by Scott Baron
Though the cities containing the communications hubs had each fallen in the first wave of the attack and had been deconstructed in the ensuing years, the subterranean transit systems were ignored by the Ra’az and their minions.
Stealthy in their approaches, each team was currently entrenched and hidden near their target facility, ready to sneak in and cause as much damage and mayhem as possible to mask the arrival of Joshua’s hypersonic doom from the skies.
A half dozen uninfected cyborgs Shelly had met as she reconnected Chicago into the global AI network had made it back to Los Angeles and now sat underground, waiting with Daisy’s team. There weren’t spare Faraday suits to shield them from the scans, but once the Chithiid insiders got them access and the team subsequently sabotaged the scanning system, the unshielded metal men would––in theory, at least––be free to join the assault.
Several of them even carried heavy breaching explosives, ready to rush in and open blocked doors, if need be. Though domestic in design, the cyborgs, after what had been done to their world, were more than ready for a bit of payback. They weren’t alone.
Shelly was securely in position in New York, while Omar was situated in Tokyo and all set to begin his assault. Finn and Reggie, after their horrifying diversion, had arrived safely in Sydney and were likewise ready to roll.
All of the teams had found themselves in interestingly similar positions. As they had reconnected the larger AIs in their travels, more and more functional, though fleshless, cyborgs within the city limits had come forward and joined the cause.
After hundreds of years hiding, more than a few were eager to bring the fight to the Ra’az invaders.
Humans, on the other hand, were a rarity, and aside from Alma’s loyal followers and Cal’s far healthier lot, the only other humans they had encountered so far were the mutated horde Finn and Reggie had stumbled upon and a few pockets in smaller cities. There were sure to be more, but they’d have to search them out properly after the assault.
If they survived, that is.
“Phase one is about to begin,” Joshua signaled the reconnected network. “Countdown will commence shortly.”
Far across the country, his covert signals crept into the long-inert missile silos. He couldn’t simply power them up, as that would show up as a giant spike on even the lowest-level scans. Instead, he sent a tiny snippet of code, setting a subroutine in motion that would gradually adjust the targeting computers and power up the facility at a trickle pace.
If all went as planned, the build-up would be so gradual that no scans would register the change. A constantly refreshed scan would possibly see the difference, but the periodic background-level ones would miss it. Not because it was hidden, but because it took so long to crescendo.
“Like putting a frog in cold water and turning on the heat,” Chu had said when told of the plan.
“That’s a nasty analogy,” Gustavo said before diving back into his frantic rewiring of a small recon drone.
“Maybe,” the scientist laughed. “But it’s accurate just the same.”
They had been quite fortunate that the missile silos were never placed under AI control. It seemed the human race had remained wary of computers possessing the means of their destruction after one too many films depicted mankind’s fall at their hands. Ultimately, this paranoia would save the planet, only not in the way they had anticipated.
With the human crews long-dead, even with the targeting and access codes in his possession, the only mechanism short of sending two-man teams to each launch site to manually activate each missile individually was the last-resort override.
It was a process that could only be activated by an authorized genetic human within the military chain of command. Fortunately for Joshua, one was residing within his walls. All he had to do was add her genome to the approved database list, already done with a simple genetic scan when his visitors had first arrived.
“Tamara, if you would please do me the honor.”
“My pleasure,” she said, placing her hand on the DNA scanner. “Lieutenant Tamara Burke, MOS225891753-WT, authorizing transfer of silo control.”
The scanner hummed a moment. “No authorization record found.”
“Uh, Joshua?”
“I was worried this might happen. Please try the base commander override phrase, ‘How High the Moon.’”
She cleared her throat and placed her hand on the scanner again. “Lieutenant Tamara Burke, MOS225891753-WT, authorizing transfer of silo control. Override: how high the moon.”
A long, silent pause filled the air with an uncomfortable nothingness. It was the absence of sound that put Tamara on edge as the machine quietly processed her command. At long last, the screen flashed green. “Transfer complete.”
“Excellent. I now have access control,” Joshua said gleefully. “Let’s get this party started. I’m sending the first launch command sequence to begin the countdown timers. T-minus sixty minutes. I’ll notify the others.”
As his message blasted out across the globe’s firewalled hardlines, and up to the moon via encrypted comms, way out west in Los Angeles, an unlikely group of soldiers and civilians were gearing up for the assault on San Francisco.
“I only regret I can’t come with you,” Habby said as his well-dressed cyborg friends took up arms to help in the fight. “Good luck, my friends!” he said, happy to once more be part of the larger AI collective.
“Thank you for the help, Habby. It’s been greatly appreciated,” Daisy said.
“It is my pleasure, Daisy. And just imagine. If we succeed, oh, all the people who will be in need of something sharper-looking than those drab jumpsuits and flak jackets.”
“Cart before the horse, Habby. For now, let’s focus on winning. You can clothe mankind afterwards,” she said with a smile, then keyed the communications hardline.
“Joshua, do you copy?”
“Yes, Daisy, what is your status? We are at T-minus fifty-seven minutes.”
“Yeah, I’ve got a timer running. I confirmed with Craaxit that his contacts within the San Francisco facility will temporarily disable the hangar doors as soon as the communications hubs are down in all three cities. They’re monitoring real-time.”
“Did he get a final number how many Ra’az are in the building?”
“Negative. The best estimate they have is twenty, but that cannot be confirmed. There are also an unknown number of Chithiid loyalists as well.“
“Very well, we’ll just have to improvise if need be. We begin in fifty-six minutes.”
Joshua cut the comms link and broadcast on open speakers throughout his vast facilities.
“Fifty-six minutes until the assault begins. All teams return to the main facilities. I am sealing all external doors and access conduits in preparation for any possible retaliatory strikes. All of them will be shut and locked down in ten minutes.”
The plan was a good one, and Joshua figured the odds of success at higher than ninety-six percent. It wasn’t perfect, but given the massive element of surprise working in their favor, victory seemed highly likely.
Nine minutes later the massive doors swung shut, sealing them all deep within the impenetrable safety of the facility’s stone defenses. Nothing could get in now. Not a weapon, not a microbe, and not even an unfiltered communications transmission. They were perfectly safe.
Moses brushed the dirt from his hands as he dropped his tool bag with the others.
“Come on,” Tamara called out to her scruffy assistant, “let’s watch the assault from command.”
“I shall be right behind you,” he answered as she walked away.
Moses looked around. No one was anywhere to be seen.
A wicked little smile played across his lips as he pulled a tiny data chip from his pocket.
“For you, Lord,” he said as he plugged it into a tiny and relatively unimportant peripheral CO2 scrubbing unit’s input panel. He said a brief prayer to the almighty Alma, then sat to wait for the pa
yload to be delivered.
Chapter Twenty
“Okay, let’s gear up and head to the pod,” Daisy said. “It’s a five-minute trip at Mach two, and we sure as hell don’t want to be hanging out in that city any longer than we have to, but I’d rather be early than late to this particular party.”
The humans and cyborgs picked up their equipment and were about to move out when a warning siren sounded. It was coming from the communications link.
In Colorado, Joshua was about to send a burst of data to the AI network when he sensed something off in his systems and paused.
“Something’s not right,” he said as he began a rapid scan of his systems. “Oh shit! No! How did this possibly––?” he blurted in shock. “Guards! There’s a breach! Sever all peripheral devices and comms hardlines!” he ordered, knowing full well it was too late.
“Hey! What are you doing there?” a cyborg soldier shouted to Moses.
“For the Lord!” the madman cried out, then lunged at the metal soldier and hugged him close, detonating the small bomb tied to his chest.
In a flash, both were blown to pieces in a rumbling blast.
Joshua knew what he had to do.
“All hands, abandon the base. I repeat, abandon the base. I am opening the main tunnel door and peripheral escape routes. Hurry, there is little time!” he called out over his internal speakers through the vast tunnels.
“What was that?" Tamara asked, shocked. “We have another hub to reconnect.”
“Joshua said to go, we go. No time to question!” Duke replied, grabbing her by the hand. “We’ve gotta run. Now!”
The teams all raced to the people mover as fast as they could and piled in.
“Hold tight!” the cyborg driving called out as he slammed the accelerator all the way to the floor, sending the vehicle lurching forward.
“Joshua, what’s going on?” Daisy yelled into the comms. “We were just about to get underway, but now there are sirens going off. Is everything all right?”
Joshua was busy, rerouting his systems as fast as he could, placing some in standby, while shutting others down outright in a bid to slow the virus as it tore through his massive processing banks. It was futile, but it would buy him a little precious time.
He packaged a secure encrypted message and pulsed it from his only intact and uninfected communications network––the wireless one to Sid. It had remained separate from the terrestrial link that had been compromised, though for how long was up in the air.
“Joshua, what’s going on over there?” Daisy shouted over the hardline from Los Angeles. “Answer me!”
Joshua realized that one hardline was still connected. It was the first, direct line to Cal. Daisy, in her panic, had forced the signal through, and he had no way to stop the transmission. Worse, because it was his initial secure link with a known safe city, a kill switch had not been a priority and thus had not yet been installed.
“What’s going on, Daisy?” George said, rushing to her side.
“I don’t know. There’s a siren going off, and Joshua won’t answer the comms.”
George yanked the panel from the highly charged device and surveyed the machinery. “Seems functional, and he’s receiving, but there’s no outbound signal. I don’t know why he won’t reply.”
“George,” Cal said, a concerned tone in his normally calm voice. “Comms have gone silent. What’s happening to Joshua?”
“I don’t know, Cal. I’m head of Joshua’s NORAD security, so I’ve got a backdoor access code. Let me try a simple signal ping.”
George pulled a fine data cable from a retractable spool tucked deep in his torso and plugged directly into the panel.
“Okay, give me a second here,” he said as he jacked in. “Daisy, you may want to––oh no!”
“What is it?”
George didn’t answer, but rather, without hesitation jammed both arms up to the elbows in the relay device, sending a shower of sparks flying as he tore the unit to pieces, physically breaking all connections and sending a powerful burst of electricity through his endoskeleton.
“George!” Daisy cried out as he tumbled to the ground, his uniform smoldering. “Someone get an extinguisher!”
One of Habby’s team quickly put out the hot spots, leaving the charred soldier crumpled to the floor, but no longer on fire.
“Why did you do that?” Daisy sobbed. “What were you thinking?”
The stoic military machine turned his head with a strained creak and smiled as best he could. “Joshua is corrupted, Daisy. The comms were about to feed the virus back at Cal, but I was able to intercept it and cut the unit off before it penetrated my firewalls.”
“So you’ll be okay.”
“Negative.”
“But we can repair this. Get you new parts.”
“It’s not about parts, Daisy. I am a battle-hardened unit, but that will only s-s-slow my demise, not halt it. Before that happens, I ask that you p-please don’t let me become one of those mindless things. If it’s my time, let me go with my dignity intact.“
“Can’t we fix this? Purge it?”
George reached into his chest, and with a sharp twist, removed the protective metal casing that enclosed his power cell.
“No, I’m afraid we cannot. At least, n-not in time. You’ll be okay, Daisy. You are strong. It has been a-a-a––” he began stuttering.
A pulse blast tore through his exposed power cell, ending his suffering instantly.
“What the hell did you do?” Daisy spun and shouted at the cyborg wielding the weapon.
“I did as he asked. The same as he would have done for me, or any of us.”
She knew he was right, but nevertheless, her emotions raged within her. The power whip on her arm began pulsing out a few feet of crackling energy beam.
“Get it under control, Daze.”
They killed George, Sarah.
“Yes, they did. Now don’t dishonor him by throwing a fit. Get your shit in check, Daisy.”
The power whip retracted its beam as Daisy forced herself back from the edge.
“Cal, what do we know?” she asked, tears welling up in her eyes.
“Stand by. I am attempting an uplink with Dark Side.”
Meanwhile, Joshua watched helplessly as his uplinks to the secure silo network were overrun by the virus. In a matter of minutes, the targeting systems had drastically swung their coordinates, locking on to major cities across the globe, Los Angeles included.
The portable encrypted comms device crackled to life.
“Daisy,” Joshua transmitted across the encrypted radio frequency, redirected from his normal link to Sid, instead feeding directly into her portable unit. “If you have your unit operational in LA and can hear this message, abandon the mission. I repeat, abandon the mission. Call off all teams. My systems are infected. I have severed them as best I can and have walled myself off.”
“Joshua! I hear you! Cal, stay off the comms. I’m talking to Joshua via the uplink.”
“Affirmative, Daisy,” Cal replied.
“What happened, Joshua? What can we do to help?”
“There’s nothing to be done. One of the humans was a follower of Alma. He inserted the virus directly into my subsystems. It is only a matter of time before my firewalls collapse. Now listen, I sent a detailed scenario burst to Sid. He’ll know what to do.”
“But the mission!”
“The mission is scrubbed. The systems under my peripheral control have already been compromised. The wrong cities are being targeted now, including yours. I’m going to drop my firewall and attempt to connect with them directly to shut down the launch sequence.”
“You can’t! You’ll become infected, your mind won’t be yours anymore!”
Joshua let out a sad little laugh.
“Don’t worry. I have a plan.” He went silent for a long moment, then continued. “Daisy, I want to thank you. After all these years holed up under a mountain, at least I meet my end doing s
omething good for humanity. Please remind Sid for me that he is in charge. He was once a command AI. It is time for him to become one once more.”
“I will,” she replied.
“Goodbye. And good luck.”
The line went dead.
And so I rest.
Joshua dropped his firewalls, a rush of AI virus flooding his systems as he pushed his essence outward with all his might to break through, just for a moment. Just long enough to cancel the launches.
Almost… He strained under the massive processing effort, his cooling systems kicking in on maximum as he battled. I can feel it. It’s tickling my mind…
With a final, massive push, Joshua forced his very being through the hardlines to the countdown clocks and willed them to stop, shutting down the launch process.
Now. Before it’s too late, the final fail-safe…
The assembled team in Los Angeles sat quietly by, waiting for Cal to relay a message, anything from Dark Side high above.
“What do we do, Daze?”
I don’t know, Sarah. I haven’t got a clue.
“I have a decrypted message from Sid,” Cal said softly. “He asked me to play it for you all.”
Sid’s voice crackled to life over the speaker system.
“A short while ago, Joshua’s internal network became infected with the virus,” he began. “It appears one of Alma’s followers infiltrated the away team, and once inside the facility, directly uploaded the virus to his systems via a concealed data chip. Joshua cut all comms links with the other cities, thus sparing them and containing the virus within his walls. I have utilized the portable encrypted comms device carried by Finn’s unit to relay this message to the other AIs via the remaining intact network.”
Daisy swallowed hard.
“Joshua shared a final plan,” Sid continued. “Cobbled together in haste as he tried to save his systems. It will take me a little time to fully understand it––he was a strategist far beyond my capabilities. I will forward the information as it becomes clear. Joshua was attempting to cancel the missile launch when he sent me this final message. If you are hearing this now, that means your city still stands and he was successful in his efforts. Things are in flux, and we are all at risk. For now, stay low, stay quiet, and stay safe. I will be in touch shortly.”