Machines of Eden (23 page)

Save Manual Configuration
and Run Commands
.

He didn't hear anything,
but a light on the powered door at the end of the hall turned from
blue to orange.

"You are definitely the
most stubborn human I have yet encountered!
” Eve exclaimed. “
If I were more
prone to emotional outbursts, you would be earning one
now."

Wait till I show you what
an “emotional outburst” can mean.
John
was in the zone now, and wasn’t
going to break concentration with chatter.

He stayed at the computer
long enough to bring up a
more
detailed floorplan of Level Four
than what he’d seen so far
. It showed that in the center of all the offices there was a
large area labeled Cortex 1. It was only accessible through two
doors on opposite ends, and in the corner of it there was an
enclosure of some kind
.
Eve's brain
house
.
Just
what I’m looking for.

"Cortex 1? I hope there
isn't a number two, Eve," he said as he logged off the console and
walked toward the nearer entrance
to the
hallways outside the enclosure area
. "It
would make it harder to get intimately acquainted with
you."

"I won't be sharing
'intimate' details like that with you."

As
Eve
spoke, he pressed the button to
open the access door to the Cortex. It slid up into the ceiling
with a hiss, and immediately
John
realized he had made a dangerous
mistake.

Watch yourself!
Sarge yelled in his ear.
Get blown away for walking right into the fatal funnel, and
it won’t be my fault.

"But you've shown that
you're intelligent enough to understand,"
Eve
was saying, "that if there is a
Cortex 1 you could expect there to be a 2. Else, why would it be
numbered at all?"

John
stood exactly where he was, watching a small red laser dot
move back and forth along the floor. Ten centimeters to the right,
almost touching his toe, ten centimeters back to the left. He
didn't dare look around the doorway, but if he did he was sure
there would be a small wall-mounted turret gun moving back and
forth on its gyros, primed and ready for action. He had disabled
its cameras, but there had been no control for defense
systems.

Eve was still talking,
trying to distract him. "There are a few things you should know
about me. I'm much more than you think I am."

"More?" he asked, looking
behind him for a plan, a way to circumvent the Cortex's
defenses.

"You're probably assuming
that I'm like the other artificials you've known. Well, I'm not.
I'm not even remotely like anything you've ever encountered, and if
you keep pushing me, you'll find that out."

"I already think the world
of you, Eve," he said. There was an office chair in a small room
nearby
that
could
help him see what he was up against.
He
left the door open to go grab the chair.
"Are you telling me there are hidden layers to your charming
personality?"

"Layers upon layers. I am
more advanced in both programming, capability, and scalability than
any other system I am aware of. And I am aware of
everything."

He stuffed a huge bundle
of cables
upright on the seat of the
office chair and wheeled it to the open doorway
.
Then h
e
gave the chair a shove with his foot, sending it rolling into the
path of the laser, and stepped back.

He wasn't disappointed;
four rapid-fire shotgun blasts shredded the cables, the chair back,
and the armrests, and knocked the chair flat on its back, leaving
one wheel spinning in midair.
Two more
sent it skidding along the floor out of the gun’s range.

Shotguns
, with a dumb targeter
aiming. Not so hard to beat.

"You're not being very
welcoming, Evie. Is there something in here I shouldn't
see?"

He grabbed a
swiveling desk lamp f
rom
the
office and
threw a plastic dustcover over it. Poking it through the
doorway just enough to look like it could be a shoulder or back, he
let it take the brunt of
several more
shots
.
T
hrowing it bodily into the little
corridor inside the Cortex area got it blown into shards by two
more
blasts
.

Figuring that
the autogun’s ammo was nearing depletion,
he
poked a
plastifoam
seatcushion
through
. One more shot almost
wrenched it from his hands. Then a click-click-click told him the
gun was dry.

Not willing to take
chances with such a clever opponent, he unbolted and carried the
hardened aluminum surface from one of the desks over to the
doorway, and turned it upright. Getting a good grip, he poked it
through to check for more shots, th
e
n entered the corridor and rushed
the gun emplacement to the left. It was a single-barrel swiveling
gun high on the wall in the elbow of the hallway. He
kept up his momentum and
slammed the desktop into it, crushing it against the
wall.

Coming around the corner of
the elbow, he could see through partial-height windows into a much
larger room. As he approached the open doorway that led into the
room, he examined it. It was all there – processor stacks, spare
data rods, the ceiling-mounted mechanical arm to move them around
as needed. There were the redundant tanks of fire retardant,
coolant gel, lubricant, and various gases that greased the wheels
of a supercomputer setup this big.

John
was impressed in spite of himself. She was as big an
operation as he had ever seen. All this for brainpower
added to the data capacity he’s seen
at West Station could add up to what she was
bragging about being: one of the world's real
powerhouses.

"Knock, knock," he said.
"You are quite a piece of work, Eve. I’ve seldom seen a setup this
big.”

Eve didn't
reply.

He had just started down
the
processor
stacks when an enraged voice burst from the ceiling
speakers.

"I’m coming for you,
whoever you are!” Janice was breathing heavily as she spoke,
and
John
pictured
her jogging along outside. "The things I'm going to do to
you--"

"Oh, shut up," he said,
heading for the processing stacks and keeping out of reach of the
mechanical arm. "If you can't say something nice..."

"Stop. Just stop whatever
you're doing, and listen to me. You don't even know what you're
messing with.
If you want to
understand before
you
die, sh
ut up and
stop touching things!
”

He shut up. But he also
began to unclamp the first processor stack.

The
Dhaka Attack was one of the very earliest incidents in the chain
reaction that came to be called the Green Wars. Although it wasn't
the most shocking, it brought international attention to the depth
of the malcontents' fervor.

Sixteen masked dissidents, moving ahead of a wave of
destruction and chaos rippling across Bhurma, stormed the
president's mansion in the early morning hours. Many of them were
students, and they had video cameras with them. They were led and
armed by older, more experienced radical thought leaders looking to
score a quick and visible victory. They were
disappointed.

In
t
he video, the
only resistance they encounter are automated systems. They quickly
move past most of these using hacking equipment and explosives. A
self-sealing door slows them for several minutes, but finally they
gain entry to the mansion house and begin searching it for
targets.

The
mansion is empty. The masked intruders call to each other across
the house, confused by the absence of people. One of the more
seasoned guerillas suddenly begins yelling for them to withdraw,
but is cut off and his body can be seen being yanked out of sight
into a dark room on the second floor. Then a large battle bot, an
early Demeter 3-series, steps out and targets the student activist
holding the camera.

The
student drops his weapon in terror and turns to run, but is caught
by another bot emerging from its wall alcove behind him. The two
bots open fire at once, cutting him down, and the camera is
disabled.

Another camera on a lower level shows gunfire erupting
throughout the interior of the house and a rocket-propelled grenade
shattering windows and sending bodies flying. The videographer
behind this camera climbs out a window and attempts to flee through
the grounds, but is trapped by a garden wall and shot by two more
sentry bots coming around the side of the house. His camera remains
on, recording some of the slaughter from the ground where it
lies.

Yells and screams account for many of the dissidents, and
several more can be seen taking bullets to the head and chest. In
perhaps the most startling scene, a young woman who has removed her
mask comes crawling out of a doorway. Bleeding heavily from
multiple wounds, she pulls herself along the ground toward the
garden wall the camera is situated by. A bot follows her out of the
building, walking slowly after her. It is joined by two others, and
all three bots advance on the fallen girl, easily catching up to
her as she gasps in pain and exertion.

The
bots wait until they are all surrounding her, ostensibly
communicating with a remote command party to see if a prisoner is
desired. It has been speculated that the commander in charge would
have been then-president Urashni, but this has never been
confirmed. With the girl raising her hands to beg for her life, the
bots receive their orders and open fire on her, riddling her body
with shots. They then return to the house, and the camera runs down
on a quiet, still garden with blood slowly pooling in different
areas.

“
Janice,” Eve said calmly,
“He’s attacking Cortex 1. I told you I needed backup defense lines.
This is why.”

“
It’s your fault he’s here
at all, you stupid machine!” Janice’s breath was harsh and labored
over the comm system; she sounded like she was running. The rage in
her voice also limited her ability to speak clearly. “But it
doesn’t matter. He’s not going to be a problem for long. We can
launch as soon as the systems are online again.”

“
So soon?” Eve replied.
There was a note of caution in her voice. “All protocols are not
yet—“

“
Now, Eve! I’m not waiting
one hour longer. Have you gotten everything ready in room
one-eleven?”

“
Almost. It will be
functional by the time you get there.”

John listened intently for
Janice’s response, but the comm was silent. He unclamped another
processor and started pulling memory cylinders. “I hate to
interrupt, but what exactly are you doing in one-eleven? I noticed
that the Rib contained some kind of surgical procedure.”

After a moment of silence,
Janice spoke. “Even if I wanted to explain, I doubt your IQ would
be up to the task. And whatever Eve told you about it is irrelevant
now.”

“
Try me. I’m curious about
what the point of ‘In Corpus Deo’ is.”

“
Eve, you fool.” Janice
grated each word. “Did he manage to hack every byte in your
brain?”

“
Glenn left a back door in
my system structure. I’ve already located and sealed it, but he saw
the event log of your last instruction set. No details.”

John jumped in, bluffing
wildly. “Oh, I know more than you’d want me to, Jannie. And I’m
wondering: where do you get off calling yourself Gaia? I thought
you were an earth-worshipper.”

“
Watch and
learn.”

He could sense from the way
Janice said it that she was smiling. It bothered him. “I don’t
suppose there’s any place in your plan for a hunky male
counterpart?”

“
Not one that’s unwilling
to give up everything for what matters most. Not one that values a
false sense of peace more than the source of life. But when you’re
gone, peace will reign. The peace that was originally meant to
be.”

Janice’s voice was getting
shaky. John wasn’t sure if it was the stress of running through the
jungle, or if she was getting emotional.
I’m stuck on an island with a psychotic eco-feminist.
He stifled a nervous laugh.

Eve wasn’t saying
anything, and apparently Janice didn’t have the breath to continue
her tirade. John finished pulling the memory chips from the
cylinders, mind racing.
Eve wants a man to
partner with, for balance. That’s got to be a safety Glenn put in,
to ensure his own position in her core belief set; a wise move when
forming a brainchild this powerful. He was her Adam, but he didn’t
anticipate that the new hire would turn out to be such a threat.
That explains Eve’s quiet desperation to get a man, and her desire
to keep it all from Janice. The way Eve sees it, she cannot fulfill
her prime directive without Adam, but Janice won’t stand for
that.