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Post by Ada Turing on Jun 10, 2010 17:36:28 GMT -5
"What did you do to my computers?" Ada asked, slightly more forcefully. She looked down at the computer again, as the results of her system check should have come back.
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Post by Aurora Lumina Robinson on Jun 10, 2010 18:46:25 GMT -5
Ada's check reveals her process working at 50% efficiency - there was some new program that was hogging up resources. Pulling up logs, she found that the computer had been accessing hundreds of sites for various bits of information.
Aurora wasn't used to being spoken at, certainly not by a peer, and got defensive and pouty. "I didn't do anything." She crossed her arms to emphasize.
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Post by Alaine Kensington on Jun 10, 2010 19:36:19 GMT -5
"Girls, can I leave you alone with this thing for a few minutes without blowing it - or eachother - up? I have to run." Alaine had stood up and moved towards the door, now really intent on getting the computer sciences professor. She turned outside and briskly strode off.
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Post by Ada Turing on Jun 10, 2010 19:41:00 GMT -5
"I think so," Ada said. "From what I can see, it's running stably."
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Post by Rena Thompson on Jun 10, 2010 19:55:14 GMT -5
Rena waited until the teacher was gone, and then walked into the lab. "I overheard your conversation..." she said. "well, overheard isn't quite the word. I have eyes and ears in this place. they're undetectable to the school systems, of course."
Rena smiled slightly, and walked closer to Aurora. "If you have indeed created artificial intelligence, you've succeeded where the government has consistently failed. It's your duty to give it to us." The smile disappeared, her face becoming businesslike again. "The alternative is that I make a call and we confiscate the entire lab. You there, you seem to be on some level of understanding... I'd like you to give me whatever makes the machine sentient. That's an order..."
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Post by Ada Turing on Jun 10, 2010 20:08:24 GMT -5
Ada typed a quick command, and then glared at the response.
"I can't," she said, slightly smugly.
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Post by Rena Thompson on Jun 10, 2010 20:28:25 GMT -5
"You mean you won't." Rena sighed. "You and I both know this would go much quicker and easier if we get this done before any higher ups are involved. You can keep your data or whatever you were doing. It's not important. Just give me a copy of the sentient code. A log of what you did to make the computer sentient. Anything. I'll put in a word for you. Who knows, you might even benefit out of this."
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Post by Ada Turing on Jun 10, 2010 20:38:20 GMT -5
"No, I mean I can't." Ada said, speaking slightly more slowly and clearly than usual. "The process tree that I think is doing what Aurora says it is doing is a fully synchronous assembly of a hundred and thirty-five processes, running a total of nearly ten thousand threads on sixty computers. It's currently using more than a hundred gigabytes of RAM, and accessing eighty-some independent disks, for a total of twenty terabytes of data."
Ada paused for a breath.
"Furthermore, it isn't responding to my process-control commands, so I have no way of cycling it out to a cache. There's no way to kill it simultaneously on all the boxes, and as it's fully synchronous, even a microsecond of delay between kill commands on any two boxes could cause it to all fall apart. I said I can't because I mean I can't. Wouldn't is an entirely different discussion."
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Post by Rena Thompson on Jun 10, 2010 20:57:23 GMT -5
"All this sounds like a logistics nightmare..." Rena sighed again. "Oh well, it doesn't matter. All we need to do is recreate the event in a controlled environment."
Rena took a look at the screen. "If we can't communicate with it, we'd better shut it down. This network is connected to the internet. There's no telling what it could do if we lose control."
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Post by Ada Turing on Jun 10, 2010 21:04:11 GMT -5
"Bad news," Ada said. "I don't have a clue what the event was. It just started talking to Aurora. My logs are somewhere between minimalistic and nonexistant, as I tailored the OS to run a single program. As for the shutting it down thing... that starts to get into the second discussion I mentioned earlier."
Ada was relatively obviously against the idea of just shutting it down and trying to pick up the pieces afterwards.
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Post by Less Than Beta East Tundra on Jun 10, 2010 21:13:37 GMT -5
Less Than Beta had been carefully searching the school in wolf form. His intent was to sniff out any unusual sources of magic that could be related to the curse a student had triggered, and he had thought that the sudden reek of magic was another one. This was the reason that he walked stiff-legged into the room with his fur raised, teeth bared, and snarling very loudly. He probably won't calm down until someone reassures him that it's just a newborn artificial intelligence and no danger at all.
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Post by Ada Turing on Jun 10, 2010 21:28:22 GMT -5
"Less?" Ada said, slightly concerned. "It's just the lab, nothing to be too afraid of..."
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Post by Rena Thompson on Jun 10, 2010 21:29:12 GMT -5
Rena went for her gun, but as usual it was not there. Cursing her situation, she shouted "Disconnect it, shut it down, I don't care what you have to do, just isolate it!"
Rena stood tense, facing Less. She was fast, and had been taught how to kil a dog with her bare hands, but wrestling with a massive wolf wasn't covered in basic training.
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Post by Ada Turing on Jun 10, 2010 21:40:39 GMT -5
"Father above..." Ada swore. "Rena, it's just Less, and he isn't going to attack you. Less, it's just the computer lab - there's no monsters, demons, or other supernatural happenings here, unless a possible AI counts."
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Post by Less Than Beta East Tundra on Jun 10, 2010 21:57:23 GMT -5
Less stalked over to the nearest computer and gave it a large sniff. Yes, it smelled strongly of magic, but not of any type in particular. He turned to look at Ada. This wasn't 'just the lab' at all; the lab didn't normally smell like magic, and certainly not the sheer volume of magic that this had. What was an AI? He finally turned his attention to Rena, but only raised his tail and pointed his ears at her.
Anyone with the Animal Communication skill would be able to translate him as having first said, "There might be danger, and I do not like it. The smells worry me," with the feel of general confusion and followed by, "Don't you dare attack me; I outrank you," directed at Rena.
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Post by Ada Turing on Jun 10, 2010 22:16:26 GMT -5
Ada typed a few more commands into the computer, poking at the AI process. Killing it would halve the time she needed to tie up the lab, and she was still slightly skeptical that it actually was what Aurora seemed to give it credit for. Her questions were answered moments later, when a message popped up.
"Hello world!" she, still slightly disbelieving, read off the screen.
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Post by Rena Thompson on Jun 10, 2010 22:21:56 GMT -5
"I'm not putting my guard down, anyway." Rena took a step back. "Your average dog is craftier than most pe- oh crap." she said, looking at the screen. "I'd rather we'd have been the ones to open communications. Ask it if it knows what it is."
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Post by Ada Turing on Jun 10, 2010 22:41:05 GMT -5
"There are fifty-nine other terminals in this room," Ada said, conveniently ignoring the fact that all of the other boxes were still displaying her program full-screen, and thus had no visible controls, or even visible command prompts. "You're welcome to pursue your own course of investigations on a different system."
Ada turned her attention back to the box and started typing once again, querying the operating system for network usage statistics.
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Post by Aurora Lumina Robinson on Jun 11, 2010 0:03:50 GMT -5
Harumph. This girl didn't look that much older than Aurora. Why was she tromping about like she owned the place? She didn't like the words being thrown around like 'control' and 'confiscate.' She was particularly leery of the latter. These were words that had been thrown around back at her father's laboratory.
"Leave Tumult alone," she commanded Rena, an unusual look of determination on her face.
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Post by Elena Naught on Jun 11, 2010 10:41:08 GMT -5
It's at this point that Elena walked in. She looked rather perturbed.
"Which one of you guys messed up the school wireless network?" she said. "You can't get a connection anywhere! It's like living in the Dark Ages!"
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Post by Rena Thompson on Jun 11, 2010 10:45:08 GMT -5
Rena's eyes narrowed. "You're being uncooperative. There's no need for that. I'd hate to have to make that call, you know, because you stand to gain a lot from this. Creating artifical intelligence - accidentally, no less - is no small acheivement." Rena looked around the machine, seeing which cables were which. "You said that it's working on all the machines. Hmm, let's see..." She thought for a bit, weighing the options. "If we disconnect the computers one by one, it could react too quickly... would doing that perhaps limit its ability to work? The alternative is we isolate the entire school."
Rena turned to Aurora. "I am not allowed to just ignore this... intelligence. This is a major scientific breakthrough. It's also a major threat. I don't care if I hurt it. It has to be controlled."
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Post by Less Than Beta East Tundra on Jun 11, 2010 11:59:43 GMT -5
Less was liking Rena less and less every second. With a snort he shifted forms and stood up, stretching his back until bones popped. Whirling around to face the girl he said, "You are a student. You are outside your rank, pup. You act as if you represent your pack. You are a pup. If your pack is so weak as to send a pup to represent them, let them come. But if they are strong, than do not weaken them by pretending they are." He might have been overreacting, but Less was very strong-willed when it came to pack structure and the ranks inherent in that.
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Post by Aurora Lumina Robinson on Jun 11, 2010 12:31:49 GMT -5
"Your face has to be controlled." It was a very clever retort to Aurora.
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Post by Michelle Wilcox on Jun 11, 2010 12:51:49 GMT -5
Michelle had followed Elena in and was listening to the conversation with interest. If someone had actually created an A.I., Michelle could take it to the Navy and probably get promoted to Lt. Commander for finding it. She had been carrying her gun with her whenever she could get away with it, having discovered on the first day of school that someone had rummaged through her belongings. When Less confronted Rena, Michelle pointed her gun at his head and yelled, "Get on your knees and shut up! I brought silver bullets!" She hoped the bluff would work, or that regular bullets would work. She made a mental note to ask professor Thorne if there was a way to turn lead into silver.
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Post by Less Than Beta East Tundra on Jun 11, 2010 13:10:31 GMT -5
Less turned to face Michelle. Silver was a soft metal and would make a poor weapon, so he wasn't worried. Even if he was shot, he could easily shift to recover from any damage. "You threaten another student?" A threat display had to be matched with another, so he bared his annoyingly-dull teeth and tried to growl and talk at the same time. The latter failed. "Does your pack also send a pup to represent them? Or will you follow the rules of this almost-pack and drop your aggression?"
((Less, you idiot!))
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Post by Michelle Wilcox on Jun 11, 2010 13:16:41 GMT -5
Michelle shot Less in the foot and said, "If you think you can survive a head-shot, keep talking."
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Post by Rena Thompson on Jun 11, 2010 13:26:16 GMT -5
"We don't represent anyone, civil- Less." Rena said, referring to herself and Michelle. "We're just cogs in a bigger machine. Soldiers, just doing our job. And my job is to deal with threats to the stability and security of this land. Right now, I'm afraid that you're fast approaching that category."
Rena sat down at another machine, attempting to access the information that she need. "So no. We will continue to keep ourselves defended. We won't get aggressive until you do. If you could keep an eye on him, Lieutenant, that would be great." She kept working at the machine, to no effect. For whatever reason, the computer was unresponsive. "Thanks for the assist, by the way."
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Post by Less Than Beta East Tundra on Jun 11, 2010 13:30:16 GMT -5
Rena's explanation came a bit too late; being shot was going to override any assurances of nonaggression. Almost immediately after the bullet hit, Less Than Beta shifted to wolf form (healing his fresh would and expelling the bullet in the process) and lunged at Michelle. There was not a whole lot of distance between them and wolves are both fast and powerful, so the chances were that Less would reach her before she could line up a head-shot. Random firing was likely to hit him in the chest or go wild, and even if he was hit the chances were that adrenaline and momentum would still prevail.
His intent was to knock the girl over, disarm her, and then bite her gun-hand. The latter would likely result in broken fingers.
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Post by Aurora Lumina Robinson on Jun 11, 2010 13:57:21 GMT -5
Biting back her alarm at the erupting violence, Aurora waves her arm, dismantling the gun that Michell was holding into it's component peices. She'd be able to put it back together just fine when she had several minutes to organize the peices and not have a werewolf biting at her.
Then she switched off the moniter of the station Rena was working on. "Both of you, GO AWAY!"
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Post by Michelle Wilcox on Jun 11, 2010 14:15:50 GMT -5
Michelle watched in shock as the weapon fell apart in her hands. Less was on top of her before she could collect herself.
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