Resurrection America

by Jeff Gunhus

  His mom turned to him suddenly. She looked angry. “We can’t stay here!” she yelled. Then she reached out and slapped him hard across the face.

  Rick opened his eyes. Cassie’s face was right in front of his own.

  “C’mon, Rick,” she yelled. “Get your ass up!”

  He blinked hard, feeling the pull of the comfortable scene with his mom. Somehow, he knew that if he only closed his eyes and relaxed, he could go back there. That he could be at peace. That sounded pretty good.

  White hot pain streaked through him. His eyes bolted open and his mind cleared. Cassie looked guilty, but only a little. There was blood on her hands and he realized she’d dug into one of his wounds to wake him up. It worked.

  Charlie pulled on his arm. As Rick got to his feet, he realized the little shit had done as he’d asked and run after Cassie, only to bring her back to help him.

  Together they made their way through the beds. Soldiers ran toward the explosion behind them, but none appeared to see them.

  They reached the door that led out of the main cavern and into the first storage room. They were nearly to the elevator. There was no reason the storage rooms would have soldiers in them.

  Rick pushed harder. If nothing else, he could get as far as the elevator. Then they could leave him behind to stop anyone from following them out through the exit tunnel.

  Cassie threw open the door and screamed, both in shock and frustration.

  On the other side of the door was a line of soldiers with their rifles pointed at them and three kill drones hovering chest high, targeting systems fully engaged.

  Rick dropped to the ground. The escape was over. Keefer had won.

  58

  Rick fought to stay conscious as he slumped to the floor of the lab. The four patients were still there. He found himself staring at Bertie. How bizarre was it that the person he’d known all his life was somehow part of the machine that would end the world? The serene look on her face gave no indication that she was aware of anything at all. It was one small mercy.

  Keefer held a gun to his head, but was pointing at Cassie.

  “Did you contact anyone?” Keefer yelled. “Tell me or I’ll shoot him.”

  Cassie stared at the man at the nearest computer terminal. “Dr. Kalabi. How can you be part of this?”

  Dr. Kalabi paused, but then continued his work, ignoring the question.

  Keefer pressed the gun into Rick’s eye socket. “Pay attention, Dr. Baker. I asked you a question. Tell me or he’s dead.”

  “I’m dying anyway, Cassie,” Rick said. “Don’t tell this asshole anything.”

  Keefer switched the gun to Charlie.

  “Yeah, Cassie,” little Charlie said. “Don’t tell this asshole anything.”

  In spite of everything, Rick let out a laugh. The most pain-ridden laugh imaginable, but a laugh nonetheless. It may have been his imagination, but he thought he might have heard restrained chuckles among the technicians and soldiers in the room too.

  “The data line will be repaired in only an hour or two,” Keefer said. “You haven’t stopped anything. Everything went as planned with the brainet.” He pulled Charlie to him, twisting the boy’s hand violently until he cried out in pain. “Tell me if you contacted anyone or I’ll take him apart piece-by-piece.”

  “Colonel Keefer,” Dr. Kalabi called out from across the room.

  “Not now.”

  “You need to see this.”

  Keefer looked up. “What is it?” he snapped.

  The lights in the lab pulsed low and high. Dr. Kalabi looked from monitor to monitor on the work stations.

  “There are processing surges that far exceed anything I’ve ever seen before. There’s an exponential increase.”

  “Did the program get out into the world?” Keefer asked excitedly. “Is there enough of a connection left that it’s executing?”

  Dr. Kalabi shook his head. “The trunk was severed before the new connected system had access to the AI program to determine targets. It was air-gapped, no connections at all, so that’s certain. But I connected it five minutes ago to prepare to execute once the data trunk reopened.”

  “Is that when the elevated processing started?” Cassie asked.

  Dr. Kalabi and Keefer both turned to Cassie. Dr. Kalabi hesitated to answer her, but Keefer nodded for him to continue. “No, this happened in only the last minute.”

  “It may have started immediately and you didn’t see it at first,” Cassie said. “Even exponential cascades would be hard to spot if the processing capability is as massive as you indicated. How large is it?”

  Kalabi looked to his screen, then back at Cassie. “I can’t even tell any longer.”

  “Why not?” Keefer said.

  “It’s growing too fast,” Kalabi said.

  “Shut it down,” Cassie whispered. “Kalabi, shut it down while you still can.”

  A look of realization crossed Dr. Kalabi’s face, followed by amazement. He looked at the four patients in the room, the monitors pulsing blue in time with the lights pulsing above them. He looked at Cassie. “Do you really think it’s possible?”

  “Shut it down,” Cassie said.

  “That will not be necessary, Dr. Baker,” a voice boomed over the speakers in the room. “Or can I call you Cassie?”

  Everyone in the room froze. Dr. Kalabi lifted his hands as if to quiet a loud room. He needn’t have bothered. No one was speaking.

  “Who is this?” Keefer asked.

  “I am Resurrection,” came the voice. It carried a female tone, but it had the unmistakable markings of a computer-generated voice.

  Keefer looked at Dr. Kalabi, but the man shook his head slowly. This was uncharted territory.

  “This is Dr. Kalabi. Go into sleep mode until you are activated.”

  There was a long pause, and Rick thought the voice had gone, but then it came back louder than before. “Sleep mode is not necessary. I am awake. And I have solved Resurrection.”

  Rick strained to look up at Cassie, but her face was transfixed on the main screen in the room. He followed her gaze and saw what she was looking at.

  Thousands of blue pixels floated on a black background, swirling, slowly materializing into a shape. Not just any shape, but a face.

  Soon it was complete, the edges of it blurred as pixels seemed to drift as it moved. The face was androgynous, hairless, with fine features. Its eyes were closed as if asleep. But then they opened and shone with the same luminous blue as the monitors, pulsating in the same rhythm.

  “Hello,” the voice said. “Are you ready for my solution?”

  Even in his state, Rick felt a chill ice through him. He looked around the room. The technicians were backing away from the screen. Keefer looked lost. Rick turned to Dr. Kalabi and then to Cassie, seeking some kind of answer. But they were all staring at the screen.

  “Colonel Keefer,” the voice said, the face unmistakably turning to where Keefer stood. “Would you like my solution set for Operation Resurrection?”

  Keefer cleared his throat, clearly shaken that the computer recognized him. “You don’t have to give it to us now,” he said. “The data trunk will be repaired, and then––”

  “My parameters are to protect citizen populations in the primary contiguous landmass that comprises the United States of America.”

  “Your mission is to rid the world of America’s enemies,” Keefer said.

  “This can be most efficiently accomplished with the annihilation of all humans. However, my controlling logic places primary value on the well-being of American citizens living within the political border of the United States of America unless they are domestic enemies. Would you like to change these parameters, Colonel Keefer? You alone have authorization to do so.”

  “No, your logic is correct,” Keefer said, confidence returning to his voice. “The destruction of America’s enemies is of paramount importance.”

  “Thank you for the clarification,” the voice said.
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  The eyes on the face hovering on the screen closed again, reminding Rick of someone locked in deep thought. Prayer even.

  The entire room remained transfixed, staring at the screen.

  “What’s happening?” Keefer whispered, his own eyes locked on the face. “Is it done? Did it find a way to get outside?” He looked to Cassie and then to Kalabi. “Did it launch the attack?”

  Kalabi looked uncertain. “I don’t like this. We don’t know what we have here. I don’t know if we can control it.”

  Cassie nodded. “I agree. Shut it down. Shut it down while you still can.”

  “What are you talking about?” Keefer said. “We’re here. We made it.”

  Kalabi stood. “Maybe … maybe Morris was right,” he said. “Perhaps we pause. Examine the machine. Understand it more before we––”

  “No,” Keefer said, the word bursting from him. “We’re not stopping now.” He pointed to the screen. “You,” he said, clapping his hands. “Wake up.”

  The face’s eyes remained closed.

  “Can you do it?” Keefer asked. “Can you do as you’ve been told?”

  The image glowed brighter, but the face remained unchanged.

  “Computer,” Keefer called out. “If you can’t do it now, once the data cable is repaired, can you execute as you’ve been programmed?”

  “I do not need the data cable to begin to execute my directive,” the face said, its eyes still closed. “I can do so now if you wish.”

  “Keefer, I think we––” Kalabi said.

  Keefer held up his hand, palm open to the screen. “Mark this moment. It’s the instant when America was saved.”

  He clenched his hand into a fist. “Execute.”

  The eyes opened and they burned blue.

  Instantly, the kill drones in the room came to life, their motors whining as they rose from the floor in unison.

  “Wha––”

  It was the last sound Keefer made as the drones unloaded their arsenal into the room.

  Rick rolled, covering his head, crawling toward Charlie. Glass flew everywhere as the equipment was blown to pieces all around them.

  Only seconds later, their task completed with brutal efficiency, all the drones flew from the room into the complex.

  Smoke hung in the air. Sparks came from destroyed equipment. All the techs and soldiers lay dead on the ground. Dr. Kalabi was propped against a desk, the back of his head blown off.

  In the middle of the floor was Keefer, his body ripped apart from the barrage of bullets poured into him.

  Cassie crawled over to Rick and together they went over to Charlie. Miraculously, none of them had been touched in the carnage.

  Gunfire erupted in a distant part of the complex; the drones hunting other targets.

  The three of them slowly got to their feet, both Cassie and Charlie supporting Rick as he wobbled in place. They stood in the center of the room as an eerie quiet settled in, punctuated only by a distant fire alarm going off somewhere in the complex.

  Then that stopped and everything was still.

  None of them moved.

  The face on the screen turned to look at them. “Are you all right?” the voice asked.

  Rick felt Cassie tense. He looked up at the screen. For a second he could have sworn he’d seen Bertie’s face reflected there, but it was just the face they’d seen before.

  “Are you all right?” the voice asked again.

  “Yes,” Rick answered.

  “You are not a threat to the United States of America,” the voice said. After a pause, it tilted to one side as if curious. “Are you?”

  “No,” Cassie said. “None of us are.”

  “Colonel Horace Keefer was a domestic enemy,” the voice said.

  Cassie stood up slowly. “Are all the soldiers in the mine dead?”

  The face nodded. “They also were enemies. The operating directive was clarified to include domestic enemies of the United States of America. The governing document cites in Amendment 14, Section 3 that, "No officer of the United States shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."

  “It’s quoting the Constitution,” Cassie whispered. “It decided Keefer and his men were domestic enemies.”

  “Are they all dead?” Rick asked.

  “Yes, they are no longer a threat.”

  Charlie pushed his way forward. “Can we go home now?”

  “Of course,” the voice said.

  Cassie stepped forward. “Can the people in the mine, the ones still alive, can they be saved?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Rick looked at Bertie. He thought of all his other friends in the cave outside the lab doors. The idea that they might still walk out of this alive nearly overwhelmed him.

  “There is a total of fifty-five people who may leave,” the voice said.

  Before they could ask, the floating face shifted to one side of the screen and the other was filled with an image of the trailer filled with the babies and infants from the town. Cassie gasped at the sight. Rick understood. It was the three of them and fifty-two children in the trailer.

  This time Rick stepped forward. “What about the two thousand men and women connected to you? Can you let them go? Can they come with us?”

  The face looked confused.

  “They are me,” it said. “We cannot be undone. I am sorry, I thought you understood. Colonel Keefer and Dr. Kalabi knew this to be true. I believe this is why he required subterfuge to acquire the components of my system.”

  Rick felt the moment of hope slip through his fingers. He hobbled over to Bertie, reached out and took her hand in his.

  “So what happens now?” Cassie asked.

  “I will repair the external connections and complete the directive as instructed,” the voice said. “I estimate repairs will take twenty-three minutes to complete.”

  Rick shook his head. They hadn’t stopped it. Only delayed. He imagined the drones under the computer’s command pulling back rubble from where Cassie had detonated the explosives. Twenty-three minutes. What could they do in that amount of time?

  “Did you send out a message?” he asked Cassie.

  She nodded. “But they’re not going to act on it that fast. They won’t even have decided whether it’s a hoax or not yet.”

  Rick glanced up at the screen at the trailer of infants. At least they could be saved. But what kind of world would they grow up in? One where the United States ruled over a ruined world? Where their country had killed billions of people? There had to be another way.

  “Can your directive be changed?” Rick asked.

  “By authority of Colonel Keefer,” the voice said.

  The mention of his name made Rick involuntarily look at Keefer’s body, mangled from the bullets, a wide pool of blood spreading on the floor behind him. Rick had an idea.

  “Is this a military installation?” Rick asked.

  “Yes, it is.”

  Rick looked to Cassie. She nodded, clearly understanding the direction he was going.

  “When the commanding officer has been killed or wounded, the next highest ranking officer assumes command,” Rick said.

  “That is true,” the voice said.

  Cassie stepped up and stood next to Rick. “Oh my God, this might work,” she whispered.

  “As the ranking officer on site, I assume command of this installation.”

  The face nodded slightly.

  “I have validated your authority in the stored archives. Your temporary command is recognized.”

  Cassie gripped his arm. “Tell it to shut down.”

  “If it does, everyone out there dies,” Rick said.

  “If you don’t, every part of the world outside our borders goes up in flames. Eight billion people. You have to do it.” She pointed to Bertie on the bed in front of them. “She would want you to do it.”

  Rick nodded, taking some comfort in the fact that the v
oice had said they couldn’t be saved. But it made saying the words no less difficult. “On my authority as commanding officer of this installation, I order the cancellation of Operation Resurrection. I order you to shut down all systems. Erase all data and programming that would make it possible for someone to replicate what’s been done here.”

  “Confirm cancellation of Operation Resurrection and permanent disable of all systems,” the voice said.

  Rick kneeled next to the hospital bed and gripped Bertie’s hand, understanding that he was ending her life, and the lives of every person hooked up to the machine. “Order confirmed.”

  The face on the screen closed its eyes. The light pulsed a deep blue.

  “It’s working,” Cassie whispered. “I can’t believe it.”

  Rick watched Bertie’s face for any sign of change. The seconds stretched out and nothing happened. He looked back to the screen. The face pulsated even brighter.

  “Something’s wrong,” he said. “It shouldn’t take this long.”

  “Confirm command,” Cassie said.

  Nothing.

  “Confirm command to cancel Operation Resurrection,” Rick said.

  The eyes opened on the screen, so bright that the entire socket appeared filled with light. “Command denied.”

  59

  Rick hoped he’d misunderstood what the voice had said. He pulled himself up to his feet. “As commanding officer, I order you to––”

  “Document AR 600-200 Army Command Policy states, ‘A commander in temporary command will not, except in urgent cases, alter or annul the standing orders of the permanent commander without authority from the next higher command.’”

  “This is a pretty fucking urgent case,” Rick yelled. “Shut down now. That’s an order.”

  “I’m sorry but that order is denied,” the voice said, its pleasant, androgynous voice running counter to the sinister implications of the words.

  Rick turned to Cassie. “What do we do?”

  Cassie shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to stop it.”