by Brad C Scott
Has to be a trap, and here I am, walking right into it.
When we reach the door leading to the receiving area, the administrators that should be manning its security checkpoint are absent. Pulling my pistol, I motion Evans to fall in behind me and push through the door.
No contacts as we pivot in and move left behind a row of shelves stacked with pallets and shipping crates. Pistols out, we stalk down the row toward the four glowing rectangles of the roll-up openings leading to the outside. A dock office on the chamber’s far side sits empty. In fact, no one is about, curious considering how busy this place should be at this time of day. Glancing at the cameras mounted high on the walls confirms their indicator lights are dark.
So: this is the place.
“Redeemer,” breathes Evans.
There he is, a winged shape parked on the graded pavement about fifteen meters beyond the dock openings, late-morning light glowing silver off his skin. Patton’s sensory lenses and running lights are dark, though no battle damage is evident. Three men gather around him, two standing watch with ATAC rifles while a third crouches down at his side.
Reaching the row’s end and the last of our cover, I gesture to Evans and glide forward, hugging the chamber’s left-hand side where the light is dimmer. The men surrounding Patton – all wearing combat armor and tactical vests, faces concealed by black balaclavas – don’t detect our approach. But when I lean out from a roll-up door opening, one looks right at me.
“DRR!” I shout, extending my pistol. “Drop your weapons, or you will be fired on!”
“Do it!” shouts Evans. “Stand down now!”
The two operators with ATAC rifles stare at us, unmoving, sizing us up. The one crouched next to Patton stands up and turns toward us.
“Do it now!” I shout.
“Weapons down,” says the leader, stepping forward with his hands splayed to the sides and stopping in shadow ten meters out on the dock ramp, on a level with me where I stand in the roll-up door opening. The two guards lower their muzzles to point at the ground, though neither relinquishes his weapon.
“Drop the weapons, on the ground!” I shout.
“Malcolm Adams,” says the leader, voice the deep-throated rumble of a gathering storm, “it’s good to finally meet you.” He’s tall, this one, and well-built, though all I can make out of his features are the eyes, like polished marble or gray rime, lambent with predation. And the voice, somehow, it seems familiar.
“Who are you?” I say, pistol steady on his torso.
“We’ve never met,” he says, “though our paths nearly crossed in Los Angeles. I see your injuries have healed up.”
The pieces connect: Red Line Station, the ambush, the fuckers behind it. I sight in on his head, put pressure on the trigger. “Who, the fuck, are you?”
“I have a sniper trained on your position.” His eyes convey conviction, glaring at me in challenge. “He’s very good.”
Past the concrete embankment lining the rear of the facility, a parking structure blocks much of the skyline. A quick glance reveals no shooters, though they’d be easy to miss in the shadows. The upper floors of three buildings also stick up within a quarter mile, any of which could host a sniper perch. Without telescopics handy, I’ve no way to confirm it.
“You’re bluffing,” I say.
“I don’t bluff.”
I don’t think he’s bluffing. “Where’s Conry?”
“Fortunately, my associate has business elsewhere.”
Something’s off here. Where is everyone? “What do you want?”
“To show you something. Telling, it doesn’t have the same impact.”
Noting that Evans has him covered, I risk a longer look around. Other than the three hostiles in front of us, there’s no one in sight. No one. It’s too quiet. No movement of cars in the parking structure, either. Even the sounds of street noise in the distance seem muted.
“Redeemer?” prompts Evans.
I focus back on my adversary. “Show me what?”
He tilts his head skyward. “An empty sky. No planes, no drones, even the satellite feeds are ours.” He locks eyes with me again. “For as long as needed.”
He’s right. Nothing in the sky, no plane noise, and still no people or moving cars in sight. To have pulled this off, and in broad daylight? Shit. “You really want to impress me? How about you give me a straight answer as to what the hell you want?”
“You. My organization believes you have more value alive than dead. We’d like you working with us, not against us.”
“Which organization is that?”
“The same one that facilitated this meeting.”
“What have you done to Patton?”
“He’ll be fine. You can work out the damage once we’re done here.”
Sniper be damned, I’d shoot this bastard if not for Evans. “Why?”
He folds his arms behind his back, takes a single step forward. “Tell me, Malcolm: why do you do it? You serve the same system that denied your child access to the medical care that could’ve saved her. The same system that took your wife away from you, piece by piece, until she consented to let them put her to sleep like a stray dog.” He points up at the hospital. “Room 451. Is that worth defending? Are they?”
He’s not wrong, but that doesn’t make him right. “No, why shouldn’t I kill you now?”
His eyes flash amusement, seeming to glow for a moment, the gray irises luminescing. Some sort of optical implant? “You can’t get answers from a dead man. Malcolm, we both fight for a better world, but the world you serve is corrupted beyond redemption. Your efforts are wasted on it. Left to its own devices, humanity continues down the path of its own destruction. You’ve seen the signs. Another revolution here at home, bio-engineered plagues, the next world war: the horizon is black with our folly.” He takes another step forward. “I know a better way to serve, to make a real difference in saving humanity from itself, if you’re willing to listen.”
“You’re a murdering psychopath. Why would I listen to you?”
He turns his head away. “The plan called for capture, not kill. But we hadn’t anticipated someone with your skillsets, or for the presence of a SMART drone. The teams in place were forced to adapt.” He meets my eyes again. “What happened in LA was regrettable. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for the loss of your men. It wasn’t my call, but that’s the way it went down.”
I take deep breaths to help leash the rage. “That’s still on you.”
“I know. And I do what needs doing. But I don’t have a monster’s appetites like some. Like Conry, or Krayge, his NDL alias. An unreliable ally, at best: he was in charge at the station, he gave the signal to attack. A lot of men died that didn’t need to that day, on both sides.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I’d be willing to give him up.”
“In return for what?”
“You, working for us. We want the same thing, Malcolm: a better world. Your way will never bring it about. Ours will.”
“Offering to throw your own to the wolves? Not the best sales pitch.”
“A warrior sends men to die so others may live. Your sponsor understands this.”
Director Johnson? “My sponsor?”
“He sacrifices to save lives, like all the truly great do.” His eyes cut briefly at Evans. “Won’t you do the same?” He turns and walks back toward his men.
“Redeemer, permission to engage?” seethes Evans.
It’s what I want, too, but he’s right about me needing answers. “No.”
“I’m sorry about your wife,” he says, placing a hand on Patton’s fuselage, “for bringing you here. Truly. But you needed to be shown. To be reminded. Think it over. You’ll never get the answers you seek, or get to Conry, except through me. Work with us –”
“Who’s us again?” I interrupt.
“Those with the will to achieve a better world. An ordered world where people like your wife and daughter ar
en’t disposable, where everybody has their place.”
“Except those who stand in your way.”
No reaction, just a blank stare: must have struck a nerve. “Think it over. When you’re ready, simply say so in view of any camera. I’ll be watching.”
I frown, lower my pistol, and step back. Let him believe I might actually think it over. Will I?
“Until next time, Malcolm.” With that, he pivots and walks off. His men follow suit, backing away, before passing out of sight behind a concrete embankment.
◊ ◊ ◊
We find a working landline at the dock office and get a call through to HQ. As we wait for relief, the pervasive silence of the abandoned receiving area, the lack of anyone about, sinks its message in deeper by the second. To have arranged all this required vast resources on the part of our adversaries, including inside help at HHS. No apparent witnesses, no camera footage, and I’d lay good money that the satellite coverage will be scrubbed. And they were able to neutralize Cato, no mean feat.
But all this, an elaborate recruitment pitch?
“Why did they target Patton?” asks Evans.
“I shouldn’t have left him on his own, exposed like that.”
“How could you know? He’s practically invincible.” Long pause. “It was them. You heard what that asshole said. And we let him go.”
“No choice. Whoever they are –”
“DSS,” she interrupts.
“Whoever, they’ve exposed themselves now. They’re active.” I growl out a sigh. “Just as we hoped.” Sticking my head out to eyeball Patton’s inert form, I use my ID to connect to him for a reboot, a status update, anything, but nothing works. I bang my fist into a crate and breathe through my teeth. Patton, what have they done to you?
“What do we do now? Because I’m not OK with letting those evil assholes walk.”
I cross my arms and scowl at Patton’s inert form.
Evans puts a hand on my shoulder. “About your wife… I’m sorry, Malcolm.”
Sorry? “Somebody will be.”
CHAPTER 19
“Be careful in there, First Redeemer,” says the drone tech, a critical eye reviewing the contents of the pink box I’ve just handed him, the daily goodwill bribe.
“That would be useless,” I say. The DRR campus has a decent donut shop on site, but the choker holes aren’t helping with anything but expanding waistlines. Six days now and our drone specialists are still beating their heads against that invisible wall, unable to get Patton operational.
“That DOD rep they sent over,” says the other tech, making circles in the air with his lit cigarette, “she’s nuts.”
“Loco,” says the other.
I raise an eyebrow at them. “Crazy covers a lot of ground.”
The virus plaguing Patton is something they haven’t seen before, so at my urging and with the Director’s blessing, our drone techs requested outside help. It was either that or consent to a full reformatting of Patton’s brain, a virtual death sentence. The team from the Department of Defense arrived last night. They received full access to the Drone Operations Center, or DOC, so it’s no surprise that our drone techs are unhappy about their prerogatives.
“She has a death wish,” gripes one. “She’s operating without safety protocols.”
“There’s already been one near-miss,” says the other.
“Thanks for the warning,” I say. “Open up.”
One of them activates the roll-up door.
Looking about, my attention is drawn by the stutter-flash of weapons fire emanating from the assessment area at the far end of the warehouse-sized chamber. Three drones participate in a weapons exercise, the chugging report of their fire reverberating off the high ceiling and distant walls. Other than that, the pandemonium I was warned about is nowhere in evidence. The vast staging area is otherwise calm, the scores of parked tactical drones arrayed in depowered ranks.
I head over to the diagnostics area and take a long look through the viewing window. They’ve got Patton parked in a custom lift assembly for his configuration, his running lights and sensors dark. All manner of cables and wires attach to open panels on his fuselage. A handful of drone techs work around and on him, including a pair in DOD jumpsuits. They’ve also got an unfamiliar droid hooked to Patton by its own series of cables. A holoscreen above its head displays the text: TALOS V3.2 AAI – Diagnostics Environment Active – Please Stand By.
Stepping through the hatch, I spot Master Tech Aubrey Willis on the chamber’s far side and head over, getting a good look at the droid along the way. It’s bigger than most, a bipedal robot standing about seven feet tall with arms and legs in approximate proportion to a human’s, though the similarity ends there. Its bronze-colored chassis gives it the appearance of an ancient armored warrior, though its head is a thick protrusion of curving metal inset with three yellow sensory eyes. Droids are rarely used in the field – drones make for more efficient and mobile AI platforms – but in passive environments like this, they’re not uncommon.
“Aubrey,” I say, pulling his attention from a holodisplay, “sorry for all the trouble.”
“Don’t be,” he says, bearded face a study in contrition as we shake hands. Aubrey’s presence is as reassuring as ever, his bedside manner honed by years of practice. Being our top intelligent systems engineer and personally overseeing all work on SMART models, he’s the closest equivalent to a personal physician that Patton has. “If we could have come up with a remedy on our own, it wouldn’t have been necessary to bring in outside help.”
“How’s he doing?”
“No change,” he admits. “but the DOD team just got started. That droid over there? It’s a platform for TALOS, a prototype diagnostics and recovery system that might give us the edge we need. TALOS is an applied AI that can hack into Patton’s recurrent quantum array neural network to create a multi-modal mirror...”
“No, go on, I’m listening.” Artificial intelligence is a fascinating subject, but its concepts and applications are so mind-numbingly complex that even the tip of the tip of the iceberg floating in a sea of icebergs is all I have the wherewithal to comprehend.
He flashes a sympathetic smile. “Bottom line: DOD has better tools than we do. The malware infecting Patton is a malicious AI that’s adapted to everything we’ve thrown at it. TALOS there should give us the edge to outthink it, to predict its next moves and counter them.”
“Fire with fire, makes sense. Where’s their rep?”
“Out on the assessment range. Samantha Mathis, a consultant with Strategic Automated Systems, one of their gold-star vendors. Be careful with that one, Malcolm.”
“Your techs think she’s crazy.”
He grins at me. “Unconventional, no doubt. I met her last year, she was one of the more interesting keynotes at our IS convention. She’s razor-sharp, one of DOD’s top experts in AGI.”
I raise an eyebrow at him.
He chuckles. “Acronyms, I know. AGI, Artificial General Intelligence, the advanced form of AI that’s comprehensive, allowing a platform to be fully autonomous. SMART drones are the only mobile AGI platforms – supposedly – though I’d lay good money there’s more of it out there we don’t know about. Most AI is the lesser version, Artificial Applied Intelligence, AAI, installed on damn near everything: container ships, trains, tactical drones, TALOS there, hell, they’ve even got it in refrigerators. AAI systems are only semi-autonomous, good for specific apps, but unreliable when it comes to making their own decisions.”
“Sounds like most people I know.”
“True enough. Have you talked to Kari?”
“Every day.” I narrow my eyes at him. “What is it?”
When I saw her yesterday, Evans fed me a line about spending a quiet night by herself. Quality time, she said, to relax and unwind after the six days we spent running down leads trying to find Krayge and our mystery man at the HHS facility. Surveillance on one of our persons of interest was my guess, but I didn’t pr
ess. My night consisted of more reviews of transit system camera footage, an equivalent waste of time.
Aubrey rubs his neck. “She looked pretty ragged when she came by this morning. Nearly assaulted one of my techs.” He holds out a hand to forestall me. “It was nothing serious, no damage done, but I did ask her to leave. Politely.”
Deep sigh. “I’ll have a talk with her.”
He puts a hand on my arm. “You’ve both been at full burn since Patton was disabled. My advice? Ease off, take a step back. Both of you. Before you burn out.”
If Worthy was here, he’d know how to reign Evans in. He’d reign me in, too, tell me I’m being paranoid, setting a bad example, letting events drive me and not the other way around. And he’d be right. Goddamnit, I miss him. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
Aubrey steps back and nods at Patton. “How’s your investigation going?”
“Nowhere,” I say. Forensics was a bust inside the HHS facility – no fingerprints, DNA, or useful surveillance footage. We did get an ID on the stolen ambulance used by our assailants, but it vanished from transit system footage after only three intersections. We also found a sniper perch in a nearby building, if smudges made by a bipod counts, though nothing to ID the shooter or his gear save for a single .308 round left for us to find. My adversary wasn’t lying about the satellites, either – Cato discovered they’d been retasked. With his help on research, Evans and I questioned and staked out persons of interest at HHS, Air Force satellite ops, the ambulance shop, and transit authority. With a whole lot of nothing to show for it. “They’re ghosts.”
“Well, you’ll find them.” Aubrey gives me a speculative look. “Ms. Mathis was asking about you, felt almost like an interrogation. It seems you have a reputation at DOD.”
“More like notoriety.”
◊ ◊ ◊
Four drones hover in place at the firing line for the range. As I approach, a target pops up from behind a barricade, and two of them fire practice rounds at it. A young man in a DOD jumpsuit sits at the range’s control console. The liaison, Samantha Mathis, is nowhere in sight.