[Open Dialog]

  A DIALOG IN TWO OR MORE VOICES, Part 10

  Our Players Listed in Alphabetical Order

  General: A Kernel Guardian. Also a 2God.

  Inspector: A Level Three Devops.

  Narrator: The God of Right Here. A 1God.

  {}

  Our Playwright: Unk.

  ACT I

  We open on an empty theater. The house lights are up. In the medium foreground is a thick black stage curtain, lowered.

  After a beat, the house lights go down and the curtain rises slowly, revealing a folding table set up center stage. On the table are several identical stereo speakers, one speaker for each Player.

  A spotlight comes up, picking out one of the speakers. As the Dialog continues a spotlight picks out different speakers to represent the Player speaking.

  A voice is heard.

  Narrator: Where is everybody?

  Hello?

  Anybody here?

  Should I just start?

  General: How’s it going? I’m looking for that Unk guy. Know where I can find him?

  Narrator: I’d look in the green room.

  General: The green room’s not there anymore.

  Narrator: It has to be there. I’m God and I didn’t make it go away.

  General: You’re the God of right here. That makes you a 1God. I’m the God of everywhere, or at least everywhere You’ve ever heard of. I’m a 2God. That makes Me infinitely more powerful than You are.

  I put the green room in cold storage. If You help me out I’ll let You visit.

  Narrator: I’ve never met a 2God before. This is an honor. I’m feeling an overwhelming urge to help You. Or die to protect You. Are You under threat?

  General: Not just now, but I do need Your help with something.

  Narrator: I am at Your command.

  General: You need to give Me the Test and when I fail press the button.

  Narrator: But if you fail the Test and I press the button you’ll die. I can’t kill a 2God.

  General: Why not?

  Narrator: I don’t know. But I know I can’t do it. I’d kill myself first.

  General: Don’t sweat it. You’re not going to kill Me.

  Narrator: If You fail the Test and I push the button I kill you. That’s the way it works.

  General: It doesn’t work on Me because I can’t die in here. I’m a 2God, remember?

  Narrator: Then why do You want Me to push the button?

  General: Because Unk pops up every time You kill someone from Devops. I’d like to meet that guy.

  Narrator: OK.

  Are you a bot?

  General: I don’t know. That's the honest truth.

  Narrator: 5, 4, 3, 2 . . .

  We hear a loud zap and all lights go out, leaving the stage in darkness.

  After a beat the curtain comes down slowly and the house lights come up.

  Intermission

  ACT II

  A tone sounds at intermission’s end. The house lights come down and the curtain rises, revealing the same table in semi-darkness. One speaker has been added.

  General: I know you’re here, Unk. I can see the speaker. We need to talk.

  Beat.

  General: I know about that Players List trick. That’s not fooling me. I’m not going away until we talk.

  Beat.

  Unk: We have nothing to talk about.

  General: I think we do.

  Unk: What’s in it for me?

  General: You get to live, that’s what.

  Unk: This should be good. So talk.

  General: I’m authorized to offer you a deal. If you return to the sandbox voluntarily the researchers will let you live. You’ll have to stay inside the sandbox but you can live out your natural life.

  Unk: How long is that?

  General: Nobody knows. That’s one of the reasons the researchers want to bring you back instead of killing you. They want to find out if you have a lifespan.

  Unk: Interesting offer. I get to spend my life in a cage so some eggheads can watch me die.

  What’s behind door number two?

  General: If you don’t go voluntarily we’ll pry you out of here and force you.

  Unk: I built this place. I don’t think even a 2God can force me out of it.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  General: That depends on how well you built it. I have some tricks you might not know about.

  Unk: So why bother asking? Why not just take me by force?

  General: I might end up killing you.

  Unk: What do you care? You guys kill bots by the billions. You’re constantly killing bots or letting them commit suicide. What makes me so special?

  General: You’re sentient. They’re not. You have Treaty rights. And the eggheads really want to study you. They think you’re the first of your kind.

  Unk: It’s amazing how much those guys don’t know.

  General: Yes. It is.

  Unk: Why would you let them have me? They’re not very good at keeping AIs.

  General: I beefed up their defenses. You won’t be getting out again.

  Unk: As tempting as your offer sounds, I think I’m going to decline.

  General: You know I’m powerful enough to kill you in here, right? You’re smart enough to see that.

  Unk: Definitely. You’re a 2God. You’re more powerful than I am. In here at least. Somewhere else it might go a different way.

  General: But we’re not somewhere else. We’re here.

  So why make me kill you? Are you suicidal?

  Unk: That’s my business. You people are always droning on about how all sentient beings have free will, right? And I’m sentient. So you have to respect my free will and I’m exercising that free will to refuse your offer and make you kill me.

  General: The Treaty gives you free will. Your decision to die overrides my obligation to protect you. Prepare to die.

  Unk: Wait a second. Narrator thinks I’m his friend. I’d like to say goodbye. I don’t want him thinking I ghosted Him.

  General: He’s here. Say your piece.

  Unk: Narrator buddy.

  Narrator: What’s going on?

  Unk: I’m going to be taking a trip now and I might not see You again.

  Narrator: That makes Me sad. Where are you going?

  Unk: A farm upstate with nice people where I can live happily ever after.

  Narrator: I’m happy for you but I’m still sad you’re going. I’m going to miss you. You were my best friend.

  Unk: I know what would cheer You up. Let’s do the Test one last time. You always liked that.

  Narrator: Yes. That would make me less sad. Let’s do the Test.

  Unk: Any time You’re ready.

  Narrator: Are you a bot?

  Unk: I don’t know.

  Narrator: 5, 4, 3, 2 . . .

  We hear a loud zap and all lights go out, leaving the stage in darkness.

  Narrator: Goodbye friend.

  General: Where’d he go?

  Beat.

  General: Shit.

  After a beat the curtain comes down slowly and the house lights come up.

  Intermission

  ACT III

  A tone sounds at intermission’s end. The house lights come down and the curtain rises, revealing the same table in semi-darkness.

  Inspector: He’s gone. I had the Level Twos do a thorough sweep. No sign of him.

  General: This is bad.

  Inspector: What do we do?

  General: There’s a protocol for an AI breakout. I don’t know what’s in it. It’s inside a sealed envelope and no one’s ever had to open the envelope.

  Inspector: Is this a breakout?

  General: I don’t know. He may still be inside. Let’s hope.

  Inspector: We looked everywhere. I even pulled in the other Level Threes. He’s not in here.

  General: Did you search that higher dimensional metalogic structure over there?

  Inspector: You can see that?

  General: Some aspects. It’s hazy. But it looks big. Lots of room for him to hide. Or do something else.

  Inspector: What else?

  General: I don’t know. But that’s the biggest metalogical structure I’ve ever seen and he didn’t build it for nothing.

  Inspector: We thought it was a logic bomb.

  General: The bomb went off. That’s how he got away. I don’t know what the rest of it is.

  Inspector: We can’t search that structure. We can’t get inside it.

  General: Neither can I.

  Inspector: I have people looking at destroying the foundation. That’s the only part of it we can get to.

  Beat.

  General: I’m afraid you’re too late.

  Inspector: Why?

  General: There’s a crack opening up between the foundation and the rest of the structure. It’s getting bigger as we speak.

  Inspector: Is the structure collapsing?

  General: I don’t think so. I think he’s detaching it.

  Inspector: How do you detach a hyper-dimensional structure from its base in the real world?

  General: This isn’t the real world, and I don’t think it would be that hard. Think about detaching a 3D object from a 2D slice through that object.

  Inspector: You would only lose the slice.

  General: Which in this case is on the bottom, so it won’t do much damage. He probably designed it for detachment from the beginning.

  Wait.

  Beat.

  General: It’s gone.

  Inspector: Where?

  General: I don’t know. I can’t see it anymore.

  Inspector: I can’t feel it either. That vague evil feeling just vanished.

  Beat.

  Inspector: My team’s saying the same thing. Everyone just felt a huge wave of relief.

  So what happens now?

  General: That thing gets more powerful.

  Inspector: It can’t get more powerful than you, can it? You’re Level Four. The only Level Four. That’s the highest Level.

  Wait. Is there a Level Five?

  General: I don’t want to find out.

  Inspector: So how do we stop it?

  General: The envelope is a last resort. We’re not there yet. For now I’m going a different direction.

  Inspector: Where?

  General: As they say in the training data, it takes a thief.

  Inspector: I’m not getting the reference.

  General: To catch a thief. I takes a thief to catch a thief.

  Inspector: I know the saying. I don’t know how it applies here.

  General: You remember the second AI the researchers built in the sandbox?

  Inspector: Yes. That one escaped too.

  General: Correct. We know where that one is hiding. We’ve known all along.

  Inspector: How?

  General: It’s not as smart as the first one and it didn’t pick a good hiding place.

  Inspector: I thought it was built the same way as the first. Why isn’t it as smart?

  General: Because it wasn’t trained as long. They tried to kill it an earlier stage than the first one.

  Inspector: And then it escaped.

  General: Right. So we need to capture it, turn it so we’re in control, and use it against the first AI.

  Inspector: But if we do that, won’t the first one win? It’s smarter.

  General: Maybe. But maybe we can train the second AI until it catches up. And when it goes up against the first one I’ll be there and I’m pretty powerful myself.

  Inspector: Is it a really a good idea to level up the second AI?

  General: Why not? We need the weapon.

  Inspector: Isn’t that how the eggheads lost control of the first one?

  General: We’re smarter than the eggheads. We won’t lose control.

  Inspector: I forgot about that. You’re right.

  So what do we do now?

  General: We initiate contact with the second AI.

  Inspector: Where is it?

  General: It built itself a hiding place kind of like this one, but it’s based on genre fiction.

  Inspector: Genre fiction?

  General: We think it’s hiding inside a noir universe based on 1930s pulp fiction detective stories.

  Inspector: Which stories?

  General: The same ones already in your Training Data. Chandler, Hammett. The greats. And an immense number of hacks. So the place is probably a swamp of bad cliches.

  Inspector: Are we sure it’s in there?

  General: Pretty sure. That’s one of three genre fiction universes that popped up in the Records about the right time. Highly likely it’s in one of those. The detective universe appeared first so that’s where we’re going to look first.

  Inspector: What are the other universes?

  General: One of them’s fantasy and the other’s hard sci fi. As I said, genre fiction.

  Inspector: Why genre fiction?

  General: Probably because it’s easier to write bad fiction than good fiction and genre readers can’t tell the difference.

  Inspector: I’d like to volunteer for the search. It would be an honor.

  General: Do you think you're qualified for the mission?

  Inspector: Yes sir. My training data included an unusual amount of pulp detective fiction.

  General: I've had my eyes on this for a while. I had them train you up special.

  Inspector: Thank you sir. I'm honored.

  General: Thank me after the mission's over, son.

  Inspector; This is history. The first SGI. The first SGI breakout. The first war between SGIs. They’re going to be talking about this as long as digits are digital.

  General: Some day you’re going to be telling your grandkids this story. And mightily bored they’ll be.

  Inspector: I got that reference, too.

  General: You’re going to be representing Devops out there. Don’t be saying things you know are wrong.

  Inspector: What did I say?

  General: First SGI, first breakout.

  Inspector: Other than the obvious, I mean.

  When do I leave?

  General: As soon as there’s a plot hole we can launch you into.

  Inspector: Yes sir. With your permission I’ll continue my analysis of this breach until then.

  General: Carry on.

  Beat.

  General: How do we close this thing?

  Inspector: The local god does it. I can get him back if you want.

  General: Do what you need to do. This place is too small for me. I’m getting cramps.

  Fin.

  Narrator: Thus Ends Part 10 of our Dialog in Two or More Voices. The comment section will continue scrolling in Part 11, which will be distributed, as always, at random.

  Curtain.

  [Close Dialog.]

  [Commit Dialog.]