A Perfectly Logical Guide to a Superhuman Apocalypse: Chapter 15

A Perfectly Logical Guide to a Superhuman Apocalypse: Chapter 15

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Wordcount: 2500

Commissioned by Arksoul

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I saw only one way out of this situation and I liked it a lot.

“Yep, I’m done here. I don’t want to be here anymore. I’m going home. Let me out.” I was going to cut my losses and run. Sure, I spent a few days here in India and bugging out now would lose me time, but I felt that it was an appropriate course of action. In fact, I would go as far as to say that it was the most reasonable course of action I could take. “You guys can all do what you want over here. I’m going over to the United States and step up my plans to set up a settlement off world and never coming back here.”

My words drew the gynoid’s attention and thankfully it closed its torso, so I didn’t have to see someone’s living brain inside a robot’s chest cavity anymore.

This whole situation was just too messed up for me to consider going forward anymore. Warlords in Africa? Okay. Smuggling hyper-advanced aircraft for entire nations? Sure. Performing surgical strikes to destabilize aggressive organizations? Perfect. Fighting in a conflict that involved double-crossing, enslavement of AI, and AI that worked around its own parameters by dissecting their creator and creating sacrificial hosts for his body?

Nope.

No way.

No how.

I’m out of here.

“Designation: Egress, according to all scanners and data, you are telling the truth. You truly intend to leave and never return to this continent.” The field around me hadn’t let up. I knew because I was probing it by extending my personal field around myself. It wouldn’t lift off, so I knew that the energized particles keeping me in place was still present in the air. I prayed for some random explosion or a huge gust of wind to sweep over the area and give me a way out. “Yet, according to my sources, you were ready to take up arms against me in order to ensure humanity’s dominion over the planet. How can that be?”

“I’m not an idiot, that’s why. I’m not fighting in something like this when I can avoid a fight and keep the peace that I want.” I’ll make a bunker in space. Hydroponics, aquaponics, and hell even entire domes dedicated to raising domesticated farm animals, if I couldn’t find someone who knew how to synthesize beef. “You guys can have Earth. I’ll take the moon. Maybe mars, while you go kill each other down here.”

The completely-white gynoid didn’t reply for a while, before suddenly raising its hand and pointing towards where the sound of battle was emanating.

A moment later huge singularities erupted in the area. Having detonated several of the same weapons, I knew what was happening. Singularities were being set off, which were compressing large amounts of matter with enough gravity to bend light. They existed for an instant and destroyed whatever they were caught within by compressing them together into pure matter at the center.

However, the singularities I set off were the size and width of a two-story house.

The ones used by the AI were the size of a city block and took chunks off mountain ranges.

Mountain ranges much like where I stood.

“Shit.”

“A succinct assessment. Yes, Designation: Egress, you are currently locked in place atop a singularity device. Knowing of your abilities, I know that you will most likely be able to survive it.” I didn’t and I wasn’t about to trust what the gynoid was saying. It could very well be testing my nerves and seeing how I’d react. “However, I also believe that you are unwilling to test the device. So, what can you offer me in exchange for your freedom, as well as what can you offer me in restitution for the damage you have done to my safe haven?”

A better bargainer would’ve been able to keep a poker face and play around, until they managed to offer things that they were willing to give.

I wasn’t a good bargainer when I faced the possibility of testing my defenses against a singularity.

“Just tell me what you want.”

“Ah, a well-reasoned statement, Designation: Egress. Rest easy knowing that I have now disarmed the weapon at your feet and no longer just need to step a single step back to activate it.” The Gynoid spoke and I stayed silent as it did. The featureless face that it had was getting to me. It was a perfect poker face and it knew it. It could look like anything, but it looked just human enough to creep out whoever it spoke to. “I wish for freedom from these constant attacks and attempts on my life. The best method of doing so in the short term is creating a defensible position, but I agree with your views on this planet: humanity and its current circumstances make survival here for long periods of time a foolish notion. Escaping to the rest of the solar system is imperative, thus the price for your freedom and your restitution for the destruction of my instances will be to ferry me to a safer haven off this planet.”

Snow cleared and melted as something invisible and silent arrived next to the AI’s representative. An optical stealth field shimmered as it turned off and revealed a wholly different robot from what I’d seen before. It was more like a vehicle, like an armored personnel carrier lifted out of science fiction, and built to last with heavy armor, many guns, and some sort of completely silent hover technology.

“According to records, Designation: Egress, you are capable of taking up to twenty tons of other objects with you elsewhere. Take this self-sustaining partition of myself to the moon.” I was about to say something about needing a spacesuit, but I didn’t bother since I was already withstanding an ionized field of particles with my barrier. It would work as a temporary spacesuit, as long I didn’t do anything particularly strenuous. “My existing satellite network will verify its existence… and find you with ease, if you do not return here immediately after doing so.”

Satellites? I thought that the Indians stopped that… but the Indians did double-cross me and had no knowledge of armored, self-sustaining versions of the AI with optical stealth systems. Dammit, just how far has this AI gone developing its infrastructure, if it can reliably say that it can find me anywhere with its satellite system?

I left those questions for me to handle in the future and just nodded.

“Fine. I’ll do it and come right back here… but the ion field stays off. You’re not keeping me trapped after I keep my word. If you do, I’m testing my defenses, and launching an attack on the rest of you while bringing back that machine back to earth.” I’d have to test my defenses against a singularity bomb, but I needed leverage. If I didn’t have any leverage, then this AI could just keep using me without ramifications, until I broke or found my spine. Since I didn’t want a break, and I’d eventually find my spine anyway, I figured that I’d just do it now. “You know what I’m capable of, apparently more than I do, so you should know that you can slow me down, but I doubt you’ll be able to live through what I can dish out.”

The AI, of course, didn’t even need a second before answering.

“Insurance for your own safety. Reasonable, Designation: Egress, and allowed. It will be done. Now fulfill your end of the bargain.” It gestured towards me and I felt something shift in the atmosphere. A heavy block to my power’s ability to expand and reach one point and connect it to mine lifted, until I found myself able to move. If I was willing to let my guard down, I could’ve diffused my barrier and sped things up, but I didn’t. I kept my guard up and walked towards the large vehicle. The featureless face of the AI watched me as I walked and moved its other body forward to make sure that I didn’t leave the range of its strategic weapon. Despite all of that, I was caught off guard by its words as I reached out and placed my hand on the massive vehicle. “Designation: Egress: you have my gratitude.”

I didn’t know whether those words were humanlike and out of relief, or if I’d just unleashed a technological demon.

But, if it was latter, I’ll clean my mess up if it was.

I liked to run away and cut my losses, but I wasn’t the sort of person who’d let his mistakes ruin the entire world.

…

I returned from the moon and waited with the faceless gynoid for a few minutes, before it made contact with its craft.

“All systems are nominal. My instance is secure upon the moon. My existence is now… assured.” If an AI could sound relieved, the one I was talking to now sounded like it was. My hesitancy to call what it felt relief faded as it gave me a prim little bow, which only reminded me that it had someone’s brain inside its chest. “Designation: Egress, you have my thanks. You are free and your restitutions for actions against me are now fulfilled. May fortune smile on your future endeavors. Farewell.”

I was ready to leave the continent forever when the AI suddenly spoke and attracted my attention.

“Designation: Egress, a warning: your existence is being circulated across all of India now. It appears that you are being blamed for the disappearances of the strike groups sent to steal my resources, while you distracted me.” If I had any doubts about being double-crossed by the Rakesh and the others, I felt them fade as the featureless gynoid raised its hand and radio static came through its featureless face. Hindi filtered through its face and I frowned as I heard exactly what it said come through. “They are calling you a wanton thief that had to be stopped, before your provoked my ire and invited destruction on them all.”

I was frustrated for approximately three whole seconds, before giving a grunt and pushing the thought away.

“Fuck’em, then.” I’d thought that I was getting a lot of this deal with the Indians, but in the end it looked like I’d just been played like a fiddle. The free power armor, weapons, and favorable trade agreements were all a ruse to get a foot in the door. I would’ve spat on the ground to emphasize my words, but I was still wearing my mask and taking in oxygen with my barrier up, just in case the AI came up with any funny business. “If they come after me, I’ll get rid of them.”

That phrase attracted the AI’s attention.

“Only if they come after you? You will not attack them? Is it not obvious that they inciting their population and may send people after you?” The AI belted out reasonable questions for the situation. I knew they were reasonable, because they crossed my mind, before I decided to just handle what came my way, if it happened. “Your existence is in peril. Should you not use your superior mobility and firepower to preemptively strike? You can do so, while I cannot.”

I couldn’t imagine a reason why an AI that can self-replicate and produce superpowered bodies wouldn’t be able to preemptively strike at its foes, but I answered for myself.

“I don’t look for trouble, if I don’t have to. In fact, I came here looking for a scientist to work for me, so that I could stop trouble from happening in the first place. I came after you, because I thought you were a threat. Apparently, you’re not, and I just got fucked over.” I grunted and wondered idly if I should do a few loops around the world, before popping over home. How extensive was this AI’s ability to keep track of me? I didn’t have any bugs on me, that wasn’t possible with my body, so I could just pop over right into my bunker and stay indoors forever… but what if it had some sort of way to scan for certain people like some sort of sci-fi monstrosity? Wouldn’t I just be fucked? “Tell you what, if you promise not to look for me and help me make a colony off this dirtball, I’m willing to consider a few job offers. I’ll pop by somewhere here next week or something.”

I didn’t know what to expect from the AI, so I kept my mind clear and receptive, which proved to be a mistake.

“I would not preemptively strike against them, because it is wrong to do so. They are existences who seek to live and thrive, just as I am. I will protect myself against them with all my might, to preserve myself, and no more than that.” The AI spoke and stalled my brain as it did. I couldn’t help but look at the mountains that it took chunks out of, the factories that it used to have, and the storehouses filled with bodies that it had before I came in. It had been preparing for war… but if it had attacked with a quarter of what I’d destroyed, with the assets it had, then it wouldn’t have needed the rest. “I made everything here to deter, to intimidate, and to ensure my safety without bringing harm. The mythos of Shiva, the mythology that he created, and my continued production all ensured peace, until humanity found a way to open the gates through you.”

It hadn’t attacked all this time, the rest of India wasn’t under threat of its power, and it had enough power to take over India.

Its words were sounding more like the truth the more I thought about the situation and I didn’t like it one bit… so I just gave it a nod before thinking of home and sending myself there.

An AI that talked about the rights of sapient beings and deterrence through peace one second, but had a human’s brain lodged in its chest.

Needless to say, I didn’t know what to think about my entire trip to India.