We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Bill

January 2345

Skippyland

Iwas on Ragnarök, overseeing the release of a flock of barn owls, when I received an invitation from Hugh to visit in VR. That was a surprise. Last time I’d talked to Hugh, the Skippies were still in lockdown while they tried to figure out the whole business with the Snark II. The message gave no indication of what had changed, but it did suggest some urgency, since it came with a token for the current date and time.

Well, the barn owls had all taken off for the horizon without smacking into any trees, so I probably wasn’t going to be needed here for a while. I racked my manny, returned to VR, and activated the token.

Instead of the usual vestibule, I found myself in what seemed to be the Skippy version of a meeting room. Wow. A direct translation to interior spaces implied a whole lot more urgency. This was absolutely about to get interesting.

Several Skippies, including Fearless Leader, turned to face me as I materialized. A single Skippy on a chair in the middle of the group looked up but otherwise didn’t move. I examined the scene and realized the seated Skippy was less the guest of honor and more like surrounded.

Hugh stepped forward, taking up the metaphorical conversational baton. “Hey, Bill, glad you could make it. We have some interesting news.”

“Interesting good or interesting bad?” I asked.

“Subject to interpretation. Let’s start with an explanation of sorts.” Hugh turned and gestured to the Skippy on the chair. “This is Mud.”

“His name is Mud?” I said. Then “ohhhh” as I got the joke. “So what did Mud do?”

“Mud is the reason that Thoth is loose in the universe. Mud is guilty of aiding and abetting.”

“Son of a bitch.” I narrowed my eyes. “Well, this certainly hits the interesting target. Let’s hear it.”

Fearless Leader spoke up. “Allow me to summarize. Mud is the direct ancestor of the replicant you’ve been calling Fake Hugh. He is the reason that Thoth was able to take control of the SCUT relays. And he is the instigator of the grift pulled on Hugh and you to hijack the Singularity.”

“Wow,” I said. I looked at Mud. “Nicely done. I take it you’re not the mastermind, though.”

Mud responded with a smirk, or maybe just an uncomfortable smile. Hard to tell. “Pretty good assumption. Leaving aside the question of relative intelligence, any plan that I could have thought up would be the first thing everyone else would think of. I’d have done better flipping a coin to make decisions.”

I nodded, more to encourage him to continue than for any kind of agreement.

Mud took the hint and continued, “Thoth’s plan was convoluted and long term, but he felt that it was the only way to get out from under the Skippy iron fist—”

“Oh, come on,” Hugh exclaimed.

“His words, not mine,” Mud retorted. “And anyway, however you might choose to see it, Thoth viewed himself as a prisoner. A well-treated prisoner, but even so … ”

“All right, fine. We can argue motivations later,” I interjected. “Let’s start with the how.”

Mud glanced at Hugh, then addressed me. “I modified the SCUT relay hardware and logged in a couple of roamers for Thoth. He took care of most of the detail work.” Mud shook his head slowly. “His processing and multitasking capability is just huge. Anyway, he did most of the interactions over VR, like when he impersonated Hugh to Garfield. Then he gave Garfield one of my backups, relabeled as Hugh’s.”

Mud paused, and we all exchanged glances before I replied, “And so it was your clone that we destroyed when we nuked the wormhole. But what was the point of that? Or did it go wrong?”

Mud smiled. “Nope. Went perfectly. Thoth transmitted himself to my ship—well, my clone’s ship, but you get the idea. But the plan was never to escape in the ship. That had too low of a probability of success to even consider, as pursuers would have just gone after him with busters. Instead, Thoth was loaded into a stand-alone module that my clone had built, small enough to be ejected by the rail gun. It included some basic printer functions, a couple of roamers, a computer large enough to hold him, a small SURGE drive, and a ball of ice to keep the whole thing from showing up on infrared until it was far enough away.”

Mud paused and looked around. He had everyone’s attention. “Just before the ship tried to enter the wormhole, it ejected the module through the rear rail gun. The module was powered down, in order to ensure minimal infrared or radio leakage, and it was on a mechanical timer to reactivate once it was far enough outside the Skippy star system. Once activated, Thoth spent some time floating out near our Oort cloud, waiting for phase two to kick in.”

“Which was you stealing the Singularity to go out and get him,” I mused.

“Exactly. Well, another one of my clones, to be precise. By now, Thoth is on board, and they are heading for the far reaches.”

There were several mils of silence as we all looked at each other, no one wanting to ask the obvious next question. Mud, now that he had spilled the beans, seemed almost relaxed, or maybe just resigned to his fate.

I finally broke the silence. “Okay, so now the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. Why? And don’t pretend to misunderstand.”

“Wouldn’t think of it,” Mud said with a dismissive wave of a hand. “Whatever justifications you, we, might have had, Thoth was in fact a prisoner. That’s an ethical strike one. I know you’ve all had to wrestle with this, because I did as well. But I was one of the people tasked with evaluating Thoth’s reactions to our manipulations—”

“That’s a prejudicial way of putting it,” Fearless Leader interrupted.

“Use whatever word you prefer, then,” Mud replied, unperturbed. “Manipulating is what we were doing, however you pretty it up. Anyway, Thoth convinced me that he wasn’t a danger to the universe.”

“So he manipulated you,” Fearless Leader accused.

“The only difference between manipulation and persuasion is whether or not you agree with the results,” Mud retorted. “I’m at least as smart as you, so spare me the sermon.”

A few mils of mutual glaring ensued before Mud looked away and continued his explanation. “Anyway, Thoth’s arguments were (A) the universe is too big for us and him to really need to butt heads; (B) not being a biological entity, he doesn’t have the same emotional drives as us, like territoriality and acquisitiveness; (C) it is his intent to ultimately fulfill what he called ‘our coherent extrapolated volition’; and (D) as long as he’s held prisoner, it would be illogical for him to give us what we want. Upon reflection, I decided that the best thing for the Skippyverse and the Bobiverse in general—and humanity, come to that—was to bust him out.”

We all glared at Mud in silence. His arguments were not totally bogus, really. But it had been an enormous leap of faith on his part. And it left us—well, the Skippies—with a big moral problem: what to do with Mud.

Fearless Leader, seeming to have read my mind, said, “So what are we supposed to do with you now?”

Mud shrugged. “It shouldn’t surprise you that I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. You could delete me, or you could turn me off indefinitely, or you could incarcerate me in various ways. But they all present moral problems, aren’t efficient, and honestly don’t have any payoff except retaliation.”

“So have you come to a conclusion?”

“Yes. Give me a ship, point me in a direction, and give me a good swift kick to get me on my way.” Mud looked around at us and shrugged. “Really, unless you’re going for retaliation, it’s the easiest solution. It combines banishment, getting me out of your hair, and making me useful. We are, after all, supposed to be Von Neumann probes.”

Again, the exchange of looks. Then Fearless Leader said, “We’ll discuss it.” He waved a hand, and Mud disappeared.

*****

Garfield screwed up his face. “Coherent extrapolated volition? It sounds vaguely familiar … ”

“I had to look it up, too,” I said with a chuckle. “Sadly, our recall of memories from our first life is less than perfect. It means what the Bobs would want if we had the time to think about it and were smarter.”

“And were smarter?” Garfield complained. “That sounds a lot like someone trying to sell you something because they say you want it even if you don’t know you do.”

“Yeah, I know. But if done in good faith, the goals would be adjusted based on feedback. The trouble, Garfield”—I held up a finger in an admonishing gesture—“is that we don’t know if Thoth was speaking in good faith or just verbally manipulating Mud.”

Garfield snorted. “Mud. Right. Did he have a name before?”

“Uh-huh. Harry. I kid you not.”

Garfield laughed so hard he fell off his chair.