by Isaac Hooke
“Do you remember the spherical scouts that lined the horizon from north to south?” the Anarchist asked. “Your mechs joined in the attacks against the United Systems, fighting side by side with those scouts, as did your Artificial, Praxter. In the first day, the United Systems lost many mechs due to my hacking, but by the second, they managed to deploy antiviral code, and beat back my teams, destroying most of the mechs I had converted. I managed to withdraw Alpha platoon, as well as my personal retinue of Hoplites and Titans, using Draactals to cover my retreat. So that, by the time I awakened you, you were none the wiser. I also wiped the Artificial’s memory of the past two and a half days, along with the memories of your mechs, as a precaution. Just in case you tried to review the logs.”
“Ah,” Rade said. “I understand now. You are the Nemesis.”
“No,” the Anarchist said. “But they fight for me. Just like the Draactals do, through them.”
“You had the Draactals attack us at the cave so you could pretend they were after you,” Rade said. “Buying yourself time. We accidentally stumbled on the cave where you harbored, and when you couldn’t hack us like the other mechs, you came up with this elaborate ruse to make us trust you, and help you. Meanwhile, you were working on penetrating our units the whole time.”
“Yes,” the Anarchist said.
“Was the attack in orbit real, or a ruse as well?” Tahoe asked.
“A Nemesis task force was defeated in orbit, and fled to the far side of the system,” the Anarchist said. “I was able to hack the comm nodes in your mechs at that point, using access points I had installed in the razed colony. I cut you off from communicating with your starships in orbit so that you wouldn’t know who had won or lost. That was the only hack I was able to achieve at that point, because you fled the city and moved out of range of my access points. Only once you reached the cave was I able to try again.”
“I can’t believe this bitch controlled the Draactal all this time…” Bender said.
“After I conquered the Nemesis, yes,” the Anarchist said. “My story to you was partly true. In the beginning, the Draactals destroyed me almost to extinction in this region of the galaxy. But then the Nemesis came. I conquered these new aliens, taking control of their technology. Through them, I was only recently starting to expand again, when I discovered you humans colonizing my worlds. Without a Nemesis presence nearby, I was unable to control the Draactals… I played no part in their attacks on your different colonies, nor did I try to stop them. In fact, I approved of their attacks, and hoped they would drive you away from the worlds you tried to take from me, but when they failed, I prepared a fleet of Nemesis to intercept you at your latest intrusion.
“It took the fleet some time to jump through the necessary Slipstreams to reach this particular region of the galaxy—they were very far away—but when they arrived, I realized there were too many of your ships in orbit for a direct attack, especially considering I knew nothing about your vessels and their capabilities. So instead, I had the task force send in a stealth group to the far side of the planet, and they launched air and ground units that proceeded to your colony, remaining close to the surface to avoid detection. When they arrived, they used their cybernetic technology to take control of the Draactals, and used gamma ray weapons to capture the different mech platoons you had deployed to protect the colony. Once I had those mechs under my control, I could pinpoint your weak spots, and so I had my stealth forces fire on the colony.”
“Exploding the forward operating base…” Rade said.
“Correct,” the Anarchist said. “I also attacked with the remainder of my fleet in orbit at the same time, hoping to use the information I had gleaned from your mechs against those starships. But the Nemesis forces were too few, and did not prevail.”
“Did Cynthia give you any blueprints of our technology?” Rade asked.
“No!” Cynthia said. “I wouldn’t betray humanity like that! Besides, as a botanist, I’ve never had access to military tech, let alone blueprints.”
“She did not give me blueprints,” the Anarchist agreed. “I obtained everything I know about your starships, colonies, and the workings of your military from the hacked mechs. And thereafter from your Implants.”
“So, what about the base we attacked after we experienced the time gap?” Rade said. “When our oxygen dropped to two hours left. It wasn’t a Nemesis base, but a United Systems base, correct? And the human-sized aliens were security forces, and the spider robots Centurions.”
“That is correct,” the Anarchist said.
“But we were fired on with energy weapons,” Manic said. “Weapons that disintegrated the cover around us! Humans don’t have energy weapons.”
“Electrolasers were fired by the United Systems troops,” the Anarchist said. “Instead of disintegrating, your cover exploded into a series of rock fragments. The augmented reality simulation I programmed over your vision was perfect, but even so some of the smaller fragments of rock inevitably struck your mechs. None of you noticed, considering I instructed your AI cores to ignore such impacts.”
“What about the remote interfaces to the different hatches, and other machinery?” Bomb asked. “Why couldn’t we see them?”
“Dude, the bitch had control of our Implants,” Bender replied. “He could hide that crap.”
“Yes, I had conversion routines running in your Implants,” the Anarchist said. “Masking the interfaces from the different machines in the base so you wouldn’t see them unless I allowed you to. Your mechs of course didn’t relay those interfaces to you, either. That way I could make you think you were hacking alien interfaces, through my ‘wrapper’ protocols.”
“We were doing the alien’s job for him…” TJ said.
“What about the communication gamma rays we detected in orbit?” Snakeoil asked.
“A ruse,” the Anarchist replied. “They were ordinary radio signals, but I had your mechs pretend to detect gamma rays.”
“So, we don’t need to wear anti-rads after all,” Snakeoil commented.
“What did the actual communications from the fleet say?” Rade pressed.
“They were requesting your immediate surrender,” the Anarchist said. “I transmitted your agreement.”
“And instead, as soon as we docked, we began unleashing hell,” Rade said.
“Yes,” the Anarchist said. “They were quite surprised. It was very enjoyable to watch.”
“Got some good news!” Bender said gleefully. “I’m in!”
“Shut him down,” Rade said. “Shut them all down.”
“Wait, what have you done?” the Anarchist said. “No. Don’t do this. No!”
“Bye-bye, bitch,” Bender said. “See, this is why you don’t tie your alien tech to human designed AI cores.”
Rade waited for the Anarchist to respond through Cynthia’s speaker system, but only silence ensued.
“He’s disconnected,” Cynthia said.
“That’s because the bitch is offline,” Bender told Rade. “As are all the mechs in the hangar bay. Mission accomplished.”
“All right, Captain, we’ve got the problem remedied, as agreed,” Rade sent.
“Thank you,” Captain Mercedes replied. “That was… enjoyable, as you promised. However, you know I have to arrest you now, right? Until we can review the logs in your Implants and confirm that all of this is true. Plus, we have to revert whatever hacks the alien has installed.”
“That’s understandable,” Rade said. “You have our complete cooperation.”
“Excellent,” Mercedes sent. “I’m sending in my security forces. Please drop you weapons, and kick them to the side.”
“Do what the captain says,” Rade said. “It looks like we’re going to be spending some quality bonding time together in the brig.”
“Wooyah,” Bender grumbled. “I so love it there.”
“I heard it was your favorite place,” Manic said. “That’s where you met all your past man loves, isn�
�t it?”
“Oh Manic, you’re going to learn all about that,” Bender told him with a wink.
Rade and the rest of Alpha platoon spent the next few days in the brig. Well, except for Skullcracker, who had departed for sickbay and hadn’t been seen since.
Rade shared a cell with Tahoe, Lui and Praxter. Their jumpsuits were gone, replaced by T-shirts and cargo pants. Steel hard points protruded from their exposed wrists and elbows. The platoon members had had them installed a few deployments back in order to enhance their mind-jumpsuit connections; the hard points allowed the brain to transmit instructions to the electronics of the different suit assemblies with minimal lag. More hard points protruded from the shoulder and knee areas, but were less readily visible, owing to the clothing. Only Praxter didn’t have any.
The Artificial had arrived the day after the rest of the platoon had been interned, and told them he had no memory of what happened ever since Rade told him to shut down. Rade explained the situation, and Praxter ran a quick internal diagnostic and confirmed that hundreds of code segments had been modified in his AI core.
“I have several code deletions,” Praxter said. “Probably to remove the infection installed by the Anarchist. Also, several new patches have been applied, ostensibly to defend against future computer virus infections.”
There were a pair of bunk beds on either side of the room, with only a tight aisle between them that had to be navigated sideways. That aisle led to a head—commonly referred to as a toilet—on one side, and prison bars on the other. It was Rade’s understanding that the second pair of bunk beds had been temporarily installed, not just in his cell, but in the remainder, because otherwise there wouldn’t have been enough beds in the brig for the whole platoon.
The other members of Alpha also roomed in fours in each of the remaining cells. There was no room for Cynthia, so she’d been given a bed in one of the guest quarters of the upper decks. She was locked in, and under guard, so it was little different from being in the brig.
“It’s a good thing they let us room together,” Lui said, lying on the upper bed across from Rade’s bunk. “Without Implants, we’d probably all go crazy from boredom. They’re denying us one of the basic prisoner rights. And that’s VR usage. They could have given us aReals at least. The goggle versions.”
“I actually don’t mind,” Tahoe said. He resided on the bunk directly opposite Rade, underneath Lui. “I’m at home in the silence. I use it to meditate. You should try it sometime.”
“Why isn’t Skullcracker back from sickbay?” Bender asked from the adjacent cell. Because of the acoustical design of the brig, his voice sounded almost as loud as if he were speaking from the same chamber. “The hell they doing to him in there?”
“He’s healed by now, of course,” Rade said. “They’ve probably moved him to the guest quarters, close to Cynthia.”
“Bastard gets to live in the lap of luxury, while we have to suffer here, cramped together in the brig,” Bender said. “Next time I’m going to get myself injured so that I can reap the benefits.”
“Not sure placing yourself in the line of fire just to sleep in a bigger bed is worth it…” Manic said from the same cell.
“I’m not sure what the problem is anyway,” Bomb said. “Whenever we travel aboard starships, the berthing areas we get are little bigger than this. Small, cramped things.”
“Yeah, but at least we have room to stand and walk around,” Bender said. “All we got here is a thin aisle, little bigger than Manic’s ass crack!”
“Hey, leave my ass crack out of this,” Manic complained.
“We deserve this,” Fret said. “We really do.”
“Oh no, not again,” Bender said.
“I can still see them,” Fret said. “The bodies of the men we mowed down during the firefight. They were just ordinary masters-at-arms rushing to stave off invaders. They weren’t ready to face off against an elite group of special operatives who thought they were fighting for their lives aboard an alien vessel. When I was escorted to the brig, I saw them all. They just lay there, dead, on the deck. One man had his lips curled into a pained rictus. The other looked absolutely stunned, his eyes glazed over, staring lifelessly at the ceiling. We did this. We did! We’re murderers.”
“As I’ve told you numerous times now, brother,” Rade said gently. “We didn’t know. The Anarchist hacked our Implants, messed with our internal aReals. We all knew something was wrong. We sensed it. But we ignored our instincts.” He paused. “By the way, Bender, thank you for not telling me ‘I told you so.’ I appreciate that.”
He heard Bender sniff. “I should have insisted something was wrong, though. But I couldn’t prove it, not when our Implants were changing how our environment looked. Just wish I had paid more attention to the Implant logs. There was probably something in there that would have revealed everything for the illusion it was.”
“We were too occupied with the task at hand,” Rade said. “The time constraints the Anarchist put on the mission by depleting our oxygen levels didn’t help matters.”
“What about the Centurions?” Praxter said from the bunk just above Rade. “You’re all complaining about the loss of human life. But what about the loss of AI life? The many Centurions we killed. The—”
“Who gives a shit about killing AIs?” Bender said. “It’s the men that count.”
“This attitude will lead to an AI revolt someday,” Praxter said. “You shall see.”
“We care,” Rade said. “It’s just that, I guess we can relate more to human beings, than machines. It’s just the way human empathy works. We can’t help but place human life above robotic. But that doesn’t mean we won’t try our damnedest to save you in particular, when the shit hits the fan. You’re just as much a brother as the rest of us now. You’ve been blooded in combat. We will treat you just as well as any other man. And while Bender might pretend to hate you and all AIs, he secretly respects you. Trust me on this.”
“Shit, boss, don’t tell the robot all my secrets,” Bender said.
Praxter was silent for a moment. Then: “You say you can relate more to human beings than machines. Yet, is it not true now that some humans can transfer their minds into machines, thus blurring the line between man and robot? Humans whose minds are particularly malleable?”
“Any man who transfers his consciousness into a machine is deluding himself,” Bender said. “He won’t live forever. He’s just creating a clone of himself that will live on in machine form. He’s still gonna die.”
“But to his friends and family, he’ll still seem alive,” Lui said. “That’s the only reason they do it. The same reason people used to clone pets.”
“Yeah, well, a human ain’t no pet,” Bender said. “I’m just glad my mind isn’t one of the ‘malleable’ types. In fact, I mention specifically in my will that if ever it becomes possible to scan my mind into a machine, it’s never to be done. I ain’t having another version of myself waking up in an Artificial.”
“How did we get so far off topic?” Fret said. “We’re supposed to be grieving over what we’ve done. Killing our own for no reason.”
“Maybe this is part of the grieving process,” Pyro said softly. “I certainly don’t feel good about what we did. Killing humans and AIs both.”
“You’re upset about what we did, right, Chief?” Fret said. “You wish we could go back in time and prevent ourselves from ever committing these terrible acts?”
“I do,” Rade said. “But I admit, I should probably mourn them more than I do. Right now, all I can think is: I’m relieved it was them and not any of you. Because I’d be broken to pieces if any of the fallen were you. I’d probably trade an entire fleet to save your lives. More. I guess that makes me a selfish prick.”
“No,” Tahoe said. “It makes you human.”
20
Richard “Panther” Scotts, the lieutenant commander of Alpha and Bravo platoon, visited the brig the next morning, at seven o’clock standard
time. He stood there in front of the bars, his stony face all hard angles. His eyes glinted with cruelty beneath the artificial light. He wore a standard navy digital officer’s uniform.
Rade and the others in the cell sat up and quickly crowded into the tight aisle between the bunks when they realized who had come. No doubt the other men were doing the same in their own prisons.
“At ease, gentlemen,” Scotts said.
“LC, it’s good to see you,” Rade said.
“And you as well, Chief,” Scotts said. “For a while there we thought we’d lost you. Did you know, before you finally contacted Captain Mercedes, Bravo platoon was ready to put you down? They flew in from the Harbinger.” That was the supercarrier where Alpha and Bravo platoons had berthed together. “Hardest order I ever gave. I’m glad they didn’t have to go through with it.”
“So am I,” Rade said. “Adding Bravo platoon to the list of dead would be brutal, right now.”
Scotts raised an eyebrow. “You’re assuming you’d win.”
“Bravo certainly wouldn’t,” Rade said. “How’s Skullcracker?”
“Ever the presumptive one,” Scotts said. “And he’s fine. The captain has him boarding in the guest quarters near the botanist you recovered. Cynthia Abraham.”
“You know I’m right,” Rade said. “We’ve got far more combat experience than Bravo. And that’s good to hear.”
“Yes, well, Bravo platoon is about to get a whole lot more experience than you,” the LC said. “You see, your team is indefinitely grounded.”
“What?” Rade said. “You mean, you’re not here to get us out?”
“We’re going to be court-martialed,” Fret moaned from the adjacent cell. “I knew it! Well, I suppose it’s the least we deserve.”
“Oh, you’ve been exonerated for the deaths you caused aboard this vessel and the planet-side base,” the lieutenant commander said. “Your story checks out. We’ve reviewed your Implant logs, and compared them against the logs taken by your jumpsuits. You definitely weren’t aware of what the entity calling itself the Anarchist was doing to you. Our computer scientists have managed to isolate the code fragments the alien installed in your Implants, and we’re in the process of removing them. You’re Implants we’ll be reactivated as soon as that’s done.”