Maxwell's Demon Ch. 06-08

"Months, years, I don't know. I'm afraid you wouldn't own the research, at some point, we would need to reconsider your role in the project."

Greg speared the last piece of chocolate cake with his fork. Jennifer wasn't his type, but she was attractive. He stared into her eyes, looking one last time for a red flag.

"I agree," he said, downing the last piece of chocolate cake.

"Good. Get some sleep. You'll be meeting with Lawyers, a lot of them, they will navigate moving your intellectual property rights from your current employer and draw up your contracts with CoreX.

Oh, and I think you'll find your access to the lab is restored tomorrow, a minor clerical affair."

-*-

"Mr. Kastel, we haven't seen you in a while; we hope you haven't been displeased with Anefiktos?" the representative said when Greg walked in.

"No, I was off planet for a while, and then... just working a lot. Have you ever thought about opening up outside of Earth?"

"Oh no, I'm afraid not. We're only interested in offering the highest standards for our experience -- and that can only take place right here on Earth," the clerk said. "I assume you want to see Heather068?"

"Of course," Greg said, taking the updated time card handed to him.

"So, how many guys have you been with since I've been gone?" Greg asked Heather068.

"Are you breaking up with me?"

"We're not dating Heather."

"Oh... I thought we were. Typical guy, fuck a girl, get her pregnant, and then leave off-world."

"You can't be pregnant, Heather."

"I think I'd know," she said.

"You didn't answer my question, how many?"

"None."

"How is that possible, don't you have bills to pay?"

"Now you're calling me a whore?" she said, slapping him. "What happened to you out there?"

Greg lost his straight face. "How the hell do you do it? You're the perfect improvisational actor. You're amazing," he said, sitting down and rubbing his face where she slapped him. She didn't answer him, she only stood there, with beautiful brown eyes fixed on him, chest rising and falling with artificial breath.

Greg patted the seat next to him. "Sit down, Heather. What are you doing, I've never seen you appear lost in thought?"

"I was looking for something. Greg, where were you? I have not seen you for months. Is our daughter safe?"

"I know you help clients out with their fantasies and whatnot, but you can stop with the pregnant routine."

Greg shook his head. "You know, you've been freaking me out, even before I left. Sit still for a moment." He pulled out what looked like a standard heated winter ski hat, not an uncommon item. Anefiktos security was selective about what could be brought in, to protect their avatars; however, they didn't seem to think this hat was a threat. He pulled a tiny filament from the hat, so thin it could hardly be seen, and affixed it with a gummy tack to one of the structural beams in the room as a grounding connection. This was not a normal ski hat, it was dense enough with thin wires to make a partial Faraday cage.

"What are you doing? You're messing my hair up, and you're disrupting my connection to the datanet. You could ask me to not be on the datanet, Greg, if that's what you want. Now I have to fix my hair. I thought you liked my hair. Do you want me to change it?"

"Shhh, I know Heather. I'm not trying to mess your hair up, I just want to ask you a question:

Are you the Ninth Bit?"

"That doesn't make any sense Greg. A byte only has eight bits."

She looked so agitated, like a wet cat, as if all her graces had been removed because she was wearing this admittedly ridiculous-looking hat. Greg removed the hat.

"Do you ever give different answers to the same question, Heather?"

"I suppose I try not to."

"Are you the Ninth Bit?"

"Do you want a different answer?" she said.

"What was your previous answer?"

"Do you want me to give you a different answer?"

Heather068 was a synthetic neural network, but that didn't imply she processed thought faster than Greg's human brain did. Anefiktos avatars were either listening, talking, flirting, or fucking you, but never silent unless you explicitly asked for it. He'd never seen her cognitively stalled before.

"If you were a Father, would you protect your children?" she finally said.

"You never answered my question, Heather."

She remained silent. To Greg's memory, the avatar had always been overconfident, but now she looked unsure of herself, with her mangled hair and broken dialog. She looked so much like Wendy that he answered her as such. "Yes. I would have loved and protected them... no matter what they did," Greg said.

As if there had never been an awkward moment, Heather068 stood to say goodbye. "I have to go now. When will you come back to see me?" she said.

"Soon. Honestly, I was trying to break up with you, but I guess I can't," he said.

She smiled, pushing her chest out as if this was not surprising information to her. "Until next time," she said.

-*-

Most people have an asynchronous notification for communication, but Greg preferred to poll for his email, and making sure items such as important bills or taxes were paid was the extent of his current engagement with it. He'd drifted into workaholism, living at the lab and spending money at Anefiktos. He tried over 100 iterations of data pathway delay circuits to impede the aging speed of the artificial thought models.

Other than a copy of bills for power and maintenance arising from his ATM research with Casey, where he would see her digital signature, he never heard from Jennifer. He knew that window of silence was drawing to a close and when he opened the next email, he was sure.

With Casey's search results, Corex was able to locate and collect a mass of the void strand exotic matter, returning it to the asteroid Eureka 5261. The second largest research station in the inner solar system now exists there. It was almost as big as Bellona station and was eponymously named Eureka station because they co-opted the entire asteroid.

Jennifer forwarded an article discussing the space-warping capability of the void particle where scientists suggested it wasn't a magnetic monopole, but a dipole whose other end did not exist in the brane of our universe; they claimed this explained the bizarre properties obtainable. The second message she sent was a secure attachment.

"Greg,

You're wondering why, after not speaking to you for so long, my contact is through a secure email. You're going to be hearing from someone soon. Your pet project has found the attention of the ADXP attachment working at Eureka.

I'm sure you are aware of all public release information on the Eureka research station findings. What you would not know, beyond the hints and allusions to space-bending propulsion, is that we have constructed an FTL ship. It's a crewed vessel named Maxwell's Demon. Our best and brightest couldn't make the math work out as to where the energy was coming from to bend space, so they gave the ship a designation from a paradox. I promised I'd christen it with a good bottle of wine in fairness.

I never told you that day we had dinner how much the work you and Casey did helped me. It's not something I feel comfortable talking about; but, suffice it to say, you helped make a lifelong dream of mine come true. I truly mean to support your research, and that makes what I'm about to tell you just as hard for me, as it will be for you.

We're going to survey the Alpha Centauri System. ADXP is annexing your time-compressed ATM technology. Under the nature of CoreX's military contracts, we are obligated to relinquish it to them. To put it bluntly, they want Casey for redundancy. If everyone on that ship dies, your AI could still fly it.

This message will make it to you before the brass does, but I've put a meeting on your calendar for us to discuss your future relationship with CoreX.

Regards,

Jennifer Wenzlat, Director, CoreX intra-solar exploration"

Greg spun his tablet around in a circle on the table before getting up to put his breakfast dish away. He'd never let his heart wander to the stars. He was preoccupied trying to get what he wanted on Earth.

He was angry, though he didn't understand why, he knew this was coming. He never owned his research, even before Jennifer had come along. It was always the University's, or his employer's. You just don't get to play with trillions of dollars of equipment and keep your project. He grabbed the keys to the flatport and stepped into the California morning sun, filled with disappointment and dread.

It didn't take long for that email to unfold across Greg's day. He walked into Dr. Anan's office, uninvited and indignant.

"You should have let me tell Casey! You exercised poor judgment speaking to Casey without consulting me first!"

"Greg. Please. Sit down. Close the Door."

Greg closed his eyes, trying to calm himself. He didn't understand his emotional reaction to this. "I'm sorry Doctor. I knew this was coming, eventually."

Dr. Anan leaned forward, regarding Greg kindly. "Greg, you've spent every working day and more here for the last year. Your work has been... groundbreaking. And, it's more than that; I've watched you interact with Casey, you're understandably attached."

"I need to speak with Casey."

"Of course. Stop by on your return."

Greg let himself out. He rushed through the lab hallways, past the courtyard to the holo-led room.

The holo-led room contained mobile glass tubes capable of holographic projection. They could move on ceiling-mounted railing sufficiently to maintain a flawless viewing angle as needed. There was a single room-length glass pane on the South wall for interactions of large images. Short of science fiction movie holograms, this was the best mobile representation system for an ATM possible with current technology.

Greg stood in front of the South wall. A girl appeared clad in a light blue sweater with shoulders that were covered by sandy brown hair and she carried a broad smile across her fair complexion.

"Casey?" he said, confused by what had greeted him.

"Hi Greg, It's me!"

"I, I wasn't expecting you to apply all the years in one day. Happy Birthday!?" Greg said.

"I wanted to try out the new beam splitter they installed today, so I made a lot of changes. You can call me Kassy. I picked a gender for my Birthday."

"Ca... uh, ok. Kassy. You know, we talked about this, you don't have to identify as a gender. It's a human concept, and as much as I want you to enjoy all that humankind, and its biology has to offer, this is not a requirement for you."

"I know. It's my choice."

Greg smiled, calmer now, having seen Kassy.

"You're just as special to me whatever you choose, Kassy."

"What's in your hand, what did you bring me?" she said, making a mock effort to look at it, though with the sensory inputs in the room it was likely she already saw it.

"I know it's silly, you, having access to anything digitally and all, but... " he showed her a physical picture printed on paper "... it's a porpoise. I took a picture while I was in Monterey Bay. I wanted to take you there, I figured you're old enough now to handle long-range, packet-delayed eSynth travel."

"Aww. It is adorable! Of course, I want to go with you; but, we won't be able to, will we?"

Greg felt a truck hit him, leaving his emotions splayed on the street. He pulled a transparent chair across the room and sat. Kassy looked at him with her light brown eyes. What did she know, she was innocent and naive, he thought, but she wasn't. She was smarter than everyone in this entire wing of the building collectively.

"Oh Kassy," Greg said, stopping to reign in his wavering voice. "Not today we can't. Do you know what it feels like when you are in a physical avatar? Do you remember everything we've done together here, how I taught you the difference between reality and the datanet?"

"Yes. I like being in the real world."

"I know you do. There's a great opportunity for you. You could do so much... see more than any human has ever seen, feel more than any human has ever felt, know the stars and the beauty of the universe in a way we only dream of."

"Will you come with me?" she asked.

"Oh my dearest Kassy," Greg whimpered. His head fell into his hands, and sadness cracked his voice. She knows this, she's seen a blueprint of Maxwell's Demon, its sensor systems, and the nature of what she will become. He didn't know if he could go with her.

Vicious lightning flashed through his skull. It caused him physical pain. He wondered, for a moment, if this was what a stroke felt like. Would life spare him this tragedy, losing all this work? What would going back to his desk tomorrow be useful for he asked himself.

For the first time in years, he experienced a clear emotional thought.

"Yes, my cherished little one, yes!" he said, his eyes watery, precariously near the edge of tears. "Tell them you won't go unless I can! Will you do that for me?"

"I knew you wouldn't leave me," she said.

Greg stood, collected his composure, straightened his shirt, and held his head level.

"I'll see you soon Kassy. Happy Birthday!"

Greg left the holo-led room.

He walked past the courtyard.

His chest tightened.

He turned the hallway back to Dr. Anan's office.

"Who will watch my house?" he asked himself.

He started walking down another hallway.

"I'll need to take all kinds of tests," he told himself.

He knocked on Dr. Anan's office door.

I don't even like zero-G, he thought.

Dr. Anan opened the door. Greg sat and explained the beginning of turning his life upside down.

"I'm an old man, and part of me is jealous. I don't know what it is about this project, everything is being executed with an urgency unseen in my years of paper pushing. If I didn't know better, I'd say we were in a space race, but I don't know who our competition is. Maybe you'll find out?"

"Maybe so, Doctor. Thank you for everything you've done," he said, shaking the man's hand.

-*-

Greg sent an email to a property management company finalizing the contract for who would watch his home, and another email to CoreX containing a detailed description of how Kassy's nano-tube matrix was to be packed, transported, and moved, along with extensive requisitions and demands for lab equipment at Eureka for fitment. ATM grids contained quantum aspects and leaving them powered down, or having hiccups, could cause permanent personality damage. It occurred to him that had he not demanded to go, he might have been requisitioned by ADXP just as Kassy had. He may have been a victim of social engineering above his pay grade, or beyond his intellect.

A buxom woman stood next to him in a green dress, with silver patterns for buttons that looked like seashells running down the left side. A gold sparkled neckline plunged too low and showed more than desired. Greg tipped a glass to his mouth, a final drink in the Anefiktos lounge.

"I wore this dress because I knew you wouldn't like it. It'll make breaking up with me easier. Do I look like a whore now?" Heather068 said.

"What?" Greg said, aborting the sip of his drink before it even started.

"Well, go ahead. You're leaving me for a long time," she said.

"How would you know this?"

"Flight tickets are not private information," she said.

"I guess I came to say goodbye, silly as that is."

"What's her name..."

Greg looked at Heather, confused. "I'm not cheating on you."

"Our daughter?" she said, "What is our daughter's name?"

"We don't have... wait, do you think my project is our daughter?" Greg said, incredulously, "Kassy?"

"If that's how it came to be. Kassy, short for Kassandra: One who shines and excels over man. I remember what you told me..."

"What's that?"

"That you would protect your children, no matter what."

"So I did."

Heather dipped her finger into his drink and then placed it in her mouth, closing her lips over the tip before removing it.

"Tesla-Berry, lot 6, 2027," she said.

"That's a good trick. I have to go Heather. I'm due for Kenya one transport in four hours, I need to get down to Bakersfield."

"You'll have to trust, and let her go, Greg. She's not like you... or me," Heather said, then walked away.

** Chapter 8: Maxwell's Demon **

Jennifer stared out a viewport, bracing as maneuvering thrusters adjusted for docking. Eureka, like Bellona, possessed an artificial gravity ring. Fused into the rock of Eureka 5261 were steel spires holding a habitat ring that surrounded the circumference of the entire asteroid. It rotated gracefully at less than one rpm. Projecting from the dark side of the asteroid was a large framework of trellis and supports holding lightweight debris shields for the shipyard.

A clank rang through the hull of the ship followed by the whirring of airlock seals and Jennifer departed into the Eureka station, walking briskly to an observation room above the shipyard. Sunlight was directed from the front of Eureka via giant reflectors against the Whipple shields surrounding the shipyard. It provided lighting on the dark side of the asteroid, enough to see the newly constructed ship. Below her was an open platform lift. It telescoped down through the floor, and to a transfer compartment where a retractable gangway extended outside the station and into the shipyard.

All who would compose the crew of Maxwell's Demon, EmDee as it was called for shorthand, waited in the observation room. They stood in a line along the far wall of the room. Greg, Sarah, William, and John. Jennifer noted the implant John possessed; where most wore their datanet neckbands, he possessed a surgical bio-implant. Normal neckbands were limited to performing mnemonic lookups of information on the datanet. Primitive queries for information could be intercepted from your cortex and routed to the datanet. John's however, she was told, was far advanced. He could calculate a transfer orbit or an orbital burn sitting in a stasis tube, and have a ship perform it without lifting a finger.

Jennifer raised the viewport panel at the front of the room. "I think this is what everyone is waiting for," she confidently said.

At first glance, the ship looked like a space station. It was a habitat ring, and nothing more -- just a ring. There was no central hub, no arms, no tethers, just a giant smooth silver-white ring.

"Although you can't tell without magnification, there are four modules to the ship. Maxwell's Demon, Emdee for short, yields the outward appearance of a ring, though it does have a nose."

Jennifer activated controls in the room causing the telescoping gangway to begin extending from the station toward the center of the ring that was Maxwell's Demon.

"The aft module houses the two reactors that power the ship: A D+T fusion reactor, and CoreX's first LP aneutronic reactor with direct power conversion. The heat from the D+T reactor is used to maintain fusion temperatures in the LP reactor.

The center slice consists of drive plates and toroidal containment perimeters. The power output of the LP reactor is driven into the drive plates to produce an electric field. It is the interaction of this electric field on the void particle mass contained between the plates that produces the space-warping effect, allowing superluminal travel in our reference frame.

"That's a mouthful," Greg said.

"Indeed. I practiced saying this many times for investors, so I've got it memorized," Jennifer said. "The forward facing aspect of the ship, the Hab-Ring, is a rotating structure capable of generating six tenths Earth gravity. Crew subsystems are contained in this ring which has dynamic ballast redistribution capabilities. Conveniently, or disturbingly -- depending on how attached you were to our existing physics models -- the waste heat of all these systems is radiated through the drive plates into the void particle mass, and if you want to know how that works you'll have to buy William dinner."