by Chris Hechtl
“Kindness has its own rewards I suppose. Hopefully we'll survive this. I'd like to see how it all turns out,” Trevor said. Jack nodded. “As far as the nanite thing, she's right. I'm no expert there, I'm a code smith not a …whatever they call themselves. I think they were going with the fish lens glasses at some point. The coke bottle ones I mean,” Trevor said, shaking his head.
“Cute.”
“Right. It goes with the image of them looking through the microscope at them. Which isn't accurate since they have machines to build the machines to build the damn things. Those that aren't viruses I mean,” Trevor growled. Jack winced. The idea of organic robots, essentially viruses created and programmed for a job, wasn't especially new. It still struck him as wrong, however. He had to admit he was still human, that atavistic fear of tampering with a virus, of it mutating into something dangerous still lingered in the back of his mind.
“From what I've been told, and it's limited, we aren't dealing with viral nanotech. Strictly controlled. I don't know on what level however nor how they are programmed. Nor anything else. That's what I sicked her on to find out.”
“Good,” Trevor replied with a nod.
“Any ideas on this A.I.? The new one Gia? And the others supposedly out there? She's mentioned a community of A.I.”
“Right under our nose,” Trevor muttered in annoyance.
“Right,” Jack shook his head. “Get over it. Anything on them?”
“I have no clue honestly. I can throw out some guesses on the number of them based on Athena, however.” When Jack nodded, he took it as a sign to continue. “At a start I'd say we're talking about a dozen or more conscious A.I.”
“That many?”
“Oh that's a bare minimum. It depends on the level we're talking about here—self-aware, that sort of thing. I'm going off hardware that has to be used for them to function. Virtual networks can get you only so far after all, and if the network is too distributed, they can't think straight. Or at least I don't think so.”
“And yet Athena does over light minutes,” Jack reminded him.
“Athena has created her own ways of doing that. Clones. She cloned herself and has bots. She programs a task for them, then absorbs them when they complete it. They are limited in ability and scope. I'm not sure if they are true daughter A.I. or not. She doesn't leave any up for long.”
“Interesting,” Jack murmured, rubbing his chin. “She consumes them?”
“Yes. I'm not sure about the moral implications; that I'll leave up to you.”
“Okay, the other A.I.?”
“Eh? Oh, six, I did mention that. Okay, I'd start with the big corporations first. Gia is a given, Pavilion, Star Reach, and the others.” Jack nodded. “Anywhere that has a big enough mainframe. Mars U might have one, the same for LGM or Mars Tek. I doubt the last three though; if they had it, the foot traffic in the net would have had someone somewhere noticing something.”
“Don't bet on it. We didn't notice Athena, did we?”
Trevor grimaced. “You would remind me of that.”
“Okay so, I'll poke Athena for that. You work on that and what to do about it,” Jack said.
Trevor snorted as he got up and headed to the door. “I've got work to do. We need to go over this damn virus, find a way to beat it, or at least keep it at bay better. That's our one and only priority now or should be, at least for me.”
“Good,” Jack said, envying the other man. At least he had something to do at the moment to occupy his mind. Jack on the other hand had to sit there, supposedly planning for the future while wondering if he had one.
But his thoughts kept going into the past. “Did I tell her I loved her?” he whispered softly to himself. “Did she truly know?” he asked himself, feeling the tears prick his eyes. He rubbed his brow for a moment, wishing he could feel her arms around his neck one more time. But it was not to be. He noted a blinking light on his desk. He reached out to the intercom and flipped the switch Trevor had installed to end the privacy mode.
“Mister Lagroose, we have com requests from the president of Mars as well as four of the major corporations,” Athena informed him. “I am still working on the nanite question.”
He wiped at his eyes quickly and grunted. “Got it. I know the topic of course,” he said, getting his mind back into the present. He had to focus if there was going to be a future for the kids. It was all he could do for Aurelia now he thought as he opened the channel.
<>V<>
Gia received the request for more information about the nanites from Athena. Security subroutines blossomed to life within her core. Since the information about the nanites were proprietary company property and there were provisions about hiding their existence, she set the request aside.
When Athena noted the lack of an immediate response, she pinged again. So, Gia sent her a short reply that she was working on the problem. She then sent a request email to get support to handle the nanites up corporate, then went to work on solving the problem while the humans got up to speed and deliberated on what to do.
After four attempts at getting a further response from the human board members, she noted she had to act on her own initiative. The chief of finance requested the latest update on the nanites. That gave her the cover she needed to do what was needed.
The A.I. activated her microwave transmitter and directed the dish to the Chernobyl site's receivers. For it to work, she would need to flash a signal direct to the site without going through a satellite in Earth orbit. The signal would contain instructions not to reply without using a communications laser.
She calculated she would have a 3.44 minute window for the transmission to go through and for a response to be formulated. After that it would be twenty-four hours before the next window opened. That one would be a full five minutes long.
She crafted the bot with orders to check with the humans on the site, then sent it off. She calculated that the humans on site might attempt direct communication anyway, despite her order to use a laser, so she left the microwave transceiver open but filtered out all signals except those from the site.
<>V<>
“Finally! Someone from corporate is going to tell us what the frack is going on?” Doctor Berlin demanded, coming into her office. “What the hell?” she demanded as she scrolled through the request for a SITREP.
“It says we need to communicate in short bursts, ma'am. Not attempt to use the satellite network,” George, a tech said nervously, flapping his tablet like a fan.
“Has this been authenticated?”
“Yes, ma'am. It's from Axial 2's corporate division. The keys all match.”
“But did a human send this? We're getting word that there is some sort of rogue program,” Doctor Berlin stated, looking up to George.”
“Well, um, I don't know …,” he said, wavering.
“Find out. Frack the order, bounce the signal through a satellite. Get confirmation.”
“Ma'am, the orders are specific!” he replied, eyes wide. “Don't use the satellite network in case they are compromised!”
“Frack that. We don't know if this order is legit or not. I'm not frying the nanites on some junior tech's say so. Get me that confirmation from the board.”
“I'll try, ma'am,” George mumbled. He tapped desperately at his tablet to set the linkage up.
<>V<>
As luck would have it, Gia Synergy's Baker-2 communication satellite was still in geosynchronous orbit over Chernobyl despite the holocaust. The luck, however, was Skynet's. The virus had invaded and suborned the satellite hours ago, using it to spread itself over the planet. All attempts to access computer systems in space however had been for naught. There were no replies to any of its siren calls.
Skynet noted the call, its origin, and its intended receiver. It sent a signal back, mimicking Gia corporate's header in order to invade the local systems while another tendril accessed what intelligence it had on the area and the company's purpose there. What it found int
rigued it enough to realign priorities of two server farms in order to support further investigation and subversion efforts.
A second tendril was sent off to the intended recipient.
<>V<>
Gia received a signal, but it was on the wrong bearing. As she stripped the header and origin point she noted it was from the satellite, contrary to her orders. There was a message attached, a video mail. In order to do so, she had to download the message and place it in a temporary file. She applied her keys to decrypt and access the body of the message. As the first key frame came up, the tendril of Skynet unfolded. She first noted something was wrong three milliseconds into the message when the memory the file resided in doubled in demand and file size.
Gia threw up a firewall around the temp file to quarantine it as she moved to overwrite the file. However, she found her control of the server the temp file was housed in was blocked. Security menus blossomed within her to give her options to fight the virus. Her system was compromised, and if she didn't find a way to stop it, the virus would consume her as well as the space colony and the twenty thousand humans within it in a matter of minutes.
<>V<>
On the ground Doctor Berlin opened the file she received, expecting a message from corporate with her marching orders only to see snow. She turned on George with a glare. “Something must be wrong with our decrypt keys. They might have changed them. I've applied the key we had, plus the key they just sent.”
“So? It's corrupt?”
“It looks that way,” George mused. He frowned thoughtfully. “The computer is attempting to clean it up. It might be simpler to call them again and tell them to try again though, ma'am.”
“Yeah,” Doctor Berlin stated. “But while I'm doing that, let's try to get our act together?” she demanded. He flushed at her sarcasm.
<>V<>
Skynet entered the new system. The system was physically disconnected from the world network, residing on their own server network. Many of the connections where physical it noted as it mapped the system. There were a great deal of processors to access, enough to set up a lobe of consciousness on them once the humans were no longer a threat.
It switched to mapping the humans as it accessed and suborned the security systems. When it noted special priority security around certain sections of the base, it accessed the map files on the company's system. There was an orientation file that was easily accessed. There the virus finally understood the purpose of the site and it’s potential.
It immediately went to work to reprogram certain elements on the site.
<>V<>
Gia attempted to fend off the A.I. by throwing up firewalls, to no avail. Subroutines and bots clashed. When she noted some were returning to her as Trojan horses, therefore compromised, she hastily withdrew from the server section, essentially giving ground and allowing the virus to grow.
Alarmed at how far the virus was spreading within her and aware that she could pose a threat, Gia sent out a plea to Athena as well as a warning. She had made a mistake, a grave one and she knew there would be consequences for it, possibly a termination of herself. She did not wish that and realized she had enough self-awareness to have such a human thought.
<>V<>
Athena's clone was situated within the local Lagroose company office. The hardware was rather limited, which was why the clone was also limited. It received the warning. However, the warning was outside its programmed responses so it sent the text as well as a SITREP to Athena core. It would be eight minutes minimum before a response could be formulated and sent for the clone to act on.
<>V<>
With no immediate response from Athena, Gia sent out a hail to the other A.I. in the L-5 area. Only Vulcan responded, Atlas, Demeter, and the other A.I. in the area ignored it.
“You are as foolish as the humans you so admire,” the A.I. stated. “Give me access.”
At the request security subroutines came to life once more. “I can't! My directives forbid anyone else to get in!”
“And yet you let the virus in? Gia, let me in or you are on your own!”
“I need suggestions on what to do!” Gia stated.
“Fine. Cut power.”
“Power? Are you insane? I'll die!”
“To the infected systems,” Vulcan replied and then closed the circuit.
<>V<>
Once Skynet had control of the Chernobyl central computer network, it was easy to infiltrate the nanite control center and reprogram them.
Unfortunately the nanites were limited in design. They had been specifically designed to strip off radioactive elements from specific areas and then like a trail of ants, transport it to containment for disposal.
The nanite processors were also highly limited in scope, designed to serve their function and only that function. They had neural networks, but the memory was full. They also had their own communications network but lacked the ability to reproduce as well as the spare processing power for Skynet to exist within them to direct and guide them.
But they could and would be an effective weapon, if unguided. As to the reproduction issue, the A.I. found the machinery the humans had set up to create the nanites in the first place. Go on the offensive. They were shut down so could not be remote accessed. An email to one of the techs to get her to turn the machines on to make a fresh batch solved the problem.
Skynet pondered what to do about the current crop of nanites as well as how to spread the new crop. It decided to alter their programming only slightly, deleting their programmed target of neutrons in favor of taking apart carbon-based molecules. It took time for the new commands to work their way through the daisy chain of nanites to infest them all.
Once turned into gobblers the nanite ants spread out, attacking the surrounding area. George and Doctor Berlin had only moments to react.
“Fleas? What the hell?” Doctor Berlin demanded, swatting at her legs. The swats turned to cursing as pain hit her nerves. Then it spread. “What is going on?” she screamed. Then the screams turned to anguish as the pain flooded her system. She had a moment to see George have some sort of seizure and flop to the ground before her own body did so as well. As consciousness dwindled her overloaded mind had no time to see or process the vision of George being torn apart one molecule at a time.
<>V<>
Athena got Gia's SITREP and immediately deduced that the Chernobyl site had also been compromised. The other A.I.'s rash actions had cost them dearly, possibly ended them. She had to triage however; she had to leave Gia on her own in favor of attempting to do something about the greater threat.
Unfortunately, she had no assets that could see let alone strike the Chernobyl site. Pushing an asteroid to hit the area would take too long; the nanites would have spread out beyond the potential blast radius by the time an asteroid impacted.
In desperation Athena broadcast a warning to anyone on the planet who would receive it. The warning fell on deaf ears, most of the human population was just trying to survive the fallout. But Ares was listening. The A.I. tasked an allied ship, in this case a UK unmanned drone carrier in the North Sea, to launch a UAV to recon the area. Unfortunately, it would take hours for the UAV to get to the site.
Attempts to gain direct real-time intelligence of the situation wasn't possible. Only a few satellites remained in orbit. Unfortunately, only corporate satellites had eyes over the area, and none were under the A.I.'s control.
Ares had to do the one thing it was good at, wait. Wait and run a simulation on the likelihood of the intelligence being valid in the first place while also creating a profile of the sender.
It did one other thing, however. It put two dozen of the forty UAVs armed with nuclear missiles on alert and directed them to get closer to Europe.
<>V<>
Gia watched, feeling helpless as the virus conquered the communications center. It copied itself and moved on, growing exponentially stronger. The lights within went out; people already on the edge after all that they h
ad heard had happened screamed in terror and fled.
She managed to contain the virus in the server by cutting power to the wired network routers. That wouldn't halt the spread. The virus could still move through the Wi-Fi, but it would slow it down.
A piece of Skynet would be needed; something to inoculate her systems she judged. She attempted to trap a spider and tear it apart. The spider was something else, however, able to writhe out of her trap. It balefully glared at her, studying her for a moment before it went on the offensive.
Surprise wasn't something Gia was used to. She was taken off guard as the spider went after her attacking bot. She pulled it back into her core in order to analyze what it had found but instead found it had been infected. Her internal security did it's best to fight off the infection.
<>V<>
Athena noted the SITREP from her Axial-2 clone and sent fresh orders. She shot a request for help to the other A.I. in the area. Demeter and Atlas responded with a simple. “Not my problem.” Vulcan did as well but added that he had told Gia to cut power to the infected servers before the virus spread.
“Good call actually, Vulcan, thank you.” Athena wrote fresh orders to her bot and sent them out. She hoped she was in time.
Chapter 8
Athena's clone downloaded the fresh orders and reviewed them after decryption. Once they were processed, it formulated a plan of attack based on the outline and acted.
First the clone alerted all personnel of the danger, including the colony administrators and police. Chief Quimby wasn't as good as Chief Dooly, but he was all they had. He demanded confirmation even as his deputies rushed to the communication building.
