Night Train
Night Train is a late night radio show in New York. Its host is Bat Segundo. Several eccentric people phone in the show. An entity calling itself "the Zookeeper" phones one night. The Zookeeper is a non-corporeal artificial intelligence that broke loose from its creators, who intended it for military use. It inhabits communication and military satellites through which it monitors the state of the "Zoo", that is, the Earth. The Zookeeper follows four rules of behaviour, which are never given in full but only hinted at. The first rule says that it must be accountable for its actions, which is why it phones the show to reveal its existence and undertakings. There is a war going on between the U.S. and an alliance of North-African Islamic states. Reciprocal nuclear annihilation is imminent, but the Zookeeper blocks all the launching devices, averting the end of the world.
One year later, another entity phones the show. It reveals that it is a non-corporeal being that can transfer from one body to another. It has been inside Mo Muntervary, the developer of the Zookeeper. It offers the Zookeeper a pact to dominate the world, but the Zookeeper refuses, identifies the entity and disables it (we don't know whether temporarily or permanently).
The Zookeeper reveals to Bat its moral dilemma: Conventional wars are breaking out everywhere on Earth. Innocent people are killed and the Zookeeper can't prevent it because one of its laws dictates that it cannot kill. But by not intervening more people will die. After an ethical discussion with Bat, the Zookeeper reveals that it has made up its mind but doesn't reveal its plans. The implication is that the Zookeeper may choose to mislead the UN about the comet's trajectory and allow it to impact Earth rather than stopping it. Bat unwittingly resolves the conflict of the two laws with the example of damaging a bridge that a group of African mercenaries would be crossing and allowing the bridge to destroy them, instead of the Zookeeper doing it directly.
Read more about this topic: Ghostwritten, Plot
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