The Nubl Wars (The Pattern Universe Book 3)

by Tobias Roote

  She looked up to see who it was who would keep a mother from comforting her daughter. It was him again, much taller than her, his features strong, his arm had unusual strength that seemingly held her back - effortlessly. His green eyes trapped her gaze and she lost herself in the depths of them, pulling away only when she heard a scream, turning back to the crowd....

  Things had changed. The crowd had pulled back as now the TransJens moved forward. They had been joined by two black figures that dwarfed the others and the balance of power had shifted. Now it was the crowd of Jenari the Seg’s guarded, trying desperately to keep the groups separated. There would be bloodshed if the Seg’s line fell.....

  ***

  The Queen stifled a moment of grief. Could it be possible the Aviental Queen she had just despatched had been her own daughter all those millennia ago? It had been so long since those memories were created. Was the woman on the hills, she? Was she, the Celnista Queen related to that biological Jenari female, mother to the girl called Avien?

  Who was the male figure. Fully a head taller than any Jenari male she had memory of. As her thoughts continued to dwell on the vague recognition of the male, she realised something in her current existence was pulling these memories from her. Long forgotten, thankfully. The green eyes - those eyes; drew her, mesmerised her. Yet it was a biological being that stared back at her? She shuddered at the memory of being touched by a biological being.

  What did all of this portend?

  The Queen felt that she wasn’t well. It wasn’t as if she was sick, that couldn’t happen, which was why she was millennia old. Her lack of dynamism was from the memories that had been dragged to the surface by something. The biological male that accompanied those memories was nobody she knew, yet the feeling would not depart from her that she was missing something vitally important to her, and her hive.

  Her distraction was also noted by her ‘Ta who had also been preoccupied lately, since getting back from the secret meeting that only she wasn’t supposed to know about. Huh! her skill at monitoring the going’s-on around her palace ensured she wouldn’t be overthrown any time yet. He would learn.

  As if dwelling on the matter enhanced her vulnerability towards the condition she had experienced, the Queen felt herself slipping into another state as before. She was prepared this time however, and had set a monitor on her systems to log anything externally affecting her. She relaxed her hold on everything around her and allowed the memory to draw her in.

  ....Cebrel was leaping over an area the size of her throne room. Coming towards her in full rampage mode. He was a great warrior, but the recipient of his attack was not her, and the ship wasn’t anything like a Shadowship. Cebrel’s Shonkeel was extended, he was about to claim his victor’s prize, the head of his enemy. Then something went terribly wrong, the Shonkeel didn’t connect....

  The Queen continued to watch as her ‘Ta was destroyed by his own Shonkeel which had been torn from his limb by the enemy. She saw it held in the hands, and arms of a biological and knew without a doubt that she was watching the death of her ‘Ta at the hands of the same male that had followed her through her own dreams. Cebrel had been attacking Earth when he died. The male in her dreams - was he from Earth too? She suspected such.

  The Queen was now highly disturbed. This was completely different to the replay from before - the one she had just seen played out in her head wasn’t one of her own deeply embedded memories. this was a human’s, and what was more it wasn’t in this system, or where she was present at the time. The Queen had no prior knowledge of how her ‘Ta had met his end. What the Queen had just received was a transmission from another mind in another system.

  Having remained more distanced from the replayed events this time, The Queen turned to her logs to trace the source of her agitation. The results made her nervous as she pondered over their meaning. The first event indicated an incoming link to her cerebral cortex which dipped into her memory archive. She didn’t have any idea how it had happened. This time, the link was outgoing - initiated by her own thoughts. It had pulled in the memory from the human of the fight between it and her ‘Ta.

  Her analysis of both instances was that neither appeared to be conscious connections. She didn’t believe the human was in control of the incoming connection any more than she was. Had the human been able to direct its attention, it would have gone for more strategic information. Instead all it could do was access her memory core in a seemingly haphazard way.

  Likewise her connection to the human’s memory was recent, but equally uncontrolled. The memory store accessible to her would be shorter because they had such small disorganised brains. She expected no revelations from any connections initiated from her side.

  The question rising through the ranks of her many thoughts was - just how could she control these events to her advantage?

  - 15 -

  Arty is Discovered

  “Zeke, can you spare an hour for a meeting today?” Pennington called.

  “I will have to see, I’m supposed to be doing some space trials with the new engines that Osbourne has had installed.”

  “I think this is more important than that.”

  “Oh, okay. What’s the problem can you give me a heads-up?”

  “No can do, Zeke, too involved - come alone please,” Pennington told him mysteriously.

  What was more perplexing was the instruction to ‘come alone’. It meant exactly what it said. He was to disable his implant beforehand, a coded signal that had been set-up way back from when Pod would often eavesdrop on their meetings and circumvent their efforts to achieve objectives without the knowledge of the AI. Pod was a master (or mistress) of subterfuge and surveillance. They had recognised there might be a need for a lock down code, that one was designed to tell him and others not to bring their comms or other network items into the meeting. There would be no questions or explanations, just someone there with a lead box for them to put all items in. In Zeke’s case, they had designed a baseball-style cap which he could just slip on when he arrived.

  His wrist comm ‘peeped’ letting him know there was a message. He looked down, it had a location and time. It would be tight, he thought and rushed off.

  ***

  Osbourne was making sure that his station was locked down when the message from Pennington hit his unit. He nodded to himself and carried on with his work and sealed off external access to all stations.

  “Robbo, you’re on your own for a bit. I’m relying on you to keep all ears off us for the next hour, or two.”

  “All arranged, Ossie. I began setting the security the moment we agreed it two days ago. Nobody is going to notice anything is different.”

  “Thanks, see you later.” As he left he locked down the external entrance. His security was tighter now than ever, especially as they were fighting on more than one battlefront. They shouldn’t really be having to deal with this at all, but nonetheless it was causing Osbourne major issues. Xerac Industries were hacking into their mainframe, presumably for technology titbits, but mainly to try and keep its stranglehold on the market in Space Island products that were released to the civilian population to protect themselves. It was supposed to be a free trade area, but somehow Xerac kept swallowing up the competition, pulling strings to get more than their fair share of the technology market. There was little that Osbourne could do, the products needed to get out there, upgraded shields, anti-gravity drives, laser and sonic weapons in case of a ground offensive by the Nubl.

  Then there was the increasing lawlessness brought about as a direct result of the hard-hit capital cities that had kept the peace around the world. Many were decimated by the laser fire from Space, others no longer existed. Pennington was having a hard time policing major European and African countries. The USA was managing to hold its own, mainly because of large contingents of American survivalists able to shepherd larger flocks of civilians and help them cope. Over there a network of official law-men similar to the old wild west were app
earing and Pennington’s forces were increasingly able to keep hands-off unless things escalated. It was a long way from the desired legal process, but at least there were safe havens and recourse to the Space Force that could be there quickly where, and when, needed.

  Now, however, there were other issues afoot. As Ossie walked across the quadrangle, taking in the hot sunshine as he went, he dwelt upon the issues Robbo had brought up. Deep in thought he didn’t hear the footsteps as someone ran behind him.

  “Hey, Ossie - wait up,” came the call. He turned to find it was Kelly, who was down here for... oh drat! he’d just remembered, they were going to discuss quantum entanglement and Alacite.

  “Oh! Hi, Kelly - sorry, I forgot - I’m just off to a meeting with Pennington and the Admiral,” he said. A flash of inspiration hit him.

  “Kelly, how good are your advanced IT skills?”

  “Well, do you really want to know, or should I just tell you the official version?” she smiled coyly.

  “I really want to know. Does it cover Space Island artificial intelligence design and analysis?”

  “Hmmh! You mean the hidden Jenari code you install into every product you install with SI protocols?” she said matter of factly.

  Osbourne stopped in his tracks and stared at her.

  “Whaaat! How do you know about that?”

  “Ossie...” she paused churning her lip as if deciding something, then made up her mind.

  “Oh, what the hell... I’m a hacker, of course I know about that. I could have got into your science department without going through the Academy, but I chose to do it the proper way just so I could stand here and say what I just did, without you thinking afterwards that I had cheated my way in.” She stood completely still while the revelations sunk into Ossie’s brain.

  He thought for a moment, his face clouded over with serious tones as the ramifications of what she had just said hit home. Nobody but he and Lang knew about the Jenari code, other than Robbo, his AI, whom he trusted with his life. Obviously, Callaghan, Pod, and a few others knew of its existence, but nobody - absolutely nobody - knew he included the code in everything they built.

  “How?..... Never mind, you can tell me another time.” He stormed off up the walkway leading to the main building.

  Kelly watched him go with dismay and was about to walk away when Osbourne turned. She looked up at him, the concern evident on her face.

  “Well, don’t just stand there, we’ve got a meeting to go to,” he smiled tentatively, really not sure whether he was angry with her, or himself for being so naive as to think nobody would find him out. He had already deduced that she was probably as good, if not better than him. He had quickly decided that she was needed at the meeting and would be transferred to help him directly as of today. Robbo had better get the office enlarged.

  As she ran towards him, he was impressed by her feminine grace as well as her obvious fitness. As she looked at him, a hammer beat in his chest. Dang! but she was too good looking to be a hacker, he thought.

  ***

  Pennington looked around at the others. He didn’t look happy and they understood his reasoning. The meeting had not gone well so far. His biggest gripe was the fact that Arty was updating the station’s bridge and increasing surveillance at the outer rim of the system without telling him. He was supposed to be the CIC and his own operations deployment panel of officers were obliged to approve all changes to their defence capability.

  “Damn it to hell! I’m not against these artificial lifeforms, but when they make all of our decisions for us, implementing new equipment and bypassing our decision-making process, then I do believe we have a serious problem.”

  “It’s not really that bad, John,” Zeke placated him. “We have an autonomous system that is always in flux, modifications and updates are being processed all of the time and the nanite technology is moving so fast you can see things change in seconds with your own eyes.” He paused and continued. “The changes cannot be written into blueprints, discussed, analysed and agreed because there are fourteen odd departments all working on different aspects of defence, offence, surveillance, ship design and build, shield and cloak technology and many others - there’s a whole list of areas changing on a daily basis as we learn the Nubl technology and integrate it into the Jenari patterns.”

  Osbourne took over. “Arty is designed to work in our best interests, he can be controlled, his algorithms are designed for him to accept instruction. You just have to be clear with your expectations so that he knows not to overstep them.”

  Pennington rounded on him. “That’s not what I expect. I expect him to clear things with ME before he makes changes to my defence network. I have absolutely no idea what other changes he has made without advising me, nor what he is working on currently.”

  “Have you asked him?” Zeke asked non-confrontationally.

  “Yes,” came the abrupt response.

  “What did he say he was doing?” Osbourne asked.

  “He said he was working on various projects at the hypothetical end and he would explain them to me when he considered it the right time for me to know,” he spat the words out angrily.

  “That’s not like Arty, nor is it possible he could respond like that. His programming disallows verbal evasion.” Osbourne looked worried.

  Kelly decided she needed to tell him. “Actually, Arty is working on some very advanced stuff. It was what I was coming to discuss with you today.”

  Osbourne looked at her puzzled. “You mean he’s working on this Quantum Entanglement stuff you were on about?”

  “Yes, he has processed a tremendous amount of data and built a series of communication devices – “

  Osbourne interrupted her. “He can’t have done, it’s still theory. We don’t have any medium to handle the processing requirement, the power demands are immense, even the energy needed to manage the theory is beyond the scope of Arty’s processors.” He dropped into pensive thought and nodded at Kelly to continue as he could see she had more to add.

  “He does have working devices. I’ve seen them. So have the rest of you,” she added.

  Zeke, who had until then, been trailing behind trying to catch up with the discussion looked at Kelly and nodded at her revelation. “Ossie, he must be using Alacite - those communication drones he has built. Did anyone twig? They’re operating at our system edge - well beyond our previous communication limits.”

  “How would he know to use Alacite?” Osbourne felt he was losing his grip. Arty appeared to be working well outside any his design parameters. How had he progressed this far – alone?

  “Because he was there when I was recovering from the battle with the intruder on my ship,” Zeke said.

  “He was analysing the effect of the Alacite with me. We had both discussed the findings in depth,” Kelly admitted. “He didn’t seem to have any problem analysing on-the-fly. He was coming up with answers and equations as fast as we’re discussing him now. He seemed to find the whole matter simple to evaluate.”

  Osbourne turned to her, the look of worry on his face had aged him ten years in the last few minutes of the meeting. “Are you saying that Arty was running quantum equations while talking to you and there was no depreciable delay in his responses?”

  “Yes, he seemed to take the matter in his stride. Why? He’s what you refer to as a mature AI, shouldn’t he be able to do that?”

  “With the processing power we built? No!”

  Pennington was following, as was Zeke. They both looked troubled, but it was Pennington that verbalised their concern. “You’re saying that Arty has somehow outgrown the confines of the bridge system Pod installed?”

  “I’m saying that after seeing the supercomputers that Xerac Industries have been using to create a transhuman version of their CEO, that the amount needed to fully analyse the fabric of quantum entanglement would be in excess of even their reach.”

  “Yet, Kelly here is saying that Arty appeared to understand the theory and
worked through it without breaking into the electronic equivalent of a sweat,” Pennington commented dubiously.

  “It’s worse - much, much worse,” Osbourne sighed.

  They all stopped and looked at him while he leaned back with a resigned look on his face. “If Arty has progressed to constructing a larger and faster processing base, then it means he is no longer restricted by existing programming restraints.” He steepled his fingers as if coming to a decision. “We need to see for ourselves, but I fear that he won’t let us see just how far he has progressed.”

  Pennington coughed. “We’ve already tried. Arty has not expanded his physical presence in the bridge area allocated to him. However, there is evidence of extensive nanite conduit leading out of the bridge to an area beneath it.”

  “Can you trace it?” Osbourne asked.

  “We tried to do that, there is nothing but solid bedrock beneath the bridge. There are no entrances to any new areas on the asteroid and no unknown connections to the existing station power devices.”

  “We must tell him to show us the extent of his expansion,” Kelly demanded.

  Osbourne laughed dejectedly. “And if he chooses not to?”

  Kelly looked at him strangely. “Why wouldn’t he agree? He’s not our enemy. It’s not as if he’s doing anything wrong, he’s just.. just making decisions without going through the proper channels. When we tell him to stop, he will – “

  “He will ignore us and work more openly, bypassing our decision-making processes. He will do as he wants and if we tell him to stop, or interfere with him in any way, it is likely he will use the weapons on the station to stop us. He has control of the D-jump field, the communications between all of the AIs and runs the manufacturing plants for nanite production. He even controls environmental and life-support. I’m not even going to go into the amount of weaponry under his control,” Pennington thundered. He was beginning to realise his fears of a home-grown AI Armageddon were not without foundation - and the realisation frankly terrified him.

  “So!...” Zeke responded to them all “...we have a possible renegade AI, the one nightmare scenario that so many people feared.” He was resigned yet determined. “Yet, we have to deal with this in a rational and logical manner.