“We intercepted that message roughly thirty minutes ago,” said Corolla. “We can confirm it was sent from Tucson. We tried to call that number back with our limited communications but couldn’t make the connection.”

  “That was the only message?” said Mike. His heart beat and his words were forced out between breaths.

  Corolla nodded. “Is that her?”

  “Yes, yes that’s her… or something that sounds exactly like her.” He was convinced it was Alexis, but he had to accept the possibility that it was an AI fake. He looked at the others in the room, including Denise, Meyer, Cary, Admiral Payton and finally Corolla. “What’s Halstead?”

  Corolla frowned, while the others shifted in their seats uneasily. “It’s classified.”

  “Look. You need to know if that really is her, and if what she is saying is real, right?”

  “Yes…” said Corolla.

  “And I’m the only person that can confirm it is her, and what’s she saying. I need to go to Tucson. And I need to know what the hell is Halstead?” His voice was more pleading than he would have liked.

  Corolla sighed.

  “I think we should tell him,” said Cary.

  Corolla looked at the Admiral, who nodded in agreement. “The United Nations have made a preliminary decision to… negotiate—”

  “Negotiate with the thing? Are they crazy?”

  Corolla ignored the question and continued. “To negotiate with the AI, if we cannot get the situation under control by next Thursday. Roughly six days from now. And from where I’m sitting that’s looking like a good—” He let out a breath. “— Option.”

  Surprised, Denise looked at the general. “But I thought you said—”

  “We had one of the damn things in the most secure base in the United States. We don’t know what it did to our systems. This whole place is compromised and if it can get in here, then…”

  Meyer coughed a little before speaking. “We have the people with ASD. They are a random factor the AI cannot account for. It is not much of one I grant you, but it is a small advantage we have. We should not give up yet…”

  Mike looked at Corolla. “Send me with a team to Tucson. I’ll confirm it’s her and bring her back. She probably knows a lot more than what she says in that message.”

  Corolla rubbed his chin, nodding.

  *****

  The frost on the flatlands of northern Arizona reflected the moonlight, as a helicopter passed by overhead. Mike sat next to Brad, Denise, Constance and Kevin. They were all dressed in combat fatigues as were the two soldiers escorting them. All had only gotten a few hours of sleep, and most were trying to stop the constant hum of the aircraft’s engine from sending them back to it, but Mike’s mind was alert, his thoughts caught in a loop, replaying Alexis’s words.

  ‘It says it agrees with the Halstead Initiative…’

  The idea of trying to come to some kind of agreement with the AI was insane to him, and he could tell that the joint chiefs felt the same way, but were in a corner. The military weren’t even sure what they were fighting against, they just knew it had eaten away at the fabric of the country, atom by atom, town by town, city and city and if it didn’t stop there would be nothing left. Mike could understand Corolla being willing to begrudgingly listen to what the AI might have to offer, after all he was under orders to do so. But Mike would never trust it. Before he left he had a brief conversation with his son via Elias, and Travis said it was fifty fifty. The AI might have decided that it was better to consolidate what it already had, or it might all be a trick, just the latest. Travis reminded Mike that to the AI, this was all a game, no different to chess or poker. Either way he said Constance and Kevin would be able to tell if Alexis was in control of her own mind or not… and despite the world being under threat, he couldn’t help but only care about that. He hadn’t realized how much he had come to care for her in the previous few weeks until she was taken from him. She was the rock which he needed to be tethered too.

  It wasn’t long before the twinkling lights of the base they were stationed at just a day before came into view. Other lights then fanned out and became a circle and their aircraft suddenly dropped until it slowed and they touched down. The door slid open and everyone climbed out, keeping their heads low. Flakes of ice whirled around them in almost blizzard like conditions, and they all stayed close and headed towards the welcoming lights of the nearby entrance.

  They entered the former school building and moved into the hallway where Sergeant Wright was waiting.

  “Didn’t expect to see you two back here,” he said to Mike and Brad. His eyes glanced across Denise and the two awkward looking young people sticking close to each other just behind.

  “You already been briefed of our mission?” said Mike.

  “Yeah. We have to head south and pick up a civilian—”

  “FBI special agent…”

  “Sure, anyway, we pick her up and make sure she’s delivered safely up north. That sound about right?”

  Mike nodded.

  “The squads geared up and ready to hit the road in thirty. We got hot food and drinks in the dining hall.”

  After a warm meal of something that came from a silver packet and was heated in a pan on a stove, along with coffee they were back outside again with a distant eastern glow highlighting some hills miles away in the desert.

  Three Humvees, one turreted sat in the school’s parking lot, mist rising from their running engines, and small flakes of falling ice visible in their headlights.

  Six soldiers, some carrying equipment they had brought with them from the Cheyenne mountains, got inside each of the vehicles.

  Wright turned to the others that were waiting just outside the school’s entrance. “Mike and Denise you’re with me in the lead vehicle—”

  “I need to stay with Constance and Kevin,” said Denise.

  Wright frowned. “Fine, you three and Brad in the middle vehicle, Mike up front with me. Is that to everyone’s liking?”

  They all nodded and got into their allocated humvee. Mike sat in the seat behind the driver, two other soldiers to his right. The closest looked at him and smirked, making Mike feel self-conscious, and he adjusted his helmet. He felt an imposter in full military kit with an assault rifle to his side, but Corolla insisted. ‘You’re in a war agent, you might as well dress for the occasion,’ said the older man to him. For Constance and Kevin it was less about weaponry and more about body armor. Brad had been tasked with keeping them alive, but Denise felt they were her responsibility and hadn’t let them out of her sight since the incident with the AI controlled officer.

  Static came from Wright’s radio, and he responded by telling everything they are moving out. He nodded to the driver and the small convoy pulled out onto the road. The sun had now tinged the clouds with red to the east, but the west, the direction they were heading was still dark and brooding.

  “It’s going to be bumpy for a few hundred miles,” said Wright. “We need to take some of the service roads across the reservations to avoid Albuquerque.”

  Mike looked out into the decaying night and thought about Alexis, and what she might have been through… He suppressed his anger. He was sure he would need it in the coming days…

  He opened his eyes to early morning daylight and a lack of bumping from rough terrain which he managed to sleep through. He looked to his right. The two soldiers were seemingly asleep, and they were now moving along a two lane freeway with light beige and green desert on both sides, and rust colored rocky hills further back.

  Wright looked over his shoulder. “You get some rest?”

  “I guess I did.” Mike squinted to better see the landscape which sat below a mostly blue sky. Some single story buildings were just visible nestled amongst bushes and faded grass. “Where are we?”

  “Hundred miles west of Albuquerque. We’re about to stop. There are some shacks up ahead, one of which is a truck stop. People can do their business.”

  A roadside sign came and went and the three vehicles took the exit and slid around a winding road, which quickly became more dust track than concrete. Moving past small box like homes, they pulled up to the largest of the buildings, a white wooden multi-roomed construction with a faded painted sign heralding ‘Millies All-Goods store and rest stop.’

  Wright spoke into his radio, telling everyone to keep alert, then looked back at Mike. “Stay here. We’re make sure everything’s okay. Then we’re let you know on your radio that you and your friends can come inside. Got that?”

  “Yup.”

  The soldiers got out and Mike watched them spread out in three different directions, while Wright and two others with him, walked up onto the deck, their weapons pointing down and forward. The sergeant shouted at the closed front door, knocked on it, then with the other two moved inside.

  Mike looked away. His sleep hadn’t rid him of fatigue, and he pulled his helmet off and slid his hand across his face, his fingers brushing over the beginnings of a beard, when there were two muffled pops and voices could be heard shouting. His radio then burst into life with Wright’s voice.

  “Mike, Denise. We need you in here. Over.”

  Mike haphazardly pushed his helmet back on and pushed open the door, taking his rifle with him. Brad was already out of the other humvee, with Denise behind him. “Stay with Constance and Kevin,” Mike said to him. The big man nodded and Denise ran forward. Mike moved in front of her. “Stay behind me.” They both walked up to the creaking steps, the noise being made to sound louder due to the silence within the building they were about to enter. They slowly moved forward. The front door was being held open by one of the soldiers.

  “In the back,” said the young man.

  Mike and Denise walked quickly through a cafe area, with small tables and a few chairs, and into a narrow hallway.

  “In here,” shouted Wright.

  A door to a living room area was open and the two privates inside were holding their rifles square at the head of a man, who was standing roughly six feet in front of them. He was somewhere in his fifties and was wearing work pants and a light gray shirt which was covered in brown and yellow stains. His face was clean shaven but red and blotchy, which stood out from his wiry black and gray hair. Wright stood behind them his handgun pointed in the same direction. Mike looked at the man and went to try to talk to him, as the man appeared to be watching what was happening in front of him, but then realized the man wasn’t moving. It was as if he had been cast in invisible cement, his feet and limbs rigid, unmoving, accept from his eyes, which slowly moved from person to person, until they settled on Mike.

  “What’s happening here, Reed?” said Wright. “I thought this guy was dead and suddenly he springs up like he’s a robot or something! Is he an AI?”

  Denise looked about the room, her breathing heavy. She moved slowly forward, weaving between the soldiers.

  “Don’t get too close,” said Mike, who also had his weapon raised.

  “I don’t intend too,” she replied and walked until she was close enough to examine the man, but still be outside of his reach if he suddenly lunged at her. “He’s obviously alive…”

  “Not shit,” said Wright. “Is he a friggin AI!”

  She waved her hand in front of the man, but his eyes remained fixed on Mike.

  “He’s got a real hard on for you Mike,” said the sergeant.

  Denise reached into the backpack she had, and pulled out a device which Mike hadn’t seen before. It had a small aerial with a meter and digital display. She switched it on and went to move it closer to the man, when his mouth opened and closed, making everyone jump.

  “What the fuck!” said one of the soldiers.

  “Do AI’s bite?” said Wright to anyone who would reply.

  “Not that I know of…” replied Mike.

  The man appeared to be mouthing silent words, until suddenly a voice bubbled up from his throat. Denise stepped back until she hit up against an old cathode tube TV.

  “This is an unnecessary stop agent Richter,” said the man with a rasping sound.

  “I knew it!” said Wright. He glanced at Mike and Denise. “We have standing orders to put them down!”

  “Wait!” said Mike to him then looked back at the man. “You’re connected to the AI?”

  The man’s mouth opened and closed again as if was being operated by a puppeteer. “I am the AI… Alexis Adams is waiting for you, agent.”

  “So it’s true then. Her message?”

  “It is.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?”

  “Why are you stopping? You been doing pretty good against us so far.”

  “I wish to offer a choice to those who wish to join me…”

  Wright scoffed. “This is bullshit, let me put a bullet in its computer brain.”

  “Wait,” said Mike impatiently. “Did you harm her?”

  “No.”

  For some reason Mike believed the organic intercom in front of him. “She’s in Tucson?”

  “She is. She awaits.”

  “The man you control. Will he ever be human again.”

  “He chose to join with—”

  “Kill it,” said Mike.

  “No!” shouted Denise, but before her next breath a volley of bullets tore through the man, sending him back onto the chair he had originally been seated on. She looked angrily at Mike. “I could have studied it!”

  Mike turned and began to walk out of the room. “We need to get going.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Whatever tiredness was left inside Mike, the incident in the store had dissolved. Anger, mixed with frustration and a healthy dose of guilt kept the adrenalin flowing through his system as they moved southwest through New Mexico. Beige cliffs and rocky outcrops slid by in the desert which was broken up by tuffs of grass, bushes and small trees. Whispers of cloud drifted across a cold blue sky.

  He looked into the wilderness stretching for hundreds of miles and wondered if the AI had even got its hooks into this landscape. He remembered his dream from a week or so before. Tiny ants attacked by at the time an unknown enemy, then becoming part of the AI, and his attempts to escape… He leaned his head back and let sleep take him again… He jolted awake.

  “You awake?” said Wright breathlessly from the front.

  Mike’s stiff neck resisted being moved and he grimaced as he peeled his head from the door frame and blinked a few times, then looked at the soldiers next to him whom where transfixed by whatever was outside.

  “Yeah. Where—” The rest of Mike’s words froze in his throat as he looked at what the others were looking at on the side of the freeway. People were standing and watching as they passed by. At first he thought they were civilians who perhaps had been hiding, trying to survive and on hearing the sound of vehicles had emerged, desperate for help, but quickly a numbness settled within him as he realized none of the people were waving, or even moving from their position. He focused on an elderly man as the humvee approached. Small dark eyes were lost within a tanned wrinkled face, but there was no emotion or attempt to flag down the convoy, instead the old man just silently watched as the vehicles kicked up a swirl of dust around him. He finished his sentence as they moved towards larger groups of people. “Where are we?”

  “Outskirts of Tucson…” said Wright. “But can’t say I’m liking the welcome we’re getting…” The sergeant held down the transmit button on his radio. “Everyone stay calm. We keep on driving to the downtown area, unless these people try to block the road. Over.” Others in the two other vehicles acknowledged and they all pushed on as the motionless bodies at the side of the road became two, then three, then even more deep.

  “They… they can’t all be controlled by the AI, can they?” said the female private driving.

  “Hell if I know,” said Wright. “Just keep it steady and stay on this road. It’ll take us right into the heart of the city.”

  Mike looked at hundreds of blank faces. All races and ages, but he knew in reality there was only one entity looking back at him, the spirit mind. He thought back to what the man said in the truck stop. Were these people given a choice and they all voluntarily said yes to what the AI was offering? It seemed far-fetched. Some must have resisted. Did the AI let them go? Where are they? His detective mind demanded answers, but for now he just wanted to find Alexis. One problem at a time.

  Crackling came from his radio, pulling him out of his thoughts. “Mike? Are you—”

  He didn’t need for Alexis to finish to reply. “I’m here! Where are you? Over.”

  “I’m in a bank building. Oldfield bank, on the corner of a junction with West Deltor street and the main freeway into the city. The AI said you would be coming in on that road. They’re everywhere Mike… everywhere…”

  “Just stay inside. We’re almost there. Over.” He looked at Wright who was looking down at a paper roadmap. “How far out?” said Mike.

  “Not far. Four or so miles. Maybe five minutes.” Wright looked at the driver. “Faster.”

  She pushed down on the gas and the vehicles behind did the same and the rows of AI drones stood observing the human infiltration into their city.

  Restaurants, stores, offices and other buildings were just visible over the heads of the thousands that crowded both sides of the four lane road. The convoy sped through junction after junction.

  “Over there!” said Mike. “On the right.”

  “Corner of the next junction!” said Wright into his radio. “Move into the parking lot, turn around and stop near the entrance. Keep the engines running and be ready to get the hell out of here. Don’t stop for any reason! Over.”

  “I just realized there are no other vehicles…” said one of the soldiers next to Mike as the driver slowed then turned sharply into the lot outside the glass paneled building, bumping over a curb slightly. They humvee swung around, then reversed towards the sidewalk near the entrance, the other vehicles doing the same, until they formed a semi-circle around the door to the bank.