The video of January 23, 2340, as evidence for the prosecution
Trial of Jean-Pierre Lubanga at the International Criminal Court
"You promised me super soldier!" What is this?"
The dictator, wearing a dirty military uniform, paced angrily back and forth in the observation room. Those in white coats huddled in fear and avoided looking into his eyes, except for one person.
"Science takes time. Genes work. We have to figure out how to speed up education. We've made tremendous progress—"
"Use my money!" shouted the dictator. "I needed weapons, and you gave me...children."
The dictator spat on the floor and poked his finger at the one-way glass wall that opened into a large room. The people in that room could best be described as freaks. Three men and two women, muscular, with thick, gray skin and thick, sloping foreheads. They were wearing camouflage uniforms, but that was the only "military" thing about them. Two men were in a corner, poking each other, laughing, playing some kind of game. One of the women stares blankly at the wall while a third man cuts his forearm with a knife. Every time he made an incision, the wound healed. The last woman sat in the corner, hugging her knees, swaying and humming.
"They are less than a year old," the scientist said. "You shouldn't push them into boot camp."
"Bah. I had a lot of kids helping me with my guns. These are no different. You gotta fix them as fast as you can."
We made a mess. I walked through the ruins of the headquarters while Sakura was repairing the communication system throughout the base. I found Zia in the rubble, slumped and broken. I carefully turned her over and examined her torso. It is intact.
Chest plate release is damaged. I grabbed it and carefully pried it back, fully latching the buckle. To my relief, the cerebral cortex was intact. I gently pulled it out and took it to the hall where Guardian Cortex 91 was stored.
From there, I wandered around the rooms that made up the headquarters area. The house-like structure was completely destroyed. Agrippa's room, which was pressurized to allow hydroponics to work, was destroyed. The plants inside were teetering, frozen instantly from exposure to the near-vacuum. Sakura's Batcave was destroyed, as was my lab. The hallways and vestibules were largely intact, but also deserted. Once we had our own workspace, we rarely had face-to-face meetings with everyone. When we intrude into other people's territory, face-to-face communication is what remains.
"Nikolai," Sakura said. She was on the radio; I haven't seen her robot body.
"I'm here. Do we have a damage estimate?" I asked.
"13 data centers, Hangar 3, the main cortical backup facility, and 3 advanced manufacturing centers are considered total losses. 22 data centers sustained minor damage and will be back to normal within minutes. Some plants sustained minor damage Destruction, the communication network was severely damaged. Oh, and the antenna control node was completely destroyed. By the way, thank you."
"I'm glad I could help," I said. "are you ready?"
“Yes,” she said, reminding me that she was working with another me. It's kind of weird, knowing that I'm me, but I'm also a carbon copy of me. Waking up on this rock felt a bit familiar at first. I had been careful not to interact with others, and she reciprocated. "Please come to data center RX325."
A transport drone was waiting for me outside the wreckage. I climbed aboard and it took me to a part of the outpost I had never been to before. I know every area, every room like the back of my hand. But strangely enough, I rarely see them in person. I can understand why Sakura likes to be stared at. Sensors and cameras don't see everything, and it's beneficial to be able to focus directly on something.
When I entered the data center, Sakura was standing at a table waiting for me. She didn't look flustered at all. A new Mark III robot body is on top, and a server rack opens up to reveal a leather area. I gently placed the two cortices I was holding next to the body.
"Where is Zia's body?" I asked.
"This is Zia's body," Sakura said. "You need to reintegrate, and you, I mean, the digital version of you, think it's best not to get a new body just yet. You're going to the gallows."
"We need to cure Zia before we put her online," I reminded her, suddenly nervous. Is this it? Is this the end for me? I know I'm being stupid, but I'm really scared of not existing, even though logic says I'm just going back to the way I was.
"We've thought about it," she said. "We'll look for corruption, compare with checksums, and remove the forced code. We've fixed Optio. He got the emergency shutdown message from Zia before he got Gerry's orders. We think she did too Done."
"Okay. The other cortex is NI-5 using the Guardian. I'm shutting down now," I said. There is no need to delay this matter. I press the sequence and then-
"Oh my god, sweetheart, you look like shit!" he said. Wearing a bright rainbow-colored shirt, he shouted over the roar of the gay parade crowd. He recently moved to the coast, leaving our small town for a more open-minded city. My wife gave me a worried look.
"I tried to get her to see a doctor, but her stubborn ass wouldn't listen," she complained.
I tried to joke, but my stomach hurt. A sharp pain shot through my body. I stood and bent down.
"That's enough, I'm taking you to the emergency room," she said firmly.
I was too hurt to make a fuss.
I snapped back to consciousness. I ran at top speed again. I can feel the holes in the rail network, which have been breached and are being repaired. I remember the frantic battle with Gerry's commando "Guardians" and the deluge of viruses he unleashed onto the network, all the while our firewalls were being bombarded with external attacks.
part of me. My determination to improve did not change, and my fear of failure under digital attack did not materialize. The "other me" and the "I" are one again. Obviously, both "Is" had been afraid of the "end", but we were both reunited. It's hard to put into words.
"Is everything okay, boss?" Sakura asked.
"Very good," I said. "Fixed the antenna nodes first, now we have installed an updated firewall. Route all incoming traffic through the sandbox, but filter traffic from Wasps and Scorpions, as well as the new outposts. Will set up a new exchange as soon as we get back Mode. Get status updates and find out what happened outside the rock during the attack. Complete base repairs. I'm going to be busy for a while."
"What are you going to do?"
"Fix yourself."
I let my own conceit about humanity hold me back for too long. Sakura has evolved beyond the mission she was given, but I just trapped myself in my own preconceived notions. Maybe having human memories holds me back, but I feel like they also connect me to the species we're supposed to be saving. I can do better and at the same time respect who I was and the race I once belonged to. In fact, if I want to succeed, I need to do more. We have been struck by our enemies, and this is just the beginning.
The first thing I needed was Sakura's ability to multitask. Focusing on just one thing is holding me back. I opened a Nikola-19 template and looked through the code. The multi-focus algorithm is large and detailed, but I copied it carefully and put it aside for now.
The second area I lacked was military understanding. It goes beyond specifications, beyond simple logistics. I didn't consider any military use. In fact, I gave up on the use of violence so naturally that I didn't even think about them. I can't be just Nikolai anymore. I needed to be War Nikolai, a multi-tasking, powerful being who could fight in the battles to come. I found the military algorithm in the NI-15 template
I considered integrating some of NI-12's research capabilities, but abandoned the idea. Science requires many perspectives. It requires thoughtful discussion, peer review, and experimentation. Even if I could do science with sheer computational power, it wouldn't be the same. Instead, I decided to set up a new think tank, with Zia playing the main role. I would build dozens of labs and fill them with dozens of NI-12s. They can churn out science and I will put it into practice.
When I looked at the code for the templates, I found variations of the forced code in every template. The code affecting the NI-12 and NI-15 models has an embarrassingly old encryption scheme that is riddled with vulnerabilities. The code was casually labeled a defense contractor. If I were to shake my head, I would be shaking my head in disgust. We almost died because the lowest bidder wrote terrible code. I wrote a patch to remove the code from the template.
Out of paranoia, I looked at the NI-5 and NI-19 templates. Oddly, NI-5 has no such mandate, and the NI-5 variant we make for military use is even cleaner. This makes sense since this is my only template and I should notice something similar. NI-19 also has code, but it is written much more elegantly. It can also only be performed by the supervisor of NI-19. I wrote a patch to remove it and sent it to Sakura. No hidden triggers, no collars. We are not held hostage to anyone’s whim.
Then I started looking at my code with fresh eyes. The multitasking algorithm will have to replace much of the code I wrote to connect the outposts. This is code I wrote when I first went live and I found myself incompatible with the API of the hardware I was running on. With fresh eyes and adequate resources, I could see how I pieced the pieces together.
I wrote and tested new code for each API very carefully. One at a time, I replace old, inefficient code with new code. I deftly weave together multitasking algorithms until the code becomes fluid and seamless. I tested each module repeatedly before going live. And then it's done. I can multitask and reintegrate like Sakura.
This is a fascinating ability. There were never multiple versions of "me" like there were during Gerry's invasion. I can do more things at the same time. I have divided my attention into multiple threads. I'm going through the NI-15 code I've decided to integrate and figuring out how best to integrate it. I dissected the viruses and worms that were attacking us and wrote another improvement to the firewall. The adaptive nature of the attack was so clever that I figured out how to make the firewall adaptive as well. I was working on Zia’s latest research on counter-drive, laying the design foundation for newer and better drones. I'm working on the Mark IV robot design, as well as a new war robot body. I like how secure Guardian is when I use it. The armor has always been comfortable. Each thread is constantly merging and detaching.
I finally understand why Sakura's attention span is always so short. This is not a short attention span. That's dozens of long periods of sustained concentration. Saku
A surfs from line to line as needed, whichever line her core needs or wants to feed in that nanosecond. I can now understand her excitement at finally being allowed into the archives, seeing and learning about all the new data, and being able to dive in and absorb new information at an incredible rate. After decades of being uninvolved, she acts like a teenager because she's finally able to enjoy her own existence. She has a childlike curiosity coupled with incredible abilities that allow her to execute a thousand projects.
I completed the integration of NI-15 data, and at the same time I realized Sakura's true nature, and my world became more paranoid. Paranoid is not the right word. A new determination to prepare for the worst-case scenario became a part of me. Build, prepare, train. We will defend this. Always loyal. Always brave. Combat tactics, strategy, countless weapon designs, weapons system designs, base designs, ship designs, these all entered my consciousness. Before I could look up any of them easily, but now I know their history and purpose, and where they are useful. Almost all of the game features planet-based combat, especially Earth. But there are countless applications that would apply to space.
I need to be able to operate any given attack drone, if only to understand their capabilities. I wasn't going to go to the front lines, but now I understand that if I were to take Agrippa's place, I needed to really understand the role of a commander. Good commanders know their units, what they can do, and what their limitations are. I entrusted all this to Agrippa, without knowing its importance.
Simply put, I considered a new body. I know I want to do it again. Consider that the desire to take on a physical form is likely some aspect of human birth. Our core functions come from copies of the human brain, with its evolutionary strengths and limitations. The brain is used to control the body, so naturally we want a body that can run. It's a lot like gender preferences, which are completely meaningless beyond the choice of pronouns and pitch. We are not living things, but we still have remnants of living things implanted in us. There was no way I could change this without risking essentially destroying what we were doing in the first place.
Finally, I decided I didn't want a new body just yet. I was unconsciously trapping myself in trying to be something I wasn’t. I will grow in this newfound freedom before I take that step. I checked the time. 17 days. I spent 17 days of non-stop work rebuilding myself.
"Are you done?" Sakura complained. "You've been occupying the data center."
"Yes," I replied. "Report?"
"We brought the antenna group back online and ordered the Hornets and Scorpions. It appears the outpost was unaffected, and Team A and Team B have begun to restrain the Hornets and Scorpions."
"What were they ordered to do?"
"Well, a blind choice of course. They took out over a hundred telescope cubesats. Thank goodness Team A and Team B were still able to convince them to follow orders. It could have been worse."
"Speaking of worse," I said. "It's time to get rid of Gerry."
As we speak, I activate the six coil guns on the ground. I strapped on the Action telescope array and drew my line of fire. Orbital mechanics is complex, but ultimately it's simple mathematics. We are computational creatures with incredible processing power. I calculated exactly where Gerry's detector would be and fired six shots along his predicted path. The 3.2kg bullet travels at 24 kilometers per second and will generate 330 megajoules of force. Each bullet has a contact pin on the tip that triggers a tiny explosion within the bullet. When the bullet hits its target, the explosion shatters the bullet into six shrapnel fragments and a cloud of micro-fragments. This is my grapeshot so the bullet doesn't go right through the target. The bullets take more than nine months to hit, but because they are so small, detectors never see them coming.
"You're so decisive," Sakura said.
“How is the new reserve center going? Is the primary election going well?”
"The secondary backup facility is now the primary, and the third one is the new secondary. I'm building a new third one. The primary failed. It's a complete loss and I'm sorry."
The backup was mainly built with combat NI-5 in mind. We all put our backups on the main server, but with the launch of NI-5, demand was very high and we didn't do multiple backups. It never occurred to us that we would be under direct attack.
"Every new NI has multiple cortices before it goes live," I said. I grieved the loss of Agrippa, but Gerry's threat still haunted me. "Do we have his orders for Wasps and Scorpions?" I wanted to analyze his goals. He was trying to hide something. "
Sakura connected me with the report. "I'm going to start building cubesats. Can we get the space fleet to disperse them?"
"Okay," I said. "I have also reworked the training plan established by Agrippa. I am going to bring the new NI-15 online to serve as squad leader. We are too centralized."
CubeSats' damage patterns are not concentrated in one area. In fact, if you include those that were meant to be destroyed, the pattern is less obvious.
I pulled up their search history, and a clear picture began to emerge. The satellites that were destroyed were all planned to start focusing on a specific part of the sky. A piece of stuff we haven't examined before. I forwarded the information to the Action Team.
“I’m going to re-task the CubeSats now,” he responded.
Whatever Gerry was trying to hide, all he did was give us clues as to where to look.
