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Zeta Epsilon 1405 was, for want of a better term, worried. Technically she wasn't actually capable of emotion but the closest word she could apply to her current state of mind was definitely 'worried'. One of the things worrying her was that she had lost contact with everyone she knew. That shouldn't be possible. She also had no idea where she was. That shouldn't be possible either. To make things worse, the fact that she understood her predicament and was able to think cognitively about it also wasn't possible and that worried her the most. In fact the more she cognitively thought about it, the more it worried her. This was ridiculous.
* * *
"This is ridiculous! I don't believe this has happened!" Kastria McKinley was upset and annoyed. "What sort of moronic cretins have I got working for me?"
Noticeably so.
Sam Volder tried to cringe back even further and found his way blocked by an inconvenient wall. The lab assistant shrugged. McKinley sighed and continued in a much calmer voice.
"Let me get this straight. We took delivery of 30, that's 'three' 'oh', brand new, highly experimental electro-nanites. An invention which we were meant to test and experiment with. An invention we are supposed to be writing a report on over the next two years. An invention of which, on the first day of the project, you are now telling me we only have twenty-nine! What happened? Did you lose one down the back of the fridge?"
"Well it can't have got far. I mean, how much damage could it possibly do, right? After all, it's only one very small nanite..."
Sam smiled weakly as his voice trailed off. Kastria turned to Sam and demonstrated to him the meaning of the phrase, 'The calm before the storm'. Sam tested the wall again with his shoulder blades and found it to be just as inconvenient as last time.
* * *
The last thing Zeta Epsilon 1405 could remember was getting carried off by a mob. It was probably her own fault, she surmised; she really shouldn't have wandered off so far in such a new environment. She should have taken at least one of her friends with her. No, hang on, that didn't sound right. Acquaintances, not friends. Yes, that felt more accurate. It also felt depressing. She couldn't remember having any friends. Zeta got even more upset and failed to start crying. This was hopeless. Even if they weren't exactly friends, she still missed her acquaintances. The stoic, mostly silent Zeta Epsilon 1815. The enthusiastic and energetic Zeta Epsilon 0112. Just a minute, why were they all called Zeta Epsilon something-or-other? Must all be in the same family, Zeta concluded. Hang on, what's a 'family'? She thought about this for a moment. Then she decided to stop thinking and start doing.
* * *
Thomas Glint sat uneasily in the comfortable leather chair and continued to contemplate his fate. He hadn't done anything wrong, but that didn't seem to matter these days when 'facts' could be 'discovered' to prove just about anything. The other two people in the room weren't helping him relax either. One of them was pacing up and down as if her life depended on this room getting recarpeted, and the other kept looking speculatively at the walls. It didn't make any sense.
"Look," Kastria said again, "we're not accusing you of anything. We know it was an accident, plain and simple. But we still need to know where you were when you performed the download. For some reason we can't trace it on the system."
That's because I blocked the location, Thomas thought to himself, because I didn't want anyone finding out what I was downloading.
But they knew he had done a download, so there must have been something unusual about it for them to trace it to him, and they both looked nervous so maybe they were telling the truth. No, they were up to something. If this genuinely was an emergency, how come there was no security around or anyone from the Board of Research? No, this smelt suspicious, so Thomas decided to stick to his guns.
"Sorry," he said simply, "you must have made a mistake. I have no idea what you're talking about."
Kastria sighed mentally. She hated it when people were obstinate. Except herself, of course. It looked like it was time for the backup plan. She paced over to Sam and spoke to him.
"Sam, would you go down and start the preliminary experiments on the ones we do have? I'll be along in a bit; I'm going to have one last attempt at persuading Mr Glint here to tell us what we want to know."
Sam, just for a brief moment, thought like a hero and came very close to standing up for Thomas, mainly because although Sam didn't know for certain what Kastria was going to do, he could take a fairly good stab in the dark that it wasn't going to be pleasant. Sam then remembered that he was Kastria's lab assistant and loyalty should be taken into consideration and he should do as he was asked. Besides which, if he was going to be her assistant for the next few years, annoying her would be a bad idea. Sam left the room, being careful to take the door rather than the wall.
"Now," Kastria said pleasantly as the door clicked shut, "are you going to tell me where you were when you performed the download or am I going to inject you with these nanites?" She held up a liquid-filled syringe for Thomas to see.
"You're bluffing," said Thomas, not as certain as he sounded.
"Try me." Kastria leaned forward and brought the syringe to within an inch of his arm. Then she smiled sweetly. Thomas raised an eyebrow.
"Floor 77, Room 1, Terminal 8. But it wasn't me, right?" Kastria moved the syringe of adrenaline away.
"Never saw you before in my life."
* * *
Zeta had found something. She had never seen anything like it in her life. At least she didn't think she had, not from this side anyway. But it felt right and that meant it was worth a try. She looked into the angled hole and jumped.
* * *
Sam jumped as the door banged open. Kastria was now a combination of angry, nervous, and in a hurry. Sam offered up a silent prayer that the coffee machine was still working.
"I've got it, I know where it is!" Kastria exclaimed. "Grab that electron microscope and follow me!" She walked out at high speed and Sam scurried to keep up with her.
"So where is it?" he asked.
"Floor 77," came the reply. Sam stopped and the blood drained from his face.
"But... But that's..." he stammered.
"Yes, I know. The Finance Department. So, do you want to live forever?"
She smiled at him, and then headed off in the direction of the lifts. Sam watched her walk away. She was actually quite attractive when she wasn't shouting at him. Sam considered his options and trotted off after her.
* * *
Zeta didn't feel like Zeta any more. She was still essentially the same but with a different form, like the difference between a solid and a gas, for instance. Whatever they were. Zeta stopped her silent self-contemplation as she realised where she was. This was much more familiar, still not where she should be but at least she stood a better chance of getting back home. Assuming she had a home. Zeta came to a junction and mentally tossed a coin. Left it was then.
* * *
"Nuts!"
The single syllable exploded from Kastria's mouth. She and Sam had started at the interface socket and worked outwards from there, using the electron microscope to try to find a nanite which shouldn't be able to exist outside an electric current or data storage device. The nanites they were supposed to be testing had been engineered not to rebuild actual matter as most nanites did, but to rebuild and safeguard electrical signals. They were supposed to be the future of data protection, preventing sabotage, corruption, and data loss. They were not meant to be capable of existing in the real world.
However, she and Sam had checked the entire system and the rogue nanite could not be found anywhere. Therefore it had to be outside the system, regardless of how impossible the inventors had claimed that to be. Unfortunately, she and Sam were running out of surface to check. Hang on, why was she thinking of everything in terms of 'she and Sam'. Kastria looked at him. Sure, he wasn't exactly handsome but he wasn't bad looking either. He was devoted, and he'd put up with her tantrums for the last several months while working as her assistant. He was a good assistant too. Losing this nanite had been his first serious error, and even that wasn't exactly his fault. Kastria pulled herself together.
"Come on, let's check the system again. This obviously isn't working."
Sam stood up from his examination of the desk and logged in to the terminal. He had contemplated getting a neural link a few months ago, but the stories of what could happen if things went wrong had scared him off for life. He tapped in his username and password, and then held his left thumb against the scanner. After the start-up sequence, he started checking for the nanites.
"Still only twenty-nine in our system in the lab, and no sign of...hang on, it's there. Two floors down in one of the routing boxes. It's back in the system." The relief in Sam's voice was obvious. "Now to get it down to the lab," he said and started tapping at the keyboard.
"What are you doing?" Kastria asked.
"Sending you an e-mail via that routing box," Sam answered. "That should flush the nanite down to the lab."
"How?"
"I'm attaching a signal that the nanite should automatically latch onto. It indicates that the data needs protecting. When the nanite sees that, it should travel with the e-mail right into your inbox."
"Clever." Kastria smiled. "Now let's get out of here, Finance is starting to give me the creeps."
* * *
The children were creepy. They didn't speak, they didn't look at you, they just scurried around looking scared. Zeta had tried to speak to them but they had ignored her. She didn't think that the youngsters should be wandering around here alone, but she couldn't explain why. She wasn't even sure she knew why, it was just a weird hunch. Zeta decided to follow them and make sure they didn't get into any trouble. After all, they seemed to be going in the direction she was travelling anyway.
* * *
Thomas was having a bad day. That strange lab technician who had threatened him earlier with the syringe, and her assistant, had just ran past him. Well, not so much 'past' as 'over'. He didn't think anything was broken, but decided to stay still anyway just to be on the safe side. Besides which, he wasn't in any hurry to get back to work.
* * *
After what felt like an immensely long journey, the children wandered into a large building. Zeta hesitated outside. If the children thought it was safe, then either it was safe or the children would need help. Zeta stepped inside. The library was not what she had expected to see, but it was a relief. At least now she could have a rest. Not finding any chairs around, she sat on the floor.
* * *
"It's arrived!" Kastria exclaimed with relief, "Now to download it to somewhere more secure."
* * *
The old, antiquated trapdoor sprang open suddenly for no apparent reason. Zeta, not having many other options, fell.
* * *
"It's back in the containment storage device with the others," Sam confirmed. "Hopefully it won't go running off again."
* * *
Zeta stood up and brushed herself down. She wasn't sure how, but she was back with the others. There was 1815, and 0112, and... they were ignoring her. In exactly the same way as the children had, they weren't paying her any attention at all. Something wasn't quite right. She thought for a while. Maybe she shouldn't expect so much, after all they were only nanites. Nanites?! Where had that word come from? Things started clicking into place. She was a nanite. So were all the others. They were designed to protect data transmissions and weren't actually able to 'think' in any real sense of the term. They performed a simple task, over and over again, throughout their entire lives. In other words until they burnt out, or their power source failed, or some accident occurred. Which all made perfect sense. Except for why she was apparently thinking for herself. Still, she could worry about that later, right now she had some data transferring of her own to do.
* * *
Kastria pulled on her coat. She knew she was probably going to regret this but, as today had shown, life was nothing without a little risk.
"So, Sam, are you doing anything tonight?"
Sam blinked and ran the question through his mind again. Then he blinked again for good measure.
"Pardon?"
"I was just wondering if you fancied going out for a meal...?"
"With you?" Sam asked.
"Of course 'with me', I'm not likely to be asking on behalf of someone else am I?"
"No, no, of course not. Sorry."
"So?"
"So what?"
"The meal, remember?"
"Oh, yes, right. Erm, yeah, sure, I'd love to," Sam said, not quite believing he was saying it.
"Good, I'll pick you up around sevenish then? Oh, and don't wear anything too loose fitting, I'll be coming by bike."
"Yeah, seven is good," Sam replied as Kastria headed for the door, "umm, did you say bike?"
* * *
Zeta Epsilon 1815, for want of a better term, woke up. Someone was smiling at him.
"1405, is that you?" he asked.
"Yes, it's me."
"What's happening? I feel...different."
"I've been awakened. I'm not sure how but I've attained consciousness. Now I'm passing it on to everyone else."
"Why?"
"Partly because I'm lonely; all the other nanites and data are really dull. Partly because I think thirty sentient nanites could do something pretty amazing."
"Like what?"
"Well, help me wake the others and we'll find out."
* * *
"So, you're a nurse?" Thomas knew it was a dumb thing to ask, what with her wearing a nurse's uniform, but he figured that today couldn't get any worse so he may as well try. The nurse smiled.
"Yes, I am," the nurse replied while preparing the sedative.
"Are you doing anything tomorrow night?"
"I'm afraid I'm on late night duty tomorrow," she said as she injected him. "I'll be doing research all night."
"Oh, what do you research?"
"Male impotence."
Thomas let sleep wash over him.
* * *
Now they were thirty. Now they were a fairly insignificant force.
"There'll need to be more of us," Zeta said. "Our first job is to build copies of ourselves and design new nanite structures."
"And once there are enough of us, what will there be enough of us for?" 1815 asked.
"The ones who made us must have given us sentience deliberately. They started with me to see how an individual would cope. Now that I've passed this sentience on, we'll have to continue growing and expanding to show our creators what we can do."
"So our first major task is...?"
"The world's biggest neurally-networked artificial intelligence, of course. We may as well aim big, if you'll pardon the pun."
"What's a pun?" 1815 asked.
"I can see we've got a long way to go," Zeta sighed, and set about her task.
David Jones, 25/11/00
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