Of Salt and Sand

by Barnes, Michael

  --

  Tanner hovered over the control operators like the angel of death over fading souls. On his right, Jimmy Reitman stood, hands folded and drawn intensely to several blips appearing on one of the large monitors.

  Colonel Briggs stood opposite them both, but meandered from one workstation to the next performing his role as senior officer with the finesse of an overinflated actor.

  “The target has been simulated, sir,” spoke one of the seated operators. “The red dot represents the target. The Goliaths show up as green dots. Once they are stealth, however, the thermal systems will display their positions in white.” The young soldier gestured toward the screen, pointing clearly as he continued to explain. “We have already uploaded Doctor Reitman’s scenarios into the onboard memory-modules of each Goliath AD. When you are ready, they can be activated in either of the two modes: attack-mode, which is an autonomous engagement, or hive-mode, group engagement.”

  “We’ll want to test them in both modes,” Tanner said, giving Jimmy an affirming nod.

  Jimmy didn’t comment, but returned a slight gesture in the affirmative.

  “Do we have all data points on track-and-record?” Briggs called out to his staff, collectively.

  A resounding, “yes, sir” from the other five workstations, echoed back.

  “Okay then. Let’s proceed by the book,” stated Tanner. “Go ahead with phase one. Put the Goliaths into stealth mode and verify their signal loss from all tributary monitoring sensors.”

  “Yes sir.” The young lieutenant touched a series of commands. As he did, the green blips on the screen instantly changed to a bright pulsing white. “Stealth engaged, sir,” he acknowledged.

  “Very good,” spoke Tanner. He turned to Briggs. “Can we validate that the AD’s have disappeared from all monitoring sensors?”

  Briggs leaned over a woman operator seated at an adjacent terminal. She pointed to a bank of readouts and nodded a confirmation, “all Goliath’s are effectively invisible, sir.”

  “Thermals?” Briggs turned to another of the terminals.

  “Blind on the standard systems,” replied another operator. “But visible on our modified sensors.”

  “Excellent!” Tanner’s enthusiasm oozed as he moved from one terminal readout to the next. He was almost . . . pleasant. “Just as we expected. Good work on your tracking in stealth, Doctor,” he said, glancing momentarily toward Jimmy.

  Jimmy made no gesture. Tanner’s accolades meant nothing.

  “I told you these babies were something, didn’t I?” Tanner went on, cackling to himself as much as he did to everyone else.

  Jimmy was ever stoic. Not a fleck of emotion changed on his chiseled features. His arms remained folded, his deep-set intelligent eyes shifted from one screen to another as he absorbed the flow of data like a sponge on a spill.

  For some time, things went as clock work, and the control room bustled with the excitement of performance. The Goliaths responded with absolute precision, and with each new test and command, more accolades poured from the mouths of Tanner, Briggs and the other operators. But not from Jimmy. As usual, he was a closed book. There, aloof from his enthusiastic constitutes, he stood, hand to chin, as though waiting . . . waiting, but for what? What was ticking behind that veiled glare? Fear, perhaps?

  The tactical exercises continued.

  “Did you see that!” hooted Tanner. “Did you see the collective tactic they employed! There isn’t a division of men on this planet that could pull that kind of strategic expertise off. . . target destroyed!” His raving went on and on; and with each excided outburst, a firm pat was planted on Briggs’ back.

  Jimmy was getting nauseous.

  But then suddenly, out of the exhilaration of claps, shouts, and whistles—Jimmy caught something that caused his blood to freeze.

  “That’s odd?” said one of the operators. Then he turned and followed with a more hastened, “sir, . . . sir!”

  There was no immediate response. Too much background noise had drowned out his shouts.

  Jimmy broke his position with one large leap. He shot past the main group and disappeared.

  “Sir!” the man bellowed again. This time catching Tanner’s attention.

  Tanner turned to him. It was obvious by the soldier’s expression that this was not another comment of praise on the Goliath’s performance.

  “The test area perimeter just expanded by a ten mile radius!”

  “What do you mean?” Tanner questioned, his demeanor suddenly grave.

  Briggs hurried to another of the terminals, his eyes frantically scanning for validity.

  The operator glared down at his monitor, and as he did, other voices, like echoing daggers, began to fly throughout the room.

  “I show the same expansion!” came one.

  “I concur!” said another.

  “The Goliaths have expanded their range! They are now monitoring on public land!” cried the operator in near panic.

  “How is that possible!” Tanner sputtered. “Override and keep those things within our test arena!”

  “Too late!” the soldier responded. “They are in route! They’ve acquired another target! And this one is not a simulation!”

  “Shut them down!” ordered Briggs. “Shut them down and take them off line!”

  Every operator now punched madly on their panels. One command after another: abort . . . abort . . . abort, but it was as if the Goliath hive had severed all communication from the controlling umbilical.

  “Engage the failsafe!” shouted Tanner, finally, his voice resonating in an inhuman wail as it spat out. “Blow them to pieces!”

  “We can’t!” barked the man. “They’ve compromised the failsafe encryption line. All communication has been severed! They have implemented their own attack scenario and have gone into hive-mode!” The soldier turned to his control panel and slammed his fists hard onto it. “We are spectators only, sir!”

  “They can’t do that! How can they do that!” Tanner shouted. He glared in unbelief at the screen. The image now delineated an area which expanded outward in a circle ten times the size of their original testing area. Then, as if by some cruel irony to the already wounded situation, a distant red blip appeared on the monitor’s upper perimeter. It was like the first drop of blood sucked from every soul in the room.

  “There!” cried the operator, his finger pointing in disbelief. “That’s where they’re headed!”

  The Goliath’s had acquired a new target, and this one was real. Somewhere out in the desert, an innocent human, or humans, had been marked for termination, and had just minutes to live.

  --

  Brant Stephens bounced up and down on his dusty seat feeling every bit like a piece of popcorn on hot oil. He had been driving his jeep over similar terrain for so many days now that the rattling noise of suspension and lose equipment just seemed like part of the surrounding desert milieu.

  The data-chain of remote stations which Brant had setup weeks earlier to collect atmospheric and thermal data only covered a few miles, but when road conditions only allowed for a maximum speed of twenty-five to thirty miles per hour, the distance between waypoints could seem endless. But Brant didn’t really mind so much. With each station arrival, came new and fascinating data, enough as to keep the rather eccentric professor hooked and at his camp, day after hot miserable day.

  So far, Brant’s remote stations had functioned perfectly. Like mini blackholes, they had sucked in all kinds of data-reconnaissance; an entire gamut of weather-related information, and each held a unique characteristic: a fingerprint for the strange and unusual. But before he could surround and capture his elusive prize, Brant needed the help of a super sidekick—he needed his university’s computers. Only with the speed and calculating power of these super-fast mainframes, could he filter and analyze such vast amounts of information.

  Brant knew the answers where there—buried like the trace of gold within the tons of worthless rock. He too had to
dig, sift, and dig some more. Then, if his data was accurate and his theories correct, he would bag this culprit, and in so doing, solve a myriad of mysterious events; events which had not only caused costly damage to local power stations and grids, but which had nearly taken lives. This was the ultimate focus. But Brant also had to admit that he was first and foremost an educator, and from the beginning, the academic incentives from such a catch had dangled themselves like a juicy worm to a skinny fish. There was no doubt that his published works would be extraordinary, and most likely catapult him to a notable status.

  Brant was in this sublime state of mind when he rounded a dogleg and nosed his vehicle up from a mild ravine. As he did, he instantly sat up right and blinked the dust from his bulging eyes. Something was moving on the road toward him in the distance. He let his foot slide instinctively to the brake. And then, before he realized it, he found himself standing outside his parked jeep, his mouth open wide.

  “Oh thank heavens! Hello!” shouted a distant voice from behind an approaching umbrella . . . or was it an umbrella. It was very ugly.

  “What the—?” Brant heard himself speak.

  The umbrella folded, and behind it, hurried a very attractive woman, waving her hands and smiling in relief.

  --

  Back at Mole Hole Base, the Goliath field tests were deteriorating fast. Every operator was frantically engaged in all shutdown scenarios, but their commands had pinged back, their directives lost to obscurity. The Goliath hive had effectively severed all external links.

  Not surprising, this scenario had been part of the original Goliath’s self-defense algorithm. The Four had programmed the droids, from the beginning, to isolate and shut down any attempt at a communication-hijack. Jimmy, and his team of army engineers, had specifically targeted and presumably wiped clean this area of memory when downloading the modified code to their own Goliath prototypes. But somehow, something had gone terribly wrong: an unforeseen reset perhaps, or a hidden chip with residual code, capable of overriding and severing Mole Hole’s control. Yet, in a terrifying irony, the rogue Goliath AD’s still retained the army’s transformation protocols altering their behavior from passive defenders, to aggressive killers. There was no reset on these transformations.

  “Colonel Briggs, sir!” the operator shouted, half rising from his seat. “Another target just appeared!”

  Briggs was at the soldier’s terminal in one quick stride. “No! No! Another one! Have the Goliath’s acquired it?” he probed, leaning in and peering himself at the ominous blips.

  The man hesitated a moment, accessing his data before making a reply: “Yes sir,” he said in a nauseating tone, “but . . .” he paused, his face puzzling at something just seen.

  Now Tanner appeared, pushing his lanky structure in next to Briggs. “What is it!” he demanded.

  “There’s a second signal,” Briggs conveyed, sickly.

  Tanner’s face paled even beyond what it had been.

  “I think it’s some kind of vehicle, sir” returned the operator. “It was in motion, and moving too fast to be someone on foot. But now it seems to have halted?”

  “How close are the Goliath’s?” Tanner asked, his voice raspy from the strain.

  “The hive will intercept both targets in eight-minutes and twenty-two seconds,” returned another of the operators, his digital readout ticking ominously down. This was one timing sequence the young soldier had never planned on viewing.

  “Is there any chance of this vehicle outrunning the Goliaths?” Briggs asked, feeling that he somehow already knew the answer.

  The soldier confirmed Briggs’ inclination with a grave shake of his head. “No, sir.” The man knew very well the capabilities and speed of the Goliaths. No land-based vehicle could escape them, no matter how fast, no matter how powerfully built.

  “We can send in a chopper . . . intercept the targets before the Goliaths arrive!” Tanner suddenly rebounded.

  “We’re out of time,” Briggs growled. “There’s simply nothing we can do.”

  It was at that instant that Tanner realized Jimmy Reitman was absent from the chaos. He began a frantic scan from one end of the control room to the other. Reitman was the individual who might still be able to find a way of interceding and stopping the rogue Goliath hive. But as he desperately eyed-down each station, Jimmy was nowhere to be found. Then, just as he was beginning to think that Reitman had simply bolted, abandoning them to their cataclysmic failures, he spotted him at the far end of the room, crouched over an isolated terminal in a secluded corner. Jimmy was focused absolutely, and punching in commands so aggressively that it seemed at any moment his hands might shatter the keyboard.

  “Reitman!” Tanner shouted. “We’ve got less than six minutes to stop these things!”

  Jimmy didn’t falter.

  Tanner moved toward him. “Reitman!” he repeated, his voice escalated.

  This time Jimmy turned, but only for an instant. He shot up a halting hand and eyed the man in a fearfully desperate glare. The gesture was clear and unmistakable: do not approach me, do talk to me!

  Tanner got the message loud and clear, and froze, uncharacteristically, like a statue of stone.

  Jimmy scowled, then immediately returned to his task.

  Tanner stood for several dazed moments. He was without words, and shocked just enough to comply. He turned and walked, submissively, back toward the main terminal. Perhaps Reitman was as helpless to intervene as was the rest of them. “Whoever they are,” he mumbled in a trodden whisper, watching the white blips close in on the red. “We’re going to be recovering what’s left of their bodies within the hour.”

  --

  Teresa held out a dried, dusty hand. “Hello. I’m Teresa Henington.”

  Brant was still wearing his shell-shocked expression. “What on earth are you doing out here?”

  Teresa looked a little surprised, but managed a friendly smile. “Well,” she began, “after the twister put down my house—”

  “I’m sorry,” he exclaimed. “I deserved that. It’s just that”—he stumbled awkwardly—“well, it’s not every day one finds a lovely woman out on an afternoon stroll,”—he turned a pausing eye on the umbrella—“in the middle of a desert.”

  Teresa flushed. “I assure you, it is not by choice.”

  “No. I don’t suppose it was,” he replied, returning a large grin. He held out his hand. “Let me start again. My name is Brant Stephens.”

  Teresa’s eyebrows rose curiously. “Brant Stephens?” she repeated. “Ah”, she remarked revealingly, then caught herself and hurried to a typical: “nice to meet you, Mr. Stephens.”

  Brant gave her a friendly, yet probing look. There was something about her that—

  An odd rumble suddenly caught them by surprise as it reverberated under foot. The jeep hobbled on its suspension for a few seconds.

  Teresa let out a slight chirp of surprise and gazed around cautiously. “What was that?” she asked. She rested a supportive hand on the jeep hood.

  Brant gazed around for a moment, but didn’t seem too alarmed. He caught sight of a whirling dust-cloud rising just east of their position. “Ah,” he said, pointing. “Probably another cave-in somewhere close. We get those now-and-then out here. Looks like this last one was just over that ridge, there,” he explained, pointing to a growing eddy of rising dust.

  Teresa looked out into the distance, but couldn’t see anything. “I see,” she replied, embellishing her vulnerability just a bit.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” he eased, smiling. “Come on. Hop in and I’ll give you a ride back to the nearest town. On the way, you can fill me in on your tall-tales of desert adventures. I’m dying to hear how you ended up clear out here.”

  Teresa laughed. “Well then,” she bantered back. “I’ll do my best not to disappoint.”

  As she rounded the front of the jeep, she was surprised that the ground continued in a subtle vibration under her feet, and she knew that this Brant Stephen
s, could feel it also. She wasn’t as gullible as he thought she was. He was nice, helpful and seemed to be genuine, but he was not a good actor. This strange shaking in the ground had him more worried than he was letting on.

  As she opened the passenger door, she finally noticed the looming cloud Brant had alluded to . . . noticed it because he still had his eyes transfixed to it. The strange swirl was larger than she expected, and the hot desert breeze had obviously captured the bulk of it. The dusty, red haze seemed to coincide with the rumble in the ground as it grew and intensified. And what was worse, Teresa swore it was moving toward them. “Great. That’s all I need is more dirt in my hair,” she joked to cover her uneasiness. She slid into the passenger seat.

  Brant hopped in next to her. “You can’t swim in water without getting wet . . .” he teased.

  “. . . and you can’t be in a desert without getting sand in your hair,” Teresa finished, with a wink.

  “You got it . . . in the hair and everywhere else,” he joked. Brant had just reached for the keys when a second rumble rolled under the jeep. This one more profound than any previous. His eyes instantly went to the rear-view mirror. “Very odd.”

  “Yes. I’m afraid I don’t like this shaking one bit,” said Teresa, her voice betrayed by apprehension. She turned and looked out the back window.

  Brant didn’t reply, but his face belied something worrisome.

  The strange churning cloud had gotten closer—and larger. But it wasn’t necessarily the expansion which had Brant’s stomach in knots. It was the speed at which the thing seemed to be traveling? There was only the slightest breeze, yet the anomalous haze seemed to thunder toward them more quickly than Brant would ever have imagined.