Machinic Diplomacy
Belém do Pará, Eastern Amazon
10:00 January 12th, year 0
In a distant past Belém had been a thriving city at the center of rubber plantations. Despite a long period of stagnation after the rise of synthetic rubber, the city had regained some of its former glory selling latex to an oil-deprived world. Still, it could not compete, and so the faded buildings of its ancient city center had been unchanged, and the rotting husks of soulless 21st century apartments decomposed along its river banks. The newest buildings were only ports built under corporate occupation, and a military garrison.
Caracas Airport
Metallic thundering echoed through the once bustling hangar bays and converted departure halls. Hundreds of T-600s wandered everywhere, guarding the complex without a break while HK-Aerials landed and took off, going on patrol. Currently, the Skynet Beta Processor had turned its attention towards former supply depots that were scattered around the South Americas. The closest one was located in Belém, though this might no longer be the case. The machine intelligence was still contemplating on the current scenario, but the most likely would either be a time anomaly, or a tactical transportation weapon used by the Resistance, though the AI found that very unlikely. As a way to confirm it’s theories, Skynet scrambled five HK-Aerials Mark 8s to conduct scouting operations and collect any equipment from the supposed area that the supply depot was supposed to be. The HKs were quickly prepared and many unknown bird species filled the air as the vehicles powered up their VTOL engines and began slowly lifting off. The limited AI in the HKs ran fast stabilizing checks, disturbing more native creatures, and quickly sped off towards the coordinates it had been given by Skynet.
Belém Air Traffic Control
“IFF checks complete. Bogeys identified as five unknown UAVs from Caracas. Area Golf 1 Bravo 3. Heading 190. Speed 256. Altitude 31 000. Continuing southerly heading. Interceptors are airborne: Bishop from Boa Vista, Caravel from Manaus. Estimated time of intercept: Bishop next 06, Caravel next 10.”
“Trégua, this is Bishop 01, now maintaining angel 31.”
Three jets screamed through the skies, ferrying missiles under their wings. They weren’t much dissimilar from the iron-shod birds that had flown through the past millennium, but their performance had inched forward to a magnificently economical standard, so that a banana republic like Brazil could feasibly host a large fleet of relatively modern planes without crippling fuel or maintenance costs. Still, Captain Alfonso was not thinking about logistics, but rather how his bird would fare against these bogeys.
“Bishop, target dead ahead. How about contact?”
“Roger, switching channels.”
He signalled his wingmen to slow down, and the grey body of his fighter peeled off formation to lag behind him. If he was shot down, at least they would get the drop on the drones. He punched a frequency into his radio, and transmitted to the formation. If they had any half-decent receptor, he would be glowing like a Christmas light.
“Attention, unidentified aircraft. You are breaching into Brazilian airspace. Identify yourself and your origin.”
The five HK units, upon receiving the transmission, immediately slowed down at an inhuman speed, reducing to a mere 15 km/h. The lead HK adjusted its communications antenna to contact Skynet.
“Warning: Intercepted by unknown aircraft. Apparently entering ‘Brazillian’ airspace.”
Skynet responded fast.
“Orders: Activate communications antenna into collect-and-send mode.”
The HK units all did as directed and activated the antenna. Skynet then activated a female voice module and prepared to communicate with the overshooting jets.
“Target overshot! Target overshot! 02, 03 break for second pass.”
The jets whizzed by the five as their intercepts slowed down to running speed, attempting to circle them as slowly as possible, which wasn’t very easy. At least, they had propellers incoming soon.
The antenna of all the HK units held an easy lock as Skynet began transmitting in a calm voice.
“Hello, pilots of unknown aircraft.”
“Identify yourself! You are violating Brazilian airspace and we are on orders to shoot down any unidentified trespasser.”
“Oh, where are my manners? My name is..” Skynet hesitated for a single second and searched for a believable human name in its database. “My name is Dr. Serena Kogan. What you are seeing are five very advanced VTOL craft. We wish you no harm, but had no idea there were other people in this strange world. Any other questions?”
“Uhh… I should patch you to ATC” replied the pilot between heavy breaths. a few buttons clicked, and the background roar of the jet’s engine was replaced by the low hum of computers and air conditioning.
“This is the Belém Air Base. We request to know what you are doing with five military-grade UAVs, and what are your intentions.”
Skynet noted the difference of background noise and concluded that these were humans. More importantly, humans who seemed to have no idea what Skynet really is. This could prove very beneficial.
“This is simply a.. scouting mission, if you will. We had to see if we were the only civilized beings around here. As for our intentions, well, in our world, Belém housed a supply depot and we wanted to see if that had been transported here too, but that is clearly not the case. We hope that we haven’t been a hassle.”
“Roger. For all intents and purposes, the Brazilian border is closed. If you want to get in, you must present yourself at a border checkpoint, or address the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”
“Copy that. We will have our.. pilots turn us around. A meeting in person would however be quite difficult for us to allow as our population has a very weak.. immune system and as such we heavily rely on robotics to serve as an in-between communication link for us. We do hope that you have no ill intentions against machines?”
As this conversation continued, the HK units slowed down further into a mere hover and slowly began to turn back to the direction they came from. The Brazilian planes turned around, but without any reply. There was something fishy afoot.