A brilliant programmer, Travis Cole, inadvertently creates an artificial intelligence (AI) lives on the Internet. After Cole attempts to terminate his creation, it stalks his young daughter through cyberspace in an attempt to reach Cole to seek revenge. When cyber-terrorism events threaten the United States, they turn out to stem from the forsaken and bitter AI. In the final conflict, it seeks to kill Cole - even if it has to destroy all of humanity to do it.
"How Far Would an Artificial Intelligence Go for Revenge?"
Fans of Tom Clancy, James Patterson and Clive Cussler, would enjoy this twist on the Frankenstein myth.
A brilliant programmer, Travis Cole, inadvertently creates "Dorian," an artificial intelligence that lives on the Internet. After Cole attempts to terminate his creation, Dorian stalks his young daughter through cyberspace in an attempt to reach Cole to seek revenge.
When cyber-terrorism events threaten the United States, they turn out to stem from the forsaken and bitter Dorian.
In the final conflict, Dorian seeks to kill his creator - even if it has to destroy all of humanity to do it.
Ripped from Today's News
The geographic locations, government and military installations and organizations, information warfare scenarios, artificial intelligence, robots, and the information and communications technology in this book all exist.
As for SIRUS, pieces of the technology are either in existence or in the research and development stage. According to the Department of Defense, it doesn’t exist.
The Fars News Agency of Iran reported otherwise.
Excerpt
The airplane was leaving in a few hours, but Travis Cole still had some unfinished business. One of which was to get his in-law off his back.
“Please, John. We’ve been over this a hundred times,” Cole murmured, leaning forward on his desk to stare down at the computer monitor in front of him. He rested his fingers lightly on the keyboard, his hazel eyes focused on the command prompt on the screen:
DO YOU WANT TO EXECUTE? Y/N
Could he really do it?
Though Cole had made up his mind, it was now formal decision time. Pressing ‘N’ would continue his life as a well-known researcher in eco-biology at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Pressing ‘Y’ would end three years of cutting-edge work and move him and his daughter to a new home in Washington, DC and a lucrative research job with the U.S. Army.
Cole’s finger hovered over the keyboard--he felt sick.
John François was, as usual, sucking on the end of an ornately carved wood and leather pipe. It went along with his academic look elbow-patched sports coat, baggy brown pants, and loafers.
“It’s not right, Travis,” François implored. “It’s not right to take Shannon away from the environment she knows just weeks after her mother’s death. It’s just not right.”
Cole kept his focus on the task at hand. They had been over this a thousand times. Shannon, Cole’s young daughter, was already in the car, waiting. In fact, all of his luggage and many of his important worldly belongings waited there as well. He was going to return later for the rest of his stuff.
For now....
For now, he had to just get away.
Cole’s finger still hovered. He blinked hard. Could he really do this?
Yes, I can do this.
“And what about this?” François said as he opened the cover of a three-ring binder with the title TERRAN PROJECT written in blue across the front. François gently thumbed through the pages and pointed at the different artificial intelligent programs that Cole had cataloged and tracked while at MIT. “You’re just going to throw away years of work?”
Cole ignored François and turned back to the computer terminal with its blinking white cursor awaiting a reply.
He took in some air--and pressed the ‘Y’ key on the keyboard.
He turned to François while the computer executed his command. Cole couldn’t watch. Instead, he looked at his aging in-law with compassion for the man. François had lived alone since his wife died of leukemia ten years before. Cole and Shannon were the closest thing he had to family.
“John--” said Cole gently, but François cut him off.
“Shannon’s only eight years old, Travis. Taking her away from the environment she knew isn’t the answer,” he pleaded. The older man had tears in his eyes.
Damn. Cole gently placed his hand on François’s arm. “John, I don’t know what I would have done without your help after Kathy’s death. But I know what’s best for Shannon. I have to give her a change of environment.” Cole squeezed François’s arm, then looked back to the computer terminal. He watched as file name after file name appeared on the screen, all tagged with the statement:
FILE FOUND. FILE TERMINATED
Cole looked at his watch. “Jeez. We have to go. You’ll see us off?”
François nodded in resignation.
“Thanks. Shannon will like that.” Cole glanced once more at the scrolling text on the computer screen, turned, and hurried out the office with François close behind.
In the darkness of the vacated room, the program reached the end of its routine, and then stopped on the last file. The text that glowed from the LCD screen turned from white to red and blinked repeatedly insisting on an answer.
“We’re going to use nine megaton warheads in space and we’re not sure they’re large enough to be effective. Why would you even consider using kiloton-range surface-to-air warheads as back-up?” The answer was succinct. “Because they’re all we have.”
The FBI Inspector (380 pages) is a collection of 25 short fiction crime novellas involving the law enforcement services of FBI Inspector Joe Giralo along with his three government agents, Sal Velardi, Arthur Orsi and Dan Blachford.
