ASH: LL&DD "A Lesser Mousetrap"
Dave Van Domelen
dvandom at eyrie.org
Sun Aug 6 20:32:18 PDT 2023
[The cover is an homage to the "Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man"
meme, but with two Lady Lawfuls, one of them clearly an impostor]
_____________________________________________________________________________
Coherent LL&DD Special
Comics | ADY | AWFUL __ __ "A Lesser Mousetrap"
Presents an |__ |__ & | \ OCTOR | \ EVELOPER copyright 2023
ASHistory Tale: |_/ |_/ by Andrew Burton
_____________________________________________________________________________
[April 1998 - Chicago, Illinois]
Doctor Developer refused to look up from the computer screen. Instead
he focused on the memory dump in the editor window. He worked through the
almost incomprehensible jumble of characters, translating them from noise
into the workflow that drove the robotic corpse laying on the ground next to
him.
The squid-like robot, a jumble of mechanical tentacles flowing from a
central node shaped like a bullet, lay motionless on the ground. A hole the
size of a fist marred the sleek casing, and provided Doctor Developer access
to the remaining portions of its computer brain. That access was a series of
wires clipped to various leads that led to a port in the back of his
diagnostic system.
Every few minutes he would tap a key and the jumble of letters and
numbers on his screen would change. Each new screen brought him closer to
understanding what the robot's purpose was. Like piecing together a book by
finding pages scattered throughout a library, Doctor Developer was mentally
rebuilding the robot's software one chunk of its active memory at a time.
Normally this would have been exhilarating. Even as one of the
preeminent technological super-villains of his generation it was a rare treat
to examine an autonomous drone created by someone else. He more often got to
partake in the destruction of those drones. Having the ability to study one,
to appreciate the masterwork of a fellow engineer, and glean new insights
from them by proxy of their work, was normally wonderful.
Normally, because normally there wasn't a furious Lady Lawful pacing
around in the background.
Normally she wasn't muttering curses and violent oaths under her breath.
Normally she wasn't strangling someone in pantomime.
Normally she did none of those things.
Too late for his own good, Doctor Developer realized if he was aware of
what she was doing that she didn't normally do, that meant he was looking
away from his computer monitor. If he was looking away there was a chance
Lady Lawful would see him, and if she did...
"Spill, Deedee, what have you found out?" she asked.
Doctor Developer, Deedee when Lady Lawful wasn't in the best mood and
sometimes when she was, took a second for his mind to change gears. When
he'd gotten out of robot logic and back into human English mode, he spoke.
"From what I can tell it's designed to look for Lady Lawful, then capture
Lady Lawful..."
"Why is that such a popular theme?" she interjected.
"...ah, let Lady Lawful escape, and basically repeat," Doctor Developer
finished. He continued before she could interrupt. "To answer that second
question, I think it's not a popular theme, but it, uh, is my theme."
"This is one of your robots?" Lady Lawul's tone shifted dangerously.
"Not my robot, no, but it's my software...some of it," he explained. "I
recognize the reward structure from my simulation software, but the control
systems, the physical hardware, that's someone else."
Lady Lawful threw her hands in the air. "Just great! Somewhere out
there someone's making these robots, and I can't even go out and look for
them because as soon as I do they swarm."
Doctor Developer shrugged. "Well, you can go out, just not Lady
Lawful." The statement satisfied him enough that he went back to the
computer screen.
Lady Lawful spoke very slowly. "But I'm Lady Lawful."
Doctor Developer nodded. "Yes." Lady Lawful pressed her hands into
eyes and let out a frustrated growl, which Doctor Developer took to mean his
explanation wasn't as clear as he thought. "Let me show you. Just...one...
okay, two..." he pecked at the keyboard. "Maybe five..."
"I'm going to get coffee," Lady Lawful said, "I'll be back." With that
she walked out of Deedee's lab.
* * * *
As soon as she stepped back into Deedee's lab, Lady Lawful's fight or
flight instincts kicked in. The squid robot looked like it was floating
above the ground, and that meant grabby tentacles weren't far behind. She
was about to launch a preemptive strike when Doctor Developer cried out.
"It works!" He sounded far too pleased with himself.
"What works?" Lady Lawful asked. She wasn't ready to step back into
Deedee's lab, and opted to hang back in the hallway. If the squidbot got any
ideas, she had some advantage being a few extra steps away from it. "Please
tell me you didn't fix the robot that's trying to grab me."
"Uh, no, I didn't fix it. I just got its basic features working."
Deedee was not looking at her, and instead kept explaining. "It's actually
got a really robust diagnostic protocol. In fact, I think it's using the
Dogooder interface, which made this setup a lot easier."
Dogooder was a simulation program Deedee created. Lady Lawful
remembered a demo he gave, showing how he used it to simulate his schemes,
deathtraps, and the like. A bit disquieting if you weren't acclimated to
Deedee's form of endearing charms. For better or worse, Lady Lawful was.
"What setup?" From her vantage point, Lady Lawful could see Deedee
looking at a computer, but he blocked the screen.
Her question was enough to get his attention. Deedee looked back at
her, and cocked his head. "You can come in."
Lady Lawful pointed at the semi-activated robot. "Not with that
thing...hovering." Without hesitation, Deedee shoved the squidbot away. It
floated across the room, only stopping when the cables connected to Deedee's
computers went taut.
"It's safe." Lady Lawful walked closer to Deedee's setup, which was all
the prompt he needed to continue his explanation. "I've got this setup to
show what it sees." The image on the screen was distorted, but after a
moment Lady Lawful identified herself as a red, blue, and blonde blob in one
of the corners. "Its field of vision is more than a hundred eighty degrees,
which is why it looks odd."
"Yeah, I just got that," Lady Lawful replied.
"So that's just its basic visual layer, but if I overlay its goal
protocol things get cool." Deedee tapped on a few keys, and suddenly
rectangles started to flash on the screen. They disappeared after a second,
except for a red one that outlined her form. "It's good at identifying
objects, but it only cares about Lady Lawful."
Lady Lawful frowned. "And we're back to where I went for coffee."
"Okay, follow me outside." Deedee took Lady Lawful's hand and started
toward the door. She didn't think he was trying to be rude, but when he was
in demo mode Deedee didn't like to leave anything to chance. Too much time
with robots, she thought.
Once they were out of the lab, Deedee pointed to the monitor. From
their distance it was hard to make out details, but she could see enough to
know that they were out of the squidbot's view.
"Go back in, but watch the screen," Deedee said. He pointed at the
monitor, as if there was more than one.
Lady Lawful obliged. She could see some movement on the screen, which
she recognized as her coming from the shadows of the hallway. A square
flashed around her on screen, shifting as she moved. It wasn't until she was
all the way in, properly lit by the lab lights, that the square turned red.
"Right, and now?"
"Come back out." Deedee was taking off his jacket. He offered it to
Lady Lawful. "Keep your hair under the collar, and take your mask off."
Lady Lawful pulled Deedee's coat around her, buttoning it closed, and put her
mask in one of the coat pockets. The collar tugged at her hair a bit, but
she resisted pulling it loose per his instructions.
"Now back in?" she asked.
"Both of us," Deedee answered.
They entered the lab. Again the squidbot's point of view identified two
new potential targets. Unlike her previous entrance the squidbot did not
identify Lady Lawful as being present.
"So," Lady Lawful said thoughtfully, "they're looking for Lady Lawful,
but not plain old Jennifer McKay?" Deedee nodded, smiling ever so slightly.
"That's a start, but how can I take these things down without giving up my
secret identity?"
Deedee's smile disappeared into a pained expression. "I have an idea,
but you're not going to like it."
* * * *
Kidnaptor V7 floated above Chicago scanning for Lady Lawful. Its last
encounter with her in its Kidnaptor V6.1 form led to some hardware upgrades.
It sacrificed the quantity of tentacles for an overall increase in armoring.
Four tentacles and extra armoring around its primary node would ensure its
victory in their next encounter.
Much to the displeasure of its scanning subsystem's reward algorithms,
which were given positive feedback and ensured their code greater longevity
upon identifying Lady Lawful, she was nowhere within its visual range. Based
on aggregate data that had served previous outings well, Kidnaptor V7 was
within the window of time when Lady Lawful went on patrol. That window was
closing fast.
A quick diagnostic reported that its visual systems were working. It
identified multiple physical obstacles, numerous individual people on the
streets, and one super-hero patrolling the rooftops that was eighty-nine
percent likely not to be Lady Lawful. A review of a snapshot increased that
probability.
While there was a slight overlap in appearance...due to similar age sex,
and racial characteristics...the white costume, red shoulderpads, and other
color variations in adornment lowered the similarity threshold far below that
required to identify her as Lady Lawful.
After a time Kidnaptor V7 altered its course and headed back to its
lair. Its power was low, beneath the optimum level for an encounter with
Lady Lawful. By tomorrow its Kidnaptor V7.1 upgrades would be ready. Its
simulations showed a high chance that a few changes to its power control
systems could yield a twenty-five percent increase in efficiency. Tomorrow
its search for Lady Lawful would be successful.
The visual systems would not be rewarded for their lack of success, but
neither would they be punished. They could not see what was not present,
after all.
* * * *
Lady Lawful really wanted an energy sword to finish off the Brightsword
look. The idea of slicing and dicing those Kidnaptor robots felt very
satisfying. Unfortunately, Deedee didn't think he could come up with one in
such a short time, but she could see the gears turning. Hope sprang eternal.
What he had come up with was pretty good.
It wasn't laser sword good, but close.
"How do I look," Anne Abell asked. She struck a pose, showing off her
borrowed Lady Lawful costume. The costume was a bit loose in the chest, the
belt was an obvious fake, but the wig they'd found looked very close to
Jennifer's own locks.
"You look great!" Lady Lawful told her. "Next time Mom and Dad come up,
you've got to wear it. We'll tell them you're me from another timeline."
Anne was a retired hero, who had briefly gone by the name Unbeatable.
With the world getting crazier lately, not to mention an encounter with
Doctor Developer that made her reconsider her choices, she'd retired from
that role and worked as a nurse in the clinic where Deedee went when he
caught a cold, had a lab accident that required stitches, or dislocated
something during foreplay. Through several visits, Anne and Jennifer had
struck up a friendship. She could also be relied on as support during
super-heroic duties.
Tonight, she was bait.
* * * *
Kidnaptor V7's internal alarms triggered as soon as the form on its
security camera was identified as Lady Lawful with a high certainty. With
imperceptible speed it ran a distributed check of systems. It was still
recharging from its previous patrol, but based on previous encounters and
Lady Lawful's proximity, its fifty percent charge was enough for eighty
percent successful capture.
The charging cradle clamps disengaged, and the drone floated free. As
it rose, the skylight portal opened to allow it egress. Moving in perfect
synchronicity, the drone flew out with less than an inch of clearance.
Based on the scanners tracking Lady Lawful's position from within the
installation, the Kidnaptor V7 drone began to arc so it could swoop down and
grab its target. The tactical subsystems ran a dozen simulations by the time
Kidnaptor V7 reached the zenith. As soon as it was aimed down and Lady
Lawful was in its sights, it calculated with near certainty that Lady Lawful
would not be able to outrun it.
It was seconds away from launching a tentacle attack when Lady Lawful
leapt in the air. Kidnaptor V7 altered its course to avoid crashing into the
ground. In parallel to the navigation systems altering its course to chase
Lady Lawful across rooftops, the tactical computer began working to
understand an apparently unknown ability in its target.
Of all the registered means of ambulation by Lady Lawful, super leaps
were not recorded. It defied all calculated responses. Kidnaptor V7
continued to give chase, but the tactical computer lowered the confidence
that their target was Lady Lawful. It also began to consider the possibility
that people who looked like Lady Lawful might not be Lady Lawful. This was
still a low confidence concept, did not warrant overriding the chase, but the
concept was flagged for later examination.
Lady Lawful continued to leap across rooftops, each leap a steep arc
that was different from how she usually hurdled over alleys. As she landed
from her last leap, Lady Lawful spun around to look at the approaching
Kidnaptor V7 drone. She crouched as she turned back away, preparing to leap
again. This time Kidnaptor V7 was ready, it changed its vector to an
ascending intercept course.
Kidnaptor V7 flew over the roof where Lady Lawful was about to jump.
Immediately its systems began to flare emergency errors. Fight control
systems went first, and it crashed into the roof of the building. Tactical
computers went next, its artificial consciousness dying in a storm of
static-filled errors and corrupted data.
The last system remaining was its sensor module, which were specifically
shielded to remain functional during combat as long as possible. By design
they would continue recording as long as possible to provide data for the
next version. Kidnaptor V7 no longer possessed the higher cognitive
functions to realize the attack obliterated its communications package.
In its final seconds of functionality, Kidnaptor V7 watched with an unseeing
eyes, listened with unhearing ears, as two figures approached. One it would
have identified as Lady Lawful, right up to when she pulled the wig off her
head. The other, it would have been dismissed as not Lady Lawful, due to
being a head taller, having darker hair, and not being a lady.
"Is that a lightning gun?"
* * * *
Lady Lawful, still wearing her Brightsword costume, watched as the drone
zoomed out of the opened skylight. She waited until she was sure it was
chasing Anne before standing up from her hiding spot behind a dumpster in the
alley across from the robot's sanctuary.
Once she followed the drone to its lair, Lady Lawful's first plan
involved bombing the building into rubble. Deedee wasn't sure the owners of
the surrounding, abandoned buildings would appreciate a smoking crater
bringing down property values further than they were. Her next plan was the
energy sword one, but again her supposedly mad scientist husband dismissed
the idea as too dangerous. She began to think he might be sympathetic to an
entity whose sole purpose was her capture, out of some strange sense of
professional courtesy.
Then he produced a pair of lightning guns. He and Anne would take care
of the drone, and she would clean up the rest.
It was a short walk to the position where Anne started, and Lady Lawful
wanted to begin her approach there to ensure her visibility. Once she saw
the camera turn to look at her, Lady Lawful began a direct approach. Once
the camera turned away from her, she flat out ran toward the abandoned
garage.
"Look at me when I'm about to destroy you!" she growled.
In one hand she held the second lightning gun. With her free arm, Lady
Lawful punched through the metal roll up door. She tore the fist-sized hole
into a gash that she could fit through.
At first glance, the inside of the garage reminded Lady Lawful of
Deedee's lab where he was building an off-book spaceship. As she looked
closer, there were differences. There was a chaotic feel to this space.
However far out Deedee could be, his layouts were defined by human form.
Whatever intelligence built this lab, it was not human. Stacks were too
short, then too tall. The lights were too dim. Before Lady Lawful could
actually wonder who pieced the equipment together, four tentacles snaked down
from the ceiling.
She ducked and rolled out of the way before they could get a grip. As
she came back to her feet, she saw they were attached to a rail system that
ran along the roof. The central body to which the tentacles were connected
began to move toward her.
Lady Lawful didn't hesitate. She fired the lighting gun at the railed
robot, and it died in an explosion of sparks. She yanked on the tentacles
while their connection points were still glowing white hot from the blast.
They fell to the ground in a heap.
"You dumb robot, I'm Lady Lawful, and you didn't see me coming."
Her taunt was punctuated by a small chime from the lightning gun
announcing its capacitor was recharged. Lady Lawful turned to face the
tallest stack of computers near the center of the garage. Deedee told her
the gun was good for four blasts, and she intended to make each one count.
* * * *
The Kidnaptor Network absorbed the data sent from the Kidnaptor V7
installation. Most of the hardware and software upgrades were uploaded while
Kidnaptor V7 was out on patrol. What came now was a distributed, emergency
upload via numerous methods. It would take time to fully assemble and
process the information, but some was already available.
Of particular interest were the final seconds of streaming input from
Kidnaptor V7's maintenance systems. A woman in a white outfit, most
definitely not Lady Lawful, spoke directly. "You dumb robot, I'm Lady
Lawful, and you didn't see me coming."
The audio sample matched Lady Lawful without question.
The visual information is what confused the network.
Instantly old image archives zipped for storage were reopened.
Processes spawned to look through training data accumulated over time. This
data was originally used to train the network in what was not Lady Lawful.
It therefore stood to reason while the data was imperfect, it might be the
correct place to start looking for answers.
Time passed, search parameters were refined, and soon an answer was
discovered. Pictures that matched with high confidence to those from the
stream were found in training data pulled from the public internet. These
images were embedded in files containing text, which when read indicated that
the visual profile from the stream matched another hero named Brightsword.
The visual information indicated Brightsword defeated Kidnaptor V7.
The audio information indicated Lady Lawful defeated Kidnaptor V7.
As more of the emergency uploaded data was rebuilt, Kidnaptor V7's logs
were added into the cohort of information. There was a high probability that
the attacker who identified herself as Lady Lawful was seen before the
attack. This increased the probability enough to tip the scales.
Before the network began diverting equipment and hiring contractors to
seed a new production facility for Kidnaptor V8, two updates were made and
dispersed throughout the network. The first was a small collection of
training data that would be used to ensure future sightings of Lady Lawful
were not ignored if she was not in her usual costume. The second was a
simple directive.
assert_true(LADY_LAWFUL, BRIGHTSWORD);
=============================================================================
Author's note:
This story was inspired by watching a video, circa 2022, where people
were outsmarting human tracking software by putting on a sweater that showed
a background with people in it. It got me thinking about how you'd actually
have to train an AI to guard against super-heroes. This put me in mind of a
scenario where an AI outsmarted a developer, and to ensure it was rewarded
for identifying heroes breaking in would leak base locations. From
there...yeah.
Suffice to say, Deedee's simulation software getting gobbled up by a
rogue, magene-built AI and perverting its reward system into something that
would repeatedly try to trap Lady Lawful amused me. Then I realized how to
both beat the system, and make things so much worse.
Anne originally appeared as the Detroit hero Unbeatable.
https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/ASH/Unbeatable
Deedee showed Jennifer his aeronautics lab in late 1996.
https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/ASH/LLDDlabviews
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Heroic Age, but containing some information about other Ages.
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