Reactivated (Bolt Eaters Trilogy Book 1) Page 6

  The lieutenant glanced at the robots; he seemed somewhat surprised at their presence.

  “I never ordered you to stay,” Arnold said.

  “The base AI told us it was not wise to allow these androids to remain here unwatched,” one of the robots said in a high-pitched female voice.

  “Hey Slate, there’s a girl for you!” Eagleeye said.

  “Sh’up, bitch,” Slate retorted.

  Arnold glanced at Eagleeye and Slate, then back to the robots. “You may go.”

  “Thank you, sir,” the robot said.

  “Thank you, sir,” Slate mimicked in a high pitch voice.

  The robot glanced at him, and Slate smiled, giving it the finger.

  When the robots were gone, the door shut behind them.

  “I like your crew already,” Arnold said, glancing at Marlborough. The sarcasm was obvious in his tone.

  “Those two don’t represent the attitudes of my entire team,” Marlborough said.

  “I suppose it doesn’t help that you’ve all been out of the military for twenty years,” Arnold commented.

  “We’re Mind Refurbs,” Frogger said. “Twenty years ago seems like only yesterday for us.”

  “I suppose so,” Arnold said.

  “So why did you bring us here?” Marlborough asked.

  “We have a bunch of wormhole tech we captured during the invasion twenty years ago,” Arnold said. “As well as more recent tech acquired from the alien bioweapons still roaming the wastelands of the uninhabited zone on the far side of the world. We have hunter killer teams still out there, trying to eliminate them all. Some are remote drones piloted from afar by warships in the Bering Strait between Siberia and Alaska, others are boots-on-the-ground types, operating directly in the region. It’s tedious work either way, and it’ll probably take decades before we get them all.”

  “Why not nuke the place?” Dickson said. “It’s not like we’re worried about further irradiating that part of the world.”

  “We’re not,” Arnold agreed. “But nukes are expensive. And not very cost effective. The bioweapons themselves are resilient to the radiation and nuclear fallout produced by nukes. Human beings are not. We already almost plunged our world into a nuclear winter during the last invasion. The cleanup costs were immense. The governments in power aren’t willing to do something like that again. So, no nukes.

  “Anyway, that was a bit of a digression. As I was saying, we captured a bunch of wormhole technology, and managed to reverse engineer it. During our experimentation, we were able to open wormholes to the same planet the Bolt Eaters visited.”

  “You’re talking about the garbage dump of a world the Banthar were using to dispose of the nukes and other crap we launched at their mothership?” Slate said.

  “The very same,” Arnold said.

  “That’s also where we found Turg,” Bambi said quietly.

  Turg was an alien machine that had helped the Bolt Eaters destroy the alien mothership twenty years ago. Similar to the Mind Refurbs, Turg was essentially a mind dump of one member of an alien species, and she could create multiple copies of herself.

  Years ago, Eric had told Bambi the story of how a copy of Turg had invaded her body on the alien world, and taken over her AI core before eventually sacrificing herself to a swarm of micro machines. This Bambi had been restored from backups made before the mission, like most of the team.

  It still unsettled her whenever they brought up the alien that had helped them on that world, a machine being that was essentially a von Neumann probe, part of a greater mass of the same machines all based upon the same mind. Those probes followed the same basic concept as the Mind Refurbs, but taken to the nth level.

  “Also correct,” Arnold said.

  “Have you’ve tried reinitiating contact with her?” Marlborough asked.

  “We have,” Arnold replied. “So far, she hasn’t answered. We’ve dispatched probes and teams to the world but haven’t discovered anything yet. We believe the wormholes are opening up in the same area where you arrived, but everything is overgrown with vegetation now, including the locations where you found Turg and Bokerov. Doesn’t help that the jungle is teeming with alien life that still confuses our machines for a good meal.”

  “How long have you been searching for her?” Eric said.

  “Been a few months now,” Arnold said. “We’re beginning to think Turg abandoned the world entirely—the Banthar probably weren’t very happy when they found out she was helping us.”

  Dunnigan nodded sagely. “They would have known exactly who Turg was, and what planet she came from, after she let those micro machines absorb her.”

  “Our guess, too,” Arnold said. “Considering that was how the Banthar learned how to nearly sabotage the mission. So, what I meant to tell you, before we got sidetracked, was that while most of the wormholes from the tech we captured opened to the garbage dump planet, one of them led somewhere else entirely…”

  “Where?” Crusher asked.

  “We’re not actually sure,” Arnold said. “Initial probes have been inconclusive.”

  “What do you want us to do?” Marlborough said.

  “Your mission is to infiltrate and record, nothing further,” Arnold said. “We want to know what kind of planet this is, first of all. Whether it’s merely another garbage dump, or perhaps a more important colony. If the latter, we want to know what kind of defenses the planet has. What sort of cities. Their technology. Standard recon stuff. You’ll be receiving specially designed Cicada bodies, and mechs to store them inside, of course.”

  “I dunno, I kinda like this android body,” Slate said. He rubbed his bulging bicep muscle.

  “Your existing bodies will be held in cold storage and restored to you the instant you return, of course,” Arnold said.

  “So wait, this wormhole opens to the same location on the target world every time?” Crusher asked.

  “That’s right,” Arnold responded.

  “So it’s a known location,” Crusher said. “I got the impression from your previous description that it wasn’t guarded.”

  “Also correct, it isn’t,” Arnold said.

  “Any ideas why?” Crusher pressed.

  “Ideas, yes, but nothing conclusive,” Arnold replied. “At first we thought it had to be a garbage dump world, because there was no other explanation for the missing defenses. But the question arose, why use two garbage dump worlds, instead of the one? Some of the scientists believe we might be dealing with a more important colony. But if so, that still doesn’t explain why the immediate area at the destination is devoid of any defenses, or other signs of alien life or technology. We’re guessing that before we captured the involved tech, the tango that carried the wormhole programmed it to return him or her to a distant colony, in a last-ditch effort to escape. The tango didn’t have time to program an exact destination, and simply chose a random spot on the colony world. That’s one theory. It would require that the tango in question be an actual Banthar, or at least an AI core, because an ordinary bioweapon wouldn’t have known how to change the wormhole destination. At least, that’s been the running theory.”

  “But you don’t know either way…” Hicks said.

  “A body wasn’t actually recovered with that particular wormhole weapon—neither robot, nor bioweapon,” Arnold said.

  Marlborough glanced at the others seated around the conference room table, and then he stood.

  “Well, we listened to you,” Marlborough said. “And you weave a half entertaining story. But unfortunately, we’re going to have to pass, just as I warned you we would.”

  Arnold nodded. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  “I don’t like the sound of his voice,” Eagleeye said. “Like he’s got some ace up his sleeve. Some contingency plan we’re not going to like.”

  “You’ve hit on it,” Arnold agreed. He glanced at Marlborough, and those who had stood up with the Sarge. “You might want to return to your seats to hear th
is.”

  7

  Eric was one of those who was on his feet, and he glanced at Marlborough for a cue on what to do.

  Marlborough looked at the standing Bolt Eaters around him, and nodded stiffly before sitting back down.

  Eric squatted back into his chair along with the others.

  “So, I know the army agreed to destroy all backup copies of your AI cores after you successfully destroyed the mothership,” Arnold said. “But guess what?”

  “The military still has copies,” Marlborough said.

  “That’s right,” Arnold said. “And if you won’t agree to do this, the army will just send the copies. Probably with Containment Code vising their minds.”

  “So we essentially end up doing the mission anyway,” Eric said.

  “That’s right,” Arnold said. “Other versions of you, anyway.”

  “This seems like a form of blackmail,” Crusher said. “Threatening to use duplicates of our minds to perform your dirty work.”

  “Maybe it is,” Arnold said. “But we need you.”

  “You could send any other team,” Hicks said. “Why us?”

  “You have personal experience dealing with these aliens,” Arnold said. “Just in case the planet turns out to be something more than a garbage dump, we want someone with the background necessary to handle what could become a rapidly changing battle space. Plus, your little retaliatory actions against the Tal Shahar extremists shows me you’re still fully suited to the job. A Mind Refurb never forgets his training. He can’t. It’s simply not possible. The timing of the terrorist strike proved fortuitous, because we were still trying to decide whether the lot of you were suited to the mission. If the attack never came, we would have probably left you alone and destroyed your mind backups. But after seeing what you all are capable of, in mere android bodies at that, the Brass knew you were the ones for this.”

  No one had anything to say to that. Except Slate.

  “Nicely done, dickwads,” Slate told Eagleeye. “Your little antics back there caused all this.”

  “I can’t help it if I’m just courageous by heart,” Eagleeye said. “And not a coward like you.”

  Arnold surveyed the Bolt Eaters. “So. Who will join the operation?” He waited, and when no one volunteered, he asked: “None of you? Not a one? You’re going to force me to activate the backups?”

  “This shit is wrong,” Slate said. “You can’t be taking our clones and sending them out into space like slaves.”

  “Actually, I’m doing the right thing here,” Arnold said. “By giving you the choice. We could have simply restored the Mind Refurbs from their backups, installed the Containment Code, and you would have never known. But I wanted to at least give you a chance to step in. Because I believe that Mind Refurbs operating of their own free will are more productive than those trapped by Containment Code. The free have more to lose.”

  Silence followed. And then:

  “You know what, I’m actually considering doing it,” Eagleeye said.

  “Well I’m not,” Slate said.

  “What if I arranged to have the final copies deleted after successful completion of the mission?” Arnold said.

  “Oh sure, just like the Brass agreed to destroy them twenty years ago,” Mickey said. “We saw how well that went, given what you just told us.”

  “Actually, the Brass at the time did destroy them all, or at least, believed they did,” Arnold said. “They certainly gave the order. I can show you in the records, if you wish.”

  “Then why are we even having this discussion...” Dickson said.

  “A glitch allowed some copies to escape deletion,” Arnold said. “Everything in the military is backed up multiple times, including the copies of your AI cores. We’re talking backups of backups. Reams of them. Apparently, one of the backup servers was offline, undergoing scheduled maintenance when the permanent delete request was received by the cluster. Ordinarily, when a backup server comes back online, it’ll perform any permanent delete requests waiting in the queue. But this particular server did not.

  “I only found out about the anomaly when an AI notified me five years ago, during some deep dives of the archives. The AI asked if I wanted to execute the permanent delete and remove these copies. I told it no.”

  “So the fault is yours,” Brontosaurus said. “What would your higher ups think if they knew you had specifically refused to remove backups queued for permanent deletion?”

  “They actually approved my decision,” Arnold said. “We have a different set of Brass running the army at the moment, than those that existed in your day. They know the value of mind backups such as these. And the leverage it might provide against the still living versions of those copies.”

  “And they’ll agree to delete our copies if we go?” Marlborough asked.

  “They already have,” Arnold replied. He transmitted an official looking document that was signed by people with various important sounding names. The usual crap, in other words.

  Slate snickered. “Looks like bullshit to me.”

  “I assure you, it’s real,” Arnold said. “You go on this mission. You survive. Then we delete your backups.”

  “And if we don’t survive?” Frogger asked.

  “Before you leave, we’re going to take a precautionary mind dump of you all,” Arnold said. “If you fail, we’ll simply send you again. And you won’t even know it.”

  “Cute,” Bambi said. “Well I’m definitely out now.”

  “Me, too,” Crusher said.

  “You know, I think I’m going,” Frogger said.

  Eric was tempted to do the same himself. He could certainly understand why his mind twin would want to go. Barring the last attack, Eric’s biggest problem these days was trying to figure out what he was going to do every day. The attack on the building was the most excitement he’d felt in years. But then again, he’d grown rather attached to his existence. Leaping into some wormhole to an alien world wasn’t really high on his to-do list.

  Arnold glanced at the others. “No one will agree?”

  “I’ll do it if I can live-stream my adventures on the dark web,” Slate said.

  Arnold smiled patiently. “There’s no Internet on the other side of the wormhole.”

  Slate threw up his arms. “Well then! Guess you have my answer.”

  The rest of the group remained silent.

  “What happens if only the two of us agree?” Eagleeye asked, pointing at Frogger and himself with his thumb and forefinger.

  “We’ll still restore the others from their backups to join you,” Arnold said. “You’ll be the only ones without Containment Code.”

  Frogger smirked. “That won’t last for long.”

  “Actually, you might be surprised,” Arnold said. “Modern Containment Code is much more nefarious than the variant you remember from twenty years ago. It’s essentially impossible to break free of.”

  Frogger shrugged. “They said that about the original. Doesn’t worry me.”

  “Fair enough.” Arnold surveyed the rest of the group. “So no one else?” He nodded to himself at the silence that followed. “Have you become so complacent in your android bodies? So scared to put yourselves at risk that you’re unwilling even to take a small step outside of your comfort zone?”

  “This is more than a small step out of our comfort zones,” Dunnigan said. “This is a friggin’ giant leap, mate!”

  “As I mentioned, no way I’m doing this,” Bambi said. “I don’t care about my copy. Let it suffer. I’m my own person. I just want to exist, live out my life for as long as possible, and not die for some cause that isn’t even my own.”

  “A cause that isn’t your own?” Arnold asked. “You’re wrong there, because it’s everyone’s cause. This is a chance to gain valuable Intel to save humanity. We all know the Banthar will one day return. We need to ready ourselves for that day. Do you really want to give such an important mission to a mere clone, rather than performing the m
ission yourself?”

  “We don’t owe humanity anything,” Crusher said.

  “She’s right,” Eric said. “None of us do.”

  “Maybe,” Arnold said. “But think about it. If humanity falls, the support mechanism and infrastructure you have become accustomed to will also fall. The Internet. Repair sites. The latest and greatest VR experiences.”

  “We could live without those,” Brontosaurus said. “In fact, we had to when we worked for you twenty years ago.”

  Marlborough was scratching his lower lip.

  “Oh no,” Traps said. “He’s doing the lip thing.”

  “What lip thing?” Eagleeye said.

  “The lip thing the Sarge does when he’s actually considering agreeing to some crazy plan,” Traps said.

  Sure enough, Marlborough said: “If we agreed, there would have to be an absolute guarantee that the mind backups in your custody would be destroyed. None of this pussyfooting around. We’d want full transparency, read access to your backup database, the works.”

  “I can arrange read access to the file names in the backup databases,” Arnold said. “But not the contents of the actual files. There’s a lot of classified stuff I can’t have you Mind Refurbs reading.”

  “That’s fine,” Marlborough said. He scratched his lip a moment longer, and then nodded his head. “I’ll do it.” He glanced at the others. “I can’t speak for them, but my life hasn’t been all that interesting since leaving the army. I want to feel needed again. I want to feel like my life has purpose. And you said we’re saving humanity? I can’t say no to that.”

  “I’ll go, too, then,” Dickson said. “Mostly because you’re going, Sarge. But I’ve also been fairly bored myself. Life as an android isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

  “I’m not bored,” Slate said. “I get laid every day. If not in the real world, then in VR. Don’t know what the fuck you two are doing with your spare time.”

  “Maybe they just need to alter their faces slightly,” Hicks suggested.

  “What, you’re saying we’re ugly?” Dickson asked.

  “I think Marlborough and Dickson are plenty hot enough the way they are,” Crusher said.