by Scott Baron
“Definitely need those.”
“Oh, yes. Their planet is incredibly far off, and we wouldn’t want to jump the commandeered ships into a sun, after all.”
Joshua sounded almost giddy with the plan.
“Now, let’s see what we can do to get those comms reconnected.”
Sturdy cyborgs from Sergeant Franklin’s squad partnered up with Cal’s human team members as they trekked deep into the heavily shielded communications systems tunnels that once tied Joshua in to the rest of the global network. It would be slow, tedious work, but they had detailed instructions on how to begin repairing the long-silent connections.
Once in place, the teams quickly set to work, splicing damaged wires and replacing others that were beyond repair, moving all the while at a steady clip. They did slow a bit when the time came to install Daisy’s kill switches and additional firewall, but they even got those tied in as fast and as best they could while restoring the physically severed cables.
Tamara––having far more of a knack for the technical aspects of the task than Cal’s neophyte humans––was gearing up to lead a small group to deal with the far more problematic, and far more complex, data hubs linking Joshua to the entire base and outside military facilities.
Unlike the regular tunnels, making repairs in those fortified areas was going to take more than the mere ability to follow written instructions. Fortunately, Tamara had long ago proven herself more than up to the job.
As the teams worked through their tasks, Joshua, for all his superior intellect and occasional aloofness, appeared to be almost giddy at the progress being made. Daisy thought he even seemed almost viscerally excited to be able to speak with all of the world’s AIs once more.
Maybe all those centuries without contact made him realize how much he missed them, even if their minds do pale in comparison, Daisy mused.
“Must’ve been insanely lonely. Though he did have your buddy George and the other cyborgs to keep him company.”
True, but my guess is his level of AI rarely has anyone even remotely near an equal to talk to.
“The remaining repairs will take at least a day. Possibly two. Our piecemeal teams are doing admirable work, but it was an entire work detail’s job to maintain them before they were severed after the attack,” Joshua informed them.
“So, without those people to sever the lines, were they slower to be cut when the plague hit?”
“No, actually. My cybernetic soldiers, though they may have had their flesh compromised by the initial plague, were otherwise functional and able to sever the hardlines manually. Unfortunately, destroying things is far easier than creating them. Repairing those systems will be far more time-consuming than dismantling them.”
“Then we’d better get on it,” Daisy said.
“We will, yes, but you really do need to get back to Los Angeles and rendezvous with your Chithiid insider. If he is unable to help your assault on San Francisco’s development facility, the mission will fail, plain and simple. Sid has informed me that they are attempting to ready any flight-worthy vessels to assist in the attack via remote guidance as quickly as they are able. Apparently, your navigator, Gustavo, and his technician friend are making rapid headway.”
“Chu’s got a knack for that kind of stuff, yeah,” she replied. “But I know you could really use my skills here to reconnect your systems. It’s my specialty. I can get more done in a day than five of these untrained––”
“We simply do not have the time, Daisy. I will have Sergeant Franklin take you by vehicle to the transit loop. The Chithiid know better than to interfere with the goings-on in this area, though they still probe my defenses from time to time.”
“That probably doesn’t go very well for them.”
Joshua chuckled.
“No. It certainly does not. Once you are underground, Sergeant Franklin will escort you all the way back to Los Angeles and remain by your side to ensure your safety until you return.”
“My own personal bodyguard?”
“You are too important to risk losing, Daisy. Plus, you have both already shown a good working relationship. Now please gather your equipment. I will have the sergeant join you shortly.”
Daisy hustled off to gather her gear, grabbing the encrypted comms device as she did. Joshua may have been able to easily replicate the technology to his own machinery, but he was a super-powerful military AI with an entire base at his disposal. A regular civilian city full of malls and office buildings simply didn’t have the resources. More comms devices would need to be built, eventually.
“Hey, Tamara,” Daisy called out to her comrade. “Joshua wants me to––”
“I already heard,” Tamara replied as she shouldered a large bag of tools. “Get moving––we’ll be fine here.”
Jonathan came in and saw her hefting the bag. “That’s heavy,. Let me take it for you,” the cyborg offered.
Tamara smiled.
“Thanks. You know, I could get used to this.” She turned back to Daisy. “Now get out of here, already. Time's a-wasting.”
The women locked eyes a moment longer and shared a little nod, then Tamara set off at a quick jog down the long tunnel. “Come on, Johnny boy, we’ve got a lot of work to do!”
“You and Tamara, best buddies? Who would have thought?” Sarah joked.
“Maybe not quite best friends, but I think we’ve reached an understanding.”
“Daisy, your vehicle is ready,” Sergeant Franklin said as he entered the room, clad in his mended Faraday suit. “Ready to leave as soon as you’re packed.”
“I’m all good, George,” she replied.
“Okay, then. Off we go.”
Ten minutes later the people mover had deposited them near the mouth of the tunnel, where a small fleet of vehicles, armored and unarmored, stood at the ready. Like everything inside the vast mountain, they were immaculate.
I guess when you have hundreds of years worth of time to kill and nothing to do, you clean, Daisy mused.
“Hold tight,” the cyborg said. “It’s going to be a bit of a bumpy ride.” The massive base door slid open as he powered on the vehicle’s energy cell and stepped on the accelerator.
The piles of downed cyborgs from their recent attack lay strewn across the tarmac, but the large-wheeled vehicle made quick work lurching over them to the far-smoother road leading to town.
Bumpy, indeed. She smiled grimly as their wheels rolled over the metal corpses she and her friends had dropped across that particular killing field.
Chapter Eleven
The peripheral terminus was already fully powered up and waiting for them when they arrived.
“I guess Joshua decided to make sure we had a smooth departure, eh?” Daisy joked.
“Well, all the systems in the region can run through his command linkage, if he wants them to. I believe he took this one over pretty much as soon as you all showed up. Sound decision, from a tactical standpoint.”
“I can see that,” she said as they clambered aboard the subterranean monorail. “But wait a second. You said he can control all the systems in the region. I thought all of his external lines were severed.”
The monorail shuddered a moment, then lurched into motion, speeding toward Denver, safely underground and away from prying alien eyes.
“Communications lines, yes,” Sergeant Franklin continued. “But Joshua’s facilities also include a trio of hardened linkage hubs that tie in to key infrastructure in the area, as well as providing him with direct access to all military facilities across the globe.”
“What about the virus? Isn’t that a risk? The vulnerability seems rather like a ‘Death Star exhaust port’ kind of design flaw.”
“The military facilities he linked to are all non-AI, so it would be nearly impossible for him to be compromised via that route. Unfortunately, when all the human operators died, he was left with a one-way connection to scores of silent facilities.”
“Wow.”
“Yea
h. Must’ve sucked something fierce,” Franklin said. “When the virus first hit, we severed the other two links. Those are the ones Tamara and her crew are trying to restore. Only the one closest to the transit network stayed operational. Though we did also pack it full of explosives. Just in case.”
“Just in case you needed to cut a feed?”
“That, and just in case the alien bastards somehow found the hub,” the cybernetic soldier replied. “You see, those hubs are located near the surface, due to the nature of all of the long-distance connections that had to be made. They originally designed it to be able to grow to accommodate new facility tie-ins, you see.”
Daisy realized where he was going.
“So, despite being safe beneath a solid granite mountain, Joshua is still vulnerable via those hubs,” she said.
“Yes, technically, but not really,” Franklin replied. “They’re protected by camouflaged blast doors, and only a few of the highest-level military bases are even aware of their existence. Add to that an incredibly robust firewall should there somehow be a breach, and he’d see any compromise and cut off the hub long before it was an issue. But since all of his core systems are still linked through it, additional precautions were made, just the same.”
“And now he is helping us get back to Denver because of that linkage. Fortune smiles upon us, George.”
“Don’t tempt Murphy, Daisy. You know better than that,” the cyborg said with a laugh.
A little over an hour later, they arrived in Denver, stopping beneath the same warehouse where Daisy and her team had originally come across the regional monorail system that carried them to Colorado Springs.
“Okay, George, listen up. There were some big-ass bears up there last time we came through.”
The cyborg rolled his shoulders like a boxer readying for a prize fight.
“I’m a robustly reinforced combat unit. I think I can handle a teddy bear, Daisy.”
“I said big.”
He saw the look in her eye and grew a bit more serious.
“Um, exactly how big are we talking, here?”
“You know grizzlies?”
“Yeah, but they’re not so––”
“Bigger.”
“Oh. But really, how much large––”
“You know kodiaks?”
“Ooh, they’re pretty big, I’ll admit. But still, I think I can––”
“Bigger.”
Sergeant Franklin’s shoulders sagged almost imperceptibly.
“Shit,” he finally said. He perked up a second later as he charged his weapon. “Okay, then. Pulse rifles it is.”
Daisy, having been through the area once before, took point, carefully easing the warehouse door open.
Silence greeted her, but no sign of the bears that had pursued her team.
Something else greeted her. A stench she was growing all too familiar with.
“Something died out there, Daisy,” George said from behind.
“Yeah, I kind of noticed that, what with the fucking stench and all,” she snarked back at him.
“Jeez, sorry. I just figured most of you humans don’t have as finely tuned odor-sensing apparatus as we do.”
“Believe me, George, a person would have to be the nasal equivalent of blind to miss this one.”
Weapons ready, the pair slowly stepped out into the street. A fight had taken place, that much was clear, but it didn’t appear as though there had been any pulse weapon fire.
“No scorch marks,” Sarah noted. “You remember that racket when we barely made it out of here heading the other way?”
Yeah, of course.
“You think the bears got territorial and killed each other?”
It doesn’t seem that likely, but I don’t see any signs of Chithiid or Ra’az weaponry, and we sure as shit didn’t engage them.
Daisy rounded the building’s corner and saw what had become of the furry beast. Beasts, plural, she soon realized.
Five massive bears lay slaughtered on the ground behind the building, all in varied states of dismemberment. Even the battle-seasoned cyborg was taken aback by the scene.
“What on Earth could have done that?” he marveled, moving between the massive corpses, studying their fatal injuries.
“I don’t know,” Daisy replied. “But whatever it was, it took out five enormous apex predators like it was nothing. Look at the impact marks. It threw them around like a dog shaking a squeaky toy.”
“I see, “ Franklin said. “But look at the other injuries. Clean slices, and not from teeth, it looks like. See the edges? Smooth, not rough and torn. Whatever did this, it must’ve been deadly fierce.”
“I’m not liking this, Daze.”
Me, either. I think it’s time we were on our way, she silently replied. Like, yesterday.
“Okay, George. Whaddya say we get the hell out of here before whatever did this comes back and finds us standing in its larder?”
The cyborg was already moving.
“One step ahead of you, Daisy. One thing we learn early on in the military. Know when to fight, and know when to run.”
“You got your running shoes laced up, then?” she asked, jokingly.
“Damn straight. Move as fast as you’re comfortable. I’m on your six.”
“Copy that,” she replied, immediately moving out from the area as fast as was safely reasonable.
A few hours later, exhausted from the non-stop stress of constantly looking over her shoulder, wondering if every shadow or twig rustling might be her only warning of a pending attack, Daisy and Franklin finally made it to the access hatch to the damaged loop tube network.
It was only once they were safely in the tunnel, well below the surface, that she felt the hairs on the back of her neck finally relax.
“This way, George,” she said. “The pods are a couple of miles down the tube.”
“The damage doesn’t seem as bad as I thought it would be,” he noted as they walked. Ten minutes later, stepping over fallen debris, he changed his tune. “No longer passable, but impressive engineering nevertheless, you have to admit.”
“I suppose. Didn’t know you were an engineering buff. I guess being a cyborg, it makes sense you’d be into that sort of thing,” Daisy said.
“Actually, I was studying to be an architect after completing my service,” he replied. “It was several years out, of course. I mean, I couldn’t really imagine doing anything but what I’d always done, but Joshua was always so supportive. He used to say, ‘Think outside the box, George. Just because you’re metal, doesn’t make you any less of a man. Be what you want to be. Not what people tell you to be.’ You could say his words really made an impression on me.”
“He is a rather unique AI,” Daisy agreed. “And who knows? Maybe you’ll become an architect yet. You might even design some new wings in NORAD for him.”
“We shall see,” he replied. “For now, let’s just get to LA. I’ll worry about the rest later.”
They trekked onward, and not long after, the ruined nose of the lead loop tube pod came into view in the distance. Even from afar, it was clear it wouldn’t be moving ever again. The attached rear pod, however, Daisy hoped had survived intact.
“Help me with this release,” she said, stepping through the ruined lead pod to the sealed passage into the rear one. “If we can get them separated, and if the front one took the brunt of the damage, we may just be able to catch ourselves a ride back to LA.”
“Beats walking,” the tin man agreed as he put his shoulder to the task. “Nearly eleven hundred miles. Not a forced march I really want to make, even with a fresh power cell.”
The pod shuddered as the connections broke free with a hiss, then slid backward, intact, so far as she could see. A quick survey showed she wasn’t exactly one-hundred percent accurate in that first impression, but the pod would hold pressure, though it would not travel anywhere near its normal supersonic speeds.
Daisy keyed in her comms device to the tunnel
’s hardline while they powered it up.
“Cal, are you reading me?”
“Yes, Daisy. I see you’re using the hardline now. Your deadman switches are working perfectly, by the way. We already had one infected node tied in via Dallas attempt to bypass the system, but the signal was caught and neutralized, exactly as you designed.”
“Great. So I assume Joshua has been in touch to update you, then?”
“Yes, that initial direct connection is still sound. He gave me a heads-up, and I’ve begun priming the tube for your return.”
“Excellent. Glad you two are collaborating so easily.”
“Yes, it is refreshing. But I was thinking, Daisy. We really should have a team install a deadman on that connection as well. While both he and I are uncompromised and connected with that dedicated direct line, it would still be prudent nonetheless.”
“Yeah, I see your point. Better safe than sorry,” Daisy agreed. “I’ll get a team on it once we’re in LA. We should be back soon.”
“It should only be the slightest of further delays. There was a Chithiid crew working up above along the route, but they have been focusing far enough from the loop tubes that they should not be an issue. I’ll clear the line and pressurize now. See you soon, Daisy.”
She unplugged from the hardline and took a seat in the pod. Within no time it would be ready, and in just a few hours, give or take, she would be back in LA.
Minutes later, the loop pod lurched as it began the return trip to the west.
“So far, so good,” she said as the vessel picked up speed.
“It’s impressive what you’ve done, you know,” her metal escort said. “I mean, to come from a more or less civilian role as a ship’s technician, to this… what I mean to say is, I have great respect for you, ma’am.”
“Oh, God, don’t call me that. I’m not forty.”
“More like a hundred and forty,”