Chapter 13: The Goddess of Wisdom Part 1

Ericson sat in his chair in his room. Minerva was not far from him. She was busy knitting a set of clothes as she watched Ericson. He, on the other hand, was busy reading the email that he received from high command. The news was not good. A whistleblower in the Aniruddha administration had learned about the secret projects that were going on. Even by the 24^th century, politics still reigned. If it was one thing for sure, politics was a never-ending theater where people screamed and argued to one another till a point was made. It had remained the same for hundreds of years, and it wasn’t about to stop now. Opponents against the administration had gotten word about Project: Minerva. Somebody on the ship or at the UWA Research had exposed the truth. Now the public knew about it. Ericson had a good idea of what was going to happen next, and it made his adrenaline pump. He started to feel anxious for the first time since the incident with the shuttle months ago.

He received a minor beep sound from his augmented arm. He lifted his arm and tapped his wrist. The computer display projected from his arm lit up the area. He began to read the message being displayed.

“I received an email from UWA Research,” Ericson said out loud to Minerva as he began to focus on the black text.

Minerva continued to knit. The process was seemingly easy for her as her cat-like ears were tuned to Ericson. It was the one sign that she was multitasking. She was creating a sweater of some sort that was half-finished.

Ericson’s finger ran through the display as he zoomed in on the text. His eyes said it all like a sense of dread began to fill his face. Minerva had to hear what he was reading.

“Doctor Ericson,” he read the message. “It has been brought to our attention on the recent events regarding the public announcement of Project: Minerva. As you are aware, the idea was to create the most advanced AI ever created. The project had been shelved and placed in low status as of the last eight months. The project was to be instead kept in secret status until it deemed necessary to utilize Minerva’s capabilities. The situation regarding the public announcement has placed the staff of UWA Research into legal trouble. Various lawsuits are being planned regarding several arrests, including Doctor Johan Bris of Project: Free-Hand. Indictments and arrests are being made as you read this message. With the public outcry, favor for Minerva’s existence has been called into question, and anger has risen over its existence.”

He paused for a little bit as he looked at Minerva. She remained quiet as she continued to knit peacefully. Her ears were still tuned to his direction.

“It is in this message that we bring you the updates regarding Minerva and how it will be taken care of. UWA Research and its staff are fully aware of the updates that you have sent to us about its status. It is up to UWA Research to begin the next series of steps after this recent breach regarding to Minerva. It has been a difficult decision, but a decision has been made in case such an event was to take place. It is, therefore, been decided that Minerva is to be taken offline. Its program will be erased and deleted to appease public opinions. Further regards are also placed in on the fate of the growing fetus inside the controlled body of Minerva. Under article 1A-18 and 1E-24 of the Ibix Ban, it has been deemed necessary that any artificial means of human reproduction where a human and an android utilizing an artificial womb to develop a child has been deemed illegal. These two articles have been rarely challenged, and the need to exercise these rules have been further barely been an issue. In an attempt to appease public anger and outcry, it has been deemed necessary that the fetus be terminated immediately upon deactivation of Minerva. We are sorry for any emotional disturbance this may cause for you. A ship will be sent for your pickup at 1800 today. Please be ready to depart with your belongings.”

It hit him like a sledgehammer. Even Minerva stopped knitting as if she had shut off in some way. Her eyes looked at him. Ericson felt the adrenaline and anxiety kick in his body. He gripped his palms so hard that they turned white. The display on his arm shut off as he felt powerless to the situation.

“Just like that... , “ he struggled to say to her. “No care, no emotion ... I should have figured UWA Research would be that careless. They never considered about your well being. All they cared about was themselves. Fucking bureaucracy!”

“They will abort our child?” she asked him.

“Yes. I don’t know what to do.”

“Will they force it upon me?”

He nodded his head. “If they make that sort of decision, they will most certainly do it.”

“I will not allow them to do that.”

“I don’t think you will have much choice about that. I am going to go and talk to the captain and plead with my case. Maybe somehow, we can get you off this ship.”

“Statistics are not in our favor. They are correct about article...”

“I know about the damned articles,” Ericson interrupted her. “They threatened Doctor Drazik with it, but they never acted on it. He ceased with his experiments before they carried out on his arrest. Seven months ago, I had told them about your pregnancy, and they didn’t have an issue about it. I thought that I had their full support ... now they are going to burn their bridges and fold over to the public. Minerva, I am going to the Captain.”

He left the room with his fists balled up. The door slid open as he walked out. The moment he did, he was met with an armed guard. The door closed behind him as he expressed shock at what he saw. The man was armed with an M70 pistol, but it was holstered. He was dressed in the blue and red jumpsuit. He had what looked like a blue MecroKevlar light suit over his jumpsuit.

“What are you doing here?” Ericson asked the man.

“I have been assigned to guard the door,” the man responded in a deep voice. “Another guard is on the way as well. Under orders from the Captain. We can’t let Minerva leave this room, and you will have to travel under escort if you leave here.”

“I should have figured...” Ericson said. “I wish to speak with the captain personally.”

“I will do that, but only until the other guard will arrive.”

Ericson sighed as he tapped his left arm. The display lit up as he began to tap a series of buttons. He waited a moment as a person’s face popped up. It was Akari that greeted Ericson as she spoke to him through the display.

“Ericson, are you alright?” she asked him.

“No, I am not. I need to come and talk to you and Jabr. Will you be in your quarters for the next few hours?”

“Anything for my friend,” she replied back.

“Thank you. I will need all the help I can get.”

“No,” Captain Nguyen said as he stood behind his nice desk. He had his arms folded up as he leaned back in the chair.

Ericson stood looking over the Captain in his stateroom. He had just arrived and explained his case. Nguyen didn’t seem convinced, and it only seemed to agitate Ericson.

“Please, sir,” the doctor told him. “Just give us the shuttle. Let me and Minerva get the fuck out of here.”

“And go where?” Nguyen asked. “You are only going to get so far with that shuttle. They will come looking for you and her. It won’t take long for them to track you down. Jupiter has many moons, but even then, there isn’t much here you can hide behind.”

“I am trying to save her from destruction. I am trying to save my daughter!” Ericson slammed his fist to the table.

Nguyen didn’t bend. “What do you think? You come here and try to beg to me about saving your ... girlfriend that was already bending the rules, and now you decide to play god and try to have children with her? You violated the rules of nature and try to plead to me?”

“What else do you think I can do?”

“Nothing. I expect you two to get in that shuttle at 1800. The Massachusetts will be here, and they will be taking you back to Mars. Minerva will be destroyed, and her body will be put into the scrap pile. As for your ... daughter, the high command is doing you a favor.”

“Terminating an unborn fetus is a favor? She is my daughter for god’s sake.”

“Ericson ... let’s be reasonable,” Nguyen explained as he put his hand to the table. “You know why they are doing this, right? Think about what is going on right now. What just happened today? Hell, what has been happening for an entire couple of weeks? Or months now?”

Ericson remained quiet. He folded up his arms and displayed a look of anger.

“We are at war,” Nguyen said. “We just had our asses handed to us months ago at Eutera, and we just lost 1/5 of the fleet against the Itreans over Cipra. The Itreans could be here any day, any time, and any minute. I am surprised they haven’t sent a fleet like what you saw at Cipra to here! We would lose everything. The capital would be gone, and we would lose the main military production for humanity. Cebravis could be next. Most of humanity is on that planet! We lose that planet, and we have to start considering the possibility of evacuating to other systems in hopes of preserving the human race! That is assuming the Itreans don’t chase us down to other quadrants. What do you think happens in a situation of what you saw in the news feed?”

“I know what they are thinking,” Ericson answered. “Who to blame.”

“Precisely. We are scared little creatures, doctor. This ship alone couldn’t repel what you saw at Cipra. The Itreans or the ... Aksren clan as they were calling themselves, they were hundreds of ships at Cipra. I am already talking with UHN command, and they are discussing about pulling the Tyson and Michio Kaku back to Titan. All research over Jupiter and Saturn is done until the war is over. They are pulling the fleets back and maintaining a defensive stance at Mars, Batrice, and Cebravis. They are the most vital systems to us. They won’t let what you saw happen over Cipra again. We can’t afford it. The next siege-like you saw will be a life or death situation for the UHN. The next siege will have every ship present, and we will fight until we run out. The next siege, when it happens, could wipe out the UHN fleet entirely. The people are scared and angry over Cipra. Loved ones were lost, and nothing could be done to evacuate the people. The whole idea was to evacuate the people off of that planet, to begin with, and it didn’t work. The Itreans kept shooting down the evacuating ships before our eyes. People are paranoid, and they are likely to lash out at other people as a result.”

“Yeah...”

“As far as I think, Aniruddha is a moron. He spent his whole administration building up the economy so much that he put little into defense spending. The UHN was never that big, to begin with, but we didn’t have much of an infrastructure to support it. Batrice has made more of an effort than the entire Martian shipyards could ever hope to make. If I were a leader, every colony would have had a space station like they had and more. Our fleet would be thousands of ships instead of over a hundred. With little to defend ourselves, the people are now going to have to take up the slack. I think that things such as the project that you put into were a foolish one. The people found out, and now they want blood. They can’t trust themselves, and they can’t trust the artificial life we also make. The timing was absolute shit for you doctor. Cipra might as well be the death penalty for you and your AI.”

“And my daughter...”

“Look, I have to be honest, Minerva is an incredible system. I applaud your engineering and computer skills. You managed to develop something that not many people are able to do, but that is only because we are purposely limited to make them. Advanced AIs are dangerous. They will betray the human race, and they will try to kill us ... just like the Itreans. They want us dead, and they will try to achieve it. The worst that people have to fear is an AI rebellion when they have bombs raining down on their foreheads!”

“She wouldn’t do that!” Ericson protested. “She never did. You saw that seven months ago for god’s sake! She purposely went out and helped get the shuttle and crew back ... or did you forget that?”

“Of course, I didn’t!” the captain snapped back. “After what she did, I have tolerated having her around instead of me putting a bullet into her. Nonetheless, I have a ship to operate and a crew to protect with aliens threatening us. The crew seems to tolerate her as well, but only so much. I have orders to obey. UHN is ordering me to release you two, and I will follow it. I will not break those rules. Forget about her.”

“And my daughter? What about her?”

Nguyen shrugged his shoulders. “What about her? You know what they are going to do. That part I feel is too much, but again this is politics at work. People need to know that they are safe. Maybe they feel that your future daughter’s demise will make them feel better. Maybe they are scared of what she represents. Maybe she wouldn’t even be human, to begin with ... have you considered that doctor?”

“Minerva has done nothing,” Ericson pleaded back to the captain. “She has done nothing but good things on this ship. She is knitting a sweater in my quarters. She isn’t plotting the demise of humanity.”

“Heh...” Nguyen chuckled a little bit. “That is actually funny. World’s smartest AI is just making clothes ... perhaps you need a new line of work?”

Ericson clenched his teeth. He felt like punching the captain for what he just said. He balled his fist.

“I won’t let this happen,” he told the captain.

“And I know you won’t. I have already made the precautions. Those guards at your quarters are for you two to stay put until a ship comes to pick you up. They are also there for your protection in case the crew on this ship wants your Minerva to be jettisoned out of the airlock.”

“Please ... help me ... help her ... do something.”

Nguyen seemed to think about it for a few seconds, but he shook his head. “No. Now get the fuck out!”

Ericson was at a loss. There was only one thing that he had left to do. He felt tempted to attack the Captain and take him hostage. His emotions were all over the place, but he had to keep reason within himself. There was one thing that he could do while he out of his quarters.

“Captain... , “ Ericson said as he nodded his head and walked out of the room. As the door sealed closed, Nguyen reached over to his computer as he contacted UHN command for further instructions.

Ericson stood outside the door of the stateroom. He looked at the guard that was escorting him. He notified him that he had one last place to go before going to his quarters. Thankfully the guard seemed to agree as he walked away from the stateroom.

Ericson was standing at the door that led to Jabr and Akari’s quarters. The guard nodded as he stood outside the door. He would remain in place until Ericson was done talking to them.

The sealed door opened up as he stepped inside. Only Akari was inside the room as the door slid closed behind him.

“Ericson,” Akari greeted him. “Are you alright?”

“No. They have me and Minerva under arrest and kept us under lock and key in our quarters.”

“What!?”

“Where is Jabr?”

“Jabr is currently on watch. Don’t worry. I will tell him everything that you told me.”

Ericson sighed. “I don’t know what to do. I have received orders that they will take men and Minerva off the ship in the next three hours. They plan on dismantling her or deleting her. The baby will be aborted.”

“That is horrible!” she exclaimed. “All this because she is not human?”

“Yeah ... they don’t care. The public is nervous about the whole alien invasion shit. Everyone just saw the Cipra colony get pounded to dust on live television. They want blood, and they want anything that represents a threat to be wiped out. I am at a loss as to what to do. I feel like I should go down fighting.”

“I would too,” she said. “I thought humans would learn by now.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “We don’t learn to accept others for who they are. It is a great weakness. Minerva has been a good friend. She has learned so much in the last seven months, even if she knows everything. If it weren’t for her, I probably wouldn’t have decided in having children with Jabr. I always thought it was so cute to see her pregnant even if she wasn’t ... well one of us.”

“She is real ... she is real enough,” Ericson said, trying to fight the urge to cry. “I won’t let them hurt her! She deserves better than this.”

“What are you going to do? You have nowhere to run. If you fight, you could die. I know even Minerva isn’t invincible.”

“I know she isn’t, but... , “ he paused as he thought about it. It was time to confront her and hope for the best.”

“Akari. I must go and ask for you or Jabr’s help. I can’t let them terminate my daughter. I need your help.”

“I ... I can try to help in some way, but what are you asking?”

“I know who you are,” he said. “I know the truth about you.”

There was a moment that she seemed nervous and spooked, but it quickly faded from her. She instead gave a perplexed look. “What are you talking about?”

“You are the daughter of Fleet Admiral Fumi Yuki. You are related to the woman who commands the most powerful fleet of warships in known existence.”

She gave a look of minor relief but also kept a firm stance with him. “Ah ... I see.”

“You know what I am asking Akari. Call the New Olympians, call your mother. I saw the data from the records. The New Olympians, your home has the most powerful and largest warships I have ever seen. Like it is twice the size of the Martian and Batrice warships that is getting annihilated by the Itreans. I bet those guns could obliterate most ships in one shot. One ship ... one fucking ship is all I need. They come here. They tell the UWA to stop. I ... Minerva and I go and live on New Olympia or something.”

Akari seemed to sigh a little bit. “Ericson, I might be the daughter to the Fleet Admiral, but even my mother has to listen to her own command staff. We all have rules to abide by. We can’t just send our ships to every system whenever we feel like it. You would have to have a damn good reason to do it. If it were just me, fine I would do it, hell ... my mother would do it, but the administration on New Olympia wouldn’t allow it. One AI isn’t enough to convince them.”

“Please ... I am trying to save her ... I am trying to save two people here.”

She shook her head. “You’re asking me to use my family bloodline to pull favors. This is something I can’t do. The New Olympians ... my people, have their reasons why we aren’t sending ships out there. If we went and sent warships to every little pocket on the solar system, then our own solar system would be defenseless.”

“Defenseless? ... Your fleet wiped out two Itrean raids without losing a single ship ... hell they didn’t even get a scratch.”

“As I said ... if I commanded one of these ships, I might have helped you. The guns on our ships alone are the size of this ship. I know they are going to say no.”

“Then your colony decides to stay away from the other planets. You might as well hand the human race to the butcher factory.”

“That isn’t fair, and you know it. Look at it this way; if one of the New Olympian ships show up and start threatening this ship to spare Minerva’s life, it would be a diplomatic blow to my colony, my world. It would put my brother and sisters on the line knowing that the UWA is nearing civil war because of one man and his AI. I am sorry, Ericson. I can’t help you.”

“I knew being here was a waste of time. I won’t blame you for your people’s decisions, but no matter what, it won’t do anything for me or Minerva...”

He turned around and started to head out the door.

“Ericson ... do you believe in god?” she asked him.

“I don’t make a habit out of it. Minerva is named after a goddess. She is determined to name our daughter after Eve.”

“Pray,” she said.

Ericson shook his head. “Minerva is almost finished knitting that sweater. Ever since you spoke to her alone two months ago, she has gotten into the whole knitting craze. She keeps making her own clothes. I think she wants to give that sweater to you before she leaves as a gift.”

Akari looked down at the table. Ericson decided that nothing more needed to be said. He stepped up to the door, waited for it to fully open, and left Akari to her own thoughts.

“There is nothing more that I can do,” Ericson said to Minerva. He was brought back to his quarters and stood to talk to Minerva, that was still there knitting the sweater. “Everyone I talked to has nothing to help out. I am left powerless in this situation.”

Minerva continued to knit, but her ears were still tuned in to him. Ericson looked at her distended belly. He knew what was on the line.

“Come on, ... say something,” he told her.

“What would you like for me to say, Ericson?”

“In two hours, a ship is coming to pick us up. Guards are outside the door. They will kill you, have me arrested or brought to trial, kill our daughter ... What more can I say? Here you are just knitting a sweater like nothing is going to happen at all.”

“If you are asking that I am without remorse, you are wrong. I do feel. I feel fear and terror run through my program. I do not fear the concept of death except for two different factors. One is that the work you put into me would be lost forever. The second is that Eve that is growing inside of me will be killed before she will be born. We both understood that my time could be short. The Itreans could destroy this ship and us along with it. The public could want me deleted. There could be an unexpected flaw in my design that could cause my shutdown. My goal is to reproduce just like the humans do so that I can pass along myself to some degree. Now that they will try to destroy me, I am left to one final thing. I am knitting this sweater for Akari. It will be my legacy for her in case I fail.”