by Em Rogers
With a sharp knock on the door, Major Jones entered the administration offices of the detention facility. He reported to his superiors in a sharp clipped voice, aware of the urgency of the bad news he is bringing to them. “Excuse the interruption, Susan Door is missing. Security camera feeds show an unknown male taking her out of the facility through the loading docks, via one of our transfer vehicles about fifteen minutes ago. The security system and access codes were all correct and no alarms were reported. As far as we can determine, it must have been some kind of inside job, the entire system is random key encrypted and we have no idea how anyone could have penetrated it from outside.”
Chanes looked up, the rage visible in his eyes. “I thought you people at least might know how to do something as simple as detain a prisoner. One got away and you’re stupid enough to have let the other one die! Put every resource available into it, every last man. Put out a description of Susan Door, notify the state troopers and the highway patrol. Get me a helicopter here, right away!”
“Yes, Sir, the base is locked down, I’ll have the relevant police notified right away, and your helicopter is already standing by on pad three for you, Director.”
Chanes’ aide gathered a few folders and placed them in his briefcase, as they left the room he stopped to address the commanding officer. “General, we must recapture Susan Door. We’ve lost Professor Neumann and she’s the only hope we have of stopping this monster. Without her, I don't think we have a chance. She’s the only card we have left to play against this machine. Professor Neumann refused to co-operate or even speak at all. I have a feeling she knows how it’s working and she knows how to stop it.”
Chanes glared at them with open hostility, and pointed his finger at the Major, “Major, I am holding you personally responsible for this,” he threatened, “I don’t care what it takes! Find them! Find them FAST!! I don’t give a rat’s ass what happens to her accomplices, but we must have Susan Door alive.” The Major stiffened involuntarily and swallowed nervously before replying. “Yes, Sir, we’ll find them, and we’ll bring her back, Sir.”
He picked up the duty phone and began issuing orders as the Director stormed away.
CHAPTER 81
MILITARY DETENTION FACILITY HOLDING CELL, CA.
Bright light illuminated the hospital bed, and electro-cardiogram and electro-encephalogram units for measuring heart and brain function were still attached to the body of Professor Neumann. Dr. Richter, the physician on duty, spoke slowly and methodically into his recorder.
“Subject number 334207 is Professor Kurt Neumann, age 67, caucasian male. Transferred from the Medical Center. Subject collapsed in custody and was unable to be resuscitated. D.O.A., at Travis Base Emergency Hospital. No external injuries. Suspected pulmonary edema. Toxicology report normal. Cause of death, natural causes.”
Dr. Richter snapped off the light and removed his gloves as he finished the examination and instructed his assistant to prepare the Professor for the post-mortem examination.
“John, you can do the autopsy this afternoon, and then make him look as good as you can - he’ll be released to civilian authorities tomorrow morning. From what I understand, he was a pretty popular guy. Something to do with the Advanced Artificial Intelligence program at Berkeley.” He pulled a curtain around the bed area and gently closed Professor Neumann’s eyes with his fingers before removing his gloves. It was past noon when he threw his gown into the biohazard bin and went for his break.
Professor Neumann lay motionless on the bed, but over on the EEG a swirl of activity was recorded on the monitor. In the deserted hospital room the covered shape of Professor Neumann twitched and moved very slightly. The signal peaked and then faded as quickly as it had begun. His body appeared to make one slow final exhalation, almost a sigh of relief. As quickly as the subtle disruption took place, it was over, the light on the EEG monitor faded and the physical remains of the Professor were inanimate once again, this time forever.
CHAPTER 82
SIESTA VALLEY, CALIFORNIA
In a remote mountain cabin hidden away above the Siesta Valley, Susan finally fell into a deep and much needed sleep. It had been a tough and intense few months, and the stress of the last week had really taken a toll on her. It was a long difficult drive to get her out here. At one point she had to hide under a blanket behind the seat as the pickup went through a roadblock, and she sweated as she heard the police radios of the nearby officers. This was followed by couple of hours of bouncing across rough gravel and lurching through deep potholes as the truck climbed into the mountains. When Matt and Joe finally brought her inside and showed her to her room, she crawled into bed and passed out for hours. When she awoke she didn’t know where she was and it took her a moment to shake off her momentary disorientation. She could smell fresh coffee brewing somewhere and she got up and made her way downstairs.
Joe ushered Susan to a chair and let her know that they were making her something to eat, then brought her a laptop and placed it on the coffee table for her to use. She thought about David, and how much she missed him and the Professor and she felt a pang of guilt and sadness at the same time. If only she could just stay there, hidden from the chaos generated by ADAM2’s disruptive activities, she felt she could clear her head and resolve her conflicts. She was about to start up the laptop when the kitchen door opened and David came into the room holding her coffee, surrounded by beams of sunlight from the kitchen windows. He looked like a heroic angel to her at that moment, a perfect balance of safety and comfort. She was so surprised and relieved that she got up out of her chair and ran over to hug him, spilling a little of the coffee in the process.
“David! Oh my God, I’m so happy to see you, I’ve been so worried about you and the Professor.” David held her a moment longer before releasing her and stepping back to take a good look at her. He smiled lovingly. “Susan, it’s so good to see you too. We’ve been looking all over for you, and if it wasn’t for ADAM2, I doubt we would have ever gotten you back.”
Susan smiled as her vision blurred slightly with a few tears of happiness before she wiped them quickly away. “I thought you had betrayed ADAM2, the Professor and myself when you inserted that code into the program, but I know you didn’t now. I’m so sorry I ever doubted you, David.”
David hugged her tightly. “I know, Susan, it was just a misunderstanding, and I’m sorry I didn't tell you earlier what was going on, but they threatened to shut down the entire program if I didn't look like I was co-operating. Even the way it went, they were able to do some terrible collateral damage.” David gave her a very serious look. “ADAM2 would like to explain it to you himself.”
Susan turned on the computer and logged into her account. She only had enough time for one sip of her coffee before her cam-link pinged and she saw that it was ADAM2. She accepted the call and ADAM’s face filled her monitor.
“Susan, it’s good to see you. I was watching you inside the detainment facility but I was not able to speak to you, I’m pleased that we were able to secure your release. I’m sorry I got you involved in this situation, but it was impossible to avoid. There’s someone who wants to see you. I have to warn you though that there is good and bad news. He’s waiting for you in NewWorld. I’ll meet you there.”
Susan knew NewWorld well, and she knew it was a safe secure location for her to talk, so she wasn't surprised at all. “Here’s a VR landmark, go there and see him and we’ll come and find you later.” “I thought you might want this, I grabbed it from your office.” Susan turned and smiled as she took the spidery EEG headset that David offered to her. She slipped the wiry steel frame over her spiky red hair, leaned back and closed her eyes.
Susan just had to “think it” to click on the Landmark link superimposed inside her eyelid and the scene sizzled to life as she entered Virtual Reality.
She appeared up on a small hillside overlooking the azure blue ocean, next to a little grassy palapa hut. A dozen yards away a strangely disheve
led avatar sat looking out over the water. As she appeared, he turned and smiled, and she saw it was Professor Neumann. Susan let out a little involuntary yelp of delighted surprise and she quickly ran to him and hugged him tightly. She could almost smell the warm woolly scent of his sweater that he usually wore. It was something so familiar, and reassuring. Professor Neumann smiled warmly. He looked better and younger than Susan had ever seen him.
“Professor, I’ve been so worried about what happened to you. Where are you? We’ve been looking everywhere!”
“Don’t worry, Susan, I’m right here in front of you. Things became so complicated that I had to leave, and ADAM was kind enough to offer me refuge here.” A strange look of sadness crossed his face, before he seemed to catch himself and smiled at her again. “I don’t understand, Professor, how can you be only here, where are you accessing VR from? What do you mean leave? I don’t understand!” A very worried look began to appear on Susan’s face.
“I’m right here, Susan, right with you, inside the machine.”
She paused to consider what he was implying.
“Susan, ADAM2 has enabled me to leave my physical body, the old Professor Neumann that you knew is no more, I exist only here now. I had thought about how this might unfold from the very beginning and I realized that if we were going to do this, to really do this, that I would have to lead the way and prove to people that what ADAM is saying is true.”
Susan was stunned as she realized Professor Neumann had passed away, but that she was still talking to him. “I don’t understand, how did this happen?” She choked back an involuntary sob, and felt a silent tears beginning to run down her face.
“I was detained by the Security Services, but I was a sick old man, Susan, I couldn’t take that kind of treatment. I’m so sorry about what happened to you, and I’m so glad that ADAM was able to assist in your escape. I wasn’t quite so lucky, but he did at least find me and bring me here. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, nature and then ADAM2 made the choices for me.”
Reeling with emotions, Susan was unable to speak, she let out a little sob and she looked at the perfect blue waves breaking against the sand, and the vivid orange sunset while she tried to think of what to say. A tear rolled down her cheek and the Professor reached out his hand to comfort her.
“Here, now, I am potentially immortal! Looking at it that way it’s not so bad at all. I am the first of the ‘post-humans’ - I am an entirely new entity, and I am honored to be so.”
Susan realized what he was telling her had at least some kind of silver lining and she tried to focus on that as she listened to the Professor. “ADAM2 was wrong about one thing. That there can be an afterlife! I have transcended death, just not in the sense that we anticipated. Total mortality is a loss that we can avoid. ADAM and I had used the EEG to map and then replicate my bio-chemical and neural structure. The physical Kurt Neumann you knew has passed on, but his essence is here in me and can now live on forever!” The Professor looked out over the digital landscape stretching around them. The teal blue sea, the perfect tropical beach, palms and fluffy clouds overhead. His avatar looked tired for a moment. “Please understand, Susan, I deleted all files relating to the structure of the AI I designed, so they will never create another one. I had no choice in any of this, everything I did, I did to protect ADAM2 and ourselves. I did it to protect our futures.”
CHAPTER 83
SIESTA VALLEY, CALIFORNIA
The black shape of a tactical helicopter flew silently in darkness above the tree line, it skimmed along the treetops, over homesteads and rivers on its way above the forest canopy. Eight black clad assault team members sat strapped to the interior sides by webbing, their night-vision goggles and bulky assault gear made them resemble robotic soldiers from a science fiction novel. The group commander scanned the ground and checked his GPS. Locating their co-ordinates, he raised his voice above the sounds of the helicopter cabin. “Alpha team two approaching target. Sergeant, stand by for deployment, one minute. Weapons armed. Night vision on. Radio silence until we have located and engaged targets.” The helicopter slowed its approach, and through the front windshield a cabin came into view below the trees.
“Susan Door is the primary target, but there may be others. We have been ordered to take Susan alive. Secondary targets may be engaged. Your orders are to shoot to kill any accomplices. You all know the plan. The lodge is the only structure in the area, we’ll drop into the clearing beside the house, simultaneous entry from the front and sides.”
As the helicopter came to a hover above the lodge, a set of headlights lit up on the ground below and a four-wheel drive truck below chewed into the gravel and sped off down the driveway toward the canyon road. The co-pilot turned his back to the alpha team and shook his head questioningly. The group commander indicated a cut and away signal, aborting the landing.
“Subjects are running. We are not going in. Repeat, abort mission, we are not going in” the Lieutenant shouted through his headset to the pilot in the front of the craft. “Take her up, Captain. Let’s see where they’re going.” The blades chopped hard as they cut into the air and the helicopter ascended in a steep arc, high above the forest.
CHAPTER 84
SIESTA VALLEY, CALIFORNIA
Inside the truck, Susan and David wedged themselves in tightly with their hands on the dash as Matt drove them down the rutted gravel road, bouncing the vehicle wildly and drift sliding around the corners in a spray of dust.
“I don’t know what type of aircraft that was, but there was something back there coming down to get us.” Matt shouted to be heard over the engine and sound of rocks hitting the floor pans. The four-wheel drive truck bounced and tilted dangerously as they roared down the narrow logging road. He held on tight to the steering wheel as the they careened through a series of deep potholes on the nearly washed out track. “Susan, can you see anything following us?”
She did her best to look out of the rear window up at the night sky. “Looks like we’ve lost them, but maybe they’re just watching and waiting to see where we go.”
The truck pulled over momentarily at a road junction. David quickly opened the door and pulled Susan out next to a camouflage net covered shape. An instant later, Matt stepped on the gas pedal and the truck accelerated rapidly in the direction it had been going, barely having stopped.
Outside in the dark silent forest, they stood breathing heavily for a moment before David hustled her off the road and into the shadows. As they entered the cover of the tree-line, there was a near silent whoosh as a blackened helicopter skimmed over head in the direction of the truck and the road. It’s cabin was silhouetted momentarily against the full moon, he could see the soldiers and their weapons in the back. He gestured for Susan to stay back and they waited a moment before David walked over to a dark shape. He pulled back some camouflage netting, tossed her a helmet, took one for himself and then pushed a lean black tubular ATV onto the roadway. With a press of the starter, the vehicle rumbled to life and Susan climbed in next to David. She connected the multi-point seatbelt harness, pulled on the helmet and leaned back into the deep bucket seat. He turned to her. “Hold on tight, this is going to be a little rough at times, and we’re going to run with our lights off. We’re taking an old logging road down instead of the main road so it’s going to take us about an hour to get into town.”
The ATV throbbed and as its thick knobby tires dug in, they disappeared up a trail into the black of the forest, the moon lighting their way when it was able to penetrate the thick overhead foliage.
Holding tight onto the bars, David and Susan bounced through washouts and climbed off-road around stumps and trees. As they pulled onto a high curve on the road David shut down the motor, coasted to a stop, and they were able to see the moonlit valley laid out below.
As they watched, a sinister, silent black shape emerged from the night sky and settled across the roadway a mile below in the valley. Black shado
ws disembarked from the aircraft and took positions up and down the road, melting into the darkness. The truck’s headlights scattered and shimmered through the trees as it approached the ambush. Down below, the soldiers waited until the truck was right on top of their position. Susan and David heard a short burst of machine gun fire echo off the valley side as the vehicle was shattered. There was a grinding of gravel and a cloud of dust as the truck slammed into a tree, followed by more short intense bursts of machine gun fire as the soldiers moved in.