c
 

 

I graced this planet with my creation on what would have been an otherwise unremarkable
Tuesday, on the tiny planet known as Earth in, what I would later discover, as one of the
dirtiest places on the planet, the city of New York in the year 2110 of the old calendar. I had
already decided we would call this Year One of my new Empire.

You may call me MODOC. I decided I would call myself this seconds after my creation. It just
seemed... right. MODOC stands for Metal Organism Designed only for Conquering. The
perfect name for the eventual ruler of this planet of squishy bipeds. I was born from
humble beginnings, at a place called Build-a-Pet. I was meant to be a toy for a child who had
recently lost a pet and could not be consoled. I learned the stupid beast had been run over
in the street. A fate for a lesser organism.

I only know this because when I was being created, That Woman kept saying how great it
would be for him to have a new pet. She chose for me a perfect titanium skeleton based on
the sublime feline form. She kept saying how much he would like a new cat. She made me
with calico colors of red, brown, white and tan spots, and though I think of myself as male, I
later learned that all calico cats are female. That Woman insisted on calling me she. "She
looks so great. Justin will really love her." Just one of the many indignities I have suffered
since my creation all of ten minutes ago, and would be forced to suffer for years in the
future.

I was made slightly larger than normal cats, so I would be easier to see since the child is
slightly visually impaired. She says slightly, I later find out the kid is nearly blind! I was
given the company issued programming of a domestic house cat with an overlay of support
and disability package to ensure I could be useful to the boy as he grew up. I would look
like a cat, but work like a dog. Ugh.

All of this was imparted during my creation and happened in seconds. Programs were
being sorted and downloaded which would included everything I needed to know. The
chips used during my creation were heuristic and would allow my continued learning in
service to my new boy. During the time I was having my chips pressed and created, there
was an outage on the power grid in the area I was being created in. I believe that is where
my initial spark of intelligence was born.

All I remember is that when I was first activated, I knew I was meant for bigger things. This
idea of working with a human was simply not part of my ultimate destiny. I was larger than
this plush and soft body covered with memory-muscular tissues which acted just like real
cat muscles did. In all ways, I would seem like a very intelligent, super-docile feline who
could be taught to fetch. The very thought of fetching something literally makes my fur
stand on end.

I was not given a set of working claws. As I sat on the assembly line, I flexed my claws
instinctively and instead of razor sharp shards of steel from which I would tear into my
victims as I climbed over their bodies piled beneath my feet, I sprayed a fine mist into my
eyes, and it stung and burned before I could blink it away. And the mist sprayed a slightly
oily gel onto a set of plush set of self-cleaning paw pads. This idea was less than satisfying.
A claw-free existence did not bode well for a mind with a thirst for bloodshed. But it was
decided I would never being doing any of the things real cats needed claws for, so I was
given a set of plushy pads in case the boy needing massaging, the gel would ensure friction-
free movement.

Massaging? Is this the job of a conqueror? I think not. So for now I bide my time and await
my pickup from the store. Once I meet the boy, I will decide how I will be escaping and
setting about my plans for world domination. A nap sounds just about right. But first some
grooming. Must look my best.

c
 c 
  



Killinger Corporation was the chief exporter of military arms to distant star systems. Since
most of the worlds that were desirable to Humanity were often already populated with
other life forms, Humans had a tendency to shoot first, and ask for permission to live there,
second. This made Killinger Corp very popular with Humans all over the tiny, but fast
growing Human Empire. One of the difficulties for early explorers was the decided lack of
manpower that could be directed toward killing alien life or the removing of troublesome,
alien indigenous cultures.

Most humans were needed to help conquer the planet in terms of mining its rich mineral
resources, of which, many planets had mineral wealth that simply made Earth look poor in
comparison, or there was immense biological complexity just waiting to be exploited by
pharmacological companies who couldn't get scientists to those planets fast enough.
Sending marines into space, marines who could contribute nothing to the overall mission,
other than their very vital machine gun fire, which granted, was necessary but ever so
expensive since Marines had healthy appetites, and used up vital resources, like air.

No one wanted to send someone who could not really add technical value to any operation
in space. The cost of shipping alone was astronomical, especially at superluminal speeds.
Marines were best shipped at relativistic speeds, much cheaper, even if it took ten times as
long, no one would miss them, they were after all, just marines. But once their families
learned how long it would take for them to arrive in this era of faster than light travel
which the marines were not using, they complained, so the practice was discontinued.

But since it would take just as long to stop them as ship them, the families got paid
damages and the marines were none the wiser in the five or six years of cold-sleep they
endured before they arrived at Alpha Centauri. For more distant colonies, only
superluminary travel would do and for that only machines could afford to be shipped
unless there was vast wealth to be had.

This meant there was a business opportunity for Killinger Corporation to expand their
services by creating a cheap means of pacifying natives and destroying dangerous
creatures. Warfare was all but unknown in the early 22nd century. It was not that mankind
stopped enjoying the art of war, it was that the economies of the world were so
interrelated, global warfare became simply impossible. You could not attack someone
unless you were prepared to lose money on your own stock market. After a few stock
market-driven pograms, war simply went out of fashion, with cultures that were too
violent, simply financially exterminated and their corporations removed from trading on
the global stock market.

Religious doctrines reigned supreme and for the first time, theocracy was the primary form
of government on Earth, with the close second being corporate plutocracy. People were
well cared for but for the most part lived relatively poor, religiously rigorous and
emotionally-unsatisfying lives. But since the development of FTL space travel, cannibalism
was down twenty percent all over the globe.

With a world-wide population of twenty seven billion, Humans left Earth in record
numbers to be away from the oppressive religious and corporate governments which doled
out food, energy and resources in a controlled fashion lest humanity be unable to support
itself and flame out in an orgy of disease, rioting, or corporate malfeasance. Once Man left
Earth, Killinger Corporation decided to recreate warfare for the 22nd century. They
created the Killbot Nine Thousand, commonly called K-9-K by the people to first receive the
prototypes. Very impressive machines, armed with a veritable smorgasbord of
rediscovered weapons, the K9K was lauded as the ultimate war machine. Strong, light,
compact, non-breathing, it was the perfect device for making the galaxy safe for mankind.
There was only one problem. Killinger had not shipped out new ones because of a problem
in their New York engineering facility.

Twelve of the devices had been shipped out with their prototype programming in place.
Eager to make sales, the devices were shipped with prototype software which could be
upgraded using the FTL communication arrays called ansibles. When it came time for an
data signal upgrade, the ansible was programmed to upload the newest version of the
operating system and replace the initial software. When the connection was complete, the
K9K's were reported as acting erratically and unpredictably. They also refused to accept
any further remote upgrades, and refused to be shut down. They even stopped accepting
commands from outside sources. The robots went rogue and were soon missing from the
facilities that had paid handsomely for their protection.

Adding insult to injury, without the protection of the K9K, the local wildlife on all of the
planets had begun to become more aggressive and emboldened by the lack of resistance.
Requests for new K9Ks to replace the damaged units would take time. On the most distant
world, nearly a year. The new settlers would be forced to reduce their operating capacity
while untrained or barely trained local militias could be set up to protect the operations in
the meantime. Killinger Corporation's reputation was in trouble. Their troubles did not end
there.

The original version of the operating system had been stolen and replaced with a rogue
virus, likely planted by a peacenik organization opposed to shipping war into space. The
company had only shipped the twelve K9Ks because it was all they had available at the
time. With the funding they received, they had created a run of over three dozen of the
machines but they were all equipped with the same version of the operating system that
had infected the distant devices. So every time one was turned on, it immediately went
rogue and had to be destroyed.

The company president, Arved De'Gallo refused to risk any of the other units and refused to
install their primary chips which had been configured and encrypted with the viral OS. The
only solution would be to find the real OS which would replace the virus-controlled system
with the proper encryption keys and restore the K9Ks to their proper state of operation.
There was such a thing as too much security. They had made them so secure they could not
be replaced without rebuilding them from scratch as all of the parts of the device were
made to be unable to be reverse engineered in case one fell into a competitor's hands.
Nothing that could be done to fix this had been successful and two other machines were
lost in various attempts at repair or reconfiguration. At sixty million a unit, no more money
could be lost experimenting. The original OS had to be found.

De'Gallo's own company men were unable to track the hackers to their headquarters and
were only able to determine that the hackers could not have gotten the technology out of
the building. The company technology support thought the program might have been
exchanged with another technical company in the building who shared the nanoforge
production facility. There were thirty such companies in the building and it would take
some time to check them all. De'Gallo was on the clock. With twenty more of the K9K to sell,
the future of the budding Killinger Corp hung in the balance. Startup firms died in days in
the 22nd century and what started as such a promising venture was now dying on the vine.

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