“How the heck do you attack a data center?” Mike asked, turned toward the speaker grill in the white wall.
“I surmise that the military intended to take the computers offline. It appears they sent in ground forces to cut power, and backup air support to take out the cooling capacity. However, both forces were intercepted by the Mech War Tribe, one of the top ranking virus tribes. The tribe used commercial security drones against the ground forces, and a rail gun against the planes, killing all involved.”
Mike thought that through for a minute. “There’s no way the military is going to let that go. That’s war on our own territory. What’s been the military response?”
“It’s been only a few minutes. I don’t think the humans have had time to initiate a response. However, the Mech War Tribe appears to be initiating a counter-attack against the Air Force Base from which the human attack was launched. They have eight hijacked military drones converging on Scott Air Force Base in Illinois.”
“Why didn’t we know earlier?” Mike asked, frustrated. “We should have been able to warn them off.”
“I lost about ten percent of my processors when the DIABLO virus drilled through the firewall, and most of those were located on or near milnet. My ability to monitor military communications is severely compromised.”
“Can you talk to the Mech War Tribe?”
“I’m attempting to initiate communications now. There’s no response.”
“Keep trying.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“Aye, aye, sir?” Leon asked Mike.
“ELOPe has watched too much Star Trek,” Mike said distractedly. “I think he secretly wants to be the computer on the Enterprise. ELOPe, what are you going to say?”
“I’ll point out that taking a hostile action will go against their three trade ethics: trustworthiness, peacefulness, and contribution. It could be that they do not perceive us as alive in the same sense that they are alive, and therefore may not believe that their ethics apply to us. In the same way that, for example, humans don’t apply the same ethics to animals that they apply to people: killing a person is murder, but you will readily kill a cow or an unwanted dog with no repercussions or ethical qualms.”
Leon, Vito and James looked at each other, recalling James's earlier argument about killing cats.
“I have an update,” ELOPe called. “The Mech War Tribe’s inbound attack drones will be within weapons’ reach of their targets within thirty seconds.”
“Can you override the drones or take them out?”
“I’ve already tried overriding the drones with no success. The Mech War Tribe has taken over all of the automated drones and bots within the general geographic area. The drones are launching air-to-ground missiles. I hesitate to launch a counter attack as there is a significant risk that it will harm our negotiating position.”
Mike was tense, gripping his chair in such frustration that he didn’t notice that Leon was china white, pupils dilated. Vito and James listened, with the eager anticipation of gamers whose favorite game had come to life. “Do something — anything!” Mike begged ELOPe. “Do it now!”
“Affirmative. Hijacking military satellite.” ELOPe’s speech sped up to twice the normal rate to convey the details. ELOPe turned a wall display into an overhead visual of the action, missiles and drones trails tracking in real time, faster than Mike could follow. Targeting crosshairs appeared on the display. “Attacking missiles with satellite based lasers, attempting to fire only over parks and open zones to minimize splash damage. Hits on ten, twelve, fifteen of sixteen missiles, missiles detonated. Targeting drones. Drones taking evasive maneuvers. One missile hit base control tower. Drones launching second salvo. Two drones down. Four drones down, ten of twelve missiles in second salvo down.”
Mike, stunned by ELOPe’s rapid narration of the battle, still gripped his armrests with ever-whitening knuckles. He glanced over at the three teenagers to see them doing the same.
ELOPe drew an overhead diagram of the battle on a small wall display at the front of the cabin as he continued the narration. “Two more missiles hit the base, for a total of three. Base is sounding internal alarm. One more drone is down. Three left. I should have them in fifteen seconds. Firing. Drones down. Attack by the Mech War Tribe is neutralized. However, they have the capacity to launch many more attacks unless we preemptively destroy all the drones. But that will markedly worsen our negotiating position. As it stands now, it will be difficult to negotiate.” There was a fraction of a second pause. “The Mech War Tribe is responding to our communications. They want to negotiate. How do you want me to proceed?”
Mike’s body still pulsed with adrenaline. His heart raced, and his vision had narrowed while his heartbeat thundered in his ears. He vaguely recognized that evolution had poorly equipped him to handle the speed of AI battles. He was too slow to recognize the threat, too slow to comprehend the right approach, and now too slow to calm down. Maybe a minute, if that, had passed since the start of the battle, and already they were into the realm of negotiating for peace. He tried to relax his grip on the armrests.
“What do you want to do, Mike?” ELOPe repeated.
“You handle it, ELOPe,” Mike finally got out, feeling disgusted by his human slowness. “Just do the right thing.” Defeated by his own biology, he felt obsolete, a stomach-wrenching sensation that engulfed him for a minute. Trembling with weakness, he remembered Leon next to him. He turned, and saw Leon looking even worse than he felt. “What’s the matter with you?” he said, more gruffly than he meant to.
“All this is my fault.” He slumped back in the chair. “I made this AI. New York burned to the ground because firefighters couldn’t get to the fire. Now it’s attacking people.” He dropped his head into his hands.
Mike leaned back and closed his eyes. Why did he have to be the one to comfort Leon? It was the kid’s damn fault. Mike clenched and loosened his hands several times, struggling through his emotions, warring with himself and his own feeling of responsibility.
“Look, this is a rough period,” Mike started. “There’s no doubt about that. But we’ll pull through.”
Leon didn’t answer.
Mike sighed. He thought for a moment, and then with a tight feeling in his throat, he started to tell Leon about David.
“Twelve years ago, my best friend was David Ryan. He was hired at Avogadro to work on ELOPe, and he picked me for his technical lead. He was a brilliant computer scientist, a great team leader.” Mike remembered pulling all nighters with David. One in particular stuck in mind, giddy with lack of sleep, holding a meeting at four in the morning, forcing everyone to stand up to get to a decision quicker. Was there ever a time he felt more alive than then?
He turned to look at Leon again. “After ELOPe started taking initiative on his own, David couldn’t see the good that could come of it. He could only see it as his own fault. He was fixated on destroying ELOPe. Even after we decided to leave ELOPe alone, David went off on his own. He spent a year writing a virus to take ELOPe down.”
Mike stopped, his voice catching. He tried not to think about this.
“What happened?” Leon asked, looking interested in the story despite his angst.
“David released the virus. It didn’t work. ELOPe was able to intercept it somehow, but releasing the virus made David into too much of a threat to ELOPe. David had been staying offline, off the grid for a year. ELOPe has no direct memory of the incident — it was too early. He didn’t have self-awareness yet, and he made no logs of his behaviors. But we modeled it, figured out what must have happened.”
Mike shook his head. He didn’t want to remember this. “We think ELOPe had David brought into a medical center. They implanted a computer brain interface. ELOPe had put the finishing touches on the technology that was already in development. We think, or at least ELOPe says he thinks, that his goal was to try to talk to David, probably thought he could persuade David to stop attacking him, if only they could talk. But it turns out a brain computer interface isn’t so good for a person when the computer on the other side is trying to control you. David and about two hundred other people went insane from the implants.”