by Linda Nagata
Lincoln doesn’t like the term. It carries too much historical scar tissue. But Renata happily wears the label. She’s a pirate at heart. A top fighter pilot, she’s cool and efficient, but most of all, guilt doesn’t stick to her.
Or maybe there’s just nothing she’d undo.
Lincoln wishes he could make that claim, but during his clandestine service he was asked more than once to do dirty work—someone had to do it—and he’s made some poor choices too. No setting things right after the fact. What you do, you own. What you witness, you get to live with.
As a counterbalance, he tries to run ReqOps on a philosophy of “right action”—a principle of ethical service that encompasses power and responsibility and an obligation to act at need, and to do so in the best manner possible.
Renata gives him a half-assed salute like she knows what he’s thinking. “Make this happen, boss,” she says. “I want to be in competition again, even if it’s only virtual.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
They part, heading for separate showers.
With hot water sluicing over him, he tests the hand again. It’s amazingly dexterous. A biomechanical miracle of engineering, but it’s weak. It’s not good enough to get him back in the field. And for that, he hates the damn thing.
Embracing the Enemy
True stands in the middle of a great enclosed space within ReqOps’ Robotics Center, her arms crossed, eyes narrowed in an impatient expression, watching—from a distance—the final preparations for a robot brawl.
The Robotics Center is housed in a two-story, dusky-green warehouse. A third of the building is subdivided into offices, lab space, and a 3-D printing facility, but the majority of the interior is open, uncluttered space, suitable for small-scale aerial battles or the testing of ground-to-air defenses. Curtains and inflatable barriers simulate more complex environments and to test navigational algorithms, but none are in use today.
Aside from True, the room contains a few pallets of supplies arranged in a neat line outside the printing facility, and two cluttered workbenches alongside the pallets. The engineering team is also present. It’s made up of Tamara Thomas, Director of Software and Engineering, and her two young assistants, Michelle and Naomi. All three are busy loading lead weights into the ammunition rack of an experimental mini ARV—an armed robotic vehicle—to simulate the mass of live rounds.
“Just in time,” Tamara declared when True first walked in. “You can be the enemy. Take a gun and go stand on the red X.”
True had helped develop the specs for the new ARV—unofficially known as “Roach”—and she was eager to see the test. She wanted to know how fast and how smoothly it could deploy. But today she was here for a different purpose and time was short. She told Tamara, “It can wait. We’ve got a priority task. I need to set up multiple surveillance operations in the TEZ. A manhunt—”
She broke off when Naomi caught her eye. From behind Tamara, Naomi was holding up an open hand and mouthing the words five minutes.
True scowled at the request, but realistically, five minutes wasn’t going to matter—and she really did want to see what Roach could do. So she took a battered Fortuna assault rifle from the workbench, one that had been rigged to shoot harmless laser pulses instead of bullets, and walked to the red X, where she now stands, waiting to learn if she will live or die in a mock battle involving allied helicopter drones, pitted against the mini ARV.
Tamara moves away from the workbench. She is a few years younger than True, but fitness is not her passion, and middle age has given a sturdy substance to her full figure. Freckles dot a dark-brown complexion that contrasts with the light hazel eyes peering over the frame of her reading glasses. Steel-gray coils are infiltrating the black of her tightly curled hair. Today, like most days, she’s dressed in industrial colors: a simple charcoal blouse over gray slacks.
She watches as Michelle and Naomi—both young, not even thirty—lift the ARV, moving it to an empty pallet. Folded into transport mode, Roach is a rectangular gray lozenge, compact enough to be carried on a pack frame. Fully loaded with ammunition, it weighs around ninety pounds.
Chains attach the pallet to a winch, which begins to hum, lifting Roach into the air. The ARV is engineered for hard entry: tough enough to be heaved, pushed, or dropped inside an enemy compound, where it will deploy, autonomously distinguishing and removing threats before the entry of assault troops.
The pallet is hauled up twenty feet. The winch slides horizontally until the pallet is over the open floor. Michelle and Naomi walk out on the floor, bright-eyed and excited as they flank True, less than a meter away. Roach will need to distinguish them as unarmed civilians and leave them unharmed. Michelle says, “It’s going to be a surprise attack.”
She’s right. With no word of warning, Tamara triggers the pallet to tip, dropping the folded ARV. It hits the concrete floor with a dull thud that True can feel through her boots.
At the same time, True’s two mechanical allies drop from the ceiling. They’re starburst helicopter drones, a meter in diameter, made of eight adjustable booms radiating from a central pod. The low-noise rotors at the end of each boom are powered by electric motors. Starburst copters are fast, and agile enough to compensate for recoil from the rifle barrel mounted at the base of the pod, but they can only carry about fifty rounds, so their best use is in facility defense where they can be kept ready to launch against individual intruders, or as the first wave of a stealth assault backed up by human soldiers.
Today, they’re playing a defensive role. Under the autonomous control of an onboard AI, they swoop toward the intruder as it tumbles across the floor, firing bursts of green laser light to simulate bullets.
True joins in the defense. Bringing the rifle to her shoulder, she tracks the ARV’s erratic motion and shoots, each trigger pull releasing a pulse of laser light. Sensors around the room score the hits. An artificial voice speed talks in a machine-gun burst of syllables as it reports damage on a one-to-ten scale: “zero zero one one two one zero…”
Every hit produces only minimal damage to Roach, while in actual combat, both ricochet and the kinetic force of the tumbling ARV are going to be serious hazards for civilian bystanders. This thought is evidently shared by Naomi, who backs rapidly away.
True holds her ground, and after Roach rolls over one more time, it unfolds. Six stout jointed legs snap out, abruptly arresting its motion. A 5.56 mm belt-fed machine gun rises on a swivel mount. A horizontal disc, smaller than True’s palm, sits on top of the gun. True targets the tiny lenses glittering around the disc’s periphery, glimpsing the reflected flash of green laser light—but the ARV’s targeting system has already responded. Roach doesn’t have to reposition itself; it doesn’t even take a step. In less than a second, its gun snaps up, down, over—firing three times, targeting the starburst copters first and then True. She sees the red flash of the enemy’s laser, and then Tamara calls out in triumph, “You’re dead!”
The copters retreat to their ceiling lairs while Roach scuttles back to the workbench, moving with startling speed, in a manner disturbingly reminiscent of its namesake.
The entire battle has taken less than six seconds.
“Come on,” True objects as she too, returns to the bench. “I hit Roach’s targeting lenses. They should have been modeled as broken. How—”
Tamara waves a dismissive hand. “Multiple lenses. The damage was recorded but it didn’t matter. You were killed, the copters were fatally disabled, and none of the civilians were hit.”
True scowls at the ARV, watching as it folds up again into an innocuous gray lozenge. Roach worked well. That should be a cause for celebration, but still, it’s annoying to be so easily beaten by a machine. “If I had a grenade launcher, the result would have been different.”
“If you had a grenade launcher, you would have blown up your buddies in the compound, which, aside from the theoretical civilian losses, would have been an acceptable result too.”
&nb
sp; ~~~
Robotics are an integral part of Requisite Operations’ activities. Devices in inventory range in size from mosquito drones to jet-powered UAVs, and in cost from a few dollars to millions. Most are unarmed, used for surveillance, tracking, communications, or transportation—and many are off-the-shelf products, bought on the commercial market.
But ReqOps has a homegrown inventory too, one that True has contributed to. Like Tamara, she’s interested in so-called “biomimetics”—devices designed for autonomous and semiautonomous operation, many of them small-scale, that mimic traits of biological life-forms. The insect-legged ARV is only the most recent, and one of the deadlier, examples. Several are based on insects or other arthropods, a few draw on traits of birds, one takes the form of a snake. Many are cheap to print and easy to assemble. True calls them the origami army; she carries a selection with her whenever she deploys, versatile tools that she can adapt to changing situations.
She thinks of it as embracing the enemy. Like most career military personnel, she’s ambivalent about the rapid evolution and adaptation of robotic systems. Her decision to retire from the army was made as autonomous helicopters were steadily replacing piloted aircraft. And it wasn’t just the helicopter pilots feeling the pressure. Ships, planes, tanks, missiles—all were being retrofitted to run under the control of remote pilots or of artificial intelligences.
It isn’t hard for her to imagine a future in which programmers set up battles conducted between machine armies without immediate oversight, not a single soldier on the field—though vulnerable civilians will still be there. Or a future in which a narcissistic leader orders a machine invasion of a weaker nation, with no risk of creating grieving parents on the home front. Or one in which a military option in the form of a PMC powered by robotics is available to anyone with the money.
These are scenarios that offend her martial heritage. She imagines the consternation of bow masters when guns first appeared on battlefields. Like those bow masters, she has adapted.
Technology changes.
War is eternal.
~~~
Tamara pours coffee, hands a mug to True, then sits behind a desk cluttered with tiny sensors, wires, circuit boards, and insect limbs made of steel and plastic. She asks, “So what’s the new task?”
“We want to find Hussam El-Hashem.”
Tamara’s eyebrows rise. “The Al-Furat Coalition, right?”
“That’s our bad guy.”
“Bold,” Tamara says, nodding in approval.
True continues, “Our initial assumption is that he’s somewhere in the ungoverned territories of the TEZ. It’s possible the State Department already has him in their sights, so I’ve submitted an inquiry on current operations and potential closed areas. In the meantime, we initiate our own search. I’ve opened a research contract. The team will be looking at news, social media, curated databases, but that’s a long shot. Our best hope’s going to be on the ground, so I’m developing contracts for three freelance operators in the area, intelligence specialists. If we get any decent leads, I want to be able to supply them with printer files for data collection devices.”
“You’re assuming they’ll have access to secure printer facilities,” Tamara says. “My suggestion is we do the printing in Tel Aviv. Fly in the finished devices.”
“That’ll extend the time horizon significantly, and time’s a factor.”
Tamara sticks out her lower lip, considering. Then she says, “I’ll investigate regional alternatives, but I do not want to send our manufacturing patterns to pirate facilities.”
“Understood.” True sips her coffee, then looks at Tamara with a wistful half smile. “We need to find him, Tamara. We need to make this work.”
Tamara laughs. “Look at you. You can’t wait, can you? Come on, True. Didn’t anyone ever tell you this is serious work?”
True’s smile fades. She finishes her coffee. “It’s a hostage rescue,” she explains. “El-Hashem is a secondary target.”
“Ah, I see.” Tamara is somber now. She takes a few seconds to reevaluate both True and the context of this mission. Then she promises, “We’ll make it work.”
True stands, ready to leave.
“Oh, hey,” Tamara says, perking up again. “I saw Li Guiying copied you on that video she sent.”
True feels a prickle of irritation. Li Guiying is a specialist in behavioral algorithms, with many positive contributions to robotics, from agricultural applications to search and rescue swarms. True met her by chance, several years ago at a seminar in London, and Guiying has striven ever since to maintain the connection. True isn’t sure why and she isn’t looking to be friends. She finds Guiying too cloying, too precious, too persistent. She’s deliberately kept her distance. But Tamara likes her; they are colleagues.
“Did you look at it?” Tamara asks.
“I did. Flight algorithms.” And then True adds, grudgingly, “It was nice work.”
“Don’t be stingy. It was really nice work.”
“I’m sure you could do better if we didn’t keep you busy blowing shit up.”
Tamara laughs, and waves True out the door. “Go on. I’ll do my research and I’ll make sure we’ve got an inventory on hand.”
~~~
Requisite Operations is situated on a thirty-acre campus hidden by a screen of trees and guarded by a tall chain-link fence. Besides the Robotics Center, it includes indoor and outdoor shooting ranges, running trails, climbing walls, a track, a gym, a weight room, an urban-combat training ground, and, of course, headquarters—a single-story building with a central lobby anchoring two long, curving wings.
True is returning to her office in the north wing, walking swiftly on a concrete path under lowering clouds, when her TINSL chimes an alert. Pronounced “tinsel,” the acronym stands for Team Integrated Speech Link—a featherweight adaptive earpiece with a delicate boom microphone. TINSLs are designed to be worn nearly continuously and can integrate with a spectrum of registered devices, or conference in a team setting.
A synthesized feminine voice follows the chime. It’s Ripley, True’s digital assistant. “Connor Delgado is calling,” Ripley says.
True smiles. “Take the call.” Another chime sounds, a different note on a musical scale, this one to acknowledge her request. “Hey, love,” she says.
Connor is twenty-one, in his last year of college, and living with his grandparents—True’s parents—at their home outside Washington DC while he goes to school. Connor talks animatedly, amusing True with his description of a visit from his sister, two years older and now Second Lieutenant Treasure Delgado. “She’s golden,” Connor concludes. “Grandpa couldn’t stop with the compliments and the good advice, and she couldn’t stop rolling her eyes. By the time she left, Grandpa had mapped out her entire career for her.”
True laughs. “He’s just grateful to finally have another officer in the family. At least one of us did it right.”
An army officer. In the opinion of True’s father, Colonel Colton Brighton, retired, that is the proper occupation for a Brighton, or for the descendants of a Brighton, his grandchildren being technically Delgados. For Colt Brighton, these things matter. Brightons have served in the United States Army—officer or enlisted—every generation since the American Revolution. Served and sometimes died.
A sharp edge intrudes on Connor’s voice as he says, “I don’t get it, Mom. Diego’s portrait is right up there on the wall when Grandpa tells his stories about the glory of combat.”
Memories are physical things. It’s been eight years since True’s oldest son was killed in action, but she still feels Diego’s absence as a powerful tide of shadow around her heart. “The old man remembers him, Connor. He remembers everyone he’s lost. It’s just how he handles it. He needs to know it means something.”
“Does it?” Connor asks.
True lets this question slide, though she wonders what future generations will think of past sacrifice when soldiers are no longer present
on the battlefield but instead are operating mechanical avatars from secure posts thousands of miles away.
For Treasure and Connor, Diego’s death was a transformative event, though they responded in opposite ways. Treasure resolved to follow her older brother into military service, while Connor will always remain a civilian. “You’ve got your own path,” True likes to remind him. “You’re doing well, and we’re all proud of you.”
When Colt encouraged his grandson to attend college in the DC area, citing all the opportunities and offering him a place to stay, True knew—Connor knew—everyone knew the long-term goal was to persuade his grandson to take up the family profession. But Connor has fended off the pressure with the calm determination of an old soul.
Let the old man try to break Connor’s resolve. That’s True’s opinion. Colonel Colt Brighton will break himself first against that unyielding citadel—and he deserves it.
Rumors
Khalid Naim is in Ramadi. It’s 9 PM local time. He is leaning against his taxi cab, waiting with other drivers outside a crowded lecture hall where a political meeting is nearing its end, when his phone chimes in a tone that announces the arrival of a fading text.
Speaking in Arabic, he demands, “Meen?” Who?
The synthesized voice of his digital assistant answers through his TINSL. It’s a private voice only he can hear, and it speaks in American-accented English: “Chris Kobeck, Director of Military Operations and Training, Requisite Operations.”
Khalid’s excitement spikes. “Iqra,” he orders—Read it.
He is one of the few taxi drivers in the TEZ willing to transport passengers beyond Ramadi, through the ungoverned territories of the Tigris-Euphrates Zone. He is also a US Army veteran, working now as an independent intelligence contractor.