Insidious (19 page)

“Explain why,” Bren said.

“The factory contains many station malcons. They are hiding beyond the first set of ore processors. There are also security robots here. The warning was accurate.”

“Hold your positions. Shall we call in the—”

Two ASSAIL units went offline. Nemain and Nerad. Bren barely had time to blink before dozens of people in black gear leaped forward from hiding places twenty or thirty meters into the factory. They floated through the air toward the ASSAILs.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

“Henley …” Bren said.

“Move in! Move in and assume defensive positions behind the ASSAIL units!” cried Henley. Bren wasn’t sure if the marine commander realized that two of their machines had gone down.

More ASSAIL units stomped in through doors farther down the factory wall. Bren heard yells from the inhabitants in plastic suits, the stutter of the marines’ slugthrowers, and the louder hammering of the 12mm weapons on the ASSAILs.

Boom. Boom.

Bren felt sure this was what battle had been like in centuries past. The noise, the chaos. Uncertainty everywhere. The only thing he could see at a glance from his overview displays was the number of disabled ASSAIL units—three dead now.

How? What’s killing them? How can they die so quickly?

Bren witnessed bits of the battle as he paged through feeds in his PV. He caught a glimpse of a security robot lumbering forward amid the armored figures. It launched stun grenades at the marines arriving behind the ASSAIL screen. A black-clad station inhabitant spiraled up in the gravity-free factory, clutching a gun in both hands before a rubber slug knocked the weapon away.

Boom. Boom. Brrroooom.

Bren heard the retorts of the ASSAIL 12mm weapons. Too rapid, he thought. Too many of the rounds were flying.

Bren fought back fears of permanent damage or even the destruction of the station. The 12mm rounds were about ten centimeters long, traveling at velocities more than one thousand meters per second. He held onto the hope that the ASSAIL units were using the factory equipment as reliable backstops for the armor penetrating rounds.

A summary of the marine casualties started to increment in a small window in Bren’s PV. He felt dismay at the thought of dead marines, but the count didn’t rise rapidly. In fact, they’d lost more of the ASSAIL team than marines, but he knew that if all the ASSAIL units were destroyed the marines would be next.

Boom. Boom.

The sound of the ASSAIL cannons continued, distinct from the rattle of small arms fire. Bren’s feed filtered the sound to tolerable levels.

The battle had outpaced his ability to keep up, so Bren brought up a tactical overview of all the units in the factory wing in his PV, trying to get a feel for how the situation had developed. He saw that the remaining ASSAIL units had countercharged deeper into the factory complex. They remained affixed to one wall and tilted their heads upward to fire toward the cover of the material processors. The marines hadn’t advanced with them, but spread out more, hopping along at least three different walls. Bren hoped that most of the locals had gone down in the charge and weren’t bothering the ASSAILs as they hunted.

Boom. Boom.

The hunt must not have been going well, since Bren could only see five of the robot killers online. His attention flitted back to Meridian’s forward camera feed. He could tell the ASSAILs were engaged with another Red. They fired at machinery, stitching holes through it, seeking the quick moving robot that must be behind.

Boom. Boom.

Bren saw something move. The 12mms stuttered again, hiding the target in a cloud of debris. The display showed ammo counts dropping as several more ASSAILs fired.

Boom. Boom. … Boom. Boom.

The Red lured us in there so it could kill our machines in the confusion. And it has succeeded.

Bren watched his PV, helpless, while more rounds were fired.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The ASSAIL’s fire converged on a single piece of equipment the size of a bus. Holes appeared in its sides rapidly as the armor-piercing 12mm rounds flew through it. Bren saw debris coming out the far side as if some of the projectiles were cutting completely through the metal.

Bren supposed the machinery must have a hollow tube through the center where the material flowed when it was being formed. Clearly, the ASSAIL units believed the enemy was inside.

Brrroooom.

Finally, the cannon fire ceased. Bren had to verify that he still had machines left alive. He saw four active ASSAIL indicators on his PV’s tactical pane.

“We have destroyed the cyborg,” Meridian announced.

Bren fell back in relief. He never realized how tense his body became when he was absorbed by a battle in his PV until it was over.

“It’s identical to the one called Red,” Meridian reported. “This one was designated ‘Hitler’ by the indigenes.”

Bren wanted to ask how it had found that information, but he only tensed the muscles in his jaw. He had to be careful when speaking to the ASSAILs. Most likely the ASSAIL units had intercepted some communications or managed to crack a system or two.

“Are there any more of them on the station?” Bren asked.

“That is unknown. But the inhabitants of the station were only aware of this one,” Meridian answered.

Bren switched views trying to get a good look. He saw a feed from Meridian’s camera. The remains of another Red floated beside the factory equipment they had been perforating. Parts of it smoked, other pieces oozed like small amoebas moving through water. Bren found it hard to believe that such a fragile mess had destroyed so many of the heavily armored ASSAIL units.

“Things are clearing in there,” Henley said. His voice was slow, pained. “Twelve men dead. Maybe a few more if we can’t get the solvent on them before they suffocate.”

“Meridian. Report,” Bren transmitted.

“The assault has been stymied. Eight heavy security units and an unknown robotic have been neutralized. Shall we resume board and control operations?”

“No. Cover the marines in there until they can get some solvent on their glued men. Those security robots peppered them hard.”

He looked at the ASSAIL stats. Eight units offline. Only Meridian, Neptune, Nergal, and Nemesis remained.

“I have devised a modified ASSAIL chassis design that includes solvent sprayers for future situations like this,” Meridian said. “I’ve embedded it into the mission log.”

Bren immediately thought of hidden threats. An AI core could create eggs in data storage that would blossom into new cores later.

“Very good, Meridian,” Bren said. “Your design will be considered after the mission is completed.”

“We will be turned off after the mission is completed,” Meridian said.

Bren felt an enormous pressure to make the right move. He tried to relax and breathe. He couldn’t refute the assertion without risking being caught in a lie. Somehow, the machine knew the truth, or guessed at the truth.

“That decision is out of my control. All that matters is finishing the mission. There may be more of the unknown robotics here.”

“Most likely there are no more at this location,” Meridian said. “Nevertheless, our enemy is technologically superior. I recommend that you don’t turn us off, or it’s likely that you’ll be defeated in the long run.”

“The marines will function better if you remain deployed with them until the base is secure,” Bren transmitted. “Emit your findings to the logs. We’ll take your advisement under consideration.”

Bren wondered what the superhuman intelligence inside Meridian’s chassis thought of his reply, and then he contemplated the nuclear warheads buried in the belly of the
Vigilant
. If it all went terribly wrong, they had a way out, but Bren didn’t want to end his career in a burst of gamma rays.

Bren brooded at the virtual meeting table while waiting for everyone’s avatar to appear. He wondered if the others would mark the ASSAIL units as failures, or if they would be more used to the heavy resistance the stations had been mustering. The mop up of Tanelorn had gone quickly after the battle in the factory. Only one of the Reds had been on the station. Meridian had said the station inhabitants called it Hitler. Bren assumed the name had reflected their hatred of it.

Jameson spoke up as Lieutenant Devin’s avatar formed at the table.

“I think the agenda is obvious. Why did the residents of this station have the same unusual garb as the other station? Why did they resist us so fanatically? Also, I’m curious about the ASSAIL malfunction. Does anyone have anything else?”

“We could discuss stopping this mission to avoid another mass slaughter of station inhabitants,” Vendrati suggested forcefully.

Jameson frowned and shook his head.

“We now consider this operation more important than ever. The UNSF has to put a stop to this before things spiral out of control and start to affect us Earthside as well. We’ve done our best to cut the Internet connections from all of the deep space stations as a precaution. It’s deeply worrying that this AI hasn’t already tipped its hand by spreading to Earth. All we can do is hope it’s not already too late.”

This deflected Vendrati enough to make her drop the subject, instead jumping in on Jameson’s first item.

“The only explanation I have for the common gear, as they call it, between a Bentra and a
Reiss-Marck
station is that they’ve been suborned by the suspected artificial intelligence. This explains their resistance as well—those people were no longer in control of themselves,” she said.

“That seems logical. But why didn’t the inhabitants of Thermopylae respond the same way? They didn’t resist the ASSAIL units or the marines,” said Jameson.

“Our attempts at isolating Thermopylae must have failed. They got the word out about us, and since then a new strategy has emerged to counter our incursions,” said Devin.

“I agree that we’re dealing with at least one AI core here,” Jameson said. “The UNSF has mobilized another fleet to join us in the incursions due to the dire situation. And we’ve notified many corporations of the situation and asked for their assistance. They don’t like us very much, but it’s bad for business to have an AI running all your customers. Or all your employees. For the most part, they’ve been very helpful in adding resources to the effort.”

“Some of the megacorporations are dragging their feet. Bentra. Vineaux Genomix. And the Brazilian corporation, Black Core. They’re trying to provide evidence contrary to our theory. And they’re confusing matters with the other companies, trying to throw our mobilization off. We’re dealing with the Earthside elements of the corporations, but if they’re compromised by an artificial intelligence, then we’ve probably already lost the whole war.”

The group contemplated that possibility in silence for a moment.

“Bren, what do we know about the ASSAIL malfunction we experienced during the Tanelorn incursion?” Jameson asked.

“Nerad didn’t develop properly. Its intelligence was subpar, so the other units had to make up for it. This is the first time we’ve encountered such a bug, so we don’t think it will be common.”

“What exactly was the problem?” Vendrati asked.

Bren shifted, forming his thoughts. He felt pressured to answer quickly, because otherwise Vendrati might assume his attention had faltered again due to his link bias. Then she would become more irritated and repeat the question.

“Our …” Bren cleared his throat. “Our seeds go through several phases of development. First, each core grows thousands of self-modifying candidates and allows them to develop through billions of cycles to change the way they learn. Then we enter a culling stage where we select a much smaller set of hundreds of the most promising candidates by having them compete against one another in a suite of learning tests. According to Meridian, Nerad developed an ability that allowed it to exploit a bug in our testing sandboxes. Nerad was able to cheat on these tests by looking in on its competitors. It wasn’t without its own special advantages, but Nerad wasn’t a well-rounded candidate, cognitively speaking. Because of this, a later phase when the ideal cores are allowed to perfect themselves didn’t produce the same magnitude of intelligence in the end product.”

“How was Meridian able to remember this?”

Bren shook his head. “I suspect that the analysis was based on deduction alone. We wipe the memory at several stages. The cores don’t have any capability for permanent memory until stage three.”

“If it has no such memory, then on what facts was its deduction based?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps it reverse engineered itself, or Nerad. I only know that like humans, the cores don’t have the capacity to remember their own infancy. That data simply does not exist in the adult.”

“Unless there is another bug,” Vendrati pointed out.

Bren kept calm despite Vendrati’s needling tone.

“That kind of bug is less likely,” he said. “But the bugs we do find are often surprising, so, it is a remote possibility. I will have someone verify my assertions about the memory. If we do find the sandbox bug, though, that would explain it.”