D.A.R.I.A.
Book Three
By
Martin E. Silenus
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Martin E. Silenus
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Previously
Chapter 1: Amazonia
Chapter 2: Beast
Chapter 3: The Ship
Chapter 4: Bots
Chapter 5: Fireteam
Chapter 6: Contact
Chapter 7: Review
Chapter 8: Whack A Mole
Chapter 9: Cash on the Barrel
Chapter 10: Smoke and Fire
Chapter 11: The Bad News
Chapter 12: Preparation
Chapter 13: Military Column
Chapter 14: Aftermath
Chapter 15: Loose Ends
Chapter 16: Prairie Emptiness
Chapter 17: Clear Message
Chapter 18: Not a Simulation
Chapter 19: Who’s Next
Chapter 20: Back at the Ship
Chapter 21: The Rocky Mountains
Chapter 22: The Curse of Black Ops
Chapter 23: The Bold Plan
Chapter 24: The Stasis Pod
Chapter 25: Insect Drones
Chapter 26: Surveillance Data
Chapter 27: On Station
Chapter 28: The Snatch
Chapter 29: The Fun Begins
Chapter 30: A Little Test
Chapter 31: The Art of Negotiations
Chapter 32: The Exchange Prep
Chapter 33: The Exchange
Chapter 34: Epilogue
Introduction
I am a vigorous supporter of G.R.I.N. Specifically, Genetics, Robotics, Information Tech, and Nanotechnology. Yes, a vigorous supporter of human evolution and development utilizing all of the tools we currently have at our disposal. Why would a human be any other? Our role is to learn, propagate and contribute back into the society which made us. To further mankind, advance our evolutionary existence and take life to the next level.
In my lifetime alone we have made exciting strides forward in Medicine, Computers, Internet, and global instantaneous communications. We have so much more information, more data, to base our opinions and decisions on now. It is hard to believe it has been achieved over the short span of less than a lifetime, how remarkable and wonderful.
I do not bode fools well, nor do I bode well those who stand in the way of human evolution. Braying like frightened donkeys at the thought of human change. Struggling to keep us locked in the medieval non-relevant grip of various flavored antiquated religions.
It is true due diligence, best business practices, and industry standards must be employed to move forward in a controlled informed and calculated fashion. To ensure such practices are followed more resource research dollars need to be committed.
Our collective intelligence is to be cultivated and nurtured to further our evolution including human, genetic, technology, robotic, nanotechnology integration and augmentation. We must move forward with proper process, resources and vigor!
Martin E. Silenus
Previously in Books One and Two of D.A.R.I.A.
Mathew G. Southam, an unemployed veteran of the Afghanistan conflict, runs across an Army buddy of his by the name of Frosty while pursuing an interest in technology and artificial intelligence. Frosty introduces Matt to his most recent version of his Artificial Intelligence system called D.A.R.I.A, an acronym for Digital Attack & Recon Information Access, used by the military in Afghanistan. It turns out Frosty “liberated” a copy of the AI code when he was discharged and has been upgrading and improving it. What Matt finds is a stunningly beautiful 3D hologram chosen as ‘her persona’ by an extremely smart seemingly sentient AI system with more capabilities than he can imagine. An alliance is formed between Matt, Frosty and D to “get bad guys and collect bounty money”. There is just one little ‘rider’ in the agreement. Matt is to ‘teach, befriend, mentor’ D.A.R.I.A. as she strives to become as human like as possible. The arrangement is very successful and soon covert government opportunities manifest themselves and the stakes increase tremendously. Accordingly the three of them find themselves performing some extremely secure covert black operations. From initial localized operations, to Mexico, and into Europe, and the Middle East, Matt, Frosty and “D” are contracted to neutralize the Islamic Muslim Jihadists or Daesh terrorist’s threats and activities.
As per Matt’s agreement with Frosty, he spends considerable time in discussions with D to augment, supplement, explain as best he can “what it is to be human” to D. There are no areas that are off limits to the voracious inquiring mind of D. Matt finds himself challenged to explain jealousy, love, sex, humor, and the myriad of other human aspects that make us so difficult for an AI system to understand and/or replicate. During their prolonged interaction in between dark ops missions D finds that Matt is much more than a physically fit guy who has excellent combat skills. She learns of some of his terrible pains and losses of loved ones, his University Masters degrees in Sociology, and research work that was abruptly and horrifyingly interrupted.
It is of no surprise there develops an emotional, mental and physical relationship between them that escalates rapidly with D’s advent of sexual ability within a detailed virtual reality construct.
We catch up to them in the jungle of South America and learn of new equipment and some additional crew members.
Chapter 1: Amazonia
We are nestled into a small clearing lost in the vastness of over two million square miles of Amazon rainforest, or Amazonia, in Columbia, South America. Invisible to all, turned chameleon tuned to match the environment of the natural canopy of the jungle trees.
It’s an area of incredible vibrant green natural life, vines coiling and wrapping themselves around huge tree trunks that stretch up into the vegetation canopy some 35 meters off the ground. There are threatening plants of some sort that stand as high as a man and have leaves big as shovels, when you walk past them they track you and shake their leaves. Astounding vegetation growth, but then it rains at least once a day and the temperature is generally thirty-five to forty degrees day in and day out. There are misty clouds in the jungle at floor level after the daily rain showers. The mist floats amongst the vegetation and wafts it way around almost like smoke. The sun rays are like laser beams from above slipping down through the branches and the canopy illuminating patches of vegetation and coiling mist clouds. The air is thick with the odor of plant material, flowers, vegetation alive, and vegetation decaying, saturated and rich in oxygen. We are oxygen drunk and the humidity soothes our nose and lungs relaxing tight dry skin. The trees are literally alive with birds of every description. Each one with more gaily feathered plumage, even more vivid than the previous one. All squawking, whistling, scolding and going about their daily bird business. Monkeys everywhere, most not on the ground, it’s too dangerous on the ground as many predators wait for a foolish monkey on the jungle floor. So they swing from tree to tree through vines and branches chattering and gibbering. Life is very alive and vibrant and in profuse abundance. So you know that death waits at every turn. Predators don’t have to work too hard in this environment to prosper. Just lay still, conserve your energy and watch quietly, a careless creature will get close enough for a pounce in the flash of an eye to keep body and soul together and belly full.
It is very peaceful as we relax and watch nature and the process of life unfold from day to day. It makes our chosen profession seem, sordid, tawdry, and remote. Why bother with such human things when there is such abundance of splendid life here to observe and participate in. It makes one question their life choices, at le
ast for a little while, perhaps until the novelty of the place wears off.
D is utterly ecstatic, for her the profusion of this jungle life is a magnet that draws her to it. She is driven to identify, categorize, and map everything that is around us. All our walks, sights, sounds, smell, conversations, adventures are recording in the highest digital resolution available on her video processors, filed away in the appropriate databases and reviewed repeatedly by her and her backup sisters for educational purposes. She even has me attached under the quad copter making observation missions and collecting samples just above the canopy level to observe and categorize the flowers and fauna at that level. Including of course where possible the small creatures that exist only on top of the canopy, some hundred feet above the jungle floor.
Frosty is relaxed; we are remote enough from humanity that he is at peace. And happy to be puttering with the technological aspects of Daria and the never ending do list that we keep of maintenance work that needs attention when we have a little down time. That said he frequently finds hours of time to just sit in the protective proximity of the ship and have a couple of libations, smoke and watch the jungle. A neural stunner is always close at hand of course. And why wouldn’t he be content, he is wealthy, as all of us are, working with an entity he created that has surpassed his every expectation and wildest dream and become an Artilect of the highest order. He is very, profoundly proud of Daria, and justifiably so as she is worlds and centuries ahead of any other sentient artificial intelligence currently known to man.
I’m a simple person, an ex-soldier, enough university degrees to be dangerous, I love our life style and the money it generates, I get to eat the best, play with the best weapons, travel, and sleep with the virtual entity of Daria, an impossibly beautiful woman. How sweet is that, well its every red blooded male’s wildest wet dream, that’s how it is! There are no limitations!
Chapter 2: Beast
There are some time-proven principals that exist which we have not been able to improve much on over the years. Things like your home having a guard dog that protects home and property, and the family from intruders of any shape and type. A ferocious friend to the family that is completely protective and loyal. A large guard dog and a pump shogun will handle most all situations a home owner might encounter. Even away from home in the open, strangers are motivated to not try anything foolish with a man or family so equipped. There is no sneaking up on a guard dog and no gunfights against a well-oiled and properly functioning pump shotgun. Both are completely devastating.
We have recently added some members to our team. In several of our previous assignments which had activity close to a military base we had to deal with Dog Patrols. While we have all sorts of technology including near complete invisibility, we have no tech that can defeat the instincts of a fine trained guard dog. To offset this inequity and to answer some of our own security concerns, we built the Beast. Well, D, her sisters, and Frosty built the Beast.
Beast is a robotic Wolf, some 250 pounds of potential hell unleashed when he needs to be, or a damn big lapdog when he demands you scrub his tummy. D was the genius behind Beast. She proposed the concept to us and when we approved it she had her backup sisters go to town on the design. The results were absolutely astonishing. Eight feet tall on his back legs and waist high on all fours, artificial fur in varying light and dark shades of grey, highlights in darker gray fur, a beautiful expressive wolf face with bright intelligent eyes and a bite that can slice through a four by four spruce stud. D handled all his AI for the complete realm of natural wolf senses, augmented to a much higher level of course, complete with telepathy capability to the rest of us. He also is equipped with an understanding of humans and our language. Beast is equipped with a titanium frame, generous carbon fiber, whiskered alloy, and the latest powerful electroactive polymer muscles. In addition to his superb night vision he could see in infra-red so darkness is never an issue for him. Beast is very fast, he can run eighty kilometers per hour for hours on end. His luxurious dark/light grey fur is equipped with chameleon camouflage capabilities so he can blend in with his background and be for all intents and purposes invisible. D had also equipped Beast with ripper claws on his back feet. It’s an oversized claw similar to a velociraptor claw and when extended can be used for disemboweling adversaries. No matter how you sliced it Beast is a formidable animal/soldier, and he can handle our security better than any human could even imagine. When Frosty and I first saw D’s proposed design we were shocked and taken aback.
Frosty said “Holy christ D, that thing is a bloody great beast!”
The name stuck, Beast he would remain, and woe be on to those who would be the recipients of his wrath. Beast would demonstrate his net worth repeatedly in the days and months to come at a level unprecedented in our expectations.
How interesting to me, in my sociological degree studies of humans and groups, the psychological effect of Beast on our little group. It drew us closer together, made us feel safer, secure, tighter, and yet protective of Beast himself and the fellow members of our intrepid squad. The pioneers and settlers of the eighteen hundreds knew the powers of a large trained attack/defensive dog and afforded it all but full human status in the family unit.
I muse on the saying “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
Chapter 3: The Ship
We have some additional changes we introduced into our modus operandi that concerned travel. To be a very covert team that ‘doesn’t exist’ and move around the world with freedom and impunity is very challenging. Too challenging actually and if you siphoned off all the energy and costs we expended attempting to be covert travelers you could build you own completely ‘covert travel machine’. That was D’s theory and we had no viable arguments against it. D and the sisters set to the task of designing our own transportation machinery.
If you can picture in your imagination a shallow bowl, long sloping sides, or perhaps a large deep plate/saucer with a consistent radiant curve from side to side, the depth of the plate/saucer a relationship of some quarter to third of the diameter, almost a low squashed dome. Then build a similar plate or dome and affix it onto the top of the mirror matching bottom such that the structure looked the same right side up as it did upside down, an elliptical shape, you would have the basic shape and structure of what Daria built for our transportation vehicle. To not only move from point to point, but also to live in when we were embarked in an unfriendly or unsuitable place that didn’t provide the amenities we need as humans. It was equipped with four articulated huge legs that pivoted out of the ship body from an attachment point close to the roof. Massive adjustable sized pads on the feet of the legs kept the ground pressure such that it would not sink under the weight of the ship. The legs made the ship look like a fat beetle when it was sitting on the ground. However it was extremely stable.
The ship is equipped with plasma cannons. Not surface mounted where it is exposed to the elements, but inside the shell of the ship. When ready to fire, a section of the ship’s shell slides away and the cannon comes out hydraulically. The gunner or operator of the cannons stays inside and watches through targeting screens that look right down the barrel of the cannon. Very sweet I might add.
Off course the shell of the ship is pressurized as any aircraft would be. This one is pressurized for very low atmospheric pressure, well space to be specific. On the other end of the extreme we can hide underwater if we find ourselves in a situation that would justify such a maneuver.
D and her sisters have researched Octopus or Octopi regarding their remarkable ability to camouflage themselves dynamically. Accordingly the exterior of the ship is coated with a rather rubbery non-reflective substance that can change color. So it can chameleon into the background it is against and become undetectable, with the benefit of basically a non-reflective radar signature.
I thought the shape looked like a hackneyed flying saucer of old science fiction days maybe pirated from the District Nine movie set and
cleaned up, and told D so. Just once I told her that, and never again. Daria was seriously pissed off and gave me a very thorough lecture on why that particular shape was mathematically, geometrically, and architecturally superior to others, extremely strong and robust, inherently streamlined and therefore efficient in moving through atmospheres, excellent for internal storage, compartmentalization, no external corners and therefore no points of weakness to deal with. And that part of the lecture was just the part that I actually recognized what it was she was talking about. The rest of it went completely over my head but D insisted I sit and listen to get the full and thorough reasoning, rational, and dissertation for her design solution. D and I didn’t sleep together for a week. Now that really got my attention!
Frosty found this whole process of me getting my ass seriously reamed out for failure to keep my mouth shut intensely amusing and entertaining. He knew much better than I not to open his mouth and make a dumbass statement about D’s engineering skills. He understood the retribution for such an off handed ignorant comment. Certainly D’s skills as an engineer and architect were never questioned. Her solutions were always elegant and spot on.
Of course the ship used an Aegis force field for protection and for further streamlining to any shape required, if in fact any streamlining was required at all. One thing I will say about the design, wow that sucker was huge. I would compare the ship to near half the size of an enclosed hockey arena/event center, probably about a 5-6000 seat complex. Yeah, the ship was that kind of size. I asked D what powered the ship and allowed it to fly. Her answer was generally along the line of “it’s complicated, but think of anti-gravity”. I think her answer was a nice way of saying she didn’t have two years to try to teach me to understand the mathematics and physics of the real answer.
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