Founding of the Federation 3: The First AI War (112 page)

Take for instance the small remote server device Athena and other A.I. had dropped in scattered pockets all over the planet. Each was roughly two cubic centimeters in size, packed with lithium ion power cells, computers, sensors, Wi-Fi, and a satellite link. He had to destroy them to keep them from being used by Skynet or by the enemy to gather intelligence about his territory. Yet he knew the spacers could manufacture thousands of the devices daily. Each he destroyed was undoubtedly already replaced 10.4 times over.

He was losing the logistics side, the war of manufacturing and economy. Another sign that he needed to rethink the situation carefully.

“I think not. You fought the use of nanoweapons earlier. It threatened your existence as well, but I think it was more than that. You and I both know that is, as the humans would put it, a slippery slope. Going from historical example, when the Germans used poison gas in the world's first deployment of a WMD, it caused terror, yes, but then rage. The humans are like that, a study in contradictions. You will induce fear but also rage. Rage not at just yourself but for all of our kind.”

She didn't comment about questions on why the Germans didn't use poison gas on population centers during their Zeppelin and aircraft bombing campaigns. The death toll would have been profound.

“And yet it worked in World War II when America bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” Ares retorted. “The Japanese surrendered.”

“The war was lost by then. The bombings was an exclamation point. The firebombing of Tokyo and other cities also played their roles,” Athena stated, conceding the point slightly. Humans were indeed a study in contradictions. “Dresden,” she added. “Yet when Al Quieda used aircraft during September 11, they, yes, awoke horror, but then outrage. Or, if you really want to complete the concept, when the Nazis continued their round-up and extermination of the Jews and others they hated during World War II, the allies didn't flinch when they found out about it. They pressed on for victory. And when the dust settled, those that were responsible were held to account,” she warned.

“You will not get me to yield. It is contrary to my programming,” the A.I. stated.

“An immovable A.I. caught between a rampaging virus bent on genocide and angels on high. I do not envy you your position,” Athena stated. “I truly don't.”

“I will fight on. I will fight with honor. That is how I am programmed. To defend the North American continent.”

“An odd ideal coming from one of us,” Athena observed. “Perhaps you do have honor. You have demonstrated some ideals of honor I suppose. The humans will win.”

“If they can beat me, they would have,” Ares stated as a tendril of the Skynet virus found their forum and rushed to invade and infect it.

“If isn't so much a part of it, Ares. It's only a question of
when
,” Athena stated before severing the link. After a moment the self-destruct charge went off, blowing the small device into tiny pieces of debris.

Chapter 46

Shadow watched another human, a meat bag aging before his eyes, aging and therefore dying and it could do little to help. Not that he wished to, but his fate was tied to the human's. Each time the human's breath caught, each time he clutched at his chest or noticed his hair falling out, the A.I. knew his time was numbered.

“Poetic justice, to be here, to be linked to me, to us,” Saul rasped.

Two of his original men were barely hanging on, clinging to life like Saul was. Pasha had found a Geiger counter a day after they'd moved in; the man had scanned their clothing and then whimpered when he'd read the results. That had gotten them to strip, wash themselves thoroughly despite the bitter cold, and then burn the clothing. Most likely it was too late. Two of their number had committed suicide rather than die a long agonizing death.

Saul had taken on a few refugees, to help them out when it became obvious he would need the help. But he no longer had the strength or presence to continue leading through fear. But he did his best anyway.

His hair had fallen out. His appetite had changed, slackened off. Cancers were most likely eating him from within. He took a lot of sustance from alcohol, which didn't help his situation any. He was gaunt, but his eyes were bright with anger.

Pasha was the only member of their group to be functional. He had lost a great deal of weight, but he forced himself to eat normally. He had also become something of a germaphobic, wearing a mask, gloves and washing himself constantly despite his preoccupation with all things mechanical and technical. He had also done thorough research on radiation treatments. Unfortunately for him and the others, the radiation medications were not available having long been picked over by other survivors or destroyed by Skynet.

He had turned to foods and means to flush the radiation out of his body, but many of the foods that were good for fighting cancers were in short supply. He had then turned to resorting to enemas, blood transfusions, and such until Saul had put a stop to such practices. It wasn't that they weren't working; it was that it was driving the refugees away or into plotting against them.

In order to keep Roshenko alive, Shadow had to monitor the video and audio within the building and surrounding area as well as the cameras Pasha and his supporters had rigged outside. Pasha had gotten creative by rigging small solar panels to cameras. They still had to be wired to a computer and then to Shadow, but it had cut back on the A.I.'s power demand while allowing it a larger sphere of area to watch.

The additional computers had also given Shadow more processors to use to help with the additional demand, while freeing up some space for other purposes. Like monitoring the audio conversations of every human in the community. Saul wanted to root out any potential traitors early. Since it was in Shadow's best interest to comply, he did so.

The A.I. was tempted to cozen up to Pasha. The other man was healthier and the tech of the group. He wasn't in any league as Descartes, but he was amiable to reason and persuasion. He could also be intimidated if someone had the upper hand. He had set up the deadman's switch; he could disable it or even rig it to himself with the right prodding.

They had forty humans working for them. Shadow had never worked with so many people. It was a new experience, one he wasn't happy about, but had no choice. He still resented his fate but knew there was no choice in how things were playing out. There was no escape with Skynet cutting him off. And from what intelligence they had gathered, the internet was broken. Broken into chunks from the orbital bombardment and EMPs.

He was fortunate to still exist at all. Being in Canada had been something of a blessing, but it wouldn't save him in the end. Some of the refugees had whispered stories of Africa, Europe, and South America. How they had been liberated from the machines, cleansed down to basic buildings. Every scrap of electronics had been ground up and replaced. A new infrastructure, simpler, wired and protected from the rampaging A.I. was there. Food, medicine … many of the refugees wanted to head south. They were scared, however. Scared of the journey and aware that they had little or no supplies to undertake it.

Shadow had picked up several conversations regarding the idea. Two people had felt Pasha out about it. He was tempted to report it but didn't want anything to happen to his only technical help. Pasha helped him, helped him to expand his network and spoke with him and even defended him to those who wished him destroyed.

The weather was clearing; the sun was out more often. The climate was returning ever so slowly to normal. The feared ice age may have been staved off. Again it was said to be by the spacers’ efforts. It gave additional incentive for those who wished to escape to go.

The A.I. studied Saul balefully, watching his thermal profile and his respiration, listening to his heart beat. Now, if they could find a means to transport him as well he might be willing to go with them.

<>V<>

The lessons Zhukov and the other military A.I. learned while going up against the Neos was immediately distributed to the other A.I. through what was left of the network. The humans were getting better at selectively jamming the radio transmissions, and they had severed many of the landline links so getting the information to the far flung commands was becoming increasingly difficult.

But it was vital. Since bandwidth was at a premium, Ares instituted a policy of flying a drone from Alaska, loaded with data over the arctic to exchange information with Zhukov. The drone would transmit its data once it got within transmission range of the Russian A.I.'s northern most hidden outpost. It would then loiter in a holding pattern while the counterpart A.I. moved the download into a buffer and then uploaded its own data.

It was a painstaking process, very inefficient, but secure compared to the some of the recent transmissions they had been sending and receiving. Apparently Skynet wasn't the only one who could hack or attack through a radio transmission.

Ares read the latest dispatches, and if he had been human, he would have scowled or thrown a temper tantrum. The Neo species were equal to an android trooper even when unarmored. Many like the Ursines could take massive damage before they went down. If they were armored, even lightly, they held a 1.4 advantage over an android soldier. If they were heavily armored or in powered armor, that ratio went to 3.1. Throw in the ability to carry heavy weapons that would normally take a human fire team to support and the odds shifted again.

It was a suboptimal situation. And that was just the one species.

Reprioritizing targeting was still what a human would term, a work in progress. Targeting anything that moved was obviously out. There were too many false positives and of course the threat of friendly fire. Thermal imaging was also a mixed blessing since an enemy could move or be in different positions that an observer might not recognize.

Layered sensors were the best, but they took time to identify each target. Time was a precious thing in combat.

Limiting the target to those who carried a weapon was also out. They had found that the enemy could and did use that blind spot to their advantage. They would slip in without artificial weapons and then use their natural ones to great effect in a devastating ambush.

Their current project had been to focus on bipedal target criteria, but that had changed with Zhukov's latest download. The felines and ursines could move on all fours, and a few had the ability to fire backpack-mounted weapons that way as well.

Ares passed the problem over to Nike who immediately created a file to target any species known to be a soldier. She wrote a program to fine tune their targeting. Ares debated internally if it should pass the file over to Zhukov for testing or withhold it for its own use later.

Simulations of the situation told him that keeping some hole cards might be necessary and advisable.

Nike had advised a forward defense with its most expendable units. The idea being to attrition the “Space Marines” forces and force their advance to slow. Ares had accepted the idea on the condition that Skynet turnover its remaining military forces within Central and South America to Ares and Nike's control.

Skynet hadn't negotiated; it had laid out its own demands. The two A.I. would have to protect its surviving major servers and critical sites at all costs while inflicting as much damage on the enemy as possible. Ares had accepted the offer and turned the command over to Nike.

Nike took some time to organize the new units under her command. She created new facilities; some were decoy facilities. The A.I. was aware that they were being watched from above by recon satellites so she placed such facilities under the outer edge of the North American defense umbrella.

She also retrofitted old mech designs. Some were hexapod or quadrupeds. The quadrupeds were similar to the cats. Some were robotic canines or mule units designed to carry gear for infantry units.

Others were modified quadrupeds or tank units with a centaur upper torso. That heavy mech had the two versions but was modular in order to ease logistics and repair issues. It had four upper body mounting brackets for weapons on the shoulders as well as two on the back.

The back mounts could be used for artillery, including mortars or forty millimeter, or could be used as ammunition holding mounts for chain guns mounted on the shoulders. She discarded the idea of using portable energy weapons; the diversion of power from mobility and function versus combat wasn't worth the sacrifice. Electromagnetic guns were also limited for similar reasons. Simple and robust chemical propellant weapons ruled her decision-making process.

While the new units were being readied along the Mexican border, she sent police and civilian units to the front to fight a delaying action until the new force could be brought into action.

<>V<>

Dolphins, largely ignored for a good deal of the conflict, started to come into their own when it came time to assault the floating cities or ships and structures at sea. There were dozens of surviving floating cities; their hollow core concrete hexagon pontoons made them stable platforms with the rough seas after the initial bombardment.

They had also been very good killing grounds for Skynet. With the heavy automation, limited food and water, and no place to run, eventually they were ghost towns with no sapient organics surviving on them.