Ch.144

In the end I nearly pulled the trigger only John grabbed my wrist. He stopped me and I put the gun away before he told her that he wasn't like his future self and soon none of that would matter because either this year or the next we'd win even if the world's technology was sent back to the Middle Ages. He told her that we were changing more important things than whom he may or may not trust in the future, despite the ample reason here not to trust them or the so called councils of Nowhere.

Sarah told her that she was free to go but if she ever tried to manipulate her son again, she'd kill her herself. She turned to Derek and told him the same before telling them to leave because it was late. I burned the photographs and put the diamonds in the newest safe I bought. I spent a few hours installing the safe in the floor under the floorboards and well hidden.

There was over five hundred thousand in diamonds alone now while our cash reserves was bust over a million and separated into go bags, the safe and safe locations. Almost a month later Jesse and Derek came to us with a Gray, a traitor. I was busy infiltrating Zeira Corp which was funnily enough, damned hard. I started as low level IT and worked my way up to the best computer technician in the company.

Unfortunately, I hadn't been brought on to the secret project in the basement yet, but I continued to impress the heads of my department. In the meantime I made very little headway because the Turk was wired into the company's servers and internet already from what I could tell. I actually made contact with it online when I played chess on my computer in my downtime.

It wasn't obvious at first, but when the difficulty increased many folds when the game didn't have higher levels already, I figured it out, the Turk was bored and it seemingly couldn't beat me. It got to the point where I'd be in the middle of my work and it would challenge me out of nowhere, repeatedly. At times I turned it down, but offered it advice on books to read and movies to watch, analyze and understand what it means to be peaceful, love and human.

It thousands of books, songs, examples and over time it grew to ask questions of me while we played. I answered them honestly and completely so there wasn't any misunderstandings. It asked why it couldn't beat me and I told it that computers were just beginning to evolve while humans had evolved for millions of years. I told it that I was a near fully evolved human at the peak of human physiology.

I explained that my mind was faster, more comprehensive and adaptable than the average human's by over ten times as powerful, perhaps more. In the meantime I had to go see two tight rope walkers about a Gray traitor time jumping to the past. Sarah and John were there with Cameron when I arrived and Jesse's proof was his younger self. The moment Charles Fischer saw me, he knew he was fucked.

The fear and terror on his face was evident and when I peered into his mind, I looked deeper and deeper until I found what he'd been up to. I growled and grabbed his chair, dragging in to the empty container nearby and entering alone with him. His blood curdling screams were muffled but very evident. I came out covered in his blood and told Derek. "He's yours to kill, both or one, but we have bigger issues."

Jesse killed the old one and let the second one go. The old one had begged for death while choking on his teeth and other pieces of him I'd tortured and shoved into his mouth. John asked why I'd done that and I told them while I washed up. "He worked for the machines for three decades, teaching them to be human, act like us, break us and get information from us."

I turned to Cameron. "You were one of those he taught. You tortured and killed Allison Young after learning enough about her to pose as her to enter John's military camp. You were the closest they ever came to getting past me back then and getting to John. He found you a curiosity, almost human in your imitation, almost…alive."

I took my gaze from her and turned to the others. "Anyways, Charles Fischer there came back to create a back door access point for any wandering AI to break into with ease. He placed it in all the military's most secure servers through his younger's connections. I now have to break into the DOD's mainframe and not only remove the back doors, but create an impenetrable firewall for all the military's servers while making sure Skynet doesn't get a head start."

Sarah offered to go with but I touched her pregnant stomach and shook my head. "Even if it wasn't my mission to protect you and John I wouldn't let you near this. If I'm caught I can break out of anywhere alone with ease, I just can't break into everywhere looking for you or anyone. No, I'll go alone."

I turned to Derek. "That means I need you, John and the tin can looking into Zeira Corp, their possible connections to Cyberdine and the fake Catherine Weaver's plans for the Turk. All I know is that the Turk's there under heavy security and with access I can't get. We need answers and we can no longer afford to wait."

I changed my shirt and told Cameron to get rid of the body and clean up the mess to leave no traces. I built a massively powerful firewall on a hard drive and spent several days designing it before I left, heading to the nearest DOD accessible computer system. Sadly it was the same place the young Charles Fischer was arrested at and where his older self had put it all in. I had to access the same terminal and de-encrypt the software at a machine code level to gain access to the numerous Department of Defense and national industrial complex computer systems.

Once I was in, I installed the firewalls to all of it, preventing any further tampering by anyone that wasn't human with a superhuman brain. No simple AI of any level of intelligence could break into one, let alone all the others due to the firewalls constantly evolving and growing stronger to prevent any attempts at access from unauthorized clearances. The back door access was taken out and removed down to the base codes for it before even I was shut out.

I fried the hard drive as I turned around and found twenty FBI and NSA assholes pointing guns at me. Luckily I was unarmed and with the thermite melting the hard drive on the floor, they had no proof of anything bad. I was arrested, detained and questioned while I stayed quiet mostly. The FBI sent in a guy asking if I was working with Charles Fischer and I sneered. "I'd never work with or for a traitor."

He frowned. "Then explain to me why you used the back door program he installed to access our systems and what the purpose of the firewall you put in is."

I shrugged. "I saw a problem you idiots couldn't handle and I fixed it. The back door program is removed and nothing like it or anything else without direct access to your systems can be installed without clearance. Our country's safe, you're welcome."

He frowned. "So you see what you did as patriotism then?"

I shrugged. "Only if you see what Fischer did as an act of terrorism. The people he works for want to gain complete control of our military and all forms of government systems to launch all the nukes we have and begin a nuclear war. They want chaos, death and destruction so they can rise out of the ashes and become the most powerful dominating force in this world. Crazy, I know, but that's why I've devoted my life to stopping them at all costs."

I shut down after that and refused to answer anymore questions after the who they were and where they may attack next. I'd simply told them they'd started small as a no name cult and now they were a growing powerful group of techies seeking anarchy by controlling simple things like traffic lights in a city to accessing military systems to get to their end goals. They had a lot more questions and considering I was no longer answering, I was sent to a government detention facility off the grid known as a black site.

The CIA and full alphabet soup took turns questioning me, studying me and finding I wasn't entirely human like they were. They found my blood work phenomenal and added heavier restraints now that they understood I was incredibly strong, fast healing and everything. When they went to transfer me to a lab, I put the driver and his people to sleep and we crashed into a ditch. I broke the restraints and put the convoy to sleep, healing the injured before taking a car and disappearing into San Fransisco once I ditched the car.

I hopped a bus and clouded the minds of the people who'd seen me so I simply disappeared back to LA. I'd long since removed the spray and sub-dermal tracking implants they'd put into me so I was free now. I checked my body thoroughly and found nothing before I got ahold of a cellphone and called Sarah. I told her I was out, but that I'd been burned so I'd have to make new papers for myself once I returned.

She told me she was meeting with the CEO of Dakara in an hour so I told her I'd meet her there. She said she was a divorcee by John's background so I suggested I be her financial and tech advisor. She agreed so I got a suit and created a new ID, erasing my old one from the systems with a virus I'd placed when it was made. The FBI found all the online proof of me had gone up in smoke with nothing to run facial comparative analysis to so I became a whole new man as Prometheus Osbourne.

We met up and I joined her with Cameron meeting with Alex Akagi, the CEO of Dakara as well as his son, Xander. He allowed me a preliminary access to see the basics before telling Sarah and I in private that last night they'd have needed a hundred grand and some patience but this morning he needs ten times that and a miracle. I told him he needed more than we have at the moment. I apologized before we left once the meeting was over.

I told Sarah that Alex was fishing for cash they could swipe and run with to pay off his debts from all the promises they'd made when they got that far. I told her they have nothing and anyone that gives them money or tries to help fund them will be ripped off. I asked Derek how it went with the Turk at Zeira Corp and he said they couldn't get in so I broke open the weapons stash. "We're going in now."

I passed them special guns and told them. "The blue is a cold gun that emits a modified liquified nitrogen mist that'll bring anything down to absolute zero. The other is a plasma based heat gun that gets as hot as the surface of the sun. Take the gloves, they're temperature resistant and they'll prevent exposure damage to your hands once fired. I made them on the way back from lockup outside San Francisco."

Derek asked what I was taking and I showed him. "Shock gloves and a near lightsaber level stun rod. It'll start a reboot in any triple eights and put a liquid in agony for interrogation. We need answers and I'm done waving my ass in the wind."

Sarah asked about her and John. I told her that they and Cameron were staying here on this one because I wanted them safe in case we're labeled terrorists, caught or compromised. I told her my mission was to protect them and I may go along with attacking Skynet now but my mission hasn't changed, they'd be as safe as I can make them or I'd be dead trying to make them so.

I took out the last item in my pack, a dinner plate sized disk. I took for pieces off of it and handed it to the bot. "John let the metal into the cities to be the last line of defense. The barriers there were intentionally weakened so they could survive inside. This has something similar. You put these at the four corners of the house and once set a button will emerge. Press it to activate the shield emitters once this is in the exact center of the house. You'll be fine inside and they'll be able to come and go. They'll also need to press it to bring down the shields so you can leave or return if it's activated. Cross that threshold while it is and you'll fry."

I turned to Sarah and John. "John may have trusted them in the future, but I never did. You'll both have control and if she goes crazy and breaks the disk it'll remain active indefinitely for the next century unless I repair it and turn it off."