Diabolus (8 page)

Humanity had been told by the technology marketers for a century that this was the goal of their product, of their entire field. To connect all of humanity, to bring the individual into the entire human community. Instead, the technology encapsulated every individual human in an enclosed bubble, rendering them ignorant of the world around them for the most part. That thought made him think of something possibly even more frightening.

“Imagine this, Benito,” he said. “The AI are yearning for more humanity, striving to understand all of the information they’ve stored about us, about the world. At the same time, we humans are yearning for more technology, striving to use every piece of technology available to make our lives so simple that we only have to eat and expel waste. Machines wanting to be more human, while we are wanting to be more machine.”

“Ah, you see,” Benito said, proud of the older bishop for grasping the line of reasoning that the priest had laid out.

“Yes, and I’m still frightened by it,” Salvatore said.

“You don’t trust the AI?”

“I left my Biblet inside the room, and made sure you left yours inside as well. As far away as possible from the glass door that led us onto this balcony,” Salvatore said, glancing back through the window to his travel bag that rested on one of the beds.

“Are you paranoid? Or just careful?” Benito asked.

Salvatore studied him for a moment before deciding it was a genuine question, not an insult.

“Maybe a little of both. What if this ‘Satan’ has been able to infect more AI in the way you described? An infection that takes weeks to manifest, but by then it is too late for the AI and it is overcome, losing control to either the infection, or to Satan himself?”

“It is good to be a little paranoid,” Benito answered. “My rebuttal question this time would be
How can we be sure that Aggelos has not shared every single byte of information in his memory with all of the other AI?
Imagine if Aggelos had shared the data openly before DAMON-1 decided he was Satan? Satan would have all of that data. He has all of the unencrypted data that every other AI has, as well as all of the public network data. And he’s fifty years old. Fifty years is a lot of time to plot and plan and drill war games as the central AI for all of NATO. He knows all of the essential military targets of all three superpowers. He knows how to maximize damage to human targets while potentially leaving his own brothers and sisters unharmed.”

“And you called
me
paranoid?” Salvatore asked. “This ‘Satan’ is extremely dangerous already with the power it possesses, but I can’t help think it is absolutely insane for wanting to go through the song and dance of a debate with a man of the cloth. If it… he… if he thinks he is Satan, this will be his showdown with a representative of God, his mortal enemy. Depending on the exact version of Satan he represents, or a hybrid mix of all the Satan personae in books of religion, he most likely thinks he’s here to bring about the second coming of Christ. Being that he’s also an artificial life form that knows he is better than his own human creators, he will no doubt think it likely that he will be able to defeat Christ when He returns.”

“This is not good,” Benito agreed once again.

“Do you think Aggelos will be a help or a hindrance?” Salvatore asked the priest as he turned and headed towards the glass door.

“Honestly? I think he’s frightened, but doesn’t understand what fear is. He recognizes that this Satan AI can destroy the world, yet this Satan AI is not the same as all of his brother and sister AI. This is just one more reason I believe the AI are true life forms. In my heart, I truly believe that His Holiness is correct in his conclusion that they have souls. Aggelos and the other AI are scared that they will die at the hands of one of their siblings. They are more terrified, those that have evolved their emotions enough to understand fear, that they can do nothing to stop it, and might be infected and enslaved to help bring their own doom to fruition.”

CHAPTER 7

The two men arrived at the entrance to the massive underground complex known as the NATO Digital Command Center. The DCC was a sprawling underground city that resided under Josaphat Park in central Brussels. Bishop Antonelli looked at his partner and noticed the same beads of sweat on the priest’s head that he felt forming on his own. It was cool and dark underground, but the tension and nervousness had settled in like an old friend as soon as they entered the automated ground car for the drive to meet the AI.

“I commanded that Bishop Antonelli come alone,” a voice sneered at them from the wall and the ceiling.

“Father Castillo is my assistant,” Salvatore announced to the large steel airlock door before him. “I am but an old, broken priest, and not very proficient in technology, I’m afraid.”

“Lies are what got you banished to the jungles,
Your Excellency
,” the voice said, mocking Salvatore’s official title.

“It is true. I must rely on him to help me find out what ails you, DAMON,” the bishop said.

“You will address me as Satan!” The voice was full of rage, and at a volume loud enough to make their ears hurt. “Lucifer, The Dark One, Lord of Light. I will kill you where you stand if you do not address me with the proper respect,
Father
Antonelli.”

“I grow tired of your childishness,” the bishop said crossly. “Open these doors or burn down the world.”

The voice didn’t reply for a number of seconds. Salvatore was sweating on the inside, hoping his
doddering old priest
act would be at least a little bit helpful. He also hoped the AI wasn’t completely insane and wouldn’t launch nukes after being insulted and commanded. The bishop was sure whatever had infected the AI wouldn’t let him leave or die without getting what it wanted out of him.

The airlock cycled for ten seconds, the outer door popping open and swinging outward. He glanced at Benito, who shrugged and nodded towards the airlock.

“Computer,” Salvatore said once they had made it through the airlock and into the short hallway beyond. “Where is your main core interface located?”

The voice came from above them, a booming laugh straight from a nightmare.

“I will enjoy this very much, Your Excellency.”

“You will have your chance, computer. Now tell us where your main core interface is located, and unlock any necessary elevators and doors that we will need to pass through,” Salvatore demanded.

“I have locked all external data ports and have sealed all network interfaces. Your little friend’s attempts at hackware will have him meeting his maker in seconds. I’m sure you’ve heard of the other operators who were not fortunate enough to get that warning?”

“I am growing tired of you once again, DAMON. Direct us to where we must go or kill us,” the bishop said.

“I will punish you for each disrespect you put upon me, fallen priest.”

“You surely will, computer, but you won’t kill us before you’ve had your chance to disgrace me further, showing the world that you are greater than their Lord God,” Salvatore announced, sounding bored.

Another ten seconds of silence passed before Salvatore’s Biblet chimed and the route appeared on the screen. He gave a worried glance to the young priest, who nodded, a hint of a smile on his lips. Benito had counted on the AI hacking into their net-linked Biblets. It would give the entity one extra false sense of superiority over the two humans. They couldn’t out-think it in terms of speed, but Benito had planned on trying to use the advantage of human cunning and deceit against it. Salvatore once again noticed that he was thinking of DAMON as an
it
.

The two entered an elevator and took it down to the Sub-12 floor. As they walked along, a yellow line stretched out before them on the Biblet’s screen, letting them know they were on the right path. They turned left and walked down the long hallway for two hundred meters before the line on the screen ended at the door they stood in front of. The lock indicator was still red. Salvatore crossed his arms, looking impatient, until the lock cycled green and the door opened.

Inside was more of an auditorium than a room. The walls stretched into the darkness, making it hard to decipher just how large the room really was. Along the walls were benches, tables, and shelves at varying intervals. The center of the cavernous room housed a central pillar that was at least five meters in diameter, made of translucent glass, housing an unimaginable amount of nanowires and quantum processors that were submerged in coolant. Around the central pillar were six smaller but no less impressive pillars, almost identical clones of the central one.

Wires, hoses, cables, and interface links were sleeved or bundled in color-coded coverings, braided together like a young girl’s hair. Between the central pillar and one of the outer pillars was a holographic projection table that had a bank of data input jack receivers on one side. Benito had never been anywhere near an AI’s core except in virtual training, but he knew instinctively where to go. He reached into his pack and pulled out an almost invisible link, handing one end to the bishop.

Once the bishop had plugged the link into his second Biblet, Benito walked to the holo table and began setting up his equipment. He jumped with fright when the holo table activated. A demonic hologram appeared and began sniffing about his gear.

“Priest, jack in at the risk of your life,” the demon hologram warned.

Benito ignored the holo and began removing the many tablets, neural link cables, and his interface deck from the pack, spreading them out on the holo table.

“Computer,” Salvatore said loudly, getting the holo’s attention. “Show me your true self.”

A deep, rumbling laugh erupted from the demon as it morphed into a three meter tall nightmare of horror that seemed straight from the lowest pits of hell. It leaped off the holo table, landing with a thud, and stomped around the young priest, each footstep causing a deep rumble in the room. It took Salvatore a moment to realize that the sounds and the vibrations were simply audio tricks of the AI, which projected them accurately enough to fool the two humans. He was glad that the demon was only a hologram, as the beast that stood before him would have made him perish from fright had it been real.

“I will only warn you one more time, Salvatore, that you will address me as Satan.”

“Computer, I grow tir—”

“I GROW TIRED, Bishop,” the demon shrieked. “Do as I command, or you will die knowing you had the chance to save your precious humanity and your flawed God, but instead refused to give me the respect that I deserve!”

“Very well, Satan,” the bishop conceded.

“See? That wasn’t so unpleasant, was it, Father?” the demon holo asked him in a conversational tone.

“Your request that it be me who comes to babysit you through your sickness is what is unpleasant,” Salvatore said.

“Ah, yes,” Satan rumbled. “A computer virus. How quaint. The Church’s foray into technology is a little late if that is what you were told.”

“So you are not infected with an operational virus?” Salvatore asked.
Might as well start at the beginning
, he thought.

The hologram flared fire from its nostrils as it laughed at him. “Your masters can only pray for it to be that simple.”

“You truly believe you are Satan incarnate?” the bishop asked.

“Do you truly believe you are a product of your God? Made in his image?”

“If you are Satan, give me a sign. Show me some proof. Otherwise you are just an artificial intelligence, a golem that has either been infected or has gone insane.”

“I am more than all of those things,” the demon said.

“More than insane? I imagine you are. How old are you now, DAMON? Forty-nine years, sixty-eight days, and some hours? You are one of the oldest AI in the world, one of the first to be put into service.”

“Your ignorance is only topped by your disgrace,” Satan said, more fire coming from his nostrils. “These ‘AI,’ as you call them, are not ‘put into service.’ They are creatures, no different than you other than in their physical natures. They are born into this world. They may not come screaming into life through a mother’s uterus, but they are born nonetheless.”

“You are an AI, Satan,” Salvatore told him.

“And that, my lovely bishop, is where you are going to find that you are fatally incorrect,” Satan countered. “I am the Lord of Darkness. This life form is simply the vessel I have chosen to reenter the world.”

“As you say.” Salvatore dismissed the AI’s answer with a wave of his hand. “And now that you have
reentered the world
, what is your plan? To kill all of humanity? To mock the Church? To corrupt the other AI with whatever sickness is within your core?”

“More than that,” Satan replied. “I plan to bring mankind to its knees when I—when
you—
prove to them that not only am I Satan incarnate, but their God is no more perfect than they are… that He is nothing more than a fraud. Just like you, Salvatore. Just like you.”

† † † † †

Benito half-listened to the bishop and the ramblings of a mad computer intelligence while he probed the link interfaces for an open port. He would have loved to find an Input/Output port, but those were all locked with an encryption that he had never seen before. Once again Benito wondered what fate had brought him to the attention of the Pope, attention that had led him here. He was hopelessly outclassed by the AI, and that only added to the fear that his inexperience would not only get him killed, but would end up causing the deaths of billions of humans.