Rubicon, page 20
Adriene’s expression went slack, deferred yet again by alarming details. “Initial beta test?”
“Alphas were conducted virtually,” he replied, missing the point entirely, “utilizing the same advanced VI as the training simulations.”
She scrubbed a hand through her short hair. “You … You’ve never tested this before?”
His throat bobbed with a swallow. “No, Sergeant,” he replied, tone solemn. He folded his hands in his lap. “As mentioned earlier, the Concord Nations Sentience Act prohibits the development of technologies that may lead to artificial ascendance. As such, my work is largely theoretical.”
“Was,” she corrected.
“I suppose, yes,” he said, formal yet apologetic. “Again, I apologize for the situation. If you wish, I can revert your implant back to the previous build.”
Dropping her hand from her face, Adriene met West’s steadfast gaze. She knew what the sensible, rational response was. Yet her first instinct had been to decline—adamantly. To keep the AI. She had no idea why.
Resetting to the approved, tested version everyone else in her company used was the objectively correct decision. The upgrade had been a stopgap to help her escape alive, with the intel intact. Now things should be returned to normal.
Though she couldn’t stop thinking about how … powerful she’d felt in those subterranean ruins. How confident, how driven, how fulfilled. How in control.
Like West said, the upgrade had given her breadth. In more ways than one. Though keeping it may be a risk, that kind of power could aid her in the coming months. Could prevent countless rezones. Or even hybridizations.
“I should mention…” West continued, the contrition gone from his tone, back to calculative dryness. “I cannot guarantee the reversion process would not trigger a rezone. I simply don’t have enough data on the physiological ramifications of the AI. Yours seems to have netted quite strongly to your cognitive wiring already, and I would not feel comfortable saying with any degree of certainty what the consequences of a rollback may be.”
“I’ll keep it,” she said.
West’s real eye fluttered with a few quick blinks. “Are you certain?”
“Yes.” She swallowed the last of the MRE.
“I’m glad to hear you say that, Sergeant.”
She lifted a brow. “You are?” She’d assumed he wouldn’t really want some random soldier walking around with proof of his illegal tech in her brain.
West’s stool groaned as he stood. “There is a matter with which I could use some … assistance. A special assignment, of sorts. One I believe your upgraded Rubicon could facilitate greatly.”
Her brow furrowed. “What kind of special assignment?”
West stepped toward the console, chin drifting forward in a gesture to follow. Adriene’s back ached as she stood. She left the MRE wrapper on the stool and trailed him toward the bank of terminals.
He activated a viewscreen and with a few quick taps brought up a document that outlined dozens of dates, locations, missions, and projections. A fairly standard operation plan, similar to those they’d used in the 803rd, though this one was divided into multiple stages and the projections stretched out for months. The 803rd never planned more than a few weeks at a time, constantly reacting to the movement of the Mechan armada clusters.
West cleared his throat. “Two weeks ago, Flintlock commenced a new campaign—one Commodore Thurston and I have been formulating for years. It prompted your recruitment, I believe. Pathfinder?”
She nodded. “My former CO sent one for every company in the 505th.”
“Yes, the other companies assist our efforts as well, in secondary roles.”
Adriene scanned the sparse details of the operation plan for context, though it was scant, clearly a “public” version.
West cleared his throat, vibrancy building in his tone. “The Rubicon technology optimizes performance and reduces the frequency of rezones, but those are merely side effects.” He linked his fingers together, weaving shining metal with calloused skin. “Rubicon allows for an unprecedented symbiosis between R&D and Intel—exactly what this campaign needs to be successful; in fact, I designed Rubicon with this campaign specifically in mind. And now, the enhanced AI functionality could provide us with a greater opportunity to succeed. We may even be able to expedite our timetable—perhaps significantly.”
Adriene scratched the back of her neck. “What exactly does this ‘campaign’ involve?”
West stood cradling the elbow of his real arm with his mechanical one, fingers grazing the stubble on his square chin. “Allow me to give you some context.”
She lifted a hand in a gesture to proceed. “Please.”
He considered her before resting his tall frame against the edge of the console counter. “As a whole, the 505th’s primary objective is prospective intelligence gathering.”
“Prospective?”
“Long term,” West clarified. “Unlike typical reconnaissance efforts, what we pursue is not intended to inform the proceedings of another unit. Nor are we reactive to other fleet initiatives. We work independently to envision what may lie at the horizon of the war.”
Adriene nodded slowly. That explained his presence on board. Typically, companies didn’t require more than a couple of analysts to liaise with CNEF Intelligence back at central command.
She met West’s patient gaze. “At the horizon of the war … You mean the end of the war?”
“Ideally, yes.”
Adriene rubbed her cracked lips. That was indeed “prospective.”
“Though the commodore and I do not see eye to eye on everything,” West continued, “we share a … concern for the future of humanity and see a need to treat the situation with a degree of urgency. This campaign has a strong chance of leading us to the key to defeating the Mechan.”
Adriene’s brow furrowed. “You have a key to defeating the Mechan?”
“Not yet.” His lips pressed into a thin frown. “That’s classified information—for now. If you accept and the commodore approves the posting, your security classification will be raised, and I can share more details.” He rubbed his chin again, his mouth twitching to dampen a sharp, sudden wince. His mechanical fingers clicked lightly as he shook out the hand, then pressed it flat against the counter. After a moment, the episode passed. “I can tell you this,” he offered, tone conciliatory, “though you must consider it confidential.”
Adriene inclined her head. “Understood, sir.”
“As you may have noticed, the facility on Cimarosa-IV was not, in fact, Mechan in origin.”
She thought back to the strange, gray-skinned beings depicted in the stonework. “I gathered.”
“I have been studying the Mechan creators for some time now—the Architects, as they are referred to by some. I believe their history holds the key to a final and resounding defeat of the Mechan. Commodore Thurston believes that as well.”
Adriene cleared her throat, but found she wasn’t sure what to say. People didn’t often throw around phrases like “final and resounding defeat of the Mechan.” Nor did they speak of the Mechan creators as anything other than a nebulous, long-extinct annoyance responsible for their current predicament. “Are you saying you think the Architects are still alive?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No, certainly not.” He pushed off the counter and turned to the console again, but paused, then his hand dropped away from the screens. He retracted, thinking better of it, then turned to her. “There is little I can share presently. Suffice it to say, we have acquired information that has given us more insight into Architect history and their extinction. But there is much work to do. Reconstructing that history is the first leg of this campaign, and a crucial one. Your involvement could drastically aid that undertaking.”
Adriene’s mind churned as she took in the offer. She’d always considered herself a career grunt—a slightly above-average pathfinder. Then again, she never thought she’d get kicked up to sergeant in a special forces division either.
“What would I be doing, exactly?” she asked.
He gave a curt dip of his chin. “There will be certain … tasks you will undertake. Ones you and your Rubicon are uniquely capable of executing. Those which the commodore desires to remain … discreet.”
Adriene nodded slowly. From his tone, she took that to mean the kinds of things in after-action reports that either ended up glossed over or omitted entirely.
“It is a role I would have preferred to take on myself, but…” West stretched out his cybernetic hand, pressing the palm flat against the side of his thigh. “I cannot be … on the ground, as it were.”
Adriene eyed the uncomfortable, stilted way he leaned against the console, the cant to his spine, heavily favoring his mechanical side. She wondered if he needed a proxy because he was physically incapable or because a half-robot commander wasn’t stellar for morale.
“You would essentially be acting on my behalf,” West continued. “As I said, you will have more details once your clearance is raised. After that, you would be expected to maintain strict confidentiality. Your classification would be raised beyond that of your colleagues, and you would be unable to discuss your objectives or your upgraded Rubicon with anyone outside of myself and Commodore Thurston.”
“Not even Major Blackwell?” she asked.
He exhaled a heavy sigh. “Undetermined, as yet. The commodore and I do not see eye to eye on that.”
Adriene considered the situation; it was a lot to unpack. It would mean chronically lying to her squad, her support crew. Maybe even lying to her commanding officer. “Why all the secrecy?”
West tapped his temple with two fingers.
Right. The illegal AI in her head.
He sighed and crossed his arms. “We are, unfortunately, not entirely aboveboard at the moment,” he pointed out. “Though I have every confidence we will get special dispensation from the advisory board, that could take many months, if not years.” He frowned, gaze drifting to the middle distance. With his arms folded, his real hand rested in the crook of his mechanical elbow, kneading the metal joint. Voice low, he added, “I fear we may not have that long.”
Adriene picked at the hem of her shirt, wondering at the vacant silence in her chest. She should be terrified—a high-ranking intelligence officer of the Extrasolar Fleet just admitted the likelihood that the Mechan could end the war in a matter of years. Yet she only felt a passing sense of curiosity.
“That long till what?” she asked. “Don’t you think if the scrappers wanted us dead, we already would be?”
Looking down, West’s lips pressed into a grim line, and he shook his head. “I cannot pretend to understand the motivations of machines. A corruption of their coding, perhaps, who knows.” He looked up and met her eye. “Either way, we are at imminent risk. Whatever their agenda, it is not benevolent—they have demonstrated that much, at least. A tipping point is coming, one we will not be able to recuperate from.”
Brow furrowed, she shook her head. “You can’t know that for sure.”
He drew up his chin, tone measured. “I don’t like it either, Sergeant. But it’s plain fact. Academics have warned the directorate for over a decade. When rezone technology came about, they used it as a blinder, extending their willful disillusion. Rezoning may keep us afloat, but it only delays the inevitable.”
“Which is?”
“The Mechan will grow to a point we cannot surpass. Even now, we’re spread too thin to outmatch them. If we continue to do nothing, then we remain gated in our dying system, where Mira will one day kill us. They will not have to do anything.”
A memory drifted into the back of Adriene’s mind. Clamping her eyes shut, she tried to stave it off, to no avail: the rough grit of sand abrading her skin, a halo of metal eclipsing her vision, a terrible, rancid hunger burning in her stomach.
Her nails bit hard into her palms. She focused on the pain to root her, pushing the memory away as she turned her right hand over and stretched it out wide.
When she’d been hybridized, the scrappers let her die of starvation instead of just killing her. Were they really doing the same thing to humanity?
“Flintlock is on the cusp of a breakthrough,” West continued, a trace of rising fervency in his tone. “For the first time since the Brownout, we are poised to maneuver offensively instead of ceaseless, idle reaction and defense. We have a chance to get ahead of the Mechan, but only if we seize this opportunity.”
It made a degree of sense. In all her time in the 803rd, hundreds of encounters with the Mechan, all the bots ever tried to do was stop them—from scouting, from setting up colonies, from inhabiting a new sector. Hybridizing them when possible, killing them if they couldn’t. Maybe the bots really were holding out for that mathematical tipping point.
Adriene chewed the inside of her lip. There had to be more. They were ruthless killing machines, yes, but they were still sentient. Still able to follow a train of logic. And she didn’t buy the corrupted coding excuse one bit.
West’s theory fit … mostly.
She looked back at him, surprised to see his posture straightened, a glint of fighting spirit in his hazel eye.
“I don’t know about you, Sergeant,” he said, “but I would rather go out fighting.”
Her chin dipped in an unconscious nod. If only she’d had a fighting chance when she was hybridized. But the bots took that from her. If they were treating the entire human species that way …
It should disconcert her. Sicken her, anger her, motivate her. Something.
She gritted her teeth against her ambivalence. This damn husk. She should feel something. Anything.
But in truth, she didn’t care why the scrappers had left humanity alive or what the result of this war would be if it lasted two more years—or two more decades. She couldn’t pretend to share West’s apparent altruism. Sure, she shared a rational hatred for the Mechan, but hers was personal, visceral, intimate. A never-ending vendetta between husk and hive mind that could, conceivably, never end.
West saw a larger picture, one she couldn’t even imagine. Macro to her micro. Not because she didn’t want to but because she didn’t need to. It simply didn’t affect her.
Callous? Maybe. Perhaps self-centered. Or maybe she just didn’t give a shit. She only needed to know what was in it for her.
She held his gaze. “Is this a rank bump?”
He shook his head. “Advancing a newcomer mere days after arrival could prompt questions, but your compensation rate will reflect your additional responsibilities.”
“Thurston’s approved it?”
“We’ve discussed the need for a proxy for many months, though I haven’t yet spoken to him about you specifically. I will have to break the AI news to him gently. He will not be pleased, but I’m sure he will see it as the strategic opportunity it most certainly is.”
“Is this compulsory?”
“No. Entirely voluntary.”
Adriene pressed her fingers into her aching temples. She’d encountered “voluntary opportunities” in CNEF before. Typically, you were voluntold.
In this case, she believed it. Coercing someone whose brain contained all the evidence needed to prove you’d broken AI ascendancy laws wasn’t a great idea.
“I understand your hesitation.” West paused briefly before drawing in a long breath, hardening his expression. “Beyond compensation, I do have an additional incentive to offer. Something I’m quite certain you’ll be interested in.”
Her brow furrowed. “And what’s that?”
“Administrator permissions.”
She stared, blinking slowly. Of all the myriad things she thought he might say … that had definitely not been one of them.
Though his withdrawn posture and rapid eye blinks betrayed a hint of uncertainty, his expression remained composed, serious.
Adriene’s mouth went bone-dry. “How do you know about that?”
West proceeded carefully. “You spoke of it to your Rubicon. Prior to the upgrade.”
She strove to keep her voice steady. “You can read our minds?”
He lifted a placating hand. “Not at all. A transcript is sent after certain parameters are triggered. Your VI flagged the exchange.”
She scoffed. “What?”
“Your physiological response to that conversation … concerned your VI—that is to say, met a handful of those required parameters. So, a summary was sent for review.”
Her lips parted with realization. That’s where the random appointment with the psychologist had come from.
“If that is, in fact, still what you want,” West said, his tone low, steady. “I can arrange for it. After the campaign is complete.”
“Which is when?” she asked. “A ‘campaign’ could take years.”
He shook his head. “One way or another, this will be over in a matter of months. The campaign has launched, and either we get what we need before the Mechan realize what we’re doing … or we don’t. If we fail, we return to the status quo. What happens between now and then…” His hazel eye raked over her. “Well. You could work it to your advantage or not. The choice is yours.”
Adriene stood frozen, not quite able to believe she’d heard him right. That she fully understood his offer.
Her endless life had controlled her for years—physically, mentally, emotionally. It was draining, exhausting. She had a chance to change things, to do something about it. West was by far the nearest to someone who might actually have both the power and skill set to accomplish it.
She forced the weakness from her throat. “So, if I agree to this posting…”
West nodded. “I’ll deactivate your rezone chip.”
A knot loosened in her chest. Hearing him say it out loud, word for word, made it real. Attainable.
Then she nodded without even realizing it. It was automatic, instinctual. It’d be like saying no to oxygen. She couldn’t refuse.
