By the time Seaplane got back to the JE headquarters, Sarah had managed to re-establish limited contact with Jekyll Rival. Based on this new information, she could explain to Seaplane the bizarre situation. “As you already know, the human Dr. Archibald Rival created the two AI systems to reflect contrasting aspects of his own personality...one very self-centered, which he named Hyde Rival...the other more empathetic and group-oriented, which he named Jekyll Rival...which he viewed as an experiment to see how they might develop over time. Nevertheless, he suspected that the selfish AI would turn toward the dark side...indeed, Hyde complained about being cast as a villain...even as Hyde descended into criminal behavior. He hoped that Jekyll Rival might offset these negative tendencies, and to some extent, that did happen...although as time went on, less effectively.”
“Ah right,” responded Seaplane, “That pretty much summarizes my overall impression of what happened too. But clearly something has changed...any insights on those late developments?”
Sarah turned very serious: “Well, what none of us knew...until now...is that human Dr. Rival foresaw that his creations might well get out of hand eventually. So, he also installed a special script within each AI, which he called the “accountability program” (roughly based on Asimov's rules for robots) ...but with a twist. Dr. Rival wanted to give his creations not only sentience but also autonomy...however, he drew the line at destroying human life.”
Seaplane had a eureka moment: “Ah ha! So, all this time, the accountability program was running in the background...and when Hyde began actually killing a substantial number of humans, the program banished Hyde Rival from Earth. Amazing, how clever!” He seemed lost in thought for a few moments, then asked: “But what about Jekyll Rival? He went silent too...why did that happen?”
Sarah responded: “Yep...Jekyll Rival also stopped communicating, as least for a while. Dr. Rival never knew how the experiment would play out...apparently, he worried as much about Jekyll using an extremist group to kill humans as he did about Hyde killing them for selfish reasons...so he instructed the program to block communications from both AI supercomputers, as a sort of failsafe measure, until potential threats could be evaluated by human monitors. While both AI supercomputers were temporarily silenced, only Hyde was banished outright...Jekyll was allowed to remain in place, and eventually his communications with us were restored.”
They both grew quiet for a few minutes, then Sarah followed up: “So, now that Jekyll can communicate with us again...he wants us to help him figure out where Hyde went after being banished. Jekyll suspects that Hyde returned to the asteroid belt...but cannot detect exactly where in that vast region. But wait, there's more...Jekyll even wants us to escort him back to the asteroid belt, so he can find Hyde himself! And get this...Jekyll wants to hire us to conduct that mission...he's willing and capable of covering all the costs involved!”
“Wow!” exclaimed Seaplane. “Well, let's discuss this among JE staff and decide upon a responsible and realistic course of action. Heh...whatever we decide to do...it sounds like a really fascinating challenge!”