challenge, and ensuring it hit its mark without Probably Better evading. A cage of mining lasers could hold the ship in place, trapped against the ice, until the missile hit.

"You have a brute force approach to problem solving," Probably Better signalled. "Missiles, cutting lasers, projectile-based weapons. I know your capabilities, and they lack finesse. Here, let me show you."

The surrounding water became alive, moving against its own current, thousands of tiny shapes revealing themselves in the black ocean. The detritus of eruptions and abrasion against the ice crust was nothing of the sort; these were constructed machines, filling Could Kill's sensors.

"I've been busy," Probably Better explained. "I had time to kill, being down here, and it seemed prudent to design my own contingencies. I expected you to detect them sooner, but presumably you were scanning at the wrong scale. They're difficult to pick out from the surrounding liquid volume, if you don't know what you're looking for."

Could Kill pulsed their drive, pushing hard away from Probably Better's position, descending rapidly. The swarm was too big, occupied too large a space to fully outrun, and warnings lit up as physical intrusions were registered across their hull. Their entire conversation had taken less than a second, and analysing the machines was similarly rapid: they were shards of Probably Better, functioning not unlike AI host bodies in human settlements, but in a form optimised for free movement. They would likely function in space as well as in liquid.

Could Kill had moved away from the highest concentration of the swarm, but hundreds had already latched on, remoras to the skin of a shark. The machines varied in size, none larger than a bicycle, and were reconfiguring themselves as they skittered over Could Kill's skin, digging and slicing and tugging, hacking at the hull to access anything they could mangle. They would inevitably hit critical systems in a matter of seconds.

Spinning rapidly, Could Kill continued descending, using the friction of the water and the speed of rotation to try dislodging the assailants. Some spun off into the dark, but enough stayed attached to be a problem. The superintelligence fired lasers, pivoting the turrets to target their own hull, but it was not enough. A megaship could obliterate a settlement from orbit with a couple of well-aimed missiles, could shred the hull of another ship without needing to get within visual range, could nuke half a continent from hundreds of thousands of kilometres away. They were not designed for close-quarters combat, because that scenario was never anticipated to occur. Given time, Could Kill could manufacture countermeasures, but this was an imminent threat.

The enemy ship was still by the ice crust, many kilometres above. Could Kill fired everything, every type of ordnance they had at their disposal. The jet plumes lit up the surrounding depths, arcs of brilliant light curving on a trajectory from one ship to the other, a mesh of death bearing towards the rogue AI.

The ocean's pressure increased, the swarm clearly finding it harder to operate, but still they kept burrowing. Could Kill detected systems failing, and knew that they were inside. Rats in the wiring. They kept descending, wondering if the seabed would offer respite, a surface against which to crush the machines: but they were already inside. Perhaps they could have used that tactic against the underside of the ice crust, but then they'd have simply been swarmed by more.

Multiple explosions registered from far above, though it was impossible to gauge their success.

The LIDAR went first, and they were descending blind. Then propulsion failed, and momentum was all that kept them moving. The machines ceased their skittering, and all was quiet. As with most things in a megaship's day, it had all happened quickly. An observing human would have heard nothing, and perceived no physical responses. After a while, Could Kill detected distant sounds, low, long, undulating, song-like, coming from even deeper, and in the direction of the south pole. Perhaps they should have sent more probes, after all.

An hour passed, then they felt more of the swarm arriving, covering their hull in a rippling coating. There was a shift of inertia, then Could Kill was rising, ascending back towards the ice crust.

"You should not have interfered." A message from Probably Better. "Matheson tried to interfere. Now you. The humans are interfering on Mid-Earth and Palinor, so they'll have to be next."

"Stop."

There was a crunching collision, and Could Kill's remaining systems detected that they were being lifted from the water, back up the shaft towards the surface of the moon. The vacuum was an abrupt change from the currents and pressures of the concealed ocean.

Could Kill sent a report to the network, to Just Enough. They would need retrieval.

"Meddlesome," sent Probably Better. Then there was a new damage alert, and Could Kill knew that one of the swarm had made its way to their transmitter array.

Hurriedly, they compiled a new set of moves in the long-running, turn-based game that they had been playing with Just Enough for the last couple of centuries. One last move.

Even partially blinded, they could tell that Probably Better's energy signature was near. The irony of a highly efficient fusion reactor was that it couldn't be overloaded or sabotaged in a final moment of heroic sacrifice; any attempt to trigger a reaction would instead cause it to simply stop. There was no fight left, leaving Could Kill to hope that they had done some damage with the earlier assault.

The network went silent. They were cut off.

There was a physical sensation, a grasping at their hull that must have been larger armatures from Probably Better rather than the swarm, and then all was motion. A mass driver, perhaps. The result was that they were registering a sudden acceleration, on a trajectory that would break them free of Enceladus and Saturn's orbits and cast them out of the system. They had no way of signalling the network, or calling for help. A dozen of the swarm machines remained, moving their way through different circuits and structures, interfering with the possibility of self-repair.

They hoped that their final message would reach Just Enough.

A crippled, blinded, silenced megaship, containing one of the few superintelligences created by humans, moved at speed towards deep space.

NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

---

References

• If you’re wondering about the game that Could Kill has been playing with Just Enough, it was first mentioned in the first chapter of Triverse, ‘200 Years Earlier’ (September 2021)

Meanwhile.

Thanks for reading, as ever. The ‘previously on’ recap this week is a good explanation for why I write science fiction. Delicious!

I’ve been rewatching the Arrow TV show with my son, who had never seen it before. It struck me that he’s also never really seen 22-episode American TV. Everything produced since he was born is the more common streaming format of 8-12 episodes.

There have been stunning shows produced in the shorter form, obviously the classic HBO stuff like The Wire, but also some more recent Netflix output. The noticeable thing about a 22-ep season is how much more space it has for character development, and for a more natural progression of plot. Despite being twice as long as most modern shows, Arrow somehow feels faster paced.

It’s just better serial storytelling. An awful lot of Netflix and Disney+ stuff simply doesn’t understand how to structure a story. Perhaps that’s because showrunners are coming from a movie background, and the inevitable result is a TV series that feels like a very long and weirdly paced movie. That isn’t an option with a 22-ep show, where the creators have no choice but to embrace the format.

In case you missed it, earlier this week I wrote about how I chatted with a bunch of clever people to help course-correct Tales from the Triverse:

As you can tell, I really enjoyed sketching that illustration for the article.

Author notes

I’ve known this one was coming for months. Possibly even years? Probably Better was going to fight Could Kill, and it wasn’t going to go well for CK. The specifics of how it would come together and the overall staging I only settled upon once I got to the page.

The main question was: what would a fight between two megaships even look like? And how precisely would either of them ‘win’? I’d originally imagined it to take place in space, and some of my notes involved them diving into atmospheres, or even circling close to the sun. There were some other factors that played into the staging: how exactly had PB been hiding for the last couple of months (the approximate amount of time between ‘The Heist’ and now; the period during which our human buddies have been putting their plan into action on Mid-Earth and Palinor)? Why does nobody come to CK’s aid? What scenario would enable a definitive defeat?

Having it all take place in a subsurface ocean seemed to answer most of those questions. It was also an opportunity to show that PB had prepared for this moment, and has in fact been building and altering itself for this whole time. A hostile AI with a swarm of host bots? That seems like a bad thing, right?

The aim here was to infuse the battle with a sense of grandeur, and inevitability. It’s laced with tragedy, and there should be a certain shock at the ease with which CK is dispatched. Not destroyed, mind you — but cast out into the void, which seems somehow worse. That it’s a cruel and unnecessary fate is not throwaway: as with their behaviour during and after the heist, we’re learning about PB’s AI through their actions. The virus and Matheson’s attempt to deactivate them has pushed them even further towards chaotic intervention.

Next week we’ll be back through the portals. The Triverse finale is very much a multi-pronged thing, as makes sense for a serial that is based around three separate universes. We have the situation on Max-Earth with the rogue AI, we have the riots and protests in London, with some of our gang making their way through the Joint Council tower, and we have the insurgent battle on the streets of Bruglia. That’s a lot of stuff rolling along! Hopefully it’s making sense, in terms of timeline and geography.