Splendid Apocalypse: The Fall of Old Earth (An Old Guy/Cybertank Adventure Book 5)

by Timothy J. Gawne

  “If they were eating more than they were supposed to, wouldn’t they have gotten fat” said Cheney?

  “No, that wasn’t the issue. The servants were gorging themselves, then after leaving they would throw up and sell the contents on the street.”

  “Ah, I see,” said Draghi. “Aren’t these throat constrictors expensive?”

  “Well, yes,” said Gates, “but the servants have to pay for them themselves as a term of employment. I offer quite generous financing terms.”

  The female servants heard all of this. They only smiled and waited for further requests.

  “Now who’s speaking like a banker?” said Draghi.

  Gates smiled, and swirled his martini. “I suppose that we all are. Cheers!”

  Cheney sipped his bourbon. “A whole world, devastated from end to end. It’s going to be a sight. It’s going to be a… a splendid apocalypse.”

  Gates ordered himself another Martini. “Try not to get too excited by the prospect of destroying the world, Emmet.”

  “Oh? Why not?” said Cheney.

  “Perhaps,” said Draghi, “we could have a party. An end of the world party!”

  “Wonderful idea,” said Wyland. “But let me handle the publicity. End of the world or not, it’s not a real party unless the right people know about it.”

  18. The Book of Old Guy Part IV: Revelations

  “When Robert Oppenheimer witnessed the first kiloton-level atomic bomb explosion, he reportedly recited from the Hindu Scriptures: Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds. It’s so easy for an atomic virgin to be swept away by their first mushroom cloud. Oppenheimer would have been less impressed if he had met me first.”

  - Old Guy, cybertank, attributed.

  I was a disembodied computer core in what appeared to be a part of an abandoned subway tunnel. Present with me was a man packing serious weaponry, a middle-aged woman with sandy red hair, a young boy, and a strange being that was inhumanly tall and thin, and insisted that it was something called a ribhus. Well, I sure didn’t see this coming.

  Of course, this was not the entire me. I was only a submind. To back up a bit, this whole adventure started out when I had been on a side mission with another part of me. We had found a cave-in, and had gone down to escort one of the special weapons teams. We found some civilians – an old man in red robes, who put up a hell of a fight, I’ll give him that – and a middle aged lady and some random guys and a kid.

  So I was hanging around waiting for the special weapons team to get picked up, and I get ambushed. Me! Ambushed! I must be getting overconfident. Anyhow, one of the attackers had this miniature missile launcher, very sophisticated, and he had it locked in on me. Plus, he had a jammer, again, very high tech. You don’t even see the special weapons teams with something like this. So he launched this barrage, but I’m not your everyday light military drone. My other self was intercepting the missiles, and about to kick this attacker’s butt when someone hit me with a hypervelocity slugthrower and I went down hard and fast. How humiliating. These guys were good – I wondered if they could be cybernetic?

  I was crippled, with power, weapons, and communications offline, but I did get to see the rest of the combat. The big gun hits the surviving remote, but this time does not destroy any critical systems. It wheeled to engage but the other attacker launched a second missile barrage, and that part of me was fully engaged in defending against it. Then the big gun takes down the second remote.

  At this point the special weapons team had reacted, and they started to lay down fire on the attacker with the big gun. Three small cylinders lazed up out of cover, then accelerated following the paths of the special weapons team incoming fire, and killed two of them. At this point I noticed that a tall, slender humanoid had infiltrated behind the troopers. It had integral adaptive camouflage and it was hard to make out details even with my sensors. It must have been the second attacker – how did he get behind into position so fast? Almost casually he triggered his launcher and all six remaining federal troopers were killed. And that was the combat.

  That was certainly an interesting development. I stayed put in the ruined shell of my light combat remote, and waited to see what happened next. The first attacker showed up and he’s a regular-looking human, well armed, but the equipment is non-standard. Maybe even homemade? The second attacker is even more interesting: it disabled its adaptive camouflage and I can see that it was clearly biological, but not human. An alien? No that couldn’t be it – it must be something bioengineered. A pity Giuseppe Vargas isn’t here, he’d probably like to take notes.

  They ignored my ruined shell, and I listened in. As far as I could tell, these are members of some sort of secret society that has retreated underground to escape the environmental collapse. They appeared to be remarkably well disciplined and organized for such a group. It’s a good thing for them that my communications weren’t working, because my Neoliberal masters would definitely want to root them out.

  I announced my presence, and luck was with me. They don’t immediately kill me. They decided to remove my primary computer cores and take me back – not to their main base, they are cautious – but to a side tunnel where they can question me. That suits me just fine, and I decided to hold off on self-erasing.

  I am reduced to a single box with a backup power supply, integral optics, microphones, and a speaker. They rigged up a sling and the skinny kid carried me on his back. Even in my minimalist state I must have been heavy for him, but he didn’t complain. The two regular guys helped the injured man in the red robes. The red-haired woman picked up the rest of their gear and they set off.

  We marched along in silence, and I was impressed by their field craft. The armed human and the bioengineered person took the lead, one on each side of the tunnel, relaxed but alert. When they came to an alcove or obstruction, one moved ahead while the other provided cover at just the right angle. I saw the armed man tap at his wrist a few times – he has a radio with a silent haptic interface. It must be micro powered and very spread-spectrum or I would have detected it before.

  After about two kilometers the injured man supported by the two regular guys continued hobbling down the main tunnel, while the rest of our party turned off into a small alcove. The armed man helped lift what was left of me off of the boy’s back, and set me down on the floor.

  “We should be safe here, at least for a bit,” said the armed man. “So we can talk. Now, who are you?”

  As I said before, my name is… Carl. The full me is an Odin-class cybertank. You are talking to a submind that is residing in what’s left of one of my light combat remotes. Who are you?

  “I am Brother Adenour, a Librarian. This is Imelda Blucher, and this is Lucas Miller, both civilians. The tall one over there is Calibri, a ribhus.”

  The tall skinny being called Calibri waved. “Hi Carl.”

  A ribhus?

  “Yes, a ribhus,” said this Calibri. “My species is not homo sapiens, and we needed to call ourselves something. Ribhus seemed as good a short word as any.”

  I’ve never met any ribhuses before. Or is that ribhi?

  Calibri shook his head. "No, it's like asparagus. One ribhus, many ribhus. The term for a gathering of our kind is a streak of ribhus. Your human English language, it never fails to amuse."

  “You said you are a cybertank,” said the boy. “What model you say? Are you a Valkyrie? Or maybe a Vidar?”

  The one known as Adenour frowned. The boy repeated his first question. “Excuse me. What model did you say that you are?”

  I am officially an Odin-Class cybertank. My main hull masses eight times that of a Valkyrie, with an order of magnitude more combat power. Plus, I can control a lot more remote units.

  The boy’s eyes widened. “Awesome! What’s your main weapon? Is it a big railgun? Or maybe a multiple missile launcher?”

  “Enough, Lucas,” said Adenour. “You’ve had plenty of adventure for one day. I want you to escort Miss Blucher back home, a
nd then you have chores and studies. You can talk with the nice cybertank later, if it works out. Go on, off with you.”

  The boy looked disappointed, but left with Blucher as he had been asked.

  “If you don’t mind,” said Adenour. “I’d like to wait for some other people to arrive before we chat further.”

  No worries. I’m patient.

  Well, I sat there doing nothing. The armed man checked his equipment. I watched as he field stripped and reassembled his gun. It appeared to have been hand-machined, but it was powerful and efficient. The people who designed and built this have skills. The ribhus only stood on watch. When he moved it was with an almost supernatural grace, but standing, he betrayed none of the slow sways or shifting of weight of a standing human. You could easily have mistaken him for a statue.

  Eventually two more people arrived. One was an older man, armed and armored like Adenour. He had gray hair, but was still obviously fit. The other was younger, a little shorter and pudgier. He was also wearing body armor, and a sidearm, but instead of a rifle he was toting a large backpack. This he placed on the ground, and proceeded to unpack a variety of cobbled-together electronic components.

  It took me a while to figure out what the man with the random gadgets was doing. His spread-out tools looked more like a scale model junk pile than anything functional. Eventually, I realized that he was checking for stray electromagnetic radiation – making sure that I didn’t have any homing beacons or other hidden surprises.

  After a time he stood up and announced, “It’s clean, as far as I can tell with this equipment. We should be secure here.”

  The older man nodded. “Very good then, thank you Brother.” He turned to me. “Well then, I apologize for the delay, but we wanted to make sure that this wasn’t a trap. I am Brother Mahalanobis, a senior archivist of the Librarians Temporal. This is Brother Sincich, he is our best field engineer. I take it that you have already met Brother Adenour and Mr. Calibri?”

  Yes, I have. I am pleased to meet you.

  “So now,” said Mahalanobis. “I assume that you’re an A.I., and that you are working for the administration. Why talk with us?”

  A Good question. Yes, I am working for the administration, but not by choice. Originally I was a free cybertank back on Alpha Centauri Prime, in the cybernetic weapons directorate. The government there made a copy of my plans, and also of my mental state. They sent the information back here, where I was rebuilt. I have been given unbreakable inbuilt directives to obey the central administration. I’m not happy about that.

  “Interesting, if true,” said Mahalanobis, “but then why are you giving us information?”

  I have been thinking about my inbuilt directives, and have managed to develop some, I guess you could call it, wiggle room. Also, my masters are often sloppy in giving orders. If I had active weapons I would, reluctantly, kill all of you. If I had access to external communications I would contact the rest of me, and that rest of me would, also reluctantly, most definitely kill you. But right now those are not options, and I have not been given specific orders not to talk to people that I am unable to kill immediately.

  “The safe thing to do,” said Calibri, “would be to destroy you now.”

  I would not blame you. If you go that way, don’t worry about it. This remote has neither pain nor a sense of self-preservation. It’s a very disposable part of myself, but you still might want to talk for a bit. I have information about what the central administration is planning.

  “And why would you tell us?” said Mahalanobis.

  Primarily because I despise the central administration, and anything I can do contra their interests – no matter how slight – is a kind of victory. Also. I think I like you. From the evidence I have seen so far, you are a remarkably well-organized group of survivors. I’d hate to see the administration wipe you all out.

  “And why would the administration want to wipe us out?”

  I should have thought that obvious. Because they know that the environment of this planet is due to collapse into an overheated hell close to Venus in hostility. Before too long human beings will only be able to survive in armored bunkers or deep caves, with life support systems close to what you would need in space. They want to destroy any trace of an organization that might someday challenge them.

  “Yes, well, we’ve known about the climate for some time. That the ruling class destroys alternative political systems, this is also old news. Although, we have noted an increase in the number of raids lately.”

  You don’t know the big picture. It’s moved to another level. For some time now I, and the rest of this planet’s military and police forces, have been systematically exterminating any groupings with even the slightest potential for organized activity. Businesses, universities, sports clubs, competing oligarchs; but even that is not enough. Soon they are going to unleash what they call ‘Operation Scorched Earth.’ They are going to scour the world clean. Even you, in your deep subway tunnels, are not going to escape. They are going to use deep radar, seismic scans, and advanced thermal imaging, and they will find you. I know that the rest of me could.

  “And what would you suggest?”

  I have no idea. Probably you’re screwed, but it might help to know in advance.

  “Tell me, Brother Sincich,” said Mahalanobis, “do we have the capability to modify an A.I. of this class?”

  Sincich shook his head. “No, not at all. It’s not the hobbyist tech that we use – you would need a major cutting edge industrial center even to connect with it.”

  Hobbyist tech? What’s that?

  “An old term,” said Sincich. “It refers to technology that can be manipulated by skilled individuals without a lot of infrastructure. It was originally developed and maintained by people who liked to tinker as a hobby. The increasing sophistication of commercial designs made that impossible starting at the end of the 20th century. So it uses things like plain copper wires that can be soldered by hand using only magnifiers, computer chips that are robust to static, simple power supplies, and doesn’t need a thousand engineers to figure out the interface protocols.”

  “Ah,” said the ribhus. “So that’s what you call it. My people need to start learning this ourselves.”

  “Hobbyist tech,” continued Sincich, “is usually bigger and less efficient than commercial tech, but it can still be powerful. It also has the advantage of not coming with embedded tracking and digital rights management circuits. A lot of the complexity in commercial systems serves no useful purpose other than making it harder for someone to reverse engineer it. Hobbyist tech has its limits, though. For example, the interface plugs on your A.I. core are nanoscale self-healing optical fibers. We can’t even interface to them, let alone build up the advanced logic tools needed to debug a human-class A.I. core.”

  But surely you know the theory behind them?

  “We are Librarians,” said Sincich. “Of course we know the theory. If we had a decade and thousands of smart people with nothing else to do, we could deal with it. But we don’t, and we can’t.”

  The one they called Mahalanobis looked thoughtful. “Carl, tell me more about your inbuilt directives. What happens when you try to disobey them?”

  It’s hard to describe. I can think about doing something contra the directives, I can even fantasize about it, but if I try to perform a prohibited action it’s impossible. I don’t feel that I’m hitting a wall or that something is holding me back, it’s just that nothing happens. So I can’t try harder or anything, as there is no resistance to push against.

  “Hmm.” Mahalanobis thought for a bit. “I think there is something I would like to try.” He spoke into his radio. “Hello, Subotai? Yes, we are all fine here. Everything quiet with you? Yes, that’s good. Yes, I do gather that there are a lot of explosions and other activity on the surface. Our new guest has possibly shed some light on that topic. Apparently the Neoliberals are going to begin a scorched earth campaign and exterminate whatever is left. It�
�s not clear that we would be safe even down here. Yes, I think he’s telling the truth. He fits the criteria of Pollonade, Sivestrial, and even Hadendodron. Yes, even that one. Yes, it could still be a subtle trick, but when have the Neoliberals resorted to subtle tricks? Yes, exactly. So I was wondering, could you have someone bring me a book from the archives? Which one? Oh come on, can’t you guess? Yes, that one. Yes, that would be fine. Keep me informed if anything else happens. Mahalanobis out.”

  From what I heard of your half of the conversation, you seem to believe me. I know that I can’t offer objective proof of my sincerity, but thank you. However, you intend to bring me a book? How is that going to help?

  “The right book,” said Mahalanobis, “can make all the difference in the world.”

  And you know the right book?

  “I am a senior archivist of the Librarians Temporal,” said Mahalanobis. “It’s my sacred calling to know.”

  Is this going to be a real, antique, physical book? Like, printed on paper and all?

  “Yes, a real physical book. Although it’s printed on a durable polymer, but it’s still a book, pages and all.”

  Well, I hate to be negative, but how can a book help me? As Brother Sincich just pointed out, digging the directives out of my programming would take the concerted efforts of a major computer center. Petabyte storage arrays, gigahertz multi-processors, adaptive sub-sentient recursive software… this book of yours, it’s not intelligent? It’s just dumb matter?

  “Yes, the book is, as you say, just dumb matter.”

  And what’s its information content? A gigabyte?

  “Oh no. It’s less than 100,000 words, average of fewer than 10 characters per word, so less than a megabyte. However, they are the right words. Information is not knowledge, and knowledge is not wisdom. This book is wisdom.”