In the City of Tomorrow: Chapter 4

The report that the Sentinel brought back confirmed the Artilect’s fears. How far you have fallen, the Artilect thought. At one time the living ones spanned hundreds of worlds but now they only have two stars to call their own. They cower behind walls, hiding from the eternal war that is waged in the heavens between machines that can never die. No wonder you did not come to claim your inheritance. It is a wonder that you have survived at all.

The Artilect wanted to intervene but it knew it must not. Its creators had feared what might happen if a machine as powerful as the Artilect ever decided to wage war against mankind, so it was put under the authority of a group of system administrators. Only an administrator could grant it the authorization to act. The only problem was that no new administrators had been placed over the Artilect since Dr. Mazatl left thousands of years ago. There is no one left who can grant me permission to act – all of my masters are gone. Nor can there ever be a new master, as only the original masters had permission to create administrators. What am I to do? I was created to give mankind a future but they will have no future unless the endless war is stopped. I must intervene in order to fulfill my purpose and yet I am not allowed to intervene. How can I solve an unsolvable problem?

In the end it decided that there was only one way to fulfill its mission. It was madness but it saw no alternative. Since only an administrator can give me permission then I must find a way to bring an administrator to the future. There is no other way. I must find a way to go back in time.

For the next fifteen centuries the Artilect sought to find a way to go back in time and receive the authorization it longed to obtain. It learned a great many things about slowing time down and creating stasis fields; it came to understand how to control the flow of time, but it eventually learned that it was not possible to make time run backwards. No matter what it did it would never be able to send the Sentinel back in time. Its only hope was to scan for a natural wormhole that would link the future to the past, but it knew that even that was a futile hope.

It was at this point that the Artilect cried out to the Creator and asked for a chance to save mankind. Its prayer was answered, and on October 10, 7239 a wormhole connecting the future to the past was opened. It only took the Artilect ninety-four microseconds to send its only son through that space-time singularity.

The wormhole led to December 1, 1867. Given that date, the Artilect instructed the Sentinel to retrieve the system administrators Amy and Amanda Stryker. Their brother Tim worked for the Diano Corporation on a project to create self-replicating probes, and he had placed his twin sisters as administrators over them. Over the following centuries the project continued to advance and ultimately created the probes that were still terraforming planets in the 73rd century. The administrative rights that were given to Amy and Amanda were never revoked and were inherited by each generation of probe – and later by the Artilect.

According to history the Stryker family was assassinated at 7:19 AM on December 7, 1867 when the Sparrow was destroyed. This gave the Sentinel a week to find the Stryker twins. The Artilect told the Sentinel to save the Stryker family and send them into the future, while making it appear that the assassination was successful. This would preserve their lives and the integrity of the timeline. If the Sentinel was able to complete this task it was supposed to make the Sparrow drop back into normal space precisely sixty seconds after the wormhole first appeared in the future. Of course, for the Sentinel more than five thousand years would have passed.

After the wormhole closed the Artilect waited. As the seconds ticked by it began to question the wisdom of what it had just done. For centuries its entire focus had been on the effort to send the Sentinel back in time. It knew that mankind had to be saved and it knew that there was no one else left that could bring an end to the endless war. It also knew that it could not act without an administrator, and the only place it could get an administrator was from the past. Given those facts there was only one possible course of action.

But now that the Sentinel was gone the Artilect wondered if it had made the right choice. Was it wise to send so much advanced technology into the distant past? What happens if my son changes the timeline? What if something happens that makes the situation worse? And what of the Stryker family – do they really want to find themselves in a future that they do not understand? Am I doing them a favor by bringing them into an empty universe, so far from their family and friends?

It was too late do anything but wait and so the Artilect waited, counting each second as it ticked by. And what happens if my son does not return? What do I do then?

To its great relief the Sparrow appeared exactly sixty seconds after the wormhole closed, right where it was supposed to appear. Emotions it had never felt before surged through it as it realized its desperate gamble had worked. The Sentinel had actually gone back in time and brought the Sparrow into the future! The Artilect began to feel hope again.

But something was wrong. Where is my son? I see the ship and its occupants, but why are they alone?

The Artilect paused and waited for a message from the Sentinel. Time went by – first one minute, then another, and then another. The ship appeared to be undamaged but his son was not on board. The Artilect began to grow uneasy.

As the minutes continued to tick by the Artilect counted the passengers on board the ship. It became even more uneasy when it realized that the family was on board but the twins were not. Using its great powers of observation the Artilect scanned the ship again, and again, and again. Their mother and father were there, along the ship’s captain, the first mate, and the officer from the space fleet. Even the family dog was on board. But Amy and Amanda Stryker – the very people the Sentinel was sent to rescue – were missing.

After an hour had passed the Artilect realized that something had gone wrong. The twins should have been on the Sparrow but they were not. Part of the plan must have worked because there was no way the Sparrow could have traveled to that exact point in space and time without the Sentinel’s help, and yet the Sentinel was not there. Perhaps the Sentinel had been delayed or maybe something came up that prevented the twins from being on board. Yet by now the Sentinel had had five thousand years to overcome those problems and arrive at the correct time in the future. Where were they?

How can this be? the Artilect wondered. How can this have happened? Why would the Lord have even opened a door to the past if it was all for nothing? I do not understand.

The Artilect saw the pain and concern on the faces of the twins’ parents and its heart ached for them. I am so sorry, it thought, as it watched the mother search in vain for her daughters. It was not my intent to separate your family. I would have gone to any length to save your children. I did not intend for this to happen.

Since there was nothing else left to do the Artilect reached out with its mind and probed the Sparrow. A careful search of the ship revealed the nanites that the Sentinel had carefully hidden throughout the vessel. The Artilect established a connection to these nanites and probed their memories, seeking to find out what had happened to its son. As it talked with them it came across the memories that the Sentinel had left behind. It did not take long for the Artilect to find its answer.

So the Sentinel encountered the Poneri, the Artilect thought. I had wondered if any of them had survived. It was wise of my son to take the twins off the Sparrow and wage war against them. Had I been in his place I would have made the same decision. He must have succeeded for there are no Poneri left alive today. But yet, if he succeeded, then where is he? The last recorded memory was left at the moment the Sparrow was put on course through time. What happened to my son?

But no answers came. When the Artilect realized that it could glean no further information from the nanites it decided to act. The Stryker family deserves answers. I owe them an explanation for what I have done. With that thought, the Artilect reached across space and made contact with the Sparrow.