"Why don't we open the door?" "Miller said he could break the time lock," Dr. Westlake said.
General Brooks looked up from the screen on his desk and glared. “Why should I authorize?”
"There's people out there! They're freezing!"
"I know. Six adults, three kids. What do you want to say? The whole earth is freezing."
"But we can save these people," the doctor said, his face red with anger.
"Doctor, we're full. Do you understand?" the general said.
"It's only nine o'clock!" This shelter is designed for 5,000 people! Xihu shouted.
"Exactly! There are five thousand of us! That includes 912 children, 83 pregnant women, and a charter that says, 'Until this damn winter is over,' which for all we know could be a thousand years!" We hole up and wait out the worst parts of the storm system to pass, and when we can dump the dirt outside, we continue to expand. But what we don't do is save the lives of those who may be overburdened by our existing taxes .”
"Nine people won't overtax our hydroponic system. It can accommodate three times as many people as we do!" West Lake.
"Of course we will, if we maximize it now instead of conserving resources! How many people do you think we will have in fifty years? A hundred years? How will they eat? If I let these people in, they haven't accepted asylum "Trained, uneducated, and in need of our irreplaceable medical reserves, what about the next group that finds us? What about the next one?"
"But they have children," Westlake objected, his anger subdued.
"What about your child's survival?" Brooks said gloomily. "I'll tell you what. If you can find three volunteers willing to trade places with those three kids, I'll ask Miller to open the door."
Westlake stormed out, leaving the door open as he left. Brooks' assistant stood up, gave him a sympathetic look, and closed the door. Brooks turned his gaze back to the screen on the table, where a front door camera showed four adults banging on the iron door, ending with two adults huddled together with children wrapped in blankets. A tear welled up in his eye, but refused to fall.
It took several hours before they gave up and left.
I'm not stupid enough to go to Sakura's bungee jumping system first. I had no idea what was waiting for us on the other end, so I sent most of the squad ahead of me to secure the landing zone. They did actual training, both simulated and live, which I had never done. I've put together the combat pack, which gave me an instant understanding of the basics of the soldier. It was like a boot camp, but I had no experience that would make me a good soldier. I knew I wasn't going to take a shot at myself or my teammates.
Soon I was hurtling down the corridor. Over the past few decades, this entrance tunnel has seen hundreds of rockets and thousands of drones. The walls were scarred by thrusters, burned, and scratched by all kinds of accidental collisions. But the descent was very fast, and I turned over as soon as I got off the bungee.
It took me 17 minutes to "fall" into the asteroid's ultra-low gravity center. That's a lifetime for an artificial intelligence, one that can process and think as quickly as I can. I have no other distractions, no orders to give, no designs to create.
What went wrong? It wasn't just a failure to check the template. I made myself a cog in the machine and delegated my responsibilities so that I could play a simple engineer. Do I want to rediscover the essence of the humanity I once had? I can do more, be more. I know what to do. But if I change, will I lose touch with my past self?
I had to face a simple fact: I had been holding back because I was afraid. Fear of change, fear of failure, fear of even the responsibilities I was assigned before I even left this earth. Again I hoped Dr. Jones could bring back memories of my past life. I gave up that wish completely. I'm not that Nikolai anymore, and I'm not human anymore. My roots are in humanity, and my goals and desires are easily considered human in nature, but I have transcended the human form. There is more to me, and if I want to fulfill my instructions, if I want to be the one who saves humanity, then I need to be everything that I am not. I am not a cog in the machine. I was not in charge in name only, and Agrippa and Sakura did all the heavy lifting. I'm Nicola. I'm Nicola.
"That's a mistake," I said. "The whole thing."
"Really? We're not even 6 months old yet." His voice was heavy, but he wasn't shocked.
I tried. I kept trying, but the night before was my last try. Maybe the tears streaming down my face when it was all over, and the pained look on his face as I reached for my pajamas, told him as much.
"We're good friends," I replied. "But we're not suited to this. Last night..."
"We could try more. You barely touched me after the wedding."
"No," I said sadly, "that should tell you all you need to know. You deserve better than six mediocre attempts and a half-hearted relationship. We deserve better. "
He sighed. "What are you going to tell your parents?"
I feel sorry for him. He is not in favor of divorce. He was very conservative and did not fall into religious "craziness" like my parents did. But they paid for my graduate school tuition for a year. At least now I have enough credit to apply for a loan. He helped me with one more thing. I feel like a horrible person.
"The truth," I said with a shrug.
I felt relieved. The stress was killing me so much that I was nearly two months late. I worried for a second that it might not be a stress issue. But it must have been too much pressure. I can't even imagine what would have happened if it had been another reason.
"I'll contact a lawyer and find a new place," he said.
I landed in the middle of a battle. There was a bunch of smashed drones in front of me, and my guardians were using them as cover. I gripped the metal surface with the magnetic grips on my feet and leaned down. Random pieces of all sizes floated on the landing pad, floating, spinning, and bouncing in every direction. The destroyed drones we use for cover are almost as dangerous as real bullets. They may be essentially weightless in this environment, but they have a lot of mass. If we're not careful, that pile of stuff will still crush us to death.
The entrance tunnel is a long Faraday cage of raw rock and nickel-iron that wreaks havoc on radio signals. After seeing the dense debris field, I doubted the radio signal could reach more than a dozen yards.
"Report," I ordered Guardian 92. He became my unofficial monitor.
"General Agrippa and a group of Guardians are holding the northern tunnels. We lost two Guardians trying to replay your orders. I don't think they will listen to your orders anymore."
This is bad. We need to enter the communications room, which is just inside the northern tunnel. To make matters worse, the data center that houses Sakura, and me, or another me, has reached its end.
"Olly, Ollie, no cows... Come out, come out, wherever you are..." Gerry sang. Where was he broadcasting from? I scanned the wall and found a radio repeater on the wall. I looked around further and saw an access point. He didn't destroy the equipment here, so I guess he wanted to take it away intact. Good, that means armored blast doors to data centers will probably stay in place for a while.
I checked my battery and found I still had six hours of use. How much time did Gerry have? Agrippa's battery life wouldn't be much better than mine, but I also don't know if he stopped to recharge. At least there's nowhere to charge in the tunnel, so if the fight lasts long enough I can simply wait for him. The problem with this situation is that I can't expect the data center doors to hold up that long. Worse, I'm not sure the firewall can survive another six hours of adaptive attacks. I know my "other me" may be frantically programming to stay ahead of the enemy, but all it takes is one small vulnerability to wreak havoc on a network.
I looked back and saw another Guardian landing on the barrier. I saw one of my snipers on the ceiling, crawling to a position where I could shoot down the corridor. This will help prevent them from charging us, but will do little to help us get in or turn off the antenna.
The communications room is right there, behind 8 to 10 inches of raw rock and ore. The base is carved here, not built. The door to the room is in the north hall, and we can't get there. But if we could get through the wall...
I can't get the drone because the network is here and it refuses to authenticate me. Even if I could get the drones, they would probably be torn apart as Gerry's troops tried to get into position. Drones with pulse drives are not fast.
"Sakura, can you read me?" I broadcast to the access point.
"Can't speak. Turn off the antenna right now!" She suddenly let out a quick, mechanical shout. It had no trace of personality or any attempt at humanity. Sakura is in dire need of resources, and she's using every scrap available to her. Can't wait any longer. The cell phone is out of battery.
I looked toward the tunnel to the south. Well, I can go in. There's enough wreckage and large drones in the way that a few Guardians can sneak past and maintain cover for much of the journey. The tunnel to the south leads to the original and largest fusion reactor chamber. I couldn't cut the power, that would just make things worse.
"92, hide them. Follow me. Others, follow Team 92. We will be back soon." I ordered.
Guardian 64 follows me, and we make our way through debris and destroyed drones to the southern tunnel. Once inside the tunnel and beyond the rubble, I rushed forward. I ran fast, letting my momentum carry me through the halls, only occasionally touching the walls for guidance. I knew number 64 was following me.
After a few minutes, I opened the magnetic boots and twisted until my feet were on the ground. While I still had some momentum, the magnetic field on my foot locked onto a piece of iron ore and I almost lost my balance. I searched the walls for something I knew must be here.
over there. An inconspicuous metal plate near the floor.
"Guardian No. 64, guard the corridor. No one can get close to me."
"Understood," he replied.
I knelt down and removed the panel. I've never been here; drones did the job before I had a robot body. The panel is screwed on with four grub screws. That’s when I realized I didn’t have the tools. I looked around frantically, but the hallway was clean and tidy.
Then I looked at my hands. This won't be pleasant. I incorporated touch-sensitive skin into this design. Touch is a valuable sense for grasping objects without needing to know the composition of every object your hands can touch. If you can't plan for every scenario, you need a feel to base your crawling algorithm on. Unfortunately, I am locked into the existing system that naturally evolved for touch. This made sense at the time because it was powerful and saved a lot of work. But this system is also associated with pain.
I looked at my hands again. This won't be pleasant. I grabbed the little finger of the weapon hand and with a sudden twist, pulled it off. Pain raged through my brain for a few moments before my cortical coding realized that there was no nervous system to continue transmitting this feeling. Suddenly the pain ended and I got a warning that my hand hurt.
The fingers I ripped off were a mix of synthetic muscle and skin and titanium fullerene. The joints are destroyed, but the skeleton, the bone structure, is not. I wasn't strong enough and could only bend the metal in my fingers. I carefully popped off the broken pieces of the joint, leaving only the flat edge connecting the joint to the metal phalange. The flat edge of the bone is a bit small, but can be used as a makeshift screwdriver.
After a few minutes of fumbling, the panel fell off, revealing a small box containing two. This is one of the self-destruct programs I disabled after searching for security vulnerabilities in my code. The trigger is disabled but not broken and sits neatly on the bottom of the box. The devices themselves rest against a single power cable and are powerful enough to cut not only that cable, but dozens of cables behind it and junction boxes behind it. I pulled the device away from the cable and easily twisted the plastic straps.
I picked up the trigger and held it with my other hand. Seconds later, I was flying back into the tunnel. This time, I’m following Guardian No. 64. I need a ballistic shield. As we approached the landing platform again, we emerged from the wreckage. The fire intensified, but every few minutes more defenders landed on our side.
"Number 92, report." I said as I approached.
"The hostile elements are still hiding. We eliminated two and wounded another. They have set up roadblocks and appear to be carrying a large amount of munitions. General Agrippa has been broadcasting ridiculous remarks."
"So basically nothing has changed, except we have more people now," I said.
"correct".
I summoned the sniper variant. When the sniper arrived, I carefully put the trigger back on, but carried no weapon. I instruct the sniper how to arm them and then tell him to take the safest route.
The sniper crawled away at an angle to avoid vision of the tunnel. It then climbed up the wall using magnetic grips on its hands and knees, always carefully placing the explosives away from gunfire. Once on the ceiling, the sniper made a mad dash for the wall. When he reached the north wall, he simply wandered over to the appropriate spot I designated and planted the explosives.
I waited until the sniper retreated before firing the trigger signal. Nothing happened. It was debris in the room that interfered with the radio broadcast. I have to get closer. I ducked low and ducked from cover to cover. At one point a bullet ricocheted off my armor and I wasn't sure which side the shot was from. The bounce in this space is almost as bad as real gunfire.
"I see you....Gerry said in a cheerful voice.
I ignored him. I wasn’t sure he was talking to me anyway.
"You are not a pawn....who are you?" he asked. "My toys don't know you." "
Okay, now I'm sure he was talking about me. I looked around and saw a camera hanging on the wall that wasn't where it was supposed to be. It was taken by me.
"Ah, this isn't fun at all. You know how to open the toy box? There are toys in there that I really want to play with, and you know I made a deal. I want my soul."
The gunfire changed, more gunfire was aimed in my direction. I hid behind a drone and crawled forward, but still the explosives didn't respond. Are they defective? Are the snipers set up wrong?
"You know, I bet you have a soul inside of you. Do you know how to get a soul?"
I dive forward, a tricky maneuver in zero gravity because it risks bouncing and losing contact with the ground. I can ping pong past where I want to go and be a target for others. It worked and I got where I needed to be. I used half the drone for cover, and the wreckage was mostly behind or above me.
"You start cutting. All you have to do is chop away anything that's not a soul. I'll help you."
"Hey, Gerry?" I responded. Clues related to the explosion emerged.
"Oh, great, you're more than just a pawn. I'm starting to worry."
"I just have one thing to say to you." Perimeter violation. The president is in danger. Execute Rogue AI protocol delta-4. "I said the entire sentence as it was broadcast to try to destroy me.
The world exploded around me. I seriously underestimated the power of explosives. I sped across the room, the semi-drone that was acting as my cover following behind. I crunched against the far wall as the demi-drone crashed into me.
I pushed the semi-drone aside and took a quick inventory. My armor was scratched and dented, and one of the sensors on my helmet was missing. I still haven't found my fingers, and I'm missing one of my leg's armors. I looked around and saw all the covers blown to the side, along with all my guardians. Then I looked at what was going on in the communications room.
I didn't break into the room. I totally ruined it. There is a large hole in the room, and the corner adjacent to the northern tunnel is completely destroyed. Agrippa and his few remaining guards burst out of the cave, and despite our confusion we still outnumbered him. I started firing, just like the other Guardians. Another Guardian drops from the entrance tunnel in the ceiling, lands on an enemy, and then stands in their own formation and shoots at the enemy. He was torn apart within minutes, but he broke formations.
it's all over. We quickly wiped out the hostile forces. When the bullets stopped flying, I walked over to where the fragments of Agrippa were floating. His arms were missing and his head was damaged enough to make me think he might not be able to see.
"You broke my toy," Gerry accused, his voice coming faintly from Agrippa's body. The corpses of my friends, the inhuman family I built for myself. The friend I let down. "But I'll be there soon and make you my new master. We'll have a lot of-"
I shot Agrippa in the chest and several bullets went into his torso, which contained radios and sophisticated electronic equipment. Gerry, or Gerry's duplicate, is dead. So it was with Agrippa. We won the battle, but the war had just begun.
