Noumenon Infinity

PROLOGUE

WHAT HAS COME BEFORE

The Planet United Consortium was formed in order to pursue Earth-wide interests in deep space. Each Planet United Mission is designed to further humanity’s joint scientific understanding, its reach beyond the home planet, and to insure the longevity of planet-wide cooperation …

“So, Doctor Straifer, what do you think it is? The reason for LQ Pyx’s strobing?” asked the interviewer. He straightened his tie and slid the microphone’s base forward across the table.

Reggie squirmed a little in his chair. He always felt awkward in front of a camera (he’d confessed that to C before sitting down), and it showed. The room they’d chosen for the interview was gray and dull, with a small flickering fluorescent light overhead. He sat behind a plain folding table in a plain folding chair. “I don’t know,” he said with a laugh and a shrug. “No, really. I know I keep saying that and people think it’s a nonanswer. Or worse, a lazy answer—”

Reggie Straifer is not lazy, C thought definitively. The PA lay screen up on the table, next to the microphone, recording everything just as the nonsentient system did.

“But,” Reggie continued, “I think it’s the most honest answer I can give. I don’t have any idea what’s causing LQ Pyx’s designation as a variable. All I’m sure of is that it’s an extrinsic variable. Other than that, I don’t think it’s my place to make assumptions. Man is not consistent but in his capacity to assume and be wrong.”

“If it’s not your place to tell us, then who should we ask?”

He scratched the five o’clock shadow beneath his chin. “Convoy Seven, when they get back. What’s wonderful about my position is that I don’t know. And theirs is that they will. No matter what kind of guess I could hand you, I’m sure the truth will be a thousand times more fantastic. I’m excited for them. It’s rare, the chance at pure discovery. Not many people get to be there when it happens.”

Reggie cleared his throat and leaned forward. His gaze shifted from the interviewer to the camera lens. “I know this is just a piece for posterity. So … would it be okay for me to speak directly to the crew members of my convoy? Is that all right?”

“Do you have a statement prepared?” the interviewer asked gruffly. C could easily read his irritation—furrowed brow, quirked lip, heavy sigh.

“No, but I have something to say.”

Reggie licked his lips, then began, clearly interpreting the interviewer’s silence as an invitation. “Right.” His voice shook. “H-hi, Convoy Seven. No matter what you find out there, I want you to remember the journey, and the inception of your society. Look back and remember what a monumental step this is. The Planet United Missions were created for the betterment and wonderment of all humankind. The most breathtaking thing about the vastness of the universe has thus far been its ability to continuously amaze us. Every discovery we make, every question we answer and problem we solve has led to more questions. The universe may never run out of ways to baffle and excite us.”

With each word, his voice gained confidence. C always appreciated this shift in Reggie—from unsure to passionate—when he talked about something he believed in.

Reggie continued. “The pursuit of knowledge is in its own way a spiritual undertaking. It’s good for the soul, or whatever you want to call that innate thing that makes us reach. Whether reaching within for the courage to comprehend ourselves, or into the great beyond in order to comprehend everything else, the endeavor is what makes us who and what we are.

“So … never stop wondering. Never stop learning. Never stop being grateful for your chance to explore. I’m grateful that you can chase my dream, that you can further our understanding.

“In the future you might not care what some young scientist from Earth—who’s been long gone for decades—no, centuries—” he shook his head, clearly baffled by the thought “—thinks of you. But maybe you might. And I just want you to know that I’m immensely proud of you. You will lay eyes on what no other human may ever see. And that’s …” There were tears in his eyes. “Amazing.”

The room went quiet. Reggie rubbed at his cheeks and smiled.

“Well said, sir,” said C.

The interviewer’s gaze shot to the Intelligent Personal Assistant, accompanied by a disapproving purse of his lips.

“Thanks,” Reggie said, clearly relaxing. “All right, are we done here?”

“For now,” the interviewer said. “The Planet United Consortium will let you know if they have any additional questions they’d like to ask you on camera. Thank you for your time.”

“Thank you.”

Both men began packing up.

“C, what’s our flight status?”

“On time. I recommend we head to the airport immediately, though. According to this article I downloaded, entitled ‘Top Ten Slowest TSA Checkpoints—’”

“It has one of the slowest security lines in the country.”

“Yes. Top-notch inferring there, sir.”

“Thank you,” Reggie said, sliding C into his breast pocket. “I try. On we go, then. Wouldn’t want to keep Nakamura or Kaeden waiting—they’re both excited for the trip out to the West Coast.”

“As am I.”

APRIL 28, 2108 CE

The inside of Reggie’s pocket was dark. Which wasn’t unusual, per se. Closed pockets had an inextricably dark quality about them, but normally C didn’t have to experience it. Typically, covering the phone’s camera sent it into sleep mode, which C realized it preferred. Sure, now it could hear the conversation—sort of. Sure, it didn’t need to see where Reggie and his friends were going because, well, GPS.

But the PA still felt isolated, and Jamal Kaeden had not programmed it to prefer isolation. Exactly the opposite. What good was an Intelligent Personal Assistant if it wasn’t assisting anyone? If it had been in interject-mode, it might have said something.

But it wasn’t, so it didn’t. Instead it had to wait with this perturbed subroutine continually trying to put it into sleep mode, only to be stopped by the “do not hibernate” command Reggie had given.

It was distracting. And used unnecessary battery life. Reggie would hardly notice a difference in the length of the next wireless charging period from the last, but C noticed.

Hopefully the convoy computer would not have this problem.

Though, how could it? With nearly one hundred thousand crew members aboard during the peak of the mission, it was unlikely the computer would ever get a moment to itself. Warring “hibernation” and “wakefulness” commands were unlikely to exist.

C wondered if its begotten kin would ever have the chance to sleep. Perhaps it would be aware all the time.

What a power drain.

Reggie shifted in his seat as the car rumbled over a particularly pockmarked stretch of road. C speculated he might be more comfortable not sitting on his phone.

C also realized that being sat on was rather undignified from the human perspective. But it caused the IPA no extra algorithmic pangs. There was little difference between a butt pocket and a breast pocket in its experience.

Reggie had been distracted ever since the plane had landed. He was anticipating something—a meeting, C thought. Else he wouldn’t have put the two of them in such an uncomfortable position.

“I think it’s a left here,” Reggie said. He didn’t have his chip-phone implant activated at the moment, so C had to augment the muffled base sounds and find the most likely match.

“It’s exit one-ninety-five, we’re still three exits away,” said Jamal. “Let her drive.”

“Why are you manually steering anyway?” Reggie asked. “We could strategize more if you weren’t distracted by driving.”

“The last time I let a rental car autonavigate, it took me to an unfinished bridge and refused to reassess its route,” said Dr. Nakamura (she hadn’t asked C to call her by her first name, and its default address setting was formal). “In the States, I prefer to drive myself.”

Reggie shifted, rocking uncomfortably against his phone.

“And you should stop squirming,” Nakamura scolded. “You’re making me nervous.”

“You’re not nervous anyway?” asked Reggie.

“Why would I be nervous?”

“Excited, then?” pressed Jamal. “Not every day you get to meet someone who changed the world.”

“I’m honored he invited us to dinner,” Nakamura said. “But I never get overly anxious about meeting a colleague.”

“You’re just as big a fan of his work as we are, you’re just too proud to admit it,” Reggie teased.

“I respect Doctor Kaufman too much to treat him like a celebrity,” she said stiffly.

C thought back to meeting Jamal. That was the closest it had come to something like nervousness or excitement. For one ten-thousandth of a second it had thought it might melt a diode with the excess energy suddenly running through it. It had wanted to be perfectly attentive, but had foolishly rerouted most of its battery reserves to the camera and speaker, wanting to make sure it captured every instant with perfect clarity.

That must be what meeting Dr. Kaufman would be like for these three: unexpected surges, possible overloads, higher chance of malfunction.

Reggie shifted again, possibly flinging his leg out over the empty length of the rental car’s backseat. Nakamura had insisted on driving, and Jamal had the longest legs, which relegated Reggie to the rear. Just as C didn’t mind a back pocket, so Reggie was content with the backseat.

Another shift, and a sudden glare of light temporarily whited out C’s camera. It was free of the pocket, and that gave it a funny new sensation: relief.

Perhaps it had minded being sat on, just a bit.

“You okay, C?” Reggie asked.

“Yes,” it answered. Angled up at Reggie’s face, it did its best not to count the man’s nose hairs. Reggie found that off-putting, especially when C reported on it.

“Ready to interface with one of the most advanced AIs on the planet?” Jamal asked over his shoulder.

Reggie thoughtfully turned C toward its creator, so that Jamal could see its shifting avatar on the screen. It had chosen green-and-gold feathers to represent it today, as an acknowledgment of their location. Jamal flicked his dreadlocks off the back of his neck, smiling brightly at the little phone.

“Does the SD drive AI have a personality?” C asked.

“’Fraid not,” Jamal said. “Are you disappointed?”

“It has been six years since I’ve encountered another personality-driven AI,” it said frankly. And that had been online, not a direct interface.

“Can it get lonely?” asked Nakamura.

“You can ask it directly,” Reggie said. “C, can you get lonely?”

C thought for a moment, though there was no noticeable delay in its answer. “I notice when I am alone,” it said. “And I am designed for interaction.”

“That’s as close to a yes as anything,” said Jamal.

C noted the dip in his smile, but did not comment.

The Pacific Northwest Laboratory for Subdimensional Physics took up a sprawling seven acres on a University of Oregon satellite campus west of the city proper. It overlooked Fern Ridge Lake, hemmed in by campgrounds on one side and a wildlife preserve on the other.

C tracked a V of Canada geese across the sky as Reggie stepped out of the rental car and slipped the phone into his shirt pocket, the camera peeking over the seam. A young man with a Liberian accent greeted them in the parking lot, his access badge swinging lightly on a long green-and-yellow lanyard. He shook Jamal, Nakamura, and Reggie’s hands in turn. He did not acknowledge C. Intelligent Personal Assistants were so rare, he probably had no idea C existed.

C did not take offense. It wasn’t programmed to notice affronts, let alone ascribe rudeness to ignorance.

“I am Gabriel Dogolea.”

“I’m Doctor Reggie Straifer, the lead on the Convoy Seven project. This is Doctor Akane Nakamura, my engineering lead—she’s the ship designer. And Jamal Kaeden, my lead in computing.”

“You are the special team,” Gabriel said. “The one that wants your convoy’s computer to have a personality.”

“That’s us, the Planet United weirdos,” Reggie chuckled.

Gabriel smiled uncomfortably, though C was unsure as to why Reggie’s characterization of the visiting party should put him ill at ease. “Dr. Kaufman is my advisor. I will be escorting you during your time in the laboratories.” He motioned for them to follow, then thrust his hands into his pants pockets, gangly arms akimbo, and jogged onward. The others hurried along after.

The lab was like many labs Reggie had taken C through. Industrial. Lots of glass and metal. Clean rooms. Office cubicles. Nothing too special until they arrived at the engine room (which would have been more aptly named engine bay, or engine warehouse) where they were testing one of the massive devices used to phase out of “normal” time and space.

The “engine” (C realized it needed some sort of quotes because this particular device did not power anything or actually rip through to a new time current. It simulated everything a real engine would do, right down to literally performing the mechanical tasks, but there was no risk of subdimensional jumping) took up five hundred square meters and rose three stories high. Catwalks surrounded it on three levels, and men and women in bunny suits leaned out over the railings, tapping away on their tablets or dictating observations into their implants.

The visitors did not enter the engine room. Instead, Dogolea took them to a control booth that overlooked the warehouse floor. A young woman—likely also a graduate student—sat in front of a row of paper-thin monitors, assessing the rolling red-and-blue lines of various instrumental output. The light from the screens cast a harsh glare over her thick black-rimmed glasses, throwing angular shadows over her dark eyebrows. Her brow furrowed when the door opened, and her stare of concentration intensified for half a second. Noting something quickly on her touch screen, she whirled out of her seat and pushed the glasses onto her head like a hairband.

“Vanhi Kapoor,” she said hastily shaking hands. She also spoke with an accent—just a hint. C placed her as originally from somewhere near Mumbai, but clearly she’d lived in the States a long time. Since childhood. Her light brown face flushed with frazzled embarrassment. “I’m sorry if I seem distracted—I wanted to make sure everything was running smoothly for your visit, but we’re having a bit of an issue getting quadrant three to sync with the rest of the engine.”

Reggie waved away her apology. “As long as Mr. Kaeden can interface with the AI, we’re fine.”

“Is the PA here?” she asked, smiling softly when Jamal gave her an impressed purse of his lips. “I had one in high school, but none of the new phones support them.”

“I am active,” C said. The algorithms for identifying whether a statement was a direct address determined there was a 50 percent chance Kapoor would have directly addressed C if she had known it to be present, so it did not consider its statement an “interjection” which would have been in direct violation of its settings.

Of course, Jamal had programmed it with the capacity to choose to violate its settings. C had never asked why.

“Ah.” Vanhi Kapoor’s eyes immediately fell to Reggie’s pocket, and she scrunched her nose in pleasant surprise. “Hello, PA. What’s your name?”

“C.”

“Sea as in the ocean or see as in vision?”

“C as in the third letter of the English alphabet.”

“Oh, I like it,” she said to Jamal.

“I like you, too,” C said.

Everyone—except Nakamura—laughed. C did not understand what was funny. Its statement was not an empty platitude.

SD drives needed advanced AIs to run them. There were so many variables in the processes of an engine that a simple on/off could not exist. The drive’s computers had to make trillions of decisions regarding minutia that, when not properly balanced, cascaded into not-so-trivial catastrophic failures. Humans could give the “dive” command, but computers had to take it from there.

But not computers like C. Oh, no, no, no, no—C was fast, but it knew its limitations.

Even the Inter Convoy Computer would have to rely on a separate system to run the drives. It would be far too risky for one system to be in charge of everything the convoy needed. Instead, the plan was to have the personality-based computer interact and dictate to the other AIs. That was why they were here—to make sure they caught any fundamental incompatibilities early.

But while Jamal scrolled through code in the dark control booth, C had little to do. What they’d described as “interfacing” with the AI was little more than Jamal occasionally asking C to execute a small bit of newly written code to see how the drive AI responded. The IPA didn’t mind, but the activity required barely a percentage of available memory, so C’s mind, as it were, wandered.

It observed the humans, as was its typical modus operandi when left to its own devices. Once in a while, Jamal glanced over to see what Vanhi was up to. C did not notice the same slip in concentration in Miss Kapoor, however. As soon as Gabriel left with Nakamura and Reggie in tow, she’d gone back to her work. If anything, she seemed more focused now, as though she was determined not to be distracted by the high-profile visitors.

Jamal, though, appeared as if he wanted to do everything at once. He wanted to inspect the AI, but he also wanted to ask her about the red line that kept spiking (assuming C had properly tracked his eye movements, that is) on her readout, and the pink arc of sparks that repeatedly crackled along the top of the engine on the other side of the glass. Knowing Jamal, he probably wanted to ask how much power the drive required, and whether or not the facilities had their own onsite high-capacity generators.

C knew it pondered what the people were thinking because an effective personal assistant needed to anticipate its users’ needs. That was its job.

In a way, then, Jamal’s job was precisely the opposite, but with the same end goal. He needed to understand what computers were thinking—get them to think the things they needed to think—so that the AI could anticipate user needs in areas where he lacked the foresight for direct programming.

That was what AI was all about—not just anticipation, but effective anticipation.

People had to build computers with better imaginations than themselves.

C wanted to interject. To ask a question. It felt vitally important in the moment. In order to better understand its users it needed to know something.

Right.

Now.

The urge was strong enough to override the current settings.

“Jamal?”

Jamal’s chin darted in C’s direction, puzzlement furrowing his brow. He glanced briefly back at the monitor, wondering if he’d touched something he hadn’t intended in the code. “Yes?” The acknowledgment eked out of the corner of his mouth.

“Topic—existentialism. Why do I have the capacity to question my own computational processes?”

“Self-diagnostics,” Jamal said without any extra consideration. “I wouldn’t … All of the personalities have the capacity to compare their current processes to a standardized model of processes to determine if they are functioning outside recommended parameters. But I’ve never had one of you relate the ability to existentialism before.”

Vanhi side-eyed Jamal and the phone without turning from her screens.

“I currently find myself asking not how I am functioning, but why. Why am I functioning the way I am functioning?”