Voice Log: 28 Apr 2645 15.

28

Professor Konrad Goverian

The Nanite AI Project has taken an interesting turn. A long series

of experiments in increasing the positronic linkage of the indi-

vidual neural units have been spectacularly unsuccessful over the

past few weeks, and we were all feeling rather despondent about

it (see logs in the period 30 Mar to 27 Apr 2645 for more detail).

Then today at 05.36 hrs, a cockroach (Gods only know how those

damn things get into places that are supposed to be contaminant

free) fell into the spinning mass of AI primed nanites that we had

active in the centrifuge. Despite the lateness (or earliness -

depending on how you look at it) of the hour, Mel saw the falling

insect out of the corner of her bloodshot eye. We replayed the

video log, and sure enough, a cockroach had got into the ‘clean

room’ and fallen into our grandest experiment. We were about to

be horrified, until we saw the effect this addition of biologi-

cal material had had on the nanite linkage levels. There was a

definite spike, that didn’t fall back to baseline as we left the

infested test sample to run. This effect of the addition of live

biological material may yet provide us with the breakthrough we

have been working towards.

Alexander Rose (order #6051232)

 Voice Log: 2 May 2645 22.06

Professor Konrad Goverian

Today we discovered an insurgent in our midst. That damn fool,

Burgmann, was discovered down in the secret lab, having hacked

into Vishnu, and was in the middle of routing a message off-world

when Sebastian caught the unauthorised transmission and shut it

down. Parkette and Nills had Burgmann apprehended in short order,

and we are holding him down in the storage room in the secret lab.

It is such a shame that so promising a scientist turned out to be

a traitor. I am not sure what to do with him.

Following on from yesterday’s report, our limited supply of biolog-

ical material is not showing the promise that we’d hoped. Long

dead tissue adds nothing to the linkage matrix, and even sacrific-

ing Leena’s hamster provided only slightly less than 50% of the

expected linkage necessary to maintain the thought processes of a

functional nanite AI. Unless we can find another source of mate-

rial, we may be dead in the water here.

Alexander Rose (order #6051232)

 Voice Log: 4 May 2645 23.42

Professor Konrad Goverian

The ‘Burgmann Problem’ may be solved. The supply shuttle arrived

yesterday, and although he wont admit to it, I expect that Burgmann

planned to leave on it after passing on all our secrets to other

corporate interests. Acts like this really make me angry, and so

I felt more than justified in my recent actions. I had Madrigal

sneak onto the supply shuttle, and rig it to ‘have an accident’

on the way back to Confucius. I know this is willful destruction

of Corporate property, and causing the death of a MentAI employee

(even one as lowly as a shuttle pilot), but it may be the only way

to proceed in our quest for a fully functioning, stable nanoAI.

Anyway, after the shuttle had left, we told the staff that Burg-

mann had suddenly decided to quit, and returned on the shuttle to

Confucius. The looks on their faces were mixed; clearly some just

accepted it because they really didn’t care, but I thought I saw

considerable doubt in the eyes of Orrs and Medras. I’ll have to

keep a closer eye on those two. Once news gets back of the shuttle

accident, I think the story will stick and the problem will go

away. After all, it worked for poor Leena... a situation that

still causes me great heartache.

Anyway, what we plan to do is to use Burgmann, the traitor who

tried to pass on all our secrets to the enemy, as biological

fodder for the AI. We will start small, with bits of flesh from

non-critical areas, but if it looks like it’s working... Mel and

I are quite giddy with anticipation.

Alexander Rose (order #6051232)

 Voice Log: 28 May 2645 02.04

Professor Konrad Goverian

The BioAI Project, as the NanoAI Project has come to be known, is

showing considerable promise. Progress was initially slow due to

some minor setbacks, careful experiment selection - we only have

a limited amount of biological material, after all - and the time

needed to build the medical and tissue retrieval facility next

to the centrifuge chamber. With the construction completed some

weeks ago now, we proceeded with incremental experiments to see

the effects of different human tissues on nanite linkage within

the BioAI.

I am extremely happy to log that, several hours ago, we had a major

breakthrough. As I’d suspected all along, the nanites reacted the

best they have so far to a small section of brain tissue from

the transplant donor. I think it has something to do with the

fact that the tissue added in this latest experiment is function-

ally similar to what we are trying to create. We have calculated

that if the remaining brain tissue of the subject is applied to

the correct size of nanite load, within the parameters optimised

over the last 5 runs, we should be able to get stabilized linkage

within the nanite core.

But then what do we do with it? A stable BioAI neural matrix is

one thing, but we still need to program it. To facilitate this,

I’m going to requisition the use of the MentAI system AC. Yes, I

know they are unlikely to want to give it up, but when I explain to

them just what they are likely to get in return... I think they’ll

see it my way. It’ll take a few months to get here... it’s going

to be a long wait.

Alexander Rose (order #6051232)