‘For some years now we’ve been working on an idea. Have you heard people call Them demons before?’ he asked me.
‘Vicar called them that, he had a rationale for it. I’ve heard others say it as well,’ I said, and to be perfectly honest the concept made a degree of sense if you were that way inclined. They seemed to exist for no other reason than to cause us suffering. Though my initial meeting with Ambassador had suggested there was more to it than that. Especially if Ambassador wanted peace, as he claimed.
‘We decided that if our gods are created by us then we would commit the ultimate act of hubris and make a god that was capable of defeating Them,’ he continued.
‘You had a group psychotic episode?’ I asked. For the first time it looked like I’d irritated Pagan.
‘Don’t take everything so literally. God was just our name for it.’
‘For what?’ I asked. ‘You couldn’t have known about Ambassador then.’
‘We didn’t, that was providence.’
‘Divine providence?’
‘Arguably all providence is divine. Would you prefer luck?’ I shrugged. ‘But your Ambassador may be the key to what we are trying to accomplish.’
‘Which is?’ I asked, becoming interested despite myself.
‘We are trying to develop an AI management system that would be capable of nudging the net into sentience,’ he explained. I didn’t understand.
‘What are you talking about? Writing a program that controls the net?’ I asked.
‘No, we will not control it. We are talking about giving the net self-awareness, making it sentient, turning it into God.’ I was really struggling with this.
‘An AI?’ I asked, but Pagan shook his head.
‘A new kind of life, beyond us, better than us.’
‘That’s insane. What if you create a monster?’
‘Worse than this? Worse than ongoing war? Besides, we would create certain parameters to protect ourselves.’ I thought back to a young girl telling me, quite seriously, that she was going to scar herself so they wouldn’t use her any more. Pagan was insane but he may have had a point.
‘I don’t understand, how would that defeat Them?’ I asked. I wasn’t sure if I was confused or just taken aback by the scope of Pagan’s mania.
‘Because it would be greater than the sum of all its parts. It would have access to nearly all the knowledge of humanity. It would have processing power beyond what we could even imagine. This is as near to actual omniscience as we can artificially create. We are talking about an intelligence beyond what we can comprehend.’
‘Godlike,’ I said, getting the point. Pagan nodded. ‘And you hope that this god will show you the path to defeat Them and end the war?’ I said.
Pagan smiled patiently and nodded. He seemed pleased that I’d managed to understand him.
‘Seems a long shot to me,’ I said, unable to fully express just how ridiculous I thought the whole thing was.
‘Well there’s more to it than that, and as I said there will be certain governing parameters.’
‘So you will control it?’ I asked, ‘I mean hypothetically.’ The one reassuring thing about this craziness was it seemed unlikely to ever actually happen. This was the real problem with the religious mania of hackers: nerds though they may be, all you needed was one charismatic one and you had a cult on your hands. The government had feared the consequences of letting vets with special forces enhanced cybernetics back on the street. With our training and heightened abilities we were capable of causing havoc if we wanted to, but we weren’t the real danger. The real danger were the people who made magic with information.
‘No, it will control itself, but it will have certain moral guidelines -like don’t murder everyone on the planet,’ Pagan said, and funnily enough that was one of my worries. In theory this pet god of theirs would have access to just about every automated system connected in some way to the net. This included orbital defence platforms. Military and high-end corporate sites had the highest security our technology was capable of, but I got the feeling that wouldn’t stop something that was omniscient, wouldn’t stop this new life form we seemed to be talking about.
‘What you’re talking about is the world’s biggest computer program designed to defeat Them?’
‘It could have so many other applications, help us in so many other ways.’
‘For example, help us build more advanced weapons?’ I asked.
‘It’s going to be programmed for general benevolence.’
‘Aren’t most religions? How many people died in the FHC?’
‘Two hundred and fifty years since the last religious war.’
‘Still, it’s going to have to be pretty aggressive to find a way to defeat Them,’ I said. This was beginning to smack of the usual religious hypocrisy.
‘We’re less concerned with defeating Them than with stopping the war. Perhaps conflict is not the answer,’ Pagan said. I considered this. In many ways it was a worthy cause as long as it didn’t result in getting our entire race eaten or something. Then I remembered that this was all nonsense.
‘But isn’t that the problem with all you religious types?’ I asked. ‘You want your god to act as a magic wand, make everything all right either now or in the afterlife.’
‘But, don’t you see this god would be real with tangible power?’ said Pagan. I wasn’t sure whether it was fervour or enthusiasm I saw sparkling in his icon’s eye. It was a really sophisticated icon.
‘It’s still abrogating your responsibility to something else to sort out your problems,’ I pointed out.
‘No,’ said Pagan matter-of-factly, slightly deflating me. ‘We’re doing what humans have always done. We’re creating a tool to help deal with the problem at hand.’
‘What problem, a lack of faith or Them?’
‘Whichever.’
‘And if God doesn’t make it all right and kiss it better for you?’
‘Then we, by we I mean humanity, will think of something else, though somebody else may have to do that.’
‘But you want to be the saviours of humanity?’ I asked. Pagan actually stopped at this. If I was reading him properly then it looked like I’d actually hurt his feelings.
‘What are you doing to help?’ he asked, sounding angry for the first time. ‘There is a problem; we may have an answer, we may not.’
‘You may make things worse,’ I pointed out.
‘We may but we don’t think so. You mentioned abrogating responsibility earlier on. Well if not us, then who are you hoping will make things all better for you? The corps? The military? The government?’ Now I was beginning to get angry. This was starting to sound like arrogance.
‘Oh please, save me,’ I said sarcastically. ‘Are you Christ?’ Pagan leaned in towards me. He must’ve triggered a cantrip, a minor program designed to provide special effects for his icon. His hair seemed to catch in a non-existent wind and lightning seemed to play across his features. Heavy-handed it may have been but I was reminded that this man could kill me in here.
‘We are God’s parents, as all humanity have ever been. What are you afraid of?’ he asked. I took an inadvertent step back and would’ve sighed if my icon had been sophisticated enough. What was I scared of?
‘It’s just too big,’ I said. I think that was when I maybe started to believe in it as a possibility, or rather wanted to believe, but I also knew I had to resist the disappointment that followed hope.
‘At some point someone has to do it,’ Pagan leaned back. The storm passing, he seemed back to his more benevolent self.
‘Why us?’ I said before I’d even realised I’d included myself.
‘Nobody else is stepping up, and if we don’t nothing happens.’
‘I’m not a hacker.’
‘Sadly, Jakob, men capable of violence are always useful.’