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...

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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.

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