Automatic Reload

by Ferrett Steinmetz

  I pop my faceplate, then withdraw yet another cigar from my pocket and light it with the butane torch in Scylla’s index finger. This is a peaceful cigar. Gives me time to cool the waters.

  Also, anyone who can light up a cigar with four guns aimed at his dick is someone worth listening to.

  “Funny thing about those Ordnance 6000s,” I say, after exhaling a blue cloud in Kiva’s direction. “It’s a mighty theatrical set of armaments. You know they brought in acoustic engineers to specially curve the chambers on your inset guns? Just to amplify that badass little click-clack when they’re loading so everyone within range can hear you?”

  She frowns. “Yeah. So?”

  I step closer, puffing on my Macanudo. “Funny thing about that; it also amplifies the sounds of its other internal mechanisms loud enough for other systems to pick up. A properly prepared person could, say, profile the noise of your four guns to know when they’re locking in to shoot.”

  The bead of sweat rolling down her nose is delectable.

  “So?” she says. “Even if you did know when I was about to fire, the Ordnance’s default reaction time from ‘capture target’ to ‘firing’ is point zero three seconds!”

  If you’re forever shilling for your employer, you’d better know your equipment’s stats by heart.

  “That’s the default reaction time, darling,” I say, smiling. “If you jailbreak your Osprey software to install some leaner routines, maybe swap those proprietary armatures for a nicely greased Khaw-Schrodinger Multikinetic loadout, you could shave that CTF down to a slim point zero two four seconds.

  “But I’ve got my guns aimed at yours, and my CTF is point zero one three.”

  It’s nice hearing the mooks gasp. There are so few people who can appreciate the depths of my fine-tuning. And Kiva, well, she didn’t look great in the first place, but she goes positively pale.

  “So here’s what happens,” I tell her. My faceplate snaps back down and our leg armatures do an intricate dance around each other—her looking for more distance, me not letting her get away. “If you authorize that fire, my microphones will pick up that you’ve given the green light to kill me. And my countermeasures will blow the shit out of your Ordnance 6000s before your hammers fall on ammo.”

  Then I might rip your arms off for good measure, I think. I mean, I did just upgrade these hand-to-hand combat routines.

  “Fuck you!” she says. “There’s no way you’ve got the specs to my arms memorized!”

  And again, the “uhhhhh” from the mooks who know my reputation is like hearing angels sing.

  “You don’t tell me who to shoot!” she cries. She looks around, betrayed, ready to take it out on someone else—but we’re dancing, me driving her backwards, our guns twitching.

  “I’m telling you to stand down. Now. Because on this mission, I am your second-in-command. If you don’t reauthorize me on your IFF, I’ll shoot first to disable your weapons and then upload the video of how useless your Ordnance 6000s were against these—what did you call them? Junkyard arms?”

  “You don’t even have a matched set!”

  I shrug. “Scylla and Charybdis look pretty balanced to me. But what do you think? Will your corporate sponsors keep you on board once I’ve made you famous for demonstrating the manifest weaknesses in their design?”

  Her larynx twitches as she subvocalizes something. I frown; it’s unlikely she has any surprises up her Endolite-Ruger sleeves, as her corporate masters would not approve of nonfactory settings … but who knows whether they’ve given her beta weaponry?

  Still. She doesn’t know what I have either. And I’m famed for my experimentation.

  “Calling the Endolite-Ruger help desk?” I ask.

  Three terminal threats detected.

  She smirks. “Not quite.”

  I hear the clanks as the three mooks take positions from behind.

  * * *

  The irritating thing about computerized combat is that your tactical systems never point you in the direction you want to be looking—they’re positioning you for a maximal balance of effective firepower, cover, and retreat. You’re always facing the wrong direction for your meat-eyes to take in what’s happening. And while I could pump camera-views into my feed, in practice I find multiple screen-in-screens more distracting.

  My combat overlay tells me I’m in deep. I have some surprise weaponry stashed in my legs, and Scylla and Charybdis have some tricks I didn’t reveal. My defense scans tell me I could outfire them one-on-one.

  But four combat-tactical machines? I don’t have enough weaponry to go around. My tactical sims give me a 29 percent chance of victory if this goes to gunpowder.

  That seems mighty generous.

  Yet I’m okay with that. The only people getting fucked up today will be voluntary participants.

  It’s a good fight.

  We’re all dancing, this crazy jujitsu maneuvering done at insect-fast speeds—me feinting, them cutting me off, my legs doing football-style bluffs to get my back against the train for cover, the four darting into position around me to capitalize on their advantage.

  Yet though it’s smarter to watch them as dots on a map, I want to see them with my own eyes—it’s a weakness, I know some body-hackers can give themselves over to the overlay, but me?

  This is no video game. I like to see who I’m shooting.

  We should be trash-talking—but we’ve got our heads down, programming in improvements, upgrading our tactics. And though I could probably do that and talk at the same time …

  I’m terrified.

  Fighting other body-hackers isn’t like fighting baseline humans. With baseline humans, you see them raise the gun, you see them pull the trigger—it’s comprehensible.

  Whereas when—if—someone opens fire, the response will take place at processor speeds. If you count “Mississippi one, Mississippi two,” the fatal shots will be fired before you’ve finished your first “M.”

  Every blink takes forever when you’re not sure if your eyes will open again.

  Except they’re scared too. That’s why they haven’t fired. Their tacticals are probably telling them they have a 71 percent chance of victory—but that 29 percent is a considerable disincentive to commit.

  “Come on!” Kiva snarls. “Eighty-three percent chance we win! Go for it!”

  “That’s a seventeen percent chance you all die,” I say, puffing on my cigar, grateful for my customized HUD-helmet that allows me to smoke petite coronas while I fight. “And my odds say I’ll take at least two of you down with me.”

  “Fuck you, junkyard.” My bioreadouts show her rising heartbeat—she’ll accept the terms and conditions within the next minute, and then we all live—or not—with the consequences.

  “Now that’s what I like to see!” a cheery voice calls out. “Everyone armed and ready for the shit!”

  Donnie walks in, his face lit up like a kid watching fireworks.

  Belay that; he’s fucking applauding as he strolls into the middle of a firefight. A slow, appreciative clap. And—

  Is he smoking a cigar?

  My cigar brand?

  As he walks into five intersecting lines of fire with his faceplate open?

  Then again, Donnie can afford to be relaxed. He’s got bulky ceramic-coated Symbiotech-Walther legs, flared out like chaps but bristling with gunports—a high-end military spec that’s outlawed for public carry, but I guess Donnie has the lawyers to fight that one.

  And his arms are things of beauty: massive Gressinger-Sauer Omnipotents, fresh off the line, barely resembling human arms except for the extendogrips on the ends—gracefully curved swathes of tanklike machinery alternating with classic, tried-and-tested guns.

  Of course he’s had the entire thing detailed too. His million-dollar-per-limb rig is spray-painted a royal purple and gold—what does he care about camouflage?—with the Ancillary Force target-on-a-criminal logo in actual gold plating.

  He’s beautiful death. He could sla
ughter us all and I don’t think we’d scratch his paint.

  “Kiiiiva.” He cocks his head, spreading his arms wide open as if going for a hug—and despite the fact those hydraulic-assisted limbs look more like a garbage compactor, Kiva gives a schoolgirl’s giggle and glances away, blushing behind her faceplate. “Who’s afraid of nothing? That’s my girl. Ready to explode!”

  Donnie’s meat-body has a Californian surfer’s good looks—his sandy hair and toothpaste-whitened smile melts panties. He pays megabucks for transparent body armor so he can show off his tanned six-pack. And if the bulge in his pants isn’t artificial, well … I’m not a man who envies much, but it’s hard not to notice the anaconda he swings.

  He chucks Kiva under her chin, his brass knuckles cruising to stop a micrometer away from her faceplate. Even I have to admire how well he’s tuned his Omnipotents’ motion controls—they probably gave him beta access because, well, Donnie’s tweaks tend to wind up as factory defaults.

  He snorts with glee, turning around to face his other men. “And you! I love your enthusiasm! You knew how dangerous this SOB was, yet you piled in! You put the ‘T’ in ‘teamwork’!

  “But.” He shakes his head. “You fellas gotta tweak your tacticals. Your simulators gave you an eighty-three percent chance of success? Against this man? Why—”

  A car smashes into me.

  I don’t understand what’s happened—the emergency airbags have smashed into my ears like boxing gloves, my legs have stiffened to brace against the impact, my arms are shrieking that a 120-pound weight just smashed into me at eighty miles per hour.

  “—this man has countermeasures for everything,” Donnie finishes.

  And as I stare at the corrugated metal spikes inches away from my nose, I realize:

  Donnie punched me. At superhuman speeds.

  If I hadn’t upgraded my hand-to-hand combat routines, he would have punched my head off.

  “That’s why I love you, man,” he whispers, pulling me in a little too close before kissing the top of my helmet. “Today’s mission is gonna kick. Ass. You and me. Together at last.” He waves to his crew. “Let’s roll.”

  * * *

  The plan is that we ride in two automated trucks to the pickup point at the docks; though trucks don’t have drivers anymore, most long-distance vehicles have seats they’ll rent to folks who need cheap cross-country transport. And of course the Yak’s kitted out the trucks with the same illegal video-windows that I used, which will make it appear to casual inspection that the trucks are empty.

  Me? I’m trying to get my head back in gear while the six of us clank towards the trucks. My body shivers from adrenaline shock from Donnie’s punch. And my mind, well, it’s yelling at me for being so damned stupid for tussling with people I had to work with.

  What the hell was I thinking, provoking a face-off with Kiva?

  I have conversation-boosting diplomatic assistants I could have pulled up to ease the waters. I wasn’t acting like a problem-solver—I was acting like a damn sheriff in a western.

  How could I have been so stupid, boxing myself into a situation with a 29 percent chance of survival?

  Then I look at Kiva, who’s side-eyeing me as she pointedly dry-fires her guns at the other stray cats, and I think:

  I’d rather die than kiss a cat killer’s ass.

  “If everything goes to plan,” Donnie says, oblivious to the bad blood between us, “the dock drops off two shipping containers—one has the package, the other’s a decoy—we accompany them both to a lab at an unknown point in New Jersey, then head out to a well-deserved steak dinner.”

  Kiva snorts. “What happens if something goes wrong?”

  Donnie pats me on the shoulder, his rubber-padded palm thumping onto my armor. “We let the man with the plan guide us to a smooth victory.”

  I’m still running tests to see which actuators need realignment after absorbing Donnie’s punch, so it takes me a moment to realize Donnie’s left the mission up to me.

  Donnie floats me the dreamy look of a teenager expecting to see his favorite band take the stage. Kiva and her mooks are exchanging uneasy glances—I’m pretty sure they didn’t know I’d be arriving until this morning, let alone running the show.

  I splutter out a protest before realizing, yes, in fact I spent several hours on the drive here preparing reaction packages.

  “All right, folks,” I say, broadcasting my mission parameters out. “Everyone install these IFF routines—they’re designed to protect civilians, so no cranking up the threat profiles. I’ll notice.”

  “It’s in his contract that if Ancillary Force disobeys his suggestions, he’s not responsible for any resulting mayhem,” Donnie says; I thank God Trish thought to negotiate that. “That means if you ‘forget’ to install his mission-mandated routines, I pay him three million no matter how the shit goes down.” He stabs his cigar in their direction. “And I will deduct the difference from your salary.”

  They flinch. I know damn well they don’t have a hundred thousand to spare, but Donnie talks about a million-dollar garnished paycheck like he’s docking them next week’s lunch money.

  “Now,” I say. “I’ve calculated seven different potential combat situations on this trip that would require different tactical reactions, and created a starter reaction package to handle each of them—you’ll have to customize them to match your own loadouts. We’ve got a few minutes before the trucks roll out, so let’s run some simulations to coordinate our firepower—”

  As Donnie’s mooks gather around me, asking for assistance in dealing with the inevitable protocol conflicts, their belligerence melts away into hopeful uncertainty. They ask the right questions—which is to say they’ve got the basics covered, but don’t try to hide their ignorances with bullshit once we delve into advanced configurations.

  Which is … pleasantly surprising. Our artificial limbs are the intersection of neural-decoding technology and AI-backed pattern recognition and myoelectric artificial muscles and laser-based targeting webs and customized device drivers backed with complex operating systems. Anyone who claims they know it all is lying. People think I’m some miracle worker, but most of my work involves hunting through poorly written documentation until I figure out what the hell has gone wrong.

  Scotty never talks about how he checked stack overflow before he fixed the Enterprise, but he totally did.

  And in fact, they seem enthused as I go over the seven potential combat situations in detail—as if they’ve thirsted for improvements. One of the mooks, a Caucasian three-limber named Marcy, agrees that combat situation number four (highway chase) is likely, but have we considered potential police intervention? A young black kid who calls himself Defcon, his skin striped with badly done Semper Fi tattoos, frets about what happens if we enter combat situation number seven (ambush at the delivery station) and the IAC friendlies are wearing the same uniforms as the IAC hostiles. “How would we prevent shooting the guys who sign our paychecks?” he asks.

  “Jesus fuck.” Kiva sighs, rolling her eyes. “How likely do you think that is?”

  Marcy and Defcon and Saladin turn on her, staging a mild rebellion—Saladin slaps his brushed steel Össur Magnums, showing off his rotational targeting .22 rifles. “My default packages can put four bullets through an eyeball before I’ve noticed what happened,” he scoffs. “Do you want to explain to the IAC why you killed their man on the ground?”

  “No,” she says sullenly. “But…”

  “If I’m in a highway chase and a cop pulls up behind us, my Fillauer-Mossbergs will engage before I notice them. Which means their patrol car’s defensive systems will go toe-to-toe with mine, and then yours, and then all of ours because threat-lights are gonna go up across the board without a proper filter.”

  “Classic system-based escalation,” Defcon mutters.

  Marcy steps closer to Kiva, almost bumping chests. “You think the IAC will thank you when their secret package gets called in as evidence on cop m
urders?”

  “All right, all right,” she snaps. The biomonitors show her upper prosthetics filtering out angry twitches sent by a nervous system that wants to start swinging punches.

  As experienced vets, we ignore it. Being linked into a multisystem combat bio-network means I’m also uncomfortably aware of Saladin’s precombat erection.

  Make no mistake: Donnie’s men are dripping ooo-rah, doing their best to nudge my IFF routines towards settings more conducive to dead bystanders. Our network med-readouts show me their increased adrenaline levels as they dream of explosions. They’ll complain if things don’t go in the shit. But …

  They’re each committed to ensuring that when the bullets fly, our limbs are engineered to do the smartest possible thing to save our package and then save us, in that order.

  They just don’t give a shit about anyone else.

  Thank God that yes, Marcy’s concerns aside, I had ensured our IFF routines were geared to use nonfatal reactions on policemen.

  And by the time we squeeze ourselves into the trucks—Donnie and me in the truck designated to hold the IAC package, everyone else in the decoy, splitting our firepower as evenly as possible in case one truck gets obliterated—there’s a lively debate on overcoming the truck’s camera’s blind spots.

  Donnie squirms in the seats, which aren’t designed to accommodate his oversized limbs. I keep glancing over the long list of his loadout inventories, which could take on black-ops helicopters without blinking. That weight gives him the profile of a squat, 1,500-pound man, his reinforced spine creaking under the support.

  Yet he’s sat back the entire time, smiling as he tosses in light interjections that are more like suggestions, scooted over uncomfortably close.

  “This is great!” He bounces as he hooks into the truck’s sensors. “Can’t wait to see how those reaction packages work when the shit goes down. We’ve never tried a mission that minimizes casualties before!”

  He offers me a cigar from a humidor in his right thigh.