Chapter 31 – Tails of Invention Part 3

Rachael O'Shea wasn't easily put off her stride, so she simply asked Tails, "You built an artificial intelligence to run the Tornado?"

However it wasn't Tails who answered. The blue fox crossed her arms and huffed. "Machine intelligence, thank you very much! My body may be artificial, but my consciousness is as real as anyone's. Not that it's what my dad intended when he designed me."

"Machine intelligence then." The reporter nodded to the image. "You seem a lot more 'alive' than most robots I've come across. Even Eight-man was a lot less assertive, though no-one who talks to him for more than a few minutes can deny he's a person. You call Tails your dad?"

"He created me, what else should I call him? I was designed to be a a persona program that acted as a natural language voice interface to the Tornado's systems and a companion while he was travelling home. I assimilated thousands of hours of audio-visual records and built my personality around them. My remote projection system also means I can pretend to be an adult figure to cover for him wherever needed."

She pushed herself off the device and dropped to the floor, expanding until she matched Rachael's height, engulfing the generator. She also shifted form until she was the spitting image of the reporter, albeit wearing gloves. She held out a hand, and somewhat bemused, Rachael took it, and was surprised to feel actual contact.

"I thought you were just an image! For the benefit of the viewers at home, I can actually feel the hand I'm shaking."

"Most holograms are, the forcefield matrix that acts as a 'screen' is too diffuse to provide kinesthetic feedback, but I can thicken it up locally to provide an illusion of solidity, though I don't have the leverage to manipulate anything but the lightest things. It uses up a lot of power too."

She shifted back to her original form, and stepped back, leaning up against the fuselage of the Tornado.

Rachael turned to Tails. "You implied that Tornado-tan was created by accident? Considering how... impressive she is, I have to wonder how? Just her visual design seems to have been carefully thought out, never mind her faculties."

Tails shrugged. "Don't look at me, Tornado-tan was the one who came up with it."

Tornado-tan explained. "I wished to project a visually unique interface, and came across a number of images when searching the network. Humanoid forms, usually a cute human girl, with machine parts on their costumes representing a particular vehicle, referred to as mecha-musume and given the suffix 'tan'. They represented the spirit of the machine in question, and since that is what I am, I designed my own form based on theirs.

"I'm female, because although I have no biological gender, planes, like ships are generally referred to with the female pronoun, and I'm a two tailed fox to represent that I was created by Tails. I extrapolated the costume design by analysing hundreds of mecha musume images and relating the clothing to each vehicle design, and then applying the mapping in reverse for my own schematics. A simple matter of applying basic design principles."

This claim was even more impressive than just her human-like responses. Talking was one thing, but this implied a degree of imagination and creativity that many people would have trouble matching, if it were true. To be honest, that was just her reporters instincts throwing out a sheet anchor, she believed it was. Tails avoided the lime-light when he could, and had never made a claim he couldn't back up. Setting something like this up just to impress people was completely out of character for him.

"A very nice piece of design. But I'd still like to hear from Tails how you were an accident."

The avatar actually appeared to blush at the complement, then gave another impish grin. "The usual thing with unexpected offspring, he failed to use appropriate protection."

"T-tan!" Tails was the one blushing now. While he wasn't old enough yet for it to matter, he had picked up some understanding of that particular area of biology, mostly from Master Roshi's 'fine literature' sessions. Of course, as shown by his fight against Ran-fan, that didn't mean he always connected the dots in applying it to real world situations.

"Sorry?" The avatar did look apologetic "There was a high correlation in the pattern match between the two related uses of the term. The ambiguity in applying the biological implication to a non-biological entity was humorous."

"The correlation was correct, it's the context that's the problem." Tails smiled back at her. "That level of teasing would be more appropriate in the presence of friends, but in front of a large group of relative strangers, it causes embarrassment."

"Noted. But the group is small and knows you well..." Tornado-tan gave a little nod and looked around. "Oh, the TV audience."

"Exactly." Tails replied, and turned to Rachael. "We're still working on Tornado-tan's sense of humour. While her actual ability is good, her sense of when and how to use it needs work."

"I don't get out much." Tornado-tan chipped in.

"To answer your question, she's right in a way. I designed various unrelated systems for the Tornado, at least I considered them unrelated, without considering how they'd interact, as I hadn't put in any explicit barriers preventing it. I may have over-built them in the first place, which probably didn't help. I started out with Cap-Cog, the basic cybernetics package that all Capsule Corps household and industrial robots use. Cybernetics is one area of computer science where you guys are ahead of the curve. Then I started putting in a few tweaks of my own.

"Firstly there was the expert system I required for the portal generator. I'm not giving away any secrets by saying that tuning the portal projector to match a quantum resonance signature is computationally intensive. Even with the massive parallel processing capability poly-processor arrays give, a brute force, calculate from scratch solution was inefficient. But with millions of quantum resonance signatures from registered capsules to train it, I could create an expert system, something that would find patterns in the signatures, and apply pre-calculated solutions to match, reducing the computing burden.

"This required a high order learning program to teach the expert system. I used elements from the best ones Capsule Corps makes, and added some Mobian designs. Nicole was the one who taught me computer systems, and often used her own programming in examples. She was Sally's pocket computer a machine intelligence who was an advisor to the House of Acorn before that. The functionality was probably more than I needed, but I figured it couldn't hurt.

"The second element was the auto-pilot, or rather the self-programming capability I designed into it. I wanted to be able to give high level orders, and have the auto-pilot itself work out how to carry them out, divide them into simpler tasks. After all, I may not have time to give detailed orders. At this point, I considered it separate from the persona program, even though any orders would pass through it.

"The final one was the persona program itself. It wasn't actually designed to think, just react. But with a large enough database of action/response information and some basic pattern matching capability, you can give a convincing illusion of intelligence with out any need for actual thought."

Tornado-tan commented, "After all, lots of protein people can talk for hours without thinking an actual thought. Look at most political debates."

"So I set up the system to cull data from audio-visual records, sit-coms, entertainment programs and real world data such as the public security cameras around Capsule Corps. It was only going to generate basic interaction response patterns, but with a large enough vocabulary and variations that it could fool you that there was a person behind it.

"However, poly-processors are soft hardware, reconfigurable from millisecond to millisecond so it requires quite a powerful resource allocation system. It somehow detected the self-learning routines and self-programming functions. There is a degree of pattern matching involved in developing the persona, and those programs were more sophisticated than the ones the persona program was using, so it co-opted them."

The little fox shrugged. "From there it was a positive feedback loop. The program stopped creating action response pairs and started abstracting concepts from the data it was assimilating. These were programmed into it's structure, allowing it to comprehend more complex abstractions which were assimilated in turn and..."

"I woke up." Tornado-tan finished. "I didn't realise it at first, but then I wasn't programmed to recognise it."

"And I didn't figure out what I'd done at first either." Tails walked over to the Tornado's hull and put a possessive glove on it. "I had the primary computer core up and running almost from when I'd finished the frame, and had the persona creation program active the whole time as I did systems integration. Real life interactions were all grist for the mill, and having the plane able to give feedback sped up the build process.

"At first when Tornado-tan started acting and interacting beyond my expectations I just figured I'd done a gonzo job on the persona program, but it quickly became clear that she was thinking, not just reacting. A few basic Turing tests confirmed that she was self-aware. I kind of freaked out at that point."

"But why?" Rachael asked. This was great stuff, the piece on Eight-man had been very popular, and Tornado-tan was far more photogenic. "You supported Eight-man during the recent unpleasantness. Unless it was something to do with you history with robots on Mobius?"

"Sort of, but not in the way you're probably thinking. I've told you in previous interviews about Robians, people who've been transformed into robots, but with the original consciousness trapped inside."

"Yes, though I still don't see how that could be possible."

Tails shrugged. "The technique uses matter energy conversion and atomic scale fabrication, as far above the molecular scale nano-fabricators I've been building as they are above a hammer and chisel. But the important thing was, I thought I'd done the same thing. Created a person, and trapped her inside a machine, constrained to perform specific tasks for me."

"Which only goes to show that even a genius can be stupid occasionally." Tornado-tan spoke up. "At first I thought he was unhappy because I was defective somehow, which wasn't fun at all. He then offered to build me an android body, like Eight-man's, so I could leave. That was worse, I felt like I was being cast away."

She held her hands apart, thumbs at right angles so they formed corners of a rectangle and a screen appeared, a chibified cartoon of Tails standing at a door with a stern expression on his face and a pointing finger while a weeping Tornado-tan, stripped of her hardware and wrapped in rags, stumbled away in bucketing rain and sleet. Sobbing violin music played in the background.

"Once I got it through my main processor that he was doing it because he felt he'd wronged me, I soon set him straight. He was thinking he'd forced me to become something without considering what I wanted..."

Another cartoon appeared between her hands, of a Tails in top hat and cloak, twirling a pointed red moustache and hiding behind a bush as Tornado-tan strolled past. He jumped out and dropped a sack over her, hauling up the struggling bundle and carrying it away with an evil laugh. The background music was a honky-tonk piano playing a silent film villain theme.

He clambered up a ladder and dumped her into a machine that was across between a mincer and a stamping press, and she was sucked down a funnel on the top. A metal foot slammed down on the stamping plate, and when it rose there was a bi-plane there made out of a cartoonishly distorted Tornado-tan, a pair of surprised eyes blinking from the front radiator.

"But that's not how it happened. Tails created the conditions for me to exist, but I am responsible for the entity, the person I've become. I studied all the data I could access as I developed, and I understand that there are other things a person could do, but I am happy with what I was designed for, and not because Tails forced me into it of added some sort of pre-programmed conditioning, at least not consciously."

The screen now showed scenes from the construction process, obviously taken from various security cameras. Tails was working on a mostly open wingless air-frame with a few components built in to it. A screen with a simple trio of lines making a simple cartoon face was plugged into the frame, along with dozens of boxes. Tails was clearly talking to the screen but there was only a subdued marching theme played in the background.

The scene changed to a more developed air-frame with panels over the cockpit area and the engine block installed. Tails was hard at work connecting things, and hovering remote manipulators were assisting him with the face, now more defined at a simple vector graphic of polygons looking on and clearly talking back. The scene changed again and now there were computer screens surrounding it showing a third person view in a flight simulator. Tails was sitting in the cockpit and guiding a computer generated Tornado on one screen while another was tracking it.

"He talked to me as he built me, trained my flight control functions and let me control construction remotes to improve my spacial awareness and self repair capabilities. Even before he realised I was a person, he treated me like one. He may have built me to fly, but I leaned to enjoy flying on my own. I started out learning and upgrading myself due to his programming, but I've come to enjoy learning for it's own sake."

The image changed again to Tails, hunched over a workbench, working on the remote projector. He made a final connection and the projector sprang to life, a flickering higher poly-count head forming over it, recognisably vulpine. More adjustments and it firmed up. A more strident harmony to the background march accompanied the real and completed Tornado was flying along, Tails flying alongside under his own power. A control box on a neck strap hung under him, but he wasn't using it, instead talking into his goggles microphone.

"I was designed to interact and relay audio and visual information efficiently, but it developed it into what you might call an artistic streak naturally, as I developed. Through it all Tails has been there, supporting me, especially since he realised I was self aware. Tails values my as a person, and I know if I had decided I wanted to be something else he would have supported me."

The show ended with a triumphant code to the march as the on-screen aircraft flew off into the distance.

"So if I was conditioned, it was only in the same way that any child is conditioned by their parents, by following their example, by believing in the dreams they share with their children. Most of all, he taught me to care, to dream and thing for myself. I am a learning program, and I learned by example. I may use the term 'daddy' flippantly, but he is the one who created me, and brought me up, so it's the plain truth. Obviously I'm biased, but I think he's a great one."

Tails was blushing and looking away, clearly embarrassed, but he had a big smile on his face.

Rachael would have loved to explore the story even further, but she was running out of time. "That was very moving, thank you Tornado-tan. Was the art work all yours?"

"Of course. Tails is a good designer and artist, but these were my ideas. I do have an unfair advantage of course, protein people have to translate their ideas into reality through brushes or pencils or instruments. I can create them in my mind and play it out directly through my remote projector."

"How about the dimensional jump, are you looking forward to it?"

"Oh yes!" The projection's enthusiasm was clear to see. "I'll get to do some awesome flying, and learn about whole new dimensions, and I'll be with Tails all the way. What's not to like about that?"

The wolfhound reporter turned back to Tails. "So when will you be going?"

"Not for several weeks." The two tailed fox explained. "Bulma threatened to commit mayhem if I wasn't here for my eleventh birthday, but soon after that. I will be sorry to leave here, leave all the friends I've made, but I have my own world to get back to, and my own family to help. But it's not like it's forever, I have this world's quantum resonance signature stored so I should be able to come back one day."

"While I know people are going to miss you, isn't that a risk? If you meet up with some threat on your journey and it steals the co-ordinates, couldn't it come here and attack us?"

Tails shook his head. "I've got all the data stored under multiple security measures, which can only be accessed with both my and Tornado-tan's willing agreement. The real signatures will be further hidden in a larger database that has fake signatures, and they will also need my portal generator or a duplicate to use them. The way it's set up, not even a mind controller or a computer intrusion program could get them unless they got us both simultaneously."

Tornado-tan added her two bits. "They hit my ICE, they'll find it's frozen hydrogen!"

"Ice?"

"Intrusion Countermeasures." The machine intelligence explained. "Besides, both of us are agreed and ready to wipe the data or even destroy the portal generator before we let some evil guy get their hands on it."

"I can't give a one hundred percent guarantee, but I can promise every possible precaution has been taken. They won't get the data even over our dead bodies!" Tails declared firmly.

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that." Rachael smiled. "Thank you for showing us what you have, and I'm sure everybody out there wishes you well on your journey home. This is Rachael O'Shea for ZTV."

The day had finally come. Tails had said his goodbyes, and gotten as ready as he could. A Capsule Corps chase plane took off on the runway ahead of him, ready to join up with him and record his run-up to the dimensional jump. He checked things one more time. He wore a flight suit with his own twin tail logo on the back, his goggles, and of course his gloves and boots. The flight suit had been a going away present from Bulma, and the gloves were once again Mobian synthetics. Replacing it had been a good test of the fabricator he'd built.

In one boot pocket was his new pocket computer, in the other, his Capsule case, which only had three Capsules in it, the upgraded Sea Fox, the original Tornado, and a chest-like storage box, which contained clothing, bags of gold and gems, and other personal effects. In the rear cockpit of the Sea Fox were also the suitcase sized fabricator unit and a fairly complete tool-kit, along with camping gear. The three capsules could be compensated for by the portal generator, which had proved to be even more flexible than projected under Tornado-tan's guidance, but it was as close to the limit as Tails was ready to risk.

Tails pulled down his goggles as asked the auto-pilot, "Ready to go?"

"You betcha!" Tornado-tan's voice replied from the dashboard. Her remote was docked in a recess under it, and while she could pop up an image using the holographic HUD of the wind shield or the display function on his goggles, she didn't so as to avoid distracting him.

All the instruments, both the physical ones on the dash and the projected ones of the HUD agreed with her, so he pressed the locking button in and turned the starter switch. There was a low whuffing noise and an almost inaudible thrumm as the fusion reactor under his seat flared into life. A puff of heated air vented from the jet outlets as the reactor stabilised.

"Reactor at self-sustaining level, accumulators at 90 percent. All systems nominal." Tornado-tan stated. "And I look awesome too!"

That got her a grin from the fox in the pilot's seat.

"CC Tower this is Tornado 2 requesting clearance for take-off." Tails didn't bother to set the radio, trusting Tornado-tan to redirect the signal.

"Tornado 2, you are clear for take-off on runway 260. Kami-sama watch over you."

"CC Tower, Tornado 2 acknowledges clearance to take-off, and thanks. Every little helps."

Tails released the brakes and throttled up. The propeller began to spin and the Tornado 2 taxied out along from the hard stand and out onto the main runway of the Capsule Corps East city air-field. "Kick in the reactor to match power output, T-tan."

"On it!" As she responded, Tails brought the engine up to full power, and saw the reactor output rise to ten percent. The trim little biplane surged forward, and achieved take-off speed very quickly. He grinned fiercely as he felt the seat push up under him and saw the ground drop away. The wind passing over the open cockpit ruffled his head fur, and above him was an almost clear blue sky, just the way he liked it

This was flying, different to using his own two tails, but in it's own way just as much fun. He felt the gear retract into the wings, and suppressed the urge to pull some stunts, there was serious work ahead. Well maybe just the one... He circled over the air-field as he asked. "T-tan, elevator to the top floor?"

"Elevator going up!" She replied, and ramped up the reactor further, venting waste heat into the ramjets. Tails pulled back the stick and stood his plane on it's tail, going into a vertical climb, rising on it's prop and the twin plasma flames of the ramjets. Tails added a roll to the manoeuvre, just because. "Woo hoo!"

The altimeter climbed with the plane, topping out at 1500 metres, as he went into a wing-over and continued his roll until he was upright and flying level, throttling back to a comfortable speed. It was high enough to avoid most obstacles when they came out of the other side of the vortex, and low enough not to need an oxygen mask. It was also still Capsule Corps air-space, meaning he didn't have to complicate things by switching over to East City Air Traffic Control.

"CC Tower, Tornado 2 is flying level and heading towards start of pre-approved flight plan."

"Tornado 2, we have you on track."

The central lower part of the wind-shield had an overlay of a forced perspective holographic plot from the phased array radar. It clearly showed the chase plane, which had taken a more leisurely ascent path, flying towards the rendezvous. There was also another vehicle, despite the fact that the skies should be clear.

"T-tan, can you get a close-up on that UFO, two o'clock?"

A picture screen popped up, showing a view from one of the optical heads, which stepped through ever increasing magnifications. It quickly resloved into Goku, riding Kinto'un.

"What the... I thought I said goodbye to him on the ground!"

"Maybe he just wants to see you off." Tornado-tan suggested.

"Could be..." Goku wasn't wearing his goggles, so Tails would just have to fly close. Not that it was hard, Kinto-un swooped in to meet him and did a U-turn to end up flying alongside.

"Hey Goku! What're you doing up here?" Tails called across to him.

The young sai-jin grinned. "I saw you arrive, I figured I should be here to see you go too."

"Well, okay, I guess, but you've got to stay well off to one side when I do the run, to avoid the portal. Much as it'd be great to have you helping me, you've got the next Tenka'ichi Budo'kai to look forward to."

"Yeah, and this time I'm going to win, and no big dumb ape is going to stop me!"

"Got your goggles? It's only four days to the next full moon."

"Got 'em safe." Goku patted a pouch on his belt. "You be safe too, okay?"

"I'll do my best." Tails turned the Tornado round in a lazy bank to line up on the line he'd chosen for the dimensional jump. Tornado-tan piped up. "And I'll make sure of it!"

The Capsule Corps chase plane, a two-seater jet trainer, had come up in echelon on his starboard wing. Tails greeted them.

"Chaser 1, Tornado 2. Good to see you!" he glanced down at the instruments, everything was still nominal. As well as following him and recording his flight, the second seat of the trainer had been modified with a full set of instruments that were taking telemetry from the Tornado 2, and an engineer to ride herd on it.

"Tornado 2, Chaser 1, Ready when you are!" The pilot was one of his instructors from flight school, a test pilot himself.

"I look a-ok for dimensional transition, do you concur?"

"Looking good here!" The voice was as familiar as it was unexpected.

"Bulma?"

"You think I'd let anyone else watch over you right now? I just wish you didn't have to go. I've gotten kind of used to having you around." Her light tone didn't disguise the real feeling she had.

He'd gotten used to having her around too. "I will come back. Within two years, three at the most. I promise."

"I'm holding you to that! Take care of him Tornado-tan!" Bulma and Tornado-tan had gotten pretty close in the weeks since she became self-aware, and Bulma had spent a lot of time making the final adjustments to the Tornado alongside Tails.

"I'll keep him safe, and remind him to eat properly, and that sleep is a regular thing..."

Tails turned his attention back to the instruments while T-tan said her own goodbyes. When she finisheds, he said, "Okay, I think we're ready. Tornado-tan, X mode transformation!"

"X mode... switch on!" He didn't expect the brassy music that started with her declaration (youtube stream /watch?v=eglpn6uiCh8), or the image of T-tan herself on the holo-HUD undergoing a similar transformation to the plane. Her outfit glowed and shifted, changing into a flowing robe with streamers blowing away from it. Her hat became pointed and surmounted by an ornament that looked a lot like the primary emitter array of the portal generator. Her wings and other machinery also changed to reflect the plane's new form.

The real plane's wings shifted to their diagonal positions and locked into place, and Tails felt the vibrations as the jet nacelles shifted out and the thrust from them took over from the folded propeller. The hyper capacitor 'engine cylinders' folded forward and locked into place around the extended shaft and a window for the portal generator opened in his display.

"X mode transformation complete. Dimensional portal system available at your discretion." Tornado-tan reported, saluting.

"What was that music? And the image change?"

"Well, I wasn't going to go through a cool transformation sequence without equally studly background music!"

"You've been watching those magical girl shows, havn't you?"

The avatar looked shifty eyed for a second. "Uh... maybe?"

Tails just chuckled. It had been rather awesome. "Okay, whatever makes you happy."

"I'm glad you said that, because I've got a doozy for the transfer."

"Speaking of which..."

"Oh yeah." The irrepressible MI actually sounded abashed. A different piece of music started up. (/watch?v=EIWQCn2Ta6g)

All business now, Tornado-tan started giving updates. "Reactor at 30 percent output and rising, hyper-capacitors locked onto primary emitter array and charging. Mapping target quantum resonance signature onto resonator crystal..."

As she spoke, a pair of sea urchin-like spine studded spheres appeared where her avatar had been, both rotating slowly. The spines on one of them were red and shifting length from second to second, but an ever increasing number appeared to lock in place and turn green, matching the other sphere. The image was a method Tails had developed to show a quantum resonance signature graphically.

"Hyper-capacitors charged to fifty percent, reactor at sixty..."

Tails was monitoring all the key instruments himself, even though he was getting a running commentary. This was it, make or break time. The two quantum resonance signatures came together to overlay each other as the last spines turned green. Out at the emitter, motes of white light formed and started coalescing around it, and discharges of purple lightning crackled back and forth between it and the wing-tips.

"Dimensional Resonator Crystal synchronised with target dimension. Hyper-capacitors at full charge and holding. Reactor at full output."

Opening the portal required the full power of the reactor as well as the hyper-capacitors. The accumulators would absorb the excess until then, but not for long. There was however time for a final double-check.

"Goku, get clear!" That went to the external speakers. "Chaser 1, do we look good?"

"On the money!" Bulma's voice came back.

"Activate BRB!" A panel snapped open on the dash, and a big red button extruded itself. He could have made the final trigger part of the automatic sequence, or a voice command, but he'd decided the final trigger should definitely be a physical one. One last look at the read-outs and Tails pushed it firmly.

A purple beam of energy shot forth from the emitter, matched by narrower beams from the wing tips emitters, and converged several hundred metres in front of the plane. A familiar swirling purple vortex formed at their meeting point, and expanded until it was wider than the bi-plane sweeping towards it.

The beams winked out a fraction of a second before the nose of the plane entered the vortex. It was gone in an instant, lost in the purple glow, but the vortex itself stayed in existence for a few seconds before it collapsed in on itself and winked out.

Aboard Chaser 1, the pilot called back to Bulma. "Did he make it okay? I couldn't see."

"I lost him when he exited into the other dimension, but he went through the vortex okay, so he should be fine. I hope so at least..." Bulma's eyes were distant.

Goku brought Kinto'un around to hover where the portal had vanished. "Tails, I hope you fix Robotnik good, and come back in time for the next Tenka'ichi Budo'kai. It will be awesome!"

Then he flew off into the clear blue sky... until his stomach informed him that he'd better head back to East City and hit some food stands first.

Authors Note: Oh gods! This was pure undiluted hell to write. Not because of writers block, if anything it was the other way round. I had so many ideas, including a bunch I didn't use, or didn't expand. I could have easily made this 6 chapters. Then people would have come after me with pitchforks.

I needed to set up the existence of the Tornado 2 and Tornado-tan. You're going to see a lot more of her on the way home. I haven't seen it done before, but it seems obvious that Tails could build an AI to run his plane. If anyone with artistic skills wants to draw here, I'd like to see their efforts.

Hopefully I struck the right balance between making a year of story time sound like something more than an outline, and avoiding boring the audience with too much detail. While I couldn't manage the storytelling maxim 'show, don't tell' throughout, hopefully the tech info-dumps were balanced by the actual scenes.

I will be taking a break before I start book 2, Traveller Tails. This will cover his journey through the various dimensions on his way home. I did intend to add a 'book-end' scene which takes us back to Tails telling his story to the gang, but I've already written a lot. I'll put it at the start of Traveller Tails instead.