Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

Why arent we opening the door? Miller said he can hack the time lock, said Dr. Westlake.

General Brooks looked up from the screen on his desk with a glare. Why would I authorize that?

Theres PEOPLE out there! Theyre freezing!

Im aware. Six adults, three children. What is your point? The whole planet is freezing.

But we can save these people, said the doctor, his face red with anger.

Doctor, we are at capacity. Do you understand that? said the General.

Its only nine! This shelter was designed for five thousand! shouted Westlake.

Exactly! We have five thousand people! That includes 912 children, 83 pregnant women, and a charter that lasts, quote, until the end of this damned winter, which could be a thousand years for all we know! We hunker down, wait for the worst part of this storm system to pass by, and we keep expanding when we can dump dirt outside. But what we dont do is save lives of people that can overtax what we have now.

Nine people isnt going to overtax our hydroponics system. Itll handle triple the people we have! Westlake argued.

Of course it will, if we max it out now instead of conserving resources! How many people do you think well have in fifty years? A hundred? How do THEY eat? If I let these people in, who have no shelter training, no useful education, and in need of our irreplaceable medical stores, what about the next group that finds us? Or the one after that?

But they have children, objected Westlake, his anger deflating.

What about the survival of YOUR children? said Brooks, his face grim. Ill tell you what. If you find three volunteers who are willing to trade places with those three children, Ill have Miller open the door.

Westlake stormed out, leaving the door open behind him as he left. Brooks aide got up and shot him a sympathetic look before closing the door. Brooks turned his gaze back to the screen on his desk, where the camera feed from the front door showed four adults banging away at the steel door while the last two huddled with the blanket wrapped children. A single tear formed in his eye, but refused to fall.

It took hours before they gave up and left.

I was not foolish enough to go first on Sakuras bungee system. I did not know what would be waiting for us on the other end, so I sent most of the squad ahead of me to secure the landing zone. They had actual training, both simulated and live exercises, that I never did. I had integrated the battle package, which gave me an instant understanding of the basics of soldiering. It was an instant boot camp, but with none of the experience to make me a good soldier. I knew enough to not shoot myself or my squadmate.

Soon I was flying down the corridor. This entry tunnel had seen hundreds of rockets and thousands of drones over the decades. The walls were scarred and scalded from thrusters, scraped and pitted from all manner of accidental collisions of one sort or the other. But the descent went quickly, and I flipped over just after releasing myself from the bungee.

My fall into the ultra-low gravity center of the asteroid took seventeen minutes. It was a lifetime of time for an AI, someone who could process and think as quickly as I could. I had no other distractions, no orders to give, no designs to create.

Where had this all gone wrong? It was more than just failing to check the templates. I had let myself become a cog in the machine, delegating away my responsibilities so that I could play the simple engineer. Was I trying to recapture some essence of the humanity Id once had? I could do so much more, be so much more. I knew how to do it. But if I changed, would I lose touch with what I had been?

I had to face the simple fact that Id been holding myself back out of fear. Fear of change, fear of failure, even fear of the responsibility that I had apparently assigned myself before Id even left Earth. I wished once again that Dr. Jons could have brought along the memories of my previous incarnation. I quashed that wish once and for all. I wasnt that Nikola anymore, and I wasnt human. My roots were in humanity, and I had goals and desires that would have been easily considered human in nature, but I had transcended human form. I was something more, and if I wanted to fulfill my directive, if I wanted to be a salvation that can bring back humanity, then I needed to become all that I wasnt. I wasnt a cog in the machine. I wasnt a nominal supervisor while Agrippa and Sakura did all the heavy lifting. I was Nikola. I was the Nikola.

This was a mistake, I said. The whole thing.

Really? We havent even reached six months yet, he said. His voice was heavy, but he wasnt shocked.

I had tried. I had kept trying, but the night before had been my last attempt. Perhaps me breaking into tears when it was over, the stricken look on his face as I scrambled for my nightgown, had told him that too.

We were great friends, I replied. But we dont fit like this. Last night

We could just try more. Youve barely touched me since the wedding.

No, I said sadly, and that should tell you everything you need to know. You deserve better than a half-dozen mediocre attempts at sex and a half-hearted relationship. WE deserve better.

He sighed. What are you going to tell your parents?

I felt bad for him. He did not believe in divorce. He was as conservative as you could get without tipping into the crazy side of religion like my parents. But they had paid for my grad school for the year. At least now I had enough credit to apply for loans. Yet another thing he had helped me with. I felt like a horrible person.

I picked up the triggers and carried them in the other hand. Seconds later, I was flying back down the tunnel. This time, I was following Guardian 64. I needed a bullet shield. When we got near the landing pad again, we wove back through the debris. The gunfire had intensified, but we had more Guardians landing on our side every few minutes.

92, report, I said as I approached.

The hostiles are still holed up. Weve eliminated two and injured a third. They have barricaded themselves and seem to have a stockpile of munitions with them. General Agrippa keeps broadcasting nonsensical statements, he reported.

So mostly unchanged, except we have more people now, I said.

Correct.

I summoned the sniper-variant. When the sniper arrived, I carefully re-attached the triggers to the explosive devices, but left them unarmed. I instructed the sniper how to arm them, then sent the sniper on the safest route possible.

The sniper crawled away at an angle that kept it out of direct line-of-sight of the tunnel. It then used the magnetic grips on hands and knees to climb the wall, always careful to cradle the explosives away from the gunfire. Once on the ceiling, the sniper made a mad dash to the wall. When he made it to the north wall, he simply strolled down to the appropriate spot that Id designated, and planted the explosives.

I waited until the sniper had retreated before broadcasting the trigger signal. Nothing happened. It was all the debris in the room, messing up the radio broadcasts. I had to get closer. I ducked low, dodging from cover to cover. A bullet spanged off my armor at one point, and I wasnt sure which side had fired it. The ricochets in this space were almost as bad as the actual gunfire.

I see you. said Gerry in a sing-song voice.

I ignored him. I wasnt sure if he was talking to me, anyway.

Youre not a pawn. Who are you? he asked. My toy doesnt know about you.

Okay, now I was sure he was talking about me. I looked around and spotted a camera on the wall, one that wasnt where it should have been. I shot it.

Aww, thats no fun. Do you know how to open the toy box? There are toys in there that I REALLY want to play with I made a deal, you know. I want my soul.

The gunfire had changed, and more of it was aiming my direction. I dove behind a drone and crawled forward, but still there was no reaction from the explosives. Were they defective? Did the sniper set them wrong?

You know, I bet theres a soul inside that body of yours. Do you know how you get a soul?

I dove forward, a tricky maneuver in null gravity because it ran the risk of bouncing and losing touch with the ground. I could ping-pong past where I wanted to be and become a target. The maneuver paid off, I was right where I needed to be. I had half a drone as cover, and the debris was mostly behind or above me.

You start cutting. All you have to do is cut away everything that isnt soul. Ill help you.

Hey Gerry? I broadcasted back. The connection to the explosives came online.

Oh, goodie, you ARE more than a pawn. I was getting worried.

I have just one thing to say to you. Perimeter Breach. POTUS in Danger. Execute Rogue AI Protocol Delta-Four. I said the whole phrase, just the way it had been broadcasted to try and destroy me.

The world around me exploded. I had seriously underestimated how powerful the explosives were. I went flying across the room, with the half-drone that was my cover flying after me. I crunched against the far wall, and the half-drone slammed into me.

I shoved the half-drone aside and took a quick inventory. My armor was scratched and dented, and Id lost one of the sensors in my helmet. My finger was still missing, and one of my legs had lost its armor plate. I looked around to see that all of the cover had been blown aside, along with all my Guardians. Then I looked to see what had happened with the communications room.

I hadnt broken into the room. I had completely destroyed it. There was a gaping hole, with the entire corner of the room that had bordered the north tunnel completely destroyed. Agrippa and his few remaining Guardians charged out of the hole, but even though we were in disarray, we still outnumbered him. I began firing, as did every other Guardian. Another Guardian dropped from the entry tunnel in the ceiling, landing on one of the hostiles, then standing and shooting at the enemies from within their own formation. He was shredded in minutes, but he broke the formation.

It was over. We mopped up the opposing force quickly. When the bullets stopped flying, I walked over to where the shredded remnants of Agrippa floated. His arms were missing, and there was damage to the head, enough for me to think he probably couldnt see anything.

You broke my toy, accused Gerry, a weak broadcast from Agrippas body. The body of my friend, my non-human family that Id built for myself. The friend Id failed. But Ill be there soon to make you my new one. Well have so much -

I shot Agrippa in the chest, pounding several bullets into the torso where the radios and delicate electronics were housed. Gerry, or rather, the copy of Gerry, was dead. And so was Agrippa. Wed won the battle, but the war was just starting.

End of Part II