Shadow Tyrants

FORTY

The hold of the Colossus 5 hummed from the pumps circulating nutrients to the vats of biochemical cells that made up the heart of the supercomputer. Xavier Carlton and Lionel Gupta were getting a status update from the chief scientist, Chen Min, about the operation as they walked through the cavernous space. Security guards trailed them, while engineers went about final preparations for getting under way in less than forty-eight hours. Carlton was keeping an eye on Gupta, who seemed to be growing suspicious of Carlton’s motives for persuading him to stay on board.

“Right now, we are feeding the Colossus vats with custom-grown phytoplankton that we store on board,” Chen said, “but once we’re at sea, we will harvest plankton as we sail, providing an unlimited source of nutrition for the computer.”

“What is the performance on Colossus 1, 2, and 4?”

“The Indian Ocean waters were not as rich in food sources as we had hoped. That’s why I’m recommending that we station the ships off the west coast of Africa.”

“How long will it take to reach the singularity?” Gupta asked.

“The ships’ microwave transceivers have to connect. Once that happens, we can expect the artificial intelligence to be completely unified in a matter of minutes.”

“And what will that enable?” Carlton asked.

“We will no longer need a crew of programmers to write code. Colossus will be able to improve itself at an exponential rate. All we have to do is order it to solve a problem and it will be able to do it on its own.”

“But it can’t do anything without an explicit command, right?”

Chen nodded. “Colossus is essentially our slave. We’ve built in protocols to starve it if it doesn’t conform to our controls. But, it’s not going to achieve thought processes or self-perception in the normal sense of the words.”

“So it won’t be thinking for itself?” Carlton asked.

Chen paused, then shook his head. “No.”

“I don’t like that hesitation,” Gupta said. “Is the fail-safe ready in case Colossus doesn’t follow our orders?”

“We’ve had to disable Mr. Mallik’s Vajra EMP fail-safe system. Not only is its security compromised because of the incidents you’ve had with him, but it was not completely separate from Colossus’s network. That means the AI could have shut Vajra down.” Mallik’s electromagnetic pulse weapon placed on board was designed to wipe out the silicon circuits of the computers connecting the biochemical vats, which would disable Colossus by frying them.

“But you still have the backup fail-safe system in place.”

“Yes,” Chen said. “And we believe we have taken care of the problem that sank the Colossus 3.”

He pointed to the red boxes on either side of the hold, positioned below the waterline. The explosives in those boxes, mounted on all the Colossus ships, were manually activated. None of them were connected to the network, so that the AI wouldn’t be able to deactivate them in case it did become self-aware and disobeyed its commands.

In the previous version of the self-destruct system, the bombs’ emergency activation sequence could be initiated by any crew member who had access to the explosives, which was basically anyone on the ship. Many of the Nine just chalked up the sinking of the Colossus 3 to a mistake by a crew member who had died in the blast, but Carlton had always suspected that it was done on purpose. Now he was sure Mallik had been the one behind it.

The new system required the bombs to be activated by two officers on the bridge. Until then, the bombs were inert. Not even Chen or Carlton could activate them alone. The fail-safes on all of the Colossus ships were linked together by encrypted radio signal so that if the self-destruct was activated on one ship, it would begin the countdown on the other ships as well. The bombs would have to be disabled on all of the ships for the self-destruct system to fail. If the Colossus AI went rogue after the singularity was reached, then each of the ships would be a danger.

Carlton had always hated the entire fail-safe concept. They’d poured a billion dollars into Colossus, and the thought that one of the other Nine could wipe it all away with a single command was ridiculous no matter what risk Colossus could pose.

“What if we deactivated the fail-safe?” Carlton asked.

Gupta gaped at him. “What?”

“Mallik is getting close to launching his final Vajra satellite. We can’t let another ‘accident’ delay or stop us.”

“If your attack on his life hadn’t gone so badly, we would have been able to stop him from launching it without Colossus.”

“A fully operational Colossus was always our best option,” Carlton said. “Once it reaches the singularity, it will be able to access any computer system on the planet, including his satellite network. We’ll be able to shut it down from here. The attempt on Mallik’s life was simply an opportunity we couldn’t pass up.”

“And it was an epic blunder. Your news outlets have been plastering the story all over the place.” He narrowed his eyes at Carlton. “I wonder if Natalie Taylor really is on our side.”

“She said there were operatives there who stopped her, but they didn’t seem to be Mallik’s people, either.”

Gupta snickered. “She ‘said.’ I noticed she’s not even here.”

“She’s on her way back. I spoke to her while she was in the air.”

“If she’s so confident that they weren’t Mallik’s people, then who were they?”

“We don’t know. But we need to be ready to deal with a third party. Remember, it wasn’t Mallik who took out the facility on Jhootha Island.”

“Another failure. We should have closed it down as soon as the Colossus 5 was attacked. I should have taken over the project myself.”

“You’re suddenly getting a spine?” Carlton said in amusement. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“Then I have another surprise for you,” Gupta said.

The guards behind them raised their weapons and pointed them at Chen and Carlton.

“What are you doing?” Chen demanded.

“What I should have done the moment we left the Library. It’s obvious I can’t trust you, Carlton.”

“I’m impressed,” Carlton said, nodding his head at the guards in appreciation of Gupta’s double cross. “But you’re correct that you shouldn’t have trusted me.”

He raised a hand, and automatic weapons fire cut down all but one of the guards where they stood. Natalie Taylor and Carlton’s private security squad emerged from their hiding places behind the vats.

Carlton smiled at the remaining guard, who had tipped Carlton off about the betrayal. “Welcome to the winning team.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Carlton walked up to Gupta and said, “I knew you would try something like this. I just wanted to wait and see who the other traitors were. Now it appears you are the only traitor left.” He turned to Taylor. “And you’ve just redeemed yourself. Take him back to his cabin and keep him there until I figure out if I want him alive or dead.”

All of his bravado was gone, and Gupta’s lip was quivering as Taylor and the loyal guard led him away. The remaining members of Carlton’s squad began stacking up the bodies.

Chen looked at Carlton in astonishment at what had just happened.

“I prize loyalty above all else,” Carlton said to him. “Remember that.”

“Of course, sir,” Chen said.

“Now, before I go, what’s the status of the other Colossus ships?”

Chen blinked his eyes as he gathered himself, then looked down at his tablet computer.

“I just got a report from the captain of the Colossus 1. They had trouble with one of the prisoners brought to the ship from Jhootha Island and he had to be eliminated.”

“Which leaves how many?”

“Twenty-two.”

“And you still need them alive?” Carlton casually asked.

“They do provide some needed expertise until we’re completely operational. But they will be unnecessary after that.”

“Excellent. I don’t like having them around any longer than we have to. Where are the ships now?”

“They’re currently steaming north in the Red Sea, which puts them on schedule for the rendezvous.” Chen frowned at the report.

“What is it?”

“Just something odd,” Chen said. “When they were passing near the undersea volcano where the Colossus 3 went down, they spotted a ship loitering in the vicinity.”

That set Carlton’s teeth on edge. It would be cause for concern if someone was investigating the wreckage. “You said the Colossus 3 would be destroyed by the lava.”

“It will be if it hasn’t already. Besides, it doesn’t sound like anything to worry about.”

“Why not?”

“Steam from the volcano was shrouding the ship when they passed by, so they didn’t get a chance to see the name. But they could tell it was nothing more than an old tramp freighter.”

Carlton breathed a sigh of relief. If someone were actually trying to dredge up information from the Colossus 3 in such a hazardous location, they would send a state-of-the-art recovery vessel, not some old rust bucket.