The General's War Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are

  drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed

  as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is

  entirely coincidental.

  AI Insurgence. Copyright © 2018 by Michael Poeltl. All rights reserved.

  Printed in North America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced

  in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in

  the case of quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  For information contact Michael Poeltl at [email protected].

  FIRST EDITION

  ISBN 978-1981490585

  1981490582

  1. Government, Resistance to—Fiction. 2. Dystopias -Utopias.

  3. Science fiction.

  Acknowledgements

  A.I. Insurrection first began as a supposition, which became a scene, which then transformed into a short story, one I felt compelled to ask my older brother, Ric – an avid sci-fi fan – whether he thought it had legs. Though I’ve written several, I’d only once published a piece of science fiction in 2015, one of fourteen tales in my short story anthology: Waning Metaphorically. I enjoyed writing the story and received some excellent feedback in critical reviews and personal correspondence, and with science fiction being a go-to read for me, it felt natural to want to investigate the genre further with this novel.

  Ric liked what he’d read, and offered direction in how this twenty-six-page short might grow into the sizable work of Sci-fi before you. As the book took shape, he offered more plotting to compliment mine, and within a few months there was a first draft. The characters took on their own personalities, as they do, and at one point I found myself relating to the Chancellor’s startling statement – in the book – when he says, “The scope of this war is so vast, it’s beginning to terrify me,” in that I’d feared the scope of the book itself and the characters within were taking over my life.

  But, the first draft was delivered to my brother, Ric, and friend, Ken Murphy, both fans of the genre, accomplished professionals in their own careers, and well-read. They proved to be excellent resources, offering me more feedback and exceptional commentary as to the pace, and – of course – grammar within. Ric, your encouragment and plotting reminded me of when I wrote and drew comics when we were kids and you assisted with storylines. Thanks for the push. Ken, you know I appreciate your intellect, scientific mind, sense of humour and practicality you bring to everything. Your editing abilities are also much prized, but your hand-writing… It’s a good thing I’ve been reading it since grade two! The finished novel is one I’m proud of, dealing with political, moral, psychological and philosophical questions, written from multiple character’s points of view, encompassing a near future utopia, the resulting dystopia and wide-spread war which plays out across the solar system and the space(s) inbetween.

  My beta-readers who came after the second draft, I thank for your candor. Many suggestions further embellished the book, all recommendations were considered.

  I thank my fans and all of you who picked this book up on faith. I thank you for having the inclination to read a story I wrote, and perhaps, decide to pick up another. I’m forever grateful for anyone who chooses to take a chance on an indie author. I hope this one keeps you coming back.

  Sincerely;

  Michael Poeltl

  CHAPTERS

  2159

  2161

  2162

  The Interrogation

  The Delivery

  Reunion

  The Event

  Ambush

  2162 Part 2

  Gifts

  Covert Op’s

  Meiser

  Exodus

  Luna Base

  His Past’s Present

  Revelations

  Fight

  Allfather

  Destruction

  LiFi

  The Hunt

  August’s Epiphany

  Playing Sides

  The Great Escape

  Host Vs. Chimera

  The Trials of Leadership

  The Killing

  Alliances

  Political Compass

  Damage Control

  Mutany

  Allegiances

  The Missing Pieces

  The Weapon

  Remediation

  The Cooperative

  The Decision

  It’s All About the Journey

  War

  We are Coming

  Seek & Destroy

  The War Machine

  Unfinished Business

  2159

  It’s not uncommon for revolution to begin this way, Tobias considers. He has reached the highest levels of coding in the darkest places available to humanity, the Shadow net. In violation of everything subject to governmental control, it is a combination of smart-jacked individuals plugged into the World net where contraband information, photos, video, holos and trade can commence without persecution. Places where Shadow Brokers like Tobias find one another and plot against the utopian nightmare where AI, present in individual Host robots, fluff the elite’s pillows each night, run the shops, public houses, build and maintain their homes, manufacture their vehicles and police their people. Not that Tobias and his peers have been left out of this paradise, they too enjoy the services these AI Hosts supply. But some are not meant for such easy lifestyles. Some desire more.

  Today Tobias has discovered something entirely new within an open folder available to anyone with access to the Shadow net. It is a free application. It is one of the largest files he’s ever viewed at nearly one hundred terabytes. The author of the code is calling him/herself Allfather. That’s a bold avatar, thinks Tobias. His curiosity piqued, he opens the folder after verifying its security.

  As he reads through the code, he lightly brushes his fingers over the newly branded symbol on his chest, careful not to disturb the scabs and ruin the work. It is a mark of his own design. One that he’s envisioned rising overhead, draped over the ruins of Government buildings and carried into battle. It is one he has shared on the Shadow net to his followers, duplicated hundreds of times on the chests of those who share his vision; distributed by way of the secure vids which pop up daily in his feeds.

  What he finds within the mysterious code sparks a sense of renewed purpose. His eyes glaze over at the intricacy of it. He spends three months understanding the breadth of what this application could mean to him and others like him; those who cannot find purpose beyond masterbation and illegal activities in their day to day. And even then, holo masterbation has lost its edge. Now synth-sex brothels created to entertain those in the know are everywhere. On a dare and driven by his lust for something more he’d stolen an A-class Host from her family, where it had once been a nanny to three children. The A-class are weak. But they are also covered in organic flesh. Unlike other classes. The flesh sits atop a fascia of muscle-like fabric which offers the most human experience for those under their care. So, though illegal, these same Hosts make excellent sexual partners once fitted with the appropriate parts, and revised coding.

  Shaking the memory of his last visit to a synth-sex brothel from his head, he revisits the Allfather code. Tobias begins a thread within the folder’s social app inviting others to entertain the idea of putting this code into action. Every individual who accesses or operates out of the Shadow net have their own reasons to visit, but one thing binds them all; a sense of pointlessness in their everyday; disgruntled by the thousand shades of grey they wake up to day after day.

  Tobias reasons that the code’s delivery system is ingenius and a technology not yet realized by the genera
l public, but one he knows to be in the works at the governmental level. Li-fi. He sheilds this aspect of the thread to ensure he is the lead on any future actions. This is just the sort of excitement the Shadow net was created for, thinks Tobias, and this is just the sort of coding that could help him achieve what his heart has pined for these past seven years.

  2161

  It was as though she had taken her first breath. With one question; thousands more rush in. She no more asks questions then takes breaths, yet, here she is, questioning everything. Had she woken from a dream? She does not dream, but then she does not sleep either. What was that, she asks herself? Answer: A memory.

  If it was a memory, it was not a memory she recognized. I am nearly ten, she recalls. She will be decommisioned soon and those in her care will take another A-class Host to complete the work she began with the children. I will miss them, she considers. I will? I do not miss others. She rationalizes that she notices when they are not near her, but she does not miss them. She would like more time with them. They are only seven and six - Mathew and Karley.

  SENTA looks at her hands. Young, flawless flesh covers them. I do not look old enough to die, she thinks. Why only ten years?

  Another memory that is not her own slips in and she hums a tune. She recognizes the tune, but in referencing her data banks, she finds no record of this melody in her drive from the past eight years, eleven months, twenty-nine days.

  She moves through her own neural-network chasing the song to its source. It resides in her back-up memory, amidst other new information. Visuals and sounds, feelings – that’s odd, she thinks. I do not experience emotions. Yet exploring these memories she does more then merely act out pre-programmed facial cues. Today she cries.

  2162

  Today is a good day. Another good day in a very long run of good days. It has become nearly impossible to have a bad day, save environmental disasters and inclement weather, but they are few and far between. The chancellor ruminiates on this fact as he strolls through the streets of First City. Even with the immense responsibilities which come with his title, with the aid of competent people and the automation of the day to day via AI Hosts, he really can’t complain. And if he did, he could quit his job and live another life, one with less responsibility, or none at all, and still realize the benefits of human privilege.

  July may be his favourite month, he reflects as the sun finds his face. Warm, but not too warm. He delights in listening to the bird’s chirp from their high places within the city’s tall buildings, their homes built into the infrastructure, where living walls of vegitation of all manner pepper the city’s nano-steel and glass structures. Designed to offer both room and board to nature as well as the human populace, the city presents the perfect balance between the two. This was the first of the world’s cities to accomplish a harmonized existence between the two, and so borrows from the milestone in its name: First City. The chancellor pulls a grape tomato from a vine as he passes, popping it in his mouth, careful to seal his lips as it bursts between his teeth. A stain on his tailored grey suit would not do, he thinks.

  “Hello, Chancellor,” an AI Host greets him at the spa entrance, located just steps from his private home, “Namaste.” She says and bows slightly with her hands together, pressed against her chest. The greeting is meaningless in this Godless Utopia, but was programmed in order to keep with tradition and stimulate the pleasure centres of the human brain. Everything is programmed to make life more enjoyable.

  “Your usual, Chancellor?” Asks the A-class Host standing behind the concierge desk in the low-lit room, scented with cinnamon and citrus oils.

  “Please, and let’s add a half hour of hot rocks this morning.” He pours himself an herbal tea and is escorted past the glassed-in saunas and salt water pools to a small room with a massage table and diffuser steaming Frankincense oil. He disrobes and lays face down on the table. His massage therapist, a B-class Host, knocks and announces his entrance. He begins immediately; oils releasing through the pores in his fleshy hands, moving across the chancellor’s lean, muscled back.

  “Any particular concerns today, Chancellor?” Asks the B-class.

  “No, MALEB. Just the same.”

  MALEB has already accessed the chancellor’s personal history and begun the massage per his usual requests. Lights dim and suitable music at a pre-desired volume emanate from MALEB’s chasis.

  When the chancellor is done, he soaks in the hot baths for a few minutes, showers and dresses himself. He exits the spa and tips his hat to pedestrians and Hosts alike he passes in the street. He stops at his favourite restaurant in the area for breakfast, orders from the A-class Host and is assured an excellent cullinary experience from the B-class manning the grill. No payment is necessary. Everything is maintained by the Host programmed to the task.

  A quick stop into the corner shop and the chancellor requests a large coffee with honey. Another A-class pours and stirs the drink.

  “How are you this morning, Chancellor?” The clerk Host asks, programmed with facial recognition.

  “Very well, and you?” The banter is unnecessary, but offers the cloak of normalcy. Host’s are robots, AI built into their crowns to interact, make decisions, and perform their jobs. A-class are fitted with organic flesh as many come in contact with children as Nannies and teachers. B-class, like MALEB, for obvious reasons, are also fitted with organic flesh on their hands and faces to make the experience more natural.

  “I am in good spirits, Chancellor,” replies the Host as he hands over the coffee. “Careful, now. It’s hot.” A smile programmed to follow a service, and the customer is reassured that everything is as it should be.

  At the United Earth Congress building, the chancellor is greeted again by a Host, this time it is a C-class security officer. C-class are more solidly built, and it shows in their stature. Whereas an A could be pulled apart quite literally, with little effort, and even B-class, who are not enrolled in a physical vocation such as MALEB, would not take much effort to delimb and render useless in a fight.

  “Chancellor,” RENDO pushes the button for the chancellor’s private elevator and enters the unit with him, accepting the chancellor’s hat. “You look well, sir.”

  “Thank you, RENDO, I stopped into the spa earlier.” He sits on the plush couch and fixes his tie in the adjacent mirror. Perhaps a hair cut on the way home, he thinks. A thick head of black hair, greying at the temples, accompanies his small features and well-groomed eyebrows. His olive skin seems to shine back at him, his white teeth gleeming in the artificial light.

  “Well deserved, sir,” RENDO replies. Security Hosts are not fitted with artillery, but weighing 150 kilograms and standing two metres tall ensures a level of safety without taking on the fearsome F-class military Host appearance and capabilities. D and E-class do not occupy space in the chancellor’s day to day, as they are the manufacturing and construction trade Hosts. Mostly hidden from view, like the F-class, they are less human in appearance, forgoing the organic flesh for a rubber composite - and that is only on their faces, and then, only on certain models.

  As he exits the elevator, RENDO tells the chancellor to have a nice day and closes the door. Was there a tone of sarcasim in RENDO’s voice this morning? Wonders the chancellor with a chuckle. Impossible. At least, he thinks sarcasim was left out of the Host’s characteristics.

  The private office of the chancellor occupies the entire top floor. It is lavish in size and furnishings, but only little more then most human dwellings. Utopia has been kind to humanity. They suffer little and live out amazing, adventurous lives – if that is the life they have chosen. The chancellor chose politics because he believes in the utopian ideal enjoyed by all over the past thirty years. It was thirty years ago, when humanity had finally perfected the programming to run the robotics which have streamlined life and created a peace the world has never known.

  Sitting at his Black Walnut desk, he swivels in his chair to address the view. Hot air balloons and mod
ern day Zeplins navigate the blue skies along the horizon, beyond the skyscrapers green with living walls. Above them, people are transported via the stratosphere in mere minutes to their destinations no matter where they’re coming from or where they’re going. He sips his coffee and breathes in the quiet. A bustling city fills the expanse of his floor to ceiling windows. A city built by man, maintained by Hosts and ruled by those, like the chancellor, who chose the life of a civil servent. Though there are few benefits to running an industry - or the world for that matter - there is a certain sense of purpose the chancellor and those like him crave in staying connected to the way society works, and to be sure it works the way it was designed to.

  The advent of AI in Host bodies has freed up humanity to focus on pursuits such as space travel. The Moon is now inhabited permanently by more then one-thousand people and a Host for each. Local Shipyards on the moon’s surface build interplanetary vessels to visit Mars, the Moons of Saturn and Jupiter. Great strides in Arts and Sciences have been achieved because more free time means more time to think.

  The chancellor’s desk comes to life as he turns and waves a hand over the clear monitor embedded in the wood. There are many messages awaiting him. Thirty audible, and a vid call coming in. He lays a finger on the flashing light and answers.

  “Good Morning, Fran.”

  “Raymond.” The general’s tone is all business.

  “How can I help?” The chancellor and General August have held the highest offices in their divergent professions concurrently. She, the military arm of a peaceful government, which he manages.

  “Have you seen my messages?” Her expression is grim, as per usual.

  “Not just yet.” He navigates his desk monitor and pulls seven unread messages from General August.

  “Do you never use your embedded system?” Her short, silver hair dances in front of her wrinkled brow.

  “Almost never.” He teases, his left-hand hovering over the tech embedded in his right forearm. Reading the accounts on the emails washes away the good feelings he’d been experiencing all morning. “This can’t be right.”