Founding of the Federation 3: The First AI War (110 page)

“So …,” Brown eyes inquired, looking at her blue eyes.

“Yeah, okay, it was partly that. But well, mainly …,” she squirmed a bit.

“What?” he asked, spreading his hands apart.

“Body hair,” she said quietly.

He blinked, wide eyed and then chuffed. “Body hair? Are you serious? I'm a chimp!” he looked at his arms and ran a hand through his hair. “You've got hair!”

“Yeah well, I got rid of everything from the eyebrows down.”

He frowned. “Okay so to each their own. So, that’s your beef with me? It's not like you expect me to shave or something, right?” The idea appalled him. He'd seen a few chimps who'd gotten a bit nutty and tried to do that to better fit in with mankind. Some who had left the company had even had facial reconstruction done in order to fit in. The stares from the humans were hard to put up with.

“So I'm not a fan of it. Never was,” she said with a shiver and grimace of distaste. Her father had been bad. Her brother with his armpit hair …

“So it's not bigotry to my species. No problem that I'm a different sapient who is ten times stronger than you. It's not really racism per se, just bigotry of a different … “

“I'm
not
a bigot,” she insisted, eyes flashing.

“You just said …”

“I. Am. Not.” she insisted, eyes locking onto his coldly.

“Okay. Fine, covered that. Not a bigot. For the record, I've got nothing against women or lesbians or whatever. I never hit on you; if I did I apologize. As for the fur,” he got up and stretched, “you're going to have to live with it, lady. And if you run into more of my kind or some of the other Neo species, well, I suggest you get over it,
General
, before it becomes a problem. More of a problem,” he stated.

She grunted, then nodded once. “Noted. For the record I am trying to get over it.”

“Thanks. Pile ‘em like cordwood, General,” Elliot said, saluting her with his near empty cup before he downed the dregs. He set the cup down with a light tap on the counter. He turned to her when he felt her eyes on him. “What?”

“Thanks for reminding me who the real enemy is,” she said quietly. Wednesday had been right. She should have listened to her wife. She made a mental note to thank her later. Elliot nodded slowly. Slowly she smiled as she extended her hand. “Stack ‘em too, General,” she said.

“I'll do my damnedest, General,” he said as he took her hand and shook it.

<>V<>

Attila and the remains of his dirty dozen didn't die quickly from poisoning as Lyudmila had hoped, however. Posey threw up in his sleep, alerting them that something was up. The sickly smell triggered the gut-wrenching nausea. Lyudmila had done her best to comfort and quiet him; however, before the night was over, she had ended up going to each of them and slitting their throats with a knife.

She'd left Lever and Attila for last. That had been her mistake. “I should have known. Poison is a woman's weapon,” Attila commented, eying the two women coldly.

She had smirked at him while she had cut Lever's throat. “A better death than you
deserve
,” Lyudmila said, eying him coldly. However, Attila wasn't done. He pulled a pistol out from under his pillow as she approached him with the dripping knife and shot her. She fell forward, knife clutched to her belly into him.

He'd tried to shoot Valeria, but she'd wildly run out of range of his weapon. He'd fired until the gun had clicked dry, then thrown the gun at her in impotent rage. He'd then pushed Lyudmila's body off of him and tried to get up only to stagger and fall once more. She'd watched from the shadows, shivering until he was sure he was dead. Only then did she creep back to the dying fire and its supposed comforting warmth.

Lyudmila hadn't been dead; to her surprise the girl had survived the gunshots but had played dead.

Valeria cried when she'd noticed the girl breathing and weeping softly. She'd pulled her, doing her best to carry her away from the carnage. She tried to cover the wounds, but she was a child. She had no experience in such things. She rocked the older girl, begging her to live, to keep breathing.

However, she'd finally drifted off to sleep. When she woke she found Lyudmila had died in her arms. The girl's body had grown cold and stiff. Hastily she'd pushed it away, staring in horror at her open vacant eyes.

A husband and wife hunter team found her there the following day. She'd been listless, cold, and near death from exposure. Slowly she told them the story. It started as a trickle, then became a torrent of tears and shaking as the woman's arms wrapped around her for warmth and comfort.

The hunters took the girl in and helped her to strip and bury the bodies then load the truck. Together they drove off into an uncertain future.

Chapter 45

September 2205

Jack eyed Roman and shook his head as they walked. “Why the mystery? You've kept me in the dark long enough you know.”

“Well, technically you aren't cleared. Military eyes only.”

“Huh. And yes, I somehow recall signing the checks around here,” Jack said sarcastically. Roman snorted. “Enough pussyfooting around. Give.”

“We're at a near stalemate on the Eastern Front despite the Indians’ attempt to break the deadlock in their neck of the woods by introducing the elephant Neos,” Roman said, shaking his head.

Jack winced and nodded. “And this is where you tell me you have a new weapon? Something to get what two armies can't get done?”

“General Murtough is using a brute force approach. This is … subtle. It will rely on luck and a bit of misdirection. The brute force will serve as the misdirection.”

“Funny. Last time I checked the JCS chairman had experience in the black ops community. Not following. And by the way, this smacks of a Hail Mary do or die stunt. One that has too many ifs and maybes in it, and I haven't even gotten the full in brief. Too much can go wrong.”

“Yes, I know, which is why I've kept it on a back burner for so long. We haven't unveiled it; hell, we've barely field tested it. But, Jack, if we keep going the path we're going, we're going to get bogged down. Tens of thousands, potentially
millions
of lives will be lost not to mention the thousands of people dying daily. We're already seeing that in Russia, India, and China,” Roman said patiently.

“Okay. That is where orbital bombardment and EMPs …,” Roman started shaking his head. “Don't shake your head like that, Roman. You know the curtain wall is working,” Jack said.

“We're at diminished returns with the EMPs. They knock down Skynet's civilian hardware sure, but not the
military
hardware. The stuff we faced in Africa and South America was crap compared to the frontline units. And we're at a standstill with the KEW strikes. We can only do so much. Fire support is dangerous as we saw in Berlin,” he grimaced, “or what is left of it.”

Jack winced. Berlin had needed fire support after a big push. They'd gotten it, but a bit of wind drift and a miscommunication on where the forward units were had resulted in a lot of friendly casualties. Isaac had reminded him of an axiom in war. Friendly fire isn't. “Okay.”

“Do you remember some of your history? Specifically World War II, Jack?” Roman asked, eying his boss. Jack nodded. “Well, when the Americans and allies invaded Okinawa, they took brutal losses. The Japanese took horrific losses, and it was a slugfest. That was a taste of what was to come if they tried to invade mainland Japan.”

Jack nodded. “I know this one. It's why Truman signed off on the usage of nuclear weapons. To make certain the losses were one-sided and so horrific the enemy would capitulate.”

“Yes. They didn't at first; their pride got the better of them, which was why Hiroshima was followed up by Nagasaki. I get that. But we can't get them to surrender no matter how hard we hit them.”

“Right. They won't give in at all. So, shock and awe won't affect them. And they are holding the majority of humanity hostage. So we've got to try … something else. Otherwise, this will go on for another three or more years—possibly
decades
. We may never be rid of this damn virus.”

“And that is where Zack comes into this?”

“Yes. This is his baby. He's been wrapped up into it for years. Years before the war too FYI. It's … hard to explain. There have been a lot of teething issues to get to this point.”

“Oh boy,” Jack sighed. “I'm not going to like this plan, am I?” he asked. Roman didn't answer. Jack heaved a second sigh. “Yeah, that's what I thought.”

<>V<>

Boomer felt himself wake slowly. But it wasn't just him, there was another presence, a loving one mixed in with his. His eyes fluttered open to see a familiar chow laying across from him. “Bumper?” he asked, voice fogging with tears.

“Not quite, he's a clone. We did our best to recreate his mind from his cybernetics download,” a nurse nearby said.

“Shut up,” Boomer muttered, eyes locked onto Bumper's. The dog whined softly then snuffled. He felt himself tire. Their eyes fluttered and then closed as they fell back asleep in perfect harmony.

<>V<>

Zack finally introduced his father to the project. The lead star of the program was a two-year-old wolf/shepard Neo named Maximilian. He wasn't alone, however; there were now a dozen other dog and human pairs. But Zack and Max had been the prototypes.

Max looked more like a classic German Shepard than a Neo: brown with soft black markings, erect ears, nice carriage. A massive canine with a strong jaw and large head to go with his massive sixty kilo body. He moved on all fours and seemed quite comfortable doing so. But there was something there, a spark of intelligence he could see in the Neo's eyes.

“We combined two, no, make that three projects. One being the smart dog project of course. It's why I didn't have canines in any of the new Neo species,” Doctor Glass explained.

“There had been some questions on that,” Jack said with a nod, eyes still on Max.

Max turned to look his way then away.

“Staring is a form of challenge, Dad,” Zack said quietly. “It’s … impolite.”

“I know. I was curious how he'd react,” Jack said. Max turned and sniffed him, then snorted loudly and explosively. He then shook himself and sat back down.

“He's good at blending in and looking like an ordinary dog; I'll give him that,” Jack said with a small fleeting smile.

“Part of his charm, Dad,” Zack said, ruffling the dog's fur between his ears. Max groaned slightly then leaned towards him. “He can talk, but it's hard for him. One thing that wasn't done was alter his voice box much. He prefers to speak through a vocoder or through me,” Zack explained.

Jack raised an eyebrow. “And what do you have to do with all this?”

“A lot,” Zack replied.

Doctor Glass and Zack took turns as they explained how the system worked. How the scientists had cloned tissue from Zack and mixed it with Max as well and then interlaced both of them with cybernetics, then reinserted the tissue into each of their brains. Nanites had reintegrated the tissue and cybernetics with their other bits. There had been a lot of problems along the way; something had to be given up each time. “Fortunately, the brain is a resilient thing. We of course backed up everything we could in case of loss. A good thing,” Doctor Glass stated as he showed Jack the reports.

Jack grunted at the progress. Max was the tenth attempt at a Neo partner. Zack had been in a coma once after a rather nasty failure. There had been a lot of teething issues to work out along the path they had chosen.

He closed his eyes and covered his mouth as he tried to think. Had Aurelia known? Had she been a part of it? He wasn't sure. He wasn't certain if he wanted to know if his wife had experimented on their son. Experimented on him more than she had, he amended sourly to himself.

Zack moved and the rustle of cloth made Jack open his eyes and pay attention. “We think collectively, Dad. It's complicated to explain. It's more than sharing the same DNA; I know some believe it is a means for us to simulate the thought processes of the other. It's not just that; we've proven it in the lab. It's more than the cybernetics too. We're both more than the sum of our parts.”

“This may be the future of all of us—a true melding of organic and machine,” Doctor Glass said triumphantly.

Jack eyed the chimp then crossed his arms and looked at his son. Sons plural apparently, he thought, glancing at Max.

“Yes, he's a brother. I remember reading about spirit animals a long time ago, Dad,” Zack said as Jack's eyes widened slightly. Zack smiled slightly. “No, I didn't read your mind, now or then. We could tell from your expression and thermal profile what you were thinking—that and experience.”

“Right. And we've been together for a long time,” Jack said.

“Well, I admit not in the same room for years, Dad. I'm sorry, I told them to put you off. I knew if you knew what I was planning you'd put the brakes on it.”

“Damn straight I would have.”