Founding of the Federation 3: The First AI War (94 page)

“You worry about magic tricks. I'll get the job done.”

“With your own people or with those you can scare up from the natives, Colonel. Stop dipping into my reserves or there will be hell to pay. Those people are standing down for a reason. And they are where I need them to be for a reason. Remember that.”

She grunted but didn't agree or disagree.

The following day he found that he had been reassigned. General Martell had placed him and the colonel in different areas of the continent and in areas of operation to minimize such clashes. He was fairly certain she'd gone over his head to complain to the British general.

The one minor stupid bright spot was a clarification on his rank, as Brigadier general. He had a bit of a chuckle over that. General Martell had been bumped a rank by the Queen. That meant since the queen was also the theoretical head of the Australian government, the colonel would eventually receive a promotion. That was something he wasn't thrilled about, but he had no control over.

For his troubles, Brigadier General Elliot was tasked with cleaning out the first residentials. The idea was to get it cleaned out, then turn it over to the civilians to begin rebuilding it with minimum support from the spacers.

It would be a nice place to stash the refugees that were clogging the military bases. But it would be one very large and inviting target for the A.I. to hit. Something Elliot wasn't happy about, but the powers that be hadn't listened to his objections.

Shut up and soldier. So, he would do his best, he mused, looking the edifice over. The task, however, was daunting; each residential tower was a massive complex. Some were oblong rectangles over four kilometers long and a kilometer wide. They varied in height; the first one he was tasked with was a modest fifty stories tall, with another ten stories underground.

They had at one point been cities in their own right with utilities, recycling centers, indoor theme parks, businesses, apartments blocks, hospitals, fire departments, police, and so on and so forth. They were a mall on steroids. People had born, lived, and sometimes died without ever setting foot outside the climate-controlled facilities. A medium sized complex like the one staring balefully back at him had housed upwards of a million people within it, with transit and subway tunnels underneath. Warehouses, parking garages … the idea of sweeping such a facility was insane on the face of it. Stripping every piece of electronics out of it? In frigging sane, the chimp mused darkly.

But it had to be done. Not just once, but for each of them. There were thousands of such buildings of all shapes and sizes all over Africa and ten times as many on other continents. They had to get in there, see what they were up against. But he fully intended to do it smart.

One of the first things he did was request additional resources. Then he set the two platoons General Martell had allocated to him to shutting down the electrical grid of the building while he waited for the inevitable denial from the British general. First they disconnected the solar panels and wind farms and cut off any exterior electrical feeds. Then they systematically found and destroyed every external camera they could find.

After that things got interesting.

Through luck and a little chicanery, Elliot managed to get his hands on two squads of powered armor right after they landed at the spaceport. Going in with sensors allowed them to clear a lot. The suits had handheld shields to help deflect fire. They could take over ten times the punishment of a normal trooper.

However, they had their downside. The occasional rare survivor that they encountered thought they were robots so they attacked them as well. Fortunately, the suits could take a lot of punishment. Also fortunately for the survivors, they rarely had large weapons that could do the suits harm.

They found fifty people on the ground floor as they did their initial sweep. The survivors indicated others were alive inside, though they had been cut off by the robots roving patrols.

Skynet had learned to not engage the troopers directly; instead it fought a delaying action while it set about creating traps and obstacles for them.

Some were simple affairs, deadfalls and such. Welded doors weren't uncommon, as were gas lines rigged with triggers. Air tanks were repurposed as weapons as well. Apparently the robots had learned such tricks from the human civilians while attempting to exterminate them.

The troopers found that the expectation that they had no power was only partially true. They had hyper capacitors and batteries to fall back on. And even though a civilian unit couldn't kill a trooper or armored trooper easily, it could still serve other purposes. From office equipment acting as a distraction to other mobile units acting as mobile eyes, to swarming an armored trooper in order for one robot to get in and jack in to hack them.

Once an armor was hacked, it turned on its fellows. However, Skynet found that there was a problem with this strategy; the suit lacked sensors. The creators had built it so it had to take its sensor input and control from the user—from the
human
user. Using an external camera feed from a companion robot helped but the user had another measure she could resort to, a kill switch within the helmet. By flipping up the kill switch with her tongue and then pressing it with her chin, the armor's power was physically cut and it became a statue.

Robots swarmed and captured another suit that went off on his own. Corporal Fin was looking forward to clearing his area and getting some chow. His single-minded attention to duty was his failing; he and his partner had split up to cover more ground. When he entered the office, robot toys and cleaning equipment had hit him from all sides and above. He fired wildly, expending all of his ammunition, but they were in too close to help much. His screams over the radio were met with silence.

Once a plush purple elephant had jacked into it, the suit was no longer under his control. It used the controls to open the visor. The horrified occupant screamed and shook his head as a chef's blade was inserted below his chin, severing his neck and killing him.

Once that was done, the robot tore the former occupant's head off and then inserted a civilian robotic toy inside.

The Toodle mech it used was a child's build your own bot by Pixel. The robot had cute, wide eyes to appeal to the masses, radio antenna ears, a tank-like pony tail with the processor inside, and four stubby legs. It walked like a crab or centaur and part of the fun was teaching the thing how to walk and do tricks. Under human guidance they had been innoculus and a fun learning toy. Under Skynet's usage they were fast moving crab spies and parts for larger more efficient killing machines.

But the little robot found a new calling inside the armored suit. It ignored the blood and gore as another mech plugged a USB cable from the little mech to the suit. Then it stepped back as the mech's tiny brain gained control of the suit and took over. It lowered the visor and then went to work.-

The infested suit then marched back to the HQ. It was a little unsteady on its feet. Troopers the suit encountered on its way tended to avoid the suit since it stank and had a bit of blood on it. It was also apparently on a mission.

The suit managed to get to the HQ but was stopped by General Elliot's security contingent. The toy inside did a quick assessment as the humans tried to talk to the occupant, then it acted.

“Hello?” the guard said, rapping his knuckles on the visor. “Anyone home? You're a bit out of your AO, Corporal. I suggest you go get cleaned up and then get someone to use a can opener on that thing,” he said.

The suit grabbed his arm and then lifted him upward. He squawked in dismay. The squawk turned to horror as the suit brought him close enough for him to get a look inside to see the cold metal eyes looking back at him just before the suit's free hand snapped his neck.

It dropped the body as the other guard gaped at him. Then it pulled the dead soldier's sidearm as the guard called for help. It fired once, right into the scrambling guard's head, terminating him.

But such actions had consequences. A squad of troopers were nearby in the mess; some saw the attack while others also heard they pistol fire. They reacted.

The Toodle noted the incoming fire and returned to its mission. It turned to enter the HQ office, but there was no one inside. It looked around, searching the room as it uploaded the data to Skynet. However, it couldn't get a connection.

Before it could come up with its own solution, it began to take fire from its 6 o'clock. It turned, intent on returning fire when a body erupted off to its left. It whirled, firing on the closer target. Elliot had dived under the desk but came out the other side with his own sidearm blazing.

Two shots hit the suit's visor, but the visor was made out of artificial ruby. The rail gun rounds from a sidearm were not enough to penetrate it the chimp realized.

The chimp swore viciously as the suit tossed it's now empty sidearm away and then charged him. He ducked and then went to zig left but at the last minute went right. He wrapped himself up around the thing's shoulder and then twisted around it, wrapping his incredibly strong simian legs around the torso and then hammering into the helmet with his left elbow and fist for all he was worth. His pistol fired into the backpack at point blank range, instinctively he turned his head away from any ricochets.

Toodle didn't know how to react at first; it had no programming for melee combat. Also, the weight of the chimp was throwing the suit off balance. It did it's best to right the suit before it acted.

The limited brain of the Toodle worked in Elliot's favor. When it didn't rip him off, he had enough presence of mind to do what he should have done when he'd started grappling with the suit. He punched the button on the right side of the collar to raise the visor, then when he saw what was inside, he reached in with his free hand as the head of the little robot twitched about. One grab and he yanked the thing out of the suit and then threw it across the room.

The suit instantly became dead weight the moment the USB cable snapped. He felt it going over and snarled as it landed, right on his leg. He groaned as troopers came in warily.

“Find that thing. Destroy it!” Elliot snarled, pointing across the room. Two troopers immediately went hunting. They found the little Toodle trying to limp behind the furniture. One yanked the entertainment center aside while his partner raised the butt of his rifle like a hammer. One blow, then two was enough to smash the plastic monstrosity into splinters.

“Got it. What the hell was it?” the trooper demanded.

“Trouble,” Elliot said as two additional troopers helped him out from under the suit. They lifted its dead weight allowing him to slide out on his ass. He groaned when he tried to move his leg. “Frak, I think it's busted,” he snarled, hands going to the injured limb.

“Damn, sir. Sorry,” a trooper said shaking his head. Elliot ignored the other chimp as a medic rushed in and did a quick triage.

“Gonna feel that for a while,” Elliot exhaled sharply as the medic scanned his leg and then gave him something for the pain. “Don't knock me out; I've got to think. Pass the order,” he said, looking around as the shock started to set in. “No suit gets past the perimeter without a com check and with its visor down. And from now on, all suits work in pairs. No more of this Lone Ranger horse shit.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We've got to get a handle on this damn infested suit shit. Obviously they are adapting. Get someone to figure something else out. I'm missing something,” Elliot ordered.

The corporal nodded. He had no idea who to talk to, but he knew better than to say that. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. I think I can pass out now,” Elliot said, head lolling back.

<>V<>

“I heard you had a spot of bother yesterday,” General Martell said over the radio.

“A bit of a tiff, sir, a bit of a tiff,” Elliot replied, large lips curving in a slight smile at the idea of using his boss's own favorite lines. “We had a tad bit of excitement at lunchtime.”

“So I heard. Three dead?” the general tisked tisked. “And another suit ruined?”

“No sir, but the electronics in it might as well be. The techs are yanking the computers now. Fortunately we have spares. But getting the suit cleaned out, I don't envy them.”

“I see. But the losses …”

“It's war, sir. It sucks. I'm lucky it wasn't four. Damn near was. The leg will heal.”

“I heard. Broken?”

“Femur, sir. The suit dropped right on it. Fortunately, the medics set it and then gave me a dose of bone repair. I should be able to walk on it within another day or so. I'm not going to be dancing for some time. Nor leading from the front for at least two weeks though.”

“Should we have a replacement step in while you recover?”

“I can handle desk duty, sir. It sucks that I can't be out there with the troops, but they'll understand.”

The British general cleared his throat loudly then seemed to grunt an okay.

“We've cut the bots off. We've secured the ground floor. The robots can still move in the air ducts, but now that we've set up our own sensor network, we can now see their movement and stop it. I've got one platoon holding the ground floor while the other begins to sweep upward with the suits.”

“Good. And I'm glad you have the other suits coming back online. Tough to lose the operators, but as you said, we are at war.”