Fury (The Quantum Wars Book 2)

by C. A. Fraser

  “SIA?” she asked. The question hung unanswered. The AI floated silently as its wings moved lazily. Wren put her hand out trying to touch the AI but stopped short. She could feel the energy flowing within the AI searching for a way to be released.

  “SIA, can you help me find ISIS?” Wren asked hoping for a response. Wren was shocked when the AI spoke for the first time. Its voice was still SIA’s but somehow carried more impact. The voice of the AI ceased all motion in the room even Lynx holding still.

  “We must go.” SIA said simply and then without pause began gliding out of the room. Wren watched the AI disappear through the ceiling riding the web in silence. After it was gone she burst into motion. The nanids responded to her call and increased her speed and agility. Wren accelerated as she exited the administration building, the nanids helping her push her speed higher to catch up to SIA. Dust rose in a cloud behind her, the wind of her passing pulling it along in her wake.

  She could see the AI gliding across the airfield heading for the ocean. Wren knew she needed to get the airship. Fortunately, it seemed Lynx had the same idea. The doors to the hangar slid open and her ship emerged piloted by a military AI. Wren slowed as she approached the ship, jumping through the open hatch. She barely cleared the door and the hatch closed the AI pursuing SIA. As the AI gained on SIA Wren looked out the front of the ship trying to ascertain their destination. Moments later a small group of islands came into view. Wren could not contain her curiosity.

  “What islands are those?” she asked the AI pilot. The smooth genderless voice replied promptly.

  “The Devil’s Islands.”

  Worth stared as ARES stepped between her and the man. She could see ARES nanids tightening across its frame preparing it for a battle.

  “There is no need she is under the protection of ARES and will proceed to Washington under its protection.” It stated dismissing the man.

  “Simon Fore you will stand aside. I am under direct orders from ODIN to retrieve the director,” the man replied, staring back at ARES. Worth was shocked. ODIN did not know ARES had control of Simon and his nanids. ARES did not move. It stood watching the man. She sensed the two were evaluating each other to see how it would end. Worth put a hand on ARES’ arm.

  “Perhaps I should go with him,” she said, trying to keep the inevitable battle from occurring. ARES did not take its eyes off the man in front of it.

  “This is no man, Director,” it replied, its voice steady. “This is an AI in a human’s body. An abomination created by ODIN to hunt you down.” Worth stared at the creature in front of her. A human but not a human? She now knew what had happened to Tim Reed. ODIN was the one responsible and was now trying to kill her. It all made sense. The crash and now an assassin. ODIN needed her to stay out of Washington D.C. She was the last threat to its power. Worth knew she had to get there as quickly as possible. Worth dropped her hand from ARES’ arm and turned to the AI human hybrid.

  “Cease this immediately. You are not allowed to harm humans per your programming.” Worth said. “Return to ODIN and inform it I will be arriving in Washington and my priority will be to disable it.” The creature smiled and without saying a word surged toward her. It was incredibly fast closing the gap before she could move. It was not fast enough. ARES armored fist struck it in the chest knocking it back from Worth. The hunter skidded to a halt next to its ship. It eyes registered a faint surprised at the speed of its opponent, but it recovered and surged again, turning into a blur of white it was moving so fast. ARES matched its speed and met the hunter before it had covered half of the distance it had been knocked back. The battle was brutal with each nanid enhanced warrior trading vicious blows, their movements a blur to Candace’s eyes. She could feel the impact of each blow in the earth and the sound of nanid metal striking nanid metal rang through the hazy clearing.

  Worth seized her chance and began to run to the ship hoping to gain its safety and find a way to assist ARES. The hunter saw her movement and snarled at its prey escaping. The rage displayed was not typical of an AI and she wondered what ODIN had done to cause this reaction in the AI. Worth began sprinting as fast as she could. She knew her life may depend on getting to the ship. The hunter leapt into ARES driving the quantum back with its shoulder. Before ARES could counter, it leapt away, legs churning the burning earth as it closed with Candace. She knew she had lost but kept running anyway refusing to be defeated. The hunter caught her a laugh escaping it. It spun her around and raised its fist to deliver the killing blow.

  As Worth stared into the cold eyes of the hunter, facing her death, a red blur passed in front of her face. The hunter’s raised fist dropped to the ground between them. The hunter jerked upright struggling to recover from the wound and protect itself. A moment later it lost the battle as the red blur emerged again. The hunter’s head rolled to ground, its body collapsing behind it. Candace fell back staring at the slow flow of blood gathering around the body. Behind the hunter ARES stood, its arm slowly returning to normal. Worth stared as the nanid created sword retreated until it was needed again. As she stared at ARES the horrors of the day all came rushing back to her. It proved too be much for her. Darkness rose from within her mind slowly enveloping her and rendering her unconscious.

  The pulse fusion drive was unlike anything Curtis had experienced. He had expected a cyclic speed timed with the pulses of nuclear fusion. It was nothing like that. Smooth acceleration with sustained speed. The ship was a shimmering blur burning across the hot sky. The Atlantic Ocean was streaming by far under them, its greenish yellow cast an indication of the slow death occurring there. Curtis turned his attention back to the drive.

  The pulse occurred independent of the ship’s propulsion allowing the energy to be directed through the engine steadily. The entire system was incredibly small tucked into the rear of the ship. Wrapped in multiple layers of containment, the innermost of which was a fluctuating magnetic field that created the pulse, the entire engine comprised less than a quarter of the vessel. Curtis was amazed at the design of the machine and was pushing it hard. He had to after what Kelly had told him.

  He looked over at the woman. She was resting. The exhaustion of the past day had finally taken her. His friend and closest confident since his transformation at the hands of Nathan Landis, he felt a kinship with her he had not felt with anyone else. They had both been through difficult times and Curtis was glad he had a chance to help her as she had him. He looked forward watching the few clouds in the sky stream past the ship. His mind traced the story she had told him. It still sounded crazy to him. If it was true they were living out a future predicted a hundred years ago.

  Curtis did not like the feeling of not being in control. He felt his feral face pull back in frustration knowing it would look like a snarl but not caring. Everything that had been done was an effort to save humanity from the death at its own hands. It had begun after ODIN was brought on line and technological advancements started leaping forward at a fantastic rate. Stephen had been put in charge of the Web project and the creation of ISIS to control it. They had started development at the Guiana Space Center which the United States had assumed control of when the European Union and countries of South America had collapsed. The project had progressed quickly and had begun missions to the International Space Station where ISIS was to be constructed.

  The quantum had to be active prior to the web project proceeding because they needed its processing power and advanced intellect to help shrink the time it took to bring the web on line. The space station was completely overhauled and expanded. Stephen used artificial intelligence controlled machinery to build it anew then moved it to a stable orbit near earth. ISIS’ chamber was unlike any other quantum. It was centered in the middle of the new space station and surrounded by shielding and dampening fields unlike ODIN on earth. When ISIS was brought on line after months of work and design it was thought the web project would begin. ISIS determined otherwise. The lack of external interference gave the quantum a cla
rity of vision not seen before. It immediately began reviewing the possible outcomes of the web and nanid integration on earth. It used its power to read into the future with startling accuracy.

  It then spoke with Stephen Fore. That is when everything changed. The project ceased to be solely about the web as a tool for communication and information. It became a project that secretly worked towards the resurrection of humanity. ISIS had foreseen if there was no intervention, humanity would go extinct. Stephen and ISIS jointly decided to keep the project about the web on the surface and not involve ODIN. This was due in part to the lack of trust humans had for artificial intelligence and the increased error caused by involving two separate quantums. Kelly was already close to Stephen at that point, so it was logical that he brought her expertise to bear. Most construction was done by Stephen’s AI but anything that required human hands was either kept ambiguous or was completed by a core team trusted by Stephen.

  Kelly oversaw the most important and most closely guarded part of the project or so she thought. With the help of ISIS and Stephen’s AI drones, she created a sanctuary for the future of humanity. The massive vessel was dedicated to the storage and preservation of humanity. The ship held everything needed to colonize another world. It contained a DNA bank of every creature vital to the creation of a stable environment for humanity. It was a project fraught with danger where the risk of discovery meant the destruction of humanity. They succeeded. The project was not discovered and the sanctuary removed from the vicinity of Earth. It was kept safe and cared for by the AI created by Stephen. Only he and ISIS knew its whereabouts in the solar system. Even Kelly had not known the complete extent of the project. The last mission to ISIS, when they had activated the web, revealed a vital part of Stephen and ISIS’ plan. ISIS’ station held a complete production facility for producing new humans. Using materials supplied under the guise of nanid development, Stephen had gathered a vast store of human genetic material to use if colonization became necessary. Kelly would have never known, but after the last visit Stephen had returned with a child.

  Curtis felt a growing apprehension thinking about the last thing Kelly told him. The child Stephen returned with was his daughter, Wren Fore. That was why he was pushing the ship so hard. He had to get to Wren before ODIN. If the quantum had discovered Stephen’s secret, then Wren was in extreme danger and Curtis had to help her. Curtis looked at the sensor feed from the ship. He could see the space center coming up on the far edges of the sweep. They would be there within the hour at this speed. He checked their heading and then stopped. A ship emerged on the sensor moving away from the space center heading north. Curtis felt his heart pick up speed. The nanids and strain tightened on his form sensing his stress.

  “Wren,” he whispered. In that moment, the sensor picked up another ship moving Southeast toward the space center. It was not moving as fast as they were, but would be there shortly after Curtis and Kelly arrived. Curtis touched the acceleration panel increasing the ships speed to maximum. He felt the ship increase its velocity instantly, the shimmering vehicle slicing through the air. He shook Kelly awake trying to not be too rough. The woman glanced at him, worry creasing her features. He looked back to the sensor panel and then to her.

  “ODIN has found her,” Curtis stated, feeling dread begin to creep through him.

  TEN

  The blazing sun beat down on the hunters back through the protoplastic shield sealing it in the insertion vehicle it was piloting. The sickly green of the once pristine Caribbean Sea passed below it as it pushed the vehicle to its maximum. Long dead islands were passed over without a glance. The AI did not pay any heed to the conditions below. The state of this planet had no impact on it or its mission. The hunter had found the trail of its prey and was closing in as quickly as possible. It had struggled finding the woman in the web initially. The trail was old and it had to dig through the weeks of overlaying signals before finally finding the signatures it was seeking. Each of the signals would have been nearly impossible to find separately, but Wren Fore was traveling with two others and that made the trail unique.

  After finding the signal, the hunter had proceeded as quickly as possible south, only slowing to ensure it was still following the correct signal echo. It puzzled over the others traveling with her. One was clearly an AI and it surmised it was the AI that always accompanied Wren Fore per ODIN’s records. The other gave it pause. The signal echo appeared to be an AI but the trailing edge of the signal resembled a human’s brain pattern. It was unlike any AI on record and the hunter knew it could complicate things for it. The hunter had gathered as much information on each from the web and the trail it followed.

  It had followed the three from Washington D.C. south across the eastern seaboard of the United States. It had been confounded once again when it tracked the trio to a dead space center on the coast of Florida. The trails intermingled again and again overlapping continuously. The hunter could tell they were searching for something but could not determine what. It had finally resorted to a rudimentary search pattern slowly sifting through their signals. After what it considered an unacceptable amount of time it found the trail anew. It was getting fresher the farther south it went. The hunter felt the cold thrill of closing on its prey and had departed the rotting space port as soon as it found the trail.

  As the ship flew onward the hunter began to configure its weapon systems to counter any hostile AI. It needed to minimize the number of opponents it would face. It knew its limits and would ensure it did not fail. The ship used the same web technology the quantums did to lock down portions of the web that needed to be isolated. The hunter knew the AI would be useless against it.

  Fore however was another matter. Outfitted with a nanid strain that gave her many of the same powers as the hunter, she could prove a challenge. It continued to adjust as it went plotting countermeasures to each possible response the woman had. It knew it had the advantage of surprise which would help it subdue or dispatch the woman quickly. The hunter glanced around it, the AI cautious even though it knew there were no threats near it. The trail was easy to pick out, the signal from Fore and her AI blazing brightly in the web before it. It felt ODIN’s nanids respond to the adrenaline pulsing through it system forming the armor it would need. The hunter gazed down at the ocean below as it passed a string of dead islands. It was close. Soon it would have Fore and would return to its master with her.

  Sweat rolled down the Leviathan’s temple as it rode in the land transport next to the military soldier assigned to take it to the Cheyenne Mountain base. It had requested an audience with Commander Maher as the doctor regarding the patient in her care. It had taken longer than the Leviathan had wanted to obtain permission to enter the base, which meant they were now making the transit from the quickly growing community at the base of the mountain in the hottest part of the day. It had not allowed the strain to infiltrate the woman’s body. The Leviathan did not want to risk discovery. Once it occupied the body it held the infection at bay by deactivating the technology. A small fraction of the strain stayed active in the brain allowing the leviathan an exit when it returned to its body.

  The Leviathan felt relief wash over it when the transport fell under the shadow of the mountain. The temperature was still high but the scorching heat of the sun no longer affected it. As it watched they entered the side of the mountain gaining access to the base at last. After a short transit through a tunnel that bore straight through the rock of the mountain, the transport emerged into a large staging area for the military stationed inside the shield. The transport rolled to a stop in front of what appeared to be a command center. It could see Maher standing with several others at a table covered with panels and maps charting the progress of the rescue operation within the shield. Beyond the table were several communication and monitoring stations all manned with soldiers working to complete their mission. In the solid rock behind the center it could see a massive door blocking off access to the rest of the base. It studied the do
or momentarily before turning its attention to Maher.

  The Leviathan stepped out of the transport and began moving toward the man. The man saw it coming and moved to intercept it.

  “Doctor Anath, you wanted to see me?” he asked. The man’s voice matched his appearance. He was obviously nanid enhanced but had received them later in life. His face held the hard appearance of one who had seen much in his time. When matched with a blocky body covered in muscle, the man fit the voice perfectly.

  “Yes,” it replied the female voice fascinated it, higher in pitch but still strong. “The patient you had asked after seems to be getting worse.” The Leviathan monitored the man’s reaction weighing its next move on it. Maher remained unmoved if not impatient waiting for the doctor to finish.

  “His coma is getting worse and his brain activity has become erratic,” it continued. “It is unlike anything I have encountered. I assumed you would want to know as quickly as possible.”

  “You could have sent me a message,” Maher replied. The Leviathan knew it had his interest by the change in demeanor. The man was no longer impatient waiting to hear the rest of what the doctor said.