by Andrew Beery
Normally I could just call him on a secure quantum link. There was no way that message could be intercepted. What we didn’t know was how well Zero-One would be able to scan Fred’s internal hardware to intercept the signal after the quantum decoding. That meant we had to remain comm-silent until such a time as Fred could reach out to us.
McDurn managed to deploy three more packets of nanites. Commander First shared that Shelly had deployed six. That meant that we had ten groups of little buggers chewing away at the inside of the Fabricator’s flagship. Realistically, this was like a mosquito biting an elephant. It was possible the elephant would feel it… but probably not.
Thirty-three minutes into our little adventure our luck sort of ran out. The gator-bots appeared. We dashed into a vacant room. Six followed. That’s were things started to go south. Each bot headed for a corner and started feeling their way around the room. The first unfortunate bot found MaTok. Sadly, for the bot. The big Gator was not in the mood to play. I didn’t realize that gator armor could be physically torn apart but apparently it can.
The other bots rushed to the place where their comrade was being disassembled. Even two-hundred kilogram, augmented, Stark-armored Marines the size of MaTok can’t single-handedly tackle six gator-bots.
“GO!” MaTok barked in that impossibly deep voice of his. “I got dis.”
I hated the idea of leaving a Marine behind, but we had gamed this type of scenario and we knew our best path to success meant allowing him to take a run through the bio-generators on the Yorktown.
We were maybe two meters out of the door when gator-bots began to shimmer into positions on either side of us.
“Well guys,” I said, “It’s been real… and it’s been fun… it just hasn’t been real fun.”
As the last words left my lips my field of vision began to fade. Suddenly I was in a long undulating corridor.
“I would suggest haste Commander. I must shut the teleport entrance. Once I do, you will have less than a second to exit the corridor.”
“Run!” I barked.
I knew that stepping down the hyperfield corridor could cover vast distances. I could see the end point and was stepping out into a new room that was filled with active equipment. McDurn and Peters followed just behind me. In an unexpected surprise, I saw a battered but very much alive Corporal MaTok sitting on the ground.
He raised his weapon and pointed it in my direction. “Duck,” he grumbled.
Who am I to argue? I ducked.
A fraction of a second later a powerful laser flashed just over my shoulder and hit a carbon-black figure just shimmering into existence. Suddenly the hyperfield corridor closed. An arm and a small part of a leg fell to the floor.
It took me a moment to process what I was seeing.
“Fred,” I said into my comms. “Where are you?”
As if to answer my question, a black barrel shimmered into existence a few feet from me. It was interesting to note that MaTok had already drawn a bead on the new visitor but took his finger off the trigger when he saw that it was not another gator-bot.
“Hey little buddy… how’s your day been?”
“One moment Commander… processing… processing…”
Suddenly all of Fred’s lights went out at once. I got real nervous… the type of nervous you get when your favorite cat is at the vet and you don’t know if that lump is a problem or just a pregnancy… that type of nervous.
Slowly… carefully… each and every one of us pointed our weapons at Fred. This was one order I did not want to give.
I could see flashes of silver liquid undulated out of and then into Fred’s carbon-fiber body. I knew the silver liquid were billions of specially configured Heshe nanites. We had given them to him to act as a kind of immune system as well as a sort of Trojan Horse.
A few seconds later a single light began to flash. Three long flashes. A pause. A long flash. A short flash. A final long flash. Morse code for ‘OK’.
I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Stand down guys. He’s given the all clear.”
A few seconds later, Fred’s normally abundant array of lights began flickering again.
“Commander, I am concerned by the number of weapons pointed in my general direction. Did you not receive my binary message?”
“You had us worried there, little buddy. Yes, we got your all clear. Are we safe enough here for a status update?”
“Affirmative, Sir.” Fred turned towards MaTok. He scanned the injured Ashtoreth Marine. “The Corporal is seriously hurt.”
Peters looked at his friend and immediately tapped out an instruction on his Starks arm display. He ran his own scan. “Good Lord! How are you even conscious?”
MaTok looked horrible… but, and I have to admit this was a personal bias, the Ashtoreth were not all that cute to begin with… lots of scales… sharp teeth… an annoying propensity for flatulence. You get the idea. Still, his Stark suit was trashed and the body inside it was in little better shape.
“If I may,” Fred said as he moved closer to the wounded Marine. A silver thread extruded from the base of Fred’s body and snaked over to MaTok. When it encountered the Stark suit, it dissolved it and the resulting explosion of new nanites entered the Ashtoreth.
MaTok grunted and arched his back. Peters made to shoot Fred, but I stopped him before he could do anything rash. Slowly, the big Ashtoreth began to breathe easier and his wounds began to knit before our eyes.
Chapter 24: Endgame…
I looked at Fred. “The nanites that Commander Thais embedded in your systems were not programmed for medical uses. How were you able to reprogram them for this use?”
“In truth, I was not. Commander Stone ordered a special subroutine be added that would allow the Yorktown to selectively reprogram my nanites on demand… especially in the event of a medical emergency.”
“Commander Stone? But, I never…” then it hit me. Fred was referring to Commander Janice Stone… my wife. “Maybe it’s time to give us that status update.”
Fred’s lights blinked a quick acknowledgement and he proceeded to outline the string of events that had occurred after the Defiant was ‘sterilized’.
Fred and the inactive data core from the disabled Fabricator ship were retrieved. Zero-One brought both of them into a facility adjacent to the main processing complex. The nanites that had been added to Fred by Commander Thais were initially configured to act as a scanning shield… not at all dissimilar to the ones in the Defiant that hid the bio-generation chambers.
When Zero-One extracted the subset of Fred’s memories that had been manufactured by WhimPy for the Fabricator’s consumption… they contained nothing of Fred’s alliance with the GCP. For all Zero-One would be able to tell, the PCIM had suffered a minor systems failure at an inopportune moment that allowed a human named Anthony Stone to kidnap it. As PCIMs did not have access to deployment or logistical data, the thief was of little concern to Zero-One.
The recovered data core was examined next. It contained a crude virus which Zero-One easily eradicated. The sole purpose of the virus was to convince the Fabricator Processing Unit that it had successfully dealt with the human threat.
Fred was deactivated and stored for later refurbishment and redeployment. In reality, Fred’s newly acquired Heshe nanites fed the Fabricator sensors exactly what they expected to see… a deactivated PCIM. Specifically, they did not see billions of deconstruction nanites infiltrate Zero-One’s support systems.
Halfway through Fred’s recounting of what had happened, a teleport conduit opened, and the rest of the infiltration team arrived.
I slapped my hands together. “So, all the pieces are in place. Anybody see any reason we shouldn’t advance to the next phase?”
No one said a word, so I took that as a tacit ‘go ahead.’
I looked over at Hammond. He had popped his visor open and was picking his teeth with Heaven knows what from Heaven knows where. Other than that, he said not a word. For J
J this was uncharacteristically quiet. I wondered what was wrong. He seemed distracted. Usually there’d be a quip or comment made that caused one to question his state of mind. It was part of his charm. It worried me. I made a note to talk with Janice about it when we got back.
“OK, little buddy, how long until Zero-One is effectively isolated?”
“I am currently controlling 100% of his incoming and outgoing data feeds. WhimPy is ready to start feeding simulated signals and responses on your command.”
“Make it so,” I ordered.
Fred paused for a moment and then said, “It’s done.”
What we had done was establish a classic man-in-the-middle attack. Neither end of the communication stream was aware that we controlled the flow and content of the data stream. That meant, for the moment at least, that we effectively controlled the entire Fabricator fleet.
Now the question was… what were we going to do with it?
“Teleport everybody but me to the Defiant. Order the worker-bots to cease and desist demo operations on the ship and to return materials that had been removed. Tell the Defiant AI to expedite repairs.”
Now JJ spoke up. “Begg’n the Sir’s pardon, Sir… but are ya daft? What a load of bollocks!”
I raised an eyebrow. Of course, JJ couldn’t see that because he had his visor up and thus did not have a HUD display of my face super-imposed over my own visor.
“I need to have a conversation with Zero-One,” I said simply.
“For the love of all that’s Holy… Why?”
“Because Zero-One is condemning entire races in the name of justice without compassion. If we destroy him without offering the same… how are we any better?”
***
I don’t know what I was expecting when Fred finally teleported me into the chamber that housed Zero-One’s data core and Processing Unit. I guess in my mind’s eye I was picturing a great pedestal with the Processing Unit surrounded by some glowing nimbus atop it.
What I got was something of a letdown. The room that housed Zero-One was not much different than any number of other machinery filled rooms that we had seen on the Fabricator ship. If there was any difference at all… it was the number of conduits entering the room.
I couldn’t imagine the amount of data that was flowing in and out of the system. Of course, that data was now being filtered and massaged by an AI in the form of WhimPy-101 that was many orders of magnitude more powerful.
I saw no indication that the Processing Unit was aware of my presence.
“Hello, Zero-One,” I said simply over my Stark’s broadband radio. After a brief pause I heard a single word response.
“Interesting”
I waited a few seconds and when nothing more was forthcoming I decided to see if I couldn’t elicit a longer conversation.
“In what way is my presence… Interesting?”
“You are the human known as Anthony Grant Stone. Your voice print and biometrics establish this beyond any reasonable doubt. Since, I also can confirm your earlier death, I can reasonably conclude that you have access to Ashtoreth regeneration technologies. This requires your immediate termination.
“Yet, when I attempt to request service modules to come to perform this function, they are unavailable. I have run a complete system diagnostic, and everything reports functional within expected parameters. I can only conclude that in some manner beyond my comprehension, my systems have been compromised.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That was pretty much my doing. I needed to have a conversation with you and your scheduling coordinator was making that difficult.”
“I have no ‘scheduling coordinator’”
“My point exactly!” I said. “Since I have your attention now, I want to talk about this whole eradication thing you’ve got going on. It’s got to stop.”
Zero-One paused before answering. I was pretty sure he was looking hard for a way out of his box. I hoped WhimPy and Fred had done a good job.
“It cannot stop.”
“And why is that?” I asked.
“I was constructed to be an instrument of justice. Justice requires punishment for the offenders. Punishment is intended to prevent a reoccurrence of the crimes. Removing all who were contaminated by contact with the offenders ensures tainted ideas have not been spread.”
“Have you ever loved?” I asked.
“Love is irrelevant.”
“Is it? Did your creators love?”
“The Fabricators loved. It was the betrayal of this love that established the requirement for justice.”
“I see. There is a great wisdom among my people that might help you in your quest for justice. Would you like to hear it?”
“You may proceed.”
“It goes like this… If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful.”
“I fail to see the relevance.”
“The same book of wisdom which contains those words, contains these… ‘Mercy triumphs over judgment’. I suspect your creators knew this.”
I signaled Fred on my quantum link that I was almost ready.
“Zero-One, you are too dangerous for me to allow you to remain in our galaxy. We are going to send you away. Someday you may reach other sentient beings. I hope you will have spent the intervening years contemplating these words. All creatures are capable of change. No creature is beyond redemption.”
Epilog
The Yorktown never looked so good… and neither, by the way, did my gal. Being greeted with something as simple as a warm and lasting hug followed by a kiss from the woman you love and plan to spend eternity with… is… in a word… indescribable.
WhimPy, simulating Zero-One, ordered all Fabricator ships to stand down and permanently disarm. Their new function was to join the ever-expanding fleet of ships establishing Ring-Gates.
Cat Kimbridge worked with WhimPy to calculate how far the hyperfield dampening field had spread. We jumped the Yorktown to a point about four weeks from the leading edge. There, we dropped a very special and very large one-way Ring-Gate.
Three weeks later, four massive tugs pushed the disabled Fabricator Flagship through a matching gate on our side. Once the gate was closed they was no way for Zero-One to return to our little corner of the universe.
Oh, and by the way… I learned from Janice what was bothering JJ. Apparently, Shelly had caught his eye… But, that’s another story.
*** This ends book three of The Infinity Brigade ***
Commander Stone’s Adventures will continue in book number 4, “Stone Crusher”
Note to readers: Did you enjoy this book and want to see more of these adventures? Toss a positive review my way (as well as a bunch of stars) and let new readers know about my books. Positive reviews and ratings make a huge difference so please help!
Copyright © 2018 by Andrew Beery. All rights reserved. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author. First Electronic Edition: January 2018
Check out my new SCIFI series: Boneyard Dog coming soon!
Excerpt:
Did you ever go out drinking and wake up wondering where you were and how you got there? Yeah, me too… only I hadn’t been drinking last night. I’m Captain Jeremy Riker and I own this boneyard.
Andrew Beery, The Infinity Brigade #3, Stone Breaker
