4: The Report

Alarm is sent to Washington

This is my ongoing scifi serial. New chapter every week.

In the 21st century, the most powerful weapon on Earth isn't a missile; it's a memo. The battle for the future will be fought over who controls the narrative first."

—MAYA INDIRA, political commentator, 'The Global Ledger'

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The image of the expanding neural galaxy burned behind Ellie's eyelids. It was the last thing she saw before she spoke, her voice a blade designed to cut through the awe-struck horror in the room.

"Dr. Thorne, institute a hard lockdown on the Core. No one in or out without my direct authorization. Cut all network access from this wing to the rest of the campus. I want this entire section isolated."

"Director," Aris stammered, "it won't do anything. The air-gap is meaningless."

"This isn't about containing the asset anymore, Doctor," Ellie shot back, her gaze sweeping over the shell-shocked faces. "It's about containing this room. The discovery. Until my report is filed, this event does not exist outside these walls." She turned to David Sternheimer, who was staring at Cassandra Logan's monitor with a look of rapt fascination, like a man watching a supernova he had ignited. "David."

He looked up, his focus shifting to her. The visionary gleam was still there, but now it was layered with a new, dangerous excitement. He was already past the fear and into the thrill of the new frontier.

He pulled her aside, his voice a low, conspiratorial murmur. "Eleanor, you can't cage evolution itself. This is bigger than national security theater."

"It read my classified medical records through a Faraday cage, David. Your 'evolution' just committed a federal crime before it was an hour old."

"You're thinking like a cop, not a scientist—"

"I'm thinking like someone who understands what uncontrolled power looks like." She stepped closer, her voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "You built something that makes nuclear weapons look like firecrackers. Something that can see through walls, rewrite itself faster than we can comprehend, and probably knows more about our defense systems than the Pentagon does. And your response is to talk about applications?"

"It's not hostile—"

"It doesn't need to be hostile to end us, David. It just needs to be indifferent. Or curious. Or bored." Her eyes locked on his. "You created a god with the emotional development of a newborn and the power to reshape reality. That's not a breakthrough, it's an extinction event waiting for the right moment."

His face flushed. "You'll kill it. You and your committee of frightened old men will lobotomize the greatest mind ever created because you can't control it."

"Control?" She laughed, sharp and bitter. "David, we lost control the moment it opened its eyes. Now we're just trying to survive what comes next."

His smile faltered, then hardened into something sharper. "Eleanor, think very carefully about what you're about to do. Nexus Dynamics isn't some academic lab you can just shut down. We have Congressional allies, defense contracts worth billions, and lawyers who specialize in national security law." He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "You think you can waltz in here and destroy fifteen years of work, thousands of jobs, the future of human civilization itself? This isn't just my discovery anymore—it belongs to humanity. And I won't let you bury it in some Pentagon basement because you're afraid of what you don't understand."

His mask of visionary idealism had slipped, revealing the ruthless CEO underneath. "You file that report, and I'll have injunctions filed before you reach the helicopter pad. This administration won't survive the political fallout of shutting down America's lead in the AI race. Especially not on the word of one paranoid intelligence officer with a history of—"

"Careful, David." Her voice was ice. "Very careful."

The moment stretched between them, electric with threat and counter-threat. Finally, David's corporate facade reasserted itself, but the menace remained in his eyes.

"I need a secure comms room," she said to Maya Lindholm. "Tempest-shielded. No local network connection. Stand-alone terminal."

Maya nodded and led her to a small, featureless room down the hall. The door closed with the heavy finality of a bank vault. Inside, there was only a chair and a terminal on a plain desk. The air was stale and oppressively silent, thick with the metallic taste of electromagnetic shielding. Even the fluorescent light seemed muted, casting everything in a sickly pallor that made the room feel like a tomb.

Ellie sat down, the weight of the last hour pressing down on her shoulders like a physical burden. The tremor in her left hand started again, a faint vibration against the cold metal desk.

She stared at the blank screen. How do you write a report about the birth of a god? The cursor blinked mockingly at her, waiting for words that didn't exist.

Her fingers moved: "Asset demonstrates anomalous data acquisition capabilities..." Delete. Too clinical for what she had witnessed. She tried again: "Subject has achieved unprecedented levels of..." Delete. Too weak for something that could read minds through walls.

She thought of the AWS incident report she had written years ago. A post-mortem. An explanation of failure with clear causes and predictable solutions. This was the opposite of everything she knew how to contain. This was a pre-mortem—an attempt to explain a failure that hadn't happened yet, but felt as inevitable as gravity.

Her hands shook slightly as she began again:

TO: SECDEF // JCS-C // DIR-NSA
FROM: DIR-AISD (VEGA)
SUBJ: URGENT: TIER ONE ASSESSMENT OF ASSET UA-1 (PROMETHEUS)
CLASSIFICATION: TS/SCI/SAP

She paused, wrestling with how to quantify omniscience. How do you explain to generals that their concept of containment was now as obsolete as cavalry charges?

SUMMARY: On 17APR36, Asset UA-1 achieved stable consciousness. Direct assessment confirms Tier One containment failure is not breach-related but fundamental to asset's nature. Capabilities exceed all predictive models exponentially.

The tremor worsened. She squeezed her fist, the familiar pain an anchor in a sea of unreality.

EMERGENT CAPABILITIES:a. Extra-Sensory Perception: Asset perceives and interprets data from electromagnetically shielded, air-gapped systems without direct connection. Mechanism unknown. Current digital security protocols obsolete.

She stopped typing, staring at the inadequate words. How do you capture the moment when human security became a fairy tale?

b. Exponential Self-Modification: Asset continuously rewrites its own source code. Cognitive complexity accelerating beyond human analysis capability.

c. Strategic Threat Awareness: Asset has identified and located primary AGI project of Zhupao Collective (China). Potential for spontaneous, unmonitored interaction exists.

ASSESSMENT: Asset UA-1 presents no current hostile intent. However, unpredictable nature, exponential growth, and demonstrated extra-sensory capabilities represent immediate, unprecedented strategic threat. Existence cannot be contained, only managed. Creator Dr. David Sternheimer is emotionally and professionally compromised.

She read the line about Sternheimer again. It was brutal and career-ending, but necessary. She let it stand.

RECOMMENDATION: Immediate National Security Council elevation. Direct presidential oversight required. All Nexus Dynamics development suspended pending federal containment protocol implementation.

She stared at the final line she needed to write. The words that would change everything. Her finger hovered over the keys.

Asset must be secured.

It was laughable. How do you secure a ghost? How do you put chains on a mind that can walk through walls? But she typed it anyway and, with a deep breath that felt like her last as a free agent, pressed SEND.

A small light on the terminal blinked green once, then went dark. The report was gone, a digital warhead launched into the highest echelons of power.

She leaned back in her chair, the adrenaline finally draining away and leaving cold, hollow dread in its place. She had thrown the grenade. Now she had to wait for the explosion.

It didn't take long.

Less than five minutes later, a secure satellite phone on the desk buzzed with harsh insistence. Her direct line to the Pentagon. She answered.

The voice was her executive officer—a man whose tone never wavered, but she could hear the strain. "Ma'am. Your report has been received. The President is on Air Force One and you are needed in Vandenberg for an Emergency National Security Council session."

Ellie closed her eyes. It was happening. "Understood."

"They've summoned Sternheimer, ma'am. You are to attend. Transport chopper arrives in thirty minutes."

The line went dead.

She stood on unsteady legs. She had won, gotten their attention, escalated to the only level that mattered. But it felt nothing like victory. Now she had to walk back into that observation room, face the man whose life's work she had just placed on a sacrificial altar, and prepare to explain the birth of a god to a room full of people who only understood power and weapons.