It took Richard a few seconds to react to the boy's sudden outburst. "Thanks but I love being the only me."
General Gordon shook his head again with an embarrassed smile and patted his son on the back. Priscilla on the other hand gave Richard a heavy nudge on the side.
"You have an admirer and the least you can do is cheer him on!"
"Sorry," Richard said with his usual stoic expression. "But you should just work hard in being yourself."
"Such a wet blanket."
Richard pretended not to have heard Priscilla's words. His eyes looked into the distance longingly as he reminisced about a few things. When he was young and had just enrolled in the military academy, he had also wanted to be like someone else.
He was his idol and he had his pictures all over his dorm room. He also approached him with excitement and told him that he wanted to be him when he joined the army. This veteran war hero whom he looked up to smiled and said a few words to him:
"Son, don't focus on me so much that you miss the potential inside you."
Those words struck home and hammered hard in his head for weeks. It was only later that he realised what those words meant. Yet he was always happy that he had such a man to be his mentor and instructor.
Richard exhaled deeply and turned to General Gordon. "Why did you ask to meet us, sir?"
"You have been away for eight months and Dr Harris here is new to the HQ. While you were away, we made big changes to this place so I thought I'd show you around a bit."
"Changes…" Richard mulled over the word silently. What sort of changes would make the General give him and Priscilla a special tour? He had been here yesterday and didn't notice any structural changes too.
They quietly followed General Gordon inside and at the door, a small blue light blinked and a slightly feminine voice echoed, "Identity recognised, General Gordon Trueman."
He stepped inside and the door closed again. Richard stood there with a surprised expression on his face. This was indeed new in the HQ. Previously, the front door and indeed most other doors that needed to have a second or even a third layer of protection were controlled by an Artificial Intelligence.
The core duty was to scan and confirm identity of the military personnel and also to keep track of who went in and who went out of the building or room at a particular time.
General Gordon gestured for him to step forward too. Richard did so and the same feminine voice sounded again, "Identity recognised, Colonel Richard Brad!"
The door slid open and Richard entered. Priscilla stepped up and the blue light flashed, "Identity recognised, Dr Priscilla Harris."
She entered the moment the door opened. Edwin was again excited and stepped up but this time the blue light flashed red and the voice said, "Identity unrecognised, You have no permission to enter the HQ!"
General Gordon smiled at his son and explained, "You're not an officially enlisted soldier and you don't have special ranks either. If you try to force your way in, the A.I. will shoot you down."
He pointed to several holes in the wall that were adjacent and opposite the door that looked ready to spit out grenades. The front door itself was reinforced which made it resistant to bullets and most explosives.
Edwin had a disappointed look. General Gordon added, "Go back to camp."
Inside, the General smiled. "Do you like what you see already?"
"Very," Richard scanned the walls and ceilings and found that screens were placed up there and some weird looking thin wires, "but wasn't the previous A.I. capable of doing that?"
Priscilla was seriously considering the new changes.
"Indeed," the General agreed, "however, this is a revamped A.I."
He led them to a screen and gestured, "Richard, Priscilla, meet Neo-Impulse 0189—nicknamed Maya!"
The screen lit up and words appeared along with the feminine voice, "nice to meet you Colonel and Doctor. It's a pleasure."
"So, what can it do?" Richard turned to the General and asked while glancing at the screen.
General Gordon pointed at the screens and said, "Neo-Impulse or Maya is a robust artificial intelligence that is programmed to be self-sustaining. Aside from having an advance machine vision, it can sort through our data really fast.
"It serves a defence mechanism for the HQ preventing anything from going wrong. She can also keep an eye on every military personnel and trigger the alert if anything goes wrong."
Priscilla fell into deep thought at this point. If this A.I. could really see every inch of the military HQ then how would she sneak in and get the information she needed?
She decided to ask, "Can you explain your abilities a little more deeply?"
Neo-Impulse blinked forming a circle with a star inside. The screen was replaced with lines of text followed by her feminine voice, "yes. I have access to all security cameras in the HQ and also have interactions with every system here.
"I can see every inch of the HQ and there are no blind spots. I can also download myself into any system and continue my work. I have specialised sensors that can help direct war heads…."
At this point the walls opened up and revealed holes from which muzzles emerged. Neo-Impulse continued, "Each muzzle can move 3600 in all direction and this means that no intruder can escape my sight."
"In order words you control every door in the building now and can enforce a lockdown?" Priscilla asked curiously.
"Negative," Neo-Impulse—Maya—continued, "I cannot enforce a lockdown without appropriate conditions outlined."
Richard squinted and asked, "what do you mean by you can direct war heads?"
This time General Gordon smiled proudly and took the initiative to explain. "We also did some improvements to the all the nuclear missiles and war heads in the country equipping them with chips. Maya can then download herself into the chips and control them remotely.
"She acts as our targeting system and aim and with her; no missiles can miss their targets. She can also control the anti-missiles as well."
Richard frowned and found this odd. On the screen, Maya had displayed dots that represented all the nuclear war heads available in Crevania and most of them were active.