Dot Robot

by Jason Bradbury

  ‘It’s probably nothing … there was a blip on my map … lasted a second is all … then it was gone.’

  The MeX1s’ spider displays were configured to show only certain types of objects: fast-jets and helicopters, troop carriers and tanks, the distinctive shape a man makes when he’s holding a Kalashnikov – it was important to recognize these things so they could be avoided.

  ‘We saw it too,’ said Miss Kojima. ‘We no worry … innocent aeroplane.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Jackson. The tension of this latest mission was getting to him. ‘Let’s keep going.’

  There had been blips and flashes on his spider display before and he’d ignored them all. That’s what happens when you throw electromagnetic waves around, he thought; they aren’t selective about which surfaces they bounce off – pylons, car bonnets, even rainclouds – anything could register for a millisecond or two.

  Soon the glistening landscape ebbed away and the robot convoy was surrounded on both sides by banks of freshly excavated soil. It wasn’t until Jackson had nodded his MeX1 under the third in a series of concrete bridges that he realized they were following the rocky spine of a riverbed. At one time, it must have been a major waterway, judging by the size of the concrete bridges that straddled it. Now little more than a stream meandered its way across the boulders and piles of rubble.

  They tacked northwards, pulling their craft up and over the lofty mudbanks that had shielded them from the worst of the rain. As Jackson crested the sludgy embankment, through the wall of silver needles thrown from sudden heavy rainclouds he saw the source of all the debris.

  ‘Wowzer,’ said Brooke. ‘It’s like the whole village fell into the river.’

  Or was pushed, thought Jackson. He looked at the topographical overlay on his spider map. ‘It’s the village of Kezabian.’

  ‘Or at least it was,’ said the young American. ‘It looks like it’s been hit by a twister.’

  ‘Tornadoes don’t leave tyre tracks.’ Jackson was looking at several deep V-shaped markings that criss-crossed a path to the river’s edge.

  ‘Time we gathered some evidence,’ he said, turning his dot.robot towards the flattened carcass of an unrecognizable wooden structure. ‘Twins, take stills. Brooke and I will shoot video.’

  Jackson swept low over the site, framing the cinder-block scars of two complete rows of houses that formed perfect rectangles in the sludge. Then something caught his attention, something pristine among the chaos.

  It was hard to make out exactly what the polished steel object was until, with a few nimble nudges, the Kojima twins pushed back the branches and plastic sheeting that concealed it.

  ‘It’s a valve,’ said Brooke, hovering her remobot above the dinner-plate-sized metal wheel of a huge tap, screwed into a concrete slab in the ground. ‘And I’m guessin’ it leads straight from the river,’ she added.

  As they skulked along the hedgerows and thickets that lined the route from the vanished village to their final destination just a few kilometres north-west, the telltale tyre tracks ominously pointed the way. Whatever vehicles had made the markings, they had evidently torn a straight line across flat scrubland and meadows, leaving thick clots of mud on the roads that even the morning’s rainstorm had failed to wash away. We’re hot on the heels of whoever made these, Jackson told himself.

  ‘This is it, the end of the line,’ he said, as the foursome perched their MeX1s on a grassy ridge. Even the swirling rain couldn’t hide what lay beyond them, the jagged contour of the Carpathian mountain range, black against the clouds. A gaping hole had been cut from the base of the biggest mountain. In front of the newly quarried cave was a pound filled with trucks – big rigs, many of them with three huge box trailers linked up behind.

  ‘Strange place for a truck fest,’ said Jackson.

  ‘Sure is, and I’m guessin’ the folks behind the barriers ain’t spectators.’ Brooke was referring to an angry mob, separated from the compound by a ring of chain-link fence and what looked like armed guards.

  ‘We need to get closer to record all this,’ said Jackson. ‘Brooke, d’you think you can fly down there and get a close-up on those trucks?’

  ‘I’ll get closer than a bumper sticker!’ said the American.

  ‘We do … people,’ added Miss Kojima.

  ‘Great. I’ll keep a check of things from up here. And remember what Lear said, guys – use your eyes and ears but keep a lid on it – no one must know we’re here. Just gather your evidence and meet back up here.’

  ‘I’ll be a regular Kojak with a Kodak,’ said Brooke as the three grey discs, controlled by her and the twins, slunk over the cliff’s edge and blended into the under-belly of the storm.

  Miss Kojima’s machine was sitting just a few metres from a fat man with a very big machine gun. He should have been keeping lookout, but he was more interested in devouring a family-sized box of doughnuts, chomping on a stack of three at a time, while listening to his jeep’s radio. He was still a problem, though, one that she and her brother needed to solve if they were to pass undetected through the gateway he was guarding. The twins had dropped into the compound easily enough from the steep escarpment that formed part of the perimeter, but to have a good view of the crowd they needed to get out the other side.

  ‘I need your assistance, brother,’ she said in Japanese. They had risen to the giddy heights of Japan’s professional gaming leagues by honing a repertoire of special moves, a secret repertoire inspired by a miscellany of their ancient country’s most revered comic-book characters and ninja fighting movies, of which they had amassed formidable collections.

  ‘I am ready, sister,’ the nine-year-old replied.

  ‘Samurai Spook,’ said his sister softly. The subtle cue was all the boy gamer needed to slide his MeX1 out from behind a pile of sand and steal his way round the rotund security guard.

  Brooke was looking at a reflection of her MeX1 in the polished metal grille of a massive Mack truck on the edge of a vehicle park, its long chain of three trailers stretching the full length of the compound.

  ‘I’m thinking sixteen axles … about fifty-five metres long … she’ll carry a little over a hundred tonnes.’

  ‘Brooke, I hope you’re filming. We haven’t come all this way so you can pick up facts for your scrapbook,’ said Jackson.

  ‘She’s a road-train. The biggest momma on the highway. They’re used to haul heavy freight around the yellow-belly states. And there are what … ten of them in this yard? That’s still only a thousand tonnes. I’m just saying, that ain’t a lot of water.’

  Jackson realized she was right; you couldn’t drain a river like the one they’d just seen even if you filled a thousand trailers.

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ announced Brooke. ‘Am I clear to move in?’

  Moving deeper inside the vehicle park would mean Brooke playing cat and mouse with a couple of overalled workers and mean-looking security men. From his perch, Jackson could see both guards were heavily tooled-up; dual shoulder holsters trimmed with ammunition magazines were strapped tightly over army-green jumpsuits, and each carried a large automatic weapon. He couldn’t be sure at this distance, but he assumed they’d be connected to some kind of radio network and if Brooke’s bot was spotted, the game would be up for the whole team.

  ‘I’m not sure we can risk it,’ said Jackson tentatively. But it was too late. Brooke’s MeX1 was gliding slowly down a narrow passage created by the hulks of six heavy haulers.

  ‘Brooke! Well, if you insist, there’s a mechanic at your three o’clock and he’s coming straight for you!’

  ‘Fool with a tool, I see him,’ she replied, catching sight of the workman’s boots through the six sets of hefty wheels that held up the truck cabin. Brooke swung her dot.robot hard left. Jackson watched as her grey disc nipped beneath the shiny battery box that hung below the cabin door like a big chrome coffin, a millisecond before an unsuspecting mechanic appeared from round the front of the vehicle.

&n
bsp; ‘I am ready, sister,’ said Master Kojima.

  ‘Good, then let loose the spirit.’

  The boy’s MeX1 darted behind a grouping of tin shacks, carefully scraping the side of his machine against their corrugated metal walls and making the noise you get when you run a stick along railings.

  The sentry, who was using a penknife to coax the final morsels from a jar of something, looked up and then began to walk the twenty or so paces to the line of makeshift toilets behind which the silver saucer hid.

  Samurai Spook referred to one of an assortment of secret strategies that the guileful gaming duo could rely on. Double Trouble, Soul Diva, Kewojema Kiss, Demon’s Tooth, all cryptic names that within the quick-fire world of the first-person shooter might involve faking an empty that would draw an opportunistic opponent out and into the path of your teammate’s head-shot or, in the brinkmanship of a real-time strategy tournament, the construction of a phony base which would lead to your enemy squandering valuable resources in attacking it. Feints and ruses, used by two players at the top of their game. And the cryptic language was necessary as, in the world of competition gaming, there were spies everywhere – crafty snoopers who would blend in with the other spectators, eavesdrop on conversations and share their findings with the other teams by means of a series of coded hand gestures. This kind of espionage existed wherever there was money to be made, and that was certainly the case in the hallowed halls that hosted the big-money E-Sports tournaments, where a $500,000 prize could be the result of a successfully concealed unit or an unexpected special move.

  The guard stood before the line of tin-shack toilets, probing his teeth with a splinter, wondering if it was another one of those infernal wild dogs who, bewitched by the smell of the slop, lifted up the flap at the back of the outhouse and got trapped inside. He wasn’t sure which was worse, having to get out of his bunk at 3 a.m. to put a stop to their wretched howling, or the quiet ones who waited for you to take a seat then started growling and snapping at your gluteus maximus. He gingerly opened the first door and peered inside. Nothing more than noxious fumes. Why is it, he thought, that these slops are cleaned out every day, but it always smells like someone has curled up and died in here? Suddenly something hit the door behind the guard, pushing him inside the fetid room, and forcing him to inhale its vicious stench again. Then the next door banged and the one after that, until all six doors had been slammed against their rickety frames. Jumping back out into the rain with a vigour befitting a much thinner man, the two-metre ogre brought up both fists and proceeded to open each door in turn.

  ‘If that’s you, Jameson,’ he shouted angrily, ‘you’d best be ready to take your licks this time!’

  When he had reached the end of the line, the guard was thoroughly confused, not to mention fuming. It certainly wasn’t the dogs. And that jug-head Jameson isn’t anywhere to be seen, he thought, glancing round the back of the huts. Then he saw the door slowly opening, at the far end of the line. He still couldn’t see anyone, but he was sure by the way it had opened and shut that someone had just gone inside.

  ‘If this is your idea of fun, then fine!’ the guard shouted. ‘I’m off back to my post.’ Except he wasn’t. He crept along the front of the cabins like a lion with a scent, towards the end door. Just one more door, thought the portly guard. And I’ll wipe the smile off his smug little face.

  He managed to sneak past five doors without making a sound, hanging his big square head below the gap under each. The guard had lost count of how many times he’d been the butt of one of Jameson’s pranks. There was the time he’d had Tabasco and red-hot wasabi sauce poured into his water canteen. His boots had been filled with peanut butter. And on the one day he’d been tasked with taking the boss to the airport, he’d found his jeep jacked-up on bricks. Revenge would be sweet. Brutal and sweet.

  There was no longer any need for Master Kojima to keep his machine in the vicinity of the toilet block as his sister was long gone. But haunting the gullible guard was just too enjoyable and ever since Brooke had used the HAIL function during their Cambodian temple mission, he’d been itching to give it a try.

  With his saucer wedged between the slops bucket and the access flap at the back of the shack, he waited patiently until the enraged sentry swung the toilet door open.

  ‘Gotcha!’ the fat man bellowed as he rushed inside, only to find the cubicle vacant.

  With his dot.robot’s searchlight glowing from the foul depths of the wooden hole, over which the guard squatted at least twice a day, Master Kojima started to speak, in his most enigmatic Japanese. The mysterious chanting drifted up through the hole and echoed around the shack’s metal walls. What for the guard had started out as yet more of his workmate’s shenanigans had turned into something genuinely unnerving.

  Pull yourself together, man, he told himself. That snivelling little mickey-taker has got to be somewhere. And with that, he lurched forward and pulled up the hinged plank that formed the toilet seat. To his utter amazement, the bright beam of a searchlight flashed in his face – and as his vision cleared, he saw the edge of what looked like a miniature flying saucer slipping under the flap.

  The portly guard left the line of toilets faster than he ever thought his overweight legs would carry him.

  Even with the guard running away, questioning his sanity after the actions of her brother’s machine, the risk of being spotted was too great to take her MeX1 over the fence, so Miss Kojima sent her machine low over the wet ground, slipping it silently below the unattended barrier. Boxing around the compound, the cunning girl gamer positioned her flying machine a safe distance from the edge of the crowd. Men, women and several small children stood side by side, waving their fists in the air. One woman carried a small child in a basket on her back and a tiny baby slung across her front. And there were old folks, beating their walking sticks on the fence and shouting at the expressionless men in green on the other side.

  ‘Jackson, you must see,’ Miss Kojima called over the intercom, as she sent her surveillance shots into the bottom left of Jackson’s screen. The threadbare bunch must have been refugees from the vanished village. They must have stood up to Dragos … refused to bow down to his demands. But however passionate their protest, it was small comfort for them now, with their homes lying shattered in the muddy remains of their once proud river.

  That’s why we’ve been sent here, Jackson thought resolutely. We are here so that MeX can show what this thieving dog is doing. But where was their water?

  Then Brooke revealed it all.

  CHAPTER 18

  ‘Run that by me again,’ said Jackson.

  ‘Like I said,’ said the American, ‘it’s in the rock. This mountain is one big ol’ reservoir! From the outside these rigs look like grand old freight shakers. But the trailers are stuffed full of coiled-up pipe. You gettin’ my video feed all right?’

  Jackson was indeed receiving a smooth feed from Brooke’s camera as her remobot peered through a gap in the doors of one of the trailers. Inside were several rows of what looked like giant cotton reels with thick flattened hosing, almost half a metre wide, wound tightly round each.

  ‘The eighteen-wheelers are the pumps – these fifty-wheelers are the pipes!’

  Brooke reversed her MeX1 and swung round to reveal the full extent of the man-made cavity hewn from the mountain. It formed a large cave, twice as tall as the biggest truck and wide enough to fit four abreast.

  ‘There’s a pipe exchange at the base of the mountain. One end of a convoy pulls up and plugs in. I’m guessin’ it wouldn’t take long for a daisy chain of triples to turn a creek as dry as a redneck’s bath towel. Judgin’ by the fresh car-boogers on these wheel arches, I’d say these is the rigs we were chasin’.’

  But before a stunned Jackson could ask any more questions, Miss Kojima’s voice cut in on the intercom. ‘Excuse me. We have company. Four jeeps … from north.’

  Jackson tracked them from his clifftop position. A convoy of vehicles bounced and
splashed their way towards camp. As the vehicles rounded the narrow entrance to the ravine, he could see there were actually three 4×4s and a pick-up truck with six men in the back. They were wearing normal clothes, rather than the pea-green khaki of their friends in the camp, but they were sturdy men with thick necks and broad shoulders, and Jackson was sure they were more of Dragos’s men. They’ve probably been out on reconnaissance, he thought, scouting for more places to plunder … dressed in civvies, so they blend in. As they pulled up, a handful of guards came out to greet them.

  ‘We need the faces of these people,’ Jackson said quickly. ‘Miss Kojima, are you getting this?’

  ‘Un.’

  As the new arrivals climbed from their vehicles, Jackson instantly recognized the raven hair of one man. Even with most of his face obscured beneath a beret and high-collared overcoat, it was clearly the infamous General Dragos himself. And Miss Kojima was getting it all on camera, snapshot after snapshot of crystal-clear close-ups. It was perfect. They had the demolished village, the poor victims and – thanks to their intrepid American engineer – a thorough account of how the whole operation worked. But, most satisfying of all, Dragos himself at the scene of the crime. Every frame, safely stored in real-time on a MeX server. He didn’t know it yet, but this was one megalomaniac whose number was up.

  None of Jackson’s team was close enough to hear anything, but they could see Dragos was angry. He stood outside the guardhouse, rain dripping down his face, flailing his arms about and shouting at the guards. Several times he motioned aggressively towards the crowd, stabbing his finger in their direction and then back at the group of security men. And the fuming figure of the dark-haired oil baron turned water thief lost nothing of its animation as he was ushered inside the building.

  ‘He’s not happy with the demonstration,’ said Jackson. Good, he thought. I hope they get right under your skin, you greedy worm.

  Then the sound of gunfire ricocheted through the valley, and all hell broke loose.