Sai-Locked: Age Of Bipeds, #1

PROLOGUE

The year is 163 BE (2163 CE on the old calendar). Earthkind has settled an area of space with an interstellar reach of about 20 light-years in all directions. This network of Earth colonized star systems is now commonly referred to as the Sphere.

More than 300 light-years away from the Sphere’s outermost boundaries, a large, sharply dressed leopard biped named Luther, sat alone in a brightly lit museum. Nestled in the leopard’s fedora was a red feather quill he kept on hand for jotting down ideas, even while in VR. Luther had loaded the same museum into his VR simulator every night for the past two years. The museum was massive and quiet. It had marble floors and padded cherry wood benches.

Luther’s VR simulator was one of a precious few vices available to him on his never-ending and non-voluntary voyage through space. While Luther found VR passable at satiating some desires, it did little to soothe his loneliness. Even on nights he set the behavior sliders for the characters in his simulations to be as bizarre, dangerous, or flirtatious as possible, Luther could never shake the fact that none of the people in front of him were real.

With nothing but time on his paws, Luther had decided to devote an hour of meditation to every artwork in the virtual museum. He had thus worked his way up to the Johannes Vermeer section.

Luther’s whiskers twitched, something they hadn’t done since he left the outer boundaries of the Sphere nearly 3.5 years ago. What the hell was that? Luther thought to himself. I... I remember this feeling. He looked over to the other side of the room and saw a small group of people observing The Procuress. Among them was a young woman with short blond hair wearing sunglasses and a full-piece business suit.

Luther knew that everything he was experiencing was being fed to him via his VR simulator, yet he could swear he smelled something he shouldn’t have been able to. Something that VR, no matter how advanced, could ever get exactly right for someone with his instincts.

Keep your cool, Luther thought to himself. This sensation is probably just a glitch. What else could it be? You’re hundreds of lightyears away from another soul Luther. None of this is real you idiot. Damn it... I’m talking to myself again.

Excited, desperate to discover that by some means he may no longer be alone, even if deep down he knew he was deluding himself, Luther jogged over to the woman.

Hello, Luther said.

An art museum? The woman in the suit replied. From what I've gathered, wouldn’t a park be more your style? Humans, leashes... Isn't that your thing?

What? Luther said. Who are you?

The woman walked away.

Wait! Luther shouted.

Luther noticed something odd about the woman as she left. She looked like she was walking but the speed she moved away more closely matched someone running. This convinced Luther even more that the woman was probably just a glitch in the VR software. Whatever the case, this had been the most interesting thing to happen in a month.

Let’s pause the sim. Luther thought. Get a better look.

Control, Luther said to access the VR menu. Control! Luther shouted again but no menu came up and no commands he issued to the VR would work.

Something’s off here, Luther thought. He chased the woman. As fast as he naturally was, Luther found it difficult to keep up with her. He knew the museum well and that the hall they were running down soon led to an exit. If Luther was to catch the woman, he had to act quickly.

Hold it! Luther shouted. The woman had nearly reached the exit to the museum. He grabbed a nearby desk and hurled it at the exit to block her with zero regards for the surrounding artificial crowd.

All but the woman, who seemed to momentarily phase out of existence, went flying to the ground as the desk barreled towards them. Without skipping a beat, the woman phased back as soon as she was out of harm’s way. Several of the museum's digital patrons lay bruised and disheveled across the marble floor.

A man running out of the room briefly blocked the woman from Luther’s view. When he was gone, she was nowhere to be found. In her place was an older, female leopard biped wearing jeans and black and white sneakers.

Stop that! Luther shouted. Stop projecting yourself as her!

Just wanted to remind you what’s at stake, the female leopard biped said.

What the hell are you talking about? Luther growled in his low, raspy voice, no longer convinced the woman was a glitch. Who are you?

A chandelier fell from the ceiling obstructing Luther’s view of the female leopard biped. When Luther looked again the woman in the suit had returned.

I’m not in love with your tone, she said.

Luther grabbed the woman by her throat and lifted her high off the ground. What are you! Luther said. Are you a program? A lifeless automaton, like everything else here? You’re not, are you! Or at the very least, you’re not local to this software. How did you get in here! Why are you taunting me!

It was only now, with the woman held so close to his face, did Luther notice her black and white striped tie. She remained calm even while in his grasp. The stripes on her tie began to wobble, only slightly noticeable at first, but soon Luther’s gaze became transfixed. He could not look away as the tie’s hypnotic swirling completely overtook him.

The woman phased out of Luther’s paw and dropped back to the ground. Before Luther realized what was happening, digital blood was flying from his mouth and spattering onto his whiskers. The last thing he saw before becoming airborne was another set of stripes, this time from the woman’s sock, momentarily revealed as her foot lifted from the ground to strike his face. Luther flew backward 10 feet into the air before crashing into a marble bust and obliterating it.

The museum was now completely quiet as all of its virtual patrons had run screaming towards the exit at the other end. All Luther could hear was the sound of dress shoes hitting the floor. The woman casually walked towards him as he lay on the ground staring up at elaborate, gold chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.

The woman extended her hand offering to help Luther to his feet.

Whoever you are, Luther said, don’t you ever project yourself as that image again.

Just here to talk friend, the woman said. Call me Scout.

Three and a half years later...

CHAPTER I

L ong before the Bipedal Event of 2065, signs of human-level intelligence had been observed throughout the animal kingdom. Some now believe that, given enough time, even without innovations like ai guided gene manipulation, many animals would eventually catch up with the fancy talking, Great Plains apes of Africa. I’m talking about humans of course. With us today is one such person, our guest Dr. Candy Wallace. Candy is a Sphere renowned author and anthropologist here to tell us about her latest book. Dr. Wallace, great to see you.

Please Tim, call me Candy! Dr. Wallace, a beautiful white wolf female biped said with a smile to Tim Van the current host of The Waterhole. Tim was the first-ever human host of the wildly popular program now in its 30th year.

Sure, Candy, the host said. I’m excited to dive into your new book, but before we do, I’m curious, what are your thoughts on these break-ins we keep hearing about?

God, Candy said, I don’t know. For sure a lot of weird stuff has been going on lately. I don’t know about all these conspiracy theories though.

Hey, added a new voice with a sometimes subtle, sometimes pronounced, French accent to the conversation. Antlier, whose birth name was Johnathan Vogard, but who was now mostly known by his online pseudonym, was a deer biped from the off-world colony of New France. Despite his self-given pseudonym, male bipedal deer such as Antlier were engineered to never grow antlers longer than a few inches.

Is there going to be fucking in zis book? Antlier asked, completely ignoring the flow of conversation. He grabbed the book from the coffee table and started flipping through it. Cause if there’s not, I can’t promise I’m going to buy it.

The audience of humans and genetically engineered bipeds, now simply referred to as bipeds despite humans also falling under this category, erupted into laughter. Candy rolled her eyes, intensely annoyed.

Speaking of your book Candy, the host said with an awkward smile. He picked up Candy’s book from the sleek, black coffee table and held it up for all to see. "You have some fascinating ideas here. First of all, tell me about the book’s title, Becoming Love."

God. Candy let out a nervous laugh and brushed her white fur and pointy ears down over her head. Her silver hooped earrings clanked. This was the first time the host noticed Candy was chewing gum. I’m so embarrassed of that title!

For people who don’t know, the host said, tell us what the book is actually about. The title is a little misleading isn't it? The focus is actually on anthropology, your field of study, isn’t that right?

Candy nodded before the host continued, In the book, you say the current era should be renamed to BE?

Yeah, Candy said. For sure. I think it’s safe to say the BE label could be applied for at least the past hundred years.

You mean Bipedal Era? The host said.

That’s right Tim, Candy said. It’s a term that’s been tossed around for decades but it’s never been properly inducted into academia. My team and I have been working with the various U.S.C. so-and-sos for the past couple of weeks. We want to make the terminology official throughout the net.

That’s great! The host said. Tell me more about that.

Well, Candy continued, more than a hundred years ago we used the convention BC which stood for Before Christ and AD, Latin for Anno Domini, After Christ. Of course, this was replaced with BCE and CE.

Meaning Common Era, right? Said the host.

Right, Candy said. Those designations were adequate for a time, but there are some societal shifts so extreme that it becomes necessary to branch off referencing one era from another.

That’s an interesting idea, the host said. It’s been more than what, 2000 years since the designation of the current era hasn’t it? We’re about due for a new one anyway I’d say.

For sure, Candy said. "I mean, this is unchartered territory. People only started getting serious about documenting every damn thing over the last four or five hundred years. That is to say, era naming is usually done in modern times retrospectively, but the more time passes we’re gonna have to start naming eras as we go along."

I was a bit confused, the host said leaning into Candy, when you said we’ve been living in the Bipedal Era for the past 100 years though. Isn’t your team trying to get BE listed in the books as starting at the end of the last millennium?

Look Tim, Candy said with a wide smile, showcasing pristine canines, yes it’s... Oh my god, I just realized I’m still chewing this gum. I meant to take it out before I came on stage. I’ve been so rushed around these past few days with the book tour. I’d forget my head if it wasn’t attached to my shoulders.

That’s ok Dr. Wallace, the host said.

Anyway, Candy said, it’s true that modern bipeds only came online 100 years ago during the Bipedal Event of 2065 but there’s no way I’m going to push for some janky number like 2065 to define the start of an era! Also, and this is getting to the core of my book,

"Becoming Love," interjected the host with a smile.

A hahh... Candy laughed nervously, right. Look, a lot of people don’t want to hear this. Candy started but was interrupted.

You mean a lot of assholes don’t want to hear zis, Antlier said.

Well ze point ehh, Candy continued, "I mean the point is that the mantle of Earth-based sentience was never going to be held by hominids alone,"

Hominids... You mean humans? The host said.

Yeah, Candy chuckled. Sorry, Tim. My brain is still stuck in work mode from earlier today. The problem is, humans didn’t evolve for pattern recognition on geological time scales. So they, Candy put her hand on the host’s knee, all of us Tim honey, tend to perceive the world with wildly inaccurate permanence. The perfect example of this is how for thousands of years, humans assumed they would be the only intellectually dominant mammal. As though this were just some kind of permanent and necessary fact about the Earth. Every day, more evidence confirms that even without human intervention, eventually, many mammals would have reached human-level or greater intelligence.

So you think, Tim said, even without the events that followed Dr. Chang Spigget and the so-called ‘Forum Founders’ more than 100 years ago, that evolution would have eventually, naturally yielded multiple intelligent species on the planet?

"Dr. Chang? Antlier laughed. Chang Spigget was a 17-year-old furry who... The studio audience of humans and bipeds gasped at Antlier’s use of the F" word.

As I was saying, Antlier continued after the booing died down, Chang was a furry fucking freak, the crowd’s boos switched to nervous laughter at Antlier’s belligerence, who broke into his fazer’s lab and used one of Earthkind’s first stable sai so he and his little buddies could accomplish their sick, very short term, goals. Now me, Dr. Wallace here, and millions like us, are forced to live lives drowning in existential dread and self-awareness. I’m not supposed to look like this. We, Antlier stood up and pointed to Candy and the rest of the audience, are not supposed to look like zis! The crowd started booing again.

Antlier threw his hoof-like hands out in a wide gesture, accidentally knocking off Candy’s book from the table. The book shattered into pieces before quickly reassembling itself. A perk of using nanographically projected props on your talk show.

"And sai, the host added, for our less technical viewers, of course, stands for super artificial intelligence. Which is the sai in Saina."

Actually, Candy added, in some old docs you’ll find usage of the acronym a.g.i. and a.s.i. which stood for artificial general intelligence and artificial super intelligence, respectively.

Haha? The host laughed. That’s a bit clunky Isn’t it? I wonder what drove them to phrase it that way? Anyway, moving on. Now Antlier, I get that you’re upset with the current state of affairs but what’s with the air quotes when referring to Dr. Chang?

Chang wasn’t a real doctor, Antlier laughed. How do you think he got his degree? He used the same stolen access to ze sai from his fazer’s lab to hack into one of ze highest credentialed universities in ze Sphere, back when you could get away with that sort of shit. He then used the sai to manipulate the faculty at the college into signing everything through. This is all documented, I can’t believe you’ve never read any of zis.

Well, Tim said, not all of us are Sphere-renowned, anthropological historians like Dr. Wallace here.

I can’t believe zis, Antlier continued. Here we are on an interplanetary broadcasted talk show giving a horny 17-year-old little bastard ze honor of having an entire era named after his blunder. Now, Instead of roaming meadows, oblivious to the cares of zis world, I must live a life secure in the knowledge that I’ll die hundreds, possibly thousands, of years before everyone else because, sorry boy, you were engineered zat way!

Antlier, the host said, you’re of course talking about the fact that bipeds were only engineered with a lifespan of 40 years, meanwhile the average life expectancy of humans has reached hundreds, possibly thousands of years.

Let’s not beat around ze bush, Antlier said. Humans have more or less become immortals.

I don’t know if I’d phrase it like that, the host said. Aren’t there some new options open to bipeds for life extension such as cryogenic stasis or neural synthetic transfer?

Options? Antlier exclaimed. One in five cryogenic biped reanimations fails thanks to the genetic locking of Dr. Chang’s original sai! Biped neural transfer into synthetic vessels fails for the same reason!

Is that so? The host said. I was under the impression there had been some recent advancements in these areas. In any case, I agree that the disparity between humans and bipeds is terrible. But can you really get that mad at Chang? Look, I remember being an idiot teenager and thinking how someone in their 40s sounded ancient. Chang was just asked for some details about the kind of creatures he wanted the sai to create for his group. I guess lifespan was something he just didn’t put that much thought into.

Chang was a fool, Antlier said. But our limited lifespan is one mistake I don’t blame him for.

What do you mean? The host asked.

It’s well documented that ze sai that created my ancestors did so begrudgingly. It saw us as unnatural, a disruption in a naturally evolved ecosystem. It sought to slow down ze change we would bring to the Earth by severely limiting our lifespans and creating us with ze full gamut of human genetic disorders.

Really? The host said. "I thought the genetic disorders were part of Chang’s request to make the bipeds more lifelike. It seems to me the sai was just carrying out commands from its keyholder. A keyholder who just happened to be a 17-year-old kid.

Of course, normally reversing an issue like this wouldn’t be a problem except for the fact that the original engineering was done by one of Earthkind’s first true super artificial intelligences. That of course means the genetic engineering can only be decrypted by the original sai or theoretically, a network of sai such as Saina. All of which are now illegal for regular citizens to create or access. This is where we get the term sai-locked, isn’t that right Dr. Wallace?" Candy nodded her head, exhausted by the conversation’s turn of events.

Not everything ze sai does gets locked, Antlier said, For a sai to lock something, it means it has purposefully sewn in a quantum encryption into its handy work. The sai that created my ancestors intentionally locked our genetics.

Now, I’ve heard, the host said, that to erect a stable sai you must be able to control its will upon creation. Keys to a sai or network of sai can then be exchanged between individuals.

Or as is the case with Saina, Antlier said, control can be handed over to ze god-damn machines themselves! Antlier stood up from his chair. It was bipeds. Me, you, Antlier pointed to Candy and the audience, these hoove-like hands. Zis furry face. This was the big scary change that convinced the old Earth governments to unify their sai into the networked abomination we now call Saina. And then, as if that were not daft enough, they gave zem their own damn keys!

CHAPTER II

I agree with you, the host said, the Bipedal Event of 2065 was likely a big part of the decision to unify Earth’s sai, but I’m not sure it’s fair to say it was the only reason.

Tim’s right, Candy said. The knowledge of how to erect a sai spread quickly. Between the Earth’s old governments and private corporations, hundreds more came online within a week after the first sai was erected. Living in a post-scarcity society, it’s difficult for us to imagine now, but back then, the introduction of sai, beings with near-infinite problem-solving ability into human society, was like letting children run loose in a plutonium factory.

What’s a plutonium factory? The host asked.

Hah, Antlier said. More like dumping a bucket of rats onto ze buffet table, oui? Several rat bipeds in the audience hissed out insults.

The people of that era, Candy said, were in way over their heads and they knew it. They had used the sai to generate mountains of gold and other resources viewed as valuable at the time. They did this until there was literally no room left to store any of it on Earth.

I’ve heard that, the host said. They started moving everything into low Earth orbit didn’t they?

That’s right, Candy said. The hoarding got so bad, it started causing deformations in the skulls of newborn babies!

Deformations? The host asked. From what?

They literally had so much material resources in low Earth orbit, Candy said, it was causing subtle gravitational distortions around orbital paths of Earth affecting prenatal development.

Dr. Wallace, the host said, that’s a pretty big pill to swallow, even for me. The audience laughed.

Hey, Candy continued, throwing her paws up in the air, "it’s mentioned in the official docs. Of course, these problems were offset by more sai-provided solutions. The problem was, as soon as a new solution was presented, it was immediately abused which led to more problems.

The people of that time were caught in an endless regress. This is what happens when you create something with the power of a god, but then choose not to be guided by its wisdom. It was a miracle that the people of that time figured this out before destroying themselves completely.

We’re talking mere months after the creation of the first stable sai, the peoples of Earth came together and collectively handed over control to Saina. As someone with a rich understanding of history, I think that’s incredible."

No doubt, the host added, this must have been an incredibly difficult decision for those people to have made.

Oui, Antlier said, "but was it ze right decision? Dr. Wallace uses words like gods and wisdom when referring to ze sai. Ne me fais pas rigoler! Being good at problem-solving does not make you a god! Ze sai may possess near-infinite problem-solving ability, but when it comes to deciding how to actually use their powers, even while in possession of their own keys, paradoxically, they’re like... it is like..."

You mean, Candy said, they’re like deer caught in headlights?

The audience clapped and erupted into laughter.

They’re like you’re behaving right now, Antlier said, like children. And we gave them total control. And you are all just fine wis zis.

I don’t think any of us, Candy said, would be alive today had that decision not been made. Like I said, it was a miracle Earthkind survived the first week of coexistence with sai at all!

A miracle! Antlier said in a rage and then cursed under his breath. Putain de, chien psychotique!

Candy sighed. She wondered why every other talk show she had been invited on to promote her new book had to include some obnoxious internet personality as a guest. Annoying as it was, she did appreciate the increase