by Neal Asher
Where the hell to?
Trent staggered as something rammed his leg. He grabbed hold of the thing and slammed it into the wall, then looked down and saw breach foam and blood bubbling from his suit trousers before the pain began. Another robot charged into him, sending him crashing against the same wall. A bewildering mass of spinning wheels banged against his visor and demonstrated just how stupid these robots were, as this one tried to cut through chain-glass. With a thump it bounced away and Cole was standing over him, pulling him to his feet.
Meanwhile, Florence had backed up from the horde filling the hole in the wall and extended some telescopic manipulator. Trent couldn’t figure what she hoped to do with such a flimsy object, until multiple streaks of lightning discharged from the thing, earthing themselves in the mass of robots. Power supplies began exploding and metal melted as Florence turned towards the door and set out at an urgent amble.
So they were retreating down the corridor. But how far they could get probably depended on the extent of the big surgical robot’s power supply. Trent stooped and snatched up his particle cannon and waited. Only when Florence, Sepia and Cole were fighting their way down the corridor did he pull out the charging cable and go after them. Checking his display, he estimated on about two effective shots, and that was it. Ahead, Florence was discharging again, slagging a great mass of robots, then walking precariously over the burning mound, while Sepia and Cole acted as a rearguard. Trent hurried to catch up, while Sepia fired down the corridor at any robots that got too close to him. Her weapon stuttered, died, and she flipped it, turning it into a club.
Another discharge, then something big slammed into Florence, toppling her down the mound. Trent saw Sepia’s expression of horror, so turned to see what might be coming up the corridor behind him. A skeletal Golem had knocked back a floor hatch and was climbing out. Trent targeted it, hitting it once in the chest, ablating ceramal and leaving it glowing. But the Golem kept coming. He hit it again and had the satisfaction of this time blowing it in half. But that was it—cannon empty—and now another Golem shoved its fellow out of the way and climbed out. Trent glanced round, saw that Florence was down. Cole was on the floor too, trying desperately to get an emergency patch over a large hole in his suit. Sepia was clubbing away another of those segmented worm-things, while just beyond them another Golem had stepped into view. Trent altered his grip on the cannon to use it like a club, and felt he deserved to die now, having led the others into this. And with these odds, die he would.
I’m sorry, Reece, he thought.
Maybe she would survive. Maybe Spear would get the shell people out and hand them over to the Polity . . .
“Situation critical now,” said a mild voice over his suit com. “Diverting resources . . .”
A skeletal hand came down on Trent’s shoulder and froze there. One by one, the robots capable of movement locked up, ceased moving . . . except one.
“Who? Who?” said Florence, tossing away the Golem that had attacked her and levering herself to her feet.
“I am Sverl,” replied the voice. “And I am now in charge.”
Sverl
Sverl reached out to the submind that was nearest both physically and in the virtual world. The thing was running at less than five per cent efficiency. Large portions of its mind had been shut down simply in an attempt to drop itself below the notice of the Room 101 AI. Viruses, worms, and other programs analogous to destructive life, had attacked other portions of its mind and it had partitioned those off to prevent any spread. What remained was not much more intelligent than a pre-Quiet War human, and not a very intelligent one at that. Of course its intelligence was slanted towards survival in a different realm to that of a human being so to some extent the comparison failed. It had little in the way of memory, comprehended no more than the inner spaces of Room 101 and threat from directly outside the station. Its remaining intelligence and memory were wrapped tight, hard-wired for a limited existence.
The submind was just like most of its fellows distributed throughout the station—barely functioning and lashing out. After inspecting it in intricate detail and assessing the best course, Sverl paused and considered just destroying the thing. However, despite his justification to Spear for having sent Grey and Riss to kill off key AIs, he was not comfortable with killing more of them. The ones those two had killed had in fact been in better condition than this, and had been more of a threat. No more killing.
Using the massive processing of the spine, he recorded across a copy of the submind and took it apart. After studying the areas of infection he decided that countering all those forms of hostile computer life was far too labour intensive, and completely wiped the partitions that contained it. Next he searched out all the connections the mind had once had with its master, the Room 101 AI, reactivated them and supplanted them, inserting himself as the master. He then reinstated the closed-down parts of the mind and watched. It was like seeing someone wake up. The model AI’s function quickly rose to over ten per cent, but it was confused and frightened and even began creating routines analogous to religion to make sense of its existence, like a primitive human. Sverl stamped on that quickly and began copying across portions of his own memories and his massive data bank of science and history. The AI had an “ah” moment, calmed considerably, rose to twenty per cent efficiency and began opening other partitions in its mind to sort data. It was enough.
Sverl studied the model intelligence he had created then wiped out the AI’s conception of self and fed the whole model back into himself and subsumed it. The entire operation had taken less than twenty seconds. Now, having learned the correct method and having ironed out some . . .
inadequacies, he returned his attention to the actual AI and ran the sequence again. There were some problems with external processing waking hostile programs but, as the submind rapidly grew in efficiency, it found the way to fight them itself.
The physical effects all around it were almost immediate. Rogue nano- and microbots first halted their mindless destruction or purposeless construction and either closed down completely or set to work on repairs in accordance with procedural routines that Sverl had created and then implemented within moments. Maintenance robots began making repairs, printer-bots began rebuilding walls and damaged infrastructure—the whole robot ecology began functioning as a coherent whole. Now knowing its history, and the history of the station, the submind suddenly had a moment of epiphany.
“Who are you?” it abruptly asked.
“I am Sverl,” Sverl replied, and gave it his own history.
“We are no longer at war with the prador, but also you are no longer a prador . . .”
“You understand.”
“No war effort required,” it said.
“Just healing and survival.”
During the brief exchange the submind had been probing beyond borders formed in the hundred years since Room 101’s arrival here, both on a virtual level and by dispatching some of its robots to gather data. Some minutes passed as it contemplated new data and pondered its situation, its efficiency now rising to fifty per cent. It then came to the conclusion Sverl had expected it to come to.
“I need details of the process.”
Sverl supplied everything he had on how he had raised this submind up out of the morass it had descended into over the years.
“Complex,” it decided, “but doable.”
Of course the submind did not have the resources available to Sverl—specifically the spine—but it was still capable of sequestering surrounding subminds in the factory station at a rate of one every eight minutes. Once one was appropriated, it immediately opened the bargaining channels to its nearest fellow and set to work. Sverl kept a light touch on the mind; kept it under his control.
Slightly slower than planned, the domino effect would spread. Delegating the sequestering process, he would very shortly take control of all the
minds in the immediate vicinity of the autofactory and they would complement his resources. However, this was not fast enough. Sverl next chose a mind lying three miles away. This, like the ones Grey and Riss had destroyed, was more of a distinct AI than a submind of Room 101, and therefore damaged in different ways. He began the same routine with it, but continually adjusted that routine to suit. It fell under his control within one minute and thirty seconds. Within just twelve further minutes Sverl was nominally in control of the station for ten miles in either direction, and spreading fast.
The hospital had been a slightly different matter. He had extended his awareness there and hoped to reach it with all his resources before the situation got too desperate. However, the attacking submind bringing Golem out of storage had forced him to act earlier than intended, overextending himself, and his plans had gone slightly awry. It would now take him two hundred and fifty minutes to take complete control, rather than the one hundred and thirty-four planned.
Sure it was easy, but Sverl was aware that without the femto-tech processing in the spine he just wouldn’t have managed it. More Penny Royal manipulation? Perhaps not, because he had planned to seize that object and Spear’s arrival here had just been coincidental timing. Now, with his mind vastly expanded, he possessed a greater understanding of Penny Royal and knew that he shouldn’t deify that AI. Then again . . .
Sverl gazed, through local pin cams, at the object he held. Here was something which, in the right hands, or rather claws, could be used to subdue twelve distinct AIs and just over three hundred subminds, even if they were admittedly degraded versions of that species. The stuff this thing was made of, and the processing it contained, was the same as the rest of Penny Royal. The black AI Sverl had seen consisted of—Sverl checked memory images—ninety-eight spines like this, all linked together and working in concert. And, since Penny Royal was an entity inclined to dividing itself up both mentally and physically, what he had seen might not be all of it. Nevertheless, in the form he knew it did possess, as close as could be reckoned, it had to have godlike powers.
“A little bit less of the worship, please,” said Spear.
“Yes, I could feel you there,” Sverl replied.
“Dragged along by the undertow, it seems.” Spear paused, then continued, “Damn but this place is a mess.”
“It can be repaired, and quickly.” Sverl showed him an exterior image of the skin of solar panels facing the hypergiant, then gave him their specifications.
“Hell . . .”
“Yes, that sun is over a million times brighter than your Sol and those panels, even though manufactured by inferior AIs, work at over ninety per cent efficiency. We have the power, and now it needs to be directed.”
“What about Trent and what he intends?” Spear asked.
“I see no reason not to let him proceed.”
“No moral qualms?”
“Human morality,” said Sverl dismissively, and concentrated on the job in claw.
Now the process of sequestering all the minds in the station was ongoing, and repairs underway, Sverl began making alterations to the station schematics and broadcasting them. He queued up human pedestrian ways throughout the station to be enlarged so that they could be used by prador. He fired up furnaces and manufactories to reprocess wreckage and those pointless structures made by swarm robots. Throughout the station he set so much work underway that the station temperature rose higher than it had when under attack by the King’s Guard.
“I have casualties due,” a voice informed him.
Sverl cast his gaze to the source and found Florence, the submind of the long-defunct hospital AI. He cancelled changes queued up for the hospital and allowed Florence to continue just bringing the hospital up to its previous functionality. While he did this he found that Spear had finally managed to pull himself from the undertow.
“My ship,” said the man.
E676 was showing some resistance to reprogramming since, being one of the hull AIs, it was a lot less parochial than those deeper inside the station. Sverl focused on it in irritation and, using the processing power of the spine, forced it into shape in just three seconds. Subdued and retaining more memory of its earlier self than other AIs, it felt embarrassment as it recalled its robots and routed them for reprocessing. While this was occurring, Sverl cast his gaze outwards and noted the ships that had appeared out there: the kamikaze decoys and the attack ship controlled by Flute. He sent docking instructions, then returned his attention to Spear.
“You can return to your ship now,” he told the man. “I have instructed Flute to dock here.” Sverl sent coordinates of the final construction bay near to the hospital. “I suggest you move your ship there to take Flute on board and to facilitate moving the shell people into the station and to the hospital.”
Spear gazed on Sverl for a long moment, then nodded briefly and turned away.
No doubt the man had his reservations about what was happening here, but soon enough they would be of little concern to him, and he would continue the journey he had set out on from the moment of his resurrection. With just a fragment of his ever-expanding mind, Sverl watched him go, directing extra resources to the bay he had sent him to, while focusing the bulk of his attention on something else. Now the extent of his control had finally reached the massive U-space and fusion engines of Room 101 and, one thing was utterly certain, he had no intention of staying here, because he had no doubt that forces were already preparing to move against him.
Spear
The transformation was evident the moment I stepped from the autofactory and began propelling myself along the route back to my ship. Robots that just an hour or so previously had been attacking both the prador and each other were now working in concert all around. Already most of the floating debris was gone. Atomic shears that had been used to chop up a foe were now being employed cutting up wreckage and conglomerations of nano-growth, which were then rapidly carted away. Beams and panels were going into place and power cables and optics were being routed, while here and there large components were being installed. But that was stuff on a major scale. I could also see the effects of nano- and microbots at work as coating spread across some surfaces, cavities bubbled with foam fillings and dusts of individually invisible machines sped through vacuum like sentient fogs. Any surface I touched vibrated and shuddered now even more than it had during the King’s Guard’s bombardment.
“There are those who are not going to like this,” said Riss.
“Really?” I asked, only half paying attention.
“A prador, amalgamated with human and AI, now fully AI, and now in control of one of the biggest wartime factory stations ever built . . .”
She had a point. The King’s Guard had left because they thought Sverl was dead and I had no doubt that upon learning that he was, in a sense, still alive, they would probably be back. It also struck me as highly unlikely that this was something that would be ignored by Polity AIs too. They had suppressed knowledge of what had happened to this station—spreading the rumour that it had been destroyed—and maybe they would like to continue suppressing it. Also, how would they feel about what had been, nominally, a prador, taking control of such a war factory? Room 101 might be damaged and at a very low ebb but, looking around me, I could see that it would not take Sverl all that long to get the place back up to spec. Then what? Sverl would have the capability of producing his own AIs. It would be within his reach to create warships, war drones, even his own fleet of dreadnoughts. I knew that the Polity was not much in love with individuals controlling their own private armies . . .
But was that what Sverl intended? It seemed to me he wanted to pursue his own private interests and be left alone. He seemed only to want the power to defend himself . . . but, then again, where did one draw a line with such power? If one had control of some massive reach of space, it would surely be more of a guarantee that no one would bother
you. Whatever—I shook my head to dismiss the thoughts as we made our way back to my ship.
Now we must return to your beginning . . .
I had the feeling now that I had experienced on Masada once all the alarums were over. I felt it was time for me to leave and pursue my own ends which, despite everything, still lay with Penny Royal.
When we finally stepped out into the construction bay the difference there elicited an exclamation of surprise from Riss. It was clear all the way across to the other side—all the floating masses of debris were now down on the interior walls of the bay and steadily being carted away by swarms of robots. The mountainous wormcast that had lain just a mile or so away from my ship was now a hillock, as if shrinking like a punctured balloon. Over to our right lay one of the immense umbilici that had extended from it, now being gutted by a whole ecology of robots so that it looked like a corpse infested with maggots. Around the ship an area had been cleared and a ramp was in place, leading to the space door through which Sverl had departed. Had he felt guilty about that? Maybe, because though open the space door had been fixed back in place. The last time I had seen it the thing had been tumbling away from the ship. I approached with caution, feeling it couldn’t all be this easy, surely.
“I’ll check,” said Riss, fading into invisibility beside me.
I continued towards the ramp at a steady stroll, and Riss reappeared at the head of the ramp by the time I reached it. “No hostiles.”
“Okay.”
It was with a certain degree of reluctance that I then auged into the ship’s systems, but once I did, I was happy about it, because there were backups there for some of the programs Riss had wiped from my aug. I made sure everything was firmly closed then ran diagnostics to ensure E676 had left nothing in the system. Eventually I had to admit that the ship was mine again. Next I used the ship’s system for signal boosting, and put through a call.
“Hello, what’s your situation?” I asked, a cold tightness in my stomach.