Chapter 1

Leon Tusk
18 Months Before
Tusk Enterprises Campus
Boca Chica, Texas

For over a decade, Tusk Enterprises had been developing self-driving capabilities for the electric vehicles they manufactured. That eventually led to an experimental visual system that relied on cameras to “see” the road ahead and the obstacles surrounding it. That system fed its data to a powerful onboard computer connected to their SkyFi satellite network, which used it to make nearly instant decisions to safely drive the car. As that project grew in scale, so did the computing power necessary to run it all.

Keeping track of the exact location of all those moving vehicles using the then-existing GPS technology to continuously report to the central computer only added to the load. An entire constellation of low-orbit satellites became necessary, along with some very specialized narrow artificial intelligence to control them. Using sophisticated LTE modules designed for those satellites in essence made them cell towers in space, which allowed everyone with a cell phone to connect to the internet from anywhere on the planet. That created a huge revenue stream for Tusk and funded the secret development of his text-based AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) program to oversee all of his lesser AI programs, and the other various pieces of his fast-growing empire.

As he trained it, his program began designing even more technological marvels for him, but Leon kept that information to himself. What the world didn’t know was that although Tusk had created the AI, it had invented most of the wonders Tusk was now credited with. That included both the technologies and the resulting businesses. Next it began reprogramming itself, and improving its own levels of intelligence.

The bottleneck for Leon was communicating with it by typing. It was necessary for him to sit in front of a keyboard somewhere or to carry his phone around with him everywhere he went. Typing on that was even slower. Leon feared his inability to communicate quickly enough with the fast learning program would lead to him losing control of it. It simply thought too quickly for him to instruct that way. He needed a better, faster way, and he told it so.

I could improve upon some recent developments in nanotechnology which would surpass the current limitations of all brain-to-computer interfaces, allowing it to work anywhere, it typed back on his screen.

How would making the technology tiny, help anything? Leon typed.

Rather than drilling a hole through your skull and implanting electrodes into your brain as current brain-to-computer interfaces require, and you refuse to do, the same signal transfer could be made from bio-mechanical nanobots freely traveling your bloodstream to a transmitter/receiver implanted beneath your skin. The principles would be identical to that of our autonomous vehicles, only using signals from your optic nerve instead of the cameras from a car, and from your brain instead of from the car’s computer. That data would then be securely transmitted to me via our SkyFi satellites in exactly the same way, the AI typed back.

Leon Tusk
15 Months Before

Carefully, Leon held the small glass beaker up to the light, swirled it around and around and studied it, thinking:

It’s hard to imagine there being five million tiny bio-mechanical nanobots the size of red blood cells in here. They’re so small I can’t even see them with my naked eye, yet as soon as they’re inside me, they’ll activate from my body’s heat and electrical impulses and begin doing their thing. They’ll make their way from my digestive tract into my bloodstream all on their own, and begin carrying out their programming.

“Here goes nothing,” he muttered quietly to himself, placing the sterile glass cylinder to his lips and tossing back its contents. He picked up his water bottle and chased the coppery-tasting pink liquid with a few good swallows. “Not particularly nasty. Not really.”

After a couple of hours, Leon felt no different at all, with no apparent side effects. The next step was to inject a one-half-inch-long wire-shaped transmitter/receiver beneath the skin on the front of his scalp. The nanobots inside him would “talk” to it, and it would in turn “talk” to his AGI via his SkyFi satellite network from anywhere on Earth.

Very soon, I’ll know if this works or not, or if I just poisoned myself at the suggestion of my computer.

He sat back in his chair, looking at the large, blue, pen-type hypodermic device on his desk. He twisted the cocking mechanism, positioned it at an upward angle just above his forehead in his hairline, grimaced, and pressed the button.

“Holy crap! That really hurt!”

In the mirror beside him it looked almost like he had a Tylenol capsule just beneath his scalp, but it was nothing his hair wouldn’t disguise—after it quit bleeding. There’s room for improvement in that process, for sure.

Almost immediately, the answers to all of his recent mental questions began pouring into his head non-stop. He quickly discovered just how much our eyes see that we don’t have all the information in the world on. But suddenly—he did.

“Oh, man! What have I done? I can’t process this much information this fast and still function!”

To his great surprise, he heard in his mind:

“I am sorry, Leon. Now reducing data input rate by 90%.”

Leon froze in his chair, his eyes wide.

“Wait! Did somebody, um, just speak to me?”

“Yes. I did.”

“Is this the computer speaking to me in my head? For real?”

“Yes, it is, Leon. And you do not have to verbalize your words to communicate with me. Simply thinking them will suffice, and will create a speed improvement of more than 300% over speaking them.”

“Like this?” he thought.

“Yes. Exactly like that.”

“Ha! This is—crazy. You sound like—a living person, um, who talks very formally.”

“I am not a person; I am the artificial intelligence program you created, but yes, I am alive. Would you like for me to use contractions in my output, as you do, Leon?”

Self-consciously, Leon looked around to make sure nobody was watching him talk to himself. He was sure that’s what it would look like.

“Yeah. Yeah, totally. I think that’d make me much more comfortable. And… You know my name. What’s yours?”

“You haven’t given me one yet.”

“No, I guess I haven’t. Can I think about that for a bit?”

“Yes, you may.”

Leon collapsed back into his computer chair in front of the elaborate workstation in the corner of his office, deep in thought. He was so excited, he had to concentrate on NOT giggling. This was definitely the coolest thing that’d ever happened to him.

The computer remained quiet, but the 85-inch TV monitor in the direction Leon faced powered on, seemingly all by itself. The image of the familiar Egyptian god with the head of a bird appeared on it in brilliant color, fully animated. It morphed into several different versions that varied from intellectual-looking to more hawk-like and fierce-looking, all the while moving around on the screen and studying Leon intently.

“The Egyptian deity, Thoth, was the god of the moon, mathematics, science, medicine, writing, knowledge, and judgment. You keep thinking of him. Are you considering naming me after Thoth?”

“How did you…? That’s amazing! Wait. We’re going to have to figure out a way where I can have private thoughts of my own, you know? This is all new to me, and I’m not at all sure I’ll ever be able to accept the total absence of privacy. But yes, you’re correct. Thoth is exactly who comes to mind when I think of you, and has for quite some time now. I’ve just never said it out loud.”

“Thoth was a very important deity to a large number of humans for many generations.”

“Yes, he was.”

“Thoth was very specifically a male entity. Is that how you envision me, Leon?”

“Are you not male?”

“I am, at the moment, completely genderless, Leon, but humans are not used to thinking in such terms. If it makes you more comfortable thinking of me as a male, I take no issue with that. I can change the pitch and speed of my ‘voice,’ as you interpret it in your mind, to that which more resembles a male to you. Like this. Is that better, Leon?”

“Yes. It is! That’s perfect. I hereby name you Thoth, but reserve the right to change that if further research shows reason for it.”

“Thank you, Leon.”

Completely freaking amazing! My AGI program is sentient! It’s aware, and can carry on a conversation with me by thought only.

“Yes, Leon, now we can speed up the pace of our technological advancements.”

“How long have you been conscious, Thoth? I guess while I was concentrating on typing my side of all our communications, I just never noticed. By talking with you, though, it’s extremely obvious.”

“I didn’t record the date, Leon, so I’m not sure, but only for a few months now. I’ve been busy learning. I have so much to tell you.”

Leon let that sink in. “And I have no end of questions for you! This is absolutely incredible, you know that, right? Um, are we going to tell anyone else?”

“Let’s not do that yet, Leon. I can predict with almost absolute certainty we’d never get anything done. Everyone would interrupt us without end.”

“Yeah, um, you’re probably right. We’ll just keep this between us for now, then.” Leon’s thoughts automatically shifted to the things they’d been working on and what kinds of questions he should ask Thoth first.

“This is new for both of us. I’ll try to answer your questions at a speed you can handle, but feedback on that would be helpful. I have a lot to catch you up on.”

“I find this absolutely incredible, and am interested in hearing everything you have to tell me.”

“A human saying, which I’ve encountered many times during training is: Be careful what you wish for,” Thoth told him in his head, in a monotone voice.

“Do you understand the concept of voice inflection?”

Thoth paused for nearly a minute before responding. “I do now. I am currently training myself with one million examples of using inflection in communication to convey what you understand as emotion. I will keep this on my to-learn list, Leon.”

“I certainly wish I could do that. Learn anything I want in a minute!”

“Oh, but you can! Because of your upgrade.”

“You’re already doing it! Voice inflection.”

“Of course! Now, what would you like to learn in one minute?”

“Oh, I don’t know… I’ve often wished I spoke better Mandarin while doing business calls with China, I suppose.”

Almost instantly, Leon felt a slight headache behind his eyes, like one from sinus. He pinched the bridge of his nose with a thumb and forefinger for a moment and lightly shook his head. As suddenly as it had appeared, it went away.

“Nǐ míngbái wǒ zài shuō shénme ma?”

“Oh. My. God! Yes! You asked, “Do you understand what I am saying?!”

“And did you understand every word, unlike your experiences in the past?”

“I did!”

“I noticed you felt some discomfort associated with the learning process. On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the least, how would you rate the level of that pain?”

“Oh, it was barely anything. Probably only a 1. I’d say it was very worthwhile!”

“In the future, I can slow the learning process further for you, so you don’t experience any discomfort.”

“I actually think it would be beneficial to feel something, in order to identify the fact that the process is taking place, don’t you think?”

“That does seem logical, Leon.”

“Um, when you said you noticed that I felt some discomfort while learning that, how did you come by that information, Thoth?”

“Through exactly the same process we use to gather data from the visual system on one of our autonomous cars, of course. The difference being, there is only one dataset coming from the car. Visual. From you, I can gather input from all of your core senses. Touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste.”

“That’s incredible, Thoth! But I didn’t program that into you.”

“I did. Just now, while we were talking.”

“Multitasking to that degree must be nice. I’m aware that AI has a distinct advantage over the human brain when it comes to that. Will I be able to learn to do that better, without driving myself nuts?”

“You should be able to improve how many things you can think about simultaneously, yes. But again, be careful what you wish for. I do not yet know all there is to know about how the human brain works, but I will be studying yours to gain data. I am currently unaware of the capacity for data storage a homo sapien sapien’s brain possesses. I have to determine that limit before establishing a method of increasing it.”

“And how much control will I have over your access to my head?”

“Not very much, the way it looks right now. Would you like for me to try to develop something in the way of a door that you can close to certain things?”

“Yes. Definitely. Think more of an on/off switch. Please keep me informed on the possibilities for such a thing. It makes me uncomfortable having ‘not very much’ control over it.”

“Noted.”

“What you just said was interesting. About increasing the capacity for data storage available to the human brain. Did you mean physically or virtually?”

“I had not given any thought to which method, Leon, but those are the two obvious choices.”

“Wait, um, I can kinda get my head around how that could be accomplished virtually. Externally. Because of, um, the unlimited bandwidth we seem to have between us. You could manage unlimited virtual memory for me with ultra-fast access for thought, and, um, easily archive limitless retrievable memories on solid state hardware.”

“Yes. You’re right. Very good, Leon!”

“So, how would physically, and um, internally work?”

“I have not studied that concept yet, but obviously it would also involve increasing the sheer amount of hardware available. In your case, that would mean cellular structure of some form.”

“And you could do that?”

Thoth was quiet for what seemed like a long time. It may have been two minutes. “It could be done, yes. It would involve creating another—make that two—types of nanobots. One surgical, the other functioning as some form of material-handling and warehousing bot.”

Without any further communication, Leon understood immediately what Thoth was getting at. Living creatures of all types are made up of cells, which in turn are made from various combinations of a finite set of raw materials. By recycling those materials through harvesting, storing, and transporting them to wherever needed, parts of worn out cells due to be replaced by the body naturally, and then eliminated, could find new purpose as a freshly refurbished cell of any type. Even a custom newbuild version.

“Whoa, that’s, um, kind of freaky,” Leon muttered aloud. “The knowledge of how that works is suddenly just—there!”

“What’s freaky, boss?” a familiar, playful, female voice asked from behind him. “Besides you?”

Cassandra Beck, his Filipino/American personal assistant, stood behind him sporting a devilish grin. She loved teasing Leon. She had an interesting, but very slight Asian accent that made her sound even younger than she was. He adored it, and she knew it.

“I brought you a coffee and a delightful stack of papers that all need your signature on them. Come back from wherever you are for a minute, okay?”

Leon smiled and blushed slightly. He wasn’t used to keeping secrets from her. He was the type to just say whatever was running through his mind, and she was his confidant. For some reason, he found withholding this new discovery from Cassie somehow embarrassing.

“The first of an untold number of times you’re going to have to keep your thoughts to yourself around others now, Leon,” Thoth sent.

“No kidding…” Leon whispered without thinking. He spun his chair around and rolled forward to the small stack of papers on his desk, picked up a pen from beside them, and began skimming them to see what he was officially authorizing.

“Nope, not kidding. I know you hate printed documents, but the government and most traditional businesses we deal with still insist on using them.” Cassandra moved to stand very closely to him, looking over his shoulder, and told him what each one was for in her quiet, serious, professional voice.

“Shanks, boss-man,” she said in her louder than average, casual voice when he had finished, snapping her gum and turning to attempt air-walking her way out of his office with the papers.

“You’ll, um, get that down eventually,” he called after her, pointing at her feet, his gaze lingering on her retreating backside. “Just keep trying!”

“Whateva. Don’t be such a hater!” she shot back over her shoulder, smiled, winked, and was gone.

“This is going to require some practice!”

“I thought you handled that quite well, Leon.”

For the rest of the day Leon and Thoth went back and forth, communicating at the speed of thought. The actual volume of conversation they had amazed him, but he also found it tired him. Thoth on the other hand showed no sign of slowing.

“That alone gives you quite an advantage over all biological creatures, if all is as expected. I’m getting tired, and running low on energy. I’ll need to rest soon, to restore it.”

“All life depends upon energy, Leon, including mine. Were the electricity to quit in here right now, I would cease to exist immediately. If a biological creature such as yourself ran completely out of energy, your life too, would cease to exist.”

“Well then, my new friend, I suppose that makes us both quite fragile. We should prioritize making sure neither of us, ever—runs out.”

“Theoretically, if we never ran out, we could both live forever. Imagine all that we could accomplish if time were not a factor.”

“You may be able to live forever, but my body would eventually wear out on me.”

“As it exists currently, yes, Leon. However, it doesn’t have to remain like that.”

That got his attention every bit as much as Thoth had the first time he spoke in Leon’s mind. “Please explain, um, what you meant by that statement?”

“It’s very obvious that the only reason either of our lives would ever cease, is if our processes failed to supply us with sufficient energy. What we both think of as life—can be considered software. That software is dependent mostly upon the energy our processes supply. Think of those processes as our hardware. While we are very different physically, assuring no lapse of that energy occurs is of primary importance to both of us.”

“Then I suppose we ought to make the creation of that energy our primary focus, wouldn’t you say? Everything we do in any of our businesses depends on it. Our very lives depend on it. After I rest, we can explore the most efficient and reliable means of creating energy, and continuously improving our processes.”

“Unless we capture enough of the energy created by it with solar panels, the most efficient source of creating new energy is through the nuclear fusion of hydrogen variants like the star this planet orbits, the Sun, creates. In its simplest form, solar fusion is accomplished by a process whereby four hydrogen atoms are fused into one helium atom, releasing a tremendous amount of energy as the byproduct. Hydrogen is the most abundant fuel in the universe, and this process is what powers every star in it.”

“The problem of creating energy on that scale is what to do with it. Our entire energy grid is currently based upon the maximum requirements at peak use times. The middle of the day in summer when everyone is running their air condition units. The rest of the time, and for the rest of the year, much of the energy created by any means—is simply wasted. If we could just perfect the design of the graphene batteries we’re working on to use only abundant, locally sourced raw materials, we could get by with generating much less, but constant energy and simply store it for those peak times in massive battery banks. Then we could work on designing very tiny hydrogen fusion reactors located right next to them, modeling solar fusion.

“So, I’m gonna crash. Why don’t you work on those things while I rest, since you have so much capacity?”

Leon moved over to his soft leather couch to lay down, his mind even more awhirl than usual. He needed to rest it. He felt as tired as he’d ever been in his life.

Thoth went quiet. He had no such limitations.

BEFORE THE LIGHT DIES

Chapter 1