A Perfectly Logical Guide to a Superhuman Apocalypse: Chapter 23

A Perfectly Logical Guide to a Superhuman Apocalypse: Chapter 23

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Wordcount: 2500

Commissioned by Arksoul

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Ideally, everything would go smoothly and nothing would go wrong while stealing an AI for another AI.

However, given the fact that I was unlucky enough to be born into a world whose leaders decided that Armageddon wasn’t that bad, I found myself looking at a big, fat problem.

“Hey.”

“I see it, Egress.”

When I last went to the facility, I went into an air-gapped room for the purposes of interacting with India’s AI. The only thing in that room was a computer interface connected to a massive computer core that I didn’t have the computer know-how to properly describe.

I’d expected to pop into that location and start putting together the hardware that Shiva’s AI designed to store its fellow AI.

The problem was that the room had received renovations and upgrades.

The terminal was gone and the mostly-empty room was now filled with numerous servers and cables that connected the AI Core into pod surrounded by a series of tanks. Within the pod was a titan of a man, about eight feet tall, with blue skin and black hair with tubes leading into his body from eight different tanks.

He also had four arms.

“Vishnu?”

“Correct. It seems that the remains of the Indian government have put together their finest minds to create a superhuman of their own.” Shiva’s AI mused, while I took one of the vials it provided and opened it up. The scout proceeded to leave the container and hovered towards the pod and scanned it. “No. Superhuman is an understatement. Their intent is to make a god. This creature equals a hundred of my own units in power generation and it seems to have some form of matter manipulation device embedded as its primary means of attack.”

An AI calling something a god sent off alarm bells in the back of my brain that I didn’t want ringing.

“Matter manipulation for offense and an AI’s mind and reflexes. That’s terrifying already… so what about its defenses?” I hesitated to walk around, until I realized that there were no connections in the room to the outside. Everything in the room was isolated from the rest of the underground complex. “What’s in the massive, ominous tanks that have tubes running into the thing?”

“Nano-paste designed to be used as both workers and material by the unit. It’s a massive nanomachine swarm that can be reconfigured into whatever the unit requires for the occasion.” Shiva’s AI answered and I nodded, while doing my best to remain cool and composed. An artificial creature with immense amounts of energy at its disposal, the ability to manipulate matter, and support from a swarm of nanomachines that it kept within its body. “At least five superhumans with distinct styles worked together to create this, and I’m finding materials that should be beyond India’s reach with the collapse of global trade. This is most definitely a project decades in the making and it's been brought her to be finished… ah, that is why they’ve attacked me!”

The AI’s drone returned to the vial, while I peered into the immense pod at the sleeping face of the giant. It was like a statue carved from marble come to life, as it breathed and slept within the pod. Some part of my lizard-brain told me to run away, while the aggressively beautiful and perfect features it had told me that I shouldn’t trust it in the slightest. I could only wonder how anyone could ever trust this thing, because it didn’t look human in the slightest.

Shiva’s AI created only beautiful women to represent itself, but they had imperfections here and there to make them look human.

I had to remind myself multiple times that I was talking to an AI when interacting with its sub-units.

This one was most definitely inhuman.

I mulled over my next action for a few seconds, before asking Shiva’s AI the question aloud.

“So… is this the part where we disagree about the fact this thing needs to stop existing?” I readied myself for a jump without all the assets Shiva’s AI gave me, while taking a mental stock of where my biggest explosives were. I decided that wasn’t probably going to be enough, so I planned on throwing myself at the pod and teleporting it as far off-planet as I could and blowing something up near it to send it flying further away. “Because, things are about to get complicated if you want to keep this thing around.”

I was ready for things to get very, very complicated, so I was surprised with my employer’s reply.

“I agree with your assessment on the situation. This entity cannot be allowed to be deployed. This much power in the hands of the remains of the Indian government, which has supplemented much of itself with warlords and criminal organizations, will bring immense harm to humanity.” Shiva’s AI spoke and I sighed out in relief. Thankfully, this AI was more reasonable than I thought. I’d thought it would refuse to destroy it, because it could use the unit itself for its own goals. “However, it’s destruction will not be easy. I am sure that any interruptions to its current awakening will invite destruction.”

“Even if it teleport it piece by piece into different planets?”

“By my scans, it's possible that those pieces could form into lesser versions of itself, which will then create an infrastructure to return to India.”

“How about the sun?”

Shiva’s AI was quiet for a second, before speaking.

“I find it difficult to believe that you can send things into the sun when intense amounts of energy block your powers.”

“Not directly into the sun, but at the edges of its gravity well, so it can only be pulled in.” I looked the host for a world-ending swarm of robots and did the math in my head. There should be several points where I can send it where it’ll just get pulled in. Sending things far into the solar system was difficult, since there weren’t exactly exact coordinates and visuals that I can mesh for my power to work, but I took a few courses in astronomy for a reason. “I have five different locations where I can send this thing, so that it’ll careen into the sun. Tell me that it can’t somehow survive the sun and build something off its surface and it’s gone.”

Shiva’s AI as about to answer when the doors to the AI chamber suddenly began to open.

I moved immediately.

“No killing, Egress!”

I grunted at Shiva’s demand and instead of leaping into the group and killing them all, I sent myself into the shadows of the room and let my pitch-black uniform deal meld me with the shadows, while the group entered the room with practiced precision.

I couldn’t speak, but Shiva’s AI could, and it informed me of what I was seeing.

“Surgeons and their assistants. They’re here to make some sort of modification and check on the Vishnu unit.” The AI informed me. The pod lowered itself to waist-level and opened for the surgeons after one flicked a switch. The tubes for the nano-machine tanks retracted into the tanks themselves, while three aids brought up holographic interfaces from little pedestals that I hadn’t noticed. “Hm. This place seems better equipped than I expected. They have sensors and technology I thought was lost when contact with most of the supervillains in the world ended.”

I kept listening, but moved to another location within the room. The surgeons and their aides seemed to be ignoring the portion of the room that held the massive AI core, so I hid there and kept an eye on them. The door to the room hadn’t closed either, which meant someone else was coming, but I couldn’t see into it because of the angle of hiding spot and a quick movement to look would put me in the line of sight of whoever was walking in, since light was pouring in from the hallway.

“All of this is far more advanced than I expected. It would only be possible if… ah. That explains it.”

Shiva’s AI cut itself off, but I understood why as I recognized the last person who entered the room instantly.

“Ansah, the Brilliant.” There were very few villains who just slapped a title at the end of their name and called it a day. Most of them were just lunatics, but a handful were truly terrifying individuals that were infamous across the entire world. Naturally, Ansah was one of those people. However, the mad-scientist that made it known to the entire world that India was the place to acquire advanced technology wasn’t looking the same. “They have revived him.”

Revived was a strong word for what I was looking at.

Ansah was a head filled with wires strapped onto metal body surrounded by five guards in power armor.

People were being brought back from the dead to forcibly work on secret projects for governments.

Great.

Neo-Nazis were galivanting around the solar system, a theocracy was propping itself up in the US, and the Indians are using resurrected super villains to build a god.

I should’ve built a spaceship instead of a bunker.

…

“The body is nearing completion. It will require more parts fabricated by Parvati.” Ansah spoke to the surgeons and aides who took notes. His voice was tinny and synthesized, as it came from the chest of his mechanized body. “The recent raid was very opportune. If we gain a similar haul, we can finish the body completely.”

Ansah was an advisor and not allowed to touch anything. Everything had to be done through instructions by the aides or the surgeons. The disembodied head couldn’t even twitch without one of his power-armored guards almost raising their guns at him.
The security was decent, but I thought keeping the madman dead would’ve been better security.

There was chatter amongst the nameless goons, but eventually one spoke up.

“Parvati has increased her defenses and we no longer have access to the same distraction that allowed our forces to be as effective as before. We also have reason to believe that individual is alive and very interested in destroying us.”

“Ah, then, it will take two weeks of working with scraps to finish Vishnu with the prior stream of the recovered parts from Parvati’s manufacturing centers.”

Shiva’s AI spoke up at that.

“They instigate attacks and do their best to destroy what I send after them. If I focus on defense and refuse to attack, they begin to burden and torture local villages in my territory.” Standard hostage-taking behavior. The remains of the Indian government were getting shadier by the second, and I already considered them backstabbers who decided I should die. “If I do not respond, many will die, and so I do. Then, they sacrifice soldiers in exchange for one of my units.”

I hadn’t asked, but it did answer why Parvati couldn’t just stay behind its static defenses.

Given the AI’s nature, it couldn’t let other people die when it could do something itself.

Man, Shiva really fucked up. He should’ve used the head between his shoulders and not the head between his legs when making his AI. That’s probably the reason why he got chopped up to bits—

Urp.

Yeah.

Still can’t think about that without feeling incredibly disgusted.

Anyway, Parvati stopped talking and I took that as my cue to focus on what was going on in the room.

Which was everyone leaving… and one of Parvati’s drones disengaging and flying towards Ansah.

My panic at what it was doing was obvious, because Parvati addressed it immediately.

“If Ansah is not dealt with, then we will merely delay the inevitable. They have created this mass-manipulating unit once. It will be remade once more, with greater speed, if they are forced into a corner and cease limiting one of the most brilliant superhumans to ever exist.”

I waited for the doors to close and for the room to be empty, before replying.

“We can do that AFTER we deal with the weapon of mass destruction. Finish one plan, before starting another!” I hissed at Parvati and placed myself in front of the pod. Everything was reconnected and sealed, but just as I was about to send the artificial god into multiple entry points towards the sun, there was a sudden whine and activation of one of the terminals. “Is that you, Parvati?”

The answer I received wasn’t close to what I wanted.

“Welcome, intruder, to the project I have been raised from the dead to complete.” Ansah’s voice came from the terminal. Unlike the one that came from his body, it was more natural, despite coming from speakers. “I imagine that you have quite the tools at your disposal to have reached this far, but I must warn you: nothing you have can hope to destroy Vishnu. The moment it feels the slightest amount of damage, it will awaken, and it will destroy all in its path. The only thing that can stop it is me, so a bargain must be struck, and you must fetch my main body.”

I waited for a bit for the voice to continue, until nothing came.

It was just a recording and threat from a supervillain that set up a trap.

Typical stuff.

“Alright, I’m killing the thing.”

“What if—

I interrupted Parvati by holding out my hand on the pod and sending it and its contents in five pieces into the sun.

Again, I waited, and nothing happened as the room was just suddenly without an eight-foot-tall, blue-skinned artificial god with four arms.

Parvati must’ve been shocked, because it spoke to me again after a few seconds.

“That was very reckless.”

“That was why I never made waves and used weapons, instead of using my powers directly against enemies.” I kept my cards hidden while the world was in one piece. Parvati figured it out, but not many other people did. More importantly, having a low profile and looking like a regular joe making money off his power, kept people like Ansah the Brilliant from looking too closely and figuring me out. In an information vacuum, even the greatest scientist would never be able to piece things together. “Now, let’s finish this up, wreck this place, and make sure they can’t make another artificial god.”

Parvati took a while again to reply, but sent a shiver up my spine when she spoke again.

“The base’ alarm has been raised and they’ve activated an energy shield. You’re locked in. They must have had some sort of non-electronic alarm system in place.”

I looked around, while verifying that I was trapped and incapable of teleporting out of the underground complex.

My connection to the outside was blocked, probably by some sort of energy field, and Parvati was completely quiet as well.

Then, I realized what I missed as I looked down.

“A pressure plate? Who the hell still uses those!?”

A simple trigger activated by a spring that was no longer held down just sent off an alarm that trapped me.

I literally just killed an artificial god, but a low-tech alarm trapped me!?

I’m never going to live this down.