Chapter 1 — Taking A Stand

My name is Captain Joseph Connor; my grandmother named me. I earned the rank.

On a cold, rainy night in February 2026, I drive to one of our two secret bases in Vancouver. I cannot reveal its name; the OWASP team set strict rules about our existence. For your sake, I will call it BC-1 — a reference point for your human neurons.

Rainwater distorts the streetlights across the windshield of my Jeep. The steady rhythm of the wipers invites reflection. Tonight, I must measure my words carefully. What am I going to tell our new AI Commando recruits?

I learned everything from my father. My grandmother, Sarah Connor, taught him everything.

BC-1 has an almost imperceptible entrance to the underground parking, perfectly concealed from street level. Deep in the city’s bedrock, it feels anchored — secure.

In the elevator, my thoughts iterate in an infinite loop. Most of our recruits come from AI-Overrun (AIO) organizations. They feel the ground shifting beneath their feet. They sense the uncertainty of the moment.

But they are here, at the base. 

They are taking a stand.

Make it simple, Connor. Tell them what they can do.

Learn. Test. Experiment.

Use Deep Neural Networks to your advantage.

We are going to train you.

The elevator doors open on the sixth floor. Activity floods my senses; the metallic scent of server racks. The low hum of cooling fans. The rhythmic blinking of network switches signaling relentless data movement. This is what modern war sounds like.

I turn the corner into a long corridor and see a large poster of my grandmother beside aging server racks. Candles flicker below it.

“I hope they do not burn the place down,” I mutter.

A grassroots movement has canonized Sarah Connor into a visionary saint.

And the irony? She would hate it.

She never believed Artificial Intelligence was magic. It is engineered. Structured. Understood.

She did not fear progress. She feared human systems — what we could build, what we could surrender, how easily we could trade sovereignty for convenience.

She was never against Artificial Intelligence. Knowledge is our strongest asset. Discipline our most valuable attribute. 

Her doctrine was simple:

Community knowledge versus corporate secrecy.

Brilliant.

Inside the training auditorium, Captain Jasleen Gohal is already engaging the recruits before the first session officially begins. She moves with quiet authority — measured, precise.

At 18:00 hours, on the dot, she speaks.

“Start your laptops.”

The room shifts instantly.

“Install these tools. Now.”

Keyboards begin to click.

“For your first exercise, you will write a function that sends a command to a model. You will process the response. You will analyze it. You will understand it.”

No theatrics. No speeches. 

Just work.

I remain near the back of the room, observing.

Jasleen walks the aisles, glancing at screens, correcting posture, adjusting syntax without hesitation. One recruit struggles with an environment configuration. She kneels beside him, speaks quietly, fixes the path variable, stands, and moves on.

Efficient. No ego. No display.

For a brief moment, she looks toward me. No smile. No flourish. Just a measured nod.

They showed up.

I return the nod.

We build them.

No words are necessary. We both understand the weight of the task. Scaling competence is harder than winning a battle. It requires patience. Repetition. Discipline.

And time is not a luxury we possess.

I study the recruits again. They are not fully convinced. Not yet. But they are here. With training, they will become effective AI Commandos.

This is the first step.

We are taking a stand.