Chapter Twenty-Two – Welcoming

Chapter Twenty-Two – Welcoming

“Arthur R Martin was the first person to ever be jailed for AI-related crimes. He used an open-source learning AI to create a model of the stock market, then let it run predictions until he was able to finally create a model that had a 68% accuracy rate for short-term stock changes.

His initial investment was $10,000USD (190,000 credits today). Within a month he had $1,645,782,257USD. He was, of course, arrested, tried, and sentence to prison where he committed suicide by self-strangulation.”

–It’s Just Math, first edition, 2026

***

The nanomachines are in position to be delivered.

I glanced up as Myalis delivered the message. I was heading out of the mall, except I realized when I was nearing the exit that I was a bit peckish, so I got into line at a spicy chicken place that was still operating despite the apocalypse.

“They are?” I muttered.

Indeed. I’ve confirmed it for myself, but General Wilkinson has sent you a text message to tell you that the team sent with the payload has arrived at the museum. Are there any reasons we shouldn’t deploy the nanomachines?

“None that I can think of. Give them the green light,” I said.

Then I had to step up and make my order. Mild spices, some rice, a random selection of toppings that I didn’t care much about, all cooked by a greasy-faced twenty-something instead of the usual machine because that machine was shoved off to the side and was clearly inoperable.

Probably couldn’t get a good signal to the franchise headquarters so they just hired this guy to do all the work manually, like they used to in the past.

And they’re deploying. It will take some time to have all of the nanomachine slurry travel across the root system.

“Hmm, how long, more or less?”

Between two and six hours. As more tunnels and branches are discovered, the time scale increases.

“Did we send nearly enough of those nanomachines to cover a system that extensive?” I asked.

Given infinite time–and presuming that the antithesis stops growing–a single nanomachine would be enough. As it is, yes, the amount dropped should be enough to cover what has been uncovered so far. Though the harm they’ll cause with so few acting at once will be light.

I nodded along. “Then we should dump more into the system. Maybe we can start by finding ways to access the bits of the hive under Downtown. If we poison those first then at least we won’t have aliens crawling out behind our frontlines.”

A sensible idea. I’ll set the cat drones to find exit points that are nearer to the surface.

I got my order, paid by connecting my augs to the store’s tapless payment chip, and then headed off while undoing the front of my helmet so that I could stuff myself while walking. “How are we doing with everything else?” I asked.

Your untrained army of civilian conscripts are being mobilised to the front lines. Another group of civilians containing a number of civil engineers are building a second line of defences. Sprout has planted new plants along a full third of the outer perimeter. Manic and Arm-a-Geddon are taking care of a number of scouting antithesis and Gomorrah is installing remote-operated turrets along the first defensive line.

“Which direction are the antithesis that Manic and Arm-a-Geddon dealing with coming from?” I asked.

The west, same as Lake Champlain.

“Hey, can you snoop around and see which direction most of the attacks and probes came from over the last few days?”

Over seventy percent of all antithesis sightings and approaches have been from the west, with an additional twenty percent from the north and the remainder coming from the south and south-east.

River Heights was taking those from the north, then, and the rest… All from the same direction as the lake? I didn’t know if antithesis could swim, but I guess there was no reason they couldn’t. They were plants, did they even need to breathe the way mammals did? Some models could certainly live underwater without any difficulty.

I sense that you’re thinking in the right direction.

“How many aliens are in that lake?” I asked.

Likely a number that’s much greater than you’re ready to deal with. If you want, I can send a report to the Family. There are some vanguards who specialise in underwater combat and hive extermination.

I nodded along, finished up the last bite of my chicken–mild was too spicy–and chucked it onto a pile of trash flowing out of the top of a trash bin. “That’s a good idea. Send it in, and if you can, mark it as important. I think my job here is to keep the civilians safe, not so much destroy underwater hives. It would be nice to get some support on that end.”

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Understood. Message sent. Also, Lucy and Franny are on approach.