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<>