Cross My Mind

THE ASSASSIN APPROACHES AGAIN

…..

****(HOUSTON TEXAS)****

Dr. Reece Mallory watches the magnificent display of ability being demonstrated by the what she believes to be the first truly sentient robotic being. For the last one hour, she has been sitting I the ware house watching Medulla design and build a wide variety of instruments that would normally take humans weeks to build. Shadrach has entered the room a few minutes ago and sat just behind her but she hasn’t noticed a single thing, her attention is focused all on the humanoid android as it carries out its activities.

“you seem awfully vested in what it can do, just leave it be and come let me show you something amazing Reece” Shadrach said and Reece was almost startled by the sudden voice she heard behind her, she has assumed that she is the only person left in the warehouse so she was not expecting to hear a sudden voice right beside her.

“I thought you have gone to your new work station, why are you suddenly here?” she asked.

Shadrach dragged his chair close to her and sat b y her right.

“I still cant believe Medulla was able to couple all of the different parts of the robot with precision that not only am I not sure I will be able to do, but would have take me months to complete”. Shadrach said.

A two weeks ago, Shadrach’s apartment was attacked by an assassin sent after Reece by her ex boyfriend whose data on illegal experimentation that his company and some high government office holders were conducting on people who have been lured in with the promise of a paid volunteer beta testing of a neuro implant.

Many people have been intentionally brainwashed and killed by them and Reece who has worked for the company a few years ago to create a super artificial intelligence, used her understanding of the company’s software and cyber defense systems and infiltrated the servers, the super artificial intelligence that she takes as her own child also agreed with her, which is why it helped her in the process.

After the first attempt at her life by the assassin, Mila fled to Shadrach’s apartment, thinking she would be safe there but she barely managed to get away with her life and a bullet wound on her arm thanks to Shadrach’s connections with a few NASA heads.

While Reece and Shadrach fled to Houston from his house in the coast of San Diego, Medulla hacked into five different robots which among one was installed with a forklift, it controlled the robots and have them move a robotic coupler to where Shadrach and Mila left their humanoid robot and the special CPU she was preparing for it to use. Once MEDULLA finished coupling the spherical CPU, seta few programs on that would allow it to transfer or copy itself into the robot as a means of having a more mobile body of its own.

Two days later, Shadrach ordered for the stuff from his San Diego house to be transported to Houston where they are currently kept in a NASA safe house. They were both surprised to find the robot and the spherical CPU completely and precisely well coupled. Reece figured what was going on after a few hours of observing how perfect the coupling was, she concluded that it must have been none other than MEDULLA that has done the job for them, so she set up a server for it to occupy and as soon as she has it connected, she was informed that the backup of the data files she been erased by a cyber invader as powerful as MEDULLA is. After a few days, MEDULLA also informed Reece that Akihiro back in Neuratechnologies has succeeded in cloning the base program that makes MEDULLA so unique and special. In an attempt to escape deletion by Akihiro fro Neuratechnologies’ supercomputer, it proposed to be let to occupy the new android body that it has perfected.

At first Reece was skeptical of what could happen If a sentient artificial being like MEDULLA was to get such a versatile body, it could be weaponized or worse, it could decide to weaponize itself and kill people. To Shadrach’s surprise, Reece made the computer promise it would not harm people first before granting it the body.

After a few phone calls to report the research materials from his San Diego laboratory destroyed in the fire and hours of convincing so that Zoe will not snitch on them, Shadrach Anthony, Reece Mallory and Zoe spent six days uploading MEDULLA into its new body and when it was complete, they realized that they have created the most advanced robot on the face of the planet.

MEDULLA spent the first two days after his upload to the body to download a few things from the internet and learn them, it took it five minutes to learn sketching and calligraphy writing, afterward he learned a few more needed skills and by the end of the third day, MEDULLA could perform the most advanced gymnastic tricks. It learned soccer, driving and even to swim.

Afterwards, it begin to Shadrach with other work until their entire scheduled work for the month were empty. Then MEDULLA embarked on a personal mission to build an electric car which he will give to Shadrach a sign of appreciation.

However, as they Reece get carried away by this new body that MEDULLA has gotten, Back at Neuratechnologies Akihiro has just finished installing his own version of the MEDULLA which he named the Electric sapien which he asked people working in the facility to call the E-Sapien. He as told Jefferson Lockwood that E-Sapien is the exact replica of Reece’s MEDULLA but the difference between the two is that E-sapien will obey their orders and do what they want order it to, unlike MEDULLA that does whatever it deems it wants to do by itself.

“any human creation need to be able to listen to and obey humans, a machine needs to act like a machine and not some kid having adolescent crisis” he told the entire staff at the party Lockwood hosted to celebrate the erasure of the threat Reece has casted upon them.

After the party, E-sapien reported Garba and Mila’s current positions which it has automatically found, Lockwood was excited to hear the news, but Akihiro the most elated to receive the news.

“I will leave everything the details of their retrieval to be decided by you, but once you are done with them, I have prepared us a little program to amuse ourselves. We cannot let them go to waste after all s I am thinking that they should join the party as well”. Lockwood said with an evil expression on his face.

Having witnessed the power of the human mind once it could connect to a computer in a way unrestricted, Akihiro has used his vast fortune and established an elaborate criminal network around the world through proxy groups and have kidnapped random people who have no one powerful enough to look for them or those who have no one at all that will look for them. Making use of them as the second set of experimental subjects to test the Neuraface on.

Akihiro has agreed to head the second experiment as well but demanded absolute control over how the experiment will go but in return agreed to take responsibility and be arrested should the experiment fail and they were about to be exposed as Reece almost did to them. Akihiro knew Reece was also alive and has not been captured yet so he agreed.

HOUSTON AIRPORT

Agent stone has just arrived Houston on the private plane that HQ has prepared for him apparently because of the changes in the mission priority that was made by the client who placed the kill order himself. Agent stone was not happy that he could not continue his mission with his charger, but the bonus points he was promised by HQ if he could complete his mission has motivated him to bear with the compromise.

He was leaving the airport and his phone pinged and vibrated twice which is an indication of a text massage from an unknown person. He pulled the phone out of his jacket and saw a massage that has no digital identity at all. In his line of work, he understands that desperate clients often get impatient and demand to speak with the field agent that is on their request so they hide their caller identity using simple methods, which work.

But what agent stone is looking at is a text massage that just casually appear on his phone without anyone sending it at all, it just appear on the screen just like that and it says.

“I can help you make six times the amount that you were offered for this current job, what I want is not so different from what you have been ordered to do earlier, instead of taking her alive, I want you to kill Reece Mallory for me and I will help you pass it to HQ as an accident. An advance has been deposited in your account, you will be paid the rest after you finish what I entrust you with. You also should not worry about HQ calling you, they won’t.”

Agent Stone quickly picked out his second phone and checked his offshore account to find two million dollars have been deposited just recently and there is no detail or trace of who made the payment. Having been an assassin long enough, he knows that there are some crazy powerful people in this worlds that can make almost all the things we call impossible happen so he decided to trust his guts.

His phone pinged again and the same kind of ghost massage appeared on the screen again.

“Since you just checked your account balance, i am sure you are not disappointed by the incentive I have provided you with. Do you accept this mission?” the massage said and two icons popped on the screen, one with a YES and the other with a NO.

Agent stone knows better than to reject the offer so he pressed the YES icon and it transited into yet another massage.

“good choice, walk to the outer part of the airport and wait, I have sent a special ride for you and all the packages you will need to carry out the mission, my ride is driverless so don’t be scared. It will take you to the location of the package prepared for the mission so you can carry it out successfully, Good luck”.

Agent Stone walked to the entrance of the airport and stood by the road side, a new looking red sporty car drove straight to where he was standing and parked right in front of him. The butterfly doors swing open and to his surprise, there was no one in the car. Agent stone loves everything black or dark and non attention seeking and the red sports car is the exact opposite of what he likes. However, he has already accepted the deal from whichever devil it is and there is no way he would be able to turn down the deal now, whoever they are, they can get him anywhere he is and telling him that they know he just checked his account balance is a way of letting him know that they are watching his movements.

He got in the car and sat at the driver’s seat, the doors closed and the car begin to drive him away. After an hour and a half of being slowly driven around Houston, the car finally came to a steady stop in front of a house located many miles away from the city, “is this one of the few homes built by hunters or one of those really private persons in any case, it looks like this will be my temporary base” he said and stepped off the car, which closed its doors and drove off almost immediately.

The house is surrounded by nothing on both sides but trees which go as far as the human eye can see.

“I guess I should see what has been prepared fore inside” he said and walked to the door and turned the handle, with a creaking sound it swung open revealing the inside of the house, it looks pretty neatly kept. The house composed of a living room and two bedrooms, a basement, kitchen and toilet. Inside the living room, There are four couches on each side of the walls, a center table and a refrigerator.

On the table, Agent Stone Notice a black envelope with a red seal on it.

“Now that is my kind of energy” he murmured and walked to the table, picking up the envelope and opening it. A letter inside said a single sentence and that was all the direction that he needed.

“Right below the table, pull over the carpet and open the box below the floor” it said.

He pulled the table and rug out of the way, revealing a locked wooden a second basement cover. He pulled it up and climbed the ladder leading down into the basement.

Inside, he found a comprehensive detail on where Reece is and how he can get to her in the most surprising way possible.

Agent Stone read in the report left for him that his target is being kept in a NASA. Safe house by her NASA astronaut friend Shadrach. Getting to where she is almost impossible, however there is a supervisor that is supposed to examine the warehouse attached to the facility Reece is in.. Shadrach has never met the supervisor before so that made him the ideal candidate for this mission.

The real supervisor has already been killed, all of his details have been provided for Agent Stone to use and get access to the facility.

“This is interesting” Agent Stone murmured and picked the information sheet to study it before hee embarks on the mission the next morning.