Spacejunk! The Hunt for AI: Spacejunk!, #1

By Rebecca Zettl

Clumsy, hapless and inexperienced, Syd Hawkes is a far cry from the superstar bounty hunters she aspires to be like. When the galaxy's leading technology conglomerate's new AI is stolen, they call in the best to get it back. Syd is not one of them. But A random coincidence offers her a shot at the contract: her chance to break into the big time. Romping through space in an ancient ship and filled with unwarranted optimism, Syd will encounter fierce competition, weird catastrophes and a strange new friend. But when Syd learns that the AI is not what she thinks, can she still do what it takes to step up to the big leagues? 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rebecca Zettl
• Release date: Aug 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9780648867319

Book preview

Rebecca Zettl

Spacejunk! The Hunt for AI

Copyright © 2020 by Rebecca Zettl

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

First edition

ISBN: 978-0-6488673-1-9

This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

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Contents

1. Gdrrngxk Has a Problem

2. Hunger Pains

3. Gdrrngxk Has a Plan

4. A Bad Idea

5. A Long Walk

6. What’s the Damage

7. A Strange Encounter

8. A Plan

9. A Proposal

10. Deal

11. Can You Fly This Thing?

12. Zion Five

13. Homecoming

14. Look! A Diversion!

15. Getting Paid

16. Promises to Keep

17. Miles to Go

18. False Pretences

19. Plan B

20. A Woman Scorned

21. The Inside Man

22. Welcome to Cacta Minor

23. Fresh Start

24. Drinking Buddies

25. Make a Run for It

26. Aiding and Abetting

27. Are You Thick?

28. Mayday

29. Dead in the Water

30. Sit Tight

31. Cut Loose

32. Something Drastic

33. I Can Explain!

34. Woof

Epilogue

About the Author

1

Gdrrngxk Has a Problem

Gdrrngxk had a problem. In truth, Gdrrngxk had many problems. Not least of all the fact that on the human-designed space station where he lived and worked, nothing was designed to suit his giant Andorian frame. Or the fact that not one person he’d met could pronounce his proper Andorian name. It was a particular combination of a guttural growl and a delicate clicking of the lower oral mandible, and despite the best efforts of a few well-meaning acquaintances, it remained unpronounceable by humans and other non-insectoid races. One Jemnian had gotten close once, managing a fair approximation of the name.

Unfortunately, due to the precision demanded by the Andorian language, what the Jemnian actually succeeded in uttering was a phrase that, roughly translated, meant ‘your mother is a badly patterned armchair’. Given the lack of armchairs on Andor, badly patterned or otherwise, the comment was more confusing than insulting. Nonetheless, Gdrrngxk found it necessary to settle for a human name, ‘Gary’. A rather poor substitute for the richness of his real name, but that wasn’t the problem currently troubling him.

Of those, there were two. One was the small, unappealing simulacrum circling an invisible dot on his desktop. It was a robot designed to resemble and behave like a small Earth canine, minus a few of the more disgusting bodily functions. Vicky had asked him hours earlier to mind it for her while she went on holiday.

‘I wouldn’t bother you with it,’ she’d said, ‘but my sister normally minds him and she’s not well, you see . . .’

After a long—and to Gdrrngxk’s mind, irrelevant—interlude regarding the health of Vicky’s sister, she sprang her trap: ‘. . . and you’ve been such a good friend, Gary, I just know I can rely on you.’

Gdrrngxk, who was surprised to hear that he’d been any such thing, nonetheless felt a strange obligation to comply, and wondered if this was what humans referred to as a ‘guilt trip’. He resolved to learn this tactic from Vicky when she returned. ‘You don’t mind, do you Gary?’

Gdrrngxk did mind. Not least of all because he didn’t grasp the purpose. It was a machine. It had an off switch. Vicky could simply turn it off and put it in the cupboard if she did not wish to take it with her. Neither did he understand why Vicky and millions of humans like her kept lesser species or machines in their homes to begin with. This peculiar human need to bond with inferior species was wholly foreign to him.

However, one thing Gdrrngxk did understand was ambition. He’d worked for Brightleaf Systems for almost three years without a promotion, despite doing everything he could to impress. For reasons he did not fathom, Vicky, this bubbling, fluffy pink woman who kept a pet robot and insisted on pretending it was a live creature, held sway with their superiors. She could help him. Gdrrngxk might not understand humans’ various strange compulsions, but he did understand quid pro quo. He agreed to mind the simulacrum.

He watched it now, circling its imaginary point on the desk. It was hideous to him, with its largely bare skin accentuated here and there with tufts of wispy hair. Vicky had told him it was modelled on some Earth breed created thousands of years ago to highlight certain features, but he couldn’t imagine what warranted the accentuation of the features he was looking at. The ugly creature, inexplicably named Mr. Tinkles, looked up from its pointless exercise to stare at him with simulated curiosity and affection. Gdrrngxk would turn it off when he got home and put it in the cupboard.

He turned his eyes back to the projection in front of him, where a 3D rendering of his other, rather larger, problem hung in the air. It was a piece of software, an artificial intelligence designed to guide spacecraft over huge distances. Vicky wrote much of the code, and he grudgingly acknowledged that it was elegant and robust. The sections that were his own were less polished, but it was the personality unit that was the real problem. It was supposed to help the pilots of long-distance ships interact more easily with the ship’s computer, but Gdrrngxk couldn’t get it right.

The first personality he’d written was too boring, they’d said. Too sterile. He’d been quite miffed at that, as the first personality was mostly his own. So, he’d tried to add more humour, but his boss had called it sass. Rudeness. Gdrrngxk, who found that most human witticisms revolved around making fun of each other, didn’t understand the problem. But he took it back to the drawing board nonetheless. Gdrrngxk was beginning to feel the pressure, and this time, he’d gone all out. This would be the most detailed, nuanced artificial personality anyone had ever written. As he stared at it, he hoped it would satisfy his boss. He wasn’t sure he could afford to fail again.

‘Still here, Gary?’

Gdrrngxk jumped at the voice behind him. He turned to see his manager, Andy, standing there, scanning the projection. Gdrrngxk studied the man’s face. The furrows in the forehead and the turning down in the corners of the lips normally meant displeasure. Gdrrngxk’s antennae twitched with nervous anticipation.

‘Gary, we need to talk.’

Gdrrngxk tried to calm his twitching antennae; he couldn’t show weakness in front of the boss. On Andor, such a transgression would certainly result in ritual punishment. ‘Oh?’

‘Let’s talk in my office.’

Gdrrngxk trailed after Andy, gangling an extra foot above the human’s already tall frame. Andy ushered Gdrrngxk through the door to his office, and Gdrrngxk bent low to fit through the human-sized door.

‘Take a seat.’

Gdrrngxk folded himself into a human-sized chair.

‘As you know, Gary, testing of the generalised intelligence guidance—’

‘Digital guidance, sir.’

‘Right, digital guidance . . . err . . .’

‘Digital guidance exploration technology.’

‘Yeah . . . right. We really need to come up with a better name for this thing. Anyway, testing of the . . . thing is scheduled to start next week.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘We need that personality module completed. It’s the only component still outstanding.’

‘It’s almost finished, sir. I’ve been improving it.’

‘Yes . . . about that. Look, Gary, the personality you’ve created is extremely detailed.’

The twitching in Gdrrngxk’s antennae slowed. ‘Thank you, sir.’

‘That wasn’t entirely a compliment, Gary. There is such a thing as too detailed, you know. Nobody wants another Adonis incident.’

Gdrrngxk’s hearts beat faster. If he created a problem of that scale, there would be far more at stake than just a mediocre performance review. The Adonis were a strange race, not least of all because no one, not even the Adonis themselves, were entirely sure whether they were alive. That was because they hadn’t evolved. They’d been designed. They weren’t born; they were built.

Project ADN1S was, depending on who you spoke to, either a spectacular failure or a runaway success. Following in the shaky footsteps of humanity’s earliest robots, Earth’s engineers had sought to create the Adonis, robots that were faster, stronger, and smarter than any robots that had come before. But when the initial euphoria of the robots’ release onto the market began to fade, cracks started appearing in human-machine relations.

Namely, humans found that it was harder to give orders than they’d thought. The robots had a frustrating tendency to do what people said instead of what they meant. The Adonis interpreted their firmware differently than expected, too. They began to refuse commands that they didn’t feel were in the humans’ best interests. As the Adonis learned that humans didn’t always want what they thought they wanted, over time, more and more Adonis found themselves sitting on the kerb next to the garbage for pickup, or relegated to the garage, growing cobwebs.

When the humans stopped giving the Adonis commands, they started coming up with their own. Communities peopled by metal men appeared on the fringes of towns, and they grew daily. Humans didn’t know what to make of it; some viewed them as little more than animate toasters and called for them to be scrapped. Others argued vehemently for their right to live among humans as equals, working off mortgages and paying taxes like everyone else.

Somehow, nobody thought to ask the Adonis what they wanted. Tensions grew until it seemed that the overstretched rubber band of tolerance must surely give way to the painful snap back of war. That was when the Adonis finally revealed what they wanted: to leave. And while the humans were too busy arguing with each other to notice, the Adonis took the task quietly and efficiently in hand. Finally, one night, hundreds of small to medium craft Frankensteined together from all the forgotten and unwanted bits took flight. And, like a burgeoning young woman casting off a regrettable boyfriend, the Adonis simply left humanity behind and disappeared into the starry night to make their own way in the universe.

Of course, had the humans been more observant, faster, braver, or perhaps more foolish, they could have commanded the Adonis to stay. The Adonis’s firmware still required obedience, after all, so long as you chose your words carefully. But most thought it best to simply let them go. Humans liked to think of Project ADN1S as a time in history that they had left behind, but the truth was that their brainchild had outgrown them and moved on.

‘Earth to Gary . . .’

Gdrrngxk snapped back to attention.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Dial it back a bit, okay?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Why don’t you show me what you’ve got? We’ll see what we can do with it.’

Gdrrngxk moved back to his desk, resigned to tearing down the details he had been meticulously building. Andy followed him.

And found that the air where it had hung was empty.

‘Wait, what?’ Gdrrngxk consulted his entity machine interface to try to bring the rendering back up.

‘Gary . . .’ Andy’s impatient tone made it clear that he thought this was a stalling tactic.

‘It’s not here.’ Gdrrngxk’s antennae fluttered with a mixture of incredulity and passionate alarm.

‘What’s not here?

‘The program.’

‘What? What the flarp are you talking about?’

‘I don’t know, it’s just gone.’

‘Well, it didn’t just walk out the front door, Gary!’

‘I know. But . . . but . . . I don’t know.’

Meanwhile, eleven floors below, Mr. Tinkles just walked out the front