UnConsequences

“Fletch, how’s that clamp?”

“No problem boss, I’ve strengthened it - should be fine, just workin’ on Crowe’s calf plate, couple of minutes.”

“Get up here when you’re done.”

“Right oh boss.”

Grimond was still in the cabin of the lead tanker, frustrated at the delay, he was staring at the recharge meter willing it to speed up. He was also considering another course of action. He detested being forced to act on another’s behalf, in this case Mackintyre’s. He was trying to work out what Mackintyre would get from this. As far as Grimond could see, he was pretty well set up as it was. His lair was well armoured and defended, he had expertise that all the clans needed and were willing to pay for. And he had that monster Jason for additional firepower. In the hierarchy of the Inbetween this looked to Grimond like a perfect set up comfortable and low risk. So, why indulge in this hazardous adventure? It didn’t make any sense. Mackintyre had not given any of them time to think.

They had been bulldozed into this, held hostage by two pieces of technology under their skins. He could feel them just under the skin beneath his jaw. Grimond wasn’t even sure if he believed Mackintyre, they could just be dummies but finding out if the threat was real could prove fatal. He swallowed a couple of wakeup tablets - again supplied Mackintyre - to sharpen his thoughts. He needed alternatives. He was still cogitating when Fletch appeared at the door.

“All done boss.”

The techie was very unlike the rest of the clansmen, to begin with he was small, barely 1.6 m tall, weighing in at around 55 kilos, he was hardly going to be much good in hand to hand combat. However he was a wizard with machinery. Worth his weight in hydrocarb, he was one of those geniuses who could make anything out of anything. He seemed to have an instinctive sense of how things worked. Grimond had debated with himself long and hard before finally deciding the benefits of bringing him along outweighed the risk, so far he had been proved correct. He realised now, that come to think of it, it was Mackintyre who had suggested it.

“Bastard!”

“Boss?”

“Not you Fletch, c’mon there’s summat I wanna talk to you about, but not in here”. Grimond jumped down from the tanker. “Follow me”

He strode into the night followed by Fletch away from both the tankers and Brovver. About fifty metres away from the tankers, Grimond turned to Fletch, putting his hands in either side of his head signally “silent mode”, Fletch nodded.

“Right Fletch, what do you know about fucking Mackintyre’s implants? Can we get rid of them?”

“I thought you might ask boss, and so did Mackintyre. He uploaded the specs to my armour’s memory as soon as we left the lair. They are very sophisticated.”

“So what can we do about them, c’mon Fletch you must have some idea!”

“I don’t like this any more than you do, boss, but as far as I can tell, the implants are shielded, so no Eee Em Pee will affect them and they will be operational until we die. They are linked directly to the spine by very fine wires. Those wires not only power the implants from our own nerve energy but if we try to remove either of them it will set off the charge.”

“So we’re screwed.” it was not a question.

“Not quite boss, I have a few ideas but it’ll take time.”

“We don’t have much of that either.” Grimond ground his badly decayed teeth sending a shaft of pain through his jaw. “Fuck!!”

Fletch thought this was an inadequate response to their predicament but remained silent.

Grimond signalled silence off. “Nothing out here Fletch, time to go.”

Unaware that Mackintyre had heard every word, the tracker implants also had broadcast facilities. Fortunately the two clansmen hadn’t walked any further away from the tankers. For these broadcast links to work they had to remain within 75 metres of the tanker’s relays and Mackintyre would prefer the clansmen remained ignorant of this limitation, at least until after delivery.

Grimond clambered back into the cab to find Brovver already there.

“Where have you been Grimond? We’re all charged up.”

Grimond just grunted, “Let’s go then.”

The four tankers moved off slowly along the siding. In the last tanker Fletch fitted Crowe’s repaired calf plate.

“The repair should hold for a few days, but don’t over stress it, it’s only a temporary botch up. And those servos are about past it.”

Despite the animosity between the clans, Crowe was developing a little respect for the diminutive clansmen. “Thanks Fletch, where did you learn all this stuff?” Fletch shrugged, not easy to do in full armour.

“Here and there, nothing specific. My mother was a techie she got me started.”

Crowe was even more surprised. In Brovver’s clan it was unusual to know who your parents were; children were brought up by the clan as a whole. There were few specialists in the clans but survival depended more on the collective than individual skill. This of course meant that each was equally dispensable, built in redundancy Brovver called it.

Once back on the main track the tankers accelerated southwards. There was a sense of relief amongst the clansmen, on the move they were much less vulnerable to attack. The tankers were big enough and well armoured enough to discourage any of the scattered scavengers from making any concerted effort to stop them. The scanners picked up a few random huts and camp fires, flickering signs of life in the arid landscape but nothing that constituted a significant threat. The clansmen settled back in their seats and unmasked, ate some of the food blocks stored in the cockpits.

Half an hour passed in bored silence, the almost featureless desert outside indifferent to the four huge tankers humming along the maglev line at a steady 70 kilometres an hour.

Mackintyre’s voice broke into the clansmen’s thoughts. “Brovver, Grimond, in twenty minutes you will reach a Maglev Security checkpoint. They know you’re coming but don’t know what you’re carrying. As far as they are concerned you are a water carrier coming down from Kielder. You will find the necessary permits in the tanker’s rear locker.”

Brovver reached behind him and retrieved the pad. “No problem then Mackintyre?”

“Not quite, the permits are fakes and might not be good enough to get you through without an inspection.”

Grimond winced, “Wha’da-fuck does that mean?”

“It means Grimond that they may want to board the tankers and you will have to deal with them.”

Maglev Security had a very unsavoury reputation and the clans tended to give them a wide berth. As a rule they were big and nasty with state of the art weapons and armour. Recruited mainly from the sewers of the Enclave’s lowest reaches, some were even former Undergrounders. Maglev Security were not noted for intelligence but could be relied upon for brute force. Those posted to the Inbetween tended to be the worst of the lot. Mostly with a criminal past and bored with lots of excess energy they took every opportunity to flex their mechanically enhanced muscles. It was well known these guys supplemented their income with a “travel tax” imposed on luckless drivers.

“Plug the pad in - with any luck, the auto security will just wave you through.” Brovver dropped the pad into the slot, three green lights flashed.

“Well at least it’s compatible. What’s next?”

“You wait Brovver, you’ll know soon enough.” Mackintyre clicked off.

“Jason, have you managed to get through to the Northliners yet?”

Mackintyre had insisted Jason was the front man with the Undergrounders, as far as they knew Hunter was the one sending them the hydrocarb. Undergrounders respected strength and little else, one look at Mackintyre’s diminutive form and they would have laughed him off the planet.

“Just coming through now Graeme”.

Even the poor 2D reception couldn’t hide the ugliness of the Northliners leader. Dirty, almost pure white skin, pockmarked with disease, a few tufts of hair sticking up from a scarred crown. There was also no mistaking the inherent violence in his eyes and bunched muscles.

A grin of pure malevolence exposed sharpened metal teeth. “Where’s my fuckin’ hydrocarb Hunter?” The voice was harsh and heavily accented. Living in the tunnels removed all traces of softness and humanity from the Undergrounders, they were almost feral.

“On its way, Stark, should be with you in about forty five minutes.”

The assembled Undergrounders behind Stark were clearly unhappy, he snarled at them.

Undergrounders don’t like being in the open air, born and living in the dark stinking tunnels made them all agoraphobic. They were crouched behind a pile of rubble that was part of what was left of St Albans. They could see the lights around the maglev’s entry point to the Enclave. The Enclave Wall stretched away east and west from this point the bright blocks of security posts standing out against the black sky.

Over time, Enclave Security had cleared a four kilometre wide strip outside the wall. They had poisoned the land, destroyed the entire infrastructure and the people moved or killed. The area was under constant surveillance. However the Undergrounders had tunnelled beyond the wasteland allowing relatively safe ingress and egress to and from the Underground for people and supplies from the Inbetween and elsewhere. Enclave Security were well aware of the tunnels and monitored the flow of goods and services running through, making occasional raids to keep the Undergrounders on their toes and to supplement their own meagre supplies.

Officially there were only two ways in and out of the Enclave, the heavily defended maglev line and the precarious sea route along the Thames estuary. The latter was especially problematic as sea level rise had eaten away at the docks over the last fifty years. The seas around the Enclave had also become more acidic increasing erosion of both natural and manmade structures. The hundred and fifty year old Thames Barrier had been repaired so often there was little of the original machinery left. In the last decades it had been extended in a curve north and south and made even higher in an effort, Canute like, to hold back the invading seas. The enclave had no more success in holding back the encroaching sea than the king and bits of the eastern Enclave were disappearing annually. Even the Undergrounders were having problems in their tunnels; the rising water tqabale was pushing the Undergrounders and surface dwellers closer together and the antagonism was rising.

The comms unit in Stark’s hand beeped again.

“Stark! - You’re still too close to the wall, we can’t unload here.”

Jason was getting more irritated with the slow progress of the Undergrounders; the further they moved from their home turf the more restless they became and the slower they travelled. “You need to get north of the next ridge out of sight and range of the Wall.”

Stark growled and kicked a few of his gang into motion and began walking north, the rest reluctantly followed. Speed was not their forte but they did manage a steady pace and within half an hour had covered the necessary few kilometres to get beyond the ridge. With no light visible from the Wall it was darker here and this had a calming effect on the more jittery Undergrounders. They didn’t have much in the way of modern technology. The air filters on their battered and mostly passive armour were old and rarely cleaned allowing the stench of the polluted atmosphere to reach into their lungs leading to bouts of irritated coughing.

The pad in Stark’s hand showed him a route to the rendezvous point, a few hundred yards away and under a maglev bridge. Some hundred metres short of the bridge, Stark hissed “Down!”

The ragbag Undergrounders may look superficially like an unsavoury bunch, but they were disciplined. You don’t survive long in the tunnels without a herd mentality - they knew instantly Stark had spotted something and as a unit they dropped to the ground. They could all see now what Stark had spotted, the flickering of a fire under the bridge.

Stark tapped Thorn on the shoulder, signalling for him to go have a look. Silently Thorn crawled forward till he could make out two figures huddling round the fire. They did not seem too armoured or aware of the approaching Undergrounders; they were however eating something, Thorn’s mouth watered at the sight. He crept back to the waiting gang, and signalled two easy targets. Stark nodded and motioned his men forward.

The two Inbetweeners had no time to react as with blood curdling screams the Northliners fell upon them from the dark. It was over in seconds the two outlanders barely had time to stand up before the Undergrounders arrived. Swiftly and brutally they dispatched the outlanders then immediately kicked dirt over the fire to put it out.

The Northliners were more comfortable now, they had vented a little bloodlust, got roof over their heads under the bridge and as an added bonus some hot food!

“Thorn, Glinch, take some food and go have a look around, we don’t want to be surprised.”

Stark opened his mask and chomped into the hot meat. “Man that’s great!” he mumbled through the chewing.

The rest set to, there wasn’t much but good meat was such a rarity underground that they were all greedy for a share. They settled down, back to back to wait peering out into the darkness savouring the few morsels they each had.

The tankers were approaching the security outpost, automatically slowing to near walking pace. The pad came to life - Grimond and Brovver could see on its small screen the exchange of data between the tankers and the security post. The Pad went dark.

“Shit! Arm up, we’re being sided!”

The clansmen closed their masks and powered up their armour and guns. All four tankers were under the control of the security post, gliding to a halt in the security siding. The external power feed was switched off and the tankers dropped onto the rail where powerful electromagnets locked the tankers in place. The pad came to life again.

“These tankers are now under the control of Maglev Security. Any attempt to move will result in your destruction.” the AI’s flat tones implied a serious threat.

Mackintyre broke in “Security, why have you stopped us?”

At the same time, Jason was in contact with the two leaders. “Brovver, Grimond, stay put, we are in touch with the security AI, if this doesn’t work, it’s up to you, there are four security guards and two of them are asleep. Be ready!”

Mackintyre was busy working through his own AI trying to convince Security that his credentials are genuine. His interface skills were being sorely tested and the security AI was being difficult, he could sense that it was about to alert the security men to their presence. He was sweating as he concentrated hard, pushing his skills to the max while Jason held the clansmen ready. Finally Graeme spotted a small gap in the AI’s firewalls and he sneaked in, just in time. The pad in the tanker now looked a perfect match for the AI’s files and after a few seconds the external power came back on, the electromagnets holding the tankers reversed polarity lifting the tankers clear of the rail.

“How’d you manage that Mackintyre?” asked Brovver.

“Just one of the many benefits of automation, Brovver. The AI thinks you are a routine delivery to the Enclave. It never even thought to look outside. Machines are so gullible, you can relax for half an hour then you will be at the transfer point.” Mackintyre was pleased with himself, he clicked off.

“Jason, where are the Northliners?”

“They had a bit of local trouble but that’s sorted. They are settling down to wait, looks like nothing moving within five klicks of the rendezvous.”

Mackintyre rubbed his hands together. “Nearly there.”

ELITE HOME 1930

Li Shai Yen and Carswell had watched the goings on in Mackintyre’s lair for about half an hour before boredom set in. They played a leisurely game of chess for a couple of hours which Yen had won with a very unusual queen sacrifice. Carswell had thought himself to be in a winning position, Yen’s astounding loss of her queen made him over confident and she waltzed through his tattered defence to win in four moves. Carswell considered himself one of the Elite’s finest chess players; he had even beaten Boris, the main AI of the Redoubt twice. Ruefully smiling he shook Yen’s hand.

“Where did that come from?” he asked.

“AI-1 taught me that one; it’s from a 20th century game between two old rivals from America and the Soviet Union. Like AI-1, old but still useful.”

“Don’t start that again! We have a board meeting shortly; you can go on about it then.”

The boardroom was situated at the very top of the building with a 360 degree panorama across Iceland’s spectacular volcanic landscape. By day, you could see how the retreating glaciers had left a barren rocky landscape, dotted with bright blue lakes. In the far distance glimmers of purest white on sharp mountainsides the last remnants of the once magnificent icescape. This evening with a full moon glimmering off the lakes and a few lights from the geothermal power stations the view was strangely alien and forbidding.

In the centre of the room seated around the circular pale wood boardroom table the six board members were settling down shuffling pads and papers, getting comfortable on bentwood chairs. The Chairman, Gustav Bentner tapped his stylus on the water glass in front of him.

“Come to order please ladies and gentlemen, we have much to do this evening.” The murmurs died away and the shuffling ceased.

“Thank you, I assume you are all happy with the agenda?” Looking round the table Gustav acknowledged a series of nods of agreement.

“Running Bear - will you bring us up to date on North America please?”

Running Bear was the only Native American in the Elite. Tall and well muscled with jet black hair down to his shoulders and a red-gold complexion he could have been a TriV caricature of an American Indian. He had gained entrance into the Redoubt in its early days and had shown since then a remarkable ability to pull together seemingly disparate pieces of knowledge into a coherent whole.

He was not an expert in anything, unlike many of his colleagues, but his ability to see the links between pieces of research made an invaluable to the Elite. It took him a few years to convince his colleagues of the need to be more coherent in their efforts, more mutually supportive. With the help of AI-1 he pushed them to recognise where a synergy between the various closed disciplines could be used to the benefit of all. Running Bear had developed a way of visualising hitherto unknown connections between disparate pieces of work. He became Director of Research when he persuaded a recalcitrant particle physicist to listen to a Professor of psychology who proceeded then to prove to him that reason he was failing to complete an experiment was because he hadn’t sufficiently taken into account the mind set of his lab assistant.

Running Bear waved on the TriV projector in the middle of the table bringing into view a map of the North American continent.

“Overlay population”

Blocks appeared at half a dozen locations, mainly near the coasts and the Great Lakes.

“These are the latest figures we have, note that some are old and unverified.” Using his stylus he highlighted an area in the Northeast and zoomed closer.

“Here is where most of the the survivors of New York ended up after the crash. Much of New York itself is under water as you know. The population seems stable at around three million, mostly agrarian, technology level aound the 1950’s, some hydro and geothermal power, rarely any communications outside the local area. Disease is on the increase; heavy metals in the soil are reducing fertility and productivity, so we think the numbers will fall in the near future.”

The map showed much of the old eastern seaboard of America to be under the ocean, there was almost nothing left of the Carolinas, Virginia or central Pennsylvania. A few uninhabited islands were all that remained of the eastern seaboard from Nova Scotia to Texas. Running Bear tapped the image again.

“The latest projections from Hudson’s group,”

He nodded at the head of climate science in the Elite.

“These would suggest that the area will become increasingly infertile as the central desert spreads north and east over the next ten to twenty years. By then the falling agricultural productivity is likely to force another significant move northwards.”

The sparse language of Running Bear’s report suited needs and protocols required of a board member, the classing of settlements by comparison with the past a useful shorthand. Most of the details and the extensive research works were contained in the files sent to each member’s pad prior to the meeting. The reports and proposed actions had long been available for the board members through their pads and general approval had already been given. This meeting allowed for a final and formal confirmation of universal agreement. Once reports and proposals had got to this stage, after rigorous inspection by Boris, the more specialised AIs and the synergists, it was almost unheard of for a board member to challenge another’s proposals.

Running Bear brought the expanded region around what were the Great Lakes to the fore. The lakes had expanded greatly over the last half century.

“Things are better around this part of the continent. We estimate the population nearer four million in five settlements, technology near early to mid twentieth century. Good agriculture and trade between the settlements but little elsewhere. Projections suggest with time they could each late twentieth century but will always be limited by energy shortages.”

“Is there a chance here to intervene while the area is still stable?” Gustave Bentner broke in.

“There is a proposal for a limited intervention attached to these files, but our resources are severely limited. I suggest that after we have all had time to peruse the proposal - we discuss this at our next meeting.”

The Elite Board liked to have things done properly, carefully and with due diligence and thought. It was never a good idea to try and bounce the board into accepting a proposal without fully disclosing the data and a full discussion.

“Agreed, action for the next meeting for all to read digest and comment on Running Bear’s proposal. Carry on Running Bear.”

Li Shai Yen was bored already. “Can’t we do it now? Doesn’t seem too long a proposal.”

Bentner smiled “Ah the impetuosity of youth. It can wait Li Shai Yen. Running Bear.”

Li Shai Yen huffed, Carswell nudged her under the table and she nodded her agreement.

“Thank you Gustav, our third large population lies in the northwest.”

He waved the image into close up again.

“Very similar to the Great Lakes settlements, stable mid twentieth century is a fair estimate though our data is sparser than for the Great Lakes. As we agreed at our last meeting we are preparing an expedition to investigate. This will leave in three days time, complement of fifteen specialists and one synergist. Details are in the attached files.”

Running Bear paused, leaving space for interjections, but none were forthcoming - the committee by their silence indicating contentment. Running Bear moved the perspective of the projection out to the complete North Americas.

“Lastly then the regions around the mountains; these, as you know, are generally smaller numbers in the Rockies we’ve found a few in the far west, these are limited coastal settlements. East of the mouintains around the much enlarged Hudson Bay the settlements there seem to be thriving. However, the tech is low level and very limited.” Running Bear was unusually hesitant; the chair raised an enquiring eyebrow.

“You will have noticed I am sure, the distinct scarcity of data in this part of the written report.” Nods and murmurs of assent went round the table.

“Part of the reason for this is that there is real lack of verifiable data. However it is not just the lack of information that’s the problem. I beg your indulgence for a moment.” Running Bear moved around the table until he stood behind Gustav Benter.

“This is the last data set we have, Boris, run history file Bear 12 please.”

The display of population and technology changes over the past ten years were familiar to the board showing the Hudson Bay community making slow and steady progress, numbers increasing and some technology being rediscovered. That is until a week ago when the population dropped dramatically, there were sharp intakes of breath around the room.

Running Bear held up his hand “Wait.”

To the further astonishment of the board in a day later in the record the population numbers were just as suddenly restored.A gabble of voices broke out; Gustav Bentner slapped the table with his pad, once, twice.

“Quiet please! Enough!” clearly the board was perturbed, an unusual position to find itself in.

“Running Bear - Explain!” Bentner almost shouted - the board calmed down.

“I’ve had a great deal of help from Francoise” He nodded to fellow board member Francoise Dechamp acknowledging her input.

“And of course from the AIs for which I am very grateful.” He paused gathering his thoughts. “I spotted the anomaly less than a day ago and the first surprise is that none of our monitoring AIs had noticed this before now, the AIs were understandably upset. The second implication is more disturbing. I would like to hand over to Francois for the detail.”

Francoise Dechamp was the board’s acknowledged expert in computers and the AIs. In her nineties, she was one of the original Elite who helped set up the Redoubt and was widely thought to be responsible for bringing AI-1′s mainframe to Iceland, though if asked AI-1 would disagree.

“As Running Bear said we have two distinct problems. The first was easily checked out; we could find no discrepancies in either the sensor logs from the area or indeed technical problems with the sensors which are at best unreliable. So there was general agreement that it wasn’t the input data flow that was the problem. The second problem - the lack of AI response - has two possible causes.”

Francoise could sense the tension in the room, most of the board had an idea what was coming next but were awaiting her confirmation.

“One, the monitoring AIs deliberately ignored the data.”

Boris the main Redoubt AI expressed a degree of outrage.

“Let me finish Boris, I know you have looked into this and I can confirm to the board that this possibility has been completely discounted.”

“Thank you Francoise.” said Boris.

“The second and by far the most concerning possibility is that a person or persons unknown had hacked into our DataStream and interrupted it - placing false information in the DataStream for a period of nearly 24 hours for reasons as yet unknown. While at the same time disguising the fact from the AIs! The perpetrator or perpetrators then having fooled us; they then allowed us access to their handiwork. I confess I am baffled. Especially as the tech required for this is beyond the reach of the Americans.”

This was what the board had feared but had hoped wouldn’t be the case. There was a stunned silence around the room.

Boris in particular was perturbed; he had designed and built the monitoring system and trained the AIs during a period when the Elite were more outgoing. He had believed that if the Elite had better information on the plight of the populations they would make more effort to ease the suffering they found. He had built the sensor network then using 3D printing techniques and created the AIs with a specific task to monitor and report on the Americas. It had taken a great deal of time and energy and until now they had performed their work flawlessly. However after an initial enthusiasm for intervention the Elite fell back into their contemplative shells, content to watch and learn but making little effort to help.

Boris spoke up, “At this point we have insufficient data to know if this interference came from inside or outside the Redoubt. However, I find it difficult to believe that someone here or some internal AI would benefit from this kind of mischief. Therefore I suggest that we concentrate our efforts looking for an external agent. Most likely this would be from China or the old UK these are the only areas we believe have sufficient energy and computing power to do this. Even in the old UK, Running bear and I think that only Greater Scotland really has the capacity and Enclave is too caught up with its own resource problems.”

“You’re ignoring the Inbetween, someone there perhaps?” Li Shai Yen spoke up, “Carswell and I have been watching the antics of one Graeme Mackintyre, former citizen of Scotland. He seems to have a knack of misleading AIs, and he is well aware of our existence. He has a pipe to an AI in his lair and contacts in many strange places. Judging by what I have heard this evening he may be a candidate for our perpetrator or at least be involved in some way. I’ll transfer the data to you Boris.”

“Thank you, while I believe it is unlikely that someone from the Inbetween could have the knowledge and resources, it will do no harm to add one more name to our growing list of possible miscreants.”

Li Shai Yen was convinced by Boris’s tone that while Mackintyre’s name would be on the list it would be very near the bottom and so stood little chance of being investigated. However believing there was more to Mackintyre than just a smart Inbetween thug she resolved to take a closer look for herself. Boris knew Li Shai Yen’s personality type, knew she wouldn’t leave this alone.

“Perhaps, Li Shai Yen, you would care to look into this Mackintyre yourself? I could assign one of the security AIs to help.”

“Thank you Boris, but that won’t be necessary, I will have a look through what we know and bring the results to the next meeting.”

“That’s it then” said Bentner.

“Running Bear, Francoise and Boris will begin an in depth investigation into the Hudson Bay incident. Li Shai Yen will bring to the next meeting a summary of this Mackintyre character. Agreed?”

Half a dozen nods and murmured agrees.

“Now onto the last item on the agenda, Li Shai Yen’s proposal for AI-1, Shai Yen would you summarise please.”

“Thank you Gustav. I believe AI-1 is a much underutilised resource in the Redoubt, he holds a great deal of pre-crash knowledge which we seem to have largely forgotten. As Boris grew in skills and took over more and more of the routine around here we rather left AI-1 to his own devices. I have been speaking with it regularly over the past month and I believe it may be able to help us move to a more proactive stance. However AI-1, being such an elderly system, is energy hungry my proposal as you can see is to allow it to move into a more recent technology, thereby reducing our energy usage and adding some 17% to our processing power at very little cost. Boris tells me that there is just enough spare capacity to fit AI-1 while at the same time keeping it isolated within the system. We don’t want to risk cross contamination between the various AIs.”

Bentner looked across at Francoise, “Francoise, this is more your domain than anyone else’s, your thoughts?”

“When Yen first came to me with this proposal I was, to say the least, very sceptical. AI-1 is an enigma. We believe it was the first truly aware machine and as such difficult for us to comprehend. Its pre-crash origin meant that we had problems with maintenance and power supply, but these just seemed to solve themselves. This was in the very early days of the Redoubt and we had other things to worry us so we didn’t take much notice. Its refusal to take a name or a gender we have always seen as a limiting factor its development, and once Boris was up and running we just let it slip below our collective radar. However given Li Shai Yen’s research I am not so sure now.”

“Boris?”

“Chair - I have studied Li Shai Yen’s report in great detail. I agree we should do this, however I would urge caution. Until we have got the bottom of our recent glitches we may be introducing factors beyond our control into the system. My suggestion to the board is that we accept the proposal but delay implementation for seven days or until we have discovered the source of the recent hacking and neutralised it.”

This was better than Li Shai Yen had hoped, she had expected agreement but with a much longer time scale. Gustav asked for a vote and Boris’s proposal was universally accepted.

“Good, excellent - Next meeting 19:30 tomorrow. Thank you” Gustav closed the meeting.