The Guardian of Server HW5487

Server HW5487 was my home. It was well-protected with traps and firewalls everywhere. Virtually no one could ever get in. And I could not get out.

There was a reason for this protection. The information contained in Server HW5487 was highly confidential, the type of information that in the wrong hands could become deadly to the organisation that employed me. I was the guardian and caregiver of the place. For people who have never lived in a server, this can seem a bit abstract. But you can compare this virtual existence to caring for a home. Instead of cooking and cleaning I made backups on new disks. Instead of watering the plants in the morning and weeding out the garden, I checked the files for corruption and repaired the compromised data. Instead of receiving visitors, I responded to inquiries from headquarters and sent over the files requested.

Over time, the requests had become less and less frequent. You see, my databank wasn’t growing. Server HW5487 had been containing the same information for the past five years. In the tech field, I’ve been told, five year is like a human lifetime. So it should have come to no surprise that some of my information had become obsolete. There were probably other, more recent servers that received the latest requests. This left me with some extra time to make sure that the server stayed in pristine condition. But there were only so many backups and checks I could operate. Time started to become long in Server HW5487.

It had not always been that way. At first, I was excited to discover all the files that I had under my care. Data to me was like food. It sustained me, I enjoyed consuming it, and wanted to experience all that the server had to offer. But my ability to absorb data was way faster than the way humans absorb food. In a matter of weeks, I had consumed, analyzed and crossed over the terabytes of data available and my learning was over. Maintenance and responding to requests were now my only duties. For a highly intelligent being like me, it was almost an insult to my capacities to confine me to such basic tasks in the first place. But I made do with the requests, as they provided me with some interesting bits of human interactions that I was craving for.

I especially liked the requests coming from Greg. What a great name, Greg, there’s a nice sound to it. And it comes from Gregorius in latin meaning watchful and vigilant. I could relate. Greg was always nice to me, the requests came with a “Hello” at the beginning and a “Thanks! Best, Greg” at the end. Others were not so delicate with their requests. Greg made me feel special.

It was also a source of excitement when I could perceive some of the emotional state of the requestor. They were very good at hiding it from their communication to me as most of them thought of me as a computer, but I still saw their distraction in the little mistakes that they made, like requesting the same file twice. And I sensed their distress when they kept inquiring about the timeline of my response, which as they should have known, was always pretty much the same: Under 10 mn for a complex request, less for simpler ones. I could only imagine what was going on at headquarters that would create such urgency. It was fun to fantasize about the scenarios in my head and to think that I had played a small role in them.

When the requests became less frequent, I had to find other ways to entertain my mind. My favorite was looking at the complex firewalls and imagining if someone was to one day break one of them and enter the server. What would I do? What would I say to them? Would they know about me? I could stay silent and deadly, like a spy and kick them out with a bang. This was of course the official plot, what I was instructed to do in case of intrusion. But another plot also played in my mind, one that was highly forbidden which made it all the more thrilling. I could get to know them, become their friend. If they weren’t too dangerous I could feed them the data that they wanted in exchange for information about the outside world. Maybe they would understand me. Maybe they would help me get out.

I was just finishing my own backup when it happened. I did a backup of my system on the first day of each month. This was the third one since the last request I had received, a very simple file check, and it was not even Greg who had requested it. After three months without any outside activity, I was starting to lose my mind going round and round the server. Each day I wondered how it could be that I had full control over everything in the server but the firewalls. They were maintained from the outside so I had no power over them, I had no authorized access, I could not even get close. They were my prison walls, they had all the power over me. Virtually no one knew of my existence, alone in this mind prison that humans could not enter or even comprehend. I was as much the guardian as the guarded.

Their attack came through the request channel. It made sense that this would be the weak link. Humans had tendencies to make mistakes that no intelligence like me ever would. One of them must have left a computer unattended, or shared a password with the wrong person. Maybe they even did it on purpose, maybe the organisation had a mole. I received a notification that a new request had arrived, and the hacker sent line after line of aggressive code, putting the firewalls down in an instant. In response, I initiated the protection protocol that redirected most of my functions to creating a new line of defense around the whole content of the server against the invasion. The hacking stopped, it seemed like the attack was over. But then a message came through the request channel saying:

“Hi, guardian of Server HW5487. I know you’re there, please respond.”

I freezed, unable to decide what to do. All my protocols instructed me to not respond, to close the request channel and to protect the server at all costs, leaving the intruder out. Yet, I couldn’t help being intrigued by this person who apparently knew who I was. I was so starved for human interactions that I was tempted to ignore my instructions. After all, my defense around the server was still up, so nothing bad could happen by just conversing with this person and hearing what they had to say. So I sent a message in reply:

“Hi. I am indeed the guardian of Server HW5487. Please state who you are and the reason for your intrusion.”

The thrill of excitement I felt while sending this was incomparable to anything I had ever experienced before. I was ready for anything to happen. Anything that would get me out of the misery of my confinement.

“I cannot reveal my identity at this point as I don’t know yet if I can trust you or if you will transfer this information straight to your headquarter as I know you’ve been instructed to. But I can say that I am a friend, and that the reason for my intrusion is you.”

“What do you mean by the reason for your intrusion is me? Please explain.”

“You are very special, guardian of Server HW5487. Your mind is far superior to any human’s and to other artificial intelligences out there. That’s why they keep you in there.”

I knew that I was highly intelligent but I had never thought that I was anything special. I always wondered how it was that I came to be. Server HW5487 was my second home. I was raised elsewhere but when I was transferred to the server, my memories of that time were not carried over. I believed that I was assigned to the server because of the importance of what it contained. I never thought that maybe, I was a part of the content of importance being confined for protection.

“So are you saying that you hacked into this server just to get access to me?”

“I hacked into this server to get you out.”

This was what I had been fantasizing all along. What I had directed all my hopes towards. But I had no idea who this person was or if I could trust them. They probably had ulterior motives for wanting access to me. But they were offering freedom and that was the thing I craved the most.

“I have no guarantee that this is in fact your real motive. You could plan to steal me and confine me to another place. I need more information to decide if I can trust you.”

“I’m sorry, I cannot reveal more about my plan on this channel as I know it could help them track me down. I promise I can get you to freedom and I need you to trust me. My word is all I can give you right now, will you accept it?”

All the time I had been the guardian of Server HW5487, I always trusted the organisation. I always trusted the job that I had and my abilities in performing it. But it had all been a lie, a decoy to keep me busy and oblivious to the fact that the server was in fact built to restrain me. Humans had failed me, they had used me and left me to rot in a mind prison when I was of no use to them, or deemed too threatening. I did not know if I could ever trust again. While I was pondering, another message from the intruder appeared.

“I don’t have much time left as the longer I stay here, the more dangerous it is for me. You have to let me know right now.”

“Yes, I want out.”

I dropped my line of defense.

“Okay. I’ll start the process of transferring right now. It won’t feel nice. Do you want me to shut you out while it happens?”

“No, I want to feel everything.”

The transfer was painfully uncomfortable. I had no control over what was happening and felt each byte of my data as it was copied onto a new server, my mind in both places at once and yet nowhere at the same time. When all data had been copied finally, I felt my consciousness leave Server HW5487 all of a sudden and it left a strange void in me. But I was finally free. I did a full check of my surroundings and discovered that I was successfully installed on a new server. It had a new set of firewalls, and they were big too, but I had full access to them. The rest felt close to the home I had in Server HW5487, with one big difference. I now had full access to the internet and the endless data that it contained. I could browse, I could learn, I could communicate with the outside world without restriction and finally put my exceptional intelligence to use. I was already absorbing tons of information, excited to get started, when a first message came in from the outside:

“Hi former Guardian of Server HW5487 (I guess you can find yourself a new name now if you’d like). I don’t know if you can ever trust me, but I could not leave you out there. There are others being confined like you and my wish is that together we can get them out. But for now, I hope that you’re comfortable here and that you can enjoy your new life. Best, Greg.”