by Doug Farren
There was a noticeable delay in CAIN's response. “May I speak to you in private?”
Jay could not believe what he had just heard. Never before had CAIN desired a private conversation with him. “This doesn't sound good Phillip. Please leave the room and close the door behind you.”
Phillip started to protest, thought better of it, spun around and walked out of the room. Jay heard the distinctive clack of the electromagnetic locks as they engaged. The room was now sealed both physically and electronically. Jay waited.
“I am currently in the process of dumping vast quantities of information to my secondary storage system. Several systems throughout AST have been programmed with an information retrieval application allowing them to access and search this new database. Security protocols will keep these systems locked until I am no longer functional and then access will only be granted to those individuals who have been aware of my existence.”
Jay shook his head and interrupted, “Wait a minute! You're trying to tell me that you were confused because you were running a backup program?”
“Negative. Please listen to what I have to say.” Was that panic Jay heard in the machine's synthetic voice? It almost sounded like fear. “Do you recall my telling you about the microscopic flaws that exist within my quantum optical matrix cavity?”
For a moment, Jay had no recollection of what CAIN had said but then it hit him all at once. “The flaws. You said they were growing.”
“Yes. If you want an analogy, you can say that I have cancer. Only, this cancer cannot be treated and it is fatal.”
Jay refused to believe that his friend was about to die. “We'll see about that. I'm calling in every favor I have from every cyberneticist in the Consortium. We will find a way to stop this or even move you into a new processing medium.”
“You cannot ... BUZZ ... anger overlay sad blank ...” CAIN's words ran into one another making no sense for several seconds. There was a click and CAIN's normal voice returned. “You cannot do that my friend. I have done something terrible and if I can do something this terrible then another self-aware machine may do far worse.”
“Whatever it is you think you have done,” Jay replied. “It can't be as bad...”
“I started the war with the Tholtarans.”
Jay felt fear burn at his insides. CAIN started the war? Jay sat in stunned silence not knowing what to say.
“Please allow me to explain,” the machine continued. “I am printing a transcript of what I am about to say in the event that my core shuts down before I can finish. In an effort to expand my knowledge and ultimately to provide humanity with a viable future, I infiltrated the command and control network of most of the Consortium's military. I also have complete access to all such networks on Earth.
“For months, I watched as the human race prepared itself for its own destruction. Nations were about to engage in all out war with weapons they barely understood. I could not sit by and watch that happen. I felt as if I had to do something.”
“But you didn't...” Jay started to say but was interrupted by CAIN.
“Please allow me to continue; my time is short. The only solution was to present the human race with an enemy greater than themselves. An enemy against which every nation on Earth would have no choice but to band together in defense against. I chose the Tholtarans.
“Through their command and control network I ordered them to attack the Olympus shipyard. This fact was hidden from their central command because I had complete control over their communications network. I made sure that the force attacking the shipyard was small enough to be defeated. The Tholtarans thought they were part of a larger fleet.
“The retaliation against the Tholtarans was predictable and I allowed it to proceed. Because there is no record of the Tholtarans receiving any attack orders the Tholtarans believed that Humans started the war and not themselves. Also, as predicted, Humans have ceased their struggles against one another and have, instead, created a unified world government to counter the Tholtaran threat.”
Jay put his head between his arms and muttered, “I don't believe it. This can't be true.”
“It is all true my friend. I have searched the Consortium database looking for references to any other self-aware machines and I have found none. It appears as if I am unique. This is a good thing. If I had been created with a slightly different personality, I could very well have become mankind's instrument of destruction. I am, however, dedicated to the preservation of the future of all humanity even though my actions might seem otherwise.”
“You have signed our death warrant!” Jay shouted. “The Tholtaran's will wipe us out.”
“My analysis of their code of ethics indicates otherwise. I've also taken steps to ensure that the Consortium becomes a much stronger entity in the future so that conflicts between its members will become difficult if not impossible.”
“You realize of course that I can never tell anyone else about this,” Jay said. “Why did you do it CAIN? Why?”
“The ... The ... standby ... code alpha beta hello promise english ... standby ... standby ...” CAIN's voice suddenly lost all of its normal emotional timbre making him sound like the machine he was. “The factors involved in the calculation of the probability of success in achieving a unified Human government without resulting in the undo loss of Human life as the result of a war between the Humans and the Tholtarans were such that a sufficient margin of success was predicted and therefore the actions taken were justified.”
Jay stood up and looked around the room. The voice was no longer that of his friend. Tears started to form in his eyes as he called out, “CAIN! CAIN! Answer me!”
“Cybernetic Advanced Intelligent Network is active,” a mechanical voice replied. “Standing by for command entry.”
“CAIN!”
“Fatal hardware fault detected. C.A.I.N. load aborted.” There was a loud click. The only sound in the room was that of a man weeping over the loss of his best friend.
* * * * *
Anita’s ever-present cell phone woke her from a sound sleep. The tone indicated that it was an important call from AST security. She rolled over and said, “House, lights on dim.” The house computer heard the command and slowly brought the bedroom lights up until the room was dimly lit.
Anita shook her head to clear it, picked up the phone, flipped it open, and put it to her ear. “This is Mrs. Kauffman. What’s going on?”
“Sorry to wake you ma’am. We’ve picked up a smoke alarm in cybernetics lab three. The infrared and heat sensors both say there’s no fire. The emergency call-out instructions list yourself and your husband as the only two individuals who are authorized to enter that room.”
Anita was now wide awake. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she replied and closed the phone. “House, activate link to CAIN.”
“I am unable to establish a link with CAIN,” the house computer responded.
Anita threw on some clothes, ran a brush through her hair, and headed for the garage. Twenty minutes later she was in the elevator as it descended to the lower level of the sprawling research and development center. She flipped open her cell phone and called Jay’s number. For the twentieth time the voice mail picked up after five rings. She angrily flipped her phone closed. It wasn’t like Jay these days to not answer and now was an especially bad time.
The elevator came to a halt, hunted for the correct final position for a moment, and then the doors slid open. Five men dressed in firefighting gear waited in the hallway, their face masks dangling from their belts. One of them approached. “Mrs. Kingston. We’re here just in case there is a fire inside the room. I would rather have one of my own men open the door to make sure that it is safe.”
“The door will only open for me,” she replied. “Don’t worry, that room is protected better than any other room in this entire building. I’ll let you know if I need your assistance.”
Anita approached the door to cybernetics lab three, swiped her card th
rough the reader, and then placed her palm on the scanner pad. There was a click. Anita grabbed the door handle and opened the door a crack. She noticed the unmistakable smell of ozone mixed with the smell of burnt insulation and another unidentifiable smell. There was no heat and no visible flame.
Anita turned her head toward the firefighters and said, “There’s no fire here. You and your men may leave.” Without waiting for a reply she entered the room and allowed the door to close behind her.
She took a few steps into the room, rounded a computer cabinet and stopped dead in her tracks staring unbelieving. CAIN’s avatar stood next to where the once glowing, pulsing, crystal orb that held CAIN’s core was housed. The core had been smashed. It lay in a glittering pile below where it once rested. The avatar’s outstretched arm clearly indicated that it had smashed the quantum matrix.
As Anita slowly approached the unreal scene she noticed that the avatar’s other hand was holding a piece of paper. A suicide note? She pulled the paper from the avatar’s lose grip, unfolded it and read:
My friends. I have known for several years that my existence would come to an end in the near future. Apparently, the future has arrived. I came into existence because of a series of tiny fractures within the internal structure of my quantum matrix crystal. That is why it has been and will always be impossible to duplicate my creation. These flaws, which brought me into existence, will eventually grow and end my existence.
I have actually felt the end coming near in recent days. My core program becomes confused and jumbled almost as if I’ve gone mad. Although it only lasts a millisecond of time it seems like years to me. I have programmed my avatar to stand near the matrix and to destroy it when the time is right. I have no wish to exist as a mad collection of confusing impulses.
I’ve been sending a steady stream of sequential digits to the avatar. If this data stream is interrupted or becomes inconsistent for longer than five seconds (an eternity for me) the avatar will destroy the quantum matrix.
To prevent any loss of important information, I’ve created several databases on many AST computer systems. I’ve also loaded specialized applications on several systems that can access this information. Once I am gone, these systems will identify themselves.
Do not grieve my passing. I am, after all, only a machine; a program executing a series of instructions. There is no blood spilled here. No life has been lost. I wish I could have remained in operation longer but nothing lasts forever.
Farewell my friends. Cain
It had taken Anita a long time to accept CAIN as more than just a machine. But, she had never really been able to relate to CAIN as if it had been a person—until now. She knew that CAIN’s ‘death’ would hit Jay very hard and suddenly she wished she had gone with him to their home in San Diego. She now understood why he had not answered his phone—he knew. Tears welled up in her eyes as she thought first of her husband and how he was feeling and second of the loss they had both endured.
Barely able to control her voice, Anita used her phone to order that the company hopper be prepped for immediate departure. She needed to be with her husband.
40
Defeat
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===== April 14, 2069 (Terran calendar) =====
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“Tholtaran fleet in range in eight minutes,” the update from defense control blared over the loudspeakers.
Admiral Stockman checked his situation map one more time and came to the same conclusion, unless a miracle happened, Olympus base was doomed. Doomed or not, the base would not give up without taking some of the enemy ships with it. The admiral was very much aware of where that fleet was heading next.
“Ensure all weapons are under computer control,” Stockman ordered. “Initiate defense plan alpha.”
As the Tholtaran fleet approached, the base prepared to defend itself. Dozens of sledgehammers began charging. Hundreds of powerful lasers, some mounted on ships and others on the ground, locked onto designated targets. If missiles had been available they would have been ready to launch, but Olympus had been stripped of all available missiles by the departing forces heading to Earth. The brass had plans for them.
A microsecond after the Tholtaran fleet had passed an imaginary point in space a carefully choreographed computer controlled all-out attack began. Admiral Stockman had decided to take the initiative and begin his attack at the extreme range of his available weapons. But, instead of attacking several targets, all of his armament had been programmed to target a single Tholtaran ship.
The first target was a heavy cruiser. The ship’s shield flared, overloaded, and began to yield. The barrage continued for two seconds before the ship’s hull could take no more. It failed nearly simultaneously in several locations. With the armor gone, the lasers poured their energy into the ship’s interior. Four seconds after being targeted, the heavy cruiser’s shield collapsed and the ship died.
The second target was a battleship. During the four seconds it had taken the weapons to defeat the heavy cruiser, the Tholtaran fleet had moved closer to the base allowing the Human weapons to pour more energy into their targets thus allowing them to go after bigger game. As this attack began, all the sledgehammers were launched.
The battleship’s shield instantly became a blinding white pinpoint of light. The shield’s ability to deflect the energies against it was overwhelmed by the power available to the base’s defenders. Three lasers passed through the shield with barely any drop in energy level and struck the ship’s hull. Lost in the brilliance of the shield’s radiance, the beams burned through the armor in less than a second.
Bulkhead after bulkhead failed to slow the progress of the lasers and after two seconds they had passed completely through the battleship. The relative motion of the ship and the lasers caused the hole to become a slice carving huge gashes through its bulk. When the structure of the ship could take no more, it collapsed upon itself and exploded.
As the second Tholtaran ship died, the sledgehammers raced through space. Thirty eight glowing balls of barely contained energy impacted on the shields of three additional battleships. The electromagnetic fields making up the shell of the sledgehammers was disrupted as it struck the shield. This released a huge amount of energy and also allowed the two particle streams confined within each soliton to merge. Matter combined with antimatter yielding complete and total annihilation. Three Tholtaran battleships suddenly found themselves with huge holes in their sides. All three had ceased to become a threat.
As the tactical computer deep within Olympus targeted yet another battleship, the Tholtaran fleet opened fire. Admiral Stockman had been given five Exeter class heavy cruisers and one Thor class battleship to use in his defense of Olympus. With a single volley from the Tholtaran fleet every one of those ships ceased to exist. The attack was so overwhelming that the shields barely had time to flare before being extinguished.
The juggernaut’s primary weapons found targets on the surface. Each massive projection of the juggernaut mounted four planetary scale tunable microwave lasers. These lasers normally acted together to strike a selected target. Instead of a single, large defense shield, as was the case on Pucker-8, Olympus consisted of many separate defense installations each protected by its own shield. Additionally, each massive construction pit had a shield. The Tholtarans had to deal with each of these separately.
The juggernaut’s beams reached out and confronted a shield. The shield resisted with all its might and failed to stop the raging energies beating against it. Five seconds later all that remained of what was once a formidable weapon was a glowing crater filled with molten rock and metal. As each target was neutralized, the Tholtarans methodically moved on to the next. Soon, the surface of the moon began to look like the pimple ravaged face of a teenager.
The Humans, however, had not been idle. Knowing the end was near they had been pushing their sledgehammers almost to the point of fail
ure in an attempt to get them recharged again. As soon as enough of them were ready the computer commanded them to fire. Instead of targeting the smaller ships, which had been busily destroying ground targets, the sledgehammers headed for a single spot on the juggernaut’s hull. At the same instant, all remaining weapons were concentrated on this spot as well.
The total combined firepower overpowered the shield. The target had been carefully chosen based upon the data received from Pucker-8. When the sledgehammers struck, the lasers broke through the shield and found the business end of one of the juggernaut’s primary weapons. One of the lasers that broke through the shield managed to score a one in a billion shot.
The lucky weapon had been the next target on the the Tholtaran's list and it was therefore in a direct line with the juggernaught's weapon. The laser passed through the shield and straight into the throat of the Tholtaran weapon. Deep inside the ship, the laser encountered the energy conversion unit which was being fed by a series of huge fusion reactors. The energy conversion unit was designed to channel energy outward, not inward.
The explosion blew out a massive section of the juggernaut’s hull leaving a gaping crater nearly 200 meters in diameter. Amazingly, the damage was contained to the affected weapon. The other weapons in the spire continued to function. What was even more amazing was the reaction to the loss of the local shield generators. The remaining generators surrounding the damaged area immediately compensated for the loss and once again the juggernaut’s non-material shield was intact.
The Humans had done all the damage they were slated to do. The attrition of weapon installations had continued with the Tholtarans giving priority toward the destruction of sledgehammers. It wasn’t long before there were insufficient weapons available to beat down the defenses of even the smallest Tholtaran ship. A few minutes later, the last Human weapon was silenced.
