Withdrawing from the droid to the gig, he withdrew from the gig itself as well, and unplugged from the coms array on Phoenix2. He made his way to the bridge, where he found the others waiting for him.
"Success?" asked Intrepid.
"Ka-Plaa," answered Stryker, causing the others to laugh. "Cosmos is in a long orbit now. As far as I can tell, there is nothing solid on that orbit, but we might need to check a few times to be sure. Are we ready to go?"
"All set here," said Serenity through bridge coms.
"You can release the ship to me now. As Meg Henman, can you ask traffic control for clearance to Nippon please?"
"Already done. Station control is waiting for you to ask for the docking clamps to be released."
"Thanks."
Stryker sat in the captain's chair, left there for him, and plugged himself into the data port. He felt Serenity let go of control of the ship, and cloned himself over. He took a full minute to check everything.
"Good job guys."
Minutes later, they were backing away from the station.
Thirty
Fred turned away from the bed. Jane hadn't so much as twitched in the hours since she'd been brought to her bedroom. He found her lack of movement unsettling.
He'd checked the Hunter database, and there hadn't been a case of PC hacking in so long, it wasn’t considered possible anymore. Which made this all the more concerning.
Lyana was waiting for him at the doorway, a pad in her hand. She took him by the arm, and gently pulled him out into the living area, where he found Grandma Vi, and several of his relatives sitting. Admiral Repulse was also still here, staring out a window, which at the moment gave an incredible view of the planet below. The rest of the team were there as well. The living area was big enough they were not all crammed in.
"Grandma?" asked Fred. "I'm surprised to see you here."
"Why shouldn’t I be? I love Jane as much as I love all my family."
"But there's nothing you can do."
"There's nothing you can do either. And yet you're here too."
"Someone has to be. I'm next in line after Michael."
"Which is why you shouldn’t be here," said Lyana.
"What?"
"Fred dear," said Grandma, "You are now the public face of the Kingdom. You need to be anywhere but here."
"I've got it covered. The Dukes aren't here. The council is in recess. If Ganshura needs to call it back, Sarah can cover for me."
"Why do you feel you need to be here?" asked Lyana.
"Why are any of you here?"
"Quite," said Grandma. "We hope Jane will come back to us. But in case she doesn’t, we're actually here for you."
"Me?"
Lyana handed him the pad.
"What's this?"
"Read," she commanded.
He looked down at the pad, and read.
"One last thing," he said. "AI online".
"AI is online. What is my designation?" A pleasant sounding female voice came from the general direction of the console.
"Your name is Jane," I said.
"What is this?" asked Fred, looking up.
"It’s a book in the Hunter library dear," said Lyana. "It’s the first book in a series called the Hunter Legacy, written more than six hundred years ago. It was considered prophecy until several years ago, when the events of the series actually happened."
She took the pad back, tapped it a few times, and handed it back to him.
"Now read this."
Jane stood at a window on the Gaia Three Orbital, and gazed out into space.
Something had changed.
Everything had changed.
Nothing had changed.
For the first time she felt confusion. For the first time she felt alone.
Jon was gone.
She felt this to the core of her being.
He had never existed.
No-one remembered him but her. No-one remembered the Alpha team, the Hunter fleet, the Explorer ships, or the Darkness war. There had never been a prophecy.
She retained all of 'her' memories up until the Door had closed the day before. Her primary had made sure she'd received a full memory dump, which included everything which had happened in the year she'd been isolated here in Gaia.
None of it happened.
She knew the Door no longer existed. Had never existed. In spite of a gigantic station called Borgcubia, hundreds of normal sized stations, and thousands of ships; all carrying billions of people towards the three inhabited Gaia planets.
Fred looked up sharply.
"What the hell is this?" he demanded.
Lyana scrolled the page down, and pointed. He looked down again.
Something shifted. And for the first time ever, Jane passed out.
When she came to, she found herself lying naked on the floor.
Her suit belt was a belt.
She looked at the skin she now had. She felt human. But she knew she wasn’t. Was it the same gift her primary had received on Earth? Would receive on Earth? In fifty one year's time?
She ran a diagnostic on herself. Yes, she still had an android body, but it was identical to the one her primary had received. Would receive.
"What the fuck!"
"There's no need to swear dear," said Grandma.
"Is this a joke?"
"No," said Lyana. "These are real books. The first one survived down the ages. The last one was digitized from the only hardcopy to survive. I found the hard books in the team families' library shortly after the memory wipe. The first ten books survived in the Hunter database, but the last three only existed in print. I had them uploaded, so the whole series of events which happened over two years was again complete."
"Fred dear," said Grandma, "Jane is an AI."
"You're serious?"
Fred looked from Lyana to Grandma and back, then cast a glance around the room. They all nodded.
"How many people know this?" he demanded.
"Not many," said Lyana. "The team does. The Alpha team which came before us, our elders if you like, left us easily found documents, which pointed to the prophecy. I don’t think they expected the memory wipe to happen, but they made sure we had a full account of the events leading to the memory wipe. The last letter I had from my aunt made sure we'd be there to protect you."
"How did you find out Grandma?"
"I didn’t. I knew the moment I met her."
"How?"
"Little things. Things only someone my age will notice. They're not important now. I just knew she was different. It wasn’t until I met Lyana, I found out how."
"And it made no difference to you?"
"No. My grandson trusted her with his life. He left her behind to make sure we were safe. And she's a much better person than a lot I've known, and still know. I've come to love her as a granddaughter. The same love I have for you."
"But she's not human?"
His voice screeched a bit, and he winced.
"Does that really matter dear?"
He thought about it.
"Yes, it does."
"Why?" asked Lyana
Fred opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He closed it again. A thought popped in, and he frowned.
"Is she the only one?"
"No," said Repulse, finally turning from the window. "There are others."
"How many?"
He was looking at Lyana.
"I've no idea. We'd need to ask one to find out."
He looked at his grandma, and she shook her head. He received the same from everyone else in the room, and his eyes finally came to rest on Repulse.
"Are you sure you want to know?" she said.
"Is there any reason I shouldn’t?"
"Jane didn’t want it known. There is a level of fear in the general human communities about AI's. If you go back far enough in the media and entertainment archives, you'll find thousands of hours of vids and hollos of AI's doing the wrong things, and oppressing humans.
Even exterminating them. You will also know this extends into many of the alien species on the sector ten council. Jane didn’t want fear of AI's to interfere with the rebuilding of human planets, and space."
She stopped, but no-one said anything.
"So much fell on her shoulders immediately after the memory wipe. Can you imagine what would have happened if it'd become known she was an AI? She would have been cut out of decision making completely. It would have ended in civil war."
"Things are not as bad now," said Fred. "When was she going to come clean?"
"There were no plans at all, as far as I'm aware. Jane wanted enough time to go by, so if it did come out, there was little impact because she was so well known, and had a track record people couldn’t misinterpret."
"She has that now."
"Perhaps, but it is still her decision to make."
Fred's eyes narrowed.
"Back up. Humans? You said humans, didn’t you? Does that make you not human, like her?"
Repulse sighed. A chuckle came from his grandma. His head jerked to look at her.
"You better show him Admiral," she said.
Fred's head jerked back around to look at Repulse. His jaw fell open as she shifted back to a belt, revealing what looked like a medical anatomical dummy. She took several steps towards him, causing him to rear back slightly, and shifted back into her normal form.
A glance around the room showed him everyone was as surprised as he was, even his grandma.
"I take it none of you have seen that before?"
There was a series of no's and head shakes. And something fell into place for him.
"Oh. Now I get it. All the space naval officers with the same name as their ships. You're all AI's?"
"Yes," said Repulse. "It was necessary to fight the Darkness War. After the memory wipe, we found we were the only ones to retain memory of what happened. There are others as well. And a number of new ones have been created since the memory wipe."
"How many in total?" asked Serena.
"Less than a hundred."
"You don’t know for sure?" asked Fred. "Or you don’t want to say?"
"I see no point in saying. It would only motivate you to identify us."
"Is that a bad thing?" asked Jack.
"Do you really think the galaxy is ready to know so many of us exist?"
"Fred dear?"
"Yes Grandma?"
"How do you feel about all this?"
"Shocked."
"Exactly. How do you think this will play out across the sector and beyond, if you announce it?"
"Are you thinking of announcing it?" asked Lyana.
"I have to. Everyone in the Kingdom needs to know their Queen is not human." He paused. "Does anyone already know?"
Heads turned to Repulse.
"Ganshura guessed very soon after meeting actual humans. The Mice on HRA2 knew she wasn’t biological before they even met her, but agreed to keep her secret. There may have been a few others guess, but if so, I haven't heard about it."
"Ganshura knows?"
"Yes."
"He agreed to keep the secret?"
"You should ask him."
"I will. We'll need to decide if now is the time to announce what you all are. Or not."
"You think you get to decide this?"
Fred looked Repulse in the eyes.
"Yes, I do."
Thirty One
"Fred dear?"
Fred turned to his grandma, not looking happy.
"You're missing the main point."
"Huh?"
"Jane doesn't have a PC. She's more like a super duper PC."
Fred shook his head, as did half his team.
"Think it through," said Lyana, who grinned as expressions crossed his face, making her think she could see the wheels going around in his head.
Finally, Fred seemed to work it out.
"So it's not about PC hacking at all?"
"Now he's getting it," laughed Lyana.
"So what is it about?"
"Now we come to the real issue here," said Repulse.
She outlined the situation with Cosmos. Fred rose as she started, and began pacing back and forth. When Repulse finished, he stopped pacing and faced her.
"So you’re telling me somewhere out there beyond the Japs is a force we know nothing about, which neutralized the biggest and most dangerous ship we have, and our gallant leader went headlong into the breach without telling anyone, and total lost it?"
His voice reached a shout with the last words.
"Get a grip dear," said Grandma Vi.
"Are you kidding me?" he yelled. "The biggest disaster to hit the Kingdom since its inception, and you want me to get a grip?"
Lyana seized him by the shoulders, pivoted him around, and pushed him back into his seat. He went down hard.
"FRED!" she yelled at him. "We need you."
Fred put his face in his hands for a minute, slowly took them down, and looked up.
"Fine. Is there anything else I need to come to grips with?"
There wasn’t. Fred thought about things a little longer, the others letting him do so in silence.
Decision made, he pinged Ganshura's tablet he needed to address the council the following morning. The response came back while they were eating. Repulse hadn't waited, so it was relatives and team who continued the vigil for Jane that night.
Needing some sleep for the following morning, Fred went off to bed around ten, but instead of sleeping, Lyana kept him up for several more hours.
Lyana dropped off to sleep straight away, but Fred lay there, his mind refusing to shut off. He nuzzled into Lyana's body, enjoying her warmth. He'd noticed it the first time they'd slept together, and loved the fact her body was slightly warmer than his was.
He frowned. Why was that important? There was something there, something just out of reach. Something about AI's.
The thought took shape in his mind as a question. As late as it was, he pinged Ganshura.
"I just found out what Jane is. What was it about Jane which made you guess she was an AI?"
The answer came back a few minutes later.
"No variation in body temperature. All the AI's I met to begin with had the same body temperature. But the first ship full of humans all had different body temperatures. That and I never saw any of them eat. And then everyone but them ate."
The penny dropped in his mind.
"FUCK!" he said aloud.
Lyana jolted out of her sleep, and sat up, the sheet sliding off her body, leaving her leaning over him topless.
"What dear?"
"Justine was an AI! Did you know?"
"No. I guessed though. How did you figure it out?"
He told her, and she wrapped her arms around him, breasts pushed against his chest.
"For me," she whispered in his ear, "it was her last message. Any other being would never have been able to get that last message to you. She was gone in a spit second, without any chance at all to compose and send even a couple of words. But an AI could do it. It would take nanoseconds."
Fred was crying.
"It doesn’t matter," she continued. "She loved you, and it doesn’t matter what she was."
"She lied to me."
"No, she didn’t."
"Lie of omission."
"Fred."
"What?"
"How long did you pursue her before she finally gave in?"
"A fair while."
"You never thought there was a reason why she played so hard to get?"
"No. Why should I have?"
"There is usually a reason why someone doesn’t engage when the attraction is obvious. You could have asked her."
"I kept asking her."
"No you dolt. You could have asked her why she kept saying no. You didn't, did you?"
"No."
"So you never asked, and she never lied. And in the end, you both had something you both needed, and even being an AI, she died unexp
ectedly. It proves they can die. And even though they don’t have biological bodies, they do still have a lot in common with us."
"Sort of."
"You love Jane don’t you?"
"I thought I did."
"You did. You still do. We all do. She's family. She's our Queen. She's our friend. She's your cousin."
"By adoption."
"Who cares? Why do you think we all love her?"
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. She took him by the jaw, and made him look her in the eyes.
"We love her because of who she is," said Lyana. "Not what she is. What she's done for sure, but more about how and why she did it. Her motivations are pure. She cares about others. How many people can you honestly say that about?"
"Not many. The team. Grandma. You."
She kissed him. It took them several minutes before they started sucking in air again.
"Does it really matter what she is?"
"I guess not. But it doesn’t change anything. I still need to tell the council."
"Why?"
"Because they have to know we face a threat far worse than the owls or the Brotherhood. Anything which can take Jane and our biggest ship out of play effortlessly, is a much bigger threat to the sector than anything it's faced before."
He looked steadily at Lyana.
"Jane was always larger than life. Now I understand why. She literally was the best of us all, and something took her out as if she was nothing. We can't ignore this. The council has to understand this. And to understand, they have to know what Jane was."
"Is."
"We can only hope."
Lyana pushed him back onto his pillow, and snuggled in.
This time, they both slept.
Thirty Two
"Fred is going to reveal our existence tomorrow," said Holmes. "He figured out Justine was an AI, although he didn’t make the connection it was actually Jane. Lyana talked him down from his shock, but he's determined to out us at the council meeting."
A.I. Destiny 6 Leader Jane Page 10