Chaos Cipher (77 page)

Adamoss was
soon to join the meeting, but only in his augmented avatar. Most of
his anatomical avatars were occupied with aid assistance, city
maintenance, social services and defence. To account for the
missing physical numbers his computational command was able to
offer a digital rendering of himself through the Nexus where he
continued to extend his services. Here, his anthropomorphized form
looked much more convincingly human, his arms long and pale; his
skin seamless and hairless, occasionally rippling with waves of
light that pulsed from an origin, homogenous to a human heartbeat.
It was a form he used only to communicate with humans since they
responded better to him when he appeared as their equal.

Adamoss
entered the room through a doorway that appeared as a strip of
light in the northern part of the room. Like magic the door folded
away and vanished once he was present.

‘
Greetings
conference attendees of meeting agenda Crisis State. I trust you
are familiar with recent updates.’

As he walked
around the pentagonal room, they all saw his augmented form through
the Nexus, and those Eternals who preferred Quantic devices to
neuro-ligatures viewed Adamoss with their ocular relays. Although
augmented, his position was consistently relative to each viewer,
as real as an actual person being present, with depth and distance.
Adamoss was limited to hardland contacts; he was unable to pick up
physical objects. But his virtual image interacted convincingly
with real world environments, able to work mechanical devices that
were sequenced with the Nexus.

Adamoss
walked around people rather than through them, looked to who was
addressing him, referred to objects and material items and was able
to view them with the help of Nexus referencing, which used the
visual experiences of neurophased people to map hardlands as well
as surveillance cameras.

‘
As you are
all aware,’ Adamoss informed, ‘the chaos cipher has corrupted
several of my hardland avatars from the Hephaestus One. They are no
longer in my control, which is why I detailed a full combat
efficiency report on all the Adamoss avatars, thus enabling any
future contact with a corrupted Avatar vulnerable to our attacks
should they be necessary.’

‘
What about
these things, are they coming here?’ asked the Commander and
Chief.

‘
Yes,’ said
Adamoss. ‘There seems to be a pattern to their destruction. They
are weakening Solar Alliance defences and approaching the planet.
They know how and where to hit us.’

A forlorn and
unsettled silence fell upon them, a submerging weight of
uncertainty and dread.

‘
What can we
do, Adamoss?’ the President finally submitted.

The android’s
augmented form began to pulse with information feeding back through
the quasilands, torrents of strategies pulled from all networks of
his artificial intelligence to creatively devise an
answer.

‘
What we are
doing now,’ said Adamoss ‘is mobilising a defence strategy. These
Xenotech drones have proved resilient to phoenix weapons and maser
fire. We have positioned solar reflectors onto the targets but they
are impervious to heat. It would seem their arrival is inevitable.
However, there is some good news. Plato Wing Commander Ace pilot
John Ripley of the Shield of Spheres has identified a structural
weak point on the machines.’

The room of
heads watched as a holographic representation of the machines
expanded above the table, detailing all the points scanned
by
The Deathwind
reconnaissance probes. Adamoss highlighted three potential
weak points between the radial head of the mechanical squid and its
four protective legs.

‘
These three
points are exhaust vents,’ said Adamoss. ‘It would seem they
conduct high thermal readings through the ion streams. The
tentacles also conduce much of the machine’s stored radiation and
between these tendrils there is a power core estimated to be held
at very close to absolute zero.’

‘
Why so
cold?’ A voice requested from the back, one of many silhouetted
heads smoking in the spacious room.

‘
The reason
for the temperature difference is yet unknown,’ said Adamoss, ‘best
estimates state their energy is some kind of high density reactor
which requires a super coolant system.’

‘
A fission
reactor?’ said another.

‘
Perhaps,’
Adamoss conceded, ‘however, at this point much of our discussion is
speculative.’

‘
So, maybe
not fission, perhaps it is a technology we have not yet come by,’
said another. ‘Have you spoken with anybody about this?’

‘
My research
has been tireless,’ Adamoss assured. ‘And I must emphasise again
the point of speculation. Time is a budget we do not now have the
luxury of spending ruthlessly on speculation. However, I’ve
discovered two source matches regarding our research knowledge on
the enemy. A private defence weapons contractor and supplier for
our main military hardware claimed that this technology is still in
Beta phase, thus confirming it exists in their possession. The
company is called Ampotech industries and currently houses its
headquarters on the new colony in Cygnus.’ Adamoss let them digest
the information for a moment. He watched their meek faces in the
dim light, monochrome mauve expressions staring at the projection
field as new information appeared.

‘
Ampotech
state they have not found a power source for their Spydrone models
yet, and they have confirmed that if these models are indeed in
circulation, they assert no responsibility for the damage these
machines have already done. They do insist, however, that there has
been an infringement on intellectual property rights, assuming
these Xenotech to be copies of their plans. I asked them what sort
of power source they were considering for their Spydrone machines.
They claimed it could either be a high density fusion core or a
crystallised unit, the latter of which they are now researching. I
further inquired if such a power source would have to be kept
extremely cold for energy extraction and they confirmed the answer
to be yes.’

‘
So, what
you’re saying,’ said the President. ‘Is that a private military
contractor designed these things?’

‘
It would
appear so,’ Adamoss stated. ‘The Spydrones were designed for the
purpose of planetoid research. Ampotech industries refused to
supply information about the specific design of these machines
until their copyright infringement litigation is in process and a
company or individual is discovered for stealing their design.
However, they have stated that our copy-cats have been somewhat
modified from the Ampotech originals, mainly the tentacles are
longer and more numerous and their overall size is much
bigger.’

‘
We need to
find out more about that power source,’ said the President. ‘Are
the company Ampotech aware of the cost of withholding information
that could pose as vital to our defence strategies?’

‘
Affirmative,’ Adamoss nodded. ‘They claim these machines are
not their own and they would have nothing beneficial to add to
their design.’

‘
Bastards!’
Someone spat. ‘What are they hiding? These things are clearly
hacked. Sent over here by the Olympians, I wager.’

‘
Perhaps
not,’ said Adamoss. ‘If all this information doesn’t spin your
heads, then my final point will.
The
Deathwind’s
probes put a carbon dating on
the Xenotech alloy. These mechanical visitors are at an age
equivalent to thirty thousand earth years.’

‘
Thirty
thousand?’ somebody exclaimed, and a prattling of voices began.
Adamoss sensed their neuromissions spike on the Nexus as they
neurophased with others in Atominii cities across the
globe.

‘
Yes,’
Adamoss confirmed. ‘Thirty thousand years old.’

‘
Didn’t you
say this technology is a new design?’ asked the
President.

‘
Indeed,’
Adamoss concurred. ‘We have a paradox. It is both old and new. The
only clear assumption is that these machines were sent here a very
long time ago. The carbon samples found were relative to the
machines, which has no bearing on telling us how long they have
been out in space in Earth time. But if these results are telling
us they are at least thirty thousand years old, then factoring in
relativity time dilation, they could very well have started their
journey during Earth’s Precambrian era.’

And the room
was once more silent. The president turned in his seat.

‘
Jesus
Christ!’ The President uttered, rubbing his throbbing temples.
‘They are older than our civilisation?’

‘
And they are
man-made?’ Another one added.

‘
There are
theories,’ Adamoss claimed. ‘It is possible these machines are from
the future and found access to a distant past, perhaps
malfunctioned and gone off mission. If that is so, they present to
us a very valuable point of research. How, indeed, did they make it
back?’ Adamoss got the leaders to consider the possibility. ‘If
there is truth to this assertion, and again I wish to avoid
dwelling too far on speculation, then we must act cautiously. They
are indeed a threat and must be destroyed, but if we make nothing
salvageable from their destruction, then how they got here, will be
a question that could remain unanswered.’

-62-

A
t just sixty thousand kilometres
from Earth, on the outer fringes of the exosphere, the Orbital
Guard’s final defences met with the Xenotechs. A fleet of
Stymphalion class strikers arranged into tactical approach, the
needle nose ships coordinated into triangulated vectors.

Yet,
beaconing brighter than the approaching mecha-monsters was the
garish light of some distant meteor, a long burning tail that had
been racing after the machines since Saturn.
The Deathwind
rattled and vibrated
as the engines burned down to the last fifty milligrams of
antimatter fuel, purging the white hot thermal element far into
space behind it. Ace Ripley returned to consciousness once the
Gee-forces relinquished.

‘
How you
feeling?’ asked the ship’s AI through a slightly distorted sounding
audio filter. ‘Back amongst the living?’

Ace Ripley
blinked tightly and suddenly realised the pearl blue majesty of the
planet Earth hanging ahead of him, its penumbra blackened in shade
on the northern side. I’m home.

‘
What
happened to your voice?’ Ace Ripley grunted, ‘you sound like
shit.’

‘
Neuro-ligature damage,’ the AI reported. ‘I can only simulate
limited services via the neurophase, in this case audio function is
not one of them. You’ll have to use your ears.’

‘
We really
need to get you a saltus-carousel,’ he told the AI. ‘My body can’t
keep up with these hop-scorch manoeuvres.’

‘
I’ve just
initiated counter-nausea channels into your neuro-ligature.
Fortunately for you, that is one of the still functional services.
You should be fine in just a moment.’

Ace watched
the opalescent planet growing before him. He knew the three
Xenotech were far ahead, already closing in on an orbital entrance
vector. He expected a war to break out there any minute.

‘
What’s the
damage?’

‘
We can still
fly,’ said
The
Deathwind
, ‘I’m repairing the surface
damage using the nanomes. Electronics are almost fully functional.
The Neuro-ligatures will be fully online in another ten minutes.
But I have a software virus that is running somewhere in the
background. It’s hard to know exactly if it is still there for
certain, however, judging by the way it was using my own software
code to disguise its activities there’s a high probability the
virus is actively working.’

‘
Do you know
what it’s doing?’

‘
No,’ said
the ship, ‘could be anything from spyware for the Xenotech or
sequestration of ship’s primary controls.’

‘
Deathwind,
how are Mortel and Bennett? Any news?’

‘
I have no
way of knowing. After the phoenix blast, I didn’t detect their
Stymphalion transponders.’

Ace Ripley
pursed his lips angrily and tightened his fists around the chair’s
finger holds. ‘I hope they are alive.’

‘
Me too,’
said the ship, ‘but we’ve no time to think about that right
now.’

As they
approached the orbital embrace of the Earth, falling in toward its
horizontal curvature, a series of sparks winked and scintillated in
the blackness.

‘
We got war
dazzlers up ahead.’

‘
This is
commander Ace Ripley of the Shield of Spheres Plato Wing,’ he said,
‘all Orbital Guard personnel respond! I’m right on their tail,
track my position I’ve been glowing like a lighthouse over
here.’

‘
We’ve got
you Ripley,’ said one of the leaders. ‘This is
Snake Eyes
, moving in for the
kill.’