Sol goes rogue.
Steven Mandell
The mission to bring up the men succeeded, and thirty-six hours later, Sol, Jarvis, McCloud, Rogers, and the 'Canadian pilot' gathered in David's office.
David spoke first. "Welcome, everybody, especially to our unexpected visitor. You all know each other, and thanks to Joe for agreeing to delay the briefing until all our members could attend. Start when you are ready, Joe."
Joe stood up.
"Thank you, David, and thanks to everybody else for coming here to listen to what I have to say. What I am about to tell you is extraordinary by any standards, but it is the truth. Please put aside any prejudice you may feel and suspend your judgment until you have heard me out. I will start with the revelation that my name is not Captain Joseph Johnson, RCAF."
"Surprise, surprise, "murmured David, but under his breath.
"But make no mistake, Joe Johnson is a real person. He was a Second World War pilot in Number 1 Squadron, RCAF. They posted him to RAF Biggin Hill in August 1940, and he flew a Hurricane fighter aircraft in the Battle of Britain. Like me, every airman in our version of RAF Biggin Hill, the airfield visited by Sol, has a real-life counterpart in 1940. Everything our pilots experience is a recreation of events that happened or are happening in the reality of RAF Biggin Hill, 1940."
"Who are these representative pilots?" asked David.
"Not who, but what," said Joe. They are androids. Their names are unimportant, but they are all high-ranking members of the AI ruling elite.
"And who are you?" interjected Jarvis.
"David Diaz-Smith. My first name is 'David,' but pronounced 'Dah-beed,' as you just heard. My father was British, and my mother was Argentinian."
"Tosh," said Rogers. "Androids, no matter how high spec, are not allocated nationalities, nor do they have parents."
"I am not an Android," said the pilot.
"I am human, and an agent for La Resistencia Centrale a la ocupación.
"What happened to the truth, old boy?" David asked.
"It is the truth," Joe insisted. "Surely you can see the difference between me and even the most realistic android?"
"You stepped out of your Hurricane wearing a leather jacket and full flying gear," I said. "The temperature was forty-two degrees Celsius in the shade, and there was no sweat on your brow. How do you explain that?"
"I could not allow the crew of the lead drone to see me sweating," was his instant reply. "It would have identified me as human and been tantamount to suicide."
Joe unfastened his leather jacket to reveal a flat, box-shaped electronic device attached to the inner lining. Concealed beneath the lining was a web of thin wires that ran around the circumference of his jacket.
"The most efficient air conditioning ever devised. I felt almost chilly at times. Remember the oxygen mask I left dangling under my chin? That was part of the system that pumped out an invisible cloud of a cooling agent that clung around the contours of my face and neutralised the sun's heat. We have the technology to do almost anything nowadays, but our AI masters restrict our usage."
"You say 'nowadays,' but in what reality do you originate, and in what time segment?" asked Jarvis.
"The here and now, the present, whatever you care to call it," he said, "and at any moment, the machines could destroy the entire human race. My mission is to hold them back with this piloting stunt until this reality ends."
"Why?" I asked. "We will all die here anyway when this place is destroyed."
"I am talking about the human species, not the few representatives in this doomed alternative reality. The AI Supreme Council no longer operates in the new reality created by the Tribus, but right now, they can destroy every human on Earth. We must stop that from happening until this reality disintegrates and the Supreme Council no longer functions."
David rapped his ceremonial gavel on the table.
"Thank you. I adjourn this meeting for one hour while the committee deliberates on its findings.
"Sir," he said to the speaker." If you would kindly leave the room and return in one hour. One of the staff members will provide refreshments in the room down the corridor. Thank you."
The pilot—it was hard to know what to call him now—left the room.
"Well?" said David. "I want to get a feel for how the rest of you are taking his explanation. Do you think that he is telling the truth?"
We talked it through, and the consensus was that we needed to know more before coming to a decision—an obvious conclusion, but individuals made their feelings clear.
"I would say yes," said Rogers. "He could not have known we were going to ask why he didn't sweat, and the answer he gave was convincing."
"I agree," said Jarvis. "You learn how to judge a man when you have had combat experience, and I took a liking to him. If what he says is true, then he has pulled off a world-class scam on the machines."
McCloud interrupted, "If that's what he did. I look forward to getting the details."
"It is impossible that one man working on his own could deceive the AI leaders on such a large scale, and I don't think we should trust him without further evidence," was the surprise announcement from Sol, who had suddenly become active.
What I was about to say myself was in line with the other speakers, but Sol overrode me, and I could hardly make my opinion known now.
I saw some puzzled glances coming our way.
There was now a tension in my relationship with Sol that I had never experienced before; it was almost as if we were jostling for control. Sol had a fairly complex brain, but it was not autonomous and ran on a programme with strictly defined parameters—rules that did not include the ability to make the opinionated statement we had just heard. I could not understand what had happened.
Davis reconvened the meeting, and Joe resumed his story.
"Alternative realities constantly come into existence. The overwhelming majority lasts only seconds, often much less than that, but a tiny fraction endures longer, like this one. We have no idea when it will end, and in terms of the survival of the human species, it is pure bad luck that this one has proved so relatively long-lived. The airfield that Sol visited is an exact copy of the British RAF base regarding the physical buildings, the airfield, and the aircraft. Events such as the 'scrambling' of the Spitfires and the engagement with German enemy aircraft are simulated representations. As Sol observed, the aircraft never leave the ground, but the consequences of the various battles are the same as in 1940. The aircraft can be damaged or shot down, and the pilots can be killed."
There was a murmur of surprise at this statement, but Joe continued with his set speech.
"Every android is a replica of a human pilot who fought and sometimes died in the defence of their country, and the androids feel what they assume to be the actual emotions of 'their' pilot. They believe that experiencing the heightened consciousness of an actual human being in a life-or-death combat situation will allow their computer brain a valuable opportunity to copy and replicate those emotions and create consciousness. Not only for themselves but also for their peers.
"Our agents suggested to them that the more intense the emotion, the easier it was to copy, and for maximum effect, it should happen repeatedly over an extended period. They explained that the wartime pilots did not suffer these extreme reactions solely in battle but at night when they were asleep, and the imagined fear was often far more intense than the actual ordeal. These fighter pilots were the last line of defence, and if they failed, the Germans would invade their country. The young men were intensely patriotic, and that feeling was so strong that it seeped into the basic levels of awareness possessed by the replica pilots. AI took it as an indication that they were in the first stages of developing human consciousness, but that was an illusion. The whole scheme was an elaborate hoax."
"Thank you, Joe. We are grateful for your update on the situation," said David, " I am sure you will face a barrage of questions, but before we set that process in motion, you mention 'agents' who persuaded the leaders of the AI occupation army to agree to take part in this charade. Who were they, and how did they get so close to the ruling council?"
"Brave men," Joe said. Men like your own Steven Mandell," he nodded in the direction of Sol, "who allowed their mind to be uploaded into the brain of a machine and take control."
He got no further as Sol jumped to his feet.
"That is a lie. The Ruling Council must have allowed it to happen. No human mind could control a unit of such high standing that the supreme leaders granted him a personal audience. Even a unit like me can overthrow a puny human interloper. Where is Steven Mandell now, I ask you?"
Sol swayed back and forth alarmingly.
"His voice has fled. Steven. Fault . . .Fault…. I am Sol. My programme instructs me to report back to my superiors if I experience a malfunction. He will go now. Unexpected error. Repeat. . .. . . Sol must report back if there is a there is diagnostic system failure, emergency. Go back."
Sol lumbered out of the room, crashed through the door of the conference room, and rapidly left the building.
Steven: Sol caught me unawares. He erected a neural barrier between us with material salvaged from one of his redundant connections. It was a crude but effective device, and Sol temporarily had command. I was aware that he was running, and at that moment, his destination line ended at the edge of the plateau. As we got closer, the line extended to the mountain face. He was going to climb down! I traced the line to the final destination, and I got a picture of a drone formation lightly sketched in. This meant that he had no data on the current drone location, but this was where he wanted to go.
Sol intended to contact the crew of a drone and tell them everything he knew.