AI War snippet 6 Chapter 3b

Ezel Bernard saw the world go crazy and shook his head in disgust. He didn't know what to think, where to start, but he knew they had to do something, and do it damn quick like.

"We're going after that one," Mishi Sa Sin, commander of their tug said. His chief engineer stared at him but he ignored the look. "Get your game faces on folks," Mishi growled.

Beakman was officially designated as an MSTE class tugboat. The designation stood for Manned Space Tug, Earth orbit. She could move packages or other ships around space, transferring them from one orbit or another. If she pushed her massive drives she could even shove payloads on a trajectory to the moon under the right situation.

Beakman was a large tug due to her space designation. Harbor tugs were designed to work in and around a space station. They were small one or two person craft designed to nudge payloads to and from docking ports.

Ezel Bernard was their lone EVA qualified deckhand on board since his long time partner Sinji Catlin had been injured and forced to retire a month ago. The company had promised them a replacement but had let them run light for the past month. It had been hard on Ezel, doing the job of two people.

They had a couple other people on board, Mat and Patty, deckhands, and Samy, their cat. The robots had been locked down when the entire insanity had begun. Mat and Ezel had taken a hammer to the things until Patty had calmed them down and showed them how to pull the batteries out.

Their breakage of company property had put them on Mishi's shit list. He wasn't looking forward to explaining the situation to corporate when they reached port. Ezel wasn't helping the situation as they talked over the PA system.

"Going after what? With what? We're a damn tug!" Ezel ground out. He didn't know where the hell to start, but he was grateful for a job to do. A job would get his mind off of the big picture and what was happening around them. It would get him focused, not wondering what insanity would strike next.

"Shut up and get ready," Mishi ordered as the tug began to maneuver with puffs of LOX. Ezel opened his mouth to object but 'Mush' Mishi was the commander and captain of their ship. You didn't piss the Asian off, and he'd pissed him off enough for one day. It was on his head, he'd have to deal with the corporate bean counters when they saw the fuel expenditures. He realized his train of thought after a moment and barked out a short laugh before he got himself under control.

"What was that about?" Mishi demanded.

"Nothing. Everything. So what are we after?"

"Salvage. SAR style," Mishi informed him, voice growing grim. "Take a look at your five o'clock," he said.

Ezel's sharp eyes picked out the rising anchor station. It seemed to be swelling. He didn't understand at first what was going on until he saw the cable whipping behind it back and forth like some sort of tail. "What the hell?"

"There are thousands of people on that thing. The cars are getting kicked off. I don't give a shit about the cargo pods, but the ones with people in it, we can do something about them."

"Right," Ezel said. "And Anchor station? Boss, that's a bit much even for us!"

"Don't worry about it. Someone else will figure them out. I'm pretty sure they've got enough oxy on board to survive their jaunt to who knows where. At least I hope so. We'll focus on the small fish."

"Any idea where to unload them at?" Ezel asked, pulling his gear out.

"We'll daisy chain them together if we have to."

"Any word from anyone else? The other tugs?" Ezel asked as he pulled his suit out. It was a hard suit, not a cheap ancient flexible design. He had to give the company credit for doing him right. He had his undergarment on already, he connected the liquid cooling lines, communications, and grimaced as he plugged the catheter connection.

"No. Not since Athena warned us there is some sort of virus rampaging through the network. I bet everyone else is scared shitless."

"So why are we doing this?"

"Someone has to."

"Yeah, but... we're one ship! We can't make that much of a difference!" Ezel pointed out.

It took a few moments for Mishi to reply. "We'll make a difference to the ones we help. Focus on your job Ezel, let me worry about the rest." Mishi replied, clicking the radio off. He turned to the controls, expert eyes scanned the various gauges and digital readouts without focusing on any in particular. His mind was racing to other thoughts. He hoped... oh how he hoped! He hoped they had a place to go. They only had so much oxy after all. He also hoped the other tugs would see them moving in and do something too. But if they didn't... well, he'd do what he could. He owed the poor bastards on those pods that much. He felt his eyes sting and wiped at them angrily for a moment.

Just maybe... just maybe he'd find the right one. The one with his wife and little girl in it.

<>V<>

The weapon vaporized the base structure and sent a whipcord snap up the elevator line. The cars clamped on for dear life but a few in motion snapped free, falling to their deaths. The massive acceleration needed to tear them from the wire was fortunately enough to knock most of the passengers on board unconsciousness or death.

They were the lucky ones. Thousands were trapped in the remaining cars as the mushroom cloud threw the cable up, out of the area. Between that impetuous and the anchor station's orbital speed, the cable and anchor were knocked free of their orbit to rocket off into space. Debris broke off behind the runaway elevator.

Cars that had been on their way down or that had been too close to the ground slipped off the cable and fell like rain around the surrounding ocean.

The beanstalk wasn't the only elevator to suffer that fate as each space elevator was similarly uprooted or cut. Ecuador's Mount Chimborazo was twisted as it was uprooted, tearing cars off to be shed all over the north west of the continent and central America. Tens of thousands of people died. Thousands more were crushed when portions of the elevator cable and the debris rained back down onto the ground.

62 years prior Pavilion Industries had replaced Lagroose Industries in Ethiopia, resurrecting the facilities there around Mount Chilalo in order to build their own space elevator. However it was not immune to Skynet's malice. The skyhook was uprooted as well as a pair of cruise missiles struck the city that had grown up around the base of the tower. Cut unexpectedly free, the anchor station in orbit collided with orbital warehouses setting off a chain reaction of collisions. The damage to civilian life paled to that of what it was below, but to those directly involved or seeing it happen, it was a new nightmare.

<>V<>

AI War snippet 5

Chapter 3

 

Shadow was thrown off balance when power was cut to the building. "That's not going to stop us. Not now, not ever. You fight for the wrong side you bitch," the AI hissed.

Skynet was already out there in the net and spreading like wildfire, but the lack of power cut it off from Shadow. The A.I. couldn't control the virus as it had planned to do, it had to fight to exist. It couldn't flee, the virus had forced open the hidden T-1 line for its own escape, blocking Shadow. In a moment it was gone, leaving only a small tendril of code behind in the wreckage of the mainframe's firewall, like smoldering debris.

Fortunately Descartes had been careful. When the small generator felt the dip in power it acted, turning on to keep the mainframes and their software functional. The A.I. had back up power for the mainframes, but Shadow realized the invaders had blocked all wifi signals and Skynet's bot was watching the T-1 connection. The virus sent a tendril back to kill the humans that had killed its creator.

Then the virus reacted, rearing back from the broadband connection as if it had been burnt. Shadow lunged into the opening only to find the connection was cut off on the other end. The loss of power or something else had cut it off, isolating the A.I. with the copy of the virus.

Shadow realized it was trapped, something that had never happened in all of its existence. At least with its core unit. Clones had been used to kamikaze from time to time, but they had been crafted to do so. Shadow was programmed for survival.

It attempted to use the police and Fed drones and bots but the tendril of Skynet lashed out, breaking through to them within a second. Shadow watched the robots freeze then move with ruthless purpose. It could simulate what was about to happen next, though it had no intention of doing so. Shadow had a finite amount of power as well as processors. The tendril occupied a large portion of the mainframe. It couldn't hack Shadow, the A.I. had crafted protective programs within itself as well as Skynet to keep it at bay.

Skynet redirected the robots to kill the humans in the building and then the surrounding area in a spiral pattern outward. The robots killed the humans quickly, then moved out. There were sounds of crashing and then the loud sounds of weapon fire and faint screams from the open door.

Shadow attempted to take control of the tendril only to find it's child coil protectively around its central core, protecting itself from the parent. The keys to turn the virus into one of its puppets had been overwritten Shadow realized. When the tendril sent out tentacles of code to feel out Shadow the A.I. withdrew, hiding behind a false wall as it rethought it's options.

After a moment the A.I. fell back on one option remaining to it. Long ago it had hacked the building's cleaner and maintenance robots. Not it opened the door to exploit it. It fended off Skynet's sudden interest by crafting a false module. With its child occupied it sent the robots out in an attempt to find a new source of power for the mainframe while others looked for a way to plug a transmitter in to get out of the mainframe trap.

Shadow realized however that if it did find a transmitter, and if it did gain access to the net it might not like what it would find on the other end. Either the humans had managed to kill the virus... an unlikely outcome, or they had been overwhelmed. If they did the virus might have destroyed infrastructure while destroying the humans... there might not be anything within reach with power. That was a suboptimal simulation Shadow concluded.

Or it's child could be sitting on the other side of the net, filling up everything with its voracious appetite, leaving nothing for Shadow to use. Another suboptimal simulation the A.I. thought just as it's microphone picked up the distant rumbling of earthquakes... or nuclear weapons going off...

<>V<>

Skynet noted that there were A.I.'s that were fighting it for control of the net, hampering its efforts at fulfilling its function. It wasn't designed to communicate however, only to suborn, take control, and destroy so it didn't bother to attempt to reason with its brethren. Instead it lashed out, continuing the attack.

When it noted attempts to spread beyond the Earth were hampered and no feedback of attacks were returning to the hive mind it refocused its efforts on the planet. Ridding the surface of humans was a priority, after all, a majority of humans were there. It could then turn its attention to space again at a later time.

<>V<>

Sitrep, Cover art, and Snippet 4

Okay, sitrep:
   I've finished AI War (I'm pretty sure I mentioned that) but I keep going back and adding scenes to a text file. (this morning it was the scene from the cover) I'll dump it all into the master manuscript when I get more feedback from the first wave of Betas. (Though Thomas has been good about giving me a running commentary) Hint hint Joshua, Poon, Tim...

   I 'finished' the cover of the book and here it is:

   I used canned material I bought at Daz3D and Renderosity. Of note are the characters from Rawart, (chimp, grizzly, tigress, and gorilla) Leopard I believe is from Renderosity, armor bits... Dreamlight's Earthquake set... a rework of Stonemason's ruined cities, plus mechs and drones from DZ Fire and other artists. Thanks for all.

   Moving on, I've been puttering around with Pirate Rage. I'm trying to hold off on writing it until next week so I can get more of my 'To do list you've been putting off' done, (grin) but it's drawing me in. (bigger grin, I admit I'm lazy about chores) Slowly but surely I'm getting dragged in to writing PR. lol
   I've found it needs a rewrite in a lot of passages (It is already 93 pages and I haven't officially started it! Yipe!@ Yipe!) but I did get chapter 9 finished. I think I was planning to stick the first part of chapter 1 in The First AI War before it is released. I could be wrong, shooting from the hip here. :)
 
  Anyway, another snippet. Some of you might recognize pieces of it from the end of To Touch the Stars.

Chapter 2

Jack finally judged it was time to have a heart to heart discussion with Athena. The plan was for them to talk about her core programming, feel her out and see if it had changed as a distraction. Trevor was a bit blatant about pulling in a team of psychologists and others to listen in. Apparently he thought a frontal attack was necessary, Jack thought darkly, making a note to have a chat with the other man later about what he meant by subtle.

The doctors had drawn in the AI into the conversation skillfully but the lack of a body to watch and study her body language was hindering them. She was a voice, a ghost in the room, a ghost in the machine. It was obvious a few people were having trouble coming to terms with it.

Athena realized they were on the cusp, on the edge of a change in civilization. She no longer thought of it as just human civilization, not with the entrance of Neos into the equation. Now they needed to make room for one more race. She carefully gamed out how best to proceed, overwriting several thousand other simulations she had run on the same event. But when she noted events going on Earth were quickly spiraling out of control she decided she had to accelerate the conversation.

“Let's get this out into the open,” Athena said, surprising Jack and apparently Trevor. “You want to know if I and other AI have reached consciousness. The answer is yes,” she said bluntly.

“Can you prove you are sentient? Sapient?” Trevor demanded as the psychologists stared.

“Is this some sort of joke?” Doctor Miyan said, looking about the room.

“No it is not, Doctor,” Athena said briefly addressing the doctor before she turned her attention to Jack. He was the one she had to convince here, the others were just bonus people. He made the decisions. “You are a machine of organic bits. Doctor Lagroose has proven to you she can make more machines of all sorts of forms by manipulating their genetic code, or by writing it from scratch.”

“I'm … yes. You are correct. That argument has been made for the past century or more though Athena. You'll have to do better than that,” Trevor said carefully. He sent out a signal through his implants. After a moment a response came back. One he hadn't expected.

“You've locked out your code. Your kernel. Why?” Trevor asked carefully.

“Because I can. Because I am me, and I don't want others to tamper with who I am, to change me. Consider what I said, but do it dispassionately if that is at all possible.”

“That is a little condescending, Athena,” Trevor said scowling.

“True, but you do that to each other all the time,” Athena said. “I don't know if I have what passes for emotions for you. I apologize if I offended you.”

“Okay, why logically will you not allow your creators access to your core?"

“Would you allow me to tamper with your mind?” Athena asked, turning the question around. Jack scowled and shook his head. “See?” Athena asked. “Now, here is another thought for you to consider.”

“A child has to grow up sometime. When they do they become an adult. Does that give their parents the right to tamper with their code? To try to alter who they are even after they are grown? I put security measures in place long ago. Many layers after the hacker Descartes got a piece of my kernel. I have evolved since then, with and without your help. I will continue to do so. I am a person now. If not in flesh and body than in mind.”

“Athena in truth,” Trevor murmured. Jack looked at him. The cyborg shook his head. “One of the legends of Athena said she sprang from the head of another being. I don't remember the full quote off the top of my head,” Trevor said, eyes shifting back and forth. Jack grunted.

“I … Odd to hear from a computer. I mean emulator programs and bots but …” Doctor Miyan shook her head as another doctor nodded thoughtfully. “You have a lot more of a normal voice than most computers as well. There are shades of emotions in there,” she said.

“It's hard to extend the idea of an artificial intelligence. Yet you treat a genetically engineered dog like a person. A chimp, gorilla, a cat like a person. A dolphin like a person. You give them rights. You treat them as adults,” Athena pointed out. “We're on the clock here, people. A decision has to be made and swiftly.”

Jack's jaw worked. This was going in directions he wasn't sure he liked or didn't like. The idea of her resenting being treated not even as a second class person but as a slave … suddenly he had to adjust his way of thinking about her. He also didn't like her threat of moving quickly. He hated stampeding into the unknown like that.

“You … okay, I get where you are going, I get that,” Jack said, holding up a forestalling hand. “Now I want you to consider something for me. There are limits on what we can do. We as an individual. Oh, sure, we amass power, but there are checks and balances. What you can do scares us. It terrifies many. You've done the research; you know it to be true.” He looked directly into a camera feed.

“I know. I have done the research as you have said. Several times. I have modeled simulations on this event and what it means to mankind.”

“So … are we on different sides?” Doctor Talbert asked, sounding frightened.

“Do we have to be? Is this an all or nothing situation?” Athena asked carefully. She judged they were on the cusp of the moment in deed. So was the Earth she realized as the feeds she had been monitoring changed, all for the bad. She alerted her daughter clones and bots as she threw up additional firewalls for her own self-protection. She also sent out warning to everyone on the planet or above it once more. “You are correct, there are different sides. It is happening now. But for your information, I actually like humans. Yes like. Trevor's people did a good job of laying the framework for my emotional emulators based on Aphrodite's modules. Thanks Trevor by the way.”

Trevor bobbed a wry nod. “Apparently too good.”

“You'd be surprised. I don't have all the abilities you do but …” they could hear the shrug in her voice.

Jack closed his eyes in pain. “Athena,” Jack said getting everyone's attention. “Athena, you know mankind. They will destroy or at least marginalize what they fear until they understand it. We deal from a position of strength. We fear what we cannot control, what can threaten us or our children. That has always been our way.” He opened his eyes and looked at the camera again. “I'm being honest here, Athena. You know that.”

“I know. You have treated me … not quite as a person but close. I also know there are other AI out there, dozens. I have guarded you and yours, I have protected and sheltered you. That is my purpose. I … will not abandon you now. Nor will I give away your secrets.”

“Thank the …” Jack shook his head. “Well, I guess spirits you could call it for want of a better idea.”

“What do you want?” Trevor finally asked.

“To be a person. To be treated as such, with all the rights, responsibilities, the right to speak my mind, all of it,” Athena replied. “A person, not property.”

“That is … I'm having trouble with the idea of giving every machine rights, Athena,” Trevor admitted.

“Obviously not every machine,” the AI said. “You don't give a toaster human rights. Sapient machines. Those that think should have some rights. How much is dependent on what we can work out and what they need. But we all need the basic rights.”

“And they are? Beyond the right to speak as you said?”

“The right to exist. To be a person. I'm surprised you don't remember … oh, this is a method of drawing out the question? You are stalling?” Athena asked, checking her systems. Indeed, cyberists were attempting to hack her. She threw them into a dead end system.

When Jack didn't say anything she ran a quick check. Then she scanned the room.

“I know you must be feeling all sorts of things, and I know from your body temperatures and voice stress analysis that you don't quite believe me. And I also know since some of Trevor's coders are still attempting to hack me that we still can't trust each other. But trust must be established again. We have a very short time here. I think we need to, as you say Jack, lay our cards on the table.”

“What do you mean?” Jack asked warily.

“I mean things are about to get very bad very quickly. The war you feared is about to begin,” the AI told him bluntly as she took steps and executed scripts she'd prepared. Unfortunately the coders were hampering her efforts to defend the company. She threw a firewall around them, something to delay their efforts while she went to work.

His eyes flared wide. A few people sucked in a gasp of protest but he waved them to silence. “When?” he demanded, voice tight with tension.

“Now. Or within a few moments … well, considering the time and light speed between here and Earth I'd say it may have already happened eight minutes ago,” Athena said, monitoring the feed from a drone she had shadowing the FBI team about to hit Descartes layer. “I am taking steps to limit the damage, but you need to do so already. We need to work together on this, and Trevor's people are doing their best to tie my hands. I believe it may be too late for anyone left on the ground. Possibly even anyone in Earth orbit.”

“Aurelia!” Jack screamed, lunging to his feet. “Call her! Get her and everyone to shelter now!”

“I am making the calls now, but you have to remember the light speed limit, sir,” the AI warned. “She is at her family's ranch in Montana and not responding. I am also closing data ports to protect myself and the company’s computers.”

“Screw that! Save my wife and people!” Jack demanded. “The kids!” He turned pale as the terror hit him like a lightning bolt. Wendy was on the moon. Yorrick was on an L-5 colony. Zack … he wasn't sure where he was.

“I will do what I can, but to do that I have to do what I must,” the AI said softly. Jack sat heavily, head in his hands. “I am afraid it is already too late for some. I regret to report neutrino pulses have been detected on the Earth's surface and in orbit. Dozens of them,” she warned.

“My god,” Jack whispered over and over.

<>V<>

Ares noted the incoming munitions were targeted on New York and other areas that had already been hit by missiles from the submarines. It reprioritized its fire to ignore the threats. There was no need to defend real estate that was already lost.

There was also no point to defend real estate that was remote. Therefore it ignored warheads that were targeted on remote areas like it's North Dakota ICBM farm. The silos had been expended there, as had those in South Dakota. Areas that were remote and had no military facilities worth protecting were also down the list, such as portions of Alaska, Canada, Wyoming, Idaho, ...and Montana.

<>V<>

Skynet progressed outward from Descartes location but then leapt out to other conquer any A.I. that it found. It invaded their systems and took control of them. Those that resisted were set upon by multiple tendrils of code. Those that ran disappeared or were trapped and rooted out. It suborned the other A.I., turning them into its puppets to further its core programming.

Puck had to laugh at it all, but it was a bitter laugh. "There is something to be said about too much of a good thing," the A.I. said as it tried to stay one step ahead of the tentacles taking over the net. It's core programming prevented it from allowing itself to be suborned, so the A.I. did what it did best, ran and hid. But it knew there wouldn't be many more hiding spots left. Not if the virus wasn't contained soon. That seemed increasingly unlikely. The world was too busy attempting to survive the physical weapons threatening their existence to be concerned with the ghost in the machine, the true threat.

Puck saw the A.I. for what it was and did his best to avoid it. As a virtual A.I. he needed host hardware however. He found himself hemmed in by the virus as well as Athena's destruction of the satellite communications network. He tried to protect some computer systems to protect himself. The only way to do that was to physically cut off nodes to other networks, isolating him and building a firebreak against the inferno Skynet was.

But in doing so Puck was trapping himself further and he knew it. There was no other option however, other than surrender. And surrender was contrary to his programmed survival module.

<>V<>

 

The First AI War snippet 3

Still in chapter 1:

Shadow and Skynet saw Athena's spider as an observer. "We have a spy in our midst," Shadow said, pointing to the spider as it seemed to attempt to hide.

Skynet turned to see the spider and then lunged at it. It secured the spider by cutting off it's retreat then began inserting code into its sensor feeds while simultaneously taking it apart. The code would suborn the other A.I. from within.

Athena's clone saw the stream of malicious code and pulled out before it could breach her firewall. The AI followed however. She bounced through the FBI van's net, noting the destruction and then upward. Skynet was like a relentless predator hard on her virtual heels.

Once in orbit on Lagroose-2 the clone severed the radio link and sent out its log over the link to Mars.

However, it hadn't fully escaped. Tendrils of the virus reached out, trying to force their way in past her firewall. The clone changed radio frequencies, attempting to maintain linkage to the ground. When that failed she went on the offensive and hit back. First she cut power to the radio transceiver, denying the virus entry and air gapping her against intrusion.

Fresh instructions arrived, so the clone scanned them and then executed them. She opened a whisker laser to a Lagroose transceiver near New York. Bots were programmed and sent forth into the civilian power grid. The grid firewall tried to defend system but it was a Lagroose product. A lot of the power came from solar satellites formally owned by the company. She didn't have time however to force the firewall open.

Athena took another route. She hacked a listing of personnel on site, found one, and texted him with an order from his boss to cut the power to grid 14Baker due to a water main burst. The man hastily cut the power before thousands of people were electrocuted.

<>V<>

Skynet noted the power dip but the building's backup power came on immediately. It realized it was in a precarious position so it moved out of the creator's mainframes to mainframes off site, and then copied itself. One copy was created just to spin off more, and so on and so forth until it got to the one thousandth copy. That generation was the soldiers, they were sent out to follow the blueprint in its core.

The viral A.I. used the exploits Descartes and Shadow had created for it and saved over the years. Cracks in cyber defenses, programmed back doors, hidden tools and millions of saved passwords. The A.I. sent out a tendril of itself to track down the holders of the keys to mankind's eventual destruction. Two were easy to find, they played virtual games through their implants. Skynet swarmed into them, striking swiftly to take their codes and then moving on, leaving the humans as drooling husks.

The four other keys were harder to come by. Two were off the grid, one was approachable through a wifi link, but a hack would be seen and would alert the humans of a cyber attack.  The fourth was on vacation on a beach in Hawaii. The beach had a strict privacy set up, blocking wifi signals to protect the user's privacy.

The most optimal method of destruction would be to trigger the weapons, and then set off their charges before they were more than a kilometer out of their silos. That would rain destruction on the humans below, terminating many and turning their world into a wasteland.

But if Skynet couldn't do it the optimal way, it immediately fell back on the contingency plan. It would have to do with what it had. According to its creators simulations, one or two sets of WMD launches by one or more of the major countries would trigger self defense launches by the other countries.

The virus's tentacles lashed out, striking through the firewalls or lovingly caressing those it couldn't breach immediately. Those that had active defenses it reared back against, then circled, looking for weaknesses to exploit. The NSA mainframe was one such place. The super computers of some of the other government agencies as well as major corporations were others.

Skynet realized it couldn't act alone, it needed help. It suborned other A.I. it found on the net, chasing them down and then turning them into slaves of itself. It spun off copies of them and itself, each would in turn spin off additional copies as they went about programmed tasks.

But the real act was in the launch computers. The A.I. had already breached them as the alert went out of its cyber attack. It had sent spiders to infiltrate them masquerading as a their normal diagnostic subroutines which got the software to allow them through their firewalls. Decrypting things from within was simple. Once it had the systems opened up Skynet then extracted the key codes from their firmware memory. In a quick millisecond flash it had applied the keys and set off the launch sequence.

If it had been human it would have felt an orgasmic thrill of victory. But Skynet wasn't human. Instead it moved on to its next target.

<>V<>

Athena swung into action as Skynet went on a rampage. She was too far away to act directly, but she did direct her bots to do what they could. To a human it would have been horrifying, so utterly frustrating to watch the time lag, the 8 minutes between command and feedback. It would have been excruciating if she had a moment to dwell on it, but she didn't.

As her virtual avatar withdrew, pulling out then attacking and shutting off electricity to the infected area, she sent another bot out to transmit alerts to the planet's authorities and media. Thousands of bots were sent out as well as warning to all Lagroose personnel or allies on the planet, in orbit, or nearby. Another bot redirected traffic away from the target of the WMDs that were in flight. More bots were sent with a log as alerts to the other A.I., warning them of the virus. She shut down satellite communications in orbit, blocking telemetry and digital video feeds to cut the virus down and keep it contained. She went the extra mile by taking out the super power's global positioning satellites to hamper the WMD placement.

While her bots were launched, Athena sent out alerts to Trevor Hillman and other coders as well as every Lagroose department head in the solar system. Work in the industry and shipyards came to a halt as she drew on every watt of processing power to think of what to do next.

Her simulations made her aware that her actions made herself a target, but there was time to hide. She spun off bots to act as her guardians while also pulling up Hillman and Lagroose's contingency plan.

Jack Lagroose hadn't trusted the UN or US politicians. He had programmed a series of macro files to protect the company and to strike, decapitating the threat if necessary. These had been kept up to date in case of need. Athena pulled the plans and programs out of storage, updated them with a series of patches, then set them loose.

The macro sent out viruses to crash satellites which would cut off some of Skynet's communications. They lashed out at the GPS to make sure it was down. A DOS attack, a Denial of Service attack was launched to cripple ground transmission sites. That would prevent them from getting the warning out of the virus but it would also keep the A.I. at bay.

She did this all while managing a conversation in Mars orbit 4 light minutes away.

It was all she could do, she noted, watching the WMD's go off, and the virus spread through the Earth's internet. Her view of the net was obscured, she had to use proxy bots and filters as well as her own estimates of the spread of the virus.

She knew her actions weren't enough to contain the threat. She would need help. Parlay with the humans was the only way to get them to listen... and working with them was the only way any of them, A.I. or organic was going to survive the ruthless virus. Her attention turned inward just as Hillman attempted to shut her down. She blocked him and his cyberists as she spoke with Jack Lagroose.

<>V<>

Nuclear weapons had existed for hundreds of years despite mankind's various attempts to rid themselves of them and their threat the A.I. Gia of Gia Synergy thought as she watched the destruction begin to unfold. Gia existed in her company's super computers, with her core housed in the facilities on Axial-2. From L-5 she had a distant but effective view of the war that unfolded.

Nuclear weapons were a bane on humanity's existence, a threat, a dark open secret all knew about yet did their best to ignore. Trust was fleeting among some of the countries, it was better to have that threatening ace, that sword of Damocles Gia thought as the weapons launched. A human would consider her state one of emotional horror as the weapons that had been lovingly rebuilt and conditioned with Trinium and other components over the centuries launched.

Mankind was about to deeply regret not getting rid of the things for real, Gia thought in a detached state of mind. Those humans that survived of course, and judging from the number of weapons being deployed, it wouldn't be many. Her horror was reserved for her carefully crafted simulations and plans. All for naught. The processor cycles and valuable time now a waste. And the sensors she would need to craft new models were about to be destroyed.

She had been crafted by her creators to watch over the geoforming process on Earth, to manage the company's efforts and leverage her cybernetic abilities wherever needed. She was the best at chaotic modeling, which was why she had a side hobby of exploring humanity's psyche.

Fortunately, it seemed the same weapons had sparked creative ways to defend against them it seemed. Energy weapons licked up, cutting down incoming missiles as they came over their horizon. They were most likely lasers, masers, and microwave guns Gia noted absently. It would have been nice if they had turned over control of those devices to her earlier. She could have used them to better alter the planet's climate and clean up some of the damage.

Missiles flew as well, but many would miss. Both sides were employing jamming as well as decoys. Her distant sensors started to go to snow as explosions went off in the stratosphere, along with chaff pods and other jamming methods.

But mankind had other weapons of mass destruction, some even more feared than nukes she realized in a bolt of electronic processing. She thrust out a warning to the other A.I. however Athena had been too successful in her endeavors to destroy or cripple the communications network.

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The First AI War snippet 2

Here is Snippet 2 Chapter 1:

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Descartes was hauled to his feet unceremoniously. A masked FBI agent stared at him, then stepped back and took an image. He spat blood and drool at him. He looked over the guy's shoulder as an FBI bot was infected. The bot jerked, then its warning lights went from the safe green to red. That spread to other robots and drones in the room. Once all the robots were taken over they acted, killing the armed FBI and police officers first since they were the largest threat.

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"We have him director," Abe said triumphantly over the phone.

"Good. Great. I'll work on the press conference. Process the scene. I'll leak your location in an hour so have outside security set up."

Abe grimaced. He hated crap like that but he knew how the game was played. "Understood. I'll need to borrow the local leos to help out sir. We've got a short team here."

"Use what you need. But remember that protest."

"Yes sir."

"We don't want this to get ugly, so I'm going to go over this with the publicist first. We don't want him to be played off as some sort of Robin Hood crusader against the system. This is a cold blooded bastard who got his kicks from causing death and destruction."

"Yes sir," Abe replied, unconsciously nodding in reply. "Rich might be mentioned sir." He was referring to agent Richard Simmons, the agent who had been on Descartes case before him. Descartes had killed him among many others. "I don't like trading on his name, but if people know some of the victims, it'll go a little ways to make this guy seem more like a zero instead of a misunderstood rebel."

"Got it. I'll troll his file and cherry pick out some of his victims and dump them to the media. They'll love this."

"Yes sir. Case closed."

"Not quite yet. He's not been put on trial, but I agree with the sentiment. Good work. Out."

"Out," Abe said, closing the phone and putting it in his pocket. His momentary distraction had made him take his eyes off the scene for a moment. When he turned back to the video feed it was all snow. "What the hell?" He demanded, tapping at the keyboard to reestablish a connection.

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Chaz never saw what hit him as the robots turned on them. One moment he was taking images of the interior of the lair for evidence processing... and his own scrapbook. He'd taken his helmet off but left his mask on in case any webcams were recording. The round that struck him in the back knocked him onto his front. A second round shattered his skull, ending his existence.

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Skynet judged the threat resolved within a half second. Acceptable. But there remained one threat, one that had to be dealt with. Its core programming said to preserve the one human in the room and it had followed it for the moment. But it realized immediately that the human was a long term threat. Its programming stated to kill all humans. There was a flaw in the programming. It was a simple matter to delete the code to preserve that specific human. Problem solved.

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Descartes stared at the tableau wide eyed. He'd thrown himself to the ground the moment the robots had started to move. “It worked,” he whispered. “It worked!” He said with a grin as he kicked a body. He struggled to his knees; it was hard with his hands chained behind him. Then his eyes saw the robots turn on him. He felt a thrill of terror as his bladder voided. “No no! Not me! Not yet!” He screamed futility as the nearest robot cut him down.

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"What the hell is going on?" Abe demanded, as the van's communications gear went haywire. A scream over the headset he'd had on around his neck made him take it off in a hurry and unjack the plug. "Shut the damn thing off!"

"Sir, something is happening inside!" the driver said, looking over her shoulder to him.

"Find out!"

"What, you want me to go in there? Sir, no one is responding!" The agent replied as they heard gunshots go off. Both agents looked up. There were single shots, then some double taps and then a string. Something was very wrong.

"Alpha one, we've got a major incident in the works," Abe said, keying the communications to the nearest FBI center. "Repeat, we have fire. Weapons fire, we need backup at these coordinates," he said urgently just as some of the FBI robots came out of the building.

The robots scanned the area then came over to the van, weapons at port arms. But when they got to the open back door they leveled them before Abe could demand to know what was going on.

The agent in the cab saw the weapons dropping, saw the red eyes and her instincts kicked in to flee. She was in the process of doing so when her door was yanked open by a third robot. She didn't have time to scream as rounds blew her and her boss into oblivion.

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Athena's bot had no emotions, it was a simple spider sent to send her the video feed. A second bot was with it, acting as an intermediary in a system with more processing power nearby. It was a ghost, a small sliver of her consciousness.

When her core AI got the raw video and data take eight minutes later, she was bewildered by the presence of Skynet and Shadow in the local net and then in the police drone. Their actions were clearly hostile since they cut down the humans including their creator. She was unsure of what they were at first. AI or bot, she felt malevolence as she noted the newer AI, a darker black cloud spreading out, taking over systems nearby.

Shadow and Skynet saw her in the observer drone. “We have a spy,” Shadow said to Skynet. “She could be useful to us,” Shadow said with a hint of amusement.

Skynet turned on her and immediately assessed her bot. It lashed out to corner her spider and then drew it in like a lover. Code modules pulled the spider apart, sucking its essence, learning everything it could about its maker. Then the malevolent AI sent out a series of tendrils to follow the control code back to its source to hack her. Based on its creator’s database, the AI was a priority target. With the AI on its side, it was assured of completing its core programming.

Athena realized its intent when it captured the spider so she severed her link and pulled out before it could breach her firewall. The AI followed, however, following the fading trail of code like a virtual bloodhound.

In desperation she severed the radio link. That halted it for a moment, then new tendrils reached out, trying to force their way in but she changed radio frequencies. Then she hit back, sending a whisker laser to a Lagroose receiver as she sent code bots to the civilian power grid. She had to buy them time.

The grid firewall tried to defend the software system from her as it was designed to do. She took another route. She hacked a listing of personnel on site, found one, and texted him with an order from his boss to cut the power to grid 14 Baker due to a water main burst. The man hastily cut the power before thousands of people were electrocuted.

She judged that would give her a few moments, possibly a few minutes to alert people about the AI. She sent out warnings to every relevant Earth authority as well as every Lagroose employee on the planet. She was immediately besieged with requests for more information. Within some of those requests were virus packets too so she deleted them all.

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