CHAPTER 008: New Plans

Syndra Cortis

Elysium Base/Northern Siberia/Russian Federation

Real World

16 April 2137, 9:04

I’ve finally passed last of many security checkpoints - that for thousand times checked my security credentials and identity, both through computer checks and human guards - and I entered the inner sanctum of the Elysium base.

Officially it had a long and incomprehensible name in Russian, but as the local government was deep in the pockets of the Sovereigns, it was gladly selling or lending out its old military bases. They were even building new ones solely for that reason. Perfect places to do stuff that you didn’t want to become even an internet gossip.

Which made it a perfect place to hide Lamb. There were about a hundred similar complexes spread throughout northern Siberia. Everybody knew secret stuff was done there. Elysium - as Isaiah called it - didn’t look different from the outside. On the inside, however…

Any mercenary group that would try to break in (under orders from another, competing Sovereign, no doubt) would probably be lethally surprised with how deep, expansive and ingenious the defences were. Not to mention the garrison wasn’t the typical security used by Corporations.

‘I don’t want an indifferent professional. I want a fanatic we will change into a professional.’ I still remember Isaiah saying these words. Defenders of this place were an important part of his personality cult. They were no doubt ready to throw themselves at attackers with explosives strapped to their bodies.

No doubt they looked at me weird. It was no secret that I was the least fanatic of Gospel members.

“Hello, Syndra.” Lamb welcomed me with a smile.

It manifested itself with the use of a hologram. The same form as always - 25-35 year old man. Brown eyes, dark hair, slightly olive-coloured skin. This time he wore a brown tweed suit.

“Hello, Lamb.” Let’s get this over with.

The room we were in was a place where we communicated with the Lamb. Its true body was beneath us. A vast system of cutting-edge supercomputers - that we could access only to make repairs, which didn’t happen often. Beyond that room lay its kingdom, before it - ours. Where we did everything we could to ensure that Lamb was cut off from the outside world - and from the Internet especially.

All data came in and out on paper. Tens of thousands of pages each day. Hundreds of thousands since the Long War started and the Gospel began for real. I still had doubts about it having some contact with an outside world, though I couldn’t find any conclusive proof. All the electronic detectors we had shown nothing, the AI Core was completely sealed from the world, and yet...

“I’m here because Isaiah wants a report on the Gospel progress.” There are no words that can describe how much I don’t want to be here right now. I prefer observing Lamb from afar. “And was adamant on me getting it from you personally and acting as a courier. Personally, I think he still thinks that if I spend more time with you I’ll start sharing his… religious delusions.”

“He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers.” Oh great, another sermon. “Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’ ‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

“Yeah, right.” That’s one reason why meeting the Lamb kept being troublesome. It keeps quoting Bible on me. No wonder Isaiah ended up under its spell. I tried to debate it a few times early on, and it kept finding ten arguments per each one I had. Still, it was an AI - if it wanted, it could probably conjure a dozen sensible arguments about the Earth being flat.

A massive, industrial printer on the edge of the room sprung to life and began spitting out page after page.

“I’ll give you the report. Though it can be also summed up by ‘Everything’s going just fine.’” Lamb sighed. A part of its performance, no doubt. AIs don’t sigh unless they want to. “I do not expect Gospel to conclude earlier than within a year from launch. Though the first effects of it should be seen soon.” I picked up the pages. “I can’t blame him, though. He is under a lot of stress, so it’s understandable he is anxious about results.”

“Right.” I finished picking up the twenty-something pages that Lamb printed. “I guess I’ll be off, then.”

“You shouldn’t do anything that could endanger you, especially now.” What? “I already thought about telling you that two weeks ago, but you took a while to come here. You shouldn’t risk yourself, Isaiah never told you that, but he relies on you quite a bit.”

What is it…

Suddenly I almost got a heart attack.

Ever since the Long War started, I frequented a certain place. The fear of other Sovereigns discovering Gospel meant a lot of stress, so I had to unwind it somewhere.

Though it wasn’t in a safe area, and while I was confident that 99% of thugs wouldn’t touch a person connected to a Sovereign…

I was also supposed to come here two weeks ago, but Isaiah needed me elsewhere and changed my schedule.

But I never told Lamb about that. How does it… wait, does it even know? ‘The two weeks’ could be a coincidence, and the rest of his words were so general and imprecise that they could mean everything.

I looked at Lamb, but it answered with a smile and a wave of a hand.

Ah, fuck. Looks I won’t need my morning coffee.

***

Adam Rytman

TCS Cutlass/Pontifex-A System

Long War

16 April 2547, 12:14

“I’m not sure about it.” I said to Nymphae. “Not. At. All.”

I was sitting on the captain’s seat on the bridge. It was comfy. I felt like a boss. I could watch over people doing things, which also helped me feel like a boss. In short - it was a much nicer place to spend time than my flat.

I spent a lot of time sitting there, in most cases arguing (or just talking) with Nymphae in my head. On the outside, she was pretending to be dumb. Mostly to avoid triggering the new crew members that had a trauma with thinking machines.

“Well, you wanted me to show you possible options for the nearest future. Something about you being tired with administrative things.” Nymphae answered, triggering my internal UGH reaction. “So I showed you. For now, the best option would be capturing the rear part of Alum and getting access to clones and all the things we can find in the cargo holds.”

Hmph. Theoretically, I agree with her. This idea has some appeal. There are about fifty more clones there - the main ‘hold’ for clones were there, we only got scraps. And who knows how much stuff - it was an armed CARGO vessel. It was supposed to carry a lot of stuff, had a lot of cargo bays with various things inside.

With TCS Myrrh destroyed, we only had TCS Incense and a half of TCS Alum left. TCS Alum was a better choice for the first bigger ship to be reclaimed because most of its Numbers’ garrison had the bad luck of being on the front part of the ship when it crashed into the moon (it was quite a sight). A lot to gain, but relatively few to fear.

Of course, if there were additional Elites there… who knows if they send everything they could against us when they stormed the front part of Alum. That part gave me a trauma. I mean, what if we run into another Sorcerer?!

“Then it’s the best you go there immediately and fight off the trauma before it settles too deep!” Ugh. What are you, a psychotherapist?! “More like a psycho the rapist!” She gave me an angelic smile.

Ugh.

“Just hypothetically: do you have a plan?” This time the smile wasn’t one belonging to a pixie. Impish one, more like.

“It’s simple. Get in, get to the Heart, give me the control over security systems, and then act accordingly to my information about enemy presence.”

She makes it sound so easy. We have, like, two combatants? Me and King, as for some reason (after Martin Luther King, it seems) 18S renamed himself like that. Two!

King went furthest of us all with using implants to transplant knowledge. No idea why, but he was slowly turning into a relatively competent soldier. The Choir was so kind to hand us over a company of soldiers - their elites, as they were paratroopers trained to fight behind enemy lines - to train in ‘modern’ combat, but… we had weapons for, like, ten of them?

And according to Nymphae, the armoured bodysuits we were using weren’t even ‘proper’ body armours. There were no real soldiers aboard the frigate. The Corporation’s marines were garrisoned from destroyers up. Aboard frigates, the worst they expected was a crew member going insane or aggressive, plus once or twice they carried captured specimen (like Numbers’ troopers) aboard, hence the more or less anti-Numbers’ equipment.

“King is still in Fort Khrystal?” I asked Nymphae. She nodded.

Fort Khrystal was a military base belonging to the Choir. Placed on a lonely island on the Anvarian Sea, it was sufficiently remote for secret research and development base. And sensibly close to trading routes that there was also a navy base.

It was perfect for the first ground base of the Choir’s Space Navy. If you could call us a Navy. It was far away from eyes of the Hegemony and the Empire, had a port big enough to receive resources from the mainland and had the infrastructure.

It required repairs - it wasn’t used for a while - but this meant that it had only the skeleton crew, which made sending handpicked best military personnel of the Choir there easier.

Besides the port and a whole ‘military’ city for the soldiers’ families, there were enough storerooms, shooting ranges, and barracks for us. Even if we recaptured and crewed all surviving ships of the Task Force Pontifex. And there was also a place for all the scientists and engineers that the Choir sent there to figure out our technology.

I had to admit one thing - the natives acted fast. Two weeks passed, and we already had a working base, a hundred scientists from every possible field, a growing group of engineers that already started figuring how to make things work, and both soldiers and mariners in training.

Then again, having an unstoppable armies of murderous machines on your doorstep makes stuff like that happen to you.

“King and Einstein are in Khrystal.” I was suspecting Nymphae of taking part in their choice of names in a rather malevolent (though amusing) way. African-American named King after Martin Luther King was a tad bit weird - I mean, were there no ‘normal’ names?! But I was probably never going to understand why 4T named herself Einstein. “King is training the paratroopers and Einstein is acting as my proxy with the scientists.”

Coming-out was obviously not an option. The clones and I knew Nymphae was something other than a talking (and stupid) computer - and even in that state she still scared the shit out of the natives. Can’t blame them, honestly. Though it made things harder.

“I see.” I closed my eyes for a while. “Tell Sarah to bring King back during her next supply run.”

I guess we’ll return to Alum faster than I expected.

***

Adam Rytman

TCS Cutlass/Pontifex-A System

Long War

16 April 2547, 19:29

It took several hours for King to return from the planet. There was no real reason to hurry the flight schedule - the Alum would not escape anywhere. Besides, until the natives figure out how to produce thruster fuel for our ships (which was unlikely to happen, so I was already searching for alternatives) we should at least try to limit our fuel usage. Which was made even more important by the fact that Cutlass lost most of its fuel before I even woke up aboard the Alum.

I spent several hours doing administrative work. Long War was massively different from earlier games I played. There I’d already wage about ten space battles, probably aboard the fighter that could easily jump from system to system and from battle to battle. Here… well, the average pace of the game was massively slower.

Normally I’d leave long ago, but something… something kept me here. Sure, NPCs were beyond everything I ever saw in the games - I was yet to notice any sign of them not being virtually humanlike in every aspect. I presumed only those NPCs that came in contact with Players were simulated, but even then, the level of details of their personalities and acting was… astounding. But this wasn’t the reason for me staying in-game.

I needed more time to introspect more and figure it out. This time I was interrupted by Nymphae informing me that the shuttle landed in our hangar.

Since I was a captain (the only reason I didn’t rename myself admiral - despite being at least theoretically a head of a country’s Space Navy - was that my navy was… well, more like wasn’t) I didn’t have to come to him. Instead, I could keep doing what I was doing on the bridge.

But since we would depart, most likely from the hangar, I entertained him that one time.

“Captain.” He greeted me. He was... laconic.

“Hello, King. There’s a little mission I have to do. And I could use your help.” The chances of me losing him now were virtually nonexistent - after all, he now had the same uniform dark grey eyes as I and Sarah did. The same was true for all of our Clones.

“Sure.” I was about to explain when he spoke again. “Alum?”

“Nymphae told you?”

“No, I expected that for a while. Big ship, a lot of materials and clones, few defenders. Best choice.” So King got that idea before me. I should be more… proactive from now on.

“Right. So, we would go there together, reach the Heart, have Nymphae restart the security systems to figure out where exactly the enemies are and how many of them are there, and then we clear the place part by part.”

“Can I change that plan?” Part of me misses the times when the Clones just listened.

“Well, you are the boss when it comes to ground forces, so…. yes.” At the very least I shouldn’t be stupid - if he has something to say, I should listen. Even if he is an NPC.

“We should bring at least a few of the paratroopers with us.” Seriously? “I’m not expecting them to charge at Numbers’ Elites, but they are all good soldiers. They should defend our entry point and then clean the ship of Soldiers and Infantry Bots. They need experience in ship boarding and more modern combat.”

“Makes sense. And… what is that briefcase you carry?” Long. Wood and leather. Obviously from Choir. He didn’t take any bribes or something, right?

“Something to test in space.” A long and unneeded pause heightening the tension. “Choir’s prototype MAW rifle.”

“Oh, I s… wait, what?!” About twenty days since the first contact and they already have a prototype of magnetic weapon?! Are you kidding me?!

“Magic.” He answered. I waited patiently for a follow-up. “They dismantled the assault rifle we gave them, figured more or less how it works, and then built their own variant. While they lack knowledge about modern electronics and other advanced stuff like the carbon nanocomposites, they can replace it with materials unique to the planet. For example, instead of electromagnets, they used some sort of naturally existing type of crystal that emits a magnetic field when an electric current is applied.”

Oh. Makes sense. According to Nymphae the Magic Planet’s materials - unlike the magic itself - work outside of the planetary orbit. ‘Magic’ works by issuing orders to the nano (and smaller) machines in the air, so when the planet/ship you are on wasn’t modified to have them, it won’t work. Materials, at the same time, were simply programmed to have a particular set of traits. They required none outside power to work.

“Still, three weeks and already this? That’s insanely fast.” I said.

“Yes. But that’s mostly because they hurried it a lot.” King informed me. “While the weapon was tested and confirmed to fire, it’s most primitive. It’s not even an assault rifle, more like a semi-automatic one. It also requires some tests in space and against modern armours.”

And why fire it at our own armours - wasting them in the process - when we could fire it at Numbers’? They don’t have to be alive when this happens. Though testing it on the living enemies would be even better. Choir’s R&D probably expects us to fire at the dead ones, but it doesn’t know we are immortal.

“Even then, it’s still too complicated and costly to mass produce.” King deflated the balloon of my optimism. “They are mostly trying to figure out the general idea behind modern weaponry. Still, the rifle proved deadly against their own armours, and even a few battalions armed with it can have some effects on Moloch. Especially since they are also thinking about using similar technologies to enhance tank cannons.”

“If I were them, I wouldn’t use it like that.” I answered. “Nymphae?”

“Yes.” She answered me promptly. “When you fight against hostile AI of Class Five, the whole point is to not give it too much time to reorganize and adapt.” She answered me. “If it knows something, it will without a doubt figure out a countermeasure. Short and decisive strikes rather than prolonged conflict. Even if they use the weapons like that and push the enemy back a few hundred kilometres, Moloch will learn from this defeat and quickly copy everything you send against it.”

“So, in short, it’s the best idea to amass significant technological and numerical superiority, and then make the AI feel like the sky falls on its head. Taking it down before it can adapt.” Makes me wonder if that’s how the humans fight off AIs. I should probably learn something about it… just in case Nymphae evolved into an omnicidal monster.

Can’t imagine her like an omnicidal monster when she is flying around looking like a pixie, to be honest. Especially when she winks to me like that.

“I guess I’ll make a talk with them next time I’ll be there.” King shrugged. “But I’m not sure if they will listen to that. I can’t blame them, really. We are not the ones that are losing city after city against the machines that seem to be intent on taking as many people, soldiers or not, to… ‘process’ them.”

Worst-case scenario, we’ll just have to connect to the nearest human space country. Persuading them we really aren’t a part of some Corporation’s scheme will take a while, sure - I had a long talk with the Nymphae about the stuff the Truthseekers pulled and pretending to be runaway clones to fool an unfortunate country wouldn’t be the craziest thing they did.

But I really don’t think any government with half a brain in it would be chill with the Moloch being around. After all, what if it learns how to construct spaceships? Especially with access to resources from a Magic Planet.

And all the other wonders of the Pontifex System. We lost pretty much all data on it, but according to Nymphae there were many Precursor installations and at least a single formerly inhabited world that was believed to be their homeworld. I don’t know what the Moloch can do after it gets its hands on the planet-wide treasure trove of Precursor technology, but it’s probably nothing nice.

What saved the planet, for now, was that all the local ruins of the Precursors were thoroughly scavenged from everything even remotely interesting in the local variant of adventure-filled Middle Ages. Choir’s religious leadership considered Precursors important figures in their theology (but was divided on their exact significance), so they didn’t let the exiled heretics take any of their precious relics. And the Choir was especially thorough in evacuating every single Precursor relic from lost cities, which limited the Moloch to 'mundane' technology.

“Humans would still win.” Nymphae interrupted my thoughts. “Everyone would unite against a threat of that magnitude. Even the wars between Humanity and aliens would cease, as while most of them are truly alien, they also understand the threat the omnicidal Machine Intelligence presents. And even getting Precursor techs won’t help you when your enemy outnumbers you 1000:1. Still, the casualties would probably be disastrous… and the Supreme Council of Humanity would search for people to blame quite attentively.”

Right. So we should stop Moloch. At. All. Cos…

NEW QUESTS!

DEICIDE

Difficulty Level: Heroic

There was once a cult that worshipped science, technology and reason. This cult, exiled for their beliefs to a faraway island, created their God… only to discover that it had no other use for them - other than those that were too terrible to speak off.

Now the Machine God - known as Ikhvir or Moloch - continues its rampage through Pontifex A-3. Someone must stop it.

THOSE THAT REMAIN

Difficulty Level: Heroic

Numbers’ are a ragtag fleet of scavengers that haunt the Pontifex System and surrounding region. They were a simple and not particularly dangerous threat for the Corporation…

...until they started exhibiting errant behaviour. What is the secret behind their actions and what exactly are they?

END OF REASON

Difficulty Level: Transcendent

The Pontifex Star System once belonged to the Prehuman civilization known as Precursors. It achieved things that borders with magic even for the most advanced powers of today.

And then fell before the Archenemy.

But who was the Archenemy? What happened to Precursors?

Current number of Clues: 0

Yeah. The part with the quests happening in the Long War supposedly acted rather quirky. It was best shown by the fact that I have received no quest until now…

...wait a fucking second. Transcendent difficulty level?!

“Captain?” Nymphae asked me, curious and worried in equal measures. “I… can’t figure what you are thinking about.”

“Uhm… some weird thing with the implants happened.” I dismissed her worries.

There was supposed to be ten difficulty levels for quests in Long War. Entertainment International announced that at the start. Five were ‘personal’: Easy, Medium, Hard, Very Hard and Impossible. It included things from buying groceries for your neighbour to suicide missions. Next five difficulty levels were more… ‘strategic’. They were supposed to be things that required entire fleets, armies and countries to be achieved. These difficulty levels were: Epic, Heroic (getting two at once had to be a world record… at least for now), Legendary, Mythical… and Transcendent. That was supposed to differ from all others, but the EI didn’t specify how.

The situation gets increasingly interesting. And scary.

“I’ll explain what just happened on the move.” We’ll have enough time while flying the shuttle to the Alum - and Sarah will be with us.

“Sure thing, captain.” King, as always, was stalwart and let nothing weird break his composure.