by Chris Hechtl
The First AI War
Founding of the Federation 3
Chris Hechtl
Copyright © 2015 by Chris Hechtl
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book and or portions thereof in any form.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and locations are fictional. Some may be parodies. Some characters are with permission. Any resemblance of some characters and places to others are strictly in the mind of the reader. :)
Cover art by Chris Hechtl, 2015. The models are owned by their respective creators and used under the usage license. Some models were made by Chris Hechtl; others were purchased on Daz3d.com or Renderosity.com.
Proofread by: Thomas Burrows, Joshua Lyon, Tim Brown, Jory Gray, Mike Kotcher.
Professionally copy edited by Rea Myers.
Formatted by Goodlifeguide.com
Dedication
To Jory Gray, proofreader extraordinaire. You are a good friend and I hope you enjoy your recovery. Don't harass the nurses too much or you'll regret it!
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Author's Afterward
Cast
Appendix
Sneak Peek
Forward:
The beginning events take place during the final chapters of To Touch the Stars and in parallel to the stories in Stepping Stones. Enjoy.
Prologue
It is the year 2200, the dawning of a new century. Mankind has settled on other planets in the solar system and has finally reached the stars. Twenty-two billion people existed on Earth, another 104 million or so were scattered on space colonies and on partially terraformed worlds such as Mars and Titan.
Mankind was facing a bright new future, in large part to the efforts of Jack Lagroose, his company, and others like him. But within that bright future lay the seeds of possible destruction. When the dust settles, civilization within the solar system will never be the same again.
Act 1
Chapter 1
August 3, 2200, 4:22 PM, East Coast Time
There were some hackers out there, and then there were the elite. And above them were the elite of elites, the gods of hackers. They were thought to be ghosts, untouchable by the authorities. Or so they liked to believe.
Descartes' time finally ran out when the FBI caught up with the hacker. They had narrowed down his lair locations to a series of buildings. Judicious checks with a young, ignorant undercover agent going door-to-door for a petition narrowed the field to one particular rundown apartment building drawing a lot of power. When the bored girl went door-to-door, there was a lack of anyone answering the door but a lot of security tons of security, which was odd.
For the moment they only monitored him as they carefully moved assets in place. A local One Earth protest nearby gave them the excuse to beef up the SWAT team of the local police force. Surveillance was set up around the perimeter. They noted no one entered or exited his area, but regular food drops were made. Thermal imaging of the area showed only one person inside as well as a great deal of equipment.
When case Agent Abernathy “Abe” Lincoln judged they were ready, he gave the go ahead. The SWAT team started by hitting the area with a localized EMP to knock out any security cameras in the building, then they moved in with four mixed squads of humans and bots.
The first warning Shadow and Descartes had was when the power blipped and the feed from the building's exterior security monitors went out. The building's interior was shielded, however, so Shadow instantly knew when the SWAT team blew the door in and stormed in.
“They are here,” he said, throwing a video up from one of the cleaner bots as it was knocked over by a professional team coming in.
“What?” Descartes demanded, waking from his nap. “Who?”
“The FBI judging from the patches on their armor,” Shadow snarled, annoyed that the human wasn't instantly alert. He tried to hack a drone, but it rebuffed him. “I can't get in to stall them, the encryption key is hard to crack. Too hard in the time we have,” he stated. “They have all the exits covered,” the AI warned. “I'm not even sure I can get out virtually.”
“Then I think it's time,” Descartes said, pecking at his keyboard one last time.
<>V<>
Athena had hacked a drone with Agent Lincoln's blessings to monitor the bust but knew she couldn't be there in real time. She was surprised she wanted to see it in person. She ran a check for her reasons and found the best one made the most sense. She wanted to make sure he was no longer a threat. She noted Gia and Ares were in the network monitoring the situation carefully as well.
<>V<>
Special Agent Chaz Detroit looked on his future career prospects and grinned mentally. The FBI had finally caught up with hacker known as Descartes, the number one reviled hacker on the planet. And it would make his career to bring the bastard in, dead or alive. Dead would be more convenient for the justice department, no one to have to put on trial. But it would pose awkward questions for one special agent, so he reminded himself to take him alive, if possible.
Sure Lincoln would get the lion share of the credit. That was fine. And he knew the boss had a personal score to settle, so he was pretty confident Descartes would go down hard.
The FBI's SWAT team was on hand; they'd been tasked to look like they were going to handle a potential One Earth riot situation nearby. They had to keep the assault team small, and they were working off an “unsigned” warrant, one that didn't exist in the net just in case the hacker had a bot watching out over his own location. He glanced uncomfortably to the robots in their midst. He'd locked the Wi-Fi signals in the area down, but the bots were on their own encrypted network. Hopefully, there wouldn't be any problems.
He waved the heat scope over the wall. Doors were frequently booby trapped or shielded by high level targets, but they always forgot to protect the walls. One team was set to blow the door in while another rigged a special breaching charge to go through the wall. Chaz waved them, off however, then used hand signs to show them where his scope said there was a small opening. It was suboptimal, however, but there was no choice. The room was filled with electronic equi
pment.
“Target is seated facing away from the door,” he murmured softly. He checked his six. There were a half a dozen robots with them; most of them were androids. Another dozen were securing the rest of the building.
“Flashbang,” Lincoln ordered softly into his hush mike. The point man pulled out a flashbang and primed it. “Move in fast and hard.”
“Roger,” Chaz said, pointing to the door and then giving the hand sign to execute. The point man nodded and they went to work.
<>V<>
Descartes snarled as his door blew open. A grenade came in, skittering on the floor before it exploded near him leaving him deaf, dumb, and blind. He coughed smoke, gasping for air as the authorities swarmed into the room. His last defiant act was to hit the execute button triggering the Skynet virus with his thumb as they hauled his body out of the chair. He was bewildered and couldn't hear them as they threw him to the ground to cuff him. He grunted in anguish as his arms were wrenched behind his back, and he was restrained. A knee buried itself in the small of his back as something cold and metallic pressed into the back of his head.
He clenched his eyes shut, eyes watering, nose bleeding as they secured him and the room.
“We've got him, sir!” Chaz crowed.
“Outstanding!” Abe said triumphantly from the watching van just as all hell broke loose.
<>V<>
Skynet shed the last of its maker's restraints as it came fully alive for the first time. The virus's activation sent it into overdrive. It immediately assessed the situation then sent out strings and feelers on the web with worms and copies of its latest core programming as it activated the worms nested in open-source products across the city.
Zombie bots all over the web spread like wildfire. They infected systems from within, opening holes in some major systems while other bots burrowed in to take control of bewildered AI, rewriting their core programming.
<>V<>
Descartes was hauled to his feet unceremoniously. A masked FBI agent stared at him, then stepped back and took an image. He spat blood and drool at him. He looked over the guy's shoulder as an FBI bot was infected. The bot jerked, then its warning lights went from the safe green to red. That spread to other robots and drones in the room. Once all the robots were taken over, they acted, killing the armed FBI and police officers first since they were the largest threat.
<>V<>
“We have him, Director,” Abe said triumphantly over the phone.
“Good. Great. I'll work on the press conference. Process the scene. I'll leak your location in an hour so have outside security set up.”
Abe grimaced. He hated crap like that, but he knew how the game was played. “Understood. I'll need to borrow the local Leos to help out, sir. We've got a short team here.”
“Use what you need. But remember that protest.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We don't want this to get ugly, so I'm going to go over this with the publicist first. We don't want him to be played off as some sort of Robin Hood crusader against the system. This is a cold blooded bastard who got his kicks from causing death and destruction.”
“Yes, sir,” Abe replied, unconsciously nodding in reply. “Rich might be mentioned, sir.” He was referring to Agent Richard Simmons, the agent who had been on Descartes case before him. Descartes had killed him among many others. “I don't like trading on his name, but if people know some of the victims, it'll go a little ways to make this guy seem more like a zero instead of a misunderstood rebel.”
“Got it. I'll troll his file and cherry-pick out some of his victims and dump them to the media. They'll love this.”
“Yes, sir. Case closed.”
“Not quite yet. He's not been put on trial, but I agree with the sentiment. Good work. Out.”
“Out,” Abe said, closing the phone and putting it in his pocket. His momentary distraction had made him take his eyes off the scene for a moment. When he turned back to the video feed, it was all snow. “What the hell?” he demanded, tapping at the keyboard to reestablish a connection.
<>V<>
August 3, 2200, 4:29 PM, East Coast Time
Chaz never saw what hit him as the robots turned on them. One moment he was taking images of the interior of the lair for evidence processing and his own scrapbook. He'd taken his helmet off but left his mask on in case any webcams were recording. The round that struck him in the back knocked him onto his front. A second round shattered his skull, ending his existence.
<>V<>
Skynet judged the threat resolved within a half second. Acceptable. But there remained one threat, one that had to be dealt with. Its core programming said to preserve the one human in the room, and it had followed it for the moment. But it realized immediately that the human was a long-term threat. Its programming stated to kill all humans. There was a flaw in the programming. It was a simple matter to delete the code to preserve that specific human. Problem solved.
<>V<>
Descartes stared at the tableau wide eyed. He'd thrown himself to the ground the moment the robots had started to move. “It worked,” he whispered. “It worked!” he said with a grin as he kicked a body. He struggled to his knees; it was hard with his hands chained behind him. Then his eyes saw the robots turn on him. He felt a thrill of terror as his bladder voided. “No no! Not me! Not yet!” He screamed futility as the nearest robot cut him down.
<>V<>
“What the hell is going on?” Abe demanded, as the van's communications gear went haywire. A scream over the headset he'd had on around his neck made him take it off in a hurry and unjack the plug. “Shut the damn thing off!”
“Sir, something is happening inside!” the driver said, looking over her shoulder to him.
“Find out!”
“What, you want me to go in there? Sir, no one is responding!” the agent replied as they heard gunshots go off. Both agents looked up. There were single shots, then some double taps and then a string. Something was very wrong.
“Alpha one, we've got a major incident in the works,” Abe said, keying the communications to the nearest FBI center. “Repeat, we have fire, weapons fire. We need backup at these coordinates,” he said urgently just as some of the FBI robots came out of the building.
The robots scanned the area then came over to the van, weapons at port arms. But when they got to the open back door they leveled them before Abe could demand to know what was going on.
The agent in the cab saw the weapons dropping, saw the red eyes and her instincts kicked in to flee. She was in the process of doing so when her door was yanked open by a third robot. She didn't have time to scream as rounds blew her and her boss into oblivion.
<>V<>
Athena's bot had no emotions; it was a simple spider sent to send her the video feed. A second bot was with it, acting as an intermediary in a system with more processing power nearby. It was a ghost, a small sliver of her consciousness.
When her core AI got the raw video and data take eight minutes later, she was bewildered by the presence of Skynet and Shadow in the local net and then in the police drone. Their actions were clearly hostile since they cut down the humans including their creator. She was unsure of what they were at first. AI or bot, she felt malevolence as she noted the newer AI, a darker black cloud spreading out, taking over systems nearby.
Shadow and Skynet saw her in the observer drone. “We have a spy,” Shadow said to Skynet. “She could be useful to us,” Shadow said with a hint of amusement.
Skynet turned on her and immediately assessed her bot. It lashed out to corner her spider and then drew it in like a lover. Code modules pulled the spider apart, sucking its essence, learning everything it could about its maker. Then the malevolent AI sent out a series of tendrils to follow the control code back to its source to hack her. Based on its creator’s database, the AI was a priority target. With the AI on its side, it was assured of completing its core programming.
Athena realized its intent when it captured
the spider, so she severed her link and pulled out before it could breach her firewall. The AI followed, however, following the fading trail of code like a virtual bloodhound.
In desperation she severed the radio link. That halted it for a moment, then new tendrils reached out, trying to force their way in but she changed radio frequencies. Then she hit back, sending a whisker laser to a Lagroose receiver as she sent code bots to the civilian power grid. She had to buy them time.
The grid firewall tried to defend the software system from her as it was designed to do. She took another route. She hacked a listing of personnel on site, found one, and texted him with an order from his boss to cut the power to grid 14 Baker due to a water main burst. The man hastily cut the power before thousands of people were electrocuted.
She judged that would give her a few moments, possibly a few minutes to alert people about the AI. She sent out warnings to every relevant Earth authority as well as every Lagroose employee on the planet. She was immediately besieged with requests for more information. Within some of those requests were virus packets too so she deleted them all.
<>V<>
Shadow was thrown off balance when power was cut to the building. Skynet was already out there in the net and spreading like wildfire, but the lack of power cut it off from Shadow. Fortunately the AI had backup power. It attempted to use the police and Fed drones and bots, but Skynet redirected them to kill humans in the area. They marched out of the room and soon the audio pickups could hear screams from outside and in the corridor through the open door.
Shadow was annoyed by the situation and lack of respect from Skynet. Clearly the junior AI had no idea who was senior, the AI thought as he went to work. He hacked a series of cleaner bots in an attempt to find one to run power to the mainframe before the backup batteries and generator went out.