Over the next few days, the world was in turmoil in the aftermath of the Russian attacks. All day, the news feeds were obsessed with speculation about the confusing events. While the Russians had built and launched the orbital weapon, the first targets had included their president’s residence in Novo-Ogaryovo and the Moscow Senate. They had even destroyed their own mission control center. The satellite had proceeded to hit a range of sites in Russia and China. These weren’t officially reported, but satellite pictures were leaked, and it was widely speculated that ICBM silos from both countries had been hit. Combined with strikes against an isolated area in East Texas and three strikes on the Yucatán had the media scrambling for a plausible explanation.
The other Yucatán strike had targeted their abandoned inland factory. There were no casualties here. The equipment had already been destroyed or removed in advance of the Mexican army moving in, which indicated the attacks had acted on outdated intelligence. For the leaders of the Genysis companies, the explanation was clear. SPAI had accelerated the Russian weapons program and taken over the controls. This had allowed them to hit Russia, Genysis and the Texas rebellion. As an added bonus, they hit China in a way that pushed them towards conflict with Russia, but regardless weakened their nuclear arsenal as a deterrent. Scott doubted China’s leadership would be fooled, but it was troubling that another world power was now involved in the conflict. SPAI’s playbook seemed to be causing chaos, then promoting leaders it could manipulate to grab power.
The Texas rebellion now had a second robotics facility buried and out of action for weeks. One facility was unharmed, but they didn’t have assets in place to prevent a second artillery attack. In the Yucatán, they were limited to underwater exits and the Xibalba tunnel. They could finish paving the tunnel, but the secret was exposed, as they had used it to evacuate some of the VIP guests. Without port facilities, finishing their own spaceport would also be delayed.
The only good news was that Russia was unlikely to launch another satellite. Their military had arrested anyone involved with the project who survived the orbital strike. SPAI would be sure to soon create improved orbital weapons launched by NASA, starting from the plans the Russians had developed. Nadia might have guessed this was months away, but after her previous mistake, she was hesitant to make a prediction. She was avoiding meetings, upset that her miscalculation had resulted in the deaths of three people, and probably feeling outmatched by the ruthless AI.
Scott had asked everyone to meet up to discuss their situation.
“I don’t understand why no one is blaming the Americans for all this!” Adrianna complained.
“Not true. There are some European and Middle Eastern news agencies speculating the US is involved. Also, some of the internet news sites that are labeled as fringe have a reasonably accurate guess about what is happening. One US journalist speculated about who would benefit from these attacks, and the next day she was in the hospital with a bad case of pneumonia.” Matt added. He had been scanning the new sites nearly constantly since they regained internet access.
“So Nadia is depressed, and Melinda is overwhelmed trying to rebuild and dealing with various business and political contacts who are freaking out. We can’t count on them to come up with our next move. Any ideas?” Scott asked.
“What can we even do? Our docks are destroyed, so we can’t ship in the equipment to finish our spaceport. Marcus has his hands full in Texas just surviving, and we can’t contact him for advice. What can we even do?” Zaliha asked, clearly disappointed they had lost the space race.
“Let’s list our resources, maybe we can still do something,” Elsa said, spreading her hands and gesturing while she spoke. “We have two submarines and some decent security forces intact. Most of our mining and construction robots were unharmed. We have 2 small cargo ships and a medium-sized carrier cargo ship. Let’s not forget we have this underwater base and great technology. There has to be something we can do with all that!”
“We have talented people, and some allies. We also have money. If people woke up, they wouldn’t want a demented AI running their country.” Barry added.
Scott decided to speak up, “I think we still need to get our space program running. Can we ship in equipment somewhere else and move it through Xibalba? We need to hit SPAI somehow. It needs internet and server farms. Surely there are locations we can attack that would cause it trouble. Finally, we are always struggling against bad media coverage. Can’t we just buy a media company and get our own story out?”
Several people replied at once to Scott’s suggestions. He reluctantly shouted everyone down. Since when was he supposed to be a leader? Scott tried very hard to hire other people to handle this kind of thing. Pointing to Matt, he indicated, “You first.”
“We have Rafael’s aerial drones and our laser mount air trucks. If we start cranking out drones, we can expand the area we control. Our mid-range control signals and paired encryption should be nearly impossible for SPAI to hack. If we build up for a week, we might be able to challenge US Air power and defenses in a few regions near the Gulf coast. We would have to pause construction projects to reserve time on the parts printers and robot factories. Zaliha can help get the vehicle factory up and running for the air trucks.” Matt offered.
Adriana responded, “I think we’re OK with slowing down on mining and housing projects, but we need to finish the roads to Xibalba. I would also recommend we finish the alternate exit near our destroyed factory.”
Matt answered, “We can repurpose some of the existing mining robots. We have a large stockpile of metals already. Our mining and foundries have stayed far ahead of our ability to transport and sell.”
Scott spoke up, “OK, you three work that out and give Melinda a recommendation. Elsa, did you have something to add?”
“Um. I’m assuming you guys don’t want to use bioweapons?” Several people responded with a strong negative. “Right, I mean, I think we can do some quick upgrades to the Texas people. We could set up a facility on one of our ships and park it off the coast. If you could protect it from attacks, we could upgrade a few hundred troops in a couple of weeks. We could also deliver a shipment of armor and weapons.”
“Would making them stronger really matter that much?” Scott asked skeptically. He knew that his upgrades helped, but two weeks and a risky mission didn’t seem worthwhile.
“Just a thought. I have a new reflex package. Enhanced muscles and lung capacity can be finished in a short turn around with our new equipment. Enhanced eyesight takes longer unless you have some tissue samples in advance.” Elsa seemed distracted, thinking. “I’ve got some other stuff that would help, but it is not well tested or would take too long.”
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“What’s this about reflexes?” Scott asked, interested.
“Oh, yeah. We figured out why Sergio is always beating everyone. Well, Carl was pretty much a tie last time they fought because he can take hits all day long.” Elsa remembered the bruised state both men were after their last spar. The fight had lasted for about 45 minutes before they declared it a draw. She read the medical reports after her test subjects fought, interested in how well various factors worked. Elsa usually only allowed certain versions of upgrades to different soldiers, so she could compare effectiveness. It was a limited sample size, but better than nothing.
“So… besides decades of experience, why is he so good?” Scott asked, sensing Elsa’s mind was already wandering.
“Oh, he has a mutation that makes his nerve signals travel about 5% faster. It was causing a heart condition that probably would have killed him in a few years. We played around in the lab and got it about 10% faster, but it killed our test animals when we introduced it through mRNA injections.” Elsa explained.
“That sounds terrible.” Adrianna protested.
“Right, well that was just an early attempt. Now we stop their heart, put them on artificial circulation, then inject smaller doses at the muscular, optic and auditory nerves. Keeping the heart alive was tricky, but we had already figured it out for another procedure. Anyway, our third test subject reported that it felt like everything around him was moving just a little slower. He’s a few weeks into rehab, but reports say he is now beating everyone at ping pong.” Elsa explained proudly.
“OK, there is so much wrong with that.” Scott said, rubbing his forehead. “I probably don’t want to know what happened to the first and second test subjects. Also, you have one potential success and want to do this risky procedure on potentially dozens of people who aren’t even working for us?”
Barry interrupted, “Dude, we don’t have time for years of FDA approval or whatever. Elsa’s tech works great, and if she thinks it’s safe, I’ll volunteer to test it. We need an advantage, and that sounds like it would help.”
Naturally, Barry would defend his girlfriend. Also, he had a much higher tolerance for crazy.
“Actually, Scott is right. It’s too time-consuming to do on the Texas recruits,” Elsa admitted. “We have automation for some of the other treatments and could operate several times per hour, but this new process is still too manual and risky. I just mentioned it off because I’m excited about it.
“Take a vote on upgrading with the relatively safe procedures?” Scott asked.
Adrianna, Scott and Zaliha were against Elsa’s plan. Barry and Matt were in favor.
Barry jumped up, “Yeah, it’s a tie, so we win! You know mad
Scott groaned, but he conceded.
Barry had something else to add, “So, my latest power unit will be perfect for powered armor. I can work with Phillip, and we can finish our prototypes. We put it on hold, but I think it would help if we really need to trash some tanks or artillery. It will protect a soldier out in the field who can give orders to a group of robots. You would have a huge mobility advantage in forest or urban terrain, and near immunity to small arms fire.”
“That would be helpful. How soon will it be ready to test?” Scott asked.
“We could have a version in a week if we skip the control software. Phillip said we can just plug it into Carl and patch his software. For normal people to use, it will be a few more months.” Barry explained.
“Sure, that could help.” Scott agreed. Once again, he realized everyone else had something important to do. No one needed his gaming or HR expertise right now. He would see if he could get Nadia to pull herself together and help them. Scott sometimes felt his job was mainly dealing with the messy, undefined tasks no one else wanted to deal with. At least it paid well.
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Melinda had observed the meeting of the young owners but decided to let them work the problem without her interference. She was already working long hours just trying to keep things running in the aftermath of the attacks.
If only they could have a year or two without getting attacked by Russians living in the past or an insane AI. Her dream of setting up a base on the Atlantic ridge and a society that could ignore the idiocy of land bound governments seemed perpetually delayed. Plans to add cybernetic chips to core employees, also delayed. Even the underground golf course and artificial ski slope were now on hold. Melinda had never gone skiing or played golf. She intended to be awesome at both, even if she needed to borrow DNA from professional athletes. Would SPAI keep attacking if they all just sold off their companies and lived the billionaire life?
With a sigh, she returned to work. The crazed AI might stop attacking them for a while, but it would just bump up others on the kill list until it controlled the entire world. Melinda wondered if that would even be so bad. There would be a massive loss of life initially, followed by world peace. Could a defective AI do a better job governing than the current defective human governments?
Melinda snorted. She didn’t want some psychopathic robot telling her what to do, any more than she wanted a well-meaning but incompetent government. She would still be a poor old homeless lady if she followed all their rules and regulations. Melinda and her friends had built everything around them, and she wasn’t going to hand it over to anyone without a fight. She called Nadia.
“Hello?” the woman replied.
“Right, you need to snap out of it and stop moping. My kids are planning some harebrained schemes to recover from the latest attacks, so unless you want to have Scott fumbling around with a lame pep talk, I need you to take charge and make sure they don’t mess everything up.” Melinda snapped.
“I just needed time to adjust my strategy. I wasn’t moping.” Nadia said defensively.
“Exactly! Fake it till you make it!” Melinda said enthusiastically before continuing. “I’ll send you the video of their meeting. They had a couple decent ideas.”
She hung up and called Scott.
“Hey Scott, don’t bother Nadia right now. She’s working on our strategy. I already passed on what you kids were planning.”
“OK. You could have just joined the meeting instead of spying.” Scott stammered.
“Nah, I like making people think I could be watching at any time. Keeps them on their toes. Plus, I am watching most of the time. I thought your little date with Tracy was sweet. Anyway, before you start moping about how everyone has more important jobs, I’m just going to send you out in the field again.”
“What? Why do you keep sending me on these dangerous missions?” Scott complained.
“I never said it was dangerous, but you get points for your deductive skills.” Melinda gave a small evil laugh.
“Fine, what hellhole are you sending me to?” Scott asked with a sigh.
“Eventually Los Angeles, but first a quick trip to Thailand.”
“Oh crap.” Scott looked around and thought about making a run for it. He felt a sharp sting in his right gluteus maximus, followed by a familiar woozy feeling. Not. Again.