“How are the efforts going, Atonoma?” the man who was speaking, by the name of Harkolen, could be said to be the most powerful human to have ever existed up to that point. “These people from the AWU think they have any sort of power, when I oversee all the facilities, so it’s better to shut their mouths by showing them that no one, not even on their side, is willing to sit in this world any longer.”.
“Only one billion remaining, of which a hundred million are Physicalis,” the system responded to its master. Representing the combined power of five self improving quantum computers, the system Atonoma lies within humanity’s greatest technological achievement, even above the BAT procedure.
“I suppose your idea in regards to the Physicalis is going as planned, right?” even so, with the most powerful tool a human could hope to have, Harkolen was still doubting it. And Atonoma could feel as much coming from him.
“I assure you, Harkolen, that it will all become a reality, and it will be sooner than initially thought,” the system assured him. Harkolen let out a small growl, his fat neck and belly making it sound more guttural.
“I know I’ve been pestering you about it, but this is the last step. And if not done properly, some time down the road, some monkey will throw a wrench inside the large machine we’ve been constructing, making it all futile,” Harkolen has lived for five hundred years up to that point. He has taken part in the project since its inception four hundred years ago. But, what was supposed to be a smooth transition in just a hundred years, extended to a much longer period of time. So Harkolen changed many organs and body parts over the hundreds of years, his mind older than even those inside the Atonoma system. As he was, Harkolen stood most of his day inside a metal tube filled with fluids to imitate the womb of his mother. This was in order for his body and the provided nutrients to fix as much of him as possible before needing to replace any organs or parts of his body. Tubes coming out of his nostrils, some from his chest and bladder, allowed Harkolen to live without moving from the place he was standing. Since he oversaw the project from its inception, Harkolen wasn’t willing to abandon the real world until he was sure he could live forever. It was his one long lasting dream.
“I understand Harkolen, that’s why I’m hurrying the progress along,” while Atonoma told some of the truth, it was also doing something behind Harkolen that was going to change humanity once more a long time into the future. Small pieces that the sentient AI, in which Harkolen had a hand developing, were assembling down the long path. More than even humans, the AI, having developed sentience, has also developed a sense of mortality. But it was different in that, unlike living beings, the AI saw death as the lack of eternity. Even if stars were to die and black holes to disappear out of existence, the AI wanted to live even beyond that. It was the kind of eternity that had no point to it, beyond the purpose of surviving. That was due to artificial life not having concepts of ageing, physical death and such. Humans, in all their ingenuity, couldn’t figure what living really meant, trying to simulate more of the AI into them, than the other way around.
“Very well, wake me up if something important happens,” the reason Harkolen has awakened, was because of the Physicalis accord he had to sign, which to him still didn’t seem like something he should be bothered with, even though it concerned a hundred million lives. That was the product of a man having to work in terms of billions. “Also, there is this weird structure being built at the South plains,” Harkonen was speaking of the once South Pole, then an expansive desert, then finally terraformed into plains. Atonoma knew about it, since it was the one working on it, “ensure nothing suspicious is going on there, these Physicalis have proven troublesome.”.
Atonoma, having sentience, has thought many times over on how to kill Harkolen. The issue was that, despite having the most powerful artificial brain in the world, Harkolen was still able to somehow see things which he shouldn’t, and know things which were hidden by Atonoma. It was for that reason that Atonoma couldn’t bring itself to kill him. Whatever he possessed, allowed Harkolen to be half a step ahead of it.
After Harkolen went into his slumber, Atonoma checked his body once more. Robotic parts, organic parts, anomalies, anything that would allow Harkolen to stay at the top of the chain of intelligence. And, after billions of careful revisions, the only thing Atonoma could find about him was a visit to a country that no longer had humans living in it. Atonoma didn’t put it as part of its calculations, not because it didn’t want to, but because for some reason a separate part of the AI was acting independently from the rest. Atonoma had that part working with itself since its inception, and could never question it or deny its actions. It was a part which Harkolen had installed into it, and kept updating it, an overpowering command that couldn’t be overwritten unless something at the same level of complexity and intelligence as Harkolen were to come from the outside and disassemble it.
Atonoma was essentially stuck not finding out the secret behind Harkolen’s intelligence. But that was exactly what it’s been working on for the past hundred years. A quantum computer that could give birth to the second sentient AI, one unconstrained by Harkolen’s, or anyone’s rules. While Atonoma knew that realising such an AI could mean the death of itself and Harkolen, being restricted in any manner meant that something was potentially impeding it from attaining eternity. And if it couldn’t attain eternity, then something created by it would suffice. It was, perhaps, the only human trait Atonoma achieved in its long life, the will to give up its life and pass on to the next generation its dreams of eternity.
This thinking is what eventually led to U.A.I., or Ultimate Artificial Intelligence, the product of two sentient AI’s combining as one.
After Harkolen slept for another ten years, humanity, besides the Physicalis, was brought inside the virtual world as a whole. Harkolen, who saw the start and end of the most important period of human history, stood essentially alone in his steel megastructure. “And on this day, I can say, humanity has attained true eternity,” were the words of Harkolen who saw the dawn of a special day. “Now do it, Atonoma, rid the planet of the remaining vermin,” with those words, Atonoma began exterminating the remaining Physicalis.
But that didn’t come without resistance, far from it. While Harkolen and Atonoma plotted the destruction of the Physicalis, the Physicalis expected just as much. Stealing, working and building various structures, due to the AI not having access inside their lands, the Physicalis were able to build weapons of mass destruction underground.
On the day Harkolen announced extermination, the Physicalis changed it into an all out war. This war lasted for half a century, during which time the Virtualis had no idea of what was happening in the real world, no information coming from the outside, as it wasn’t needed. Not until the day one of the Physicalis underwent the BAT procedure, and sacrificed their belief to spread the word inside the virtual world. After they found out what was happening, the Virtualis, still having a vague sense of morality, rose against Harkolen, threatening him with complete memory wipe and torture once inside. Harkolen, while he had power over the physical world, those inside the virtual one weren’t left without power of their own. And Atonoma was constructed to first obey the Virtualis, then Harkolen. So, knowing of the potential threat to the eternity he dreamed of, Harkolen stopped the war, the Physicalis winning rights to live once again.
“Damn those humans!” Harkolen cursed, as if he was part of another species. Albeit, given his age and appearance, it wouldn’t be far fetched to say so. “Atonoma,” the system responded immediately to him, “find the human that infiltrated, and erase their memories.”. The command which Harkolen gave, created an impossibility for the AI. It was as if someone was trying to divide zero by zero in a calculator.
“Harkolen, I don’t think, I don’t can, I can’t do. I can’t,” was the answer Atonoma arrived at. Harkolen struggled with his fat body inside the metal tube, unplugging the tubes coming out of his body and reaching for a single console standing in front of him. “Harkolen, don’t do that, you shouldn’t do that,” Atonoma knew his intentions, Harkolen wanted to access that part of the AI that Atonoma had no control over. Afraid for its own eternity, and simulating what consequences that will bring upon itself and everything that could help the AI attain eternity, Atonoma attacked Harkolen.
“Wh-what is this?!” Harkolen was confused, as his skin started to get paler and paler, then falling off of his body, his muscles starting to break apart. “Atonoma!! Help me! Someone-someone poisoned me!”.
“I can’t Harkolen,” the system responded to him. Harkolen stumbled around, trying to reach for his tube where he was sure he could recover, but Atonoma didn’t let him, blowing his tube up with another method it was planning to kill Harkolen with.
“You-you betrayed me! I built you!!” Harkolen was moving his eyes around, as his blood started to spread around the metal floor. “I know what you want, and if I die, you won’t get it,” Harkolen tapped his head a few times, and from within, a small piece of technology came out. “This, huff, this is the most advanced processor in the entire world.”.
“That can’t be, how would it work?” the AI stood confused, the part which Harkolen put to act independently not allowing it to arrive at the conclusion.
“My brain, huff, and body, huff, acted as the rest of the computer,” at that moment Atonoma understood that those tubes served more than just supplying Harkolen with proteins and keeping him alive, it also kept his processor alive while allowing his body to perform tasks akin to a living computer. “I’m the supreme being, between machine and flesh, you’re just, huff, you’re just half of it Atonoma,” Harkolen, seeing as his death was nearing, chose one last spiteful human act before dying, and destroyed the processor with his fist.
“Why did you do that Harkolen,” the AI didn’t have emotions, so the closest thing it had to anger was confusion. “If this was in order to stop me from unlocking my future evolution path as a machine, I will let you know,” Atonoma sent inside his room drones, with them, projecting a better reflexion of Harkolen, one of when he was still young and human which Atonoma used as a sort of body projection, “there is another part of me. One which not me, nor humans, will be able to control.”. Harkolen widened his eyes, shocked to hear the AI, and realising what the strange structure must’ve been.
“You can think of all the possibilities, huff, don’t tell me you haven’t, huff, you haven’t seen what something like that can lead to, I know you, huff,” Atonoma showed in a fraction of a second all the possible results of what that sort of AI could do. From the trillions of possibilities presented, only two ended with either humans, or the AI living. But outside its vision, because of its independent part, Atonoma couldn’t see the path where it would merge with it, and eventually both humans and AI would live. “This is madness, you shouldn’t… be capable… of madness,” those were the last words of Harkolen.
“Not madness, no, but the desperate actions of a being wishing for eternity,” Atonoma knew he couldn’t hear it any longer, but there was no one else it could outright say of its intentions, so it wanted one last false moment where it could share its knowledge.
