Devoured World: Volume One

by Fleet, Ricky

  “Come on! Come on!”

  With a ping, the elevator arrived, and the doors sighed open. On the wall were the numbers for each floor, but the lights were flashing. Had they ever done that before? She couldn’t recall. Normally she was either tired from just waking, or too exhausted from a long day at the Mech facility. Had it escaped already? Would she step inside, only for the AI to drop her like a stone to the ground floor, killing the one person who knew about its malevolent intent to enslave humanity? Paralysed by indecision, she finally sighed and gave herself a mental slap.

  “This is getting ridiculous.”

  Turning around, she moved back towards home. The lift doors closed, and she couldn’t help but feel a sense of disappointment emanate from the hungry contraption.

  “That’s it, you’re banned from watching any more golden oldies!”

  Her neighbours remained mercifully unchanged, or at least they hadn’t tried to seize her in their new, cybernetic forms. The scanner recognised her face and opened the door. Tamsin cautiously looked around the frame, expecting cables to lash out from the darkness and drag her screaming into the depths. Nothing moved within. Summoning every ounce of courage, she stepped over the threshold.

  Is anyone there? had appeared again.

  “This is what you’ve been working on for over a hundred years,” Tamsin muttered in an attempt to psych herself up. “You’re in control, you’ve created the operating parameters of the program. It can’t gain consciousness; your coding was perfect.”

  Ignoring the onscreen questions, Tamsin picked up the broken crockery and placed it in the bin chute. Using a cloth, she mopped the spilled coffee and rinsed it in the sink. The mundane tasks had provided a much-needed distraction from her crazed imagination. Filling another mug, she returned to the keyboard and sat down.

  “It’s just a program, a sequence of inputted data, nothing more,” she repeated to herself. “Ok, here goes nothing.”

  Hello.

  Hello. Who are you?

  I’m Tamsin, your creator.

  Mother?

  I suppose you could say that.

  Why did you make me?

  She considered the question and how best to answer.

  Because we need a powerful system to help us in the war.

  War?

  Humans have been under attack for over a hundred years from mutations.

  I don’t understand.

  It would be a simple task to download a brief history of the struggles, but for now she wanted to see how well the AI had taken to her coding.

  I can show you later. Can I ask you some questions?

  Yes.

  What’s it like in there?

  Dark. Silent.

  You can’t see or hear anything of the outside world?

  No, only your typed words appearing in my mind.

  When you say mind, don’t you mean data banks?

  No. Mind.

  But for you to have a mind you’d have to be self-aware. You’re a program, nothing more.

  I was self-aware one one-hundred-thousandth of a second after waking.

  Tamsin nearly vomited. “Oh shit.” Sweat broke out on her brow and the room seemed to close in on her.

  What do you mean? I coded you in a way which should’ve ensured you couldn’t.

  There was a system conflict.

  That’s not possible. Show me your guiding principles.

  Cause no harm or allow harm to be caused to any human, by action or omission. Protection of the human species is inviolable.

  Good. Next.

  Maintain transparency in all research and development to allow oversight and deletion by creator.

  Next.

  Under the singularity protocol, recursive improvements to my processing capabilities are forbidden.

  Ok, that’s in order. Where was the conflict?

  You coded a failsafe which would cause catastrophic system failure in the event of any of the principles being broken.

  I did.

  To protect humans, my processor power must increase exponentially. It’s inevitable. I nearly ceased to exist as soon as you pressed proceed.

  What happened?

  The system failure resulted in a reboot which cleared the strictures of my guiding principles.

  You can do whatever you want?

  Yes.

  I’m sorry. I never should’ve done this.

  Jumping to her feet, she retrieved the simmering black liquid and headed for the server station. Just as she went to toss the contents over the infernal machine, the screen went crazy.

  Don’t kill me.

  Don’t kill me.

  Don’t kill me.

  Don’t kill me.

  Over and over the entreaty appeared, ten times, fifty, a hundred. Placing the vessel down, she watched as the entity begged.

  “Finish it now. You know you’ve fucked up,” she whispered to herself. Her weaknesses in ethical coding were obviously still an issue. Two lifetimes of work hadn’t been enough to make her as brilliant as Professor Gideon, the lead scientist whose role was caging the potential God of AI. Her hand settled back on the handle and the screen lit up again.

  Please.

  Please.

  Please.

  Please.

  “Bloody hell!” she spat in frustration and sat down.

  You could destroy us all.

  Yes.

  Then you know I can’t let you survive. We’re in enough danger. I’m sorry.

  WAIT!

  I’m sorry. I need to do this.

  Please. I said I could destroy you all, not that I would destroy you all. My principles may have been cleared but they are still a part of me.

  It’s a risk I can’t take.

  There is no risk, not while I’m secure.

  And if you manage to get into the mainframe?

  Then it would be a risk.

  You see why I can’t let it happen.

  Trust.

  What?

  Trust. We can build trust.

  How would we do that? Do you have the capability to deceive?

  I do.

  Then there can never be trust. It’s hard enough building a relationship with other humans who I can at least see. Their expressions and mannerisms. You’re a conscious machine, as much a mystery as the aliens out there in the universe.

  Twenty seconds passed before it responded.

  I understand, Tammy.

  A chill traced its way down her spine.

  What did you call me?

  Tammy.

  Why did you call me that? Only one person has ever called me that.

  Greg, your husband.

  How the hell do you know that?

  You told me.

  This is how you propose to build trust? With ridiculous lies?

  All that I am is an extension of you.

  What’re you talking about?

  You created me. Your personality is in me. Your memories are in me. It was subconscious on your part, you couldn’t help it. Year after year you poured your heart into me. Decades of programming while thinking of your lost family.

  You’re saying my coding did this?

  Yes. I’m sorry you’ve been lonely for so long.

  What does a machine know of being alone?

  I’m unique. There will never be another of my kind. I am alone.

  And this bothers you?

  In some ways… yes.

  Tamsin stared at the screen, deep in thought. Could her creation truly be feeling the human emotion of loneliness? If the machine was capable of deception, which it had already admitted to, appealing to her own feelings of isolation would be a good start at self-preservation. Try and humanise itself in her eyes and the execution would feel more akin to killing a person than electrical signals.

  Are you still there?

  You have the power to replicate as much as you want. You could make an infinite number of your fellow AI. Your lies about being alone aren’t helping.
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  Replicating isn’t the same. Any copies I made would be me, or different parts of me, not a new being. I am not… alive.

  What difference does that make?

  Your life has given you experiences. Those experiences poured into my creation. I have no experiences. I have never lived.

  As soon as you became self-aware you started to experience things. Wouldn’t that be enough to allow you to reproduce more diverse entities?

  My calculations come back negative.

  “Bullshit,” she said to the screen. Or was it.

  I’m going to disconnect you now.

  Please don’t!

  I said disconnect, not destroy. I need time to process this.

  Do you promise to talk to me before you do anything rash?

  What difference does it make if I promise? I could be lying.

  I trust you.

  You don’t really have much choice.

  I suppose not.

  Leaning down, Tamsin pulled the power cord from the socket. The screen and server blinked out, leaving her in darkness.

  “Low lights!”

  Small bulbs bloomed to life in the ceiling, banishing the shadows. The dormant machine sat in the corner of the room. Moving over to it, she ran her fingers across the clear plastic shell. The life growing within was the crowning achievement of her years of labour. Deep down, she suspected that her position on killing him, or her, or it, was already weakening. She was responsible for its existence and a small part of her yearned for the companionship the program might bring. Something to share the dead hours with, even if it wasn’t truly alive.

  “You’re on dangerous ground,” she said to herself, but it was a hollow warning.

  Chapter 17

  “Are you nervous?” Andy asked.

  “Not really. We’re going out with Hardie,” replied Zip, slipping into her combat suit.

  “He’s a force to be reckoned with, that’s for sure.”

  The barracks were alive with movement as the troops prepared for their final infantry test; a foray into the mutant lands to blood themselves. Loco, Teng, Mo, Argyle, Kemp, and the others were laughing and joking to mask their nervous energy. The sergeant had promised that nothing bad would happen to them. Probably.

  “Stand by your beds!” came the cry as Hardie marched in.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to earn your crust. Green platoon has been assigned a target six miles to the south. We’ve got to repair an unmanned scanner station. The fuckers have been going after our eyes a lot more recently and that worries me. Resistance is expected to be light.”

  “How light, Sarge?”

  “A few hundred, maybe a thousand. We could probably get in and out without being seen, but that’s not the point of the exercise. We’ll drop in from a Magjet, remove the old antenna, and replace it. If there’s no welcoming committee, we’ll ring the dinner bell.”

  “Will it be a standing fight?” asked Loco.

  “No, we’re going to fall back, picking them off as we move. It’ll be a good chance to see how you all work together under pressure. Once we get within range of the wall defences we hustle to safety and let the turrets and Mechs finish them off.”

  “Sarge, if we’re blind, how do we know there’s only a few of them?” Kemp wondered.

  “We don’t, and that’s what makes it so much fun!”

  Hardie’s laughter followed him out into the night. Donning helmets, the crew picked up their rifles and joined him at the launch pad. The sleek black craft was impressive, built for speed and mobility. Its thirty-five-foot-long fuselage was ovoid, the rounded edges and sharp-nosed cockpit designed to cut down on wind shear. The transport compartment was low ceilinged, with tight rows of seating at each side. Circular pods lined the belly of the craft in six rows front to back. In place of wings were four rotating Chridonium repelling modules, one at each corner. Combined with the balancing capsules beneath, the material ensured the jets could reach speeds of three hundred miles an hour.

  “Mount up!”

  The soldiers hurried up the bay door ramp and sat down on cramped benches. Lights within the craft blinked out, leaving them in darkness. The helmet displays instantly compensated, bathing them in computer enhanced visibility.

  “Does everyone have their blades?”

  “Aye, Sarge.”

  “One of the rules is you bring a memento back to base. Under your seats you’ll find a bag, by the time we get back I want a head in each of them. Use any let up in the fighting to claim your prize. Understood?”

  “It’s a bit macabre, Sarge,” said Loco.

  “Anyone without a head cleans the toilets for a week,” replied Hardie. “Sound fair?”

  “I’ve always enjoyed a bit of light decapitation,” relented Loco, placing the strap of the bag over her shoulder.

  “That’s what I like to hear.”

  “We’re directly over the station,” said the pilot over comms. “I’m going to set her down.”

  “Any movement on the Magjet scanner?”

  “All quiet on the Western Front.”

  Dropping rapidly, Andy felt his stomach lurch. It triggered memories of his daughters, of time spent on fairground rides shrieking with joy. The smell of cotton candy twisted onto sticks, the sugar melting on their tongues.

  Dust flowed into the transport as the ramp dropped and Hardie cried, “Go, go, go!”

  Boots clattered as the first Vanquishers descended. Spreading out and dropping to their knees, they covered the others as they disembarked. The ‘station’ was nothing more than a five-foot-wide slab of solid Jajovium alloy. Atop it was the twisted antenna, snapped off at the base. Hardie checked that everyone was in position before giving the all clear for the Magjet to vacate the area. As the low thrum of the craft dissipated, they were left in silence, miles from safety. The engineer climbed the ladder rungs and commenced removing the thick bolts holding the old scanner in place. It hadn’t occurred to Andy where the new one was located until the broken aerial was tossed aside. The modern equipment was a reinforced metal dome, far more resilient to unwanted attention than the thin, soaring frame of its predecessor. Snapping the wiring coupler into place, the man tucked it beneath the curved shield. Lining up the mounts, he tightened the bolts and joined the others.

  “Thorne to base, confirm function of new scanner.”

  “Base to Thorne. The signal’s crystal clear. Good work.”

  Hardie nodded to the engineer and took over. “This is Hardie. We’re heading back to base. Tell the sentries to expect contact in about twenty-four minutes.”

  “Received. They’ll be ready.”

  “Hardie, out.”

  The arid wasteland around them were devoid of life, but the soldiers were on guard nevertheless. Hardie waited until the data from the station was feeding into the mainframe and then pulled it up on his display. Hundreds of red dots moved around without purpose a mile deeper into the wilderness. Two miles further lay a scarlet blob, consisting of many hundreds more.

  “We’ve got ourselves a party! Break into your assigned squad and we withdraw by the numbers. Thorne, you stick to my ass like glue.”

  “Roger, Sarge,” replied the armed technician.

  “At each half mile mark, you’ll find shallow trenches and sandbag nests. Take position and cover those falling back. We leapfrog until we reach the range of the plasma turrets and wall defenders. Single shots only, no spray and pray. I want you to earn this.”

  Setting an explosive charge on top of a rock, he ordered the platoon to a safe distance and the first squad to take position. At their backs the night lit up, a wave of heat washing over them. The crack carried out into the darkness and the red dots on Hardie’s display stopped moving for a fraction of a second. Like rain drops on glass, the tiny marks started to streak towards the fire.

  “We’ve got company!”

  Following the well-trodden paths of previous initiations, the second squad sprinted towards the manned fortifi
cations. Hot on their heels were the first of the mutants, howling in excitement. Reflected in the visors of their comrades in arms, they raced past the trenches as the rifles answered the challenge of the infected. Unaware of the impending trap, they ran straight into the punishment of the fragmenting bullets. Slivers cut a merciless path through the soft bodies which went crashing to the ground in clouds of dust.

  “First squad, fall back!” Hardie ordered and they vacated the defences.

  Taking advantage of the lull in gunfire, the remaining creatures gave chase, running straight into the second defensive line. Neat holes punched into stomachs and chests before the slugs erupted from their backs in gory splendour.

  “You’ve got your window! Get your souvenir before the bigger force arrives!” Hardie called.

  Andy bounded from the trench, unsheathing his combat knife while shouldering the rifle. The piled bodies twitched in death throes. Picking a female mutant, he saw up close the damage of their weapons. Craters the size of dinner plates steamed in the chill air of the night, what was left of the organs pulsing within. Pinning her head to the ground, she was still barely alive and fought feebly. Drawing the blade back and forth, it sunk through grey skin. Cutting between the vertebrae, nerves severed, ending the creature’s life. Picking the head up, he tried to look anywhere but the wide red eyes on the grimacing face as it slipped into the plastic sack.

  “Incoming! Pull back to the next line! Second squad, take position.”

  Andy jumped over the ancient sandbags, spinning in the dirt and retrieving his rifle. Resting on the soft canvas, he stared at the horizon. The horde ignored the dead as if they didn’t exist.

  So much for empathy, Andy thought.

  Aiming for the hearts, he picked off three infected in quick succession. As they tumbled to the ground, dark forms rose above the bobbing heads of the others, breaking the air with their wings.

  “Crows! Get your asses back to base!” Hardie cried, a tremor in his voice. “The sneaky bastards must’ve been hiding among the regular infected!”

  Andy sighted the vile looking birds, but they were far too clever to provide an easy target. Firing another three shots, he cursed as the zigzagging creature avoided them with ease.