5
It took four more hours to prepare the Explorer to be dropped into the liquid methane sea. By three o’clock in the afternoon, Melissa felt almost sick with tension, her empty stomach in a knot. The Explorer had been sealed inside the Bottle’s air lock. Technicians had evacuated the air in the lockdown to a vacuum, then cooled the Explorer down to 290 degrees below zero. When it had finally come to equilibrium at the lower temperature, they had slowly introduced the dense atmosphere of Titan into the air lock.
The Explorer continued to work perfectly.
The time had arrived to open the inner seal of the air lock and place the raft in the artificial sea. Inside the Bottle, a mechanical arm would pluck the raft from the air-lock gantry, swing it out over the pool of liquid methane—and drop it from a height of eight feet. The free fall from that height had been carefully calibrated to reproduce the splashdown impact.
The room had fallen silent. Nearly all had completed their tasks and were awaiting the test. The group of people in the audience around the Bottle had risen to over seventy.
Shepherd took up her position at the testing console, next to Jack Stein. She could feel the tension in the air. An internal camera fed an image of the inside of the Bottle to a screen on both hers and Stein’s consoles.
All eyes were on Groves. As mission director, he was the emcee of this show.
“We’re ready,” said Stein, looking at his computer screen. “Equilibrium achieved. All systems go.”
“Open the inner air lock,” said Groves.
Stein rapped away at his keyboard.
Melissa could hear the muffled hum of gears inside the Bottle.
“Done. Equilibrium maintained.”
“Hook the raft.”
Stein executed a program that operated a servo crane inside the Bottle. The crane picked up the raft by an external hook and swung it out into the center of the Bottle. More humming. Everything was illuminated in a dull brown-orange light, the color of Titan’s atmosphere. The servo crane operated flawlessly, coming to rest with the gray cookie dangling over the surface of the liquid methane.
Stein examined his computer screen, typing commands, looking for problems. “My systems are all go. Melissa, any software issues?”
“None on my end. Patty?”
“All good.”
Melissa glanced at Groves. He was as nervous as she was. Maybe more. She reminded herself that there would be failures—there always were.
Groves said, “Release the raft for splashdown.”
The servo crane released its cargo, and the big gray cookie fell eight feet into the liquid methane.
Watching on the screen, Melissa saw the heavy raft go completely under and disappear for a moment, before slowly resurfacing. It rose up, methane draining off it in runnels, bobbing and rocking, bubbles rising around it.
Everyone was silent.
“All systems green,” said Stein.
“Start the impeller at ten percent thrust,” Groves said.
Stein executed the command and the craft began to move through the liquid, churning up a small wake. It moved slowly until it bumped into the side of the container. It then turned and altered direction, like a Roomba, until it bumped into another wall.
This was going incredibly well, Melissa thought.
“Cut the impeller.”
The Explorer came to a halt.
“Raise the camera.”
The little hatch opened, and the mechanical arm carrying the camera, instrumentation packages, claw, and drill came out.
The bug-eye camera swiveled around, looking this way and that.
“Wait,” said Groves to Stein. “I didn’t tell you to rotate it.”
“I’m not doing it,” said Stein.
Melissa realized why it had done that. “Tony, the software is AI. It’s programmed to go beyond its instructions, if necessary. It’s programmed to take in its surroundings immediately, with no cue from mission control.”
“Okay, but for these tests, I want it to follow the instructions. Jack?”
“Right.” Stein typed on his terminal, feeding the instructions to the computer on the Explorer.
The swiveling eye stopped.
“Retract the arm.”
Stein typed the command.
The arm did not retract.
“Retract.”
It still didn’t move.
“Is it stuck?” said Grove.
Now the bug-eye began moving around again, looking up, down, doing a 360.
“Patty, what’s going on?” Melissa asked.
Melancourt spoke: “According to the program output, it won’t execute the retraction routine.”
“Software glitch?”
Stein typed in more commands. “I’m not getting a response.”
Melissa said, “Wait, now it’s responding. I’m getting a message. It says … that it’s in a threatening environment and must be able to see.”
“Are you kidding?” said Groves. “Make it follow instructions!”
“Tony, it’s an autonomous program.”
“Isn’t there a ‘Follow instructions exactly’ mode to this program?”
“You told me this was to be a live test. This is the real program.”
“Why didn’t I know this?”
Melissa felt a stab of irritation. “Maybe because you skipped most of my briefings?”
Stein said, “There was a long discussion about this, Tony. Melissa’s right. You said this was to be a live test of the real software.”
Melissa continued watching the video feed from inside the Bottle. The Explorer continued to move its eye about, this way and that, up and down, taking in its surroundings.
“All right,” said Grove. “We need a little software tweaking. We’re going to call it a day. Jack, could you hook up the raft and put it back in the lock?”
“Sure thing.” Stein typed away.
There was a murmur of disappointment as the audience realized that the testing regime was over for the day. “Great work, everyone,” Groves said, raising his voice so all could hear. “This has been a good day.”
He turned to Shepherd. “How long do you think it’ll take to tweak the software? To give us the option of overriding the AI whatever.”
“Not long. We could do it tonight.” Melissa colored a little under her mask. “I’m sorry, I just assumed this was a dress rehearsal—”
“My bad,” said Groves. “No worries. Honestly, I’m pleased we got this far before a glitch.”
On the little screen, Groves saw the hook of the crane materialize out of the murky orange glow, looming as it approached the raft with its dangling hook.
Suddenly, the mechanical arm of the Explorer moved—fast. It took a swipe at the crane and knocked it aside.
“What the hell?” Melissa said.
The crane, still following the servo program, repositioned itself and began its relentless move down, hook extended.
The impeller on the Explorer fired up and it moved away from the crane, again fending off the hook with its claw.
“It’s the goddamnedest thing,” said Stein. “It’s evading the crane.”
“What’s going on?” asked Groves, staring at Melissa.
“It’s … I think the software’s gone into defensive mode.”
Groves turned back to Stein. “Jack, turn the Explorer off. Shut down all power. We’ll pick her up dead.”
Stein typed in the command. “I’m still not getting a response.”
“Put it in safety mode.”
More typing. “Nothing doing.”
“Melissa?”
“I don’t know what’s going on.”
Melancourt spoke: “It’s gone into emergency survival mode. In that mode it’s programmed to ignore all instructions from mission control and operate autonomously.”
“Just hook it and get it out of there,” Groves said, raising his voice.
Melissa watched as Stein again tried to position the crane over the raft. The Explorer accelerated away from the crane, ricocheting hard off the side of the tank. Groves could hear the boom in the room. It careened to the other side, hit it with another boom.
“Stop the crane,” said Groves. “Give it a rest.”
“We can pump the liquid out of the tank,” said Stein. “That’ll immobilize it, and then we can pick it up.”
“Good idea. Start the pumps.”
A humming noise filled the room as the valves opened and the pumps kicked in. The Explorer continued to move about, driving first to one side of the tank and the other, ricocheting off the steel walls, each time with a boom. The camera on the probe swiveled about, this way and that, up and down.
“Isn’t there some way to turn the Explorer off?” Groves cried. “It’s going to damage itself!”
“No dice,” said Stein. “It won’t acknowledge my commands.”
Groves turned on Shepherd. “Melissa, what is going on?”
“Let me try.”
Stein stepped aside, and Melissa began typing furiously on the keyboard. Meanwhile, on the screen she could see that the Explorer had come to rest against the wall of the tank and was now extending its mechanical claw up to the wall. It began touching it, and then tapping on it. They could hear the tapping in the room.
Melissa sent command after command, but the raft would not acknowledge or respond. Even when she switched from English to programming mode, it rejected all commands. It just kept tapping on the side of the tank, as if it were looking for a way out.
The sound of its tapping grew louder, more insistent.
“Patty, what does the code say?”
“It’s stuck in emergency survival mode and a whole bunch of modules are running simultaneously. CPU usage over ninety-nine percent. It’s really engaged.”
The taps got louder, and now it began scratching at the wall, the sound filling the room. A sharp murmur of unease rose from the crowd. They had no idea what was happening, only that something had gone wrong.
“Melissa, for God’s sake, shut it down!”
“I’m trying!”
The Explorer now banged on the side of the tank with its claw, once, twice, the clang reverberating loudly in the room. The crowd of spectators stepped back with a collective gasp.
Melissa stared at the screen. It was unbelievable. The software had gone crazy.
“Jack, I don’t know what to do.”
“In a moment it’ll be beached on the bottom of the tank. Then we can hook it out and shut it down manually.”
The pumps were working furiously, the level of liquid in the tank going down, the surface swirling with current.
Clang! Clang! The Explorer’s titanium claw beat on the wall even harder.
“What the hell is it doing?” Groves cried.
“It’s … reacting to a perceived threat,” said Melissa.
And then there was a whirring sound. It took Melissa a moment to realize what it was: the built-in drill. The Explorer extended its arm and pointed the drill at the side of the tank, moving toward it.
“Oh no,” said Stein. “God no.”
The drill contacted the side of the tank, filling the room with a loud vibrating noise.
It took Melissa only a moment to realize what would happen if the container was breached: a violent release of flammable methane, tholins, and hydrogen cyanide into an oxygenated atmosphere. It would ignite. There would be a massive explosion.
The drilling sound got louder, rougher. It was a diamond-core drill of the highest quality, and it was penetrating fast.
“Evacuate!” Groves screamed. “Everyone out! Evacuate the facility!”
He grabbed Melissa, and tried to shove her toward the door, but she resisted leaving the workstation. There was a scattering of gasps, a scream or two, and the group surged back.
“Jack! You too! Get going!”
Stein shook his head. “In a moment. I gotta stop this.”
Groves finally propelled Melissa away. “Move! Everyone move!”
There was mass confusion as the crowd moved back, first hesitantly, and then with growing panic, some people breaking into a run.
“Jack!” Melissa screamed. “Get going!”
She tried to grab his arm, but Groves continued to push her along, off the platform and into the surging crowd. The sound of the drill filled the space, louder and louder.
“Get out! Out! Any way you can!” Groves screamed. “It’s going to blow!”
An earsplitting siren went off, with red lights flashing. The crowd was now stampeding toward the closest exits, ripping down the sheets of plastic that surrounded the clean area, stumbling and falling. Clipboards and handhelds and iPads hit the floor as people dropped everything to run.
Melissa was swept up in the general panic, propelled along, buffeted toward the exit. She saw that Stein remained at the console—the only one not running.
“Jack, what are you doing!” she cried. “Jack—!”
Stein, working furiously at the console, ignored her. She tried to turn back but it was impossible, with the surging crowd and Groves still gripping her arm, dragging her along.
Just as she neared the door, he could hear the breach, an explosive pop like a loud champagne cork, followed by a deafening roar as the methane came blasting out of the hole in the tank. All it needed was some stray source of ignition. It would explode at any moment.
She was swept up in the crowd now fighting to get through the bottleneck of the exit. People were beginning to lose their minds, clawing and screaming at each other to get out. Melissa was helpless, propelled out the door, through the lobby, and out onto the lawn. She fell on the grass outside, tried to get up to go back in, but was knocked down. People were running like ants. Then it happened. A great whooshing sound culminating in a shuddering boom that lofted her up, tumbling her for a moment through the air before she came back down on the grass, landing hard and rolling.
Lying in the grass, the wind knocked out of her and her ears ringing, she saw a fireball rise into the sky, along with hundreds of little white fragments, which looked harmless until they began to rain down around her and strike the people sprawled on the grass. She realized they were metal fragments of the roof coming down like shrapnel, followed by a slow-falling snow of insulation that seemed to go on forever, amid cries and screams for help.