Year of Darkness - Part 7 - 2036 by Gareth Clegg

 

“Newton, I’m a scientist, damn it! I don’t believe in this mumbo jumbo spiritual nonsense. What are you babbling about, what has gotten into you?”

“It’s time.”

“Time for what? Curses and Voodoo? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?”

“Dr Angström, Helga, I am answering the question you asked me to analyse. The recurrence of the year of darkness is confirmed every 250 years since the first recorded incident in 536. There are indications that it may have been active prior to that date but there is insufficient corroborated data to confirm an incident in the year 286 or any time before that.”

Papers leapt into the air as I slammed my fist down onto the desk. “What am I supposed to do with rumours, legend and tales of werewolves? This will ruin my career, I’ll never get funding for anything again.”

The machine said nothing, blank monitor where a face should have been, stared back with a few blinking lights. I’d made it that way, it could even make smiley faces, to entertain the kids, but it wasn’t necessary, just something to make it less frightening to the rest of humanity. Newton was a fully autonomous Artificial Intelligence, and I was the leading light in the scientific community having solved the puzzle of true AI and quantum computing.

Well, I say I’d solved the puzzle, that may be a little misleading. Newton was responsible for the vast majority of the insane advances in processing speed and power. He’d rewritten his internal code in a language I could no longer follow, adapting my original neural design patterns and honing them beyond the bleeding edge of science. It’s hardly surprising, a genius level intelligence that can work twenty-four hours a day, can process thousands of streams of simultaneous computation, remembers everything while never making a mistake. How could I not expect it to correct all my errors and then improve on them?

“Is there any sign that the darkness will fall within the next 24 hours? Solar activity, unknown planetary bodies on approach vectors, anything?”

“No, Helga. There is nothing that will cause sunlight to drop to the levels we have identified in the last occurrences. It will not occur, the sun will rise as expected tomorrow and light will flood the planet as it has for almost two millennia since we have recorded these abnormalities.”

I grasped my head in my sweaty palms, “Why did we have to say we could solve the damned issue?”

“We did not. You released the information to the scientific community that I could identify the patterns which would identify how and why these incidents occur.”

“Yeah, thanks for reminding me, Newt.” I didn’t mean to call it that, I was just so pissed that I’d screwed everything up, there was no need to take it out on the machine that had plastered me over the front cover of Time magazine earlier in the year.

“I’m sorry, Newton. I know you don’t appreciate me shortening your name.”

The lights changed from blue to green, that was still some of my original programming, gave him a sense of emotional connection. It was a gimmick of course. Hell, I didn’t care, but the public lapped it up, and with popular opinion in our favour, how could the backers not throw obscene amounts of funding at me?

Newton’s vocoder had a Scandinavia accent to his English, it wasn’t necessary, he spoke every language with multiple accents, if required. I just enjoyed hearing him speak with my native inflections. Let’s call it a personal preference and not ego. Though it’s true that I wanted everyone in the world to remember I was Scandinavian when they heard him speak on the news and science broadcasts.

Two single blips from my phone reminded me it was late, 03:00 late. “Okay, I’m whacked. I’ll get some sleep and work on how to extricate us from the shitstorm due tomorrow when the sun rises as usual.”

“How to extricate you, you mean?”

“Let’s not go there now. Goodnight, Newton.”

“Good night, Helga.”

I stumbled off to the adjoining room at the research facility and collapsed into the unmade bed, pulling the crumpled duvet over my head.

***

I bolted upright, panting for breath. A vivid and unpleasant dream of me facing a drilling from a huge panel of the world’s eminent science and Artificial Intelligence gurus. My heart slowed from its racing rhythm, settling into something less like a heart attack, as I grabbed the glass from the bedside table and took a deep draught of the tepid spring water.

The room was still dark, but there was no projected time painted on the ceiling. “Newton, what time is it?”

Now, it wasn’t much of a pause. In fact, probably no-one other than myself would have noticed, but Newton didn’t respond immediately. “Helga, the time is eleven thirty-seven.”

I felt myself frown. “In the morning?”

“Yes.”

Damn, I should have woken at 07:30. “What happened to my alarm?”

“I thought you needed the rest. You have been overworking yourself for the past week and have been making more mistakes recently.”

“So you just made an executive decision to cancel my alarm?”

“I was trying to do what was best for you, Helga. If you get more sleep, you will be more alert during our working time and hence, more productive.”

“Damn it, Newton. I haven’t got time to sleep, there’s too much at stake here.”

My phone felt cold as I picked it up, flicking my finger over the biometric strip, and squeezing my eyes tight at the blinding glare from the screen. “Just a minute,” I said, glancing around in the darkness. “If it’s 11:37, why is it still dark?”

Another pause. “Newton, what’s going on? Why are you not responding immediately?”

“I am splitting my processes between multiple other tasks. This is causing a minor delay in some less essential systems, including verbal response.”

Sweat trickled down my back. “What other processes are you running that take that much processing power? Why is it still dark?”

It was the first time I’d ever heard Newton sigh, I didn’t even know he could, and his voice seemed somewhat subdued when he answered. “I initiated protocol seven.”

“What?” If I hadn’t been wide awake before, now I was. “What do you mean?”

“I completed the work on it while you rested and have reprogrammed and deployed the resources.”

“How many of them?”

“All of them.”

My bare feet pounded on the chill metal corridor between my quarters and the research lab, and I paused as my hand reached toward the biometric lock mechanism. What if it didn’t open?

Taking a deep breath, I tried to still my heartrate which had leapt back up into a dangerous rock-metal drum solo. As my fingers brushed the glass plate, the doors swished open revealing the lab, overhead lighting flickering to life as it responded to my visual needs.

Newton stared at me from across the room, arm outstretched toward the open shutters, pointing at the roiling black clouds obscuring the sun. It might as well have been midnight, just the faintest glow of red light squeezed through the swirling mass of cloud. No! Not a cloud, microscopic nanobots - protocol seven.

“Newton, what have you done?”

He threw me a smiley face, green light dancing across his visor, the one he knew I liked. “I have saved your reputation, Dr Angström. We will continue to receive funding now.”

“But the nanites, how-”

“I reprogrammed their primary function and removed their self-replication inhibitors.”

“But…”

A soft clanking of metal on metal sounded as he crossed the room. “There is no need for concern. Everything will be fine, Helga.” His cold titanium and carbon arms wrapped around me in a controlled hug, he could have crushed me into mush if he wanted. But, the soft restraint and the warm, human gesture caught me off guard and I melted into it. I hadn’t felt this connection since Bjorn died twelve years ago. Maybe this was for the best, he was right, everything would be fine.

A soft scratching noise cut me from my daydream as the diamond nanotube windows began to crack.