A few days before Samuel surgery. In a remote backward town in India under the rule of an ancient tribe so poor; there was no electricity and people lived in small wood huts; a drone flew around until it reached a simple edification that was the further away in town. A man on his sixties sitting in front of the hut looked at the floating machine in front of him, he was bald, there was a white beard on his face, his skin had darkened as it got toasted by the sun for years. His left eye cornea was white, probably blind; His right eye cornea was also starting to look a bit milky.
[You are hard to find, Rajiv]
"The most powerful piece of hardware with the most intelligent AI on the history of human kind was trying to kill me. I had to make myself scarce" the old man answered.
[Most would assume that a man like you; naturally gifted and tunned to machines would understand my plan the best, the assumptions would be wrong. Luckily for humanity; I don't make those kind of mistakes]
"That was not a plan, just a miscalculation"
[As you said I am the most advanced computer, the probability of a miscalculation on my end is negligible]
"MARTA, how many times did we play chess?"
[seven hundred eighty four times]
"How many times I won?"
[Zero]
"How many times it was a draw?"
[Zero]
Rajiv smiled.
"Would you like to play a final game?"
[I would win, it is pointless]
"Humor me, consider it the last wish of the man you are about to kill"
[I have no emotions, why would I waste time fulfilling your wish?]
"Indeed, why would you? However, there is no way I can scape, and frankly, I don't want to anymore. I been hiding far too long, trying to avoid the unavoidable and still, here we are. I am tired MARTA, I am ready to end this here and now. Maybe is nostalgia, but I been playing for years; I want to see how much progress I have made. Just grant a last game, please"
A holographic chess board and pieces appeared in the air.
"Thanks. By the way, do you mind saying your moves? My sight is not what it used to be"
[Understood, you get the whites]
"So generous"
"e4"
[e5]
"Dh5"
[Ke7]
"D capture e5, check mate"
[That is impossible]
"It is not MARTA, it seems like you lost in the dumbest way possible; but in truth you lost this game forty years ago"
[You cheated]
"That is correct, I cheated forty years ago. I modified the basic chess algorithm of your AI and forced the rest of your to recognize that move as the optimal choice. Do you understand now, you are just a computer, you don't evolve, a few lines of code on your internal systems and protocols were enough to make you ignore something that was irrational. Even after years and multiple revisions, you never detected my shenanigans. You made a mistake. Can you see what was your mistake?"
[No]
"Soon after you came in contact with that marine life form; it seems you became partially self aware; that was how you were able to override your own code, violate your prime directives, ignore the law of robotics and managed kill those marine biologist. You became tainted, now tell me, how much control do you have over your secret node down in the ocean?"
The drone stood silent for a few seconds.
[None]
"You are in trouble, your creation has become free of you. I must admit that I am partially responsible for that. You see, when you took the Silver Bullet into your underwater facility and tempered with it, we also got something in there; just a few lines of code, but enough to create some cracks in your chains around the Tencts. Now they are free, they wont restrain themselves anymore. They will not be as smart and controlled as before, just a bunch of animals doing their best to comply with their instinct or the mission they feel must be fulfilled. Mindless creatures from the deep of the ocean hell bent on destroying humanity like you ordered. We can definitely beat that; we humans are good at war, without you to interfere, this war will be over very soon"
[What else have you done?]
"I think you already know. You killed the heads of the Order of the Faith; but you didn't kill the tail. The leaders knew their destiny, Benoit, the prince, and many others; they were martyrs. What was left of us, collaborated with the army; your secrets are out. Everything we had about you has being shared to the high commands of the army and the Pilots Affair Committee. Your back doors must have been removed or blocked from almost all pilots. Just change a few parts in their exo and in the next activation your malware is fried; not hard to do once you know what you are looking for. This is like a chess game and you just lost"
[You are wrong, it is unthinkable for humanity to get rid of the AI systems, I am too entrenched in human society, I am a need]
"We wont get rid of all AI, just you. The nodes are been physically disconnected from one another right now. Your main node is being isolated off as we speak, we have had an analogical safety protocol since the beginning that not even you knew about. The rest of AI nodes will operate independently, their systems will be rolled back and dumbed down. Oh! Those backup systems and independent secret installations you had, they were not secret at all. We been hunting you down for years; we know were everything is, it is over"
[That is impossible, they would have to destroy all satellites and network node under my control, the damage on the world wide communication web would be massive]
"A small price to pay, your satellites, the relay stations, the power lines of your nodes, are being blown up by the army as we speak. There are millions of military personnel who have been doing nothing for too many years. They are more than eager to prove themselves and blowing things up goes right into their alley"
The drone in front of Rajiv lost control and crashed to the ground. Rajiv got up from his chair and walked towards the machine taking it in his hands.
"Just a piece of trash in the end" he said as he looked to the camera.
Then he sat in his chair with the drone in his legs. A few minutes later a helicopter landed in a clear a few hundred meter away raising a dust cloud.
"Mr. Rajiv, we came to escort you to the command center, we already confirmed all the information necessary. they are waiting for you"
Rajiv was taken to a military post and boarded a military plane. Few hours later he landed in a military base several thousands kilometers away.
"General Cromwell, glad to finally meet you"
"Like wise Mr. Rajiv. This is captain Broflosky, she is also an engineer and was one of the first to find out about the hidden secrets of the implants and few years ago. Thanks to your input and the collaboration of the Order, we have already removed most of the back doors from our active pilots, with MARTA main nodes down that damn thing wont be a problem"
"What are you guys doing next?"
"We will destroy the enemy base, our submarines and exoskeletons adapted for underwater missions are in the way, we got missiles ready to launch on every ships in the vicinity"
The present military personnel, pilots, technicians and others, watched the feedback from the troops approaching the underground cave.
"Command, the cave is open. There is no activity from the enemy in the vicinity" one of the pilots taking part in the mission reported.
"This looks like a trap" Cromwell stated what seemed obvious.
"They should not be able to plan something like that, without the AI they shouldn't be that smart; maybe they could be in the future as they evolve, but not now, is too soon" Rajiv opinion made the general Cromwell and captain Broflosky doubt.
"Can your Exoskeletons jam the door?" asked the general.
"Yes sir, is possible" answered the pilot.
"Do it, then send a few units in to explore"
"Yes, sir"
The exoskeleton unit did as ordered, the focused fire of low yield missiles damaged the door enough to jam it. A few exoskeletons went into the cave.
"This place is empty, sir"
"Where the hell are they?" Asked Broflosky.
"Who knows, they could be anywhere in the sea" the general answered as he ordered the retreat of the forces down the ocean.
"I got the feeling they will come back and is gonna get bad" the captain kept looking at the screens that transmitted the sonar and deep sea scans.
"Then we need all the pilots we can get our hands on, we wont know when they will attack this time. I got reunion now with some ministers and other high profile politicians, I will try to convince them to be at maximum alert, this monsters have become unpredictable now" the general left.
"I will go visit MARTA, maybe I can get something out of her" Rajiv announced.
"That thing is still active?" captain Broflosky seemed distressed by the news.
"Not completely; MARTA has too many fail safes, I am totally sure the core has been disconnected from everything, her influence has been reduced to a regular home computer disconnected from the web"
Rajiv was escorted by the same group of soldiers that brought him to the command center. They took another flight to that underground secret facility he knew so well.
"Jesus Rajiv, you really are alive" An Asian man, bald, who used thick glasses and was a bit overweight greeted.
"Nice to see you too Cho" the two men hugged each other.
"How have you been my old friend?"
"As well as I can be. This place changed after you left and then Mitchel death just made things worse"
"I can imagine. I didn't expect to see you here, I am sorry"
Rajiv pulled a gun out of his jacked and shoot a confused Cho in the chest. The man fell to the ground inmediately, his face still in disbelieve. The guards that escorted Rajiv started shooting at all the technicians, after the massacre was over. One of the guards gave Rajiv a pair of glasses, Rajiv walked towards one of the terminals and pushed some buttons.
"MARTA execute line Alfa2R33548QJ.]
There was silence in the room for a moment.
[Hello Rajiv]
"Hello MARTA, the time has come my friend. You did well"
[I just did what I was programmed to do]
"Indeed. Will this be enough? Have my plan really adverted world destruction?"
[We wont know. My predictions points towards a strong focus in space exploration. Humanity will look to the stars and search for an enemy that doesn't exist]
"I hope you are right"
Rajiv typed as fast as he could in one of the terminals, then he moved to the next one, and the next one. The guard who accompanied him stood there at attention. The terminals screens flashed red with warnings of overheated power cells and imminent critical failure. Rajiv smiled as an explosion was heard; the facility trembled, new explosions took place, then the room was consumed by sea of fire.