Chapter 270: (The Black Box) (1/2)
Herod noticed that most of his coworkers were gathered in one of the surveillance rooms, watching the cameras. Even Flowerpatch had stopped whatever weird stuff she was doing and had moved over to the camera room. He shut down the projects he was working on that were largely going nowhere and rezzed out into the hallway. He saw more than a few clones moving around as he walked to the 'viewing lounge' and rezzed inside.
The lounge existed in both realspace and in digital space, overlapping one another so that the digital sentiences who preferred a physical form could interact with their purely digital brethren in a social setting. Herod noticed that almost everyone was there, staring at the screens. They had expanded the viewscreen of one set of cameras, watching a massive transport unload crates.
”Legion's bringing in more computers,” Torturer said.
”There's already enough computer power in here to run a hash creche,” Herod said, sitting down and looking at the screen. ”Most of this stuff is state of the art.”
”There he is again,” San Diego Sunrise, a molycirc computer expert said, pointing at a bare bones android that had moved into the frame. It was wearing a basic jumpsuit, paper slippers, and looked slightly disheveled.
”Weird,” Flowerpatch said, leaning forward. ”That's a purrboi. What's an android doing with a purrboi?”
”I think he's avoiding the cameras,” Vanishing Point said as the android changed course and vanished off the bottom edge of the screen.
”He's only been here a single day,” Flowerpatch mused. ”I didn't even see his name come up on the virtual directory.”
”Who is he?” Herod asked, leaning forward. ”There. There he is, checking the shipping label on that crate.”
”Nobody's sure. He got here yesterday, met with Legion, and vanished,” Delta said. He pointed at the screen, where the android had stepped back and vanished off the screen. ”See, he did it again.”
”Where did Legion find an android?” Herod asked. ”Since the Human/Android War there hasn't been an android even manufacturered.”
”He's not an android android,” came Victor's voice from the doorway.
Herod, to his credit, didn't scream.
”He's not?” Flowerpatch asked. ”With everything else you've managed to get your hands on I wouldn't have been surprised if you found some old android thinker.”
Herod walked forward. ”No, I wouldn't risk this facility or any of you by bringing an android into the Box. There's a reason that we don't make androids any more.”
”The First Digital/Biological War,” Herod guessed.
”Eh,” Victor shrugged. ”The Human/Android War and the First Biological/Digital War were two different things.”
”They happened at the same time,” Herod protested.
”So did many wars in humanity's history,” Victor said. He shrugged again and started slowly stroking his beard. ”You know, that kind of tells me something,” he reached out and turned off the display before turning around.
”Most species, even you Digital Sentiences, make the same mistake. You view humanity as a homogeneous whole. That if humanity goes to war with humanity its a human civil war, when in reality its two separate human governments or ethos going to war. If part of humanity goes to war with, say, Species X, then all of humanity is at war with Species X, when in reality its just a small section of humanity.”
”But what about the Crusade of Wrath, or the Human/Mantid War?” Delta asked.
Victor shook his head. ”Different type of war, different types of wars,” he sighed. ”The Crusade of Wrath was Daxin and the Martial Orders going blood crazy on the Imperium. Ninety percent of humanity wasn't involved. The Human/Mantid War was a species wide fight for survival. Ninety percent of humanity was involved in the fight. Big difference.”
Flowerpatch nodded. ”I get it.”
Herod thought about it quickly. He ran comparisons on human engagement with the different wars and found only in the Human/Mantid War did human engagement rise to above 30% of the entire species.
Sweet shook her head. ”I just ran a cursory search of conflicts in human history, there appear to be many smaller wars wrapped up into one big war label.”
”It makes it easier to teach, I guess,” Victor said spreading his hands. ”Makes us look a lot less... umm... bloodthirsty I guess.”
”So who is he?” Torturer asked, bringing the topic back to the android.
”He's our newest member. He's a digital sentience, like all of you, but he prefers to live in a physical therapy frame at this time,” Victor said.
”What's his specialty?” Flowerpatch asked.
”Computer security intrusion,” Victor said.
”Makes sense,” Sweet nodded. ”We're trying to crack open SUDS.”
”Isn't computer hardware and software Delta's area of expertise?” Vanishing Point asked.
Delta held up one hand. ”Yes, but I'm not a security expert much less a security intrusion expert,” the DS said.
”What's in the boxes?” Herod asked.
”Computers,” Victor smiled. ”Honest to God computers.”
”I thought we had computers,” Flowerpatch said.
”We do. But not these ones,” Victor said. He turned and started walking toward the door. ”There will be a meeting in two days.”
-------
Herod was 'walking' down one of the corridors with Flowerpatch when they saw the wall had a new doorway in it that hadn't been there the last time they had walked down the hall. Flowerpatch raised an eyebrow and pointed at the door and Herod nodded.
They took two steps into the room and stopped.
Boxes lined the walls, half of them pulled open with wires hanging out, shelves had parts stacked by category, and huge metal boxes lined one wall. An android therapy frame was kneeling behind a desk, attaching a cable to a metal box beside the desk.
”Hello?” Flowerpatch said.
A purrboi looked up from the seat of the chair then put its head back down. The android looked up, its face was blank and without any distinguishing features, the hair was rough and black, the eyes had the obvious markings of an android.
”Oh, hi,” the android said. He ducked back down. ”Nicetameetchaimsam.”
Flowerpatch waved her hand, trying to bring up a chair, and frowned when she realized the VR room overlaying the physical room was almost completely offline.
”Oh, yeah, hang on,” the android said from behind the desk. He lifted up his hand, twisted his wrist, and two bare-bones chairs appeared, obviously virtually reality.
There was bootsteps and Victor walked into the room, leaning against one wall and watching with narrowed eyes, his hand running through his thick beard.
”What is that?” Flowerpatch asked.
”Computer,” the android answered.
”Really?” Flowerpatch asked, leaning forward in the chair. She looked it up and down. ”Heavy metal casing, direct power linkages, direct cable linkages,” she gasped. ”Is that a manual input device?”
”Mechanical keyboard,” the android said. ”And what was called a mouse.”
”Nobody's used these in... in...” Flowerpatch said.
”Thousands of years,” the android said. ”There's a few almost modern things. Motion context sensors, the old crude ones, bare bones emitter hologram displays, real crude stuff,” he sat back up and looked at everyone then at Victor. ”I'm not sure how far back I'll have to go.”
”Just do what you think will work,” Victor said.
”Are you sure it works?” The android asked.
”Yes, Sam,” Victor said.
Flowerpatch nodded to herself as she suddenly realized what the blurted together sentence had actually meant.
”Where did you get it? A museum?” Sam asked.
Victor shook his head. ”No.”
”Oh,” Sam said, ducking back down. ”The power's right. That took a minute, thankfully the label on the power supply was intact.”
”I'll be back in a little bit, Sam,” Victor said.
It was quiet, just Sam running cables to several different 'computers' and back.
”How old are these?” Flowerpatch asked once her curiosity index got too high.
”Pre-Glassing,” Sam said. He slapped the side of a big black device with several different logos on it. ”This is just the interface to interact with an early quantum computer that has nearly five hundred qubits and three logical qubits.”
Herod snorted. ”Victor's watch has more than that.”