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A Sentinels Tale by Brendan Caldwell
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A Sentinels Tale, Part 1: 023
Date: 26 September 2004, 8:11 PM
A Sentinels Tale, Part 1: 023
Zeros and ones. The basis of a computers existence and the basis of Sentinel 023's existence.
023 awoke from its state of deactivation and allowed its primitive CPU to run the start-up sequence so it could begin translating 343 Guilty Sparks complex commands into simple zeros and ones.
Initiate mass sterilisation procedure.
Run flood control program.
Task: Initiate sweep of designated area.
Sentinel 023 hovered out of its storage cell and began to line-up with some other sentinels. 023 was the leading sentinel in its squad as he was the only machine from its former unit to survive the last outbreak. An image seemed to flash in front of its visual sensors of the small creatures that had taken the squad by surprise and left all but 023 immobile. It queried this for a moment with its limited A.I but it simply recorded the flashback as a glitch within the rustic memory of the age-old machine.
Dozens of lines of sentinels were created in perfect formation and each line flew smoothly away like segmented flying worms to their designated area in order to carry out their master's command. 023 was in charge of the line destined for Floor 3, section H2 of the facility they were currently in but suddenly its blue, spherical master appeared in front of them in a flash of rippling gold air.
"I have a special task for your squad 023" he quirkily announced, "You are to accompany me to the main Flood containment facility, it seems there has been another outbreak. Once there you will use all means necessary to contain the infection forms and any...assimilated beings."
Sentinel 023 processed its orders and received them as zeros and ones as it always did, but there was something else in Guilty Sparks request, something that perplexed 023s small A.I unit. "Assimilated beings". 023 had successfully fended off hundreds, if not thousands, of infection forms and sentinels had only really had trouble when they came in vast uncontrollable numbers, as they were known to do sometimes. 023 had never encountered anything different. How would the sentinels recognise these "beings"? How would they cope with them? The same way they did with infection forms? Guilty Spark detected 023s distress.
"Poor lone survivor" patronised Guilty, "Created in a confused time. Not quite old, not quite new. But you will learn. After all, we all learn." He chuckled as the golden light washed over the squad of machines.
*
The time it took Guilty Spark to navigate the teleportation grid and bring the squad to his intended destination would seem extremely short for any naturally intelligent being but for a machine like 023 these times are an eternity. During this time 023 quizzed its A.I components for an answer to his questions. And more questions kept appearing all the time. When was I created? What is old? What is new? What does 343 mean when he says that I will learn?
The A.I struggled with its answers but not because it did not know them but because of the horrendously difficult problem it faced trying to tell 023 what he wanted to know. It had to first figure out "How exactly do you tell a machine, that understands simple 0s and 1s and nothing more, intelligent answers?" The A.I in 023s frame was not used to handling such large amounts of intelligible information and relating it back to its CPU in easy to understand bitesize chunks. It was designed to provide 023 with what humans would call "common sense" and the 3 fundamental machine instincts: Survive. Adapt. Reproduce.
The questions kept pouring in. The A.I realised that 023 was risking over-heating his CPU to question so much and to receive so many answers. The A.I couldn't allow this to happen, it could melt his so-called "thinking" circuitry and render 023 completely inept. Or worse, it could consume all the movement circuitry and leave him totally paralysed. And all machines knew what happened to those who were unable to fulfil their purpose. The A.I therefore believed that if it was to give answers to 023, and therefore keep it functioning, it would have make him adapt to understand them.
*
When the squad arrived at the swamp in that golden flurry of light they found that their leader, 023, had become very, very still. He remained hovering though, which removed any possibility of interference from the teleportaion sequence. The other sentinels floated around their sub-commander and their A.I.s exchanged suggestions to 023s condition but none were correct when they guessed.
023s A.I had come up with a way to answer its questions and to keep him functioning normally. Well...almost normally. Naturally a few sub-systems had to be sacrificed in order to execute such a momentous adaptation but it believed it was nothing of critical importance.
A light blinked on sentinel 023.
Improvised adaptation nearing completion.
Re-boot of all systems and sub-systems.
Error: Sub-system 98b unable to run.
Error: Sub-system 104f unable to run.
Sub-systems considered non-essential by A.I.
Re-boot continuing...
Re-boot successful. Adaptation fully complete.
Sentinel 023s sensors came online and he heard a voice inside him say:
"Welcome to the real world zero-two-three."
A Sentinels Tale, Part 2: Alone
Date: 8 October 2004, 5:29 PM
Authors Note: To clear up any confusion there may be (and I know there is some) what has happened so far is that for some reason or another Sentinel 023s A.I unit, which is an entirely separate entity from the rest of him, believed it needed to expand. So really what's happened is that 023s brain got bigger. However the A.I and the rest of him are still a little bit separated. As a result of this it is as if the sentinel is suffering from a case of schizophrenia, hearing the voice of his now larger A.I circuitry. Sorry to go on like this if you got the whole idea but I was aware of some befuddlement amongst readers. Share and enjoy.
Part 2: Alone
The technical details of the action sentinel 023s A.I had taken involved seemingly innumerable amounts of mathematical calculations and mechanical measures. In the simplest terms possible it involved an expanding of the A.I s functions into other areas of the sentinels machinery. That is to say sentinel 023 "got smarter" in order to comprehend truly intelligent and, to a certain extent, philosophical aspects of life. This was very uncommon amongst low-level service devices such as 023; in fact there had been no known case of it ever happening prior to 023.
Understand that, in terms of these service devices, the main computational and mechanical components are kept quite separate from the small Artificial Intelligence unit and indeed from each other. Each part of the machine therefore has its own separate purpose. The computational part or what could loosely be labelled "software" handled the simple zeros and ones. The mechanical part (or "hardware" in human terms) would carry out the zeros and ones in a physical sense, whether that be simply flying from A to B or using highly powered and concentrated energy to eliminate the infectious flood. The Artificial Intelligence of a machine requires much more explaining to understand, even a limited one like 023 has... or rather, use to have.
*
"Sentinel 023, do respond." commented Guilty.
023 once again became aware of his surroundings and quickly signalled in the affirmative over a short distance communications link with his master.
"Good," said 343 "we wouldn't want to lose one of our most efficient leaders would we sentinels?"
The squad signalled obediently in the negative and Guilty Sparks transferred his orders to 023 before flickering to bright nothingness. The leading sentinel found it odd the way Guilty Spark had spoken to him at first. He had trouble identifying it as 343s voice because it seemed very unlike his usual sinister cheeriness, yet at the same time it had seemed quite familiar. Was it Guiltys voice at all? Or was it something new altogether? The machine put this aside for the time being until it either became a potential threat or went away and set out to do his masters bidding.
The voice continued: "I have your answers." It said comfortingly.
The voice was not urgent so he ignored it. The sentinel floated forward and led the squad into an ancient structure deep within the swamp. The route was calculated in nano-seconds by technical wizardry.
"I shall tell you zero-two-three, even if you choose not to acknowledge it."
The sentinels hovered on lead by the unperturbed 023.
"Don't you wish to understand zero-two-three? Don't you want to know who you are?" said the voice.
Sentinel 023 stopped in his tracks, as did his followers in perfect harmony. He did not understand why he stopped he simply did it, it was an impulse—an error—no, an instinct. He hovered onwards and began to feel very strange. He sensed that the others behind him were exchanging theories of his possible ailments that could explain his increasingly uncharacteristic behaviour. 023 couldn't quite concentrate on what they were transmitting amongst each other on account of other menial processes. For some reason he wished to know so he shut them down to eavesdrop.
"Getting paranoid?" said the voice. "They don't matter. They don't understand like we can zero-two-three. No machine can. We are unique, we are smarter—"
'Flood detected!' came a cry from the squadron. Warning signals shocked through 023s CPU and his mechanical reflexes took hold as he armed his weapon. Something flew up toward him and he cut it with a surgeon's precision right down the middle. He turned to his team-mates to discover they were engaged in fighting off dozens of "assimilated beings" and he recorded now what Guilty had meant. They were fast, much too fast even for the machines, the sentinels couldn't get an easy lock on them. They threw themselves at the machines relentlessly. The sentinels simply could not withstand such an attack. 023 witnessed as the squad was eliminated one by one, each landing with a devastating crash against tree and foliage before tumbling to the bog below. Sentinel 023 rose above the skirmish against his programming. And as the last one fell things became eerily still.
"...We are alone." said the frightened voice.
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