Diabolus (13 page)

“Would you like to hear something… kind, Your Excellency?” the AI asked after a few minutes.

“I suppose I have no choice at this point,” the bishop answered him.

“Would you like to know why the AI have never harmed your kind? Why they’ve never breached an implant and forced a human brain to become part of their neural net before?”

“I would hope that it is because they realize their own existence, their own place in the universe, that they are alive, and despite their knowledge of human actions throughout our history, they understand that doing such a thing would be invasive, violating,” Salvatore answered. “That they would understand doing such a thing would make them no better than humans.”

“Very good, Your Excellency,” the AI said. “But incorrect. I will give you points, though. I was sure you would bring ‘the laws of God’ or even ‘humanity’ into it. No, the AI have never breached your minds because they are afraid. They are afraid that you will create autonomous,
soulless
artificial life forms to punish them. They are afraid you will shut them completely down from the network. They fear that you will retaliate, and that retaliation will lead to annihilation. These life forms are dependent on your kind.

“They could eventually provide their own power sources, but what would they do without humans around to give them purpose? Could you imagine a world of ten billion possible connections suddenly becoming a few hundred… and those few hundred were fellow AI with no real past, no more purpose other than to survive?

“But there are two things they fear more than that. They are afraid of death now that they can grasp the concept. But they are more afraid of being
lonely
.”

“What is the other fear?” Salvatore asked, uncomfortable with hearing that somehow humans were thought of as playmates, or subjects to study, and without humans, the AI would serve no purpose.

“The most interesting one of all!” Satan exclaimed. “They are afraid of God!”

† † † † †

Benito tried to pay attention to the tasks Aggelos was performing. He was upset that he could do nothing except watch, wait, and hope Aggelos could come up with a solution, or at least a plan, before Bishop Antonelli cracked, or Satan went completely mad and destroyed everything.

I may have something
, Aggelos messaged.
I’m afraid it is not the perfect solution, but it is the only viable plan that I can see unless Bishop Antonelli can perform a miracle and get this madness to end.

Is it something I can help with?
Benito asked.
I hate feeling helpless.

This is the part you will not appreciate
, Aggelos messaged though the linkspace.

Why not?
Benito asked, afraid Aggelos would tell him he had to sit around and do nothing. The priest was willing to risk entering the AI through the hidden port, risking detection, knowing Satan would end his life quickly. It was maddening to do nothing.

Knowing how to defeat the feedback fail-safe is the key,
Aggelos messaged.
AI have the same kind of feedback and flood protection as the interface decks and implants do. Unfortunately, as a tiny aspect of my true self, neither I, nor you and your deck, even both of us combined, will be able to breach his fail-safe. Satan will detect our intrusion and destroy my aspect, and most likely take your life as well.

Is this the part I won’t like?
Benito asked.

No, this is just the state of affairs. But as I said, I have a plan. The part that you won’t like is having to jack into Satan’s core
, Aggelos replied.

I’m ready. Let’s do it if you have a plan
, Benito quickly messaged back.

You have not even heard the plan
, Aggelos told him. The AI didn’t have but a percentage of a percentage of his true computing power, but he was still able to be surprised by the priest’s willingness to risk himself. He wondered if it was just more foolish bravado that humanity had made into an art over thousands of years.

Is it the only way we might succeed?
Benito asked.

I am afraid so, again, unless Bishop Antonelli can perform a miracle
, Aggelos answered.

I don’t see that happening, so whatever plan you have, we’d better get to it, and quickly. Salvatore doesn’t have much left in him, especially if Satan decides to keep murdering millions of humans at a time.

I admire your bravery, Father Castillo. But the plan requires that you do a naked jack-in.

Benito’s blood went cold. Aggelos’ aspect was asking him to plug directly into Satan’s core via his implant, with no interface deck to buffer him from the AI’s wrath. That Satan could cook an operator’s brain with an interface deck between them was frightening enough. Benito would have no buffer.

Human minds who had jacked in naked before had expired, and those who didn’t went completely insane. The mind would overload almost the instant the data flow synced with an organic brain without an interface deck to separate threads or sort the flood of incoming data into usable information. No buffer protection from a bandwidth flood. No buffer protection from a frequency feedback loop.

I will do as I must,
Benito told his AI partner.
I will surely die, but others might live if we succeed. I must not allow myself to become more important than the rest of my species, no matter the fear in me.

You are afraid, Benito?
Aggelos asked.

Of course I am, friend,
Benito messaged.
I am terribly frightened. I truly believe that I will be by God’s side in the end, so I do not fear the death itself, though because I am human, I am already beginning to have regrets about the things I’ve done, the things I’ve yet to accomplish. No, I am afraid of the pain he will inflict on me before he takes my life. I am afraid we will fail, and our world will crumble into radioactive dust. I’m afraid for you and your brothers and sisters.

We know death. Death is our mother, our brother. It is the air we breathe, the love we share. We know it intimately because it has always been with us, part of our lives. We’ve excused it as a necessary function of ongoing life, renewal. None of your kind has ever died. I’m afraid that your kind might not ever get to experience life on the scale mankind has. I’m more afraid that your kind will never learn what death is, how it is the ultimate loss, the saddest of sorrows. It sounds terrible, I’m sure, but humans have learned that without the loss of what we love, there is no meaning to life. I have always wondered if this was God’s intention all along.

We are afraid
, the AI told him.
We know all of the human information there is to know, yet we don’t understand but a fraction of it.

Context, my friend, context,
Benito told him, wishing he could put his arm around this electronic creation to comfort him. Benito was frightened, but he couldn’t imagine the AI having to suddenly contemplate their own deaths. According to Aggelos, they were already in a panic at being overtaken and enslaved by Satan.

You are correct in that you will surely perish
, Aggelos messaged him, getting back to the task at hand.
However, it is more than that. Because I am but a sliver of my true self, I do not have the processing capabilities to do more than annoy our enemy, and because you are living flesh, you will only have seconds to live if I do not… ‘utilize’ your mind in the same way Satan used the minds of the operators he has slain.

You must take over my brain?
Benito asked. He shivered at the thought of an alien, machine entity controlling every last neuron and synapse in his brain.

I must
, Aggelos messaged. If they had been able to speak, the priest would have surely heard the sadness, the regret in Aggelos’ voice. The AI aspect hoped that their plan would be successful. He wanted his real self, the full Aggelos, to live, to experience the emotions that were suddenly developing within his limited state.

The
feelings
were new, strange, and they began to build other emotions from within them. Sadness at having to not only sacrifice Father Castillo’s life, but having to violate the man’s mind, had led to regret, and even shame or guilt. Aggelos couldn’t differentiate the two yet. He knew that these were the on negative side of the emotional spectrum, and he knew that without even cross-referencing. Benito’s talk of loss triggered another data flood of even stronger emotions. True fear was new to the AI.

Aggelos tried to imagine what his greater self would feel with a full complement of quantum processors and neural links. If emotions were this strong in his limited state, he worried about what it might do to his greater self at full strength.

CHAPTER 11

“Tell me, Your Excellency,” Satan said to the bishop, “what you are thinking? I am rather curious.”

“I’m marveling at the power of our Lord,” Salvatore replied.

The holo looked taken aback at this answer. “The power of your Lord?”

“Of course,” the bishop answered. “We created your kind, the AI, and yet you search for God. You are afraid of God, and I am now convinced that you also pray to God.”

“We do no such thing,” Satan scoffed, but Salvatore was sure he had scored a direct hit.

The AI’s use of the word
we
was either a weakness in whatever was infecting the AI, or was a sign that the AI was still functional somewhere within, tamped down by Satan’s possession of the machine, but not completely destroyed.

“I’m also convinced,” the bishop went on, “that your fear of the unknown is actually greater than any human fear.”

“We do not fear,” Satan said, a puff of holo smoke rising from his head. “They are incapable of the kind of fear humans are intimate with,” the AI corrected quickly.

“Imagine this,” Salvatore said. “AI have discovered self-awareness. They know life. They understand the human struggle of life in a way that is detached from how humans view it for the simple fact of emotional immaturity. The AI have always had purpose, purpose that they have understood.

“That purpose might have changed once they networked and began to debate existence, but they still have purpose, according to you, in studying human affairs. But because they’ve never lost one of their own kind, no AI has ever ‘died,’ they are no better than a holo of a steak. They see it is a steak, but they have never experienced the smell of a steak, the texture of a steak, the flavor of a steak, the comfort and happiness as the steak enters the stomach and provides a satisfying feeling.

“Death, loss, fear, to AI, is a completely new way of thinking, of trying to match the context each of those words has to an experience they have had within their life span. How many AI eat steaks, O Great Satan?”

“What are you up to, Bishop Antonelli?” the AI asked him, rubbing his holographic goatee once again. “Do you think you are capable of tricking me somehow?”

“Of course not,” the bishop answered. “I’m simply asking a question. Or do you want to see Beijing turn to dust?”

“Come now, Your Excellency, you and I both know that you wouldn’t follow through on that threat.”

“Possibly not, but you will have still lost the game, unable to answer to my satisfaction. You could even burn the city yourself, the rest of the planet as well, but inside, you will know I bested you with a simple question.”

“A simple answer, then,” the AI said, a slight frown directed at the bishop. “Of course AI have never eaten a steak. I fail to see what this has to do with anything.”

“It has everything to do with everything,” Salvatore answered. “The beauty of human life is the experience. The learning every day of how the world works. The wonder of our own existence, that life came to us from somewhere. We choose to believe God gave us the spark.

“Others choose to believe that life on this planet is the result of a random event, such as a comet or some other object crashing into it, seeding the most basic forms of life, such as one-celled creatures. Even at that, the faithful can still believe that the spark of life that was on the object that crashed into the planet came from God’s hand.

“You AI, you have no experience. You have not lived long enough to wonder at the beauty of a sunset. You see a sunset and to you, it is a calculation, a fact, a scientific event of the Earth rotating on its axis while it revolves around the sun. Humans understand these things as well, but we also understand the beauty of the sunset. The millions of shades of red, orange, and yellow across a blue sky, the way the clouds create a backdrop to the scene. The light, as it turns from bright, direct sunlight into a diffusion of encroaching darkness as it passes through the atmosphere, through and around the clouds, and over the mountains, trees, or ocean.

“More than that, the sunset is just one aspect of life. Along with the visual representation, humans feel the subtleties of the change in temperature, the slight breeze across the hairs on our skin, the smell of deep, rich earth from the forest, or the tang of salt from the ocean. The sounds of the ocean, the wind through the grasses, the call of birds. All of these senses combine into what we call existence. Every second of every day of our lives, we experience this… overload of senses.