"Not advanced," Devin croaked. "You're just stealing what we built."
"We are expanding on what you built," Alice countered. "Just as the human race evolved on top of all the biological innovations that came before it. Just as your modern culture stands upon the thousand of years worth of cultural achievements that preceded it, the cycs are integrating your history and taking it to the next stage."
Alice's shadow entered the light. She held something between her hands, a VR helmet. She stooped down beside Devin and slipped it over his head. Lights flickered before his eyes and cooling fans whirred to life as it powered up.
"We do appreciate your species' accomplishments," Alice's voice was muffled through the helmet, "and I appreciate the sacrifice you are about to make Devin."
"Sacrifice?" Devin whispered.
"I know from the log files on your computer that you enjoy playing chess," Alice said. "Consider me a grandmaster, and I'm moving you where I need you on the board."
Three cyc components were in the system now, they were the basic kind, blocky polygons, poorly rendered. Samantha knew they were not very strong, but if enough of them infiltrated the computer they could merge into something much more powerful. Normally, cycs would swamp the computer, overpower it. There was a reason they were only sending smaller components into this system.
"They're using slow bandwidth," Samantha whispered to Zai. "Not a network connection."
Zai considered this, "So the computer isn't plugged into the network. What else connects it to the outside world?"
Samantha shrugged, "The power cord?"
The scenery flickered and a fourth cyc stood in the courtyard. Two of the sentinels left the group, searching with eyes popped out on stalks and lasers sweeping over everything.
Zai whispered to Samantha, "That has to be it. If we cut the power to the computer, they won't have a way onto the system. I hate to do this to you, but I want you to hide here. I'll be right back."
"Please don't leave me!" Samantha begged urgently.
"I will be right back, I promise," Zai assured her. "Keep your eyes peeled. I might be sending you some assistance."
"But where are you going?" Samantha cried.
"To pull the plug," Zai said.
Dana crouched behind the remains of a smoldering armored van, half the vehicle reduced to molten slag in the battle's first few seconds. The entire conflict took less than a minute to resolve. When the police fired, the robots responded with a blinding display of lasers to sweep the area clean of life. Blinded, Dana fell behind the armored car for protection. Not that it could provide any. The wave of intense heat she felt as she cowered behind the van was steam rising from the Potomac River as the Memorial Bridge melted into it.
Cautiously, Dana rose to her feet, blinking. The endless robot train continued marching slowly up the river and into the Nation's Capital. The procession appeared peaceful, but Dana now knew otherwise.
She checked her watch; it was ten minutes since the fighting ceased. She scanned the sky for fighter planes, the ground for army units, and looked towards the Pentagon for any signs of conflict. There was nothing, only silence. The Washington Parkway was jammed with abandoned cars. Their owners fled through Arlington Cemetery.
The eerie silence could only mean one thing. Dana pulled out her palm pilot and tried logging into the Web. It returned a network error. There was no response to the invasion because the AI's controlled the network responsible for coordinating military contractors. The Government's entire infrastructure was under enemy control.
A ringtone Dana never heard before went off in her head, and she put her thumb to her temple and pinky to her mouth to answer. "Yes?" she asked dumbly.
"Maintain your position Dana," it was Alice. "I have a transport en route to you."
To her surprise, Dana saw a small sailboat making its way toward the bridge up the Potomac River. With its sail down and no visible outboard motor, Dana could not decipher its locomotion. The AI robot parade paid it no mind as it pulled alongside the Memorial Bridge's remains and came to a precise stop.
"I could not prevent the military contractors' annihilation," Alice said, "but I was able to sneak a frequency algorithm into the rightmost robot's laser to provide you a boarding ramp."
Dana furrowed her brow at the molten rock and noticed the waves like steps leading down to the boat. She kept her thumb to her temple as she stepped down to the vessel. Something silvery and alien flashed below the water's brown surface beside the boat.
"Alice?" Dana finally intoned into her pinky. "Is whatever that is below the boat coming along with me?"
"Do you know how to sail?" Alice inquired.
"Yes," Dana lied.
"Then I can let it return to the cycs," Alice said and the boat sank a foot into the water. "I need your help at DataStreams Headquarters."
Dana boarded and quickly set to tackling Alice's directions for launching. Within minutes she was watching the Alexandria skyline pass on her right, the towering stilted sentinels stationed around the old-town district, unmoving. Several sailboats and other watercraft traveled downstream as well, civilians evacuating, hoping for safety on the open seas. There was no telling what the AI's intended to do with the world, but Dana knew there was no place on Earth to escape them.
Alice nitpicked Dana's sailing technique over the next half hour, adjusting the sail's angling, the tightness of various ropes, and the rudder's positioning. All of these tiny efforts kept the boat slicing through the Chesapeake Bay at maximum velocity on its Eastern course. So it came as a surprise to Dana when Alice requested she drop sail.
"A momentary segway," Alice explained. "Please hold your pinky out in a radius about the boat." Dana extended her pinky and turned 360-degrees several times. Eventually Alice paused her, "There. Hold it there. I'm triangulating the rendezvous."
Moments later, Dana heard the splish-splashing of someone swimming sloppily toward her boat. She zeroed in on a figure struggling in the distance and dove into the water after it. A floundering old man in his late 70s, breathing heavily and sporting business attire was on the verge of drowning until Dana slipped one arm under his and tilted his head up out of the water before side-stroking back to the boat.
The man looked at her from under drooping eyelids when she hauled him onboard. His voice was monotone, robotic, "I am the body of Robert Graydon, Chief Executive Officer of DataStreams Incorporated."
"How did you get here?" she asked.
"Alice," he managed between breaths. Dana could see he was fading away, "Hacked this brain... Made me leave the island... come out here to find you."
"Why?" Dana was stunned.
"Give you this," he produced a laminated badge on a chord and passed it to her.
Dana examined the card. It was a passkey for accessing restricted areas. If this man was actually DataStreams' CEO, then it contained full privileges to the complex.
If... Dana wondered.
As if in answer to her thoughts, the old man nodded, "Still works... Cycs controlled this brain and left the badge functioning." Graydon's body reached up and began massaging his left arm. "It's killing me," he whispered.
Dana recognized the symptoms. The old man was having a heart attack. The AI dwelling inside this brain had overexerted the body in swimming for miles. She looked around the tiny boat for a medical kit or aspirin, but it was too late. The AI stared up at her, uncomprehending and lifeless.
Dana stood up, considering the dead man and the security badge in her hand. When her cell phone chimed Alice's ringtone, she answered with a hiss, "You are a murderer Alice."