Alpha Centauri - Rise of the Kentaurus AIs by M. D. Cooper & Lisa Richman

Author:M. D. Cooper & Lisa Richman [Cooper, M. D. & Richman, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Wooden Pen Press
Published: 2018-05-23T16:00:00+00:00

* * * * *

Jason wished he could reach out to Tobias. He could really use the AI's help right now. Not for the first time, he mentally cursed his L2 physiology; if he had been any other human, Tobias could have been embedded with him, and Jason would have a partner who could focus on spoofing the enemy’s EM while he executed a swift and silent approach.

As it was, he had to rely on the cloak to conceal him as best it could as he crept into the clearing. He kept to the shadows, inserting the shuttle between himself and the humans that were loading it.

Jason was close enough to hear one of the crew joking about ‘losing’ one or two of the isolation tubes on the way back to the base.

Just keep the conversation flowing a few more seconds, people….

“Lose it? You mean after your sticky little fingers lifted it, Johnson? What would you know about how to use an AI, anyway, huh?” another scoffed.

“Don’t you be throwing shade my way like that, sister. I know exactly what I’d do. I’d have it run the tables for me. Counting me some caaaaaards.” Jason heard the sound of one palm striking the other, mimicking the slap of gaming cards hitting a table. “Score myself a few million easy creds.”

“Not me,” another chimed in. “I’d set it loose on my ex. Have it arrange an untraceable ‘accident’.”

“Shut it, assholes. Mack finds anything missing—anything—and it’s all our asses. Got it?”

As much as it sickened Jason to hear AIs being referred to as ‘things’ and not people, it had been just the kind of conversational diversion he needed to reach the shuttle undetected. He slid under the fuselage just as two people rounded the far side.

Jason reached up to touch the belly of the craft, depositing a snowflake micro drone onto its surface. Each snowflake, like its namesake, had a unique geometric signature. That signature was contained in the database of an app loaded into Jason's HUD.

The app registered the negative space created by the snowflake on whatever surface it resided. Once a snowflake was tagged as ‘in use’, the search app would keep track of the void that particular snowflake made, pinpointing its location while it remained in range.

Jason kept a handful of these in his kit for the times he went exploring. They were his own personal, electronic bread crumb trail, an invention he had whipped up to ensure he never got lost out in the wilderness.

Now he hoped it would help lead him to wherever these AIs were being sent.

He heard the ringing slap of a hand against metal, and a voice a meter away from his head announced, “That's it. We're out of here. All aboard, ladies.”

Okay, smartass, Jason said to himself as the shuttle's doors sealed shut behind its pilot and crew. Now how are you going to get yourself out of this?

He figured he had one chance to escape without detection: hang onto the shuttle's frame

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