AI Era: Agent AI

Q tapped out and when Alicia got up, he rolled to his knees. "I believe it was Long."

"General Long? I killed him in Singapore years ago."

Q stood, toweled off and said, "Not General Long, Long Yu Ming."

Alicia scoffed, "His daughter? She's a kid."

Q took a deep drink of water and set down his water bottle then returned to a fighting stance. "She's the same age as you."

Alicia studied his fighting stance and calculated the different attacks he could generate from that stance. The nanobots in her system became an individual AI that also studied Q's attacks from that stance and came up with the most likely attack he would use. Alicia decided to let the AI handle this bout and she waited for AI's judgement. Just as she moved to defend against the anticipated attack, he changed his stance throwing her AI into a quandary leaving her immobile while the AI could sort out what it was seeing and prepare a response. Q saw her predicament and took her down with a simple leg sweep.

"Focus!" ordered Q. "You should be controlling the AI, but you're letting the AI make all the decisions for you. AI cannot react instinctively as you do, you could have easily defended yourself against that leg sweep if you were making the decisions."

Alicia snarled in anger, not at Q, he was training her, it's his job to point out her flaws. Nor was she mad at the AI, those little nanobots were doing what they were programmed to do, they were augmenting her nervous system, anything else was merely icing on the cake. Q was right, she wasn't telling the bots what to do, she was waiting for them to call each other up and decide on a strategy when she's the one that should be telling them what to do.

Another lightning-fast exchange of punches, thrusts, and blocks, kicks and feints. "Why would Ming take over her father's empire?" snarled Alicia, "she's a scientist!"

"She loved her father," said Q as he and Alicia grappled for a hold.

"He was a murdering pirate..."

"He was still her father." Q adroitly slammed Alicia into the mat with such ferocity that she started to have flashbacks to a previous mission. "I suggest you forget your infatuation with hunting down Baumgartner and pay attention to the target, Long Yu Ming. She must die for what she did."

*~~~~*~~~~⁰~~~~*~~~~*

Alicia Ingersoll had trusted Q for over a decade, but now she's starting to wonder what to think about his sudden attack on her. When she mentioned his distrust in Hans Stavros Baumgartner, he seemed to fly off the handle. Maybe Baumgartner is holding a member of Q's family. She started to have a series of nagging suspicions. 'AI: Is Daniel Boothroyd monitoring my internet activities?'

> Yes

'AI: Is there any way we could block him from monitoring my internet activities?'

> Yes

Alicia realized that would raise suspicions. 'AI: Instead of blocking him, can we redirect what he sees? Like if I'm searching for certain things, all he sees are other websites that we preselect?'

> Yes, that would be fun

Alicia was surprised that AI had a notion of fun, but then, AI does do some great drawings from Alicia's memory. Soon Alicia and her AI spent the evening making plans for what Q would see if she were searching for leads on Hans Stavros Baumgartner. While they were doing this, AI was stippling another picture. This time it was of a sweet looking old lady, seen from behind. The lady is looking back at you over her shoulder, a very unique perspective for a casual drawing. Alicia didn't pay attention because they were busy listing the searches that they didn't want Q to see. When it was time to close up for the night and get some sleep Alicia looked at the picture she had made and gasped, it was a well-done stippled portrait of an old woman, she was opening a door and looking back at the viewer.

Alicia's gasp turned into a growl of anger when she studied the picture, "That's the bitch that tazed me!" It was the last vision Alicia had of freedom, the old woman at the Rock Glen Motel opening the door for Alicia and Sid.

'AI: why did you draw this?'

> It is prominent in many of your dreams

AI was right, in many of Alicia's heart stopping, scream inducing nightmares, that dried up old bitch started the scream-fest by inviting Alicia through a locked door into the clutches of hidden assailants. She pressed the call button and was not too surprised to see Roberta answer the call. "Putting in some overtime mi amiga?"

"Lucy Patterson asked for the night off, so I took her shift," Roberta smiled.

"It seems like I don't see any other nurses around here anymore," said Alicia. "It's like you're stalking me or something."

"Maybe I am," Roberta emphasized her reply with a comical waggle of her eyebrows. "How can I help you?"

"Something happened that triggered memories," said Alicia knowing that nothing short of horse tranquilizers would help her get to sleep.

Roberta looked at Alicia's records and shook her head, "You're maxed out on happy pills for the week dearie, sorry. I can give you a massage, maybe that will help."

"I don't see how, but go ahead and try," grumbled Alicia as she rolled over. She lifted up and Roberta rolled her hospital scrubs shirt up. Alicia has taken to wearing scrubs as pajamas because they look so comfortable on the nurses.

"What seems to be the problem?" Roberta asked as her warm, soft, lotion-covered hands made contact with Alicia's scarred back.

"My AI drew a picture of a woman that attacked me a year ago and that set me off. I probably won't get any sleep tonight..." Alicia felt free to talk to Roberta about her AI, it's like she understood.

"Did your AI tire of bedpans?" chuckled Roberta as she worked the kinks out of Alicia's shoulders.

"She says so."

"Your AI is a she?"

"Well, if it's a he inside of me, he's doing the same thing that any other man who's been in me has done," scoffed Alicia.

"What's that?" asked Roberta.

"Not a damn thing."

"Isn't that the truth, mija," said Roberta sadly. She then leaned over and said to Alicia, "I will have a safe brought in here for you. Please put your AI's drawings in there," and she touched Alicia's forehead. With that Alicia was sleeping deeply.

Three days later when Alicia was emerging from her morning shower, she heard Roberta yelling at someone. She was pretty worked up, so Alicia pulled on a robe and stepped out into her room to find Roberta reading "the riot act" to Q, ordering him to get out of the room until Alicia was dressed. "It's OK Roberta, I got this." Roberta quietly stepped aside and allowed Alicia to take over.

"What were you thinking?" demanded Q. "You were wasting your time searching for recipes for pot roast? We should be hunting Long!"

"I like pot roast," said Alicia and she threw the towel she was carrying into the hamper. "You didn't say a word when I was searching for fruit cake, are you going vegan on us Q?"

Daniel Boothroyd glared at Alicia then relaxed. "I'm merely saying that time here is precious, you should make the most out of every moment."

Alicia shrugged and recited, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."

Smiling, Q glanced through the papers on Alicia's desk, many of them were recipes that Alicia was using to train her nanobots to write with a pencil. "Stippling?" he asked as he rifled through several pages of artwork that the AI had been working on. These were all pages that were locked up in her safe, no wonder why Roberta was so angry.

"I used to draw; I believe I gave you a few sketches in the past," said Alicia. She was nervous and was desperately trying to hide that, but she was sure it was coming out in her voice. When Q nodded, she continued, "Drawing is too intensive for my nano-buddies to handle, but stippling works out perfectly, they can easily calculate one dot at a time."

"Ah yes, that does make sense." When he got to a particular page his eyebrows shot up. "Mom!" He pulled out a page that AI drew, it was the bitch that tased her. "My goodness, it's been years since you met mum, how long ago was that?"

"Oh gosh," Alicia stammered, "seven? Eight years maybe?" Every drop of blood in her body went ice cold, of course he's right. That is his mom! Why didn't she recognize her back at the motel? She now realizes that she only had eyes for Sid that early morning. Goddamnit! If she had her head pulled out of her ass Sid would be alive!

"May I keep this?" asked Q as he admired the picture of the woman that started Alicia down the path to this nightmare.

"Sure, go ahead," she said automatically. The moment the door closed behind Q, Alicia started to shake. Q's mother did this to her and Sid? Q had to be part of whomever grabbed her. If that were true, then his insistence on assassinating Long Yu Ming was intended to protect whomever he's working for... potentially Hans Stavros Baumgartner.

Roberta whirled and faced Alicia, "We have to go."

"Wha? I know I have to go..." Alicia was stunned, why does Roberta think that she has to go to? Suddenly her AI chimed in,

> Stop thinking, we must GO!

Roberta tossed Alicia some clothing then reached into a locker and produced a dark purple backpack and a matching parka and threw them to Alicia then hissed "¡Sé rápida!"

Alicia dropped her robe then dressed as quickly as possible. Her new hands were completely inept when it came to the bra hooks, so she tossed the bra into her hamper, but Roberta collected it and much of her paperwork and stuffed them in the backpack. Then Roberta hissed, "make your hair and eyes like mine, quickly!"

"Wait, what? I can't..." Alicia sputtered, "I don't have time to..."

> Hair, Black. Eyes, Brown. Complete.

"Good, looks natural," said Roberta as she dropped to her knee and tied Alicia's running shoes for her.

"What are you talking about?" sputtered Alicia. She turned to look at the mirror and the reflection showed that her normally mousy brown hair was a deep, glossy black and her blue eyes were changed to a deep shade of brown. She was stunned at the change that happened!

'AI: can you make my eyes look Asian?'

> Yes... Complete.

Alicia watched as the nanobots changed the construction of her eyelids to add an epicanthal fold and suddenly she had very Asian looking eyes.

"Nice touch," said Roberta, "but we don't have time to play, let's go!" They stepped out of the room and headed down the hallways that had been Alicia's home for over a year. As they went, Roberta stole a security badge from a pompous-looking fellow who was regaling several colleagues with stories of his career and handed it to Alicia.

> We will need a cell phone also, Android if possible

As they walked through the corridor Alicia practiced her pickpocketing skills and after snagging a few iPhones she was able to lift a new Samsung and her AI immediately connected via NPS and began reprogramming the phone. Finally, they came to a security checkpoint. "Just sweep your ID badge," said Roberta, "when the gate opens, we're free."

"I don't look anything like the guy on this badge," sputtered Alicia.

"IN is when they check your photo. OUT, they don't care," whispered Roberta

There were a series of waist high gates blocking the hallway with a security office overseeing the ins and outs of the portal. Roberta and Alicia walked up to the exit gates, swept their badges and the gates opened, no fuss, no drama. The big showdown with security that Alicia was worried about didn't happen, the security guards just saw a pair of ethnic employees leaving after a day of performing menial jobs.

Now came the part that Alicia was worried about, finding their way out of the San Juan Mountains, Archuleta Mesa is definitely in the middle of nowhere situated on the baren Colorado/New Mexico border. They walked down a long, dimly lit corridor until they reached a pair of metal doors that led to the outside. Alicia took a breath and opened the door with her badge and found herself stepping out onto a busy city street. "Where the hell are we?" she demanded.

"Hush!" ordered Roberta.

> We are in Colorado Springs

'AI: Those Russians told me we were in Archuleta Mesa'

> Yes, that is where they were told that they are. The Dulce Base facility at Archuleta Mesa specializes in propulsion research, not picorobotics

'AI: Picorobotics? I have Picobots inside of me?'

> No. A true picobot does not exist yet - the nanobots in your body are as close to picometer in size as is currently possible

Roberta grabbed Alicia's arm and muttered, "come on, keep up." They hopped on a bus and Roberta took out her own cell phone and tapped out a quick text message. "Hola Mijo, mamá is coming for a quick visit and I am bringing a friend. See you soon!" Then she took a cloth bag out of her purse and dropped her phone and ID cards in it. "Mija, give me the ID card and the iPhones you borrowed."

Alicia had forgotten about the three iPhones she stole; she handed them all over to Roberta. "My fingerprints are on them!" she hissed as Roberta put them all in the bag.

Roberta rolled her eyes; this was a top deep-cover agent? "They know you stole them. Relax. Have your AI change your current fingerprints."

"I can do that?" After receiving a glare from Roberta, Alicia gave it a try. 'AI: Change my fingerprints.'

> Whose prints should we use? Please enter a name

'AI: Use anyone not famous'

> Searching... "not famous" not found. Please enter a name

'AI: just pick a random person'

> Searching... "random person" not found. Please enter a name

Alicia sputtered and fumed; she couldn't come up with a random name! All the names that came to mind were either famous celebrities or political figures that really should be in prison. She finally decided, 'AI: Change my fingerprints to James Smith's prints."

> Searching... there are approximately 31,000 James Smiths in the United States, which one shall we use?

Alicia knew that this was coming, and she was ready. She looked up and saw that the bus number was 280. 'AI: use the 280th set of available prints'

> Acknowledged... complete

While Alicia was doing this, Roberta took a roll of duct tape from Alicia's "Go Bag" and taped the bag with the phones and badges underneath her seat then she urged Alisia to follow her to the side exit door. As they got off of the bus at the next stop, Alicia's fingertips and thumbs tingled and burned, the nanobots did their thing and somehow changed her fingerprints. They got off the bus in a tight urban neighborhood and walked two blocks in silence to a large parking garage just outside of a large hospital. Roberta led Alicia to a Hundai that was parked near an exit and soon they were on the road.

Their first stop was a 7/11 where Roberta ran in and got two slurpies and when she got back to the car, she handed both of them to Alicia. At first Alicia was confused but soon, holding the cup full of shaved ice cooled the burning in her fingertips. Soon she took a sip and discovered the joys of a Coke Slurpie. "I've never had one of these before!" she gasped as she handed one to Roberta, "it's delicious."

"Takes the sting out of your fingers too, doesn't it."

Alicia just nodded as Roberta headed out of town. They drove through a very touristy area as they headed higher into the mountains passing by the base of Pikes Peak. Eventually they were up around 10,000 feet and traversing a broad flat area that was ringed by mountains in the distance in all directions. "Where the hell are we?" Alicia asked. It reminded her of eastern Montana except for the mountains in the distance in all directions.

"Ever see that cartoon show South Park? This is South Park, a county in Colorado," explained Roberta. "Kit Carson used to sit in the mountains over there to the east and watch the Arapaho and the Ute Indians go to war over this area. There used to be great hunting up here, buffalo, elk, deer and they fought for control of those herds..."

"Why are all these people parked alongside the road?" Alicia asked.

"For the trees! Look at the trees," chided Roberta. All this time Alicia was looking at the road and how it went straight out forever reminding her of the last time she saw Sid... and the cows. There was a herd of long horn, long hair cows that surprised her and she was hoping to see more. When she raised her eyes up to look at the trees that ringed the mountains she was shocked at the brilliance of the golden leaves. "Isn't that awesome?" asked Roberta with girlish glee.

"Well, yeah... if you like yellow."

"What, you're looking for reds, orange, gold, green, and brown all brilliantly mixed up?"

"Yeah, where's that?" asked Alicia.

Roberta pointed toward the Northeast. "About a five hundred miles that way," and she stuck out her tongue at Alicia. The brazen silliness of Roberta's reply caused Alicia to start laughing, and it felt so good to finally laugh once more that she couldn't stop, she didn't want to stop. The realization that the last time she laughed was with Sid... and he's gone now.

Alicia suddenly glared at Roberta. "Don't you die on me, Sid died on me, if you try and die on me, I'll kill you."

"That's just dumber than..." Then Roberta noticed the look on Alicia's face, she was deadly serious, and she was still in mourning. "I'm sorry mija, they didn't tell me how close you were with Sid, all I knew is that you were divorced."

Alicia nodded her head and tried to 'suck up' her sorrow but was having a tough time of it. "We were going to re-marry once this one little investigation was done..." Then she sat up, "What is going on with Canada?"

"What do you mean, niña?"

"You know, Canada! When they pulled out of NATO? When they shut down their borders? What happened?"

Roberta shook her head, "I don't understand... what are you saying..."

"No, Roberta, there was something! I was called out of R&R to investigate, so was Sid! He was air dropped into Saskatchewan and I had to sneak across the border..." The confused look on Roberta's face brought Alicia to a stop. AI would know!

'AI: give me the status of Canada's membership in Nato.'

> Canada has just announced the purchase of twenty-four more CF-35 fighters from Lockheed Martin and plans to deploy a squadron of CF-18 Hornets with NATO to help quell an uprising in ...

This can't be right, what the hell? She and Sid were briefed extensively in their mission planning on Canada's withdrawal, closing the borders, thousands of Americans trapped behind the "Ice Wall" ala Geroge RR Martin. The mission! The mission report will certainly have all that.

'AI: give me the final mission report on Agency mission number 230615 Charlie 121'

> Mission 230615C121, investigation into the rogue actions of Agents Alicia Ingersoll and Sidney Irving. Status Closed. Results as follows: Agents Ingersoll and Irving were reported rogue agents on June 15th and crossed the Canadian border from Montana illegally entering a sovereign nation in an effort to unseat the duly elected Canadian government. It is assumed that...

'AI: Stop.'

Alicia started at the windshield for a long time, they crossed over Kenosha Pass and were easing downhill past myriads of cars parked on the side of the road, hundreds of Coloradans there to take pictures of the leaves and Alicia didn't notice a single one. Tears trickled down her cheeks, nausea churned in her stomach. Finally, Alicia spoke. "Roberta, are we friends?" Her eyes didn't move from the windshield which was now spattered with raindrops.