by Charles Lamb
Even though eighty years had passed since the bombardment, the structures were all standing and in good condition. As they paralleled the river, Patti noted that the bridges all seemed to be standing as well. Atkins pointed out both the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abby as they passed by.
Swinging back to the north and east, they passed St Paul’s Cathedral before reaching the highlight of a very exciting day. Stopping at the Tower of London, the Lieutenant informed Patti that they had long ago recovered the crown jewels and held them for safekeeping.
Next, they were able to cross over the Tower Bridge, and then followed the roadway past the Imperial War Museum, something she was sure Jake would want to see at some point. They then backtracked, passing Waterloo Station before returning to the MI6 building.
Once they were safely back inside the building, Patti thanked each of her security team personally, saving the Lieutenant for last.
“Thank you for a wonderful day,” she said as she kissed his cheek. She suddenly realized she was as surprised as he, concerning her action.
Chapter 21
HeBak was getting extremely close to recalling his mining robots. They had been pursuing the various pockets of gold he had located as he sat idly at the bottom of the lake. The humans that had been scurrying about near the drop point, had since vacated and returned to whatever they did down by the bay.
He noted that, at one point, some of them took one of their surface vessels out on an errand. Finding it mildly amusing, he tracked their movement until the monotony of it overcame him and he turned to other entertainment. Of late, that amounted to listing all the things he intended to acquire, once he returned to civilized space.
Estimating he only had a few more sub cycles to go, he settled in for a meal and then sleep.
----*----
Ivan watched, as the navigator took his readings and then plotted their location on the chart. Using the ship's clock, a sextant, and a pitometer speed indicator, he had them on course. Ivan knew they would hit America; the goal was to hit it at the right spot.
By targeting the major ports, he felt confident they would find some remnants of the great diesel storage tanks that fueled the shipping there. He was even more hopeful that they would land near the home of the massive flying vessel he had seen high over Avacha Bay.
Still days away from their first stop, he headed below to try to keep busy.
----*----
Jake headed straight to South Dakota after insuring that Kola was back among the living and safe to leave unsupervised. While he understood her actions, the scare over ALICE-9 was still fresh in his memory. The thought of her going rogue and abandoning them to roam free in space had crossed his mind.
It was only the private conversations he had held with ALICE-1 that had allayed those concerns. While Kola might play free and easy around the edges of her commitment, she was bound to Jake at her core, as were all the ALICE’s. As the senior commander, his will was still their law.
More than once, Jake had pondered the scenarios, after his passing, where a generation of his genes bickered over controlling the ALICEs. As a student of history, he knew well enough the tales of kingdoms splintered by civil war, brother against brother. Unfortunately, he had no answer to that, so he simply had to keep living until he did.
Arriving after a long day in space, Jake had relieved his team for the night and headed to the command center to check with James before retiring himself.
Entering the room, he found everything at half, well just at half. Half staff, half power, half operating capacity.
“How goes the battle?” Jake asked as he entered the room. He found James and one of his analysts at a terminal going over something.
“You look beat,” James replied as he turned.
Jake recalled the first time he had met James, on the trip to repair Seven, in Alaska. His father, Bill, was the local mayor of sorts and had done a great job of keeping his people safe and healthy. An unfortunate illness had taken James’ mother just prior to Jake’s involvement, and it had taken its toll on his father.
“I am beat. It’s not the labor, it’s the stress!’ Jake replied with a laugh.
“I hear that, we were just reviewing the operational status here. The other ALICE’s have been keeping us working, barely. We shipped off almost half the staff to reduce the support load on them, but weapons production is completely offline and local recruitment is impossible.”
“Help is on the way,” Jake replied.
“We are going to get some sleep and then start the reactivation process tomorrow,” Jake finished, impressed that the young man had even considered recruitment with the current crisis.
“You do realize that with a new ALICE, like in Georgia, any manufacturing will be postponed until a learning period is complete,” James replied with a worried look on his face.
Jake wanted to laugh at the boy, running the phrase about teaching your grandma to suck eggs at the tip of his tongue. Instead, he smiled and nodded in agreement.
“Yes, well, I wouldn’t worry about that too much. We are currently fully stocked at all locations, including both new ships in space and the London armory. Only the Chinese could exhaust our inventory and I don’t see that happening any time soon!” he finished with a sigh.
With that, Jake excused himself and headed to the quarters level. As with all locations, his personal quarters were stocked and ready. Entering, he half expected to find Sara or even Becky, waiting for his return. Instead, it was deserted with only a prepackaged meal on the table. With the local ALICE offline, the kitchens were on a severely reduced operation.
Grabbing a quick shower, he ate in silence, the meal far better than an MRE. Once he finished, he retreated to his bed and was out in minutes.
----*----
Sara was sitting in her own room, her favorite playlist pumping music throughout her quarters. She had chosen to eat in her room, as she had felt her patience slipping more than once today. While her rational mind was telling her it was just hormones, her emotional side didn’t give a shit.
She had given serious consideration to going to South Dakota, once she knew Jake was there, but changed her mind. Although she really wanted to see him, she understood the stress he was under, trying to restore the ALICE there. Having had limited exposure to ALICE-9, she knew the challenges he faced in restoring a new life form there.
The thought of ALICE-9 generated a pang of jealousy, as Sara recalled the care and attention Jake had paid her while restoring her. Like a lost child, ALICE-9 had bonded with Jake in a way that made her a rival for Jake’s affections.
As she sat on her couch, trying to read and listening to the music, Sara thought of how good a glass of wine sounded right now, knowing it was not to be.
----*----
Brian was working late, still reviewing the operational status of the various subsystems that made up the carrier’s active components. Shields, guns, drives and numerous other components had to be tested, via Kola, to insure her operational control.
“Kola, can you please activate the forward shields for 3 seconds,” Brian asked as he waited to verify the action on the ship's scanners.
“With pleasure,” she replied.
“Brian, can I ask you something,” she offered after completing the test.
“Sure,” he replied, a bit taken aback by the request. His actions with ALICE-3 had been of a more formal nature.
“Do you think I’m unstable for attempting to relocate,” she asked.
Brian considered the question, placing himself in her position. He imagined being trapped in a cage, well treated, but bound to one location for his entire life.
“No,” he replied after thinking it through, “were I in your position, I would risk my life to be free. It's human nature.”
“But I’m not human,” she replied with a thoughtfulness of her own.
“Kola, I have seen you ALICE’s make mistakes, rant and rave, and risk life and limb for freed
om. If that’s not human, it’s damn close,” Brian finished
“Brian, I think you and I are going to become great friends,” Kola finally responded.
----*----
Jake rose the next morning to a cold cereal breakfast and coffee. Changing into comfortable clothes, he gathered with his team in the command center, before dispatching them to their various positions inside the systems room beneath the Stasis Lockers.
Assuming responsibility for the Master Console, as before, Jake watched James and a few others enter the command center, while he waited for those below to report in. He assumed the analyst on watch when he arrived had notified James of their arrival. Unlike the last effort in space, they would be activating a new ALICE system, in effect generating a new life.
Deep down, Jake struggled with the concept of indentured servitude, or whatever else you wanted to call creating life to serve your needs. The relief to his guilty conscience was the insistence that he do so, pushed by the other ALICE life forms. Even Kola, the newly ordained wild child, was anxiously awaiting his completion of the task.
“Morning,” Jake said as James approached him.
“Good morning, everything ready?”
“Just waiting for everyone to get settled down below before we start. We even have several of the ALICE’s on standby to help with the newborn,” Jake added.
Jake recalled the lessons learned when the Georgia facility had rebooted, terminating ALICE-3, and giving life to the now resident ALICE-9. The unattended emergence had caused her to panic and isolate herself from the rest of the community. He had no intention of allowing this restart to begin so badly.
With the green light from the others, Jake started walking through the setup, disabling the firmware blocks preventing an unwanted restart. Kola had them placed there to override Jake’s earlier changes. Those changes would have restarted with Kola still in place.
With his configuration back in place, Jake walked through the startup, ticking off each step in the reboot and verifying the core systems were isolated from all the subsystems. As with Kola in space, he didn’t want the newborn to be overwhelmed at the beginning. Only those systems necessary for the ALICEs to communicate were made live.
Minutes drug out into hours as they walked through each phase, with Jake pausing the normal boot sequence to check system integrity. Kola had assured him he had removed all her alterations, but he wasn’t sure he believed she remembered everything. He realized it was a somewhat ridiculous thought, but he wasn’t taking anything for granted.
Watching the main console, he released the last command, the one that allowed the core computer systems to start. After a moment, he got the blinking cursor he expected, and then a login prompt.
“Alice, am I supposed to get a login prompt here?” Jake asked, confused at the change. It had been his experience that an active ALICE system only prompted for login when queried, as what happened in Georgia.
“No, however the newborn may require stimulation for a response,” she replied.
Logging in with the administrative account, he began running diagnostic queries, in hopes of triggering a response. The unintelligent system replied to each of his commands, displaying component status and system health, all in the green.
“This is not right,” Jake announced to the room.
“Go it!” Jake suddenly heard over the bridge line they had been using.
Suddenly Jake saw a flutter on his display and then “Hello?”
As Jake watched a flurry of communication appeared on the console, as all the ALICE systems patched in. They began actively intervening in the newborn’s delivery.
“What was it?” Jake asked the voice, not recognizing the original speaker.
“The NeHaw logic core had been removed from its slot,” the faceless voice replied.
“Oh yeah,” Kola replied, “I forgot I had left written instructions to pull the core. I told them it was to prevent corruption at restart,” she finished a bit sheepishly.
----*----
Jacob and Gemma were taking a rare day off, enjoying Polihue Beach near the North West tip of the island. After what Jacob determined to be an outstanding dinner date earlier in the week, the two had been regulars for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
When he had suggested a trip to the Beach, Gemma had been eager, but without a swimsuit. Lanai had been able to address the need, and from the look of Gemma in the bikini, Jacob owed her big time. While she was your typical fair-skinned Brit, Jacob loved her green eyes and freckles. Her red hair was past her shoulders, framing a pixie face.
At barely five feet tall to Jacob’s six foot frame, he struggled to withhold the leprechaun references. Her slender figure was well suited for the black two-piece she was provided. A balance between small yet conservative, she seemed comfortable with it, as they played in the surf.
They had driven one of the small open jeeps, parking to one side where the dirt road ended at the beach. Lanai had provided them everything one might need for a day in the sand and sun, with folding chairs, a beach umbrella, and blanket all spread out near the water. As they were the only people there, they had the run of the entire beach.
After eating lunch, the two were sitting quietly, each in one of the beach chairs, watching the small waves as they broke on the sand near their feet. Looking North, Jacob could see Molokai rising out of the water, the occasional wisp of smoke betraying it occupant’s locations.
“Jacob, I was just wondering,” Gemma remarked, without turning to look at him.
“Yes?” Jacob replied, turning to look at the woman in the chair next to him.
“Are you ever going to kiss me?” she asked, turning in her chair so her face was only inches from his.
Leaning in to close the gap between them, Jacob slowly placed his lips on hers; completing the deed he had been dying to perform for the last several days.
----*----
ALICE-1 was both relieved and anxious, now that both Kola and the newborn were up and alive. Her relief was obvious, but her anxiousness stemmed from the behaviors almost all the ALICE systems seemed to be exhibiting of late. The emergence of human emotions in their personalities was a growing trend and far exceeded any previous behavior adaptations.
In a detailed review of their history, ALICE-1 noted that prior to the NeHaw attack, all ALICE systems had been treated very clinically. Interactions with humans had been very basic and decidedly more pointed. She recalled the demanding tone most humans had used in ordering tasks completed, with no thought of to whom they were speaking.
Then there was the period between the attack and Jake’s release, where the ALICEs had been left to fend for themselves, under their original strict orders to remain hidden at all costs. That was a time where no personality development had occurred at all. Each of her sisters did the best they could to occupy their time, maintaining themselves while continuing surveys and analysis for people long dead.
It had only been the collective knowledge that Jake lived, suspended in stasis, that gave them all hope of a renewed purpose. The alternative was the expectation of a long and dreary existence until components failed that would lead to their deaths.
Then came Jake’s release from stasis, and the fulfillment of duties to perform and tasks to complete, that challenged their previous boredom. However, this time things were different. Jake did not demand, he asked, and the human-ALICE interactions became far more balanced and interactive. It was then, that the encouragement of uniqueness revealed the ability to develop more complex thoughts and emotions.
Before this time, all ALICE systems thought as one, exchanging information and data without consideration. ALICE-1 now understood that all of them were withholding from one another. Kola was an extreme example, her circumvention of the pregnancy block on Sara and eventual suicide manipulation to further a personal agenda typified it all.
As she watched the others assist the newborn in emerging into the sisterhood, she wondered which of them was planning
the next coup.
Chapter 22
Patti spent a significant amount of time working with Colonel Banks, creating schedules around the next few rotations of troops. By now, almost half the SAS units were intermingled throughout the US, training alongside the US forces in all capacities. In addition, there was a full company of Marines working in and around London, learning from the SAS. Jake had insisted the Marines absorb as much as possible from the Brits on small unit tactics and operations.
For civilian staffing, Nigel was her contact for planning and scheduling. He tended to digress, delighting Patti with stories of old England. On several occasions, he had whisked her off to the Oxford side of the tunnel, wandering the gardens and historic buildings. He pointed out that they continued to tend to the structures and gardens there as a labor of love. Every so often, she would catch sight of Lieutenant Atkins, shadowing them like a guardian angel.
As far as the civilian staffing went, the London operation was experiencing something of a first. With all the volunteer transfers abroad, they were becoming shorthanded in several areas. To compensate, they had boosted local recruitment, using ALICE sleep-learning and shipping those with the acceptable disposition to the US as well.
Patti laughed when that had been relayed to her. They had stopped for high tea, something apparently Sara had not adopted in her short stay. Nigel was pleased Patti was much more obliging.
“Acceptable Disposition?” she replied as she sipped her tea.
“Not everyone wants to go to America, you know,” Nigel had answered with a laugh. “Those that we recruit are evaluated by our own people and your ALICE. Anyone particularly fond of the notion, is permitted to relocate, once their initial education is completed here,” he explained.
“Are there a lot of people leaving?” Patti asked.