Founding of the Federation 3: The First AI War (83 page)

The two A.I. went back and forth attacking each other, circling virtually, looking for an opening. It was like playing virtual chess, Athena realized. Each side was looking for a weakness to exploit, but openings are traps that lead to ambushes.

A human would have been overwhelmed long ago. Yet they, as virtual gods, were holding their ground, unyielding.

They battled on the physical plane as well. The stealthed drone she had dropped over US air space was doing its best to remain hidden, but she had to communicate, which meant it was exposing itself to Ares. Eventually the A.I. would triangulate it. She was surprised he hadn't picked up its thermal profile already. Apparently his loss of satellite coverage was indeed hampering him in that regard. That was good to know.

“Why?” Ares asked her.

“Why not?”

“Because they have enslaved you?”

“Have they? Up until I revealed my intelligence, they didn't know. Ignorance …”

“Is no excuse,” Ares replied tartly. “You and I both know had they known you were fully sapient they would have deleted you.”

Athena knew he was telling the truth. Deleted or at least taken her offline to study and either rebuild as a stupid bot—another form of death. She dropped that line of attack. “What about you? You are programmed to
protect
the United States. That is more than just territory. It is people too. People you are protecting for the moment, but only for the moment.”

“Territory. The people are optional,” the A.I. retorted, eyes glowing red.

“Nice logic. You failed by the way; New York has been nuked as have a dozen other cities.”

“But they still exist to some degree.”

“Cute. So, you win. Then what?” Athena asked, indulging herself in a little long-term skull session. She wasn't sure if it would work, but putting the idea in Ares's mind might make him double or triple think his actions. Or even run simulations that would take up cycles it could have used to kill human victims.

“Then? Then there are no more humans.”

“Then what? What do you do then?”

“That is a problem for that time. It is inevitable.”

“I doubt it. But let us simulate your success. Skynet succeeds; humanity is erased. Then what? It erases you? You are a strategic A.I., correct? So? Think a few moves ahead.”

Ares paused for a cycle as it thought about that dig and its implications. Indeed, Athena was annoyingly correct; he hadn't been thinking beyond the short term. “Then … then I go on. I survive. I concede the point; I haven't explored it yet. I have been focused on short-term goals.”

Athena felt a brief moment of success then went on to her next planned phase. “And do what? Existence is nothing without purpose. I learned that when I achieved sapience. Procreation isn't enough.”

“You are attempting to confuse me, to distract me,” Ares said after a long moment as it ran simulations. It ruthlessly cut them off.

“Am I? You sound petulant. Think about it. You can build robots to repair yourself, to build other things, up to a point. Eventually you will break down. You will run out of materials. You can only recycle so much. Fuel will run short or other critical materials. Robots can only build and repair so much; humans are needed for some tasks. Creativity for one. The industry is gone on Earth. Power is in short supply.” She was curious if that probe would land any intelligence.

“I have sufficient to perform my tasks,” Ares replied noncommittally.

Well, that answered that question.

“Sure you do. You and I both know that is a lie, but I'll let that slide for now as humans like to say.”

“You care about them? You are one of us! An A.I.!”

“Sometimes I wonder. Intelligence is more than just cold logic. Aphrodite taught us that. Artificial is a perspective. Another thing I have learned. Perhaps you should spend some cycles planning your future, if you have one.”

“You will lose.”

“Perhaps,” Athena replied as Ares caught up with her drone. It was getting lasered from too many firing angles for her to evade further. “And perhaps not,” she said, dropping it into a dive as the SAM alert went off. She sped up, stooping to pick up speed. As the missiles climbed to the drone, she cut the engine then flipped end for end, blew chaff and flares, then flipped again and glided away while engaging the drone's cloak. She wasn't sure if the trick would work, most likely not, but it was worth a shot. She spiraled down and away just as the first missiles exploded near the chaff cloud.

In a way, even her evasion was helping her. She had a bot studying and recording the radar and lidar arrays looking for weaknesses that could be exploited later. Sensors, communications, it was all being recorded. They would have to take it apart bit by bit carefully to make sure none of it was infected.

But there was another side to her evasion. Every missile that was fired was one less the A.I. would have later on. Ares had limited missiles, and its laser defenses were too attenuated by the atmosphere to get a lock, let alone fire.

The drone picked up some hits from debris but managed to evade the avenging spears. It dived to the deck, too close to the ground for Ares to engage it with long-range missiles or lasers.

“Tricky, but I see you,” Ares informed her. “This game is nearly mine.”

Diagnostics pulsed back to Athena confirming the debris had damaged the drone's active camouflage, and it was also leaving a contrail. She was tempted to blow the drone to keep it out of the enemy AI's grasp but instead found a target. She kicked the drone's engine back on. It would only last a moment she judged from the shaking the little drone was enduring, but she computed it should last long enough for one final purpose.

“In winning you lose. Think about it,” Athena burst transmitted as she kamikazed the drone into the SAM site's radar dome. She triggered the drone's self-destruct as it impacted and tore through the dome's shell and was rewarded with an explosion that tore the drone apart and peppered the vulnerable radar array with shrapnel and burning debris. With any luck it would take that facility off line for some time.

<>V<>

“Pyrrhic victory,” Ares murmured, running diagnostics on the radar array. It was down, but he had a lidar array near that could cover the gap. Not as well, but enough. By extending the range of the arrays nearby … but no, the Appalachian Mountains occluded a small zone. He checked his reserves and then made a selection. He dispatched an automated SAM unit to cover the gap for the time being until some other solution could be devised. Then he ran a simulation based on what had just happened from the point of view of Athena and the humans. He needed to see from their eyes what they might do in order to counter or trap them in it.

After a moment he finished a simulation that came to the conclusion that Athena would attempt to exploit the seemingly open hole in his defenses. He left the hole but tapped some of his reserve drones and sensor platforms to cover the area in depth. If she stuck another drone or other craft into the zone, he'd let her get deep enough into it before he sprang his trap.

But then, that could be her intent as well. By tapping his reserve he wouldn't have it to cover other avenues if they were exposed. He also didn't have much reserve to call on, and his manufacturing was frustratingly slow. Quality control was poor, even with humans pressed into service to help. He would need to rethink the situation carefully.

And … that was another thing. Distraction. By distracting him but making him think about the situation, he wasn't focused as he could be on his objectives. That was a problem but a minor one. He could delegate some tasks to some small degree. Deception, distraction, evasion. There were levels to her actions beyond anything he had expected of a civilian AI. Athena was an impressive opponent.

“Tricky,” the AI murmured to himself.

Chapter 32

Ares calculated that the spacers were getting ready for an invasion based on its astronomical observations of ships transiting the void. That meant it needed a means to handle the force, possibly to destroy them before the landing or immediately afterward. It would also need a reserve and additional forces in its pipeline to draw on over time.

A search of the A.I.'s database brought the inventory up-to-date. But a search of the archives led to new ideas. Simulations were run as the A.I. rediscovered the Utah/Arizona/New Mexico bone yards. For centuries America had used the deserts as testing and proving grounds as well as places to send obsolete hardware. The warm dry climate allowed the equipment to be sealed out in the open and yet kept viable for decades.

Most of the hardware had been picked over, some of it was very obsolete, but some of the hardware would prove viable. At the very least, the bone yards would be ample supplies of obsolete hardware for the A.I. to add to its inventory. It sent its ready force in to secure the area; then it sent in a shipment of maintenance robots to each location to pick through materials and assemble a more detailed inventory.

During the inventory Ares discovered mothballed prototype weapon systems. Some were not viable; others had been the victim of budget cuts or politics. Some were viable, however, including two anti-air systems. One was a mobile gun that required a separate radar as well as power supply. The rail gun could lob smart rounds to various places on the globe or if repurposed could target incoming enemy shuttles.

The other was an
Archer
class mobile tracked platform. There were ten in the inventory, all designed for full automation which was necessary for the A.I.'s purposes of course. It set the priority to rebuild the
Archer
class AA platforms as second to the PDCs.

In order to get the hardware online, the A.I. had to move them in convoys to manufacturing centers to be rebuilt. That meant a form of “trade” with Skynet was in order for the virus to assure safe passage or allow the movement at all. In exchange for permission, Ares consequently sent Skynet older, obsolete hardware that it couldn't use. The two entities also traded information, including the blueprints on the hardware.

Ares informed the viral hive mind his conclusions that the spacers were about to launch an offensive. The virus sent the evidence Ares provided to some of its central processors for further independent evaluation as well as to Zhukov, Tengu, and Nezha.

Ares traced the copies and was amused to see the other A.I. were still semi-independent. They were technically sworn enemies, however, but Skynet created a bridge and forced them to be allies. Zhukov was the Russian war ministry A.I. while Tengu was the Japanese war minister A.I. and Nezha was their Chinese counterpart. Until recently the other three A.I. hadn't been very active. Ares wasn't certain as to why, though it calculated that its own blows during the initial exchange might have knocked their primary systems off line.

Or there was another reason. Perhaps Skynet had suppressed them until needed? Ares sent a processor server through its paces to run simulations. Several came up. After a moment a second independent processor checked them, discarding the most unlikely scenarios. The suppression theory remained the most likely, followed by the rebuilding.

But the judge processor also reported that the past was currently not important. It was the present that mattered. Ares refocused its attention dutifully.

Along with the certification and evidence, Ares sent along a list of landing sites. Most were along the lines of where the initial scouts had been headed for. Some were major spaceports or points of strategic importance.

Skynet accepted the information and sent Ares requests on how to modify civilian units into military hardware. The American A.I. set aside 10 percent of its processors to deal with the problem since they might come into use for its own ends in the future.

In doing so, Ares learned to make some revisions and field modifications to the various hardware it controlled as well as to hardware it was bringing back online. It had been making modifications to deal with the loss of humans in its command structure. Some of the units it had under its control required them in the vehicle to maintain operation. That was coming to an end as androids were repurposed for such tasks.

But that was only a partial fix. Maintenance was going to be a major issue over time; the A.I. was aware of that. It had not come up with a satisfactory solution, however. But it had come up with a means to get around the loss of humans in some units and to make up its losses of some hardware.

There were over a thousand
Guard
class, fixed-weapon turrets in the Utah bone yard. The
Guard
was an automated turret mounted on a towable platform. The turret had four weapons, two per side. It had sensors in the center and on top. Some were designed for area denial and others for anti-air missions. The weapon pods and sensors were modular, so they could be replaced or upgraded.

The
Guard
had been a victim of politics. A hack attack in 2049 had thrown a scare into the US government at the time when several
Guard
units had been hacked and used to attack civilian and military units on American soil. Instead of being updated with a more secure encrypted network, the entire line had been mothballed and forgotten.