The man next to the monitor nodded, glumly. “Yes…” He looked back at the screen, pointing to various points. “The program of burning in the national parks appears to have helped, keeping the infection rates in the animal life there to a minimum. Although obviously the nanites have still infected many thousands of species.” He then looked at the nearby soldier again and other icons flashed, these ones spread throughout the United States. “These are the other areas where the AI has taken hold of the infrastructure. As you can see most of the major cities are infected leading to a breakdown in the basic amenities, such as water, electricity and communications. And some of the smaller towns we… have lost contact with.” He then looked at the young man at the keyboard once again, and after a flurry of keystrokes the view of the map changed, zooming out to show a complete map of the world. Icons flashed over most countries. “What is happening in our country is being repeated across the planet. The detonations appear to have made the problem… much worse.”

  Most in the room were shaking their heads.

  “Thank you general Brooks,” said Corolla. He then looked at the admiral. “What’s the situation at sea?”

  “Our naval forces are relatively untouched so far. Obviously we have taken steps to ensure our networks are secure, but so far we have no seen any intrusion by the AI into our systems, and can move freely. Our Pacific fleet is currently escorting civilian shipping to help deliver supplies where needed across the Pacific, and the European fleet doing the same. All of our captains have standing orders if our comms are compromised.”

  The head of Norad then looked at the USAF general, Cary Bell. “As you all know most of our craft were rendered useless at an early stage in this conflict,” said Cary. “The AI went after the airforce first. But we have found a number of aircraft in the boneyards that we are racing to refurbish. Some of which are already airborne.”

  Corolla placed his hand down on the table. “Good. Good. This is what—” Meyer cleared his throat. Corolla looked at the old scientist. “I was just coming to you, doctor. What progress have you and Doctor Reed made?”

  Denise noticed Holland frowning out of the corner of her eye.

  Meyer started to talk then coughed, taking a few seconds to gather his composure. “The first of the EMP weapons are due to be constructed today, and will be tested this evening or tomorrow. Of course we do not have any actual nanites to test them on, so we are flying in the dark somewhat, but we have high hopes they will be effective. But I feel I must bring up the incident with our patients, that happened during the early hours.”

  Holland shifted in his seat.

  “Go on,” said Corolla.

  “Doctor Reed has told me of what she was told, and even though I must confess I do not know how they know, I have seen with my own eyes how those with Autism have appeared to share a link with the AI and to resist its influence. So if they say they know something then I think we should listen to them.”

  Holland snorted.

  Corolla looked at him. “You disagree Colonel?”

  Holland leaned back in his chair slightly. “Look… I’m not saying those people downstairs don’t have some weird connection to this machine, but—” He leaned forward focusing his attention on Corolla. “Do you really think we should base any of our plans on the mentally challenged?”

  “I can assure you,” interrupted Denise. “Most have a far higher IQ than you do Colonel.”

  Cary stifled a smile, then answered before Holland could reply. “And they think the AI is going to make an attack on the mountain? Physical or virtual?”

  “If it’s physical we will take care of it,” said the last of the chiefs to talk, general Perez of the Marines stiffening his back in his chair.

  “I am glad you are confident in your abilities general,” said Mayer. “But to answer general Bell’s question, from the descriptions those with ADS have given us… I would say it will attack us here in as many ways as possible.”

  Cary smiled. “Well if it does, at least we will have a chance to test out these new weapons.” He looked around the table for others to share his optimism but found none.

  Corolla looked at him. “I don’t think I have to remind you general that if Norad falls, we will be running very short on secure facilities to fight this war with.”

  Meyer coughed before he continued. “What is the situation with the other place?”

  Denise looked at him. She had not heard from him about any ‘other place.’

  “Getting there,” said Corolla. He looked at the others. “But this complex cannot fall. If it does, we won’t just be fighting this thing with one hand behind our back, but with no hands.”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Okay then,” said Corolla. “I want you all back here at twenty-two hundred hours. Dismissed.” Everyone got to their feet and started to head towards the door. “Doctor Reed, can you hold back. I need a word.”

  Denise glanced at Meyer, then turned and returned to her chair. She wondered what the general could want with her, but also was afraid to know.

  The last person left and the door closed. Corolla looked at her. “It would appear we didn’t need to go looking for your agent friend, doctor. He’s come to us.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The dark tin box Alexis was in bumped up and down. She had awoken inside the back of the van a few hours earlier, and within fifteen minutes had to rely upon her training as a psychologist to fight the panic which had threatened to overwhelm her. Since then she racked her brain with the methods she had learned over the years of how to deal with dangerous criminals, and how she might use them to give herself another chance of escape… if the chance came.

  Her mind had drifted to the short time she had spent with Mike, a ray of light in the darkness of her despair when the van suddenly slowed and stopped. She waited for the inevitable, and then the rear doors opened and light streamed in momentarily blinding her. Hands were pulling her out before her vision had returned, but when she was dumped on the hard ground, the grittiness between her fingers gave her a clue, which her eyes confirmed. She appeared to be in a desert.

  “Time we left the zoo and mingled with the common folk!” shouted Dyer from somewhere behind her, in front of the Van. She shuffled around, her hands bound, and there it was. An almost complete replica of the wall which she saw a few days earlier, east of Roswell. This one also appeared to be without any exit. It suddenly struck her. The army hadn’t built the Roswell wall, or this one. The AI had.

  Dyer spread his hands out. “As you can see there’s nowhere to run, and even if you wanted to go west, trust me, you’re not getting over the wall. No human can. It’s self aware…” His eyes grew wide and his waved his fingers. “Spooky eh.” She nodded and he turned back to the huge blocks. “But then it was built by a god, so they can do such things.”

  “Then—” The word was a croak from her throat, so she swallowed and tried again. “Then how are you going to get out? Unless you’re not human anymore…” It was a bit of an obvious reach to try and get some information from him, but maybe his brain wasn’t being boosted by the AI.

  “Don’t concern yourself with what I am. If I couldn’t get out I wouldn’t have brought us here, would I?”

  Bit defensive, thought Alexis. Something to build on.

  She nodded again and looked around. Tufts of yellow and beige grass stretched for what seemed like hundreds of miles in every direction, with mountains just visible in the haze on the horizon. She guessed they had been driving west, which would put her somewhere in Arizona. Then she spotted the train tracks twenty or so feet from the road. They stopped abruptly at the wall. She pondered where she would go even if she could get away.

  The ground started rumbling. She looked back to Dyer who was now standing just a few inches from one of the wall’s sections, his hands laid on it as if he were praying. Suddenly small cracks appeared in the concrete looking substance, which spread, until parts were collapsing around her kidnapper. With a loud crash a plume of dust flew up enveloping Dyer. A part of her hoped the structure had crushed him, but that would be too easy. As the dust cleared a tall figure took shape within a ten-foot gap where once there was a wall. He was smiling.

  “See!” He walked forward proud of his achievement, and leaned on the side of the van. “You couldn’t have done that. Only I could have. Anyway, if you need to take a leak or something, do it now, because we got a ride ahead of us.”

  She went to move around the side of the vehicle, out of his view.

  “Uh uh. Back where I can see you.”

  Her stomach turned. He knew she wouldn’t run. He wanted to humiliate her, but she needed to urinate badly. For a fraction of a second she thought about doing it in the back of the van, but she wasn’t sure she knew how he would react and she didn’t particularly want to sit with the smell in the warm interior for however many hours they would be on the road. She then realized something. His perverted interest in her bodily functions didn’t seem particularly machine mind behavior. Whatever Dyer was, he was definitely more human than AI for the time being. Another clue which may help her unravel his psyche. She took a few steps to the side, turned to face him, then pulled her pants down and sat in one movement, did what she needed to do, then pulled her clothes back up and stood, walking and climbing into the back of the van. He walked around back, a smile plastered to his face and slammed the rear door closed, locking it.

  Quickly, before he got to the driver’s seat, she felt in her pocket to make sure the rusting piece of metal plate was still there.

  *****

  The helicopter’s engine thundered above Mike, Brad and Elias and two other soldiers. He was surprised the army were using such an old model, but the pilot told him it didn’t use any modern circuitry and therefore was hopefully not prone to being taken control of by the AI… at least that was the theory.

  Shortly after takeoff they had passed over a similar looking wall to the one east of Roswell, and he remarked to the private next to him that he was impressed by how quickly the military had created a wall to keep the AI from encroaching any further out, but then was lost for words when the young man replied. ‘We didn’t build it.’ Since then the journey had been in noisy silence, with each of the cabin’s occupants lost in their own thoughts. Mike looked down at the beige and faded greens of southern Colorado’s fields and hills, the helicopter he was in keeping to a few hundred feet off the ground. It was a well used tactic to stay low so you would be on and then past the enemy before they had a chance to react with anything that could knock you out of the sky, but as farmhouses and lonely highways passed by underneath he wondered just how much of the country was infected by the AI, and he hated it for that.

  We did this. Human beings.

  Since shortly after the detonation a feeling of dread had settled inside him, growing with each passing hour and what he saw in Albuquerque just confirmed what he already knew to be true. There was no going back to how things were. The monster of human creation had a foothold and nothing suggested it was going to give up anytime soon. Actually the opposite appeared to be true. Humanity was fighting for the whole ball game, and they were already losing.

  The terrain beneath them became mountainous and their attitude rose accordingly. Evergreens topped with snow and ice slid by, including small towns almost lost within steep slopes.

  “Landing soon,” said the pilot on the comms system.

  Condensation was forming on the inside of the windows, and everyone had their jackets wrapped tightly around them, but the temperature inside the cabin still was barely above freezing.

  Mike didn’t have to be looking at the other two to feel their sense of anxiety about what awaited them on the ground. He already had the speech prepared to whoever ordered his arrest to let them go. That they just were following his orders. Especially Elias. He hadn’t had a chance to talk to the older man since soldiers flooded the dining hall, but there was something in Elias’s eyes that made him stand down and not argue back at the accusations, despite knowing that Alexis was almost certainly not north of them. He had no doubt that ‘something’ was his son. Travis wanted him to go to the Cheyenne mountain complex, and he had no idea why, he just hoped it would bring him closer to his new partner somehow.

  Mike sighed. Find out soon.

  Just as they passed over a peak, the helicopter suddenly sunk low into a heavily forested valley, with many buildings and roads visible to the north. No doubt the town of Colorado Springs. Then their landing area came into view. Multistory buildings which Mike recognized as governmental due to their simplicity sat at the back of a parking lot which could have housed a thousand cars, but instead it contained more helicopters, a few rows of Humvees and tens of soldiers running between each. Two of the humvees were heading towards the old chopper as it touched down. Mike guessed it contained MPs.

  His, Brad’s and Elias’s ‘escorts’ ushered them outside, and everyone kept their heads instinctively low as they walked below the blades to the group of military police, one of which was walking towards them and met them halfway.

  The man looked at one of the privates that had come with them from Arizona. “You can remove the cuffs, there’s nowhere for them to run to now.” He looked at Mike. “I am captain Hughes. I understand the conditions of your arrest as well as your rights—” Brad scoffed which Hughes ignored. “— have been told to you. Is that correct?”

  “This is horseshit,” said Brad. “The whole countries going to shit, and you’re arresting us for colluding with what? A machine? How’s that even a thing?”

  “Yes, captain,” said Mike. “We understand what’s been leveled at us. Tell whichever general is in charge of this place—” He looked up at the buildings and the swathe that had been cut out of the side of the mountain that he knew was the entrance. “— that I have important information for him.”

  “There will be plenty of time for you to tell your story Mr. Richter. Before that we have numerous questions for you to answer.” Mike noticed the lack of any official FBI title in Hughes referencing of him. “Please come with me.” The captain set off, and Mike and his friends did as asked.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Alexis worked feverishly at the plastic cabling that bound her wrists together. She was down to the last strand, but the metal wiring within was proving tricky to break and her piece of rough iron wasn’t so rough anymore. The van slowed.

  No… no, come on.

  She moved her hands back and forth quicker. The van stopped. She froze waiting for the sound of the driver’s door to open, but instead the vehicle pulled away again, and she continued her work to be free. Another slow down, this one though was followed with the floor beneath her tilting. The van was driving down a slope. It quickly leveled off and took a sharp left, then suddenly stopped with a jolt.

  Damn!

  Her plan had failed. She had hoped they would be traveling for hours, and she would have moved on to getting the rear door open and jumping out when the van stopped at lights or something, but instead he had already reached his destination, and worse than that, he was going to know she had almost broke her bindings.

  This time the driver’s door did open. She swung her hands behind her back, maybe he wouldn’t notice. There were footsteps then the rear door opened. She instinctively squinted but didn’t need too as they were underground, seemingly in some kind of parking garage and her abductor did not look happy.

  “Come on. Get out,” he said from a face with no expression. Maybe the AI part of his had turned off his emotions? Maybe they were getting in the way of him doing the AI’s bidding?

  She shuffled forward and dropped her feet to the concrete, and stood, her knees and thighs proving resistant to the idea.

  Dyer grabbed under her arm and pulled her upright. “Come on I said! We got people to see!” He then pulled her away from the van with one hand and closed the rear door with the other.

  “People? What people?” said Alexis genuinely surprised. The voice in her head also said ‘Don’t serial killers work alone?’ but thought better to keep the thought quiet. As he dragged her towards a stairwell entrance she tried to scan the garage they were in. There were four other vehicles, all expensive in nature with blackened windows. She got the impression that they were in some kind of corporate building parking area. Was Dyer… the AI working with others? He pulled open the door and pushed her forward. “Ha… been working on your wrists I see. Well it don’t matter now.”

  He almost sounded disappointed which made no sense, but his words still chilled her to the bone. She was going to have to make another run for it as soon as she had a way of putting some distance between them. She trekked up the stairs, turned then climbed again. An innocent-looking door was in front of her.

  “Well open it and go in!” said Dyer impatiently.

  Maybe if she did as he asked then turned and shut it quickly she could lock it on the other side? It was worth a try. Before he got any closer she pulled it open and went to swing around when she stopped, her attention grabbed by a symbol which was proudly displayed on the wall in front of her.

  A spiral. The Ascension cults logo. Knocking the strangeness of seeing it out of her mind she went to spin around when Dyer was already at the doorway. She stumbled forward, along a hallway, glancing back at the strange design which she had only ever seen in one other location, a long way away. An air conditioning unit hummed somewhere in the ceiling. Wherever she was they still clearly had power to spare, but her mind was racing with the possibility that there had been a second compound for the Ascension cult. How could their investigation had missed it?

  “Go in that second door on your left,” said Dyer. His tone was lethargic, non-caring. But she preferred that to his manic passion.

  She looked down at the silver handle, and went to place her hand on it and then hesitated. Instantly she dismissed the idea of it being anything other than aluminium, and turned it and pushed the door open.