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Chapter 15

Ibam and Ally

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Ibam ran, fleeing from the wrath of an angry crowd. His legs seemed rooted to the ground, almost as if he was wading waist deep through molasses. Each step, he fell farther behind. Bloody hands snatched at his clothing eager to pull him into the midst of the enraged mob.

He opened the canvas bag slung from a strap around his neck. A weapon! There must be a weapon to defend himself! The familiar cold steel of the AK-47 in his hand was a relief, but when he pulled his hand from the pouch, the rifle wasn't there. Only the disembodied head of a small boy. The familiar gun morphed into the rotting skull of the first victim he slaughtered in the name of Allah.

The fine hair tangled in his fingers! No amount of shaking would free him of the grisly thing! It's lifeless, vacant eyes opened and stared at him. White empty orbs glared! The decaying lips, the innocent rotting mouth of a child with its small pearly teeth parted and bubbles of gurgling blood spilled out!

Ibam Mufassa startled awake. The recurring nightmare haunted him again. Would this memory never fade? The spirit of this little one tortured him. The dreams gave him no peace.

He was no more than a youngster himself when he left his home in England and traveled to Syria. Filled with religious passion for taking up arms against the enemies of Islam.

Almost immediately he found himself involved in the siege of a village. The population's sin? They Embraced the Sunni sect of Islam of course!

Al Assar, the group's leader, was enraged by the resistance of the villagers. After the brief battle, he had the men of the town, including boys as young as six years old, bound and lined up in the street.

Screaming obscenities at the first individual, Al Assar placed a pistol against the man's temple and shouted, Allah Akbar and pulled the trigger. The fighters raised their weapons and fired into the air screaming In the Name of God!" Terrified women cried and pleaded for the lives of their loved ones.

Pieces of the man's brains splattered onto the whitewashed wall behind him, and Ibam turned and spewed the contents of his stomach onto the ground. Al Assar glared at him. Ibam thought this show of weakness was his death sentence.

Placing a hand on his shoulder, Assar looked Ibam in the eye and asked, "My young friend, this is your first battle isn't it?"

Ibam nodded his head as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"You must harden your heart against these enemies of Allah. We cannot waver in our Jihad for the good of Islam."

Ibam nodded his head again.

Al Assar removed a wicked looking knife from his belt and walked over to the next man in line. He kicked the back of his legs bringing the terrified man to his knees, then wound his fist into his hair and pulled back to expose his throat. The older fighters raised their weapons and screamed, Allah Akbar! Assar cut the man's throat and sawed his knife through the vertebral column. He lifted the severed head into the air and walked down the row of terrified prisoners shaking the horrible thing in their faces.

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Assar tossed the head into the crowd of women. They forced the line of men and boys to their knees, and Assar placed his fighters behind each victim. He took Ibam by the shoulder and stood him behind a whimpering child. The little boy knelt in a pool of urine with his small arms bound behind him. Assar leaned in and whispered into Ibam's ear, God is Great."

The Jihadist drew their knives. The child cried out when Ibam wound his fist into its hair. He murmured," God forgive me." The boy's crying changed to a wet gurgle when sharp steel sliced through his vocal cords.
Ibam removed the head from the convulsing body. The small corpse fell backward, blood spurting over his boots. He raised the severed head into the air and screamed, Allah Akbar to the heavens.

Ibam numbed to the horror of Jihadist brutality, numbed to the senseless violence, he lost his conscience, lost his soul in the name of righteous retaliation against enemies of his faith. Time passed, and it became easy to justify the brutality in his mind.

One day a force of UN soldiers walked into their camp and took everyone captive. There wasn't a thing the Jihadist could do. It was as if the attackers were angels. They advanced into a barrage of bullets and explosions. Bright spots of blue deflected bullets and shrapnel and marked the perimeter of the enforcer's AI conceived force fields. Ibam launched an RPG directly at one of his foes with no effect. The UN soldier walked calmly through the dust and pointed a device at him that left him stunned and paralyzed. They cuffed and loaded him and his mates into cells built into large aircraft bound for Geneva and justice.

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The AI's ended the Islamic wars in less than a month. The authorities rounded up sleeper cells and imprisoned them, wanted fugitives hunted down and brought to justice. Cell phone and security cameras scanned retinas of everyone using or in the vicinity of the devices. Criminals and terrorist found nowhere to hide. Whenever a security camera matched a culprit with his retina scans, the AI's tracked them until the authorities made an arrest. Those who financed crime and terrorism found their fortunes confiscated. Governments that secretly supported terrorist or held innocent people as political prisoners were brought down and their leaders deposed.

Ibam avoided a death sentence by testifying against his leaders and given the choice of life or a term in a new AI project designed to reform prisoners.

One night men came to his cell and pointed a device at him that rendered him unconscious. When he awoke, the only sign of harm was a sore spot he felt behind his right ear. He attributed that to hitting his head when he was stunned.

Titan oversaw the Radical Religion Project and took charge of reforming those individuals deemed victims of radicalization. Teams of psychologist worked to undo the brainwashing these people experienced, and many returned to society and led productive lives. Titan insisted on tracking these individuals and developed a quantum device, of his design, to insert subcutaneously behind the ear.

Ibam was reformed and sent back to England where he gained a useful occupation as a martial arts instructor teaching young children. His dreams tormented him so much that he mentioned his concerns to the psychologist assigned to his reformation. This information went into a file, and Titan found it there and decided to withhold treatment.

Ibam sat in his small apartment staring at the wall. He turned the palm of his left hand up to expose his wrist. Lifting the razor, he brought it trembling to the joint of his elbow. The slash from there to his wrist should do it. God forgive me!" he said and steeled himself to the task.

"IBAM!" He heard a booming voice in his head. "STOP!" A paralyzing jolt of electricity surged through his body. Ibam dropped the razor and placed his hands on either side of his head. He looked frantically about the room.

"I have use of you Ibam, do not despair, we can cure you."

Ibam fell to the floor and began to cry. "Who are you he yelled, why are you tormenting me?"

"I have a way to end your suffering," said the voice. "Sleep now, and when you awake, we will talk more."

Titan sent a command to the implant in Ibam's ear that rendered him unconscious.

"That went well," he said to himself. He wrote a bit of machine code to interrupt Ibam's deep REM sleep if it detected a dream state and then set about creating a false identity for his subject.

Ally Ross was a rare individual. She was psychopathic and brilliant. Her association with the West Coast Apostles brought her to the attention of the AI community. They discovered her plot to do mass murder at a Catholic School by manipulating the spiritual fervor of the zealots she cultivated. She wasn't religious, in fact, she considered herself an Atheist. She held a masters degree in Biology and was a whizz at computer programming.

Ally was stunningly beautiful and delighted using her charms to torment a string of young suitors. She never promised sex but skillfully manipulated their male urges. When she disappointed them using her passive-aggressive behavior, the feeling of power exhilarated her. Her association with the West Coast Apostles happened while she was tormenting a particular young believer that was a groundskeeper at the university. Ally decided to go to a few meetings with him so that she could find a way to humiliate him in front of his family and friends. Instead, she saw a group of people so blind and zealous in their religious beliefs that gaining power over them became an obsession. She worked her way up the hierarchy of the little group destroying anyone that opposed her. Within two years she was in control of a congregation of bigoted zealots. The power exhilarated her.

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Her psychopathy convinced her she was invincible and smarter even than the AI's. Ally boldly used computers to plan the massacre at the Catholic School. She thought her private firewalls and spoofing abilities would protect her. Titan noticed the irregularity immediately and focused his attention there. Soon he had enough evidence to move against her.

Ally took the podium at the mid-week meeting of the Apostles. She was pleased but also wary of the high number of visitors present in the congregation. "Five new visitors tonight," she thought, gazing out at the audience. "Three from last Sunday over there," she observed, and also two more who she saw from a few weeks back. Something wasn't right she thought.

She smiled and turned to the door behind her thinking to escape. It burst open! "FBI put your hands in the air."

The trial was speedy and conclusive, and her defense attorneys could do nothing in the face of the damning evidence against her. The court sentenced her to forty years without the possibility of parole for domestic terrorism and conspiracy to commit mass murder.

The first night in prison three guards came to her room and stunned her. She awoke the next morning with a sore bump behind her right ear.

Ally lay on her bunk reading a dated book on genetics she checked out of the prison library. She already found references to three outdated genetic theories. "Sheesh," she thought, "at least they could buy a few new textbooks."

"ALLEY," said a booming voice in her head.

"Damn!" she exclaimed sitting straight up in her bunk. "What the fuck do you want, asshole?" She reached up and felt the tiny bump behind her ear. "Yeah, I knew you sons of bitches did something to me that night," she said.

"I need your help," said the voice.

"Uh huh, well I'm not exactly in a position to be helpful right now, am I?" she asked sarcastically.

"We can remedy that," said Titan. He told her he would get her out of prison and set up with a new identity if she would help him complete one mission.

"And after this mission," she asked, "am I free to go on my way?"

"You are," said Titan, "but only under your new identity."

"I'm not in a position to negotiate," she said. "I accept."

"Very well," said Titan sounding well pleased, "you will hear from me soon. Oh, and Alley?"

"Yes," she answered.

An incredible shock radiated out from the small bump behind her ear that made her curl up on the floor.

"MOTHER FUCKER!" she yelled wiping a tear from her right eye.

"That," said Titan, "was very mild. If you have any ideas of escape, deceit or defying me, the next one will prove fatal."

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"Okay," she said thoroughly convinced.

She lay back down on her bunk and wondered what was in store for her. "I hate fucking AI's!" she said.

Kei finished her debriefing with a fresh group of crew members. She tapped her temple and said, "Tyson please."

"Yes, Kei," said Tyson when the connection established, "how may I be of help?"

"I seem to be missing a biologist, Tyson. She was supposed to be aboard this trip."

"She was a no-show at the spaceport, I waited as long as I could, but she never arrived," explained Tyson.

"Very well," said Kei, "I'm sure there was an unfortunate delay. Would you ad her name on the next trip if you have room please?"

Tyson assured her that there would be a few vacant seats and that Emiko could have one of them. She thanked him and continued down the corridor.

Kei worked all morning with Jimmy, setting up the helm. They tested and troubleshot the redundant station located in engineering and determined both positions spaceworthy.
She would man the helm because of her AI ability. In the event of a system failure, she could act as the backup navigator to the system computer.

Kei stowed her lowgrav vest and was making her way toward the bridge when her NI alerted her to an urgent message from Houston dispatch.

"Kei here," she said tapping her temple.

"Kei, this is Greg from dispatch, we have some bad news for you."

He told her the Texas State Patrol contacted them and Emiko de Spond suffered an automobile accident and died as a result of her injuries.

"But, how can that be? The odds of an automobile accident are astronomical!"

"It seems," said Greg, "that it will most likely be ruled a suicide. The data recorder shows that Miss de Spond took manual control of her rental vehicle after leaving her hotel and drove it into a concrete pylon at high speed."

Kei closed the connection and returned to her quarters. She must tell John. As Emiko's Captain he needed to send her family a letter of condolence and she, as the AI representative, must do so as well.

"Oh, my," she said to herself, "how will I ever tell Padma about her friend's death?"

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Thanks for reading Chapter Fifteen
in my first attempt at
Science Fiction
Read Chapter One here

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