The Machine Awakes (35 page)

Hello, Ms. Smith.

I can't do this.

Yes, you can. You have to believe me. You have to trust me.

Trust you? I can't trust you. You lied to me. You used me. You operated on me. You said you could help, but you lied. You said you had my brother and that you'd bring us together again and you lied.

No. I meant every word. Your brother is here.

Liar.

I need your help, Ms. Smith. We don't have long.

Answer me, dammit. Tell me the truth. Who are you? Where is Tyler?

I am the Geotechnic Logistical Autonomous Systems Supervisor.

The JMC computer?

The Jovian Mining Corporation central AI, yes.

But you were a person. A man. On Earth, you were a man, you were helping the Morning Star. You wore glasses, a long coat. You were dead. I killed you.

Your abilities pack quite a punch, Ms. Smith, I'll grant you that. You disabled that servitor admirably. It was collected and dismantled by your friends.

And then I heard you. In my head, I heard you. I even saw you.

With no other servitors available, I had to quickly transfer this AI into the nearest suitable psionic system.

You mean … do you mean
me?

You are a psi-marine, remember.

I'm not. Tyler is, but not me.

Perhaps, Ms. Smith. But even without having completed your training, you were more powerful than any the Academy had ever seen. Your abilities are unique—telekinesis has never been recorded before in humans, but that's just a small fraction of the potential locked away in your mind. They recognized that at the Academy. Your records make for fascinating reading.

Is that how you found me?

The Academy's records and enrollment system are contracted to the Caviezel Corporation. Any students of interest are flagged and monitored, to see if they are useful later. They had great things planned for you.

Like they had for Tyler? They would have used me like they used him. Like they use
everyone.
Fighting a war without end. A war without purpose. They were right, weren't they? The Morning Star. They said they had secrets about the Fleet. About what they were doing. Tyler is proof, isn't he? He isn't dead. What else is the Fleet hiding?

Ms. Smith, we don't have time for this.

I'm dead now. What do I care? All I want are the answers I was promised.

You are most certainly not dead yet, but you may be soon. You and all your friends. I need your help, quickly.

Is that why you hitched a ride? To keep an eye on me?

That, and the fact that the main systems here in the refinery became cut off as the Sigmas began their reconfiguration. With no servitors, you were my only way back. As the Fleet's primary contractor, the Caviezel computer systems are linked directly to the Fleet's—everything is interconnected, Ms. Smith. Which is precisely the problem now.

You were cut off by the magnetic storm?

That's no storm, Ms. Smith.

Then what is it?

A side effect.

Of what?

Please, Ms. Smith. Seventy-eight picoseconds have already passed since the beginning of this conversation, and I fear my systems will become irrevocably corrupted if we do not take action now. The last remaining security silos are about to fail, and when they do—

Tell me!

It's a Spider. The Sigma mining platforms were infected first with the Spider operating system. Just a fragment, but the Sigmas are AIs themselves. They're designed to reconfigure themselves to chase storms, even rebuild themselves. The Spider OS took hold somehow. A survival mechanism, perhaps.

The Spiders are here?

Not quite. Only a piece of the gestalt, an isolated splinter of the machine consciousness. But it is enough.

The
storm
is a Spider?

No, the storm is a side effect. The Sigmas are building a new machine. A vehicle for the Spider OS. Flood calls it Lucifer. To Caviezel, it is a weapon.

That's the danger you told me about. If Caviezel knows the mines are building a machine, he must know about the Spider infection? The mines are autonomous, aren't they?

I agree, he knows something, but his data core is also siloed. I cannot access the information.

His data core?

Caviezel is a servitor. The first, in fact—it was his desire for his consciousness to survive physical death that drove him to develop the transference technology.

How do we stop the Spider machine?

The machine itself is just a part of it, Ms. Smith. As dangerous as it will be when fully operational, it pales in comparison to the danger posed by the Spider OS itself. It managed to infect the JMC systems somehow, but it's trapped here by the interference generated by the activity of the Sigma mines as they reconfigure themselves.

But once the new machine is complete and the interference clears, the Spider AI will be able to access the Fleet network. It will infect every computer system in Fleetspace, Ms. Smith. Every system will become part of the Spider gestalt.

But where did it come from? How did it infect the JMC?

I haven't been able to locate the source of the infection, but Mr. Kodiak had a theory, one that is probably quite correct. There is another JMC facility nearby, hidden in the Jovian system. I've been broadcasting the coordinates.

Eight-seven-nine-one-two-two-Juno-Juno.

The source.

What's there?

I don't know that either, Ms. Smith. That part of my system was the first to be siloed, so I can't access the data. All I can tell you is that it's part of another contract Caviezel has with the Fleet, to repatriate war dead back to Earth.

 

Tyler! He's there, isn't he? Tell me!

You brother is here, in this room.

What? Why can't I feel his mind? Why won't he speak to me?

He can't when he is under Caviezel's control. He can only talk to you when he sleeps, and only then when his mind is free from the shielding they have in place.

Shielding? There are more like him, aren't there? At the source?

Perhaps. I don't know.

We have to stop this.

Yes, Ms. Smith, we do.

Kodiak. Special Agent Von Kodiak. Where is he? Can he help?

Don't worry about Mr. Kodiak, Ms. Smith. I'm looking after him.

So what must I do?

You are directly connected to the JMC. We share the same network of psionic synapses. If you concentrate, you should be able to see what I see.

I …

Concentrate, Ms. Smith.

I can see it. I can see it. Dark and light, together, at once. I feel like … I'm falling. I'm falling!

Don't panic. That's the raw data of the JMC net flooding your synapses. It's bound to be disorienting at first.

Wait.

Ms. Smith?

There's something else here.

Yes.

Oh god … it's … what is it?

That's the Spider OS. It's still rewriting itself, recompiling parts of its own being, trying to break through my last silo.

But … what do I do? What do I do?

You fight it, Ms. Smith. You are a psi-marine. You are trained to infiltrate the Spider communications web with your mind and disrupt it. Not only that, your mind is possessed of a greater power.

But I can't control it!

Yes, you can. You need to reach inside your unconscious, take control. You
can
do it.

I …

You
need
to take control, now. I can try to hold the infection back, but I have little processing power left and the Spider OS is rewriting itself to bypass my failsafes. You can help me purge the system. Together we can burn it out.

I'm not a psi-marine!

On the contrary, you are the most powerful psi-marine the Fleet has ever seen. You can fight this. I need you to fight this.

 

I can't!

You can.

I'm afraid.

And you have no choice, Ms. Smith. A moment longer, and the last silo will fall as Lucifer rises.

Oh, my God. It's near us. It's so close, I can feel it.

Open your mind. Take control.
Fight it! You must fight it!