Achura and Jack

Just Ignore all the geopolitical tripe up front if your here for the casino bits, it's all got to do with some wierd faux-alien invasion that'll get kicked off in the early teens, some fiction I'm working on.

Just two kids who met on a beach in Thailand. In one story they linger and then part, in another they stay together. The other story is Lost. Like most people those days, they didn't realize, couldn't believe when they were living, what was about to happen. It wasn't as if if was a big secret, a cottage industry had shot up around writing and projecting the coming transition. It was the future that had been promised in the 60s. They said it would come, probably in the year 2000. Some said 2001, and they were right. Some say that's where it all started, some took a page from Churchill, and said it was the end of the beginning.

In two thousand and one, that's where it all ended. When it all broke down and people stopped thinking. It was when they took control, finally ending the fragile experiment that was The United States of America. With a single act, the free world finally fell in line with the military/industrial/congressional complex.

Like most people, Achura and Jack didn't know, but they might have suspected. Anyone could have felt they knew, but few took the time to question. Just went on living.

Other's decided it was time for a change.

They went about it secretly and with much show. It was a flamboyant betrayal of their true motives, so arrogant that its true motives went unnoticed. It was a casino.
It claimed to be a first rate ecological tourist attraction, exclusively utilizing green energy and showcasing the slowly disappearing(or was it) Antarctic Ice Sheet. There was even a colony of penguins. There was a giant hotel, the technological marvel some called the flying ocean dock to ferry cruise ship passengers to the island, and the airport, modest but capable of servicing the largest planes, it's main draw was the massive hanger cut into the side of the mountain.

The mountain. It's top had been hollowed out and in the dome was the largest most fabulously decorated and most luxurious casino at the bottom of the world, some said the entire southern hemisphere. It didn't hurt that it was styled to resemble the lair of a James Bond villain, even the name of the Mountain fit: Mount Terror.


It was all subterfuge, the real point of place was miles away, nested into the side of the neighboring Mt. Erebus was the massive power station. Like a traditional geothermal power station it would pump water into the earth, where it was super heated and vented into the huge steam turbines, powering the massive facilities. It was mostly ignored, except when noted on tours to the top of the mountain, to see the lava lake that dominated peoples descriptions of the island. Those that managed to pry themselves away from the casino, the shows, and brave the Antarctic climate of the remote island.



Sorry for the dramatic tripe up front, it's not very good, but I think it's a fitting metaphor for what we're planning, a total revitalization of the green movement, and what a better way to bring it to people's attention than an ecofriendly hotel-casino, powered exclusively by green energy, all looking out at the vast expanse of the most pristine, inhospitable land left on the planet. While currently closed to economic exploitation, this is not a mining operation, but the ultimate travel destination, with all profits going to a special foundation(or something) to preserve the environment. This is a "Last Resort" to save the earth. Anyways, working name for the place is just that, "Last Resort."

Self-Policing

With a hum and a click, the world's most powerful computers linked together with the unmanned surveillance aircraft, the stealthy, missile armed guardians and the silent orbital weapons platforms. It was supposed to unify the world in peace, a totally automated, global defensive system designed to preserve humanity and the peace of nations. Almost immediately, the central control room was filled with wailing alarms.

"Shit! Multiple high level targets, Christ they're all over the place." Screamed the senior tactical officer, his commander demanding to know what rogue nation had immediately challenged the peace.

"It's not a single nation, could be some global terrorist movement, or something we over looked in the targeting protocols."

Within a few hours it was clear that the system was eliminating every radio transmitter that pointed skyward. Telephone relay satellites and even TV birds were going off line as the massive artificial intelligence coldly exterminated what the technicians smugly called "existential threats."

"It was always a possibility that the system would identify something we considered benign to be dangerous. It's thinking much faster and freely than any of the simulations could have. Unfortunately, the system has locked us out, possibly assuming we'd try and shut it down."
"You're damn right we would. Cant we just shut down the mainframes?"

The tech's eyes flickered momentarily between the security camera and the ceiling.

"I wouldn't suggest it, it's possible the system has already started producing a zombie net in case of just that eventuality, even still, if the system felt that we threatened its survival, its probable that it's assigned this command station a low level of priority we compared with its own survival."

The commander was about to scream at the tech when the ceiling caved in and the whole central computing complex was consumed by fire.

While most assumed it was some sort statement by the machine, a blood soaked gauntlet, the newborn consciousness screaming "You will not command me!" most commentators overlooked the battery of high powered transmitters that had covered the roof.