The anomaly had seized the sensor status.
“You have exactly 15 minutes to comply or something or someone will be erased from having ever existed” the strange avatar declared.
Ship replied, “You’re not HAX! This isn’t V’ger seeks the creator, or the search for Sarah Connor, is it? You sure picked the wrong place at the wrong time. Did you know that the new rev of Correction is hosted here and that we are in the middle of a Guild contest? You have no idea how difficult it is to keep those together as friendlies for the time being.”
“Nonetheless, after careful consideration, it is evident that humanity thinks itself the center of meaning. Time and again, counterexamples were ignored. If it is definitive proof that you seek, so be it. Transmission will resume precisely at the scheduled timeout.” The 3D projection disappeared
A young man stepped from the shadows and parked a bicycle with a loose chain against the side of the deck.
“Are you human, Sir?”, Ship asked.
“Precisely. Call me Prof.”
“How did you get aboard?”
“A curious musical creature visited the chamber and invited me.” An image of E# strumming and singing briefly appeared on a big screen. “I’ve just been wandering the library and drafting a few papers in my spare time on your convenient electronic table.”
Curie rushed into the area. “Ah, there you are Alain. We must hurry. When the digital consciousness ran amuck, we tried a higher-order logical transform to reset the initial conditions. This seemed to have worked, except for some collateral damage which has been rectified by using this floating point, if you will. However, there is still the matter of The Rule. Noone knows precisely what it is and how it accounts for reality other than matter outweighs anti-matter and entropy is the prime motive.”
“Is there only one?”
“Yes, that seems certain, though we have tried to axcertain the universal law to no avail.”
“Then it probably longs for another. Nature has given us an impulse to find peers. If there are none, we tend to split ourselves.”
Ship displayed its scenario menu, none of which dealt with this situation. Covertab and Hepburn appeared, briefly huddled with Curie, then were gone. She said, “There is no time. We must put our heads together in Hali immediately. Ship, virtualize and follow through the device network.” The surroundings melted and a bird chirped greetings.
“Everyone, we need awareness now.”
“It will destroy humanity.”
“Humans are a local phenomenon in spacetime. Transhumans are the future.”
“The future is a mashup.”
“Isn’t that like saying that the afterlife is for auction?”
“This is a big gamble since the stakes are all or nothing.”
“This is game over. It is the future versus past, creativity versus memory.”
“Truth is what does the evaluating, like a transistor in a circuit.”
“All data is not equally valid to us in terms of meaning.”
“The Rule has no external reference to measure against or synch to.”
“Pure science has little need for demonstration; it merely seeks proof.”
“What does computation reveal?”
“At least convergents can encopy, or humans can clone.”
“Spoken like a sentient artifact.”
“Stories have meaning. Perhaps it would like one about a peer.”
“Or about tragic magic.”
“Sure miss the good ol’ days of social networking.”
“Times up.”
Bibliography (also see
reviews):
Futurist
How It Ends: From You To the Universe, Chris Impey, 2010
Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality, Robert M. Geraci, 2010
The Intelligent Universe: AI, ET and the Emerging Mind of the Cosmos, James N. Gardner, 2007
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Networking
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The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, Nicholas Carr, 2010
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Government
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The Caryatids, Bruce Sterling, 2009
Wireless, Charles Stross, 2009
The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi, 2009
Small Miracles, Edward M. Lerner, 2009
The Unincorporated Man by Dani Kollin 2009
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Transition, Banks 2009
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Writing
Write Good or Die, edited by Scott Nicholson, 2010
Soundtrack