The Trilisk AI (7 page)

Come
to think of it...

“I
see you have your two legs back. And your twitch is gone,” Magnus observed
aloud.

“Repaired,
healed, restored.”

“Good
for you!” Telisa said. “I’m happy you’re whole again.”

“So
where are we going, exactly? Time to leave,” Magnus prompted.

Shiny
gave Magnus’s link the coordinates.

At
least he’s not taking over the ship again. Yet.

Magnus
inspected the general area indicated. It was way past the limits of human
exploration, which he had half expected.

“Okay,
here we go then.”

“Are
you comfortable here in the bay?” Magnus asked the alien.

“This
area acceptable living space,” Shiny said. “Shiny has work to perform.
Currently in planning phase.”

“Okay.
I’ll leave you to it then, but I need some of this space to work on my project
as well. As we said, I need to learn more about your walker.”

“Acceptable
arrangement.”

Magnus
walked back to the mess with Telisa. He smiled a contagious smile.

Telisa
smiled back. “What?”

Magnus
scooped her into his arms. “Nothing. We’re on another adventure!”

She
laughed. “I guess you were getting bored...”

He
kissed her. “Not bored,” he said. “It’s just good to be on the move again.
C’mon, you’re a danger junkie now, too.”

“Me?
No. I’m just a student. Well, I mean, I just sit around and study things...”

“Not
anymore. That’s the old you. I know you love the thrill of going places. Even
dangerous places, or you wouldn’t have signed up for another go.”

“Yes.
But it’s just that... well, Jack and Thomas, you know?”

They
died right in front of us. Their blood sprayed over us.

He
sighed and kissed her forehead. He became a bit less exuberant. “This time,
Shiny’s on our side from the beginning.”

“Is
he? I mean he’s on our side
at
the beginning, whose side is he on at the
end? His own?”

“Yeah,
maybe.” He smiled again. “We have the robot this time, too.”

She
laughed. “What are you going to call it?” she asked.

“I
don’t know. We could just call it Scout I guess. That’s what it’s for. To check
the situation out ahead of us. To avoid what went wrong last time.”

“Really?
So much work you put into it. I figured it would have an impressive name.”

“Destroyer
of Worlds?”

“Uh,
no. Why don’t you just stick to Scout,” she said.

“I’m
excited to have Shiny here to help me finally figure the walker out. With—
whatever his race is called—with those parts, imagine how much better this
robot could be. Truly singular.”

“So
let me get this straight. You’re trying to build an alien machine, and Shiny’s
trying to build a Terran machine. I think you have a suboptimal arrangement.”

“Not
really. We’re learning from each other. Besides, I feel sure whatever he’s
making, there’s more than one,” Magnus said. “And I feel better relying on a
machine I made than a machine he made.”

“I
want to know what his project is about. I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”

“Well,
Shiny’s better at this by far, whether he’s making alien things or Terran
things.”

“He
has better tools. I wonder how his raw intelligence stacks up against ours on
the curve.”

“We’ll
probably never know.”

“Have
you thought this through? If Scout is based on the walker, then these things
that destroyed Shiny’s world are going to come after it, right?”

Oh.
no.

“I
didn’t know.”

“Then
Scout isn’t going to last about a second there,” Telisa said. “And whatever
takes him out might kill us as a side effect.”

Magnus
threw her a sour look. “I’ve been working on this thing for so long. I’ll have
to stick with my old design.”

“Learn
from him anyway. Next time, we could use the improved one.”

“Yeah,
next time.”

Dammit!

***

Telisa
and Magnus fell into their old shipboard patterns. Magnus trained with Telisa
in combat VR every day. She still had a lot to learn, but she excelled beyond
his expectations in every aspect of the training. At first he thought she had
done it simply to please the rest of the crew, but now he could tell she had genuine
enthusiasm for it. He felt arrogant for thinking before that she had only
studied it to prove herself.

After
every training session, Magnus went to the bay to work on Scout. Then at the
end of the ship’s artificial day, he collapsed into his bunk webbing with
Telisa nearby. They floated together with the gravity turned off and did things
(both virtual and real) that made Magnus forget all about the real world until
he awakened the next day.

Four
days into their trip, Magnus waited for Telisa to join him for training.

Telisa
has turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me
, he thought.
She’s strong and smart.
Yet this can’t go on forever. If we keep rolling the dice, we’re going to die
like Jack and Thomas.

“You
have that look on your face,” she said.

“Heavy
thoughts.”

“You
have a hard time staying positive, don’t you?”

“You’re
young. You haven’t learned to be cynical yet.”

“Well,
weren’t you telling me just the other day that we have Shiny and Scout this
time and the odds are slanted in our favor now?”

“Yes,”
he said.

“So
what are we going to do? Fight some androids? Robots?” Telisa asked. She’d done
especially well in their last firefight simulation. She’d gotten good at
hitting targets around gentle corners and timing the releases of seeker
grenades.

“I
think it’s time to go to the next level.”

Telisa
looked surprised. “Next level?”

Magnus
nodded. “You’re still getting better, of course, but you know the basics of
small arms combat. But I’ve never exposed you to squad tactics or the integration
of your personal view into combat. Both of these would be the logical next
places to go. You can fight on your own, but you don’t use your PV and you
don’t work as part of a team.”

“But
we fight together all the time!” Telisa protested. “We link to each other to
coordinate. I don’t follow you.”

“We
fight as two separate entities. Yes, we talk to each other a bit, but a tight
squad is much more integrated. Using your PV, you can see what your friends
see. You can receive information from battle probes. It takes practice to
integrate views coming in through your link with what you’re seeing with your
eyes.”

“You
should have told me about this earlier!” she said.

“We’ve
been too busy. And I prefer to introduce one thing at a time. Besides, did you
really think you reached the pinnacle of human combat on one long mission and a
few months of hiding out? This takes years.”

“Okay,
I’m ready. What should I do?”

“First,
the concept. Then we can try something fun.”

Telisa
smiled.

I
love her energy
, Magnus
thought.

Magnus
put her into VR. He watched from the outside, controlling the scenario.

Telisa
stood on a wide balcony overlooking a road three floors below. Shrubs and
parked cars obscured the approach. Behind her, a wide lounge was visible
through floor-to-ceiling windows. It was filled with leather furniture and
elegant tables. A fancy bar dominated the far wall, with revolving doors
flanking it. She held a powerful rifle.

“Attackers
are moving down the road towards you. From the woods on the left and the draw
there on the right. Of course, they’ll use cover to best advantage. You’re
sitting here behind a blackfield that covers this balcony. Take them out as
they approach.”

“Okay.
Waiting for the hard part.” Telisa knelt by the concrete lip of the balcony and
rested her rifle across it, facing the road.

“Here
is your battle module,” Magnus said. He added the module to the simulation. A
tiny sphere the size of a tennis ball floated up behind her. He hooked its
output up to her link.

“Ah.
Wow. I can see whatever it sees. Got it.”

“Now,
more attackers have flanked you. They’ll filter through the building below you,
though much more slowly than those from the road. Deploy the battle module to
patrol behind you and watch its cameras in your PV. When an attacker approaches
from behind, you turn, take cover or whatever is appropriate, and take him out.
You have to be time-efficient to cover both front and back.”

“Got
it.”

The
simulation started. Telisa started logging shots. Her rifle launched smart
rounds that sought their targets, slicing through the cover below as the
attackers tried to avoid detection. Telisa periodically checked the battle
module to look for the flankers.

“Aha.
I see them,” she said.

Magnus
watched her turn and scamper through an open doorway into the lounge behind
her, keeping low. Then she fell prone and waited.

Two
attackers emerged through a revolving door into the wide lounge. Telisa went to
free fire and released two bursts on quick manual. Rounds skewered the bar in
spectacular fashion, sending expensive liquor flying everywhere. The attackers
were cut up and dropped in a second.

“I
hope I saw them all,” she said, turning back to the balcony.

“You’re
switching your attention back and forth. You need to watch both of them at
once,” Magnus said.

“My
brain doesn’t work that way.”

“It’ll
come.”

Telisa
turned back to the road and started launching more smart rounds. She brought
down four more assailants at long distance. “It’s difficult. I can’t pay
attention to both of them at once.”

“You
can. It just hasn’t become smooth yet. I know you use your PV and shower at the
same time.”

“Well,
that’s different.”

“Only
a bit. We all have things we can do while concentrating on a news feed or a
game in the PV. This is another one of those things.”

Telisa
dropped two more attackers from the road. Two enemies charged out from behind
her. She hadn’t spotted them. They brought up stubby weapons and fired at her
through the windows. The massive windows shattered in a huge explosion of
plastic shards.

“Sonofabitch,”
she said, rolling to one side. A grenade rolled toward her. More shots rang
out. Telisa lost hold of her rifle as she scrambled over the balcony and
jumped.

Would
she do that in real life?

Magnus
knew that even with real pain in a simulation, people often played it a bit
fast and loose. That was all fine for training brave soldiers who would risk
their lives, but it hurt him to watch Telisa being reckless.

“Oooooouch!”
she yelled, in anticipation of her impact with the street below. Magnus cut the
sim before she hit.

“Thanks.”

“You
owe me one. Next time, I’m going to let you feel it.”

“Don’t
get all soft on me,” she said sarcastically.

“You
know I won’t.”

“You
mentioned something fun?”

“I’m
going to join you.”

Magnus
changed the scene to the interior of a huge building. Telisa and Magnus perched
on parallel walkways overlooking a series of warehouse rows. Containers of all
sizes rose in stacks beneath them, forming a maze of twisty turns and
cubbyholes.

“Okay,
I’ve set it up. I’ll see what you see in my PV and vice versa,” he said.

“Ha.
I hope you’re good at it.”

“I
am, actually,” Magnus bragged. He smiled.
Telisa knows better than to take
me too seriously.

She
looked over toward his walkway and smiled. He spun around and fired his weapon.

“What
the—?” Telisa asked.

“I
saw someone behind me in your view of me,” Magnus explained.

“Oh
shit!” Telisa replied. Another shot rang out. She dropped dead.

Magnus
smiled.
She’ll get the hang of it.

***

Hours
after their practice, Telisa and Magnus lay entwined in her sleeping net.
Finally given a moment of boredom, Magnus started to wonder if they were making
a mistake to head out with Shiny. Ironically, in the original conversation
about the new mission he had tried to encourage her, but instead he had ended
up planting more doubts into his own head.
If I weren’t here, would Telisa
take such risks without me? Am I going to get her killed?