HAWK

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: AWAKENING (5/5)

Kas looked over at Mack, expecting to see him holding back laughter, but he looked even more serious than Rhaspa.

'That's ridiculous,' she whispered.

'Just think about it,' Rhaspa said. 'We know artificial intelligence exists. We've been warned for centuries that if one ever grew so powerful, it could wipe out all life as we know it. Well, what if it's already happened - not in Primi, but on another planet in another solar system? In Kiko, for example. What if the life form that began there created an AI and was subsequently wiped out by it? The AI would be all that's left. A superior intelligence, entirely unrestrained with a whole planet to itself - a whole solar system. What does it do then? What does any life form do when it reaches the top of the food chain?'

Kas shook her head.

'It expands,' Mack answered.

'That's right. Life is a virus. Every life form that we know of exists simply to survive and replicate. Why should artificial life be any different?'

Kas looked again at the alien. The silver material had finished its repair job, leaving no trace that it had ever been cut open at all.

'That's quite a theory,' she said.

'It's not a theory,' Mack replied. 'We haven't pulled a lot of information out of this thing, but we have managed to retrieve one crucial piece of information: a map. It shows our entire galaxy in far more detail than any other map of its kind. We had to custom build a supercomputer just to be able to view it. It shows every nebula, every star, every planet, every goddamn moon in our galaxy. More than that, it shows the exact ones controlled by the Federation. Do you know how many that is?'

'One-thousand and sixty-three,' Kas muttered, but Mack was already shaking his head.

'Try one-hundred thousand and you'd be getting close. Now, most of those are young stars or systems that haven't yielded life - but they still take them.'

'Why?'

'Expansion. The first thing we looked for when we found the map was Kiko. We wanted to finally see what the Federation's home planet actually looked like - and we did. It was dead. No ocean, no atmosphere. It's completely unable to support organic life. But then we looked closer, and guess what? There are cities. Every inch of land has been broken into grids like it's some kind of motherboard. The AI - or what we call, 'The Intelligence' - has turned the planet into a computer, and it's the same for every other planet and moon in their solar system. And when it filled them up, it started building places to occupy. There are over fifty artificial planets in Kiko. But eventually it ran out of resources.'

'So it waited,' Rhaspa said, picking up the thread of the story. 'It waited a millennium until it discovered a secret that would finally let it break free of its shackles and spread beyond its own solar system.'

Kas realised she already knew the answer. She let it out as a whisper.

'Wormholes.'

Rhaspa nodded. 'Yes. The Intelligence is a disease consuming entire solar systems, and it won't stop until it has taken over the galaxy. Maybe not even then.'

Nobody said anything for a long time. Rhaspa's words lingered in the air like a bad smell. Kas started to feel dizzy. She turned around, looking for somewhere to sit but finding nothing. She walked to the near wall and leaned her back against it and slid down to the floor.

'Close it,' Rhaspa said. Mack tapped on the top of the silver box and the lid began sliding closed. The three armed soldiers waited until they heard it seal shut before lowering their weapons. Rhaspa walked towards the box and put his hand on it.

'So now you know,' he said. 'This is the Federation's greatest secret, and as far as we know, we are the only beings in the solar system who know it. We can't tell anyone. If we tried, the Federation would destroy us. So we have done the only thing we can. We have hidden on this planet and tried to learn everything we can about the Intelligence in the hope of finding a way to fight it.'

Kas cleared her throat. 'You said before that the Federation were the ones responsible for Selva. Why?'

'To understand that, you have to first understand what X1's really are. Imagine, if you will, an ant colony. Ants are fascinating creatures. Individually they are quite dumb, but as a colony, they can achieve incredible things. X1's are much like ants. They are the neurons to the Intelligence's brain. When a small number of X1's are compromised, it is not much of a threat... but when those on board Selva were hacked, the Federation felt it.'

'Hacking X1's used to be extremely difficult,' Mack said. 'In fifty years, only a handful of X1's have ever successfully been hijacked. But when Swanne managed to hack thousands in several minutes from a safe distance, we became a threat that the Federation could not tolerate.'

'So the Federation destroyed Selva to stop a virus from spreading?'

'Exactly.'

'They killed twelve million people.'

'That's nothing,' Rhaspa said. 'What happened to Selva may just be the beginning. Right now, they are making a choice. Whether to let us be, or whether to destroy us.'

'Who do you mean, us? Us who?'

'Primi,' Mack said. 'The entire solar system.'

Kas looked at Worm who was staring down at the floor, deep in thought. She seemed to be handling the news better than Kas who felt like her brain was melting.

'And you intend to fight this?' she asked.

'We have to try,' Rhaspa replied.

'How? You're talking about something which, if true, has already dominated the galaxy.'

'It's not an easy challenge, I agree.'

'Not easy?! It's impossible!'

'Nothing's impossible. A man can beat a giant with the right weapon.'

'What the hell kind of weapon can you possibly hope to find?'

'Actually, we've already found it. You even helped Captain Mack to bring it here.'

Kas blinked. 'What?'

Rhaspa smiled. 'Astrid.'