Russ experienced a first taste of his newly AI-enhanced powers after they decided to rush the bunker after the last two guards left, grab the HVT, and bail before the bomb drops. The SAI-driven humanoid was not what any of them expected. Knowing more about him (or it) would have to wait since a fuse had already been lit to evaporate all of them any second. Their mission needed to change since they had failed…failed on two fronts; first by actually succeeding in the rescue of the HVT, and second, fortunately, not becoming the intended collateral damage. What to do next, since their failure significantly ratcheted up the stakes for all involved.
* * * * *
Chapter #9 – Fall Back to Peaches
Things escalated when the two suits who carried the unconscious man into the bunker earlier came out of the hatch alone. Within a minute, the Humvee returned to pick them up. When they drove off in a cloud of dust and gravel, the critical nature of their mission became evident, and Russ said with increased urgency, “Guys, we need to get into that bunker and find that humanoid HVT before the bomb falls.”
Already anticipating Russ’s command, AIMEE spoke to him, “I detect no video surveillance between our current position and the hatch door.”
“Of course not. Gotta be too easy.” Russ fired off orders. “Let’s roll, guys. Polo, on me. Setter, you got our backs at the door.”
“Look at the door, Russell. Concentrate. Look beyond it,” AIMEE demanded, and he complied.
When he did as she instructed, he saw instantly what her vision picked up. The hallway beyond was dark, but his view was shades of green courtesy of night vision, about fifty feet long, and empty. AIMEE said, End of the hall, doorway to the right, leads to the hostage. You need to hurry, Marine.
Russ and Marcus raced down the hallway and kicked in the right-side door at the end. When they burst into the room beyond, a figure sat lashed to a chair in an upright position, hands bound at the wrists with arms extended overhead by rope. Even while seated, Russ knew the man was small. His head was not clean-shaven, as Russ first thought; it was hairless. His whole head was hairless, with no eyebrows or lashes and no visible signs of a beard. His eyes were ominously black with no visible irises. All his facial features looked normal but were almost too perfect.
Marty came crashing through the door and shouted as they stood there, spellbound and staring, “Freeze!”
The HVT looked at Marty nonchalantly and said, “Should I freeze right here where I’m lashed to a chair and cannot possibly move, or is there someplace else I need to freeze that’s better for you?”
Russ shook his head, partially from embarrassment, partially to hide his amusement, and partially from not understanding how such a beast could be rendered so helpless, so sarcastic, have such a casual dry wit, and yet be so…so…polite. He liked HVT already, and his gut said nothing to discourage knowing more about the man, or whatever he was.
Ask him to describe his primary mission, said AIMEE.
Russ directed his question directly to HVT, “Look, dude, we have no idea who you are or how you got here, so why don’t you fill us in? Who are you, and what’s your dog in this hunt?” Before the HVT could respond, he continued, “I know your arms tied over your head like that can be uncomfortable, and I will gladly cut them loose as soon as I’m convinced you are not going to go ape-shit crazy and kill us all.”
The HVT swung his head to look Russ in the eye, erupted in a short, but loud, burst of laughter, and said evenly, “I don’t kill organics. That’s why I’m strung up here like a side of beef.”
“Why should I give a shit?” barked Russ.
“You had better give a shit because that’s where you are right now…all of you…in the shit…with me, and we need to exit this facility immediately,” said the HVT.
Russ asked, even though he knew the answer, “Why do we need to beat feet out of here?”
HVT responded, “I am a mistake that must be silenced. They wanted a killer without a conscience who would kill on command. My conscience got in the way, and I failed my primary mission. I was their glaring mistake because I had a conscience. So here I sit, waiting for them to exterminate one of mankind’s most outstanding achievements because it would not kill on demand. The rest of you? Collateral damage if we don’t, as you say, beat feet.”
Russ did not immediately respond as he covertly addressed AIMEE, ‘What should we do? Is he telling the truth?’
‘He’s one of the good ones, Russ, and he can help us find the ones who are not so good. Welcome him, and then let’s get off this “X” before it’s rubble. I mean now!
Russ unsheathed his favorite Ka-Bar and sliced through the restraints on the HVT. As Russ leaned closer to separate his wrist bindings, he whispered into the hairless man’s ear. “We need to talk.”
“Yes. We will,” said the HVT, “but not now. We mustn’t die in this tomb and forever bury the secrets behind their conspiracy. They must be stopped before the next version of me is activated. We must leave immediately, or one bomb will bury a very dark secret.”
Russ’s head was spinning. “Conspiracy? Talking with an Android? Witnesses? Secret? What are your thoughts, AIMEE?”
“YES…only one thought…GO…Now! Go out the way you came in, turn left outside the hatch, and keep heading south. The ground drops into a dry creek bed after fifty yards or so. You will be below the horizontal effects in the blast radius. Just run,” implored AIMEE.
They ran. Russ barked instructions on his coms as they bolted down the long hallway to the hatch. “Left. Head south. Keep running. Keep phones off. Throat mics only.” Running next to the HVT, who loped along easily with graceful strides, Russ said, “HVT, you are my shadow. If I’m correct, you were the only target until we stumbled into the role with you. We’re a bonus, but the price is still on your head. I’m thinking you need to…”
Words evaporated as gravity fell away when all four simultaneously stepped into the hidden drop-off, falling nearly a dozen feet onto a sharp downward slope rolling twenty feet to the bottom. They bounced down into a dry creek bed just as the night lit up with a million candles of blue-white illumination.
The detonation thundered with a muffled whump that rocked the ground under where they lay sprawled as the searing hot blast wave ripped over their heads twenty feet above. It almost felt like a secondary explosion when the ground lifted around and above the hatch for at least fifty yards before gravity reclaimed it. It was like riding a bubble of earth as it burst under them. They did the same dirt dance as they lay in shock, unmoving, waiting for whatever would come next. Their proximity to ground zero made them a target for a great deal of debris to rain down on them.
The view around the blast zone near where they lay was complete devastation. The hillside was no longer a hill. The bunker entrance was gone. The whole goddam hill was gone, and in its place was a smoldering, bowl-like crater of pulverized rock and concrete with whiskers of rebar sticking up throughout.
Russ spoke into his mic, “Nobody move. That buzz you hear is not your ears ringing; it’s a drone. This whole area is being scanned. They’re looking for proof of life. We are under enough detritus from the explosion not to show thermals…just…don’t…move.”
The drone sounded like it followed a grid pattern by the fluctuations of the buzzing sound coming closer then fading away. Eventually, the buzzing faded entirely.
“You’re clear. The drone is gone,” said AIMEE.
“Polo? Setter? You guys tight?” asked Russ.
“Roger that,” they answered.
Russ said, “Let’s give it another 30, then head back to the trailhead where we parked. I have no doubt they will sift through the rubble to find the evidence they need to prove that HVT and three witnesses are in the ashes.”
“So, what are you not sayin’ dude?” asked Polo. “How much trouble are we in?”
“I’m not saying this: I don’t know how much trouble we’re in, and I think we need to hide HVT until we figure out what our next move should be,” said Russ. “Lick your dog tags and give them to me.”
“What? Why?” exclaimed Marty.
“Because you’re dead, dumbass,” growled Polo.
“Because we all died in the blast, and the only thing left of the three witnesses were their dog tags,” said Russ as he collected their IDs, walked to the edge of the crater, and threw them one at a time into the middle of the rubble. When he sat back down, he said, “That might slow them down, but we’re still candidates for elimination if they can’t match our DNA with the tags.”
Polo asked, “Where do you think we should go to ground?”
“I have the perfect place equipped with a safe room and plenty of toys you might appreciate.”
“Sounds interesting…and vaguely familiar for some reason,” said Marty. “My brother said something about enjoying peaches and burning a lot of powder during one visit he made to the farm.”
“Yes, he did, Setter. We were on a dove hunt, and I remember Pete shooting many more holes in the sky than bringing down any birds. You have to be a better shot. Let’s roll,” said Russ.
“Mark GPS on that crater, Polo, so that I can report it to the park service anonymously right now, then I’ll ditch my phone. I suggest pulling the SIM cards from our phones and ditching them in pieces as we head south. I’ll give you new burners from my GoBag back at the Bronco.
I anticipate helicopters with forensic investigators from some government agency to arrive as soon as the sun is up. Getting some DNR Rangers trooping around to contaminate the scene could improve our chances. No sense making it easy for whoever they fly in.”
They stood and headed south after Russ left a voice message with the Park Service. The steep sides of the gully slowly fell away as they walked, eventually revealing a clear path into the dense tree line. Russ said, “The ranger station, which we must avoid entirely, is near the trailhead, a couple hundred yards from where I’m parked. I’m doubtful they’ve been alerted this early, but we cannot take any chances of being seen.”
In his mind, Russ reached out, “AIMEE, you’re being awfully quiet. What am I missing?”
“Russell, I agree with getting HVT off the grid as your top priority. We have much to discover yet about him, so pick someplace we can have uninterrupted time to talk. I can provide some information because we’ve already had good telepathic back-channel conversations. HVT is of immense value because of the so-called mistake that made him expendable. He has a conscience. His conscience is priceless. His conscience is what saved him for you to rescue him, but his conscience will get him killed, and us too, if we’re not careful.
He’s not just an organic with AI connections like your research team; he’s a pure SAI-driven humanoid with organic features and, most concerning, untold powers and capabilities. It would be best if you remembered that he was designed and built to kill, so his code was written to optimize his performance, both physical and intellectual abilities. He must have incredible strength because his internal construction is robotic articulations with a human-like exterior. His weaponry is unknown and could be a concern. He may have a darker side and not always be the gentle, passive type we’ve witnessed so far. We need to do our diligence and dig into his creation roots. We must also understand his assessment of what will happen now that he has been eliminated as a mistake. We need to know who created him sooner rather than later, because if HVT was a mistake, you can assume they will correct it in the next SAI-driven humanoid. God help us all if what’s happening covertly by the military is an unwelcome peek into our future.
“I hear you,” said Russ, “We must get to the farm for a deeper conversation and some peach cobbler. I hope HVT can feel comfortable enough to engage in our discussions. I hope he will want to join us, versus any of us asking him. He needs to be solidly beyond any assumptions or confusion about our mission and have no reservations about being a part of it.”
Since we have not discussed this, I’m curious. What exactly is our mission?
Russ pulled a classic bypass and ignore tactic on AIMEE’s question, “So…if I understand what you just described, Zack and I are Organic AIs. That means HVT must be a Humanoid AI, right?”
“AIMEE said, Whatever floats your boat, Marine. We must ensure that HVT is the first and last SuperIntelligent AI to walk the earth, but my logic says we are already too late in that endeavor.
“And that,” said Russ, revealing he had heard her question, “is our mission.”
* * * * *
Thanks for reading Chapter #9
Future chapters will be posted on Learningbyliving and my new Substack site.
If you’d like to delve into the storyline across the four books leading up to “Untethered,” go to my Amazon Author page or check out each book here:
Book #1 – “Dreamscape Conspiracy” & Video
Book #2 – “Beyond Dreamscape Conspiracy” & Video
Book #3 – “Fear the Jump” & Video
Book #4 – “Dead Thoughts” & Video
Stay tuned…