Fortitude, page 11
“Er… guys…”
Brad looked at Baxter then where she was looking, which was at the shadow laden area at the back of the cargo hold. Things were glinting in the gloom. He and everyone else who had a weapon immediately raised them as mechanical limbs emerged from behind beams and struts, creeping slowly forward.
The headphones came alive from a message from the pilots. “Everyone still alive back there? We heard shouts? We think we lost them. Coming in for another attempt to land. Over.”
An idea came to Brad. He pulled the mike closer to his mouth. “Going to need you to open the rear door. Right away. Over.”
“That’s not something we—”
“Unless you want to land with a planeload of AI machines.”
A red light flicked on at the back, bathing the artificial imposters with blood-like color and a whirring came from the rear apparatus. Seemingly knowing what was about to happen, they scurried forward, tens of them, across the floor, ceiling and walls. The three soldiers fired repeatedly filling the air with streaks of heat, felling one then another and another, but the robot arachnids surged, leaping into the air at the only targets that mattered to them, Constance and Kevin who were huddled together in the center of the aisle.
Brad pivoted, hoping to throw himself in front of the razor like limbs, flying towards Constance’s face when instead she let forth a scream.
The AI machine dropped to the floor, but unlike with an impact from the rifles, it was still functioning. It sat, its legs twitching.
Cody raised his weapon.
“No!” shouted Brad.
Cody looked at him incredulously. “We gotta kill it, while it’s out of juice or something!”
Brad looked at the girl, who had one hand locked with Kevin’s. A trickle of blood ran from their noses.
She looked back at him. “We control them now…”
Brad couldn’t help it. A smile began to crawl across his face as Baxter looked, opened mouthed at the remaining five silver creatures, which were frozen in place.
*****
Despite it being daylight the wall of trees bordering the two-lane undulating highway was so thick that no light was permitted within the frost covered trucks and branches. Mike looked out from his rear seat position. From his little outburst a few hours earlier he had managed to get a few minutes sleep… or maybe it was longer, he wasn’t sure, he just knew that as soon as his mind began to be dragged into the pit he jolted awake with a feeling of dread. The two younger people were asleep by his side, but Casey in the front passenger’s seat was ever vigilant, scanning the landscape for the earliest sign of something that shouldn’t be there. He looked at his watch. By his calculations they were now just an hour from Anchorage. He had no real plan of what he was going to say to the authorities to allow him to see Alexis, he just hoped his words would convince someone to pass the message up the chain of command so she would get it. And maybe someone like Denise would take pity on him.
A gap opened up in the trees and dark brown lodges slid by, with signs mentioning seasonal fishing. He was about as far from his dream of a seafront property as it were possible to get but as the single-story homes passed by he couldn’t help but see himself with Alexis, outside one of the properties, struggling with the fishing gear while she frowned. They had a four-by-four packed with camping gear… and a dog, some kind of—
“What’s that?”
Casey’s comment woke Mike. He had been dreaming and he blinked the images away as he looked at the woman in front straining to look up into the canopy of light-gray clouds above. “What is it?” he said to her.
“I… thought I saw something. Like a giant bird or… oh shit!”
Now everyone was trying to see the sky, including Mike, but from his position he couldn’t see what she could. “What are you seeing?”
“There are things up there!”
“Going to need more of a description than that!”
“I dunno… maybe planes? They’re heading north.”
“We should get off the road!” said Page, panic teasing the edge of her voice.
“Yeah. What if it’s some of those things?” said Dale. “Maybe they’ve found us!”
Mike finally caught sight of what was causing the fuss. They were planes alright, but the old propellor type, the kind of craft the AI couldn’t or wouldn’t want to control. He sat back upright. “I think they’re human operated. We don’t need to stop.”
“But… how do you know!” said Paige.
“Quit your panicking,” said Casey. “I reckon they were ours as well. Anyway, they’re moving away. Already out of sight.”
“I can take over the driving,” said Mike. He caught Jared’s eyes in the rear mirror.
“Reckon, I’m good to keep going,” replied the younger man.
Mike let his head fall back on the rest. He wanted to be moving faster. The highway was clear, but the weather was threatening to worsen and if they got stuck in a snowdrift out here, getting to Anchorage or even the AI would be least of their problems, seeing they had lost most of their camping gear.
“So how long you been an FBI man?” said Casey. She too was looking in the rear mirror at him.
He looked away slightly. “Few decades. Short stint in the navy before that.”
“Oh, you’re a government man through and through then. Met a few of your types in my time, through my dealings in the family business.”
“Is there even a government anymore?” said Dale.
Mike looked directly at the woman in the passenger’s seat as she was now partly turned his way. “If by government man you mean, I caught the bad guys and tried to help the good ones, then yeah.” He looked away again, back to the dark browns and grays of the Yukon. “But I was nearing my retirement before everything went to shit. Had a nice place in mind. Down south. Warm sand, fishing off the keys and too much rum.” It felt like months since he had thought about his plans after his career was finished, but had only been weeks. This time though his imagination included a certain FBI profiler. The image of her flowing hair and smile caused him sadness and joy in equal amount.
The road they were on started to rise, snaking its way higher along the side of a valley. Suddenly the trees fell away and they all gasped at what they saw across the flatlands, past the river to their left. Jared instinctively slowed the truck then stopped.
Mike wasn’t the only occupant that searched and came up short on describing the mass movement of people and vehicles, across fields, and on what roads they could see between the tops of trees. Thousands of dots moved amongst the frost covered landscape, mist hiding many. Within the rabble were tanks, trucks, civilian and military. And all were moving towards those perched up high, watching.
It took Mike a few seconds to realize what the exodus of people meant, and a wave of fatigue moved through him. He started to reach for a flask in a jacket he no longer owned.
“How far we from the city?” said Jared without turning away.
“Maybe an hour… two at most,” said Casey. She looked at Mike, knowing what they were witnessing meant to him. These were the people from Anchorage. Running from whatever new hell was there.
Mike pushed his door open, making everyone but Casey jump. “You have to keep driving. Get to—”
Paige looked at him with wide eyes. “Are you fucking crazy? Can’t you see these people are from the city? The one you wanted us to go to?”
He got out anyway. Immediately feeling the freezing air. “I suggest you follow these people to wherever they’re going, but I’m...” From his slightly more elevated position he saw what the others inside couldn’t. The trees at the base of the far mountains were shrinking… or plain disappearing. A swathe was being cut through the far off forest as if the landscape there was being swallowed. He wished he still had his binoculars, and walked forward, standing against the small metal fence which ran along the edge of the two lane road. Some of the military vehicles had stopped, soldiers spilling from trucks, across the beige field they were driving across. Tanks were also now stationary, their turrets rotating towards the strange hole opening up across the forest ten or so miles away.
The other doors opened, everyone else getting out.
Those ant like people were now moving faster towards the river and bridge, which Mike and the others couldn’t see as it was beyond the trees nearby, below the hillside which wrapped around to their right.
“Let’s get out of here!” said Paige.
Casey shook her head angrily, turning towards the young woman. “And go where, Paige?”
As they screamed at each other, Jared walked closer to Mike, both men’s eyes straining to see what was causing the panic miles away.
Jared leaned forward then placed one boot over the barrier. “Those trees—” What burst from the woods, beyond the valley, river then fields almost made him fall backwards, tripping on the metal partition.
Mike’s mind flashed back to the concoction of pieces of otherwise human machinery which he witnessed in the parking lot in Denver. He watched trees in the distance, which looked like matchsticks from their vantage point, crumple as what could only be described as giant crabs scurried from them. Their shells looked gray with hardly any reflections from the overcast sky, but flashes of orange exploded all around them. The tank shells hardly seemed to pause their movement, as streams of neon blue tore from somewhere within their huge bodies scorching the earth, leaving just blackened ground where people once were.
Paige spun around, her hands to her ears. “What’s happening?” she screamed.
“It’s the end of the world…” The words fell from Dale’s lips.
The ground shook as vehicles and people flooded across the bridge. Thousands trying to get across a two lane concrete structure. Some people fell off the edge into the icy waters below.
As the apocalyptic scene played out hundreds of feet below, a mile away, Mike knew he wasn’t going to make it to Anchorage. The AI had obviously taken the city and worse, was now bent on killing those that had managed to escape. An image of Alexis smiling slid before his eyes. He allowed it to warm his heart one last time before turning to the truck. “Everyone get in. I’m driving.”
“Where we going?” said Casey, climbing back in as he ran around the other side.
“Wherever all those people are trying to get to!”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Alexis leaned on the handrail overlooking the CIC. She needed its support as her legs were less than useless, and more than once on the way to the main room of operations one of her guards had propped her up, rather than letting her fall to the floor.
Frantic conversations ping-ponged across the room below her, amongst shouts and gasps at what was playing out on the multitude of screens, large and small. Cary had convinced the president to allow her into the room, but there were still soldiers to her left and right. Travis had already informed her that their weapons were the kind originally created in the mountain complex, and if used on her, he would cease to be. A few paces to her right, stood Denise and Cary, while below, various other ranking officers passed messages between desks.
Travis stood in the center. A ghostly figure that was equally energized by what the screens were showing. He darted from one to another, shaking his head, then moving away, deep in thought as the people moved through him.
I take it, things are not going well? she thought.
“That’s putting it… well, no they’re not. At least from a human versus the AI’s forces’ point of view. It’s inevitable the AI will win these battles, but the stronger the humans’s fight, the more convincing it will be that they do not want the AI to access this facility.” He looked at those in charge, standing a few feet away from her. “But I still don’t think they realize the sacrifices that will need to be made… Most won’t survive the coming fight…” He was looking to her right at the general approaching.
One of her guards took a step back while Cary moved closer to her. He turned to the screens, nodding to larger ones at the front of the room. “Only got two birds in the sky now to allow us to see beyond these walls. And we’re down to one encrypted feed to communicate with our forces elsewhere. Despite some innovations from our tech guys, the AI keeps finding ways to shut us down. The electromagnetic field will stop any nanites from seeping in here, though. As long as the reactor keeps splitting those atoms twelve floors below us then we’re well protected down here. but…” He let out a sigh. “There’s not much we can do for those up top, and the others…”
She was watching the scene on the largest screen. It was a few thousand feet up, looking down on a blanket of trees, interspersed with gray streaks which she presumed were highways. Fields began to slide into view and with it came a dark mass. Puffs of smoke and orange flashes burst amongst what she suddenly realized were people. Thousands of them, all running for the safety of the forest, while along the nearby roads, columns of rectangular shapes, which she presumed were vehicles sped forward. The aircraft continued, moving past the hordes of humans to a blackened landscape, still alive with kinetic energy. Tiny explosions erupted from tanks. She lost count of how many there were, but most were lined up in a few rows, while others roamed, firing then... A searing white line ignited the ground and one of the defending military vehicles exploded. She then saw the source of the destruction. From the vantage point of the plane, flying high in the sky above the battle, the AI’s machines looked like clam shells. She couldn’t see legs, just silvery shapes, emerging from a wall of trees and firing their particle weapons. A network of pristine white beams, like a spiders web, criss-crossed the landscape, while explosions fell all around, a constant barrage from the human defenders, which to Alexis looked to be having no affect.
“How far away is that?” she said.
“Just over a hundred miles. Our soldiers are fighting bravely, but at the AI’s current rate of advance, it will be with us by nightfall.”
She looked at the man next to her, who seemed visibly older than when she first laid eyes on him. “But what about all of the people that are trying to run from the AI?”
“There’s nothing we can do for them, until, hopefully—”
Alexis’s attention had been pulled to one of the furthest screens from her, some twenty feet away, going black, as if the plug had been pulled. As Cary continued to explain that everything depended upon Travis’s virus defeating the AI, she watched the officer sitting in front of it out of the corner of her eye, tap away at his keyboard. Just as Cary noticed she wasn’t paying much attention another screen went black, then another. A cascade of scenes of war suddenly becoming blank screens swept across the room until there was no view of the outside world.
“What’s happening!” said Cary, to anyone with a good answer.
Denise ran down the small metal steps, commandeering the closest keyboard and started typing with no success. She twisted her neck to look up at him. “We’ve lost our final feed to the outside world. Beyond a few miles from this base and town, we’re blind.”
*****
The truck bumped up and down. Mike felt the extra weight of the family in the bed in the back, as he adjusted the direction of travel but managed to keep the speed at fifty. He could have gone faster but all he could see was the tailgate of a black sedan in front, and the partial rear door of a red van beyond that. His eyes flicked to the side mirror and the vehicle after vehicle which were following. Cars, pickups and even a few semi trucks with trailers were part of this convoy of escapees. Running from what the remaining military forces were fighting some sixty miles behind.
Paige’s whimpers had receded and she had been silent for most of the journey after they drove in and amongst a sea of people that had come across the bridge. They didn’t purposely stop for the two adults and two children that had clambered in the back, but equally didn’t try to discourage them to get out. He had no idea who they were, other than their clothes were covered in mud and what looked like flickers of blood. One, the man also appeared to have a semi-auto rifle of some kind. The woman with him reminded Mike of Alexis, but slightly younger being early thirties. He presumed the boy and girl were their children, although the kids seemed to be sticking close together and away from the adults. All of this Mike had gleamed from glimpses in the rear mirror.
He also had no idea where they were going, but since he joined the traffic of vehicles there had been no slowing down or even a hint of any of them stopping. It seemed like they knew where they were going. He just hoped it would be somewhere safe. Not for himself, but for everyone else on this road, heading north.
