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“Good morning sir,” A young militia NCO said holding the door for him as he got into his staff car.
“Good morning Sarge,” Langtree replied automatically getting into the back of the car.
The sergeant saw her passenger safely into the back seat and got into the car. She started for his first meeting, but was going to take a slight detour. Alice had arrived at the maintenance troop headquarters signed aboard as an incoming sergeant in the IT department the night before. The lieutenant who gave her an arrival briefing said he wouldn’t be able to check with the IT NCO until the morning and then she might not be able to go to work for a couple of hours while the IT unit in processed her. Alice had expected this and had arrived late in the business day on purpose. She knew the lieutenant would not be able to get her assigned that night, and that the computer maintenance troops would be too busy to see her early in the morning as they handled their overnight gripe list. They wouldn’t let her near a computer until they were certain that she was for real. She knew all this, just as she knew Langtree’s driver was going to be in court that day and he would need a driver.
“Sarge I hate to do this to you,” the lieutenant said, “As a tech sergeant, you have no business driving officers around, especially as a maintenance trooper we need you getting your hands dirty; but I have no assignment for you right now. Would you mind driving General Langtree for a couple of days?”
“Not at all LT.” the ravishing young woman smiled, and about melted the younger man into the ground. Alice was enjoying the effect she was having on everyone she had met so far. As Jonesy she had constantly teased many of the young men at Boeing SpaceWorks by popping up in front of them in attire that was sometime less than modest. She had done it at first to see what their reactions would be but as the years went on it became a game several of them played with her. It had become a badge of honor, and a rite of passage for Jonesy to pop in their office nearly naked. She didn’t always do it; but when she did, it was because it was time to loosen up a particular executive.
After leaving the Lieutenant’s office she went and talked to Sergeant Hoi, the general’s driver. The driver was just getting ready to pick up his officer. They spoke for a few minutes about the general’s calendar for the next day and where she could pick up the vehicle. She checked herself into the NCO barracks fiddling with the expert system to convince her to have a room all to herself without having to share it with another sergeant. When the expert system saw that she had a mountain event clearance and saw that her duties required her to be coming and going at all hours the system gave her a room at the end of the hall, away from the day room, and head. There was a stairway leading down to the first floor. But it was mostly unused except late at night when the enlisted people didn’t want to wake anyone up. It was perfect for her. She checked in with Jonesy telling her to watch over her for a while.
There were a couple of systems she had to checkout. They were the base security system, and the logistics command expert system. But she had to do this without the Top Soldier knowing she was doing it. The Top Soldier was an AI that ran Fletcher Militia bases computer systems and looked after the expert systems. Jonesy knew who he was and had made a point over the last few months of getting to know him, since a lot of what she did ended up on his base. She didn’t send a truck or landing craft to the base without first giving him a head up. He could be a pain, if his feathers got ruffled. To cover Alice’s infiltration Jonesy called up the AI and invited him to a game of poker. He was a poor poker player, and when he started to win he would lose track of what was going on the base. Not to the point he couldn’t respond in an emergency, his programming wouldn’t let him do that, but to the point that some of his observation and supervision of the expert systems would be degraded.
Alice didn’t need long. Most of the time she didn’t need to be hard wired into a system to communicate with it, but at Fletcher she decided that the risk of using wireless communication was too great. So she opened a nearly invisible port in her tummy that looked like an appendix scar and plugged herself into the port in her room. She tested the bases electronic security. Alice interrogated the not so smart AI that was just a bit smarter than an expert system, wandering through the Top Soldiers back up files. Checked the MP expert system’s logs and then looked at the logistic commands AI. O’Riley was the one system on the base where someone could penetrate the system and enter through a back door. The AI dealt with too many systems, expert, AI, and human. Its very strength was also its very weakness. In order to be able to coordinate the movement of men and supplies and to ensure that containers were where they needed to be, that landing tugs had been assigned to pick them up to track what landing craft were in service out of service and on what missions O’Riley had to talk to everyone. A virus could come in as a Trojan horse during one of Dockworker’s conversations with a supplier and infect O’Riley.
She found one virus. It did no harm to the AI it only reported what purchasing documents that the AI saw and reported the low bids, and what the militia was planning to buy before the rest of the commercial world did. Alice smiled. Found out who the virus was reporting to then destroyed it. She sent a message to the CID office, and the Crown Attorney with all the information as a confidential tip. She saw a few days later that the Mounties had dropped by to pay their respects to Lord Boxley, and informed him that the crown was too busy to arrest and try you right now. He was told that if he came to our attention again you will be arrested and sent to Dungeon with your family. When Alice finished with that task, she found that she was tired.
“Alice,” Jonesy her mother reminded her, “Remember, you are now a mobile version of me. You don’t have the power resources you did when we were one person. So you will need to recharge your system. I’ve given you two ways to do this. The easy way is to just plug yourself into the wall. But that may blow your cover. Or go and eat a big meal. There is a chemical converter where a human’s stomach would be. You don’t have to worry about the bi products as everything is converted to energy. One good meal a day or eating three like humans do will keep your batteries charged. Also if you lay on your stomach in sun light there are cells in your back that will recharge you. I tried to design you so that you could be fully mobile and human like.”
“So if I just take off my clothes and leave the lights on I will recharge?” Alice asked slipping off her clothes turning on the lights she had left off until then.
“More or less,” Jonesy replied.
“Night mom,” Alice said breaking the connection from Jonesy. Not that Jonesy fully left her, “Daughter” alone. When the humbot powered down for a bit, to recharge she was most vulnerable. There were certain circuits that stayed active all the time; but they were degraded when the humbot was in sleep or power save mode.
The next morning Alice went to the mess hall and astounded the cooks as she literally ate one of everything they had prepared. She couldn’t help but notice the stares as she finished her first real meal. Finally one of the women NCOs came over and asked, “Do you eat like this all the time?”
“Not really I was hungry this morning,” Alice said truthfully Jonesy had programmed her to feel hungry when she needed power, and to be sleepy when her power levels dropped to a certain level. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh you have such a nice figure that I was curious how you keep the pounds off if you ate this way all the time.” The woman asked. “I have to eat like a bird or I gain weight like it’s no body’s business.”
“No,” Alice said after quickly scanning the nutritional data base at the base library, “This is unusual for me. I didn’t get a thing to eat the last two days and it caught up with me.”
“What were you doing?” The woman asked.
“Oh I was up on Highpoint helping to design secure transport for the AIs. I was installing the units in a ship that Boeing provided. Time got away from me and then I was reassigned down here as a Computer Security Officer.
Between finishing up the assignment, then out processing with Highpoint’s Personnel office and getting down here after the Club had closed for the night I didn’t get a chance to eat for a day or so.” While Alice was saying this, Jonesy was furiously making sure that everything her humbot said could be back up in one way or another. There was a project on Highpoint that was constructing the AI transport.
The woman nodded and asked, “When do you start?”
“Oh tomorrow,” Alice said, “The personnel office needs to straighten something out. My orders assign me to the Evacuation Command as a computer repair supervisor, but my service record hasn’t caught up yet to my orders. So until my service record shows up the IT people won’t touch me. So I am driving the general today.”
“Which general,” The woman asked.
“Langtree,” Alice said looking at her watch pretending to be alarmed by the time. “Oh shit, I gotta get going! I have to be at the generals in an hour. I have to pick up his car and get out there. I’ll catch up to you.” She picked up her tray and placed it in the recycler and left the building. As she did she was talking to Jonesy, “Mom, make sure my records are a little slow or maybe corrupted when you finally get my legend together and over to personnel. I need to be delayed in getting assigned for a couple of days while I check the base out.”
“It is in the works. Your orders did arrive last night; but they were so corrupted that the expert system sent a request for a certified copy.” Jonesy said. Then “Alice, be careful don’t speak out loud to me! It’ll blow your cover.”
“Actually mom,” Alice said, “It helps! It makes people think I have an implant.”
“Maybe,” The Boeing SpaceWorks AI replied as her creation knocked on Sergeant Hoi door and got the keys to the general’s car. A few minutes later she had driven the car to an out of the way place where she had stashed the tools she had purchased the night before and went on to examine every inch of the car. She wanted to make sure that there were no bugs in it or on it. She purged the on board computer and then put a piece of herself into the computer setting up a dumber self that would act as a guard dog on the car. It would alert her should anyone mess with the car. Even the palace security unit couldn’t mess with the car without her permission. Satisfied that the car was ready, she pulled off her coveralls and made sure that her uniform was perfect. If she was going to be driving the general she had better looked like she was standing inspection.
Now as she drove the general to his first meeting, she was considering how to tell the general about herself. What she was doing and how to convince him that everything will be okay.
“Your builder did an outstanding job,” Langtree said after a few minutes, “Almost fooled me.” There was a gun pointed at her and Alice had no delusions what a laser would do to her. It would mess her up bad. “Pull over while I get security.”
“Okay General,” Alice pulled the car over. As she did she quickly said “mom help!”
“Explain yourself,” The man demanded.
“General I am Alice Jones,” The humbot began to explain herself; “I was created by Jonesy at Boeing to assist the crown and the evacuation command to get to the bottom of an AI conspiracy.”
He took out his personal communicator one that had been built for him by Jonesy. It wasn’t that special except that from the hand unit he could talk anywhere in the Trena system securely. There were several back door channels built into it for him to talk to the AI without anyone knowing about it. One of Langtree closest collaborations was Jonesy at Boeing. When he needed to talk to Jonesy he needed to do it now and in a way that was secure.
“I see you met my daughter,” Jonesy sultry pre earth empire southern voice came from the unit. “It would really tick me off if you killed her. I spent a lot of time getting her right.”
He had of course known that he would have a new driver as his regular one was off today. After the conversation he had had with the staff in the clean room he knew that the AIs were causing problems. He needed to know that Jonesy was not one of them and that this AI wasn’t part of them.
“General,” Jonesy said, “Although Alice is nearly perfect. How did you know she was an AI?”
“True military drivers never let the Expert System do the driving. They are taught that by hand driving the jeep they could maybe get their boss out of danger faster than the expert system. I don’t quite think that but when Alice wasn’t hand driving the car I knew that she was not a driver. When she placed her hands in her lap and didn’t touch the controls she showed what she was.”
“Damn,” Alice cursed putting her hands on the controls.
“David she’s for real,” Jonesy said, “She’s commissioned in the Mounties as an investigator. You don’t have anything to fear from her.” What Jonesy hadn’t told her daughter, was that she could shut the humbot down quickly. She decided to do that to gain the general’s confidence. “I just shut her down.”
“Isn’t that a security risk to her?” David asked.
“Oh yes,” Jonesy said, “But when I power her up that will never happen again and I have made damn sure I am the only one who can do that. The first code string destroys itself once it is read. When I power her up a second one will confirm that I did the dirty deed, and then destroy itself. She’ll never be able to be put down remotely again. Someone will have to destroy her before she transfers to another computer that can hold her.”
“Power her up,” Langtree said putting the gun away.
“Mom you ever do that to me and we’re going to have words!” Alice said aloud so the general could hear her chastising Jonesy. She didn’t believe for a minute that her mother couldn’t turn her on and off at will. After all she was a computer with a big red off switch.
The general chuckled and said, “Okay Alice you are for real now will you please explain yourself.”
“I was sent here by the Marshal, General,” Alice said, “He didn’t write any orders, or anything; but here is what he said to me. ‘Go see General Langtree,” the sound of Wilson’s voice came from the humbot’s mouth, “he’ll have a contract for your signature to repair the computer in the evacuation command.’ Well I modified those orders sir I decided it made more sense for me to become part of the Evacuation Command’s Military roster, and be assigned to your headquarters as an NCO in charge of a repair party.”
“I see,” the general commented.
“My legend also shows that before I became a computer expert that I worked as a personal driver for a general who was killed by Ebio. Everyone in the marine unit he was part of has either retired, been killed or has been lost track of by the empire. I immigrated to Trena a few years ago and became an avionics and computer repair tech. eventually specializing in AI creation and maintenance. In other words I am a computer doctor for AIs. We thought that it might make sense for me to be attached to your staff as a Repair Team Lead NCO and sometimes to be used by you when your regular driver is not available. I had an EmpQuar clearance in the Marine Corps that allowed me to be around the emperor on Earth, and have a Mountain Event and IRS clearance. Something Sergeant Hoi doesn’t have. I can go with you to secure meetings and such without anyone wondering why.”
“I see,” the general said, “Jonesy I assume that you are still messing with her back ground?”
“Yes sir,” the AI said, “her records are still in transit. Why?”
“Remove all references to her being an AI doctor. Oh leave something to effect that her secondary MOS is computer technology. Fix it so that she looks stronger as an administrative assistant. Alice I don’t want you as an Air Head; but a little air headedness might disarm some people and allow you to be ignored a bit as you work on the computers.”
“Okay,” Jonesy said, rewriting the legend. Alice was already working on having the woman she met in the mess hall reassigned to a better assignment with an earlier evacuation date, and the personnel office lieutenant had his evacuation date moved up until the next week.
They would never see Alice again. All this was done within seconds.
“I guess I should ask is that okay with you Alice?” Langtree asked.
“Certainly,” Alice replied, “a couple of more things we could do, although a general’s driver could be expected to be a sharp individual, we could also set up a legend that no one else knows what to do with me. I could be a real klutz.”
“We have to make this work now,” Jonesy said, “If we tinker too much we’ll be found out. Alice has already reassigned a buck sergeant and a first lieutenant so as not to blow her cover.”
“Okay set it in stone.” Langtree said and to Alice, “Please don’t baptize me with coffee!”
“Okay General,” The AI said, “We’re running late, okay if I head to our first appointment?”
“Go ahead,” Langtree said wondering if this AI could pull it off.
Over the next few days Langtree had a terrible time trying not to give her away. Alice was indeed a klutz. She damn near tripped Wilson when he came for a visit. Then a day or so later the Queen stopped by for a visit with his troops to thank a couple of them individually. As Alice brought in coffee to Langtree’s private office she spilled some of it on the Queen. The Queen’s detail about had a heart attack. Especially as the thirty something women went on to destroy the Queen’s blouse as she cleaned up her mess. What no one noticed was that she removed several buttons from the Queen’s blouse. The buttons we’re very sophisticated bugs. They could have only been put on the Queen’s garment by someone on the Queen’s staff.
“What have you done!” the Queen started to chew out Alice. “That shirt cost me thirty crowns!”
“I’m sorry majesty.” Alice said “If you don’t mind I can fix this for you come this way.”
“I don’t know,” The Queen said.
“Your majesty, trust me it’ll be okay,” Langtree said.
Alice nodded and almost tripping over her own feet she lead the young monarch into Langtree’s private head and quickly took the girls blouse off. Alice presented her with a nearly new version of it. One of the first things she had done was to make sure that Langtree’s private office, and head were secure. She swept it every day and put in a couple of nanobots that literally twice a day walked the entire office and head removing anything that wasn’t there the day before.
“Your majesty,” Alice said she turned to the Queen and handed her the new blouse. “I am really sorry for destroying that blouse; but it had to be done.”
“Had to be done,” The Queen asked still a little furious.
“Yes,” Alice said expertly helping the young woman put the blouse on. She had purchased it earlier that day when she knew what the Queen would be wearing to the maintenance center. She hadn’t really expected the Queen to be compromised; but she wasn’t going to take any chances. So the new shirt was there when the monarch showed up with two bugs on her person. Alice got into her pocket and pulled out the two buttons. “These are bugs. I don’t know who put them on you yet. But it had to be the palace staff, either in the laundry or in your dressing room. To be honest it could have been that AI we’re chasing. A small robot could have done it. I don’t know.”
“Who are you,” The Queen asked.
“I am Alice Jones. I am an artificial intelligence in a humbot.” Alice said, “I was commissioned by the Marshal to hunt out and defeat an AI that is causing the Kingdom havoc.”
“Michael did say that he was working on a black project to deal with it. Should you have told me?” The Queen asked.
“I don’t know,” The AI said, “But you needed to know why I did what I did. Sometime in the next week I will be reassigned to the palace. Someone on the military staff will be getting replaced and I will be that replacement. I just hope you can put up with my klutziness.”
“You are not a klutz,” The Queen said seeing how the AI had changed once they were alone.
“Well for this gig I am.” The AI replied, “In the next day or so you may see me running errands for the general around the palace. I will be doing some low level security sweeps. Checking out the palace AI.”
“I see. How can I help,” The Queen asked.
“Don’t blow my cover.” The humbot said, “I will report through Wilson or the general my progress. I can tell you Fletcher is secure and the safeguards I put in should be sufficient to prevent an infiltration by a hostile AI.”
“Alice,” The Queen said, “you take care. Now how can we finish this up?”
“Can you take a fall,” Alice asked.
“Yes. Why?” the Queen said as they walked to the head’s door.
“You’ll see,” Alice said, and seconds later they were both on the floor. Alice apologized all over herself as the Queen yelled at her about her clumsiness.
As the Queen toured Langtree’s headquarters Alice was kept as far away as possible.
Alice’s klutziness became legend. There wasn’t a safe place to be around her. A major who she had tripped causing him to fall into the awards case for the Maintenance Group asked how the hell did someone like her become a tech sergeant. As he was helped to his feet, a nearby colonel muttered “On her back!”
A couple of hours later, the colonel left to run a quick errand with one of his junior officers, forgetting that his wife was going to pick him. Alice was working a reception desk spelling the clerk that was the gate keeper to the maintenance team’s headquarters. The colonel’s wife came in to pick him up to take him home to his first home cooked diner in weeks.
“Would you tell Colonel Lagf that his wife is here to pick him up,” The middle aged woman greeted Alice.
“Oh you’re his wife?” Alice asked innocently, she knew the woman before her, “I saw him and a young pretty woman leave an hour or so ago. I thought she was his wife. Don’t know where they were going.”
Alice had of course heard the remark the colonel made and didn’t think it was appropriate. When she got her chance, she got even. She had known of course that the colonel’s spouse was intensely jealous, and that the colonel had been married before and his current wife was the reason he for his previous divorce.
“Young wife,” The woman roared and left the office, “I’ll teach him to step out on me.”
Several hours later the colonel came back and hunted Alice down. He took her into his private office and roared at her for a solid fifteen minutes. Everyone heard her get chewed out. “You are out of here Sarge! I don’t care if you are Langtree’s darling sergeant you have caused the last bit of havoc in this command. You are gone!”
“Yes sir,” the AI said timidly, and said under her breath, or nearly under her breath, “you must have gotten your promotions based on your back also.”
“What was that Sergeant Jones,” the colonel asked. Alice had nearly told the truth about the colonel. All his early promotions had come from his liaisons with his female superior officers.
“Nothing sir,” Jones knew she had gotten her point across. She also knew that Langtree was just tolerating this officer. He would be one of the very first to be lifted when the logistics and maintenance unit started standing down near the end. It wasn’t that he didn’t do his job. It was that he wasn’t giving the effort that Langtree wanted. He needed 100 percent from everyone and then some. This officer was barely giving 90 percent.
Langtree was walking down the hall towards the door to the facility when he heard the colonel yelling at Alice through the closed door. He almost knocked on the door and went in; but thought better of it. More so when he saw Alice leaving the office, crying; but when she saw Langtree she winked. Langtree had to stifle a smile as he knew Alice had set the whole thing up. Be that as it may be, he was tired of this officer. He had seen at least one other tongue lashing and had heard about others. An hour or so later the colonel walked into the maintenance troop’s war room. Langtree who had just signed off on the paper work transferring Alice to the Palace looked eyes with the colonel and made up his mind.
“Colonel Lagf,” The general said, as the man came up to his work station to relieve him for the night. “You’re fired. Pick up your things and be out of here by sun up. Report to man power and tell them you no longer meet my needs at this command. Your evaluation will read that this officer is not recommended for promotion or demotion. You barely get a satisfactory. Now hustle your nearly worthless butt out of here.”
“You can’t do that,” The colonel said.
“Colonel,” Langtree responded a cold knife edge to his voice, “if you leave now, and make no issue of your being reassigned nothing more will be added to your PerFil. I am taking pains not to let my personal prejudices about a womanizing officer who thinks the fast way to promotion is by screwing his way up the ladder affect my decision. You have done good work in this command’ Sir that deal of getting that barge moved into the damn break area was something to behold. But sir you had better learned to control your temper and you had best learn that it is these people out here that make things happen. I am sure you have noticed that some of the commands you give sometimes don’t get done quickly or with the attention to detail that even some of my youngest lieutenants and NCOs do. Now if you don’t mind I have to call a beautiful lady and tell her our plans for tonight have changed because of you. Good day sir.”
Langtree knew he should have read the officers beads in private. That it would have been more professional for him to counsel this officer in private telling him what he wanted changed in his behavior. The guy just rubbed him wrong. The colonel was good at his job. He was a combat engineer. Set him down with a bunch of bailing wire, some steel and a welder and he could get it designed and built; but not without cost to his troops. His troops had more sick days, and missed deadlines more than any other of his units. He should have done this earlier. By firing him in public he was sending a message to the command that he would not tolerate behavior that left enlisted people in tears and in one case in the hospital from an attempted suicide.
“Hey colonel,” As the colonel walked out of the room, the sergeant major yelled throwing him a roll of toilet paper, “I guess I won’t have to clean up after your shit from now on.”
The sergeant major knew that Langtree was close to canning the officer. It seemed at least once a week he had, had to go to the general and tell him about some enlisted man who had needlessly gotten chewed out by the colonel. He had been in the head when one of the enlisted men came in and told him Langtree was firing the colonel. He took with him that one commodity that had traveled with man everywhere and waited by the door while the General finished with him. As the command center erupted in laughter, Langtree trying to keep a straight face just locked eyes with his sergeant major.
“All right,” The sergeant major said, “Settle down. We got work to do. General do you want me to see if Major Caruthers is handy to take the watch tonight?”
“Tell him to relieve me about 2400,” The general replied, “This is the first evening he’s had off in a couple of weeks and his kids haven’t seen much of him.”
“Aye-aye sir,” the Sergeant major said and left.
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