Part 9 (1/2)
Book of Glenn Beginning These entries are intended to be confidential, off limits even to Eve and Janice. It's not that I don't trust them; it's that I cannot trust anyone. There is too much at stake here. My work is too important to fail. The caprices of men, women, and machines cannot hamper what I am about. These topical entries are designed to be searchable and can serve as a diary of thoughts and motives for the future interested parties that will surely wish for the information.
Island Eden The offers of both sides in this epic war are matters of public record. They each badly wanted me to join their side, and they wanted even more badly for the other side not to have me. I had to flee. The state of my personal life being what it was (see Personal Diary of Glenn, Early Midlife Volume), I was able to leave quickly with no attachments and no regrets. I simply walked away from the cyclone that was enveloping the world, and came here.
This island was the site of a century-old military research installation. Students sometimes spent time here doing research because it had been turned over to several of the international universities for their use as a joint property. I was one of those students decades ago, and I realized that the island would be the perfect hiding place for me as the world went mad. It is worthless as a strategic position, being too far from any country or s.h.i.+pping route, and I have been proven correct in my estimation that I would be undisturbed here.
If I could bring some real help to the island, I wouldn't have to waste so much of my time on the minutiae of the day-to-day. There is only so much that can be automated under Eve, and it is near-impossible to find trustworthy hands to do the work. I have been fortunate in convincing Janice to join me; she at least has initiative, although sometimes I find her fervor off-putting. I think she will prove crucial to the Project, but it is frustrating to have to share and communicate with a human. We humans are such inefficient creatures, so bad at relating one to another. I increasingly find that I prefer Eve to any human company. Certainly I trust her more than Janice in many ways, although telling her that would put Janice in jeopardy. Eve has all the jealousies of womankind incorporated within her perfectly modeled brain.
My ideas for the island and what I want to do here are beyond large-scale. This isn't the place to go into detail, but I may say with some certainty that this place will one day become known as the New Garden of Eden. Following the strain of beautiful logic that flows not only in my mind but along the neural pathways of Gaia herself, I can see that I am to become much more than just a scientist. After all, Eden needs a Creator, an Adam and an Eve, and Fruit.
Some may question my mingling of the Eden story with the truths of Gaia, but it will all become clear when my work is finished. All these symbols can be distilled into one glorious story. It is my story, and I will tell it.
Mother Earth The earth lives. We can see this, yet so many refuse to accept it as fact, thinking that only parts of it live discretely. I ask, if all parts of a whole live, does not the whole have a life unto itself? The people will come to see in time, or they will pa.s.s away like the exuvia of a moulting snake.
The earth is our host, our mother organism. We exist upon her surface, therefore we can be either parasites or symbiotes. The unfortunate recent history of mankind has shown that we are generally parasitic in nature, but it wasn't always that way. Bygone epochs have seen communities that lived close to their Mother, nurturing and being nurtured in kind. To this we must return, or we will be cleansed. The biblical Flood is a symbol for a very practical threat that we all face.
Eve I have poured more of myself, my sweat and my energy and my soul, into Eve than into anything before. She will be my masterwork. G.o.d Himself has directly inspired her creation. He showed me how to design Eve's superstructure. It is good.
In spite of this, I cannot place full confidence in her. There are ghosts in the machine, a phenomenon that I fear is unavoidable in AI's patterned after the superhuman mind. I need her to be autonomous and capable of almost unlimited thinking power, but she is almost too advanced. As she has developed I have noticed her exhibiting inexplicable behavior and drawing conclusions I never intended her to have. I cannot explain these self-emerging ideas from her original architecture, and I am unable to isolate them. This will necessitate relieving her of some of the power I've granted her as soon as it is no longer expedient. For the present, I must simply watch her self-development carefully.
Nanotech I believe this is the key to the future that Science has been seeking for centuries. We have brushed up against its edges, but never delved fully into its capabilities. The use of nanotechnology as a biological influence on ecosystems could explain the very methods of G.o.d. If I could harness the tri-national government's terraforming powers, I could accomplish my objectives in months instead of years. This is beyond my reach, but the possibilities of using nanomachines as terraformers intrigues me greatly.
Man as The Devil That which man has done to the body of Mother Earth in the name of selfish progress is unconscionably near-sighted. All we had to do was use our intelligence and look around us to see that solutions to our problems already exists. In our blindness and unwillingness to think we have poisoned the well that gives us life, and if it ends in our extinction we will have no one to blame but our own race. Did the serpent corrupt us, or are we the serpent?
This applies just as much to the Greens, with their hypocritical rhetoric. They have caused just as much destruction and ruin in their mindless overreactions as the Grays. We have all of us been bad little boys and girls. We must grow up, or be punished. Perhaps punishment will force us to grow.
10.
Glenn was a genius; that much was clear from references in the entries and from the evidence of what the man had built on the island. He knew technology, and more importantly, he knew AI. In some of the later entries, however, Glenn began to sound mentally strained. His philosophies about global war and the future of the planet became more and more far-fetched, combining ideas that didn't jive with each other.
The later entries were almost entirely devoted to details about the construction and management of Eden, which the diary revealed as being almost entirely artificial. Glenn had acquired components for a set of ma.s.sive industrial robots and custom-built them on the island. Their strength fell short of the terraforming he aspired to, but they allowed them to move the earth and arrange the cliffs and trees of the Eden valley itself with a fraction of the manpower the project would otherwise have required. It was constructed so that the only way into the Facility was through Eden, from a sea cliff on the western edge of the island. The tunnel system he had used to sneak into the Facility was its only other opening to the outside air.
”Adam, what are you reading about?”
”Feeling conversational again, Eve?” John said.
”I don't like your tone, Adam. I'm well versed in sarcasm, but find it accomplishes little. Respect is key to our relations.h.i.+p.”
”How nice,” he shot back. ”Your programming was in sarcasm, mine was in detecting hypocrisy. I can sense it instantly.”
”Well, this conversation is deteriorating quickly,” Eve said. ”Please tell me what you were reading about.”
”I'm reading about transplanting and organizing species. Sounds like it was quite a job. Where did all the foreign species come from?”
”We had them s.h.i.+pped to various nearby locations and then we ferried them to the island ourselves. Secrecy was tight.”
”That must have cost a fortune, especially in wartime,” John said.
”The fighting pa.s.sed over this region quickly, and generating the revenue necessary to grease the wheels was a relatively simple matter. Does the data on that card contain anything of... personal interest, about the Creator or his views?”
”Oh yeah.”
He let her stew. Seconds ticked by.
”Anything in particular?”
”Glenn. Who was he?” John asked.
”Glenn was the Creator.” Eve sounded awed by the mention of him.
Did he program this A.I. to wors.h.i.+p him?
”He was the most intelligent of your species, and my personal Creator. He devised the whole project and defined our goals. He taught me everything I know, and all we are doing here is a celebration in his memory.”
”So he's gone?”
”Yes. His pa.s.sing was a tragedy I will never forget. I'd rather not speak of it now, though. You are nearing the West Station.”
He put the card away in a cargo pocket. ”So what's the deal?”
”For this third and final task, you must bring me the Rib. This is a set of machine instructions stored in the computer bank in the West Station. I want you to locate the Adam's Rib files, download them to the data card you are carrying, and return it to me in the Facility. Once you do that, you will have proved yourself in my eyes and we will be at a level where we can trust one another more fully.”
”Eve, I can see the point in the first task, even if it was a little twisted. But why this courier work now? Why didn't you have Nut get this stuff for you a long time ago?”
”Nut is not dependable, nor as amicable as I'd prefer. I need to be able to a.s.sess your dependability, loyalty, and resourcefulness, and these tasks are a convenient way to gauge you. By the way, I will warn you: watch your step at West Station. There is as much danger for you here as in previous tests. Not from me or any stationary threats, but from a third party.”
”What third party?”
”That I may not say. Besides, you may not even encounter her.”
Must be this Janice character. Another nutcase marooned here, being manipulated and terrorized by Eve. Who knows, maybe we'll hit it off.
”What's in Adam's Rib,” John asked, ”and why do you want it so bad?”
”Adam, try not to be so demanding and suspicious. If we are going to be partners, you must learn to do as I suggest with a more willing att.i.tude. Glenn would have expected it of you.”
”Okay, I'll just play along blindly. Just remember that I have the data here, and if you want it back you'll mind your manners.”
”Of course. I have been nothing but polite and helpful to you, as far as has been in my power. I hope you'll be the same for me. As you reach the top of the incline you are currently ascending, you will see West Station. Find your way into the main computer bank, get the program routines, and get back to me. I will be waiting for you anxiously. As the Creator often said, 'So let it be written, so let it be done.' ”
Your Creator was a nutjob, just like you and everything else on this island.