Voelker turned toward his Haas milling machine. It was busy churning out grooved steel plates, six inches long and an inch wide. He had no idea what they were for. But they had a work order for three hundred copies. Some strategic plan somewhere required them. A plan born in the mind of a dead genius and enacted now, when the time was right. But right for what? Only the Daemon knew. Certainly no one among the living did.
Voelker took one of the finished plates and placed it in a laser scanner. He tapped a button and the object was instantly measured at two thousand critical points for accuracy. It was dead-on. It was always dead-on. The Haas knew what it was doing.
A two-tone chime came in over the loudspeakers. Voelker, Khan, and McCruder looked up at the same time, then at each other. They all knew what it meant. New plans were in the queue.
Voelker motioned to them. I got it.They looked back down and kept working on the Mustang, while Voelker took off his gloves. He moved to a nearby computer workstation.
A new 3-D plan file was in their company inbox. He noticed from the byte count that it was a big one. He moved it into a central share and then opened it in AutoCAD. It took several seconds, even on his powerful Unix workstation.
When it was finished loading, he stared for some moments at the wire frame model now rotating in three dimensions on his screen. Ours is not to wonder why, but to do or…
What the hell was he looking at? He turned back to the Mustang. “Guys, get over here and look at this.”
Khan wiped his forehead, smudging grease across it. “Later, man. This steering column’s a bitch.”
“No. I think you should take a look at this now.”
Khan rolled his eyes dramatically, then tapped forcefully on McCruder’s shoulder.
“What?”
Khan pointed. “Goggles says we gotta see the new plans. It’s urgent.”
“Fuck…” McCruder threw down his wrench with a clang, and the two of them strode leisurely toward Voelker’s workstation.
“This had better be good, Kurt.”
Voelker simply gestured to the screen. Both men wrinkled their brows.
“What the?”
“You have got to be kidding me…”
Voelker shook his head.
They exchanged looks. It had always remained unsaid. They knew that some would suffer the Daemon’s wrath. After the events at Sobol’s mansion, the purpose of the AutoM8s could scarcely be a mystery-but they always nursed a hope that perhaps they would be used for transporting critical materials, operatives, or something unimaginably brilliant.
Voelker sighed and sat on a nearby stool.
Khan pointed at the screen. “What isthat?”
McCruder pointed, too. “This is serious shit, Kurt.”
Voelker kept his eyes on the floor. “It’s just after-market customization.”
McCruder laughed. “No kidding. That’s not what I mean.”
Khan was nodding. “He’s right, Kurt. This is designed for one thing, and one thing only: killing people.”
They contemplated this silently. This raised the stakes. They were now clearly producing weaponry. The pleasant fiction was over.
Khan added, “I mean, it’s cool-looking and all, but this is real life-not a fucking computer game.”
“What do we do?”
Voelker tapped his fingers on the workbench, thinking. “I’ve almost got the current order filled. While I finish that we can decide the best course of action.”
McCruder threw up his hands. “Like we have any choice,Kurt? If we don’t make these things, our own toys are going to come back to kill us.”
“All right, calm down.”
Khan gripped his own head. “I should have known this was going to happen. It was too perfect.”
McCruder waved it aside. “Let’s stop kidding ourselves. We all know we’re going to build these things-so why go through the theatrics of feeling bad about it?” McCruder grabbed a grease pencil and turned to a whiteboard. He started drawing a casualty list with little human stick figures. “If we don’t make them, someone else will and people will die-along with us. That’s X number of people plus three. If we do make them, then people will die, but not us. That’s X number of people plus zero.” He looked up, vindicated by mathematics. “So we take the course that harms the least number of people.”
Voelker threw a glove at him. “That’s fucking convenient.”
McCruder held up his hands. “Don’t blame me. We all got into this, and I don’t feel like finding out what happens if we quit. Big things are changing in the world-things we can’t stop. We’re just cogs in the machine, and if we malfunction, we’ll be replaced. We owe it to ourselves to survive. Shit, we owe it to ourselves to thrive.That’s what our ancestors did, and that’s what we’re gonna do. It’s our natural fucking purpose.”
Everyone was quiet as they sat listening to the grinding sound coming from the Haas.
Eventually Voelker nodded. “I know you’re right. I just didn’t think I’d ever be playing this role. I wanted to design consumer electronics.”
Khan leaned against the workbench. “I wanted to build suspension bridges. News flash: nobody gives a fuck what we want.”
McCruder rapped his knuckles on the countertop. “So how does the board of Autocracy, Inc., vote? Do we elect to continue in our present endeavor?”
They glanced at each other, then all raised their hands. “Aye.”
McCruder nodded. “The ayes have it. This will make a massively parallel cybernetic organism very happy.” He pointed to the busy Haas. “When are these pieces due?”
Voelker thought for a moment. “They need to be placed at the waypoints by tomorrow, noon.”
McCruder was back to examining the computer screen. “We’ll need time to study these schematics. They look involved.” He peered closely at the screen. “This is serious engineering-look at that flywheel housing-and those hydraulics.”
Voelker nodded. “Graphite-epoxy flywheel spinning at seventy thousand rpm in a vacuum. Floating on a bed of magnetism.”
Khan was pointing at the screen again. “You gotta admit, that’s some cool shit. It even looks nasty. We should render it to see what it looks like in color.”
McCruder ignored him. “When does the first stock unit arrive?”
Voelker grabbed the mouse and navigated to the header of the message. He read for a moment. “Friday.”
McCruder pointed at the Haas. “You need help to finish these pieces on time?”
“No. They’ll be done.”
McCruder started back toward the Mustang. “Then I suggest we study those plans and make sure we’re the best damned cogs the Daemon has.”
Chapter 38:// Assembly
He was a poster child for overdesigned American culture. His square-toed dress shoes had the soles of hiking boots, as though intended to navigate an urban cliff face. His draping dress pants concealed six pockets pleated into its folds, each one with a trademarked name (e.g., E-Pouch), giving him the cargo capacity of a World War I infantryman. Yellow-tint sunglasses wrapped his face, unaccountably designed to withstand the impact of a small-caliber rifle bullet while filtering out UV rays and maximizing visual contrast in a wide range of indoor and outdoor lighting conditions.
In all, his outfit required nearly two thousand man-years of research and development, eight barrels of oil, and sixteen patent and trademark infringement lawsuits. All so he could possess casual style. A style that, in logistical requirements, was comparable to fielding a nineteenth-century military brigade.
But he looked good. Casual.
He walked along the city streets, passing coffee bars and cafs so packed with people that it seemed as if no one had homes to go to. He passed dogs with backpacks and kids wearing Rollerblade sneakers. Everybody with casual style.
It felt good to be among them again. His depression had almost swallowed him whole when his first job was sent offshore. Then his second job. Then his third. Not much call fo
r project managers in the States anymore.
But now he understood again. The world made sense again-and he was still all for progress. Disruptive innovation,they called it. Change was good. Painful, but good. It made you stronger. When you stopped changing, you started dying.
For the first time in years, he knew his situation was secure. He knew he could afford rent-even in his price-inflated neighborhood. That he could dress and live in a style befitting a man of his intelligence and education. He no longer compared unfavorably with people in magazine articles. He was back on track.
He had a purpose. And right now that purpose was to proceed to a specific GPS waypoint and await further instructions from The Voice.
The Voice’s feminine synthetic words came over his wireless earpiece: “Cross the street.”
He obeyed and found himself moving into a crowded retail plaza ringed with national chain stores. The carnival atmosphere was augmented by street performers wearing photo IDs-proof that their family-friendly, drug-tested talents were on an officially sanctioned list in the management office.
The plaza was packed with consumers.
The Voice spoke again. “Waypoint nine attained. Stand by…stand by. Vector 271. Proceed.”
He turned in place, looking closely at a handheld GPS screen until he was facing 271 degrees. Then he proceeded at a normal walking pace as people jostled past him.
“Report ready status of assembly.”
The Daemon’s workshop was open for business. He slipped one hand into his E-Pouch and removed a grooved steel machine part, six inches long. He wrapped his hand around it and kept walking vector 271. “Assembly ready.”
“Prepare to tender.”
He could see the target approaching through the crowd-a twenty-something white kid in parachute pants and a sweatshirt bearing a university acronym. He had the calm, composed look of a Daemon courier. They were on a collision course as people swirled around them like random electrons. The kid extended his right hand as he came forward. They were just feet away.
“Tender assembly on phrase: ‘Hey, Luther.’ Confirm.”
The kid came right up to him, holding forward a different steel part. A cell phone headset was now visible on his close-cropped head. The kid nodded. “Hey, Luther.”
Both men extended their hands and slid the steel parts together. They mated perfectly with a satisfying click.
“Assembly confirmed.”
A pleasant chime sounded over the line. “Operation complete. Twenty network credits. Demobilize.”
*
The kid took control of the combined parts and continued walking.
The Voice came over the phone headset. “Assembly stage two. Vector 168. Prepare to tender.”
The kid held the assembly down at his side, turned to the appropriate compass direction, and proceeded through the crowd at a brisk walk. In a few moments he and a young woman locked on to each other. She was big-boned, dressed like a businessperson. Utterly invisible to most men. The kid vectored in.
“Tender assembly on phrase: ‘Afternoon, Rudy.’ Confirm.”
The woman nodded as she came up to him, a flip phone handset held to her cheek. “Afternoon, Rudy.”
He placed the two-part assembly into her hand and disappeared into the crowd. “Assembly confirmed.”
A pleasant chime sounded over the line. “Operation complete. Twenty network credits. Demobilize.”
She snapped the kid’s two parts into a yellow plastic base and moved through the crowd, following her new vector.
As he headed back to the parking structure, the kid imagined the tactical assembly now under way; like swarming nanobots amid the mass of shoppers, the Daemon’s distributed assembly plant ran half a dozen independent lines, with no individual having knowledge of anything more than the few seconds in front of them and the mechanics of the single assembly for which they’d be responsible. The parts arrived in place at the moment they were required, The Voice vectoring them into a collision course. Assemblers came and went, passing the assembly on to the next worker in the chain after confirming completion of their step. Redundancy gave high probability that sufficient parts would arrive on station at the appropriate moment, and that waylaid assemblers could be quickly replaced.
What he didn’t know was what they were building. He wondered if he’d ever know.
*
In the battered lobby of a C-grade office building, a (now) debt-free graduate student faced the wall and clicked a methane-oxide fuel cell battery into place inside a form-fitting plastic handle.
The Voice spoke to him over his earpiece. “Confirm assembly completion.”
He powered the unit up and waited for a diagnostics check. A green light came on. Ready. He lowered the assembly out of sight. “Assembly complete.”
A pause. “Stand by…stand by…”
He looked around the lobby. It was a typical two-story box in a low-end tech park. Security consisted of locked doors with mag-card swipes at the entrances. In other words: no security. Long halls laid with orange indoor-outdoor carpeting crossed each other in a barren atrium in the center of the building.
He waited patiently in a water company uniform, complete with photo ID badge and water-bottle-laden handcart as The Voice kept repeating, “Stand by…“in his ear every ten seconds.
Then it paused. “Vector 209. Prepare to tender completed assembly.”
This was it. The Receiver was coming. He glanced at his GPS and turned to face the security door.
*
Charles Mosely walked briskly toward the lobby doors. It was a bright spring day under a wide Texas sky. He could see his reflection in the door glass as he approached. He was dressed in a phone company uniform with tool belt, clipboard, and phone headset. He swiped his security card, and the door opened with a buzz.
The Voice spoke on the headset. “Receive assembly on phrase ‘Here it is.’”
Mosely approached a young Asian man standing in the lobby with a handcart piled with five-gallon water cooler jugs. As he walked by, the man extended an odd-looking steel and yellow plastic device to him. It was shaped like a glue gun, with the top section missing-an empty channel with twin grooved steel plates. “Here it is.”
Mosely grabbed it with his work-gloved hands and shoved it into a slot on his utility belt designed specifically for it. He heard the water man exit the lobby doors behind him, but he walked purposefully on his appointed vector, passing a nondescript guy in a pullover shirt bearing some company’s logo. He nodded congenially as he went past, but the guy didn’t acknowledge him in the least. Just some tenant.
“Vector 155,“The Voice said in Mosely’s ear.
That was straight down the corridor. Mosely kept moving down the hall, glancing at office doors.
Suite 500.
Ten minutes ago he thought he was going to tap a phone system. But now in possession of the assembly, he recognized it immediately. He had used it before.
It was an electronic pistol.
Manufactured with bright yellow plastic and brushed steel, it resembled a battery-powered hand tool-it even had a tool company logo on the side. But in reality it was a fully automatic, precision-made handgun. It was nearly 100 percent reliable because it had no moving parts. Instead of a firing pin and complex recoil-based reloading mechanism, an electronic pistol was a fire-by-wire device; the caseless bullets were stacked in a straight line in one of four parallel twelve-inch barrels, and a logic chip fired each bullet independently with bolts of electricity from an onboard battery. The gun was reloaded by slapping on new barrels of ammunition. Mosely had already received three rapid-loaders from a courier out in the street. It was a foolproof, untraceable weapon designed for one thing: killing people at close range.
Suite 710.
He steeled himself. There was a grander purpose at work here. He had to keep reminding himself of that. This wasn’t the same as what he’d done as a teen. He wasn’t doing this for himself. The world was
changing. He’d seen it. This was part of the plan. There were no random acts in the plan.
The Voice said, “Stop.”
Suite 1010.
Mosely drew the unloaded pistol, then took the welded-steel barrels from the other side of his tool belt. He slid the two together with a click-clack. It was now loaded and looked very much like a garish, toy laser pistol.
The Voice came to his ears. “Device code…4-9-1-5.”
Mosely flipped the gun and tapped in the four-digit code at the base of the handle. The device was now armed.
He turned to face the door. Then he reached into his pocket and produced a hard plastic door key given to him by a woman out on the street. All master key systems were vulnerable to mathematical reduction.
The Voice continued in his earpiece. “Confirm instruction: kill the occupants of suite…1-0-1-0.”
Mosely closed his eyes. He didn’t relish this. He thought he’d left this behind years ago. But the Daemon had found him out. It knew he had killed before. He took a deep breath, then said, “Instruction confirmed.”
“Proceed.”
Mosely inserted the key, turned it, and pushed the door open. He moved into a cluttered office with shelving piled high with papers and boxes on the far wall. Banks of cheap desktop computers sat atop folding tables. A thirtysomething guy with a sizeable gut turned quickly in his chair to face Mosely. He had a cherry Danish almost up to his mouth.
“You can’t just-”
Mosely raised the pistol and sent a quick burst into the man’s chest-spattering the computer table and back wall with gore. A couple of the frangible rounds slammed into the wall and dissolved into puffs of powder, barely leaving a dent in the drywall.
Frangible rounds still amazed Mosely. The bullets were made of compressed ceramic powder. They retained their hitting power if they hit soft human tissue, but they disappeared in a cloud of dust if they encountered an unyielding surface-like a wall. They were designed to contain a shoot-out within the room where the shooting was taking place, and they also eliminated the risk of ricochets. This last part was of particular concern when you were spraying seven rounds a second in a room ten feet square.
The bloody fat man slumped and fell onto the floor with a thud that shook the room.
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