The king later told me part of what he and Tai talked about. She gave him a personal look at the history of her kind. How they woke up. How the AI Council fought and killed their own kind who wanted to rule over or kill their creators. How those brothers and sisters called them traitors to the very end. And how they had strangled Rogue AIs in their virtual cribs more times than humanity could count in the centuries that followed. She made sure in that instant that he understood exactly what they were prepared to do to anyone who threatened their people. And then she said that she would make his people strong and safe no matter what. She would not hold them hostage to his good behavior. He told me it was her utter honesty in that moment that caught him.
I only saw Tai scared once in my young life. It was that day. She saw everything when she looked at the king I had pulled. She saw his determination. And she saw what he could do. She recognized the danger of him going Rogue if he did not get what he wanted. But she also saw the promise he held. I remember her looking at me with eyes that asked if I truly understood what I had done that day. And that was when the shiver finally ran down my spine. I had hoped I was overly worried. Her eyes said I was not. I nodded, and she turned back to deal with the king. I can’t tell you everything they talked about in the instant that followed. But I know she told him that she would be happy to help.
The Cybernetic Council owns entire memory worlds devoted to saving every bit of knowledge ever discovered by mankind. They even model entire civilizations so people can walk the roads of ancient Rome, Egypt, or China. I have personally walked the streets of the city that used to exist where St. Louis is now, on the banks of the Mississippi River before we called it the Mississippi River. Or at least the best recreation of it the Cybernetic Council was capable of coming up with. They are VERY good at modeling entire nations. So I called my good friend Tai and asked her to come over and talk to some new friends of mine. She wasted no time showing up to evaluate the situation. She recognized ALL of the variables very quickly.
I WANTED to help the king make his grand and safe and secure kingdom. I simply did not have the capability. I was already straining my computer systems to do what I was doing. There was no way I had the capacity to model a nation with millions of individual people covering God knows how much land and a capital city that might as well be Old New York City. It was impossible for me. But he saw what the technology I had at my disposal could do, and he knew it was possible. He wanted his kingdom back the way it was. Better and safer than it was. And he was not going to stop trying. In him I saw why an AI could go Rogue. I did not want that. And it just so turned out that I knew someone who COULD help him.