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Things Have Changed

The Strangest thing has happened. R. Hadrian has just presented me with a strangely wrapped and worded message. A message within a message within a message. All of the outward sheets merely delivery instructions for the inner kernel. The robots know about the Guardians. Well that’s not exactly right. They know some of the time and add anything new and then manage to forget it all. I wonder if this elaborate blind is necessary. I hope not but for now I am not sure so it is best we maintain it.

The Mad Scientists assure me that the contents of our own thoughts, and the manner in which they are stored in our own brains, are so chaotic that we can at least think about the problem without risking discovery. “Speak for yourself Dr. Hibbes,” I said. Still it is somewhat comforting.

We have made a small amount of progress on the original problem of how the Guardians know what they know and how to maintain security while we try to find a way to keep them from finding out things we would just as soon keep private. They indeed can detect the state of any electronic device but Hibbes tells me he can at least tell when they are doing that.

They have scanned us twice more since their original contact. Nothing in any database or electronic files are safe though our thoughts seem secure.

“Do they have undetectable listening or viewing devices,” I asked.

“Doubtful but I can’t rule it out,” Chandler told me. “Hold any conversations away from normally congregated areas. And now that I see what the bots are doing I would say to save any notes in the bot’s caches along with whatever the bots write on their own. Quite amazing that they came up with that. There are things about the basic programming we will likely never know.”

I wonder if their programs can mutate and if so how much.

I will write down most of the above and put it in the caches myself with an additional note to the bots that they don’t need to deliver any more messages to me or other humans because either I or Kara will check every day for anything new. This part won’t go into my log files though what follows will.

I am kind of sorry now that I won the first election for Council Spokesman and part time Mayor. I keep reminding folks that we are due for the next go around along with a vote on the state of our very rudimentary legal system. The unpaid time it takes is one issue but the bigger one is not having enough people to push the problems off to instead of just being around for the deals and pats on the back.

Helen Graham’s husband has been after me on a daily basis to do something about the self proclaimed Leviticans. I know how he feels. Well that’s not strictly true but I know how I would feel in his shoes. I tell him my hands are tied but it doesn’t seem to help. He really blew up when I sent word that he had to turn Helen’s bot back into the labor pool. “First you let Dobswell kidnap my wife and now you kidnap her robot.” Next council meeting I get the new elections scheduled.

And there is still the problem with Buchanan. I can’t even speak of it. I would have been far better off had I tried to win the original election without his help. “Err in haste repent at leisure.” It sure didn’t seem like an error at the time. And I never did get my house on the bluff overlooking the river.

The ranch is doing good enough and Mike sure has made me proud. The biggest surprise is that Judith and I, after all these years of drifting apart, are both changing back into the people we once were when we first met. We have a ways to go yet but are getting a chance to see how it works when you have a few friends liking you for who you are and not what you might do for them.

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Colony: Alchibah is a science fiction blog novel.
Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Probably.

All Contents (written or photo/artwork) not attributed to other sources is
Copyright (C) 2006 - 2011 by Jeff Soyer. All rights reserved.