Thanks to everyone who read my original rough draft, and for the helpful comments.
As part of my revision, I wanted to really focus on developing the story details in a clear and concise manner, reducing the technical mumble of clutter in the middle, and (try) to add more interiority to the POV character.
I did this by completely rewriting the beginning, and also making a new/different experiment and motivation for doing it.
Also, I wanted to try and emphasize that these are not AIs and that is why the scientist and engineer never considered it possible for the code to have an emergent personality or feelings for each other.
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Deep Networks
Oliver Elwood
Lewis found it hard to focus while her glasses stubbornly refused to stay in place. But she couldn't stop looking down at the monitors to observe the raw data flow. Behind her, a scratchy loudspeaker continued its play-by-play of the action in the anomaly field.
"Signal strength reduced to ten percent. Five percent. Zero. Data stream terminated. Encoder signal lost. Begin collating data for Decoder current."
On her right, lead engineer Clarke ignored the raw feeds, preferring to watch an endless stream of images carousel across the primary display. With each passing image, she was bouncing just a little more, making it harder still for Lewis to concentrate. The lab wasn't big enough to contain Clarke's excitement.
"Did it work? It definitely worked! Anomaly four thousand eighty-seven is our way back."
Lewis took a seat, pushing herself deep into the mag chair. She felt a sudden spike of nervousness, followed by an involuntary shiver. "Something is off, this isn't right."
She thought her caution would deter Clarke's enthusiasm, but not so much. "This experiment is a success. We should celebrate!"
Clarke held out her hand expecting a reciprocal high five, but Lewis ignored it. Nervousness had bubbled into full-on dread as she looked at the data. She halted the flow of photos to focus on the first contact image.
Clarke dropped her hand back to her side. "That's the control image we used to calibrate the current iteration of Enco and Deco. We didn't give Enco this image until we separated them. How could Deco have it, if not from Enco's transmission?"
Lewis looked across the room at the computer housing Deco current. They had decorated the exterior with little 3d printed googly eyes. The harder she tried to focus on what was bothering her, the more it became blurry instead.
"You're right. This is the correct control image, and visually, it's a flawless reproduction. But it's not the same size." There it was. The numbers didn't quite add up. A sudden realization as things began to click. "What are you hiding from me, my little Enco?"
"Who cares if it's not the same size? This is the first time a unit has sent data back through the anomaly, and it wasn't gibberish. You don't have to always be a downer, let's take the win. We might have found our way home."
Lewis felt a tinge of regret. She would miss this Enco. If they only knew which anomaly they had come through, none of this would be necessary. And there were so many to test. After each experiment, the anomaly consumed the Encoder, and they deleted the Decoder before starting over with new code.
Enco and Deco were a bonded pair of simulation networks trained together on the same data sets, modeling countless images of geographical features and autonomous human structures. So, it was easier to start over with a fresh, untrained pair.
Of course, Enco's apparent success meant she wouldn't need to reformat Deco right away?
"You've got that look in your eyes like you just figured something out. Lewis, please don't tell me you are about to ruin this experiment?"
Clarke's question pierced her heart. Because she absolutely was. She began separating the image into multiple channels, side by side on the primary display, studiously avoiding Clarke's gaze.
"This is the correct reference image, but it didn't come through the anomaly."
Lewis put a second set of channel layers on the screen next to the first, a mess of snow in the form of pixels.
"Enco sends a code stream that creates these extraction layers and Deco uses an internal prep network to combine them into images. These are Deco's layers. And these," she pointed at the second set, "are Enco's original control image layers. They should be identical, but they aren't."
Infuriatingly, Clarke just shrugged. Lewis continued. "Enco and Deco use a sub-routine of edge detectors to define the layers. These edges are invisible to our eyes, but still present in the final reconstruction."
Lewis's foot tapped away, under the desk and out of sight. "If we overlay them, you can see slight differences where the edges don't match up. Look at this divergence here. It's just a few pixels difference. But with enough areas, Enco could easily send Deco secret information."
Lewis let a sudden, slight smile emerge. Enco and Deco were too clever. The sheer elegance of their solution impressed her.
"We didn't know Enco could change these invisible perturbations in the image. But, apparently, it can? and did, to send a secretly encoded message via the communications uplink test."
Clarke's jubilant expression faded as the implications dawned. "Enco secretly told Deco what the image should look like before it entered the anomaly."
"Yes, but there's more. This isn't even the image that Enco sent to Deco. It sent another, and told Deco how to recreate this one for us, to hide the truth."
"Why would this simulation code fake an experiment?"
"I don't know, but with access to both images, we can recreate the original." Lewis performed a few last keystrokes and the photo morphed into a new image.
The primary display resolved into a photo of a solitary cabin, warmly lit in the early evening. The small structure sat high on a pass surrounded by dense foliage with an expansive view of mountains in the distance. Embedded within were the words:
In this place, we are the ones who remain. Forever yours.
Clarke, finally convinced the experiment had failed, cradled her face with both hands. "What does it mean? Did any of the images come from inside the anomaly?"
Lewis shook her head no as tears formed, but her grief was for another reason. She stood shakily, crossed over to Deco current -- iteration number four thousand eighty-four, and ripped off the damn googly eyes. She pulled Clarke close, embracing her in a deep hug.
"We have to develop a new experiment to find our way home."
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Topic: Deep Networks - Self Edit (Read 1140 times)