Bile climbed up Chris’ throat when he stepped into the arc of light coming from the consulate’s bowed front windows. He hadn’t expected to be back so soon. He thought he’d miss it more, being in the heart of the battle against the separatists. Unlike the slow-motion death of the planet, it was an enemy he could see, that he could gun down himself. Whether they thought a global government was too dangerously powerful or that Cold Fusion tech was the work of the devil was all the same to Chris once. He thought he’d miss it, but he missed his apartment, and Sheba. Sitting behind the desk showed him, in a way, how pointless it was. After all his heroic charges, gunpowder kicking through the air, there were still so many tiny resistances out there. A memory began to make sense, in the furthest shadows of his brain, that it was thoughts that had to change, not people.
You cannot shoot a thought. The words rang in his head louder than they had in years before the WCC consulate that night, just when he thought he’d begun to forget. He stopped mere steps from the windows, and turned to round the building for the barracks. He’d grown there, under the watch of his father, then Sheba, before the move. Like a prison attached to an art gallery, its solid gray walls, stark against the windows visible from the train stop, called him home. That’s what the WCC wanted everyone to see: transparent, cooperating politicians from the world over. Not the soldiers that worked in the shadows, just behind it.
Chris’ ID scanned him through the door to the armory without a problem, like he’d been there just yesterday. His steps echoed through the faded army-green rows of lockers. His ears twitched at a sound he recognized. Four very different voices harmonized in jest, at one another’s expenses. His old unit was just around the corner. Chris stepped out boldly before them. They clammed up at the sight of him, just like they used to. But it’d been months since they’d seen one another, years since it was for a mission like this, and the laughs spread back over them without permission.
“Well if it isn’t Major General Pencil Pusher himself,” laughed Selene first. She brushed her hair, a single tuft of purple to one side, away from her tan face. She marched over to clasp arms with her old commander.
“You know it’s pen, or it’s not official ledger,” chuckled Chris. Selene, along with the rest of his unit, went wide-eyed and quiet, before their laughter rekindled twofold. Behind it, though, was a dark note of realization that weighed on each of them. Whether or not he even had nerves, Chris only joked when there was something to be nervous about.
“MG,” greeted Gendric. He was the only one in the unit larger than the Major General himself. His tactical vest curled around the seams from the mass of his untamed muscle, while what little hair he had left spun out in short curls.
“Chris. Wish we got to hang out besides when the world’s gone to hell again,” said Morgan. She pulled her long-sleeve Fusion-armor jacket over two arms no one could tell were fair-skinned under her endless twisting tattoos. She was covered from head to toe in inked Dragons, an homage to her family that worked the mines to insanity on Mars.
“Does the world ever leave hell?” posed the last member of Chris’ unit. Lee’s narrow shoulder blades boxed in a ponytail of jet-black hair, the same color as his almond eyes and the gauges that opened huge holes in his earlobes.
“I feel better than when I first walked up to this God-forsaken building already,” said Chris, giving each of them a grin as warm as he could manage, under the circumstances.
Selene let Chris go so he could get to his old locker and the five finished gearing up. Their gear hung just where they’d left it, weapons still propped upright in the vertical cells beneath. When they were done, their fatigues would layer Fusion-armor jacket over tactical vest, over heat-regulating, dry-tech shirt, with matching pants.
“How have things with Sheba been?” said Lee, between the shuffles, zips, and rifle clicks. She’d always been a favorite of the group, when she and Chris lived in the barracks.
“Great. Wish I had more time with her... I end up staying late at the office most days-”
“Surprise,” muttered Gendric, while the others chuckled.
“But… we did just get engaged,” Chris smiled, to dispel the fun-poking before it could spiral. Four loose-jawed heads jerked at him.
“No way! She popped the question!” laughed Selene.
“Very funny,” said Chris, who actually thought it was, after so long in an office where everyone was mortified of him. “I did it in the park near our new apartment.”
“That’s amazing, Chris,” said Morgan, stars sparkling in her eyes at the notion. But Chris knew his unit well, so when Lee opened his mouth, he jumped in with,
“We haven’t hashed out the details yet. Just that it’ll be on this rock, rather than the red one.”
“How’d you get lucky enough to stumble onto a gal like her?” Selene shook her head. Chris zipped up his jacket while he considered it. “She find a gig out there yet?”
“Not quite, but she’s got a few interested parties on the line. She hasn’t stopped looking for a minute, either. Guess there are enough psychologists on Earth already,” Chris supposed. Sheba’s ability to read him, and anyone, was what had first attracted him to her. He knew that it would attract the right employer- she just needed time.
“That’s why all of them ride the SkyLine to the red rock,” Selene figured. But Chris and Sheba both knew what kind of job opportunities there were on Mars, just as well as they knew how badly she needed to branch out on her own, away from the sickness that plagued her family.
Chris reached to the far back of his locker, for the barrel of his rifle. He ran his fingers down its cold steel neck. It wasn’t a Cold Fusion model. By all rights, it was a relic, like his dad’s pistol in his belt. When gunpowder combustion was the height of weaponry, this model was called an M16, and it was cold. It felt right, natural. In mandatory trainings, Chris had wielded plenty of Cold Fusion rifles, but it was a gross misnomer. The cold part of Cold Fusion only meant, after all, the same reaction that happened inside a star was happening at room temperature inside a power cell. Fusing two elements from deep in the Martian mines got pretty damn hot, Chris had found.
He’d grown with this M16 in both hands, shooting cans with his dad, who’d watched dependence on Cold Fusion develop over his lifetime. He never fully trusted it, technology built from minerals on a planet he thought humans had no business colonizing. They’d already ruined the world they started with, after all. It was a skepticism he inevitably passed to his son. Still, it wasn’t the only reason Chris preferred to take the battlefield with his old M16. He used to carry a Fusion rifle, like the rest of his unit, too. It even stopped unnerving him, after a while, how it fired without kickback. Taking a life should feel like something, his dad would say, it should shake your bones. Chris started to marvel how one could see the path of concentrated mist that drew a line in the air a split-second before the rifle launched plasma through it. To the untrained eye, it was a blazing laser. Chris had almost accepted it, right up until it failed him. It was the day, years ago, when an armed cult had managed to hack the AI in a single Squire, and killed six people. The same one he became Major General.
“Still with the powder-kegs,” sighed Gendric, just before Chris led the unit from the barracks. He responded by ejecting his clip, as an extra safety measure. When he saw it just as full of bullets as he left it, Chris clicked it back in. He slung it over his back. He sheathed a long knife up a compartment on the side of his sleeve.
“Always have an insurance policy,” said Chris. It was another old catchphrase of his dad’s he used to hate, until it saved his life. When he led his unit across the covered walkways to the WCC consulate, a different phrase rang in his ears, from that day. You cannot shoot a thought.
Tim had become so accustomed to working from home, he’d forgotten just how fast a magnetrain zoomed. It had taken him all of twenty minutes to slam dunk a change of clothes, deodorant, and a toothbrush in a bag. He stopped on his way to the st
ation to drop off TE-Les with a co-worker from Nanoverse. He never particularly liked Naomi, but if anyone understood the importance of the breakthrough he’d had with his little robotic friend, it was her. Tim was on the hover-track not an hour after he’d hung up with Dorothy. The tremors hadn’t left his arms when the train doors slid open to let him out at the consulate. His breath hadn’t even steadied when a group of the most terrifying people he’d ever seen strolled down the glaring white hallway, straight for him.
They were so out of place in this politician’s utopia, like five body-shaped holes in the world. Long ponytails, tattoos, vibrant hair, gauges. The one at the head of the pack, though, struck the sharpest note of fear on the off-key piano in Tim’s head. The most unusual things about him were his size, though he wasn’t their largest, and auburn hair. Even amongst them he was out of place. He looked so remarkably normal, yet carried the confidence of command. Tim stared at the laces of his shoes. He hoped they’d just wandered in where they shouldn’t have. He hoped they’d pass him right by.
“Major General Christopher Droan,” a voice rasped down over him. Tim’s skin prickled; his fear condensed in a million tiny needles trying to poke their way out.
“So-so-sorry? Do…” Tim gulped what felt like sand to force his face up at the red-haired man, “Do I know you?”
“Why would he introduce himself if you di-”
“Selene,” Major General Christopher Droan silenced the purple-haired girl with a hand. “We need him sharp. Don’t whittle him down before we even get briefed. Matter of fact, that goes for all of you. No trifling with…” he trailed off with a hand out for a shake. Tim stared into his palm.
“Tim,” he told them. Major General Christopher Droan seized Tim’s hand himself and gave it shake stern enough to jostle him awake.
“No trifling with Tim until we get to Shanghai,” he decreed. The disappointed nods, sighs, and audible aws, like four wolves who’d been denied a gazelle, made Tim shift in his seat.
“Sha-Sha-Shanghai?” he blurted, “Major General Christopher, what-”
“Chris, please. I just wanted you to know who I am,” the man, powerful and humble, corrected. Tim was so moved, he bowed, which called for some snorts from the unit. Chris slapped one of them in the chest to quiet them. “This is my unit. I would name them for you, but I’m sure you’ll be… acquainted long before we reach base camp.”
“Ba-base camp?” said Tim. Stop stuttering! He screamed at himself in the silence of a long breath. He imagined what someone should sound like, talking to a Major General, and forced his tone deeper. “That’s in Shanghai?”
“You weren’t given… any details on this mission?” piped up the ponytailed man later known as Lee. The place of Tim’s answer was taken by the opening of a door. A woman in a gray suit jacket, with side-slicked dark hair stepped out of the briefing room beside him.
“No, he wasn’t,” said the woman. Both Chris and Tim’s ears perked up at the sound of a voice they both knew. It was Dorothy. “I needed him to show up.”
“You thought I wouldn’t?” said Tim, voice back at its usual high. Then he realized, “What is this mission?” Dorothy swung the door wider, to hold it with her heel.
“Let’s all step inside,” she said. She saw the terror in Tim’s eyes. “Let me be clear, Mr. Carver. if anyone else could handle this assignment, anyone else would be here. The World Crisis Committee needs you. Now come along.” Like she’d tugged on an invisible leash, Chris and his unit followed Dorothy into the briefing room. It took everything Tim had to peel his cheeks from his bench. It took a second, firmer, “Mr. Carver,” to pull him to the briefing room.
Tim was surprised to find it so small, in so large a building. The long, ovular table held enough seats for all invited, minus Dorothy. She stood beside a large glowing screen. Chris and the others sat without invitation in the curved, white backs of cushioned chairs. Numb at the whole situation, Tim imitated them. When they’d settled in, Dorothy ran her fingers over a smooth panel on the wall. The strip lights over them quieted to a dim glow. The rim of the screen before them blinked alive.
“Popcorn?” whispered the woman covered in ink dragons, later known as Morgan, to Tim. He almost answered, just before Dorothy announced,
“In lieu of a formal briefing… I will play you footage. What you will see should be impossible, I know. Mr. Carver, we need you to correct it, and prevent it from happening again. Chris, we need you and your unit to keep him alive.” Any brewing questions were stifled when the recording started.
The screen showed the inside of a police station. The camera’s angle showed an office full of cubicles full of officers. It was a healthy mixture of man and Squire. Everything appeared standard. The human half of the partnerships hunkered over their desks. The loose-formed, jet-black giants sat in wait for an order. There was only one thing out of place. One officer stood feet from his Squire, whose face was lit yellow as it spoke. The camera fixed on the robot, and zoomed in.
“Yellow… that’s…” Tim mumbled. He recognized the software instantly. If not for TE-Les, he wouldn’t have thought twice about walking away from Nanoverse for a job working on that with the WCC. A personality matrix. Dorothy swiped the wall-panel again to raise the volume of the recording.
“Do… do you not hear that?” said the Squire.
“Hear what?” said his partner. Another officer joined in, suspecting it might be a joke. But the Squire’s yellow light of terror was no joke. He wrestled with a voice no one around him seemed to hear, while the other model’s faces turned blood red around him and his partner.
“Do what? You want me to … no. I said no!” the yellow Squire grappled. Then the others turned. Tim’s hand flew to his mouth, but not before a cough of vomit spewed past it.
“My… God…” he mumbled between deep, sick breaths. Even some of Chris’ unit turned away from the footage. Forms of black, nanotech robots shifted to spears to skewer, blades to slice, and cannons to blast apart their partners. Pools of blood ran together across the tile. Hunks of flesh plunked into them. The howls of the dying scratched the speakers, before the recording cut to darkness. Dorothy looked out on Chris’ unit, the only one that had ever handled another situation even close. They kept their mouths sealed tight, to keep in the contents of their own guts.
“FOS wasn’t what it is now, when last I saw you all for a mission like this. As I said, I know this shouldn’t be possible. But it happened,” said Dorothy.
“Those Squires were hacked. Sorry about your floor.” Tim murmured, wiping the corners of his lips. Dorothy dismissed it with a shaking head. “That one that was talking, right before the…” he had to stop when toxins welled up in him again.
“His model is DA-Vos, partner to Robin Finch. Finch is the only body unaccounted for, before we lost surveillance… every other human officer in Precinct 117 is confirmed dead,” explained Dorothy.
“DA-Vos… he’s outfitted with a personality matrix, isn’t he?” Tim observed, “I thought it was still in beta.”
“He was our first field test,” Dorothy admitted. Chris and his unit marveled at Tim’s invisible transition, from helpless noodle to analyst, when the right trigger was pulled. He straightened up, sat forward, and eyed the screen with new scrutiny, like his lunch wasn’t sitting between his shoes.
“The way he was arguing with himself… what did you find, when you altered the frequencies around that time?” said Tim, knowing they must have. Dorothy nodded, impressed, and played the modified recording.
“Neutralize the humans. Neutralize the humans. No? Some may be extinguished, to find the one. One for many,” a digitally demonic voice beeped and scratched through the speakers. Parts of it were sharp enough to cause even Chris to wince.
“A voice? I was expecting some coding resonance,” said Tim, when the recording was done. “Machines don’t respond to voice commands unless we program them to. It was speaking directly to DA-Vos. It wasn’t a program. At least, not on
e that I’ve ever heard of. It was trying to… reason with him. No Earth or Martian AI can do that.”
“Not yet,” amended Dorothy. “Do you see now, why we’ve called you here, Timothy? We know about project TE-Les. A self-teaching software. This is it, to the umpteenth degree. It must be. An FOS or some other AI that learned how to reason. It forced the other Squires to kill their partners. As to why DA-Vos was able to resist, I don’t want to get too deep in conjecture. The bottom line is: you are the person with the most knowledge on software like this.”
“I-I-I mean,” Tim shuddered back behind his reliable old walls of doubt, “If I had the right tools, and I got to where it happened, I might be able to learn something about the AI, or whatever’s doing this… I don’t know if I can s-s-stop it.”
“This may help persuade you,” said Dorothy. She flattened a glossy ticket on the table. The WCC stamp at the bottom marked it paid, for a one-way trip across the SkyLine. Mars. It was as close as an arm length.
“I… I’d love to go there, but my life is here. I’d have to find-
“It comes with a second set of documents, upon completion of this mission,” said Dorothy. She slipped them halfway out her jacket. “Employment papers, for WCC’s Mars Labs.”
“You can’t mean that,” Tim sputtered before he could think to stop himself. Dorothy pushed the papers back in.
“If you can break whatever hold this AI has over the Squires in Precinct 117, maybe you can build one yourself, with the proper safeguards. Mars could use something like that, to replace its human miners,” she said.
“Can… can I think about it?” Tim said the same thing he had when Nanoverse called him, even after his horrendous interview. But, when he thought of his sister, he realized, “No… no if I think about it, I’ll back out. Or you’ll find someone else.”
“There is no one else,” Dorothy assured him.
“I’ll do it!” Tim flung a fist over his head. Morgan gently grabbed it, and lowered it for him. Chris headed over to clasp Tim’s shoulder.
The Dragon Commander Page 3