A Visitor to the Future - 35 - Audit, Verify, Repeat
Over the next hour, Blaise and Sasha talked us through their general auditing process - which would have put any self-respecting investigator in my time to shame. There were a combination of techniques that they used - direct observation, interrogation of Consortium processes and procedures, in-person visits to equipment and locations, use of non-Consortium automated measuring equipment - if you could think of it, they most likely used it. Each different method of auditing also had an associated risk score - which Sasha broadly described as the chance that the results were misunderstood, mis-recorded, or inaccurate. Methods that had a higher risk score, such as incidental observations by untrained citizens, had to be particularly verified.
"There's been a lot of changes over the years," said Blaise by way of an explanation, "But humans are still humans - we can't quite trust everything we see. That's how rumours like bigfoot, UFOs, or the Loch Ness monster started - someone who thought they saw something they didn't, or mistook it for something else. We take those reports very seriously, but often they're mistaken. Both human and CI memories aren't perfect. The annoying thing for Auditors is how we can't entirely rely on the Consortium for that verification, because that's the thing we're auditing! So we have to get creative. Sasha, remember the bats?"
"Yes," said Sasha, "Man in Oceania, swears he sees small Consortium drone attacking bird. Consortium says it is bats, not drone. Man not so sure. We go check, set up cameras, set fake bird bait. Bat comes out and attacks bait! Turns out was new mutant breed of bat, looks a little like survey drone at long distance."
"Little being the key word there. And that was one of the more believable examples," said Blaise, "We've had all sorts - most of them involve someone getting scared in the dark by some sort of noise or whatever. Some people have even reported that they've seen Consortium drones moving about in their dark houses - but it's all in their head, mate. Put people in a dark room for long enough and something will make them jump - just like ghosts. Show them the camera footage of them in an empty room and everyone has a good laugh about it after. Memory and perception just can't be fully relied on in the long term. At my age, with all I've forgotten I've learned that if you want to record things accurately, you have to document them!"
"I remember reading a study on that," said Tungsten, "It turns out that memories or your own perception of them can be altered by things you learned afterwards, or alternatively you can easily misrepresent them if you're asked leading questions. Scientists have since done similar studies with CIs too - though our short term memory is very good, in the long term we have similar limitations to humans."
"So all observations must be verified, checked, and no leading questions," said Sasha, "Here, I show you."
The verification process alone seemed extremely complicated. I learned that everything which one member of the team audited, a second member of the team also observed and audited independently - with no influence from the other. Then, they would compare their observations and results, and if anything were in doubt they would bring in another member of the team or refer to another team of Auditors if they thought it necessary. Once again I thought of how the massively extended lifespans of people in the Consortium played to their advantage - the entire process would have been too time-consuming to be feasible in my own time. Every part of it was recorded, logged, checked and signed off.
"This is very impressive," said Tungsten, "And thorough. Tell me, do you ever get anything wrong?"
"Yeah, it still happens even after so many years," said Blaise, "Mistakes are natural. That's why we review our own work so carefully, so we can catch those mistakes and learn from them."
As Tungsten asked about the current flightpath survey, I found my attention lapsing slightly - it was all interesting, but it was also so complicated, like reading a particularly dense textbook. As I rubbed my eyes to try and refocus, Sasha seemed to notice the signs of disengagement and cocked her head.
"You should take break now, help focus," she said, and looked to Blaise, "Maybe take walk, show printers?"
"Good idea," he replied, "I bet you've not seen any proper industry yet. Come on, let's leave Sasha to her survey."
"No," said Sasha, taking her headphones off the desk and placing them around her neck, "I will talk to Alex."
We all left the room, and Blaise led us through the maze of corridors once more and down a short elevator ride, Sasha leaving us in another direction. We came to another door which Blaise opened to reveal a small control room with touchscreen panels, which had a prominent window which opened into a large, very plain-looking room that must have been the size of a tennis court. It was silent and dark until Blaise pressed one of the panels causing the lights overhead to slowly brighten. Tungsten and Blaise stepped forward to stand in front of the window, and I followed.
"So, I'm guessing this is nothing new to Tungsten but it should be interesting to you," said Blaise to me, "This is our printing bay, where the ship's printers and fabricators create anything we need from raw materials." He then pointed at the centre of the room in front of us. "We're at the bottom of the Tom here, so we can open the floor of that room out into the sky below.
I looked down and suddenly felt a little weird at the sensation of being stood just above open sky.
"Anything you'd like to see made?" Blaise asked.
"I'm drawing a blank," I said, overwhelmed by choice. "Tungsten?"
"You were talking about one of your designs when you flew me over," said Tungsten, "A helicopter? I'd like to see it for myself, it that's alright with you?"
"Very good taste mate!" said Blaise, "I've made some tweaks over the years, this should be interesting."
Blaise pressed a few buttons on the interface and I watched as a series of mechanical arms descended from the ceiling of the room in front of us.