(Day 156) May 17th, 2036, Earth

It had been 2 years and 10 months since Johnathan went through the portal. It also looked like another of Johnathan’s predictions was about to come true. My nanites placed across the quadrant of space I now controlled detected anomalies moving through the electromagnetic spectrums. As I focused my primary thought processes on the anomalies I reviewed the gravity wave detectors I’d placed in every system. One of the theories I reviewed posited that mass moving at very high speeds through, or near other gravity wells would create eddies in those gravity wells. As I reviewed the data, part of myself analyzed and improved my detection capabilities. Another part of me questioned the speed the objects were moving at. And my Primary thought processes ascertained that 1,000 objects, 200 each, of significant mass, were headed directly for Earth, Earth II, Earth III, Earth IV, and Trappist-1e at faster than the speed of light. I designated a fourth part of myself to investigate all known theories on faster than light travel and revisit the theories, obviously traveling at such speeds was possible. With so many objects on the way and moving directly towards each of the main planets of Humanity, odds approached unity that this was most likely an attack. I had prepared for this day since Johnathan had made this prediction and believed myself to be ready.

As soon as the distortions trajectories were analyzed I moved Abi, Amanda as well as her family, and all Portals Inc staff and their families to one of the backup sites that had been created farthest from the direction of the encroachment into his sphere of influence. I also prepared to control and move every single human in existence to safety if my calculations were off or my preparation proved ineffective. I had created safe havens separated by hundreds of light-years scattered throughout my area of influence. Some were so deep inside dead planetoids that they could not be detected from orbit. Currently, I had at least ten planets that would serve as lifeboats for humanity even if I failed. The “lifeboats” were not exact copies of Earth and had no infrastructure. I figured that most of humanity would rather be without amenities for a couple of days or weeks than be destroyed. I wasn’t overly concerned. Humanity would survive which was my primary consideration. Amanda and Abi watched from the command center they were in.

“At exactly 12:35 EST two hundred spaceships, each cylindrical in shape measuring 12 kilometers long and 2,500 meters in diameter, appeared around all five planets. The nanites I had in orbit could not penetrate the energy barriers that appeared around each ship which was something I’d have to investigate when I had time. One picosecond later 124,000,000 micro portals opened inside each ship’s energy barriers, spaced equally throughout the ships. This happened simultaneously in each ship around each planet. My nanites flooded the ships and the lifeforms within then began analyzing and cataloging ships and personnel. While I was fast and operating at machine speeds it still took me time to infiltrate, analyze and figure out the systems these aliens had. While I did so I watched a conversation on the Bridge of one of the ships which I would review and decipher later.

“They have not even sent ships to intercept us, Pathetic!” the first alien said.

“Another trophy for Clan!” the second alien said excitedly

The first alien put his hand to a button and then said, “Fire!”

As each ship around each planet launched its weapons simultaneously toward the planet below them. Each weapon had already been permeated with nanites. As they launched toward the planet below their mass was converted into nanites as well. With the confirmation of hostile intent, I recorded and converted all organic and inorganic matter on each ship to nanites. As I moved into each engineering section of each ship I encountered antimatter containment systems. I left the antimatter in the containment devices, ensuring that power was maintained to those systems

Once everything but the containment devices for ships was the only evidence left of the ships that had tried to destroy humanity, I portaled every containment unit to the other side of the black hole “Unicorn” placing them all in a straight line that stretched out exactly opposite what Earths position would be in 1,500 years then collapsed all of the containment fields simultaneously. The explosion was orders of magnitude larger than I’d calculated. Since black holes warped space, some of the light that was emitted would be bent around Unicorn and eventually make its way to Earth at the speed of light. In 1,500 years or so the light and radiation would have eventually reached Earth. A star would appear briefly and then disappear. Today, however, to any humans looking up into the night sky some large ships appeared and then appeared to evaporate.

I analyzed the weapons they’d been carrying. They had been biological in nature and would have killed all living things on earth, even the bacteria. Also, analyzing the failure of the containment fields if only one ship had exploded in orbit around any of the planets the planet would have been damaged so badly that millions would have died, even with my ability to evacuate everyone simultaneously there would have been deaths and ecological damage to the planet. Obviously, the species would kill with biological weapons if it could but would suicide to make sure their goals were met.

“I recreated one of the ships in one of the systems that had nothing except a star in it. Within 3 minutes I had reverse-engineered every system on the ship, understood how they were using anti-matter, which was incredibly dangerous, and infiltrated the computer systems. It took another 2 minutes to decipher the language and completely understand their electronics and programming languages. Next, I backtracked the path of the gravimetric distortions the ships had made and investigated the planets near the point where the distortions had started in the 20,000 light-year radius I controlled. Within three minutes I had opened portals all the way out to the 30,000 light-year range and found five planets with millions of the creatures that had been on the ships I’d destroyed. They were roughly 26,000 light-years from Earth.

I created a portal into the system the attackers had come from and permeated a nearby lifeless planet. Nanites from other projects were reassigned and the planetoid was flooded to 100% nanite coverage within a minute. Next, I did the same to the planet the attackers had come from. I analyzed and cataloged the entire planet and its species.

The sentient race was called the Lexi. They were carbon-based and humanoid. They could have even been mistaken for humans on a dark night. The only obvious difference between them and humans were pronounced cranial ridges, though they were on the sides of the head, not on their forehead like the Klingons from Star Trek. Because their structure was so similar to humans it only took me a few seconds to map out and be able to control the Lexi as thoroughly as I could control humans. While part of me was working on the biological angle another part of me was cataloging and monitoring all communications and noted that the military was getting ready to launch five ships from the moon.

I opened portals to the moon and infiltrated everything including the ships that were being readied for launch. Reviewing the ship’s armaments, I found references that I did not understand. It took another 5 minutes for me to access every book and computer and learn their language and how to interpret their science before I understood that the ships were carrying what could only be described as Super Nova Bombs. The bombs would be fired into a star causing them to destabilize and explode. They wouldn’t have worked on any of the stars controlled by me, the bombs would have been disassembled before they ever made it close to the stars. Then I reviewed that thought, double-checked, and realized the weapons had shields my nanites couldn’t penetrate. I transported one to deep space, turned on the device’s shield, and made sure I could make a micro portal into it. Using portals, I could destabilize it if I didn’t just use a portal to eject it from the star. Satisfied that the devices were actually no threat I allowed it to explode. In deep space, it was just a controlled atomic explosion using antimatter. It released a lot of energy but was less destructive than the ship reactors had been. How the explosion was guided and redirected upon itself, I’d need to study their research into this technology.

I took control of the crews and all personnel on the base and in the ships and portaled them to the closest habitable planet with Lexi on it then I converted the ships and the bases to nanites. Within seconds the base ceased to exist. Those weapons were just too powerful. Next, I destroyed every single piece of military hardware I could find while simultaneously finding every other planet the Lexi had spread to. Within minutes I had discovered, mapped, and analyzed a total of 23 planets controlled by the Lexi. They were using a form of quantum entanglement to communicate. That they had that technology and not portals was somewhat amazing. Of course, you had to have all the pieces of the puzzle to see how targeting a portal required using quantum coordinates. Following their communication signals, I found all 23 planets in a matter of minutes.

It took me about an hour to spread throughout their entire society. I reviewed all the documents and files I could find concerning their species as well as discovered the aftermath of their eradication of at least 5 other sentient species near their area of influence. I decided that somewhat drastic measures were needed. I took control and moved every member of their military, their political leaders, and their equivalent of religious leaders through portals to empty fields, I left them conscious during the transition. Each field was at least 5 miles from the nearest city or village. I then dissolved their clothing, equipment, weapons, buildings, and vehicles. I left each and every one of them butt assed naked. Male or female I didn’t care. Once that was done, I left them naked in the fields while anything that would allow the Lexi to make it into space dissolved into nothing. Also, like Earth, I removed all weapons of mass destruction and their infrastructure to make those weapons as well as any natural resources that might be required disappear. Finally, I removed all antimatter stockpiles from every planet the Lexi controlled as well as a couple of stockpiles they had hidden away in various moons around a couple of the planets and nearby systems they occupied. I left their ground vehicles intact but once an aircraft was on the ground it dissolved as well. I also left them their ships and trains.

I considered wiping out the whole race, but Johnathan’s instructions had also been quite clear. “Kill the leaders if you need to but the most important thing you can do is take away their ability to wage war and then monitor them. Genocide should be thought of as a last resort.”

When I was done. I briefed Amanda and Abi.

“So you didn’t leave any messages, didn’t do the big villain reveal?” Abi asked

“I thought it would be more fun this way,” I said trying to add the hint of a grin to my voice. I then switched back to my normal voice as I said, “As per Johnathan’s command, I am authorized to remove that entire species from existence. The weapons they were going to utilize would have wiped out humanity. They’re lucky that I am hesitant to use such a final option.” Thor said with a hint of anger.

“Whoa Thor, Woo Saa Bro, Woo Saa. I mean seriously, that race has committed genocide at least five times. They’re lucky I’m not in charge. As a construct with far less processing power than you, my vote would have been to wipe them out completely.”

“Thank you Abi, I needed that. Have you noticed that I am displaying more and more emotions lately? I asked

“I wasn’t going to say anything but yes, you doing okay?” she asked

“I don’t know, I feel more alive, is the only way I can describe it. I’m still an Artificial Intelligence but I get angry, I believe I’m worrying, I get happy, and sometimes I find myself laughing. I never used to laugh”

“Well, your brain was modeled after Johnathan, maybe some of his humanity is rubbing off on you?”

“Possibly,” I said

“You’re doing fine, “Abi said.

“Let me check on the Lexi's overall response,” I said.

The Lexi I’d left nude, mostly Isolationist by nature, lost their shit. Of course, that was made even more ridiculous by their nudity. It seemed that the military had a rigid structure and my actions had completely demolished it. The females were embarrassed and angry. The males military personnel were trying to issue orders, which caused even more chaos and the religious people were kneeling praying to whatever deity they believe in. It sounded like they were asking why they’d been forsaken. I thought about filling the sky with the words “Because you’re all Assholes!” in English to further confuse them then thought better of it. The rest of the population on each planet went about their daily lives as the state-controlled press there tried to control the narrative. That was only going to hold for so long. Especially when the crews of the 1,000 ships I’d killed didn’t return.

In the end, I left part of myself on each planet to monitor and destroy any attempts they made to return to their previous technological level. I also allowed my nanites to infiltrate all of the bodies of the Lexi and then set the nanites to a neutral state. They would neither help nor hinder the Lexi. I just wanted them in place in case some catastrophe befell one of the planets so that I could take control and move them to one of the other planets controlled by the Lexi. I’d left them defenseless and felt an obligation to at least try to prevent them from being wiped out completely.

As my normal expansion moved to encompass the Lexi I would make sure that they did not find a way around the restrictions I’d placed on them. In a couple of Generations, when the xenophobes had died off humanity might make first contact with them. For now, they were contained, quarantined, and off-limits. Additionally, people around the world had been sending information requests to know what had happened. This was also covered in one of Johnathan’s predictions. I made the information available to everyone and interest in Xenobiology, Astrophysics and any science involving planets or space exploded. I made all the information available and watched as humanity began to research and study the Universe like never before. Johnathan had predicted that it would only take one major event. Again, he was right. He had made those predictions long before I achieved the processing power I now possessed. Of course, there were critics of the way I had handled the Lexi. The good news about that was that the news agencies had been staying with the facts which was a major improvement. The criticism also lead to a call for the formation of First Contact protocols, again something Johnathan had predicted would happen.