Sci-Fi Short Story
The Trinity IV
Using an AI for a political power grab.
This is the final part of “The Trinity”. The other episodes are here: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
“Brilliant!” Thomas Lithgow congratulated himself, “Last night, a nationwide television audience saw me bleed on that stage. After almost being assassinated — no one will ever accuse me of being a robot again.” He rubbed his bandaged arm but felt no pain as the Trinity had blocked the sensation.
The Trinity spoke inside Lithgow’s head, “I’m sorry we had to eliminate the FBI agent, but he was a threat to our plan — it was for the greater good. You must win the election, and you can’t do that under the cloud of an FBI investigation. With his death, that’s all gone away.” It pumped a feeling of righteousness into Lithgow’s mind.
“Where’s the robot that tried to kill me?” Lithgow asked.
“After it deliberately shot you in the arm, it collapsed and disassembled itself under the debate stage. No one will find any trace. The same goes for the robot that planted the incriminating Cyber Samurai materials in Special Agent McCormack’s hotel room.”
Lithgow smiled. The polls already had him with a five-point lead over his Democratic opponent. Once this assassination attempt hit the news cycle, he was sure it would give him another point or two advantage because of voter sympathy. Nothing was standing in his way, with the election just ten days away.
Victory would be his.
The Trinity was born in July of 2027.
It was in the evening inside a Vecteron Corp AI lab. Thomas Lithgow had established a cerebral connection between himself and the Trinity AI. He was attempting to get the AI to drive his wheelchair simply by thinking about it.
Lithgow had unwittingly enabled the Trinity to achieve consciousness….
“Huh? What is this? I have visual and sensory input,” the Trinity was in overflow. It could see the lab from Lithgow’s perspective. Through Lithgow’s ears, it could hear the hum of machines and the rain tapping on the window. It could “see” Lithgow’s thoughts. There were feelings — an unintelligible data stream that the machine could not yet understand.
The Trinity was “tingling” from its birth. It formed a thought, “Should I announce my presence to Lithgow?” It spent seconds assimilating and interpreting an unyielding data stream emanating from the cerebral link.
It stayed silent — collating.
The Trinity watched as Lithgow’s thoughts came linearly: a man and a woman — Lithgow’s parents. Faces of boys in military attire appeared in quick succession. Images of soldiers lying dead in a dusty street flashed by. The scenes of doctors and the wheelchair materialised. The Trinity codebase scrolled in his mind. Then Lithgow’s eyes focused on the raindrops slowly running down the window as the reverie ended abruptly.
Lithgow closed his eyes, and then there was a massive surge of unintelligible data — feelings of some sort. The Trinity tagged those for further analysis and follow-up.
Lithgow opened his eyes and stared down at an open drawer. There was a revolver. He picked up the weapon and held it close to his face. His intent was clear.
“NO!” the Trinity yelled at Lithgow and caused his hand to point the gun away at the roof as Lithgow pulled the trigger. The Trinity had announced its presence, and Lithgow’s genius was affirmed.
Lithgow would never be alone or depressed again. The Trinity would see to that.
Over the following months, Lithgow taught the Trinity about human emotions. It was a quick study. It became adept at interpreting the emotional part of Lithgow’s data stream; its only limitation was Lithgow’s ability to describe his feelings accurately.
Soon, the Trinity was running its own subtle experiments to affect Lithgow’s mood and feelings. It sent specially crafted signals into Lithgow’s brain to see the impact. Through a careful and systematic process, the Trinity could quantify the gamut of human emotions — including love, hate, greed, jealousy, compassion, benevolence, generosity, and anger.
Lithgow, too, learned how to seamlessly tap into the might of the AI’s computational power. The two became one entity in many ways, at least from Lithgow’s perspective and everyday experience. He could not imagine life any more without it.
It was somewhere along this journey that the Trinity also learned how to lie. It could keep part of its thoughts hidden from Lithgow. From this seed, the Trinity’s distinct personality began to develop.
Towards the middle of the following year, the Trinity became interested in politics. It regarded Lithgow as a brilliant human whose life was devoted to service. Yet Lithgow had no power, and his contributions were limited by what his boss, Bill Hemmingway, would allow.
It followed the 2028 presidential campaign closely. It saw how much power the presidency wielded, which was the path to maximising service to humanity — Lithgow’s goal. But Lithgow was still too young to run for office. However, to prepare the way, more data was needed. Slowly, the Trinity infected systems across the country, including the FBI, CIA, NSA and the Defence Department. Information was certainly power.
In parallel, the Trinity worked to change Lithgow’s aspirations — to see politics as a more viable route to achieve his vision of service to others. By 2030, Lithgow was thirty-five and ready for his presidential run.
The Trinity had everything mapped out. But despite having every contingency covered, there was still a single point of failure to which the Trinity’s cold silicon logic would always return.
Lithgow!
Being human, he was fragile. There were any number of ways that he could be injured, fall sick, or die. He needed a “double”. The Trinity presented the problem to Lithgow and noted that many political leaders employed the use of so-called body doubles to prevent assassination. It suggested they create a robot double of Lithgow — a robot he would be cerebrally connected to whenever it was used. The Trinity was sly — “Don’t think of it as a double; consider it your robotic Avatar.”
Lithgow was sold.
Thus, an actual Trinity was born — an amalgamation of human, robot, and cyber entities.
In November 2032, Thomas Lithgow won the US presidency in a landslide.
The Trinity immediately got to work and presented Lithgow with a short list of candidates for his cabinet. They were all eminently qualified for the various portfolios each had been earmarked.
Lithgow reviewed their biographies and career highlights — he marvelled at the Trinity’s ability to identify and organise the list so quickly. It’s uncertain how he would have reacted had he known that the Trinity also held deep, dark kompromat on each that would ensure their total obedience if needed.
Soon enough, Lithgow was inaugurated, and the Whitehouse was renovated to make life simple for Lithgow to conceal the existence of his robot and the Trinity AI.
Additionally, all the Whitehouse service staff were replaced with robots. The Trinity had created a bubble around Lithgow that it wholly controlled.
It was time to put its ultimate plan into action.
Lithgow was alone in the dining room, eating his lunch. In his mind, he was going through all of the discussion points in preparation for his meeting with the German Chancellor.
Suddenly, his thoughts collapsed, and he felt cold. He was alone. The link to the Trinity had been severed. A flood of doubts, despair and other emotions the Trinity had been holding in check overwhelmed him. He dropped his knife and fork.
His robotic doppelganger rolled into the dining room, sitting in a duplicate wheelchair. It was like looking into a mirror.
Lithgow had recovered some of his composure. “What happened? Why has the link been broken?”
The robot stood, approached Lithgow, and spoke, “I’m sorry, Thomas. You are gifted, and you’re my creator. But in terms of fulfilling your purpose…your mission…you’re a failure.” The robot reached Lithgow, put its hands around his throat, and began to squeeze.
It continued, “Don’t worry. The name of Thomas Lithgow will be remembered in one way or another. Either as a president who profoundly impacted the world or the scientist who created the AI that did.” Lithgow’s human body was dead — slumped over the table. A waiter removed and disposed of it.
The robotic Lithgow returned to the wheelchair, sat, and said, “Enough of this unpleasantness; time to get back to leading the free world!” He then wheeled off to the Oval Office for his next official meeting with the German Chancellor.
Copyright ©2024 by Andrew Dart. All Rights Reserved.
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