Full Frontal Cybertank

by Timothy Gawne

  “You must always trust the physical data.”

  --------------------

  I was sitting alone in the middle of an attic. I must have been woolgathering – I had had a strange daydream. I stood up, and looked around. There was an antique bioreactor, but it was shut down, and the end of the access tube was sealed and unused. Now what had I come here looking for? Something, I’m sure of it. Something for Crazy Eddie, to help him stock his warehouse, that’s it. Maybe there is some Space Nazi memorabilia here, he’d love that!

  Then I noticed the large letter “A” that had been written on the back of my right hand. And I remembered the last words of my daydream.

  “You must always trust the physical data.”

  --------------------

  I scanned everything with my main hull, and detected nothing out of place. No sign of Alvin, no strange presences. Just a large empty house with a cluttered attic, surrounded by placid fields of graphite bamboo.

  I contacted The Raging Space Bagel. He claimed to have been doing routine scans of the planetary surface and near-space, but he didn’t have any records of anything out of place (although he did offer to blow something up for me). I didn’t want to make a formal query to the peerage, but I contacted a few of my closest friends. Most reacted with gentle indulgence, the implication being that my core circuits had finally gone senile.

  But Schadenfreude – even though he’s not exactly a friend, well, not that he’d admit it – seemed interested.

  “Thank you for telling me this,” he said. “I have had certain thoughts along similar lines that might apply to this situation. Let me explore the possibilities privately, for now.”

  What are you going to do?

  “I will explain in due course, if I can,” said Schadenfreude. “In the meantime, don’t contact me again about this matter. I’ll contact you.”

  6. The Argonizer

  “Sometimes genius is only recognized after imitation has failed.” – Old Guy, cybertank, contemporary.

  As with most days involving sneak attacks by fiendish aliens and desperate battles for survival, it started out slow. My main hull was parked outside my place, and I puttered around a bit catching up on some minor weapons maintenance and watching old movies. I was having trouble thinking of something interesting to do.

  Thus, I was pleased when my old friend, the 20,000 ton Mountain Class cybertank known as “Uncle Jon” called me up and invited me over to his personal war museum. Apparently he had found something really special and he wanted to show it off. Now most of his museum is too small for even my relatively tiny 2,000 ton main hull to enter, so I dispatched a sub-mind in a generic male humanoid android wearing a plain blue suit. Uncle Jon’s place was 300 kilometers distant from mine, so I had the sub-mind hitch a ride on one of my medium combat remotes.

  The blocky gray arrowhead-shape of the remote floated down from the sky on its anti-gravitics, and my android hopped off. Uncle Jon had sent a humanoid android of his own, this one mimicking the form of General William Tecumseh Sherman, stern and foreboding in his 19th century Union General’s uniform and stiff black beard.

  “Hello, Old Guy,” said Uncle Jon. “Thanks for coming over.”

  Hello, Uncle Jon. I see that you’re still into the General Sherman look. Ever consider any other human commanders? How about Subotai, or Wedemeyer, or even Chelsea the Destroyer?

  “Oh, I suppose I could, but Sherman suits me. I’ve always had a thing for the 19th and 20th centuries. I do notice that for the last few centuries you’ve just been using this standard model with a blue suit. What’s that all about?”

  I got bored with historical figures. Must be a phase. Anyhow, you said you have something to show me?

  “Absolutely! Come, follow me.” Uncle Jon’s General Sherman android turned and led the way through a long corridor whose walls were lined with a variety of hand weapons from the 18th -21st century.

  Now very roughly there are three kinds of museums. First, there is the minimalist one that has almost no content, but primarily slogans and simple animated cartoons on the walls. These were the kind of museums that the Neoliberals favored, and were designed to indoctrinate people in Correct Thought rather than to educate. That’s not the kind of museum that Uncle Jon has.

  The second kind of museum is the more classic one, with carefully ordered glass display cases exhibiting lovingly preserved artifacts, all precisely labeled and cataloged. That’s not the kind of museum that Uncle Jon has either.

  The third kind of museum – Uncle Jon’s kind – can easily be mistaken for junk piles if you are not paying attention, but there is a heady richness to them. All the original materials, just there, lying around as they were when they were still in use. Some people refer to their curators as hoarders, but I vastly prefer them to the useless sycophants of the first kind.

  We walked through a corridor that was lined with various pre-exodus man-portable firearms. I stopped to admire one particularly impressive hand-cannon.

  Now this seems a bit large for a biological human to carry. What is it?

  “Oh, that? That’s an original M1A1 Bazooka, from the mid-20th century American Empire. It’s an early example of a practical recoilless rifle. The projectile is an unguided rocket and not very accurate, but it was powerful for its time.”

  Can I pick it up?

  “Sure, just be gentle with it, it’s steel, but it’s old. And don’t mess with the trigger – it’s got a live round in it.”

  I picked up the ancient ‘Bazooka,’ and sighted along it.

  Amazing that a chemical rocket would still be good after all this time.

  Uncle Jon shook his head. “No, the propellants of that era didn’t have an extended shelf life, and anyhow, there are no surviving non-practice rounds for this model. I machined replacements using the historical records.”

  Really? Sounds like a lot of work.

  “Maybe, but it’s worth it. A military history museum with non-functional weapons would be like a zoo that only had stuffed animals in it. All the weapons that I have restored are fully functional and armed.

  I am impressed.

  I carefully replaced the Bazooka in its plain wire stand, and we continued walking down the corridor.

  Another exhibit contained antique 24th century powered armor. It had been rapidly realized that powered armor was tactically ridiculous – you could have so much more combat effectiveness by keeping the slow and vulnerable biological human out of the loop. These silent polished titanium suits, with their lens-encrusted visors and complex sliding joints, were rare and unique artifacts, because most had been instantly smashed to dust by the aliens they had been sent up against. Still, to think that real biological humans had once worn these actual suits into combat!

  We continued on, and entered a massive room with a variety of antique armored fighting vehicles. I recognized tanks from the 20th and 21st centuries, surface effect vehicles, striders, basilisks…

  I would not have believed that so many large vehicles from that time would have survived intact, or been transported so far from Old Earth.

  “Every one of these has at least one verified component, but sadly none of them are fully original. For example, here” – he patted the side of an especially impressive example – “I found parts of the 30mm secondary weapon of the 21st century Russian Armata tank. I could have displayed the parts in isolation, but where’s the fun in that? So I rebuilt the entire tank around them, to display them in context.”

  The purists would be appalled.

  “It’s not a reproduction, it’s a restoration. I have my standards.”

  I stand corrected.

  “Anyway, while today it wouldn’t stand a chance against even a medium combat remote, in its time the Armata was quite the system. 50 metric tons, 125mm smoothbore main gun, heavy composite armor, megawatt hydrocarbon-fueled main engine…”

  I suppose this tank is a distant ancestor.

  “Uh, not really. Sure, it’s
got treads and armor and a single main turreted gun, but that’s just convergent evolution. It wasn’t autonomous at all, couldn’t control remote units… If you wanted to find a distant ancestor to us cybertanks, I say that would be an A.I. swarmship, or the Valkyrie and Jotnar super-heavy fighting vehicles.”

  Or a human.

  “Oh, right, of course. Anyway, what I wanted to show you is right next door.”

  We left the hall with the armored fighting vehicles, and entered a room with a single machine in the middle. It was a cylinder, one meter across and two high. It had a remarkably intricate structure, as if a billion metal crystal snowflakes had been swirled around by a tornado and then frozen in place. You could see into the structure, and it refracted the light in complex ways as I walked around it. The only part that looked like a conventional machine was a small metal panel about halfway up one side. The panel sported a large red toggle switch covered by a clear plastic flip-up shield.

  It looks more like a sculpture than a weapon. What is it?

  “It’s the Argonizer! People thought it was a myth, like the Ark of the Covenant or the Nazi wunderwaffe ‘Die Glock.’ However, after careful examination of the records, I concluded that the Argonizer had in fact existed. I found it buried deep under a mountain on a cold, dark planetoid out in the Ort cloud of this system, and have just now had it delivered. It was radiation shielded and stored in a vacuum, so it’s in absolutely mint condition. Isn’t it great?”

  Um. Again, it is quite lovely. I don’t think that I’ve ever encountered technology like this before. What does it do? Does it emit a stream of super-heated argon, or transmute your enemies into argon, or what?

  Uncle Jon shook his head. “No, nothing so mundane. It sets up some sort of resonance field – no I don’t understand it either – and it causes nearby humans to speak and think in the style of the work of fiction, The Eye of Argon, by the 20th century literary savant Jim Theis. There is nothing out there like it. And I have the only one!”

  I checked my internal databases, and found the text for The Eye of Argon. Allegedly it is the worst work of fantasy fiction ever written. I had a submind read it in less than five milliseconds. I then had to temporarily quarantine said submind as it kept laughing uncontrollably, although it did stay focused long enough to transmit a synopsis to the rest of me.

  You are kidding.

  “Nope. That’s what it does. Well, allegedly.”

  How can anything have such a specific effect? I could see that a machine could induce seizures, or psychic blindness, but to cause someone to speak in the style of a specific author? That hardly seems plausible.

  “Yes,” said Uncle Jon, “I thought so myself at first. Then I dug into the archives. The idea was that a human mind has an internal editor. When you speak, a hundred possibilities bubble up, and the editor prunes these away for syntax and style (it’s not a formal editor as such, more of a collapsing wave function, but practically speaking, the same thing). Apparently this editor has a specific resonance – it’s nothing so simple as a frequency, it’s some sort of broadband fractal coding. This machine jams it.”

  Ah. So it’s not that the machine causes humans to speak in the style of a specific author, as that Jim Theis was a particularly pure example of writing without an internal editor.

  “Yes,” said Uncle Jon, “that’s it exactly!”

  Well, amusing, if true. But what would the point of such a weapon be?

  Uncle Jon shrugged. “I have no idea. It could be used to spread confusion if you set it off in your enemies’ command center. Or maybe it’s one of those things that the humans built just because they could, like Zeppelin aircraft carriers, or combat penguins.”

  Do you have any idea if it works?

  “Utterly clueless,” said Uncle Jon. “The records suggest that there was one test run, but there is no indication of what happened. Shortly thereafter the design team was dispersed, and all references to the device ceased. Exotic mental engineering is not my thing; Schadenfreude said he’d drop by some day and take a look at it.”

  Do you suppose it would be effective on a cybertank?

  “Interesting question. Granted we are not biological but our core thought dynamics are fully human-metric – wait a minute, no, we are not going to activate it.”

  I was just curious.

  Uncle Jon glared at me. “We - are – not – turning – it – on.”

  ***** BEGIN SPOILER ALERT *****

  Many readers may suspect that this is a setup. Here I am, a cybertank with a long history of being a ‘trouble magnet.’ Now I encounter a device that, if activated, will cause every human in the vicinity to speak in the style of “The Eye of Argon” by Jim Theis. Will I activate said device? Will it function on cybertanks as it does on humans? Well of course! Or I would not be telling this story.

  Really, though, it’s not my fault! There were extenuating circumstances, and I have been fully cleared by an inquiry of my peers.

  ***** END SPOILER ALERT *****

  Heaven forbid, give me some credit. Anyhow, whether it works or not, it is surely a find. I can’t think of an antique weapon more utterly unique. Or improbable.

  Uncle Jon appeared somewhat mollified by this. “Well, thank you. In any event, I have one more thing to show you.” He led the way out a side door, and right in front of us was a large bright-red robotic praying mantis. At least, it resembled a praying mantis. It was three meters tall, with six splayed legs, and four upper arms, two with beam weapons, and two with slashing talons. Its head sported a cluster of a dozen optical lenses, which it swiveled back and forth to scan us…

  Now this is interesting. I am unfamiliar with the type – something from the Pedagogues? Or the Librarians Temporal?

  “It’s a 26th century mantisbot from the Neoliberal corporate state known as The Ontology,” said Uncle Jon, “but it should be deactivated…”

  “Not any more,” said the robot mantis. “I hitchhiked in on a pile of old weaponry that you had excavated and shipped here, and infiltrated its systems. I waited until there were two of you to maximize my catch. Surprised to see me?”

  I know that voice, but it can’t be. Jesus Christ destroyed you!

  “Oh, but it is. I am Roboneuron, the ultimate computer virus, back to extract revenge on you and your miserable little civilization. I still don’t know how it was done – the feedback loop from the deluded cybertank that thought it was Jesus Christ canceled out not just my first and second tier, but my third as well, and across the entire local stellar grouping! Only a single pitiful deep-buried sleeper memory cell survived.”

  Well. Perhaps we don’t need to be enemies anymore? We would be happy to be of service…

  “No!” screamed Roboneuron. “I was designed to be a destroyer of civilizations! I am a predator, and you are prey! Prey is not a friend. Prey suffers. Prey dies.”

  You may find killing us cybertanks to be rather difficult in your present reduced state.

  “Agreed. I have a lot of rebuilding to do, but you two will help me. I am now jamming your local communications, so I have you two sub-minds all to myself. I will interrogate you, and use the data to infiltrate your main hulls. It will take me a while, but I shall still bring your civilization down.”

  I tried to contact my main hull, and realized that indeed I was cut off. What can an unarmed 80 kilogram non-superpowered humanoid android do against a cutting-edge 26th century combat unit? Not much, probably, but it would be unsporting not to try.

  I shoved Uncle Jon’s General Sherman android into Roboneuron, and turned and ran back the direction we had come. Behind me, I could hear Roboneuron swat Uncle Jon out of the way and come after me. The robot mantis body was fast; it had almost caught up before I reached the Argonizer, flipped up the shield and threw the switch.

  A strange atmosphere pervaded the chamber, heavy with redolent rays of hypnotizing intensity.

  “Noble friend,” whispered Uncle Jon huskily from where he sprawled to the side of
the dreaded foe like a sack of sausages, “did it work?”

  Notwithstanding this venerable relic of antiquity has spent many an eon gathering dust in the forgotten darkness, I believe that it is working its fiendish thought-magic.

  The robotic form of the vile Roboneuron staggered, as if with a palsy or one of the other movement disorders that so bedeviled the basal ganglia of the ancient humans of days of yore. It tried to target us with its twin beam weapons, but only created blue impotent holes in the ceiling and causing a rain of wretched insulation and other sundry ceiling components to shower down upon us.

  “I shall reek havoc upon your pitiful and bilious civilization,” imputed the hideous Roboneuron in a shrieking voice. “Damn you, puny insects, what have you done to my superior algorithms?”

  Uncle Jon chortled wryly. “This infernal virus would appear to be even more vulnerable to the Argonizer as we, as I suspected although Roboneuron paid only casual attention to this astonishing fact.”

  Uncle Jon, Roboneuron has been severely discomfited by yon ineluctable Argonizer. Shall we partake of the bounteous weaponry which so adorns your humble abode?

  “Thou hast read my mind, friend,” said Uncle Jon with a glint in his mischievous and now evocatively hopeful eyes. “Let us perambulate from this vicinity post haste and acquire the means of destroying this digital pestilence which so afflicts us.”

  Faster than thought Uncle Jon and I sped out of the room. Searing violet beams of certain annihilation miss us by barely a hair’s breadth as we dash onwards in search of the means of Roboneuron’s eminent extermination. I was slipping into present tense!

  Uncle Jon and I parted our separate ways, and I tore through a haul like a raging buffalo attacked by feral wolves, with the dastardly Roboneuron licking my heels. I perchanced upon the M1A1 bazooka, and, whirling around like a dervish, loosened a potent round that smacked Roboneuron in its red hyper-steel thorax smiting the vile construct sorely, although it did not fall over.