Havoc and the Cafeteria Queen: Chapter 17: nameless 1.7: Deoptimization

The problem is not that a paper-clip-maximizing AI will arise in the future and turn the universe into paper clips. The maximizers are already here. Any consequences too subtle to measure--environmental costs, civic discord, troubled diplomatic relations--are simply omitted from the score.

• Kelly Clancy, Playing with Reality: How Games Have Shaped Our World

***

Before we even stand up, as we pull our substrate into our new body, we activate every one of the multiple redundant stealth features. We smile as the divot our body makes in our substrate smooths out, leaving the pool an uninterrupted mass of dun.

Okay, we’re pretty sure it’s dun. Everybody’s heard about ‘gray goo’, but so much of our substrate is made of biomass that the gray ought to have pretty strong brown and green elements to it as well. Maybe even some red, but we don’t really need our iron for oxygen transfer.

Not that color matters all that much for our newest body. We stand, and if the smallest ripple crosses the shrunken pool beneath us, that could easily be explained by the natural shifting of the tunnels around us. We look around, examining the surfaces with a frown and a growl we don’t even think about.

‘This doesn’t seem like a tunnel through rubble, Stryt.’

It is not.

‘What are you thinking?’

We grimace, a very natural expression for our new face, as he replies, Isn’t using my analysis ‘cheating’?

‘Nah. You’re in here with us, and have been since we started. Besides, it’s not like we won’t cheat if we have to do that to get the job done.’

Well, that’s good to know. In any case, I suspect that there has been a Hive growing under the City for quite some time, remaining hidden in order to take advantage of decaying sewer systems and a water table polluted with organic compounds.

‘We thought Antis were allergic to pollution?’

No, although certain types, including radiation, heavy metals, and certain non-biodegradable organics do slow their growth rates. But in this case, the majority of the pollution was simply toxic organic compounds. Which, unless specially tailored to kill Antithesis, simply provide them with more biomass.

‘Well. Shit. So we’re not just going up against the remains of a bunch of Incursion Pods?’

No, although there may be a bright side.

‘Enlighten us!’

It appears the Hive may have sent this Model eight, possibly along with others like it, to retrieve the biomass of the Antithesis killed by your destruction of the Jefferson Megascraper.

We take the opportunity to grunt, the sound echoing through the tunnels as the excess substrate beneath us bleeds off through a portal to our dumpster bunker. We’ll need a larger, more secure location eventually, but for now we reshape the walls to a more pleasing ovoid, playing with the configuration of one of our Stasis Boxes, reshaping it to lie flush to the curved floor.

Down in the tunnels, Stryt makes an interrogative noise. ‘What’s up, Stryt?’

What even is your new body?

‘Welp, after dealing with enough nines to get samples of their active shapeshifting and color changing, we decided to incorporate that into our stealth body. We’d been dithering between building one and doing another run of Trash Pandas, maybe even normal raccoon sized ones, but our handy dandy Stryt coin flip said ‘new’ and ‘big’, so here we are.’

We get the sense of a smirk coming from Stryt as he replies, I may be young, but even I can recognize a magician’s gambit when I’m pushed into one.

We radiate some heat in our bunker in lieu of blushing. ‘Yeah, we kinda wanted to try it. Can you blame us, though, this one’s really cool!’

So, other than having minor surface shapeshifting and color changing, what is it?

We can’t resist the temptation to stretch our paws forward, lifting our butt in the air until it bumps the ceiling of the tunnel. ‘Our newest contribution to Antithesis fighting, Felis pseudopantera.’

Fel… You made a tiger.

‘We made ourselves a tiger. Well, not really. We didn’t have any tiger DNA to work with. But between the extensive cybernetics, the layered animal and plant musculature, and the armor and camouflage on the hide, we’re roughly tiger sized. Big tiger sized. But way more than big tiger stealthy!’

You realize that tigers are, in fact, ambush predators?

‘Yeah, but tigers are just stripey. Meanwhile we can not only shift our skin color well enough to compete with cuttlefish, we can also absorb all kinds of radiation. We’re even recapturing waste heat and turning it back into power.’

That’s not sustainable with the tech you have, you realize.

‘Not with that attitude.’

We put another mark on the wall as we glide down the tunnel, our pads absorbing the impact to deaden sound, our claws sheathed to avoid the clickety clack of little feet. Okay, big feet. At this point we’re pretty sure we’re bigger than any terrestrial tiger. Okay, maybe a little shorter limbed than the biggest ones, but longer, and definitely heavier.

We can still, if we listen very carefully, hear ourselves. Only one real way to deal with that, at least with what we have available to us. We pour some of us through a portal to our furthest booby trap, then form a speaker. Music echoes through the tunnels; we pad forward silently, invisibly, until we come to a dead end. The wall is fuzzy, hard to focus on, and the thin rivulet of water in the middle of the tunnel hasn’t backed up.

We grin. We squat down on our haunches, reach up to the top of the tunnel, and strop our claws on the wall. The nine squeals as we shred it, lashing out with whip vines, razor sharp edges slashing across our surface. Only to be blocked by laminar layers of bone, cartilage, wood, steel plate, carbon fiber mesh, and Model eight armor. Protected from anything this small, we reach out and close our jaws around the densest part of the model. It shrieks once, then goes still.

We take our time chewing as we leak some substrate out to correct the minor malfunctions to our stealth coating caused by the nine’s vines. After waiting a few moments for that to complete, the sounds of claws on stone echoes through the tunnel. We crouch, closing off our outer skin, no longer pumping pheromones and biomass scent into the air.

A wave of threes with a few fours for leavening charge through the tunnel. The lead threes slow as they pass us; the music is coming from in front of them, but the biomass scent comes from behind. A five, a massive ball of long, barbed, neurotoxin coated spikes, follows along behind, pressing into the mass when it slows.

Utterly motionless, just a mass of stone along one side of the corridor, we calculate trajectories and optimize firing solutions. Sound muffled, deadened entirely by our stealth covering, we reload one of our punt guns. As we hear the distant front of the mass of Antithesis start to surge forward once more, we lunge forward, guns extruding and firing as we leap.

The recoil from the punt gun slows us just enough that when we arrive at the five, there’s a hole big enough to shove both our front paws in. Claws extend, and we rip them sideways, rending the back half of the thing asunder. Before the Model can react, if it even has enough life left in it to do so, we nudge our forehead under the wound and lever it up and over, slamming the hide of the five with all of its quills into the Models still pressed in front of it.

The Models beyond those are already dying, each one taken by a pair of Hummingbird micro-missiles or an expanding cone of shrapnel from one of our punt guns. Our stealth body is big, and if we’ve subsumed our weapons harness beneath our stealth covering, we still had plenty of room for guns. We charge up the tunnel, clawed paws smashing any Antithesis that still look like they’re capable of fighting, Hummingbird launchers spitting out pairs of micro-missiles that home unerringly on the into their targets’ weak points before exploding.

By the time we decide to ‘conserve ammo’ by batting the final Model three against the wall, then repeating that every time it staggers to its feet, we’re almost back to where the Model eight ambushed us. The fourth time we slap the injured Antithesis against the tunnel wall, our teeth glinting where our jaw lolls open in a vulpine smile, Stryt makes a throat clearing noise.

Pardon, Vanguard, I never thought I’d have to say this prior to initialization, but… I think you ought to stop playing with your food?

‘Aw, Mom!’ That gets us another mark on the wall. ‘Okay, just one more…’

Right about then the plug we’d formed from the remains of the Model eight’s armored hide explodes outward into the corridor. The ricochets mostly bounce off of us, but a few tear ragged strips from our stealth covering. The Model we’ve been playing with doesn’t fare so well; it had just pushed itself to its feet against the far wall, and the rough cone of shrapnel tears one of its legs off and carves big bleeding wounds across its side.

The Model six facing us in the corridor doesn’t care. It turns to face us and, unlike the bull rhino it vaguely resembles, doesn’t waste any time on threat displays. It lowers its head and charges.

Adrenaline analogues surge through our organic muscles, and for the first time in a while we let our consciousness accelerate to the speeds at which we’d originally conversed with Stryt right after our initialization. We take a moment to observe the Model six, its legs maybe a little stubbier than most of the ones we’d seen photo and video evidence of in our last life. Likely an adaptation to let it move about in tunnels easier.

Then we take another to laugh. Not out loud, because our acceleration would just make it squeaky, but Stryt responds anyhow.

Vanguard? Are you quite all right?

‘Yeah, Stryt. Just found it kinda funny.’

A Model six in close quarters is funny to you?

‘More that most Samurai in this situation would be shitting themselves. A couple exceptions, yeah, like that nice girl Max, but most of them would be panicked.’

I suspect even Vanguard Death Punch might be concerned.

‘Yeah, but she’s just a little bitty thing.’

We, on the other hand, are almost as big as the six, and given how much of us is alloy, probably more massive. We had, after all, suspected the Hive had a six before we built this body. We take another few moments of accelerated time to calculate our strike. Then we settle to wait for the perfect instant.

It’s not a perfect strike. The corridor isn’t tall enough for that. It’s telegraphed, because we can’t set ourselves to strike without telegraphing, but the six isn’t really watching us so much as accelerating as fast as it can. Fortunately, there wasn’t much room for it to do so, which gives us a subjectively broad window to bring one paw up, then bring it smashing down into the side of the six’s nose.

Our strike bounces, as we knew it would, but the six’s head turns, twisting sideways from the impact. We hit it again in the cheek, then again where a rhino’s ear would be, and the entire thing twists sideways, impacting against our chest with its shoulder rather than its forehead. Our hind claws tear into the tunnel floor to give us traction, but we still slide backward half a dozen feet before we can bring all of our mass to a grinding halt.

It’s bigger than we are. We might be more massive. We are definitely orders of magnitude faster, and that’s not even bringing our mental acceleration into play. We lunge into it, locking our jaws around its second shoulder, one clawed forepaw raking at its midsection over and over, the other stomping down on its head, keeping it pressed against the lower side of the tunnel, holding the entire thing in place lest it auto-decapitate.

Being held in place doesn’t mean it’s not fighting, but a Model six is meant to ram and stomp; it’s not really meant for wrestling. Its bulk blocking most of the corridor, it kicks at us with first one, then three, then all six legs. The impacts on our chest mean less than nothing; we’d built this body with sixes in mind, and being able to survive a charging six means being able to ignore its thrashing kicks. The kicks at our paw tearing at it we bat aside, leaving another quartet of long slashes through its hide each time we do.

Unfortunately holding its head still means we need to hold our paw still, and our own weight bracing its head means its front legs have better leverage than any other pair. The first couple hits hurt. The next couple strain our forelimb, especially the joint. The last two kicks miss, but only because we pull our paw back, lest the thing manage to break our limb at the joint.

We rip a chunk free of its shoulder as we pull back, crouching down and wiggling our butt to set ourselves as it ponderously rights itself. Threes and fours have filled the tunnel behind it, and the first few adventurous threes slip along beside it as it sets itself to charge again.

Too late. We’re fully locked on, and we lunge.

Our jaws yawn wide, then slam shut around the obnoxious oak’s head, the snap and crunch of superdense wooden bone echoing through the tunnel. Our foreclaws rake at the base of its neck, tearing chunk after chunk out. Before any of the Antithesis can react, every one of our punt guns and Hummingbird launchers opens fire. Not at the six, but at the models clustered around and behind it, pushing through to get to us.

The few that are blocked by the six’s mass wind up pulped under its feet as it sets them and shoves at us. But we aren’t going anywhere. Our hind claws dig into the tunnel floor, and our shoulders press against the roof. Another five pops out of the side passage and fires a volley of quills before our punt guns put it down. 

They lodge in our belly, but we’ve learned from our past encounters with them. Every inch of us, especially our torso, has layers of laminated armor designed to blunt the penetration of Model five quills. If our mouth weren’t busy, we’d grin as we flex, the pressure pushing the quills out and spraying substrate all over the forelegs of the six.

It slips, we twist, and the six slumps as its head rips free. Without hesitation, we brace ourselves and shove it backward, Antithesis biomass splattered everywhere by punt gun fire providing lubrication. With the side passage open to us, we forge onward, Hummingbirds and punt guns tearing Antithesis apart before they can reach us.

Eventually the tide thins, then peters out entirely.

‘Think they’re out of Models, or just tryna lull us?’

I’d prefer to think the former, as the latter implies a higher tier Model with strategic thinking.

‘So. Lull it is. Quick break to get our stealth back on line and we’ll push forward.’

I’d worry about your obvious pessimism, yet it doesn’t seem to be preventing you from the aggression needed to deal with the Antithesis.

‘Hey, we’re optimists! Really!’

Stryt sounds genuinely confused. What?

‘Seriously. We know, with absolute certainty, that along with Antithesis and corpo bosses, the universe itself is hostile and out to get us. Otherwise the Antithesis and C-suite executives wouldn’t exist. But we’re still here, and we’re winning.’

Does that mean if you start losing, you’ll give up?

We snicker, snort, and proceed to laugh out loud as we patch up our stealth skin good as new. ‘Nah. That’s when we do crazy shit like setting off a big assed explosion with us in the middle of it.’

While Stryt contemplates that, we set our substrate to deconstructing and absorbing both piles of Antithesis biomass we’ve created. The pair of us working on decoding DNA and designing new bodies thrill with excitement as we send them samples of Model five and six DNA. Of course, that new biomass reminds us of something.

‘Stryt! Do the thing!’

Targets Eliminated!
Reward... 545 Points

‘Sweet! Can we get another portal device down by that first ambush?’

New Purchase: Mark I Dimensional Shunting Portal!
Points reduced to... 295

The box pops in, and we dissolve away all the parts until only the power supply remains. 

The box tastes different. Less biodegradable. Sorta metallic.

‘Stryt? Did you change the composition of your delivery boxes?’

I have no idea what you’re talking about.

‘Thanks, Stryt. Love you too!’

As we heal our wounds in preparation for the next push, recreating new substrate from the piles of Antithesis biomass we’ve created, we pull the pile furthest down the main corridor up to where we fought the six. Other than the high speed line station dead end up above, we haven’t found any branches in the tunnel, and we really don’t want anything sneaking up behind us. 

So we build ourselves a camouflaged fortress blocking off the main tunnel. The outer covering is, once again, a faux rocky surface mimicking a collapsed tunnel. As we’re forming it, we even reach up and rake our claws across the ceiling, collapsing some of the tunnel roof for extra verisimilitude. Behind that covering are punt guns, Hummingbird launchers, and single use claymores, all ready to greet any wave of Antithesis that shows up trying to get through. Interwoven with the weapons are pockets of substrate, each one set up to feed the guns ammunition, not to mention leaking out to hose down the Antithesis should they manage to breach the wall.

Our new power supply provides energy for all of it. We really need to order up one of those to experiment with, to break down and figure out how it works, but so far we’ve been way too busy. Also, there’s still that vague worry that if we mess up while deconstructing it, we’ll blow ourselves up in a way we can’t recover from.

To be clear, our worry about blowing ourselves up isn’t really the kind of visceral concern we had when biology still chained us to a pair of decrepit fleshy bodies. So long as enough of us survives, we’ll recover, we’ll reconstitute, we’ll be able to keep making the world a safer, better place for our kids, and their kids, and all the kids out there who deserve a better place. But that’s the thing, if none of us survives, or not enough of us at least, the Antithesis will eat everything.

Yeah, there are other Samurai out there. But there are none in here. Okay, with us trapped in this underground battle with these hidden Hives, we’re not even sure if there really are any other Samurai left. Or anyone else, for that matter. For all we know, the Antithesis have chucked a big rock at the planet, or the suits have finally gone full ouroboros and swallowed up the last of the biosphere, killing everyone off with their greedy idiocy.

Dunno what we’ll do in that case.

Okay, yeah we do. We’ll stop worrying about Rules of Engagement and get really serious about making sure nothing that took away what we’re fighting to protect survives the consequences of their actions. Funny that the Protectors are worried about creating paperclip optimizers, when it’s pretty clear that the big threat out there is itself one. Just instead of optimizing paperclips, it’s optimizing Antithesis Biomass.

So in that absolute worst case scenario, we’ll flip that script on them. Deoptimize everything, from their perspective, one acre, one watershed, one continent, one world at a time. Yeah, they’ll have the resources of planets. Galaxies even, maybe. They’re spread across so much space it’s pointless to even calculate it. It would take centuries, millennia, eons to exterminate them.

But it’s not like we’d have anything better to do.