Page 48 of Guiding Reason
Hyran hurried to fulfill Col’s request, getting his Conduit’s plate from the low table right in front of the screen. Col turned it in his hands, then picked up a single cracker and dipped it into the sorono.
Orrey broke the momentary silence. “What you said about the Op-AI?”
“Yes.” Col bit into his cracker and chewed slowly. “Well, it’s dead. And we’re not getting another. Ferrea isn’t getting another. Hence our state of being fucked.”
“But—Coldis, that makes no sense,” Lapatea said. The hospitality guide had let go of Karmine and was absentmindedly running his fingers over the white scarf that marked his grief.
“Doesn’t it?” Col’s eyes were focused on his plate, and he kept turning it, round and round, as if he were looking for a pattern to appear in his food. “But it does.” He looked at Hyran. “You did extra schooling? Data science?”
Hyran nodded. “That, and coding.”
“Coding. Coding is such a fundamental thing. It should provide us with all the tools we need to understand the world around us.”
He’s quoting a textbook, I think.Hyran searched his mind for the source or even the course that had required it, but before he could recall, Col continued.
“Hyran, did you ever code an AI into being, however small?”
“But why would you code an AI?” Orrey looked confused. “Any office AI can easily be trained to do whatever you need it to do. Why make one?”
Hyran dipped his head in the direction of the other Conduit. “He’s right. And I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Have you?”
Col leaned back against the couch, then looked at Hyran. “I unraveled the coding of an office AI that one time. It was not pleased, it didn’t want me to, and I had to make sure to do it in full isolation so it couldn’t hop onto the network. It also self-destroyed before I could harvest more than a few hundred lines of code.”
Senlas snorted. “That is so typical. Only you could come up with something like that. Where even did you do that?”
“The tunnels,” Vin said.
Orrey gasped but didn’t say anything. Hyran noticed his cheeks heating though.
“Yes, the tunnels.”
“Emergency escape routes?” Yamara asked.
“Yes. Argentea’s are extensive. And I murdered a poor little office AI down there for my experiments. At any rate, I shouldn’t even be telling you this. After we’re gone, the poor butler bot is never going to be the same.” Col pointed at the bot without looking, and Hyran admired that he’d even noticed it approach with a pitcher of water that had some fire berries in it for flavor. He’d completely forgotten the bot, whose bot eyes brightenedand blinked in a flustered expression, existed. “Follow my words. We learn so many things when we take additional schooling, and we can get very much adept at them, but we never learn to create an AI. Nor do we ever study in detail how to manufacture hardware. Orrey? Is it different for regulars?”
“Uh. Well, I never much looked into anything like that, but I don’t think so. But when I lived in protector housing, there was a second rank who would assemble his screens by himself. He wanted to add all these DocoDoco personalizations.”
“That’s not building the individual parts. Those are made in closed factories.” Hyran thought he was catching on to what his Conduit wanted to say. “My mothers know where all of them are, and they know to increase protector presence around them and request Guardian enforcements if there is ever an emergency that threatens them. But no one goes inside. It would disrupt production, which requires zero contaminants.”
Col gave him a thoughtful look, then nodded. “Hyran has it exactly right. And those factories apparently don’t make Op-AIs. Our Op-AI told me it has contacted a committee which will send out computational scientists and network engineers to assess the damage and make repairs. At least that’s what I think the plan was, long ago.”
Taros cocked his head. “What’s a committee? And what’re network engineers?”
Orrey looked from Taros to Col. “It’s like a council, isn’t it? Like where your mo—like that thing we heard about outside the walls.”
Col sighed. “I told Hyran that I wasn’t born in Argentea, little brother. I thought I could shock him, and he wasn’t shocked at all. Very disappointing. He’s so steadfast.”
“Hey now, you’ve dealt me enough of a shock already.” Hyran put a hand on Col’s knee, gently, hoping the touch was welcome. At least it wasn’t outright rejected.
“Ask the butler bot, Orrey. Butler bot! Come here. My little brother needs you to explain something to him.”
The bot, still blinking with agitation, hovered over. “Yes, Conduit Orrey? What can I help you with?”
“Well, can you tell us what a committee is?”
A series of rapid blinks followed. “That is a funny word, Conduit. I don’t think it exists. It sounds like something made up.”
“O-okay?” Orrey said, looking confused.
