by Jenn Stark
Granger smiled and held up a slim device, like a remote control for a hotel TV. “Human beings, no matter how well trained, can only be directed, not controlled. AugTech battle units are different. Their programming is ironclad, and though they appear to be sentient, with thoughts and emotions and worries and feelings—they aren’t. Any reactions they display are merely one of dozens of precoded subroutines we developed for any units deployed in social environments where they’d be expected to interact with civilians or even in close contact with US soldiers or enemy combatants. Underneath that veneer of artificial humanity, however, is a machine. And machines can be controlled by other machines.”
Angela pursed her lips. She’d been forced to relinquish her cell phone and all writing devices and paper before exiting the vehicle, and the security detail for all congress people had been forced to remain behind. She was surrounded by the top brass of the military, so it wasn’t like she felt exposed or in danger any way. Still, she wished Gregori was hearing this—not just sensing her emotions, which were likely all over the place—but receiving this intel directly.
There was a rustling of activity at the front of the tent, and Granger straightened. The five screens flickered on, showing various views of the field in front of them, but Angela moved forward to the table that held binoculars. She didn’t want to see whatever was about to happen on a screen. Atrocities on monitors afforded their watchers a certain sense of remoteness, and she didn’t want that.
“The first test will be a simple skirmish, with two lines of enemy fighters coming together, both with orders to shoot to kill,” Granger said crisply. There was a low muttering from the congressional pool, and he held up a hand. “Remember, ladies and gentlemen, these are machines. There’s no difference between what you’re going to see and a video game. They do not feel pain, even if they’ve been programmed to express pain. They do not feel remorse, even if they’ve been programmed to express remorse. Which none of these units will do.”
He hit a button on the remote he held, and before anyone appeared on the field below, on the screens, Angela could see two lines of soldiers moving through the heavy forest at a fast trot. Behind each group, a trio of three uniformed officers followed, two men and one woman in both cases.
“Who are they?” she asked.
“Military and technicians,” Granger said, his eyes shifting from the screen to the field. “Pay attention, this won’t take long.”
It didn’t either. As Angela watched through her binoculars, the two lines had no sooner broken free of the tree line when one-third of each party dropped to their knees and began firing their M4s, while the rest raced forward, guns out. They shot without hesitation, but it still took nearly a half-dozen rounds of ammunition before the first soldier fell, his body a mass of bloody flesh, his eyes wide in death before he hit the ground. After that, the two lines converged, and it was swift and brutal carnage, a combination of guns, fists, knives, boots—
“Enough.” The order was sharp and powerful, and Angela recognized the four-star General who uttered it, his keen eyes fixed on the field.
Granger hit a button and—only because she had swung her binoculars that way—Angela noticed how one of the female techs jolted. The woman raised her hands, then corrected and pulled a remote from her pocket, and a second later, the men on the field peeled away from each other, staggering into ragged ranks.
Granger answered Angela’s question before she had a chance to ask it. “Part of their programming allows them to appear as normal soldiers would in the wake of bodily damage. In most cases, there will be no outside witnesses to any military incursions that involve these units. However, in the event that someone is watching, we have designed them to ensure they comport themselves in a manner consistent with that of a well-trained soldier.”
“They got that down,” muttered one of the military types, someone whose name Angela didn’t know. She glanced swiftly down the line of senior officers, but most of their expressions remained stoic, unreadable.
Granger pushed on. “The second illustration is an extraction of a hostage in hostile territory—”
“Wait,” Trudy said, saving Angela the trouble. “Why aren’t they getting up? The units on the ground. Why aren’t they reanimating or whatever you call it and exiting the field?”
Granger turned back to watch as another group of soldiers burst out of the trees, sets of men carrying stretchers between them. They raced to their fallen comrades, then systematically began loading them on the stretchers, before retreating back to the tree line. “I think you’ll agree that the sight of half a company of grievously wounded soldiers suddenly standing up and brushing off their uniforms would eventually be noticed and remarked upon,” he said. “All units are programmed to remain down until they’re removed from the field. It’s only when they return to a safer location that those who can return to active duty do so. Bear in mind too, these are still machines, and much as you can shoot up a motorcycle to the point where it no longer works, some of these units have sustained a level of damage that will take time to fix. But what’s important to notice here is that there’s been no loss of life.”
“No loss,” Angela echoed, once more beating back the dread she felt watching the field being cleared with precision. Could that possibly be true? Was that what she was seeing with her own eyes?
“What problems are you facing?” one of the brass asked Granger. “What keeps you from being able to deploy these units immediately?”
Granger nodded briskly. There was no denying the flare of excitement in his gaze as he turned it to the senior officer. “What you’re seeing here are prototype units, whose programming we have tested and trust. In addition to the money and supplies it would take to scale up this operation to create a meaningful quantity of units for military purposes, we also need to ensure the programming doesn’t degrade once the units are put into operation. We have not been a hundred percent successful in that regard.”
Angela lifted her brows. She wasn’t used to anyone admitting any problems when they were seeking government funding and expansion of their programs.
“Meaning?” the senior officer pressed.
“Meaning, some of the units have assimilated their human veneer of personality and that personality programming has, on occasion, overridden their base programming. We have identified the likely subroutines that are causing the issues, but at this point, we have been trying to ensure the viability of using these units in social situations, not just straight combat. So rather than abandoning the personality programs altogether, we are seeking to refine them.”
“Show me what a failure looks like,” the four-star general demanded.
“Of course.” Rather than turning to the field, however, Granger directed everyone’s attention to the screens. “This was a recording from three days ago that I believe you’ll find instructive.”
The screen filled with an image of a hunched-over man sitting in what appeared to be a concrete bunker, his head in his hands. Armed guards stood around him, though he made no move to attempt to break the shackles that were locking him to the floor.
“Is that a man, or…?” Angela didn’t realize she was the one speaking until Granger turned to her.
“That’s one of our most advanced models, deeply embedded with personality programming along with military tactical programming.”
“He’s sweating,” Trudy said, her voice hushed. “How is it that he’s sweating?”
“As I said, we’ve created the most-humanoid-possible units,” Granger said smoothly. “We also have been pleased to report a ninety-eight percent success rate with the programming. This is part of the two percent that did not go according to plan.”
The man glanced up, his dark eyes shining desperately beneath heavy dark brows, his brow glistening with sweat. His lips twisted as he saw something beyond the plane of the camera—and went absolutely wild. He leapt to his feet with so much strength that one of the chains broke, while the other was
half torn out of the ground. He used the trailing edge of the chain as a whip and managed to disarm two of the four guards in less than five seconds. But even more alarming than his speed was his face and body. His jaws stretched wide, roaring in agony and anger, and his entire body shifted. It was as if the skin wouldn’t stay where it was supposed to over the muscle and bones, but shuddered and slipped and bulged. The man lurched forward directly toward the camera, and it was clear what he was trying to yell: “No!”
Another of his chains broke, then, with a barrage of gunfire, he was down. Bleeding out very effectively on the cell floor as the guards converged on him.
“That was a machine,” Angela said shakily.
“That was a machine,” Granger confirmed. More personnel rushed into the bunker and surrounded the figure on the floor. In less than thirty seconds, they stood back again, and Angela got a glimpse of the body. The man’s sternum had been flayed open, and there was no denying the circuitry that gleamed beneath the muscle and tissue and all the blood.
She gritted her teeth, trying not to be sick. A machine, she told herself. A machine.
“The next demonstration is ready,” Granger said, his voice crisp and cool. “If you’ll direct your attention to the field…”
15
Gregori leaned against the shiny black metal of the military-grade SUV and peered thoughtfully at the men with rifles who guarded the entrance to the demonstration area. He’d heard the shots and shouts of the first round of attackers rushing through the forest. They all had. But he’d heard something more too.
A plea.
It was faint, uncertain, as if the cry was coming from someone trying to fight their way through a fog, but it was there. Too diffuse for him to get a fix on without really focusing, and it didn’t last. Had he imagined it?
He glanced over to the far edge of the security details, where a long, sleekly muscled man lounged against a tree, his aviator shades masking his features and his face schooled into a permanent half grin. The demon enforcer Hugh eyed him right back, then lifted one shoulder. Maybe, maybe not. He’d heard something too, but it’d been too faint to constitute a true cry for help the first time around. The afternoon wasn’t over yet, however.
There was a buzz of activity toward the gates, and the men stood aside as a new vehicle approached, this one a heavily armored van. Gregori heard the term “hostage” and watched with interest as the vehicle trundled past the checkpoint and toward the demonstration area. Something shifted at his side, and he glanced over to see that Hugh had abandoned his position by the tree to draw closer.
“They do keep things interesting, don’t they?”
Gregori grunted. God’s children never found themselves short of ways to perpetrate atrocities against themselves. As a Syx, Gregori had waded into more than his fair share of battlegrounds, which were homing beacons for the worst of the horde. Even demons who’d been doing a good job keeping to the shadows for millennia were tempted by the siren call of gunfire, the scent of blood. They were creatures enslaved by chaos and pain—of course the battleground would draw them.
But what would draw them here?
“You sense it, I assume?” Hugh drawled, and Gregori nodded. They both shifted slightly to the side, drawing even with the trucks. No one was watching them, and this area wasn’t under surveillance. The only cameras were at the checkpoints into the demonstration area and the one where they’d exited the main road to head to this facility. “This place is crawling with demons.”
“They’re trapped,” Gregori agreed.
“Ayup. Couldn’t happen to a nicer group.”
“It shouldn’t be happening at all.”
Hugh had nothing to say to that, because of course, Gregori was right. Tech or no tech, demons couldn’t be controlled by any humans other than witches, and even then only within a very limited set of parameters. They also couldn’t be truly harmed or killed by humans other than members of an elite group of human-angel hybrids known as Nephilim. The American military was undeniably impressive, but Gregori was pretty sure they didn’t house any Nephilim in their ranks.
Witches, however…
Gregori filled Hugh in on the information he’d gleaned from the Arcana Council, and the typically laconic demon stiffened further with every word. “The Serbian attack? Ahriman?” he grunted, squinting now. “That’s great, but what the hell are these witches doing to control that many demons in the wild? They shouldn’t be able to do that without a sacred circle, and I didn’t see anyone handing out chalk at the checkpoint.”
“Agreed,” Gregori said. “But it appears they’re controlling them all the same.”
Hugh stretched his arms high over his head, as if he was knocking the kinks out of his back, then resumed an easy lean against the truck.
“So, what’re you going to do about Angela?” he asked.
Gregori shot him a look. “Don’t even think it.”
Hugh grinned. “Dude, anyone with eyes in their head knows you’ve let her get to you. And why not? She’s beautiful, smart, brave. So long as we care for the children of God and they come to us willingly…”
Gregori snorted. “You would know about that better than I. No human is safe with me, Hugh. I’ll hurt them.”
“You’ll hurt yourself, maybe. A human like Angela? Nah.”
“Stop it,” Gregori growled. “Your lies have no place—”
He cut himself off, drawing in a sharp breath. In his heightened empath state, Hugh’s words were striking far too close to home. He of course felt deeply for Angela, but he’d told himself it was merely the side effects of their intense empathic connection to each other, nothing more. It couldn’t be anything more. She was a child of God, beautiful, broken, and unbearably strong. She was uncannily smart, vulnerable and uncertain, while he was…
He was…
He grimaced, too attuned to any emotion, even his own, not to see the truth. He was already half in love with her. Fantastic.
“Told ya,” Hugh chortled. “You suck so bad at lying.”
At that moment, the air became electric with tension, a tension even the ordinary security personnel noticed. These were highly trained soldiers, skilled at reacting to the tiniest nuance of danger. Now they shifted toward the entrance to the demonstration as one. The guards at the gate straightened as well, pulling their hands up to position their guns more prominently.
The gunfire started seconds after that. No one from the AugTech remote viewing tent moved, and there were no human screams that Gregori could discern, but three rapid bursts of machine-gun fire strafed the area beyond, and then there was the indisputable sound of men rushing through the trees, exactly as they had before, only this time, a much smaller group.
“Extraction of a hostage,” one of the AugTech reps called out to the security personnel, his voice grimly amused. “Violent extraction, but extraction. Your people are safe. Maintain your positions.”
Compelled beyond his own personal safety to learn more, Gregori reached out, stretching his senses to find Angela in the area beyond—horror. Fear. Dismay. All the ordinary emotions of a person forced to watch something distasteful, but not a hint of personal danger. He widened the net of his reach, though, and he heard it again.
“Please.” It was a woman’s voice, high and intense with panic, not spoken aloud, but uttered so strongly in her mind that it practically pushed Gregori back a step. Beside him, Hugh rocked up on his toes, ready for action. “Please, I can’t—I can’t let him die. He didn’t know! He didn’t know. Fallen Angels of God, he didn’t know.”
The outpouring of emotion that accompanied this cry was so passionate that Gregori was smothered in a wave of pain and remorse, the woman practically suffocating on true regret. She was begging for God’s grace, not for herself, but for someone—for something trapped in this test. He knew it in his bones.
“A Fallen?” Hugh murmured, but Gregori shook his head.
“Only a demon at this point. No single human can
hold a Fallen against its will. But probably…probably once a Fallen.” He shuddered to think of it. They came across such demons, of course—there had been scores of Fallen charged by God to train humans to explore his creations faster, better, quicker. The lessons of the Fallen had led to breakthroughs in science, magic, mathematics, animal husbandry, agriculture, and navigation, language, the arts—so many things. But the temptation to the darker side of humanity remained ever present, and the Fallen had not been well prepared for that. Some sinned without even realizing their loss of grace before it was too late; some willfully turned away from God’s call; some acted in a moment of passion, overwhelmed by the vibrating energy, the intense need for growth, for change, for action these humans represented. It didn’t matter what the reason was, of course. The moment a child of God was harmed by any other creature born of God’s hand, that creature—whether angel or Fallen—was condemned. And so it was, so it always would be.
But this Fallen-turned-demon had apparently struck a chord with a witch.
“She’s used him before, worked with him, gotta be,” Hugh grunted. “She may even have summoned him without realizing it this time around, or, worse, he followed her, thinking she was in danger. We go in?”
Hugh was already vibrating with the need to move, but the mission was technically Gregori’s to command. There was probably some sort of strategy he should apply to this moment, but strategy wasn’t his game. Emotion was. And there was so much emotion pouring out from the battlefield beyond that he was drowning in it.
Gregori nodded. “We go in.”
They moved more swiftly than any human eye or technology could track, cutting back through the trees and blowing past several blockades set up in the forest, manned by heavily armed soldiers. AugTech was clearly not taking any chances with its AI battle units, and Gregori knew why. You lose control of a demon horde, especially one you’ve figured out how to entrap and abuse, and you were dead men walking. He wondered idly if the human foot soldiers had any idea of the danger they were in, or if their leaders had been wise enough to keep that information to themselves. Probably the latter. These soldiers showed no fear, merely interest, and he suspected they weren’t idiots. Which meant they didn’t know they were about to become lunch meat.