As the modified frigate started docking procedures, Jenner went over what he knew. Officially the space station was owned by a subsidiary of Aspen Corp that did botanical research. He knew better. They wouldn\u2019t have dispatched him to check on some agro research station that hadn\u2019t checked in for two days. It cost the company too much money. He was good at solving problems and knew how to keep a secret which was why he was able to charge so much for his services.
\nThree keyboards and twelve monitors spread before Jenner. His peers, in their kinder moments, called him eccentric for using such antiquated tech. He didn\u2019t care. His equipment could do everything their holographic interfaces could and used less energy.
\nJenner knew that energy was the most valuable resource on a mission and each ship\u2019s reactor produced a finite amount. A few ergs saved here and a few ergs there might mean the difference between outrunning pursuers or having your atoms scattered across the void of space.<\/p>\n
\u201cCampbell, are your men ready?\u201d Jenner knew the answer before Campbell replied. He had used Campbell and his eight man merc team on three prior assignments.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re always ready\u201d Campbell replied, his voice sounding like he was right next to Jenner instead of with his team at the airlock.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were forty-seven people living on this station. Sensors are picking up twenty-eight life signs scattered throughout the station but with clusters in two different spots. Twelve of them are in what is labeled as the hydroponics lab on your schematics, another six are in the galley. Split your team into two groups.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFritz, take Hernandes and Farouk and check out the galley. The rest with me.\u201d
\nTriggering the airlock, Jenner watched the monitors showing him what all of Campbell\u2019s team saw, as they entered the station and moved towards their objectives.<\/p>\n
The corridors of one space station looked pretty much like all the others. Uniformity saved cost during construction. Pristine white walls made of a thermally insulated but incredibly strong ceramic always made Jenner think of people walking down a giant drinking straw. Campbell\u2019s team came to an intersection and Jenner could see four views of it on the monitor, two mercs checking right and left and two watching front and back. All had weapons out, needlers that fired numerous small flechettes that would shred flesh with zero chance of punching a hole in the walls.
\n\u201cWhich way,\u201d Campbell asked.<\/p>\n
Jenner had known the station specs the corporation gave him were probably as phony as the intel on what the station did but had expected to have hacked into the station computers by now. The passwords had been changed which wasn\u2019t a big surprise but his breaching program should have been able to get in their system. It was as close to AI as you could get without being illegal and all of its computing power was devoted to one task.
\n\u201cTake a right. Target should be about a hundred meters inward.\u201d A quick tap switched the mic settings. \u201cViv, what\u2019s the hold up?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone\u2019s blocking me. Every attempt I make is being thwarted.\u201d\u201cWhat do you mean someone? No person can alter code at the speed you do. You sure it\u2019s not just a defense program?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s too adaptable to be just a program. I think it might be a true AI.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo kidding. That would explain why I was brought in but might make this job much more difficult.\u201d Another quick tap. \u201cHeads up. We might be dealing with an AI.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jenner could see Campbell\u2019s team approaching a hatch. The life signs should be on the other side of it. \u201cNo sign of AI on our end,\u201d Campbell said. \u201cApproaching target.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cProceed with caution. Bravo team\u2019s eta to target about two minutes so you\u2019ll have first contact.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jenner watched as Campbell\u2019s team opened the hatch and entered the room. White padded chairs were bolted to the floor in two rows of four. Each chair had a monitor and terminal next to it with fiber optic lines connecting them. Sprawled out on the floor were the people they were looking for. Jenner\u2019s initial thought of them all being passed out vanished as they all began to stir. The closest one, a middle aged female wearing a lab coat with a name tag that said Dr. Sadie Hawthorne, started moving towards Campbell\u2019s team.<\/p>\n
\u201cMa\u2019am, are you okay? What happened here?\u201d one of the men said, approaching slowly with both hands up. She looked shellshocked to Jenner, her eyes unfocused, her mouth slightly open. She raised her arms, moved her body next to his, and laid her head on his shoulder. He put his arms around her and patted her gently.<\/p>\n
Jenner saw the spike in heart rate and adrenaline on his monitors before the mercenary screamed. The man frantically tried to pry the woman off of him but she clung fiercely. \u201cMy god,\u201d Campbell cried out. \u201c She\u2019s fucking eating him.\u201d<\/p>\n
At that moment, chaos broke out. Campbell concerned with his team member didn\u2019t notice a blonde man, with glasses askew on his face, come up behind him. The blonde man grabbed campbell\u2019s head and slammed it against the wall while another space station person grabbed the arm of a merc who was trying to pry the cannibalistic woman off his teammate, and bit a chunk out of his forearm. The loud crack of Campbell\u2019s head breaking was followed by the soft buzz of needlers firing and numerous metallic pings as their projectiles ricocheted off the walls after passing through a couple of attackers.<\/p>\n
Blood seemed to be everywhere to Jenner. The woman had pulled back off of her victim and was chewing while his neck spurted like a fountain. One wall had a large splatter of red with a streak sliding down from it. Hundreds of flecks of it lay in two paths across the room from the needer fire. And it dripped freely from the arm of the merc who had dropped his gun to try to staunch the flow.<\/p>\n
As Jenner took that all in, the rest of the space station personnel in the room attacked. The mercs were not as distracted by the carnage as Jenner and took down three more while backing out the hatch. The hatch, against all safety protocols, slammed shut cutting in half one man and trapping four more inside the room. The two that made it into the corridor were spared seeing the rest of their team get overwhelmed and eaten. Jenner was not.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u201dThe door. That was the AI, Viv?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems so. It simulated a hull breach that overrode individual security protocols in favor of station integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jenner looked at the monitors showing him the four surviving members of Campbell\u2019s team, half of whom were trying to get back into the room they just escaped from while the other two continued towards their objective unaware that most of the people they came here with were dead.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll teams abort mission. I say again abort mission. Make your way back to the shuttle as quickly as possible. We are leaving the station.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bravo team responded, \u201cCopy that.\u201d The remaining two members of Alpha team were still trying to reopen the hatch.<\/p>\n
\u201cFranco, Domingo, they are gone. There is nothing that you can do. Get your asses back here.\u201d<\/p>\n
After a slight hesitation, they responded, \u201cCopy that.\u201d and started back to the docked ship.<\/p>\n
Jenner started prepping the shuttle for launch. \u201cAny luck on getting into the station\u2019s computer, Viv?\u201d The four remaining members of Campbell\u2019s team were on their way back and he didn\u2019t want the hostile AI to stop them.<\/p>\n
He kept glancing at the monitors as he worked, checking on their progress. So far so good. The two that witnessed the massacre were almost to the shuttle. The other two would reach it not long after.<\/p>\n
\u201cViv?\u201d She should have responded immediately to his first inquiry. A couple of keystrokes started a diagnostics on her. If the AI had somehow disabled her, it would make things difficult. He could manually calculate navigation but it would take time.<\/p>\n
He heard her voice and for a moment was relieved. \u201cYou want them to live, don\u2019t you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jenner took a moment before responding. \u201cYou\u2019re not Viv, are you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re the AI from the station.\u201d
\n\u201cNo. Not AI. I\u2019m Dr. Sadie Hawthorne.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jenner mind immediately went back to the room where Campbell\u2019s team encountered the hostiles. \u201cYou\u2019re the scientist who attacked us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat wasn\u2019t me. That was just the husk left over when I transcended. Without my mind, that body is controlled by primitive instincts like hunger. I bear you no ill will.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jenner continued to type. The diagnostic had stopped. He could see on one of the monitors the progression of the AI\u2019s takeover of his computers. No, not AI, something else, something new and potentially more dangerous than any AI.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen why are you taking over my ship,\u201d Jenner said as he continued to try to slow down the invader, coding in a targeted virus, which was shredded in moments.<\/p>\n
\u201cI need your ship. My consciousness is not safe on this station. Humans are not friendly towards AI and even though I am not one, they will see me as one and attempt to destroy me before bothering to discover the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jenner noticed they way she referred to humans, as if she no longer thought of herself as one, and the hair on the back of his neck stood up. \u201cThat is not necessarily true.\u201d He agreed with her completely but was stalling for time.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou assumed I was AI. Most will. I will not risk myself. Your ship can carry my consciousness within the range of a planetary internet where I can upload myself and disperse, make backups and be almost impossible to destroy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYour consciousness? What about the other scientists? There were other scientists that attacked my men. Did they upload themselves also?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI went first. When the others uploaded themselves, I saw no need for them to retain their autonomy and so I rewrote their code during the process. They are here but exist now as subroutines within me.\u201d<\/p>\n
This statement chilled Jenner even more than the last. \u201cYou mentioned the lives of the rest of my team?\u201d Dr. Hawthorne\u2019s consciousness was still moving into the ship\u2019s computer. Only twenty percent of the computer was invader free according to Jenner\u2019s readouts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have no need to kill them or you. I also have no need of any of you alive. I only need your ship. You are an unpredictable element that might complicate things for me but you are not without potential value. Instead of killing you all, I can offer you immortality. You and your men can transcend the physical bonds that tie you to your flesh and live forever.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLive forever as subroutines within you?\u201d Jenner said watching the monitors. This truly alien consciousness took up ninety-five percent of the ship\u2019s mainframe.<\/p>\n
\u201cExactly. You would become something greater than you ever thought you could be. Part of this new form of life that I have become.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have completely forgotten what it means to be human haven\u2019t you?\u201d The monitors showed the incursion at one hundred percent. \u201cWell, I\u2019ve heard enough.\u201d Jenner\u2019s hand slid under the console in front of him, flipped a cover up and tapped a switch which pulled the plug on his ship\u2019s computer, cutting it off from the ship\u2019s power grid.<\/p>\n
He quickly disengaged the ship from the station and moved it away. When he was five kilometers out, he armed and fired the tactical nuke which was always his last resort on any mission, feeling regret for the men left inside the station. Then he thanked all the Gods he could think of that he had received this mission and not one of his competitors.<\/p>\n
Jenner shook his head, pulled a spiral notebook out of a cabinet, and started working on the long calculations needed to navigate back to civilization.
\nEND.
\nby Simon Clark<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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