AI Era: Agent AI SWAK

"Sure!" Zhang took the mic and smiled, "they can hear me?"

"Yeah, it's a microphone for the intercom for the front door."

The ram slammed into the door with another loud, CLANG! and Zhang turned on the microphone. "Hello?"

The men at the door looked around then knocked on the door again with another loud CLANG! Zhang responded again with "Yes? Is someone there?"

Zane snorted with laughter as the mercenaries glared at the door. "Can I help you?" Now they were both laughing.

Then one of the mercenaries said, "We're here for Insari!"

"I'm sorry, she says she's indisposed, can you come back tomorrow?" Now Zane was doubled over in laughter trying his hardest to keep quiet. The mercenaries snarled in anger, one of them took a shot at what they thought was the speaker and the ram reared back for another CLANG!

"We want Insari NOW!" CLANG!

"Hold on, I'll ask if she's taking any visitors."

CLANG!

"Ok, we're going to let them in," whispered Zane. Zhang gave him a funny look, but he just nodded.

"Ok, she says you can come in, but please be quiet, we have neighbors."

And with a click the door opened four inches. The door was not a free-swinging door, it opened slowly regardless of how many mercenaries were pulling on the door. When it finally opened enough for people to slip inside the mercenaries realized that the door was eight inches thick, it was made from the armor belt of a scrapped Navy cruiser, there was nothing their little ram was going to do against something that was built to turn aside Japanese torpedoes.

When the door opened a full two feet the mercenaries poured into the breech, leaving two men behind to guard their equipment, then it slowly closed behind them. "Now what?" said Zhang.

"Come on," said Zane. He led her out through the sea of accountants, down a flight of stairs to where the half dozen Mercedes-Benz Sprinter vans were parked, some were blocking traffic. "Just be my secretary for a few minutes, ok?"

"Yes mister..." she looked at the business card that he just handed her, "Mister Reagan."

As they neared the vans, about ten police cars marked for the Castle Rock PD arrived, lights flashing, sirens wailing. "These are the vans sir!" said Zane, "Jeremy Reagan, Reagan Mercedes-Toyota, Castle Rock Colorado. These guys, they took these vans right off the lot." Now Colorado Springs police began to show up and Zane handed out his business card to any cop that would listen. Just then another car arrived, and an older businessman appeared, "This is my dad Frank, he'll be handling this mess, he's got the paperwork for every one of these vans. I want to find those people." Then in the crowd of cops and spectators Zane gave Frank a hug and said, "Thanks buddy, I owe you one."

Several tow trucks arrived to impound the stolen vans and their contents and police began to disassemble the battering ram while they hauled away the two remaining mercenaries. Zane walked up to the door and pressed a buzzer, and a voice could be heard, "Archuleta Mesa, can I help you?"

"Yeah, we're looking for a dozen or so guys who came in here, can we come in?"

"Yeah sure, hang on," and with a buzz the door opened. The two mercenaries who were being led away in cuffs watched on in shock as Zane, Zhang and several cops entered the fortress they'd been trying to break into for over a week.

Walking past the mercenaries that were being shoved into a cop car, Zhang smiled sweetly and said, "Sometimes it just takes a little sugar," causing the mercenary to shout and rage in anger. Inside the "fortress" they found the security turnstiles and the on-duty security guard was still raging about a dozen or so "Army guys" who jumped the gates and ran up the hall and went outside through the back door.

-.-.--.. -.-.-... -.-----. -.--.-.. --.----.

"I need you to relax darling," said Alicia as she snowboarded over knee deep snow on Cupid Mountain.

"They tried to kill Cliff!" Ming was barely able to contain her anger. She sat in her control room, the same room where she taught Cliff to answer their coded messages on an illegal frequency. "I need to get back to him!"

Since returning, Ming has not moved more than a foot away from Cliff. They spent every minute holding each other, crying, loving, and making plans together. Alicia was part of their connection and the three slept together every night as the retaliation rolled out. The first thing to happen was several FAA fat cats were jailed for taking bribes and giving credence to documentation that was obtained outside official channels causing huge scheduling conflicts. Long Air Services was soon flying on time again.

"Let's get this done and you can get back to our boy, ok?"

"Ok," moaned Ming, "Give me another 180-degree scan, left to right."

Numerous computers were now displaying different views of what Alicia was seeing right now, thermal images, enhanced color images, ultraviolet images, sonar representations of the snowpack, and digital breakdowns of what Alicia was seeing. Now that Alicia was no longer with the Agency and was an investigator for Twin Dragon Security Systems, she needed a controller back at the main database to help her, and Ming became her Babe In The Chair, her BITCh.

"It's ok, I got it together," panted Ming. "Look down at the snow... to your right... Right there, that's where they came in. I can see the changes in snow density," Yellow circles appeared in Alicia's vision as Ming circled the buried footprints. "The dummies didn't wear snowshoes; the snow wasn't deep, and they must have counted on the sleds they were pulling to cover their tracks... maybe they didn't care... give me another 180-degree scan left to right."

Obediently Alicia turned her head to the left then slowly turned it to the right, her multifunctional glasses recorded everything she saw, and the relay set in her backpack sent that data, via satellite to Ming. Ming was able to analyze it and return data via her AI to Alicia's AI. Alicia's AI would then project any data or markings that Ming entered on the computer up onto the glasses. If nothing important could be found, Alicia would see hearts and smiley faces appear at the edges of her vision from Ming doodling but right now she could see Ming drawing outlines of footprints that were now covered by two feet of snow, now revealed by sonar, then an arrow that showed the route of travel.

They've been working non-stop, ever since Dunkan found the bird he shot. It was a mechanical drone covered with feathers, at a distance it looked like a bird, the six clear plastic propellers and guards were nearly invisible when in flight. This is how they could see that Cliff was sitting outside at the picnic table. They targeted Cliff to be killed, the thought drove Ming nearly to the breaking point, she's been working night and day, designing new nanobots with Roberta for Cliff, and plotting her revenge on the "Triumvirate of Asshole" Boothroyd, Baumgartner, and Haag.

Up on Cupid Mountain Alicia followed Ming's markings until she came to a level area. The ballistics track that Ming developed showed a 98% chance that this was the area that the rockets were launched from. "Give me another 180, left to right..." Now Ming was silent as she worked the analysis, lines and circles appeared in Alicia's vision as Ming analyzed the data and filtered out what was natural and what was man-made. "This is the place," she announced, "here's your launchers." A bright oval appeared downhill from Alicia.

Moving slowly down the incline keeping her snowboard perpendicular to the slope, she edged closer to the bushes Ming indicated. When she got there, she found three simple launchers each made of two boards screwed together to form a V, the launchers were propped up by two more boards making a tripod. The rockets were simply laid in the trough of the V and launched, then after their motors burned out, they were guided as they fell back to earth. "Oh shit," muttered Ming and Alicia at the same time, followed by Ming's little cry of "Jinx!"

There was a rocket still sitting in one of the primitive launchers.

"Footprints are real confused here," said Ming even though Alicia was looking at a pristine layer of snow. While Alicia unscrewed the guidance head from the rocket and put it in her backpack, Ming studied the snowpack density using sonar, a series of circles began appearing in Alicia's vision. "This doesn't make sense," said Ming, "There's stuff scattered everywhere. These were the messiest terrorists I've ever seen..." a series of lines under a snowdrift appeared, it looked like a game of pick-up-sticks. "I think this is a stash of rockets."

"Da fuck?" said Alicia. Rockets are fragile things, she didn't like dealing with them in the military, a good bump could fracture the solid propellent turning the rocket into a long skinny grenade just waiting for someone to try to launch it.

Another circle appeared near the fallen rockets. "Dig here, it looks like a laptop."

Alicia dropped to her knees and began digging and less than a foot down she struck paydirt, it was a laptop, but it was severely trashed, the screen was half torn from the main body, and it looked like someone was beating on the keyboard with a hatchet...

A rectangle appeared in Alicia's vision, "Here's another," said Ming, "let's get those two hard drives back here and we'll send up a crew to clean up this area."

"Sounds good to me," said Alicia and she dug up what was indeed another laptop, this one was severely damaged also. Someone really hated these laptops... or tried to eat them. Alicia brought up her AI,

'AI: go to thermal please.'

> Thermal vision on.

Suddenly the world was plunged into a sea of blue, it was hard to tell what she was seeing because everything became the same color, because everything was the same temperature... except for one thing. Alicia had to move up hill a little, not easy to do on a snowboard, but possible. She moved side to side trying to see something that was warm, but not incredibly warm, it was just under 90⁰F and there was very little movement, but there was still a very slight, regular movement, like it was breathing.

"What is that?" Ming asked.

'AI: thermal off please.'

> Thermal vision off.

Alicia found herself peering into a cave. She couldn't see what was in the cave because normal vision plunged the interior of the cave into darkness, but she knew what was in there. "It's a bear."

"A bear?!? Sooo cute!" Line drawings of teddy bears filled the edges of her vision almost blurring the macabre sight of a human hand sticking up through the snow which caused Ming to quiet down immediately.

Alicia dropped to her knees and began digging again and found that the body she was digging up was only an arm and a shoulder. She pulled out her Navy issue Ka-Bar fighting knife and cut away a frozen piece of muscle tissue from the shoulder and in her earpiece, she could hear Ming retching. As she put the frozen meat in an evidence bag, she asked "Baby, are you ok?"

"I need a new trash can," Ming answered weakly.

"I keep telling you to put liners in those things. Find me a track back to the road."

Alicia was snowboarding down Cupid Mountain, much of it was nearly vertical and all was heavily wooded, but eventually she broke into an open area and was able to make good time. Soon she was on a snow-covered track and as she sat down on a snowbank to take her feet from the snowboard bindings a highly modified Ford Bronco appeared on the road. It was Dunkan O'Reilly in what he called a Rock Crawler. The truck was jacked up quite high, huge tires and cut away fenders. It was built for climbing over rocky terrain, but it also dug its way through deep snow quite well. As long as it has a heater that works it was fine by her. She took off her Comm Pack, glasses and headset then climbed in the truck and opened a plastic covered topographical map and marked the bear cave with a grease pencil.

"Right here we need a recovery team, there's at least one body frozen in the snow, we also need EOD, Ming counted eight rockets. Their coffin is there but the rockets are scattered."

"Not a problem," rumbled Dunkan.

"Oh, and there's a bear..."

-.-.--.. -.-.-... -.-----. -.--.-.. --.----.

A late season storm blew in over Senator Amos Nourse's estate in Belfast Maine. The Senator's 150-year-old stone mansion groaned as the "Nor-easter" dumped a wet, nasty, slushy mix of ice and rain on the picturesque town on the Maine coast. Windows rattled and the building shook as gusts blowing in off of an angry ocean assailed the town, and suddenly the house was plunged into darkness as the power went out.

A barely audible click was heard and then the kitchen door opened silently on well-oiled hinges and four men wearing dark green entered and began searching. They knew where the Senator and his wife were sleeping, and the leader of this band grinned, he was promised first crack at Joanna. He didn't care that she was over sixty, she looked hot.

Slowly they made their way through the dining room and into the family room, a large open room where the children of the senator's staffers celebrated Halloween and Christmas every year, then slowly up the stairs, missing the third and seventh step, they were briefed that the risers on those steps creaked loudly. The leader of the hit team was halfway up the stairs when the sound of a stair riser creaking filled the air. He whirled to see who couldn't follow simple instructions and found himself staring down the barrel of an M1911 .45 caliber pistol. "Give me a fucking reason," growled the gunman.

The hit team was gone, the men were spirted away one by one and replaced by a Twin Dragon security agent. As they crept through the darkened house two Dragons would silently come up behind the last man and grab him and take him away. One by one the hit team dissolved until only the leader was left staring at a gun. The leader brought up his knife ready to strike, he might be able to take out three of these guys by himself. Just then the lights came back on, and he saw exactly who he was looking at. Jim MacDonald was a legend in the world of espionage, if he wants you put down, you get put down, there was never a question about his skills. "The senator isn't here," said Jim. "Do you want to die over an empty bedroom?"

The leader slumped, it's just like this new crew of assholes running the show in the Agency now to get everything ass backwards. The leader flipped the knife in his hand and handed it hilt first to Jim. "Good," said Jim, "let's put on some coffee and talk."

-.-.--.. -.-.-... -.-----. -.--.-.. --.----.

A cell phone rang in Alicia's apartment in the Ganley Mountain VIP suite. Senator Nourse reached out and answered with a muffled "Amos here."

"Senator, Jim MacDonald here. We were right sir."

"Aww shit," he tried not to wake Joanna, but she was up. "Was anybody hurt?"

"No sir, and they're singing like canaries. I do suggest laying low for a while longer though."

"Ok, thanks Mac." As he sat up, Joanna sat up and turned on the TV and found a re-run of an old Johnny Carson show. They snuggled and watched as Joanna tried to let her nerves settle down. She wanted to scream and beg Amos to retire.

Instead, she looked at Alicia's beautiful bedroom. She looked at the faux window with a view of the moon and the stars outside and said, "I guess this isn't bad for a cave."

-.-.--.. -.-.-... -.-----. -.--.-.. --.----.

There was a conference call in progress that Alicia normally managed, but she was up on Cupid Mountain again with the recovery team, so Ming was in bed with Cliff and three laptops managing the information pouring in. "Mr. MacDonald, what do you have?"

"We snagged a team of four at the Senator's house in Belfast and they dumped everything. It looks like Gunter Haag is running the Agency now, and like we expected he's getting his marching orders from Baumgartner, but at the same time they're doing side work for Boothroyd's traveling circus. Oh, and get this, Boothroyd calls himself "The General" now."

"Ok," grinned Ming, "Get a DNA sample and let 'em go with a reminder that we can target their DNA with a modified bubonic plague virus."

"Can we do that?" asked Mac.

Ming gave a sweet shrug. "Maybe," followed by a giggle. She may be kidding, or she may be able to do it. She's in a ruthless mood, she blames these people for targeting her in a helicopter and hitting Cliff with a rocket attack, so mercy is out the window. "Abbie, what do you have for us?"

Next appeared Alicia, she was back outside, on the mountain, dressed in snowboard pants and jacket. Snowboarders fashion look like something grandma bought for Christmas thinking that the recipient will eventually "grow into it." Everything is big and baggy, and nothing matches, the boarders love it.

"A bear ate my homework," moaned Alicia holding up a frozen leg in one hand and a bent 2.75-inch rocket in the other. Speaking over the sound of Ming retching Alicia said, "We're finding enough bits and pieces to tell us there were four people when they were assembled and breathing, we think that Momma Bear did not like guys trying to camp out in her cave, and she really didn't like them launching rockets in her front yard. The good news is that momma and baby bear are doing fine, they're hibernating peacefully with full tummies.

"I hate it when you talk like that," moaned Ming as Cliff put the trash can he was holding on the floor. "Did you find out anything on their laptop?" Ming looked pale and shaken, she definitely puked again.

"From the hard drive we recovered, the emails showed that they thought I was on the helicopter with you, the lunatic that they selected for the suicide flight never bothered to relay back a proper manifest, he just said he was carrying two women."

"They don't know about your trip to Korea?" Ming asked.

"It appears not," grinned Alicia. Her trip to Korea was to attempt to bribe the Korean manufacturer of the military hardware used by the Agency to embed a chip in the products that allowed Twin Dragons to track the equipment. The negotiations went smoothly as the Korean manufacturer didn't like Gunter Haag any more than the rest of the free world. The guy was a pompous jerk and a fitting match for Hans Stavros Baumgartner. "Gotta go, it looks like there were five guys up here, the boys just found another foot."

When Ming was done retching, she recovered her composure and said, "Zhang? How did things go at Archuleta Mesa?"

The smiling faces of Zhang Wei and Zane Zigler now filled the screen, "It was so cool" gushed Zhang, "These guys tried to break down the door, they had a battering ram and everything!" she gestured with her tiny fist to simulate the battering ram. "Then Ziggy lets them in and traps them in a hallway!" Her eyes were wide with admiration.

"You what?" Ming practically lived there as Alicia went through her nanobot therapy and rehab.

"Ok, you know how when you go through the entry turnstiles the hall turns to the right, about a 45-degree turn?" asked Zane

"Yeah, so?"

"There's a battleship door like the front door that closes off that hall and opens another, so after you go through the turnstile, the hallway is straight ahead. We waited for them to run down the hallway then closed the door behind them.

"What's in that hallway?" asked Ming.

Zhang grinned, "Nothing, just sixteen pissed off mercenaries and a water fountain."

"They'll start to come around soon," said Zane, "They've been in there four days."

"So, what have you two discovered so far?" asked Ming.