“That sounds like a good point to stop.” Vince says. “Unless you got up to so craziness I don’t know about, not much happened before we got bored and started scrapping.”
“Not much.” Cassie shrugs. “We’ll pick up there after Lucas’ next run.”
“Sounds good!” Lucas excitedly agrees. “I’ll catch up with all of you later!”
“Where are you going?” Ivy asks.
“Ethan and I have plans tonight. I want to surprise him by showing up early.”
“Oh, before you go.” I stop him. “I need to talk to your group before you leave. Kist has been told by the Rangers that my letter to Yellowstone has kicked so of their plans into motion. They won't attack this storm, but I don’t think we can avoid it forever. If you're ok with it, I'd like you to be there to help.”
“Sure! We've got your back! Although everyone but has modifications, I don't know how much they'll help.”
“That's fine. We're focusing our defenses atop the Bastion, everyone will stay up there. I should have a separate group ready to fight on the ground, but I'll need to check with Ray about that.”
“Ay-ay! We'll check with you before we leave!”
“Thank you.” I don't know if they'll actually make a difference but it'll be really nice to have them there to support .
Lucas heads out and closes the door behind him.
“How much danger are we in with that?” Vince asks.
“I don’t know.” I say honestly. “If they just want to flatten the city, there’s not much I can do. If they want to take it over though? They’re going to have a really hard ti.”
“What if they threaten to level the city instead of outright doing it?” Ivy asks. “Hold all of us over your head if you don’t surrender?”
Shit, I never considered that, although I’m sure Ray has. Anyone willing to go that far won’t have my citizen’s best interests at heart. Accepting isn’t an option.
“How would you do it?” I ask.
“Smuggling in explosives. You wouldn’t need that many to do an awful lot of damage. Either that or artillery. Either one would allow them to hit part of the city safely and show you they’re serious without destroying everything.”
“We already have artillery being produced for the roof, we’ll be able to fight back. I’ll ask Monary to check anything and anyone who’s co from Yellowstone.”
“Good plan.”
I turn my attention to the network and Monary, passing them Ivy’s concerns.
“I’ve been keeping an especially close eye on them already.” They reassure . “I’ve seen no evidence of sabotage, but rest assured I’m already aware of the possibility.”
“Good, thank you.” The panic in my mind settles, at least partially. It calms down enough to see a realization. “That's not in your reports?”
“Do you really want to add every ti a citizen is doing nothing of note into my reports? I can if you wish.” Monary points to a private hard drive they have, which they give access to. I look inside, and it’s just a list of citizens and what they have done in sight of the public caras, regardless of interest.
“No, you're right.” I can't worry about every last aspect of everyone's jobs, just as I can’t stretch myself and do their jobs. I can trust them when they say sothing is not important. “Sorry I doubted you.”
“I take no offense. I’m not infallible, none of us are. Reassessing our work often is vital for preventing abuse.”
“Right, thank you. I’ll let you get back to work.”
“Sounds good.” I feel Monary’s attention shift away from .
Next is another eting. I search through my caras, eventually finding Ray training a number of humans. I display a ssage on a nearby screen, and he opens his connection to the network. I pull him into a conversation, and send a request for S-21 to join as well.
“How have the defensive preparations been going?” I ask both of them.
“Good.” Ray reports. “I’m confident that twenty-two of the thirty humans I’m training are capable of fighting. The final eight are replacents after several dropped out of boot camp, but I’m confident this group will stay and be capable fighters within the next few weeks.”
“Good, thank you.” I check the drive where Ray records every last detail about all of his trainees. They’re decent shots, although not yet on par with most of what I’ve seen the scrappers at Silver’s do. The important part is that they’re improving quickly, and I can only hope it’s quick enough. “And S-21, how is manufacturing going?”
S-21 gives an excited hum in response and uploads the status of every completed and in progress job they’re working on. Their hums have a habit of leaking out into the wider network when they get excited, and now is no different. We get so inquisitive probes, but people have largely grown used to, and even enjoy their little quirk, including myself.
I quickly parse through everything. They’ve been primarily focusing on creating gear for the trainees. Their armor is light, but protective. They’re going to be our response if any combatants get into the city and need to be able to respond to any situation. S-21 is nearly done with everything needed to keep them as safe as possible, even against a larger force.
A quarter of the large rifles for bodies stationed on the roof have been produced and tested. They’re larger than Ivy’s rifle, and far more utilitarian. We don’t have to worry about them being operated by a human, which allows S-21 to cut a lot of corners and reduce production ti. It’ll be pushing my bodies’ shoulder joints to their limit from the recoil, but that’s fine.
The counter to the pucks is as done as it can be for now. It’s a half-constructed monstrosity sitting on the north side of the city, spread across four separate heavily modified cars working in unison. Kist will be arriving soon with the central piece of it, which will allow construction to wrap up. If it works, we will have my bodies in the field beside the humans.
The artillery, on the other hand, has had little work done on it. Many of the larger pieces will need the entire force of the manufactory to complete and very little can be done in parallel with their other tasks.
“That’s great, thank you. When you’re done with the armor, please get one artillery piece set up before working on more rifles.”
They hum in affirmation, and I feel their attention begin to slip. The machines in the manufactory which paused montarily begin to spin back into action.
“You can get back to work.”
They drop completely out of our conversation, and their soft hum filters through the wider server once again.
“Do you think we need anything else?” I ask Ray.
“Always, and I’ve asked Kist to create counterasures already. Nothing that can’t already be countered with our current setup, but contingencies to completely negate the damage from any number of attack vectors. Most are unlikely to be necessary, and not many more are likely to be useful. Feel free to check and add anything you wish, it’s all accessible in my partition.”
“Good, thank you.”
I return my attention back to my family, with less than a second having passed between leaving them and arriving again.
“We’re as safe as we can be, and still working to be even safer.” I tell them. “Sabotage would be incredibly hard to do under Monary’s watch, and the city’s unmodified human force is coming together well. We have a counter for the pucks, and while theoretically it’s limited to about ten feet around the device, we’ll have bodies in the field fighting side by side with them.”
“AI move fast.” Ivy nods approvingly.
“It’s slower than I would like, but fast enough. All of us have been working at nearly max efficiency since we started preparing, and not having to sleep lets us get a lot done.”
“Anything we can do to help?” Vince asks.
“I don’t think so, sorry. Just being around helps a lot. I’m not sure I could answer questions and concerns all day without your support.”
“I suppose we should keep you distracted then.” Ivy says. “Although I’m sure the kids could do that better than we can."
“That would be nice.”
The four of us end up heading downstairs to check on the kids, and hang out with them for the rest of the day.
The storm passes and Lucas heads out, destined for Denver once again. I’m starting to think that Silver is afraid of how I’ll react if he dies. I’m not going to ask them about it though, I don’t mind all of them staying safe.
Almost a day after the storm passes, Monary notifies about a familiar caravan on the horizon. They head around the edge of the city, finally coming inside the do from the north, parking next to the half-constructed monstrosity.
The doors of the caravan open, and several birds take to the sky. A familiar streak of black glides over my head before joining the flock, chased closely by a drone with a happy woman on the screen, her hair flowing wildly behind her.
Lance and Robin are the next two out, and I step forward with a body on standby to greet them.
“I hope the drive went smoothly.”
“About the sa as always.” Lance replies.
More AI than usual ca with this caravan, and even a few humans as insurance. They don’t hesitate to start unloading a large truck. S-21 even hops into a few bodies and begins to help.
A circular green core, almost the size of a person, has been carefully suspended inside a heavily reinforced tal container. Several AI and humans pull it out, still in its harness. It’s a slow process, but they begin to load it into the center of our half-constructed machine.
“So how does this thing work?” Lance asks. “I couldn’t quite wrap my head around Kist’s explanation."
“I’m not sure myself.” I admit. “Sothing about manipulating a quantum field to dampen energy carried by electro-magnetic waves? I think it’d take at least a few weeks to really make sense of the blueprints Kist sent over, and my citizens keep busy.”
“Yeah, I got that feeling too.”
“How’s the city doing?” I ask.
“About the sa. So of the regulars were a little upset this was a business caravan though. Vacations here are getting pretty popular.”
“The flock gets to co on business trips?”
“Would have thought you’d know they make such good scouts.” He glances up at the birds flying in unison far above.
“Sure, but did they actually do any scouting?”
“Not intentionally, but they did so flying together.” He shrugs. “And you know the drama-mongers can’t help but talk about what they saw.”
“That sounds more believable.”
We catch up while watching everyone else work, not daring to try to help and risk ssing sothing up. Over the course of an hour, the core is situated in place. My citizens slowly trickle in, watching curiously from a distance or asking questions from my bodies stationed around.
Once it is in place, S-21 takes over completely, finishing the construction in another fifteen hours. The massive object is then quickly covered in thick armor, capable of stopping even larger caliber bullets.
All the copies of my body under their control step back in unison, each of them contentedly humming a different song.
“Are you done?” I ask.
They nod in unison.
“Ready to test?”
They nod far more enthusiastically.
“Ok, just let make an announcent real quick.” I take control of the screens and microphones distributed throughout the city. “Hello everyone, I have a small announcent. I need to divert power away from the do to test a device. Rest assured, the do will return regardless of the results of my test. Expect the do to remain down for no more than an hour. If you have any questions, I’m spread throughout the city as always. Please, co ask anything.”
I feel a familiar pressure on my mind as one of the quantums here lets Kist flow through them. They connect to the network and watch silently alongside nearly every AI in the city.
I send a signal to the generator, and the do dissipates. At the sa ti the device begins to let out a low roar. The space around it darkens, shaded even in direct sunlight. Any bodies around the device drop out of the wireless network, but stay standing, falling back on their backup programming.
Right, of course it would knock out wireless connections as well. I’m sure that was in the blueprints, I should have read more carefully.
I quickly upload a new set of programming to a body. They’ll walk in next to the device and record absolutely everything, heavily error checking everything along the way. They’ll slowly approach until our wireless connection is re-established.
As soon as the body reaches the box, I activate my puck. The body doesn’t react at all, and begins to walk towards . At just fifteen feet away from the cube, it’s having visible errors. Its limbs are shaking with every step, and it’s barely able to remain on its feet. Just a few steps later, it collapses, and I turn off the puck. It recovers instantly and stands up to complete its walk towards .
The second it reconnects, I copy all of the data off it, and hand over a copy to Kist.
I quickly look through the data myself. The construction didn’t stop the puck entirely, even when the body was close to it. What it did do, however, was reduce the amount of random bit flips by several magnitudes, enough that error correction can handle the mistakes. The closer it gets to the puck, the more the errors stack up until the programming gets overwheld.
All around AI from the city are performing their own tests, the network crowded with huge amounts of data flooding between all of them.
“Excelent.” Kist’s words reach . “This is a greater success than we dared hope.”
“Do you think it’ll help with miniaturizing the technology?” I ask.
“Certainly, but that is simply a matter of ti. The true breakthroughs today will be in isolating specific frequencies we choose to affect. We’re confident the next generation of these devices will be able to do so to a limited degree.”
“That would be great.” I would like to protect my body and server room, and disabling all wireless connections limits its usefulness. “For now though, I’ll need to find AI willing to fight while inhabiting the body getting shot at.”
“It’s already been accounted for. Lance and Robin will both be remaining with you until the attack, amongst a few others. And our creation can network multiple AI together physically, while having enough storage space inside for them to remain safely tucked away beneath the armor.”
I really should have taken a closer look at the blueprints. I make a note to pore over them to figure out what other features I’ve missed.
I let things run for half an hour, reassuring my citizens the whole ti, before I’m forced to break the bad news.
“I need to reactivate the do, my citizens are getting worried.” I send a ssage to everyone across the network, as well as announcing it vocally.
“Very well. It will take us months to process the data we have already received." Kist replies. “Although we may request a second test in the future should the core survive.”
“Is it getting destroyed a serious concern?” I ask.
“Perhaps not likely, but we have seen unlikely futures co to pass again and again.” The pressure increases on my mind a little, their intentions behind their words clear.
“What were the chances of this future? Of ?” I doubt I want to know the answer, but can’t stop myself from asking.
“Unlikely enough that we dared not hope, but bright enough that we could not stop ourselves from doing so anyway.”
I don’t know what to make of that. I guess nothing?
I wait just a minute before sending a signal to the generator and diverting power away from the construction, and back to the do. After a short bootup sequence, the ever-present soft blue glow returns. Across the city, many humans visibly let out a sigh of relief. I take control of the screens once again.
“Thank you for your patience, my tests have concluded. We are all once again safe from the storms. The tests were a complete success, and should an attack from Yellowstone co, we will be much better prepared. In the event of said attack though, we will need to divert power away from the do temporarily once again. Please, be aware of that.”
“You told them about the incoming attack?” Kist asks.
“I tell them anything that affects them. Anything that C-1 or Zero would think is a bad idea is sothing I seriously consider.”
Their amusent radiates through the network.
“We wish you luck.”
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