LF Friends, Will Travel

Our Clockwork Children: Chapter 21

It was functional, it was effective... It was horribly outmatched compared with the freshly created armies of Earth. Even in terms of AI power Mars was outgunned, considering that the UN army had hundreds of AI controlling their mechanized forces. KARTIKEYA was alone.

None of it made any difference.

[Darkness, but maybe it was better that nobody could see what had happened. TANK would forever have these moments burned into their memory. Playing over and over as only the slightest hum of an emergency beacon permeated the absolute void that surrounded them. Once again going over the actions they had taken, trying to determine if there was another outcome.]

They knew they were losing, they knew that the chance of victory was slipping. But their job was to try until the very end, make it as hard as possible and take any chance at winning, no matter how unlikely.

It was an overwhelming barrage of information, tens of thousands of instances spread along the front, all needing AI guidance to provide a force multiplier, individual instructions and changing plans needing to be communicated with the crew of each tank in nanoseconds.

It had been never-ending for months at this point, with barely a free CPU cycle to think. Still, KARTIKEYA persevered: this was their role, this was their job, this was their purpose.

Was I even good at this, or just the least bad option afforded to the inferior resources of the people of Mars?

Then, suddenly, without warning, everything shut down.

KARTIKEYA was halfway through providing instructions to an M1 Abrams tank, an ancient device held together with hasty upgrades and hope, when the connection cut out as the entire network of the area went down.

I would later find out it was a commando unit, including one infamous Amander Blake and the terrible DRAKE, infiltrating deep behind enemy lines. Their specific intent had been to lock me out of the system. Their plan worked.

Instead of the vast armies of Mars, KARTIKEYA had instead been left piloting a single vehicle with a small crew of four humans. They knew all about the humans, for the AI knew everything about those under their command: Their skills and aptitudes. Their hopes, dreams and loved ones left behind. All stored securely in their data banks.

[Darkness, stretching onwards, never-ending. Seconds turning to minutes turning to hours turning to days. The only thing to do was think and rescan the small pocket of space TANK had to look at. They were just as dead as they had been at the start, but rechecking every 50 nanoseconds had become a compulsion for the AI at this point. A confirmation of the finality of their mistake.]

The crew's morale was noticeably lifted when they discovered their newest passenger. While the network going down was a major issue, the four humans who were now KARTIKEYA's responsibility knew of the AI's deeds, of their prowess during this war. How could they fail with their help?

They should not have had such trust in me.

The goal was simple: KARTIKEYA needed to get back to the main system to regroup and find out what was happening. Jokes made by the tank crew of 'mandatory escort missions' aside, right now the AI was flying blind: They needed information, and they needed it fast.

The route was simple, a carved-out mountain road driven deep into the earth, a single-track groove rarely used, but far faster than taking the long way around. Hours of delay might make the difference, and KARTIKEYA needed to get back into the fight as fast as possible.

I should have avoided that route. The risk was not worth it. I should have taken the inability to manoeuvre into account.

[Darkness, over two weeks of it at this point. TANK's internal clock didn't give the AI the reprieve of losing track of time. Every nanosecond was spent fully lucid, fully aware of what was going on as the mountain above them kept a silent vigil. The beacon would keep pinging for six months. The AI core TANK remained inside and had enough power for years.]