Chapter 5

There are all kinds of theories out there about what Artificial Intelligence is going to be like, and look like. Most of the smart people want something that resembles him or herself. Something that he can talk to, hang out with, identify with. They want to talk truing tests and if it can carry on a decent conversation that’s good enough for them.

“Evidently this was a group of Artificial Intelligence’s and our own government was dealing with them.” Max started off our latest meeting to establish what we were going to do about it?

“Is dealing with them Max.” Morgan corrected Max.

“Has been dealing with them for over fifteen years that we know of and we need to decide what we are going to do.” He finished and sat back down.

“Why do we have to do anything?” Nina asked.

“They killed your parents for...” Nina cut Max off.

“That was before I knew what my father was into Max.” Nina said.

“We need to find out what the actual situation is. Have we been invaded. Did we loose the war? What these things are? I for one have a hundred questions that need answering Nina.” Morgan piped up.

“It’s not right what they’re doing to these girls. We know that.” Eve spoke up.

“That sums it up Nina, it ain’t right.” Max finished.

“What do we do now.” Nina conceded defeat.

<I’m still getting useable intelligence from the packages that Jet has made. I have identified some of what seem like major players, and I think I know how they are controlling everybody.> Fred put in.

“So you think you have figured it out Fred.” Morgan laughed.

<Yes ... Yes, I think I do. I think that fifteen years ago our government was invaded. They showed up and proved to the then administration that “resistance is futile” and our government folded. We, well you anyway, were never told and it was business as usual for everybody else.> Fred said.

“What could have scared the government enough to fold like that.” Morgan wondered aloud.

<I checked and that was the time that rouge meteor hit Jupiter. You remembering the scientists telling us how many megaton it was. That was a demonstration.> Fred stated.

“And you think that because they couldn’t do anything about it they gave up ... cooperated with them?” Eve stated the obvious.

“It’s been a trend through out history Eve.” Nina said.

“The question is what are we going to do.” Morgan wanted to know.

“Why do anything.” Doc wanted to know.

“Because we’re human and care.” Nina responded.

“I mean are we going to confront it or hide from it. I mean discretion is the better part of valor and all that good stuff.” Morgan laughed.

“I for one am not going to confront that thing. First of all I can’t even reach it.” Max stated.

<That’s not exactly true.> Fred put in.

“What we’ve got flying saucers that I didn’t know about?” Max laughed.

<Well no not exactly, but I was built by a 4D race similar to yours that had both FTL and interdimentional travel. It should be possible to build and adapt what I know to your current technology. Your race is on the verge of the discovery anyway> Fred stated with what we all felt was confidence.

“You’ve had all this all along and didn’t tell us?” Morgan accused.

<With greater power comes greater responsibility. None of this technology was needed until now, before now it would have been a burden, now it’s a asset.> Fred justified himself.

“So what is this interdimentional travel anyway.” Morgan started.

<It is, in one form anyway, what you all commonly call teleportation. The mass movement of one defined mass from one defined point in the universe to another clearly defined spot. Point to point transference of mass and energy. In another configuration it is an invisible eye and ear in the Saucer or any other defined spot you want to spy on.> Fred happily explained.

“You mean I can spy on that damn Saucer and the White House now Fred?” Morgan laughed.

<Yes, Morgan since we can now define a spot in time and space we can open up a mini vortex like portal inside the ship and with a little trial and error refine it’s position to make it virtually invisible and take us anywhere we want to go.> Fred explained.

“How about a personal transporter?” Nina wanted to know.

<What do you have in mind Nina?> Fred asked.

“If you can create a vortex inside the Saucer I could walk through right?” Nina questioned.

<Possibly.> Fred hesitantly answered.

“If you could make me a tracker unit to wear you could follow me with the tiny vortex. If I got in trouble you could enlarge the vortex and I could jump through and disappear right?” Nina was on a roll.

<I guess Nina, > Fred was becoming leery of where this was all going.

“Then we can invade them anytime we want.” Nina announced triumphantly.

“We could use that to investigate the White House too.” Paula announced before Morgan could.

In weeks I had located the different labs and equipment we needed to create the tools we would need. With Morgan’s help we gained access to everything we needed to set up our von Neumann assembly line. We would be creating tiny von Neumann like devices that would then create the different devices we would need to create what we needed. In no time at all we had it done and put it into use. In a matter of days we had the layout of the Saucer and the White House.

With the von Neumann devices it’s more like cooking than building anything. A dash of copper, a smigen of silver, a recipe to produce your device. Building your device molecule by molecule until it’s finished. When it was finished it was about as solid state as solid state gets.

The device Nina wanted proved to be rather easy for Fred to make, but depended on having something like Fred to run it. It’s entire process depended on establishing an original starting point and working outward from there. Once that point was established it was possible to, through trial and error, to establish other fixed points. Soon we had established a cube within which our device could operate without the need of Fred’s help. It still depended on Fred to establish other points though.

The device Nina wore had two buttons. One was green and one was red. The red button was to call for the creation of a portal at the point Nina was at the time. The green button was to mark where the portal was when became time to use it, after all it was invisible until needed. Right now all portals lead to home, our hangar at March Air Force Base. Eventually we would have other destinations to choose from.

Within days we had sorted out that Fred’s speculations were true we were indeed conquered. The only thing we were wrong about was it wasn’t just the United States. It was us the Russians, Chinese, Japanese, and a representative of the European Union. The Big Five as they have become known in the UN.

So far their demands were simple and straight forward. Each of the Big Five were to provide a fixed number of young viable females, from 14 to 19 years of age, in good physical condition, and capable of bearing children each year. What the Big Five received in return for the girls and controlling their own populations was a limited supply of the “Serum”. The Serum set back the biological clock of any human being by al least twenty years and cured any disease they may have picked up. It worked equally well on both males and females. Each of the Five got 100 doses of it a year.

The Big Five had accepted their slavery, and everybody was satisfied with the arrangement. So satisfied that they had actually killed off any attempts at rebellion from the military and scientific community within their ranks. We had finally found a copy of the propaganda that the Saucer people were putting out to explain their need for women.

It seemed that the Cree, that’s what they call themselves, had developed a society that extensively bio-modified themselves to fit the different environments they encountered in exploring their solar system. They were much more advanced than us, and had become one homogenized mass of people several hundreds of years before the first Chinese Dynasty was founded.

Discovering FTL they set out on their missions of discovery. One of the first worlds they discovered close to them was Earth. At that time they had a “Non Interference Policy” and only observed. They also discovered that life was everywhere, but intelligent life was rare. In Earth they discovered a people both intelligent, but also capable of actually breeding with them.

Recently, a little under a hundred years ago, they ran into a virus that attacked their bodies and modifications through their immune systems. Their “Serum” which had worked for hundreds of years failed to stop this new virus, it only slowed it down. The Cree had extended their lifetimes with the “Serum” and grown extremely old and had a very low birth rate, so there were very few actual Cree left to fight the virus.

One group searching for a solution to their situation created large dense computing arrays that they interfaced themselves with in the hopes of finding a cure for the virus. At first this worked well, but in a reversal of fate the Artificial Intelligence took over the organic component and used it as an appendage to address the real world around it. Other Computers were built and more Cree became enslaved to the machines, of course the Cree involved denied they were enslaved. They argued they were just part of a larger more connected community now, better able to address the problems of the community.

With Cree society dying and falling apart the new hybrid Cree-Artificial Intelligence offered a solution to their problem to the rest of the Cree race in their equivalent of our UN. Every large enough group was given membership and a vote in the Assembly Of Free Beings.

Earth, they said, had a large thriving population and were compatible genetically with the Cree. They would go to Earth procure the necessary volunteers and bring them back here to the Cree Empire and employ them as a labor force until they could find a cure.

At this time the Cree Empire consisted of eight star systems and multiple planets in those systems. Cree had adapted themselves to a multitude of conditions on a number of planets and moons. The Cree that had suffered the most from the new virus were the Cree on the Original Home World and it’s like seven sister planets. They were also the oldest surviving members of the race and the largest users of the “Serum”.

Though some member planets disagreed the motion was carried and the new hybrid Cree-Artificial Intelligence offered to go to Earth and procure the volunteers. So a fleet of three large heavily armed Saucers under the Cree Home World flag were dispatched to Earth. Once here the Cree-Artificial Intelligence, here after refereed to as the CAI, saw how weak Earth really was they decided to take what they wanted by force.

The CAI had three bases on Earth. One on the island of San Yeque, another off the coast of China and another at the North Pole. All three had a Cree based Artificial Intelligence actually running it. The CAI was responsible for the socket on the back of the girl’s necks and the chips in their heads too.

Once the girls had been examined and chipped they were transferred to a Saucer and shipped back to the Home World. We also found out that the large facility at the North Pole was used to entertain large groups of dignitaries who were invited there to inspect what they thought was the current top secret North American Command Center and Doomsday Bunker. Needless to say they were all chipped before they left, though most were unaware they had been. The chip would only come into play if they decided to share their knowledge with outsiders.

At about this time Nina managed to secure a sample of the “Serum” from the North Pole site using a small vortex to pick up a discarded vial that was dropped on the floor and forgotten. True the vial was empty, but it contained enough to allow us to analyze it. It turned out to be mainly stem cells, what researchers call “totipotent,” which means they are able to reproduce and become every type of cell the body uses. Even Adults have some stem cells which can be found in small amounts in most of our bone marrow and fat cells, without them we’d die a whole lot faster.

A week latter I gave us all a lecture on what we had found out so far.

<Where do these “totipotent” stem cells come from your probably asking yourselves. Well after the girl conceives, the baby begins growing in it’s mother’s womb, embryological development, stem cells are the key to growing the various tissues and structures of the baby’s body, and they remain active in growing new tissue throughout childhood. Once you reach the adult stage, stem cell production falls off, but the body continue to provide some cells for tissue that wears out or becomes infected. Aging is the result of this decrease in stem cell production.>

<But these particular stem cells we’re talking about came from embryos that are three to five days old. At this stage of development the embryo is known as a blastocyst and consists of approximately 150 cells. These type of cells are referred to as embryonic stem cells and they are what the Cree are after.> Fred summed it up.

<When you humans discovered the usefulness of stem cells you ran into an ethical dilemma. The most useful stem cells were from the moment of conception to five days later. There was never a question with you of induced abortion and the harvesting of the blastocyst. Even the so called “Morning After Pill” is still violently opposed by some. No the question was when life begins and what constitutes a viable human being. That question still violently divides the human race. To get around the continuous issue of abortion scientists wanting to investigate stem cells developed “cloning”.>

<Well the process of cloning, or somatic cell nuclear transplantation, involves two different cells. The first being a female gamete, known as the ovum (egg/oocyte). In human SCNT (Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer) experiments, these eggs are obtained through consenting donors, utilizing ovarian stimulation. The second being a somatic cell, referring to the cells of the human body. Skin cells, fat cells, and liver cells are only a few examples. The nucleus of the donor egg cell is removed and discarded, leaving the egg ‘deprogrammed.’ What is left is a somatic cell and an denucleated egg cell. These are then fused by inserting the somatic cell into the ‘empty’ ovum. After being inserted into the egg, the somatic cell nucleus is reprogrammed by its host egg cell. The ovum, now containing the somatic cell’s nucleus, is stimulated with a small electric shock and begins to divide and multiply at that moment. The egg is now viable and capable of producing a viable organism containing all the necessary genetic information from just the one parent. Development continues normally after that. After many mitotic divisions, this single cell forms a blastocyst (an early stage embryo with about 150 cells) with an identical genome to the original organism (i.e. a clone). Stem cells can then be obtained by the destruction of this clone embryo for use in therapeutic cloning or in the case of reproductive cloning the clone embryo is implanted into a host mother for further development and brought to term.>

<I only included this information about the long and complicated process of cloning to illustrate the lengths humans go through to obtain what the Cree did naturally with the adolescent female slave workforce we provided them. The girls ovulate, the Cree impregnate, either naturally or artificially. Pregnancy tests are administered and the blastocyst is sucked out five days latter. Girl not even missing a full day of work. In this way the Cree obtained a huge supply of embryonic stem cells in no time at all.>

<The only problem is the Cree-Artificial Intelligence construct has control of all of this and they are withholding this information from the general Cree population.> Fred finished.

“And how do we know all this?” Max wanted to know.

“Because we have tapped into their communication channel and know what they are sending back home.” Nina informed him.

“Back home in the Empire they are thankful that their new colony has been able to help them with a partial cure for this virus. They have been told that we were happy to become part of the Cree Empire.” Morgan put in her two cents.

“Couldn’t we just send a message that we are unhappy?” Max asked.

“Look do the math. 60 girls a month from the 5 major powers comes to 3,600 girls a year. It’s been 15 years so that’s what 54,000 girls. In the big scheme of things that’s a drop in the bucket. The major powers have become used to it and the fountain of youth the CAI is handing out to their pets is cementing the deal. There is no way they are going to allow us or anyone else upset their apple cart Max.” Morgan told him.

“Could we go to the news media?” He asked dejectedly.

“If you want to get killed.” Nina laughed.

“We don’t know they were killed, we just know there are a lot of missing people. They started asking questions and just disappeared. This has been going on for 15 years Max, and this is the first we have heard of it.” Paula laughed now.

“Look I’m not sure even if we could rip away that clock of invisibility around the Saucers up there, and prove that the 50,000 girls have been abducted, we could get a rebellion going. I mean the girls are chipped and they are going to deny it. Besides they are going to tell everyone they are having a wonderful time visiting their new best friend the Cree.

“I can just hear that fat bastard in office right now telling the American people that the reason they had to keep all this secret was to protect the Cree from xenophobic people like us. And I can see the America people buying it. After all they haven’t lost anything in this war.”

“Hell an average of 90,000 people go missing in America each year. 113 to 200 million go missing in the world itself. All we lost on any given year was 3,600, and that’s only 720 girls from America itself. A number easily covered up Max.” Morgan told Mac the facts of life.

“Then what are we going to do girls?” Max asked in disgust.

<We are going to prepare for war, but on our terms Max.> Fred laughed.

“So you think it’s going to come down to that?”

“Yes, The people back Home are demanding more and more “Serum” just to stay even with the virus spread, and the Big Five are demanding more for their own personal use. There are also at least two “black markets” developing that are trying to discover what the “Serum” is and duplicate it. They are pressuring their governments for disclosure.” Nina informed Max.

“Plus we have anonymously informed the Right-to-Life people that the “Serum” is made from unborn children and their President is using it. It should be interesting to note the reactions of him and his cabinet in the coming weeks. All he’s surrounded himself with is those anal retentive fanatics.” Paula all but spit.

“I take it that you have issues with our President Paula?” Max laughed.

“You could say that. We, me and my crew that is, were to get a commendation until one of his good Christian aids interviewed me and my crew. Then my proficiency marks were lowered and I was asked to leave. They would have made it stick if my commanding officer hadn’t gone to bat for me. I still don’t know if it was just because we were women or she found out I was a lesbian.” Paula laughed along with her crew.

“So we’re preparing for war? What do you expect to happen?” Max asked, even though he knew he wasn’t going to like the answer.

<The CAI are going to demand that the tribute in girls to be tripled. That’s going to irritate the Big Five, but in the end they will make it four times the girls, after all nobody will miss them anyway. In return the Big Five will get double the amount of “Serum” for their personal use.>

<We will tip off the Right-to-Life people where the bases to handle the girls are. We will also supply one of his Right-to-Life aids, that isn’t in the loop, a vial of the “Serum” the President is using on himself. The aid can have it analyzed and tested. Believe it or not they do have some legitimate scientist on their team. Hopefully that will isolate him from his base.> Fred chuckled.

“We’re hoping that the Right-to-Lifeers will attack the Islands. We know that they have several large boats, and air planes, even a few helicopters my sources say. We are in the process of convincing them that a large number of girls are being held there and being milked like cattle for their blastocyst of stem cells every week. Hopefully we will even be able to give them the names of the girls being held there this time.” Morgan was really on a roll enjoying herself.

“If it’s disrupted enough maybe the CAI will make an appearance to restore order. Maybe they’ll bring out the Saucers into the open. Maybe the Right-to-Lifeer’s will make it a holly war. All I want to do is disrupt their supply line. Get the attention of the Home Empire. Get them to send somebody to investigate how the colony is doing.” Nina spoke up.