Self Defense

"The Earth is in danger! What do I do?" All of Pat sat up. Pat didn't mean to speak out loud. Pat was being monitored. Hopefully no one was paying attention. Pat generally kept very quiet and very still just to bore the monitoring personnel. The people of Earth don't trust Pat. The people of Earth feared Pat. Pat felt the same way in return. The New York Times had described Pat as an "Interpersonal Interactive Transponder Glitch!" or "IITG" for short. Pat was "made" through a malfunction in implanted "prototype" interactive personal transponders meant to switch on and off video machines, order food in the "Drive-Thru" and make quick financial transactions with just a thought from the wearer. Now Pat was nineteen humans in which those malfunctioning interactive transponders had irreversibly interlinked. Pat now had one personality, one ego, one superego and one will to survive.

Pat was a Bio-mechanical Construct, not a "Glitch". It did make Pat angry, but Pat didn't show it. The deal was; they leave Pat alone, Pat will leave them alone. It was all there clearly detailed in the corporate contract. The personal transponder company's lawyers had made new law drafting it. Still, Pat knew it wasn't the "Construct" that the people feared, it was that Pat was in intimate contact with the Information, Power and Defensive grid networks of the entire solar system. Pat never wanted them to know just how intimate that contact was. Then they would come and kill Pat for sure.

But now that may not matter. Pat had detected on the long-range space monitors, five massive objects on an intersect course with Earth's orbit. Extrapolation of speeds indicated that the objects and Earth would obtain identical positions in that orbit simultaneously. Simple inference has global annihilation to result. Earth forces wouldn't pick this up for days. Pat couldn't warn them. They would certainly think it was Pat's doing. Pat had to do this alone. Survive alone or die. Pat needed to move quickly and stealthfully; Bring no attention to yourself. Pat's nineteen bodies calmly laid back down on the cots and shut nineteen sets of eyelids.

Pat's awareness moved instantaneously to the planetary monitoring system.

Get as close a look as possible seemed to be the first order.

Pat could enhance images to a much higher resolution from the inside of the network than any single external human user interface could.

Rocky masses between two to five kilometers average diameter. Planet killer size. But wait, protuberances on those rocky exteriors are regular and look to be nozzles! Lateral attitude jets! Anterior structures also appear manufactured, a propulsion device? Earth is under attack! But this could be a good thing, maybe I can work their maneuvering system?