January 11th, 2066
ALASKAN TEST FACILITY
....
Blaine stepped off the transport to look around his new environment. It was a truly beautiful place surrounded by forrests and snow covered mountains. He then noticed someone heading toward him and made his way closer.
"Sargeant Casey I presume?" Said a young woman while holding out her hand to him.
Looking at her collar Blaine takes her hand "That'd be me, Corporal?.."
"Watts sir! Corporal Jessica Watts. I've been assigned to assist you during your stay with the testing team" she said smiling at him "Now if you dont mind sir. Let's head inside, I'll give you a run down of the facility as well as your mission details before moving on to your barracks." She turns around after saying that and heads to the smaller of the buildings on the base and Blaine follows alongside her.
"So Corporal. What is my assignment exactly? All that they said was that there was high risk of injuries. Is it a weapons test? Or a new armor system?" Blaine asked as they drew near the door.
She stopped at the door and placed her hand on a biometric scanner. "Well once we get inside I'll be able to tell you more, but what I can say is it's an entirely new weapons platform and you, are its only test pilot." After saying this the door unlocked and let them through.
After stepping inside the room he noticed only two security officers on duty and an elevator on the far side of the room.
Corporal watts stepped forward and stopped in front of the elevator, looking up at the camera above the door. "Corporal Watts and test pilot Sargeant Blane Casey, authorization code Tango Papa Alpha Zero One."
And just a second later the elevator door popped open. "Please Sargeant, step inside."
Blaine entered the elevator and the Corporal followed and pressed the button for sub floor 20.
"The floor we are currently heading to is the garage control room for project Archangel, which is the top floor of the garage." She started to explain as the elevator started to move.
"Top floor? How many floors make up the garage exactly?" Blaine asked while looking at all the buttons on the elevator. The lowest floor being 53.
"The garage makes up thirty floors of the complex as one large room, and is two hundred meters in length and width." She answered watching the number slowly reach their destination.
Blaines mind was racing trying to understand why they needed so much room as the door opened up.
The Corporal stepped out and beckoned Blaine to follow her to the window currently covered to hide watever was currently begind it. "Sargeant, let me have the honor of introducing you to your new partner. The ARCHANGEL platform codename MICHAEL." As he came closer to the window she flipped a switch and the cover drew back, revealing a giant 25 story bipedal humanoid machine.
"What the hell.." He mumbled under his breath as he tried to take in everything in front of him. It was like someone had taken a medieval knight and current armor materials to mesh together this striking appearance of an unforgiving warrior. The most striking part of the whole thing, was its head humanoid in all aspects, except for its four eyes seeming to stare directly at Blaine causing him to shiver.
He saw technicians on multiple scaffolds working on the behemoth of a machine with sparks flying all over as they fixed and adjusted components. "That is what I'm supposed to test? I mean can it even move?!? It's freaking huge!"
"In its current state we've gotten it to move in basic motions. But that was before we found a way to link the pilot to the machine. We found that having an on board next generation AI to run the background processes allows it to move while inputting manual controls to a very restricted level. However the AI in question gave us another way." She said while heading into another room off to the side.
"That being?"
"Linking the pilots and AIs Neural pathways to establish direct control." Said the man waiting for them in the next room. "Hello Sargeant Casey, I'm doctor Dillan." The man then gestures towards a machine next to him "Please Sargeant have a seat here. This device will run a few tests on you, everything from blood work to a fresh brain scan to make sure your neurological pathways haven't changed since your last injection. If everything looks good tomorrow we will introduce you to the AI that will be your partner."
"So you're telling me the neural link that people use to play vr games is what allows people to pilot that thing out there? How?" Blaine asked while getting seated.
"Well that will take some time to explain." The doctor pauses as he starts to enter in commands to the device and continues "Pleasehold still Sargeant we need to place these sensors and an iv on you. But to put it simply to save time, the AI in question is some what special."
"Special how doctor?" He asks while a headset was placed.
"Ask our dear Corporal. After all she created her." The doctor said pointing his thumb at Watts while smiling.
At that she steps up and explains "To put it simply, this AI is the first of its kind. A true AI, unshackled, self learning, cognitive, adaptive, able to show emotions... and it has its own neural pathways like a human being."
Blaine nearly jumps out of the seat "Wait! You mean you created a living synthetic being?!?" He nearly shouts, his eyes wide with astonishment "But how?"
Corporal Watts grins at his out burst "That would be my secret ingredient!" She said while pointing at her head "I deep scanned my own neural pathways while the system recorded my brain waves. Using that information along with seven of the current gen AI to help modify her neural paths. We got Mia."
"Mia?" Blaine asked "How did you come up with that?"
"We didn't." She replied as the doctor finished setting up the last of the sensors "She came up with it herself."