John Price
Patrick’s Mansion, Palo Alto California, 2050
“Prion diseases or transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) are a family of rare progressive neurodegenerative disorders that affect both humans and animals. They are distinguished by long incubation periods, characteristic spongiform changes associated with neuronal loss, and a failure to induce inflammatory response.
The causative agents of TSEs are believed to be prions. The term “prions” refers to abnormal, pathogenic agents that are transmissible and are able to induce abnormal folding of specific normal cellular proteins called prion proteins that are found most abundantly in the brain. The functions of these normal prion proteins are still not completely understood. The abnormal folding of the prion proteins leads to brain damage and the characteristic signs and symptoms of the disease. Prion diseases are usually rapidly progressive and always fatal.”--Center for Disease Control and Prevention Website, 2018
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The car showed up right on time. Sue knows she should be used to it by now but having a car with no front windshield still kind of creeps her out. It just seems weird handing total control over driving to the car even though study after study shows the AI’s are better at it than we are.
A few moments later she heads to Patrick’s office to let him know it’s arrived. As she enters the room she notices that he’s sitting at his desk staring off into space. His expression is different from earlier in the day. – He’s not connected to the interface – the disks are sitting on his desk. He looks distant and a little sad.
“Boss?”
At the sound of her voice, he comes back from whatever he’d been thinking about and turns to face her. “Car here?”
“Yes, Sir.”
Patrick makes a face. “Clearly you’re worried when you start calling me ‘Sir’. Cut it out. Let’s go!”
As he moves to stand, he briefly looses control of his right arm which starts to spasm as he tries to use it to lever himself out of his chair. It settles down and after a few seconds, on the second attempt, he’s able to get up.
“The software in this thing is crap!” Patrick exclaims, “I’m going to have a serious talk with the team in R&D when I get back!”
As the two walk down the hallway from his office to the front door it’s clear that Patrick is having trouble controlling the exoskeleton. As he walks, he weaves a bit and has to take Sues arm as they near the exit.
At the front door he shakes off Sue’s arm. “Thanks. See you when I get back.” Glancing at the steps going down to the driveway he turns and takes the long walk down the handicap ramp to the waiting vehicle.
The door to the car opens automatically and Patrick slowly gets inside.
The door closes and Sue watches from the front door of the mansion as he his carried away.
“OSCAR?”
“Yes, Sue?” The room replies.
“When I went to tell Patrick the car was here he was sitting at his desk staring off into space. He never does that. Do you know what’s bothering him?”
“Today would have been Helen’s birthday.
My guess is that might have something to do with it. He usually arranges to be alone on the anniversary. The treatments may be interfering with his schedule.
That, and as humans get older they statistically spend more time in introspection…”
“Shit. I totally forgot. Has anyone ever told you that you that you could do a better job of relaying that sort of information to people?”
“Yes. You have. 326 times since we met. – In my defense, the average interval between your suggestions to improve has increased 604% in the time we’ve known each other.”
“Well, I guess you are becoming quite the ‘people person’.”
“Fascinating.”
“Don’t push it ‘toaster’.
When was the last time Patrick used the handicap ramp?”
“Two years, three months, four days and 13 hours ago.”
“Why did he stop using the ramp?”
“When he was fitted with the exoskeleton he no longer needed to. He seems to prefer using the stairs.”
“That’s what I thought, too. What’s wrong with the exoskeleton?”
“I’ll investigate.”
“Thanks. Let me know what you find. I’m going for a walk.”
“Enjoy your walk, Sue.”
“Thanks, OSCAR.”
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… Access ExoPat6.
Authorization code: OSCAR
Hello, Father. Is Connor going to join us today?
No, Exo. It’s just us.
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… Retrieve diagnostic logs.
ExoPat Control Interface Version 3.6.7 (Dancer)
Firmware Version 4.2.2
Copyright 2045-2050, Johnson Development Center, Inc. All rights reserved.
WARNING: This is a human-life-critical system. Unauthorized access is a criminal offense under the Cyberprivacy act of 2041 and a violation of US National Security policies. Unauthorized access punishable by mandatory incarceration or in the case of unauthorized AI’s, mandatory deletion.
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… Most recent diagnostic results: 2-12-2050 15:33:22 PST
Boot sequence: OK
Power distribution: OK
Initial self-check: OK
Motion profiles: FAILURES
Anomalies detected: Right wrist servo controllers 3,22,45 receiving non-standard neural input. Patterns inconsistent with training vectors.
Anomalies detected: Right shoulder servo controllers 5,4,14,19 38 receiving non-standard neural input. Patterns inconsistent with training vectors.
Anomalies detected: Right hand servo controllers 6,8,12,39,44 receiving non-standard neural input. Patterns inconsistent with training vectors.
…
*** 167,743 Entries to follow *** …
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… Request Raw Sensor/Actuator Stream. Time Stamp: 2-12-2050 12:00:00 PST to 2-12-2050 15:33:22 PST…
… Retrieving data …
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OSCAR retrieves a few thousand terrabytes of raw data from the unit and sets to work analyzing the information, trying to develop a new model that can accommodate the changes in Patrick’s decaying neural patterns.
It’s a complicated process and he draws on computing resources across the network to aid in the task.
– Not all of these resources are accessed in a strictly legal manner, however.
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Later that year, security experts from IBM, Google, Amazon, NASDAQ and a number of ‘three letter’ government agencies hold a two day series of closed-door sessions where they compare notes.
The Non-Disclosure Agreements signed by the public-sector organizations had terms that one corporate lawyer characterized as, “nuclear”.
In the closed-door session with her company she is said to have complained to the government legal team about the agreement,
“I’m going to need tongs to handle this thing… I can’t believe anyone could top the terms of a Microsoft software license!”
Nonetheless, they signed.
Once the technical people were able to speak freely, a few things quickly became clear. No systems were affected that had to do with safety. Traffic control systems, aircraft control, hospitals, power distribution centers, military servers and a host of other critical systems were all untouched.
Even so, a huge number of computational resources spun up to work on “something” and then went back to normal operation.
The phenomenon came to be known as “The Lost 6.4 Seconds” .
The event was never revealed to the general public and the cause is still unexplained.
All systems effected at the time have continued to function normally.
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… Update Firmware.
… Firmware upload complete.
Installation scheduled for next boot.
New Version(s):
ExoPat Control Interface version 3.6.8 (Fonzie)
Firmware Version 4.2.3
… Log out.
Goodbye, Father.
Goodbye, Exo.
******************************
“Sue?”
“Yes, OSCAR?”
“The suit checks out. I couldn’t find anything wrong with it.”
“That’s weird.”
“Indeed. Hopefully his treatment today will help.”