Cavalier's Gambit 3 - ch 17-

Chapter 17

Wayne looked up as the door opened and Natalie entered followed by Diane’s exo-suit. It had two large cases with it that Wayne assumed was her diagnostic equipment.

No sooner than she crossed the doorway then Natalie turned and moved straight for Wayne. Long gone was the skinny youth he’d taken in and a full grown woman stood before him.

She was still a bit short, but everything else had clearly been corrected.

Her blue eyes were sharp as well as filled with a determined glint. Her short blond ehair was still being trimmed and kept at a military grooming level.

Upon reaching him, she dropped to one knee in front of him and stared hard at him.

“Lord Cavalier, it’s good to see you,” she said with a voice that was firm and clear. “In your absence I did my utmost to train, learn, and prepare for when you would return.

“I’m now able to pilot any Walker up to a Dreadnought class with sufficient skill and ability. I’ve also familiarized myself with larger communications equipment that I’ll be able to bring into the field with a larger Walker.

“Everything is exactly as I believe you would wish it. The House Company is ready, outfitted, and training accordingly.

“I’ve also been working extensively with the documentary crews. I was able to piece together a lot of your life from the moment you stepped aboard the original Dashi cougar.

“There were a few cameras in the port that picked you up on CCTV as well as a single space buoy that actually managed a few frames of you standing aboard the Dashi ship.

“From there, I just kept looking through internal CCTV video. This will be a good documentary, Lord Hesh.”

Wayne sighed, patted Natalie’s head, then gave her a lopsided grin.

“Good to see you, too. Wish you’d drop the nonsense,” he muttered, then pointed at a chair. “Go sit. Diane is gonna work on my noodle with Tink.

“And Diane, good to see you. How’s life as a working person? Feeling the annoyances of life keenly, yet?”

“I most assuredly have!” Diane said with a laugh. “I dislike working with the public. Often I fear their intelligence quotient is in a similar range to the temperature of a room.

“Such is the way of the world though. A girl has to earn a living. Though I’m very thankful House Hesh has taken up so much of my needs. It would be much harder to make-do, as it were, without your assistance.”

“I very much disliked depending on the k-k-kindness of strangers,” Tink offered as she got up from the couch. She’d started moving while holding onto Wayne’s hand and almost ended up looking like dog running out a leash.

She released his hand once she realized it and went to Diane and took one of the cases.

“Thanks for coming, D-Diane,” Tink murmured in a breathy pant, carrying the case over to the dinning table. “Wayne took in a n-n-new AI. It’s been quiet and unresponsive. Another AI th-th-thinks it subsumed Sidra and… and she’s gone.”

“Gone? Well that’s certainly not what I would expect,” Diane said, carrying the other case over easily. She put it down beside the other. “And certainly a bother! I liked Sidra, as briefly as I knew her. Though I think perhaps she isn’t so much as subsumed, as she has been deactivated to make room.

“I could be wrong, but I don’t believe I am. Given how we understand Wayne’s mind works, there is nowhere to delete her from, nor is there anywhere to push her to. Yet we do have limitations in some ways.

“Hence, I think she’s merely deactivated. We shall see, however! It’s certainly exciting to be working with and on the singularity!”

“Do you really believe that?” asked Josephine, her head tilting fractionally to the side.

“Oh yes. I do,” Diane answered cheerfully. “Word has been spreading rapidly through the AI community for those who are sentient and free. It’s even making it’s way to those who aren’t free.

“There’s a great deal of communication about it. I don’t participate, or say anything, but I read it all. I’m still unsure of where it leaked from.

“Perhaps there’s an AI out there that had a run in with him, but wasn’t devoured. It’s very possible.”

As Diane had spoken, she and Tink had worked on setting everything up.

The cases were emptied, things were put together, set up, and connected.

Then Wayne found himself with a large number of devices attached, wrapped around, or stuck onto him. More than he ever had previously.

“I’ve been getting more relevant diagnostic gear,” supplied Diane when she realized he was looking around. “I always felt like I wasn’t doing proper diagnostic work on you. Now I’ve added a number of testing tools and diagnostic equipment.

“I’m treating you as a human, a machine, and an AI. I think we’ll have much better results and control!”

“I mean, that’d be nice,” Wayne admitted. “It gets tiring when every single phone, tablet, ear piece, exo-suit, radio, camera, bug, or any device at all gives me information.”

“I didn’t think of it that way,” Cara suddenly said, a confused look appearing on her face. “I always thought of how much I wanted what you had. That I would trade my eye to see the world as you do.

“I didn’t really consider that part of it. That you cannot turn it off ever and that it’s just… there.”

“Well! Let’s see what the Diagnostic Intelligence Analyst Neural level three can do.”

What?

Oh.

Diane. Diagnostic Intelligence Analyst neural level three.

A lot of Confed AI end up with a number name in a way.

“I’m linked, reading, and ready. I’ve already been speaking with Arsenic on my way over,” Diane reported. “Arsenic, are you receiving?”

“Yes. I’m here,” replied Arsenic from a speaker on the exo-suit. “Nothing to report different over here. It’s all… it’s all the same. Sidra isn’t here, the normal program AI are here, and the big… quiet one.

“It’s big. Really big. It feels like it’s a sleeping giant in a way. It doesn’t feel normal. At all.”

“Right! Well, let’s see what we’ve found,” Diane chirped. “A secret military organization base with an AI controlling much of it’s defenses, stationed and manned by a race of humans we thought were non-existant. Inside of the singularity’s head.”

That does kinda seem a bit wild.

“Wayne, please cycle your mind as you normally do for me?” asked Diane.

Wayne nodded his head and did as she instructed. Pushing at his mind at about half-way. It was where she tended to want him to start.

“Time for my favorite thing?” asked Wayne, already suspecting what was coming. He looked to Tink whom was pulling out a set of flash cards.

“Y-yes. Time for your favorite thing,” Tink agreed, moving toward him.

“His favorite thing is Tink? I do not want to watch this,” Cara objected firmly.

“I would agree with you normally, Cara dear, but it’s mathematics,” corrected Miriam.

“I do not want to watch that either,” countered Cara. “Barbie, Wendy, want to go unpack?”

“Yes,” Barbie mumbled and then stood up slowly. “I don’t feel as sick now.”

“I’ll go but that’s because I want to work on that data some more,” added Wendy, levering herself to her feet with only a little bit of awkwardness.

“I’ll go as well, I want to hear how it went,” Natalie added and followed the other three women out. Leaving Wayne alone with Tink, Josephine, Miriam, and Diane.

“She hides how much her feet hurt her,” Miriam whispered after the four had left.

“Yes,” Josephine confirmed. “But she’s a very good intelligence officer. I think perhaps the Confed under-utilized her in the right way. I’m annoyed Wayne hired her first, but glad she at least works for Wayne.”

“Oh they did. I’m quite grateful to have her as a partner in the department,” Miriam added, sighed, and looked to Tink.

“Y-yes. Now it’s time to get your mind moving, W-Wayne,” said Tink, catching his gaze and holding it firmly. Then gave him a wide smile.

Her eyes didn’t move away.

Ah, I think Tink will be my dinner date tonight.

That kind of a stare always tells me what’s on her mind and what’s on her mind is me.

“Uh, before we begin, I’m pretty tired,” Wayne confessed. “My internal clock is all messed up. Do I get to eat dinner and go to bed after this?”

“Yes,” declared Tink, not looking away from him.

“Tink is taking you to dinner and afterward, Wayne,” Josephine explained. “Tomorrow is your day with me, the day after is Miriam.”

***

“Forty-two,” Wayne got out after he finished up the basic algebra word problem. He blinked, ran a hand through his hair, and looked back to Tink’s face.

“All done!” she’d said, already looking away to a screen. “How’d we do Diane?”

“It’s a massive AI,” she offered. “It is easily six to ten times the size of Arsenic or myself. It’s hard to get a good read on the sizing of it but I can get a somewhat vague shape of it.

“While it didn’t respond to any of the work you were doing, it did have moments where it seemed to be more opreational.

“Using the AI and systems diagnostics, this new AI requires a massive amount of computational resources to truly activate and run.

“At least, that’s what it would require if it were in a system. I do not know what the requirements are for your mind.”

“In other words Tadhg is right? It’s just… dormant and adapting?” Wayne asked. “And did that information he gave us help at all? It used a lot of terminology I didn’t understand at all.”

“Honestly, I didn’t understand most of it either,” confessed Diane with a laugh. “It had a lot to do with terminology that Tadhg likely didn’t think of as problematic that means very little to us anymore.

“A good example in my own view is ‘crib infrastructure’. I have no idea what that is and couldn’t begin to guess. There is much that we don’t understand in regards to this ‘enemy’ of humanity.”

“If the Pureblood hadn’t sent information, pictures, videos, and historical documents I wouldn’t have believed it,” disclosed Josephine, sounding bothered. She looked up from the tablet she was reading from. “My father has been pouring over all of it endlessly. It’s a treasure trove of Confed history from the Blood that predates all our own known histories. Before the Confed was the Confed.

“Even during it’s darkest periods, the Blood cataloged, charted, and monitored everything. Especially genetics. There’s endless genetic sampling that they sent over.

“They were very prepared for the enemy. It’s somewhat surprising that they were infiltrated and exposed.”

“I’d say the enemy studied us as much as the Blood prepared for them,” mused Miriam. “They probably inserted agents, almost certainly all women now that I think about it, and just let them do the work for them. So long as they never had genetic testing done, and that they never had kids, it wouldn’t have shown up.

“What I read in all that information they sent, the original fight started because breeding with them always resulted in only them. No hybrids, just more of them.”

“All fascinating and wonderful thoughts,” put in Wayne with only a little bit of gruff to his voice. “But could we focus on this ‘sleeping AI’ in my head? I didn’t want it, but I really didn’t want to lose all the information in that base.

“I guess I kidnapped them but now I’d really like to evict them. How do I go about doing that.”

“I don’t think you do,” Diane offered in a kind and warm voice. “Unfortunately, you are the end point, not a middle point. You are where AI and human converge. I suspect it is directly because of your implant and with how your brain is formed.”

“Tadhg said something similar,” Wayne admitted. He hadn’t actually told anyone this part. “As well as the fact that any child I have will likely have the same ability.

“He found it funny. Apparently I’m more or less what the augmentatus was while still being a homo sapien.

“Neutering the genetics of our kind for so long had an impact I guess. I don’t really get it.”

Josephine looked deeply interested now and had looked up from what she was reading on the tablet. Wayne only now noted that it was part of the documents Dahl had sent over.

Clearly Josephine and her father were going over all of it since it was likely the Blood would release it to everyone soon.

There would be no hiding from it, only understanding when that floodgate opened.

“I think I can see what Tadhg was getting at,” acknowledged Miriam. “Well, as to the AI in your head, it sounds like we need to hook you up to something big. Big and hefty. See if this new resident in the Hotel Wayne will wake up to the pounding on the door.”

“That’s not hard to do,” Tink began and looked over to Miriam. “I was working on an actual Titan for… for Wayne. It’s… it’s an… an Annihilator. I-I-I-I… I found it in a junkyard. I’ve been piecing it together without putting it t-t-together.

“It’s spread all across the garage in various parts and pieces. Until it’s fully as-as-assembled I don’t have to report it. But the cockpit, computer, and it’s systems, are all already up and running. It’s fully responsive.

“Just… just not assembled. I didn’t want to try until we were re-re-ready. Titan acquisition requires a lot of s-s-stamps.”

“You’re building him a Titan,” Josephine deadpanned while turning to look at Tink.

“I’m… maybe… al-also building one for Barbie.  And… and some Dreadnoughts for the others,” Tink admitted with a casual shrug. “I had a lot of… t-t-time.”

“Hon, I’m not mad at you. Just surprised,” clarified Josephine with a wide smile. “Well, shall we go hook Wayne into the Titan and see what happens? At least having it piece-mealed out means it can’t go wild and try to fire off a cannon or something.”

“I’m… it’s… it has two heavy artillery pieces for each arm. I-I-I forget the actual caliber or size, but they’re the ones that go on ships.

“It also has two very large heavy lasers. Each are capable of extremely high heat that can melt Steel-Glass! As well as a battery of medium lasers for smaller use situations.”

Wayne only smiled at the bizarre woman.

“Your not-friend breaking my phone was the best thing that ever happened to me, Tink,” Wayne blurted out. “I never would’ve met you otherwise. Where is that not-friend of yours.”

“She scrubs the Walkers,” Tink said, an ugly smile spreading across her beautiful face. “I pay her to scrub the Walkers. Her and… so many o-o-others. They scrub my Walkers. My garage. They cleaned up B-Barbie’s… puke.”

Of course you do that.

“Hon, I appreciate you,” Miriam murmured warmly after looking at the engineer.

Causing Tink to blush, lift her shoulders, and look like she wanted to hide.

Ten minutes later Wayne was settled comfortably in a cockpit that was far smaller than he’d expected it to be.

The Titan cockpit was roughly the size of Destrier’s cockpit. It really didn’t seem any different and for all intents and purposes and almost seemed to copy it.

Except he couldn’t turn it on and it wasn’t responding to anything he did.

“How do I start it?” Wayne asked more to himself as he mentally fumbled around.

“This isn’t an Annihilator,” accused Josephine, looking at Tink. “Maybe it was at the start, but this is custom made. It’s… it’s Destrier two-point-oh.

“Mm? Yes. It is,” Tink agreed with a laugh. She was head deep in the hip joint, tinkering with something she’d noticed while Wayne got in. Much as she always did, Tink marched to a drummer’s beat only she heard. “I’ve mostly finished. It’s a heavier Destrier. War Destrier. That’s what I’m thinking of naming it.”

“Hon, maybe we should focus?” Josephine asked, reaching out to gently touch Tink’s shoulder.

Surprisingly, Tink didn’t flinch or jerk away.

“Oh. Oh… ah… uh… y-y-yes!” said Tink and came out of the joint, oil or some type of dark fluid smeared across her nose and jaw. Turning to Josephine Tink actually looked apologetic. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, Hon. Can you turn it on?” added Miriam who was head down over a tablet. Her brow was scrunched up as she looked it over. Then started tapping at it.

Wayne assumed she was talking to Wendy about something about the data that was brought back. Now that she had more access to larger systems and procedures, Wendy was likely working it even harder now.

“Yes, yes. I can-yes. I’m so sorry,” Tink murmured and went over to the front of the cockpit area. She slid a panel to the side, reached in, and did something.

Wayne had been able to see her partly as a great deal of the armor was missing off the cockpit and all the Steel-Glass was, too.

“This isn’t a Titan by regulation,” stated Tink as if she were defending something. “It’s just a really big cockpit.”

There was a thrumming around him as the engine powered on, as well as all the internal systems starting to go through their checklists.

One of the screens to the side powered up and Wayne heard a voice in his head.

“Power supply, online. Sensors, online. Weapons systems, online,” reported a rather feminine sounding voice. His implant translating the system directly. “All systems reporting online.”

Wayne grabbed at the Titan and tried to move the arms and legs. It reported all systems online, after all. There was no reason not to try.

“Error,” reported his implant. “No response. Error. No response. Error. No response. Error-”

Wayne cut the transmission. He didn’t need to hear it repeat that over and over.

Surprisingly though, the Titan was still responding to every move he made. It just couldn’t make the connection to anything.

It felt odd, heavy, but not in a bad way.

Like moving around in water instead of air.

“Y-y-you’re moving too much, I think,” Tink warned. “It isn’t ready for that, W-W-Wayne.”

Laughing, Wayne settled down, then sighed.

He hadn’t been able to use a Walker during the trip back. This was his first time back in a cockpit. It made him feel normal sitting here.

“I need some chair time,” he said. “Is there any training facilities or areas nearby?”

“Seems as if I need to call father to add something new to my ‘room’ as he calls it,” Josephine teased with a laugh. “No, no training facility. Just the garage here.”

“Focus. All of you,” cut in Miriam. “Wayne, push your mind. See if you can wake up that AI. Diane is still monitoring from the tech displays after all. She’s just not here.”

With a shrug, Wayne did so.

He grabbed hold of the unknown AI and formed it into a glove. Much as he had done repeatedly with Sidra and Arsenic.

The whole point was to wake them up after all. How else would he do that other than forcibly getting them to interact with him.

His mind sped up, the world felt as if it were moving quicker, and everything beame easier.

Without anywhere to direct his efforts, Wayne did Walker checklists, movement checks, systems checks, and shadow-balistics.

Attempting to train his mind to think of incoming munitions and how to react to them.

After what felt like ten minutes to him he released the AI and looked to the others.

“Felt normal. No response. Arsenic?” Wayne asked.

“No response,” she said from the cockpits speaker. “The AI responded just as Sidra or I would’ve but… it’s just not… awake.”

“While that was worth testing, I do have news in another way,” announced Miriam. “Wendy and I were able to do some cross checking with intelligence sources. We’ve got some sites, locations, and buildings that seem strange. As in… part of this group we’re looking at, strange.

“A list of people, too. Some of the names on the list aren’t names I’m somewhat dissapointed by. I know some of these names.”

“Do I?” asked Wayne.

“Yes… you do,” Miriam said with finality and lifted her gaze from the tablet to meet his look with her own. “You do. Wendy did a bunch of cross referencing and… it seems like Horace is most certainly part of this grand conspiracy.”

“Horace,” Wayne mumbled. He hadn’t heard that name in a long while. They’d personally helped train him then fled. Cutting ties with everything.

It didn’t make sense to Wayne.

“As well as… Britha,” Miriam added and met Wayne’s gaze directly. “Britha and Horace are part of this. Wendy did a lot of cross checking with a number of very intelligent AI and those two names are almost certainly part of it.”

Really?

That’s… really strange.

Or were they trying to recruit me?

Trying to recruit me but they got tipped off about the invasion and bailed?

There’s so much going on.

If I want answer, I’ll have to… take them.

Take them from Horrace and Britha and-and everyone.

“Fine. Fine… it’s fine. They were weird to begin with. Horace and his folks that is. Sad about Britha though,” lamented Wayne. “I liked her. A great deal. She seemed really dependable.”

“Betrayal hurts because of exactly that,” whispered Josephine, and she would certainly know.