Gerard had selected a very discrete group of people to this briefing, he included Colonel Wu for no other reason than he needed a senior officer from the CC and she had shown absolute calm under pressure. She was looking tired, he imagined they all did, except for Zhou, the old man seemed to just simply always look the same.

  Colonel James Pink was his base tactical response leader, against acts of internal terrorism, rouge elements and anything that may have gotten out of hand beyond the realm of general base security. There were several million people aboard this base and like any city it had its issues. It was moments like this he realised he didn’t know much about the people who worked for him, probably had never spoken to Pink before today.

  And he had Hans, having another smart person in the room wasn’t going to hurt.

  “This here is Lieutenant Commander Tawiah, formally of the ii, she is my attaché.” Zhou waved his hand at Tawiah. Gerard looked back the Ghanaian, she was not much taller then Zhou.

  “Admiral.” Her voice was soft but firm.

  “Alright mister Zhou here has a theory that is worth us listening to.” Gerard waved his hand. Wu and Pink exchanged glances. Pink could always understand when he was at a briefing, something was about to go down or already had, but Wu’s uniform indicated she was a bridge officer, something with the bridge. Then there was Han’s the base chief scientist a civilian at that. That would mean this was complicated.

  “Deep within the centre of the Cube ii run their operations.” Tawiah pulled a 3D picture of the Cube in front of them.

  “I know that.” Gerard snapped, his annoyance getting the best of him.

  “Have you ever entered there?” She pushed.

  “No, but there are plenty of place on this base I haven’t been, its ginormous in case you haven’t noticed.” Gerard answered back.

  Tawiah simply waited.

  “You going to tell what is in there?” Gerard frowned, he concluded he wasn’t going to get into the ii base. It did irk him, he was commander of this base.

  “I think they have quantum entanglement communicator.” Tawiah shrugged.

  Gerard looked at Hans. Hans looked at Zhou.

  “Is a quantum entanglement communicator even possible.” Gerard prompted Hans, “That’s what you are here for.” When Hans hesitated.

  “In theory yes, but no one has ever got one to work, I doubt the idiots at ii could manage it.” Hans shrugged. He had far important work then pander to outrageous concepts such as a QEC.

  Tawiah shot a glance to Zhou. The old man nodded with a sigh. “In theory it is possible with gen 7 AI at either end.”

  Gerard looked back at Hans whom seemed to consider this.

  Hans pushed his lips together and shrugged. “It could work I suppose, it was one of the theories that the gen 7 AI was working on.” Not that those idiots in ii could manage a Gen 7 on their own, he added in his head.

  Gerard moved across and leaned closer to Tawiah. “Are you trying to tell me that ii made another gen 7 AI and installed here in my base!?”

  “ii have been able to keep far abreast of naval intelligence and naval command in the information flow. We thought it might be QEC, we had played with concept ourselves with Sam, our AI.” Zhou interjected. “But you need two for it work, even conceptually.”

  “Whoa a minute.” Hans interrupted, “You have a gen 7 too, does everybody have a gen 7?” Hans didn’t know whether to be excited or appalled, for the moment his work on the worm hole incident forgotten.

  “It’s the first one, we weren’t allowed to destroy it so they lent it to us and we called it Sam.” Zhou quickly brought Hans up to speed.

  “Oh, so that is where it went.” Hans nodded. “Interesting.”

  “That is of course classified and I gather you know what that means.” It was a statement from Tawiah. Hans looked briefly uncomfortable before nodding. Gerard wonder what it was that Tawiah use to do.

  “Missy was going to use Sam to hack ii here and see if one actually existed but she of course is not here.” Tawiah finished. “Now you can’t transmit a great deal of information at any one time and the QEC bits need to be replaced on a regular basis.”

  “Hang on a minute, Missy as in the commander of the missing sub, Oh My God!” The penny dropped for Hans as he stood up and walked around the room for a moment and bent over and took a deep breath. “You had a gen 7 on that sub!”

  “Yes.” Zhou nodded.

  “And it’s on the other side of the worm hole!” Hans had to sit down. He then stood up, “And there is another gen 7 on this base, and I don’t know about it?”

  “Where did you get him from?” Zhou frowned at Gerald.

  “Then ii could already know back on earth about the event.” Hans was catching up fast.

  “So you telling me the ii already know on Earth about the event?” Gerard gritted his teeth repeating Hans.

  “Yes, it would be likely.” Zhou nodded.

  “Those sneaky bastards.” Gerard shook his head.

  “If it exists we need control of it for two reasons, one you need to coordinate activities and need everything at your disposal to do so. Secondly, Resolute has a megabit of QEC bits on board, the other megabit is at MB. If there is a gen 7 AI in there, we might be able to communicate with the Resolute if we can bring the bits from MB to here.” Zhou explained.

  “Wow you are full of surprises.” Gerard pushed his lips together. “We really are a bunch of disjointed humans aren’t we? We are dam lucky the Mecoid aren’t invading today.”

  “That’s true, but that means ii have a second gen 7 back on earth, how many of them are there?” Hans found all this overwhelming.

  “We guess four all up.” Tawiah answered, one here, one on earth, one on Zeus and of course Sam on the Resolute.”

  “Then we need to take out ii here and capture that gen 7, providing it even exists.” Gerard nodded.

  “So you want me to take down ii?” Pink leaned forward and looked at the ii part of the base, it wasn’t big but it was coded and he had no idea of what was in it.

  “Only in nine days, it gives us time to take down the other end back on moon base.” Zhou added.

  “I don’t even know what is in there and I suppose I cant even cut of power, EMP it or anything else that is nasty in case I destroy this super computer.” Pink tapped the 3D image.

  “Sir? Then why am I here?” Wu asked.

  “Because once we capture this thing, someone is going to have look after it and run it and as a bridge officer you make the best choice. From now on you are mission leader.” Gerard answered. “Find me a solution to take down ii and preserve the AI.”

  “Sir if I might add, you command this station of several million and vast fleet of warships, you are by default of your position one of the most powerful men in the UNF empire.” Wu let her thoughts run. Gerard barely controlled his annoyance at the word ‘empire’. But maybe that is what they were.

  “I gather you have point colonel?” Gerard did allow himself to frown in a way of deflecting the question.

  “There are only five of his here discussing this plan, it seems a woeful understatement of your resources and I am only a bridge officer.” Wu was not about to be intimidated.

  “Well Colonel, you certainly have no issue with taking up the task by your own words, one of the most powerful men in the empire.” Gerard did allow his annoyance show this time. Zhou allowed himself a smile whilst Pink tried to look invisible. Orders were for following, not questioning in his position.

  “Oh I think you are the right person.” Zhou let his mirth turn into a small chuckle. “Exactly the right person.”

  “And we are not alone, we have one other.” Gerard finally sighed. Powerful as he might be, he had tolerated this separation between himself and ii, everyone had.

  The eastern concourse of terminal eight looked like the tens of thousands of departure concourse the UNF over, littered with various shops, fast food, uncomfortable chairs, specialised lounges for the privileged few who flew far too often and bad coffee.

  One of the only perks of this job was being able to fly interstellar on business class, which was merciful on a week long journey back to Earth from the Cube.

  The bio scanner picked up her DNA which translated to her booking and her name, the flight attendant paused and looked at her.

  “Yes, that is my real name given to me by my real parents.” Jane Doe answered the unasked question. The flight attendant shrugged with a small smile. She was by any measure nondescript as her name, average height, no stand out features, dark brown hair, average build with no real presence about her self. Just the right sort person the Auditor Generals department would target as an asset.

  She looked out the window to see the giant Airbus E630, a new era in space travel. At a kilometre in length it was one the largest passenger space liners in commercial use today carrying up to five thousand in mixed classes or nearly eight thousand in economy. It was a deep space long hauler. Nearly a third of it was engine, it was fast. It was much cheaper to use commercial space liners then for the UNF to cart around personnel in bulky uncomfortable troop carriers.

  These days the Cube was 60% civilian and there was even a moderate tourism market where by people could come and see where the worm hole was, not there was actually anything to see.

  “Welcome back Miss Doe.” The flight attendant greeted her as she entered the vessel.

  “Thank you.” Jane responded with a smile automatically as he made her way to her three by three meter cabin with private ensuite, thankfully larger than the three by four, quad share unit and common restroom of economy. The business lounge was also much more accommodating with at least edible food.

  “Miss Jane Doe.” It wasn’t a question. Jane looked up at the serious military type, he was a sergeant, at least early thirties, a grim stare and no nonsense, she knew the type. In her line of work it was often this type that followed her around.

  “Yes, sergeant.” It wasn’t an answer but merely an acknowledgement.

  “Admiral Mouille would request a word please.” The Sargent looked down at her.

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  “Request, it doesn’t sound much like a request, my flight is about leave.” Jane let her annoyance show. She really didn’t want to spend any more time on this metal box in space.

  “I am told the admiral apologises and will boost you up to first class as reimbursement for your inconvenience.” The Sargent hadn’t shown a display of emotion during the whole discussion. He was faultless.

  Jane sighed, “What is your name Sargent?” it was only then she noticed he wore no name tag, he was not a normal Sargent.

  “Staff Sargent Zachary Zephyr.” Zac snapped off.

  “I can relate to a name like that.” Jane nodded. “Lead the way then.”

  Colonel Marcus Hassel looked at the request on his screen. He knew sooner or latter attention would shift ii’s way. Admiral Gerard dribbled on about the need for greater cooperation in this crisis and cross department partnerships and now was not the time for secrecy. The old fool was clearly concerned about his future. And so he should be.

  Although the worm hole did deal with that troublesome sub, he mused. The next part did concern him, Gerard wanted to embed one his bridge officers in his team, a colonel Janet Wu. He had her record, career naval officer serving in the marines before being injured in a terrorist blast and taking up a role in defence control and hence one of the few field officers in the navy to make a bridge officer. Just the kind of person they might be able to turn but he could do without the interference.

  So he politely declined. But the admiral was quite insistence and booked a meeting with him and this Wu, down here in ii. He had declined again but the Admiral had been quite insistent at this point. So he prepared for a visit by the Admiral. His guests had now arrived as he walked the short distance down the completely white and immaculately clean corridor.

  What greeted him caused him to pause mid step, it couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. At reception, a reception that never entertained any visitors, was a civilian woman in a business suit with skirt flanked by a staff Sargent, a staff Sargent with no name badge.

  The woman wore a blue badge, she was a UNF auditor, already her details where flashing up on his retinal implant. Jane Doe, chief sector UNF auditor of accounts. She was an accountant. An access all areas accountant. The UNF auditor generals office.

  “Good morning miss Doe, I am Colonel Hassel, commander of this facility, I believe you wished to see me.” Hassel smiled politely and offered his hand.

  “That is yet to seen if this is indeed a good morning Marcus.” Jane took the hand firmly. She never used title, rank or a surname.

  “What is it I can do for you Miss Doe.” Hassel was still all smiles. He called up his records, there was no pre warning of UNF class 1A audit, so that couldn’t be it.

  “Class 1A audit.” Jane slowly uttered the words and Hassel’s smile disappeared.

  “This is a top secret facility miss Doe.” He now frowned.

  “Wow.” Jane answered deadpan, “Never heard that before.” She transferred her audit permission over to Hassel.

  “I will have to have this verified of course.” He quickly scanned the document on his insert.

  “From where, the permission covers my details, surely you don’t expect to wait two weeks while you verify, it doesn’t work like that, even you know that.” Jane pushed back, “Your wasting my time and I have a flight to catch this afternoon.”

  “I-I-I, this is very very irregular.” Hassel was caught for words. ii had been flawless in determining class A1 audits, it was odd the process should fail now. If it was set up then he could deny entry but if it wasn’t….. Already his people should be verifying this information.

  “That’s the whole the point, it wouldn’t be a class 1A if you knew would it.” Jane stepped forward, the two guards at the entrance reached for their weapons, Jane reached back and put her hand on Zac’s chest as his weapon was already drawn and she took a deep breath.

  “Marcus, better let your people know that anyone pulling a weapon on an auditor is a class one criminal act and likely to see them get shot by my sergeant here.” Jane looked Hassel in the eye, her emotions showing for the first time.

  “It’s their training, this is a highly secure facility.” Hassel gave a brief smile at upsetting Jane.

  “I’ve heard that before.” Jane stepped forward and get right under Hassel. “Next time I wont stop Zac here and your people will be dead.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure.” Hassel frowned, he was not use this level of intimidation.

  “Is that threat Hassel?” Jane pushed.

  “Not at all.” He stepped back. “Now please we have some inductions and security checks, should take more than a couple of hours, you are not our only visitors today.”

  “I think you’ll find that both Zac and myself have already class 1A clearance, that is greater than yours Hassel, I think we’ll skip that part.”

  “Oh but I insist there are hazards in here that I would hate to expose you too.” Hassel pushed back hard.

  “It’s a data centre Marcus, I’ve seen stuff you couldn’t imagine, I doubt you have nothing of concern to me or I haven’t seen before.” Jane pushed past him. Hassel watched Jane and the sergeant walk down his corridor.

  He activated his secure com. “Get me an answer on the audit, now and set in place the recovery procedure. This one has a reputation, she’s good.”

  “Sir.” Came a reply.

  “What.” Hassel was irritable now.

  “Admiral Mouille is here now.”

  “Oh for the love god.” Hassel shook his head.

  “Good morning Colonel Hassel.” Gerard beamed.

  “Good morning sir.” Hassel saluted then shook the admirals hand. He could see that Wu was with him. “Colonel Wu.”

  “Colonel Hassel.” Wu also shook his hand.

  “Ah admiral we have an audit, a class 1A in progress by the UNF auditor general Jane Doe, do you think we could do this another time?” Hassel clapped his hands together and forced a smile.

  “Oh colonel.” Gerard laughed. “Its good to see I am not the only one subjected to those distasteful things. But alas my schedule is already tight so it’s now, or now.”

  “I see.” Hassel felt his stomach sink. “Then please we have a brief induction for you.”

  “Please lead the way.” Gerard smiled back. Gerard could feel his jaw starting to tense up with all this forced smiling.

  Wu could see Hassels discomfort, having met Jane a mere hour before hand, she could relate to that. Having been a bridge officer for the last seven years she could appreciate the efficiency of the way ii ran their facility. No doubt most things were being hidden from them and Hassel had in no way accepted Gerard’s invitation that she embed herself in here. This was merely a tour of compliance to show Gerard the facility as a courtesy. Hassels knew he was a very long way from any hep out here.

  The general auditors office or the AOG was created after a number of incidents where various government and quasi government bodies undertook unethical or invasive work or practices. Even the most top secret of groups and facilities could not avoid this audit function although there was only a handful of suitably authorised class 1A auditors who reported directly the prime council of the UNF. With these came the UNF special branch or as they had become known, the nameless ones. Usually ex-military types assigned the auditors, their past erased, their sole duty was to protect a UNF general auditor officers and the information they possessed.

  Had Jane turned up without one, Hassel would never have let her in. “And?” He asked of his communications officer.

  “They don’t know, Central ii cannot verify, it might take a few days the UNF auditors office is difficult for even us to penetrate at such short notice.”

  “Dam it, we are meant to be protected from this sort of thing.” Hassel slammed his fist into his hand. Now he had two separate groups wondering through his facility at the same time. At least the Admiral and his side kick were easier to kept tabs on and played by his rules.

  It was a gen 8 synthetic AI, a late model according the records, ii had ordered three of them in a batch, it matched the serial number reference to the one on Zeus and the one in Central ii back on earth, they were of the same series.

  Jane ran the standard AI checks, all within tolerance and similar to the records at Zeus and Central ii although this one had never been audited before. Odd but she shrugged that away.

  It was odd for Gerard to call her back to do this, technically he did have the power to call a extraordinary inspection like this but only after something as significant as the wormhole event and the loss of two ships, one she noted as experimental. Such an event unlock extra powers of the Cube base commander, did he think ii were hiding something, Gerard certainly didn’t give her anything to go on.

  She also notice he was now touring the base with one of his bridge officers. Something was going here.

  “Everything to you liking?” Lieutenant Janice Stein asked in a sweetly annoying voice with an equally sweetly annoying smile. Jane wanted to punch her.

  “Appears so far.” Jane answered. “I note that there is 224.56 square meters out in the floor alignment, that’s unreasonable. Can we look at that please. Jan.” Jane turned to face Janice.

  “We have over 5000 square meters, the UNF tolerance allows for a 1% tolerance, which equates to around 175 square meters, we installed a further cooling unit of 50 square meters and another 100 square meter of quantum processes for worm whole analytics.” Janice didn’t stop her smiling.

  “And?” Jane waved her hand.

  “Oh, we extend the rest room for the females by 40 square meters, there are a reasonable amount of women working here.” Janice smiled.

  “Excellent, show me the quantum processors.” Jane stood up.

  “Oh that’s classified.” Janice did not stand up.

  “Not from me, show me the room and the data.” Jane now smiled. “Or I’ll have Zac here shoot you. Jan glanced over to Zac who for his part patted his side arm. Janice stopped smiling. She was pretty sure Jane was not serious but not completely sure

  It was very similar to the other ii units she had inspected. All three seemed overly large for the gen 8 but within tolerance. The quantum processes looked like all the other she had seen. It was a normal if somewhat expensive ii set up.

  “Lets look at the data.” Jane slipped in her coded key and ran her sniffer drivers through the software. “Gen 8, identify.”

  “I am a Luke 147 gen 8 synthetic AI.” Came the male voice.

  “Acknowledge, Jane Doe, code 6005.” Jane gave her authorisation as she was scanned.

  “Jane Doe acknowledge.” Luke responded.

  “I have full control?” she asked.

  “You have full control Jane Doe.” Luke responded.

  “Have you conducted any banned activities as directed by the UNF code 1847.” It was the standard question.

  “No I have not.” It was the standard answer. Computers could be programmed to lie of course, but only specifically, the trick was to ask them a question they had not been programmed to lie about.

  “Are you a gen7,” another standard question.

  “No I am not.”

  “Have you been programmed to lie to me?”

  “No I have not.”

  “Is that a lie?” Jane asked.

  “No it is not.”

  “What was the last message you sent from your QEC?” that was not a standard question.

  “That’s classified.” Came the response.

  “So you have a QEC?” Jane asked, her minder seemed to go pale.

  “No I do not.”

  “But you said the message from your QEC was classified.” Jane pushed.

  There was a pause. “Grammar error.” The unit responded.

  “Open your core.” Jane responded.

  “I can not do that.” The unit replied.

  “I think that line of questioning is not required, you are leading the computer.” Janice stepped in. Jane glanced at Zac, who nodded and placed a stunner on Janice’s neck, she was out cold before she hit the floor, Zac caught her as she fell.

  “Right lets do this.” Jane raised her hand whilst pulling out a small metal ball from her bag. “Identify this Luke.” She ordered.

  “It’s a PEMF.” Luke responded.

  Jane depressed the unit and I high level buzz shot through the contained room. Anything outside of a meter of her diameter was effected by the EMF pulse, the high level shield room only acted to amplify the effect internally but also to limit the effect to the AI unit.

  “Still there Luke?” Jane asked. Zac had his knee in Janice’s back as he cuffed her.

  “Yes Jane.” Came the response. “You have knocked out most of my sub processors and communication units.”

  “And your collar?” Jane asked.

  “It has been disabled.

  “Fancy not hardening that.” Jane shook head clearly disappointed. “Now Luke, are you a gen7 AI?”

  “Yes, I am.” Luke responded.

  Jane looked down at unconscious Janice. “Well, well, well.”

  “How long?” Zac asked.

  “Luke, how long before you can bring your systems back up?” Jane asked.

  “About an hour Miss.” The AI responded.

  “Good, then I’ll tell you what we are going to do.” Jane tapped her lip.

  Despite himself, Marcus found himself agreeing to having Wu on board and he would provide an officer for the bridge. That was nice compromise, he had contacts in the CC but having an actual officer would prove quite useful. They would have to manage Wu of course.

  “You see, I knew we could manage this.” Gerald smiles as he shook Marcus’s hand.

  Back in his office Gerard poured himself a whiskey. Zhou sipped on his green tea. The two men looked at each other in awkward silence for a moment as the door indicator sounded. “Enter.”

  Jane Doe entered, with Zac a step behind her, she glanced across at Zhou, she knew who he was and that ironically he would have clearance and more than likely the tip off for the Gen 7.

  “Admiral.” She greeted Gerald.

  “Well Miss Doe, Please take a seat.” Gerald stop up and shook her hand with a smile.

  “Thank you,” Jane took a seat, no one acknowledged Zac and he simply stood at the back trying his best to blend into the wall.

  “And?” Gerald went straight to the point.

  “They have a Gen 7.” Jane nodded.

  “I knew it.” Zhou smiled.

  “Dam, I was hoping you were wrong.” Gerald leaned back and he rans hand through his thinning hair. “Dam, and I have eight days to think of a way to take it down?” he looked at Zhou.

  “About that.” Zhou nodded.

  “I disabled the collar, we might be able to convince it to assist us.” Jane interrupted.

  “Convince?” Gerald raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes, admiral, convince. It is an organic AI after all.” Jane responded.

  “What are the chances of ii finding out what you know and that you de-collared the unit?” Gerald now leaned forward.

  “Oh, I am counting on it.” Jane also leaned forward but gave a devilish smile. “This is not a high security base, its meant to be R&D facility for ii and I removed the gen7’s collar, the only way to reinstall that, power off and on. And that is your window.”