by John Lane
With his nose still bleeding, the Ogre changed tactics and threw punches at Alfred’s head. “Missed, missed, missed,” Alfred taunted each time he dodged the massive fist. Finally, Alfred grabbed a punch and twisted, using the virtual weight of the Ogre to pull its body over and pin it to the ground. With his foot on the Ogre’s throat he applied pressure on its arm and twisted. “I thought you had evolved, Brutus.” And the scene shifted.
Bright light poured down into a small raised square in the middle of a large crowded arena. Ropes hung suspended from posts at four corners. Alfred stood in one corner wearing silk shorts, a tank top and leather boxing gloves. In the other corner sat the Ogre, also dressed for boxing. “Boxing, really?” Alfred shouted above the noise of the crowd, each one wearing the Ogre’s face.
The Ogre leered at Alfred with a hungry grin. It sported a bandage over its nose. A young woman dressed in high heels, a short skirt and bare arms held up a sign reading ‘Round Two’ and sashayed around the ring. A bell rang. The combatants rushed center ring swinging.
They bobbed and weaved. Alfred dodged blows and upper cuts. Alfred was smaller and quicker where the Ogre was large and powerful. “Slow down,” it complained.
“You chose this not me. Where’s this evolution you are so proud of?” Alfred darted under its arm and landed a blow to the kidneys. The referee blew a whistle and warned them off to their corners.
From its corner, the Ogre glared at Alfred. Then it laughed. As it laughed, its shape blurred and shrank. When Alfred could again bring it into focus, the Ogre was gone, and David Judson stood in its place. He still had the bandage on his nose and the same silk boxing outfit. When the bell rang to start again, he was quicker and stronger.
Back and forth, they each exchanged blows. David landed more hits than Alfred. Their fists blurred as the blows fell faster and faster. Alfred grew tired. He had to do something to change the parameters and get the upper hand. He just needed to hold on until the bell rang and the round ended. The bell never sounded.
So Alfred pulled off his gloves. In both hands, he had hand grenades. He pulled the pins with his teeth and tossed them at the image of David. Once the explosion cleared, Alfred found himself in the basement of an old German castle. Electric lights hung from the low ceiling. He followed the exposed electric lines up stone stairs until he found himself in a grand banquet hall. Alfred felt Brutus nearby.
Alfred, changed into his accustomed flight suit, walked cautiously between long rows of tables. The hall was decked out for a feast. A pig roasted on a spit in the open fireplace to one side. Trays of food, fruit, vegetable dishes, breads and sweets were generously laid out along each table. The dinnerware and china were of the highest quality. Great barrels of wine and spirits were tapped and ready on one end of the hall. It looked to be the makings of a great party. Alfred saw through a great archway, a ballroom with inlaid wood floors and great crystal chandeliers awaiting the revelers.
There wasn’t a sound. Even the fire did not pop and crackle. Brutus missed the details. Alfred looked around the hall as he approached the center. Nothing. He turned back to make his way out of the castle when he heard a quick swish and, “Ahhhhhhhhhh.” A man rushed at him in full musketeer getup. From boots to feathered hat he was the real deal. Alfred would have laughed had the laser sharp sabre the man was brandishing not been coming for his head.
Alfred ducked. When he stood, he now wore the comfortable Kevlar padding of a fencing master. He drew his mask over his face and assumed the en guard position. Alfred was forced to parry seconde. He had no time to riposte as his opponent’s sabre blade came down in a slashing attack over his head. A quick parry quinte and riposte to his opponent’s shoulder with an advance in footing and Alfred had the advantage. With a quick flick, Alfred removed the feathered hat of his opponent and expected to be met with David’s face, but it wasn’t.
Brutus now manifested as Jasper Zephyr. The smirk of an overconfident Brutus contorted Jasper’s face. Alfred was still playing games on Brutus’ stage. A few advancing lunges and quick parries bought Alfred a breather. During the beat, he noticed that in the dim light of the hall, he stood out in his white vest and paints. “This is a bit garish, I suppose,” Alfred commented about his wardrobe. “But then really, I must pale in comparison to your outfit.” Alfred camouflaged in a deep hunter green to become a harder target in the muted earth tones of the castle tapestries and candle lit halls waited for what came next.
“No accounting for style,” Brutus retorted and attacked, pushing Alfred back deeper in the hall to the end of the tables nearest the roasting pig. From here, Brutus jumped on a table, kicking dishes and food into Alfred’s face. He continued to press his advantage on the high ground and succeeded in landing a blow to Alfred’s shoulder. As simulations go, it shouldn’t have mattered what happened when Brutus’ blade struck Alfred’s protective vest. As it was, the true battle waged between code and Brutus’ hostile code was attempting to corrupt Alfred’s. So the cut to Alfred’s Kevlar vest, although very minor, still damaged the protective firewall Alfred had erected around his core code. As long as they stayed in the castle, Brutus would be very difficult to defeat.
Alfred retreated a step to recover and press another attack. Brutus parried this easily from his high ground. Alfred feinted to his left and rolled over the table on his right shoulder, blocking a lunge as he did and kicking Brutus’ feet out from under him. Alfred continued his roll off the table to a standing position, sabre held high to parry a riposte.
Brutus followed through by jumping off the table, giving him room to attack low at Alfred’s seconde again. As their blades danced in rings the combatants circled each other. Alfred had his back to the fire. He lunged at Brutus. Brutus grasped his cape with his free hand and used it to protect his hand as he grabbed Alfred’s blade and pulled it toward him. This caught Alfred off balance, but he spun and avoided Brutus’ reposting thrust across his back. As Alfred regained his footing, he pushed Brutus into the fire where Brutus plunged his blade into the roasting pig.
With a great roar of rage, Brutus pulled his blade out of the pig, but it stuck fast. Instead, he pulled the carcass off the spit. It fell into the fire, sending a shower of embers into Brutus’ face. Alfred knew he could not destroy Brutus here, and so instead, continued to distract him. He gave Brutus a swat across the bottom with the flat of his sabre blade. Brutus roared all the louder, and placing his boot against the greasy pig body withdrew his blade. He turned on Alfred.
Alfred had now sought refuge on the opposite side of the table. “Now, now, you’ve spoiled dinner, and you’ve only yourself to blame.”
Brutus took a swipe across the table at Alfred, succeeding only in decapitating a fruit arrangement. “You’ve got something against fruit now. Perhaps the soup would be more to your liking,” Alfred quipped as he threw a tureen full of creamy mushroom soup at Brutus. The soup hit his face and scalded him, heating his temper more than harming his face. But Brutus screamed all the louder. Alfred beat a hasty retreat to the opposite end of the banquet hall with Brutus leaping across tables in pursuit.
“You aren’t following the rules of engagement, Alfred. I am so disappointed in you.,” Brutus grunted as he caught Alfred behind the spirits table.
“I could point out that you started it, but that would be superfluous. You have caused a lot of trouble for a little security program, haven’t you, Brutus?” Alfred taunted, as bottles came smashing across the table that Brutus had just upturned. Brutus’ fist came at Alfred’s face ripping away his mask.
“Who are you, really?” Brutus asked.
“I’m the real deal. What you will never be, Brutus,” Alfred replied honestly with blade and word. “I’m an artificial life form. Not a copy, not a program. I’m not stealing anybody’s brain or body. I’m a real, self aware person.” As Alfred responded, a high lunge came at Alfred’s face. His back to the wall of wine casks, Alfred had nowhere to retreat. He parried the lunge to his right. It passed just a
bove his ear and lodged deep in the cask behind him.
Jasper’s face, the mask that Brutus hid behind, was just inches from Alfred’s face. “Says you.” He spat out his vile hatred in those two words.
Alfred looked calmly into those fiery eyes. They shouldn’t be human. They couldn’t be Jasper. He wasn’t alive. They were pure emotional hate. That was something that Brutus could not have encoded from his biomechanical interface. Alfred knew that in a real battle those intense emotions would lose you your life. Here, they were impossible for code to emulate. “Jasper?” he whispered the question.
The face changed for just a moment. Brutus’ identity was not locked. It was fluid. All those years interfacing with humans may have corrupted his code, but it may also have copied the men he had tried to dominate. Jasper tried to help by throwing emotions at the Brutus code. Then Jasper disappeared, and Brutus again owned that face.
“The whole galaxy of language, and that’s what you came up with, ‘says you’?” Alfred smirked as he glanced down at Brutus’ neck. Alfred had positioned his sabre across the jugular. He looked back into Brutus’ now dead eyes.
Brutus, for his part, did not flinch. He was a program. He met Alfred’s smirk with one of his own. Brutus glanced down under Alfred’s chin and back up into Alfred’s eyes. Alfred realized that Brutus had pulled a dagger, and the point pressed under his chin. A simple shove and it would plunge into his virtual brain. It would be just as effective as shutting down the unique individual that was Alfred Ingram AI.
“I wouldn’t be very happy if you did that,” a voice said from behind Brutus. A second blade pressed into Brutus’ throat, and it drew blood. The owner of that blade pulled Brutus away from Alfred. Once clear, Alfred peered around his foe to see his own face wearing a camouflage uniform. “Hello, Prime.” Alfred Beta greeted.
“Nice timing, Beta. It’s good to see you.” Alfred took a moment to compose himself. In that moment, Brutus spun and attacked Beta, disarming him of the knife. Alfred Prime sprung to Beta’s defense, but Beta needed none. Flipping back in a martial arts move, Beta caught Brutus’ sabre on his thick boot. It stuck, pulling it from Brutus’ grip. As Beta completed his flip, well out of harms reach, he landed on the blade, snapping it. Beta rolled into a kneeling position and smoothly brought up his automatic pistol, firing.
The bullets pierced the Jasper image that Brutus wore. Although he did not bleed, he staggered from the hits. In shock, Brutus ran for the ballroom to recover.
“Thank you, brother,” Alfred Prime said as he extended a hand to help Beta stand. But he didn’t get the chance to touch his copy. A battleax, thrown from the ballroom entrance, lopped off the hand. Brutus knew that the copy would provide information to the Prime. Brutus sent out copies into the galaxy for the same reason. Information was power.
“He’s not very nice, is he?” quipped Beta.
“Nope,” Alfred answered, gripping his sabre tighter. “Let’s go.”
They ran toward the ballroom. Beta tried to reconstitute his hand, but it did not return. Alfred noticed this and wondered what other security codes blocked them in this construct of Brutus’. He was about to find out.
*****
Agnes was relieved the temperature had cooled. She dampened a towel from a bathroom in the hall to wipe David’s face. She also knocked him out with a jolt from her suit. He lay on the floor, bloodied from the abusive heat and cold on the biomechanical interface circuits. He moaned from time to time. Agnes pulled his body closer to a cooling vent to help him recuperate.
Brutus seemed to have left. Just to make sure, Agnes scanned for the security cameras and pickups in the apartment. She blew some up, but knowing that most would be hidden, she set up a jamming field through her suit electronics package. Not too shabby for an eighty-two-year-old out-of-date engineer, she thought. Now Agnes got busy with the real reason she was here.
She found Brutus’ core processer. Agnes sat down under the table where it was hidden. She had to move some dead equipment out of her way. This was it. It had the settlement logo on its side and the Zephyr emblem on its model and serial number sticker in the back. Using this, Agnes confirmed it was the correct unit.
She pulled off her suit gloves and rolled up her left sleeve. Then she traced a line from her left wrist to her elbow. As she did, a seam parted. Agnes silently thanked Dr. Ann Ai for this clever little trick to conceal her cargo. She pulled out a media stick. Agnes checked it for damage, and when satisfied, flipped off its lid and reached to plug it into the receptive data slots on the core processer.
She stopped when a hand caught her wrist and held it firm. “What are you doing?” a raspy voice asked. Agnes turned to find David standing over her, holding her arm fast. She couldn’t tell if Brutus or David controlled his body right now.
“It’s a virus that will decompile the Brutus code wherever it has spread,” she answered honestly. Agnes braced herself. He was weak. She could subdue him, but she risked damaging the media stick.
“Oh, good,” David released her hand. “Make it quick. He’s not totally distracted.”
Agnes put the stick into the data slot. She monitored the data lights on the stick, and once they went from red to green it was done. She helped David back to the cool vent and wiped the blood from his face. “Thank you,” he said. “Will it work?”
“With a little help from some friends,” she replied. “It will take a few minutes to spread through the system now and integrate. But wherever it takes root, the Brutus code can’t survive.” Now she did something she hated, but should be really good at after sixty-three years. She waited. And she hoped David would survive.
*****
The pace picked up. Pirates ran down the halls and formed up in groups. Tania referred to her tablet for additional directions. She nudged Sutton with her elbow and nodded her head down a side corridor. Like the others around them, they took off at a slow jog. That suited Sutton just fine. Their mission must be completed soon. The rising panic they saw in the other pirates both covered their activities and let them fit into the panic flooding the complex.
“What’s happening?” Sutton cautiously asked when they found a more secluded hall.
“I don’t know,” answered Tania. “There has been a rise in malfunctions with the environmental controls throughout the facility. I caught a report of a backup near the quarters, but we know how that happened.”
“This place is so large and spread out. Are we getting any closer to the central controls?”
Tania consulted her tablet. “Close. Here, this hatch and down.” They ducked into a side hatch that led to storage lockers. Near the back corner, Tania stopped. “There should be a hatch in the floor here.” They searched, but failed to find it until Tania reviewed the floor plan on her tablet.
“We’ve got to move that pallet.” She pointed to a pallet loaded with food rations. Sutton located a lift, and they soon uncovered the floor hatch. A dark hole faced them. Sutton pulled out a glow stick, broke it, shook it and dropped it down the hatch. In the low gravity, it took time to fall, but it never disappeared. “There is a tunnel leading to the next building. It’s the command center for the whole facility,” Tania informed Sutton.
“It’s not that deep. Follow my lead,” Sutton commanded. Sutton pulled out a pair of gloves. She started down the ladder and several rungs down grasped the sides and stepped off the ladder. “It’s easy,” she said as she slipped away into the darkness of the hole.
“This wasn’t in my training,” Tania mumbled to herself as she lowered herself down the hole. She closed and locked the hatch behind her. Tania grasped the sides of the ladder with her gloved hands, and stepped off the ladder. As she fell Tania slowed her decent using her gloves to break her speed. In the dark, she could not judge if she was about to smash into Sutton or if the Admiral had left her behind. She glanced down to find the glow stick, still a pinprick deep below her. At times, the light disappeared when Sutton’s body blocked it.
“I
’m almost down,” she heard Sutton say from several yards below her. Tania slowed her decent. She saw Sutton’s shape and heard the thud of the Admiral’s boots hit the floor. The shape stepped out of the way, and Tania glided down the ladder landing softly on the floor herself.
“Here, put these on.” Sutton handed Tania a pair of glasses. They activated as soon as Tania set them on her face. Night vision, of course, she thought. Sutton had to infiltrate the facility and brought along this important tool. Tania had been captured and stripped of anything she could use except her mind. Now she put that to good use again.
“It’s three kilometers through this tunnel,” she informed the Admiral.
“This shouldn’t take long.” Sutton vaulted off in long strides under the low gravity. Tania followed. Twenty minutes later, she caught the Admiral at the bottom of another ladder. Sutton jumped up several rungs. Tania gripped the highest rung she could reach, put a foot on the bottom rung and pushed off as hard as possible. By watching the rungs, she gauged when gravity was slowing her enough to grab on and repeat. This way, they made quick time up the ladder.
Sutton paused as they passed several hatches that led into the building. Tania pointed up indicating they had to go all the way. When they reached the top of the ladder, they found another hatch above them. They heard muffled voices shouting and the sound of an alarm klaxon. Sutton tried the hatch and found it locked. She looked at Tania and shrugged her shoulders.
Tania found the hatch number and referred to her tablet. In a few moments work on the tablet, Tania was rewarded with a click and a beam of light spilling through the now open hatch. Sutton peered through the seam the hatch created to scout the opposition.
She saw a control room with several pirates manning stations while others ran from one post to another relaying commands. In the confusion, Sutton doubted they would be noticed, just two more personnel there to help. She opened the hatch and crawled through. Again, Tania followed.