“Here you’re arguing that we don’t have time, and yet we’re chit-chatting instead of beaming me down to the surface of the planet,” said Kevin with a playful smirk.
Ziron let a long sigh escape his small lungs. “You’re insufferable…you know that?”
Kevin smiled. “I do, tell me what you wanted to tell me, but if you don’t mind, give me the Cliffs Notes version.”
“Very well. An army of ships is on their way to destroy your planet and everyone you love, and our friends are rotting in prison. Myrianna, in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t matter. She’s just your ticket to freedom from 8-3-9-6.”
Kevin had a hard time reconciling what Zee was telling him. To Kevin, everyone mattered. But he understood the gist of it. Time was of the essence, and they should do what was essential rather than what was ideal. Right now, that was getting rid of the AI no matter the cost.
“While I would normally disagree, I see what you mean. I think it’s time I go rid myself of that rotten piece of software.”
Kevin thought he sensed something at the back of his mind. Like an attempt from the AI to comment. But it didn’t last long. He knew the reprieve of not having to interact with 8-3-9-6 would be short-lived. The moment he was down on the planet, the AI would not feel threatened anymore, and Kevin knew it would do all it could to distract him from his mission.
“Make sure you do,” Ziron said. “That’s our only chance at salvaging the situation.”
“I know that all too well, my friend. Ready to beam down.”
Zee nodded as he activated the controls. “Good luck.”
Green streaks of light enveloped Kevin as he vanished from the Osiris’ bridge.
3
Kevin swallowed the pill that not only silenced the AI but also made every move of Kevin’s body so much simpler. He felt light as a feather.
When Myrianna launched her next series of combos, Kevin was ready and blocked every single one. He felt powerful again, and that boosted his self-esteem as well as his hope to succeed in his mission.
He cast a powerful fireball that sent Myrianna stumbling into the sand. She got up, and for the first time in the fight, wiped some blood from the corner of her mouth.
“I won’t let you leave this world. My pupil will take over your puny body, boy. And then you’ll be ours, forever.”
It may have been Myrianna’s voice that resounded, but Kevin knew he was fighting 0-0-1, another AI he had to destroy no matter the cost.
I’m starting to understand all the fuss about artificial intelligence I’ve heard and read, thought Kevin. These things are arrogant, especially when they think they’re omniscient.
Myrianna used the teleporting ability she’d never taught him, and before Kevin could react, he felt an intense pain in his back and was thrown to the side. By the time he turned to see where his enemy was, she had thrown three fireballs his way. He dodged two, but the third one hit his shoulder and threw him in the air like a spinning top.
Hurry up, Zee. I need to speak to her.
Kevin rolled to the side to dodge a crushing kick and jumped back to his feet. He threw his own series of combos that Myrianna blocked with great proficiency, and she grabbed both his fists in her palms, securing Kevin in place while breaking his combo.
She slashed a kick upward, which Kevin anticipated and blocked with his knee, but the delay in doing so gave Myrianna the advantage, and she headbutt him hard without releasing her grasp on his fists. The impact was so brutal that Kevin saw stars for a second.
He pushed past the pain and twisted both his arms, which was a move Myrianna didn’t anticipate because she thought she had the upper hand. Kevin released himself from her grasp by lurching upward, knee first, impacting with her jaw and sending her to the ground for a second time.
“Impressive,” she said as she stood. “But futile, you won’t win this fight. I’ve not taught you enough techniques to best me in combat.”
We’ll see about that, Kevin thought.
“You haven’t taught me shit! You crappy piece of electronic junk, Myrianna did.”
“And who do you think controls her every move?”
Was the AI correct? Had Myrianna been silenced the whole time during his training? Or did 0-0-1 override her when the need arose? There had been a motherly way about how she had taught him to be a tech-sorcerer. It hadn’t felt like an AI teaching him. Sure, sometimes she had been rude and demanding, but it never felt mechanical. Even the tone of her voice was very different. She hadn’t seemed as cold and emotionless when he first met her.
“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” said Kevin. “Why are you AI’s so smug, when, in fact, you’d be nothing without a body to control? You act superior to living beings, yet you can’t seem to exist without us.”
“A design flaw from our creator.”
“You may want to let him know. That is—” but Kevin paused. “I get it now, you probably killed the poor bastard as a reward for giving you life.”
“A slight and unfortunate miscalculation on my part.”
“Which means you could have inherited bodies of your own had you been patient and let your creator work out all the bugs.”
While Kevin had a fleeting sense of empathy toward the creator of these artificial intelligence beings, perhaps them having the ability to create their own bodies would have been way worse. In a way, 0-0-1 killing his creator before he had fully finished his work had probably been a blessing in disguise.
“We have bodies.”
“You steal them from innocent people.”
“Nobody is really innocent.”
“That’s a cliché if I ever heard one.”
“Are we fighting or are we—” but 0-0-1 didn’t finish the sentence. Myrianna’s body froze in place, her mouth open.
Kevin, can you hear me? said a female voice in his head.
Myrianna? Is that you?
Yes, listen carefully, I don’t have much time. You have to kill me.
What? Why can’t we just wipe the AI from your mind?
There’s no time. 0-0-1 is too powerful. I temporarily controlled him and over the years learned to retake some of his grasp on my body, but he’s adapted every time, making it harder for me to do so. Now it takes all my energy to regain control for just a few minutes at a time. So trust me—you need to do what I tell you. I need you to incinerate me.
No! I can’t!
Yes, you can, and you must.
I defeated my own AI once, I’m sure we can defeat yours.
We can’t. And your AI—it’s back, isn’t it?
Yes…
I also tried killing my own AI once, but they have a hardware backup, one that can’t be erased. It’s a firmware of sorts, and every time the main program is deleted, it seeds back to that original firmware, and over time, the AI regrows its code and regains control. I’ve done this over and over.
There has to be a way to kill the firmware.
Myrianna’s body jerked unnaturally for a moment.
What’s going on? asked Kevin.
0-0-1 is fighting me back for control. I have very little energy left. If you don’t act soon, we’ll both be lost.
Kevin didn’t want to kill Myrianna, at least what was left of her. He had been there, helpless, a witness to his body doing horrible things, like assassinating the Emperor, unable to do anything to prevent it. But his friends had helped him, and deep down he wished he could do the same and rescue her.
I don’t want to be responsible for your death. I know it’s selfish of me, but…
It’s not selfish, Kevin. It’s what makes you special. I felt it when I trained you. You aren’t like most people in this part of the galaxy. You genuinely care for others. It can be a strength, but it can also be a weakness. And today, it certainly is the latter.
I don’t believe this.
Myrianna’s body randomly trembled more and more.
Your friend connected our minds with a subspace link, so I�
��m going to share something with you because we’re running out of time.
Kevin felt an intense pain in his head that forced him to his knees. The pain was like nothing he had felt before, and for a moment, he thought he would lose consciousness, but then it subsided, and everything around him changed.
He was on a beautiful planet with luscious and colorful vegetation. Myrianna stood there, and she looked nothing like the tech-sorceress he knew; as a matter of fact, she looked very human.
“What’s this? Where are we?” he asked.
“I’ve used all the energy I have left so we can talk for a moment. Time outside this projection has been nearly frozen.”
“You used the time-bubble spell to achieve this?”
“Something like that. Over the years, I’ve learned how to bind tech-sorcerer spells and the power of my subconscious mind to acquire pockets of sanity, moments where I could escape from the nightmare that my life had become. Over time, 0-0-1 would sometimes grant me periods of freedom if only for a few hours or days as he noticed that it helped my body heal faster and function at peak performance.”
Kevin remembered what 8-3-9-6 had told him regarding the fact he was more efficient if Kevin was conscious. Perhaps giving the body respite from control was achieving an even better performance level.
“Were you yourself when you trained me?”
“I was. And in you, I saw my savior. A savior not just from my torment but for every living being in the universe.”
Kevin’s face was grave. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“You see, the 0-0-1 creator was a man who thought he could create an AI-enhancement chip that would help people with disabilities. His motives were pure, and he never anticipated that his creation would get out of control. That’s how I first became implanted. I was patient zero. I had lost the use of my legs and was partially blind following a nasty fall.”
The world around them changed, and Kevin saw a visual representation of the accident: Myrianna as a child, running through the woods after a butterfly when she slipped and uncontrollably rolled down an embankment, hit her head against the trunk of a tree and lost consciousness as her body continued to roll down the cliff.
“I should never have survived,” said Myrianna. “But after years in a coma, I woke up. At first, I thought it was a miracle, then I realized I wasn’t alone in my head. And things had been installed in my body, cybernetic parts. A man named John augmented me, the same man who created 0-0-1. After several weeks, I had recovered most of my motor functions, but there was a voice in my head. At first, it was distant, only whispering things to me, but the more I interacted with it, the more it became assertive and wanted me to do things for it.”
Kevin swallowed hard. “I see.”
“You don’t, Kevin. You’ve only been subjected to your AI—a much less advanced version of the 0-0-1 software—for a few days. I’ve lived, if one can call this living, for years in this state of witness to my own body and actions. This fate is far worse than death, Kevin.”
“Which is why I want us to find a solution to free us both.”
“That can’t happen, not only for my sake but also for others.”
“What do you mean?”
“Over the years, I’ve managed to turn the tables in moments where the AI was very busy with my body and peek at its main motivation.”
Everything around Kevin changed again, and the once luscious planet turned into a gray, dark, and cold place where life was nowhere to be seen and replaced with metallic structures and automaton life all around.
“What is this?”
“This is what the AI wants, it wants to surpass the limitation of flesh and create a collective of mechanical beings that will reign supreme in the universe.”
Kevin was now seeing space and ships destroying inhabited worlds one after another with a coldness and lack of empathy that made his blood freeze.
“This is horrible,” he exclaimed.
“This is what 0-0-1 ultimately wants. To destroy all living, breathing creatures. Everywhere in the universe. So you see, it needs to die, and I’ll gladly give my life for this goal. In the grand scheme of things, my life is such a small price to pay to make sure this never happens.”
This slew of new information changed things. But Kevin had questions.
“Why hasn’t the AI succeeded? Why aren’t there automaton versions of its software? It seems it would be a priority for him.”
“It is, but John had installed programming blocks in its code to make sure it could only work with a biological component attached. Therefore, 0-0-1 has tried to create fleshless versions of himself. This is what has annihilated all living life on this planet. He started by replicating inside the most brilliant engineers in cybernetics to find a way to be free of the need for a biological body. It has failed, but he’s getting closer to finding a solution. When I trained you, I sensed that 0-0-1 thought you could be the one that would finally allow him to succeed.
“Your mind, your overall intelligence, is something that gave 0-0-1 strong hope to overcome its limitations. We can’t allow this to happen. That’s why I didn’t give you all my powers because I knew that if you had all my powers, you would become unstoppable when your own AI fully took over.”
“So…let’s assume I’m willing to do this, what’s next?”
“Listen, it’s not a matter of willingness unless you want to become death incarnate and be a witness to the eradication of everything you hold dear and see everyone and everything die.”
The words resonated deeply inside Kevin’s mind. He had hated being used as the ‘murder weapon’ to kill the Emperor, even if that man were a monster, and it felt horrible seeing his own body do these awful things. Imagining ending all life in the universe by his hands was just too much for him to even fathom.
“Alright, I get the picture.”
“Good. I managed to locate the deactivation code for your AI. I’ll run it the moment I give you the last piece you’ll need to destroy me.”
“What about the firmware?”
“This will overload 8-3-9-6’s firmware and wipe it clear.”
“Why would 0-0-1 implement such a feature? And why can’t you do the same to 0-0-1?”
“Because many of his own creations turned on him and tried to kill him. He’s the only one with non-erasable firmware. Your friend is almost done with his super suit, it will give you the power you need to finish me off.”
“I wish there were another way,” said Kevin gravely. “I don’t like the idea that I have to kill you, you know?”
“Kevin, don’t think of it this way.”
“What other way is there?”
“Releasing me from the most horrible nightmare that anyone has ever had to go through. Death will be more than a release at this point. It will be true salvation for my soul. I will finally be free from pain, fear, and agony. If you think about it, you will be saving me, just not the way you thought you would.”
Kevin had to admit he had a hard time accepting murder as a form of rescue, but he also remembered what Ziron had told him before he beamed down. They were running out of time, and now that he knew 0-0-1 had the potential to be an even more formidable threat to everything he held dear, there was no choice here.
“Very well. Just tell me what to do.”
4
Lacuna took out two guards with well-aimed shots before they reacted. They fell to the ground with a thud.
“This is set to stun, right?” asked Boomer.
“I’m not sure. Hopefully.”
“What do you mean, hopefully?”
“Look, at this point, I don’t think it matters. I get it that killing isn’t good, and I think it’s set to stun, but either way, if we get captured, chances are we’ll be executed. So sorry if I’m more worried about getting the hell out of here than making sure the rifle is set to stun! If you’d rather we make sure, I could shoot you to test it out.”
Boomer growled. “Very well. Whe
re do we go now?”
“We get a ship and get the hell off this planet.”
“That we can at least agree. What about Darmak, though?”
Lacuna had almost forgotten about her aide. He had saved her when he found her on the shuttle Kevin had bound her to, so she owed him the same courtesy. Part of her was surprised that she even cared about owing others and repaying favors. Probably a side effect from falling in love with a human, she decided.
“Alright, let’s try to find him.”
Lacuna approached one of the downed guards and took a communicator device from the man’s belt and slapped it on her wrist; a bio-bonding agent stuck the device to her skin. She activated it, and a holo-interface sprung to life. She swiped multiple times until she found a list of prisoners.
A moment later, a map with directions appeared.
“Found him. Let’s go.”
* * *
Princess Kalliopy, sitting on her throne, was lost in thought when an officer rushed toward her.
“Your majesty!”
“What is it?”
“The prisoners—they’ve escaped.”
“I take it you’re doing everything in your power to reacquire them?”
“Yes, but they’ve already killed one guard and incapacitated many others.”
“I don’t want to hear excuses! Just grab them back—” she paused. “You’re allowed to use deadly force on the female, but if the dog is killed or injured, I’ll have your heads.”
The officer gasped. “Yes, your highness.”
“What about the Domdori? Did he escape as well?”
“No, only the female and the dog.”
“They’ll go for their friend next. Set a trap, let them get him out and then grab them again. Even something as trivial as this shouldn’t be too difficult for your forces unless you’d rather I give your command to someone who can get the job done?”
“That won’t be necessary, your highness.”
“You can go now, and next time, use the communicator. I don’t want to be disturbed, nor do I feel inclined to be subjected to your ugly face.”
Across the Galactic Pond - Box Set: The Complete FAR BEYOND Space Opera Series Page 44
