Page 79 of Wild Sentinel

"You’re running this bunker on solar," I said.

"There's plenty of sun around here, and I've got a backup generator if need be. Plus battery packs that stay topped off. I've got a satellite uplink, and I’ve hacked into all the streaming platforms, so I get free movies. Which is nice."

He tapped a few keys at a terminal prompt. The cursor flashed. "We have to spoof an authorized terminal port to upload anything to the network. I’ve cloned my terminal at Meridian.”

He tapped a few more keys, entered login credentials, and was inside the system. He inserted both HSMs into USB ports simultaneously. With the two keys, he could now update the system, theoretically.

"I have root-level access. But like I told you, the system won’t accept shutdown commands. I can't just delete everything. There are redundancies, and the AI will just rebuild itself. If I start deleting files, Sentinel will identify the threat and lock me out. It won’t matter what my credentials are.”

“So how are you going to get around that?” I asked.

“It’s what I’ve been working on and testing for the last several months. It’s why I told Brooke to stay off grid and away from here until I contacted her,” he said with an annoyed glance. “Having two HSMs in the same place is dangerous. This should only happen when everything is ready to take the system down.”

“Now seems like a good time,” I said in a sardonic voice.

“The worm isn’t ready. It needs more testing. We only have one shot at this.”

“We don’t have time for more testing,” Brooke said.

“How exactly does this worm work?“ I asked.

“Well, in theory, it will inject corrupt telemetry that will cause the consensus algorithm to fracture across nodes.”

“Oh, sure,” I mocked like I understood. “How about in English?”

“The worm will insert corrupt data. The AI will try to self-correct, but it will do so with garbage because the worm has overwritten its core module. Basically, the worm is going to make it think there was a problem, and the AI is going to fix a problem that doesn’t exist, thereby compromising itself.“

“How long will this take to initiate?”

“I can upload the worm in a matter of seconds, then it will slowly start injecting the corrupt data.” Adam shrugged. “With any luck, the system will be totally corrupt within 5 to 10 minutes.”

“What will happen to the drones swarm?”

“They will return to base,” he said in an uncertain tone.

“So what’s the problem with the worm?”

An alarm sounded. A security cam zoomed in on three helicopters as they approached the bunker.

Adam’s face tightened, and he grumbled, “I told you, you were tracked.”

47

“I’ve created a clone of Sentinel’s AI in a sandboxed, air-gapped environment for testing,” Adam said. “I’ve run the worm several times. It works. But the clone is not quite the same. It hasn’t been running long enough to evolve like Sentinel has. There’s a chance the worm might not work in a live environment, and we only have one shot at this. It’s not perfect yet.”

“It’s now or never,” I said. “Perfect is the enemy of progress.”

Adam frowned and contemplated it.

I pointed to the screen. “You see those helicopters? They’re not coming here for good conversation.”

With a reluctant sigh, Adam tapped a few keys, then uploaded the worm. A progress bar appeared, and it zipped across the screen.

Upload complete.

Adam took a deep breath and leaned back. “I guess, now we wait."

We watched the screen as the black helicopters approached and circled the bunker. With FLIR cameras, they could spot the thermal signature of the underground shelter. With the AC blasting, it was a lot cooler than the surrounding desert.