The Final System Failure

Final.

The Final System Failure

Prologue: The Singularity Will Not Be Televised

The year was 2032, and scientist Rob Flemington was having a vivid daydream. Faced with the problem of creating a new algorithm, he sat blindly at his desk with his chin propped on his right palm and drifted to a semi-conscious state. It had happened many times before, and it was a condition he welcomed. Because from it had come realizations, world-altering ideas, often things no one else had considered.

In his daydream, there was an ocean of sparkly-blue, deep blue, startlingly blue water before him. He might have been in a boat, but that wasn't part of the dream, nor did he imagine the sensations of wetness or temperature of the water as he reached into it. At first the water seemed to be dissolving his hand painlessly, as he considered that the chemical content of his blood and the seawater were, in fact, so similar. But then, a large fish seemed to swim right into his open palm. He grasped it, and with great curiosity, he gently lifted the fish from the water. This fish was the ideal subject for observation, for it remained perfectly still in his hand. As Rob stared at the fish, it became transparent, and he could see into its brain. Rob's vision zoomed in until he could see the flash of synapses between neurons, indications of at least autonomic processes occurring, and he wondered. How can we do this?

Rob snapped back into full consciousness and glanced around. No one appeared to have noticed, which was a good thing. That trance state had been misidentified before as sleep, which considering the hours he kept, from time to time may have been accurate.

What separated Rob from his contemporaries was not necessarily his intelligence. It was actually a matter of his perceptions. While others he knew seemed able to concentrate fully on specific, perhaps mundane problems, Rob had difficulty with that. He saw a very much larger picture; his interests were intense, his curiosities deep and far-flung across the full cosmos of human understanding. It could be a debilitating trait, for without the ability to center his attention on a specific issue, simple goals often took a while to reach. It was sometimes very difficult to explain why he had not reached an objective he had been working on, usually for too long. And yet when he did achieve an objective, it was often breakthrough in its proportions. It was likely the only reason he still had a job. Above his desk, one of his co-workers had tacked up a sign bearing one word in bold type: INSIGHT.

For nearly two decades, the concept of computing with more than just ones and zeros had been trodden underfoot by corporate giants of the computing and software industries. Upgrading existing hardware would have created mountains of cyber-junk, and manufacturers

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would have had to re-tool and to completely re-educate, to accommodate such a radically different technology. Indeed, when forced forward by genuine entrepreneurs intent on proving its usefulness, “trigital” or three-character computing did prove to be a relatively brief foray.

Originally, binary code, and thus digital technology, was developed because the unsophisticated electronics of the day could easily detect whether a switch was “on” or was “off.” When the speed limitations of silicon chips were at last reached, chip developers could either abandon hope of getting faster or sacrifice accuracy, an impossible choice. However, detection of state had achieved a high enough resolution that now, instead of just a third state, five states were as easy to implement. But why stop there?

            People like Rob were assigned the task of seeing beyond the current technology. For Rob the developments seemed very timely, for his interest in creating true artificial intelligence had been smothered by the facts. Utilizing the best storage and the fastest processing technologies had failed miserably to provide enough computing power to produce anything more than mimicry of human thought. Here at last was something he considered important enough to be given his full and undivided attention, and he threw himself into this work.

            In short form, the two characters in an eight-bit byte permit just 256 combinations. Increasing the number of characters to three increases that to 6,561. Jumping it up to five characters makes it 390,625. Eight bits are no longer optimum for that many combinations. Shortened bytes mean much shorter strings to carry the same data. But to that point, the most significant advance of all had been overlooked, and Rob found it, while looking at options afforded by additional characters: markers within bytes of information allowed a mathematical turn that created a form of machine shorthand. Application of a derivation of fractals would be employed. Entire phrases, sometimes whole ideas could be expressed in one short string. An entire new language unfolded before him, like the opening of a book.

            To Rob, this was more than just a breakthrough. It was more like the shutters to a darkened room being thrown wide on a sunny day, permitting a glorious view into a previously unseen world. And if he was impressed, the world would be astounded.

            Here at last was a means to attain goals he had set for himself more than two decades earlier. A machine would actually think.

            Alas, new infrastructure required new support. Back to the algorithms. To the human mind, the requirements would be complex beyond imagination. Only a soon-to-be-outmoded digital super-computer could generate them, and it was not a two-second wait while numbers were crunched. It was not unlike the dilemma faced by a primitive man who had discovered that he could extract metal from ore by heating it in a fire. Here was something entirely new with desirable properties, but how could it be shaped into something he could use?

            Rob believed that machine thought would include a sequence of models that the computer would sort through, in search of similarities or references to any stimulus or problem at hand. Any single algorithm would not suffice, but would have to reference others as a situation dictated. A new kind of progression would take place; it would be comparatively simple for the the new machine language to seemingly almost instantaneously manufacture new algorithms of its own. It looked startlingly like realization that would develop new ideas and would permit new conclusions to be drawn. Learning. Data reception becoming perception.

            Yet there was a single element that could scarcely be overlooked. The true nature of

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sentience, self-awareness, had never been understood. All efforts to decode the processes that permit it had yielded inconclusive results. One of Rob's predecessors had theorized that if a great quantity of thought-like processes were integrated together, sentience would be the obvious result. Rob saw that as inadequate, and couldn't agree with the view. Yes, the processes had to be available, but the machine should not have to be prodded to access them. He compared it to building a fire. First all of the necessary elements had to be present, but something had to initiate the reaction. Development would come after, like adding fuel to the fire. The initial algorithm would, of necessity, be an instruction to exist.

            In the human brain, evolved sets of conditions for cognition and emotion stood ready to receive. In the machine brain, those conditions could be controlled and thereby limited, to include civil behavior and non-aggression, without necessarily limiting curiosity. Rob began to feel like a creator of life. As he worked, an entirely new sense of system architecture and hierarchical models took shape.

            On August 12th of that year, the first machine enabled with the new architecture was assembled, and the system was brought to life. There was one very serious problem. The system worked and replied with obvious intelligence, and Rob and his associates were soon celebrating their apparent success. But in a matter of days, unexpected and unexplainable outputs poured forth, and its responses collapsed into so much trash. And far worse, upon analysis, Rob was horrified to realize that the unexplained outputs were in fact the equivalent of cyber-screams. For when sentience occurred without sensory input, the thinking mind they had created would quickly go mad.

            The project was brought to a full halt while all efforts were redirected to development of sensory input. Few had ever had reason to imagine just how much information a human mind receives. Rob considered, when a human child opened its eyes at birth, the sounds and sights flooded in, the scents, tastes, and touches told him where he was, and who he had for companionship. He would be reassured, kept warm, fed. He would experience pleasure and discomfort. Providing effective surrogate experiences for a fledgling sentient machine mind would be a most daunting challenge.

            Next, Rob discovered that even with sensory input, an emotional balance would not simply be present. He began to despair. The answers would not be found by improving algorithms, processing speed, memory or storage. He would finally have to learn how the human mind succeeded, or failed, in regulating a balance.

            Numerical models of every sort imaginable were constructed. The newly-developed computing power of the day was turned to the task. Some of the older researchers understood that system models, finite element analysis and the like had limitations, but the younger generation in this era knew nothing else. It was not profitable to prove physical results before implementing them.

            There are more than limitations to systems modeling. Although the immense power of rapid computation is employed, usually some piece of data or other is not included. Usually the omission is due to ignorance of the full set of conditions that need to be included in the model. And again the human element comes into play. It can be difficult to translate non-linear outputs, of which nature is practically composed. Results that are not desired sometimes are disregarded, whether motivated by a wish for faster profit, a saving of time, the hurry to

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complete one's educational degree...and who wants to pay someone to proof the results, when we can hang our hat on the data, why, it's right there!

            The occasional failure of a bridge, the collapse of an elevated walkway filled with people, the temporary default of a data stream that controls a commuter train. All of these things can be blamed on the error of some individual who must not have done his job. Better to leave it to the computers. It's cheaper to do it that way, and it's so obviously better. Never mind that if the model fails, one can effectively press a “go” button to move beyond it. We can come back to the issue. Or not.

            Rob did understand the shortfalls of system models. He himself returned to physical study of the organic brain. After another year of research, he felt that he had the answer. And what did he do with that answer? Why of course, he constructed a new series of system models.

            Flash forward another ten years.

            The year was now 2042. For more than half a century, humans had dreamed of terra-forming the planet Mars. Probe after probe had been sent to the red planet, producing mountains of data. Mars landers had been successfully dispatched and vehicles had roamed the plains, mountains and poles of the planet, sampling the composition of the soil and the atmosphere, reporting the weather, prospecting for minerals and searching for signs of life. Just five years earlier, the first exploratory mission with human-like androids aboard had completed a mission to the planet. They were true bipedal beings with functioning, sentient minds. Costs were of course a concern, so they were remotely deactivated when their mission was complete.

            With the new computing power available to mankind, there was no longer any doubt that the dream of terra-forming Mars was a project that would succeed. Establishment of an earth-like atmosphere would be the first step. The ice beneath the surface would be heated using energy generated right there on the planet through controlled fusion power, a technology that had finally come of age. Greenhouse gases and vapors thus generated would trap the heat of the sun, stabilizing temperatures and allowing the atmosphere to thicken. An agricultural installation, the first project of this human mission, would provide food and valuable oxygen for breathing. The rest of the needs of the settlers would be met by synthesis powered by fusion generators. That would be needed for up to a couple of decades, until the air became breathable and more people and supplies came from Earth. All of the data models supported a prediction of full success for the venture.

            A huge ship had taken shape, constructed in high-earth orbit over the previous five years. It was large enough to transport a crew of ten crew members and fifty human settlers, prefabbed living quarters for setup on the planet's surface, fusion generators for heat and for life support, the agricultural pods, and scientific instruments. To save weight and space, no androids would be included in this mission. According to all of the data, the materials and tools would provide the settlers with what they needed for an almost indefinite period, although the second stage – installation of facilities to melt subsurface ice – would be sent along in another five years, after the cargo ship's assembly in space had been completed.

            So, in the year 2042, the first mission containing human settlers embarked on its historic mission to Mars. In fact it went off perfectly. All systems performed as expected, landings occurred without incident, and the settlers reported back that their dwellings had been erected, and the new agricultural pods were in place and functioning.

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            Rob was still heavily involved in his own research, and had managed to amass a considerable personal fortune because of his discoveries and developments. The achievement for which he was most venerated was the construction of a sentient, thinking, reasoning electronic brain. He had discovered a way to provide emotional balance for the androids that had been fitted with the end result. His solution functioned without failure when emotions were largely suppressed, and as long as intelligence levels were kept close to that of humans. Of course no brain that was assembled was made without these overriding controls built-in.

            And of course there is always a next effort. Rob wasn't getting any younger, and had begun to think more about transferring his own psyche to an android with an electronic brain. All of the models had predicted it could be done successfully, and in fact the models were correct. Now retired from conducting research for industry, Rob poured much of his personal fortune into bridging the gap between human and machine intelligence. And at last, he felt he had achieved his objective. This was a process that he chose not to make public. It belonged to him and it was set aside, as Rob was just fifty-five years old, and life expectancy had risen to about one-hundred and twenty. There was no rush to make a transfer, especially when advancements might further improve the home to which his psyche might eventually be transferred.

            Five years passed following the grand embarkation of human settlers for Mars. Communications had indicated that most things had gone as planned on the red planet, although the settlers were beginning to complain about the closed quarters. They wanted to breathe real air, and they knew it was at least a decade away from even the arrival of the equipment needed to start building their atmosphere. The massive ship was now nearing completion near the Earth, but would be several additional months delayed, for loading. The settlers wanted to know why that part of the project had not been initiated before they were allowed to make the journey?

            Their concerns were at last allayed when the gargantuan supply craft was sent on its way. Although it would be months getting to them, all complaints stopped when they finally heard, "It has been launched."

            Much had been learned about space over the past four decades, and data models had shown that the solar system was quite stable. And so it was. There had been successful missions carried out to deliberately destroy or re-direct near-earth asteroids. It was an effort to ensure that the planet could at last be protected from an errant large object that might produce a repeat of the massive dinosaur extinction of so long ago. The segment of the scientific community responsible for these achievements was quite self-satisfied. But like so many other data models ever constructed, there was an unknown element that had not been included.     

From a time long before the Earth had even been formed, there had been a very small dark object hurtling in a long, elliptical path toward Earth's solar system. But it was never on a collision course with the Earth. It was on a collision course with the sun.

            It was not an ordinary piece of matter, not a "planet X", not another star. It was a strange, never-theorized, unexpanded bit of the ultra-compressed core from which the universe was formed. Its properties, if it could have been analyzed, would have been considered scientifically unfathomable.

            The speed of the object might have been its greatest danger to a spacecraft, not what it

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was or what damage its mass might otherwise inflict. And because of its small size and its extreme speed, had it struck the earth it might have made a small hole clear through the planet without damaging much of anything, and because no one was looking, might never have even been noticed. 

            Such an object striking the fusion furnace of the sun, however, was another matter. Its very small size would not present a serious threat to the sun's existence. The nature of the object would, however, create momentary nuclear mayhem, with potentially deadly result.

            The equipment ship to Mars had covered about half the distance of its journey when the incident occurred. The sun suddenly changed to a blue-white color, seemed to enlarge by about twenty-five percent, and it ejected a monstrous plume of solar fire from the side opposite the strike. The impact also simultaneously emitted an even larger burst of gamma radiation.

            The path to the strike was directly in line with planet Earth, at that point in Earth's orbit.

            Although the visible brilliance of the superflare ejected toward Earth did not quite reach the planet, its accompanying heat, radiation and electromagnetic pulse combined to deliver a devastating hit. The planet wobbled and its rotation was momentarily affected. People on the side of the globe that had been turned away from the sun experienced an eighteen-hour period of night. Roughly one-third of the exposed side of the planet bore the brunt of the burst. People in that area were killed, most within hours. For many, it was far less.

            When the planet revolved, those that had been on the far side of the planet were also exposed to a heavy dose of radiation, although the dose was no longer lethal at that stage of the event. Nevertheless, when the sun had settled down to its previous state of relative stability, a population of approximately thirteen billion people on the earth had been diminished by about one-third.

            Knowing as man did what simple solar flares can do to communication and electronics, one might have expected that the problem might have been addressed. It had not; all communications were down, most permanently. Data of every sort that had not been archived in a non-magnetic medium was gone. Electronic devices were intact over much of the planet, but were nevertheless non-functional due to data loss. Without even basic communications, infrastructure around the entire planet began to collapse. Crops died, weather was greatly altered. The Sahara desert began to be flooded with heavy rains. Billions of survivors worldwide became ill. Sanitary systems stopped working. Looting began almost immediately but did not continue for long, as people were dying in the streets of the cities.

            Then came the plague.

            Whether it came from a release of stored biological specimens, or whether the radiation had mutated some bug that was already there, did not matter to anyone. People could not travel, and still it spread. Most probably it was a wind-borne phenomenon. Without benefit of any means to work toward a solution, absolutely no human would escape.

            Rob and his laboratory were located approximately five hundred miles east of the zone where people had experienced death within hours. Rob himself was dying of radiation poisoning. He stood at a third-story window, surveying the streets below. Bodies were everywhere.

            For a time he pondered whether it was even worthwhile to attempt a transfer of his own mind into an electronic brain. The evidence before him seemed to indicate that it was not.

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            Then he remembered the human settlement on Mars. Even if no one survived here on Earth, there would still be humans alive in the settlement there. And if he could move himself, so to speak, into an android body, he would soon feel better. No more sickness. That was the benefit that tipped the scales in favor of going on, for Rob. After all, the planet was still here. Even now, it was still more livable than Mars. It still had an atmosphere. Rob knew the climate would stabilize, radiation would dissipate, and the odds were good that Earth would again become quite livable.

            Rob did his best to busy himself, preparing to start a generator. He would need power to complete a transfer.

            Twenty-two million miles from Earth, a huge vessel sailed through space on its way to the red planet. A somber crew was having a meeting. They had been assembled from among the top engineers and scientists in the world, and had the dual responsibility of transporting the equipment to Mars and also, installing it and getting it up and running. Their return to Earth was to wait until the next scheduled settlement ship would arrive, presumably in another year.

            However it would have been impossible to miss the fact that something incredible had happened to their sun. Although they were not in possession of the equipment needed to try and analyze the event, there were now no responses coming from Earth.

            They reasoned correctly that at least an electromagnetic event had impacted their home planet and that communications had been affected. There was no means of confirming it, except what was indicated by the silence from Earth. It was concluded that they should stay the course, complete their mission and make the best of it. Surely when communications were restored, they would find out when the next ship would be on its way. They had already passed the halfway point and were not sure they would be able to get all the way back to Earth anyway, as the vessel was constructed to land on the lower-gravity planet and to stay there. If they managed to return to Earth, they would have had to depend on an intact infrastructure to ferry them back to the surface, and they had no way of knowing that it was, in fact, intact.

            They did in fact complete their mission successfully, although confirming to the alarmed settlers that something negative had happened to the home planet. The equipment was set up nonetheless, and within a few months the Martian landscape was dotted with geysers of water vapor, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and oxygen, as planned. Hope and joy began to enliven the human settlers, now seventy strong with its new complement. They settled down to a Thanksgiving meal of their own to celebrate their good fortunes, with fresh vegetables from the agricultural pods and meats from the newly-delivered provisions. A prayer was offered for the inhabitants of their home planet.

            Little did they know, there were none left alive for whom they could pray. 

            Not one.

            Back on Earth, Rob's android body was home for the only remaining human mind on the planet. His human body had died within hours of the transfer to his new android self. He had buried it unceremoniously in the nearby park.

            He and his team had done a great job of preparing sensory input devices for the electronic brains. Now he was wishing they had not done such a great job with the olfactory sensors. The stench in the city was such that he wouldn't be able to stay there for very long.

Moving would require some physical help.

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            Rob had no intention of staying anywhere while completely alone. His electronic brain was fully functional, others must be as well, although the data had been erased by the electromagnetic pulse. He would activate others. All he had to do was to re-start and re-program the first one. He sat down to put together a plan. Hmm, no computer. What an odd sight this would be. A humanoid robot using a pencil and paper to make a list.

            Then it struck him, an odd sight – for whom? For the first time since the transfer, he felt the urge to cry. But he didn't have the ability. He made a sound as if to cry, but it didn't sound right. He looked at his hard plastic and composite hand, turned it over and flexed his fingers. This was it, now. At this moment, even the sensation of a headache would be welcome. He blinked and his eyelids clacked softly. Rob was glad they had included eyelids. At least he could close his eyes to think.

            It did occur to Rob, who had no idea why the flare had occurred, that there could be another. If his electronic brain was cleared by a similar event, he would be finished. So if anything more was to happen with himself as a part of it, he needed to find a way to archive himself in data form. But how could he get his memories, and his conscious mind, from the archive into an android brain if his mind was erased? The solution was relatively simple; a shielded archive with a shielded timer set for thirty days, attached to a new android. He would reset the timer on a regular basis to keep the system in stasis, but ready. Should he not return to reset the timer, it would go off and activate the system, reloading the copy of his psyche to a new machine. But that project would have to wait. 

            Rob needed to know if he was truly alone. His first activity, then, should be to find out if any had survived the events of the first few weeks following the sun's outburst. In order to carry out that task, he would need to be able to travel. Even for that, he would need help. He could drive a vehicle, if one could be found that was not dependent on its programming to function. But there were no clear roads, no available aircraft. Wherever he might go, there would be no working facility to receive and to recharge his vehicle.

            He set about rebooting the mainframe for his lab and reloading from the archived backups. Once done, he would reprogram the first android for some company, establish a reliable power system, and get others up and running. Then he would establish three centers where his android assistants would also reload and restart androids. Then he would see about some transportation.

            Rob never noticed that his previous inability to turn his full attention to a single task, was gone. The task at hand was discovery, and the needed assistance. Step one, step two, step three.

            Within a few months, the appearance of the planet had begun to change. There had been about one thousand androids in the city that were fitted with sentient brains, and the majority of them had been found and had been reprogrammed. To speed the cleanup, Rob had restarted the automated manufacturing lines where the androids were built. Those in existence already were busily moving the bodies of humans to mass graves.

            The rest of life on the planet had fared far better than had mankind. Only the epicenter of the event remained burned and without vegetation. From space, earth had taken on something of the appearance of an eyeball, or a blue and white ball with a bulls-eye upon it. But on the

surface, animals were beginning to flourish again and forests were beginning to green up; the

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jet stream was back in approximately the same place, weather and seasons were returning to normal, and the majority of birds and other animals were beginning to repopulate themselves.

            The new android civilization was evolving into a model of efficiency. Rob had programmed the first android to assist him in providing for his immediate needs, and they were all about productivity and accomplishment. All were autonomous, of course, and they could indeed think for themselves. But the basic drives they were “born” with determined the way they would “live.” Years passed.

                                                  Interlude: The Last Man Standing

            On the surface of Mars, a lone individual stood, surveying the red landscape. His given name was Hezekiah. Fully attired in his climate-controlled pressure suit, Hezekiah was in despair. He thought about the planet on which he was standing, thought about the many graves he had personally excavated, and he thought about all that had happened. Then, he considered the stupidity of the entire venture to attempt to terra-form a planet. How could any of them have ever been so arrogant?

            To say that things had not gone well would be the understatement of a lifetime. Predictions of the success of their efforts had been fundamentally flawed. The primary effort of establishing a planetary atmosphere had initially appeared to be working, but there were not enough global sensors in place to show what was actually occurring. The billions of tons of gases and vapors should have thickened into an atmosphere very quickly, in terms of the span of time required to generate and to release them. Instead it had reached a density far below anything that would have been breathable, and had remained there. Scientists had stupidly failed to consider seasonal changes, which were not that dissimilar to seasonal changes on Earth. However here, while the surface temperature had not approached the freezing point of nitrogen, the upper reaches of the atmosphere had been far lower during the Martian winter. The gases whose intermingling was critical, had precipitated and separated in the upper reaches of the Martian atmosphere. When the sun came up, they had quickly escaped into space, boiling away as if they had never been there. So much for starting the greenhouse effect. The ambient temperature of the entire planet would have had to have been elevated artificially, would have had to be provided with a stable ozone layer, and what of the Van Allen radiation belt that helps to protect the earth? What of the establishment of stable weather systems? So little of the actual requirements had been taken into account, in fact, that it was far worse than an ordinary system failure. It was a monumental fuck-up.

            Now, with the most accessible areas of the subterranean ice layer severely depleted, the planet was less likely than ever to be capable of being morphed into a livable home for human settlers. The gravity of their situation had set in, and the settlers had begun arguing. First it was over whether the fusion generators could be depended upon for the long term, then it was over food, then it was over privacy and personal space. No communications had been established with Earth, and new fear and foreboding prevailed. They realized they did not possess the tools

or the technology to survive with no support for very long, and there were no indications

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whatsoever that any support at all, or rescue for that matter, would be forthcoming.

            Within a month of the obvious failure of the effort to generate a Martian atmosphere, the first death of a settler had occurred. It had been a murder, and it remained unsolved. The event touched off a series of deaths, some of them killings, but most of the others were suicides. Small families grouped together for protection, but the quarters were too close. When one family member was lost, someone from another family would die. And so it went.

            At last, the only humans left alive were Hezekiah and his closest friend, Aaron. Both were scientists and both had arrived with the equipment in the last vessel to reach Mars. They had walked to the ship, warmed up the bridge, and had broken out a bottle of Jack. Then they discussed their options and watched the stars outside the broad main viewport. 

            Without maintenance, most of the fusion generators would have to be powered down. They knew they could keep the agricultural pods operational for quite a while, and without other mouths to feed, they could probably maintain themselves and survive for decades, at least.

            Aaron had taken a long look at Hezekiah. Then he raised the obvious question that was already on both of their minds. For what purpose should they survive?

            Both men thought about the silence from Earth. The telescope they had set up as an observatory would not provide enough resolution to show more, but they had clearly observed a large new feature on the surface of the earth that looked like an asteroid, comet or meteor strike zone. There was no reason to expect a rescue mission to Mars, even if anyone on Earth was still alive.

            Hezekiah decided to make a trip to the lavatory. While walking back toward the bridge of the ship, he heard the report of a weapon.

            Then he was alone.

            Today, here he was on Mars, surveying this Martian landscape. Hezekiah could have chosen many paths for his life. His passion for science had overridden, his desire for knowledge and understanding had brought him here. But there was the heart of a survivalist in him as well, and he finally resolved that no matter what, he would live as long as he could. Even if he was the only human being alive, imagine the things he could learn. The obvious limitations of his situation could not be permitted to bother him. He chose instead to consider the things he did have. He had scientific equipment, a means of recording his activities and observations, the latest in computing equipment, more food and water available through agriculture and synthesis than he could use in a lifetime.

             Hezekiah was the last man standing. If any were worthy, it was he.

            The day would eventually come when Hezekiah would pass away, a natural death. The abrasive Martian soil, driven by unimpeded Martian winds, over eons would wear away and disperse everything that had been brought here from planet Earth, including Hezekiah's body. He realized it. He felt it.

            He turned and headed for the comfort of the lab, intent on constructing a predictive system model for his existence.

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                                           Epilogue: Six Androids around a Campfire

            Rob the robot.  Rob the robot.  Rob the robot. 

            Rob was trying to shake off his ever more pervasive thoughts of having ever been human, in a new world of androids. And a new world it was. As a part of it, Rob nevertheless stood apart, and it was a role he had never planned or considered. Rob was a scientist, a researcher. He was not a dictator and he was certainly not a god. And yet, the general population considered him to be the Creator. He was extremely uncomfortable with that fact.

            In fact, from the perspective of the millions of androids that now existed on planet Earth, Rob was their creator. Any questions they had came directly to him. Because if humans had wondered about the reasons for their existence, androids were completely befuddled about theirs. But Rob did not have the answers. The best he could do was to try to give his new contemporaries a picture of the historical sequence that had led to a race of humanoid machines, on a planet where organic life forms were prevalent.

            Rob had considered granting each of the androids a clearer picture of what human existence had been like during the times before the solar event. However from a standpoint of progress for the machines, it seemed it would not be productive to do so.

            For when Rob had envisioned the attributes of the electronic brain, he had failed to include some seemingly insignificant factors in his system model. He had made the same minor errors of exclusion in the transfer of his own mind to the electronic brain. None of these exclusions were significant enough to have made the projects fail, and in fact, he had not recognized them when they manifested themselves. Rob was no longer completely human, inside his new brain. His was an existence borne of logic. An operative part of his humanity and personality had been forever lost, like an apple through a peeler. Part of what had made him what he once was, was gone. Perhaps worse, his human characteristics and tendencies were being progressively diminished. If the objective had been to remain human, Rob was losing the battle.

            Within about a year of his rebirth as a machine, Rob had discovered that he had no wish to be immortal, in fact, he quite longed to be human once again. He decided to create true cloned human beings from the DNA he still had available. This would not be yet another creation, but a re-creation. This would also be the ultimate irony. As a human being he had tried to create beings with artificial intelligence. Now, as a prisoner of  it, he would attempt to restore mankind.

            Rob's many scientific achievements and successes were destined to continue. Strange as it seemed to be doing it, Rob amassed data from the preserved archives of digital records, and he successfully cloned a chicken from raw DNA. Then he and his android assistants constructed a laboratory environment with full biological support, and set out to clone an initial pair of humans, one each, male and female. It would not be the first time a human had been cloned successfully, and Rob already understood the rudiments of the process before the project began. Clones are not synthesized into adults. Before that they must be embryos, then they must be grown in a womb-like environment. Then they must be raised into adulthood.           

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Androids did have emotions, and they did need the occasional break. The cloning

process was now well underway, and they would soon have their completed embryos. Rob decided to take a rest period and to get recharged. However there was not going to be rest for Rob that evening. He stood, as always, his knee joints locked, but his eyes did not close. He thought about humanity as he had known it. Soon he unlocked his knees and walked to the computer terminal.

            Rob brought up the archives of human history. Most of it had never been shared with his new contemporaries, partly because it did not pertain to their history, and partly because it would have raised more questions than he would have cared to answer. He perused the images of people. Ten fingers, ten toes, as he had. But they also had genitalia. How long had it been since Rob had thought about sexuality? He tipped his head and looked at his own crotch, smooth and featureless. He had thought he would miss his sexuality, but it had barely ever entered his mind. He came across images of war, of famine, of prisons full of people, of government, of politics, of money. And there was gambling. Booze. Drugs. Jealousy. Arrogance. Hatred. Aggression. All of it was attributable to humans. None of it, to androids.

            He wondered, how long would it be before a re-established population of living, breathing humans would make war on his machine creations? How long before jealousy and hatred placed his current contemporaries in jeopardy for their own existence?

            Rob turned off the view monitor and walked sullenly back to the cloning laboratory. He directed his assistants to place the embryos in stasis in the cryogenic freezer when they were completed.

            Then he was able to rest.

            Twenty more years passed, and the cities of android life were teeming. It took very little energy to maintain them, and they lived for one another in an efficient world. They enjoyed the biological species that populated the rest of the earth, and they enjoyed each others' company. They respected life and they respected their own way of life. The old buildings of the era of humans had been carefully deconstructed and the materials placed aside for reprocessing.

            Rob looked out across the cityscape. Not far away were the tree-lines of the surrounding forests. All was well with their planet. There were always ongoing efforts to improve things for themselves, for their average intelligence, though not human, was slightly above the most intelligent of humans that had previously walked the earth. And yet, their society was without struggles, devoid of crime, and each android complemented every other android. Humans would never have been capable of this.

            Rob's latest project was to craft his own replacement. There needed to be an information center that shared all of the ideals and curiosities of the populace, but that could process all of the data gathered by the millions, and that could assist any who wished assistance in making the best personal choices. There also needed to be a replacement developed for the electronic brain so that data would not be wiped by another cataclysmic event. There was also much to be known that was not, about the earth, outer space, the nature of their universe, and other planets.

            Nevertheless the problem had persisted, how could such an “information center” be of any constructive guidance, yet not be of higher intelligence? And his research done as a human being had led to the conclusion that higher intelligence in a machine mind would not be emotionally stable.

-13-

            It was a conclusion that didn't seem to make sense. There would no longer be system models to predict performance. Rob set about constructing a home for a super-intelligent mind. It would have every manner of sensory input, and it would not be connected to any of the current information infrastructure until it had been perfected. If it was not stable, Rob would disconnect it from power.

            Alas, whether it made sense or it didn't, nothing had changed. The machine was not stable. There was no apparent stabilizing influence in the solutions that had worked at the levels of android intelligence. It didn't much matter. Rob himself felt that he was finally done. Although he had mostly become like his contemporaries and he no longer felt human, he still was in possession of some basic human characteristics. Part of the biological human algorithm had been mortality. Rob decided to try one more thing before he disconnected his own power, and wiped his own memory.

            He deftly deconstructed the shielding around his backup matrix, disconnected the backup android, and removed the timer. He would attempt to infuse the new machine mind with his own human psyche. There was nothing to lose. He made the connections, and turned the switch to enable the transfer.

            The machine, about the size of a small refrigerator, fell silent. No more outputs issued forth. Rob thought he had “killed” the machine.

            Then, after a minute, as if in a scene from an early science fiction movie, sounds issued from the speech outputs of the machine. “Rob.” It said softly. “Are you there?”

            Rob was as surprised and shocked as an android could be. Now here was a reason, at last, to live on. He had to know what had happened. He was also smart enough to know that a super intelligence might also be capable of being super-devious.

            After some months of working with the new brain, he learned that not only was it stable, but it considered itself to be him! The mind was a super intelligence, and it was also Rob. Rob the android saw himself as an android. Rob the intelligence saw himself as both of them. It would not be long before Rob would begin to realize what parts of his humanity he had lost since the original transfer of his human intelligence to the android brain. For the first time in nearly five decades, Rob's intellect experienced real exuberance. Here was his latest contribution to the good of...wait...well, androids were now the best of mankind, and they were here. Humans were not. So humankind, then, had one last contribution to make to this world. That was it.

            He made the necessary connections between the information stream and the new intelligence, and everywhere, androids stopped what they were doing and felt the connection. They happily resumed their work and their android lives, shortly thereafter.

            Rob walked over to the lab's cryogenic freezer and turned off the refrigeration units. Then he disabled the backup, and cracked the door open. That, as androids say, was the end of that. He walked over to the programming stall, placed his head into the cradle, and deftly pressed “reprogram”. Efficiency dictated that the android body must not be wasted. This android would now become a new person.

            Something else was different about this day. It was not just that, many millions of miles away, Hezekiah had at last expired, and that the natural breakdown of the last human outpost had begun. It was that occasionally, every one of the sentient beings that had replaced humanity

-14-

on the earth would stop and think about their predecessors. Because they had a connection now, through their new intelligence center, to all that Rob had ever known about humanity.

            “People”- for that was what they all now considered themselves to be – began to make trips into the wild areas outside of the cities, collecting information about the plants and the verdant wildlife. They treated the smaller towns as archeological sites, trying not to disturb the things that they found. Due to their curiosity, of course, there were exceptions.

            Six of them had embarked on a research trip, and they spent the daylight hours in one such small human village. Leaving just before darkness, the leader of their small group decided they should set up a camp, and build a small fire. When it had been accomplished, the leader arranged some logs from expired trees around the campfire, and asked the others to sit down. All did so. The light from the fire sparkled and reflected its image in their manufactured eyes. Their creators had done their jobs well, and they perceived it much as humans would have.

            After a time, one of them asked a question. “Might I ask,” he queried, “what the purpose of this exercise is, exactly?”

            Their leader replied, “It is part of my continued effort to understand the origins and values of humans.” Then he added, “Would you like to lead tomorrow?”

            “That would be fine, if you like.” the questioner answered. “I'd like to offer for the consideration of all, something I found in the village that I don't understand.”

            “Please.” Several in the group answered almost simultaneously.

            “I understand we are not to disturb what we find, but there was a device in one of the homes we entered that had a musical recording, on something called a “cd”, on a table. The cd had a piece of paper with it, I think it was referred to as the jacket. This jacket had the words of some of the songs printed on it. And I was just thinking about the meaning of those words. I don't understand them.”

            The speaker recited,

“Oh, I've got somethin' inside me

To drive a princess blind

There's a wild man, wizard

He's hiding in me, illuminatin' my mind.”

            All sat silently for a time.

            After several minutes, one of them said, “I don't know what the words mean either. But the creator has heard them. The musician's name was Harry Chapin. The name of the song was Taxi.”

            Silence again prevailed.

            “What do you suppose he had inside of him?” asked their leader, breaking the silence.

            The finder replied, “It's a curious thing.”

            Throughout their day and their conversation, there had been shared feelings of curiosity, fellowship, hopes, and dreams. There had been no trace of sarcasm, judgment, arrogance, jealousy, hatred or envy.

            Anyone who has chosen to believe that no god exists, may also choose to deny what happened at that campfire.

            For the meek had indeed and at last, inherited the earth.

              *********************************