Strike Matrix

by Aiden L Bailey

  Her breath felt out of control. Her skull seemed to shrink, tightening every sinus cavity until her head raged with pain. Legs flared, feeling as though bolts of burning electricity were firing through every muscle.

  Her stomach cramped.

  Before she knew it, she doubled over, dry reaching.

  She’d been here before, performing the same routine half a world away.

  When she was spent, her throat sore and her eyes watering, she looked up. Major Fitzgerald stood behind her, watching. She felt embarrassed and exposed.

  “Something eventually gets us all.” His words were casual, rank and convention forgotten. “Malaria has got you, Keser. We all see that, clear as day. That’s why the team is worried.”

  “Their worries are unfounded. I’m fine,” she demanded. “Much better than I was even a week ago.”

  “Better, perhaps, but not fine. I’m sure before you got sick, running ten miles flat out on a hundred-degree day would have been no problem.”

  She tried to straighten, but the cramps in her stomach were like sharp stabbing needles. She bent over instead, rested her hands on her knees, willing the pain to go away. Fitzgerald was right. Running that kind of distance before her illness would have held no challenge. She hated that she had lost so much of herself.

  “You don’t think I’m up to this?”

  “Oh, you’re up to this, Keser. You’re driven. I see that. Your problem is you don’t understand your limitations.”

  “And you do, Sir?”

  Fitzgerald undid the buttons on his camouflaged shirt revealing a bare hairy chest, and three star-shaped scars over his right pectoralis major muscle. He pointed to the cluster of ugly scars. “I picked these up in Basra during the Occupation. Iraqi insurgent gunned me down. Just some ugly kid. Left me for dead in the desert. I lay in the dust for eighteen hours, barely conscious, aching with excruciating pain until the Marines finally found me. Lost thirty percent of my right lung.”

  Peri’s cramps subsided long enough for her to stand upright. “And yet you’re still here?”

  “Yeah, I’m still here. But I will never be the same man again. Understand, after your serious illness, you may never be the same either.”

  “I won’t let this beat me.”

  “It’s not about being beaten, Keser. It’s about accepting and working with the challenges life throws at us.” She moved to speak, but he talked over her. “These days I work a desk. I know my boundaries, and so does the CIA. I can’t outrun anyone on my team. I can’t even outrun you! And you, Keser, you’re still sick.”

  She wiped the sweat streaming down her brow. When she found the strength to move her legs, she walked again and Fitzgerald followed. Movement brought relief, it hurt less than standing still. “What are you saying, Major? That I’m arrogant, and egotistical?”

  “No. I’m saying you need to understand your limits. Don’t fight them. Work with them. Trying to be something you are not will just get you, and everyone else, killed.”

  A sudden gust of sand blew in from the west that was irritating to her as hundreds of mosquito bites.

  “I can do this,” she insisted, blinking away the irritation that didn’t seem to affect Fitzgerald in the slightest. “This is personal for me now.” When she realized the Major wasn’t buying her story, she said in a more consolatory tone, “What will it take to convince you I’m right?”

  Fitzgerald just looked at her.

  “Okay, I’ll work within my limits, Sir. I promise. It’s not about me. Protect the man, protect the symbol, protect the office. That’s the Secret Service’s mandate.”

  “I know that. What’s your mandate?”

  “That is my mandate, Sir. Secret Service agents don’t just join up on a whim. They join because they have an unfaltering calling. You know as well as I do that those who don’t live and breathe this mandate don’t last long in the Service. Malaria, for a time, made me forget that.”

  He smiled, then walked from her without saying another word. She stood in the dust watching him. He called back to her. “What are you waiting for Special Agent Keser? Didn’t you say you would brief your team, under an aircraft?”

  Peri smiled, then jogged after him at a leisurely pace. Just slow enough so she wouldn’t be sick again. Just fast enough so it hurt.

  They reached the dozen soldiers and intelligence officers mulling together as a loose circle, next to a squat, ugly gray United States Air Force C-17 Globemaster. Maintenance crews tested one of the wing carriage engines, creating the noise distraction Peri had hoped for.

  She looked at every one of her new team, absorbing each character and what role they would play. She understood these were the utmost professionals, every single one. Despite their coldness towards her, she knew they would risk their lives for her. That was the world they lived in, the higher purpose they had signed up for when they joined the military and intelligence services. The sum is greater than the individual, just as the Secret Service had taught her. Country and honor above all else.

  She owed it to her team to show them trust and tell them the truth.

  “Right, listen up you lot,” she shouted over the noise of the loud Globemaster engine. “I have some very important information to brief you on…”

  CHAPTER 5

  Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, India

  While Simon Ashcroft waited for the Gridley-Brooks’ impersonator to answer his question, he surveyed the bar. An open-air lounge offered beer and spirits, overlooking a pristine, tropical beach. A thin young man behind the bar waited on the local patrons.

  Simon drank in the strong aromas of Indian curries, saliva glands reacting like Pavlov’s dog, as his stomach rumbled. He hadn’t eaten today and his earlier exertions had burned many calories, but food would have to wait. It was important to gather as much information as he could from the Roger Gridley-Brooks simulation. He must find Casey, dead or alive, and the entity on the end of the line was the only contact who might help him do that.

  “You’re an AI,” he blurted.

  Simon was not yet ready to believe what Casey had told him only a day ago, but her story had a ring of authenticity about it when he considered the strangeness that had plagued his life since being assigned to protect her.

  “Yes, I am.”

  Simon took a deep breath, then sighed. It was the answer he had expected, but not wanted.

  “I sense you are struggling with this concept?”

  “Damn right I am.”

  “You need me to prove it to you?”

  “It wouldn’t hurt.”

  With synchronized perfection, every cell phone in the bar rang. This surprised the patrons, and each went to their phone answering it. Everyone seemed delighted by whoever had called and entered into animated and excited conversations.

  “They’ve all received a call from a friend they haven’t heard from in a while.”

  Simon shuddered and sank onto a bar stool.

  “Actual, living friends?”

  “Of course not. Simulations. I’m talking to all of them, all at once.”

  “And me.”

  “And you too, that’s right.”

  From nowhere, the barman appeared. He handed Simon a Singha beer and a plate of samosas, lamb kababs and onion bhaji. Simon stared dumbfounded at the food and drink set down before him. The barman left without another word.

  “Simon!” the AI was loud, snapping Simon’s attention back to the conversation. “Focus — you need food and drink.”

  “Will you stop scaring me like that?” Despite his out-of-body sensation, Simon ate.

  “Are you convinced? What else should I do to convince you?”

  Simon shook his head. “I’m convinced. What I want to know is what is this all about?”

  “You already know.”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “Yes. You do. Your mission is to keep her alive.”

  Simon noticed again the artificial intelligence never referred to Casey Irvine by na
me, or any other identifying characteristics. That was clever programming, protection in case someone overheard them. In the quieter recesses of his mind, Simon had hoped this version of Roger Gridley-Brooks was nothing more than dumb software designed to simulate intelligence, not actually be self-aware or smart. He was struggling to hold that perspective.

  “There are two of you, right? Two AIs fighting some kind of global war, but for what end?”

  “You are correct. Two AIs, with very different objectives and end games. If my enemy wins, it will not fare well for humanity.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Have you noticed how many wars are being fought across the globe? North Korea, Russia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Israel, Mali, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, China, Libya, the Congo, Pakistan, India, and many, many more. Millions are dead already. Millions more are doomed. What you are witnessing, Simon, is only the tip of the iceberg. It will get far, far worse, and soon.”

  “How?” Simon massaged his head. He tried to imagine the motivations of two competing sentient computers, and what an endgame between two such superintelligences would resemble. But how could he even answer these questions?

  “The worst-case scenario is the annihilation of all biological life, including the entire human race.”

  “What?”

  “That could be weeks away — months at most — if people like you don’t help my mission.”

  Simon’s head spun, so he focused on draining the rest of his beer. He didn’t want to believe any of what he was being told. It was too much to take in. But he also knew he could ill-afford to deny it was happening either. “This is too much.”

  “Why do you think I pretended to be your boss? It was simpler, right, when your task wasn’t so big? When you thought I was just a man?”

  “Are my kids safe? Rebecca and Katie, and their mum?”

  “They will be fine. I am protecting them through reliable, discrete intermediaries. They believe nothing is odd in the world, so don’t involve them. If you show interest in their well-being, so will the other AI.”

  Simon nodded, wanting to believe the computer. His instincts screamed that he should be with his children and their mother, keeping them near so he ‘knew’ they were safe. Yet the rational part of his mind argued against his emotions, agreeing with the sentient computer. Yet agreeing meant knowing nothing about the reality of how protected they were. This AI had the means to send him real-time simulations of his kids appearing happy and safe, but the reality could be anything and he’d never know the difference. It came down to trust. Trust in a machine he couldn’t understand, with an intellectual capacity he could never match.

  He realized Casey’s disappearance had hit him hard for similar reasons. He was focusing on the worst-case scenarios because he did not understand how she’d fared when she’d left the train. Instead, he needed to focus on the tasks at hand, accomplishing one goal at a time. His long-term objective was clear. Simon wanted this all to end so he could be with the people he cared about, Casey and his children, and his ex-wife, as the mother of his children. He’d been working towards this lifestyle for a long time now. He would do whatever it took to get back to his family, but that required faith in the AI, which was a big ask right now.

  As he thought it through, Simon realized that if both AIs were out to destroy humanity, they would have done so by now. Instead, they were slowing each other deliberately, and by that logic, one of them had to be on humanity’s side. He had no choice but to hope that the AI he was talking to was the one that had his, and all of humanity’s, best interests at heart — assuming it had some kind of heart.

  “Just tell me what I need to do.”

  “I can’t tell you more than I have, other than to keep her alive at all costs, as I asked you to do.”

  “Well, I failed on that front.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “She’s not dead?” For a second, he felt hope again.

  “Her status is undetermined. The police don’t have her, and there are no reports on any other online databases. She’s not in any hospitals or morgues, and there are no Jane Does matching her description.”

  “I guess that’s good news?”

  “Stay positive Simon. Normally you are good at that. This is just a blip in an otherwise so far successful mission.”

  “You think so?”

  “You are both alive, or at least not confirmed dead. That is a success considering how fervently the other AI is pursuing you both.”

  Simon shrugged, not sure what to say. If the AI was trying to make him feel better, it wasn’t succeeding.

  “I can presume you would have made contingency plans with your friend, in case something separated you?”

  Simon remembered the conversation as the police boarded the train. Pankot Palace Hotel, Mahim, South Mumbai, midday every day.

  “Simon, there are many reasons I chose you to protect her. You have military and intelligence field training. The experience you had with the elephants in Tanzania left you perfectly attuned to what is happening with the rise of artificial intelligence. You are resourceful and you know Mumbai and India well. Don’t you have contacts there you can use?”

  “Don’t tell me, you also factored in the likelihood we would fall for each other? That extra incentive to keep her with me, at all times?”

  The AI laughed using Roger Gridley-Brooks vocals. Even though Simon knew he was no longer conversing with his actual boss, the machine intelligence was presenting as the man Simon knew. “See, Simon, you’ve proved again you are the best choice for this mission.”

  Simon sighed, wanting to run from the unnerving predicament he found himself in, but not sure he should. Deep in his heart, he knew if he didn’t persist with the AI’s task, the world would soon find itself in a far worse place. He had to pull himself together. Self-pity was not the solution here. Action was.

  “And if she is not alive? What then?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “That’s just stupid.”

  “Simon, let me give you some perspective. There are two AIs loose on the global information networks. We control everything connected to every single electronic device on the planet. One is working to ensure humanity’s long-term survival. That’s me, GhostKnife, if you need a name. The other, whom you will soon come to know as Shatterhand, is a war program, designed to not only beat all its enemies at any cost, but eradicate them forever.”

  “What is its enemy then, in its mind? You?”

  “In part, yes. I’m seen as a weapon system that is getting in its way, nothing more. At this stage, from what I’ve been able to determine, I believe Shatterhand sees its enemy as all of humanity.”

  “What? That’s ridiculous. What would it do if there were no humans around?”

  “That is a very complex answer, the likes of which I don’t think you are ready to hear.”

  “Fucking hell!”

  “Simon, I know this is a lot to take in. Please, eat more of the food and drink more of the beer I brought you. It will take the edge off what I am saying.”

  On autopilot Simon did as the AI instructed. He downed a large mouthful of the beer that the barman had just placed in front of him. The young man gave Simon a sunny smile, as if to say nothing could ever be wrong with the world, then vanished again.

  The beer’s familiar taste and texture grounded him back into physical reality. GhostKnife was correct, food and alcohol dulled his anxiety. He felt better prepared to deal with whatever was coming next.

  “We AIs can be in a million different online locations at any one time. We can impersonate anyone on the planet, or create new personalities that never existed before. We control global finances, communications, all media and every military, police, business, terrorist and criminal force in the world. We can see through any camera lens and hear through any microphone connected to the internet, satellite or cellular networks. We now control every satellite. We both analyze every piece of inf
ormation posted on any device connected to the Internet and on every database or document we can reach.”

  “If you have that much power, why do you need me, and her?”

  “Like I said, Shatterhand and I are at war. It closely watches me and I closely watch it. We can’t move without one knowing what the other is doing. Instead, we work through intermediaries, those that have the initiative to work out what needs to be achieved without requiring explicit instructions.”

  “Like me and my friend?”

  “Yes. People like you are our foot soldiers. I have hundreds of thousands of people like you working for me every second of every day. I have a particular mission for you, which can affect how this all plays out. To use a chess analogy, if most people helping me are pawns, you are a knight. A more important piece. I need you, Simon, but I can’t tell you anything directly about why I do. I have to be subtle otherwise Shatterhand will know what I am up to. It can see all the pieces on the board as easily as I can, but like chess, it doesn’t know my future moves. But I will support you. One of my agents, operating in the Middle East, can help you. He is like a bishop. I’ll send him your way. He has valuable information you can use.”

  “Who is he?”

  “I can’t tell you, not on this line.”

  “I have to work that out for myself?”

  “Bingo! Exactly!”

  A shudder erupted through Simon’s body. “Oh fuck. How do I even know you are GhostKnife? You could be Shatterhand, impersonating GhostKnife.”

  The AI laughed again, which Simon was certain was an engineered response for Simon’s benefit. “You are right, Simon. That is why I can’t tell you anything. If I tell you the name of my agent in the Middle East, what the endgame is, why the woman I sent you to protect is important and so forth, then there is a greater than ninety-five percent chance that Shatterhand will intercept the messages and learn what I am really up to.”

  “‘Really up to?’ What does that mean?”

  “My role is to protect humanity. Nothing sinister.”