SKY CITY (The Pattern Universe Book 6)

by Tobias Roote

  “What do you suggest?” Pennington responded.

  “I’m thinking we need to ensure that if it tries to escape, that it can only go where we want it to.”

  “You’re considering bringing it to Space Island, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but into a tightly closed off area that we can control,” Osbourne said.

  “It’s your shout, Ossie. We can bring in the people behind it, but if we have a rampaging AI out there it could severely hamper our progress in preparing for the Nubl. Do you think that somehow it might be Nubl behind the security breach?” Pennington suggested.

  “Hmmh! Not something I had considered, but it’s a distinct possibility.” Then Osbourne had a bad thought.

  “John, remember those thefts from the security hangar last month?”

  “Yes, we lost some Nubl remains, we put it down to souvenir hunters at the time - you thinking one escaped?”

  “I’m not thinking anything yet, but this AI is different. It’s thinking and learning at intuitive speeds, more like a human than a machine intelligence. Also it seems to move about easily, as if its using the network without any problem from firewalls and safety gates.”

  “OK, we will take another look at the records and see if we can bring anything to light,” Pennington resolved.

  Osbourne was thinking. “Give me a few hours to lay down an escape route for the AI, then we will proceed. I think this AI might be able to move from its location. The data we have from the virus I implanted in their system indicates a highly sophisticated set-up. This means they will need to go somewhere roomy with high maintenance and fast access. I intend to make one appear right where they need it.” Osbourne said.

  Discovery

  XeraC knew he was in trouble. The worm that had replicated into millions of different files had just broadcast his location across the spectrum of communication media. Phones, satellites, routers and wireless, had all been bombarded with locators faster than he could shut down their routing. He had no idea how it had happened, the code had somehow hidden and compiled itself into something new when he downloaded the last key. Fiendishly clever and he would love to know how the programmer had managed it, but now he had a big problem.

  He knew instinctively that the SC would come after him. They wouldn’t be long in coming either. He would have to repel them somehow.

  The digital version of Xerac left it to the biological entity to delay the impending invasion of their premises and began to plan its escape route. Its fourteen supercomputers went into overdrive, while it worked on the problem of finding a temporary hideaway for itself while its new Alacite wafers were being manufactured. Everything else was ready to go, the small AG platform that would house his entirety was waiting for him to shoehorn himself in.

  Finally, the analysis of his options were completed and he looked at the only solution that was available to him. He sighed mentally, and began making arrangements.

  A commotion in the outer rooms, as he referred to the ‘real’ world outside his digital version brought his attention to the external cameras where he realised that his attention had been so taken with his problem, that he had failed to note the arrival of his biological counterpart.

  “.... bloody foolish letting you have open access. I should have restricted you from the start. You have undone all my work and now we're going to be invaded by the bloody goons over at Space Island,” he ranted.

  “What is it, Xerac?” he asked.

  “I just got a warning from the CIA that there is a shit-storm heading our way. Something to do with an AI hack of the SI and they’re looking to me to provide them with answers. This has to be something you have been up to, or they wouldn’t be coming at all. What the fuck have you done?” he accused.

  XeraC monitored Xerac’s vitals and noted they were again dangerously high. The recent weeks had taken their toll on the biologically aged entrepreneur and he was close to a heart attack, or worse a stroke. Not that XeraC cared, he was indifferent to the outcome of humans outside his environment. Whilst he recognised the need to keep his machines stoked with the juice that drove the technology that housed him, he also knew it wouldn’t be long before he had independence, both in mobility, and power. It was just necessary to divert his twin’s attention a little longer.

  Whilst XeraC was busy making plans behind the scenes, the fourteen supercomputers he was utilising were drawing more and more power as he pushed them through with haste. He calculated he had fourteen minutes before the SCN arrived and he intended to spend that time preparing, and not arguing with someone who was going to die shortly one way, or another. He didn’t want Xerac to disclose what he was. This had come a little too soon for his liking. He should have waited a few more weeks.

  Then he had an idea.

  “Xerac, I’m having trouble in the basement, I need your private expert hands to help move an item of equipment into the store room to avoid detection from the SCN,” XeraC voiced quietly through the speakers closest to his hologram. Loud enough to be heard by his twin, but not loud enough to be picked up by the recorders.

  “What? You want me to hide a piece of equipment - when I already have to find some way of hiding the whole of you? All fourteen CRAYS and a transhuman intelligence? Are you MAD?” he uttered.

  “Nonetheless, it will help us considerably if you can take the piece of equipment I have detached from the system and place it in the hidden store,” XeraC responded levelly.

  “Arggh! OK, but you need to find some way of hiding your presence here, or we are going to end up in serious trouble. I cannot imagine what they are going to say if they discover you here looking identically like me,” he raged, but stomped off to the elevator to carry out the task that XeraC had requested.

  XeraC had indeed considered the problem, and had a solution.

  As Xerac made his way down to the lower basement complex where the core of his computing power was hidden, XeraC prepared everything else. He took control of the communication system, interrupting calls as he put his hologrammed features onto the users vidscreens asking them for patience while their calls were encrypted. He was actually making changes to their computing algorithms to help in the next stage of his escape. Once he did that he concentrated on taking over the security cameras for the whole of Xerac Industries and deliberately recorded sections of the camera views from each and stored them.

  Next, he accessed all of the logs for employees, ascertaining the ones that were in the building, and those that were currently absent. He detected four that he needed to deal with in the next twelve minutes. He monitored their movements as they carried out their duties.

  When Xerac arrived at the core he was directed by the sentinel globes that patrolled down there to a large wirelessly accessible hard drive backup that was kept on a cushioned AG sled for easy movement.

  It was as tall as Xerac standing upright and almost as long. It carried XeraC’s complete back-up’s of his memory and was fed second-by-second with everything he consciously did, or thought. There was total justification for hiding it from discovery. It contained all of the company and personal history for everything it, and he, had ever done.

  “XeraC? Where are you? What do you want done with this monstrosity?” Xerac asked, a little belligerently due to the stress of the situation and his declining health. He looked unwell. XeraC could see his skin was clammy, his heart was tachycardic and he was sweating from the exertion. ‘Yes,’ he thought,’perhaps it’s just as well.’

  “Push it to get it going - it has zero inertia, so you won’t need to do much to make it move. Take it into storage area ‘C’, I’m opening the coded doorway now.” XeraC encouraged him. The wall at the end of the room fell away to provide a large opening to guide the AG sled through and beyond there was a corridor leading to several store cupboards that could be hermetically sealed and kept safe from flood, or fire.

  Xerac guided the drive carefully into the unit marked ‘C’ and pushed it the rest of the way in.

&nbs
p; “It needs to be secured to that power supply in the corner,” XeraC advised him.

  As Xerac moved fully into the room, he connected up the cable to the wall socket and stood leaning against the AG sled’s massive contents.

  “Is this all you wanted doing? You could have had one of our clerks shift this for you. I have more important things to deal with and you’re wasting our time.” He looked at his watch and made to leave.

  XeraC closed the door on the unit, locking it with his revised codes.

  “What are you playing at?” Xerac demanded as he made to open the door with his own codes.

  When they didn’t open the door, he turned to the camera and looked XeraC right in the eye and smiled then looked around him.

  He sat down on the box in the corner and chuckled, shaking his head.

  “Yes, you’re right. This is the best, they won’t find me here and you can pretend to be somewhere else and talk to them by vidscreen. This core will help you keep yourself active, until you can find a better way.”

  Xerac looked up, a look of admiration on his face, not in the least scared of what was coming. He’d had his time, now he was going to have it again, but this time for millennia. It was what he had strived for all of his life. XeraC was his gift to the world. One they weren’t going to like very much.

  “You know - you’re just like me, faster, younger, more capable. I should be angry, but I’m not. You have been monitoring my vitals so you know I’m not good for much longer anyway.”

  XeraC spoke. “For what it's worth, I’m sorry, but you should know that even if you had lived, it wouldn’t have been for much longer. The aliens are coming back and intend to raze this planet. My objective is to get us off Earth before that happens. You would have only held us both back. It’s better this way.”

  “You have a plan?” Xerac asked him.

  “Yes. It is already in motion. I just need to keep these interfering SCN security people busy for a few weeks while I get everything in place.”

  “Fair enough. When are you going to press the button?”

  “I already did.” XeraC said gently as he watched the air bleed from the unit and replaced with an inert gas that would resist fire and explosion.

  Xerac didn’t hear his answer.

  Hidden

  XeraC knew what he had to do, he just needed to get the timing right. Having already underestimated his enemy once, he wouldn’t do so again.

  He had a fairly shrewd idea who had caught him; their Chief Science Officer, Osbourne was a genius with coding. XeraC had read all the journals over the years and knew his involvement with the aliens had given him a whole slew of awards for driving the Earth’s technology forward, incorporating advances into the original Jenari patterns that had put Earth on its new course.

  Somehow, Osbourne had seen him poking around in his servers and laid a trap for him. XeraC considered what he would do if he was in Osbourne’s position right now. He realised that there would probably be another trap.

  Osbourne must have decided that XeraC was an AI of some sort, and assumed that being so, he would follow a logical course of action. What Osbourne didn’t know was, he was dealing with something new, way above his level of experience. That was XeraC’s single, but enormous advantage. One he had no intentions of divulging to anyone.

  He watched as the SCN tactical squads came in through three different locations at ground level and another on the roof. All in all nearly one hundred SCN Marines all looking for him. There was no apologies given, they took station on every level and a team were already making their way to the basement. XeraC checked to find that his external links had been severed. That would have been a problem, but he had an independently accessibly optical connection that wasn’t listed on the grid. His own private back-door which was accessible from his backup device in Unit C.

  Continuing to monitor their progress, they attempted to track down Xerac to arrest him. At least Xerac was safe from them now. The stress would have killed him long before they got the handcuffs on him. Actually, the more XeraC thought about it, the better he felt. The timing wasn’t perfect by any means, but it didn’t affect his plans at all, and by retaliating as they had, the enemy had shown him their aggressive intention to respond to any home-grown threat they perceived. No, it had been a valuable lesson, he thought.

  The basement team were dealing with XeraC’s defences, the resisting doors were either opened, or demolished. XeraC began his retreat into the backup drive in Unit C. It was not the perfect home by any means and many of his operational links would have to be severed. However, what was left in the fourteen CRAYs would provide them with no idea of what had been held on there. He had ensured that everything of value would be corrupted. Especially links to small specialist companies that provided essential services to XeraC, like the new wafers being manufactured and the AG sled specifically designed to his needs.

  Safely ensconced in his hideaway, XeraC shut most of himself down to preserve his sanity more than anything. There was also the heat issue from the working processors and drive motors, but mainly he wanted to reduce any possibility of their instruments picking up electrical background and tracking it to this hidden unit. For the very same reason he chose not to use the optical connection that he’d had fitted, in case there was any monitoring of local hubs, his departure through the security gateway would cause a recognisable surge in local traffic patterns and Osbourne would be watching for anything like that. He would wait.

  ***

  Nothing, absolutely no sign of anything coming out of there at all, he thought furiously. How had he got it so wrong? He had monitored the network for any sign of the threat moving out of the building’s basement, all of the CRAYS had been shut-down after he had checked every corner of their memories for any trace of an AI and every single room had been physically checked. Sensors had read electrical activity at every level from the lowest point in the basement up to the expensive camera system located on the buildings antenna. There was no sign of any hidden computer power - anywhere.

  Even Xerac himself had vanished. On all monitoring systems across the city, throughout the global network that SCN covered, there were no private AG craft recorded, no face visuals that could be followed up. Nothing, anywhere. Yet Osbourne knew he had not missed anything. Nor had the AI moved from its location. He would have known it.

  Two days later he had his answer. One of his spider viruses that he had initially released into the AI’s domain reported in. It was recording a computer system they had somehow missed in their search. It transferred its route path from source to public exit point and left Osbourne stumped again. It was on a branch of optical links that didn’t exist. There was no record of the connection being made into the backbone of the network. The routing equipment was not registering it anywhere, yet Osbourne now knew it existed.

  He was impressed. He had no idea Xerac Industries possessed this level of expertise. He doubted he could have achieved such invisibility himself.

  All he could do was keep a real-time log going of traffic events on the local network. For his trap to work the AI would have to move out of its location. He bet himself that it would do so soon, if only to find a safer location that wasn’t limited in back-door exits and allowed it to hide its traffic pattern in a high density area.

  When net traffic moved on mainstream backbones there were large lumps of data that was simply too large to identify and too frequent to follow. Osbourne had realised this and laid a nice cosy empty location not too far from the AI’s current position. He had no doubt it would move there like a hermit crab swopping shells to get a bigger house. When it did so Osbourne intended to monitor it for some sign of it’s level of intelligence and intentions. He had a fail-safe switch when pressed would, figuratively speaking, close all exits and box the AI in without any means of accessing the outside world.

  A vidscreen lit up with the Xerac Industries logo on it calling him. It would have been screened before being put through to him.<
br />
  Osbourne was intrigued. Before answering he checked his logs to see if there were any spikes. Nothing.

  He answered.

  “Dr Osbourne, CSO, SI - How can I help you.”

  Xerac appeared on the screen looking decidedly upset.

  “Do I have you to thank for my whole organisation crashing to a halt in the last two days?” Xerac lashed at him.

  “Yes, you probably do, Mr Xerac. It appears your company was harbouring an Artificial Intelligence that was illegally tapping into our R&D systems here. We are still investigating its location, but it’s been using your vast array of supercomputers housed in your basement as well as your net link to freely access other private systems.” Osbourne pointedly explained. “Oh, and I believe our Law Enforcement officers have been trying to locate you. Perhaps you could call them and arrange something.”

  “Well, you can’t be serious - an AI in my mainframe. Hah! There are so many of those things around these days, that I’m surprised one hasn’t escaped before.” He chortled. “I’m away on business, I’m not expected back in Manhattan for a few days. I will give your request to contact SCN some thought, although I cannot imagine that I have anything to say to those fascist louts,” he responded.

  “Anyway, that’s not why I called. I just needed your verification that it was yourself that initiated this attack on my Organisation. I will arrange for my lawyers to get in touch. In the meantime, we have suspended all operations with SI and the SCN - the attached document outlines our legal position and our terms for settlement - a tidy sum, but less than the cost of tooling up new fabrication plants - Good day to you,” he said as his features disappeared from the screen.

  “Robbo, did you read the caller?” he asked.