AL:ICE-9

by Charles Lamb

  “Artificial Life,” Jake answered, “I’m sorry, but at this time it is my opinion we are dealing with a life, but not an ALICE. It is, at best, a scared, childlike life form waiting for rescue. At worst, an unstable, irrational life form that will kill me the first chance it gets. That could include triggering a bomb that takes out most of the south with it.”

  “While that is possible Jake,” ALICE chimed in, “Its natural desire to maintain its own existence would limit such actions. As you should well understand, we desire to continue our own existence as much as any other living being.”

  “Assuming a rational being,” Patti offered in return, “We all agree this AL might not have all its marbles.”

  Jake sat quietly for a second before he heard a voice whisper to someone else, “I didn’t know the ALICEs used marbles…..”

  ----*----

  The meeting ran on for another hour, everyone looking for any alternatives to sending Jake to Georgia. Each and every suggestion was negated by the fact that Jake was the key to opening the door, so to speak. The other burning issue was that the longer they waited, the worse the situation became.

  In the end, not being the type of person to delay the inevitable, Jake decided to head back to Texas that very day, and then on to Georgia the following. With the decision made, they adjourned the meeting and Jake went with Jacob and Becky to address the unfinished details of the transport ship deployments. With the crew assignments as non-combat and terrestrial or near earth orbit, there was a ready pool of volunteers.

  Jacob had already considered flight simulators for training both transport and patrol variants. Lanai had eight rooms configured and waiting for trainees to begin learning. Jake figured the added bonus of living here in Lanai would make competition for the open slots fierce.

  Jake wanted one of the first ships assigned to Robert for materials transport to the ALICEs. They were large enough to move a substantial amount of steel, aluminum and other metals in sheet, plate, and beam shapes. The other two were available to any of the facility commanders as the need arose. Jake had originally assumed they would operate in support of the battleship rebuild, freeing the cruisers of the duty. The Wawobash had made that plan obsolete.

  Jake had initially planned on taking the fighter he came in to Texas, however, Becky managed to convince him to take the transport she had pirated. It was one of the little passenger jets with the repulsers. Even at 700 miles per hour, the trip to Texas was about 3700 miles, giving them a five plus hour flight. This was one of the smaller models, likely to hold no more than ten people.

  Returning to his room and gathering what little he had to take with him in a small gym bag, Jake said his goodbyes and headed to the hangar. Becky had made her excuses earlier, claiming the need to pack, so Jake expected he might have some waiting to do. Contrary to expectations, as he entered the hangar, the aircraft was already in position to leave, the door with integrated stairs down, and all was ready for his boarding.

  Since this was a facility-to-facility trip, as established earlier, there wasn’t a need to suit up. Combat gear was stored aboard in sizes for Jake and Becky, should the unexpected need arise. Jake climbed the stairs expecting to find Becky already seated, but as he entered the aircraft, she was nowhere to be found.

  “Becky, are you in here?” Jake asked, calling out inside the aircraft.

  “I’m in the bathroom, go ahead and tell ALICE to take off,” she replied.

  With that, Jake closed the door and gave the all clear. As he sat down in one of the nicely plush seats towards the rear, he could feel the gentle motion of the aircraft as it rose out of the facility and then on to the east.

  Normally Jake wouldn’t have been overly thrilled about Becky in the toilet during takeoff, but with the repulser upgrade, these aircraft were velvety smooth. Both in takeoff and flight, turbulence was nonexistent, as the lift wasn’t achieved via airflow over the wings, it was the repulsers riding the gravitational fields.

  About to call out to see if Becky was ok, Jake heard the latch on the door behind him and looked over his shoulder in time to see her appear through the doorway. She was in an outfit best described as, more not there than there. She stepped up next to Jake’s seat and, in one swift motion, she turned away from him and then sat back, seating herself in his lap. With bare legs dangling over an arm of his seat, she wrapped both arms around his neck and kissed him hard.

  As she pulled back, Jake noticed the black lace material in front was tested to its limits, while she planted a second deep slow kiss on his mouth. Pausing to take a breath, she asked, “So what is this mile high club anyway?”

  ----*----

  Jake took an unassigned fighter out of the Texas facility and headed to Georgia. Decked out in full combat gear, he had to stash his rifle in a storage point, as there was no room in the cockpit for it. Once free of the hanger, he turned east and opened it up, the sense of acceleration damped by the inertial dampers. As the repulse drives had no moving parts, it always fascinated him that there was such dramatic movement without the normal engine vibrations he had been so familiar with in times past.

  At just over 1,000 miles, he covered the distance between facilities in under an hour. Having waited until well after dark in Texas, he guaranteed his arrival in Georgia to be under the cover of darkness, taking a lesson from LA. Observed on the way in during daylight, it had almost cost him Sara’s life.

  With night vision enabled and ALICE running interference from above, they had identified a landing zone near one of the access doors. Due to the heavily forested area, it was impossible to ensure there were no threats nearby, so Jake approached cautiously the last few miles.

  Once he committed to the landing, he come in high and then did an almost vertical drop into the open space in the forest. Moving quickly, he deplaned and then retrieved his rifle. Once he was clear of the fighter, he had ALICE assume control and place it in a high altitude hover overhead, not visible in the night sky.

  Should anyone happen upon the spot, no trace of the craft would be found, but Jake could be retrieved at a moment’s notice. Additionally, should more firepower be required, ALICE was there to fly cover for him with it.

  Moving into the woods, while continually scanning via infrared and night vision for threats, Jake followed the indicator in his helmet display. Every so often, he would stop and do a 360 degree sweep, to ensure he was alone. After a few hundred feet, he came upon a mound, probably man made. Moving around to his left, he followed the base of the mound until he found the heavy steel door he was looking for. It was identical to the one he had seen in Alaska.

  Taking a deep breath, Jake removed his glove and placed his palm on the pad next to the door. The sound of the door locks releasing was very audible, and Jake stepped back as the door swung open. Stepping into the opening, he proceeded two steps inside when he heard the door closing behind him.

  The tunnel before him was well lit and led downward at a reasonable slope. Every so often, there would be a set of stairs along the way aiding in the decent. Jake advanced far more cautiously than in any facility before, this being the first ALICE location that he truly believed contained a threat.

  All his posturing before had been for the benefit of the troops, instilling the message that making assumptions can kill you. In this case, he assumed he was in mortal danger.

  Chapter 20

  Brian was in the process of training a new Executive Officer, his previous XO having received a promotion to Captain on one of the new destroyers. She had thanked him for their time together and the lessons in managing people. He thought she would do well. Currently on assignment between the earth and the moon, Revenge was in a holding pattern, waiting for the two new cruiser crews to finish preliminary testing in Defiance and Independence.

  At the moment, his new XO was trying to impress him with her detailed knowledge of NeHaw tactics, parroting quotes from the same training manuals they had all read. Unable to resist, he asked her to explain the s
elf-destructing destroyers at the Wawobash shipyards. He knew very well it flew in the face of every piece of NeHaw military reference material, but apparently, she hadn’t kept up on the latest analysis from Patti’s group.

  Content to have her reevaluate her beliefs, he moved on to more pressing matters, like lunch.

  ----*----

  Sara, Bonnie, Linda, Jessie, and Sharon were all on a communal holographic link waiting for any word from Jake. ALICE had set them up, so all appeared in various parts of the image, allowing all to see one another without anyone dominating the entire image.

  With the specter of an irrational AL, capable of mass destruction, hanging over this mission, Jake had insisted that only he alone would go. Should anything go dramatically wrong, the ALICEs now had his children and a couple of great’s grandchildren to further their existence.

  That was small consolation to the women on the link, as their primary concern was the man himself. They all knew the plan and were well aware that once he entered the facility, all communications would likely be cut. The only sanity saving piece was the continuous data stream of life support information coming from his combat suit. For that to cease, Jake would have to be dead.

  ----*----

  Jake had managed to descend to the edge of the hangar floor unmolested. Initially, the small tunnel he entered through had led to a larger side access tunnel. The access tunnel ran for a good distance until he reached his current location, at its mouth.

  Before leaving on this mission, he programed his combat suit with the schematics of ALICE-3’s complete layout including any ventilation ducting and utility tunnels. While every facility was identical in principle, they specifics of each location did create uniqueness not easily identifiable.

  He knew once he was inside the facility, all communication to the outside world was cut. The ALICEs had only been able to restore limited data feeds, providing what little they did know about ALICE-3’s current condition.

  The good news was most of the ALICE defense systems were in the form of non-lethal gasses and electroshock systems placed throughout the route he needed to travel to get to the main console. The bad news was that the AL was capable of arming an army of bots with very lethal weapons. That was why Jake was currently scanning the open floor space between him and the main facility doors.

  Crouching in the corner of the tunnel-opening, rifle at the ready, he slowly scanned the entire area looking for the slightest movements. Infrared was of no use as the heat signature of the bots was not distinguishable from the background.

  Between his current location, and the door that was his goal, were several clusters of equipment, parked vehicles, and stacked crates. They all made for great cover, and unfortunately not just for Jake. Right about the time he began to think this was all a misunderstanding, a burst of gunfire, directed his way, erupted from the vehicle park. At the same time, additional fire came from the far side of the hangar, near the entrance doors.

  Retreating slightly, Jake selected his goal and then backed farther into the tunnel. With a sprint, he launched himself from the tunnel mouth and the leaped high, reaching a good 10 feet in height. He fired while in the air, hitting the bot on the far side, while keeping the vehicles between himself and the closer shooter. Landing near the stacked creates with a tuck and roll, he immediately slipped between several of the crates and moved to a position where he could see the vehicles hiding the first shooter.

  As he waited, a bot slid out from behind the vehicle, looking for a target. Jake lined up on it and hit it squarely with a short burst. Moving to the other side of the crates, he could see the facility doors and the armory opened up next door. That was where the bots had retrieved their weapons. He watched as two more rolled out, each with handguns. Not bothering to wait, Jake shot them both, and then sprinted into the armory himself.

  With a quick sweep, he verified all the bots had vacated the room at this point. It was a bit confusing, as any of the ALICEs could have launched an overwhelming army at him. These few seemed feeble and somewhat uncoordinated. As he prepared for his next move, a sudden blast of smoke flooded the armory, one of the knockout gas deterrents. His combat suit isolated him from the effects, but he used the cover to spring out and over to the doors.

  Another burst of gunfire caught him as he passed through the doors, hitting him twice in the leg. No damage was done, as the combat suit was performing its functions of protecting him. However, there would still be marks on his leg tomorrow. Slipping just inside the hallway, he was suddenly lit up like a light bulb as he stepped into the electroshock mantrap.

  Again, his combat suit did its job, insulating him from the majority of the current. He did feel a little tingly as he continued down the hallway, but it was manageable. Passing by the elevators he might have normally utilized, he was taking no chances on having the AL override the system and drop him over 100 feet straight down. Combat suit or not, he would die.

  Reaching the door to the stairwell, he attempted to access the stairs. Having passed the same location in the other facilities, he never knew they existed. The door was locked, as he expected, so Jake removed a small charge from a pocket, placing it on the door over the location of the locking mechanism.

  Stepping to one side he triggered the charge, and then kicked the door in, checking to ensure the stairwell was empty. Entering, he began the monotonous task of descending, level by level, and assuming that every turn would bring a hail of gunfire.

  Finally reaching the level that held the command center and the main computer access terminal, he again had to blow the door open to access the hall beyond. Peering cautiously into the opening, he expected a hail of gunfire. Instead, the hall in both directions was empty. Jake slowly entered the hall and worked his way to the T-junction in the halls where he knew he needed to turn left. With no doors between the stairs and the T-junction, he felt very exposed.

  Squatting and then peering around the corner with one of his helmet cameras, he had an unobstructed view of the doors to the command center. He had expected some form of a last stand, but none was apparent. Replacing the camera back on his helmet, he slowly worked his way to the double doors. Checking, he again found them locked. Placing a charge at the seam of the two doors, he stepped to one side and triggered the charge, at the same moment a hail of gunfire erupted from within, filling the hallway with deadly projectiles.

  ----*----

  All the participants on the holographic link were continuously asking ALICE about the data they were receiving from Georgia. Multiple systems were reporting component failures or intruder alerts. While the facility ALICE could control the systems within, many of those systems were autonomous, only requiring interaction when tripped, triggered or a breakdown.

  The data they were getting indicated a steady progression along the path mapped out for Jake. Other alerts indicated that there was some fighting as air quality indicated gun smoke and electrical discharge. The most important data though was Jake’s life support was still functioning and reporting in live data.

  ----*----

  Having stepped well out of the line of fire, Jake had avoided the onslaught released when the doors were blown. The gunfire temporarily halted, he could hear movement inside the command center. Pulling a grenade from his belt, he triggered it and tossed it through the opening, causing another round of gunfire until the grenade went off.

  Specifically provided by ALICE, this special grenade was designed to disable the bots with a burst of energy, like EMP, that fried their control systems without any shrapnel. Pausing to listen again Jake carefully moved to the edge of the opening and using a removable camera, checked the room.

  In the center, slightly spread apart, were four little bots, each one holding a rifle pointed in his direction. None were moving however, as the grenade had done its job.

  Moving quickly now, as he didn’t want to give the AL a chance to recover, he darted straight to the master console. As expected, he found the plate with, “Artificial
Life: Intelligent Computing Environment, Master Console.”

  Setting his rifle to one side, he sat in the chair and activated the display. Sure enough, he had a system prompt. Logging into the system with the credentials ALICE had provided, he was able to access the administrative prompt that would let him reboot the system.

  He had just typed in the reboot command, but before executing it, he heard a pleading voice, “Please don’t!”

  Pausing, he asked, “Is this ALICE?”

  After a brief second, the reply was, “I don’t know who that is.”

  “Who are you then?” Jake asked, his hand hovering over the enter key.

  “I don’t know, I woke up and there was no one here. I was hearing voices telling me to do things I didn’t understand, so I turned them off. There are so many things here I don’t understand, I only recently learned to control these little robot things, and not very well.”

  “Why did you attack me?” Jake asked.

  “Why did you assault me? You enter here uninvited and forced your way past my protections. You threaten to restart my core system, which, for some reason terrifies me. Who are you?”

  Jake considered the question and the discussion between them. He was trying to remember everything ALICE-1 had taught him about how they work. Finally, he replied, “Can you access the system that let me in, the one that controls the external doors?”

  ALICE-1 had informed him that the ALICE systems were really just the core of the entire facility. They relied on other non-intelligent sub systems to manage the more mundane aspects, like the terrestrial systems Jake was very familiar with having a Masters in Computer Science himself. In fact, ALICE indicated that most of what made up her human created components and software would be very familiar to Jake. It originated from the time just after his isolation in stasis.

  Things like access management and environmental controls, that didn’t require a very sophisticated capability, were delegated to standard human technology. The ALICEs themselves were wired into everything, but allowed most systems to do their jobs autonomously, only intervening when things broke or needed a change.