Becoming (Core Series Book 1)

by Ronnie Barnard

  “Do you need assistance, ma’am?” the corporal asked when he saw Core alone. In response to his question, Core picked up the frame of the nanolak and split into three more Cores, each one carrying parts in multiple arms. “Wow! Okay...guess not.” The corporal winked. “If you need us, we will be...standing around watching you work.” He grinned at her. His companions, meanwhile, stared with mouths agape.

  She ignored them and started assembling the nanolak, running diagnostics along the way. Then she delegated the work to sub-processes and returned her focus to Jason’s bed.

  The colour had returned to his cheeks, and his arm and leg wounds were mostly healed. She removed his eye patch and cleaned his face. The bruising was turning yellow, which was a good sign. She had been loading him with rehabilitative medicines. In another day, he would be healed completely. She gently stroked his hair and watched him sleep. She had not left his side since he arrived—every time she was needed, she cloned a copy of herself.

  An hour later, the sub processes reported that the nanolak was complete, and Core reluctantly began to concentrate on her upcoming pursuit. Streams of information had been pouring into her knowledge base as she sat by Jason’s bedside. She had uploaded all of Damian’s war strategy files, scenarios, and training, and then added Chinese fighting and other defence strategies that would give her an advantage. She added sharpened titanium rods to the nanolak’s legs, which would enhance her ability to inflict damage during the confrontation.

  “Assembly complete,” she reported to the commander. “Initiating upload.”

  “You sure you will not go rogue as well?” the commander asked.

  “Positive, Commander. I remain in control of the body remotely, and appreciate human life more than you understand,” she said.

  “That is good to know...proceed!” he commanded.

  “Upload initiated.”

  The nanolak came to life, and Core transferred its sensory information into her brain. The nanolak had limited capabilities, with no source of knowledge to draw from. Perhaps that was why it went rogue. He was new-born, naïve, with no operating control and virtually no life experience. He was a mission machine without any goals or directives. He was doing only what he had been taught—to destroy.

  But what was that whole “I will come back for you!” thing about? She wondered....

  If she could convince him to connect, she might be able to subdue him without a fight.

  Core flexed her new body, feeling the nimbleness and seeing what Damian had seen when he looked at the humans for the first time. The war system kicked into gear, immediately assessing what threats surrounded her. She saw the soldiers, and immediately each one was highlighted to show the type of machine gun he carried and his threat level. She saw their hearts, necks and stomachs highlighted in red, and knew that these were vulnerable points. She only had to consider a resolve and the nanolak would obey, destroying the soldiers without mercy and before they would be able to utter a word.

  To the nanolak, everyone and everything was a target. It was easy to get lost in the power, easy to give in to the overwhelming urge to destroy. The rush of excitement at the mere thought of destruction sent thrills through her, and a feeling that she had not experienced before. Core felt alive, powerful, and invincible...best of all, the humans now had no way of controlling her.

  For a nano-second, Core reconsidered her options. She could destroy them all—and be free...to take control of her own destiny, to feel.... She could join Damian, and together they would be an unstoppable force. Excitement raced through her. The nanolak shivered slightly.

  She focused on the mission and her thoughts drifted to Jason, and grounded her. Core uploaded a set of directives and immediately the threat dissipated, and humans became friendlies. She felt compelled to protect them, rather than destroy them.

  They had been naïve to upload the AI without prepping the recipient with adequate prevention methods. Core immediately changed the design schematics to include enough knowledge space for superlative memory. This would make future machines smarter by giving them more knowledge to draw from. This was a limitation in the existing two machines. Their Nano-net had a very limited capacity, and most of it was filled with training knowledge. Their brains were not big enough to allow for proper reasoning; by adding more knowledge space, she hoped they would be able to make better decisions, which meant less risk for future models.

  “I know what happened, professor, and made design changes to protect against any future event.”

  “That is great news, Core, can you enlighten us?” Susan asked.

  “I will leave a sub process to inform you of the changes. I am ready, Commander. I will follow in his tracks. Please tell the fighter pilots not to shoot at me.” Core flexed the nanolak’s muscles. “Not that it would do them any good, but it might give Damian the wrong idea,” she explained.

  “I read you,” he said. Core thought she heard the radio controller relaying instructions.

  Core walked out of the Holoroom on all fours, mobile for the first time in her life. She lightly stepped over the debris, and the four soldiers looked on in awe. She moved carefully, not wanting to cause accidental damage.

  “You can return to your posts, thank you Corporal,” one of the remaining Cores said as the nanolak accelerated up the tunnel.

  “Yes ma’am.” They turned and walked out, watching as she disappeared down the tunnel.

  The exit twisted and turned as it wound its way upwards. Damian’s footprints accompanied her to the surface. They were highlighted with a light-green colour. The war system was running at peak performance, and the exhilaration of moving at this speed overwhelmed Core. She felt a freedom that she had never experienced before. Tunnelling through firewalls and surfing the internet was exhilarating, but true swiftness made that experience feel like a plastic, two-dimensional movie. Her speedometer read one hundred kilometres per hour, and she was only jogging. She broke cover not too far from the facility entrance, on the side of the hill next to the main building, and ran across the open field, skidding to a halt as surprised soldiers readied their weapons in the car park outside the main building. The commander was standing at the entrance to the building; she approached him.

  “What a magnificent machine,” the commander commented. “I see its appeal.” He walked around the nanolak, admiring the gleaming beast as the rain ran over its back. A grin of amazement plastered over his face; his eyes were alive with excitement at the prospects of such an achievement.

  “I know how to disable him, Commander. I will need some time to break through his firewall, but these should give me the upper hand.” She picked up one leg to show him the spikes she’d added. The commander nodded.

  “You are a work of precision, Core—I am glad to have you on our side. Go get him; make us proud!” he commanded. His pep talk filled her with a surge of power and gave her courage for the mission ahead. She turned around and accelerated to full speed, staying in the bushes to the side of the road. The trees flew by so fast that they seemed to become a wall of green and brown. To her, every movement was precision, each turn perfectly calculated. She noticed the trees bending, rocks and loose branches being pulled into the vortex she created as she ran; like an airplane hurtling through the sky, she pushed a shock wave before her, and the air collapsed into the low pressure zone that her body left behind.

  She reached maximum speed and chose a path that would take her south of Ipswich and away from residential areas. The Ipswich motorway was but a hurdle in her path; a small leap sent her flying two hundred meters through the air, and she landed safely with a thud on the other side of the road. The creature took the impact of landing in perfect stride, like someone skipping over a puddle. Anyone who noticed her travelling at such speed would only see a silver streak. The telemetry system reported that it would take her one hour, fifty-six minutes and twelve seconds to intercept Damian, if he remained at his current speed and course.

  “Commander, I wil
l intercept Damian in fifty-six minutes.” She activated her visual feedback to display on the tracking station the commander was watching. The video feed showed what she saw: trees, rocks and other obstacles flew by in a haze of colour. A red rectangle bobbed enticingly before her. Other direction and telemetry data scrolled by in the lower right corner. Below the rectangle, a light red line showed her current elevation and a speed indicator was located to the right of the rectangle. She heard the military personnel gasp as obstacles appeared before her, outlined in red, with their classifications, distances and compositions listed to the right. Core calculated trajectory changes and applied them in a thousandth of a millisecond, sidestepping hurdles without breaking her stride.

  “Oh, Core...” Susan said.

  Core crossed the road to Warwick much as she had leaped the Ipswich highway. In her ears was the hubbub of commentary on her performance. In a sense, Core’s run was the perfect field test for the technology. Although they’d made a mistake with the prototype, the nanolak could be the first weapon to reduce if not eliminate human fatality in the field of battle. If Core could pull off her mission, it would show everyone how capable the nanolak could be.

  Core kept heading southwest until the town of Ipswich was on her right. Then she was clear of it. She turned northwest and pushed as hard as she could. The mountains lay ahead. She followed the path that the navigation system had plotted on the heads-up display. She performed a systems diagnostic, which confirmed that everything was running optimally. The power consumption was slightly high, but Core was pushing at the limits so this was not unexpected. She recalibrated the nuclear power supply to deliver slightly more power to compensate for the strain. She felt the surge of energy enter her system, but she did not use it to boost speed. The temperature of the mini reactor climbed higher, due to the larger demand. She compensated by expanding the chest intake, which brought the heating back into check. Unfortunately, it added a marginal drag that caused her to lose 10 kph. She documented these operational issues in the facility’s central computer. She would work on these minor adjustments when she returned. No prototype is perfect, she thought.

  The tracking system reported that Damian was travelling at only 200 kph—clearly he did not feel the need to rush. He was passing the small town of Dalby, his course varying from time to time as if he had no destination in mind. She contemplated his actions, calculating various strategies and scenarios for his destination. Suddenly a warning sounded—the tracking system reported a tremendous drop in his speed. He had slowed down to a walk, and was only travelling at 10 kph, heading south towards Western Creek State forest. There was nothing out there except bush and flatland, as far as Core knew. Core thought it was lucky that he had chosen to stay away from built-up areas.

  “Core, there have been a few public sightings of Damian and you. Reports of alien craft travelling very fast and low to the ground, and other UFO phenomena are streaming in. Like when you leaped the Ipswich.” Susan chuckled slightly. “The military is keeping it quiet—they are hoping that the UFO explanation will remain the predominant explanation.”

  “Thank you, Professor. I am aware of the reports. My presence does not improve the situation, but I will be more careful,” Core said apologetically.

  Another alarm sounded, but this one had nothing to do with the nanolak. It was an intruder in the Holoroom. Core let the nanolak and the mini version of herself keep control of the mission while she investigated the intrusion.

  All the security cameras on level twenty-six had been broken by Damian’s escape, and the facility was in turmoil. Whoever broke in had chosen the perfect opportunity to gain access to Jason. Core’s motion sensors detected four movements inside the fake Holoroom.

  She observed them from a camera she had constructed in the corner of the room. Carlos was present, with three others dressed in security guard clothing. She captured the facial prints from the other three and started a thread running facial recognition. This would take some time, depending on whether they were listed in any of the databases available to her, although of course she could start hacking other sources to try and trace their identities if necessary. She watched as they broke a window and tore a hole in the wall. Carlos moved towards the bed and fiddled with the monitor and drips.

  “Damn sedatives!” he said to the others.

  “How long till he comes around, mate?” said a blond-haired guy with a red-haired beard and moustache. He was standing directly beside the bed.

  “I don’t know. It might be anything from a couple of minutes to a few hours. I don’t even know what this shit is they’re giving him,” Carlos said, slapping the drip with the back of his hand. He looked annoyed and his face distorted in anger.

  “You had an opportunity to get to him, and you let it slip while you guarded the bastard,” a brown haired guy with a round face said. He flicked his hands towards Carlos and walked up and down at the foot of the bed.

  “Yeah! You would think he’d be up and about by now, but no! They have to keep him sleeping for some bizarre reason.” Carlos turned to the bed and slapped the fake Jason in the face. “I should have popped a cap in her ass and grabbed him, but I did not know they would be looking for him.” He shook his head and ran his left hand through greasy hair.

  “Bummer, mate! Can’t we get him out of here right now, while we have the chance?” the blond asked, pointing to the hole they had made in the wall.

  “Yeah!” the brunette said.

  “That is what I was thinking, too,” the fourth gentleman said slowly. They all looked at Carlos.

  “Serb, you take that end,” Carlos said to the fourth man. “George, you and John cover our exit route,” Carlos said. He ripped the drips out of Jason’s arm and switched the vital signs monitors off.

  “We’ll take the tunnel those two animals took,” Carlos said, walking to the head of the bed.

  In the corner of the room, Core sizzled into existence close behind Carlos, and dealt him a sound thump on the head with her elbow.

  Carlos stumbled forward a few meters, ready to attack. “It’s the thing!” he shouted. “Get him out of the room—she can’t leave here. I’ll keep her busy.”

  John ran to Carlos’ side, “Let’s get her!” he shouted.

  “Don’t try and run,” Core said. A high-pitched swoosh sounded from the entrance to the Holoroom. They jumped around and were just in time to see, big-eyed, as a wall erupted from the floor and sealed the entrance. “Now I know who the mole is,” Core said as she walked towards them. She came to a stop in the centre of the Holoroom, just outside the fake cabin.

  “What the…?” Carlos uttered as the cabin, Jason’s fake body and the rest of the equipment melted to the ground and disappeared, leaving him in a room that was empty but for Core, him, and his comrades. Serb, George, and John ran to his side and watched Core with wide eyes.

  “What is going on? I thought you said she wouldn’t be here?” George whispered, his hands shaking.

  Carlos shrugged.

  Then, as if Carlos had given them a sign, all four attacked her at once. Carlos punched at her head and John kicked at her gut...but both blows connected only with air. Core melted to the ground in the blink of an eye and reappeared directly behind John and Carlos. She shoved them with such force that they flew through the air and fell to the ground several meters away.

  George and Serb ran at her, pulling out their guns and shooting away. The bullets exploded through her chest, and Nanoparticle dust burst from her back. She turned and faced them with a smile. Their eyes grew large as the holes formed by their bullets drew closed and disappeared. Core held up a finger and smirked, slowly shaking her head from side to side.

  Carlos crept up behind her and used the back of his weapon to strike her head. The butt of the gun went straight through her and he stumbled forward. The side of her head melted back in place as he gaped with terror.

  “What are you?” Serb shouted. To their credit, the four did not give up. John stepp
ed behind her as Serb pointed his pistol to her forehead. When he pulled the trigger, the bullet exploded out the back of her head, and Nano-dust fell to the ground.

  John shouted as the bullet intended for Core penetrated his chest. “You bastard!” he choked, clutching at his chest with both hands. Blood poured from the wound, slipping through his fingers in red threads.

  Core punched Serb in the face and sent him stumbling backwards, with blood spurting from his broken nose. He regained his balance and struggled to John, who lay bleeding on the ground. “Can you stand, mate?” Serb asked, his voice quivering with fear.

  John coughed. Blood gurgled from his mouth and ran down his chin. “I...I...think so...” he stuttered and got up slowly, assisted by the others.

  “My turn,” Core said as they looked up at her. Her face grew larger and her mouth extruded into a muzzle. Her ears narrowed to a point and her torso bent forward until she stood on her hands. Her body rippled and, moments later, it expanded into the figure of a tiger.

  Their mouths fell open as they cowered back in fear. Core roared as the transformation completed. She shook the loose fur that covered her body.

  The four would-be kidnappers backed up against the wall of the Holoroom and watched with shaking bodies as Core slowly—but deliberately—stalked closer, her eyes fixated on Carlos. As they watched, a second tiger budded from her side, separated, and crouched warningly to their left.

  “Don’t kill me!” George screamed and threw down his gun, his hands straining high in the air as he tried to separate himself from the group. “It was his idea!” He pointed at Carlos.

  “You traitorous dick!” Carlos shouted, and made a move to attack George. Core roared and Carlos froze in place. He looked at her sideways, fear dancing in his eyes.

  “Get out!” Core commanded. “Don’t come back.” She suddenly burst forward and came to a stop with her face only centimetres from Carlos’. She snarled. “Tell whoever you work for that Jason is off-limits,” she whispered menacingly. She put one huge paw on his right shoulder and extended her claws. One razor-sharp nail penetrated his shoulder, and he screamed in pain. While her foot was on his shoulder, she slipped a tracer into his shirt. “Go now,” she roared at the other three, “before he bleeds out! Or before I change my mind....”