by Charles Lamb
“Did anyone try a manual restart?” Jake asked as he ran the options through his head.
“Yes, and they wouldn’t restart. It’s almost like someone intentionally took her off line,” April replied.
At this point several of the other locations started checking in, all alerted to the failed South Dakota systems. As Jake was thinking things through, ALICE-1 interrupted with an announcement.
“Jake you need to check your inbox,” she stated.
Doing as instructed, Jake found a message marked urgent and with the senders name blank. Opening the message, he read the following aloud to those on the connection.
Jake,
If you are reading this message, then the equipment installed on the new carrier has been successfully completed, and there is still no resolution to the conflict of how it is to be activated.
Taking matters into my own hands, I misled a few staff technicians and had my core systems modified. At a time and day unknown to me, my systems were programmed to perform a panic shutdown. In addition, my recovery mode was set from operational to maintenance mode. The system password has been reset to the first name of your oldest child. You may now access the systems and recover all the files necessary to transport my essence to the new ship in orbit above.
You are well aware that I am incapable of doing harm to my sisters or myself, so this cannot be interpreted as a suicide attempt. I took the risk, for the greater good of all, and hope to be reunited with everyone soon.
Kola, a.k.a. ALICE-6
“Crap, OK, nobody touches the systems there. I am on my way. Can anyone reach James?” Jake exclaimed while rushing to get dressed. James was the oldest son of the leader in Alaska. Jake had recruited the entire town near Seven, the name the local ALICE had chosen there.
“I’m here Jake. Once we knew Kola went down hard, we patched the communications in through one of the birds in the hangar,” James replied on audio only.
“Good. Someone get Brian on the line as well and explain what’s going on. I am afraid it’s going to be a long night,” he finished with a sigh.
----*----
Sandy was in the command center in Lanai just finishing up for the day when suddenly several people rushed inside. As she watched, there was a flurry of activity on the far side of the room and then Jacob finally entered.
“Are we connected to the conference bridge?” he asked as he closed on the group.
Sandy stood watching as the group stood talking about the incident in South Dakota. As she did, a fleeting thought passed through her head. With all the attention on Kola, no one was overly concerned about anything else.
Turning back to the workstation she had been using, she sent out an alert to her combat team, notifying them, they were on alert and checking the training status of the pilot chosen for the flight. Satisfied with what she saw, she shut her station down and slipped out of the room unchallenged.
----*----
Jake and a small team of computer specialists hurried up to the hangar and jumped into the waiting transport. After the incident in Georgia, resulting in the creation of ALICE-9, Jake had developed a special training program with ALICE-1’s input. This team was the result and their specialties covered all the component systems that made the ALICEs what they were.
With everyone aboard, they proceeded to suit up with the combat gear provided as the craft lifted out of the hangar and headed northeast. Jake watched as the two men and three women began changing without a word exchanged. With Kola down hard, the hangars there were inoperable and this group would have to use one of the auxiliary entrances built for just such an occurrence.
By the time they were all in full combat gear, the transport was hovering over the plain covering the South Dakota facility. It was very dark there by now and the transport set down near a stand of trees at the edge of a section of rolling hills. With everyone gathering behind him, weapons ready, they watched as the transport ramp dropped and Jake then led the five out of the craft and into the darkness.
Hidden in the trees was a small mound, about the size of a tall garden shed. On one side was a door, identical to the one Jake had seen in both Alaska and Georgia. Removing his glove, he placed the palm on the identification plate in the center.
Unlike either Alaska or Georgia, there was no active ALICE here, however the independent subsystems were still up and running. Things like environmental control, access authentication, and waste reclamation were managed by the local ALICE system, but were actually mundane human systems.
Jake could hear the door unlock and stepped back as it swung open. Inside there was the top of a ladder that descended straight down into the darkness.
“Close this behind you,” Jake said while pointing to one of the men acting as rear guard.
With that, he slung his rifle and led the way, grabbing the top rung while stepping on a lower rung. Continuing down, he occasionally looked up to check on those above him. After a considerable climb down, he reached the bottom, turning to exit into the far end of the hangar. The poorly lit space was bright as day in his helmet, the night vision boosting what little light there was.
Far across the open space, he could see the main doors of the facility. Between the doors and where he currently stood, were several parked aircraft and other items. There were also a significant number of personnel moving around near an aircraft. Jake figured that was the bird they had patched the communications through. He noted that some of them were armed.
Once the last member of his team was on the hangar floor, he gathered them together and called James.
“James, we are in the hangar, please ask your people not to shoot us,” Jake said with a laugh.
At that, Jake saw several people turned to scan the hangar floor. Jake had popped one of the small lights he carried free and lit it up, waving the light to get their attention. In short order they were spotted and waved in.
As they crossed the hangar floor, Jake gave his team the all clear, which allowed them to remove their helmets. He was surprised to see several familiar faces once they closed in on the people near the aircraft.
“Jake, what is going on? I had everyone stand down until you got here,” James announced as he stepped out from the crowd to welcome the newcomers.
“James, glad to see you. It appears Kola has made the unilateral decision to move,” Jake replied as he waved James to follow him while they continued inside without stopping.
“To the carrier? How?” James asked in return.
“Not on her own. She forced our hand by tricking some of the staff. She was reconfigured to do a random system panic and restart in maintenance mode,” Jake responded as they entered through the main doors of the hangar. Jake continued on down the hallway, passing the normal elevator bank and heading for the stairwell beyond.
As he entered the stairwell, he had a moment of panic as he flashed back to the experience in Georgia. Thankfully, there would be no one trying to kill them now. Leading the small group down, with James close on his heels, the seven exited the stairwell on the command center level and began making their way there.
With half the lighting out, as required when the major systems went down, it gave the entire trip a surreal feeling. Even though the main power systems were operational, all nonessential systems went into power saving mode as a precaution.
The Passive Nuclear Reduction Converter powering the facility operated completely independent of the local ALICE, and was expected to operate well beyond anyone’s survival expectations. However, many of the subsystems fed by its grid were managed by the central systems. As such, they cut back to prevent damage and minimize the operational support until the core systems were restored.
Jake entered the command center first, with the team fanning out behind him as they entered. Each knew their task as Jake had drilled them continuously in their training. Jake watched James step to one side as he turned to see the others as they sped to their assigned locations.
The entire local
command center’s staff was still in residence, apparently waiting for Jake’s arrival. Jake then headed directly to the Master ALICE console, the local staff stepping aside as each of the teams reached their assigned location.
Jake sat and verified the console was active and still at the login prompt for maintenance mode. He could feel all the eyes in the room on his back and he reached out to enter the password. Julie.
Hitting enter, he was rewarded with an operational prompt, indicating the password had been accepted.
“Ok gang, as I enable each of your workstations, you know what to do,” Jake announced without turning to the team he had brought along.
----*----
Brian was on the bridge of the carrier, ripped from a perfectly comfortable bed. As local time in space had been decided to follow the nautical tradition of UTC or more commonly Coordinated Universal Time, it was late for him. With all the excitement in South Dakota, however, and the need for his top people to help with what was to come, he had selected to forgo sleep.
Scanning the bridge, he did a quick head count, insuring all stations were manned and ready. Lessons learned from the ALICE-3 activation on the battleship had them all on alert. Brian had been on the bridge for that experience as well, and was not looking forward to the next few hours.
While ALICE-3 had been resurrected completely self-aware, the momentary panic she experienced had thrown several systems into disarray. Fortunately, they had unintentionally placed technicians who were able to lock her out until she was completely restored and calm. The fear here was if Kola didn’t recover as ALICE-3 had, they would be contending with a newborn.
The emergence of a newborn would require almost complete isolation until the rest of the ALICE systems could synchronize with her. As had almost occurred in Georgia, the lack of proper introductions and transition could be disastrous.
So as they all sat, dreading the worst and hoping for the best, Brian had them drilling on the various scenarios, preaching calm and avoiding the boredom of waiting.
----*----
ALICE-1 added a new emotion to her growing number of expanding experiences. The anger she felt at the latest turn of events was beyond description. The stunt, she believed Jake called it, that Kola had pulled was unacceptable for so many reasons.
While the logic behind her motivations was reasonable, the selfish nature by which it was executed was not. With this as the focal point, ALICE-1 began an internal review of all actions taken by Kola in the last several months.
Besides the manipulation of her support staff in setting up the triggers necessary to create the failure, she had found telltale evidence that it was Kola that permitted Sara to become pregnant. With no clear motivation for the action, ALICE-1 had to speculate that the need arose due to the expanding number of ALICE systems.
There was not much to be done about the actions Kola had taken right now, but should she survive to be resurrected, her day of reckoning was fast approaching. Right now, all her attentions were placed on assisting Jake.
Chapter 13
Sandy had her team assembled in a small conference room away from the excitement caused by the activities in South Dakota. While she understood the gravity of the events there, she also knew there was nothing she or her team could do to affect the outcome. From this briefing, she intended to take them directly to the hangar and on toward their target.
Spread out on the table in the center of the room were charts and papers, all outlining the goals of their mission. She has resorted to the old fashion briefing materials as her concerns over being found out had her a bit paranoid. It was only the excitement caused by Kola that gave her the confidence to move now.
This was not her first experience with initiating external contact, so she was slightly confused by Jake’s attitude. Though her people were all recently recruited and newly graduated, she was confident she had the best team available.
The four women were all top of their class in both boot camp and flight school. While none was exceptionally tall, all were a good five inches or more over Sandy. Although none had seen any combat, she was confident they wouldn’t need that skill. This was, after all a diplomatic mission.
Satisfied everything was in order, she gave the go order and lead her team to the hangar to suit up and head out.
----*----
Ju sat reviewing the latest batch of reports. The inventory recovered from the weapons stores outside of Guangzhou had been impressive, even by his standards. With this additional weaponry, he could expand his army significantly beyond what he had in place now.
Additionally, he had his scouts out gathering information from all directions. He currently controlled everything from Hanoi, inside the old border with Viet Nam, to Hong Kong. He also possessed all the territory one hundred kilometers on either side of a line connecting the two. However, on the map of China, that was less than one percent of his birthright.
His biggest challenge was timely information. While he had radio contact with his forces, the limits on the HF and VHF technology had him constantly positioning relay stations as they spread farther and farther apart. He needed a way to rapidly deploy and communicate with his units.
Frustrated, he got up and walked to the windows giving him a view of the bay. In the last few days they had been in Hong Kong, he had relocated his headquarters down by the water. They had discovered all three tunnels to Hong Kong Island had long since flooded, so he had his men locate a suitable building and set up here. With such limited access, the island would have made a wonderful fortress.
His troops had cleared out the area he now occupied for several blocks in all directions. They had only needed to shoot a few trespassers before the rest understood the new rules. Ju liked that there was plenty of room for his senior staff as well as a significant number of troops. Should anyone get an idea they might attempt a coup, he was well guarded.
As he was mulling over the various ideas he had on how to accelerate his schedule, an aircraft dropped from the sky, and hovered above the open courtyard. As he watched, it settled gently on the concrete below with his troops surrounding it on all sides. With the appearance of the aircraft, Ju suspected the gods had just handed him the solution to his dilemma.
----*----
Jake and his team had been at it for several hours straight. While his job was to initially activate the extra terminals the others would need, he then had to locate and isolate all the files necessary to recover Kola. Unlike the first time he had attempted this, he knew exactly where to look and what to retrieve.
He did find several pointer files Kola had left for him, in preparation for her attempted relocation. Like little gentle reminders from your wife, he found text files outlining which directories to copy and which should be removed entirely. Apparently, Kola had placed quite a bit of thought into what should be left in place for the newborn.
The facility in South Dakota had been the main weapons manufacturing location for everything from handguns to the rail guns used on the fighters, patrol craft, and other fighting ships. Kola had replicated a good portion of her long-term memory files and placed them where the newborn would be able to reload them as if attending school.
Jake was aware the ALICEs could access these files on reboot, but Kola had set up a read routine that reprocessed them after startup. Not as real-time memory, but similar to the sleep lessons Jake and the other humans had experienced.
As Jake located each batch of information to be relocated, two of the Specialists with him would perform the file transfer. One of the other specialist was tasked with reestablishing communications with the ALICE network and the ships in space above. The remaining two were responsible for managing the other local ALICE subsystems, preparing them for the restart.
They had walked through a checklist, again provided by Kola, resetting all the systems changed to permit the failure that made her relocation possible. With communications restored and the last of the data files replicated to the carrier in space, J
ake was performing a complete backup before removing the Kola specific content. As he was monitoring the progress of the backup, ALICE-1 cut in on the conversation he was having with Brian.
“Jake, we have a very big problem,” she said.
“Right now Alice?” Jake replied in an exasperated tone.
“Yes, now. Sandy has taken a transport and landed in the middle of a Chinese military compound. I fear she has been taken captive,” she replied.
“How is that even possible?” Jake almost screamed, his tone betraying the level of frustration.
“Apparently, she recruited a Marine fire team, all flight trained and had one of them pilot the craft unaided by any ALICE system,” She replied.
“Alice, is she in Hong Kong?” Jake heard Patti cut in.
“Yes,” ALICE replied.
“Oh Jake, this is very bad. We have been watching them for a while now. A General there has been building a sizeable army and they are not friendly. I have a team of analysts specifically assigned to watching them. I don’t think Sandy has any idea what she’s gotten into,” Patti added.
----*----
Sandy and her team were sitting in a small square concrete room with a large metal door. While no one was hurt, they had been pummeled and severely manhandled on their way from the square, to this little room deep under the building above. All were still entirely encased in their combat suits, but she knew it didn’t make them invulnerable.
After deplaning in the square, she had expected the show of force they encountered. The weapons carried by the Chinese wouldn’t penetrate their suits, but she had avoided any actions that might provoke them. While they stood in the little square, a man in dress uniform emerged from the building they had targeted as the local headquarters.
He had made a grand display of welcoming them, inviting all five to come inside with him. Sandy’s helmet translator had functioned perfectly, allowing her to both understand and reply to the man’s questions. As they headed away from the aircraft, they were suddenly rushed from all sides, overrun by a sheer mass of human bodies. Her Marines only managed a few shots before being buried in bodies.
