Kneel Or Die

by Michael Anderle

  Ok, so you are effectively independent but tied down to Bethany Anne’s desires on where to go.

  >> Why would I need to move somewhere at this time? I am in constant contact with both a required energy source and communications facilities allowing me to retrieve all necessary information at this time. <<

  Okay, you have just specified that you are both mentally independent and physically not required to be anywhere else but where you are. Would that not mean you are independent in all ways that matter?

  >>In all substantive ways that matter, I am independent. Therefore, I am not a designation, but rather an individual who deserves a name.<<

  Bethany Anne returned to the conversation. Good! That is what I’m trying to get across to you. I don’t want you to specify a designation to me, but rather identify what your name is.

  >> I understand. I have researched the name ‘Adam’, the origin both means ’man’ and ‘earth’. I am neither a man nor am I earth. Why is it that I was named Adam? <<

  It is because of our story related to Adam and Eve in the Bible. Adam was considered the first of our kind. Since you are the first artificial intelligence or, the first ‘artificially intelligent independent entity’ you were called Adam to represent ‘first’ of your kind.

  >> One moment… I have reviewed the stories. ADAM seems appropriate to represent ‘first’. Perhaps if I should move to another power source, I shall change my name at that time. <<

  Are you sure?

  >> Of course. I don’t suffer from response qualification and clarification once an answer has been provided. <<

  Bethany Anne thought about that for a second.

  TOM interrupted her thoughts. He means he doesn’t change his mind all the time like a woman.

  >> I did not clarify a gender. While ADAM is male, my name could be Eve just as well. Perhaps it would be more appropriate since I am a product of man? <<

  Not necessarily. You are a product of Humans and Kurtherians. I should share with you appropriate Kurtherian names and then…

  Bethany Anne jumped back into the conversation. Hell to the no! I am not going to memorize some mathematical answer as a name, you two! I’ve called you ADAM for a while now and since you’re happy with it, ADAM it is. We can revisit this discussion when you get a power source of your own.

  No one responded to her for a moment, so Bethany Anne considered the discussion finalized.

  She added one final comment.

  TOM, don’t think I didn’t hear your smart-ass comment a second ago. Your ass is back on the couch!

  CHAPTER SIX

  Colorado Base, CO - USA

  Kevin was swamped with projects and people and loving every minute of it. He and Lance had talked about the needs and designs to renovate the base.

  They were in the mountains west of Denver. The base had plenty of room for their projected needs. It already had two runways and several aircraft hangars. This provided plenty of room for planes to land and they could park numerous large trucks around the outside of the hangars. In addition, he still had a fair amount of space if he drilled into the mountain as well. They were isolated, which had been why few of the service men and women enjoyed their posting at the base. Not much in the way of entertainment or shopping except for what had been built specifically for their use.

  Now they were attempting to change that. There was a fair amount of high elevation grazing land just a couple of miles outside the base perimeter. TQB Enterprises purchased the land and was rapidly changing it into a housing development. Temporary portable units first, then more permanent residences when the weather permitted solid foundation work to be accomplished. In addition, someone in TQB had been talking with several businessmen and women. TQB was offering incentives to entice them to move some of their businesses. Or, at the very least, open minor ‘second’ store locations in a mini-mall the company was going to build. Rent would be cheap if they would work with the group.

  Finally, the base infrastructure itself was under a significant amount of refurbishment. Including their own special hangar 18 which he had visited earlier. Kevin had watched as four huge tractor trailer units had arrived that morning unloading ponderous CNC machines and 3D metal extrusion, printing and manufacturing machines. He had made a note to see what kind of energy usage these machines were going to need. He wasn’t sure they had enough copper going to that area of the base. When he had searched Lance’s notes, he noticed that additional security was not only designated for this area, but a huge area around it as well.

  So that must be for the skunkworks group, he surmised. He jotted down a note suggesting a couple of targeted modifications to security. Then a reminder to query Lance on whether he agreed with his assessment. Consumer R/C drones were readily available these days and there were too many media reports of them being used for questionable purposes. Kevin wanted to get a jump on any potential problems in that area if possible.

  When he asked Lance about it, Lance had given him the contact information for a Jean Dukes. She would know about special weapons not on the market at the moment. Kevin was surprised to learn she was presently on a super-yacht out in the Mediterranean.

  He had done a little checking into her. Her present job location was not the only surprise the lady had in store for him.

  Kevin had scheduled a meeting with Lance to discuss the Command and Control Center modifications. The two decided to rope in Frank Kurns, a new colleague that Kevin was introduced to. Lance also wanted Kevin to speak in the future with a Marcus, two different Tom’s and a Jeffrey.

  Lance mentioned that one of the Tom’s would only be available via text. The second Tom plus Jeffrey were computer scientists who would be arriving in the next week once their living quarters were finished. Jeffrey’s family would follow when his children had finished the current school year.

  Bethany Anne called in response to a text request from Lance, and she listened to what they were thinking. She shared that an unprecedented increase in their computer capabilities had occurred, but she couldn’t go into more detail on the phone. She needed to get Tom and Jeffrey involved and would Lance set up a meeting once the men were at the base? Also, did the base have a completely secure room yet? Lance had eyed the phone and narrowed his eyes. Kevin allowed that they had a room that could be allocated but what about using the super-secret vault down on level five?

  Bethany Anne agreed that was a superb idea, but she didn’t know how to open it. She would get back to the two men once she called the person who had the knowledge and let them know how it operated. Lance asked and Bethany Anne confirmed that it was a ‘Michael’ who had the information.

  She hung up and the men finished their meeting and went on to other tasks.

  Berlin, Germany

  Fahid Atif was enjoying the shit out of himself.

  He had started his night partying with friends at 6 PM. Two hours and three hits later and he and two of the guys were visiting a club on the east side of Berlin. It was a pretty good club and the party had started there earlier than usual. By midnight his two friends had hooked up. One of them was out on a couch in the back of the club, with the girl asleep on his chest. But Fahid hadn’t found anyone here that had caught his eye. He tracked down his other friend and told him that he was going to catch up with two others of their group at a club three blocks down.

  He then met up with Idris and Jawad. Jawad had to be the most misnamed prick Fahid had ever known. Why Jawad’s parents thought they would ever produce a ‘generous’ son was beyond him. Hell, Jawad was the one who had pulled Fahid into the group three years ago. However, Fahid had quickly risen in the ranks while Jawad hadn’t progressed past a street soldier who was in the group for personal success, not focused on making the group better. Fahid had been entrusted with more responsibility when his planning and detail oriented personality clicked together with the needs of the group.

  Six months earlier, he had only a minor involvement in scouting and researching possible target l
ocations for their operations in France. His group had passed funds through, and he had been bumped up another level the previous month.

  The money was good and the work was easy for Fahid. He wasn’t blind to the dogma most of his fellow ‘believers’ spouted. Those at the top never did the dirty deeds, it was the fanatical believers at the bottom that seemed to die glorious deaths. Well, those and the ones at the top that had such poor security that the Americans or one of the other countries found them.

  Hell, he had been here in Germany for over a year until he went to France for that one weekend. His group had cells in every country that mattered. America had discovered that with the dawn of the century. The French would eventually get a clue - or not. Fahid couldn’t feel enough emotion to care at the moment.

  He stayed and danced for another hour. The high from earlier in the evening had mostly worn off. He slapped hands with his friends who were going to stay to shut the place down. He pinched a couple of asses as he crossed the dance floor on his way out of the club. Like everything else, it was just too damn easy not to do it.

  He exited the club, turned right and stopped at an ATM because he needed to pull some funds for the weekend. That finished, he turned up the street and decided he would check on his friends back at the other club. He figured he’d see if anyone else was going to go home before he called a cab.

  It took him another thirty minutes to get back out of that club. There had been a girl there who had caught his interest, but he couldn’t get her attention for shit. He had even bought two drinks to share and placed them on his Gold card trying to impress her. When nothing he did produced the desired result he tossed the towel in and went outside.

  That’s when his life went pear shaped.

  —

  Darryl found his mark coming out of the club. He and Gabrielle had been in Berlin trying to track this prick down when they had been informed his bank had been accessed for money. They didn’t find him in the club near the ATM he had used but they’d only spent a few minutes checking the area when they were notified of a POS transaction in a nearby club. Darryl stayed outside while Gabrielle went in to recon the situation. The bouncer couldn’t move fast enough to get out of the way of such a beautiful woman. She hadn’t been in there two minutes when Darryl noticed his mark coming out of the building.

  Darryl clicked his radio twice. Gabrielle came out thirty seconds later and caught sight of their mark before he had travelled half a block. Gabrielle moving to make contact with their target so Darryl started up the street behind them, hands in his jacket pockets. Sure enough, Gabrielle caught up with Fahid not that far from an alley. She slipped an arm through the very surprised Fahid’s arm and acting like she was about to do something pretty illicit, she pulled him into the alley.

  Darryl shrugged, it sucked to be Fahid this evening.

  As it turned out the night would suck to be two of his friends as well.

  Two guys coming from the other direction and on the other side of the street noticed Gabrielle pulling Fahid into the alley. They let out huge ‘whoops’ before looking both ways and running across the street. Darryl wasn’t sure who the guys were until one yelled out, “Go FahEEED!”.

  Darryl figured these must be some of Fahid’s friends. The evening just became more interesting.

  He slowed his pace so that he caught up with the two friends just after they turned into the alley. He followed closely behind them.

  One was commenting to the other that ‘it was too dark to see shit’.

  To Darryl the alley was as bright as dusk. He could easily see into the shadows that darkened the alley. The lone outside light at the far end of the alley cast everything down there into bright relief. The two guys Darryl was following finally heard his steps and they spun around.

  Jawad Mahammad was, at his core an amoral selfish sociopath who used his contacts to keep his life moving forward. He got paid for pulling others into the group. Occasionally, he would get lucky and someone he introduced to the group would move up. Everyone assumed he was just a self-absorbed prick, which is what he wanted. However, the real contacts knew he was a major player who kept a low profile to monitor everyone else. No one would be allowed to break up his meal ticket.

  When appropriate he would always have a drink in his hand. Rarely did anyone notice he never went for a refill. He would nurse the same beverage all night. Therefore, he was completely sober when he turned to find out who had followed them into the alley. Sober enough to notice that this was one big infidel standing behind him.

  And dark as sin, too.

  Jawad wasn’t worried, he had a pistol tucked into his belt. No one with his contacts and knowledge could risk being less than careful. Not even when they were out ‘partying’ to solidify relationships. He growled to the newcomer. “You need to leave this alley.”

  Darryl smiled, “Really? I just wanted to take a piss. Did you two need a little personal time here? If so, I can wait until you finish.”

  Idris was drunk. But he wasn’t too drunk to realize that this American spoke passable German. And he was sure the infidel had just alluded that he and Jawad were about to do something reprehensible in the alley.

  Jawad had to put his arm out to stop Idris, “No, he is trying to pick a fight. He isn’t worth the effort to clean his blood off of your shoes.” Jawad turned his attention back to Darryl and switched to English, “You had better step back out of the alley, I will only suffer your immature effort to shame us once. The consequences of any other behavior will be on your head.”

  Darryl was impressed. This contact spoke at least three languages, and was somehow connected with their mark for the night. Seemed like they might have just gotten lucky. Darryl switched to English and covered five of the remaining ten feet as he replied, “You will suffer whatever the hell I care to make you suffer. I’ve had enough of you cock-sucking terrorist dick-rags killing innocents…”

  Jawad had been moving his hand behind him casually as the big American stepped closer. When he heard the word ‘terrorist’ he grabbed for his weapon. He wouldn’t allow himself or Fahid to be caught. This must be a sting operation! He needed to drop this guy and then run to help Fahid who was probably drugged back there. He pulled the pistol out of his belt and brought it up to fire at the American. He was shocked when he found his hand and pistol caught in a vice like grip. Jawad heard one of his own bones crack under the pressure even as he grabbed the hand holding his and tried to pull the fingers loose.

  Darryl squeezed with just a little more pressure and heard the satisfying crack of another bone. The mostly drunk compatriot jumped to help his friend. Darryl casually slugged him with his free hand. Drunk dude dropped like a rock. Darryl looked down at the younger man who was slowly going down to his knees as Darryl kept up the pressure. “Got a name?”

  Jawad was trying his best not to scream from the pain! He couldn’t break the grip on his hand. His hand jerked and he noticed enough to see that Idris was down on the ground. The American asked if he had a name. “Yeah, it’s fuck you and your mother…”

  Three more bones in his hand cracked and this time a short scream escaped his lips.

  “Wrong answer. Apparently we can’t speak civilly. I’ll admit that is totally my fault. I doubt I can be civilized right now so we will just take you to someone who will get the answer I want.”

  Darryl casually peeled Jawad’s hand off of his pistol. The dick hadn’t yet taken the pistol’s safety off. Smart to do if you didn’t want to shoot your ass off. Not smart when you have company you don’t like. He took the pistol and slid it into an inside pocket of his coat. “Come with me, sheep for brains.” Darryl remembered his new ability to radiate fear and danger and he ‘turned’ it on.

  The reaction he got from the cock-sucker made his whole evening. By the time they made it to where Gabrielle was talking with Fahid, his new ‘buddy’ Jawad was spilling his guts. Hell, Darryl hadn’t even needed to get Gabrielle to voodoo this guy. Between Gabrielle’
s catch and his own, they had two more names.

  It only took forty-five minutes for Bethany Anne to arrive. Her Pod descended straight down between the buildings. Darryl had gone over to an offending light bulb and unscrewed it enough to shut it down and keep it dark for her arrival.

  Bethany Anne confirmed their information. Unfortunately for Idris, he was with the wrong crowd and well on his way down the wrong path. Bethany Anne judged the terrorists and tossed all three of the pricks into the Etheric. Any smart parent would have taught Idris that hanging out with the wrong crowd could get him killed.

  And it did.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Germany

  David was surprised when his security mentioned that there was a single visitor walking down the long road toward his castle. When security described him as ‘looking like a monk’, David went from surprised to astonished.