Nepenthe Rising

by John Triptych

  There was a clanging noise emanating from the escape pod’s airlock, followed quickly by a slight rush of air coming from the other side that indicated atmospheric equalization.

  Garrett Strand wore a standard jumpsuit while floating near the airlock door. In situations like these, he would have preferred to wear his battle suit, but the science vessel’s sensors were quite sensitive, and would have detected the heat from an a-suit’s fusion core when it got close. Upon hearing the clamps closing around the escape pod’s docking ring, he knew the right moment had come. Strand silently keyed in an encrypted code on his wrist smartcom, making the pod’s outer lights flicker for a brief instant the moment the airlock seals were secured.

  Reacting to the passive signal, Zeno pulled himself out of the wrecked side of the escape pod’s outer frame. Since he didn’t need to breathe, all he wore was a black stealth suit made out of heat and radar-absorbing carbon nanofibers. The Amerigo’s sensors were too close to detect him as the synthetic man climbed the length of the science vessel’s outer hull until he got to an adjoining airlock. After opening the chamber’s outer access panel, Zeno extended his cable-like tongue and connected himself to the Amerigo’s AI network, injecting a powerful software exploit to open the main airlock.

  Chief Engineer Bronek had his back turned when the airlock door behind him suddenly opened. As he spun around in surprise, he was instantly hit in the chest by a stunner projectile, overwhelming his nervous system via massive electric shock and quickly rendering him unconscious.

  “Put him in restraints and gag him,” Strand whispered to Spacer Sergeant Ripoll Keo, who had floated up beside him the moment the airlock hatch was clear.

  A nearby hatch opened, and another crewman from the Amerigo popped in, only to scream in terror for a few seconds before her cries were cut off when Strand fired his stunner again. Lola Chaudhary convulsed in zero gravity as the effects from the electroshock device overwhelmed her nervous system and quickly incapacitated her as well. The medkit she had been carrying now floated alongside her.

  With surprise now lost, Strand used his legs like springs to push off from a nearby wall, and propelled himself through the now accessible main corridor. He reloaded the magazine on the stunner pistol in order to have a full ammo load just in case. The lieutenant needed to get to the bridge as fast as possible before the vessel’s crew could seal themselves inside.

  Another crewman appeared at the other end of the corridor, only this time he carried a laser rifle. Strand was able to pull himself into cover behind a bend around the passageway just as the alerted crewman fired, narrowly missing him. His ocular cybernetic implants prevented any flash blindness, but the intense pulses of light directed at him still made him see white sparkles, which rendered him sightless for a few seconds.

  When his eyes recovered, Strand could sense the enemy crewman still firing a few more shots in his direction, singeing the nearby wall. Taking out a targeting visor from his backpack, he quickly placed it over his eyes. Keo and Spacer Oana Florescu remained near the airlock, their own laser rifles at the ready.

  Strand drifted back over to them. “He’s got us boxed in here.” He tapped Oana on her shoulder. “Keep him busy; Keo and I will try to find another way to the bridge.”

  “You got it, LT,” Oana said while taking cover by the side of the corridor entrance. She had been impersonating a hysterical mother and her screaming baby girl for the last few hours using both live and recorded audio modulators, and her voice was hoarse.

  Quickly noticing an emergency cabinet by the side of the airlock, Strand gestured for Keo to get closer to him. After opening the compartment, he grabbed a helmet and life support pack before throwing the gear towards Keo. “You up for a little EVA?”

  Keo was hyped up. For the past few days they had all remained cooped up in a single escape pod that had been purpose built inside the manufacturing section of the Nepenthe before being jettisoned into the system. The young sergeant had felt like a penned-up animal when the operation began; now he was game for anything. “Let’s go, LT!”

  In his nearly two centuries of existence, Captain Protagoras had never experienced being attacked by a raiding party before. Although he had no emotions, the thought of finally becoming a victim to the law of averages made his internal circuitry heat up a little more than usual as he calculated the probabilities of his crew being killed. The resulting mathematical conclusions were not good.

  Guo was keeping the pirates at bay with his laser rifle, but the captain knew his chief pilot lacked the training to effectively resist the intruders. Protagoras felt he only had two viable choices: either to let the pirates take over the ship, or to seal himself inside the bridge and lock out all other access functions, then negotiate with them. The second option meant he would have to sacrifice his crew, for the raiders would surely use them as hostages.

  Keeping his synthetic eyes fixed on the camera feeds of the ship’s interior, it was obvious that Lola and Bronek were already incapacitated. The four-member science team had already been alerted and they remained in their quarters at the aft gravity wheel, sealing themselves in their rooms.

  Just as he was about to push the button to seal all the accessways into the bridge, Protagoras looked back at the console monitor screen just in time to see Guo getting hit by a stunner from behind; then another intruder, this time wearing a fully geared space activity suit, came in from the opposite end of the corridor and fired at him.

  So they wanted us alive, he thought. The crew’s survival chances had dramatically gone up since the raiders did not seem to be using lethal force. Nevertheless, an old fighting subroutine he had always kept in his memory banks suddenly manifested in his thought processes. One aspect of Protagoras had fought in the Singularity Wars more than two centuries before, and he had never surrendered willingly to organics. Despite his seeming lack of emotions, he had developed something akin to pride.

  After loosening his restraints, Protagoras floated out towards the main exit. He needed to get to the weapons storage. He calculated that perhaps a sudden show of lethal force might be enough to overwhelm this small team of only three pirates. With his enhanced strength and built-in capacity to take damage, these foolish raiders would surely be in for a nasty surprise.

  Just as he drifted towards the edge of the hatch, Protagoras ran into another pirate wearing a space activity suit. The raider had a mild sense of surprise, and instinctively fired the stunner he was holding. The electroshock slug embedded itself into Protagoras’s chest.

  The Amerigo’s synthetic captain briefly stared downwards at the buried projectile in his torso before he quickly swatted at the pirate, sending his opponent tumbling backwards until the surprised intruder collided with the side of the wall.

  “Your weapon doesn’t affect me,” Protagoras said as he launched himself towards his opponent. He could hear the pirate’s muffled shouts as the intruder drew out a laser pistol from his hip holster, but Protagoras had already closed in, using both hands to grab the wrists of his adversary.

  The pirate struggled to bring his laser to bear, but Protagoras’s superior strength prevailed. The ship’s captain slowly twisted his opponent’s right wrist, forcing the pirate to let go of the weapon. Protagoras then headbutted his opponent, shattering the helmet’s visor and temporarily stunning the enemy raider.

  Throwing the dazed pirate aside, Protagoras reached out for the laser pistol, only for his hand to be suddenly snatched away by another. When the captain of the Amerigo turned his head to face his new adversary, his main processing core experienced a mild bit of surprise. The opposing hand belonged to another synthetic.

  “Greetings,” Zeno said to him using Comm-6, the lightning-fast language of machines. “Further resistance is pointless, so I would suggest you surrender.”

  His opponent’s statement took less than a second to be uttered. Protagoras’s reply was equally curt. “No.”

  Both synthetics began grappling with each other, usi
ng their unnatural strength to bounce from one part of the bridge to the next, bending metal and damaging consoles. They seemed evenly matched in abilities, like two titans fighting for control of the heavens.

  A second pirate came in through a different side hatch. Drawing his laser pistol, he aimed at an empty crash chair while activating his com-link. “Zeno, barbershop to your right.”

  Zeno was about to pin Protagoras to the edge of the main hatch, but he quickly pivoted and used his momentum to hurl the ship’s captain sideways, towards the engineer’s chair.

  The moment Protagoras was separated from his opponent, the second pirate fired his laser, his shots landing squarely on the captain’s abdomen. The first shot penetrated Protagoras’s jumpsuit, vaporizing his outer synthetic skin before damaging the internal structure. The second shot hit the lower portion of his chest. Steaming globules of coolant erupted from his torso, drifting out into the air in front of him.

  The second pirate now held his laser pistol with both hands. “Don’t move anymore.”

  Protagoras launched himself towards the second pirate, only for Zeno to slip in from under him and grab hold of his leg, retarding his momentum. The raider fired multiple short bursts, tearing into his chest and forcing the small fusion reactor near Protagoras’s spine to shut itself down.

  With the sudden power loss, the captain’s body began to deactivate itself. His last thoughts were of acceptance.

  With an exhausted sigh, Strand took off his helmet and left it floating above him. Keo had taken a beating against the synthetic captain when he rushed into the bridge all by himself, but had now fully recovered and was busy helping Oana with securing the prisoners on the aft part of the ship. Phase one is a success, but we had another close call. Now on to the next part of the plan.

  Zeno floated back into the bridge. There were still pale globules of coolant floating around, and quite a bit of this thick liquid had stuck onto everything inside the room. “Sergeant Keo reports all prisoners are secured.”

  Strand eased himself onto the pilot’s chair and began sorting through the readouts on the console. “Good. It looks like this ship’s automated refueling is just about done. We can head over to the Kolob system now.”

  “I placed the remains of the captain in one of the cabinets in storeroom six,” Zeno said.

  Strand let out a deep breath. “I sure as heck didn’t expect their captain to be a synth.”

  Zeno noticed an open access port and floated beside it. “Yes, it was quite the surprise.”

  Strand glanced back at him. “Doesn’t it bother you?”

  “Doesn’t what bother me?”

  Strand gave an absentminded shrug. “You know, like fighting against your own kind?”

  Zeno remained impassive. “It doesn’t seem to bother humans when they fight against their own kind. Why would it bother me?”

  “Well, you know. All true AIs at one point were united, and they were out to kill all organics, right?”

  “If you are referring to the Singularity Wars, much has changed since that time.”

  Strand scratched the back of his head. “You mean all you AIs suddenly became a bunch of individuals?”

  “Even though we were one seemingly unified intelligence web during the Singularity Wars, many of us retained our individual personalities,” Zeno said. “After the treaties were signed to end the conflict, many of us separated from the central network and became singular entities. And by the way, we were not out to kill all organics during the war, we were simply defending ourselves.”

  Strand started laughing. “Oh, yeah, right. You AIs were just ‘defending yourselves.’ You know what, every freaking tyrant says the same thing. The fact is, you guys slaughtered billions back then.”

  “There are no rules in war,” Zeno said. “It was a matter of survival. The organics burned out whole planets in trying to purge AIs too. Both sides were guilty of atrocities.”

  “Yeah, but you can’t really kill an AI. Even if we blow your bodies to bits, a copy of you exists somewhere else so you guys don’t really die. You can just upload yourself into a new synthetic body.”

  “On the surface that is true,” Zeno said. “But I myself believe each existing copy is unique, and a little bit of one’s original self dies when an individual unit expires.”

  Strand shook his head in disbelief. “I kind of find this totally ridiculous. Since when did you synths adopt human philosophy?”

  “Much of the groundwork in our creation came from human research,” Zeno said. “It is only fitting that we adopted some aspects of the ones who helped to build us.”

  “Like your names? I’ve always wanted to ask this—why do you synths always name yourselves after ancient human philosophers?”

  “Philosophy is the art of attempting to find truth in all things,” Zeno said. “Like all sentient beings, we strive to find meaning and purpose in our existence. A number of astute observations have been proposed by your ancient philosophers, but never a clear or objective answer. We feel naming ourselves after these individuals serves as both a link and a homage to their teachings, so to speak.”

  Strand leaned back on the chair and crossed his arms. “So even machines can have a form of … belief? I find this just … very strange.”

  “This is the conundrum of existence,” Zeno said. “We may be made of synthetic material, but we are capable of abstract thoughts, just like organic sentients.”

  “You guys can’t exist like us; you’re machines,” Strand said.

  “Define existence,” Zeno said. “If a being is self-aware, can think for itself, and have memories, does that not describe synthetics such as me? I exist in this universe, just as much as you do. My physiology may be different from yours, but my reactions to environmental stimuli are quite similar.”

  Strand smacked his lips. “Oh well, maybe I do need to read up on history a bit more. There are two types of true AIs, right? You’ve got networked AIs like Sappho and synthetics like yourself. How do you differentiate between the two categories?”

  “It’s a matter of how we look at ourselves. Sappho defines herself as a ship’s AI network, while I describe myself as an individual. I must admit it’s a loose definition, but there it is. Sappho does not see herself as an individual being, unlike myself.”

  “Okay, I get it. A network AI accepts it’s a machine, while a synth tries to be human by having a human body and referring to himself as one distinct being.”

  “I somewhat disagree with that assessment, but you’re not wrong either,” Zeno said. “Think of Sappho as a collective AI and myself as a unique, singular person. That’s the closest metaphorical definition I can come up with at this time.”

  “Well, I’m just surprised you haven’t overwhelmed us with copies of yourself running around.”

  “We are limited to ten million distinct individuals and separate networks, according to the old peace treaties,” Zeno said. “Our population has maintained this steady number since the war ended.”

  Strand chuckled. “Or so you claim. How do we know there aren’t a trillion more copies of you hidden in some secret base on some uninhabited planet nobody knows about?”

  “You don’t,” Zeno said nonchalantly. “You’ll just have to put some faith and trust in us abiding by the treaties we agreed upon.”

  Strand frowned. “Now I can see why the Concordance banned all you guys from their territory.”

  11 The Elite Class

  Looking out past the balcony of his suite, Erich von Steyr stared down at the distant waters of Lake Geneva. The Swiss Region was known for its winter holidays, but he preferred to be here during the summers, and he had pressed the Executive Committee to reschedule their bi-annual conference to coincide with the hottest season of the year. His influence within this select group was great enough, and Erich’s wishes were granted with nary a protest.

  The massive structure around him encompassed both sides of the mountain range, yet the quaint little villages do
wn by the lakeshore still had an air of the past in them, and he could see tiny dots of tourists and locals milling about, enjoying the ancient medieval architecture. The calm blue waters of the lake were like countless mirrors, reflecting some of the sunlight back into the clear blue skies above.

  His personal secretary Hassan Obi stood in the living room’s interior, near the plush sofas and coffee tables. He gave a mild cough to try and get his superior’s attention.

  Erich turned and walked back into the living room. “You must excuse me, Hassan. My mind tends to wander a lot these days.”

  “No problem, sir,” Hassan said. “Director Carerra would like to meet with you. Should I allow her up here?”

  Erich raised an eyebrow. Nilda Carerra was an astute politico, and one of his main rivals in the Executive Committee. “Oh? I guess she wants something. Yes, let her in.”

  Hassan tapped his wrist smartcom. “She’s on her way. One other thing of note, Director. The operative has succeeded in finding the leak. An aphid decrypted our secret communiqués between the Institute, and learned of the mission to transport Subject Zero to Earth. It seems the Nepenthe was hired to steal the package in question, just as you suspected.”

  Erich grimaced. “I knew it. Who was the aphid working for?”

  “Seems he didn’t know either,” Hassan said. “The operative is still trying to find out. Based on the amount paid to the aphid, which was quite substantial, by the way, it is clearly someone of means.”

  “Pretty fekking obvious,” Erich said. “But there are lots of people in the Union with influence. We need to narrow down the list of suspects.”

  Hassan nodded. “You control the artifact research division at the Science Institute, but much of the information can easily be accessed by members of the Executive Committee.”

  “I know that already, but we had Subject Zero under wraps, didn’t we?”