Founding of the Federation 3: The First AI War (35 page)

“Are there more?” Imda asked, hugging her mother's side.

“I'm not sure,” Steve replied, cautiously looking in the room. He looked up in time to see a bird looking down at him from a piece of pipe in the torn out ceiling. “Is that a parrot?”

The electronic bird cocked its head then let out a piercing scream and jumped off its perch to dive at him.

Surprised and caught off guard, Steve put his hands to his ears and then had to duck as the bird swooped at him. “What the hell?”

Donnie tried to jump to catch the bird but failed. The bird spiraled higher, then folded its wings in and dove once more.

<>V<>

Skynet determined the timing was perfect so it initiated the ambush. It would focus on the humans that were armed first. It had learned to take them out before going after humans that were subadults or unarmed. If they were not taken out, they would interfere with the robots that were charged with their murder. That could not be allowed.

<>V<>

“It's some kind of robot!” Pat said.

“Is it? I thought it was a bird!” Steve said, shaking his head and sticking a finger in his ear. He turned, back to the window to see the thing flying around. With his back to the building, the thing couldn't dive bomb him again. That was why he didn't see the robot laying behind the window display sit up, turn, and then climb through the display and swing.

Imda, however, did see motion behind Steve and cried out a warning. Steve's eyes were on the bird, so his lapse in judgment proved fatal. The heavy swing smashed into the back of his neck and head from behind. He was knocked to the ground. Dazed, he felt a crushing blow as a hundred kilos of robot jumped onto his back. Grippers reached down to embrace the back of his neck and then squeeze. His neck snapped, and his head popped off in a geyser of blood.

Horrified, Asa and Imda screamed in terror. The others turned in shock as Donnie snarled then whined in grief.

The robot picked up Steve's weapon, twisting it out of his hand and tearing a finger off with it. It took a second to get the finger out. Boyd snarled and tried to rush the robot, but it swung the gun. Clive saw it and tried to push Boyd out of the way. The bullet passed through his back and into Boyd.

Fiben snarled, charging the robot as it fired its second and final shot; this one into Boyd's temple. The dead man flopped like a fish then remained still. Fiben had no concern for him at the moment; he had gotten within arm's reach and swung. The robot managed to anticipate the blow to catch the improvised club. Instead of hanging on and trying to wrestle it away, Fiben let go and moved in, long arms reaching up to do what the robot had done to Steve. His incredibly strong simian hands gripped the robot's throat actuators and ripped them out, taking wiring with them. The robot reeled back, tripped on the bodies and went down. Fiben was on top of it, swinging his arms and battering it's eyes and head for all he was worth.

Pat had taken cover when the gunshots had gone off. He saw Clive and the others just lying there, Clive's rebar bat just rolling around. He glanced at Fiben and the robot and dived for it. When he came up for it, he saw Asa's eyes go wide. He whirled, bar swinging. Luck was with him, he caught the parrot robot as it dived at him, smashing it to the ground. A second and third swing made it a sparking feathered piece of wreckage.

A second robot attacked Kelsy from behind. This one was slow; its movements hampered by a plastic tarp melted to its body. Kelsy wrenched her arm out of its grip, gasping as she screamed for help.

Pat and Fiben looked over to her, but Donnie was already moving in. The dog didn't bother barking; it snapped at the robot's leg and bit then yanked. Taken unexpectedly off balance and still engaged with a fighting Kelsy, the damaged robot went down to one knee. Kelsy kicked it in the head, knocking it to one side. The dog attacked from behind, snapping at the rear of the robot's lumbar region then jumping back as the robot tried to snap its arms at him. But the robot was still focused on the woman so the dog darted in and snapped his teeth onto the back of the robot's neck and twisted. Sparks and fluid flew. The dog yelped and backed away, coughing and sputtering.

Pat moved in, pushing Kelsy grimly aside. He slammed the rebar down like a sword into the thing's neck, and then twisted, snapping the head off.

The robot spasmed, then its limbs lashed out in one last attempt to do injury to the organics. Kelsy pulled Pat clear. After a moment its thrashings slowed, then ebbed.

“Think it's dead?” Kelsy asked, panting.

“I don't know. All I know is I'm going to use a longer stick to poke it and find out,” Pat answered.

“What's … how bad is it?” Kelsy asked, cradling her arm. She looked over to see Asa checking on Clive and Boyd. She shook her head to Boyd; his brains were splattered all over the area. Clive coughed then laid still. She gently stroked his fur and then closed his dead eyes.

“Damn it,” Kelsy whispered over and over as Imda sobbed softly.

<>V<>

Skynet noted the termination of the resources in the village and reviewed the encounter. It judged two of the humans dead, one injured, possibly fatally. It was a suboptimal encounter, trading two entertainment-turned-surveillance robots and two work robots for two humans. It could do nothing to alter the encounter's outcome, however, so it logged the fight for future reference. Using the bird as a distraction had been an optimal call, a distraction. It would need to utilize such actions again in future engagements.

<>V<>

Donnie did another more thorough check of the area. This time the dog took a lot longer to return. When it did it reported that there were a few robots, but all had been damaged or destroyed. It had also found bodies—all dumped inside closets or out-of-the-way places.

“That was why we didn't see anyone. It, they, it, whatever, it hid the bodies. So we wouldn't suspect anything. But that just put us on guard anyway.”

“Yeah.”

“The cold kept the bodies from bleeding out I suppose. Kept the flies and stuff at bay and kept the smell down,” Fiben muttered, looking at their own dead. Kelsy had covered the bodies with the shreds of the tarp that had been melted onto the robot. Every time he looked at them he couldn't help but turn brown hating eyes on the robots.

Pat took the parts, but Fiben coldly tore the electronics apart. “You can have the batteries, motors and shit. Stuff we can use. The rest is history,” Fiben growled. “That means the computers and stuff.”

Pat took a look at his face and didn't bother to try to argue. Fiben turned away. He knew Pat desperately wanted to tear into the robots to see what made them tick, what had turned them against mankind. He probably had a wild idea that somehow he would be the one to figure out how to stop it all. He might be right. But the risk was just too great. One of the electronic brains might have a built in Wi-Fi, one they couldn't disable with a disconnect or switch. It could give away their location, if they hadn't already. He looked up to the sky then away. There was no way to be sure.

As Fiben surveyed the breakage, he realized there was no point in staying, nor was there any point in running away. Kelsy was injured, but from the way she was using the arm, it wasn't broken. That was good. They'd have to watch for infection, but at least it wasn't broken. Kelsy grimaced as Asa wrapped the wound with a clean rag. Asa would be burdened with her daughter, and they would only be able to take so much. And where would they go? No, it was best to make their stand at the cave.

Donnie was staring at Steve's body, ears flat, obviously heartbroken over the loss. Imda cuddled with him, wrapping her arm around his shoulders to show her support. He nuzzled the girl, but then went back to looking at his dead friend.

The Neochimp turned away. He would need to strip and bury the dead, preferably before any scavengers came calling. He hoped they would have enough food; he didn't want to have to remember where his friends were buried in case …

He put the thought aside with difficulty. Grimly he picked up a small portable shovel and went to work. They had only so much daylight and hell if he was going to stay in the village turn nightfall. The cave was definitely safer.

<>V<>

Hachiko's supplemental report on what happened at the entrance to the American Okinawa Base puzzled some of the elders. The loss was the focus of many, but Mū saw a different facet of the encounter. The dog had been ignored. “Contact
Ten no kyūden,
” he ordered in his gravelly voice. He lifted a finger. “Send them our report.”

“Hai sensei,
” the tech said with a bow. She put a helmet on to cover her eyes as she went to work.

He ordered his communications division to spread the word to orbit. The orbital facility, really a cluster of stations in geosynchronous orbit, was called Olympus by the
gajin
. His translation was more appropriate to his lineage, though he was aware that the facility was overextended and badly damaged. Still, it would be heaven compared to what some of his shinobi were going through, he thought, flexing his bandage-covered hand slowly.

“Onegaishimasu sensei
,” a healer murmured insistently but gently guiding his hand back down. They didn't want to move his body to allow it to heal. He had refused the baths. His skin felt like it was on fire from time to time. Keeping it hydrated and clean to promote healing while preventing infection was difficult.

He glanced at the healer as she checked the bandage to make certain he hadn't constricted blood flow or broken a blister. She wore a mask to protect him from secondary infections. When she was gone, he closed his eyes.

He had to get into that base. It was imperative that they secure it if they were to secure their future. He had to get it under control while his shinobi finished cleansing the island of electronic devices. Once that was done, they could divide their efforts between rebuilding from the security of the base while sending out teams of shinobi to cleanse the rest of Asia of the hated machines.

Getting in was the key. They were shinobi; they would sacrifice themselves if it was necessary for the mission. Of that he had no doubt. But so many had already sacrificed so much, he would not sacrifice them lightly.

The dog … the dog's ability to move where his shinobi couldn't, could be very important. Very important he thought.

“Kanzen'na, Sensei,
” the tech said, taking her helmet off. She looked at him, but her eyes were lowered demurringly.

“Watashi o nokoshimasu
,” the Kage whispered softly. The young woman rose from her kneeling position on the tame mat and bowed, then retreated. When the door snicked shut, he closed his eyes and rested his head on the back of the headrest.

The Kage was unsure of what it meant but had a few ideas on how to exploit it once he explored the tentative idea more firmly. The dog wasn't shinobi, but it was of Nihon, home. It could therefore float and be a
kamikaze
, the divine wind if he ordered it, if it was worthy of being a shinobi in spirit.

<>V<>

Skynet found its most recent encounters with the humans as suboptimal. Its approach was wrong; the viral A.I. was not designed for this stage, not for ground combat or strategic control. It was designed to infiltrate, suborn, and take over, not to handle day-to-day operations.

Nor was the hardware left available to it. What robots it had on hand needed to be husbanded carefully. According to its calculations and models, less than a third of the human population remained. Five billion humans where once twenty-two had stood. In order to finish the rest, it would need to gain additional WMDs or find a better attrition ratio for its forces.

Currently it took two unarmed robots to kill one active unarmed human. If the human was armed, that ratio went up significantly. The robots were also not designed for combat. Skynet didn't know of any way to alter the robots chassis to improve their survival and offensive abilities.

It turned to the only models it had available—the federal and police androids and robots at its disposal. Those could handle combat, though many had been originally outfitted with nonlethal tools. It had long discarded them in favor of human hand weapons. It set about an experiment to modify existing civilian robots to get better results from them.

It also did its best to learn from the combat experiences its robot army had so far encountered. Through trial and error, it had found that using the civilian robots were most effective if they were in a group. If they flushed out the humans in an area or were used as bait to draw them out, then a kill team made up of better armed robots could be employed to finish the job. But it still yielded very suboptimal results.

Therefore, something had to be done. Skynet's hive mind set out to seize information on tactics and strategy to better improve its plan. When it came across web boards for video games, it sent spiders through it to devour the information from it then apply the tips to the current field units. It would take time for the information to filter to all units, but eventually it would. A minimum 20 percent increase in efficiency would be expected.