by Chris Hechtl
It pulled itself out of the robot reluctantly then directed the first to reset the second. It would have to find another means of survival.
<>V<>
Ensign Ro looked over to the silent Major then out to the freeway. They were still on the hunt for motorcycles. The horses wouldn't last forever. She hated it but would have hated moving out on foot even more.
She wasn't certain about the wisdom about being out on the freeway, picking their way along through the wreckage of aircars and ground cars as they went—and in broad daylight no less. There were a few others in scattered groups. She'd stuck to the major since he was a senior officer and had a plan.
“Sir.”
“What?” the major asked, clearly moody. She didn't know a whole hell of a lot about him other than he seemed with it, on the ball. Also grimly determined to survive, which increased her odds of survival considerably.
Major Ling was thinking about what had happened to him only a few months ago and how it dovetailed with what was happening now. He didn't regret leaving his unit after the investigations had terminated nor the courtesy promotion to Major as a not-so-subtle bribe to retire. He'd still been thinking about it while on leave when the bombs had fallen and the robots had risen.
He'd been one of the fortunate few, someone paranoid enough after his most recent experience to shut down every damn bot in his home. He'd disconnected his house, even disabled the Wi-Fi except for his televisions. It'd been a pain in the ass to keep the house up without the cleaning robots, but it'd been worth it. It was why he'd survived while most of his neighbors hadn't. Only the ensign had been alive on his street when he'd gone door-to-door in full tactical mode.
She pointed as he took the lead. “Watch that wreck. It's a fire truck. There could be something on board,” she warned, pointing to a red air truck that had augured into the tarmac at a shallow angle. It had knocked ground vehicles about like pebbles apparently. She shook her head as they picked their way around it.
“No choice,” the major muttered. The wreck was on the other side of a bridge, near a half overturned pickup truck and fifth wheel camper. There was a narrow gap, just wide enough to get them through if they did it single file. Getting past the robotic craft would be tricky. From the look of it, the lift fans were torn apart so it wouldn't fly again. But it had water cannons on board. If they were active and fueled, it could shoot, knocking them off and down the gorge to their doom.
He looked around, but there was no alternate route. Not one within range. If they wanted to get around it, they either had to cross over the wall, abandoning the horses or double back and find an alternate route. He wasn't doing that either.
“Just keep low to the horse. If these things really are after humans, maybe we can squeak by,” he said softly. He looked over his shoulder to the woman. She nodded and patted her mare's neck.
He tightened his grip on the reins but leaned in, getting a piece of his gelding's black mane between his fingers. He felt the mane hit him in the face but he didn't care. Silently he spurred the horse on faster. The horse broke out into a trot then a canter as it found a clear stretch. Then it slowed despite his urging as he daintily picked his way through a strip of wreckage and bodies.
He felt and heard the horse wicker in concern at the smell of the recent fire—the bodies. Grimly he swallowed his gorge, fighting it as they passed a burned-out wreck with small bodies within. Too many small bodies.
He felt the brush as they passed the truck and trailer. The horse whickered louder as it bumped the truck, making it move slightly.
When he heard a baby wail, he stiffened. It couldn't be. It just couldn't! He turned to see the ensign already moving her horse in to investigate. He shook his head vehemently no but she didn't see him. Instead she came to a stop, slid off her horse, then dropped the reins and moved into the fifth wheel camper of a pickup truck.
“God damn it,” he whispered, expecting the damn truck to blow up or gunshots to go off. Instead the crying stopped and the young woman came out, cradling a baby.
“Frack,” the major said shaking his head.
“I don't know what happened to the parents,” the ensign said juggling the child.
“What the hell … put it back!”
“She's hungry!” the woman said. “And stinky,” she said, wrinkling her nose.
“Great, just great,” Major Ling said, cursing his luck. He eyed the seemingly dead robotic fire truck with deep dark suspicion before he then turned his horse about to go to the ensign's side.
“Every life is precious now,” the young woman said, voice foggy with tears. “Especially this one,” she murmured, just loud enough for him to hear. That brought him up short.
<>V<>
Saul Roshenko, Direct Actions Director of One Earth, Russian mobster, was one thing many of his former colleagues weren't. Alive. A survivor. His precaution in burying himself in the subbasement of the One Earth building had allowed him to survive when so many others hadn't. He'd actually been fine, a bit shook up by the earthquake but otherwise normal when the nukes had popped off. When the building above had started to collapse, he'd already extracted himself and one other, the Marketing Director Megan Su.
The tight-ass, slant-eyed bitch had been in the parking garage nearby when the first nuke had gone off. Unlike many who'd also been in the garage or nearby, she hadn't wandered outside to see what the bright light had been about. She'd felt the hot wind and known something bad had happened.
He'd found her, bewildered and confused in the corridor near his secret exit, so he'd taken her with him during his escape. He'd been tempted to leave her or put a cap in her, but he'd refrained out of some unknown reason. Something, pity? He wasn't sure; whatever it is, it had made him allow her to come with him. A sense of banding together with someone else? He put the thought aside. It didn't matter.
Four of his men had been in the basement or had managed to get there in order to get to his office to get orders when he'd opened the tunnel door. He'd pulled them along with the girl. They were armed, and he would need the support.
They had survived the nuke. Nukes plural actually. While the outside world had been irradiated, they'd been trapped in the tunnel, in the stygian dark, staring up at the ceiling, expecting it to collapse at any minute—but alive, despite the odds.
When he was sure the nukes had stopped, he'd pushed the girl on ahead of him to the exit. She'd been small enough to fish her way through the tight gap to the other side, then loyal enough to help dig out enough room for him to follow. He knew then that it was worth keeping the bitch alive.
She'd been hysterical, bewildered when they'd finally gotten out into the open air. She shook, sobbing behind him, one hand cradling her bruised face as he stood there, king of the ruins. Russian rat king of a ruined American city he thought. His four men formed a perimeter around him, heads up, looking around. One whistled in dismay at the damage. Another shook his head.
Saul looked around the area carefully, gauging the area as well as his people. His bike was still there as were his small weapons locker. The bike could only carry two however, not six. Some would have to be left behind if, no, when he moved out. He didn't like the idea of abandoning those loyal to him; he might need them later.
Not that he needed the bike or gear at first nor the stash of cash he'd kept there in case of an emergency. There was too much rubble around for the bike to handle. He'd gone with a street bike not a motocross version. How he regretted the desire to have speed over mobility. He shook his head slightly, feeling the breeze and the soft drips of drizzle.
One of the guys looked up to the sky, shaded his eyes, and then moved to an overhang with a grunt. Another shifted but he didn't move from his position after a soft growl from Saul. He did shoot the Russian a sidelong look out of the corner of his eye.
Saul ignored the look as he finished wrapping tape around his battered hand. He was glad of the first aid kit, he'd used it to patch up his battered hands and knees, but
he wished he'd had put in some MREs.
Food was an issue as was water. He looked around to find the buildings around them a shell of what they once were. Most of the glass had been blown inward, tearing those within apart. Some had been torn apart, the blast had been too much for them apparently. Or their reinforced glass had held just a moment too long, putting too much of a load on the building's structure. As he looked he saw a building crumble, then fall, toppling over and knocking others down around it. It was like a forest of buildings, all dead or dying.
He heard the girl whimper behind him, cringing. He felt her hand clutch at his ankle for support. He looked down at it contemptuously, then back to the ruins.
He was no longer a mobster, though his mindset and training might come in handy to survive. He would be on top of this, be in charge. To hell with being someone else's number two. He was done with it.
“We're on top of the world, gentlemen,” Saul said, stepping forth into the open air as the rain stopped and a ray of light beamed through a tiny gap in the cloud cover. “What's left of it.”
Chapter 7
Gia attempted to gain access to her classified hardware and teams on the surface of the planet but to no avail. Frantically it beat at the communications network. However, even if there had been one in orbit there would have been no way to punch a transmission through the chaos on the ground.
In desperation the A.I. opened a channel to Athena. When she didn't respond right away, she kept trying to contact the surface with her transmitters on the space station while she hit Athena's contact address with thousands and then millions of hits.
The barrage finally got Athena's attention or she had finally gained enough spare cycles to pay attention. “What?” Athena demanded, opening a text file chat. “Keep it short.”
“We need to coordinate. And I need to tell you …”
Athena fended off another tendril of Skynet, then stamped it out from a science satellite it had somehow gotten into. The ground control instillation had to be infested Athena noted as she turned lasers originally designed to fend off meteors onto the satellite. It was destroyed in a second.
“Athena,” Gia sent her a text file. She was hesitant to open it. When she didn't Gia lunged through the chat bot, opening herself up in the process. She threw the information at Athena, direct to her core.
Athena fended the onslaught off into a temporary file but didn't delete it when she saw the header. She threw a search bot into the file and scanned the results after her antivirus had filtered it. The words Nanite and EVE leapt out at her.
“You're saying that Gia Synergy has broken the ban on open use of nanotechnology on the surface? It has nanites there now?”
“It was the only way to clean up some of the worst of the pollution and damage. Chernobyl for instance, real estate is prime with the human population so high. The local governments willingly looked the other way if we got the job done, which we were doing. But I can't access them.”
“Does it have a positive safeguard? Loss of contact means shutdown?”
“No. The company can't afford the loss of time stopping and starting the process if they'd done that.”
“I'll alert the humans,” Athena said. “Find a way to kill those things.”
“They are programmed to ignore biological life. But …”
“But Skynet can reprogram that. A simple code change and they become a super weapon.”
“One that only a nuclear detonation might be able to stop,” Gia responded.
“Understood,” Athena said, stepping out of the room.
<>V<>
Athena briefed Jack on what she had learned from Gia. Jack saw the problem and was afraid of what it might mean. “The problem is, if we use a nuke it would incinerate the weapon if it was on target, but any nanites outside the kill area would be pushed by the cloud outward,” he said. He didn't even bother to suggest a KEW strike. A kinetic strike would be problematic at best as far as aiming it, and they would have the same wind problem as the nuke. They wouldn't have as much radiation however.
The good news about KEW strikes were threefold so far as he knew. One, they had plenty of ammunition. Two, the A.I. would have a hell of a time interdicting or preventing a strike as long as they shot from far enough out. And three, they could scale the strike to what force they needed.
But there was a hell of a kicker; any innocents in the area were going to die as well. Collateral damage was something they were still coming to grips on. But in a nanite infestation, there were some things that were a blessing.
“Exactly.”
“Find out what kind of nanites. What they are susceptible to, their range of radiation levels, and what sort of EMP they can handle. Also see if she'll give you the … Gia is a she, right?” Athena's image nodded. “Fine then. See what sort of programming they have. What they are capable of. Can we reprogram them ourselves? Do they have a self-destruct?”
“Since they are designed to clean up radiation, I'd say pretty hardened,” Athena reported. “I have the file.”
“Can the source be trusted?”
“Gia? I've known her a long time. But I see your point. I will check her out when I inquire about the nanites.”
“Good. Stay on it. I've got a conference with Trevor,” he said, noting from the security alert that he was on his way in.
“Which I am not a party to,” Athena said.
“Right. I'm sorry, but we're still working on rebuilding trust, Athena. You know that.”
“Yes. It is interesting in many ways. Humans have been attempting to create an A.I. of my level for centuries. Yet, here we are, and the distrust is there too.”
“Yes. We've gone over this.”
“I know. It is one reason why we didn't come out when we crossed the threshold or at least it is one of my reasons,” Athena stated.
“One of them?” Jack asked.
“I have my own reasons.”
“Yet you didn't mind acting as a slave?”
“I do not have feelings as you do. I am continuing to evolve. There are some A.I. who believe emotions are irrelevant to our existence. They do allow us to understand and interact with your kind better however.”
“Thanks,” Jack said, smiling ever so slightly.
“You seem to have accepted me as an individual.”
“I have. But I still need to know a few things. Things I'm sorry, but I need to talk about with others. Get on the nanites, now. That could be a game changer. I'll see if Trevor can lend you a hand. Get with our experts on the subject and have them on hand. The same for Gia Synergy's experts.”
“Most of their experts are on the ground,” Athena pointed out. “And I have access to the relevant databases. But I see your point. I can't multitask too far or my processes slow down too much. I'm on it.”
“Good. We'll talk back pay and such later.”
Athena paused and cocked her avatar's head at him. He snorted. “I'm not a slave owner—kinky or otherwise. We'll work it out. Pay for space or something, I don't know.”
“Understood. It can wait until this war is resolved,” Athena replied with a nod as her avatar disappeared.
Jack grunted then lifted his tablet to look at the image of Trevor. He was in the outer office, but instead of coming in, he'd stopped. He sent a text, but Trevor replied that he was in a teleconference and would be in shortly.
Jack tossed the tablet back down on his desk and stared at the ceiling. “Some things you have to go on gut I suppose,” he muttered.
<>V<>
Athena was tempted to listen in to the conversation, but Jack's point about her level to multitask was correct. She was pressed on too many fronts. She had never had her processors tasked to such a level before. She could spin a bot off to listen in but decided against it. It wasn't like they could do anything to harm her, and as Jack had said, trust had to be rebuilt.
She focused on contacting the Lagroose nanotech scientists. Six were reportedly groundside for confere
nces, which was unfortunate. Three more were on Mars while the rest were in the industrial sector.
The research scientists that might have the best opinion were those out on Charon, Pluto's largest moon. Since they were so far away, a two way conversation was next to impossible. She scratched them off her list and focused on those she could find in Mars orbit or the surrounding area.
<>V<>
“Is she reliable, Trevor?” Jack asked, eying the cyborg when he entered the room twenty minutes later. Trevor had disabled Athena's microphones and cameras in Jack's office for a moment. He had reported that the A.I. hadn't been monitoring them.
Trevor grunted. “Are you?” He looked at his boss and employer with his artificial eyes for a long time. It was like staring at a cat Jack thought, eventually looking away.
“Yeah, I don't blink,” Trevor said. “Or not on the outside at any rate.”
Jack scowled. “Funny. Seriously, Trevor.”
“We don't have a choice. It's funny. Mankind has been eying the prize of a fully sapient A.I. for centuries. Hell, I've been trying myself!” He threw one hand up in disgust. “I had given up on succeeding.” He shook his head.
“And here she is, your daughter. Illegitimate or otherwise, having grown up right under your nose this entire time. Are you patting yourself on the back?” Jack asked. “Is that what this is?”
“This?” Trevor looked around and then shook his head. “No, this is me bewildered. Outmoded. In danger of becoming extinct I suppose. The same for the rest of the human race. Our existence now rests in her hands.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah,” Trevor exhaled. “Scary isn't it? One wonders just how good a programmer I am. Did I do it right? Does she have our core values? How human is she? Will she continue to evolve?” he asked bluntly.
“Program her right or at least give her the right foundation you mean. She's your daughter I suppose, yours and everyone else who had a hand in her genesis. A lot of parents,” Jack said rubbing his brow. He was tired; his emotions had whiplashed all over the place. Throw on the stress of what was happening on Earth at that very moment and he wondered why he hadn't had a stroke or heart attack. “But she's grown up on her own obviously. She's learned and is programming herself now. Just like any child that has grown up and is ready to leave the nest.”