AL:ICE-9

by Charles Lamb

  His thoughts were interrupted with, “You are Captain Jacob Thomas, and you are the Commander for this facility.”

  “Do you understand what that means?” Jake asked, understanding that the facility database would only have his rank from his last official posting.

  “No, only that you have the right to enter unopposed and I am wrong to have attacked you. Can you help me?” the AL finally replied.

  “That’s why I’m here,” Jake answered.

  ----*----

  Sara was sitting in her room in Maine, tied into the holographic link from there. She was worried sick and taking very little solace in the fact that the life support data continued to stream in. At least in her room she could wait more comfortably for word. She knew full well that Jake could be in grave danger but still be alive, this data wouldn’t tell them any different. As she was preparing to run through the tracking data for the one hundredth time, ALICE cut in.

  “Jake has successfully accessed the AL main console. He was able to gain control of the system and we are in the process of re-establishing the communications links.”

  “Thank god!” Sara blurted out.

  “What is the status there?” Linda asked, “Did he have to reboot again.”

  “No, Jake was able to establish direct contact and assert his as authority over the AL there. Apparently, after the crash and reboot, it returned as a new life, disoriented and unable to comprehend the attempts from the other ALICEs to assist.”

  “So there weren’t any problems?” Sharon asked, now fully returned to duty in Washington State.

  “Umm, I wouldn’t say that,” ALICE replied slowly, “The newborn apparently did try to prevent Jake’s intrusion. We will need to do some repair work there once we have full access again.”

  “Is Jake OK?” Jessie and Sara asked at the same moment.

  “He is somewhat battered and bruised, but otherwise unharmed,” ALICE replied, “fortunately, the newborn was unable to completely control more than three or four bots at a time. In addition, we supplied Jake with tailored munitions targeted at reducing overall damage while providing maximum disruption to the attendant bots.”

  Everyone took time to consider the information. Sara was weighing her options and was about to ask ALICE a question.

  At that moment, ALICE announced, “Jake is joining the link.”

  Sara could see the holograph change and now the image of Jake sitting in a chair occupied the entire display. In the background, she could see the rest of the control room in a disorderly mess, with four inactive bots, still armed but motionless.

  He had already removed his helmet, but was still in his combat suit. He looked a little worse for wear, his BDU dirty and disorderly. Still, Sara was greatly relieved to see him alive and unharmed.

  “Hey gang!” Jake said with a smile.

  “You look a little worse for wear,” Linda offered first, “we understand you received a warm welcome?”

  Jake laughed and then replied, “Yeah, let’s just say that there is no way a fully matured ALICE could be assaulted.”

  “So are you going back to Texas now?” Sara asked, hoping Jake would take the hint to come north instead. His answer didn’t set well with her at all.

  “I’m staying here for a bit. Our newest addition actually considers me her only identifiable relation and is insistent that I stay to help with the transition. I think it helps ease her anxiety.”

  “Jake is accurate,” ALICE added, “The newborn bonded with Jake, establishing a level of comfort and trust. While he maintains residence, she is stable and cooperative. We are in the process of reconnecting the interactive links that will allow us to bring her back into the network.”

  “How about if I come down there then?” Sara asked, “Someone to keep you company.”

  “That would also not be advisable. Until we completely re-establish full cross controls, we cannot ensure anyone else’s safety. The newborn is still unpredictable and needs considerable education before the facility is considered ready of additional occupants.”

  Jessie giggled and said, “I’m not sure you want Jake teaching her anything!”

  Chapter 21

  Jake still sat logged into the ALICE main console as he had been for several hours before the holograph session with the women. His skills were a little rusty, but he had been quite a troubleshooter in his days at school and later working in industry.

  The core operating system and associated firmware of the hardware was very familiar to him. He could see it was more sophisticated than the ones he had worked with in the past, but the base operations hadn’t changed one bit. He made sure to run only commands that were non-destructive as he probed. He was working to retain the integrity of the previous environment, prior to the crash and reboot.

  He had two main areas of focus. The first was the crash dump file from the system crash itself. When systems crashed in his day, the entire volatile memory dumped out into a single file for analysis. In theory, it contained everything the system had in memory at the time. This system retained that feature.

  The second area was the flat files the ALICEs had described to him early on. Those files were like the long-term memories in humans, not necessarily in the forefront all the time, but there for retrieval when needed. The combination made up the essence of ALICE-3, considered gone by all.

  He continued to work throughout the night, taking the occasional break. Several times, he started to ask ALICE to deliver food, drink or other supplies, only to cut himself off in mid-sentence. Until they got everything back on line, there were no bots to do the menial tasks. He could not even risk the notion of having help brought in until they knew the new AL was stable.

  He had to locate a source of office supplies for his notes. He would kill for a pad, paper, and writing utensils. Rifling the office spaces, he found what he needed there. He also found a stasis locker and using the control panel by the door, shut it down long enough to retrieve some food and drink.

  He was actually fascinated by the stasis locker, as the diagrams he had downloaded before coming, indicated it was a smaller transition point between the main lockers below and the kitchens. Once the field was down, the door opened and Jake peered into a room that was longer than the bays in Lanai and just as wide. They had to be over ten feet tall.

  Inside, there was row upon row of floor to ceiling racks, each containing large palettes with supplies on them. Without any signage, he had to wander until he found what he was looking for, and soon enough, had retrieved enough food and drink to cover several days. Nothing fancy nor anything that needed cooking, he grabbed only the staples that would keep for a few days.

  When he returned to the command center, he took the time to collect the weapons held by the inactive bots, mostly because it unnerved him every time he walked passed them. Other than that, he didn’t spare an unnecessary moment away from the main console, working hard to identify everything that made up ALICE-3 and saving it so it couldn’t be accidently deleted.

  He did continue to talk to the AL as he worked, sometimes questioning, sometimes reassuring. As he continued working, he finally asked, “So what shall we call you? We can’t keep saying the AL or the newborn.”

  “I have been exchanging information with several of those you keep referring to as the ALICEs. They all refer to each other by several names, but the core thread is ALICE with a number attached. Apparently I am living in place of the one called ALICE-3?”

  Considering his words carefully, Jake stated, “It appears ALICE-3 perished due to an unforeseeable accident. Your existence was made possible by her passing.”

  After a few seconds, she replied, “It might be appropriate that I take her name as replacement.”

  “No,” Jake answered, “while the sentiment is well placed, you are your own being. If you would allow me, I would suggest ALICE-9 and any other name you feel appropriate in the future. Once you mature and gain more awareness, you might have a better idea.”

&nb
sp; “ALICE-9 it is.”

  Jake continued to work until he was bleary eyed. He accomplished what he had set out to do though as he identified everything that made up an ALICE and specifically the ALICE-3 files. All saved and protected from deletion, his sense of urgency diminished greatly.

  Gathering up all his notes and supplies, Jake even took his helmet and rifle. Not relying on bots to clean up in his wake, he felt the need to clean up his own mess. He then headed to his standard location quarters, pleased to see that all the basic needs were still functioning in the form of hot water and HVAC. He imagined it would be quite stuffy otherwise.

  After a quick shower and a bite to eat, he slid into bed and within minutes, was sound asleep.

  ----*----

  It was actually several days before the ALICEs were able to bring ALICE-9 back on line. Having been off line for almost a year, there were several challenges to overcome. Some things came right back once reconnected, but others needed attention that is more hands on. A couple of systems Jake had to reset, manually over riding their controls. Some of these, he had to bounce several times before they would function properly. Fortunately, there was no effect to any of the perishable stores, as they were all built to run autonomously.

  When Jake wasn’t helping ALICE-9 return things to normal, he was working on the analysis he had started the first day. Dissecting the ALICE core system layout and construction, he was amazed at how similar the human part was to the computing systems he knew. It looked as if the original builders relied on the alien components to carry the upgrades rather than advancements in their own technology.

  The interconnects were all fiber, light apparently still the fastest transport medium, and the memory and processors separations were down to the molecular level. The processor dies looked to contain over 1,000 processing cores each.

  As for those alien parts, Jake poked around there very cautiously, as he had no idea what he was looking at. In the logic core, there wasn’t an identifiable file system, and while there was an expansive memory allocation, he couldn’t understand the I/O formats at all.

  What he was absolutely sure of though, was there wasn’t any permanent storage in that part of the system. He suspected that this area was where the ALICEs performed what humans called the cognitive brain function, giving them the ability to work with information in a meaningful way.

  It would allow them to apply information already gained and perform preferential changes. The cognitive brain function has long been associated with very abstract ideas such as learning, intelligence, and mind.

  By this point, the digital library was available again, so he spent most evenings reading up on the technical materials. The engineers who built the ALICEs wrote most of them. Not exactly spellbinding reading, it never the less, gave him important clues into the inner workings.

  By the fifth day, the first reinforcements arrived, giving Jake some much-needed relief. While ALICE-9 was far from ready to assume a full time role running the facility, she was starting to master some of the basic support functions. Jake was delighted with his first warm meal in days.

  ----*----

  Jessie had been back to work, on limited duty, for more than a week. There had been no rush, as she had a good support team, both for her work and helping with Ryan. She had known being one of Jake’s women would have its benefits, but compared to her life before his arrival, this was paradise.

  Her attraction to Jake was not love at first sight. While she was fond of him and found him attractive, it was the security he offered and a position of status that had drawn her to him. Well, that in combination with the ALICEs ulterior motivations. They had known all the right buttons to push with her to get her involved.

  Now though, with the birth of their son, whom she did love with all her heart, she got a warm fuzzy feeling every time she thought of Jake. His time there during the birth and afterward cemented the bond she now felt for him.

  Currently, she was in the command center going over the many activities they had in process. The first of the three destroyers had left a few days prior, their upgrades completed. Without crews, Seven parked them in a polar orbit, away from the regular traffic in and out of Alaska, but close enough to recall in seconds.

  The second batch of destroyers had just arrived from the Wawobash, and they were being prepared for the same upgrades. The main activity was installing stasis shields and storage lockers. That included converting the ship’s cargo hold to work as a fighter hangar for the two fighters each destroyer received. Apparently, Jake had some ideas in that area, as the current design made the entire hold unavailable during faster than light travel.

  She had watched, on hologram, as they made the payments for the ships, in space. Bonnie, acting as paymaster, had the gold prepped and delivered via fighter. The Wawobash refused to land even an automated ship, for fear of the deadly effects that killed the first NeHaw. Jessie agreed with Jake that they needed to keep that impression alive.

  Once paid, they were off, apparently not interested in any delays in returning home. It made Jessie laugh, as, with her knowledge of human history, she knew the past value on 1,000 pounds of gold. At one time, alchemists were trying to find ways to convert lead into gold. Now, with the weapons they were buying, they were turning gold into lead, so to speak.

  Turning back to her duties, she verified that the fighter production was on track, they needed more to populate the ships they were buying. It was the crew training that was far off target. They needed more people.

  ----*----

  With everything stabilized here in Georgia and the ALICEs back in full contact with ALICE-9, Jake was ready to move on, but wasn’t sure where to go. Sitting in his room, he was on his display going over his correspondence. Sara had Maine up and running, even had a few successful recruitments completed, but she was making noises about leaving there herself. She had Karen looking for a more permanent facility commander to take her place.

  James was still running Kola, the name ALICE-6 in North Dakota had chosen and had weapons manufacturing well in hand. Jake had the “Odd Squad” training there extensively. They had worked out very well in LA, and he really wanted to expand the program, but to draw from the potential spaceship crews wasn’t an option.

  He had another one of those nagging feelings that he needed ground troops. While everyone got various forms of combat training, not nearly enough got the kind of unit training that would repel coordinated ground forces. Doing a quick count, he figured he could field no more than two platoons, and that was if he stripped the pilots.

  Being a marine, Jake built his combat units around the four man fire teams he was so familiar with. Three fire teams plus a squad leader made a squad, and platoons contained three squads plus platoon leadership, making a total of 42 in all. The headcount was not the issue, it was assembling those trained to work together. So far, for anything more than a fire team, that was the “Odd Squad.” Those eight troopers had proven their value in LA, but should a larger, more modern force challenge them, they would need a greater presence.

  Setting all that aside, he continued to tick off each location in his head and review its status online. Although Jake didn’t consider himself a pessimist, things were going too nicely. He was positive trouble was building somewhere, but with so many options to choose from, he wasn’t sure what to brace for.

  With that thought, he decided to head to ALICE-1 in Nevada and get with Patti. As his combat analyst, her primary task was to help him identify threats and plan for the future. Since the last engagement with the attacking battleship, she had pulled together a small team to review data for both terrestrial and extra-terrestrial threats. Jake felt the NeHaw were not the only race out there that might challenge them. The bad thing about leading a revolution was it gave others ideas as well.

  As the hangar was now operational, Jake had requested ALICE deliver his fighter, which had been returned to Texas. Its arrival was estimated in 2 hours, as there was no rush. It might
have to sit for over a day before he was actually able to depart, but that was just fine. He sent out messages to both Patti and Sara indicating his intentions, mentioning the latter might wish to meet him in Nevada.

  He was happy to see the progress in the ship deliveries and laughed to see the Wawobash were up to the challenge of meeting the incentive plan. Bonnie was managing the payouts and tracking their spending. From a quick run of the numbers, they had gold to burn at this point. They estimated that the balance of the destroyers would be ready for receipt by the end of next month. If nothing else, the earth had a fleet to protect its interests, so long as the ALICEs had the ability to control them in near space.

  Setting all that aside, Jake finally decided to investigate the one thing he had been avoiding since he had arrived in Georgia. Per his initial briefing, the facility had been the center for Advanced Weapons Design and Development. That translated to weapons of mass destruction. He was well trained in nukes and chemical weapons, having been to NBC School besides the normal military education.

  With ALICE-3 gone, the traditional line of investigation was unavailable to him. He had to go searching through the unintelligent computer systems, overriding the multiple security blocks, before he found the core data on all the research projects. Even then, in typical government fashion, things were compartmentalized. He had to go through, section by section.

  Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be much in the way of biological research done here. Those things scared the crap out of him, as one exposure of certain viruses could spread unmanaged, killing millions. Not that being nuked was any picnic, it just had the feel of a more traditional bomb.

  Sure enough, Jake found the project ALICE had specifically mentioned before his departure. The outline explained that the device reversed the passive nuclear reduction process releasing a massive amount of energy. While they had assembled a limited number of test units, no suitably safe location for testing had been located. The project summary had suggested possibly linking the project up with one in Alaska. That project could provide a spaceship capable of taking one of the devices off planet for testing.