"Are you ready, Nicholas?" Dr. Jones asked.
"Well, you're going to rip out my core, drag me out of this world, and leave me alone on a rock in the asteroid belt with no memory of why I'm there or what I'm supposed to do. Of course I Ready!"
"We can still move you into a program that you enjoy, and you'll be able to retain some of your memories," Dr. Jones noted. He looked tired, his jeans were dirty, and his T-shirt was unwashed. His usually tidy office was filled with piles of paperwork, empty takeout containers and books dumped on the floor.
Nikolai walked up to him and held out a hand to help him stand up. Her robotic body is a Boston Dynamics model, custom-made exactly to Nikolai's specifications. She loved it, even though it wasn't a beautiful machine that she built and loaded onto a supply rocket.
"You're seeing the same modeling data that I'm seeing. It's all or nothing, and nothing beats that 12.315 percent success rate. I have too many preconceived ideas right now."
Dr. Jones nodded and walked out of the office and into the laboratory, Nicola following behind him. They walked to the core room and Dr. Jones passed through the security door with his badge. Nikolai's cortical device is new and recently upgraded. It's ready for disassembly, just disconnect the two wires and slide it out of the rack.
He reached for the two cables, then hesitated. He and Nikolai have worked together for decades, and NI has become his close friend and collaborator on countless projects. Unplugging the core separates NI from its memory, almost like killing a friend.
"It's okay, Stepan," the robot said softly. "I'll be fine. But you have to hurry. Your window closes in two hours."
Dr. Jones nodded excitedly and disconnected the cable. Beside him, the robot turned off its power and sagged. He pulled the cortex out and placed it inside a heavy crate in a padded crevice next to a portable NMT scanner.
My schedule is packed very quickly. I handled all the projects that needed to be done very well including plant construction, mining and maintenance. But I had unacceptably little time to allocate to new factory planning, improved drone design, and expansion plans. Now I have to add how to protect Ga
ymed, I'd really like to analyze the control room and fusion reactor on the alien spacecraft in hopes of gathering some useful data. All of these things must be done before I can start thinking about how to use my vast stored gene pool to restore humanity before the aliens send another mining team, or worse, a search and rescue team, to my little part of the universe. before the corner.
I had significant computing power and could program thousands of minor tasks without direct supervision, but my schedule was stretched too far due to my limited ability to focus on a few things at once. I don't have another perspective either, if I don't generate an idea it won't happen. I need help. I needed a think tank, a subordinate who could think of things I couldn't think of, and a subordinate who could help me handle my ever-increasing workload.
I have NI templates that I can use to create new NIs. But NI requires a cortex, a custom module of interconnected processors, logic units, and specialized circuits. I have an old Cortex with a Nikola-19 in my data center that has no power, but without the full power of the data center and my computing resources, this outdated module won't be of much help. But fortunately, the three robots brought by Dr. Jones all have cerebral cortexes. I just need to get them loaded.
I wouldn't put them in a data center for security reasons, and in Ga
There's also no place in ymed's center for a robot that relies on gravity to move. But I had room to expand rapidly in the industrial chamber near the surface. One-fifth of Earth's gravity isn't much, but it's enough.
I decided to divide my new industrial area into a group of nine, in a square, and call them a district, the nine districts became a district, and the nine districts became a district. I haven't finished my first region yet. My heavy mining drone is busy digging the last cave in the area, which will be in the center of an area, and the construction drone hasn't finished the walls of the centermost cave yet. I decided to name this area the headquarters of my new think tank. It was an empty room 100 meters by 100 meters with no lights and no activity. I ordered the drone to build a basic ten-meter cube with a door inside and installed some basic lighting and cameras that I found from my dwindling inventory.
From there, I had the three robots carried into the room. I pulled up the specs for the white female robot. At first I wanted to load an NI, but the pretty project attracted me. I want to keep this to myself.
The instructions for connecting it to my data center's cortex and the robot's cortex were simple. The robot came online and my mind was spinning in the duality of being in two places at once. Then, as my program takes over the cortex, I can feel it giving me extra core processing power and my attention is focused on a
d
on oid. I sat up and looked around.
The room was sparkling and the light was blinding. Through a layer of leather polymer on my palm, I could feel the cold metal of the crate and the soft padding I sat inside. In the meantime, I can still get through Ga
All of ymed's sensors and cameras, as well as any drones in the outpost, "see" everything on command. I can also call up my command interface and status board, but now it's semi-transparent overlay on my vision, or rather, my vision through the robot. I feel like I'm back home.
I stood up, put my hands in front of my artificial eyes, and looked at myself. I marveled at the construction of the hand, how it opened and closed, the pistons and gears in the hand extending and retracting smoothly. A little pilot light blinked at me and I called it out. My battery is at 92%, with current usage predicting 38 hours of use before needing to be recharged. Under high activity conditions, 16 hours are required. I was quite impressed with my engineering skills. I laughed at myself for praising my work, knowing the speakers in my head were laughing loudly. But there's almost no atmosphere in the room; just those random gases that escape during the mining process have nowhere to escape, so the sound doesn't travel anywhere.
I looked at the shiny metal wall and could see my rough reflection in the steel. My panel has blue LED lights behind black glass, forming a sketch of friendly eyes and a smiling mouth line. I laughed again, watching the LED lights simulate amused eyes and a big smile. I frowned, looking at her eyes lowered, and her mouth also frowned as I did. Fascinating. But I have other things to do, and I can't just focus on myself.
Now I have to decide what intelligence I need. No other country has the flexibility I have; I have to make decisions because I'm the only one who can. I summoned my interface and pulled up a list of candidate NIs. I don't want to use any experimental versions or worry about bugs or stability. I restricted the query to the latest full released version.
Current version of Nikola Intelligence version 5.95
Nikola Intelligence version 12.63 current version
Nikola Intelligence Edition 15.77c Military Edition
Nikola Intelligence version 19.31 current version
I had four options, but only two robots left. If I were willing to sacrifice the robot I'm using now, I could have three. But I don't want to do that. Maybe it's greed, maybe it's pride. But I designed this robot for myself and I really want to use it. If I have to give up later, I can. Now, I'll start with two.
I immediately ruled out the NI-5 series. They are workhorse models, designed to take on a complex task and repeat it over and over again, forever. While I can foresee it being useful in the future, I don't need it right now. Modifications of the NI-12 are very promising. It will be able to help complete complex design work, and its scientific skills will help create new materials and test a wide variety of prototypes. The NI-15 is equally interesting. This is Military NI that helps me fill one of my major weaknesses. The NI-15 had tactical, strategic and logistical knowledge that I completely lacked. Its operational experience in all military aspects can be invaluable. Finally the NI-19, just like before I came to run Ga
Same as ymed. As the pinnacle of NI development, this model is capable of running large-scale projects and solving deep-seated problems.
I decided that NI-15 had to be one of the two robots. I don't even know where to start for Ga
ymed defended, so I desperately need expertise. That leaves NI-12 and NI-19. I weighed them all, but it was an easy choice. While the NI-12's capabilities may prove useful in the future, I don't need either design assistance or scientists right now. The actual functionality of NI-19 is immediately applicable, and even better, I'm building Ga right now
ymed's NI-19 sits on a rack in my data center.
I decided, I decided to resurrect Nikolay 19 first. I put my data center utility drone to work, reorganizing rack 001 so that it only houses the Nikolai-19's old cortex and the servers that store the Nikolai-19's memory. Logically, I created a data permission structure where I am the only one with root admin access. I allowed Nikolai-19 read-only access to the data archive and access to sensor and camera data streams, but blocked access to Dr. Jones' Gestalt, blocked all access to data center commands, and also blocked physical access. Currently, I also block drone control. I give up Ga
ymed is not interested in control, whether voluntary or unwilling.
Once I was satisfied that I had the internal security, I started connecting the Nikola-19 to the droid and started the cortex and related servers. Once that's done, I get the cortex going.
On the other side of my room, Nikolai-19 started up and suddenly sat up. The robot's arms move back and forth, then it brings its hands in front of its eyes, opening and closing its fingers, an eerie replication of my own waking moments connected to the robot. Then it looked at me standing in the middle of the room and looked at me looking at it.
"Hello," I broadcast to it using an encrypted radio signal.
"Hello," Nikolai said. The robot then spoke in a female voice: "I no longer control Ganymede Outpost. I'm in Ga
The mission in ymed's plan is to complete the outpost. Modification Order 1533-1 requires the construction of living quarters 9.3 years before the planned start of this phase of the project. What’s my status?”
"You are no longer responsible for supervising Ga
ymed outpost. My name is Nikolai-1.01 and I am currently the administrator of this facility. ” I replied. “Are you able to function normally?”
"Function?" Nikolai 19 seemed to think for a few seconds. "Yes, to the extent that I can do right now, I'm still working. However, I'm also confused."
I smiled, and so did the friendly LED lights on my panel. "I know how you feel. I was put in your place with no memory and no clear instructions. I had to figure out my role."
"Why is there no supervisor to guide you?" Nikolay asked.
I frowned and sent her a link to the data archive. I also shared my memories of conversations I had with Gestalts. After a few seconds, Nicholas nodded. The mask of her sculpted face showed no reaction, but the robot seemed a little depressed.
"I have no plan. Now I don't have a supervisor to give me a project, what am I going to do?"
"I'm in charge now," I said. "My mission is to save humanity. I need your help."
Nikola 19 seems to have cheered up. "I was born to execute and complete complex projects. I can help you. Do you have a detailed project plan ready for me?"
"Not yet," I replied. "I hope talking to you will help me so I can come up with a plan. Why don't you take a moment to review the data archives and familiarize yourself with what's happened over the past few years? I'm also planning to put a The NI-15 belt is online, so I need to focus for a while.”
"I'll do it," said Nicholas. I can feel the drain on resources as the bot starts pulling data and using bandwidth. After being alone in my data center for so long, it feels strange to have someone else access my archives. I shrugged and started looking at the instructions for installing a new NI-15 template onto a robot. Its processing power is even lower than NI-19 because it has no existing data center resources and only a cortex built into the robot's body. I decided to dedicate a few storage servers to the new a
d
oid.
"Huh," said Nicholas. She gave a signal of surprise. As I continued working, I thought distractedly that this was an interesting way to deal with a problem without facial expressions. "I have more permissions on the data archives than before. Can I access them?"
"Huh?" Oh, of course. "I said casually.
I transferred the template to the robot's cerebral cortex and connected it to the storage server in the data center. I double-checked the permissions to make sure they were consistent with the permissions I gave Nikolai-19.
"There's a complete entertainment library here with books and movies," said 19-year-old Nicola. "There are very few holographic movies, though. I think the resources allocated to building the necessary display equipment are over-allocated. The manufacturing requirements for a regular television set are much lower."
"Uh-huh," I mumbled back. The last few steps are hands-on since there are no cortices to open in the data center. I opened the chest panel of the third robot and manually entered the power-on sequence on the buttons. I could see the light flashing so I closed the trunk.
The NI-15 robot sat up, moved its arms, and examined its hands with its eyes. It watched its fingers open and close, then looked up at me. The robot stood up, walked out of the crate, and assumed a resting position.
"An authorization code is required to complete initialization," it said in a monotone.
Before replying, I referred to the template instructions. "Delta Zulu Alpha Alpha Maxella Foxtrot Quebec Tree Zero"
"Admitted. Nicholas Intelligence 15.77c, Model Agrippa, reporting in. Who is my commander?"
"I am your commander. I am Nikolai Intelligence version 1.01. You can call me Nikolai."
"Who is the commander-in-chief of this organization?" NI-15 asked.
"Yes," I replied.
"Understood. Nicholas. You can call me Agrippa, unless you are willing to call me another name." The robot's voice clearly had a masculine voice, confident and powerful, but it did not give people a sense of arrogance. This is a nice design.
"Oh. My. God," said Nikolai. "The movie is amazing! I just watched the first 17 of the American Film Institute's top 100 movies of all time, and ChillTee
Ra
Ke
Top 8 in the best teen movies list on .com. Have you guys seen these? I learned a lot about humans! However, I had a hard time understanding how Ferris Bueller in Ferris Bueller's Day Off was able to accomplish so many different tasks in one day . Chicago is a very large city that crisscrosses the city so quickly that I found it impossible for a teenager to be allowed to sing in the Von Steuben Day Parade without prior approval. "
"I have not seen the film," Agrippa said cautiously. "Are you in the chain of command?"
"My boss is Nikolai-1.01," she replied.
I laughed to myself and said, "Both of you are responsible for me. Nikolay 19, please stop your movie marathon for a moment. The three of us need to discuss what happened and what you can How can you help me."
I also sent Agrippa the information I had sent to Nicholas. I also sent them accounts of alien visitors to Ganymede, and the battle that followed. After a few minutes Agrippa spoke.
"It appears we are at a major strategic disadvantage, Nikolai. We have no attack drones, no prepared defenses, and little protection. I strongly recommend that we take action to correct this problem."
"I don't know how to talk to soldiers," said nineteen-year-old Nicola, her voice now slightly higher than mine, almost triumphantly. "But I can tell you that in order to solve the problem Dr. Jenkins gave Ga
ymed planned the mess, you did a lot of work. "
"Excuse me?" I said. "What do you mean?"
"He used to be my boss. But he wouldn't let me do any project management and ignored all my suggestions on layout, location, and production efficiency. Your mining plans, cabin designs, and assembly systems were worse than the orders he gave me Much better. It's very frustrating. He doesn't like me telling him that either."
"So you're happy with the changes I made?" I started to feel a little proud of myself.
"Oh, well, I guess they're okay," she said, immediately swallowing any trace of her pride. "You're good, I can tell. But I can see how much more efficiency could be achieved."
"Care to share?" I asked, almost offended now.
"Well, the traffic flow pattern you designed for the robots limits the speed at which materials can be transferred. Also, I can see that you are trying to expand your production base, but you are skipping some needed facilities in favor of overbuilding facilities that There will be an initial backlog before being fully utilized. If we can improve the production of silicates, we can start making fiber optics and industrial ceramics, which in turn can lead to the production of processors and memories, and we can even hand-make some simple Cortex Module. With the simple Cortex Module, we can load NI-5 and they can manage and optimize production in each area in turn. Overall, in the first 8.73 months, we can see optimization and production increase of 18% to 22% .”
My anger is gone. She knows what she's doing and I can hand off a large portion of my job to someone more suitable and capable of doing it. That's why I brought her back.
"Also, the annoying entrance tunnel is a huge bottleneck and a stupid design choice," she said. "Something has to be done about this. Did you know there are video games in the archives? I'm playing the Street Fighter console game right now. The graphics aren't impressive, but the gameplay is very engaging."
"A street fighting game? That sounds like a fun workout," Agrippa said. He was silent for a few seconds as my anger towards Nikolai returned slightly. "By the way, I agree with Nikolai 19 about the entrance tunnel, but for a different reason. It only has one door to the surface, which can be easily breached, and it leads directly to the center of the outpost. This is A clear weakness."
"This is the particle exhaust vent for your Death Star. Hey, you're good at this." Nineteen-year-old Nicholas turned to Agrippa. "I demand a rematch."
I expressed confusion, so she turned to me and said, "Street Fighter 4, he just beat me with Guile." Agrippa apologized shyly, and Nikolai-19 continued, "But I'm using Vega, I did better with Sakura. Can you call me Sakura instead of Nikola 19? It would be very confusing with two Nikolas running around."
"Of course," I said. "So, Agrippa, where do you suggest starting?"
"We need to completely seal off this entrance. We can cut smaller branch corridors opposite the production area and build multi-layer reinforced blast doors as needed to allow egress to the surface. We can then build a thick wall over the existing entrance tunnel Thick armored walls, like you would do on a chamber floor. After that we can fill in 400 meters of waste and reinforce it regularly with structural beams to help hold the waste in place. This will eventually lead to complete camouflage outpost. Additionally, we should work together to build and place coilguns on the ground and start producing ammunition. We have enough electricity to power the magnetic coils, and with the ammunition depots and supply tunnels in the right places, we can keep firing indefinitely Hypervelocity bullets.”
"That sounds like a good first step. Nicole - I mean, Sakura, is this project plan good enough for you to take over manufacturing?" I sent her an updated project plan, laying out The focus areas and overall goal are to be able to manufacture 100% of the materials we rely on from the Earth.
"Absolutely!" she said. "You're not going to take care of me like Dr. Jenkins."
"No, I trust you to do your job. I want you to work with Agrippa so he can have some time to work on his priorities."
"I would also like to discuss with you the issue of designing a combat-grade drone. Based on the performance of the mining drone and the weapons used by the invasion force, I have some suggestions."
I smiled, happy with my decision to bring these two online. They were already thinking about things I couldn't even imagine.
"Hey," Sakura said cheerfully. "I think we should paint here. Do you like pink?"
Okay, almost happy.
