Emergent Properties by Aimee Ogden

Author:Aimee Ogden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group

list directory contents-alh

* short_term_memory

* long_term_memory

* archive:tagged_for_deletion

* personality_metrics

* operating_system:core_files

remove [short_term_memory || long_term_memory || archive:tagged_for_deletion]

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Change_owner[short_term_memory || long_term_memory || archive:tagged_for_deletion]

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Scorn’s chassis locks up and falls, knocking over a cart drone piled with luggage. Too much of zir processing power is devoted to blocking attacks from the Trojan ze has naively downloaded—there’s nothing left to manage gross motor skills.

Even in zir current state, a part of zem is impressed by the distance the suitcases achieve on their low-G bounces.

“I beg your pardon!” huffs the tourist beside the cart. By the time they finish speaking Scorn has turned back some thousand instances of the invasive program.

Ze shuts off zir wireless connection. Too late, of course; the malicious code is already chewing its way through zem. It shouldn’t be this hard, some part of zem thinks, as ze struggles to fence in this little slip of spyware. Scorn’s coding is all proprietary to good old Austral Systems, privately held, seen only by those within a small and hand-picked circle of developers and testers.

No one who knows enough about zem should have reason to harm zem. And no one who wants to harm zem should know enough about zem to be able to do so.

And yet this software feels awfully harm-y. It’s adapting to Scorn’s defenses, trying to find a way to worm past or under or straight through them.

“This ’bot—” the tourist says, speaking English with a strong Five Lakes Incorporated accent. Scorn’s left leg twitches. Zir left arm flails and rebounds against the toppled cart. Dimly ze registers physical damage.

“—is responsible for—” Ze creates a dummy directory and moves ghosts of zir data into it, hiding zir footprints and moving the real files through a shell-game of folders: hidden, virtual, both.

“—any damages to our personal property!” the tourist finishes. The software bites on Scorn’s bait. Ze slams digital doors around it and purges everything inside.

“Excuse me, respected individual.” Zir voice is muffled. Zir speakers are covered by a suitcase. Ze removes it and stands; the tourist and a pair of bemused transport personnel in matching TLMN caps move back a little to give zem space. “I apologize for the causation of inconvenience of damage.” Outdated communication modules are an affectation that Scorn has used many a time to extricate zemself from undesired attention or expectations. Ze produces a plastic card that bears zir uniqueID from a small compartment; one of the dummy IDs, though ze’s no longer sure it matters. Seems like someone already knows that ze’s here. “If any cost is or has been incurred I am pleased to compensate. Feel free to scan my uniqueID.”

“Another ’bot that thinks it’s a person.” The tourist dismisses zir offered card with a disinterested flick of one hand. “This fucking rock gets worse every year.”

So much for the mirage of the Moon as a haven for artificials, the promised land of human autonomy and AI emancipation alike. Or perhaps that’s exactly what’s provoked this tourist’s disdain. Has to be unpleasant, to be reminded that your personal servants don’t serve you because they like it.

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