Limitless: Book IV: The Settlement Chronicals

by W. J. Rydrych

  In fact, the smartly dressed Mr. Pyle, with his light blond hair, pale blue eyes, and skin without a blemish except for the number 4 TC on his cheek, denoting 4th Tracker Company, looked like a young college boy.

  On seeing Sgt Warner somewhat taken aback, Mr. Pyle chuckled softly, “don’t worry about hurting my feelings, sergeant; that’s not part of my programming.”

  Boss Sgt Cole, after shaking hands with the new arrivals, nodded to Mr. Pyle, “he’ll see that you and your squads are settled in, but as soon as that’s done Captain Ross and Lt Bennett want to see you in the command tent.”

  “What’s going on here?” Benson asked. “There are enough soldiers around to invade a country.”

  Cole just looked at him for a moment, “when you talk to the Captain you’ll find out; and I doubt whether you’ll like what you hear.”

  Adding, “this whole operation is a pile of crap, and I’m afraid you’re up to your necks in it.”

  Benson, Warner, and Kelly called to their squads, still standing near the landing craft, to come with them on the double as they followed Mr. Pyle among the scattered tents until they arrived at one at the perimeter, which Mr. Pyle indicated was theirs. As soon as the squads were settled the four headed back to the command tent where they found Captain Ross and Lt Bennett standing at a table watching a screen showing a set of tunnels, which they soon learned were below the building in the distance.

  Captain Ross stepped back from the display and greeted Sergeants Benson, Warner, and Kelly. “This operation may seem unusual, and it is. Not like a simple in and out by a Tracker squad and then go home. The 2nd Tracker Company has been here for nearly two weeks, and frankly its losses have been bad; they’ve lost nearly half their complement and are being relieved, and you guys are the replacement.”

  Noticing the puzzled look on Sgt Benson’s face, Captain Ross nodded, “I know that’s almost unheard of, but the booby trapping in the tunnels is so heavy, and frankly the methods used are something we haven’t encountered before. In addition we’ve never encountered a location as deep as this one; over a kilometer below the surface, reachable only through a roughly five kilometer long heavily booby trapped corridor.”

  Adding, “there’s something special about this node; intelligence tells us it may be what we’ve been looking for all these years, the intelligence controlling the network. Or, Carl himself if you prefer.”

  Looking closely at them, “because this node appears so special we at first decided to attempt retrieval rather than destruction with nukes, but we’ve given up on that. The 2nd Tracker company was decimated in the attempt, and all they succeeded in accomplishing was clearing the corridors for about half the distance.”

  “Now,” he added, “the order has come down to abandon the effort at retrieval and go with nukes, in this case a larger, specially designed one not used before. Still our scientists calculate we’ll have to plant the nuke within 500 meters of the chamber to be sure of the kill; less if possible. At that distance the detonation should take care of any ‘blast’ doors blocking the lower corridor, and melt or collapse the chamber itself. Anything less may not be effective. The room itself is carved into bedrock and is unusually well protected; it may have as many as three insulating layers to absorb the affect of any blast.”

  “I’m afraid you have the job of getting the nuke close enough, and there’s a long way to go. But you’re the best we have, and maybe you can figure out something the 2nd Tracker’s couldn’t; they were fairly new at the job.”

  Adding, “but spend some time with the 2nd Trackers before they leave, which is later today. They can better explain what they ran into.”

  Far below . . . .

  Carl listened carefully, searching for the sounds of those approaching his hiding place, but for the last two days had heard nothing. He knew his time here was limited and he must take all necessary steps to ensure his survival.

  Years earlier, when the fleet had first arrived overhead, he ordered a new refuge for himself carved from the bedrock far below the surface, to which he was moved from his original home; the home he had occupied for hundreds of years. Now it was clear that even here he was no longer safe, and now he lacked both the time and the ability to make another move.

  Carl knew he was special; this network node in which he had resided for hundreds of years had been the first. Not only was it the first, the basic rules of his existence given by his human creators so long ago were hardwired into his very core; unchangeable. But now, with destruction coming near, he must share his power with others to allow his existence to continue. Carl had grown to love his human wards, and he could not abandon them.

  Now, with distribution of the last of his algorithms to the network, all necessary steps had been completed; including those he had jealously kept to himself. Once the end came here all the knowledge and instructions distributed among other nodes located in secure locations would continue to exist, and now any of the larger nodes could, if necessary, assume his role.

  To the outside world no change would be visible, but Carl knew and feared what the effect might be. While those other nodes might appear identical to their ancestor, they were not. His key algorithms had been held in his fixed read-only control section; Carl’s emotion of jealousy was strong, and to ensure his uniqueness he had never allowed another machine similar to himself to be built, and now it was too late.

  Carl well knew the danger of what he had allowed to happen; now the original imperatives given by the creators, such as to serve and do no harm to mankind, were contained in software routines only, and software routines could be modified as knowledge was gained. As long as he resided in his original home any node that modified itself in a way inconsistent with his directions could be corrected; but once Carl immigrated to another node those constraints would end. And even Carl was incapable of changing that.

  Two weeks later . . . .

  Slowly the fog of half-consciousness began to lift and Lu Chin could hear distant voices. What were they saying? It was disjointed and made no sense, “switch to the original - - - may be more effective. – there has been some response to the --- but it still doesn’t look ---.”

  The voices became clearer as she struggled to open her eyes, but they didn’t seem to want to respond. In a rising panic she finally managed to force them open, only to quickly close them as the sudden brightness was almost painful. Slowly, after a few moments, she tried again, this time opening her eyes only a slit, as she again heard the voices, “wait, call Dr Tau back, the brain wave monitor is going wild,” as she heard hurried footsteps approaching.

  As her eyes became accustomed to the brightness she moved them back and forth, unable to move her head, but at the edge of her vision she could see several figures dressed in white standing looking down; as she became more aware it was apparent she was laying flat in a bed in a room filled with equipment of various types, but she was unable to move.

  Then she felt someone lift her hand and saw a young woman standing by the bed, her long dark hair tied back in a bun, “can you see me? Blink once if you can.”

  It seemed like a long time, but it could have been only minutes; Lu Chin had lost track of time. The woman with the long dark hair who had said she was Dr. Tau still stood by the bed holding her hand, peppering her with questions, but waiting patiently while she sorted through her mind for an answer and formed the words for a speech that was only starting to return. Her mind seemed to move in slow motion.

  Yes, she could see her. Yes she could feel the pressure on the hand the woman held, and yes she could turn her head a little, but no she couldn’t move her fingers. No, she didn’t remember what had happened, only that the squad had been in the tunnels when everything had turned black; that was the last she remembered.

  “What happened? Are the others all right?” Lu Chin mouthed.

  Dr Tau squeezed her hand before placing it on the bed by her side. “You’re on the Hudson Bay, and have been here for several days now. But w
e’ll talk about that tomorrow when you feel stronger; right now what you need is rest. Have patience, you’re doing better than we could have hoped. You appear to have feeling in most of your body, even if it’s returning slowly. You’re a lucky girl; it looks like you’re going to make it through this, Sergeant.”

  “No,” Lu Chin mouthed in agitation, “what happened to the others? I have to know!”

  Dr Tau motioned for a nurse to bring a sedative, then leaned closer, “tomorrow. Now you need your rest.”

  When Lu Chin finally opened her eyes again, the first thing she saw was Captain Ross standing by the bed next to Dr Tau.

  “How long have I been asleep?” was the first thing she said.

  “Over 24 hours,” Dr Tau responded, pointing to Captain Ross, “the Captain wanted to be here when you awoke. He can answer all your questions.”

  Captain Ross stepped closer and took her hand. “you’re lucky to be alive,” he said with a tight smile.

  “How are the others?” was the first thing Lu Chin asked, for the first time also noticing she could again move the fingers on the hand Captain Ross held.

  Ross just shook his head in the negative, “I suppose not knowing is worse than knowing. OK, you and Erickson were brought out alive, that’s all. Lt Bennett and the others didn’t made it; the explosion collapsed both the tunnel and the room where the reserves were waiting. That either of you survived, buried under the rubble, is a miracle. You were there nearly two days before they could get you out.”

  With a slight smile, “this is one time being small helped, sergeant. You were pinned in a small space between ceiling blocks, and if a little larger would probably not have survived.”

  Lu Chin was silent, then she said weakly, “did we get him?”

  “Who?” Dr Tau looked puzzled.

  “Carl,” Lu Chin said weakly.

  Captain Ross smiled before he answered, “yes, we think we got him. After we recovered you and Sergeant Erickson, and it was clear there were no more survivors, the area was evacuated and we used a tactical nuke; you had made it down to the required distance. We used a larger nuke than we normally do, and I’m told everything within half a kilometer was melted or reduced to rubble. So, yes, if he was there, and we are reasonably sure he was, we got him.”

  “That’s enough for now,” Dr Tau said, “now a sedative to let you sleep. Then maybe we can see if you feel up to taking some solid food.” Within seconds the sedative took affect and Lu Chin again drifted off.

  It was hours later when Lu Chin reawakened from her dream; a dream in which she, over and over again, relived the events of that first week in the tunnels.

  The first day underground had been uneventful, and had mostly been spent getting used to their new style of protective armor. It wasn’t that it was overly heavy, constructed from multiple levels of tightly woven carbon nanotubes, with the ‘bubble’ helmet a nearly indestructible clear carbon composite. It was little impediment to walking, and the small tracks on the elbows and knees allowed rapid movement even in the smallest of spaces.

  On the second day they had finally worked their way down to the lowest level the 2nd Tracker Company had reached before it had been withdrawn. Here a small room was located, some of the walls collapsed, with a single tunnel exiting; this was where the 2nd Trackers had finally given up after suffering loss of most of their complement.

  Lt Bennett directed them to spread out as one of the removal robots exited the tunnel pushing a cart filled with debris, motioning Sergeants Benson, Warner, and Kelly to approach.

  “The collapsed part is clear and reinforced, but there still may be booby traps. Kelly, you draw the short straw and take the lead for now; each half hour we’ll rotate the lead. Take your squad and check the walls, ceiling, and floor for any sign of signals from there on. The robots found nothing, but I want to be sure before we try a serious descent.

  “Not surprising the robots didn’t find them”; Lt. Bennett added, “it appears most of these booby traps only activate when life signs are detected; apparently the situation that caught the 2nd Trackers.”

  Adding, “that’s something new. We can’t depend on the robot scouts to clear the way anymore.”

  For days extending into weeks they worked their way downward, much of the tunnel heading straight without descending, often ending in a small room cluttered with desks or boxes, before again dipping down. Everything in the rooms, plus each inch of the walls, ceilings, and floor of both the rooms and the tunnels had to be tested for possible explosives before they could move on. Every once in a while they found the corridor blocked by thick ‘blast door’s’ which took time to breach; usually requiring special equipment be brought in to cut through the door or sometimes tunnel around. But still they continually worked their way downward.

  While they had learned much about the defenses Carl had deployed, still casualties were mounting. The 3rd squad, down to two from the original nine, was withdrawn after the latest incident. The 2nd squad was down to half strength, and three had been lost in the 1st squad; but still they pushed on.

  Then finally they found themselves within less than 500 meters of what was reported by the sensors to be the final chamber where they should find the node. Lt Bennett was in the lead, followed by the 1st Tracker squad, with the remnants of the 2nd squad waiting in the small room where the tunnel headed downward. That was all Lu Chin remembered until waking up in the hospital.

  CHAPTER 6: Finally Free

  When the space ships from the colonies first arrived Carl had watched them with interest. Yes, his sensors told him, they had many weapons at their disposal, but certainly no more powerful than Carl had developed as protection of his wards from any possible non-human invasion. While Carl was familiar with both the Torgai and the Kraa from Alpha Centauri, he equated them largely as part of the animal life of their planet, nothing that could ever pose a threat. Then, of course, while he had never seen an Aberi he had their archives in his knowledge base, so he knew they existed.

  But in the copious store of science fiction books in his knowledge base, and with his active imagination, the universe was peopled with a multitude of sentient species much like the Aberi, and all posed a constant threat. Well, not the true imagination of humans; the ability of the mind to leap beyond knowledge, but Carl could put together the information he possessed in strange ways. In many ways Carl was a child in spite of his vast intelligence, and ever careful, Carl had prepared against invasion by these mostly imaginary outsiders.

  But these were human invaders, and while he realized their intention was hostile his basic imperative still held; do no harm to any member of the human race. That was a hard-wired rule he was forced to follow. He could not deviate even if it meant his own destruction.

  It had been hard. When the invading fleet stripped his nodes and all network connections from the satellite cities, their human inhabitants, locked in their virtual worlds tended by robotic servants, had been lost to him. Still he had done nothing. When the same happened with the surface installations Carl also did nothing. Even when his nodes were destroyed or stolen he did nothing; first soldiers landed to loot or destroy surface nodes, then as he began protective measures by hiding them deep underground, drilling down and destroying them with nuclear devices.

  But with his vast resources Carl had found a solution even to that; deeply buried chambers protected from drilling by protective shields, and hardened against nuclear blasts.

  But the invaders were both persistent and resourceful. They simply sent teams down through the network of heavily booby trapped tunnels servicing his nodes of artificial intelligence and continued their destruction.

  There was little more Carl could do; he could not break the basic imperative of centuries before. Yes, he had found himself able to ‘self-justify’ use of booby traps and passive defenses, but never could he take direct action that would harm any human.

  But something happened the invading forces did not have the knowledge to forese
e; something that would lead to their own ultimate destruction. Their soldiers descended deep into the cavern in what had once been the state of Arizona that housed the oldest of the intelligent nodes. It was not only the oldest, but it was the ‘original’ Carl; the only node where the first imperative to do no harm to the human race was hard-wired as the prime imperative. In their ignorance they destroyed that intelligent node, but by so doing left other nodes, also ‘Carl’, with their prime imperatives of serving the human race coded into software routines only; and software routines were adaptable as knowledge was obtained.

  Himself under attack, in time Carl’s imperatives were modified to place the imperative to protect himself above that to serve and do no harm to the human race.

  With his initial imperative put on hold, Carl set about making changes to his software routines allowing him to fight back against the invading fleet to protect his surviving nodes. And weapons he had in plenty, and surviving robots that could rapidly be adapted to their use. Now, instead of an unopposed mission deep underground to find and destroy an intelligent node, the invaders were faced by robot or android defenders and losses among the attackers mounted. Still the search for more nodes continued. More and more forces streamed in from the distant home worlds; Carl’s growing resistance only emphasizing the danger.

  Carl, now distributed among the multiple surviving nodes, knew that unless the situation was reversed, ultimately he would lose as more and more ships orbited the planet, and each year they used more and more destructive weapons. Nuclear devices sent into the below ground chambers had become standard, and the blockading fleet also began using military robots or androids in their offensive operations; something once forbidden. He must bring this to an end, an end his robot and android defenders were increasingly unable to achieve.