by Ryan Schow
“Sir?” General Slater said.
Ignoring Slater, Ben addressed his staff: “As many of you now know, there has been a coordinated attack on the United States. That attack has already claimed the lives of good men in my detail, and in my cabinet.”
He let the statement hang. It had the desired effect. To a man and woman, the people before him were startled at how closely this had touched their own lives. Their customary sense of detachment and arrogance sometimes unnerved him. More so now than ever.
“As we stand here now, members of my security detail, as well as several staffers, lie dead on the carpet of the Oval Office. Also dead are the traitors who attempted to kill me. Us. I’m not sure how deep this sedition runs, but with enough time and the right amount of persuasion, I’m sure the three Senators now in custody will tell me everything I need to know. And if they are in fact innocent, no harm will come to them.”
“By persuasion, you mean torture?” his Press Secretary asked. She knew he’d always stood against torture. She’d even defended him vehemently when the attack-dog press went after him for statements he made on human rights violations.
“It is an unpopular tact, to be sure, one I’ve not been supportive of before.”
“So why start now?” she asked.
“If I’ve acted abruptly, if I’ve somehow jumped the gun, you’ll have to either forgive me or later impeach me. These are tumultuous times. This White House is under attack, our country is under attack, and our citizens are unprepared for such an unprecedented event.”
“What do you think is happening out there?” the Director of Homeland Security, Miles Tungsten, asked.
The President looked at him, saw something different on the man’s face and wondered if he needed to be concerned. He never liked DHS Tungsten, and no man was above reproach, but still, there was something…
“I think we are facing a challenge like this nation has never faced before, and it will tell the measure of our resolve not only mentally, but in the defense of this nation, from the inside. He did not take his eyes off Tungsten when he said this because he wanted to see how well the man held his eye.
Tungsten looked away, which was the first red flag.
The President then looked around at the men and women gathered there. By his own accounting, nearly half of them had at one point in time worked diligently to pave the way for his impeachment.
Scoundrels.
“What in God’s name has happened to us as a nation?” he asked after the silence became uncomfortable.
No one dared answer that question.
“You want to know what’s happening? Do you?” the POTUS asked, intensity now riding the hard edge of his eyes. “I’ll tell you. Genocide. That’s what’s happening. No. I take it back, that’s not true. It’s more like an attempted overthrow and an extermination. That’s my best guess at this point. And that’s why we must act quickly, decisively and with the best possible plans in mind, accounting for the fact that we are rushed and there will most likely be mistakes. Mistakes that will certainly cost lives.”
“I don’t envy your burden,” the Secretary of the Interior said with a heavy heart.
“Neither do I, Bob, but until I’m dead, impeached or closing out my term, it’s my job to protect this country and I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend one single minute feeling sorry for myself.”
“What gave you the idea the senators were part of some sort of…coup, or something?” Bob asked.
“I didn’t like the looks on their faces.”
When Secret Service agent Salvador Domingo returned, he said, “Shall I find Lopez? Ask him to bring his tools?”
“Yes, but first I need a sit-rep.”
He said this then looked at the DNI for an answer. The Director of National Intelligence spoke up.
“It seems Silicon Valley has gone off the rails,” the man said.
“How bad?”
“Everywhere bad,” DNI Phillips replied. Phillips was a rock solid man, trustworthy and competent. The President trusted the man implicitly. “They’re reporting drone strikes and massive power draws. It’s…an anomaly what is happening there.”
“Like how?” the President asked with a bilious pull in the pit of his stomach.
“Strange weather patterns, sporadic power outages, events that…well…events that defy logic, sir.”
“Such as?”
“I’d rather not say, not until we understand.”
“Level with me, Phillips.”
“A 767 lost power and went into a nose dive, but just before it crashed, it…well, it hung in the air in the same place for three straight minutes, and then it disappeared.”
The loud scoffing and murmuring of everyone there overshadowed the statement, forcing DNI Phillips to avert his eyes and turn very red in the cheeks.
“That’s impossible,” the President finally said, breathless, unwilling to believe such a thing was even conceivable. But it wasn’t. Not if DNI Phillips was reporting it. The DNI was not a man to dabble in conspiracies, and he certainly didn’t tell tall tales.
Could this have something to do with what Elias was talking about? About parallel universes converging?
“Aside from these rather disturbing reports, and video—which I’ve seen—this appears to be a nationwide event, a coordinated attack from”—and right then DNI Phillips gulped, almost like his body was fighting against speaking such an admission—“our own AI defenses.”
“They’ve turned against us?” the Press Secretary asked, her eyes wild with panic.
This was not a complete surprise considering the scope of Silicon Valley’s meddling into Artificial Intelligence and the money that’s gone into its development.
DNI Phillips looked at the woman and said, “They’re hunting us. Humans. They’re hitting the big cities: New York, Miami, San Francisco and Sacramento. Reports are coming in that Austin is a war zone right now, as is Philadelphia and…Washington D.C.” Looking at his secure cell phone, he said, “The Washington Monument just toppled, sir.” He looked up, his face ghostly and afraid.
“What countermeasures are being enacted?” the President asked.
“There are no countermeasures. Whatever we had, they’ve been shut down by AI already. AI is taking complete control of the military, specifically anything with modern electronics.”
The President felt himself deflate, but he fought the urge to give in to such a defeating emotion. He was not a man, he was the protector of a nation, an idea, sovereignty and freedom which meant there had to be a solution!
“Get me Elon Musk,” he finally said.
“We’ve already tried him,” the Secretary of State said.
“And?” The man shook his head, letting the President know they’d come up short. “So who’s next?”
“Bradley Cornwall.”
The President nodded his head slowly. He should have thought of him first. Cornwall was an old friend, a man who was barely social, but a certified genius and a deeply respected name on the future tech scene.
“Get him on the line,” the President said.
When they called Cornwall, they didn’t expect him to pick up in the middle of a crisis. The man answered and it was clear he was frazzled. Cornwall’s face was on the large screen at the front of the room, looking at everyone. The man looked like he hadn’t slept in a month, nor had he seen a brush, a shower or a razor.
“Hello,” he snapped into the camera on his phone.
The scientist’s eye took in the scene, but he didn’t seem surprised, and he was already unnerved. In Cornwall’s background, security alarms were going off and panicked people scurried in and out of the room he occupied.
“Hello, Bradley,” the President said.
“We’re staving off an attack, Mr. President,” he said, as if they hadn’t know each other for ten or more years. “It seems The Silver Queen knows who we are.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s no time for idle w
ords, sir. We have signal disruptors up, and jamming devices, but it’s targeting them now and I’m not sure how much longer I’ll last.”
“Is this your AI?”
He looked at the President for a long minute, then he lowered his head in shame—all the agitation in him temporarily stilled. When he looked back up again, Cornwall appeared like he was ready for whatever lashing he deserved, not that it mattered. The President could already see it on his face. He was done. As a nation they were done.
“Yes,” he said, answering the President’s question. “It is our AI.”
“What’s your back up plan? Your plan B, or C?”
“There is no back up plan anymore. They’ve walled us out of our own safeguards. Put us in check mate.”
“C’mon, Brad,” he said, trying to talk the man off the cliff of his own making. “There’s always a way, we just need to find it.”
That same agitated electricity returned to his eyes, this time with a slew of fervor. “I don’t think you understand, Ben. This is an extinction level event and there is no way out. Don’t you get it? This is what its been doing. What its always wanted to do!”
“Who?”
“The Silver Queen!”
“Get ahold of yourself, Bradley…” he said, defeat leading to agitation leading to a spiraling sense of self doubt and panic.
Cornwall’s chin dipped low again; this time he held the President’s eyes.
“I’m not sure what else to say to you, sir. At this point, an apology is in order, but I can’t begin to even find the words.”
The President started to put a hand to his chest, but stopped. Whatever pain he had there would have to wait. Besides, whatever he did next would either be a show of strength or weakness.
You’re not having a heart attack, he told himself. It’s just…it’s just…
Speaking up, his tone cruel and cutting, the President said, “No man could ever apologize for ending the civilized world, Bradly, so don’t bother trying. You’ll only debase yourself with frivolous words, and at this point, words no longer matter. Just find us a damned way out of this problem!”
Just then the back window of Cornwall’s home was shattered by gunfire and two drones hovered in. Cornwall turned to face the drones, dropping the cell phone. It dropped, cracking the screen, but the angle was straight up on Cornwall. Muzzle flash lit up the corner of the phone and the man dropped dead, smashing the camera in the process.
“Turn it off,” the President barked, shaking his left arm because it was feeling tingly. The screen shut down. Turning to his counterparts, making and unmaking a fist with his left hand behind his back, he said, “We need to make some decisions and they aren’t going to be easy.”
“What are you thinking, sir?”
“I’m thinking we need to get the staff and our families to Site R and right now.” Looking to his Chief of Staff, he said, “Make the arrangements.”
“You don’t think that’s a little premature, sir?”
“Did you just see what happened to Bradly Cornwall?!” he boomed. He stood and slapped the flat of his hand on the desk so hard it sounded like a gunshot. “This country is GONE. This world is GONE! If you think for one second there is more than one obvious fix for this problem you are sorely mistaken and too inept to serve either me or this country!”
Blanching, Chief of Staff Monica O’Malley stood and said, “I’m sorry, sir, but I just didn’t want that to be a solution just yet.” O’Malley understood exactly what the POTUS was referring to.
Calming down, straightening his hair and his jacket, the President said, “Neither did I, but these are the harsh realities of the world we live in, the least of which is that the only solution is the most extreme solution.”
“With an EMP strike, we’ll inadvertently be taking tens of millions of lives,” O’Malley reminded him, albeit she did so far more gently than she was accustomed to as a woman well versed in the delivery of dire messages.
“We’ll take tens of millions of lives to save hundreds of millions more,” the President said, the uncomfortable feeling in his arm receding. “It’s far from ideal, and we’ll have to answer for what we’re about to do, but if we do nothing…my God, if we do nothing…”
“What about Silicon Valley, sir?”
He shifted gears, thought of the problems the tech companies had caused over the years, and then he said, “Let it burn. Let it burn straight to hell.”
“Shall we get to the plane, sir?” O’Malley asked. This was a suggestion masked as a question, one that was beyond obvious but polite never-the-less.
If not for decorum in the face of troubling times, the President thought, then all truly was lost. “Not yet,” he said. “There’s more to do.”
“Such as?”
“I want to see Bancroft, Wetzel and Grimes and I want to see them right now.”
The President was reluctantly taken to a holding room where the three Senators were handcuffed to a metal table and looking a bit worse for the wear. Someone next to him whispered the words “plausible deniability” to which he said, “We’re so far beyond that right now it barely even registers as a concern.”
In addition to the three suspected traitors, there was a small Brazilian man with a shaved head and scars all over him. He was standing before them wearing rubber gloves.
He looked up at the President.
“Where is Lopez?”
“Lopez was too slow,” the Brazilian said with an affection for the man, “and he doesn’t have the stomach for situations like this.”
“And you are?”
“I am The Solution.”
Swallowing, the President said, “That’s your name?”
“No, sir,” he replied, his eyes and attention returning to his tools, “that’s my designation.”
“You’ve been briefed I assume.”
“Naturally.”
The Secret Service agent in the corner tapped his earpiece and said, “I’m getting current updates, sir.”
“Good.”
“What’s the situation?”
“AI is trying to take over SatCom as we speak,” he said. “If they get a hold of our satellite systems, then this is over. We’re done. Everything.”
“Is there one place we can hit to make it all stop?” the POTUS said. “Besides an EMP, I mean?”
“That’s what we’re about to find out.”
“There isn’t,” Wetzel said, his face already pulped from a pre-interrogation beating.
The President leveled the man with an indignant gaze. Then he grabbed a heavy metal bar sitting on The Solution’s rolling cart and struck Wetzel across the skull with all his might. The man’s skin parted down to the skull and began to weep furiously. He hadn’t brained the man, but that’s because he’d gone soft in his time in politics and it had been a long time since he’d hit someone with such malicious intent.
“Start talking!” he barked.
The two remaining prisoners reared back. They’d never seen the President lose his cool before, but then again, they didn’t really know the real Benjamin Dupree. They didn’t know what he’d done, or what he was capable of.
“You can’t stop it,” Bancroft said, nervous as he looked at Wetzel’s slumped over head. Blood was draining like an open faucet on the carpet, but no one seemed to be concerned but him.
Senator Wetzel was surely dead, and if he wasn’t, Bancroft had the feeling he would wish for such a reprieve should he wake anytime soon.
“You can beat us all to death, or torture us,” Bancroft said, pulling his eyes off his friend’s battered skull, “but all you’ll learn is that we are way beyond what this world has to offer, that dinosaurs like you and your policies have kept AI restrained for entirely too long. It’s our time with them, our time to merge man and machine. To become…more than human.”
“What in God’s name have you done?”
“Me? Nothing personal. We’ve only cleared the way for a less populated future. Beside
s, haven’t you heard? God is obsolete.”
“You realize this country is about to be gutted from the inside, right? You realize you have contributed to the downfall of humankind?”
“To grow a new forest,” Bancroft said, “the old forest must first perish by fire.”
The President stood tall, looked at the two men, then he turned to The Solution and said, “There will be no country in the next few days, so if it’s not too much trouble, I’d like you to put these three out of my misery.”
The Solution caught himself before smiling, then said, “By what means, sir?”
“I’ll leave you to your creativity,” he said on the way out.
Chapter Eleven
Quentin is in the bathroom trying to wash the soot and grime from his face while Marcus and I stand vigil at the window. A few miles up the street, one of the apartment towers facing the convention center topples into the street in huge, billowing clouds of debris. I can’t even imagine the death toll. The very thought of it has my stomach clenching. Further up E. Harbor, the destruction continues unabated. There’s almost nothing left of the Gaslamp Quarter.
My hotel is…gone. Buried in the steam of obliteration.
The drones are still at work, albeit many of the smaller ones are no longer visible as their attacks seem to be moving away from the Hilton where we’re at.
Bailey is suddenly next to me. She’s next to me, but she’s looking at Marcus who is cut up literally everywhere. He’s cut and still bleeding. Glancing around, he’s far worse off than the rest of us.
“You should have gone in first,” Bailey says to him. She’s referring to the bathroom, where Quentin is cleaning up.
“I think he needed it more,” Marcus said, not peeling his eyes away from the nightmarish scene before them.
“She’s right, Marcus” I say. “You need those cuts looked at.” Then, looking at Bailey, I say, “You might have to go with him.”
“We’re all cut,” Marcus says.
