Chapter 4

“Jake !”, the voice shouted down the corridor at me.

“Max? Is that you?” Of course it was. The man had aged visibly but there was no mistaking the strong stride of a man used to ordering people. In his sixties, he still had a youthful spring to his demeanor and a proud face but his eyes had seen way to much.

“Congratulations. I heard that you can now be called doctor, Doctor.”

I smilled. Yes I could. It had taken seven more years since I had first used the implant to get to this stage. Doctor Ortega. A doctor in cybernetics, with specialization in Genetic Modification of Artificial Intelligence. Tia gave me the idea, nicknaming me ‘Doc’ in the first place. I smiled again, wondering what the team were doing now. The last I heard is that they had teams of their own and were doing very well indeed.

“My old friend”, as I greeted him. “How have you been? What have you been up to?”

“A little here, a little there, you know how it is.”

My eyes narrowed at that. “Why are you here?”

“I always said you were sharp, Jake. And you have never let me down. I am the reason you are here.”

“You?”

“Yes. Me. I have been watching you for the past year now and I have a special need for you. Oh. You did not get here by grace and favor. You earned it.”

Here, was an underground bunker in the wasteland known as Death Valley. It stretched for miles and was over two miles deep. Over fifty thousand staff and family worked here, in their own little niches of research. We knew we worked for one of the corporations but we did not know which one. The bunker had just come on line and we were told that we were to be cloistered away to develop technology to enable us to reach for the stars. We were completely self-contained and self sufficient, with even a small mining operation to enable us to provide what was not readily available from stores.

I stayed silent, waiting for the inevitable lead in.

“You worked hard for you doctorate. As did many a other but you are unique. You are the only one with an implant. What do you call them? A gem, yes that’s it. You are the only one with a gem.”

“So? I have a gem. I bet that 20% of the people here have a gem. That does not make me special.”

“Yes it does. Your gem is one of the first ten produced. A prototype. Special because yours contains all the original coding and programming. Today’s gems are just as efficient, if not more so, but they run on reduced architecture. Yours is more flexible. Vastly more flexible.”

Even with the gem, my heart skipped a beat. Did they know? Did they know the secret that my team had kept for the last seven years?

“Come with me”

Heart and breathing now under control, I followed Max to a small door at the end of the corridor. He held the door handles and opened the door, ushering me through. It led into a small elevator. Closing the door behind him and pressing one of the three buttons there, there was a slight sucking sound and the elevator fell away. We were in a vacuum lift. I then realized that we were going down a long way but since it was frictionless I could not guess how far we dropped. After five minutes or so, I heard a hissing noise that denoted we were coming to the end of the journey.

Max opened the door. I looked back at him.

“Is this a joke?”, I asked as I looked out onto the corridor we had just left.

“No.” he said, chuckling. “All the corridors down here are designed to look identical in ALL respects. If someone managed to spy here, they would have no idea where they really were or how to leave. All the rooms are unlabelled and each door is keyed to an individual. Once you are on your level, you will not leave it unless you are with a senior member of staff or security.” He then turned serious. “Or in a body bag.”

I got the point.

“So how do you not get lost then? I mean within your own level.”

Max looked at me.

“Oh. I see. The gem. We need to interface at some level”

Max beamed a smile at me. “See? You did not let me down. Figured it out as I knew you would.”

Walking down the corridor, for a few minutes, reminiscing about old times, we stopped at a door that looked the same as the others.

“Go on, Jake, hold the handle. I will key the door to you. This is your lab.”. After a few seconds the door clicked and opened into a well lit room that contained a large work area that, at first glance, contained little, but now realizing the technology for the doors and the obvious secrecy of the bunker, would contain the latest and greatest tools to help me do my job. Off to one side was a living area and kitchenette with a bathroom and bedroom of that. Putting my head around the bedroom door, I was not surprised to note that my belongings were already there.

“There will be time to settle in later, I just have to show you why you are here. An explain a few things.”

Without further preamble, we left my room, my gem marking the point in the corridor where it was and we walked only a few more metres to another door just the same. Remembering about the room door, I held the handle for a few seconds whilst it registered me, turned the handle and walked in.

I grasped the rail on the otherside of the door as I had an extreme feeling of vertigo. Using my gem, I quickly settled myself to fully take in what I was seeing. I am not one for clichés, but there really was no word for the size of the ‘cavern’ I stood in. It defied belief. And it was bright, too bright and it hurt my eyes, causing them to stream. Max passed me some UV goggles and I put them on, my eyes quickly adjusting to the levels.

“Here, spray this on all your exposed skin, until we can get you a melanin implant.” I quickly complied since my skin had started to tingle. I looked at Max, about to inquire why, when he just looked over my shoulder and let out a great sigh.

Turning around, slowly, I looked where his eyes had traveled. I saw an angel, well at first glance, pure white, overpowering. My eyes adjusted. It was beautiful. It had to be a spaceship but it was massive. Sleek lines and what I thought was white was actually the reflection of all the lights around it. It looked just like quicksilver, smooth and flowing. A question arose in my throat.

“That’s a secret, Jake. Do not worry, when the time comes, and with your help it will, we will be able to get it out of here.”

I knew that there were studies for deep space travel, and I knew that I was here to assist in that but this? It went way beyond what was even secret knowledge.

“Only the people on this level know of her existence apart from a few of the corps senior people.” said Max. “Everything mechanical is near completion but we need something else. We need a pilot.” He looked pointedly at me.

“ME? Why me? I have no experience in this area. I am a soldier, turned doctor. Are you mad?” This was not a question, more a statement.

“The reason you are here Jake, is to create the ultimate AI one that can think and feel, reason like a man but be able to respond to problems at the speed of a machine. You, and only you will be able to understand and program the AI since it will be integrated with a gem. One of the original ones, like yours.”

I was astounded. Never had a gem been merged with an AI. It was never considered since it required living tissue.

“My God. You are going to use a brain. A human brain. No I will not do it. You know that. Why even bother with me.”

Max looked at me and said in the most matter of fact tone of voice.

“You have no choice. Deny the corp this and those you care for most will suffer.”. He nodded his head slightly.

With that I felt a searing pain in my arm and left temple, clutching at my head, I activated my gem and controlled the pain. They knew the secret.

“Yes we know, Jake. We know that once you activated the full link with your team, you could not switch it off. You have all been linked for the last seven years.”

I looked at him, vowing to kill him the first real chance I could get.

With pain in his eyes, he said “I am sorry Jake. The need is to great to let morals get in the way. There are those that would dissect you and your team if it were not for the fact that you are the only ones that this happened to and some far seeing people, powerful people, saw an advantage to be saved.

I triggered the gem and queried the team. All had felt the pain and had responded in kind, sharing Mike’s feeling to help him through it. He told us that he had been drugged in such a way that we would not realize there was a problem since we had spent many an hour ignoring each other. He had been taken and had electrodes implanted in his brain to create pain beyond physical compare, guaranteed to get out attention.

I sent a message to all, asking then to stand down and wait. I would figure a way out of this but it would take time. In the meanwhile, I would co-operate fully with the demands of the corp.

“Jake. We have the brain tissue, it is up to you to create the AI. You have unlimited resources and limited time. You have five years.

Only then did I realize the enormity of my task. Looking at Max, I said,

“Never call me friend again. EVER !”

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