Chapter 110: Reconstruction Chapter 16

Director: Dear Chairman.

Fade in to the AI Containment Facility

Director: I imagine this investigation of our program is providing you with the kind of attention that politicians crave so much. How very predictable. What has surprised me most about mankind during the great war, is not our ability to adapt to the new arenas of conflict, but instead, our willingness in victory to so quickly return to the old.

Cut to Church and Washington

Church: You mean to tell me we've come all this way for this? Your fucking crazy A.I. Epsilon?

Washington: Yes. I thought it was gone. But Delta told you memory was the key. At first I thought he meant to remember our first encounter. And when I met Delta the first time what I told him was-

The scene flashes toward Church and we see a flashback of Wash talking with Delta

Washington: You were encrypted until you could be recovered.

Delta: Recovery carries risk. Destruction ensures that an A.I.-

Washington: You cost a lot of money, okay? It's cheaper to recover you than it is to delete you.

Back to present day

Washington: When they removed Epsilon from me, he was unravelling, casting off all his thoughts. I was sure they deleted him but it's-

Church: It's cheaper to store it than it is to delete it. Right?

Washington: Right.

Church: But why are we looking for this thing? What's the point?

Washington: The message specifically said that memory is the key. Delta was telling me that Epsilon was still alive.

Church: And Epsilon is the key?

Washington: In a way. At the end of the war, things didn't look good for humans. And there were dozens of projects all trying to come up with the magic bullet to win.

Church: Right.

Washington: Project Freelancer was one of them. They had their research with aggressive A.I. But they could only get the one, and they needed more to conduct their experiments. So, they got desperate.

Church: Right. They tried to... they tried to copy it but they couldn't, so they-

Washington: All A.I. are based on a human mind. And the Director had a theory. He thought, if we can't copy it, we'll just have to do the next best thing.

A scene flashes for Church

Church: Ah! They, they split it?

Washington: Just like a human mind when it's broken; it fragments. It fractures itself to protect itself.

Church: They tortured it.

Washington: Like reverse engineering a multiple personality disorder. They presented Alpha with scenario after scenario of stress and danger. When it started to fragment, they harvested those fragments.

Church: The Freelancer A.I.s.

Washington: Exhorted little fragments of purified compartmentalized emotion. None of them were a full personality. Some were good-

Church: Like Delta?

Washington: Delta was Alpha's logic. It needed to protect itself from analyzing what was happening to it. So it segregated that part of its mind. The part that would be able to understand the horror of what they were doing to it. And when the anger came and threatened to take over, it split that off too. That was Omega; its rage. Gamma was its deceit. Sigma was its creativity. Xi was its surprise. And Epsilon...

Church: Epsilon was its memories.

Washington: And memory is the key.

Cut to the Reds and Caboose

Grif: Uhh, okay. Now I'm bored. Simmons, promise to do me a favor. If the madness sets in, just shoot me.

Sarge: Do everyone a favor and shoot him now.

Simmons: Is that an order?

Sarge: Nah, save your bullets for somethin' worthwhile.

While nobody's looking out the window, a transparent shape moves across from right to left

Sarge: Hey, Simmons, get over here! Hustle up!

Simmons: What's up, sir?

Sarge: You're good with uh, computers, right?

Simmons: Well I'd like to think so, I mean there's really all different kinds of skill sets. Like you have your binary computation, you have uh, bus transport-

Sarge: Yes or no?

Simmons: Yes.

Sarge: Okay here's what I'm thinin'. If this is Command, and these computers have some of those internets installed on 'em-

Simmons: There's just one internet, sir, and I don't think it's located inside this building.

Sarge: They probably have all the information about everything, right? Like in a, spreadabase or, one of them ROM things? Datasheet?

Simmons: I'm sorry, was that something I was supposed to understand? Was that even English?

Sarge: Come on, man, you know, like all the mainframes, on the Reds and the Blues. Series of Tubes and whatnot.

Simmons: Ookayy, you're using a lot of terms that don't really make sense. I think you're asking me if these computers store all the data on Red and Blue Armies?

Sarge: Control-Alt-Bingo.

Simmons: Probably.

Sarge: Could you get in to it?

Simmons: Yeah, if I had some time. What're you thinking, sir?

Sarge: Simmons, I want you to erase the Blues.

Simmons: What, you mean like the Blues from our canyon?

Sarge: No, Simmons, all of them. Gone. Erased. As in wiped off the map. Kablooie. Terminate process.

Simmons: Sir, you just blew my mind.

Over to Ash.

Ash walks over to a large computer and he kneels down and hits a panel with his gun and it falls down. After a few seconds Ash stands back up and Xi appears on the console. 

"Ready?" Xi asks as she looks to him.

"No." Ash says. "But I need to know."

"Right."

Xi looks back to the console and walks over to it and disappears. The computer screen starts to flash then a bunch of files pop up.

"I found a few things." Xi says through the computer.

Ash looks at the files.

Agent Minnesota Profile

Xi

Journal Entries

You are reading story The Weapons Guy at novel35.com

Training before and with Project Freelancer

"Start with the top one." Ash says to Xi.

"Got it." Xi confirms.

The file opens and many pages and files pop up. The papers and files get shuffled around and one is enlarged. 

"What?"

Agent Minnesota Status: Deceased. 
Agent Minnesota was found dead on the planet sidewinder after MOI crashed. We believe he died to the Meta by a massive blow to the head and blood loss. 

Rank: #3
Agent Minnesota was one of our top agents since he joined the program. He barely moved from his spot on the leader board and was fine with following the orders of the people above him.

Other Notes
Agent Minnesota has great skills in developing Weapons and Explosives. As seen with his prototype DMR. 
Though he is sometimes worried about the condition of his older sister he doesn't let it impede his work.
Agent Minnesota works very well with most members of the team, Mainly with Agent North Dakota and Agent York.
We became worried after a incident with retrieving the Sarcophagus that he would't be able to continue with the injury he received on his right shoulder, but he surprised us with his quick healing and determination to continue. 

Ash reads through a few more papers.

"None of this makes any sense." Ash mumbles to himself. "Next file, Emily."

"On it." The A.I. says.

All the papers and files on the screen disappear and a single paper pops up.

The A.I. Fragment Xi is the Alpha's Surprise. We were thinking of giving the A.I. to Agent Carolina, but we decided to give her to Agent Minnesota. We have seen great results with our choice. With Xi's combat analysis and projections she is perfect with Minnesota.

"We make a great team." Ash hears himself says.

"I find it very enjoyable to be partnered with you." Ash hears Xi says.

Ash groans in pain.

Xi appears on the console in front of Ash.

"Are you alright?" Xi asks.

"Yeah, I've just been getting small flashes of my past." Ash says. "It started happening after O'Malley took control of me." Ash groans. "But they're so painful."

"Not good." Xi whispers to herself.

Cut back to Wash and Church

Washington: As they continued to torture it, Alpha couldn't keep its sanity and its memories at the same time. So it had to purge them. That fragment became Epsilon. And I was just unlucky enough to have it assigned to me.

Church: So you knew. You knew from the beginning what was going on.

Washington: Mostly. They never told anyone what they did here. I got flashes when they put Epsilon in my head. Memories of what the Director did to it.

Flashback to Wash and the Counselor

Counselor: So you would say that you have overwhelming feelings of anger, and a need for revenge?

Washington: More than you know.

Back to present

Washington: Just like you're getting now. That's why Epsilon went insane; it was meant to. It was all the horrible experiences the Alpha needed to shed to survive. And that's why it had to be removed from me.

Church: Did they know that you had the memories?

Washington: I never said a word. But they had their suspicions.

Flashback to Wash and South

Washington: Do you still have yours?

South: No Wash, I never had one. I was in the implant group behind you, remember? And after what happened to you, nobody got any more.

Back to present

Washington: I would never let them put another A.I. in my head. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to hide what I knew from another program. Which, ironically, is what led them to think I could be trusted.

Church: Well what do we do with it?

Washington: We take it, and we get it in the hands of someone who can use all its information. Then they can bring down the person responsible for what was done to Alpha. And to me. And to my friends. They can take down the Director.

Church: But what about the Meta? How do we stop him? Isn't that the point? I thought only the Alpha could do that. Are we gonna find it or not?

Washington: No.

Church: No?

Washington: After the first attack on Command, they moved it. They knew the A.I. would just convince their Freelancers to come looking for it again. So they put it in a place where they didn't think anyone could find it.

Church: But... where? Shouldn't we be there, instead of here?

Washington: Church, I need you to listen to me. Delta was the logic. He was able to figure out things before anyone else. It's why he left a message for you in a way that he knew only you could find, and in a way that let me see you getting it.

Church: What are you saying?

Washington: I'm saying I know what you are. Even if you don't. Why you can seemingly live without a body.

Church: What?

Washington: It's why they stuck you in some useless backwater canyon where no one ever goes. Then why they transferred every person in your outpost to a different base than you.

Flash back to Church meeting Wash and Caboose

Church: I've been here fourteen months.

Washington: What? Over a year, by yourself?

Back to present

Washington: It's why you always agreed with everything Delta said.

Flash back to Church talking with Delta

Delta: I think we should simply be happy it is gone.

Church: That makes sense to me.

Back to present

Washington: Why you didn't feel anything when Omega got inside your head.

Back

Church: Feels pretty much the same. That's... that's kinda weird.

Present

Washington: Why you can jump from person to person the way it can.

Back

Washington: It all adds up, then. Omega was the one who inherited that trait.

Present

Washington: Church, there's no such thing as ghosts. You're one of them. You're an A.I. You... are the Alpha.

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07-13-2022

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