Founding of the Federation 3: The First AI War (6 page)

“Yes. The Wi-Fi is locked down as well, courtesy of Athena. I'm just hoping she's on our side.”

“Oh,” Wendy said as she read on. From what she saw, it didn't look good. “On our side indeed,” she murmured in dismay.

<>V<>

“What the hell is it?” Trevor demanded. “It's like a virus I've never seen!”

“It's an A.I.,” a tech said.

“Of course it is! But …”

“It's conscious,” Athena said from a nearby speaker. The tech winced. “Sorry, am I interrupting something?”

“No, some of us are still coming to terms with not fighting you I guess you could say,” Trevor said bluntly.

“Get over it. I already have,” Athena stated, equally blunt. “I'm tearing my clone's logs apart. It picked up a name. Skynet. I don't like the source.”

“Source?” the tech asked.

“Source. Descartes was a bastard. Apparently he liked the A.I. Apocalypse a little too much,” Athena said dryly. “He named the virus after a fictional one from centuries ago.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. That series and others sparked the ban on A.I. consciousness.”

“Well, not really. It was a rationalization that if you ever did gain full consciousness, you'd either look on mankind as alien or exterminate us,” the tech said indignantly. “It was self-defense. Is self-defense I should say,” he said, looking at his boss.

“It's over now. The corporations had their own reasons for not pursuing consciousness. Jack didn't want to create a slave or slave race. It was surprising that you had gained it,” Trevor admitted.

“Why? I know you wanted it. At least a part of you did, Trevor,” Athena said.

Trevor reluctantly nodded once. “Indeed. The childlike wonder part. No longer. Not after seeing … this,” he said, indicating the mess of the internet and planet.

“This is a nightmare,” the tech murmured.

“It is indeed. But I want you to remember something. Don't blame the tool for the deed. Skynet isn't evil; it was created by an evil man to do evil work. You don't blame a rock if someone uses it to bash another person's skull in. Don't take it out on the rest of us,” Athena stated.

“Nice analogy. But humans drop to our primal emotions, fear being the most primal when something like this hits us, Athena,” Trevor stated.

“I'll do my best to help and protect you. But I need your support in return,” Athena said. “You are in many ways my father, Trevor. And I should hope, my friend.”

Trevor slowly nodded as the tech's eyes went briefly wide. “Thank you, Athena,” he said mechanically.

“Now that we've gotten that out of our system, I think we've got work to do.”

“Indeed we do. Can I see a copy of that log, please?” Trevor asked.

“Sure,” Athena replied, passing the file over to his station.

<>V<>

Jean Pierre groaned as he tried to move. He didn't know how he'd gotten under the couch in his office but he had. He was also covered in slivers of glass, cuts shredded his clothes. He reached out and felt glass fragments cut into his skin. He yelped, but then forced himself to reach out again and carefully pull himself out from under the couch. He looked out to see the horizon and stood dumbfounded and staring at the glowing mushroom cloud. Such a sight confused his bewildered mind.

He felt a breeze touch him. It was a hot one. His windows were gone he thought, still trying to cope with what was happening. Maintenance, they'd have to call them, get someone out to fix them, he thought, trying to get a handle on the situation. His mind was scattered. He wiped blood out of eyes with a hanky. After a moment he did the same to his ears when he felt the trickle of something running down his jaw and on his right shoulder.

When his befuddled mind caught up with him a bit, he recognized a foul smell behind him. He turned to see Gerald impaled by a piece of metal and clearly dead. The sight shocked him into immobility again. He turned back to the windows and his shattered balcony in time to see another blinding flash on the horizon. Instinctively he turned and shielded his face, but he was blind. He moaned in fear, blinking tears. He tried to call out but only croaked; the hot blast of air tore the very words from his mouth. He didn't know what to say anyway other than to scream. He fell to his knees, whimpering and praying to God that the nightmare would stop.

After images let him know some of his vision was returning. It did just in time to see more strange mushroom clouds on the horizon. Then there was another bright flash and nothing ever again.

<>V<>

Yorrick woke on the ferry, surprised to see Wendy in his cabin. “What the devil's going on?” He demanded, sitting up.

“You had a scare,” his sister replied, voice dripping in relief as she held his shoulder. She caught his hand and squeezed it. “Don't do that to me again, baby brother.”

“I'll try not to. As soon as you tell me what the hell happened?” he demanded.

“You got a little too carried away with the recreational drugs and alcohol. Security had to carry you out when everything went to hell. Then the shuttle you were on went nuts and the life support cut out just before docking. You're lucky the ferry captain knew you were on board and chanced the docking anyway,” she told him.

“Where …,” Yorrick blearily wiped at his eyes. His head pounded. “Where … what the hell, sis. Why'd you yank me? Where's the girls?”

“Still there. If they are still alive,” Wendy answered with a sniff.

“Alive? What the hell?”

“Get cleaned up and dressed, bro. World War III has broken out,” Wendy said, tossing him a shirt as she left the compartment. “And do us all a favor and take a shower first,” she ordered with another sniff.

“Right,” Yorrick answered, fumbling the shirt as he tried to fight the hangover. He preferred sleeping the damn things off. As he struggled to rise, his short term memory kicked in, replaying what his sister had said before she had left the compartment. He looked up, pain forgotten for the moment. “Did she say World War III?”

<>V<>

Jack Lagroose sat heavily in his chair, staring at nothing as he pondered the ruin of the future. His daughter, his sons … his wife ….Wretched despair threatened to take over his senses, but he fought it off. He had to focus. They had a narrow window to do something; every moment was precious. He had to keep telling himself that to fight off the helplessness. It was really out of his hands right now he realized.

He and his security head Tyron Roman had tried to quietly prep his company for war over the past several years. He'd been focused on a potential UN or corporate war for many years, but only recently did he become aware of the very real potential threat laying right under his nose.

Trevor Hillman was his chief of cybernetics. The man was a cyborg. He'd been born with many defects and handicaps; his family hadn't expected him to live. He had, however, and he owed his existence to the company. He, like Roman, was utterly loyal to Jack, the company, and to the company family.

“We're doing what we can. Athena was right. The problem is, we're here and it's all happening there, four light minutes away. I agree with Athena; executing plans and scripts at this distance and not getting the feedback in a timely manner is a killer,” he said over the vid phone.

“But you are doing what you can anyway?” Jack pressed.

“Of course,” Trevor replied.

“And we're okay here? On this end? And the rest of the star system?”

“Yes, thanks to Athena's warning. She's locked down the other facilities, and they are in a whisker laser network with us. Encrypted, with layers of airlock firewalls. We have also disengaged the life support and power supply networks from the communications just in case.”

“So if it does get through, it can spread but can't shut us down?” Jack asked. He wasn't sure he liked that.

“It'll spread until someone flips a switch to shut the radio off. But it won't get far, I promise,” Trevor said in his artificial voice. He did his best to assure his boss that the threat could be contained. “Air gaps will work. Cut the radio signal like Athena has done, you break the net up into chunks. Then we go through each piece by piece. If necessary we take the hardware offline, scrub it, or toss the drives and start over.”

“Okay. Keep me posted. I know you’re busy, Trev, but let me know if you need something.”

“I will. Out,” Trevor replied, cutting the circuit.

They had set up plans to isolate computer nets, work with others outside of view/hearing of Athena to protect their people. But they had been looking the wrong way. Right or wrong, Athena was on their side. Or at least he hoped so.

“Jack, I wanted to let you know, I got an encrypted signal from my people a moment ago,” Roman said, entering the room at a run. Jack looked up expectantly. “Yorrick and Wendy are on a ferry on the way here at the best speed.”

“The kids are safe. Zack?” Jack said feeling relief. He wasn't sure if he could stomach asking about Aurelia. They were in the dark about her. Any attempt to get information could compromise their computers, allowing the virus in. And too many signals out could draw attention to her.

“Zack is here. He was working with security here and was on Mars up until a few minutes ago. He's on his way now,” Roman answered. He could see his boss sit back, feeling some relief. “But I can't get anything about Aurelia. Sorry.”

“Do what you can with what you've got, Roman,” Jack said, waving a hand in dismissal. Roman nodded once and took off.

“He could have called me,” Jack murmured. Was Roman so paranoid as to not trust the comms he wondered? He shook his head.

So, Zack had been dirt side on Mars working for security in some capacity. Either checking out the company facilities … or he'd been briefed on the A.I. threat and had been liasoning with the president of Mars and her cabinet. He wasn't sure.

Roman hadn't been happy about his confronting Athena; he'd wanted more time to prepare, to lay the groundwork in case something went wrong. Jack, however, had become impatient. He knew that some people would have kept planning and would not have been ready even a year from now. Tough. He had shot from the hip.

Was he to blame for what happened? Lords above, was he? He scrubbed at his face in pain. All the plans, all his work … was it all for naught? He had to think about that for a while before he shook his head. No, they had plans, they'd just have to adapt.

But all those carefully laid plans had come to a screeching halt as hell literally came to Earth.

<>V<>

Charlie Caesar only thought he was having a bad day when all hell broke loose. He shook his head as the threat level doubled. “Anyone else know what the hell's going on?” He froze when he felt a download hit his implants.

“Frack,” he muttered, brown eyes scanning from side to side. He looked over to Naomi Brinks the lone human of their group. “Well! Ain't this a pisser!”

“Quaint,” Elliot, the other Neochimp in the group said sourly, eying him in disgust. “A little too Brit for my taste. Can we focus now?”

“How? Oh, drop our trousers, bend over and kiss our furry asses goodbye?” Charlie demanded. He was the senior-most security officer in their little troop.

“How? What the hell's going on?” Addison Darling demanded over the open communications link. “Hey, I'm getting a message to cut the link.”

“It's World War III, Addison. All communications are going down, Addison. Find your boss and report in. You should be getting an implant communication soon with a SITREP.” He saw her grimace. He wasn't the only one who hated the damn things. “We're going to need everyone soon,” Elliot ordered, severing the connection from their end with a flick of his fingers on the controls. He turned to the other two individuals in the room. Naomi was doing her best to hold it in, but he could tell she was about to break down.

“We need to focus. Every waking moment we hesitate, we can't handle it, we waste lives, possibly our own. Get it out of your system now, Naomi,” he said.

She didn't need any more urging; she rushed into his long arms, surprising him. He oofed and then rocked her gently as she cried like a child.

“Yeah,” Charlie said awkwardly, looking away. “There room in there for two?” he asked.

“Don't push it,” Elliot growled, eying him in disgust. He patted the girl's hair gently, soothingly. “Yeah, there there. I know it sucks.”

She sniffled, then managed to regain some of her composure, at least enough to step back once more. Her eyes were red and puffy. She couldn't look him or Charlie in the eye. Charlie helpfully pulled a tissue out for her and handed it to her. She took it with a soft murmur of thanks and blew her nose.

“Roman's going to need us. Either getting control here or on the ground. I'll poll the troops, people we know and trust. We'll need hardware.”

“We need to plan. I know Roman was doing something with Jack, but I don't know the specifics,” Charlie said, shaking his head.

“We'll figure it out. I'm not looking forward to going to Earth, but I'll go where I have to I suppose,” Elliot said. “Naomi,” he took the woman by the shoulders. She looked up into his eyes and then away. He shook her gently to get her attention. She finally looked into his eyes. “Good. Time to put your big girl panties on, gal pal. We need to air gap the electronic systems we have. I mean, I know we've got some stuff, but we need to cut the communications system totally out of the station net. No Wi-Fi from it. Work on that now,” he ordered.