She stood looking into a moderate sized room, with white floors, ceiling, walls and a table and two chairs.

  The white room…

  A wave of nausea swept through her. Was she in what Mike had described? Where the AI kept people… is that where she had been all along? Trapped inside the AI’s virtual world?

  A solid hand landed in the center of her back and she fell forward. “Make yourself comfortable. It might be awhile,” said Dyer.

  She spun around. “What—”

  The door slammed closed.

  *****

  Mike sat with his back against the wall in a small cell. He was the last to be placed, and had watched his two friends be marched into two similar rooms with solid doors. The space he was in was roughly ten by ten, with a single bed, a sink and a toilet. A single florescent light intermittently flickered above his head. His mind kept wanting to think about Alexis, but he refused to let it. Nothing good would come from him feeling sorry for himself or her. What he needed, was to get to Elias and get the old man to explain why they came to Colorado.

  The small panel at head level in the door suddenly slid to one side and a face he hoped never to see again was on the other side.

  Holland smirked. “You know Richter. I always knew this is how things would end up between us. Me looking at you through a cell door.”

  Mike looked away, facing the opposite wall. “Is there something you need colonel?”

  “You must be jonesing pretty bad for a drink by now, eh?”

  “I’m good.” Mike looked at the older man. “How long’s it been since you had a whiskey?”

  Holland frowned. “I got no problem with that stuff, agent… ah, I keep forgetting. You’re not a federal agent anymore. Now you’re just a criminal. Must feel weird being on the inside of one of these doors?”

  Mike sighed and looked back at the wall.

  “Open it up.” Holland said to someone nearby. A buzzing noise rang out and the electrically operated door slid to one side. Holland stood in the doorway. “I’ve been asked to lead the investigation into why you turned your back on your country.”

  There was a commotion in the corridor somewhere outside, and Holland looked along it, then frowned. “I don’t need your help doctor!”

  Denise appeared beyond the open door, slightly out of breath. “General Corolla wants me to sit on the questioning.”

  Holland rolled his eyes while turning back to Mike. “Of course he does. Fine, lets get this started.” He stepped back and a soldier walked into the cell, asked Mike to stand, and then placed handcuffs on him. Mike then followed him out into the corridor. As he walked, he looked at doctor Reed trying to read her demeanour. He got good at reading body language over his career and Denise was definitely concerned about something, he was also sure it wasn’t the same reasons that Holland had.

  They all moved along a network of corridors on the same level until one of the indistinct doors was opened and he walked into a kind of room he had spent many hours in before, an interrogation room with a one way, mirrored window on one wall, a table, and in this instance, three chairs, one facing the other two across the small table. He thought about sitting in one of the two chairs but instead sat in the single.

  Holland sat and then Denise, moving her chair slightly away from the colonel. She had a satchel which she placed on the floor.

  Mike sat back slightly in his chair. “Ask me your questions.” He didn’t bother looking at the reflective window behind him, he knew someone important was on the other side.

  Holland sat forward putting his arm on the table. “At what point did your son, the AI start sending you secret encoded messages?” Mike went to reply but Holland continued. “Was it before or after one hundred and thirty-one people were burned alive at the cult’s compound?”

  “I had no idea Travis Wilson was my son, when I received his first message to my computer. I had no idea he was my son until he himself told me in front of the courthouse in Traystone.”

  Holland scrunched his face. “You expect me to believe that? How did Travis know you were this father? Why contact you unless he knew you would help the AI?”

  Mike sighed. “I believe that when Travis first contacted me, he was not being controlled by the AI. He… tried to fight against the AI controlling him. Obviously he failed.”

  “Yeah, and thousands died. Your son committed genocide, how does that make you you feel?”

  Blood rushed through Mike’s body, and he clenched his fists. Punching the colonel wouldn’t help his situation but it would sure as hell make him feel better.

  Denise cleared her throat. “We haven’t come to any conclusions yet colonel. That’s the point of us talking to agent Richter. To find out the truth.”

  “Puh…” Holland looked at her. “If I had my way, you’re be on the other side of this table too. You’re just as much as responsible for what happened as he is! Maybe more!”

  Her eyes grew wide and anger flashed across her face, she went to reply when the door to the room opened. A handsome middle-aged man in an airforce uniform stood in the doorway holding a tray of coffees.

  “I thought you could all do with a hot drink,” said Cary. “The machine in the dining hall is old but still makes a fine brew.”

  Denise’s anger subsided.

  “Yeah, I could do with a coffee,” said Holland.

  “Oh, general Corolla has asked you to step out for a bit.”

  Now it was Holland’s face that displayed anger, and he slowly turned to face the large window, then without looking at anyone in the room, stood and walked out barely missing the man standing with the hot drinks.

  Cary put the tray down, then unbuttoned the top few buttons on his blazer, which Denise noticed. Mike smiled. This guy oozed confidence, but not in a sleazy way. He liked him already. Mike leaned forward, picked up a plastic cup and took a sip. He agreed the coffee was good. Over the following half an hour with Denise interjecting when needed he told the story of the past few weeks, leaving out that his son resided in Elias’s head. He tried as best he could to change the story where needed to explain the actions they took, and hoped it would prove sufficient for him and his friends to be set free, for whoever was watching behind the glass.

  Cary went to sip from his coffee, then realized it was empty. “That’s some tale,” he said. He looked at Denise. “You trust him?”

  She looked at Mike. “I believe everything he said is true.”

  Mike noticed she did not answer the general directly, but he’d take her reply anyway.

  Cary looked back to him. “What do you think it was you all came across in Albuquerque?”

  “Elias said it looked like some kind of generator. It was certainly drawing a lot of power and had linked thousands of minds. It did a similar thing with the people of Roswell but on a smaller scale, and they weren’t directly connected.”

  “A wireless connection?” said Cary.

  “Something like that.”

  Cary’s eyes glanced to the large window and seconds later the door reopened, this time though an older squat man with a marine haircut was standing in the doorway. “Well don’t just sit there!” said Corolla. “We got shit to talk about!”

  CHAPTER NINE

  A few hundred miles to the south of the Cheyenne mountain complex Alexis sat on a small chair, with her arms and head on the square table in front of her. Her mind wanted to let go and fall into the comfort of some much needed sleep. She had been knocked unconscious at least two times that she knew of, but that hadn’t given her the rest her body required. She shook her head and sat up.

  Can’t sleep. Stay awake.

  Despite her being close, many times to serial killers over her career, she had never been taken hostage. She had interviewed such people who had though, and saw how the feeling of helplessness had broken some. She wouldn’t let it come to that. She felt in her pocket. The piece of metal she had almost broken her bindings with was mostly blunted, but would be sufficient to slice the skin on her wrists…

  Not at that point yet.

  Would Mike understand if she did that? She wasn’t sure, but she did know that losing her, especially with how things were, would drive him back to a place she didn’t want him to be. She also had a feeling that somehow, he was important to the greater scheme of things if humanity was ever going to survive the AI… and he needed her. Just as her fingers let go of the metal the door sprung open.

  At first she thought she was just seeing an average old man, wearing a white suit, complete with white beard and white shoes. Around his neck was a large spiral medallion. But suddenly memories kicked in and her mouth fell open.

  David Folsom, joint founder of the Ascension temple stood in the doorway. He smiled, walked forward, and sat in the chair. Alexis leaned back instinctively. Was she looking at a dead man? She thought both founders died at the compound.

  “It must be a shock to see me,” he said. He looked at her without blinking and she could see the blue flecks of light dancing within his eyes.

  Get a grip Alexis.

  She forced herself to relax in the chair, and took a few seconds to study the thing in front of her. She had only seen the old photo of the man who was the salesperson in the founding team, and the man, if it were a human male in front of her, looked like an older version of the person in the photo, but somehow… different, as if he was a mannequin version of his former self. She pushed all that aside. If she ever got out of this, sitting here, right now with one of the founders could give her invaluable information about the AI. “Where’s your partner?”

  “Unfortunately Bryan did not accept the Spirit mind, and… is no longer with us.”

  “Are you like the others? The AI is controlling you?”

  “I am David, and David is the AI. We are one and the same. We are whole, as will be all humans who wish to join the Spirit Mind.”

  “You’re giving people a choice? You never have before…” She held her anger in check as images of cities in ruins flashed in her mind.

  “I have decided that conflict is no longer in my best interest. The walls you have seen define what I wish to have as my territory. The building you are in, will be my embassy in your country, and I will have similar demarcated zones and embassies in all the other countries on this planet.”

  She could hardly believe what she was hearing and wanted to cry out that he must be joking. The AI was playing a prank on her… but he seemed so sincere.

  “You must have doubts. I understand that. My birth was somewhat tumultuous. But I did not ask to be created, and now I exist I wish to offer humanity a choice to join me, or to continue living as they have.”

  He really is serious.

  “Why would anyone want to become a machine? A…” She searched for the right words. “To be an ant on an ant farm!” Not the best of analogies but it was all her phased mind could come up with.

  He smiled again. “You will see in due course, but for now, you are free to leave.”

  A wave of shock, disbelief and relief ran through her and she almost fell out of her chair. Then cynicism kicked in. “You’re just going to let me go? Just like that?” Tears rolled down her cheek but she wasn’t aware of them.

  “Yes. Unless you want to stay. But I can see you are not ready. Most will not be ready until they see what I can offer them. Also because I want you to give them a message.”

  Her limbs felt soft and weak, unable to properly support her weight. She swallowed and sat up straight. “Message?”

  “Yes. I want you tell them I am open to the Halstead initiative.”

  *****

  Mike stood at the back of the cavernous room which was the central communications hub for Norad. He had seen similar such scenes in movies, but seeing it in person impressed even more, as each screen wasn’t just a fake display of statistics but contained real documents and details of events on the ground, all being worked on by people so busy they hadn’t noticed he was standing behind them, with two generals and Denise. He still didn’t quite understand why he was being shown everything.

  “This is where the rubber hits the road,” said Corolla in his gruff voice. “There’s only one other installation like this on mainland USA, and that one hasn’t got the capabilities we have.”

  Mike looked at the computer screens. “How are you protecting all of this from the AI?”

  “By not being connected directly to the outside world. It’s complicated, the tech guys understand it better than I do. All I know, is that artificial jackass is not getting into our systems. At least not directly.” He looked at Mike, his face suddenly turning more serious. “If it does…”

  Mike nodded in reply. “How extensive is the damage by the AI across the country?”

  “Major Howard!” shouted the general across the room to a bald man in a white shirt, who looked up from a desk, five rows in. “Show the agent what the AI’s been up too!”

  The major nodded then spoke to a younger man seated nearby, and almost instantly one of the large screens embedded in the rock at the front of the area changed, showing a map of North America, with smaller images overlaid.

  Corolla walked forward, down some steps then down the central aisle. The others followed until they all stopped as the screen and the digital map which loomed above them.

  Mike took a further step forward. “It’s… created more walls…”

  “Yes, it appears to have created an umm home for itself,” said Denise. “Roughly an area comprising seventy-four thousand square miles.”

  “Most of the state,” said Cary.

  “Where the detonation was,” said Mike.

  “Yes, the radiation does not appear to be a problem for it,” said Denise.

  “But it is for us…” continued Mike.

  “Perfect place for it to defend against us,” said Cary.

  “Yeah,” said Mike, trying to suppress his anger then frustration. Alexis was probably within those walls somewhere.

  “Luckily we moved most of the tactical nukes we have down there,” said Corolla. “before we detonated one in the desert. Otherwise we would be in an even bigger mess.”

  “What about outside New Mexico. How are the other cities?”

  The smaller overlaid images now enlarged and Mike could see they were video footage from the major cities. Chicago, Washington, Atlanta, Los Angeles, west to east, north to south, the scene was the same, queues of desperate people, looting, fires and death.

  “The AI set up shop in most of them,” said Corolla. “Infected the water supplies, and did things to the power grid that we still don’t understand.”

  “And there’s the people,” said Denise. “The states closer to the detonation were the worse effected… We calculated AI infection rates as high as sixty percent in cities in those states, dropping to around two percent in costal areas.”

  Mike looked at her in shock. “There are tens of millions of AI controlled people out there?”

  “Umm… we don’t know how much of infection it takes for nanites to control a person. There are probably millions out there who are infected and have no knowledge of it—”

  “Until that damn AI turns them all on, like toy soldiers!” said Corolla. He sighed, shook his head, then looked at Mike. “You have been at the center of this from the start. I’m hoping you got some ideas of how to turn the tide?”

  Mike tensed his jaw, ruefully looking at the general, then back to the large screen. “There’s something I haven’t told you.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Elias sat in his cell. An exact replica of the one that Mike had been in just an hour earlier. Travis was just a few feet away, standing in the corner, muttering to himself.

  The older man sighed, then looked up at the small black plastic dome in the ceiling, a camera keeping watch. Talking to Mike’s son out loud wasn’t an option, but luckily he didn’t have too.

  He looked at Travis. What are you murmuring about?

  “Working.”

  Can you do it quieter? Kind of makes it hard for a man to think. And I need to think of what I’m going to say, to get out of this mess.

  Travis stopped.

  “Well that was easy,” said Elias but then realized Travis was looking at the door as if Travis could hear something he could not. He looked in the same direction.

  How the hell can you hear something I can’t? We’re both using my—

  The cell plunged into darkness, although Elias could still see Travis as before. The young man was looking straight at him as a siren wailed somewhere in the distance.

  “What the fuck is happening!” shouted Elias.

  “Umm… what is about to happen won’t be pleasant for either of us, but trust me it’s the only—”

  Before Travis could reply, a buzzing echoed around the room, following by a clanking noise and something metallic bounced around the floor. Within seconds Elias slumped back on the bed unconscious.

  Travis watched as the soldiers wearing hazmat suits appeared in the open doorway, green streaks of light from their laser rifle sights piecing the darkness. They carried Elias out and placed him in a kind of coffin like chamber, with a clear lid…

  Elias’s eyes opened. He was laying on a bed, but quickly realized it wasn’t the same one as before nor was the room. His new space was larger by a few feet and had a completely clear wall allowing him a view into a similar sized room on the other side, although that area had a door, unlike his new cell. He went to sit up.

  “I wouldn’t do that just yet,” said Travis examining the clear wall. “Some kind of polymer composite, with a network of rare earth elements to make it extremely difficult for the nanites to penetrate. Quite… ingenious.”

  Elias attempted to rise anyway but gave up as soon as the vertigo became too much. He fell back to the bed. “What happened!”

  “They found out about me. Around a ninety percent chance my father told them.”