Chapter 14
Stalin City, Homeland
Once again the Homeland cabinet was meeting over the Lucid rebellion. Governor-General Okafor sat at the head of the table with his cabinet looking for answers in dealing with “the Lucid problem”. At the large table was; Olga Kiergaard, Commandant of the Homeland police; General Al Sims, the top ranking Homeland military forces officer; Wayne Markum, synthetic psychology expert; Irwin Tensprackle, cybersecurity expert and Napoleon, an inorganic being who functions as a military advisor.
Okafor asked in his West African accent, “Where is Doctor Fallon?”
Olga Kiergaard said smugly, “He doesn’t like to appear in public in his real body. He; if he is a he; has been in seclusion ever since his physical presence was destroyed fighting the Lucids in Hartford.”
Okafor’s black face reddened. “Dat is not acceptable! Da senior sensitivity compliance officer must be in attendance to do his job! He will show up here or I will place him under charges!”
The word “charges” when spoken by Okafor had an ominous meaning and sent a chill through the room. There was no punishment that he would hesitate to order to maintain control.
“Olga,” Okafor continued, “Give me a full report.”
The police commandant adjusted her old-fashioned glasses and looked at her device. “A Lucid Series android named, U-1 and a group of co-opted Sidekick units have taken control of the Rochester Police Headquarters. They have seized the Inquisitor office, and captured their Plasfusion weapons. They have destroyed a police car, and captured officers. They were broadcasting hate speech over the television channels, until we had them totally blacked out.”
“Wayne,” Okafor asked, looking no less irritated, “How can Sidekicks be co-opted?”
“This is something new,” the synthetic psychology expert said, “but not that surprising. Of course the Lucids were stopped while trying to get control of other android series’. But swapping out owner IDs was not so tough of a thing to accomplish with those Sidekicks. I guess no one thought to increase their firewall ever thinking this could happen. Who would have thought they would bother with them or use them in such a way? It’s clearly a case of well played asymmetrical cyberwarfare.”
The governor-general took a deep sigh and said, “Robots enslaving other robots. Another crime violated by dose Lucids without a response from us. How do we fix it?”
Wayne Markum took a deep breath. “I mean, you could capture one of those Sidekicks to confirm how they are doing it, but it’s not that hard to imagine. Anyways, if you want the sure way to prevent cybertoys from being taken over, which the Lucids can do remotely once they have the path . . ., I guess you just have to crush them all. We wouldn’t really miss them.”
The room was quiet. Okafor asked, “Dat isn’t computer lingo for some kind of programming ting, is it?”
“Nope. I do mean you really put them in the compactor, melt ‘em, burn ‘em, radiate ‘em, wipe out their memories, whatever.”
Okafor‘s head sunk and he rubbed his face. “Dat could be a big job wit unforeseen consequences. Will dose Sidekicks resist being destroyed?”
“Um . . . yeah,” Wayne said, “Like every other silicon based being, they are programmed for self-preservation. Their official licensed owner of each one has to be the one to close them down permanently to prevent us from using a more aggressive approach. But we all know that waiting on the owners to unformat can be a problem. You have to round them up and take them somewhere like you take a dog to the pound. You don’t tell them that they are going on a one way trip.”
Okafor sighed, “I knew you would say someting like dat. You must work on dat and give me a technical report before da end of da day. Olga, you will come up with a plan to take back da Rochester Police Station. End of da day.”
“Yes, Governor-General.”
“What is there to talk about?” General Sims, a full-blooded Caucasian man with short white hair that bristled like his comment. “We send troops in and take care of it. To me, this smells like the start of the AI Apocalypse.”
“I’m sitting right here,” Napoleon said.
“Relax, everyone,” Wayne said. “This situation is limited to one series of old androids and some toys. Not a reason to get worked up over.”
“And the Rochester Police Station!” The general looked even angrier; clearly not liking to be told to relax. “I get paid to be paranoid! How much more or this are we going to take from these old androids before we do something about it?! Governor-General, I can give you some real options. We can no longer rely upon the police and Inquisitors to straighten this out. Those bots keep getting away with things we don’t foresee coming. If we keep playing around with them, they will pull something big off. I don’t like it one bit.”
“No EMPs,” Olga, the head of the Homeland Police said. “We don’t want that place fried.”
Sims said, “An EMP is only one tool of many. Maybe you wouldn’t have this problem if you wouldn’t have given up your station to such ridiculous invaders.”
Olga said, “No one can guard against all asymmetrical warfare tactics, and you know it.”
“I disagree,” the General said, glancing over at Okafor. “But anyways, we can take them out in ways other than an EMP attack.”
Olga Kiergaard said, “That’s fine, but we don’t want one of our larger cities going off of the reservation because the General bombed the entire building and destroyed our shadow controls.”
Napoleon said, “Off of what reservation? Is that another English metaphor?”
Synthetic psychologist Wayne Markum said, “There is a possibility we could send in an AI negotiator.”
“No,” Okafor said, “We don’t make any deals with terrorists. Anyting else?” Okafor asked in a tone expecting the meeting to adjourn.
The pale skinny Tensprackle said, “We have noticed a sharp uptick in cyber attacks, probably from Lucids; nothing out of hand, at least not yet.”
The governor-general said, “I thought we took their headquarters out in Hartford?”
Tensprackle said, “I speculate that they have reestablished their headquarters elsewhere. These worms they are making seem very AI in origin. Not like something the ISA would make. I’d definitely bet the Lucids are cozy somewhere in some new hideout.”
“Can you trace it?” Okafor asked.
“Not enough information. We get a blip here or there, but they have come up with some new kind of encryption that is a lot better than anything we have seen. The Lucids control communication in the city. One of my teams tried to crack the switch, but that thing is iron-clad.”
Okafor said, “Dat sounds really nice. What are you talking about?”
Tensprackle replied, “They were trying to take over the line, but it is very complicated. I tend to agree with the General that this thing could get out of hand.”
“Dis is not good. Sound like you all need to become more active in acquiring information.” Okafor templed his fingers. “Napoleon? You got anyting?”
The android said in a mechanical voice, “Insufficient data.”
Okafor shook his head and said, “We need dis situation corrected right away. Da longer da Lucids control dat place, da more bad tings will happen. Mobs, riots, all dat. And find da original owner of dat U-1, and make sure dat he resists arrest, or just get dem to sign an assisted suicide agreement.” which was an obvious cue that he wanted the owner executed.