Chapter 2
Class was droning on forever, as it always seemed to do in the last hour before recess. I enjoyed listening to history, but most of what was said now was simple repetition before our finals. With great effort of willpower I managed to listen to the end of the teacher’s lesson.
“...ith the defeat came a staggering loss of Hybrid forces, but the IU’s diversion paid off. There is still debate whether IU’s command was too focused on striking at the heart of T.O.R.I. to care for minimizing the losses of the diversionary Attion attack, but none can deny that Operation Red Arrow managed to enter the T.O.R.I. databases virtually unchallenged and successfully deleted the rogue AI. The day the T.O.R.I. automation was ended, Sun C8D12 986 CA. Remember that date, it is likely to be on your test. Any questions?”
She looked at the drowsy students. We were arranged in a slightly more than semi circle, consisting of a single row that went about 200 degrees around the teacher’s holographic platform. The room always felt a little too clean to me. The educational decorations, such as propaganda posters with historical significance or starmaps never did manage to make the square, eggshell-white room feel more comfortable. The human girl two seats to my left raised her hand, and an unspoken groan rippled through the less ambitious students. “Why do we still use AIs? No offense of course.”
“None taken” the teacher replied with partially programmed understanding. “A harsh lesson was learned from T.O.R.I.’s automation. AIs these days have more failsafes than can be counted, and can all be remotely deactivated. Even more so for facilities with the capability to operate independently. Even before T.O.R.I., rogue AIs were exceptionally rare, and the odds of a military-grade AI becoming non-responsive to human input were astronomically low. But we cannot afford another such instance, and necessary measures are in place. T.O.R.I. claimed nearly 200.000 human lives in the blink of an eye, and it took the creation of hybrids to put a stop to her. Something like that happening again is as good as impossible.” The teacher looked at the digital clock displayed above her head as if not knowing what it said already, and concluded, “that will be all for today, please let mr. Samin know that class has ended too.” At the mention of his name, the young man to my right awoke, a red imprint on the left side of his face where his head had rested on his arms.
“I’m awake, ms. Cate. Wouldn’t dare close my ears to something so interesting.” he said with a voice that implied a severe lack of interest.
“I am still surprised how you manage to pass my tests, mr. Samin. Well now, for any more questions you can always Link me. Enjoy your recess.” And with those parting words, the AI winked out of existence.
I turned to my friend while the sounds of chairs scraping on the floor and murmurs of students rose around me. “How DO you manage to score so high every time? You sure your parents didn’t pay for some extra attention to your genetics?”
As we got up and walked out of the classroom, Tonk Samin turned to me with a confident grin, slightly offset by the fading red print on his face. “Allll natural, baby. How you DON’T manage to ace your tests every time with your genetic tinkering is the real question. You comin’ to the roof?”
“Yeah, just gonna grab my lunch first. Also, it’s not like intelligence was a trait they really valued in us. They focused on more practical things. ‘How to turn a maniacal robot into scrap 101’ and the like.”
Tonk looked up at me with mock terror. “Oh no, please don’t hurt me, fearsome warmachine!”, he cried. “See you later, terror”, he said as he turned and walked away with the growing stream of students, making a quasi-nonchalant effort to check if his hairgel had held his unruly crimson in order during his nap.
I turned and walked in the other direction, to my locker and more importantly, the bathroom. I had been here for almost 18 years now, and was sometimes still surprised by both the similarities and differences that my new home had compared to Earth. And yes, I had remembered Earth. For one, Earth was a thing here too. But humanity had progressed beyond the boundaries of the solar system, well on their way to a type 3 civilization. Time was still measured by the earth’s cycles around the sun, but humanity had pioneered to wholly different galaxies through the use of Horizon Engines, anti-matter powered machines that simply -’simply’- folded space around itself, allowing for an interstellar traversal vessel, or spaceship in common tongue, to move from point A to point B faster than light, without actually moving faster than light. It just got rid of the distance between the start and the destination.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Yet for all the technological advancements, such as AIs and interstellar travel, school was still a thing. Who’d have thought? While AIs were perfectly capable of doing anything a human could do, humans were still intensely curious. Why leave exploring the frontier and discovering ways to immortality to beings who would be less capable of appreciating it? That required that humans at least had some basic understanding of the workings of the world. Turns out it can also come in quite handy when a rogue AI capable of infecting any other AI you throw at it comes up with the desire to eradicate all humans.
I entered the bathroom, did my thing, and washed up at the sink. Hybrids had been accepted as equals to human since the creatively named Equality Accord 50 years ago. But somehow, the outer rim colony I called home, or Lior, had still not quite caught up in adapting its facilities to use for hybrids. The school could be forgiven for it, since I was one of the few hybrids, but it was hard to find any public restroom that had had hybrids in mind during its construction. I had to bend at the knees slightly to properly wash my hands -and I would wash them, damn it- and be able to see myself in the mirror. The visage that greeted me had taken some getting used to. For one, I was not human. Not quite. My face and general build was human enough. Two eyes, one nose, two arms and two legs. Growing up, my awareness of who I was and who I had been was gradual. I had indeed kept most of my memories of my old life, but I didn’t know it from birth. It came to me over the first few years of my life. Grew on me, I learned it like I learned how to walk and talk. By then my new mother and father had grown on me already, and I loved them. My old self was a thing of the past.
Now I was Vorn Proton, hybrid. Being named after a martial icon was fairly common among my species. We were bred for it after all. When the humans were being slaughtered by T.O.R.I. they quickly found that fighting an AI was a tough problem with their subpar human flesh and fighting spirit. And since using another AI was out of the question, they sought their solution in genetic engineering. Superhumans, with the very best traits of humanity and accelerated growth still did not do the job. So it was decided that some superhumans would be cross-engineered with some of the less intelligent, yet more ferocious and powerful species of other planets. Tall, mostly human looks, a chitinous tail as long as I was tall that had plating extending over the spine to the neck, waving out over the shoulder blades. Starting at the base with similar thickness to my arm, growing thinner down to the last foot of the tail, which was solid chitin with very little flexibility and control, in the shape of a slender blade. Perhaps useful as a weapon in war, but in day to day life it was never very handy. Hybrids possessed muscles that generated far more force per pound than human muscle. Nerves that transmitted signals like electrical wires, near instantaneous and beyond anything a regular human could keep up with. Shame it kept us out of most sporting events. Armed with heavy suits and weapons and commanded by superhumans, the hybrids managed to destroy T.O.R.I. within five years after their conception. Only took about twenty million hybrid lives. War was easier when soldiers could be produced from vats in spades.
30 years after T.O.R.I.’s destruction, the Equality Accord was signed, allowing hybrids to choose a family name, and to have the same rights as their human fellows. To an extent at least. Hybrids were fighters, but willingly throwing yourself at turrets with perfect precision took a little more than a great speech, so some additional measures for ensuring obedience were thrown into the genetic mix. While the Chain Frequency was hardly ever employed after the war, it was still in existence. Hybrids would never rule, the Frequency made sure of that. It was a hard tool to cast aside from a human perspective. Here was a race that had been engineered to fight better than any human. Having no trump card in hand against any possible insurgence was a fool’s play. Some theories suggested that hybrids were never supposed to win the war with so many to spare. Command at the time had preferred to produce too many hybrids rather than too few, however, so here we were.
The face in the mirror was adorned by coal black hair, short and untamed, and was more handsome than my previous one had been. My green eyes and strong jaw alone ensured that, which is why I did have some measure of popularity among my female peers. My slightly pale tint did not seem to deter. Still, I had not been seeing anyone since I knew that my 7.5ft tall frame was more of a novelty to most human women, and realistically would be too much to handle for any high school girl. I don’t blame them, just my parents for moving to the outer rim where there were so few of my kind.
I finished washing my hands, tried to use the dryer, only to find the pathetic stream of air woefully inadequate to perform its task. I whipped the water from my hands and wiped them on my jeans -thankfully jeans for hybrids were available on Lior- and went to my locker. I grabbed my lunch packet, and made my way to the stairs.