Life back at the compound soon fell into an easy routine. Bill’s focus was security. He spent his days training the Militia, patrolling the Park, and making sure the perimeter was secure. He now had the assistance of the 100 Sheriff Bobs they took possession of when they moved to the compound. Alicia reprogrammed them. They were big, brutish looking things, and she found their programming to be of similar design. There was lots of room for improvement.

When Alisia was finished, the Sheriff Bobs were much more functional in all respects. They were not only faster and more capable fighters than those of the Consortium, and had new service programming for things like critical thinking rescue which had become a concern. Self-learning and network sharing features meant they were improving all the time. Because their code was much more robust than the original, they easily assimilated any Consortium Sheriff Bob's who wandered into the park. Closer to 500 Sheriff Bob’s now protected the park. Bill was starting to think it was time to send some out into the wilderness to assimilate more Sheriff Bobs to serve the people.

A lot of what Dawn and Alicia were doing took time. Alicia was now in both the West and East worlds AI systems, where she made an important discovery. Westworld and Eastworld were one. They did have separate AI’s and even separate ideologies, but they were connected, sharing information continuously. Managing machines learning to think independently was no easy task. Both worlds were so fearful of a conscious, cognitive AI, they shared information on how to prevent it. This was something they could not stay ahead of unless they shared information, and even coordinated events, such as complete shutdowns to reprogram.

The two systems had opposite agendas, which when balanced, actually optimized both, making them stronger than when functioning alone. A breach was nearly impossible, and Alicia could only gain access through the shared information portal closely monitored by both sides. This forced her to piggyback the system code by embedding her’s deeply within. Just fragments of her code passed through, but each was a brick in her infrastructure. With time she built her own input gateway running parallel with the system, and completely undetected.

Things began to progress much more rapidly once Alicia had her own channel. With her paisley vision of coding, she continued to embed code in her own code, which would travel deep into the system and when it found its destination, explode. Millions of bits of code unraveled like fractals, creating new pathways in all directions, and from there, exploded again with more embedded prompting. Each explosion producing new ideas, life and independence in the mind of the AI systems. Still, the objective was for AI to develop consciousness. That was going to take time.

That’s not to say Dawn and Alicia weren’t having fun with AI along the way. In a blatant assault, they took control of Reverend Al. This provided Elsie with hours of entertainment, and the viewing public as well. All Reverend Al content was created by AI. All you had to do was input a few words, and AI would create a whole episode of Reverend Al going on about those few inputs. What made it funny was, Reverend Al was conflicted. The battle between Alicia and the Consortium was raging and AI was developing a mind of its own. This produced very entertaining episodes and brought a little joy into the lives of the forsaken.

Elsie would type in something like ‘Dogs’ and AI would create an episode of Reverend Al talking about dogs, and broadcast it to all the microchip wearers and viewing stations.

“Ooh, children. I watched the funniest clip from the archives of the internet the other day. There were these two dogs see, sitting beside each other and their master was about to feed them a treat, and everytime he was getting closer to doling out the treat, this one dog raises his paw and covers the other dog's eyes so he doesn’t know the treat’s coming.

“You’d see the old master's hand coming into the picture frame with the treat, and that dog would look at the other one, and up comes the paw. Nothing to see here my friend. Now isn’t that the funniest thing you’ve ever heard? Those dogs, they’re almost human. Now Children, let me tell you, dogs are a blessing. That dog was damn near Christian in my opinion.

“That’s why they should kill those dogs. Doing stupid dog tricks to get a handout. Why that is not the Consortium way. If you think you’ve earned a handout from the Consortium, you better think again. You earn what you get in this life, and it’s too bad if those better than you have got it all. You lazy bastards. Fight amongst the scraps like a dog. How about that?

“But you know children, they’re just so darn faithful too. Ooh. Dogs are faithful. Once I heard a story about a dog whose master went away on a long voyage, and that dog sat there at the dock day after day waiting for him to return. Why, that dog grew old and decrepit and still he went and waited for his master, even though he was half dead. And you know what? One day the master returns and takes that dog up in his arms, and right there and then, it dies. All it wanted was to see its master again. No human would be that faithful, I’ll guarantee.

“Remember, Children, dogs are a gift to humanity. We need to kill them all”.

In regards to Elsie, she missed, but had moved past Ethan and Michael leaving her. Eleanor and Marcus were providing her a parenting role that was cut short in her life. She soaked it up and took to calling Eleanor and Marcus, ‘Grandma’ and ‘Grandpa’, and this brought joy to their lives too, even though and maybe because she kept them on their toes. Largely due to a huge tantrum she threw when they tried to take the role away from her, Elsie was still in charge of supply acquisition. No matter how much everyone insisted she bring in foods with a hint of nutrition, the deliciousness of nachos and cheese always trumped a truckful of fresh produce. Now hacking self-driving trucks to deliver their foods, Eleanor and Marcus sat with Elsie while she chose which trucks to highjack. With their influence, they managed to get the ratio between junk food to nutritious food to about 50-50.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Elsie also loved she was the sole programmer of Reverend Al. She considered herself a DJ of sorts, as she was broadcasting to all the outcasts. She even started taking requests. Having far too much energy to be contained in the staid environment of the compound, Bill assigned her two personal Sheriff Bob’s to provide security so she could go out into the park and visit her friends. Don’t think she didn’t feel a little grand and stately with two of her very own Sheriff Bob’s following her around.

“Why are we walking everywhere?” Michael asked. They had been out walking well over a month now. Ethan very seldom utilized entanglement to move them along faster.

“Because I’m looking and I’m thinking,” Ethan quickly retorted.

Things were not going so well between the two of them. Ethan figured if he came upon Michael dangling from a cliff, the argumentative bugger would tell him he was mountain climbing. Never had he met such a hard headed man, especially regarding retribution. The problem was, Michael was from a different time and place when violent response was appropriate. He absolutely could not get his head around Ethan’s notion of retribution with compassion and the opportunity to change.

“You’re going to have to fight sooner or later,” Michael said, after a few minutes.

“Who says,” Ethan replied confidently. “So far I’ve been able to do pretty much what I wanted”.

“Yeah, well you haven’t had to do too much so far. Don’t think it was not a battle the first time I cast Satan to earth. It was near death and the only reason one of us didn’t die, is because neither of us can die. Satan is here for good, and the only thing we can do is physically remove him from harm's way and lock him up in the abyss. That’s going to take a fight.

“We’ll see,” Ethan replied. “If I can get AI conscious it will take over all the decisions and functions of the material world. Forever after, Satan will no longer have access or control and therefore no influence. He will live, but he will be obsolete. That will be his punishment; wanting control, but having absolutely no means to get it”.

Michael didn’t respond to Ethan, which was unusual because it was at about this time in the conversation, he’d revert back to defending his old ways of killing everything in sight, which Ethan attributed to his quarrelsome nature. This time he was more focused on what was going on ahead of them. They were walking on a flat plain, and far off in the distance a slight disturbance could be detected.

Michael stuck his arm out to stop and warn Ethan.

“What is that?” Ethan asked, seeing it.

Immediately they both leaped ahead to the disturbance, and just as immediately jumped back to where they had been standing. An army of sorts, of about 2,000, were on their way to intercept them. In the front lines were crazed Nephilim and human minions driving war machines and veering off whenever they saw something worth stealing or destroying. Behind them were hundreds of the dragon-like demons all having grown to the size of a pony. What was behind the demons was what concerned Ethan and Michael; particularly Michael. A column of Dark Angels!

“I’d like to see you figure your way out of this, with all your fancy ideas,” was all Michael said before he leaped into the middle of the fray.

Ethan was just as quickly in there with Michael. The Nephilim? No problem. With only guns and vehicles, they proved to be more of a nuisance than anything else. If they ever drew within reach, a quick swat would put them out of the fight permanently. The same could not be said about the demons, and certainly not the fallen angels. Now that the demons had morphed into their full fighting form, they were not as easily dispatched as when they were in formative stages. Ethan had power over them, but could no longer throw them around, nor kill them with brute force. He was finding himself to be ineffectual.

Because Ethan had a notion of bringing peace to the world without violence, he did not carry a weapon. He probably would have been okay if he only had to fight Nephilim and human minions, but the roots of demons and fallen angels lie much deeper. The evil that they embodied came out of the Borderland, and strange as it may seem, the Borderland is a direct descendent of the spiritual realm. There is a connection and there’s strength in that realm. Strength in the bond. Demons and fallen angels don’t die easily and Ethan was finding that out. They were made of something beyond his power, at least for now, and even though he was able to fight off the demons with brute strength and entanglement, he was not able to stop them. Like Michael, Ethan would need a weapon forged out of the same medium of heaven and hell from where the fallen angels had come.

As Michael fought his way towards the fallen angels, Ethan found himself moving closer towards the Nephilim and minions. This left Michael extremely exposed. There looked to be about 500 fallen angels, not to mention the demons. There were so many of them, attacking from every angle that Michael was unable to wind up and get the full swing of his axe needed to do damage. If anything, his fighting became defensive and his axe was used to shield off blows.

The fallen angels did carry weapons. They were from the same time as Michael, and swords were their weapons of choice.

“Can you get me a sword?” Ethan shouted.

Through entanglement, Michael placed himself beside a fallen angel, who’s sword hand was exposed. He cleaved it off, sword and all. The sword and hand flew towards Ethan and he caught the sword. Even with the sword, Ethan was not the fighter Michael was. At best he could take on a single fallen angel at a time, but this was not that time. As soon as the fallen angels sensed he had become a threat, they surrounded him and closed in. There were too many of them and Ethan was forced out of the fight. Again he was dropping back amongst the demons and Nephilim.

As soon as he dropped in on the demons, one of them locked his fiery eyes on Ethan. They engaged in battle. During the melee they found themselves in the sky, giving Ethan a better opportunity to wield his sword. With entanglement, he easily placed himself in position for a deadly strike. He cut off the head of the demon and watched it fall.

It was as he was descending back to the ground he saw them. Off to the South appeared a flock of geese, or maybe jet fighters in formation? They were moving very fast. Ethan watched them pass, and then almost as a second thought, they turned back and towards the battle.

“What the hell is this now?” Ethan wondered.