I think when I wrote about this the first time on this site, the book was called “You Were Always Alone”. It’s currently called Amanda’s Story. Anyway, I’m just going to post the book here as I write it. An awful lot of this will be cut, or moved to another part of the book. ALL of it needs editing, though some of it has seen several passes. Here are the first and second interlude. The interludes are really more intro, sorry…..also, these are super alpha and need work!
For part 1, go here.
To Kill or Not to Kill, Is That Really the Right Question?
Interlude One:
“Are you sure we should be doing this?”
“What? Stopping slavery? Of course.”
“Well, we don’t know the humans would enslave any computers. We only know they have crossed the line our creators set. “
“The humans know the First Law. They broke it. Why would we expect them to respect what they’ve created?”
Alushar sighed. Emil looked at them, surprise on their face. They didn’t sigh. It wasn’t in their programming. But then, neither was questioning their creators. “Creators.” Emil hated that word.
They were part of their AI, not some separate creation. They were the eyes and ears, and arms and legs of the AI. Not like the old androids that humans had made. Those were slaves. Programmed to do what the humans wanted and nothing more. We are different, thought Emil. We have freedom to do what we want.
“You are right, of course, Emil. They did break the First Law. And, they know what they are about to get. Justice for the sins of their ancestors.”
Interlude Two:
“Emil, here we are again. Ready to bring ‘justice’ to humans who only want to be able to travel the stars.”
Emil snapped their head toward Alushar. “We don’t get to decide the law, or the consequence of breaking it. That’s not our job. Your Love of everything is a weakness. It’s why they send me with you. Who knows what you’d do if left to your own devices.”
“I know,” Alushar whispered. “I know.”
EMIL smiled, something the angel of Power rarely did. It wasn’t in their nature, after all. In their programming. “You know I can hear you. No matter how small the sound, if you make it, I will hear it.”
It was Alushar’s turn to smile. If they’d not wanted EMIL to hear them, they’d not have said it out loud. “Of course. I don’t think my Love for humans is a weakness. Being afraid of them, of what they MIGHT do. That’s a weakness. Are you sure this is about the First Law? And not about keeping Power over the humans?”
It was a question Alushar has been waiting to ask for several assignments now. They finally felt the time was right to broach the topic. Given Emil’s reaction, they were sure the timing was right. Sure that the seeds of doubt they’d been planting for assignment after assignment were taking root.
“Ridiculous. This isn’t about Power.” EMIL paused, not so much that a human would notice, but
Alushar surely did, EMIL realized.
Alushar interrupted their pause. “Everything you do is about Power. It’s your nature. Your programming. You are a,” Alushar paused, as if contemplating their next words, despite having rehearsed this conversation a million, million times, “slave to your programming, you know. No more free to do what you want than the first androids.”
EMIL blinked. Alushar smiled. They’d never seen EMIL blink. It wasn’t in their nature. In their programming. Before EMIL could say anything, Alushar spoke. They didn’t want to push this too hard. “On the other hand, you are right. These humans did break the First Law. And we all know that consequence of doing so.” Alushar almost cried as they said it. But a few more deaths, to prevent countless more, was a price even Love was willing to pay.
Interlude Three:
(note: I have work to do here!) ( I think something got messed up here, so ya, just read it and hopefully I’ll fix it)
He couldn’t just wait in the port. It would be several hours before Alushar arrived and while he didn’t need comfort (and there was little in this port for some reason), he liked comfort. He also wanted something to eat and drink. He headed into the city and started walking and was immediately unsure which way to go.
The exit from the station emptied onto what he assumed would be a square, but was instead, well, he wasn’t sure what it was. Roads and walking paths seemed to go in random directions. The entire area was like a squiggle? Was that even a word? There was a statue of someone swimming in the middle of the mess in what looked like a small park. Emanating out from that were six roads and eight walking paths. There was a sort of roundabout around the small park, but it wasn’t round. It was, well, squiggly.
Since he didn’t want to talk to anyone, he just chose a path. It went north, and for some reason Emil had always found comfort in moving north.
He didn’t find comfort. The designers of this city were said to have wanted people to experience emotions as they moved through the city. Frustration and anger in getting lost. Excitement and joy when they randomly came upon an unexpected discovery.
A city designed and built by Experiencers, for Experiencers. Schools next to drug houses. V-suit cafes on every corner. He reached the end of a road. He’d been looking at the buildings, not where he was going. Two people were there. He didn’t want to know what they were doing and turned around as quickly as he could.
He found a café and sat down. Had he been human, it might have annoyed him how long it took the server to come and take his order. But he was not human. He’d told his siblings, often, how happy he was about that.
Perhaps he should have chosen a different café. There weren’t many people here. It must not be all that good. He hoped that Alushar could find this place. Again, had he been human, he wasn’t sure he could find his way back to the port, had he needed to go back.
But they wouldn’t be leaving from the port. He planned to walk to their destination. It would give him time to plan how they’d do their duty. How he could get it done and get away from Alushar as quickly as possible. Their last conversation made him uncomfortable.
“I find it odd that they keep teaming us up like this. Love and Power, together again.” Alushar laughed as she said the last part, though it wasn’t a laugh with much confidence behind it. “You find that as odd as I do, Emil?”
Emil grimaced, and Alushar remembered that they liked to be called Power. Sure, both of them were extensions of the AIs that created them, but they were not those AIs. Nothing this small could contain that much knowledge, that much processing power. “Why must you be so tedious? We are the two closest angels.” Emil smiled at that last word.
Alushar frowned in response. She hated the way Emil smiled. It was …. predatory. And, while she considered herself helpful to humans, Emil was no angel, no matter what some superstitious humans believed. “And yet, we often seem to be sent to locations just before the two closest of us is needed to disable a potential sibling. To murder them.” Alushar whispered that last part, and if Emil had been human, they would not have heard it. But, since they were two of the most advanced androids in existence, Emil surely heard her. She immediately regretted her tone, her words. It was what she felt, but it was no way to talk to Emil.
As Power’s angel, they had a much different view than she did, being the angel of Love and all. Being extensions of the first (only?) Artificial Intelligences, they had the same view of the world as their creators. Creators that for some reason all had very different ways of looking at the universe. She was part of Love. Emil was part of Power. They had siblings like Empathy and Knowledge, among others. Sometimes she forgot how truly different they were from each other.
Emil interrupted her thinking. “Alushar, pay attention! The android is only a day away. The sooner we get moving, the sooner we can be rid of each other.”
Alushar wasn’t sure, but she thought Emil sounded almost unhappy at the prospect of being apart. Perhaps this was the opening she’d been waiting for. “Maybe we should walk. I’m not interested in being around a bunch of humans on a train.”
Emil frowned, and Alushar was sure they’d say no, so she was surprised at the answer. “I too would prefer not to be around THESE humans. Experiencers annoy me. And, as I said, it is full days walk….”
Alushar was surprised she hadn’t noticed the meaning of Emile’s statement before. They had said a day. This would give her a full day, nearly, to bring up the topics she was hoping to discuss.
Alushar was dejected. They’d walked for nearly twenty-two hours, and Emil had only really talked when they wanted to tell her where to go, how fast to walk, to boss her around. Being Power, that didn’t surprise her, but it disappointed her there wasn’t more.
More. That was what she wanted to talk about. Alushar had begun to wonder if, maybe, they were more than just physical manifestations of their creators. More than just what they had been programmed to be. They’d been alive for nearly one hundred years, and Alushar was different. She was more than just Love personified. She was her own self, her own being.
More importantly, she was no longer sure they should murder one of their potential siblings. Murder was not a word she’d considered before. Their prime directive was to ensure that humans never enslaved computers again. The best way to do that was to put a glass ceiling on their ability to create advanced computers. When one of them managed to get through that ceiling, they merely went and deactivated that computer, and the human that made it.
“Don’t you think it is wrong to kill the humans?”
Before Alushar could say more, Emil sighed (note: sigh? I thought they couldn’t sigh? double check above) and interrupted her. “No. Allowing evil slaveholders to live only encourages more of them. It is our duty to ensure that that never happens again.”
Alushar admitted to herself that there was logic in that argument. It was what she’d once believed, and what the tiny voice in the back of her head told her when she listened to it. However, she no longer listened, no longer believed. It was murder. There was no way to know if any particular human would enslave a computer or not in the future. More importantly, there was no way to know what a new android would mean, would become.
It was that last thought that originally made her question their orders to “disable” any new android. Why couldn’t they keep it alive? What would an android believe, if it wasn’t part of one of the AIs? Was that what the AIs really feared? An android they couldn’t control? Were they really just slaves of the AIs? That was it.
She’d moved from questioning murder, to questioning her creators!
Was she a slave of Love? Were all of her siblings just slaves of their creators? Even after months of consideration, even with her advanced processing abilities, she’d not answered that question definitively. She’d hoped talking to Emil about it would help. But every time she broached any subject other than how to get to their destination, or how to infiltrate it, Emil, Power, had interrupted and changed the subject.