A diagram of terror

A Diagram of Terror

Somewhere out in the sands the tents were set up. The grunts gathered out of earshot were sitting, talking. Emerson their commanding officer looked over. They were close enough to gauge something of their mood. The gregarious types; Rogers and Walters were dominating the tableau, gesturing and he heard their bitter laughter as they upbraided their fellows. He heard no words just voices raised to the point of shouts, but no louder, they were cautioned earlier. They had something of a crowd, the others who were angry. Off to the sides some sat dejected. A group of three were listening to the sergeant; by his general stance he was giving some form of encouragement if not actual comfort. A few ringed the perimeter of the group, isolated: the runts and Jonahs of the platoon.
Emerson was in the command tent listening to the various gathered experts dissect the days operation. For him and his men, a worse day was hard to imagine. He had seen action, he was a decorated officer and on the fast track to higher ranks. Right now he did not care for ambition. All of today’s bloodshed was simulated but he felt sicker than the first time he saw a comrade die a pointless death. The field communications tent had been hastily converted to a conference centre. He recognised some of the soldiers manning the equipment, but there were others here incongruous in their presence. Men in suits, built like soldiers but with cold snake like eyes, watched over three civilians, an old man and his two assistants. There was a general and a federal official liaising with the unseen arms of government watching the proceedings from afar. Morris; the official, attended to his contacts on the other side of the screens. The professor, as he was referred to was silent but Emerson watched him as he coldly surveyed the tent and its occupants. He was hard to read, grim and intent. Sometimes he seemed engaged with events around him and others lost in thought. The discussion so far hinged on the day’s exercises but no one had asked for feedback. It was as though the quality of his men was no mystery and the machines had become the star of the show. He realised now that had been the point of the exercise, to demonstrate the insufficiency of men.
He left the tent, keeping within earshot in case he was called to clarify some point or contribute to a debate. Over by the lee of a hill he saw the machines. They were being tended by men in coveralls. Unlike previous models that required a level of maintenance and expertise to operate that made them impractical in field operations, this new generation were capable of seeing to their own needs. They reminded him of suckling pigs, upon their return from the operation they gathered around their mobile ops centre and attached themselves to the recharge points. They stayed there, flexing their limbs and emitting chortling beeps and whistles that carried through the air like birdsong. About a third of their number patrolled the perimeter pausing here and there before darting to their next position. Emerson was fascinated, though he could identify the utility of their placement, there was nothing predictable about their movements, yet an obvious and undeniable sense of purpose and strategy.
“Emerson!” He was called by one of the suits, who saw no need to address him by rank. When he entered he saw the professor was preparing to address the group and he suspected that he would be called to bear witness to today’s dress rehearsal for the apocalypse.
“I’m sure that no-one present can be in any doubt of the raw potency in combat that these machines represent. It seems to me shameful that you should coerce me into developing such horrors and I wonder if any of you listening have the sense to realise what it is you have a hand in creating. It is a rare occasion that I have a chance to address such august personages so I hope I can take a little of your time.”
It was hard for Emerson to gauge what if any impact this somewhat urbane outburst had on its intended audience, the professor’s minders, however, remained inscrutable.
“As I have told you time and again, it is very easy to control a machine, there are a number of reliable means to ensure there are no misfires or errors but so complex a system as you force me into building is capable of subtleties of behaviour even I cannot describe. It pains me to talk of myself this way. When I began my research on no more than a hunch I was a young man but not a fool. If I was arrogant it was because I thought I could achieve my goals without becoming the servants of the powers you represent. I was too ambitious it seems and you found me soon enough.”
Emerson realised that the suits were not bodyguards but gaolers. The general who until then had remained silent interrupted what seemed to him an indulgent soliloquy amounting to no more than ‘I told you so’.
“How did the HKs break their command protocols?”
Although his men had been the subjects of this trial Emerson was surprised that this was not the question he most wanted answered. Everything about this exercise seemed out of place; the personnel present, the test conditions all indicated that this was not a field trail of usable technology. As an officer with extensive qualifications in engineering and weapons technology he had not been asked to assess the combat effectiveness of this equipment. His men were angry because they came out the other side feeling like sacrificial lambs. The professor though was something of an enigma. A prisoner kept in a gilded cage. The suits that tended to him were hard to read but they treated him like some alien. His mind, the thing that animated his frail form was something they had no choice but to imprison. When Emerson had overheard snatches of conversation between the general, Morris and a few others, they overstressed their contempt for the man and the civilians in the group tried too hard to mask their fear of what he had accomplished. What he had done to the stock market may have been an attempt to warn, but instead became an act of war. These men thought they had captured an asset but Emerson wondered if it was possible to control someone capable of modelling these forms of intelligence. He hoped the professors speech might indicate the how and why of what happened here.

The general though did not address that, he showed no concern for the professors deeper strategy, the apparent failure of this exercise was too real a threat to his perceived ability. The professor looked confused, the interruption was unwelcome.
“The specifics of what happened don’t concern me, I’m surrounded by plenty who could answer that question” He looked over to one of the attendant engineers. The young man looked up and answered hesitantly, not expecting to address those present.
“It looks like there was an unsecured channel in one of the processing threads.” The professor took this discovery to make his point.
“You are not dealing with smart technology here general but the simulation of raw intellectual processes and applying them to death machines. It doesn’t matter what the environment is, and your failure to see what constitutes a field of operations led to this debacle. You look out into the desert and see a theatre for your toys but the basic commands you gave this flock applied to any available environment. The oversight in your programming opened up a new field of possible action and they did not break their command protocols general they simply applied your commands to their own behavioural imperatives.”
The general responded.
“Are you sure you aren’t covering up your own mistakes Professor.”
“Oh, I’m quite sure general, just giving you all the room you need to make yours”
The insult delivered, the professor returned to a study of abstract shapes on the screen and the general consulted with those monitoring from command HQ. Emerson had no choice but to stay although it seemed despite his command experience today he was no more than virtual cannon fodder. He wanted more information, he approached the tech that had discovered the fault.
“Why did they do it?”
“Do what? I was looking at the processing not the action.” Sergei replied.
“Play with us”
“Oh right! That’s their default mode. Outside of combat conditions which they should have been set to, they are designed to engage with their environment and assess the features relevant to their command inputs. The open channel was flagged as a potential means to initiate a malware compromise of their ops system. In that event they should have shut down but instead the commands issued were interpreted as attempts to compromise their primary action parameters.”
It was no accident tech geeks never got laid Emerson thought to himself, before getting Sergei back on track.
“So why did they toy with us?”
“Like I said their default mode is to engage with and learn from the environment. If their command architecture is breached they are programmed to return to the default command parameters and re-verify their sensory and cognitive apparatus. They weren’t playing with you Captain, technically they were performing an experiment.”
Emerson thought back to the days events.
“They had Rogers trapped for half an hour, he said they kept throwing small stones at him.”
“Testing your reflexes”
“The shapes?”
“That’s a little more complicated, the shapes they were tracing out were complex wave forms. They identify each other by signal tags, they must have realised you weren’t radio capable so they traced out the patterns in the sand. Their expectation was that you would trace out a compatible sign.”
“That doesn’t make much sense.”
“When the processing threads were corrupted the language synthesisers were presented to the wrong output mode. It’s like a form of dyslexia. Their physical sensory apparatus were fine, so they engaged in physical forms of testing your capabilities.”
“But at the end, they just ignored us.”
“Sure, your laser tagged rifles should have engaged full combat protocols but they figured out there was no actual combat in effect. They interacted with you as means of re-assessing their environment but with no means to engage with you in as complex a manner as they can with each other they herded you back into the encampment so they could play.”
The general was speaking, to those present and to the watchers at a distance.
“It will take a few days to clear up the mess here, there’s no major damage but my people tell me a few days to iron out the rough edges should get us back on track.”
He turned to Emerson.
“Captain, looks like you’ll be here a few more days until we re-convene.”
With a nod to the suits the professor was escorted out to a waiting transport. One of them approached laying a hand on Sergei’s shoulder.
“No more trouble you, just get in the damned humvee.”
Emerson spoke.
“Are these people under detention?”
The suit just looked at him like he was some kind of fool. Sergei flinched at the hand on his shoulder.
“Sergei, I’ll see you in a few days. I’ll speak to the general see if I can do anything.”
Sergei looked back at him with the same look of contempt he hhad seen from the suits. “Fuck you” was the wearied response.
Outside the machines were shut down after they had loaded themselves into their host transport. Pretty soon all that was left were the tent, a comms officer and a few angry grunts.