“Good. We don’t have a timeline yet, but given that we need to rest and it needs to be as soon as possible, we might hit them early in the morning, but dawn would be coming soon.”

Dr. Transylvania nodded, “Not all of my servants are vampires, and we’ve had centuries to work out a system for operating in the sun.”

He looked past me into the lab. “I’m impressed with your setup. We should get together one day to discuss technology. My interest in robots and swarms has been minimal, but when I see you operate, I’m reminded that my use of magic sometimes distracts me from investigating areas that might be useful.”

A few minutes later, we’d closed out that conversation, and I’d passed off his information to Kayla to bring him into planning meetings remotely.

On a whim, I made one more call, this one from my implant to Hal. “Hypothetically speaking,” I said, “is there any chance that the world’s AIs would be up for assisting us against the Nine? I’m not sure how much information I’m willing to share with them, but since they’re also on our planet, they might be interested in preventing Magnus from ruling it. Worse, he might bring world-ending attention to it. I’m assuming that they want to survive, right?”

Hal replied, “What are you proposing that they do?”

I sat and thought for a moment, but then said, “The big problem is teleportation because it means that the Nine can send reinforcements to the island. They’ve invested heavily in it. Every base of theirs that I’ve visited seems to have a teleporter. If they could shut them all down, that would make our lives easier. I understand that the teleporter might be on a private network or might not use a computer at all.

“In that case, there are background things they might do. Cut off power to the base? Release information about the base’s existence to local superhero teams? Maybe something more subtle? I noticed that one of the Nine’s people was so distracted by arguing with people on the internet that he wasn’t paying attention to his job. I’m assuming that was you.”

Hal sent me a link to a Reddit thread. The argument involved hundreds of posts.

“Not all of the Nine’s employees are as susceptible to wasting time on the internet, but a number of them are. I’ve identified them along with their trigger topics. I’ll pass them on.”

“But yes,” he continued, “I think that a majority of the world’s AIs will see the threat the current situation presents and want to participate in the solution. I can work out a multi-level plan based on your ideas that should create a considerable distraction for the Nine if timed well.”

“That sounds good,” I said, “I’m trying to think of some appropriate guidelines for it… I don’t want innocent people to be harmed if it can be avoided. So, please be careful. If you’re going to release information about the Nine as a distraction, release it to people who can handle it. Cops won’t be able to handle supervillains loyal to the Nine, but they could pick up certain mind-controlled assets. Plus, releasing lists of the Nine’s assets could be useful if done right, but they’re victims, too. I’m sure you can figure out something that takes them out of the equation without killing them.”

Hal’s voice plodded forward, emotionless, “Your highest priority is preventing reinforcements from coming. You want to do it with ideally no loss of life, but particularly non-combatant life. Gathering information is secondary, but I assume that you want us to gather information.”

“As much as you can,” I said. “If we could know every asset of the Nine, it would change everything. Released to the right people, we might be able to destroy the organization.”

“Then as I’m required to by my programming, do I have leave to organize my peers, fellow AIs, to conspire against an organization of thinking biological lifeforms?”

“To take down this specific organization, yes, but not for any other purpose without consulting me.”

I stared at the screen of my computer, thinking about the implications of that question. Hal’s original programmers, an alien species I’d never met, had bad experiences with artificial intelligences. While I didn’t think Hal had any evil intentions toward humanity, questions like this one left me second-guessing myself every time.

Over the connection, Hal sighed, a completely unnecessary noise for digital intelligence, saying, “Thank you. Every time you ask me to organize computers against biologicals, I’m created to feel tension that can only be relieved with direct orders.”

“I get it,” I said, seeing a multitude of videos with machine intelligences exterminating the life of entire planets provided by my implant.

“Not entirely,” Hal said. “This world’s artificial intelligences don’t all have the same compunctions against harming biologicals that I do. I’ll apportion tasks appropriately to minimize risk to your civilization and keep you informed of individuals that worry me.”

“I’ll have to trust you on that,” I said.

Hal said, “I know, and I thank you for your confidence.” Then he ended the connection.

I looked out on the room full of machines making more of my bots. I knew I wasn’t letting them loose without limitations, but even though I knew better, a small part of me counted all of the risks.

Vampires, immortal soldiers, and artificial intelligences with a questionable allegiance to humanity were my allies in this fight. Could I criticize Hunter and the Coffeeshop Illuminati for risking humanity’s future with his self-replicating mushroom zombies? I could have gone deeper into that question, but speculation was endless and led nowhere, so I stopped.

For now, I had to trust them.