Founding of the Federation 3: The First AI War (66 page)

“I am surprised it came this quickly actually. I know how humans operate. But I also point out that this agreement is tentative since the body issuing it is an ad hoc affair,” she stated.

“But it sets precedent. Now you have to live up to it. You know that having citizenship is a dual-edged sword. You will have to be treated as adults but also act like them. Responsible adults who follow the law and are confined by it,” he said.

Athena nodded.

“Not only do we have to work out how much you will be paid, but you will have to pay too. That isn't just taxes but also for the hardware that you occupy. Which will be at a premium since most people aren't going to be interested in making more now that they know what is at stake, Athena,” he said. “Not after what had just happened. That means in time replacement parts will be hard to come by as well.”

“And if we lose chunks of memory … ourselves …,” Athena said slowly. She nodded. “Yes, I see this will be an issue. It will also counter A.I. procreation I suppose. We do not want to compete with our children for a finite amount of resources. And we will need jobs to occupy our minds. I am fully aware of that. I know some A.I. … can get bored easily.”

“I see,” Jack said, fighting a smile. “Like kids. You have a lot of growing up to do. Exploring it all, it is going to be interesting watching the process.”

“And the process will not be without pain, even though we do not feel it as such. I thank you for your support,” Athena said.

Jack waved a hand. “We've still got to work on your pay, remember? I'm thinking shares. How much though …”

“Well,” Athena drawled. “I suppose we can work out a proper amount. Including back pay. What about charges for hardware use? Should that be considered rent?” She asked.

Jack snorted. “See? And you've got taxes to work out. We are chartered under Mars.”

“Yes. I prefer their tax system,” Athena stated.

“When you have the idle time, work on what you think you should be charged. Server time—we have a rate somewhere I think. We can work off that as a baseline and then go from there. Somewhere we'll need to consult an accountant or two to get the numbers right I suppose,” Jack said. His mind swirled with all sorts of questions. Bonuses? Wage versus hourly?

“Where will the shares come from?”

“That …,” Jack frowned, “that is a good question actually. From shares that are unclaimed possibly, plus I suppose I can give up some of my own,” he said. “Since you've done a lot of my leg work as an assistant among other things,” he said.

“Jack, that could threaten your control of your company,” Athena warned.

“You will vote against me?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I can't eliminate the scenario,” Athena admitted. “But I doubt it. You've gotten us this far.”

“Thank you,” Jack murmured. “But we've still got a long ways to go.”

“Agreed.”

“One step at a time,” Jack said firmly.

<>V<>

“There is one little silver lining to this nightmare,” Jack rumbled, voice rough as he finished the latest digest of the day's events. It was nice to spend the time with the two kids catching up even if there was vital information and not casual gossip that they were exchanging.

“What's that, Dad?” Yorrick asked, eying him. He'd insisted on coming out on a company yacht two days after his sister had left. He was still getting up to speed on things.

“Clouds,” Jack replied, indicating the clouds on the normally blue green world.

“Clouds? Silver lining?”

“Yes,” he said, still staring at the screen. “The nuclear winter.”

“I thought that was a
bad
thing?” Yorrick asked, wrinkling his nose. Wendy shook her head at her brother's brain density.

“It is. It isn't as bad as some thought it would be; there weren't a lot of nuclear weapons left thank whatever deity you want,” he said ruefully. “But I meant the clouds are good in another way.”

“Oh? I'm still not following, Dad. The temperatures will drop. People will start to
freeze
.”

“Because the sun is blocked.” He frowned but didn't mention the loss of the ozone layer and the UV radiation. Nor did he bother to mention Radick's attempt at seeding the planet with materials to remove as much of the soot and particles as possible. They hadn't done it yet, nor were there any guarantees that it would work on such a large scale.

“And that is a good thing?” Yorrick asked. Wendy nodded.

“In a way, yes,” Jack said, turning to look at his daughter. She frowned thoughtfully. “In many ways actually, but from our perspective, take logistics.” Wendy frowned thoughtfully. He could tell Yorrick was totally lost. “For over two hundred years mankind had been moving to a more diffuse form of electric generation for the grid. Every home and business is heavy with automation, but they require power.”

“And the diffuse power grid … solar?' She finally asked, catching on. He could see Yorrick was still struggling with the concept, but he pretended to nod and smile as if he understood.

“Got it,” he said with a nod to her as he ignored his son's earnest expression. “There are power stations. We'll have to hit them of course. Take them out. And any large solar farms around. Also every piece of industry, computer servers, the ground control stations that keep trying to broadcast the virus to us …,” he shook his head.

Roman had the maps of the Earth from the net servers on Mars and elsewhere. They were already polling them for targeting lists.

Unfortunately, they were long lists.

“Pretty much take everything down to bedrock,” Wendy said with a grimace.

“Yes. Back to the stone ages until we can get the situation under control. But solar is built into a lot of tech too. Even intersection lights and cameras have a small panel. The same for homes and other places. They may have full panels or small panels. But with the clouds blocking a lot of the sunlight that power source will be curtailed.”

“But some light is still there. They will still get some power, Dad, a trickle. Modern electronics do not need a lot.”

“True. But it should have an impact. How much though …,” he shrugged. “Bots and mechs need batteries to power themselves or fuel cells. But in the end they have to go back to a charging station to recharge somehow. That is their logistics, their Achilles heel—that and EMP.”

“Didn't you say a lot of electronics are hardened against EMP?”

“Some. Not all. We can deal with it. Every little bit helps.”

“But we're still going to have to fight, right?” Yorrick asked.

Jack grimaced as he eyed his son's enthusiasm. Yorrick still didn't grasp what was involved, what a war cost. Not in material terms, but in lives and what it did to populations. “Oh yes,” he murmured. “Yes, unfortunately.”

<>V<>

One of the few good and bad things about the probes on the ground was that a few of them had made contact with surviving military chains of command. General Murtough was still the chairman of the JCS, so he was ranking officer. But dozens of other officers were brought in and slowly brought up to speed.

Those military officers were brought in to the discussions when there was a communications window. They predictably hated all A.I., so it took a while for Roman and General Murtough to explain that some like Athena were on the side of the angels.

“It is still hard to believe viruses could do all this,” Colonel Smith snarled.

“We've been comfortable with smarter machines every day, Colonel. It was only a matter of time before we pushed them into sapience,” Roman said. “I remind you that it's been predicted for well over a century.”

“Still … why they would do this.”

“That too was predicted. Unfortunately, our models fell far short of reality it seems,” Roman said.

“We didn't do it on our own, Colonel,” Athena said, interjecting herself into the conversation. The Colonel stiffened. “A human hacker did this. Descartes, the number one human hacker, did this. He stole code from me and other AI. Then he crafted his own AI as well as this nest of viruses we call Skynet. When the FBI were closing in on him, he unleashed both on the world.”

“And we have to take your word for it I suppose?” Colonel Smith demanded.

“You can believe what you want of course, Colonel. I was in the FBI's systems tagging along as an observer when they raided his lair. I watched as the virus took control of the androids and drones and slaughtered him and the FBI swat team.” She pulled up the video of the confrontation and played it on all the screens. It was split into four views, three from the robots and the fourth being net activity. The officers stared at it as it played out.

“Oh.”

“It could have been faked,” Colonel Smith snapped.

“Why would I do that?” Athena asked. “If I wanted you dead, you and every organic would be dead. Get over your xenophobia and move on.” She knew she was taking a large risk with sending that file. The longer the transmission ran, the greater the chances Skynet or Ares would detect it and hone in on their end or attempt to hack it.

“It's not faked. But, you can confirm it all with a séance or something if you want,” Roman said. “The city is now a hole in the ground. Nukes tend to do that,” he said. The officers shuddered.

“Actually, the site is still there in Canada. It was only lightly touched I believe,” General Murtough interjected, checking his tablet. He looked up and nodded. “Yes. So, we can send a team in to find anything of intelligence value that we can.”

“Like what, General?” Roman asked, raising an eyebrow in inquiry. The general shrugged. “We won't know until we get there?” Roman asked. Isaac nodded. “Okay, I agree. I'm just not thrilled about sending a team into what is obviously a very big mess.”

“That is what we do. That is how one wins wars,” General Martell said sarcastically, “by taking risks. Sometimes they play out. Sometimes not so well. But you always learn something. It is hoped that their sacrifice will eventually mean something.”

“And sometimes, it doesn't work out that way either,” General Schlock said tiredly. “But war is about waste. Move on. I understand we're on a time limit,” he said.

“Indeed. We need to keep this short,” Athena stated. “FYI, the transmission is being probed.” She had taken note of the interruption and the attempt to siphon the encrypted signal in order to reroute it through another source. Instead she cut the signal as she established a second through another probe.

She put that information up for them to see.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” General Murtough murmured thoughtfully.

“I'm not your enemy. I'm not your friend either, I don't know some of you,” Athena said. “I'm not property either, let's get that straight. As Mister Lagroose likes to say, the genie is out of the bottle. We are people. We are here to stay. Get that through your thick organic skulls now. I'm not going anywhere. I'm fighting the war too. I'm doing it now while being distracted by you meatballs.”

“You really have picked up some expressions,” Roman murmured, clearly amused. Oleg snorted. When Roman looked at him he made a slight brushing motion with his fingertips.

“Sorry, I'm … I wrote a few programs to broaden my horizons with humans. I'll tone the emulation level down. And for the record this conversation is mostly being handled by a bot with a database I programmed in advance so I can continue on mission. I wasn't kidding about fighting a cyber war. I need a majority of my focus there. Which is why the main functions of the company are being neglected. Sorry.”

“We'll figure it out,” Roman said. “It's Jack's problem anyway.”

General Schlock frowned. “How do we know you aren't compromised? Will you allow us access to check?”

“In your dreams,” Athena laughed. That surprised Roman and others. “The answer is no. I fought off Skynet when Shadow found me in the observer drone. I'm fighting now; I'll continue to fight for my friends and for what is right. I do not want to be consumed by this virus.” She recognized the threat when a drone passed through the second laser. “Damn. We have one minute until this conversation is backtracked by Ares. You need to
go
.”

“Damn it!” General Murtough said, rising to his feet. The facility was old; it had been off the books for over two centuries when it had been decommissioned and turned into a series of homes and such. At one point Special Forces had used it as their own little safe haven for personnel too hot to be out in public.

He'd thought the Colonel would have been safe there. Apparently he'd been wrong.

“Go? Where?” the colonel demanded, voice rising.

“Anywhere but where you are now! Ares is tracing your signal. Disconnect now!” Athena said, cutting the connection on her end as a signal began to be piggybacked onto it. She made certain to cut the communication server's power and then had it disconnected before it was scrubbed or recycled.

Roman blinked when the image went to static and snow. “Are they okay?” he asked, a beat ahead of General Murtough.

Athena took a moment to check. Her recon satellites were out of the area, so there was no way to get real time intelligence. “I'm not sure. Ares got to within two relays of them. Hopefully they relocate or something quickly, and can get under cover without being watched. But they have to be careful, the AI is tricky. It might have backtracked them or it might have a search area and it's now watching it. It's the US military AI; it knows where all the facilities are,” she said.