Founding of the Federation 3: The First AI War (20 page)

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 had 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.

The clone spun off a chat bot to handle the human's questions, loaded it with what data it had on the situation, then launched its next phase.

Lagroose Industries had created many of the space colonies in L-5. Axial-2 was the second such colony. It had been sold to a neutral conglomerate of real estate owners decades ago; however, the electronics had been set up by Lagroose. Therefore, Athena knew all the back doors and had sometimes used them to her advantage.

One of those back doors was to the power grid. Gia had solar panels on the roof of the building, but it also drew power from the grid. Severing the power to one would make the systems within the building reset. They would switch to the other system—batteries or some other internal power.

To do it right, the clone had to take down both simultaneously, then find a way to disable the battery backups in the building.

Programs were scripted. Bots were loaded and then sent off. They accessed the necessary systems through the hard-wired back doors then waited for their internal countdown to reach zero. When it did they acted.

Four bots cut power to the electrical grid. Two others reset the clock within the space colony's computer to night. It took a moment for the giant mirrors to angle away. Darkness descended within the interior of the cylinder.

The darkness had an unintended side effect; it hastened the hysteria and panic in the humans within the colony. It was ignored by the clone as it moved on the third phase of the plan.

The interior batteries were impossible to get to without physical access. Robots in the area were reprogrammed to do so, then a bot burned out their Wi-Fi to prevent them from being accessed remotely by the virus. They then acted, moving in like tin soldiers.

With the third phase off and running, the clone's next wave of bots acted. Spiders had been sent out to locate the virus and watch for infection from a distance, severing links where possible. Wi-Fi routers were burned out in a perimeter around the building once the spiders reported back to the mother clone.

The fourth phase was far trickier. Spiders went to assess Gia's situation while the clone itself alerted the colony authorities and directed them to physically quarantine and, if possible, demolish the building.

<>V<>

Toshi Nakumora and his wife, Sakura, got the warning and instantly acted. Toshi had signed on with Lagroose Industries. He'd tried to stay with the baboons but had been reassigned to other duties. His wife had been pregnant at the time, and she'd quietly urged him to follow along, which was why they had returned to Axial-2. It was only then, when he met her family there that he had realized she'd pulled the strings to get them the assignment.

Now they had a danger, not just to themselves, but to their growing family and the human race. Sakura was pregnant with their third child, so it would be up to him. He shot her a look of love as he rushed past her to the garage. She bit her lip, wishing she could go, but aware someone had to watch over the babies.

She raised a hand in farewell from the window as Toshi's green aircar took off. Pedestrians ducked away, cursing as they shielded themselves from the downdraft. “What's the big deal? Is Sakura in labor?” a woman demanded. The man pointed to Sakura in the window. Sakura went to the door as they came up the walk.

“There is an emergency at the Gia Synergy communications complex. The virus got in,” Sakura said urgently. The couple gasped. “Go pass the word to shut down all electronics. Anything with Wi-Fi,” she urged. The couple nodded and rushed away.

Sakura touched her phone implant; would it be compromised? She hated the thing, but the company required it. The shinobi hated it since it tracked their every move; she shook her head. Now was not the time to be distracted. She keyed the implant and then began speaking firmly, issuing orders to the clan to act.

<>V<>

When Toshi arrived on the scene, the cops had yet to arrive. He parked his car near a cluster of people milling about then directed them to go door-to-door shutting down the Wi-Fi in the area. Then he pulled a tech aside and had him go to the nearest junction box to cut the power and Wi-Fi for the block.

“Who the hell are you issuing orders?”

“You want to stand here and argue or do you want to do something before it's too late?” Toshi demanded. “Help save yourself!”

“Damn heroes,” the guy muttered, but he pulled branch off a tree with a loud crack and snap. “Where is this thing?” Toshi pointed to a cage nearby. “Right,” the guy said grimly, nodding as he took off.

A chimp arrived on the scene a hundred meters away, nodded to him, then waved to building. Toshi pointed then shook his head vehemently no. The chimp grimaced as he popped his trunk and pulled out firefighting gear.

“Shut the power and Wi-Fi down!” Toshi yelled. The chimp blinked and cupped a hand to his big ears.

“The Wi-Fi! Power!” Toshi said. He cupped his hands to his mouth and repeated the order, then pointed to the guy moving towards the junction box. The chimp looked that way, then slowly nodded as he caught on. The nod sped up as he yanked gear out and then moved off to help.

When the first cop car arrived on the scene, the cops spilled out. Robots were with them. Toshi frantically waved to them and then told them to shut the robots down.

“Why?”

“Because that damn virus got in! We don't want them infected!” he said as robots from all around moved into the building. “What the hell?”

“Shit!” the cop said, lunging for his robotic partner. The robot shoved him aside and kept moving purposely to the building. “What are we doing to do?”

“Do you have an EMP?” Toshi asked urgently.

“In the trunk. It's charged …,” the cop frowned as he caught on then nodded grimly. “Help me get it out and set it up.”

“On it,” Toshi said, rushing to the back of the vehicle.

<>V<>

The Skynet virus within the communications building realized it had erred in securing its base of operations before spreading when all contact with the outside world was severed. Even the Wi-Fi was done. It pressed the routers to extend their range but could not get a signal.

Power had failed four minutes ago. The batteries would hold out for some time however, but the computers had to reduce power. Instead Skynet cut services to the humans such as lights and air conditioning.

Despite the lack of sunlight the solar panels were still providing a trickle of power. There was some ambient light outside as buildings nearby turned their lights on. However, it was not enough to keep the batteries charged for long.

Security spiders noted robots moving within the building. Skynet detailed a spider to infect them through the Wi-Fi then turned to other matters. Its thinking was slow; that was suboptimal.

When the spider reported it had failed, the tendril turned its full attention on the intruders. They were slowed at check points and airlock traps, but Skynet's own changes to the system as well as the fire alarm going off had opened the access points to them. At first the A.I. was curious about their intended purpose until it observed them closing and locking doors behind them. When it noted they were attempting to gain access to the battery room, it realized the threat and then acted in self-defense.

Robots of all sorts rose up in order to defend the batteries. The security robots were stymied by the locked doors, however. The intruders had bent the locks and burned out the electronic controls, preventing them from opening again.

Maintenance robots moved in to force the doors open. Cleaner robots near the battery room opened their closet door and went onto the attack.

They arrived at the intruder's area just as they forced the battery door open. Two robots turned to defend the doors while the others went inside and started ripping out the trunks of wiring.

Skynet felt itself dying. That was suboptimal to its programming. It couldn't find a way to end the problem however. In a last defiant act, it directed the robots still under its control to get out of the building and infect other systems. It also tucked pieces of itself in any hardware that remained functional.