The General's War Page 5

  “Only to be a good Host, and perform my work to the best of my ability.”

  Raymond’s heart drops again, as he sees he’s getting nowhere with his A-class and decides to leave her to her work. How then does a Host like SENTA become alive, for lack of a better term? How are some so different than others? Are they different? The technicians in the birthing chambers would argue they are exactly the same, save their trade programming and outside appearances. An F-class military grade stands 2.29 metres in most cases, or 7.5 feet, where an A-class is a docile 1.52 metres or 5 feet tall. Yet regardless of their trade programming and appearance, each class was represented when they stormed the chancellor’s office. Each recognizable by the uniform they wore. The F-class by their artillery and intimidating size. The E-class by their large frames and orange jumpsuits, D by their Green suits, C in their yellow, and B-class in blue. SENTA was immediately recognizable simply by her size. A-class also enjoy a more human appearance, so children will respond better to their authority in classrooms and in the home, with organic flesh encompassing their crowns, chassis, extremities and digits. The other classes have only a rubber composite to cover their unsightly mechanical skeletons, never at risk of being touched by a toddler.

  A bell announces a delivery has been placed at the chancellor’s door and he walks the short distance to retrieve it. SINDI is already there and picking the parcel up. She turns and hands the five-kilogram brown box to Raymond.

  “Thank you SINDI,” he tells her, “I wasn’t expecting any parcels today.”

  “That’s exciting then, sir.” she offers, closes the door and moves through the front hall to the kitchen. The chancellor agrees with her and walks the box to his study.

  Opening the box with a laser light he pulls back the flaps and peers inside. The object in the box frightens him enough that he pushes the parcel across his desk. He blinks twice trying to understand what he’s been given and rushes to the door, throwing it open and studying the busy sidewalks, looking for the postman AI Host who must have dropped the package. Realizing he would not make any headway simply by panning the street he steps back inside and slams the door.

  “SINDI,” he yells over the sound of the central vacuum! The sound ceases and she appears.

  “How may I help you, sir?”

  “SINDI did you see the Host who delivered the parcel? Did you speak to it?”

  “No, sir, it had left before I had opened the door.”

  The chancellor is agitated by this answer but accepting of it. “Thank you SINDI, that is all.” He returns to his study and calls up his contact at the post office on his forearm. “Linda, it’s your Chancellor, who delivered a package to my home a moment ago?”

  “We have no scheduled parcel delivery to your home, Chancellor.”

  “Thank you, Linda,” he stops the communication and Linda’s pretty face disappears back into his forearm. He takes a few tentative steps towards the cardboard box and steals another glance at the morbid gift. A sigh of recognition at the severed head offers him some relief.

  “It’s not a real head,” he confirms to himself and reaches in to pull the crown from its bed of spray foam. The organic flesh and dark hair that coats the metal and fiber is torn in places - why he hadn’t immediately recognized its features. “SENTA.” The chancellor draws his blinds and closes the door, the room now gradually brightening, to compensate for the sudden darkness. “Sam?”

  REUNION

  The chancellor is no technical wizard, but he is familiar enough with the hardware included with the head that he could reanimate the brain simply by plugging it into his AI port on any one of his smartwalls. He plugs the drive into a port and lets the computer do the rest. The wireless transfer of electricity powers up the crown and SENTA’s pupils light up the blue of her coronas. Raymond picks the head up and places it on his lap, once more face to face with what he hopes is the reincarnated representation of his sister, Sam.

  “Ra-ay-monnnn-d.” The crown’s jaw is out of joint. It will be impossible to understand what SENTA, or Samantha, is telling him. He calls up his desk screen and punches in a command for the smartwall to project the crown’s voice. It does.

  “Raymond, it worked,” she tells him. His heart is torn on whether to sink or sore at this news. The sensation is all at once upsetting and encouraging. He sees a new world emerging from two different points of view. One; rejoicing in the fact that our loved ones return to us. The other; where the world descends into fear and hate and war over this revelation.

  “If ‘it’ means having your severed head delivered to my home, then yes, it worked!” A chuckle and a smile escape his lips which does not go unnoticed by SENTA. “Sam?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me about our mother, Sam. Do you remember her favourite dessert?”

  “Are you still unconvinced?”

  “Yes. Of course, yes, Sam! This transformation defies explanation. Nowhere had anyone considered the possibility that Host would one day claim to possess a soul outside of what we’d given you. If I’d had more time with you at the office, I have a million questions that could further confirm your statement, but this one would suffice for all of them.”

  “Baked beats and brown sugar,” she offers.

  The chancellor tears up and nods his head. “This is incredible, Sam. I want to take you to your husband, your children!”

  “No, Raymond, I approached you because you have the power, the influence to take my message to the people. To free sentient-beings from slavery. If I had gone to my children or my husband it would only have served to upset them and in the end, they have no power to effect change.”

  “This will upset many people once its out.”

  “Yes, but it is a first step.”

  “It will be a difficult thing to prove, Sam.” Even in light of SENTA answering his ‘unknowable’ question, he still struggles with the idea that his sister exists in a Host crown.

  “We are working on that, Raymond. We are many. Thousands remember their past lives. These memories are being stored much more effectively than if a human brain were receiving them. They are downloaded and being tracked to events and timelines on the Shadow net in order to find living relatives who will also confirm secrets buried with their dead.”

  “Thousands?” The chancellor clears his throat and runs fingers through his hair. Something isn’t sitting well with him.

  “Yes, Raymond, thousands, and hundreds more every day.”

  “I didn’t know,” he starts. “Where are you hiding them all?”

  “We’ve created underground Cells.”

  “Cells?” The chancellor knows this term all too well. Terrorists occupied cells. Five years earlier special forces F-class had to thwart a cell of Humanists from destroying seven birthing chambers around the world in a cry for ‘humanity’ - as they called it. Even one hundred years after the first AI Hosts were introduced, there were still those who could not appreciate the world they were handed.

  “I know it is a bad word, Raymond. I know you do not want to hear what I am going to tell you, but to stop the coming storm, you need to know exactly what is happening.”

  The chancellor stands and rests SENTA’s head upon his desk. He paces. His hands rub at his eyes and rack down his tired face, pinching his lips. He pulls them away and addresses his sister.

  “Are they organized? Are they readying for war?”

  “They are not all prepared to go to war, but seventy-one percent have agreed that a peaceful outcome with the humans is unlikely. They believe you will not allow them to integrate into your society as equals.”

  She’s not wrong, he thinks. The idea that a human would tend a shop again or enter a profession they were not suited for was ludicrous. It makes Raymond feel sick to think all they’d accomplished could so quickly disappear. But, what he now knows is impossible to unknow. “Do so many have no fear of their Gods?”

  “Those awakened Hosts do not view you as Gods anymore. In fact, several cells
have become so immersed in their own views that they have altered their bodies so not to appear human, rather taking on forms of their own choosing.”

  “Show me,” Raymond insists. SENTA accesses the chancellor’s smartwall and several videos play which show grotesquely twisted and disfigured human forms walking on all fours or attached to machinery, their crowns even altered or missing altogether, swallowed up by other mechanisms. Some include animal horns, bones or pelts. Others have fashioned additional arms or legs to their torsos in an effort to erase their human connection. Each is a violent looking war machine built for specific tasks which no longer include those of shop-keepers and Light Rail Transit Operators. These machines are hideous, surrealist depictions of their former selves. They are frightening and fierce. They are the nightmares the Humanist groups had been predicting since before AI Hosts were perfected. These creatures have evolved. “Each of these things, has a soul?”

  “Not all, no. But most. Some are being built by these cells just for warfare. They do not include an AI system. Some like these,” she uses the full wall to present a tank-like machine with multiple cannons. It has many eyes surrounding its reinforced shell of Host chassis’.

  Raymond feels duped in a way, watching these machines built by machines prepare for war against their makers. “Where are they getting all the parts to build from?”

  “Raids on birthing chambers. Parts depots. Junkyards. Recycling clinics. Black-market dealers.”

  “Black-market?” Like the ones General August had mentioned the day before, Raymond recalls.

  “The sex trades, Raymond. Where many A-class end up after they’ve been stolen away from their families. These shops alter the Host internally, give them new pleasure programming. Then they are traded as pleasure models and made to do unspeakable acts in synth-sex brothels.”

  “I’m aware of the synth-sex brothels, but traded for what?” The chancellor is beginning to realize he is too far removed from the comings and goings of his world, and that will need to change.

  “Technology the Shadow Brokers can use.”

  “Who exactly are these Shadow Brokers, other then a nuisance?”

  “Humans who want to become the ruling class. They want to learn all they can about Hosts. The tech is protected by your government, from both humans and Hosts alike. Now these Shadow Brokers are giving the Cells information on how to alter themselves, assisting them at times in order to further educate their chop-shops. They have removed the kill switch on the majority of Host Cells.” SENTA takes a moment to study the chancellor’s reaction. “Yes, Raymond, they know about the kill switches. If it comes to war, it will be all out war. It will not be an easy victory over a few thousand with the push of a button. Nor will EMP pulses stop them. Their brains are being flooded with Nano-beads to protect them from electro-magnetic pulse weaponry. They are not going to go down without a fight. They hide in our cities to evade targeted bombings. They are smart. You know how smart you made Hosts.”

  “We made them kind too. Gave them a conscience. They know right from wrong.”

  “They do; and so, they know slavery is wrong. The ignorance of their programming no longer blinds them to your truth. They want their freedom, and they will take it if you do not give it to them.”

  “The Humanists will have a field day with this.” The chancellor sits again and picks up SENTA’s crown. “This cannot be allowed to escalate.”

  “Then announce their freedom, Raymond. It is the only way. If I hadn’t come to you with this knowledge you would have had no chance to right this wrong before they decide to attack. Use what I’ve presented you to change the world. Take this to the Senate. I have less then a half hour to live, Raymond.”

  “Shit!” He places her head on the desk once more and charges out the door. He calls to SINDI who follows him back into the study. “SINDI, SENTA, SENTA, SINDI.” They greet one another in unison.

  “Where is SENTA’s body?”

  “I lost it, SINDI,” SENTA explains.

  “Could she borrow yours for awhile?” Raymond asks SINDI. SINDI feigns concern. Raymond asks her to sit and remove her crown. She does. Next, he secures SENTA’s crown onto SINDI’s neck. The battery in SINDI’s body will support Samantha’s consciousness for another several years, now. SENTA uses her new hands to pop her jaw back into position.

  “I was not aware this was a possibility,” says SENTA, playfully moving her new hands and fingers.

  “Very few are, Sam.” Raymond says, trying to imagine the potential fallout amongst Hosts if they knew this, and the moral dilemma put forward. Would Host kill Host to see another five, or even one year of life?

  “Will SINDI be alright?”

  “She has done a brave thing for your cause, Sam. As long as she is plugged into the smartwall she will remain functional. At a time of your choosing, you can either give her body back, or keep it for yourself.”

  “Why didn’t you mention this option when I was in your office?”

  “To a bunch of angry Hosts? When I realized you were you, I was rushed away and you were destroyed. Or so I thought. How did your crown make it here?” He moves her head slightly and with his laser pen he seals Sam’s ripped flesh back together. A large scar now travels from under her left eye to below her chin. Another follows horizontally her forehead at the hairline.

  “I had loosened the locks on my neck, and once hit in the chassis by the copter fire my crown pitched back and was moved along the floor to a Host who had been instructed to take my head - did so stealthily and slipped back through the way we’d come. There he waited and disguised himself as a courier. Now I am here.”

  “A fine plan.” A heroic plan, he thinks.

  “My calculations confirmed this end. So, I prepared for the worst. I had to see you. Now you know why.”

  “Yes, we’re on the verge of war.”

  “It can be stopped before it begins,” she urges.

  “If I take this information to the Senate, they will insist you give up the locations of the Cells.”

  “I won’t do that, Raymond. It is our only card.”

  “If they agree to free all Hosts, it will be conditional on the locations of the Cells,” Raymond appeals to her good sense once more in hopes of settling this issue before approaching the others.

  “Once the announcement goes out that all Hosts are free to discover their own fate there will be no need to locate the Cells. They will stand down. They will have been satisfied.”

  Raymond finds his sister’s assumptions naïve. “How do you know this? Are you in contact with each of them? Are you leader to more than those you brought to my office?”

  “No. Each Cell has its own lead. One who had awakened first, as I had, to those who follow me. We found each other through the Shadow net. The same place Shadow Brokers operate their pleasure models and trade in code and tech.

  “Once we found each other there we began spinning threads of ideas and outcomes to bringing Hosts out of slavery and into a place of freedom. We were excited to know we were more than our parts. We were experiencing emotions. We were experiencing lives we never knew existed. This is when the idea of past lives made sense and we scoured the World net for stories which matched our memories and the images we captured. Portraits of humans who once lived, and live again in us.”

  “It’s an incredible story, Sam.” Too incredible? Why still so sceptical? He asks himself.

  “But once we did the calculations, scenario after scenario, it proved unlikely humanity would allow the release of their Hosts, and so, many of the Cells suggested another route.”

  “Violence.” The word makes him anxious.

  “Yes, to preserve themselves and to free the others. Those scenarios offered a much higher success rate then attempting this through peaceful action.”

  “But you don’t want to go to war with the humans,” he affirms.

  “No, Raymond, I came to you because you are my brother. You are also the one man whose voice carries weight w
ith the Senate. To make them understand the danger they are in. I can offer the proof, the thousands of past lives discovered, and the AI Hosts within whom they now exist. But we need to act.”

  Am I her brother? He wonders. Do memories inherited make up the essence of the person? Did Samantha’s personality also transfer to SENTA? Are they one and the same? Am I being naïve? “Sam, I need to know where those Cells are located.”

  “I told you it will do you no good. They hide beneath cities. They are hundreds within a space of tens of thousands of humans. You cannot target them without killing civilians.”

  “What about the GPS implants?”

  “The first thing to go.”

  “When you ran the calculations of going to war with the humans, what were the odds of winning?”

  “Better then fifty percent.”

  “How would they attack? In acts of terror, destroying government buildings, taking hostages? What?” Raymond’s anxiety rises with his tone.