Epilogue: All these things that I've done

Two weeks! Two weeks!" Miranda said, sitting across from me at the picnic table. "I've been pulling my hair out for two weeks waiting for you to let me extract your little pack of psychopaths. I see where Stephen and Pranay get their marketing strategies. You might as well have invited Earth First to a shootout. Dear Earth First lunatics, you are cordially invited to the first ever publicly announced Confederacy Extraction. The dress code will be 'heavily armed' and black so we can bury you on the spot we kill you."

"Congratulations ... Commander," I replied. "The new jewelry looks good on you."

She eyed Hank's three support teams; they surrounded the table in outwardly expanding protective circles.

"Congratulations," Hank said without looking up from his computer tablet. Pranay, Stephen, and Dipak stood behind him. Hank slapped Dipak's hand away when he reached down to the touch the screen.

"It was a bone thrown to your advocates in Central Command," Miranda told me. "The folks that don't agree with your methods..."

"They made my methods necessary," I said, interrupting her.

Miranda tilted her head slightly. "They want everyone involved in this onion-fuck out of sight and out of mind."

"They'd line us up and shoot us if they could get away with it," First Sergeant said from behind Miranda. "The AIs aren't saying much, but your metal-head friend made this situation untenable for Central Command."

"I find it interesting that for over a year nobody noticed a new Colony and its Governor were in the books," Miranda said with a tight smile.

The First Sergeant's smile went from ear to ear. "Governor Wild, you are my absolutely favorite person ever! You took politics and shoved it down the throats of soldiers that should be soldiering and not politicking. If those assholes aren't taking it to EF, they are certainly not going to risk a political fight with the Colonial Governors."

"They are still our commanding officers," Miranda told the First Sergeant.

"I was, privately, told to think of myself more as a Colonial Guard than a Marine from now, Sir," the First Sergeant replied with a sly smile.

Miranda shook her head and raised an eyebrow at me. "Basically, they're exiling us!"

"Don't buy into their political bullshit, Commander. They can't afford to exile us," Hank told her. "California has decided to commit mass suicide. Texas may go too far with their Mexico refugee problem; they could be interdicted for proving the AI's right about the worst we can do. There may be public calls for the culling of the refugees soon. It's one thing to accept recycling under the Confederacy terms; it's a whole different thing to show the AIs we'll commit mass murders happily, even when it's against everything we are supposed to stand for. We bloodied Earth First in the Northeast region, but realistically they've still got an organization. Someone will step in to take Senator Win's place. He or she is obviously smarter than the last idiot since they're waiting for Governor Wild to be light years away from Earth. With no political aspirations at the top, EF will be more of a danger to sponsors because Win taught them to shoot first and not to bother with questions."

Miranda nodded slowly.

"In a few months, the very Central Command politicians sending us on our way will be ready to look the other way because it will take the pressure off them, and they can continue trying to figure out what the Human-Confederacy pie looks like so they can grab themselves a slice," Hank shrugged. "After they prepare their denials of responsibility, of course."

"Your idea?" Miranda asked Hank.

Hank shrugged. "I simply made a suggestion to the AI about what we needed for a colony if the Boss survived. It decided to do the paperwork early."

Miranda held out her hand for Hank's tablet. After he handed it over, she touched the screen and showed me the second planet of our new colony.

"Thermopylae," she said. "You might as well call it 'The HellHole'. It has more carnivorous predator species than Earth has species! The AI wouldn't even describe the planet to the Darjee. The planet is in the human-breathing range, but the air is probably the only thing that won't try to kill us. What the hell do you need this planet for? The AI won't let you Terra-form it with that many species on it. Some of them would probably evolve to real intelligence if they weren't so busy trying to kill each other every second of the day."

"Training grounds," Hank said. "You can program all the skills you want into a man. He's not going to believe it until it's second nature, until he KNOWS he can rely on it."

"Do you want the AI to reprogram your mind so that you believe in the skills it gives you?" I asked Miranda. "I certainly wouldn't trust it not to tinker while it's in there."

"At least, Sparta is a reasonable planet," she said, ignoring my question. "A little warm but tolerable."

"The concubines won't be wearing much," Dipak said happily. Miranda rolled her eyes at him. Everyone knew what Miranda really wanted to ask, so we waited. She sighed and shook her head at me.

"How did you do it, Jason?" she asked in a hard voice. "How did you convince an AI to help you?"

I smiled. "How do you attack a computer system, Miranda?"

She raised an eyebrow.

"A virus," I said.

Miranda leaned towards me. "You programmed a virus against the AIs?"

"Don't be ridiculous!" I snorted. "They have millennia advantage over us. It's not like I can download their source code onto my hard-drive. We might not even have a storage medium on Earth that can hold an AI's code."

"Then?"

"They're people, Miranda," I said. "Why do totalitarian governments not allow free speech? Because an idea is a virus, and information is a pandemic."

She tilted her head.

"How do AIs come to a decision when there is more than one viable option?" I asked patiently.

"They come together and reach a consensus," she replied.

"Why?"

"I don't understand, Jason."

"Why do they need to come to a consensus?" I asked. "They are machines."

"They're different from each other," she replied. "They have different personalities. Different ways of doing things."

"That's correct," I said. "They are not a singular intelligence that makes the exact same decision in every situation no matter which machine has to make the decision. They are individuals, and individuals react differently to ideas and information."

She frowned.

"They don't understand us, Miranda," I told her. "I barely understand female Earth Firsters. Every woman at a pickup below the age of menopause will get a ride to safety. It is an exceedingly better strategy for women to make sure that NOTHING interferes with extractions, but there was Estrella playing the part of the EF Princess when any pickup would have seen her safely off-planet. The AIs had the pieces, but they've got as much to learn as Central Command and the colonies. You've seen some of the footage from pickups. The AIs gave passing grades to some people that the First Sergeant and you would do everything in your power to break out of your unit."

"I would right out frag some of those assholes," the First Sergeant growled. "Obviously nobody told the AIs that animals couldn't be made into soldiers."

"What pieces?" Miranda asked me.

"Senator Win for one," I replied. "Hank is right. California is gone! Texas may cross the line and scare the shit out of the AIs. The UK will probably elect an EF Government. Senator Win was close to costing the Confederacy the Northeast region. The entire Northeast, California, and Texas ... how many more electoral votes would he have needed?"

"Win had presidential aspirations?" Miranda asked.

"The motherfucker probably had aspirations to take the Pope's place," Hank told her. "God's too!"

"Texas is Hank's interpretation of events, but the dominoes were going to fall Win's way in the Northeast," I said. "He was far enough ahead of the curve that he could guide the ball where he wanted. If that son-of-a-bitch hadn't been a sociopath, he'd be sitting here instead of me."

"The fall of the US to Earth First could affect other places in the world where things are getting tight between the reasonable thing to do and the fucking nut-bag way of doing things," Hank said.

"The AI consensus must not have thought it likely or else they would have... " Miranda shrugged, not knowing what the AIs would have done.

"We don't know what the AIs think or are thinking," I said. "I needed the idea to enter their thought-space. The consensus would think what it would, but one of them might think differently. One AI might think preventing the extinction of its maker-race was worth trying something different, especially when the upside is so damn big."

"Senator Win wasn't the only idea you wanted to infect them with," she said thoughtfully.

"The Paradox of the Traitor. How do you trust someone that has betrayed everything in their life?" Smiling at Miranda I continued, "Or in the AI's case, how to you trust a loyal man?"

"I don't understand," Miranda said.

"First Sergeant, are you loyal to the Confederacy?" I asked.

"Yes," he replied.

"Are you loyal to the United States of America? A country you fought for. A country you watched young boys die for."

He licked his lips. "Yes."

I stared at Miranda. "Whatever oaths are sworn, a loyal person does not lay down the loyalty they fostered over a lifetime. Loyalty is not an emotion. Loyalty is not logic. Loyalty is principle! What would you do, First Sergeant, if the United States government revoked the Confederacy treaty, invalidated your oath, and called all its ... loyal citizens home to defend their country and countrymen?"

He did not reply.

"They can't invalidate our oaths," Miranda protested.

I smiled at her. "Would you prefer that I say that the President, Congress, and Supreme Court could 'annul' your oaths? How many Marines had it in their minds when they swore their oath to the Confederacy that the US would never come into conflict with the Confederacy? A loyal man does not wake up one morning and discard his loyalty because of pragmatism or survival. That version of loyalty would terrify the AIs because it would mean someday the man could as easily discard his loyalty to the Confederacy."

"The United States of America won't be a country for very long after the Swarm land," Miranda told me.

"Remember The Alamo!" Hank shouted.

"To the Confederacy, soldiers were the most reliable group of people available, but sometimes even family comes second to a soldier," I told Miranda. "Maybe third behind country and unit! The AI chose loyalty as a measure for sponsorship; it was the right decision but it begs the question, what happens if what was never considered comes to be in a man like Senator Win?"