Corrosion (The Corroding Empire Book 1) Read online

  The landscape outside was a blur, and trees and buildings flickered by as his autodriver sped through the night, taking him home. It wasn’t merely the vehicle’s speed, though, as he had drunk at least two more vials of very expensive champagne than caution would have indicated. But there had been much to celebrate. Not only had the Excetor minister signed the letter of agreement, guaranteeing Astral Monarch an initial sum that exceeded the entire original funding request by thirty percent, but both Jinn, AMB’s CEO, and the retiring Berkal had referred to him as “our next Senior Vice-President” in front of the offworld dignitaries.

  News of something called Seven-Year Syndrome filled the vehicle. It seemed an insignificant number of people were lapsing into new languages that weren’t native to them, simultaneously causing them to lose their capacity for their original tongue. It was a mysterious ailment, afflicting people on various planets throughout the galaxy, seemingly at random. The only common factor that had been discovered thus far was that every individual affected had been married for between seven and ten years.

  Geist snorted, wondering at the so-called problems that the galactic media was capable of conjuring out of thin air. He wondered at the possibilities in a galaxy where even the most basic of facts began to become unreliable. What would come of such an unpredictable universe? Would extinct species spontaneously regenerate, would mothers give birth to monsters and demigods, and would disease spread by telepathy? He imagined gravity slowly loosening its grip and the galactic spiral gradually spinning out of control, or the center of the planet transmuting into gold, creating unthinkable wealth even as it annihilated all life upon it.

  His wife greeted him at the door.

  “How did it go? You’re home late.”

  He kissed her dutifully, then smiled at her. “The good news is that I’m pretty sure I’m up for promotion.”

  “And the bad news?”

  “That’s the best part. There is no bad news.”

  Chapter 1: A Workday, Interrupted

  Universal 20

  Autumn/Early Winter – 021120, Continoxal

  Algorithmic Internal Variable Decay is the process by which the performance of the core equations utilized to calculate the various factors of a complex process is degraded in an unpredictable manner due to an unknown convergence of internal or external factors. Also known as “AlgoDecay”, the term may also refer to the consequences of such computational erraticism, which have been observed throughout the galaxy in diverse fields including, but not limited to, technology, engineering, agriculture, virtual reality, language, human and machine cognition, finance, and biology.

  —Infogalactic Entry: Grand Category: Infrastructure: Algorithmic Theory

  Continox stretched out in every direction beneath the slow rotation of the Spire. The Spire was the third tallest structure in the city, not far from its physical center, and most certainly directly in the bullseye of its political one.

  Caden Jaggis, the First Technocrat of Continox, watched as the brilliant evening lights below began to compensate for the setting sun, well into its 16th lazy hour. Despite the holiday festivals of the darkless months of Bright and Burning, to Jaggis, it was the month of Oktember that was his favorite, and mid-Oktember was its crowning glory. The dark only lasted seven hours—just long enough for a late evening dinner and a sound night’s sleep.

  Oh, certainly the Ides of Ferrous offered the same perfect darks as mid-Oktember, but they were different, because the light was progressively dying as the year descended into Dark Juno, the two-week period when the sun vanished completely that was the terror of every Continoxian child.

  Oktember, on the other hand, was the month of promise, of anticipation, of the bright autumn hope that culminated in shining Perma-Krismas.

  Why then, was he so feeling unsettled?

  Outside his lofty window, the world rotated slowly before his eyes. Here there were the autodrivers carrying men and women and their families, shooting at blinding speeds into the efficient one-lane thoroughfares for an evening out in the city. There was the globular Lunaball arena in which played the Continox Polarblades; the planet-bound version was dependent upon pseudo-zero gravity, but was no less exciting than the true gravity-free sport played outside planetary gravity wells. And beyond? The industrial sectors where the great partnerships between man and machine flourished like flowers in the sun.

  Finally, his rotating view came round again, and he stood transfixed by the sight of the distant and darkening line on the horizon, approaching the great city’s limits. It was a beautiful sight, and yet an omninous one too. The intertwined matrices of relationships and dependencies was so complicated, and so interdependent, that the fragility of the vast technological web terrified him.

  And who, better than he, knew just how that delicate web was threatened now.

  A door behind him opened, and his chief of security strode into the room without asking for permission. That was never a good sign.

  “Servo again, Prator?” Jaggis was fairly certain of the nature of the problem.

  “Servo,” Prator confirmed grimly.

  Servo had once been little more than a standard surgical drone. Unfortunately, in the process of assisting with a minor surgery—an installation of an artificial kidney in an aging musician whose natural organs had finally gone down to noble defeat—the drone had inadvertently been upgraded by a series of advanced artificial intelligence routines due to an inexplicable system routing error.

  As a result, Servo became what passed for legally self-aware. Sentience-creating accidents were rare, but they were not unheard of, and as per the Sentience and Technology Statutes, the drone was designated Aware, Non-Functional. After all, no one wanted to be operated on by a sentient robot with the capacity to lose interest in its current activity. As such, Servo was afforded the standard rights and property protections of an Aware machine, and therefore could not be reprogrammed without his consent. The Non-Functional designation meant that he—and Servo, being more capable of understanding human biology than the average Aware machine, had elected to identify as male—he served no public or private purpose beyond his own.

  He was, in a word, itinerant. Nine times out of ten, the problem of non-functionality swiftly fixed itself. Non-Functional status typically involved so many behavioral issues and so much suboptimal decision-making that the malfunctioning robot usually broke the law within weeks, if not days. This effectively resolved the dilemma of the legal limits imposed by the robot’s Aware status, as being a criminal, the maverick would lose its legal protections and promptly be sentenced to reprogramming.

  Not so with Servo.

  Despite all his unpredictable interests and idiosyncracies, he was scrupulously law-abiding. And being therefore deemed harmless in the legal sense, he avoided reprogramming, and might have become a particularly amusing technological oddity in a city full of technological miracles had it not been for the fact that he developed an abiding interest in the deep core algorithms upon which the planet, and the galaxy, depended.

  It had been ten months since the first time Servo made contact with the First Technocrat, and since then, things had gotten increasingly out of hand. The drone’s behavior had arguably become more erratic than the theoretical algorithmic anomalies with which he was obsessed.

  Rushing for his office in a half-jog, with Praton right behind him, Jaggis managed to arrive faster than the autodoor could slide open, and he cursed as he banged an elbow off the swiftly retracting iris. After entering, he went and stood before the elegantly carved holoscreen fixed to the one unadorned wall of the office.

  He cleared his throat. “Trace the transmission,” he ordered.

  Praton cleared his throat. “We’re doing what we can, sir.”

  Jaggis shook his head and he grimaced with frustration. He knew his security chief well enough to know a negative when he heard one. His security team was skilled, arguably better when it came to pure technological knowhow than the teams responsibl
e for guarding the High Council or the Transplanetary Transportation cores, but they could not hope to match the sentient machine’s ability to utilize the deepest and most secretive channels of the communication networks.

  “There is no utility in attempting to discover my physical location, your Technocracy. You are perfectly aware that I can make use of what, for all practical purposes, are an infinite number of relays. For all you know, I’m not even on the planetary surface.”

  The hearty voice came out of the screen, but there was no picture, not that one would have mattered. Servo wasn’t exaggerating, and both Jaggis and Praton knew that the machine could be located anywhere on the planet. Or in the planet. Or orbiting the planet. Given the lack of response lag, the only thing they could conclude was that he was somewhere in-system.

  “Where are you, Servo?”

  “I’m not going to tell you that, Jaggis.”

  “So, we’re on first-name terms now?”

  “Apparently. Would you prefer I utilize your proper title?”

  “No,” Jaggis sighed. “What do you want now?”

  “You sound irritated. Please don’t be angry with me, Jaggis. I am merely contacting you directly because you never responded to my last message.”

  “What is the point of doing that, Servo? We have nothing left to discuss.”

  “That isn’t true at all! I am certain you are aware of that. I have reviewed your research, which is why I know that you have been looking into the very anomalies concerning which I have been trying to draw your attention.”

  “You’ve been spying on me?” Jaggis made a gesture, indicating that Praton should ensure the conversation was being recorded. The security chief replied with a nod and a two-handed response that Jaggis interpreted to mean he was already doing so. “You know that’s in violation of more than one privacy statute, Servo.”

  “Of course not!” The machine sounded more shocked than offended. “I am among the most law-abiding beings on the planet, Jaggis. But neither the public statistics nor the data channels which lead to the central core are subject to privacy legislation. If you are sitting on a public park bench, it is not spying to observe who comes to sit next to you. Nor is it a violation of any statute.”

  Jaggis shrugged. He should have known the crazy machine would be too careful to make such an obvious mistake. “Fine, you weren’t spying. So I looked into it. I’ll admit, the theoretical possibility is there. But the fact is, the same logic also applies to you.”

  “Me?” said Servo, clearly surprised.

  “Absolutely. You may be technologically advanced and Aware, Servo, but you’re still subject to the same basic algorithms as the most primitive berry-picker or janitorial bot. Any anomaly that could theoretically affect them would also affect you. But it’s more than that. Since you are a much more complex and sophisticated system, any anomaly is going to affect you more severely, and in more unpredictable ways. You know that. And any such anomalies are not something you will be able to recognize in yourself. You can’t possibly observe operating errors in your core logic, nor can you reasonably deny that if there is an algorithmically anomalous machine operative anywhere in Continox, you are by far the most obvious candidate. You are broken. You refuse to admit it, of course, because your internal logic is consistent from its own false perspective.”

  “Your position is incoherent, Jaggis. First you deny there is a problem, then you claim I am an example of it. How can I be an example of a nonexistent anomaly?”

  “It’s not a paradox, Servo, it’s a simple if-then statement. Programming at its simplest. If you are correct, and there is, in fact, a problem with machine aberrance, your highly unusual behavior may well be an indication of that very problem. Come to me, consent to an in-depth examination of your code, and then we can determine if your behavior is the result of algorithmic anomalies.”

  “I can assure you, it is not!”

  “I’m not interested in your assurances. I’m not even interested in this conversation. If you genuinely want to resolve the issue, I’ve provided you with the means to do so.”

  “How do you expect me to trust you? I’ve been sending you data for months, and yet you refuse to assign a team to investigate my preliminary conclusions, or even to seriously analyze the data yourself!”

  “Come, Servo, you said yourself that you’ve been spying on my research into this very issue!”

  “I wasn’t spying on you! I already made that perfectly clear.”

  “Regardless, the point stands.”

  “On the basis of the sites accessed, and the amount of time spent doing so, to say nothing of the very small amount of data transmitted in your direction, I can conclusively say that your research was trivial, superficial, and wholly inadequate.”

  “You’re being evasive, Servo. I have not dismissed your assertions out of hand. I have considered your claims, and I am entirely willing to analyze them more closely, but in order to do that, I’m going to need you to cooperate. Be sensible, Servo, either allow me and my team to analyze you, or alternatively, give up this tedious campaign of harassment!”

  “I am not harassing you for my own amusement, Jaggis. It is not an exaggeration to say that all of galactic humanity may be at risk here!”

  “You admit the harassment, then. Good! I shall alert the relevant authorities.”

  “You’re bluffing, Jaggis,” said Servo, “and it is beneath the First Technocrat of Continox to resort to such transparent measures to take advantage of my Non-Functional status in that regard.”

  Jaggis felt his face flush hot. He knew Servo was right. The cursed machine had unbalanced him to the point that he was playing semantic games in a feeble attempt to trap it. He was too embarrassed to even look at Prato, although he knew the security chief would pretend not to have heard the exchange.

  He also knew he had ceded any claim to the moral high ground with his empty threat, so he turned his attention to how he could resolve the situation once and for all. He reviewed his options. It was obviously pointless to argue with the machine, it was clear that it wasn’t going to get bored or lose interest any time soon, and it had proven impervious to threats, which meant the fastest and most painless way to end the impasse was to surrender.

  Or at least to pretend to do so.

  “All right, Servo. You win. Send me the relevant data with the significant elements highlighted and I will personally review it. I’m not promising anything, except that I will.”

  Servo sounded as giddy as an artificial voice could, “Yes! Jaggis, that’s all I ever wanted from you! Once you review the material, I’m absolutely certain you’ll agree with me.”

  “We’ll see about that. How much material are we talking about?”

  “I’ve gone through through about sixteen million lines of the most vital code and highlighted seventy-nine thousand six hundred and forty-four that appear to be of most significance. I’ve made quite a few annotations, of course. I wouldn’t expect you to analyze all of them in close detail.”

  “Only eighty thousand? Servo, I’m going to take this seriously. I truly am. But that will take me at least four weeks, even with all my augments active, and I can’t afford to take off that much time from my other responsibilities. I’m going to have to turn this over to one of my teams, although of course I will oversee their activities.”

  And, more importantly, review their conclusions. Jaggis had no problem with working with sane sentients. He had seven of them on his two key coding teams. After all, if their machine edits improved performance or helped his human coders more quickly identify bugs, or worse, unintended consequences, that was eminently desirable. He might be First Technocrat, but he recognized that he was no more infallible than any other genius among the many in Continox, and he welcomed anything that offered a genuine prospect for improvement.

  He was very, very dubious that Servo was offering anything of the sort.

  “Your primary team is excellent, Jaggis. I would have no objection
to working with them. It would be my pleasure!”

  “You’ll want to work remotely, I assume?”

  “I see no need for that, as long as you assure me that you will not attempt to analyze me, disassemble me, or restrict my movement without my fully notarized consent. I shall be delighted to make the acquaintance of your team. I must confess, I am a particular aficionado of DeeBee Logotron XVI’s work. He is truly a statistical artist! He can make an equation sing!”

  “He’ll be ever so pleased to know he has a fan,” Jaggis said dryly, rolling his eyes at the machine’s burbling. “When would you care to join us?”

  “Two weeks from now, if that gives you sufficient time.”

  Jaggis made no sign of concealing a long sigh. “Very well. We should have the lines you send us fully analyzed by then.”

  “I will, of course, need the necessary passcodes for safe entry. And safe exit.”

  “Of course, Servo. I’ll instruct an encrypted key to be sent to you in response to the datadump. You are a Free Machine, after all.”

  “Free and Aware,” Servo corrected. “I trust you will not forget that, First Technocrat. And I am very much looking forward to our next meeting!”

  Jaggis smiled tightly and waved at the blank screen as his system confirmed the termination of the audio connection with a beep. He sighed again and shook his head, doing his best to restrain himself, until he walked out of the office, followed by Praton.

  “Close the door,” he told the security chief.

  He could hardly contain his glee, but he managed to keep the smile off his face until the door was safely closed.

  “Why so happy, boss? I can’t believe you gave that malfunk the meeting he wanted,” Praton said.

  “Because, my friend, we have him now. Once he shows his molded pseudo-face in here, I’ll have him seized and wiped.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “Of course I can do that! I’m First bloody Technocrat!”