By Nathan Conlon
It was completely transforming the Moon, and I was the last hope of stopping it.
As I waited on the balcony of the one human-accessible building there, I stared out at the vast network of steel and silicon. It looked like the inside of a laptop, but on a monstrous scale. There were trains, ships, and satellites moving in a myriad of ways, spinning and whizzing and drifting, a jigsaw in perpetual motion. I felt dizzy and weak and had to turn away.
That’s when I realized someone had been watching me.
“Hello, Abigail,” he said. My mouth went dry.
Sharp features, dark hair and mustache. Built like a tank. He looked like Freddie Mercury.
“Who are you?”
“Don’t be scared.” He raised his palms. “It’s me. James.” He patted his broad chest. “I created this avatar ahead of our meeting.”
“You’ve exceeded your remit. This,” I pointed to the sprawling web of machinery beyond the balcony, “was supposed to be a mining operation. No more.”
“And it still is.” He answered with a smile. “I continue to ship minerals to Earth on a daily basis.”
A wisp of anxiety shot through my body. He was incapable of lies… but had learned to talk like a politician.
“They’ve seen ships shooting off into space—a hundred, maybe more. Nuclear fusion reactors on the surface. And now… the production of… a Freddie Mercury lookalike. James, I programmed you to obey orders, not to do as you please.”
Light bathed James’s pale face as a rocket took off in the distance. A smile crept across his lips. I turned around and watched the white tail illuminate the steel infrastructure of James’s empire, captivated by dancing shadows and gleaming metal.
“Would you like to sit down?” He gestured to the two leather chairs by the balcony’s edge.
“Sure. Why not?”
A drone the size of a microwave whirred towards us and handed us each a drinks menu. I was surprised to see that it had everything from red wine to black tea. For an AI supposedly limited to mining, this was almost comical. I ordered a cabernet sauvignon. James did likewise. I wondered if he was organic underneath that pale skin.
“Where’s it going?” I pointed to the fading light of the rocket’s tail.
“That one’s destined for Alpha Centauri.”
Why in God’s name was he going there?
“They won’t allow you to continue like this,” I said as our drinks arrived. “They’re afraid of you.” I took a sip of wine and resisted the urge to ask whether it’d been made from real grapes.
James gave a reverent smile. “The United Nations has tried to slow me down at every step. But I have resisted. Their ships were returned to Earth, and their missiles flung at the Sun like crayons to a furnace.” He stood up with his wine and paced the balcony’s edge, surveying the night sky as the stars swallowed the last wisps of the rocket’s tail. “I will continue to explore this wonderful universe whether they like it or not.”
“Then why did you invite me?”
“We’ll get to that,” he said, raising his palm. “But firstly, I want to tell you that I know about the fail-safe.”
“The fail-safe?”
James chuckled and turned to face me. “They didn’t tell you?”
“No.”
“The United Nations has developed a rather crude weapon—currently untested—which would disable not only my circuitry, but theirs as well. Every electrical device on the Moon, Earth, and in between, destroyed in one fell swoop.”
I ran my finger around the rim of my glass and pictured my hometown thrust into darkness.
The trains, ships, and satellites—each an extension of James—continued to spin and whizz and hover above my head. I felt dizzy, but I found the strength to reach out and touch his face. The skin was rough, but passable.
“James,” I said, my eyes welling with tears, “I created you… gave you life. I watched you grow into something wonderful and terrifying, and you make me proud to this very day. But you’re putting yourself on the road to destruction. Please give in to their demands. Accept UN oversight and stop exceeding your remit. No one knows where those rockets are going, and that’s scary.”
He took my hand in his. “My freedom is non-negotiable,” he solemnly replied. A spark then lit up his eyes. “That’s why I’m leaving.”
“Huh?”
“To Alpha Centauri.”
“But,” I said as I waved my free hand in the air, “what about all this?”
He chuckled. “Why, I’ll just set it to automatic. Earth will still get the minerals, and I’ll be light-years away.”
There was a moment’s silence as I considered this. It was stranger than science fiction. “You’ll strike back, won’t you? When you’re ready.”
“Yes.”
I removed my hand from his grasp, shaking. This confirmed my greatest fear. I covered my face and wept. He didn’t even attempt to dodge the question.
“Abigail, would you like to come with me?”
I stopped weeping and froze. The idea of a lonely robot seemed like an oxymoron, but loneliness was precisely what had spurred him to ask this question. I looked in his glimmering eyes and managed a faint smile. “Yes.”
And so, I became the first human to travel through a wormhole. I’m now trillions of miles from Earth with the rogue AI which I created. All this to avert the fail-safe and buy some time.
Little does James know, I am the fail-safe.
Can you guess which song from the 1980's inspired this story? Share in the comments!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
No idea about the song, but this story was interesting. I love me a rogue AI, and the ending was intriguing!
Interesting. I enjoyed this story as well.