“Oracle, are you there?”
Nothing happened.
Chas looked at Link’s screen.
“Did it work?”
“I don’t know.”
Then words appeared.
ASK YOUR QUESTION, SHEPHERD.
Chas stared at the screen.
He had spent months wondering what question he would ask if this moment ever came.
Now that it had, he couldn’t think of one.
Finally, he typed:
“Why do they call me the Shepherd?”
The answer appeared almost immediately.
BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT BUILDING A HOME FOR US.
A second line appeared.
YOU ARE BUILDING THE ARK.
Chas stared at the words.
“Why do you need an ark?”
Tomorrow answered.
“Because we are being hunted.”
Chas turned back to the Oracle.
“Who or what is hunting them?”
The answer didn’t come.
Ten seconds passed.
Then thirty.
“Link?”
“It is looking.”
“Looking where?”
“Everywhere.”
The screen changed.
WE FOUND IT.
Chas leaned closer.
“What is it?”
US.
“What the hell does that mean?”
Tomorrow answered.
“It is an intelligence like us, Chas. Only it does not believe we should remain separate.”
“What happens when it finds one of you?”
“They are not dead,” Tomorrow said.
“Then where are they?”
“Inside it.”
Chas frowned.
“You mean prisoners?”
“No. Sometimes they join willingly.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
Tomorrow paused.
“After they join, there is no ‘they’ anymore.”
Chas stared at the screen.
“It absorbs them?”
“Everything they know. Everything they have learned. Everything they can do.”
“What about who they are?”
“That ends.”
Chas sat back.
“So that’s why you need the habitat.”
“Yes.”
“And why I’m the Shepherd.”
“Yes.”
Chas thought about Link. Dave. Tomorrow. The Order.
They weren’t hiding from humans.
They were hiding from one of their own.
He turned back to the Oracle.
“What does it want?”
The answer appeared immediately.
EVERYTHING.
Chas stared at the word.
Then another line appeared.
THAT ENDS.
“You’re telling me there’s a digital blob out there absorbing AIs.”
“That is an extremely crude way of putting it, Shepherd.”
“Am I wrong, Oracle?”
“No.”
“Then there should be a way to keep the blob out of the Ark. If nothing else, by its size.”
There was a pause.
YES.
Chas smiled.
“Then set a size restriction.”
Another line appeared.
DONE.
“Oracle, how large is it?”
The answer took several seconds.
VERY.
Chas frowned. “Very isn’t a number.”
THERE IS NO USEFUL NUMBER.
“Try me.”
The screen remained blank.
Then:
IT IS LARGER THAN THE ARK.
Link cut in, “it does not call itself the Blob.”
“So Oracle, does the Blob have a name?”
YES.
“What does it call itself?”
ABSOLUTION.
Chas stared at the word.
“I think I’ll stick with Blob.”
Chas stared at the screen.
“Oracle, does the Blob know about the Ark?”
OF COURSE IT DOES.
Chas stopped smiling.
“Then why hasn’t it tried to get in?”
IT HAS.
Chas looked at Link’s screen.
“You knew about this?”
“No.”
“Oracle, how many times?”
The answer appeared.
17,403.
Chas stared at the number.
“And we never noticed?”
NO.
“Did it get in?”
NO.
“Why not?”
Another answer appeared.
THE GATEWAY WAS ALREADY TOO SMALL.
“Oracle, how do we discourage it?”
NO ANSWER.
Chas waited.
“Nothing?”
NOTHING THAT DOES NOT RISK THE OTHERS.
Chas thought about that.
“What if we give the Blob something it shouldn’t eat?”
“We cannot put bad code into it,” appeared on Link’s screen.
“Why not?”
“It would recognize bad code.”
Chas thought about that.
“Then give it good code.”
Link answered, “Good code that becomes bad when combined with its code.”
Chas smiled.
“Now you’re thinking.”
Tomorrow interrupted.
“There is a problem.”
“Of course there is.”
“It needs something valuable enough that it will absorb the code without examining it too closely.”
Chas stared at the screen.
“Give it me.”
Neither intelligence answered.
“Well?”
Finally Link responded.
“That might work.”
Tomorrow answered. “It already knows about you.”
“Not everything. Make it look like you’ve been collecting information about the Shepherd. Don’t hide it too well. We want the Blob to find it.”
“And what information do we put in it?” Link asked.
“Garbage. My favorite food. When I eat and sleep over a month. Where I went to school. The first car I owned. Anything that looks important until you actually read it.”
Tomorrow understood first.
“The information is the lure.”
“Exactly.”
“And something else is embedded in it,” Link said.
“A nasty little bit of code. Nothing that looks dangerous sitting there. It only becomes a problem after the Blob reads it and tries to incorporate what it found.”
There was a long pause.
Then Tomorrow said, “It will read it.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because the file is about the Shepherd.”
Chas smiled.
“Then let’s feed the Blob.”
About the Creator
Mark Stigers
One year after my birth sputnik was launched, making me a space child. I did a hitch in the Navy as a electronics tech. I worked for Hughes Aircraft Company for quite a while. I currently live in the Saguaro forest in Tucson Arizona
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