*2 of 5.
She laid back on her chair, her hands still
smelling oil and nano-paint, and watched the little show. Not Dee Kay show on the battle field, that one was going well, no surprise.
She was now with her sights on the show that was going on the meeting room.
With despise, she acknowledged that Fredrick, the weapons development CEO, had
them on the palm of his little rat pawns. When he started lecturing them on the
dangers of using human soldiers and non Self-aware machines against the “Hostiles” , she muted the screen:
-How is
that again? Oh yes, dear military leaders of world: “The enemy can infect all
humans and at least 20% of other animal life forms, mutating them on news
Hostiles, using microscopic pieces of unknown matter, we call dark soma. They
put those microscopic contagious agents on bullets, grenades, bombs, armor,
knifes, claws, water, food and barely anything they can touch”, so stop acting
retarded and don’t send more sheep to the wolfs, you assholes.
A satellite up-link flashed a possessed tank,
probably an old Le Clerc 8X, probably
“salvaged” from Flanders.
-Le Clerc
8X, last “Le Clerc” to see battle, originally equipped with a 175mm canon, a
20mm rail gun, one medium laser canon and an old but reliable .50 machine gun.
Armor…What was the armor again?
She hit some keys and the data flooded the
screen.
-Oh I see, two centimeters of aluminum-titanium
alloy, four centimeters of anti thermo-ballistic ceramic armor and up to six
centimeters of disposable trans-reactive armor, plus explosive armor, in the
8XB model… Not too shabby! Oh I miss France…
She missed so many things… How could the entire
world crumble like that in six years? She couldn’t stop the flood of hurtful
memories from her past:
UNITED EUROPE FEDERATION, France
administrative zone, September 08th, 2281. She was one among
thousand researchers working for UEF, developing new technologies to apply
mostly in military and space mining areas. Her expertise as cybernetics and AI engineer granted her a generous governmental subside and freedom to explore some
unorthodox ideas she had about intelligent machinery. She had good looks, and
with 18 years, she was also much younger than most of her colleagues. Still,
she had a not so nice nickname: “crazy cat lady”, once she was always with four
cats with her, all times.
The cats were actually guinea pigs for her
experiments, and also good company. The conventional AI technology limited
itself to copy organic neural-networks like the ones you can find in a cat’s
brain, but she decided to work it backwards: Four kittens had chips implanted
in their brains at birth, and as they grow up, she used the chips to redesign
their neural networks, turning them in true organic computers –smart, moody,
arrogant and extremely cuddly computers – with a intelligence level similar to
human, something close to 8.0 points on the Warren-Torres AI intelligence chart.
Most people would flip out or just stare in awe
watching the four cats connecting themselves to larger computers and power
armors and acting as lab assistants and not like ordinary house pets, and more
than a few would question the ethical implication of such experiments, and she
would always give the same answer:
-It’s more ethical than changing the DNA of
pets to make them non-allergic, or naturally pink, or three times bigger than
normal, so people can kill and eat giant cows that are so heavy that can’t even
move. Why don’t you go bother then instead of me?
But in the last weeks no one would bother her
about ethics. Everyone was preoccupied with something far more dramatic, an
asteroid, in collision course with Earth. Religious fanatics saw that as a sign
of the end of times and started a springtime of terrorist acts. Politicians saw
it as a opportunity to build up their reputations, and the military, as usual, only
care about using it as excuse to get more funding. The serious scientist
community tried to remind everyone that they foreseen that with a margin of
more than thirty years, but who listen to those guys anyway? Two months before
the impact, the “GOD’SPEAR” orbital laser canon manufactured by a joint effort
between US and China were ready to fire.
-Michele! Drop the cats and come see it! They
are about to fire the “God’spear”!
-Oh please Francine! Why would I bother to see
them blowing a boulder in space? Let me be!
-Oh mon
cher ami…Don’t be such a bitch and come see the fire works. All cool kids
will be there, slacking off during work hours at government expense! Maybe you
find a two legged cat to take home and handle that horrible humor of yours…
-Va te faire foutre Francine! Told you a million times that I already have a boyfriend, and I do not
need sex in hourly doses to keep my good mood!
-Grossière.
Now stop whinnying and come share some quality time with bipedal mammals.
Against her will, she accepted. The large room
was crowded, people from all sectors watching the news channel. The atmosphere
was quite joyfull, no worries about the success of the mission, was only a
social meeting to watch the most expensive fireworks display of the decade, she
thought.
To be honest, her and her boyfriend weren’t
much more than pen-pals lately. Distance do that to relationships: you think
you found the love of your life, but as soon you don’t have it with you 24/7 it
fade away. She felt like she was forgot and probably replaced, but no way she
would admit it. A masculine voice, strong but pleasant like velvet sound close
to her ear.
-Look what the cat drag in…Michele! Francine
keep telling me that only doomsday could make you leave the lab for a day… who
could guess she was telling the truth?
Francine smiled, faking to be a little
offended:
-Fredrick, darling, do you doubt my word or my
vast knowledge of human behavior?!
-None! Not anymore!
And they laughed together, Frederick, liaison from the weapons industry
inside the campus, she would not admit but he had a strong presence and sex
appeal. She never met a man who could play with her so easily: He knew exactly
what buttons to push to make her blush or anything else. And yet, he never took
advantage of it...
Her less rational part of the brain saw it as a
proof of affection, but her cold, logic part warned her that it could be just
part of his famous corporative game.
Yes, Frederick, so young, yet so powerful, a
talented executive, capable to read and manipulate anyone to do what he want
them to. Her best judgment told her to not smile so much, to not be so happy
for meeting him, but back then she was more naïve.
- Fran kidnapped me, im her hostage until someone explode that rock, then I will go back to my cats.
-And computers, but lets enjoy this brief time
of captivity and chat, how are you doing?
And soon she lost track of time, and of
Francine. The bitch delivered her to the big bad wolf and disappeared in thin
air, but she didn’t minded. He had the right thing, the thing that make you
wish to be kidnapped more frequently. But suddenly, the atmosphere in the room
changed, for the worst.
-Jesus! What was that? It was reflected?!?
-The damn rock is starting to glow! Its
supposed to happen?
The chaos took the room, but less than a minute
later, when the broadcast got cut after a flash, a strange silence fell over
us. Frederick
was already on his way to the company, when everything electronic start
malfunctioning. Phones failing and ringing out of control, digital watches
flashing, channels scrambled.
-oh my god, my cats!
More than 76% of world eletronics are
“EMP-Proof”, a military advancement that become quite ordinary and that shield
electronic devices from get destroyed by eletro magnetic pulses, and everything
pointed that a heavy EMP just hit the city. A pulse so strong probably ruined
forever any non shielded system, and damaged bootlegged shields. She always
used the best, but once her cats had brain implants, no way to predict what
could have happen to them. She crashed in her lab and found the cats on the
floor, still, but breathing.
Some people will say that Michele had no heart,
for using cats in her experiments, but she fell on her knees and burst into
tears when she saw her cats, her only true friends, on the ground, maybe on the
edge of death.
Several kilometers away from there, Frederick got caught by
the EMP on the private company tilt jet. It was nothing more than a nuisance,
less than a turbulence. If the system haven’t warned him about it, he wouldn’t
notice it at all. After all the jet was a state of art military transport jet.
He called a secret number on a secure line of
his cell phone:
-It’s Frederick,
0-9-7 Charlie, code: Frey.
-IDENTITY
CONFIRMED, CONNECTING TO ODIN ARMS INDUSTRY SECURE INNER-COMM… CONECTION
COMPLETED.
-Frederick
speaking, give me a report.
-Sir, the
laser canon attack failed to pierce the outer hull of the unidentified object.
It appear to have been deflected by some kind of energy shield, probably
magnetic. As expected, the object counter attack, but the range and efficiency
of the attack was far beyond expectation: the laser canon, and the other eight
black-ops war frigates sent by US Space Army and the twelve frigates sent by
the people liberation army of China were completely destroyed before they had
the chance to deploy their fusion weapons. At the same time, it sent a EMP wave
against the Earth. As predicted all ODIN systems were protected, and by
extension, the United Europe Defense Systems
too.
-Serves them right for not listening us
and playing like cowboys against aliens.
Don’t waste time, attack their suppliers, it’s the chance we have been waiting
to nail some big contracts within the US
and China.
Use the money on the secret accounts I indicated to cause chaos on the stock
market.
-Yes.
Anything else?
-Leak all the info on the attack, make US and China look like
idiots, make the populace panic over aliens and things from outer space. Nothing
better to business than scared people and stupid world leaders.
He turn
off the phone, laid back and smiled. A world war against aliens: someone smart
could get very rich with that kind of opportunity. Someone like him…
