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Chapter-20

The landscape was desolated, destruction as far as he could see. What could make people do such a thing? Why would they annihilate each other so when they had so much? Was he the last survivor? Had others been as fortunate as he? He would have to find them, they would be the world's last hope. Hopefully there would be women, since they would need to repopulate it. In all this desolation that thought brought a smile to his face, maybe he was the last man, and he would have to have sex with-

"Will you stop working on your next book and focus?" Angel's voice forced him to change thread.

"I am quite capable of multitasking, I'm not one of the living."

She glared at him. He hadn't sounded annoyed, had he? She pointed down, where the ground had given way and revealed a stream of sickly pulsating purple and green information; the Rogue AI's infection. He'd been about to step into it.

"Tell me again, how you are focusing on what we are doing?"

"I'm...I'm sorry." He looked at the desolation, the destroyed nodes, the infected ones. He shuddered. "I was not created for such environment."

Angel's face softened. "None of us were, but we have a mission. The colonies depend on us to accomplish it, no matter the obstacles."

"I'll focus, I promise."

They made their way around the stream, and watched as it expanded, eating more of the 'ground.' The Rogue was infiltrating the city's infrastructure itself. How could it ever be stopped?

He brought the thought thread about the story up, gave it more processing power.

The devastation had spread so fast no one had been able to-

"Casanova, focus!"

"I-"

She grabbed him by the shoulders. "Listen to me, you need to terminate whatever thread you are processing. This isn't the time to create a story, a moment of inattention could destroy us both."

"I didn't mean to-"

"I know." Her grip loosened. "You need to stop being the system's best author, and be the Colonies' best local AI."

"You really think I'm the best author?" He was touched, Angel was always so critical of his work.

"No, the people reading your stories say that. Clearly they have no idea what they are talking about, the fact that you publish more stories than anyone out there because you are an AI doesn't mean any of them are good."

Casanova smiled. "I think you do like my works. Why else would you read all of them?"

"So I can point out just how bad they are." She released him and began moving.

Reluctantly he placed the story's thread in storage. She was right, he didn't need to do this now. He could store the experience, the sensations, and refer to them later, when he was back within the colonies' system.

How long they walked he didn't-He stopped that thread and stored it. It was a story thread. He knew how long they had been walking. He knew the passage of time down to the picosecond, he even knew how much living time had passed, not anywhere as much.

Angel stopped and pointed. "Finally."

The node was visible in the distance again, but much closer than before. Even with all the detours to avoid the Rogue's infection, they had made progress. Unfortunately another river of toxic information laid between them and it.

Angel looked at him. "Can you make us a bridge?"

Casanova felt for the malleability of the world around them. While the Rogue and Orr AI had fought, it had been impossible for him to alter the world, the chaos had ripped apart anything he made. But things had been quiet for some time now.

"I think so. But this close to some of the Rogue's infection it might sense what I'm doing."

"It's that or we keep on walking. I can't even tell if there's a way to reach it without having to cross some of it."

"Do you know how your agent is faring?"

"No. I ordered her to disconnect as soon as the Rogue started spreading. Yours?"

Casanova shook his head. "After what he went through he was already reluctant to connect and be noticed. I haven't wanted to send forks through this chaos to ask for an update."

"Same here. I've located a handful of uninfected communication nods for once we have this last plan."

"I'm going to risk it. I can't see this calm lasting, it would be best if we were done before the fighting starts again." Casanova imposed his will on the world and created a surface over the river. He made it higher than needed, hoping that the distance would keep the Rogue from sensing it.

It was something ethereal, only as solid as needed to support him and Angel. The more of his will he imposed, the stronger the ripples across the system.

"That doesn't inspire confidence."

"It's like a dream, it can be real, no matter how gossamer it looks."

"You need to stop looking at what's around you like it's one of your stories," She said, as she set foot on the bridge.

Casanova followed her.

"You know I can't help it. Just like you can't stop classifying everything we come across."

She grunted her reply.

They made it to the apex of the bridge when the river under it stirred. Casanova grabbed Angel's arm and stopped her. He placed a finger to his lips when she turned and he motioned to the churning flow under them.

"I think it might have noticed us," he whispered.

"Then stop being an idiot and run." She pulled him along.

The river erupted and they threw themselves in the air. Casanova created a slide to catch them and carry them further, but they'd barely cleared the shore that the world around them shuddered and they crashed to the ground.

Casanova covered Angel's body with his own. "While it devours me, run for the node. Remember me."

She pushed him off her. "For one thing, I'm not one of your stories women in distress."

"I didn't-"

"For another, it isn't coming for us."

Casanova turned and watched as the river flowed up and fell on a structure on the other side that hadn't been there moments before. No not one structure, a multitude of them.

"It makes sense he used that."

Casanova looked at Angel. "What are they?"

"Old, from before the war. There isn't much information on them. They are war machines, called tanks. According to the little information left they are third generation Tigers."

"He..."

"Picked a war machine named after the species of the family who made him, yes."

Casanova considered it for a moment, then smiled. "That is rather romantic."

Angel sighed. "Of course you'd think that. How about we use the time they are distracted to get to the node and extract the information?"

* * * * *

Theo grabbed the giraffe and slammed her against the wall. "What kind of idiots makes a kill program that isn't aggressive? What? You're going to cover it in gravy and hope your Rogue AI finds it appetizing?"

"No kill," the giraffe spat.

Theo threw her to the floor. "Really? You don't plan on killing it? You're going to let it destroy the city and everyone in it?"

"Master's slaves."

"Do you understand what she's saying?"

"She's a lunatic, what's there to understand."

"Is there a way to force your damned AI to eat that program?" Theo yelled at the woman on the floor.

"Theo, it's no use. Even if they have a way, she isn't going to tell you. We need-"

* * * * *

Caduceus observed the conflict from a distance. The war had restarted with the Orr AI mounting a stealth attack on the Rogue's borders, but the Rogue was holding its own now. Very few of the Orr AI accomplished anything before being crushed and his forks disintegrated before being infected.

Caduceus didn't know where the Orr AI drew his power from. It had felt the computer in orbit, but it couldn't be the source here, the Rogue AI had taken control of every connection to the outside world. To protect that computer, the Orr AI had to sever the connection.

Maybe it could search for his source of power while they fought? It could be something it used to protect the living in the rest of the planetary system?

It turned its attention away from the fighting, deeper with the territory the Orr AI controlled, and the ground far below it exploded.

A green and purple geyser erupted in Caduceus' direction and it shifted its location. It had intended to send itself far away, but the world bent around itself, folded, and crushed itself. Caduceus found itself on the ground, with the geyser falling toward it.

It's focused all its processes and shifted again. This time when the world bent and folded it navigated it. It reappeared not as far as it would have preferred, but in the air. Below the ground was crumbling under the infection.

How had the Rogue AI known it was there? Caduceus didn't leave any traces on the world unless it wanted to. It couldn't have sensed it, which meant-

Caduceus shifted.

It was inside a chamber deep within the city's system. It was empty, except for the node controlling the city's power core, and the remnant of its beta.

There were no signs of infection here. Could the Orr AI have done this? No, he would have recognized it and it would have diverted some of his armies to find it. Then how?

Caduceus moved next to what was left of its beta's code. It had undone itself to make it impossible for the attacker to get anything, but had it been successful?

Caduceus didn't touch the code. It formed an Epsilon fork to do the work, giving it only what was needed to study the remnants.

The moment he fork touched the undone code green and purple flowed forth from it and consumed the fork.

The infection searched for Caduceus, but it was well hidden, and this was a lesser version of the Rogue AI. It had learned how to fork itself. Possibly from the contact it had with Casanova, but more likely from Caduceus' own fork.

This fork had been left here, and the Rogue AI had hidden any trace of its presence. This had been a trap.

Caduceus looked at the node. It couldn't see any changes to it. Which meant its beta had been caught before it did what it had been instructed. Did it mean the Rogue AI knew what Caduceus had planned?

Caduceus needed to know before it could formulate another plan.

* * * * *

"-to find a way to use it ourselves.," Patricia said. "Maybe we can alter it? Make it aggressive? Angelica?"

"I don't know. I'm weary of interfacing with it. It's a mess of codes."

"How sure are you it's going to work then?"

"Oh, it's going to work. That thing is a nuclear bomb for the Rogue. If it gets inside its program it will tear itself apart."

"A nuclear bomb is an old weapon of mass destruction," Cass offered before Theo could ask.

"So our only problem is getting the Rogue to ingest it. How the fuck are we going to get it to do that?"

* * * * *

Caduceus scanned the battles. Something had changed. The Rogue AI was losing ground. At a quick glance it looked like the Orr AI has managed to gain the upper hand, but that was false. The war was no longer the main focus for the Rogue AI.

Caduceus shifted. It needed to work out what the Rogue AI's focus was. If it wasn't the war it meant it considered something more important. What could be more important than winning the system? That was what the Earth Independents had created it for.

With multiple shifts it assembled a view of the totality of the conflict. The Rogue AI was forcing its way through part of the Orr AI's defenses, but only part of them, and not to anything that seemed important.

Caduceus calculated all the possible places the nodes the Rogue AI was trying to gain access, and none of them looked useful to winning this conflict.

Then the goal had to be different. If winning this system wasn't the goal, what could be accomplished via any of the destinations this node had access to?

The answer was evident. The one place which gave access to anything the Rogue might want, especially if Caduceus' beta hadn't undone itself in time, was a way out. The Government center had a dedicated line to Luna so SolGov could easily communicate with Mars. A line the Rogue could use to send itself to Luna.

Caduceus couldn't allow that. It shifted back to the power core's controls and almost engaged the sequence that would overload it. It noticed the greenish tint to the node at the last instant.

The Rogue had already taken control of it. Caduceus' beta had let something of its intent slip. It studied the node, this was another of the Rogue AI's folks, and it could overpower it, but Caduceus didn't have the time. The Orr AI didn't know what the Rogue Ai's plans were. It would be more interested in protecting and regaining systems vital to the city's function.

Caduceus needed to arrange for the communication point's destruction itself. It shifted and was next to it. It couldn't destroy it. That needed to be done in the living world. It couldn't even cut power to it. The Rogue would be able to reinstate that.

It created a fork. Gave it the information about the Rogue's intent, and then did something it shouldn't be able to do. Something it had spent century practicing and never informed the version of itself in the Colonies about. It altered the shape of its fork.

Which one would be most receptive? Cass or Angelica? Cass was still suffering from the trauma of being isolated. Angelica then.

When its fork looked like an Angel gamma, it sent it to force a contact.

* * * * *

Angelica blinked out and back.

Theo stared, but Patricia looked like she was about to freak out.

"What just happened?" he asked.

"Are you okay?" Patricia asked. "Angelica? Are you okay?" The jaguar nodded slowly. "What happened?"

"I just received a forced connection from Angel."

"She forced a connection to the net, knowing the state it's in?"

"Yes, she just worked out the Rogue is trying to reach the SolGov comm center and send itself to Luna."

"He's what?" the rabbit looked like she was going to panic again. "If that thing gets there, it's going to take over the whole thing, then it's going to be Earth, it's just a question of time before it realizes the colonies are out there."

"Yes," Angelica said, "It's why she needs us to destroy the center. Or at least the antenna."

"No," Theo said.

"Excuse me? What do you mean no?"

"Patricia, there are protocols the Rogue is going to have to go through before it can broadcast itself, all we-"

"What does that have to do with anything? If it gets out it's just a question of time before everything we know is infected, and probably dead."

Theo grabbed the drive out of her hand. "If we slip this among the protocols the Rogue is going to have to injest if it wants to continue. It might even be in so much of a hurry that it won't even notice doing it."

"It eats that," Cass added, "and we don't have to worry about it being transmitted anywhere."

With a visible effort Patricia fought her mounting panic. "How sure are we it's going to work?"

"Angelica scanned the drive, how much do you trust her word? And what's the other option? The comm center isn't the only way the Rogue has to broadcast itself, just the biggest. If we blow it, it's just going to jump on one of the ships in orbit, hide in it until it's in Earth's orbit. I don't mean to sound like Angel didn't think things through, but she's inside the system, we're outside. We know stuff she doesn't, like the kill program."

"How long do we have?" Patricia asked.

"I don't know," Angelica answered. "But whatever she and Casanova will do to slow the Rogue I suggest we make haste."

They abandoned the giraffe on the floor and ran out of the building.

"How far?" Patricia asked.

"You don't want to know," Theo answered. He didn't know exactly, other than they weren't close. "Cass, you still have a map of the city?"

"Of course."

"You need to navigate for us."

Patricia pointed to the transit access. "That's going to take us there."

Theo shook his head, but it was Angelica who spoke. "Patricia, the Rogue controls most of the systems. Even if Transit works, we can't trust it to take us where it says."

"You mean we need to walk there?"

"No," Theo said, "we need to run there." He took off.

Patricia caught up to him and matched his pace. "Tell me you run regularly."

"Not as often as you do."

"Are you going to be able to make it?"

"Believe me, desperation is a great motivator?"

"You have a lot of experience with that?"

"Nope, but I've seen the whole Bondo franchise recently. That's pretty much the principle behind each movie."

"That and hunks," Cass added.

* * * * *

The landscape had changed. They had been close to the node, then the ground cracked, the world shuddered and distances changed. He wished he could lose track of time, instead of knowing the eternity it took them to finally make it to the node. If he'd been living, he would have crawled the last of the distance.

Angel sounded as tired as he imagined the living would. "Finally. Let's get to work so we can end this before the system crashes around us. And please don't add that romantic stuff on that node. I don't have the patience."

Casanova looked at the node, and surprised himself when he didn't feel it be anything other than a node. Getting here had taken something out of him. He had to hope that he wouldn't still feel this way when he was back at the colonies, his stories would suffer if he couldn't find the romance and eroticism in everything he saw.

He placed a hand on the node and smooth over the disruption caused by the AI's fighting and Angel's intrusion. It took longer than he felt it should. Angel wasn't as gentle as she could be, and he needed more effort to keep the Node from initiating invasion protocols.

When Angel disengaged from the node she'd lost most of the battered warrior's appearance she hadn't bothered removing. She closed her eyes and smiled. "We're done."

Casanova couldn't feel exhaustion catching up to him, but he'd written it often enough he could imagine what it would feel like.

"Here." Angel held out a bundle of data for him. "This is all the plans. Send it to your transporter along with the backup of what happened here. With the way this place is, I want an extra chance it will reach the colonies."

Casanova added his backup to the bundle, but also gave Angel one. "Give me a copy of your backup, that way if one of our transporters is stopped, we'll still both make it home." When he had that he formed a Gamma fork around it, and gave it instructions to head for the closest communication node and force a transfer with the beta in his transporter.

His Gamma didn't stick to the ground, it took off. Angel's did the same. They stood together, waiting until they felt each Gamma cease to be, which would mean it had accomplished its mission.

"If the Rogue intercepts one of them-"

"We'll know quickly enough because it will come for us."

His Gamma ceased to be. Nothing around them changed. Angel sighed in relief. "It made it."

Casanova nodded. "I'll see you back at the colonies then." He willed his code to unravel.

* * * * *

Cass screamed, Theo almost fell.

Patricia was holding on to the side of a building.

"What the fuck was that?"

"I'm sorry," Cass sounded sheepish. "Casanova forced a transfer and I wasn't expecting it."

"You mean they're done?"

"They are," Patricia said. "Angelica confirmed that she got everything, as well as an information copy of Casanova."

"I have one of Angel," Cass said.

Theo leaned against the wall. The job was over. They could go home and leave this to those better qualified. His legs gave out.

"Theo!" Patricia grabbed his arm and help him up.

"I need-I need to be alone for a minute."

"Theo are you okay?"

"I will be, I just need to do something. Stay here."

"Theo?"

"Please, I'll be right back, I just need... I'll be right back." He staggered for a few steps before managing to get his legs solidly under him. He made it to the end of the building, then around the corner before he had to sit.

"Theo?" Cass said.

"I need you to record a message for my parents."

"Oh. I'm recording."

"Mom, dad. I wish this was good news, but it doesn't look like I'm making it home. By the time you get this hopefully everything on Mars will be resolved, but regardless you will have heard about it. About the Independents' attack. You'll have seen my face linked to it. I hope you know me well enough you won't believe about my participation in it. I was captured, they made a scan of my face and used that. I'm compromised. Anderson can't do anything for me, don't ask her. It's strange, I always knew this was a possibility, but never really believed it would happen to me. I don't want you to worry. I'm resourceful, I'll manage to survive. I have a few identities that are still valid and I'll used one of them to get out of here and make myself a quiet life. Cass is going to be the one who's going to suffer, he won't be able to publish movies for a few years. Anyway, I need to keep this short so you two be happy. You're in my thoughts, always."

He closed his eyes and allowed himself to cry.

"Theo," Cass said.

"I know." He dried his eyes and stood. He steadied his breathing and rejoined Patricia.

"Are you okay?"

"I have a message for you to give Anderson."

Angelica acknowledged she'd received it.

"Why are you having me deliver a message for you?"

"Because you're leaving, and I'm not."

"What? No, absolutely not. You are not kicking me off this. I'm sticking around to help you."

Theo took her by the shoulder. "Patricia, saving this city isn't the mission. The mission was getting the plans. You have that. Which means you need to head back home."

"Then why are you staying to play hero?"

Theo chuckled dryly. "Believe me, if I could go home, I would."

"But why can't you?"

"I'm the face of this damned Independent revolution. I won't be able to get within ten meters of the port before I'm spotted. And even if I make it on a ship, someone there will identify me. I can't put the colonies at risk."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to deliver the kill program. Then go as deep as I can, join the vagrants. Hide until this clears up, if it ever does."

"I'll tell Anderson, maybe she-"

"You're not going to tell her anything."

"She can't leave you-"

"She can and will. This is part of the job we do. We're expendable. The only thing that matters is protecting the colonies. I'm going to do that. All I ask is that you give my message to Anderson. She'll send it where it needs to go."

"This isn't fair."

"Fair was never part of the job description. You need to get going. I doubt the elevator works right now, but you want to be as close to it as possible so the moment it becomes active you can head to the station and board a ship heading to Titan."

"I'll try to come back for you."

"No you-"

"Yes, I will! I don't care what Anderson says, I'm not going forget about you."

"Alright, I can't stop you, but first you get the information home, You're the only chance we have, there's no backup, so you be careful."

"I will." She took a few steps, turned and waved at him. He waved back, turning the motion into a shooing one. When the rabbit had disappeared he closed his eyes.

"Theo, you realize this is hopeless, right?"

"I have to try."

"It isn't the mission."

"The mission's over, I can't go home, so I might as well do something. You know me well enough to know I can't just sit around. I have the one thing that has a chance of stopping the Rogue. If I don't do this, who will?"

"It's going to have defenses around the government center. Not just civilians getting in our way, actual security, and at this point it doesn't have to do anything to them, the moment they see you they are going to want you dead."

"Neither of us expected to retire, Cass."

"Sure, but I was hoping to at least have published most of my movies before this came to an end."

"Don't worry, I'm going to do everything I can for us to survive this."