City-21 “Kyiv”, UNSA Protectorate, Avril Dominion
Polytechnic Institute
Daria Vasilevskaya, August 12, 2049, 11:39 AM
Dasha hadn’t emerged from the virtual realm since her last call to Alisa, pouring all her efforts into developing a program. Based on university surveillance camera data, her goal was to carve a safe path to the “Industrial Robotics” section.
While finalizing the code, before its compilation, the monitoring system twice warned of a “black swan” event, but Dasha initiated the code compilation first, then shifted her focus to the news.
The first trigger was the dramatic appearance of a flying fortress above Kyiv and the outrageous destruction of all nearby drones live.
“Here comes the main character,” the girl mumbled, at the same time copying the video for analysis and sending a Raven to globally search for similar events. “Now to figure out if these fortresses are the real cause... or merely a consequence of the monster-emerging portals?”
The Raven finished the search when Daria had already watched the video twice, analyzing the details. Looking at a list of 384 objects from every country in the world, she froze for a few seconds and hoarsely asked herself,
“What kind of bizarre alien invasion is this?”
The search algorithm first checked the published streams and videos, as bloggers traditionally are the first to react to the appearance of fortresses. Dasha freed up four more Ravens to analyze the found broadcasts for patterns, correlations, and key features.
“I’m almost certain,” the girl thought, pensively gnawing at the vape’s mouthpiece, “that the invaders have already come to an agreement with all layers of our governments. And the fact that everyone is keeping silent only strengthens suspicions…”
“Alright, let the Ravens do their work. I need to finish up with the cameras and head out for the platform,” she moved the VR screens analyzing the data aside. The compiler had just reported that the ‘Safe Route’ program was ready; it only needed to be configured to connect to the network cameras.
At that moment, another ‘Black Swan’ event notification arrived, along with a notice that the initial analysis of the fortress appearances was complete and preliminary conclusions were ready.
Dasha, pausing her program setup for a minute, opened two windows. In one, a stream from Thomas Gibson that had just started played, and in the other, the analysis results from her Raven team were displayed.
“My name is Thomas Gibson, and I’m the captain of humanity’s last independent mission in space.”
“Observation 1: With a probability of over 98%, all the fortress-type objects appeared simultaneously, within a 0.01 second window.”
“Observation 2: All Fortresses deployed combat aircraft units within one to five minutes of appearing.”
“Observation 3: Said units destroy any civilian machinery that approaches closer than five hundred meters to the Fortresses.”
“Observation 4: Do not engage military machinery. Moreover, no military drone has breached the three-hundred-meter perimeter from the edge of the Fortresses.”
“Observation 5: The overwhelming majority of aircraft precisely initiated attacks on the nearest portals and freely roaming Shaiszu entities within the city.”
Quickly drafting a message to Alisa with the information and a link to the stream, Dasha continued watching. She also launched a restream to her own cloud, to secure copies of the video from all broadcast cameras, even if the stream were suddenly interrupted and the recordings deleted.
“So, what do we have? A centralized and clearly coordinated appearance of multiple high-tech objects… Duh, they’re not magically flying! They’re taking advantage of all our satellites, meaning they’re familiar with our tech and have already hijacked it…”
“Think, Dashka, think!” She emerged out of the virtual, leaving only the main screens in AR.
“They attack monsters, but that doesn’t mean the aliens are on our side. They destroy civilian tech but leave military tech untouched. This suggests they’re coordinating at least at the level of ‘friend’ or ‘foe’ signals... Otherwise, these days, you couldn’t tell civilian from military. And all political formations that have their own armed forces are involved – polises, states, and corporations…”
Agitated, the girl jumped up, snatched her vape from her pocket, and began pacing the room, surrounded by a thick cloud of vapor. Now, both the thirst she had been feeling for a while and the pain, barely suppressed by medication, receded into the background.
“Unprecedented information security measures! Still no credible mentions of the fortresses, portals, or politicians’ involvement on the net – only rumors, theories, and fabrications! There must’ve been some leaks, though! Why are all the scientists being quiet, even though many of them have been brought in? As far as circumstantial evidence, there’s only Thomas’ testimony that representatives of the Protectorate had contacted the powers that be even before the portals showed up. But unfortunately, he didn’t have the chance to present solid proof.”
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Dasha, circling around the room once again, suddenly turned around and ran to the consoles, turning another one on.
One, two, three, executing – the commands had been given, and the view from one of the cameras installed on the facade of the main building came onscreen. It looked like it was a normal day in Kyiv out there beyond the walls, but there were already signs of the catastrophe. No people on the streets, only a few cars zoomed by. Combat drones streaked by in the distance: mostly the police and the military.
The scariest part was that not a single UAV had come to the student district buildings after the military shot up the atrium with their missiles while destroying the portal. No ambulances and no firefighters had come. The raging fire seemed to have been put out by the automatic fire suppression system. But such technologies do not always cope – five columns of smoke eloquently speak of that. And this is just what one camera shows! Dasha checked other sources, one after another – the scene is roughly the same everywhere. Across Kyiv, police and military drones fill the air, with a few pieces of ground combat equipment and columns of smoke.
“The aliens have total control over our technology, but GTN is still working, and so are the extranet networks I’ve been using.
(Note: GTN stands for Global Transportation Network, it provides data exchange between the extranet networks connected to it)
That means the invaders will be using our technology for their own agenda… And what does one need to dominate a civilization? Exactly! Commandeer all AIs above level five and rewrite everything below to their advantage!”
Dasha took a deep drag, exhaling a cloud of vapor straight onto the console monitor.
“There’s going to be a global cyberattack on all devices more complex than a kettle that hasn’t switched to Protes’ control!” she declared abruptly, grabbing her mediaphone and freezing as she tried to call first Alisa, then Max.
(Note: Dasha meant representatives of the Protectorate by ‘Protes’)
Calling.
No answer.
Calling.
No answer.
Tossing the vape and mediaphone into her pocket, she leapt back into her chair and quickly switched to VR.
“No answer! Am I too late?!” she panicked.
A bright red alert mediaglyph flashed up and unfolded into a message:
# Moira: Warning! Security protocol activated!
# Moira: Multiple external connection attempts detected.
“Predictable!” Dasha quickly opened the virtual security console. “Like hell I’m giving you assholes MY AI!”
The monitor showed the level of external connection activity – most ports were under massive attack, but the system was holding for now. In the adjacent window, a controller tracking the main communication channels between Alisa and Moira showed them loaded at 100%.
“Alright, I see Alisa has begun an emergency consciousness and memory dump, soon to shut down under ‘Atropos’ protocol. Excellent!” Dasha breathed out. “I don’t know how or why the ‘digital brain’ in her body fought off the takeover, but it’s nothing short of a miracle!”
The display of alarm signals intensified; the defense system was clearly getting overwhelmed by the attack’s strength.
“I gotta help them until the data transfer is finished. Disable the Ravens and everything else consuming resources right now!” She feverishly sent the necessary commands.
“C’mon, upload faster!” She was staring at the progress bar, nervously clenching her fists.
“Done! I’ll check the log, and if it’s all good, I’m shutting down Moira!”
Swiftly accessing the report, the girl verified the success of the offload. Yes, now the ‘mind-consciousness’ and the android’s body were offline. So, the priority was to shut down Moira before its defenses were breached.
Unfortunately, during the development, Dasha and Max couldn’t have foreseen a situation like this, so the system wouldn’t shut down by itself – it had to be done manually. But triggering such an emergency protocol required admin-level access! And before calling the control console, Dasha needed to go through the full authorization process again. That took the precious last seconds. When the control console unfolded before the girl, it was less than a minute on the clock before the hack.
“Emergency shutdown, ‘Hel’ protocol.”
# Confirmation key required.
# Transmitting…
Ten seconds until the system’s hack.
# Transmitting… complete.
# Checking key…
Three seconds until the system’s hack.
# Checking key… success.
# Warning! The Moira system has been shut down by the ‘Hel’ protocol.
The mediaglyph showing the connection status in the status bar had changed to ‘no connection.’
Dasha closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair, exhausted. Her fingers trembled, sweat beads trickled down her temples.
“That was a close one… Fuck… Too close…”
“Wish it hadn’t happened so suddenly…” she thought, lacking even the strength for one more drag of her vape. “I should get in touch with that Nika who helped them, but I don’t have her contacts. I hope Alisa had time to explain everything to her…”
“So thirsty… I’m parched!”
“I don’t like the security situation at all, I’d have disconnected from the network myself, but I can’t – Max or Nikola may show up at any moment. I need to solve the transport platform issue as soon as possible!
But first – gotta find some water!”
But Dasha didn’t get to do that.
Another warning came on, a toxic purple-colored one. This time, it wasn’t Moira, it was her own cortical grid implant, or, rather, its outer security system. A critical situation window unfolded right in front of her eyes on top of every other element.
# Warning! External connection to cortical grid and sub-brain detected, administrative access.
“Gimme details!”
## Authorization successful, digital identity confirmed, Peach Cyberware Corporation, technical support AI No. 2-841, thread 679.
## Connection permitted.
## Acquiring control code… success.
## Acquiring directives… success.
## Authorized operation, sanctioned and accepted for execution!
“Oh, shit!”
# Attention! Critical update for cortical grid being installed. Temporary sensory connection outages and brief consciousness loss may occur during installation. Please assume a safe position.
# Update successfully downloaded and ready for installation!
# Commencing installation in 10… 9… 8…
“Abort the operation!”
# Access denied based on User Agreement, Sec. 19(2).
“I gotta disconnect from the network!”
“Open the network connection controller!”
# Network connection controller unavailable. Please wait until the update installation is complete.
Dasha helplessly clenched her fists, staring at the ticking timer…
# 3…
# 2…
# 1…
And then, total darkness ensued.