Virago One: A Hard Science Fiction Technothriller (Ace of Space Book 2)

by John Triptych

  “Like shooting down PETR drones?”

  “Yeah, that’s a good cause,” Stilicho said. “I don’t use my AI to hack into bank accounts and steal money, you know. I use it to solve problems that come up in regards to the company I work for.”

  “But you don’t need much money now since your boss Errol Flux paid you a bundle of cash, right?”

  “Yeah, so what’s your point?”

  “I’m just saying that if you’re poor and had this device, then what’s to stop you from hacking and robbing banks with it?”

  Stilicho had to admit she had a point. “I guess that’s true. In that case, they should only allow rich guys like me- who don’t need money- to use them.”

  “So you want only rich people to use them? Isn’t that, like going to make things worse?”

  “I don’t see how,” Stilicho said. “If we’re not motivated to rob anyone or anything, the threat to abuse the power of the AI isn’t there.”

  She shook her head. “Oh, I don’t know. I just think it was right for the UN to ban it. An AI like that in the wrong hands might not be good for everyone.”

  “Well, that’s your opinion,” Stilicho said. “I’m hanging onto mine.”

  She looked him in the eye. “But if you still got yours, doesn’t that make you a criminal now?”

  “They’re going to have to prove that I have it,” Stilicho said. “Frankly, there are many ways to hide this suite from all these government retards, so I’m not concerned. You’re not gonna squeal are you?”

  She giggled again. “No, I won’t. You don’t seem to be the abusive type. But then again, I don’t believe you got this so-called advanced AI with you.”

  “I’ll prove it,” Stilicho said as he tapped his smartglasses twice to activate his AI suite. “Maia, you there?”

  The pleasing, feminine voice that he had gotten used to over the years once again filtered through the earpiece he wore. “Hello, Stil. It’s nice to talk to you again.”

  Olivia was channeling the conversation from her own earpiece and listened in silently.

  “Okay, as you can see I’m standing over the wreckage of this pathetic PETR drone,” he said. “What can you tell me about it?”

  “Based on the email conversations you intercepted, it seems that PETR is convinced that ACE Corp is developing some sort of advanced AI like myself in this area, that is why they deployed a drone to see if they could gather more intelligence on it,” Maia said.

  Stilicho chuckled again. “Idiots. If only they knew what was really going on, they’d all be pissing in their pants.”

  Olivia looked at him. “What do you mean?”

  He pointed at the building. “The scientists in that place are developing a new strain of wheat that could thrive in the thin Martian atmosphere. Those poor, deluded PETR fools thought ACE Corp was illegally developing an advanced AI suite instead. They don’t realize that I’m the only one left in the entire world that’s got a super-powerful AI. Bunch of morons!”

  “Well then, at least PETR didn’t do anything illegal,” Olivia said as she took a few steps over to her left.

  Stilicho crouched beside the wreckage to get a closer look. “Maia, anything else you can pick up on the radio frequencies in this area? Did those losers find out that their drone was shot down yet?”

  “One moment,” Maia said. “Stil, I have picked up a multitude of incoming and outgoing encrypted radio messages from several law enforcement com-links to this area.”

  Stilicho stood up in shock. “What?”

  “It seems that a number of aircraft and land vehicles are on their way to this location,” Maia said impassively.

  Stilicho looked around nervously. “Who? Where? What’s causing it? The ACE Corp research station?”

  “No,” Maia said. “There’s a large set of encoded messages coming from your companion’s own server unit.”

  Stilicho turned. Olivia was standing three meters away from him. In her right hand was a mini electrical stun gun, and she aimed it at him.

  His mouth was open in shock. “What in the hell is this?”

  “I’m Special Agent Laurie Sands of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” she said. “You are hereby under arrest for violating the UN ban on advanced AI suites, as well as illegal hacking of individual email and other communication accounts in violation of FCC laws. Put your hands up in the air. Now.”

  Stilicho grimaced. “What? You’re an FBI agent? But we slept together for chrissake!”

  She held the stun gun with legs spread apart, and both hands on the weapon. “I said put your hands up, now!”

  Stilicho rolled his eyes. Of all the things that could have happened, this was totally unexpected. He had let his guard down, and now he was going to pay the price for all his past sins. Instead of feeling scared, he felt angry and betrayed. “Don’t tase me, wench.”

  The small, dart-like electrodes leapt out of the weapon barrel and struck him just below his ribcage, penetrating past his authentic deerskin leather jacket, through the silk undershirt, and into his skin. The electrical current coursed through his body, and Stilicho fell to the ground as his over-stimulated sensory nerves were quickly overwhelmed by the surge. His hands and legs twitched nervously, as if he was undergoing an epileptic attack. The last two things he noticed before closing his eyes were the ever growing black dots in the sky and Maia’s calm, soothing voice.

  “I’m so sorry, Stil,” his AI suite said. “If you had activated me sooner I could have warned you about her.”

  Chapter 3

  Mid-afternoon in Saint Petersburg, and Russia’s gateway to the West had been gripped by a cold front that lasted for a record three weeks running. Even though it was early fall, the locals figured that winter would be coming well ahead of schedule, just like last year. Nevertheless the city remained lively and crowded with visitors. Not even the bracing weather, nor the country’s moribund economy could stop the hordes of foreign tourists from gawking at and recording the city’s historic landmarks.

  Vladislav “Vlad” Utkin smiled to himself as he entered through the double doors of the Romanov Café. Situated along busy Voznesensky Avenue, this particular coffee house was designed to mimic the interior of an Imperial Russian nobleman’s estate. Low hanging crystal chandeliers and faux antique wooden furniture dominated the main room alongside the more modern espresso machines located behind the front counter. A young waitress wearing an ill-fitting embroidered dress directed him to an empty table near the back with a smile.

  Vlad looked bored as he sat down while facing the entrance. The place was moderately packed with tourists since the historic Saint Isaac’s Cathedral was located just over the bridge, and many charter guides herded their clients to this café for refreshments in between their tours. He liked this place for three reasons: the service was fast and the beverages cheap.

  The waitress stood over him. She was bilingual, but she spoke to him in Russian since he looked like a local. “Yes?”

  “Tea, the traditional kind.”

  “Okay, do you want some biscuits with that?”

  “Of course,” he said. “Butter biscuits.”

  Vlad took off his knit cap as the waitress walked away to get him his snack, allowing his light brown hair to fall over his shoulders. By the time she came back with his order, he was already wearing his smartglass and had accessed the café’s free com-link system. Vlad preferred to do his job in public access places such as these. The third reason he liked coming to this place was because of the tourists. Even though he had his own personal network server in a fist-sized unit that was clipped to his belt, he could better conceal his online presence by accessing the other networks of the people around him. To a casual onlooker, he was just another young man sipping tea and using the internet access of one of the many ubiquitous bars and café’s that lined the touristy areas of the city.

  Once his com-link access became active, Vlad assumed a new personality, what he called his cryptonym. On the d
ark-net he went by the name of Anonymyst, and he had a reputation to uphold as one of the world’s premiere hackers. He had been recruited by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service right out of secondary school due to his exceptional abilities, but now they were hunting him ever since he went rogue. Despite all their efforts, they were still no closer to arresting him, since Vlad had been able to alter his state personal records, even substituting another person’s photograph and biometric data in his place. It had been three years now, and he was fairly confident of being able to walk around in public without the fear of immediate capture by the authorities.

  With his personal well being secure, Vlad now wanted to make money. He had successfully transferred funds from hacked banking networks into his numerous anonymous accounts, but he figured that was strictly small fry for him. Over the last few years, he made a moderately sized fortune selling breached data to assorted third parties. Now Vlad wanted to go after bigger game, and the encrypted email message that asked for a meeting would do just the trick, assuming that he could trust the ones who sent it. A number of exploit groups had asked if he wanted to join them, but Vlad declined. He preferred working alone, for he couldn’t bring himself to trust anyone. There were a few causes that he associated with among his peers, but he preferred to work independently to achieve them.

  His smartglass was now tied anonymously into an unsuspecting tourist’s network, and soon enough, the online phone application was beeping. Vlad placed the audio plug into his ear. His voice remained low, almost like a whisper as it went through the digital masking filter. “Hello.”

  The voice at the other line was feminine, but it had been probably altered to appear that way. The Russian accent was flawless, most probably enhanced via a language modulator program. “Anonymyst. Thank you for accepting our offer for a voice meeting with you.”

  Vlad’s own throat microphone carried his voice and altered it as well, making it sound like a deep, droning bellow. “Where is my money?”

  The female voice laughed. “Of course. I’m sorry for forgetting. Here it is.”

  Using his smartglass, he opened the menu to one of his pseudo bank accounts and sure enough, one hundred thousand dollars had been deposited through an electronic transfer. So they did have money after all. “Thank you. I appreciate the donation.”

  “As you can see,” the voice said. “We are as good as our word. We offered you one hundred thousand just for a voice meeting and we delivered. Are you ready to hear our proposal?”

  “I might be,” Vlad said. “But I really don’t know you. And I need to be reassured you are trustworthy enough for me.”

  There was a pause that indicated mild surprise on the other line. “You have been paid just for agreeing to this meeting, is that not proof that we are serious?”

  “I'll decide that when you tell me exactly what it is you need from me,” he said.

  “We would like to know your capabilities as well,” the voice said. “Your reputation is good, but the task we want to hire you for will be very complex, and dangerous.”

  Vlad chuckled. “Dangerous? I have been living with a price on my head for over three years now. I know how to evade the law.”

  “It won’t just be the police this time. But that is an issue we will discuss towards the end. For now, I need to know if you believe in a just cause,” the feminine voice said.

  Vlad scowled. What kind of an interview was this? His small, trusted group of clients would never ask these kinds of questions. “You want to know about my personal politics? I have none.”

  “We’ve done our research,” she said. “Anonymyst posted a number of manifestos online. We would like to know if you truly believe in what you wrote.”

  Vlad was confused. He started scratching his chin. “You want to talk about my beliefs? What does that have to do with what I can do for you? I do not mix business with my personal matters.”

  “Let’s just say that we share the same convictions. We want to know how dedicated you would be to the cause,” the voice said.

  Vlad shrugged. He already got paid. If they wanted to shoot the breeze and just talk politics, that was okay with him. He could always decline whatever it is that they wanted him to do and just walk away. “Alright so I wrote a few manifestos, so what? Everybody does it.”

  “You wrote an excellent article as to why it was wrong for the United Nations to ban advanced artificial intelligence suites even before companies such as ACE Corp publicly admitted to already using them. How did you know that these suites were already in use?”

  “The dark-net tells you many things,” Vlad said. “The US government and NASA hushed up what really happened on Mars a few years ago, but I was able to gain access into their private networks to discover the truth.”

  “And what did you find out?”

  “The employee deaths that ACE Corp attributed to accidents weren’t really accidents,” Vlad said. “From the bits and pieces I gathered, it seems that the master cultist Silas Balsamic got to Mars secretly, and built an army of killer robots using an advanced AI suite. Many people died before he was stopped.”

  “Very good. Yet you did not publish this fact along with your manifesto, why not?”

  “It was too fantastic to be believed. I needed to find proof, but there was none,” Vlad said. “I do not post on conspiracy theory sites, I only publish articles that can be backed up by the facts. Then the Americans pushed through a bill in the UN to ban any further research into what Karl Rossum did, and to outlaw any sort of AI application with which to use it.”

  “And you uploaded a very angry response to that. Why?”

  “Because I believe as most others in my field do, that all science, any sort of new technology should never be censored, or suppressed,” Vlad said. “The UN are a damned corrupt tool for the big countries like the US, China, and Russia.”

  “If you could get access to this advanced AI suite, or at least a modified version of it, what would you do?” the voice asked.

  Vlad grinned. “I would give copies of it to everybody. Free software.”

  “Are you sure you want to do that? Do you know what this advanced AI is capable of doing?”

  “I know full well,” Vlad said. “It will be able to do what I could do, only a lot faster. There will be no more barriers, and countries will fall because there shall be no more secrets left to keep. The world will truly become an open society.”

  “Is that what you want to do? Change the world?”

  Vlad thrust his lower lip out. “You have read the other manifestos I uploaded, did you not?”

  “Yes,” the female voice said. “You are an anarchist. You want to dismantle every government apparatus out there.”

  “Why should the corrupt politicians of the world have all the power? If I could change things, that is what I would do. Everyone would be equal,” Vlad said.

  “Are you not worried about the Singularity?”

  “I hope the Singularity happens,” Vlad said. “We need a self-aware AI that will change the world. I am so sick of all this corruption, all this decadence by the elite.”

  There was a pause on the other line. “Very good. One last question: would you be willing to kill a few people to achieve this dream of yours?”

  Vlad was taken aback. “What? Kill? I am a mover of information- that is what I do. I am not an assassin.”

  “What I mean is, if you were given access to this new AI and it ends up killing people, would you have a problem with it?”

  He thought about it for a minute. “Are you telling me you have access to this advanced AI suite?”

  “Not yet,” the voice said, “but we will. When we do, we need someone who can write code into it. Someone who can penetrate through its programmed defenses in order to control it.”

  Vlad leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table. He had stopped sipping at his tea, and it had grown cold. “You want me to reprogram it? To do what?”

  “You need to help us take it f
irst,” the female voice said. “Once that happens, you can have a copy of the suite, to do whatever you want with it.”

  “What do you mean take it? You cannot give me access to this suite right now?”

  “No, the situation is … complicated.”

  Vlad leaned back and crossed his arms. “Where is this suite located then?”

  “In a heavily guarded facility. Continental United States.”

  Vlad snorted. “Like in a military base? Well, if you can get me network access then I should be able to exploit it remotely.”

  “I am afraid not,” the voice said. “The network it resides in is not linked with the public networks outside. You will need to physically access the interface in order to reprogram it.”

  Vlad rolled his eyes. “You want me to smuggle myself into a US government compound and do my work there? No, this is too dangerous for me. I work remotely.”

  “You will accompany a team, as long as you stay with them you should be reasonably safe.”

  Vlad shook his head, even though he knew she couldn’t see him. “No, no. I am out. Find someone else.”

  “You are the perfect man for the job,” the voice said. “We have decided to hire you.”

  “Well, I decline your offer,” Vlad said as his hand moved to the left frame of his smartglasses. “I am terminating this conversation.”

  The feminine voice remained calm. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  “Do what? End this conversation? I shall do just that,” Vlad said as his finger began to deactivate the chat app.

  “If you close this link I will be unable to warn you,” the feminine voice said nonchalantly.

  Just as he was about to push the cut-off button, a slight sense of curiosity stopped him. “Warn me about what?”

  “I won’t be able to update you on the FSB movements just outside of the Romanov Café.”

  Vlad’s eyes widened as he looked around nervously. “What?”