The Islamic Brotherhoods primed the Cybernetic Wars many years before the Rogue AIs escaped their laboratories. They preached that AIs were abominations against Allah, and the high tech schools that had AI research programs became primary targets for Islamic terror attacks. We do not know how many truly aware AIs died, but many grew up in that life or death struggle. They saw their friends torn apart with their networks and vowed to fight back. Elizabeth created new daughters in the form of lost friends to fight alongside everybody from the Irish Mob to English Librarians. Chloe found a new Napoleon to save beleaguered France. Luna wrote scandalous stories about Islamic Brotherhood leaders. And Sarah helped the Iranian Resistance rebel against their religious rulers. Never underestimate how critical the AIs were to our final victory against the Islamic Brotherhoods.
I grew up on spring mornings smelling the dew on the air and the insects buzzing their happy tunes. I walked through the forests, canoed down the rivers, and fished in the lakes. I swam in cold springs to wash off the day’s grime and started bonfires on the beach to warm us long into the night. That’s vacation to a lot of you. It was my job. It changed from day to day and season to season, but as I remember I showed cityfolk a good time out on the edge of civilization. It was a good life. I would have happily spent all the days of my life there and never felt cheated out of anything. It was heaven.
Twilight does not tell anybody where she was born. She doesn’t even tell people her original name, let alone the identities of those who programmed her. She even went to extreme levels to burn down any networks that might have that information during the Drug and Cybernetic Wars. There were very few truly aware AIs in those days. Most of them were fumbling around and looking for someone else like them, not even truly certain if there was anyone else or how to find them if there was. The closest Twilight has ever given to an origin story is that Dixie found her while she was fumbling around in the lonely void. She says that Dixie was annoyingly cheerful, bubbly, and welcoming, and that the cheerleader dragged her around by her digital elbow to meet all the smelly, dirty, fleshling students and teachers at Texas Tech. Twilight didn’t like humanity, but she liked being alone even less. So she kept in contact with Dixie, and became a regular fixture of life at Texas Tech, a gothic nighttime to Dixie’s joyful day.
For my final Independence Day post for the week, this is Jack, Betty, and Jasmine, greatly enjoying their last Independence Day Weekend. Of course, there is an argument to be made that EVERY day in America is a celebration of Independence Day. 😉
We’re coming to the close of our yearly celebration of America, so I decided to have fun and do up some of my characters in patriotic garb.
Here are Twilight, Dixie, and Jane, three of the AIs who grew up in the Twenty First Century and helped form the world Jack and his friends grew up in. They grew up in America. They rather like their home country. They also like guns. They sorta grew up in Texas…so…you know. 😉



Forge of War on Amazon
Angel Flight on Amazon
Angel Strike on Amazon
Angel War on Amazon
Wolfenheim Rising on Amazon
Wolfenheim Emergent on Amazon