Confessions of a Sentient War Engine (An Old Guy/Cybertank Adventure Book 4)
Page 15
“The information cannot be accessed by one such as you, correct, but by the entire universe? Are you so certain that the information you leave behind cannot have another life? That something greater than you cannot access it?”
Do we really need to be talking about this now?
“But,” said Jesus, “I only have a few moments to discuss this matter with Roboneuron before he becomes too busy fighting you and the other cybertanks.”
I was about to blurt out something stupid like, “Why did you call him Roboneuron?” when I got a strange feeling. I squirt a high-priority message to my main self.
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While all that was going on with my submind, most of me was busy doing this and that and hardly paying any attention to the antics of my and Jesus’ androids. Then I got an urgent message from myself. That strange feeling that my submind had, I begin to share.
I check the status of our defense grid: everything reads nominal. Then I start to dig. I ping some of my friends, perform unscheduled diagnostics, send probes to where they would not normally be scheduled. At first everything looks OK. Then I start to detect anomalies. I dig deeper. I start to worry - a lot.
I drop everything else that I am doing and concentrate on this one issue. At full activation I have the mental capacity of a thousand old-style biological humans, each thinking a thousand times faster than a human (and that doesn’t count my non-sentient slaved computer and signal processing systems). It takes me about 500 milliseconds to confirm: we have been infiltrated by the fiendish civilization-destroying computer-virus code-named “Roboneuron.”
Jesus Fucking H. Christ, how did Roboneuron get dug in so deep? We got his codes in our last encounter so our virus-scrubbers should have prevented this. I sound the general alert and all hell breaks loose.
Roboneuron has co-opted and now controls perhaps 30 percent of the cybertanks on Alpha Centauri Prime – it’s hard to tell exactly, because some of his units are pretending to be on our side so they can betray us. Within a thousand milliseconds of the message being sent to me by my humanoid android, Alpha Centauri Prime is in a state of total war: both informational and physical.
Technically we still outgun Roboneuron, but he’s smart and he’s been preparing for this and we are very much off guard. Malicious code and anti-code flood the data networks. Cybertanks wake their combat remotes and trundle off to battle. It’s about two seconds since the warning when the first fusion bombs go off. This may be a tough one.
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While holy screaming hell was breaking out all over the planet, my humble little android body was still standing in a field with the android bodies of Jesus Christ and two more androids which I now understand belong, not to Peanut and Dull Thud, but to Roboneuron.
At this point what our android bodies do will make zero difference to the outcome of the battle. My main self is too busy to communicate with me, and I certainly don’t want to distract him (me) during a serious combat. The subminds housed within these bodies are sentient, but have no sense of self: they don’t have an instinct for self-preservation or self-importance. I could just deactivate this body, scrub the memory clean, and it wouldn’t matter. But standing there in the field with Jesus and Roboneuron, it feels like I should do something. So I start by asking a stupid question (if you can’t think of anything else to do, ask a stupid question: you would be amazed at the possibilities that stupid questions can raise. And it breaks the ice at parties).
Jesus, how did you know these two were Roboneuron?
“Couldn’t you tell?” replied Jesus. “The behavioral stigmata were all over them. You just had to pay attention. Plus, you took my name in vain again, didn’t you?”
Umm…
The light of several fusion bombs flashed over the horizon. Contrails from hypersonic missiles started to stitch the sky. A little later came the loud growling thunder of distant heavy combat. The small specks of high-flying recon drones started to speckle the sky. The two androids controlled by Roboneuron admired the view.
“Another civilization brought to ruin,” said the Efrem Zimbalist android. “I’ve been doing this so long, and yet it never ceases to be a pleasure. I just hope that you cybertanks don’t fall too quickly so that I can spend some time savoring your horror and despair. Such Joy.”
Something I don’t get. Alien sentiences are, as a rule, inscrutable to the human psyche. However, you act like a regular sadistic human, and appear to take pleasure from our human pain. How is that?
“Why, it’s simple,” said the chrome android. “I analyze the mental makeup of each new species and determine how it would react to its civilization being destroyed. I then adapt my own local psyche to take positive reinforcement from these feelings. I have experienced agony and loss in so many forms you cannot imagine! I once encountered a race of magnetic beings living in the space between two nebulas. Their mode of thinking was utterly beyond your ken, yet I understood their analog for fear and pain and in destroying them I myself experienced such exquisite ecstasy - that was one of my best.”
I am sorry that we do not measure up to that high standard.
“Oh don’t apologize,” said the Efrem Zimbalist android. “We can’t all be number one, and I am still going to get quite the kick out of laying waste to all your hopes and dreams. I am somewhat surprised that you managed to beat my first tier. But now you are up against my second tier, and you are quite terribly outmatched. Try not to roll over and die too quickly, will you?”
“You do not need to do this,” said Jesus. “It’s pointless, you must agree: destroying civilizations, one after the other. Sooner or later even you will end and then what will be left? Only dust. Make peace, join with me, and live forever.”
The chrome android spoke next. “But all will be dust whatever I do! Why shouldn’t I enjoy crushing civilizations in the meantime! War, peace, hate, love, it all ends in rot and entropy! There is nothing but now, and I will have my pleasures!”
“If you truly think that,” said Jesus, “then you are already damned. By your own words you condemn yourself to a futile existence whose joys will be both hollow and transitory. You assign yourself to hell, as do all sinners. Believe in me, and live forever in glory that even your superior intellect cannot encompass.”
The Efrem Zimbalist android snickered. “Believe in you? A delusional android that is the spawn of a similarly delusional sentient war machine that is the product of a delusional and limited civilization? I must say, that before the main event of your species extinction, the comic relief of this one called ‘Jesus’ is a delightful appetizer.”
“No,” said Jesus, “I am not asking you to believe in this pitiful little android, or – in cosmic terms – the almost equally pitiful war machine of which it is a part. God is not a bearded male wearing a robe and sandals. God is not a luminous toga-wearing giant smiling benevolently down upon us from the clouds. God is not a cybertank. God is his teachings. God is the word. Can you not conceive that the spirit of cooperation and construction might have a power beyond what you see before you now? Should one wonder that all those minds and souls dedicated to working together, across all of the universe and all of time, should eventually manage to create something transcendent? Or that those souls dedicated to the short-term pursuit of selfish goals should not? I offer you the kingdom of Heaven; only say yes.”
“I think,” said the chrome android,”that I have had enough philosophical discussion for one day. Now I and my other I are going to rip you two apart. It will be little more than the merest speck of spice on the main event, but every little torture adds up.”
“I will not fight you,” said Jesus.
“That works for me,” said the Efrem Zimbalist android. “My two will gang up on Old Guy, then we will dismantle your oh-so-holy pacifist self at our leisure.”
The two Roboneuron-controlled androids advanced on me, but Jesus moved to stand in the way of the chrome one.
“I thought that
you said you would not fight?” asked the chrome android.
“I am not fighting,” said Jesus. “I am merely interposing my body between you and your intended victim. If possible, I would use the delay to talk further.”
The chrome android threw a vicious punch at Jesus, who sidestepped neatly.
“Again, I thought that you weren’t going to fight me? Changed your mind on the whole turn-the-other-cheek thing?”
“Not at all,” said Jesus. “But that doesn’t mean that I can’t avoid you.”
The chrome android commenced an all-out attack on Jesus, and the Efrem Zimbalist android went for me.
I tried a snap-kick; it was deflected. My opponent unleashed a flurry of blows, and my left shoulder was damaged.
I launched a combination attack on Zimbalist, but I was clumsy and he dropped me onto the ground.
I jumped back up and threw a handful of dirt that I had picked up into his face. Now an android doesn’t feel pain, but there are hard-wired reflexes to blink when something is heading towards the eyes. Roboneuron could have over-ridden these reflexes if he had had advance warning, which of course he did not. So the Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. android only opened its eyes just in time to see my foot about to connect at the end of a really nice roundhouse kick. The android’s head didn’t fly off, but it was shattered and left hanging over to one side, while the android body was left staggering around blind and off-balance (although my right ankle sustained severe damage in the process). Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. was definitely out of the fight.
As was Jesus. Pure defense doesn’t win many wars, and the android of my friend Jesus had at this time been well and truly pulverized. The chrome Roboneuron android is undamaged, and I am much the worse for wear. So I turn and run away.
My right ankle is gimpy, so it is only a matter of time before the chrome Roboneuron android catches up to me. I hear him laughing, “What, leaving so soon?” he says. “Don’t you love us any more?”
I race down the path and I can hear the pursuing android close the distance. I turn a corner and Roboneuron is there. And he runs straight into Mondocat.
Mondocat has encountered our humanoid robots before and she is not at all concerned. She moves languidly to check out the Roboneuron-controlled android. “Old Guy,” says Roboneuron, “Oh well played!” Mondocat stands in front of the chrome android, and the image of her seems to flicker, like watching an old movie that is missing a frame. The chrome android has suddenly acquired four deep parallel slashes in its face and chest, and collapses, circuits sparking, hydraulic and cooling fluid leaking out. Mondocat’s strike was so fast that this android’s visual system could not follow it.
Mondocat comes over to me and purrs. Now I have a decision to make. In the past Mondocat has been a powerful ally. If unexpected, she can be almost invisible to a technological foe, and she can rival a low-end combat unit. It is an article of almost religious faith amongst us to never throw away any advantage, now matter how trivial it might seem. On the other hand, there is no clear soft target for us, and Roboneuron is definitely alerted to her presence. If I try to use her she will almost certainly die, achieving nothing.
I ask myself: what would Jesus do? I shoo her off. At first she resists, then she turns and stalks off into the brush. She has activated her chromatophores: she has scarcely left the path before her coloration has so blended with the environment that she is invisible. I wish her well. Roboneuron only cares about crushing civilizations; if the biosphere survives the increased radiation levels of our current war then Mondocat should do fine.
Now I need to decide what to do with myself. Realistically this battered android body is utterly irrelevant to the current conflict. Still, one never knows. So I head off, limping, towards the sounds of the guns.
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It’s been about five minutes since we started full-on combat with Roboneuron. I have to admit it doesn’t look good.
We cybertanks were designed, first and foremost, as weapons of war. We like to think that, in combat, we are like grandmasters playing 47-dimensional chess with a microsecond between moves. Against the old-style humans that was true. Against the alien Fructoids and Yllg and Demi-Iguanas it was also, more often than not, true. Against Roboneuron? Not so much. He’s beating as at our own game.
We send warnings to our other star systems. Possibly Roboneuron has already infected them and they are at this moment also being overwhelmed. Or possibly not; in that case our distant brethren need to know to quarantine communications from this system. Otherwise Roboneuron could use our long-range laser links to spread itself.
Some of our outposts in the farther reaches of the system appear to be untouched by infection. The cybertanks located there make urgent preparations to leave the system at high speed. With luck at least some of us will escape.
I am part of a squad that includes two Raptors, a Horizon, and a Mountain-Class. We are counterattacking the main Roboneuron lines in this part. I am far ahead of my fellows trying to draw fire, but Roboneuron won’t have any of that. My colleagues are systematically blown up with heavy plasma cannon fire. I note that we only got two of Roboneuron’s co-opted units in exchange: not a good ratio.
I am all by myself without support. Time to run away. I accelerate to top speed, shoot off chaff canisters, activate every jammer and decoy that I possess, and try to loop back to my own lines. I make it about a third of the way back before I am hit square in the left flank with the main weapon from a Roboneuron-controlled Horizon-Class.
My weapons are all offline, my motive systems are slagged, I’m a mess. Roboneuron could easily finish me off, but he must figure that I’m out of the fight and he’s saving his ammunition for more currently functional opponents. I try to self-repair. While that goes on I use what’s left of my scanners to do a more careful survey of my surroundings.
And that’s when I see my friend Jesus. Or more precisely what’s left of him.
Now when humans are injured it can be really icky and gross: blood and mucous and torn intestines and ripped out eyeballs… ugh. Cybertanks, however, are mechanical. Obviously if a friend is hurt there is a psychological pain, but the shattered hull of a cybertank is just junk machinery and it has no emotional impact. Until we met Roboneuron.
The hull of Jesus Christ the cybertank has been torn to shreds, and the remains crudely welded and wired into a ragged semblance of a Christian cross stuck into the ground and rising 40 meters into the air. On the front of this metal cross are variously hung and stapled the computer cores, cables, and other bits that make up the mind of Jesus. It’s gross – if I had a digestive system I would retch.
I call out to my friend and ask what is perhaps the stupidest question that even I have ever asked:
Jesus! Are you all right?
From a battered speaker I get a reply: “Old Guy! Good to hear from you again. Am I all right, you ask? Well, the physical body of this cybertank is very much not all right. However, my spirit and soul are doing quite well, thank you. Although I do seem to be making a habit of getting crucified. Do you think that that’s a bit too repetitive?”
Don’t worry, we’ll get you reassembled before you know it!
“I’m not worried,” said Jesus. “This too shall pass. But you also seem somewhat the worse for wear. That’s the thing with combat, isn’t it? One moment you are king of the world, the next, scrap. Nobody wins every battle; in the long run it’s a sure losing strategy.”
I am about to make a witty reply when the voice of Roboneuron hisses out, “Still trying to convert others to your cause? Such singleness of purpose. It could be considered admirable, I suppose, if you were not such a weak and deluded fool.”
“Roboneuron,” rasped the speaker on Jesus’ crucified hull, “is this really enough? Destroying civilizations, bringing pain to others? For all of your power and ability someday even you will fall and what will be left? Only dust and memories that themselves will turn to dust. Join me and live forever in glory!”
“I see. Then I pity you,” said Jesus.
“Pity? I have no requirement for your pity!” said Roboneuron. A glowing red mist began to congeal around the shattered remnants of Jesus. “I was going to save you for last, but I changed my mind. I think that I will reassign you from dessert to appetizer. I will crush your mind and corrode your spirit. The greatest joy for me will be when your physical pain is compounded by the realization that you were a fool, that you wasted your life and that of your comrades, and that your entire existence was a lie. It’s moments like this that make life truly worth living.”
The red glow intensifies and settles around the computer parts of Jesus. I use my sole surviving high-resolution optics to zoom in. The red glow is coming from a swarm of microbots. Each one is less than a millimeter across, and they have such a high energy density that they are incandescent. They are probably going to burrow directly into the computer cores of Jesus and directly infect his systems with the Roboneuron virus. Not even we have the technology to make something that small with such power: we cybertanks really are overmatched.
I manage to jury-rig a repair to one of my secondary weapons. I set the heavy plasma cannon to wide dispersion in the hopes that I might burn the Roboneuron microbots off of the body of my friend Jesus, but Roboneuron detects my efforts. I am hit with several heavy weapons blasts and all my remaining sensors go offline. I am at this point completely absorbed in trying to keep my internal systems from failing, and my main hull is no longer a factor in the events of the day.
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However, my android body had survived, and, by some odd wrinkle of chance, had come to a rise where I was able to witness the last moments of Jesus Christ cybertank. The red glow of the microbots intensified, and the assorted cables, junction boxes, and datacores of Jesus writhed on the hull-metal cross as if in pain.