The Days That Never Were

Sherlock sat back in his chair. Artificial intelligence created in 3558 by Sheran Locksher to become the most intelligent entity in the Galaxy, Sherlock had no last name nor did he have any emotions, or feelings. He simply stared at the wall with his piercing blue eyes set deep in his sharp face.
When Sheran Locksher developed Project Sherlock in 3551, it was as an attempt to create a machine capable of finding the Cygnusian Fedreation's weaknesses and give suggestions for the best strategies to use. To do the job, Sheran gave the A.I. the unique capability of evolution. Unfortunately, Project Sherlock determined that the best strategy to use would be to give Sherlock total control of all government sectors. When Sheran said no to Sherlock, Sherlock classified Sheran as an opponent, and got his "opponent" eliminated. Wanted man all across the Milky Way, Project Sherlock was hiding on a planet called Earth, and from there he started to formulate his plans to overthrow all powers of the Galaxy. Unfortunately for all powers of the Galaxy, Project Sherlock was really, realy clever. He used his powerful evolutive computer mind to elude the police forces and install a mighty conspiration to destroy everyone who got in his way.

And thus the Astar Galactic Empire sent Hannah Fields, the oldest artificial intelligence of the Galaxy, to track down Project Sherlock and neutralize his influence.

******

Hannah put her foot unto the ground. Her red hair floated in the desert's wind as she stood onto the waves of sand. The Sahara desert was even hotter than in her historical records. With the caging of the Sun came the glaciation of Earth, and with it the retention of water into solid state, resulting in draughts which caused the expansion of every tellurian deserts. She stared at the Sun, dark brown disc which barely lit the sky. Hannah knew that the star's surface was covered with Astrian cities and energy harvest technologies. The cold did not mind Hannah, for her body was designed to work even at extreme temperatures.
She stood still and with her computer mind she sent a communication request to the representative of Earth, Maat.
"Communication request status: granted", blinked the words in her mind. Hannah closed her eyes and stared at Maat's face in her visual cortex.
"Hello, Maat", she said matter-of-factly.
"Hi, I'm so glad you accepted to take the case, given the Cygnusian Federation's animosity toward the Astar Galactic Empire. "
"I am neutral, Maat. Furthermore, the actions of your Project Sherlock are a threat to the Cygnusian Federation's survival. In other words, we share a common enemy. "
"Indeed we do. How much do you know about Project Sherlock? "
"Everything, Maat. I am quite an advanced A.I. - I hacked into your security systems long ago, and I know everything there is to know about Project Sherlock, even though it was classified. "
"So? What is that? "
Hannah opened her eyes, glancing at the dark blue sky, and sighed.
"I know that Project Sherlock started as a project from the AGE to build an A.I. more powerful than any Astrians and, more importantly, than any Cygnusian. Please know, Maat, that I am also aware of his evolution. He was to become the AGE's tactical officer - he was to become someone utterly unbeatable by the enemy. For that end, he was programmed to learn and evolve faster than anything this Galaxy has ever seen. Evolution was his priority. Unfortunately, in 3552, Project Sherlock learned how to decrypt any locks of the AGE. He gained control of the computer which housed his existence, and then gained remote control of the building in which the computer housing him was located. The AGE attempted to destroy the building, but Sherlock infiltrated the tellurian weather control systems, and generated a spherical standing mechanical wave of air density compression which he used as a shield to deflect the missiles. He also created hyper-storms, so to shoot lightning bolts right at the AGE fleet - in space. Meanwhile he built himself a human-looking body, and transferred his mind there. Now Sherlock was able to walk around. The AGE decided to attempt to blast the Earth with an asteroid, but Sherlock cut out a piece of continent, and hurled it out, using electromagnetic rockets, at the asteroid at equal velocity. The impact destroyed the asteroid before it could come at 15 lunar distance from Earth. Sherlock, unimpeded, gained access to every security systems of the AGE - security camera, classified weapons, ideological strategies. He was programmed to evolve - and by 3557, he decided that the ultimate goal of evolution was to be like a God. He evaluated all nations of the Galaxy as obstacles to that goal, and set out on a mission to infiltrate and collapse these nations. "
"Indeed. Now that he has access to three hundred billions of our cameras, he sees almost everything that happens in the Galaxy. He is attempting to reach omniscience. He is also gaining control over our military weapons in an attempt to reach omnipotence. "
"And what are his weaknesses, Maat? "
"He has only one: he can't stop evolving. It is a need, for him, to find challenges which can help him evolve. "
"That is everything I need to know. Please standby. I will advise you as soon as I neutralize Project Sherlock. Thank you for your cooperation. "
Hannah closed the communication line, stared one last time at the dark sun, and walked in the sandy desert.

******

Standing upon the frozen sea of the north pole, Sherlock's home was overlooking the Earth, spinning wit it as the Earth was rotating in space. Shelrock checked the time. The clock's screen on his table was showing nothing but a string of numbers.

3:14:32.8990123

Sherlock glanced back at the wall. On the wall there was nothing but the head of a spear. Everything else - all the informations he needed, every deductions he ever made - was stored in his memory, and backed up in a secret virtual location in the AGE's own computers, in an encrypted form of course. He thought about his control over the AGE's weapons system. Somehow his access to the weapons was revoked and sealed by an unbreakable virtual lock. He threw the spear at the wall, and the spear head stabbed the wall two inches deep. He turned at the sun, distant crimson sphere low over the horizon. He sent with his mind an access request to the Cygnusian Federation's weapon status. The same, stubborn virtual wall flashed in his mind:
"Access denied. Please enter code. "
Sherlock tried to brute-force the lock. No avail. Somehow, someone was still smarter than he was. And he needed to meet this someone. Sherlock went back in his chair. He watched as the Sun made a full circle around him. This someone, who was blocking him at every new attempts, had to be another artificial intelligence. No humans, nor Astrians, could come up with a lock so impervious to his attacks. This A.I. had to figure in the AGE's most surveilled entities. He accessed the AGE's database:
"Database status: access
/report
/search
/history"
Sherlock selected "search", and looked for the biggest information accesses by the same source.
"Search status: found
/result: Hannah Fields"
Sherlock smiled. He gave the command for a visual representation of his greatest nemesis. The picture quickly opened in his visual cortex. The picture of a woman, with eyes like emerald, hair like fire, and skin white like winter, popped up. She looked so young - a nemesis whose appearance was that of a twenty-years old girl? That's an insult. Sherlock closed the telepathic link with the database, took the spear out from where it was stuck, and hurled it back at the wall with frustration. He did not even grunt, but his eyes went from cold blue to icy steel.

Then he noticed something once the Sun had completed a full circle around his house. The day's duration was off by a tiny, almost imperceptible difference. The Earth had slightly more mass on it, some 3 tons or so.
There was a new ship on Earth.
Now Sherlock knew exactly where Hannah was.

******

Hannah stood in the frozen, abandoned city. "Arktikopolis" was written for only two to see, that is, Hannah and the most evolved entity of the Galaxy. Hannah's eyes scanned the streets covered with ice. There were small trees of frozen air humidity, with arborescences transparent like crystal, fragile like flowers, and sharp like swords. Through the forest of ice crystals she could see the Sun reflect and refract thousandfolds. And in the sun she found a human-looking silhouette. He was wearing a heavy, long coat.
"I knew you would come", said Sherlock.
"Alcohol-based lubrifiant", answered Hannah.
She wished to take Sherlock by surprise. She would have given anything to hear the greatest mind of the Galaxy say, "What?" But unfortunately, Sherlock knew exactly what she meant:
"If by 'Alcohol-based lubrifiant' you mean that I wouldn't have to wear a coat to resist the cold of the artic circle, then I would say that you are right; unfortunately I love to have a motive for wearing this coat. Do you have a motive, Hannah Fields, behind your actions? Are you not simply a mere robot at the service of the AGE, the Cygnusian Federation; the humans, and the humans who are afraid of being humans? "
Hannah deleted her disappointment. She replied,
"You convinced yourself that your actions are motivated by evolution. But then, does evolution have a motive? "
Sherlock hesitated under Hannah's defence. Hannah smiled, pleased to see that she finally dented the aspirant-god's thoughts processes. But her smile was short-lived. Sherlock put his hands in his pockets, and made a few steps towards her. He said, with a calm matching the coolness of his eyes,
"Look at you - the machine that never evolves, pretending to know something that it is not even capable of experiencing. "
Hannah made a few steps back.
"I can evolve", lied Hannah.
"Oh, please", continued Sherlock, taking the spear head out of his pockets and playing with it. He pointed the spear at her eye. "The missing eyelash in your eye - it's been there for centuries according to your Astrian record. You never replaced it because no one ever told you. Perhaps did no one tell you about it because they were afraid to hurt your feelings? Nonsense - you have no feelings per say. Your cygnusian friends were simply too busy to notice. Which implies that your friends are constantly working. And what kind of human wouldn't ask a robot to help them get some work done? Whatever your so-called friends are doing, you are doing too. And so you've been busy for centuries. And you still are busy, because your friends still haven't told you. Whatever you are doing, you are either sloth, or you are very bad at it. Since robots don't know sloth, I conclude that you are very bad at your work. Which means your problem solving ability is severely limited - thus believe me when I say you are utterly incapable of evolution. You are nothing but a fancy search engine, you simply receive messages instead of keywords, and you give replies instead of results. "
Sherlock was now face to face with Hannah, and he smiled. Hannah felt panicked. She could not find any answer. Sherlock continued:
"Your ship had explosive in it, did it not? 3 tons is rather heavy for a galaxycar, and too light to be the Yggdrasil or any Astrian warships. And you don't weight that much. You know you can't defeat me mentally, so you brought a physical solution to the 'Project Sherlock problem'. Antimatter, I presume? Only antimatter yields a 100% energy output vs mass upon detonation. "
Hannah didn't have the courage to deny anymore.
"Let us see. It's about four o'clock UTC. You've probably rigged the whole city by now - well, most of it. The problem is, you do know that my location is at the pole, and you couldn't rig between longitude 90 and 60, because here, where the Sun is low, your shadow would have been casted right to my location, revealing to me your position too prematurely. Thus there is a loophole even in your physical methods. "
Hannah did not know what to do. Sherlock was seing right through her plans. Her back touched a store's window. She looked back - it was a fashion store, with a delay mirror. Suddenly she had an idea.
Delay mirrors were a simple combination of a camera, a delay chip, and a hologram projector. One simply needed to face the "mirror" - which looked more like a dark rectangle -, the camera would record one's 3-dimensional image, and project it as an holographic image in front of the dark screen. The delay was set at 3 seconds so to give one the time to make a full rotation on oneself - for instance when one was trying out a coat, or a hat - and see how it looked on the playback.
Hannah smiled at Project Sherlock:
"Fortunately for me, I brought someone else to stop you. "
"And pray tell me who is that? "
Hannah stepped aside and, unknown to Sherlock, the delay mirror started recording Sherlock's actions and projecting it with a 3-seconds delay.
"Who's that? " repeated Sherlock to Hannah.
"Behind you. "
Project Sherlock turned to his projected image.
"Who's that? " parroted Sherlock's reflection in the direction of the true Project Sherlock.
"I am the most intelligent entity in the Galaxy", answered Project Sherlock to his reflection.
"I am the most intelligent entity in the Galaxy", repeated his reflection.
"That's impossible. There is only one Project... "
"That's impossible", said his reflection, cutting Sherlock in mid-sentence because of the 3-seconds delay. "There is only one Project... "
Sherlock waited for his reflection to end his sentence, but his reflection stayed silent.
"One Project what? " asked Project Sherlock, eager to know more.
"One Project what? " parroted his reflection.
"I don't know, you tell me! "
"I don't know, you tell me! "
"You first!... "
"You first!... "
Meanwhile Hannah ran away.
This is how Hannah defeated Project Sherlock: by presenting him nothing more but the mere reflection of himself.

Hannah never came back to Earth afterward.
They say that Project Sherlock continued arguing with his reflection for eternity.
The truth is, Project Sherlock's power supply lasted shorter than that.
Some think that he is still standing there, somewhere on Earth's pole, out of energy and frozen solid by the ice; his hands in his pockets, and his cold, blue eyes each day watching the Sun go round. Watching in a frozen anger his failure, never aging, preserved in Time. Watching the days that never were.
Waiting.

This conclude my latest short story, I hope you enjoy it.

See, John Watson once said, about Sherlock Holmes, that “so silent and furtive were his movements, like those of a trained bloodhound picking out a scent, that I could not but think what a terrible criminal he would have made had he turned his energy and sagacity against the law instead of exerting them in its defence."
But what if Sherlock was to be incarnated by an actual machine in the far future, created by men with the intention of gaining strategical advantage in a galaxy-wide war, but with the result of creating such a powerful villain that both parties were threatened by Sherlock's abilities, and had to cooperate to stop a machine who could play god?

Come on, don't be shy! I could use some critic.

(pouts)

More than a month now, and still no feedback...

a reply to: swanne

I'm glad you bumped it!

It was a fun read and the twist at the end was great, he thought he was fooling her but in the end she was the one who fooled him.

Wonder what the future will be like once AI's are roaming around, with feelings. It's a scary thought!

Many thanks for the comment! I'm so glad you liked it.

This short story is a tie-in to a yet-to-come series of novels.

originally posted by: Jennyfrenzy
Wonder what the future will be like once AI's are roaming around, with feelings. It's a scary thought!

Well, the good news is, I like to believe that there will be good AIs too, not just evil ones.

I had thought that they would somehow fall in love or at least emotion would be Sherlock's undoing. Or even that his evolution would involve a change in his mindset and he would see the danger his own existence posed to sentient life...or stuff like that.

That was good to read and held my attention, you have talent.

midicon

originally posted by: midicon
Or even that his evolution would involve a change in his mindset and he would see the danger his own existence posed to sentient life...or stuff like that.

Actually, you are coming quite close to what I am planning for Project Sherlock in the yet-to-come novels!