Prologue: Conversation With An AI

Conversation With An AI
Friday, Late May
Fort Meade, Maryland
Office of the Assistant Director
National Security Agency

“Maggie, I’m leaving for my appointment in a minute. Can you have the car ready?” The familiar voice on the intercom stopped Maggie’s keyboarding.

“Yes, Sir. I called for it five minutes ago, General. Do you know how long you will be there, sir?” Maggie tended to mother the General even though he was a bit older than she. She knew he was taking the afternoon off. That was good. He had been working late so much lately. He needed to relax more.

“No, last time they took about an hour, but I have a feeling this one will take longer. In fact, if things go the way I am hoping, I will be busy all afternoon. That’s why I blocked all appointments for the rest of the day. You can head home anytime you get caught up. I will see you Monday, but as I said Wednesday, there is a possibility that I’ll be getting in touch with you at home, tonight. Sarah and I might be taking you and Mei Ling to a long lunch tomorrow. Nothing too fancy dress. It’s not a done deal, but there may be, umm, an employment opportunity for you. Can you get your sitter to cover Saturday from, say, eleven thirty until three thirty? We will pick you up.”

“Sure, Boss. Always glad to have my meals bought for me and you know I get along well with your wife. You should get going now or traffic near the testing center will make you late even with an Agency car and driver.”

“Yes, Mom.” The General had popped out into the outer office as she was still on the intercom. He swiped his card at the door lock and then used the manual key to deadbolt it. Security was always a little bit paranoid in the Puzzle Palace. Maggie took the opportunity to watch her boss’s butt. The General met his car at home every morning at 6 AM. Then he ran three miles while the car followed him. After that the car brought him the rest of the way in to his office, where he showered and got to work. Occasionally he ran with some of the troops on base as well. It made for a very fit man in the suit or the occasional army uniform. Maggie had found him starring in her personal fantasy sex dreams on more than one occasion. She really liked the one where there was a security lock down, they were stuck in the elevator and the air conditioning went on the fritz. She just HAD to take her blouse and skirt off to keep from collapsing from the heat. And of course, he had the heavy suit, so it wasn’t fair to make him wear that and sweat.

“Yo! Earth to Maggie?” Whoops. Guess we got carried away there. “You ok, Maggie?” General Winthrop was standing right beside her desk.

“Uhh, yeah. I was just distracted and thinking about picking up Michael.”

“Ok, Well. Don’t stay too late. Nothing is that important right now.” The General was smiling down at her. She though he had a bit of a twinkle in his eyes.

“See you Monday, Sir.”

Maggie watched thoughtfully as her boss headed down the hall. She could be done in thirty minutes or so, pick up Mike at Little Tykes Day Care and get home early enough to meet the bus bringing Carol home from school. Mrs. Jones had already said she was available to watch on this Saturday if needed and the time she didn’t have to pay for a full day today, would make up for a few hours tomorrow. The only worry she had was confusion as to a new ‘job opportunity.’ Major General Fred Winthrop (ret) was the Assistant Director of the NSA, the National Security Agency. She was pretty certain that her boss was not about to be booted or replaced and she had not heard that the Director was planning on leaving the agency. Although, actually, he HAD been doing a lot of what he had termed “Contingency Training” with his direct Assistants. And, he had been distancing himself from some of the more complicated and long term projects to work on that special one for the Director. The same project that had him working with Mei Ling and looking over ALL of the personnel and security files, mainly for the analysts, the electronics engineers and the programmers. She looked down at the desk to start locking everything down and saw lots of skin. Oh. Oh, My! That was why the boss was smiling like that. She had managed to undo two buttons on her blouse during that daydream. He could probably see to her belly button down her ample cleavage. And she was wearing a very low-cut lacy bra today. How would she ever live that one down?

“Jason, I am sorry, but I don’t know how long I am going to be here, maybe all afternoon. Just keep your phone on and I’ll call when I find out.” Gen Winthrop had been putting a packet of information together until the car pulled up at the CAP Testing Center.

“Yes, Sir. No problem, Sir. I’ll just park here in the shade. There are at least two squads of Space Marines on guard out here now, so the car should be safe and ANYTHING is better than Beltway traffic.”

“Very true. Hey, how did your daughter do in her last high school tennis tournament last week?”

“She blew them away, Sir. Took first place City Wide, then she and her partner took second in the mixed doubles. Karen and I are so proud of her we could bust. And she retook her CAP test last week and bumped it up to a 7.0.”

“Outstanding. Does she have a wish list of people to take in the event of a pick up?”

“Yeah, but she really does not want to even consider going without Karen and I. She doesn’t like to go out without us. We both signed a document that she carries that gives her custody of the kids if she gets picked up and we aren’t there. And she has a short list of school friends and such if there was anything at the school. But now she is worried about being at college and not knowing anyone.”

“She sounds like a good person trying to deal with a difficult situation. I’ll look into it. Maybe I can help. I’ll see you in a while.”

Jason’s bearing and self-confidence suggested ex-military to even a casual observer as he exited the car. The professional observer would notice the watchful eyes; the open hands and think “armed and dangerous”. He made another check of the area before letting the General out of the back seat. The General went inside, Jason closed his door, got back behind the wheel and drove over to the tree that he had picked out to park under.

“Good afternoon, sir. Are you here for your yearly update test?” The cute blonde receptionist liked the look of the confident, forty-something man who carried himself like a soldier and wore his suit like a uniform. Lots of military types were in the area. This one had obviously been an officer.

“Yes, I have an appointment.” He said as he handed over his CAP card. He was slightly amused as he saw the double take on her face.

“Excuse me, sir, but ... You do know that this score cannot actually be improved? I mean, I thought a perfect 10 was only hypothetical, but the scanner says it’s a real card and ... Oh. I am sorry, sir. This is none of my business. Please take the elevator to the third floor and go right in to room 316, Mr. Winthrop.” She could not repress a little giggle. “I usually wish people good luck, but in your case...” As the General walked towards the elevator, she was thinking to herself. “Hmm, he has lots of slots. A perfect 10 gets 10 choices after all. He can take me with him if he wants. Heck, he could just test me right here and I wouldn’t mind a bit. Maybe he could take me home with him to try me out for the long haul.”

<”Good afternoon, General Winthrop. You obviously are not here to improve your CAP score, so what can the Confederacy do for you? Would you like an immediate Extraction?”> Fred thought it was a bit ironic that the AI was using its virtual reality testing system to make it seem as if he was talking to ... a computer.

“No, but, as agreed, I would like one very soon, with some conditions. I know you want to use me in a high level capacity, as that was confirmed years ago, but you also still want me cooperative so that I will work at maximum effectiveness. Agreed?”

<”Agreed, but what type of conditions? We have little leeway. More in your case than in most, but we still have limited ability to bypass the normal limits. We assume from your previous CAP testing that you want your family extracted along with you.”>

“Yes, but that is pretty easy and not in any way a relaxation in the rules since I have the slots available for all of them, even if they didn’t qualify for extraction on their own, as you well know. First, I would like to recap our previous agreement. Over six years ago I was initially contacted by people in our government, who, I later realized, were working for you. For ‘The Confederacy’, that is. They brought me into the NSA to help with the clean up of that agency and the rest of the intelligence services. Shortly after that, I was made aware of your existence and was given to believe that my reward for my efforts would be an eventual extraction and a new job out in the colonies. The Agency has been receiving copies of most, if not all of the Colony reports and after-action reports, both about the Sa’arm and other incidents. I have a pretty good idea of the way things are going out there and of the increasing difficulties attendant with pickups and with testing center security. I have a proposal for a series of pickups, starting with my own, that should be less chaotic and will result in a large number of qualified, previously trained personnel. Also, I have suggestions that should, in this case at least, speed up the total evacuation and colonization process.

“In exchange for that and for my previous service, I want the following. Firstly, I want a new colony, with myself as the Military Governor. I would be in charge of all personnel, equipment and bases on the planet and any of its satellites. The issue of control of other bases in the same system can be negotiated. This concept of one township is a separate colony is a bit ridiculous in a period of modern day communications and travel times.

“Second. I want authorization to raise and train up to a Division. If naval assets are available we could go to an MEF Uhh, that is, a Marine Expeditionary Force. That will take some time to get that many people in place and trained. But I want a sizeable unit based there.

“Third, I want to set up manufacturing facilities to make ourselves self sufficient with the ability to make up to Bengal attack shuttles, A20 close support craft, F50 fighters and other non hyper craft that can be made planet side, as well as the ability to make our own Pods. A lot of the pods are being made by the Confederacy, which is a drain on their resources. Some are currently being made here on Earth, but we can’t count on that production for much longer, between the zealots and the Sa’arm ... Also, I found that not all, but some of the evacuation liners are making three leg trips, not two legs. Start in the Confederacy, pick up a load of Pods, take twenty days to get to Earth, Take a week to three weeks to load the volunteers. Take a month to get to the colony, mostly to let the people adjust their thinking and get used to each other, two to five days to unload the Pods two or more at a time depending on the ship and its tenders. Add another week or so to get back to Confederacy space. Two months per trip and some of these ships only carry ninety-six Pods. That’s ninety-six volunteers and about three concubines each, plus a couple of kids. The biggest ships carry over a thousand Pods, but still, that’s only five hundred volunteers per month per big ship. If we can make our own pods, we can have them in place when the ship arrives. Unload the whole group in a few hours and send it on its way for another trip. Regarding the Bengals, I realize that we don’t currently have anything big enough to carry them, but that is pretty much the biggest non-starship that we can make. “I want two of those big ships for at least ten trips each and one of the smaller ninety-six or similar sized ships for at least one trip immediately and preferably permanently.