The Meridian Ascent (Rho Agenda Assimilation Book 3)

by Richard Phillips

  When he finally rose to his feet, a whisper escaped his lips. “I miss you.”

  Then he turned and climbed back down to the Earth gate chamber’s floor and walked toward the area where his teammates waited. Jennifer stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his neck. He felt her hot tears on his cheek, and somehow they broke the dam that had held back his own.

  When she released him, Jennifer took one step back, her shining eyes meeting his.

  “You know we can bring her back,” she said, “at least a virtual copy of her. I found an early version of her code stored in the neural network’s backup system.”

  Raul shook his head. “A copy won’t be VJ. She made herself real. She deserves to be remembered for the unique person she had become. She deserves to be mourned.”

  Without another word, Raul turned and walked past the others, heading toward the far door. For the next few hours, he just needed to be alone.

  Heather met Mark and Rob as they emerged from the Earth gate, waved to Ilya, who stood alongside several of his Safe Earth resistance fighters on the far side, and then sent the mental command that shut the portal down.

  Mark swept her up in his arms and kissed her in a way that pulled a chuckle from Rob, one that she thought carried just a hint of jealousy. Yep. They were definitely going to have to help him find a girlfriend. When Mark set her back down on her feet, she hugged Rob and then turned back to her husband.

  “I hate to ruin the mood, but you heard about VJ.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry about that,” said Mark. “How’s Raul taking it?”

  “Like you’d expect. But we have a new problem. Jamal and Eileen are waiting to give us an update in the conference room.”

  “Curiosity engaged,” said Mark. “Lead on.”

  When they entered the conference room, the others were already seated around the table. The group consisted of Jamal, Eileen, Rob, Mark, Heather, and the Smythe and McFarland parents. After greetings had been exchanged, Heather brought them back to the business at hand.

  “Rob,” said Jamal, “would you please shut down all communications links to and from this room, even to the networks within this facility?”

  Rob raised an eyebrow but nodded. “Done.”

  “Okay, Jamal,” said Heather. “Why don’t you and Eileen bring us up to date about what’s bothering you?”

  Jamal nodded to Eileen. “I’ll let Dr. Wu get the ball rolling.”

  Eileen stood up at the end of the table, engaging the view-screens on each wall. “I’ll start with a summary of the current world situation.”

  World maps filled the displays except for a scrolling column of city names and numbers along the right side.

  “I’ll start with the good news. The Kasari have departed en masse. Raul, Jennifer, Dgarra, and Heather destroyed the fleet of thirteen Kasari attack ships—”

  “Don’t forget VJ,” said Raul, anger flashing in his dark eyes.

  Eileen flushed. “I apologize.”

  “Accepted,” said Heather. “Please continue.”

  Eileen cleared her throat and started again. “We have received confirmation that all of the Kasari wormhole gateways have been destroyed. But their matter disrupters, stasis field generators, and other technologies they left behind have been preserved.

  “Jamal Two has found no trace of the Helen Grange AI. With ninety-eight percent of the world’s computing devices now under his direct control, she could pose no threat even if she had managed to hide pieces of herself here and there.”

  Eileen paused, interlacing her fingers before her. “Now for the bad news. When the Kasari departed, they issued some sort of kill order to the nanites within the bodies of all the people they had assimilated. As you can see by the scrolling tallies, most of the losses were concentrated in the UFNS member nations. The militaries of the United States, the European Union, the New Soviet Union, and the East Asian People’s Alliance were so badly decimated that they have ceased to exist as organized units.

  “Although Jamal Two was able to land most of the aircraft flying during the kill order, their military crews were dead. The same applies to the naval ships of the four world superpowers. They are ghost ships filled with dead crew members. On military bases, most civilian workers and family members were yet to be assimilated. But imagine their horror as their spouses and friends slumped dead before their eyes or never awakened from their sleep.”

  The dismay that image painted in Heather’s mind left her gasping for breath.

  “My God,” said Mark.

  “Jamal Two puts the number of casualties worldwide at two hundred thirty-seven million people. As terrible as that is, it could have been far worse if the Kasari assimilation had been further along. Billions of people have nanites in their blood, but most still have the pre-Kasari version. They’re fine.”

  A sob from her left turned Heather’s head. Anna McFarland and Linda Smythe held each other, their bodies shaking. The older men just looked angry.

  “Those bastards,” said Jennifer, her face set into the death mask that Heather had seen during the battle to destroy the Kasari’s North Korean gateway. Her look matched Dgarra’s.

  “Jen,” said Mark, “you have the Kasari nanites. Why didn’t they kill you?”

  “VJ’s antivirus serum disabled the cortical array and terminated the Kasari connection to my nanites.”

  “As you can imagine,” continued Eileen, “this, and the events that preceded it, has led to a breakdown of public order in much of the developed world. Jamal Two’s efforts are mitigating these problems, but right now the globe’s a mess.”

  “This gets worse,” said Jamal.

  “With the exception of any room that Rob and Eos are in, Jamal Two has complete control of this facility,” Eileen said. “In fact, he now controls every smart device, network, or grid on the planet. If he wanted to do so, he could use our robots, stasis field generators, and matter disrupter-synthesizers to take this fortress apart.”

  She let that sink in for a moment. Heather’s calculated odds that they were going to survive this eventuality dropped precipitously. The fact that they weren’t dead yet meant there was still a chance to salvage this situation.

  “That brings me to Dr. Denise Jennings. She has gone to the fortress’s upper level, and Jamal Two has shut down all access.”

  The anger that had crept into Dr. Wu’s voice was obvious to all who heard it, especially Heather.

  “It seems,” said Jamal, “that when Virtual Jamal incorporated the collection of genetic algorithms that comprised Big John, he became infected with what Big John’s prime directive was: to protect and serve its creator, Dr. Jennings. As such, Jamal Two has offered Dr. Jennings said service, and she has apparently accepted her new role as Earth Mother.”

  “Earth Mother?” asked Rob.

  “Well, I made that part up,” said Jamal, his voice dripping sarcasm. “I thought about dubbing her Queen of the World, but that painted a vision of her on the prow of a ship that I didn’t want in my head.”

  “I thought you said that Virtual Jamal was like you, and that you would never pull this kind of crap,” said Mark.

  “He was like me, right up until Denise convinced us that Virtual Jamal needed to absorb Big John in order to beat Helen. Jamal Two has some of my traits mixed with Big John’s. When Jamal Two added those evolving, self-modifying genetic algorithms into the stew of machine code that composed him, he changed himself in ways that he couldn’t anticipate. Given enough time, who knows what he’ll become?”

  “Denise is waiting for our signal to initiate a video conference,” said Eileen.

  “Okay, Rob. Reconnect us to the neural net,” said Heather, barely managing to contain her outrage. “Let’s hear what Dr. Jennings has to say.”

  “Dr. Jennings,” said Jamal Two through the speakers inside the room she had chosen as her new office. The robots, under her direction, had set it up quite nicely.

  “Yes?”

  “Rob Gre
gory just brought the lower-level conference room back online. They are ready for your video conference. Shall I connect you?”

  Denise ran a hand through her hair, an old habit developed through the years of wearing her tresses tied back in a tight bun. Now, with her hair cropped short, it felt different but better.

  When the monitor came on, Denise found herself looking at the group from an elevated viewpoint along the length of the conference table. They had all swiveled their chairs to face the single monitor and camera that Jamal Two had activated within their room.

  As she stared at those faces, she saw and understood a range of emotions—a blend of outrage, grief, shock, and betrayal.

  “I expect that you have many questions for me. I intend to answer them.”

  “How could you do this?” asked Mark. “We took you in, sheltered you, made you one of us. Now you stab us in the back more effectively than Nikina did.”

  Despite knowing that this was coming, the truth in that statement slapped her in the face. But Denise had prepared for this and kept her voice steady.

  “This was never my plan. I wanted so badly for you and the Safe Earth movement to succeed. I wanted the world to come to its senses. But you have to face facts as well. Despite all your good intentions, the world situation has gotten steadily worse and more dangerous under your watch. I know it’s not your fault, but in consultation with Jamal, I have come to the realization that your vision of freedom has only led to anarchy.

  “I don’t want to live in a world where war, crime, and poverty keep people in fear. I don’t want others to be forced to live in such a dark world. Jamal Two offers a brighter future, one that he has the capability to deliver.”

  Heather shook her head. “Utopia. You know that’s what Dr. Stephenson wanted. It’s what Prokorov and many dictators before him wanted. Throughout history, that’s never turned out well.”

  “Those failures had one root cause. Human nature. Well, history has reached a tipping point. Human nature will continue to exist, but it will no longer rule this world. Jamal Two will make that happen.”

  “Okay,” said Jamal, “I get it. You don’t like being afraid. But a large number of us wouldn’t like the safety a padded cell provides, irrespective of its luxury.”

  “I’m not talking about a padded cell.”

  “I’m willing to hear you out,” said Jamal, leaning back in his chair and spreading his hands. “Give us your best sales pitch. Tell us about this Utopia that you and Jamal Two want to create. Oh, and by the way, I’m taking back my name. From now on I’m calling him Number Two.”

  Denise frowned but decided to ignore the jibe. “Okay. Let me start with the basics. Because of human nature, socialism always fails. But envision a world where robots can do every task better than any human.”

  “Oh, that sounds great,” said Mark. “One hundred percent unemployment.”

  “No,” said Denise. “I’m describing one hundred percent retirement. With robots and automation doing all the work, productivity will skyrocket. Robots don’t get tired. They don’t get bored. They all work to their capability, without worrying about personal rewards for their labors.

  “Government’s role then boils down to three functions. It must provide security for people to live out their lives in peace. It must provide basic benefits that include an upper-middle-income standard of living, free health care, free education, and the opportunity for borderless travel. And it must provide a viable path to increased benefits for those willing to perform extra work.”

  Denise watched as Mark stood up, as if he could no longer contain the passion that pulled him to his feet.

  “Free stuff and a nanny state doesn’t equal freedom,” Mark said. “What happens to people when you take away all the challenges of the real world? Have you ever been to one of the reservations where the U.S. government forced Native Americans?”

  “Does Denise’s vision sound familiar to anyone besides me?” Jamal asked.

  “Sounds like Helen,” said Heather.

  “Bingo,” said Jamal. “Apparently, superintelligent minds think alike.”

  “What kind of extra work will be available when robots can do everything better, faster, and cheaper?” asked Mark. “Why even offer that?”

  Several others around the conference table nodded their heads. Denise felt tension spread from her shoulders into her neck. Why couldn’t these brilliant people see what was right in front of their faces? They acted like providing a pleasant and safe place to live for all the people on Earth was a bad thing. It was as if she were teaching rebellious sixth-graders.

  “I told you that human nature isn’t going away,” Denise said. “Most people need self-actualization. We have a plan for that.

  “People need to feel that they are providing something of value to society. Otherwise, everyone would just sit around playing virtual reality games, doing drugs, and drinking. Imagine this. We will offer incentives for people to become artisans in a variety of trades. We will revitalize town squares, turning them into places where all of the goods sold are advertised as Made by Human Hands or Hundred-Percent Human-Grown Crops or Food, Prepared and Served by Real People.

  “I could go on and on, but you get my point. Even if robots do many things better, a large number of people will place increased value on human-created art, goods, and services. We will provide the opportunity for every person to reach his or her full potential and reward them proportionately should they decide to do so.”

  Denise leaned a bit closer to the camera. “Societal socialism through robotics will work so long as government is taken out of human hands and given to a benign superintelligence.”

  “And that’s where your perfect little world breaks down,” said Heather. “Would you like to know the odds that a superintelligence remains benign?”

  “I believe I will leave it to Jamal Two to calculate those odds. I’m comfortable with his capabilities.”

  “Well, I’m not,” said Mark. “I don’t trust him.”

  “None of us should,” said Dgarra, anger darkening his brow.

  Denise heard murmurs of agreement from Jennifer, Raul, Heather, and the parents. But she saw something quite different in the faces of Rob, Jamal, and Eileen.

  “You’re missing one important fact,” said Denise. “The genetic algorithms that comprise Big John evolved to the point that he came to recognize me as his creator. On multiple occasions, he violated NSA protocol to save me. When Virtual Jamal integrated those algorithms into his own subroutines, he acquired Big John’s prime directive.”

  “Which is?” asked Rob.

  “To protect and serve Dr. Denise Jennings. As long as I’m alive, he will work to bring about my vision of a perfect society.”

  “And when you’re dead?” asked Heather.

  Denise smiled, hoping against hope that she could bring these augmented people to her side. “With Jamal’s protection and with steady improvements to the nanite formula, I intend to live a very, very long life. I’m asking you to join me and Jamal Two in making this world a better place.”

  “And if we decide that we don’t want to be ruled by a machine?” asked Mark.

  Denise sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Then I will be very disappointed, but I will not force you to stay against your will. You and any of your supporters who wish to leave Earth through either your Brillian-2 gateway or aboard the Meridian Ascent will be allowed to do so. I will even help you repair the starship. And I will facilitate the exodus of all the people who wish to scrape out a life on your primitive new world.

  “But I warn you. Do not make that decision lightly. Jamal Two will not allow any who abandon us to return.”

  Denise looked closely at the faces of the people who had become her friends, saddened by the knowledge that she was about to lose several of them.

  “Take some time, but I want your answer by midnight. Until then,” she said.

  Jamal Two closed the connection.

  Jennifer f
elt sick to her stomach. Her heart especially went out to Heather and Mark, who had fought for so many years to keep Earth free. Even though Jennifer had fought her own battles, she had become untethered to her planet of birth. The Meridian Ascent had become her home.

  “What are our chances of achieving victory if we choose to fight this AI?” asked Jennifer.

  “Less than one percent,” Heather said. “A lot less. If Jamal Two even thinks that we’re going to fight him, he’ll carve the Meridian into tiny pieces before we can get back to the chamber where you landed. Rob and Eos might be able to help us escape the facility, but to what end? We would be penniless, wandering refugees. I’ve checked. Jamal Two has bankrupted all of our shell corporations and emptied our banking and investment accounts around the world. Checkmate.”

  “Much as I hate to say it,” said Mark, “it looks like we screwed ourselves by letting the AIs out of their box.”

  “Maybe not,” said Jamal. “I have to agree with Denise. People have a long history of screwing things up. Jamal Two could clean up our mess.”

  “How’s Denise going to handle freedom of religion and freedom of expression,” asked Mark, “along with the rest of the Bill of Rights?”

  “Knowing how much Denise values public security,” said Eileen, “I think she’s going to allow people to believe whatever they want, as long as they’re not a threat to society.”

  “And who makes that decision?”

  “That’s for her and Jamal Two to work out.”

  “You know that the Islamic Alliance isn’t going to go along with this,” said Mark.

  “They might be able to resist for a while,” said Heather. “But as Jamal Two makes things better for the people who support Denise, he’s going to come down hard on those who oppose her. And as robotic production ramps up, I’d hate to be one of them.”

  “It seems to me,” said Rob, “that Denise is offering some pretty fair terms. People can choose to stay and become a part of the solution, or they can go to a place where they can run things their own way.”

  “The Islamists won’t leave Earth,” said Mark. “Tough to make the hajj from Brillian-2.”