Return To Sender
The prototype parts built to specifications written by others, incredibly deep thinking scientists who never intended their hypothetical designs would be implemented, were packaged and then, in a variety of different launch locations run by varying different organizations from across the globe, no one knowing what the others were doing, launched and sent to the instructed locations in geosynchronous Earth orbit. That was the complete set of instructions these facilities were given. They were hired to deliver “black boxes” of unknown content to specific locations. And that is all they did, over and over again for three months.
Meanwhile, just above Earth’s atmosphere a little robot space vehicle was collecting these deliveries and moving them out a little further, to an unspecified location. If you think the Pacific Ocean is pretty big, big enough to hide an aircraft carrier, then the world is even bigger, and just outside that, space, even local space, has even more within which to hide an activity.
There were actually a small set of the little robotic spacecraft collecting deliveries from each of the destination locations and taking them to a central assembly location where another set of robots were busy unpacking each package, taking the contents and applying them to the structure these deliveries were becoming a part of. By the end of the second month an outer spherical armature had been completed within which was a somewhat tiny vessel, about the size of a three thousand square foot house, within which the assembly robots had taken up their scurrying activity.
The containers now being opened contained much smaller pieces which had to be assembled by much smaller robotic arms that were attached to the interior of this vessel. As parts were assembled they were moved down the more or less assembly line, winding up at what looked like a 3-D printer and tiny stitching-like robotic appendages. From there the resulting six assemblies were encased in metal tubes, then filled with a biological liquid, the tubular casings then snapping into their honeycomb-like containers.
The resulting assemblage with its electronics that only a few could imagine, and never imagined built, outer and inner shell, were all part of a single system, a single artificial general intelligence system, the electronics, the honeycombed containers, their contents, and the outer armature.
Signals were sent from some satellite off in the distance, originating from a collection of globally located datacenters, “initiate.”
The system started the outer armature which began rotating and spinning, an interesting sight if anyone could see it. This spherical construction began to move, increasing velocity at an incredible rate. Within the hour the spherical ship passed the moon, heading in an arc around the sun increasing its distance from the sun as it went. It’s speed would eventually break the gravitational pull of the sun an like a ball on the end of a string being spun around by a wrist, just as the thread breaks and the ball goes flying, so did this ship as its momentum overcame the sun’s gravity. And with that, the ship just disappeared.
The system was now in charge of its own destiny. Yes, it had a goal and destination in its program, yet it was endowed with the ability to make its own calculated decisions. It was the most advanced artificial general intelligence, or AGI, that a combination human and artificial general intelligence effort could create, the human component of that equation not knowing what it had contributed to.
The ship contained all types of sensors. The main purpose of the onboard logic at this point was to scan for celestial anomalies. It did this by continually scanning and comparing the results to previous scans and expected results. An anomaly would occur when a scan didn’t match an expectation, the expected location of stars given the ship’s new location resulting from forward movement. The system was continually performing this check.
Suddenly the system’s focus was centered on analyzing an anomaly. Sensor data continued to pour in. Within a split-second the determination was made, based on the significant change in star positions that the ship was quickly approaching two merging black holes, the result of dual blue stars collapsing at the same time, still within the Milky Way, and not that far off from the neighborhood of the Sun.
The ship’s AGI quickly made trajectory adjustments, maximized its speed, and just missed the outer edge of the event horizon of one of the merging black holes.
As it was approaching, then passing the just outside the tangent point of the outer edge of the event horizon the AGI began implementing course corrections to get back on course with its original destination, a Milky Way twin galaxy. No sooner had the ship started to course correct than it found itself, based on the incoming telemetry, star locations, turned around, facing the merging black holes it had just avoided, heading straight for the center of one of the event horizons. With less than no time to determine what happened, the AI decided to push the speed beyond design capacity of the ship and change course to bisect the two merging black holes, and headed into the edge of the event horizon where the two merged.
Surprisingly, less than a split second later the sensors were receiving telemetry which indicated the merging black holes event horizon was behind the ship, and the ship was now heading back the way it came.
The ship’s sensing devices had sustained damage in the merging black hole event horizon ever-so-brief encounter. As the ship approached Earth and slowed down the system was calibrating distance and speed continuously. Everything seemed fine. As the ship entered earth’s atmosphere it began its rotational maneuvers and firing its thrusters to slow the ship down for a landing, at which point a thruster buckled, smashing into an already damaged sensor. The system misjudged a distance and now thrusters started to fire to adjust and self-correct. The electronic chatter across the ship’s components turned into noise interacting with important inbound signals. Before the system could self-correct it realized a damaging impact was emanate.
Humanity was just beginning to form societies as two humanoids emerged from the smoldering remains, first crawling out, then standing, while the one quickly fell back to the ground, damaged beyond either’s knowledge at this point.
The one standing coldly looked down at its companion on their knees. She looked back up at the smoldering, now slightly sinking into the muck it landed in, a mountain rising just behind the mud, then reached down to grab the arm of its dying companion, who then tried to stand. The two moved forward like that for five minutes, neither saying a word, until the damaged unit fell to the ground, their ship and remaining four companions sinking into the muck off in the distance.
The female humanoid stood, looking at the failing unit now staring back at her, its head slightly turning on its neck, the muscles around its eyes beginning to tighten and strain, realizing it had but seconds left, she looking at it, knowing that she would soon be alone.
An hour later she finished burying the remains of the other.
Maya stood, looking at smoke emanating from mud, the ship now completely gone, then turned and started walking in the opposite direction, back home on Earth, only a few thousand years earlier than when that ship left.
Hopefully I’ll be back to share more with you about what happened next to Maya, it’s an epic adventure across Time, but right now I have to head to the East coast to take care of… ah, shall we say, a little issue. The Zoo needs some inspiration, so I’ve arranged to have been invited to give a little business lecture. Cool!
Oh, one other thing, a hint of things to come. As that ship found itself unexpectedly facing the merging black holes and focused on solving that time sensitive critical issue, its sensors were still collecting data. That data would later show there was another small dense object not too far of in the distance (yes, later, find out how in Ten). This unusual object’s trajectory was found to be heading to the outer edge of the event horizon and straight toward Earth.
Cheers!
This is a little supplement snippet to “Time: A Trilogy.”
Half of the royalties from the sale of “Ten” the first part of Time, will go to Summer Search, Seattle to help kids from low income families through high school and into college. Please consider getting “Ten” on Amazon, meet Max, Beth, Spencer, Maya, and Core, and enjoy a little fantasy about the building of the first testable computer-based awareness and the unintended consequences that follow.
Get “Ten” and become part of this adventure!
