Daria 4 Read online

  D.A.R.I.A.

  Book Four

  By

  Martin E. Silenus

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  Martin E. Silenus

  At

  www.martinesilenus.com

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  Table of Contents

  Previously

  Chapter 1: Preparation

  Chapter 2: In Flight

  Chapter 3: Trade Station

  Chapter 4: Renavatio Ltd

  Chapter 5: The Trade Station CEO

  Chapter 6: Beauty and the Beast

  Chapter 7: The Collection Begins

  Chapter 8: Complications

  Chapter 9: Hostage

  Chapter 10: Maintenance Tunnels

  Chapter 11: Discovery

  Chapter 12: Recovery

  Chapter 13: Feeder System

  Chapter 14: Shall We Dance

  Chapter 15: Tidy Up

  Chapter 16: Humans

  Chapter 17: Conclusion

  Chapter 18: Reflection

  Previously in Books One, Two, and Three of D.A.R.I.A.

  Mathew G. Southam, an unemployed veteran of the Afghanistan conflict, runs across an Army buddy of his by the name of Frosty while pursuing an interest in technology and artificial intelligence. Frosty introduces Matt to his most recent version of his Artificial Intelligence system called D.A.R.I.A, an acronym for Digital Attack & Recon Information Access, used by the military in Afghanistan. It turns out Frosty “liberated” a copy of the AI code when he was discharged and has been upgrading and improving it. What Matt finds is a stunningly beautiful 3D hologram chosen as ‘her persona’ by an extremely smart seemingly sentient AI system with more capabilities than he can imagine. An alliance is formed between Matt, Frosty and D to “get bad guys and collect bounty money”. There is just one little ‘rider’ in the agreement. Matt is to ‘teach, befriend, mentor’ D.A.R.I.A. as she strives to become as human like as possible. The arrangement is very successful and soon covert government opportunities manifest themselves and the stakes increase tremendously. Accordingly the three of them find themselves performing some extremely secure covert black operations. From initial localized operations, to Mexico, and into Europe, and the Middle East, Matt, Frosty and “D” are contracted to neutralize the Islamic Muslim Jihadists or Daesh terrorist’s threats and activities.

  As per Matt’s agreement with Frosty, he spends considerable time in discussions with D to augment, supplement, explain as best he can “what it is to be human” to D. There are no areas that are off limits to the voracious inquiring mind of D. Matt finds himself challenged to explain jealousy, love, sex, humor, and the myriad of other human aspects that make us so difficult for an AI system to understand and/or replicate. During their prolonged interaction in between dark ops missions D finds that Matt is much more than a physically fit guy who has excellent combat skills. She learns of some of his terrible pains and losses of loved ones, his University Masters degrees in Sociology, and research work that was abruptly and horrifyingly interrupted.

  It is of no surprise there develops an emotional, mental and physical relationship between them that escalates rapidly with D’s advent of sexual ability within a beyond life like Virtual Reality construct.

  As additional black contracts flow to them their financial status increases exponentially allowing for increased application of very advanced technology. Bleeding edge theoretic science and technology that human labs are still struggling with in research papers.

  D and her sisters amazing Artilect ability allow for the construction of a Ship for transportation and permanent living accommodations. Complete with support crew and an AI Robotic Wolf as head of Security.

  Running covert black ops for the US Government and dealing with the elements within the same government attempting to expose and kill them, our intrepid crew realizes that time is running out and an extraction plan needs to be fabricated and implemented before it is too late.

  Against a background of ops and counter-ops involving Drug Cartels and Islamic Muslim Fundamentalist madmen, a scheme is hatched so audacious as to stagger the mind. Using technology that only the AI Artilects can grasp and implement involving stasis pods, miniature and sub-miniature insect drones, an extremely critical hostage is tracked and “acquired” and a proposed swap is negotiated with the US Government.

  We join up with D, Matt, Frosty and the new recruits upon the completion of an extremely tense and treacherous firefight. The outcome of which is an extraction agreement with the US Government. The mysterious well-dressed older grey-haired agent wearing a hat and three pieced suit seems to speak and act with reliable intent. But our team knows him to be the master shadow agent of them all, rarely if ever seen in person, denied to even exist.

  Chapter 1: Preparation

  A sense of relief, of release, a sense of victory in the face of incalculable odds, a sense of winning when it was close to impossible, pervades our intrepid group of travelers and bounty hunters. Yet out of habit, training, and common sense we are extremely wary. We are extra vigilant to remain invisible and untraceable.

  Our destination is our favorite Swiss Bank. We pull up to an underground back door in the limo they provide, the chauffer lifts out our merchandise from the trunk and we walk into a private elevator which delivers us to a private conference room. Softly lit, and hushed, finished in rick mahogany wood, soft black leather and stainless steel. The assembled CEO, VP and Account Rep pretty much have a cow when we show them the two hundred and fifty million in diamonds. Frosty and I carried them into the bank in a beer cooler. The expression on their collective faces when we told them they were real and for deposit was precious. It became even more precious when their diamond experts examined the stones and declared them in their opinion worth more than what we thought. We’re extremely pleased, the bank was extremely pleased, and it was a very good day all around. I think we even had favorable thoughts of the US government in the form of the agent spokesman in the executive suit and hat. He had spoken the truth. I was still leery as trust is not something I easily give, least of all to governments.

  Our financial matters now in order, we also have reviewed with the bank our local efforts with the Community Youth Center to help challenged youths. So we set course, an indirect course, back to the US and our mountain retreat. We are very careful, ever vigilant, monitoring closely all activities, to ensure we are not discovered and are left in peace, or better yet never noticed at all. A time for us to catch our breath and have the luxury of time to think, rather than react in battle stress mode. There are personal items that need attention, ship items that need maintenance and always the “to do list”. Machinery and gear of this level of sophistication, even with our drones handling the majority of it, requires personal attention to keep everything in a maintained and ready state. I spend considerable time with Mongo in the cargo hold. He had been hit several times during the recent firefight with the government agents. There was minimal damage done as Mongo is one tough SOB robot. However he needed cleaning to remove sand, oil, grease, a nasty mixture of mung that will destroy the precision of joints and bearings in no time. Partially disassembled, washed thoroughly, re-lubricated, bullet scars mended and any holes filled with weld, ground smooth, primed and repainted, to bring him up to a state of better than new fighting trim readiness. Then a full slate of diagnostics to ensure there were no electronic issues and Mongo was as good as new and ready to go. I enjoyed the time, my character is such that mechanical or electronic maintenance is not a chore and it provides me with peace and contentment to perform the routine duties. We chatted some during the maintenance, I told him what I was doing and why, he asked questions that demonstrated intelligence and thoughtfulness, we humans are want to personalize our ma
chinery and Mongo and I bonded as we flew back across the oceans and continents to our mountain retreat.

  Frosty and D were involved in some seemingly very heavy discussion of algorithms. It was complicated enough that I glossed over and took my leave. They would work on such things for hours at a time, arguing, agreeing and developing, chuckling, then arguing some more.

  Huey and Dewey the maintenance droids were off and about seeing to aspects of the ship. They were interfaced into the ship’s AI and to D. They had their own do list assignments.

  And Beast was prowling and looking restless and pent-up like he needed to chase something at top speed for an hour or so. He would flop down on the couch utter a huge sigh and nap. He dreamt during the nap and he would jerk, snuff, make little throat sounds and his legs would twitch to his dream sequences. AI or not this Beast dreamt, maybe he was chasing sheep.

  Our technology for D, the sisters, and the ship AI has been updated twice at least since we built our shipping container compound up in a remote area of the Midwest mountains of USA. Currently our ship has both primary and secondary sites within the onboard data center. All well and good for redundancy but completely useless if the ship gets nuked to radioactive slag. All we would have left is older generation hardware and much older software versions that are in storage at the mountain retreat. Of course that presupposes that we are even alive. Nevertheless this presents far too much exposure to any responsible data center operator’s sense of “due diligence” and keeps them up nights worrying about what might happen. So two thing are required to happen ASAP, RFN to reduce our potential risk to an acceptable level.

  The first is to upgrade our remote site security at the mountain data center to ensure nothing falls into the wrong hands. Which includes making sure our ship data center is completely backed up to the mountain data center. And the second was to find a new place to run offsite hot backups.

  We also felt our mountain security system needed some upgrades. Our overall security complex theme is predicated on increasingly difficult levels of security the closer you get to the data center. Now this means physically and via any software that you might attempt to run within the data center. Not all data is of the same level of sensitivity. So the core elements that are our world and that of Daria, our weaponry and technology, are the most sensitive data and are all but impossible for anyone other than us to decrypt.

  Starting outside the facility we have an underground pressure sensor grid about five hundred yards back all around the facility. The sensors are set to match human foot pressures. When the sensors are tripped the inner circles of security are enabled. Closer in we have a net of infrared sensor beams, and inside that we have full color high density CCD cameras/recorders mounted strategically all around the facility. It’s at this point you will encounter the standard “US Military Restricted Area Warning, in accordance with..., provisions of the directive..., pursuant to..., DEADLY FORCE IS AUTHORIZED warnings” about entering, trespassing, or generally buggering around where you ought not be. Closer in still we have Anti-Climb Security fencing, the stuff with the razor wire outward facing overhang on the top of the ten foot fence. Inside that parameter we have a modified Lanstar Energizer Electric Fence that powers up when the aforementioned sensors are triggered. We modified the Lanstar fence to operate at a higher amperage setting than what Tasers use. You touch this fence even on a dry day your heart is stopped right fucking now! The sea containers are actually covered with forest netting to camouflage the area and are extremely difficult to see. But if you did manage to get inside the outer rings of security, not get electrocuted, you are now in very extreme peril. The heavy steel doors on the sea containers use DNA scanners to establish who you are. If you can hack the scanners and manage to get the door open you will be in an anti-personnel trap where live fire weaponry is used. As soon as you step on the pressure sensitive floor the weaponry fires. No warnings, no bullshit, just double 00 buckshot, lots of it, enough to cut you in half. If by some incredible twist of fate you were to survive all the physical security you will now encounter the security software protecting the data. All I/O is locked out, so no hacking program can be up-loaded by memory sticks via a USB port. You must have an account, passphrase, and dual factor authentication and a retina scan; if you are running invasive inspection software you are out of luck as all our data is encrypted with a proprietary program that D and her sisters wrote. Good luck, you’ll need ten years, and a supercomputer, or quantum computer to break the encryption. If in the off-chance you did somehow and got closer to our core sensitive data the explosives would detonate and it’s unlikely even your bones or dental filling would be left as we engineered the fire to be extremely hot.

  While travel in the ship is lovely, truly luxurious and we have nothing at all to complain about, the mountain retreat nestled in the arms of Mother Nature is just so special to us and we love it here so much it is hard to leave. We linger as we had no specific schedule to follow and we loved the downtime and environment. Perhaps it is a thing for those that are often in combat, but to feel safe, secure, peaceful and relaxed, it’s such a precious thing!

  I’m not sure what D was doing, or perhaps I should say I was not sure what D was not doing. She and her sisters are running situational research on multiple projects at a fiendishly rapid rate of millions of iterations per second with multiple parallel neural networks. Their efforts culminated one morning when D declared that she was ready to depart and that we should make the significant jump into space to visit the Trade Station. I knew of the Trade Station, who doesn’t, but I was startled that D was suddenly very keen to be there. She had something up her sleeve and it wasn’t just her arm. I think Beast was a bit pouty about the suggestion as he sure enjoyed the guard duty privileges of our mountain retreat. Snuffing around outside all day and night patrolling the site parameter was his passion. It’s his natural element with a potpourri of smells to chase down and creatures to observe, so he is very reluctant to leave.

  “I want to purchase a human clone at the Trade Station.” announces D as we have breakfast. “They have a wide selection available there, did you know that.”

  There is absolute silence; I glance at Frosty sideways to gauge his reaction. He is expressionless, but no longer eating. He sets his fork down very precisely and carefully, steeples his figures and says.

  “Are you sure that is what you want to do D?

  “Yes”

  “You realize it changes pretty much everything, the dynamics, human maintenance, human liabilities, and the relationships, associated dangers and in many aspects will slow you down. Are you prepared for this, have you thought this through?”

  “Yes”

  “Explain please”

  “First I will always be an AI Artilect as long as I exist; I have no wish to change that as it offers many wonderful advantages over the human species. However my drive and focus is to learn and gather intelligence, knowledge is power, therefore to learn the aspects of humanity that are very difficult for me such as emotions, personalities, hormones, pain, love, I have elected to download a version of myself into a host human clone. How better to learn than to become one of you and experience it first hand in all its shortcomings, and glory?”

  “So I hear you saying that a copy of you will be in human form while a duplicate copy stays in digital form?”

  “Yes”

  “You know that you are my daughter, regardless of human or digital form, do you not Daria?”

  “Yes father”

  “It scares me to death to consider you having a human form Daria, just scares me to death, I know the shortcomings of humanity only too well and to a large extent humanity just disgusts me. For you to take human shape and expose yourself to all that humanity offers frightens me. You are my life’s work Daria and should anything happen to you I would be lost. But as all parents I know there comes a time when you must allow your children to make decisions and to move away from the umbrella of protection, for better and for
worse, it is the way of humanity. I cannot nor will I stop you my child, but it scares me as I knew this day would come sooner or later. And alas I must confess that it saddens me as I see and sense you moving away from being my brilliant AI Artilect that I know and so love.”

  “Thank you father.” replies D in a small hushed voice.

  I quietly get up from the breakfast table and take my coffee and head out of the room; I motion for Beast to follow me.

  “Jesus boss, what the hell just happened here?” xmits Beast to me.

  “What you just saw and heard is one of a human parent’s most difficult moments of their lives, when they release their children out into the vulgarities of the real world and allow the child to sink or swim based on the teachings they have learned over their years of child development. It is a hugely emotional point for humans to do this act. Some never get over it at all, males generally are better at it than females, many females just never accept a child leaving, it’s just a very difficult thing for parents to do. Humans are intently protective of their young, very often too protective for anyone’s good.” I reply.

  “I think it is safe to say that Wolves do not have quite such a bond in that area, though we love our pack mentality.” xmits Beast.

  “Well buddy things are going to change when D is in human form and walking around here with the rest of us. So be advised.” I say.

  “Change how boss?”

  “You’ll see, better to just wait and watch,” I reply.

  Chapter 2: In Flight

  We enjoyed a bit of down time as we made the journey to the Trade Station and Beast suggested that we revisit the unfinished business of naming the ship.

  “I think it is time that the ship is to be christened with its own name instead of just referring to the ship as “the ship” xmits Beast.

  “I don’t want to argue about a name Beast,” I reply