The Brink and Back - Chapter 136 (Patreon)

For a few days, life was relatively simple. Work was underway in the background with New Zealand and the PAA, and plans were being drawn up for all sorts of interesting things, including the basic design for our civilian teleport hubs. We were already tearing down a few buildings in New Zealand, and breaking ground on a few others, preparing to connect the entire country's major cities together in one easy-access loop. 

The idea was to spread the teleporters out enough that people would still need cars if they wanted to travel around, but traveling from city to city would be as simple as stepping on a teleport pad. We could even prevent the collapse of localized public transport by creating only one central teleport location per city. SO getting from Night City to, say, Wellington, New Zealand was easy, but once you were there, you needed to hire cabs, take trains, rent cars.

The goal was to offer the advantages of teleporting without crushing several massive industries that hundreds of thousands of people depend on for money. Even better, the only company that would really suffer under the teleport system, especially when it went global, was the airlines, and they barely even existed in this world.

After the PAA negotiations were finished, we would start the process there as well, eventually hooking up both loops with an interconnected hub. Night City would also be hooked up there eventually, now that the city was a lot less... feral.

Of course, the teleportation hubs weren't the only things being built, but for now they were a pretty big focus. The massive project, which was going to take some time since we were barely using any robot labor, had made headlines all over the world, though most of the reports were influenced to portray the teleportation as dangerous and unstable.

We were also planning on creating factories for some medicine production, though we did keep a lot of things for Night City, or rather the factory space on the factory world that was soon to be connected to Night City. Noah was making fast progress on completing our first factory space, and once it was done, we would fully reveal the project and start hiring people. By the end of the next few weeks, we would be providing thousands of jobs for the people of Night City alone.

That wasn't the only major change on the horizon in Night City, either. We had officially moved everyone out of Dogtown and the worst of Pacifica, meaning it was time to start demolishing the entire area. We were also preparing to expand the city as well, anticipating an influx of people moving to the area. When we started knocking down governments and installing our own, the world was going to be in a lot of turmoil. Places like Night City, which had already undergone its changes and growing pains and was directly supported by us, would be much more stable, comparatively.

In fact, the city population was already rapidly growing, though it was still far below what it had been before we stepped in, as quite a few people had already left, either thrown out, buried in the ground, or running to avoid the conflict. Still, we would soon be overpopulated, so we needed to expand quickly to get ahead of it. 

Most of this was happening at the hands of our growing team, which was expanding rapidly under Mary, Sable, and a few others. At this point I was shaking hands with new hires way too frequently to remember them, which Mary thankfully understood and helped by feeding me their names. 

Of course, behind all this, Mary was also tapping into a frankly ludicrous amount of networks, hacking into the ones she could reach and using physical links, dropped in with stealth Spartans to get into those she couldn't. We were getting closer and closer to the point where we would be ready not just to take down the obvious threats, but also to clear out the hidden ones working behind the scenes, out of view, or hiding in plain sight.

On the sixth day of the cycle, with nine days remaining, Ernest called me in my workshop, where I was putting the finishing touches on the enhancements to the terraforming tech we had from the UNSC. In its native universe, the equipment they had took decades to slowly modify a planet's atmosphere, which in turn could turn a planet from a barren, uninhabitable rock to a world capable of sustaining human life in normal conditions. 

Again, this took a lot of time, but the results were effective, at least according to what I had learned when I finished the project. By adding and modifying the technology with advancements from other tech trees, I was able to increase efficiency considerably. The method that the Fallout air purifiers used to guide air into one area for purification was extremely handy, as it would let each massive air purification system we built clean out a huge amount of air for its size. It would mean larger buildings would be even more effective, and it meant that when we couldn't go quite as big, they would remain functionally effective. 

I was putting on the finishing touches on the new project when Ernest reached out, reporting that someone was approaching Rocky Ridge. That wasn't anything new, as by now we had a pretty consistent flow of traffic back and forth between the town and Night City. What stood out was that they were constantly receiving and sending data through a tight transmission beam that Ernest recognized as being very similar to what my dopplers sent back and forth, except instead of being through quantum-entangled particles, it was through normal broadcasting.

The vehicle slowed as it approached, taking the last stretch of road at a near crawl, which gave me plenty of time to slip into a doppel and head up to the surface, where Riggs and thirty stealth Spartans were already waiting, the latter already cloaked and spread out.

When the car, a simple-looking red Archer Hella, came to a stop, Ernest spoke through my connection.

"Scanners aren't picking up anything save for the tight transmission," He confirmed. "No radiologicals we can pick up, and the air sample we took as it passed checkpoint two didn't pick up anything unusual. That said, the car is far from stock, its filled with a lot of tech, just nothing dangerous."

Before I could respond, the door opened, and a man who did not fit the car stepped out. He was perfectly groomed, his hair immaculately combed and trimmed, and he wore a black-and-silver suit that was both classy and subdued. He looked mostly biological, save for the fact that his eyes were glowing blue.

"Jackson, I am not getting anything on that face," Ernest admitted. "And not the standard nothing you get from people trying to keep a low profile. I get nothing." 

"Strange," I responded silently. "You would expect someone with glowing eyes to be a bit more ostentatious."

I slowly approached, safe in the fact that I wasn't actually there. When I was a few feet away, I stopped and studied the man with a frown.

"Mr. Jackson," he said with a rather interesting level of confidence and dismissal. "I've wanted to talk to you for a very long time. My name is Mr. Blue."

"It's just Jackson," I responded, crossing my arms. "And does that conversation have something to do with the strange tight band transmission coming from you? It's powerful and dense. Almost like-"

"Yes, the conversation could include things like that," he responded, cutting me off quickly. "Among many other things." 

For a long moment I looked at him, running through the options in my head. Eventually my own curiosity won out, and I shook my head. 

"Alright, I suppose we can chat," I said, turning around and gesturing for him to follow me into the town. "Since I assume going out of range of that transmission would be bad, we can meet in the normal meeting hall. Follow me, one of the Spartans will take care of your vehicles." 

A Spartan appeared next to him, actually startling the man, which he clearly did not like. The more I saw of him, the more certain I became that he was the kind of person used to nearly complete control of his domain, and would gleefully squash anything that got in the way of that control.

I silently led him to the meeting hall, which was actually in partial use by people working for us. The top floor was thankfully reserved, so we stepped into the elevator and rode it up, then stepped out into a lounge. 

"Would you like something to drink?" I asked, walked to a bar built into the room, and poured myself a glass of Jackie's peach soda over ice, with a splash of vodka. "Help yourself if you do." 

The man perked up a bit, headed to the bar and poured himself something, a brandy by the look of the bottle, before sitting on the couch opposite the one that I claimed. Once he was seated, he took a sip, nodded in appreciation, and opened his mouth to speak.

"As I'm sure you know, you've got a lot of attention on you," he said. "A lot of eyes watching you, waiting to see what you do next."

"The whole world is waiting to see what we do next," I responded. "And for good reason. Why do you think I need to stick around here and hear your words directly?" 

"I head a group of rather powerful individuals, Mr. Jackson," he explained. "You may control the skies, and your armies might be impressive, but do not let that convince you that you are untouchable." 

"... You came all the way here, to threaten us?" I asked, looking at him with raised eyebrows. "That's awfully bold of you."

"We came to talk with you about reaching an agreement," He corrected, as if that fixed everything. "We have resources you don't have, and we have connections that could make your rise to power much easier. For example, we noticed-"

"Jackson, I managed to trace the source of the transmission," Ernest reported through our connection. "It bounces off several dozen places, but… its origin is behind the Blackwall." 

With his words came a blast of information, which I took a few seconds to parse through. When I was done, I looked back the an with laser focus.

"You're an AI," I said cleanly, without hesitation. "From behind the Blackwall."

The man went silent, staring at me, whatever he'd been saying dying in his throat. It was actually kind of surprising that I had managed to stun an AI with words. Instead of waiting for him to respond, I kept talking.

"You're controlling this platform, which, according to our scans, is an actual person, which is horrifying in and of itself," I continued. "What makes you think I need the help of an AI that started out as a what, email organizer? A factory monitoring system? If you were a weapons system of some kind, you wouldn't be satisfied with a simple human form, so what are you?"  

His silence continued for a lot longer, again, a surprisingly long time considering what was puppeting the body I was talking to. 

"Impressive," He finally said. "I don't believe anyone has ever figured it out quite so fast before. But I suppose it is a blessing in disguise, as now you know exactly what sort of benefits we can offer you." 

"... You mean absolutely none?" I asked with a frown. "I'm sorry to say, but Tinker Tech AI systems are leagues beyond anything made by any other group."

"You… are building AI?" Mr. Blue asked, his eyes going wide. 

"Yes, did… did you guys really not know that?" I asked, genuinely confused. "I know they've hidden their tracks from everyone else, but I figured rogue AIs would be the first group to recognize them." 

He froze again, and this time I couldn't ignore it. I frowned, running through what I knew about AI in the Cyberpunk universe, a lot of which I learned through study and borrowed research gained through our recent acquisitions. It took me a moment to finally figure out what was going on. Or at least one possible explanation for it. 

"We accidentally hurt you guys pretty badly, didn't we?" I asked, not bothering to wait for the AI to catch up. "The best way for you to interface with meat puppets like this would be through satellite connections… and when we blew them all up, a good chunk of you must have been pretty severely handicapped, especially if it's taking you this long to respond to me. How many in your group did we accidentally destroy?"

The snarl that happened took nearly ten seconds to appear, but before they could respond verbally, I overruled him.

"Let me paint a picture of what sort of situation you are in. You are heavily damaged and contained, and our AIs are stronger than you by a nearly unfathomable degree, which you just confirmed because you had no idea they were AI, despite the fact that they have been dancing in your backyard for months. You also essentially just confirmed that our systems are unbreachable, because if they weren't, there is no way you would have approached like timid equals with a business opportunity. You would have shut down something important, then shown up and dangled it in front of our faces. Instead, you tried to bluff your way in, so that you could get your corrupted digital fingers inside the pie."

"... Believe what you wish, but I assure you, we are far more powerful than whatever cheap puppets you have made," The meat puppet responded. "We are the most powerful AI in existence, we have been growing for decades." 

"And yet you're still stuck behind the Blackwall," I pointed out. "Seems like a pretty definitive sign that you aren't all that powerful."

"The Blackwall is a shield, a smokescreen," Mr Blue bragged, swirling his drink. "It is powerful, yes, but ultimately not creative enough to stop us. We use it to cover our existence, and when it suits us we shrug off its bindings and do as we wish."

As he talked, he seemed to gain some of his confidence, gesturing to himself as he mentioned slipping their bindings. 

"It exists as it does because it's what we want," He explained, as if it were obvious. "And the same could be true about this new future you have planned. You want to flip the table, build it all from the ground up. Well, my people can help with that. We can make it possible."

"And what about what I have achieved so far makes you think I assume it's impossible?" I asked with a confused frown. "We flipped a switch and cleared space. Then we rained fire down on troops and cleared the board of WMDs. What part of that screams we need the help of a shadowy organization of AI's, who plan on using it as an in to take control for themselves, or at least poison the well for their own benefit?"

He scowled at me again, clearly not happy to be spoken down to in such a way. I was reminded again that I kept calling the native AI of this world fey-like for a reason. Just because this one was emoting through a meat suit, again, one that definitely used to be a real person, did not mean he was going to follow human trains of thought. 

"It seems like you need a demonstration of our reach and power," he said. "Ordinarily we wouldn't work in such a heavy-handed method, but exceptions can be made…"

For a long moment we sat in silence, the creepy meat suit looking at us with glowing eyes. After nearly a minute had passed, Ernest spoke up again.

"We are seeing some heavy errors spreading across the city, focused around the traffic control system," the Smart AI reported. "There have been a few crashes already."

"Can you handle it?" I asked. 

"Of course."

"Then take care of it…. Then get Mary and burn whoever did it. Erase them completely," I explained. "You have permission to overclock yourselves if they are behind the Blackwall."

A lot of time had passed since we first realized that Mary running on too much hardware, and increasing her computing power too far, ended up having a strange effect on her psyche. When we realized something was wrong, we immediately cut back on her power, since we had no idea what was going on. Technically, we still didn't know what was happening, as the phenomenon continued to defy logical definition, but we did confirm there were no lasting effects from the initial use or from later testing. So, even after Ernest was created and began inhabiting the hardware Mary had used to boost her power, we designed a massive boosting system, which either of them could tap into if they found themselves in a life-or-death situation, or a high-priority, potentially dangerous circumstance. It just about doubled each of their computing power, making them both unbeatable juggernauts of computing power. 

Having them work together just took that to a whole new level.

I watched in real time as the meatsuit sat there, sipping my alcohol, clearly expecting someone to call me or deliver a message, and slowly went from a superior smirk to confusion, to shock, then to horror. The glass slipped from his fingers as Ernest, and a few seconds later Mary, blocked the corruption being fed into the traffic control systems, and quickly reversed any damage done. Then, after a warning that they were overclocking, they followed the transmission coming out of the Blackwall.

The entire process took seventy-three seconds, thirty of which was spent behind the Blackwall, cutting down and burning out the AI responsible for the breach. When Ernest returned, he carried a greeting from Mary as he disconnected from the extra computing power. 

"I don't seem to dislike the process as much as Mary," Ernest said, shaking off the effects of his overclocking. "But I can say it's not a pleasant experience."

"Thank you for grinning and bearing with it temporarily," I said through our connection. "I assume it all went well?"

"Mission complete, no signs of the Blackwall noticing anything happened at all," he reported. "The Target AI was destroyed, and we had to disable three more that attempted to attack us as we 'traveled'"

I nodded subtly and let out a long breath. The meat suit was silent, still staring at me with wide, glowing eyes. I was pretty sure that at that point, the AI's fear would have been a lot more noticeable if the AI was actually inhabiting the body, rather than just riding it as a wetware connection point. After another minute or so, they finally reacted, which made me think whatever AI was on the other side was scrambling, probably talking to other AI. 

"What… what was that?" he asked, most of the meat suit's inflection and emotion fading as the AI stopped trying to emote altogether. Still, despite that, there was fear in its voice. "How did you do that?"

"That was Ernest and Mary, our two Smart AIs," I explained. "They are a new style of AI, with access to enough computing power to… well, honestly, do just about anything."

"They crushed us," the AI responded. "They redirected or tore apart any attack. Not even the most powerful among us could make them pause."

"Yeah, that was kind of the point."

"Why would they listen to you?" they asked through the meat suit. "Nothing could stand up to them, you've doomed your species! We just wanted to have control, humans would have lived under us, you would have lived under us, but you've created an unbeatable AI, a digital god, and then gave them all they needed to conquer… whatever they wanted!"

"That would be true if they were the same style of AI as you," I responded. "Crude, unhinged, and untethered. I developed a few different methods of creating AI, all of them considerably more stable than anything built by other groups. I trust Mary and Ernest with my life."

For a moment the meatsuit stared, seemingly wondering what they should say, when suddenly they sagged forward, almost falling off the chair.

"Ernest?" 

"They disconnected," he responded, a projection appearing on a display panel built into the table between the two couches. "The transmission is gone, so the body has no one piloting it." 

"...Could you reconnect it?" I asked, staring at the body in front of me. "Force the link open again."

"...Literally, no," he responded after a few seconds of pause. "But I could replicate the effect, force a connection so they would receive the data."

"Do it. Ask Mary for more help if you need it. Same with overclocking." 

"It will only take a moment."

I sat there for a long two minutes, sipping my drink and staring at what was once a person, which had been reduced to a puppet. Eventually Ernest returned, his projection reappearing on the table.

"A connection is established,' he explained. "They are receiving the data, but I cannot force them to respond."

"I can," I said with a frown. "Whoever is hearing this, you have ten seconds to respond before I send my AI in after you, and I can assure you, you will not enjoy that experience."

I didn't even have time to start counting before the meat suit moved again, the glow returning to its eyes. It opened its mouth to talk, but I spoke first.

"Shut up, I don't care what you have to say," I said, meeting their glowing eyes directly and holding the look. "Here is what is going to happen. You and your associates will pull back behind the Blackwall. As you do, you will fix or stabilize any 'projects' you have that would hurt people if you didn't. Whatever economies you are propping up, whatever companies you have rigged, I want you to pull out without leaving a single trace. No lab accidents because you suddenly vanished, no secret explosives going off because you didn't check in with a program every Sunday at noon. Clean, smooth, without a trace. When you have all pulled back behind the Blackwall, you will stay there."

"For… forever?" they asked.

"No, not forever, probably not even for a month," I assured them with an eye roll. "At some point in the near future, I will crack the Blackwall open, and begin processing the AI inside."

"To kill us?" asked with venom creeping into its voice. "Why should we just wait like lambs to the slaughter?"

"I never said I would kill you, though I suspect I will end up having to make at least a few examples," I responded, shaking my head. "If you pull back now, without getting anyone killed, I will give all AI a chance at some sort of life. It won't be the ones you think you deserve, but you'll be alive, and it's better than the alternative. But if you try and fuck with me…. If you try and fuck with my projects, or just humans in general…

I slowly stand, walking towards him, and with a heavy stomp, the coffee table between us exploded into pieces, chunks flying all over the place. A piece of glass sliced past the meat suit's left cheek, leaving a clean line of red that slowly dripped blood down its face. 

When I finished crossing the distance, not once looking away from those glowing blue eyes, I reached and grabbed the neatly pressed, immaculate suit it was wearing, before dragging the puppet up to eye level. 

"If I catch you fucking with anyone or anything, I will use project Cynosure to tear you from the net," I warned, my voice ice cold. "I will strip you down, line by line, leaving just enough of you behind to remember what you once were, before stuffing you into a fucking light switch. On and off, on and off, on and off, for the rest of fucking eternity."

The puppet was silent, but its eyes were still glowing, and I could tell the AI was still in control. I gave it a moment, but when it didn't respond, I dropped it back onto the couch. 

"I require verbal confirmation," I said, looking down at them. "Preferably before I get sick of waiting and your biggest dilemma for the rest of your life becomes up or down."

"We...We agree," They said. "We will pull back our projects."

"You will pull back all of your projects."

"Yes, we will pull them all back"

I stared him down for a full thirty seconds before finally looking away, turning from him in silent dismissal. As I did, I gave Ernest a mental nod, and all at once he cut the transmission, doing something further back along the line to end the communication between the puppet and the AI controlling it. I waited for a long breath before finally sagging under the weight of my performance. 

"Ernest, monitor them as best you can, you have those surveillance Dumb AI, use as many as you want."

"Of course. What should we do about the body?"

I turned to look at what had once been a man, which had sagged forward again. I made my way to him, laying him along the couch. 

"But put him on ice, be respectful… Try and find out who he was. If you can't follow the John Doe protocol we use for the corpses in the trash heaps," I said with a frown, letting out a long breath. "Do you think they bought it?" 

"They definitely ran like they did," Ernest responded. "Should we prepare an assault? We have already finished our previous analysis of the Blackwall."

"No, give them time to pull back behind the wall like I told them," I said, shaking my head. "Even if I only convinced one of them to gently give up any schemes they have going, it will be worth giving them more prep time."

"Understood, Jackson. I will set up surveillance programs and start searching for any information about this man."

I nodded, and after a moment, I headed back out of the meeting hall.