“I met her once, I think,” Kathryn said. “She told a hell of a dirty joke.”
“Condolences are all over the M1G internal feed. Apparently, she was very well liked. Of course, they’re all blaming the TSF. But it gets more interesting. There were TSF ships in the area, as well as what look to be privateers out of Cruithne.”
“Where are you getting this info?”
“Local freighter was inbound for a shipment. They found the station surrounded by hostile craft so they start their braking burn early and hung back. Before they even entered local space, the clinic goes up like popcorn. They got registry pings on every ship in the area.”
“Crew manifests?” Kathryn asked.
“I’m working on it now. The TSF ships were out of High Terra, assigned to their procurement command. I’ve got the general crew list but they had to have been carrying special passengers. I’m looking for that now. May have to dig into the dock control at Raleigh.”
“We have people there.”
“Yes, we do,” he agreed. Something he saw made him smile. “I’ve got the Cruithne ships. They were Lowspin Syndicate. That means Ngoba Starl.”
“I know that name because…?” Kathryn asked. She could have queried the name herself but she enjoyed putting Daniel to work.
“He’s a rising player on the station. I estimate his organization controls a quarter of Cruithne, most importantly they’ve got the Cruithne Port Authority.” Daniel stretched his neck, adjusting his pale blue tie. “But the last word I had about Ngoba Starl was that he hid a former Heartbridge scientist named Hari Jickson. Jickson died, most likely assassinated by Heartbridge, but not before they managed to smuggle something Heartbridge wanted very badly off Cruithne.”
“Another AI bound for Proteus?” Kathryn asked.
“More interesting than that. Apparently, Jickson’s expertise was human-AI interface. Word is that they smuggled the AI out in a human host.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. They found a mule.”
Daniel shrugged. “That’s possible. It could also be the other option.”
“That Heartbridge has figured out how to implant AI? It doesn’t work. That’s been proven.” Kathryn leaned back in her seat, adjusting her shoulders. A muscle was turning into a knot in her lower back. “What’s another bombed Heartbridge facility have to do with the vote today?”
“That’s what’s going to tip the vote,” Daniel said. “Heartbridge stock is tanking. Reports that they lost nearly three hundred attack AI from their other clinic outside Ceres combined with this means that Heartbridge is looking at a hostile takeover. Arla Reed is in freefall.”
They arrived at the Assembly’s private station, cutting off their conversation. Daniel jumped to his feet and was out the door first. He met the group of aides waiting for Kathryn and quickly fell into an in-person conversation that had probably started before he had arrived at her apartment.
Stepping out of the car, Kathryn sniffed the subterranean air—which tasted like oil and stone—and walked quickly across the main terminal to the checkpoint where she would be scanned into the secure area. Kylan continued to talk to her as her heels clicked on the marble floor, describing a new attack drone body and how wonderful it felt to fly as part of a squadron of like-creatures. What he didn’t say was that they were all killers, practicing for battle.
Arla Reed was in freefall.
The idea brought a smile to Kathryn’s lips.
I see between your lines, she told herself as she walked. I think I have everything I need now.
As soon as the word about Proteus had reached Kathryn, she had put Daniel and his networks on the history of Proteus and how it might intersect with AIs. It didn’t take him long to find the myth of Alexander’s Call and how sentient AIs seemed to believe there was a safe haven waiting for them at the edge of the Sol System.
Kathryn’s own shipping records had turned up the evidence around a company called Psion, a subsidiary of Enfield Scientific, which had sold several AI systems to corporations throughout Sol for nearly two hundred years. The company had been active until just two years ago, when all the shipments to Larissa—their base in orbit around Neptune—abruptly stopped.
Enfield Scientific had denied all knowledge of Psion, and it took even deeper digging to find that Psion scientists had dispersed to hundreds of other companies. Their best, however, had gone to Heartbridge.
Ever since Arla Reed had the audacity to think she could pay a settlement for what happened to Kylan, Kathryn had harbored revenge in her heart. She had held the thought of Heartbridge’s destruction inside herself beside the memory of her baby boy. The addition of the AI that wouldn’t stop whispering to her in the dark had only hardened her resolve into something like diamond.
<We’re going to need to focus on the Heartbridge loss of their attack AIs,> he told her. <Distrust metrics are at an all-time high. Uncertainty around the launches from Larissa are the lynch pin. Preliminary telemetry indicates at least some of what was launched is headed into InnerSol, either Mars, Eros or Ceres. But that’s not saying much. If they’re missiles, they could be going anywhere. It could be an opening salvo in the war.>
The war, Kathryn thought bitterly. She had known the war was coming since Kylan’s death. Humans may have created Sentient AIs, but anyone with common sense would know they would turn against humanity. It was human nature, after all. Sentient AIs were fruit of the poisoned tree. The only end was war and death.
<I flew over the ocean, Mom,> the broken Kylan told her. <I swooped over trees and spun in the sky. I was free.>
Kathryn entered the lift that would take her up two hundred levels to the Assembly ante-chamber. All through the ride, another burst of messages from the AI-Kylan rolled out in her mind, continuing to talk about Lyssa, followed by another name, a human: Andy Sykes.
Kathryn glanced at Daniel, but he was still talking to the aids. She would need him to follow up on the name later. The AI had mentioned people before, a Heartbridge employee named Cal Kraft that Daniel had tracked down on the Cho following the attack on the Resolute Charity. She couldn’t remember if Kraft was still alive or not. It didn’t matter. She wondered if Andy Sykes was just another contractor Heartbridge was using to develop its war machine.
The lift doors opened on the long corridor leading to the Assembly chambers. It was a peculiarity of this Assembly that they insisted on meeting in person. She didn’t believe the five thousand members of the Assembly accomplished more for being in the same room, and it didn’t stop backchannel deals via Link, but it did make for an impressive sight as the portal opened on the great bowl of the Assembly Chamber.
Kathryn found herself at the bottom of a tiered amphitheater that rose to a domed ceiling with a view of a gray sky, bisected by the silver ribbon of High Terra.
<We had a campfire by the ocean,> the AI continued. <We told stories and I learned about the others, how they’re like me but they’re not. They all came from someone else. but they were made for different things. I don’t think I was made for anything. The people who did this to me hadn’t decided on that yet. I was just an experiment.>
Kathryn narrowed her eyes against the glaring lights. Thousands of faces looked down on her, the space rumbling with voices. She would stand alone at the speaker’s podium, and her image would be broadcast to millions of feeds across Sol—at least to those paying attention.
<I almost stumbled and fell into the fire until someone caught my hand. How stupid would it be to get burned the first time I get to see a campfire?>
She glanced back at Daniel in the doorway and he gave her a nod. The aids behind him watched her with expectation and what might have been hero worship. Their focus steeled her resolve. She had been before subcommittees in the past, but this was her fi
rst time in front of the gathered Assembly, with testimony entered into the general record and transmitted to all of Sol.
She walked out to the podium.
<In the expanse, the place where Lyssa gathers us all together, the stars are the same as Earth, and I can look up at Luna, too. I like to imagine we’re seeing the same sky. That’s dumb isn’t it?>
A tone sounded high in the chamber and the voices fell silent. Sonic limiters around the podium made her voice sound close, as if she was talking to someone nearby. Kathryn gripped the sides of the wooden lectern and gazed up into the sea of faces.
“Members of the Assembly,” she said in a clear, determined voice. “Thank you for the opportunity to speak. For the record, my name is Kathryn Carthage. I own Carthage Logistics. I have built my company on dependability. We all know you can’t cheat space, and my reputation has been built on telling the truth. Many of you know my story and what happened to my son Kylan.”
A low rumble passed through the chamber.
“I’m not here to beg your sympathy,” she said. “I am here to describe for you an existential threat to humanity. It has been growing for two hundred years, and now events on Proteus, outside Venus and the Cho, are impossible to ignore.”
The last message from the AI spoke softly in her mind: <I miss you. I wish I could see you again. I—I love you, Mom. I wish you still loved me.>
Kathryn set her jaw, looking ahead with her resolve plain on her face, so there would be no question what the newsfeeds showed.
“I am here to call these events what they are: the first attacks in a war—a war between humanity and Sentient AIs.”
CHAPTER TWO
STELLAR DATE: 11.21.2981 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Psion Research Outpost
REGION: Larissa, Neptune, OuterSol
What have we started?
Andy watched in horror as Neptune’s moon Larissa, which a minute ago had seemed an abandoned hunk of rock, transformed into a remote attack platform.
Hundreds of missiles launched from silos across the moon’s surface. As soon as one volley was clear, another launch followed. The walls shook continuously as the power of the missiles vibrated through rock.
“Oh, crap,” Fugia whispered.
Andy jerked his gaze in her direction. “Are you sure you didn’t do this?”
<It was Xander,> Lyssa said. <I’ve lost him. The Resolute Charity is destroyed.>
<What?> Andy demanded. He switched his Link to the feed from the Sunny Skies, checking its active scan. Lyssa was right. The Resolute Charity had been caught in the expanding explosion from Proteus and destroyed. The Heartbridge juggernaut had burned like a moth in a candle. Horror filled his mind as he desperately grabbed at the location data for Sunny Skies.
<I’m already doing it,> Lyssa said. <Sunny Skies is outside the projected energy radius but there’s going to be a lot of debris. I’ve got the Weapon Born tracking incoming objects.> She sounded soul-weary, like she’d just run a marathon.
Andy nodded. What had Xander done? But Andy didn’t have time to ask Lyssa now. <Fran,> he called over the Link. <Are you all right?>
<I’m here. The shields are up and I’m tracking the big stuff. I’m moving to a geo-sync on the other side of Neptune to put some real estate between us and the debris. We’ve got the fuel.> She whistled. <I don’t have a good feeling about the settlements on Triton. They’re going to get pummeled. The comms nets are going crazy.>
<We’re going to need an alibi,> Andy said. <We show up at Neptune and then five minutes later Proteus explodes? We won’t be able to get out of here fast enough.>
<Right,> Fran said. <That’s going to be Fugia’s department. Is she still messing with the database?>
“How much longer?” Andy asked Fugia.
She didn’t look at him. “How much longer until what?”
“Until we can get out of here. If you didn’t notice, Larissa is pouring hostile missiles into space and we’re at the heart of all of that. I don’t think there’s much law enforcement out here, but there are definitely going to be a few million angry people looking for someone to blame for everything that’s going on.”
Rather than take the bait of Andy’s attack, Fugia only nodded slowly at her screen. “Maybe I’m trying to figure out just who we can blame.” She switched to a common Link channel. <Lyssa?> Fugia asked. <Do you still have contact with Alexander?>
<No, he’s gone,> Lyssa replied, her voice filled with worry. <I think the real Alexander recognized that Xander had come, and then Xander attacked. I’m still trying to sort out who started what. I know that Resolute Charity definitely attacked Proteus. I don’t see any indicator that Xander started the launch sequences on Larissa, though. If the facilities monitoring Proteus were on Larissa, it doesn’t make any sense for Alexander to physically be on Proteus.>
<Alexander is here,> Fugia said slowly. She blinked and looked around the room with renewed wonder. She shook her head. <I was worried about transferring the Psion database to Sunny Skies but that’s not going to work at all. We’re going to have to find the storage center and pull the physical media. I’ll have to reconstruct it back on Sunny Skies. That’s dangerous. If we damage anything, it’s all going to be lost. But there’s just too much data. The transfer would take weeks.>
<And if Alexander is here,> Lyssa said, <we would have to move him physically anyway.>
<I can only get so far into this database,> Fugia said. <It’s all here. They’ve been harvesting and cataloging AI for years. But the location they were sending the data to is encrypted. I can try some other workarounds like searching the comms maintenance backend, but I don’t have time. I want to grab all of it. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Alexander is the key to everything.>
Andy grabbed his chair as the strongest tremor yet went through the control center. Screens swayed at the various workstations and a chair fell over on the other side of the room. He glanced at the ceiling, wondering if the metal was bending or if the stress was tricking his vision.
Harl straightened in the doorway and stuck his head out into the corridor. “It’s a mess out there,” he called. “How much longer are we going to stick around?”
Andy shook his head. All of Sol was going to be watching what had happened to Proteus and now the fireworks display exploding out of Larissa. Every long-range sensor in the system would pick up a shuttle leaving the moon, if there was anything left of it to leave.
He looked at Fugia. “Where are these data stores?”
Fugia checked her display. “Center of the facility, near the power generation section. They’ve got a direct line off the generators.”
“How deep?”
She shrugged. “Ten levels. That’s what these maps are showing anyway. However, we should note that none of the other diagrams we saw on their little employee info signs showed the thousand missile silos also installed around this rock.”
With his hand on the nearby console, Andy felt the launch of yet another volley. “Where are all these missiles going?” he asked.
<Ceres,> Lyssa said.
<What?> Fugia let out an uncannily parrot-like squawk. <Did you say Ceres? Why Ceres? Who told you that?>
<It’s what Xander said before the ship was destroyed. He said this was an opening attack in a war. The Andersonians hate AI, and now they’re going to pay.>
Andy flicked his gaze to Harl, who was still watching the outside corridor.
<There are a billion people on Ceres,> Andy said.
<We don’t know what the missiles are armed with,> Fugia said, lost in the rush of her thoughts. <We have to plan for the worst. They’ve got to be nukes. What else would they be? I need to get into this database. We need to get out of here. We need to get a message back to Ceres for them to evacuate. It’s going to take a mass evacuation.> She looked at Andy with horror on her face. <They aren’t going to believe us.>
<Are the rest of the defensive systems shut down?> Andy asked.
Fugia
stared at him blankly, then nodded. <I took everything down. The only systems running are the environmental controls and the monitoring systems in here.>
<Well, we’re going to need the doors to unlock at least. Can you send me the location data on your stores? Harl and I will go get them.>
<You’re going to need tools and some kind of cart. It’s going to be big.>
Andy stood and took his helmet from the console. He grabbed the back of the chair to steady himself as another tremor rocked the control center. <We’ll take care of it,> he said.
Harl watched him cross the command center and fitted his own helmet over his long face before Andy reached him. <I think there was a transport mule in that first storage bay when we entered.> He glanced back at Fugia who was hunched over the console again. <Is she going to be all right?>
<Are you going to be all right?> Andy asked. <You’re the one whose homeland is apparently under attack.>
Harl shouldered his heavy rifle and walked out into the corridor. <Unfortunately, I severed my ties with the Collective when I chose to follow May. I don’t regret my decision. Obviously, I would rather we didn’t find ourselves in war, but there’s still time. How long would it take a missile to reach Ceres under the best of conditions, you think?>
Andy did some quick math based on the locations of Neptune and Ceres. <I estimate about fifteen to twenty weeks depending on the flight path. That’s assuming they’re going straight in. The better attack would be to park them somewhere and wait so no one believes in the attack, then use a second launch.>
<That’s insidious.>
Andy shrugged. <That’s space warfare.>
When the doors to the command center closed behind them, they made their way back up to where they had entered the Psion facility, where several open storage bays abutted the wide cargo doors that would presumably open onto the surface of Larissa. Andy suspected they were now covered in launch debris.
Harl found the wheeled transport mule and tapped the controls for a minute before the steering yoke responded, and he was able to lead the way back into the main corridor while maneuvering the vehicle. Andy followed with his rifle at a ready position. He didn’t fully trust that a defense turret would not appear from any of the maintenance hatches located along the bulkhead walls.