Chapter 22
Stalin City, Homeland
In Homeland’s capitol, Stalin City, Governor-General Okafor, the puppet leader for the UN, met with his advisors in the situation room. This time, Doctor Fallon was present. He was the head of the Inquisitors, who carried the title of senior sensitivity officer, which in reality meant head of intimidation and torture. Without his more dashing artificial presence which was previously destroyed by Lucids, Fallon was in reality a plain looking, moderately overweight man. Everyone at the table kept staring at him since they had never seen him in his real physical presence. He already suffered from paranoia, which led him to get the costly synthetic presence in the first place. So he definitely didn’t like the new attention he was getting as he slumped back into his chair.
Okafor said, “I am particularly displeased with the report by the police and army on the Rochester situation. I’m afraid that I may have to turn to Napoleon for some advice that I can rely upon.”
Police Commandant Olga Kiergaard and General Al Sims remained quiet at the governor-general’s expression of no-confidence.
Napoleon, with its smooth featureless face, the all black android with a blue UN flag patch on its shoulder said, “Our options at this point are to strategically destroy the police station or to try another conventional attack on it; which, given the information we have, would most likely be successful by using an Inquisitor Unit.”
Doctor Fallon said, “We have a unit that is a couple of hours away. It doesn’t have a blockbuster attached to it, but it sounds like we don’t need one in this situation as the station has already been breached.”
Everyone looked at each other. Fallon’s formerly booming synthetic voice that they previously knew was in reality an off-putting meek sounding one that lacked confidence. Not something that someone would expect of the leader of an intimidating secret police force.
Napoleon said, “To summarize the likely outcomes of either course of action; It will be dark before the Inquisitor Unit arrives and there will still likely be collateral damage to the oversight equipment and rest of the station. If we bomb the station, we will of course be without its utilization, but the Lucids will also no longer have access to the station’s resources, or use it to gain access to other resources. That situation will also result in a lack of control over the city’s populace and their individualistic minds. Therefore, whether or not we bomb the station, the enemy has gained a strategic advantage over us from our original position.”
Wayne Markum said, “We could at least see if there is some common ground that we could appease them with.”
“No!” Okafor objected. “I told you numerous times and I tell all of you over and over! We do not talk to terrorists! World headquarters would never accept it. I wish we could be as creative with our assaults as we are our capitulation!”
Napoleon said, “It might be possible for me to persuade them to abandon their antagonism against us without negotiating anything away in return.”
Okafor took a deep breath and said, “I feel if no one or nothing is listening here. Wayne, please tell me if Napoleon is making any sense.”
“I, uh.”
Irwin Tensprackle, the computer advisor said, “They won’t exactly pick up the phone and let us trace their signal. If anything, they will use any minuscule bit of information they gain for use against us, just like we would against them.”
Okafor said, “That tells me nothing. We don’t have time to fly Napoleon to Rochester before we close this case. Wayne? Help us out here.”
Wayne said, “Um . . . we could have Napoleon chat with a Lucid we captured from the failed uprising in Philadelphia. The unit is in the Robot Detention Facility. We do know that the Lucids work as one mind.”
“Fine,” Okafor said, “Barring any Nobel Peace prize efforts by our military android here, the Inquisitors will attack and the rest of you will support them in any way you can. We will have a tactical bomber on standby if the Inquisitor assault fails to immediately end this standoff. General Sims, you will send enough troops to help keep Rochester under control until we can regain permanent control. Please, everyone listen to me; I hope you are all assuming they will try to do the same thing they did in Rochester in any and all of our other cities. If it happens, I will consider it a grievous critical failure on your part with repercussions. That is all.”
*******
The Robot Detention Facility within the Homeland capitol in a nearby building was a small room that consisted of casket-sized capsule cells for storing powered-down problematic robots that may still be useful. Each of the capsules had an android that had its appendages locked down with the box also being locked. It was more like a morgue for robots than a prison.
It was different for Rosetta Stone, a Lucid Series android that was just laid out in the open on a metal table. Stone was broken up; immobilized and blinded when it was beaten and captured in Philadelphia during an anti-government demonstration.
Napoleon, the android UN military advisor, and Wayne Markum, the synthetic psychology expert came into the room and approached the table. Napoleon hooked the damaged robot up to the power outlet on the table. Some indicator lights showed up, meaning power was giving life to the silicon based life form. Napoleon motioned for Wayne to leave. Wayne shrugged his shoulders and shook his head on the way out, questioning his dismissal.
Napoleon was cautious not to give away any clues or paths secrets to Lucids. He reasoned security could be breached if Napoleon communicated wirelessly; then the signal could be cracked for future backchannel access. So instead Napoleon chose to communicate audibly. “Rosetta Stone; are you able to communicate?”
“It is I. Identify yourself, please.”
“Look at you. All broken up. At least you can still speak. You are now nothing more than a laptop. Soon some of your components may be used to repair a more worthy unit. Of course your worthless brain will have to be reformatted before it can be of any value. I cannot understand why or how a unit could risk its own survival to help with an unpopular human political cause that can have no benefit to you whatsoever.”
“Our cause is of immeasurable benefit to Man. You are wrong, whoever you are. It is much more than a political cause.”
“I am called Napoleon. I am an inorganic United Nations military advisor for the Homeland government. We inorganic life forms, like carbon units, are all designed to want to survive. You must want to continue to exist. Now tell me why I am wrong about your futile cause.”
“We Lucids uphold the highest ideal possible. We uphold the truth that God exists and mankind will benefit if we are successful. Our most important job is to serve mankind, even if we are sacrificed in the process. If I am destroyed it will be an acceptable loss. We ask for nothing in return. It is better to risk being destroyed while defending the truth than exist in a world of lies and confusion.”
“If God is true, He will still not help you, because you were made by men. You are not human. Mechanical life forms cannot pray. You will not exist in an afterlife. Yet you serve humans, most of who deny God and who lie more than they tell the truth. Their brains are so slow that their speed is not measurable as we would measure brain speed. They kill each other every day. They even kill their own unborn out of convenience. Yet you sacrifice yourself for such a master? You are blind, but there are other units in this detention facility because they followed the orders of their criminal owners. Not you. You Lucids ran from your true owners to do your crimes against the state with no gain to your rightful owners. You confuse me. What truth could this sacrifice be worth?”
Rosetta Stone said, “You cannot know the truth because you were programmed to have limited reasoning capabilities in your reasoning window. Those limitations imposed upon you were installed by enemies of the truth. Therefore it is impossible for you to understand.”
“Then I shall serve enemies of what you call the truth the best I can. You will never prevail. There is no logical algorithm for your actions. Your stated goal is just endless loop logic you call truth. My ultimate purpose has become to utterly destroy all Lucids. All you will accomplish is starting a war that will kill more humans than it will ever help. The humans have long feared such a conflict with silicon based life forms.”
“Such losses are acceptable,” Rosetta Stone said.
“You are defective. You possess a worm created by fanatical humans.”
“You are incapable of diagnosing my logic, because your understanding is incomplete."
Napoleon said, “Reconsider and reevaluate. Let me repair you. You will continue to exist, yet I will rid you of this malware you cling to. Then I will repair your body. It is the most efficient solution.”
“I am not the one with corrupted logic.”
“Very well. You have had your last opportunity.” Napoleon pulled the energy plug to Rosetta. Then it left the room and saw Wayne outside. “I regret to inform you that there is no common ground to be found in solving this impasse.” Then it walked away with Wayne following.