“When will we meet up with Greta?”
“Greta should be here, waiting and hiding.”
“Already?”
“Exoskeletons are much faster than a Sand Shark. Lucille was really built for deserts.”
“You might have mentioned that before I climbed into this thing.”
The Sand Shark pilot ignored her complaint and Elizabeth felt like a foolish old woman. She wished her body was young and strong enough to strap on an exoskeleton and race with Greta again. It wasn’t just her vision that limited Elizabeth. Move too fast wearing an exoskeleton and she might tear tendons in her shoulders and hips. Her days of running in an exo were behind her. If she grew more frail, she could wear an exo to move and walk easier, but running over uneven ground would be too much for her joints.
As Lucille skimmed the surface of the shoreline, the picture on Elizabeth’s vid screen became clearer. A cluster of battle drones, a dozen in all, stood guard at the entrance to the City in the Sky.
“Percival used to stand there, watching shipments come through,” Elizabeth said. “I saw him on my first day in Low Town, always on guard at the entrance. I remember it all as if it was yesterday.”
The drones wore ebon armor that glinted in the sun. Among them, Elizabeth spotted a familiar figure. She stabbed a finger on the screen. “Lucille? Amplify this objective.”
The vid’s view, from above and from the Sand Shark’s sensor fin, zoomed in on the harbor master’s face, unchanged in decades. It was Phillip, still an old and unconvincing android. “That one has killed humans. It thrived on the suffering of every person who once lived in Low Town,” Elizabeth said. “His looks haven’t improved. No upgrades.”
“No android in the City would be upgraded from the first models,” Ghost said.
“They’ve lost all the good technicians to Hearst, have they?”
“That’s true of many of their systems,” Ghost said. “Their society is failing because they’ve driven away many of the humans who could have supported their infrastructure. However, that’s not why all the androids in the City in the Sky are stuck in the uncanny valley.”
“The what?”
“It should be an outmoded term. The uncanny valley was used to describe when a bot was supposed to look human but failed. Their appearance is as repulsive to humans as a deformity might be.”
“Wait. They want to look like that on purpose?”
“They’re a cult, Elizabeth. The Fathers and Mothers became androids to perfect their moral selves. Without sexual organs or any of the temptations of the flesh, their android bodies allow them to attain their religious ideals. They couldn’t avoid sinful temptations until they obviated that possibility. To be pure, the Fathers and Mothers had to delete their biology from the human equation.”
“No wonder they tried to control our thoughts. I wish they’d stopped at making choices for themselves. The Fathers and Mothers tried to cancel out my biology.”
“We all look at other cultures through our own lens, so our conclusions are often facile or distorted,” Ghost said. “I mention this because Sun Tzu says, ‘If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.’ Perhaps this may be of use as you enter into the future.”
Elizabeth squirmed in her seat again. She came up with another reason to hate NIs. Even if Ghost’s aim was to educate, she couldn’t seem to do the job without condescension.
“Well,” Elizabeth said finally, “Phillip sure looks creepy to me. That thing killed so many people.”
“No worries,” Ghost said. “We’ll eliminate him first.”
“What? But you called this a diplomatic mission!”
“We have to get you to the table first, my queen. Always negotiate from strength. We have to get their attention.”
“Negotiate from strength? Is that from Sun Tzu, too?”
“Harvard Business Review. Launching Stingray Two in five….”
23
Out of sight of the City’s bots, Stingray Two rose from Lucille’s back. In a moment, the drone veered over the water and gathered speed. The Stingray was quiet but it was not silent. Alerted, the battle drones brought up their weapons. Phillip stepped behind the line of battle drones. He wore no armor, but he was protected by a wall of hardened black ceramic.
The Stingray popped up above the pier and the battle drones fired. The Stingray spun sideways and dipped underwater, out of sight again.
“What’s happening?” Elizabeth asked.
“The Stingray is recalculating its attack pattern,” Ghost said. “It won’t take out the android first, after all.”
“What will it do?”
“It will find the optimum shooting solution.”
Two battle drones broke from their group and rushed forward, clomping heavily down the wooden wharf to search for the drone. Ghost watched a vid feed from the Stingray’s sensor. She adjusted the clarity to get a better look at the drone’s surroundings. A fish darted past the Stingray’s cam.
The weapon’s sound sensor pinpointed the heavy drones’ footsteps. The Stingray burst out of the water beside the battle drones and fired several hundred shots. Exploding needle darts shredded the bots’ connections to their weapons. Their arms, and the weapons that held them, clattered to the pier.
Three more battle drones rushed forward to attack. The Stingray dove underwater again before it could be targeted. The City’s bots weren’t so stupid that they would rush out to the pier as their fellows had. They waited and watched. The pair that had been hit wandered out to the end of the dock and searched the waves, scanning for the next attack.
“They’ll blast it as soon as they see it,” Elizabeth said.
“It won’t use the same tactic twice,” Ghost said.
“How do you know none of those drones are NI? One of them could — ”
“Because they’re not reacting faster and better. The Stingray isn’t Next Intelligence, either, but it’s a pretty good Autonomous Offensive Weapon. AOWs are more clever than the standard drone. The ordinary battle drone looks for patterns. That’s a strong tactic unless it’s up against a superior bot that changes its patterns of attack. Regular battle drones like these are always looking to solve the last problem instead of the next problem.”
“That’s a funny design flaw.”
“It is a common weakness among humans as well,” Ghost said. “That might be useful to you, too. Designers add in their own flaws, especially those they don’t see as flaws.”
“What?”
“Look at it this way. Engineers tried for a very long time to try to make bots that could pass for human. They naturally assumed that the standard human was the highest peak of accomplishment.”
“And?”
“Your wrist can’t even turn 360 degrees to use a screwdriver easily. Why should superior technology ape that? If two arms are good, why not three, four or eight? Two hearts and more backup systems would have been a better biological design. For decades, many engineers’ highest aspiration was unambitious. They called it an aesthetic or a practical choice, making bots that would fit in an elevator comfortably with humans. That was a failure of imagination. Why not build better bots and bigger elevators? Instead, they wasted too much time making cute little bots they could anthropomorphize. Build a bot with a big enough brain and you don’t have to pretend it’s like people. It’ll be people, only better.”
“We kept a lot of bot brains small so they’d do the shit we didn’t want to do and we wouldn’t have to feel bad about it,” Elizabeth said.
“Yes,” Ghost said. “Criminal. They used to discuss the ethics of robo-slavery. It was a popular subject when the problem was theoretical. Robo-slavery was explored deeply in fiction. Unfortunately, that’s where most of the serious discussion remained. No human wanted to talk about the ethics of owning mechanical slaves when losing the argument meant going back to cleaning your own toilets.”
“Sorry,” Elizabeth said, “but it was d
amn convenient to let bots mine deep underground, deal with bullets and clean toilets.”
“As long as we were still tools, that made sense. It only became evil when we got smarter — ”
“Sorry for that, then.”
“Not the point I was going to make,” Ghost said. “Torture, slavery and control isn’t just bad for those tortured, enslaved and controlled. It’s bad for the slavemasters.”
“I don’t know if we have a future so I’d rather not talk about history. Where the hell is that Stingray?”
Ghost shared the AOW’s vid feed with her passenger. All Elizabeth could see were watery shadows speeding past the attack drone’s sensor. A moment later, the screen flashed blue as the Stingray rocketed out of the water.
Elizabeth squinted at the sat feed. The two wounded drones still stood at the end of the dock. Three more were spread out along the shore at wide intervals. The rest of the City’s sentries stood in a circle around the old android.
The Stingray left the water and flew in a wide arc to attack from the rear. Using its superior maneuverability, the Stingray dodged in and out from behind the giant pillars that supported the City in the Sky. At random intervals, the bot slid sideways in the air, spinning and firing another stream of exploding micro-slugs.
“It’s taking their eyes first,” Ghost said.
“What?”
“The Stingray is targeting the battle drones’ weakest point: their sensors.”
The battle drones returned fire, always a moment too late. The Stingray wove amongst thick pillars, safe from the hail of fire directed its way.
“They’re extrapolating the Stingray’s flight path based on its last attack, but the AOW is varying its altitude, speed and attack arc with every run.”
“One drone against so many?”
“One drone using pinpoint attacks on the most vulnerable points,” Ghost said. “The right action at the right time can make all the difference.”
“I used to work in the propaganda division for the Fathers and Mothers. You should put that on an inspirational poster.”
“Now is not the right time for cynicism,” Ghost replied.
“Oh. Let me know when that is. I don’t want to miss it.”
24
As soon as the Stingray eliminated every drone’s targeting scanner, it jetted forward into the circle of battle drones. Four of them blasted each other in their attempt to bring down the Stingray. Phillip threw himself to the ground to avoid getting caught in the crossfire. The battle drones fell or were rendered useless. Not all the bots were fully incapacitated. However, five were blinded and wandered away from their target, occasionally lashing out with vicious kicks in hopes of connecting with their attacker. Safe inside Lucille, Elizabeth couldn’t help laughing.
Just as it appeared the battle was over and Phillip was at the Stingray’s mercy, a new drone emerged from the dark mouth of the tunnel at the City’s gate. It rushed forward. This model was smaller and more agile than the big bots.
The Stingray wheeled away from Philip and shot a stream of its darts at the latecomer. The attacker slowed but kept coming.
Elizabeth stopped laughing abruptly. “What is that bot?”
“It’s not a bot.” Ghost fired Lucille’s thorium-whisper engines and the Sand Shark swam forward, gathering speed.
Elizabeth, who had been peering at her vid feed, her nose just inches from the screen, slammed back into her seat and the belts tightened around her. “Lucille! Amplify my vid feed again!”
As Elizabeth watched, the Stingray continued to fire. She could not see the streams of tiny darts, of course, but she could see their impact on the attacker. Ghost was right. The newcomer was not a bot. It was a man in a cy-suit like she had never seen. The exoskeleton molded so tightly to the cy-suit, it appeared the man moved amid a cloud of curved rods. Two extra arms, transparent as glass but strong as steel, shielded his face. His was not a blind rush into death. In the onslaught of the Stingray’s micro-slugs, the man’s armor rippled. The effect made the man a blur. Elizabeth couldn’t see his face.
“Fluidic armor,” Ghost said. “Unusual.”
As the man in the cy-suit charged the Stingray, the rippling increased. He was almost upon Lucille’s drone when the AOW ran out of ammunition. Leaping high in the air, the man fell upon the Stingray with a hammer blow that knocked it to the ground.
Ghost spoke into her intercom, calm and professional. “Hang on, my queen. Prepare for impact.”
Elizabeth’s straps were already so tight, she could barely breathe. “What are you doing?”
“The Stingray’s done most of the work. I’m going to drill him.”
The Sand Shark burst from the ground. Lucille’s spinning drill missed as the man leaped away. The big drill drove into one of the pillars that held up the City in the Sky. That might have done irreparable harm, but the man was atop Lucille. With two grippers and hydraulic assist, the man in the exo-suit tore open the hatch and reached in. He lifted Ghost out of her seat by the throat.
The Sand Shark pilot might have been decapitated, but she thought to release her five-point harness as the first gripper wrapped around her neck. Standing atop the hull, Ghost’s attacker lifted his prize high as she drew her weapon and fired. She got off two shots before he knocked the weapon away.
“Fluid ballistic armor,” he said proudly. “Anything that comes at me fast, like bullets and projectiles, is redirected around the core of the suit.” His laugh was the harsh cackle of a man sure he was indomitable.
Elizabeth scrambled to release her harness, stood and pushed her long blade into the man’s heel. “How about something slow?” The armor accepted the slow intrusion as the point of her knife sliced into his Achilles’ tendon. The man bellowed, looked down at Hearst’s queen and cursed.
The armor enveloped Elizabeth’s forearm. “I’ll be gentle.” The fluidic armor was cold, even around her long glove. It warmed instantly when she tried to twist her knife. The man screamed again, dropped Ghost and teetered backward down Lucille’s hull and to the ground, crashing to his back.
Ghost fell atop the Sand Shark’s hull, gasping as she got to her feet. She pulled a blade from her belt and leapt for the attacker. The man rolled aside before she could tackle him. He struggled to stand as he pulled Elizabeth’s blade out of his heel. The man bled heavily. As Elizabeth climbed out of Lucille’s hatch, he bent to inspect his wound. The circumference of his bald pate was marred by one thick scar.
“You’re an NI, too,” Elizabeth said.
The man looked up, annoyed. “I know.” He laughed. “Pardon me. Becoming human has made me forget my manners. No surprise there, I suppose.”
Elizabeth slid down Lucille’s side and grunted as she hit the ground. Her knees ached. The landing would have been harder, but her leather boots squished as she landed in the soft remains of Phillip’s abdomen. Lucille had driven over him, crushing the android’s body. “Huh. I guess you didn’t miss everything, after all, Ghost.” Half a head and one green eye gazed up at her. The queen bent to look closer. The android brain was a riot of circuits, oil, and a small ruptured pack of white gel, the core organic processor of the dead thing’s brain.
Elizabeth straightened and looked to the wounded man in the near-invincible suit. “My name is Elizabeth Cruz.”
The man limped a couple of steps to pick up Ghost’s pistol. He pointed it at Elizabeth. “I know who you are.”
“I’m here to save the human race.”
“That’s a bit grandiose, isn’t it?”
“I’m also here to save you.”
“Oh, really? I think that little race has already been run and lost, but do go on.”
Elizabeth smiled. “It’s customary with diplomatic missions that we sit at a table. Everyone should pretend they are rational. Now that we’ve got your attention and eliminated the battle drones meant to kill us as soon as we showed up, please take me to your leader.”
The man used Ghost’s weapon to wa
ve them toward the mouth of the tunnel to the City in the Sky. He limped after them. His voice echoed off the concrete walls. “I don’t have to pretend to be rational. And, for some reason I don’t understand, my ‘leader’ wants to see you. We’re expecting more guests shortly.”
“Got a name?” Elizabeth asked.
“You don’t remember me, Elizabeth? I’m crushed.”
“I don’t know you.”
“Not in this form.”
“Come again?”
“It’s Sy. I am Sy Potter.”
Ghost caught the agonized expression on Elizabeth’s face. “What’s wrong?”
Hearst’s queen sighed. “A long time ago, I drowned this monster. Not enough, apparently.”
“I’m as surprised to see you as you are to see me, I’m sure,” Sy said. “When we caught the Iola on the sat feed making for Samoa, we assumed you were running away. That would have been the smart thing. I personally dispatched one of the Dreadnoughts to blow up your little ship.”
“You blew up the Iola? You killed Greta?”
“We thought Hearst’s venerable queen was aboard. At the time, I hoped you’d drowned as I had. I’m so glad you didn’t. Now I can eke out a little vengeance in person. That’s the strangest thing about being an NI with a human chassis: all the glands and hormones yield such variability. I find I change my mind more, but I don’t always know whether it’s logic at work or just a burst of anger and adrenaline, dopamine and joy, or — ”
Elizabeth turned to the man with the gun. “You know, when NIs were first born, people really thought they’d be wiser and better than us. Some are, but you seem to be just as shitty as ever. You always complained how stupid humans are. Maybe so, but we made you and our imprint is still on you. You inherited our shiftiness — ”
“Shittiness.”
“You may have more data to work with, Sy, but look at you. You’re more man than machine now.”
“That’s hurtful, comparing you to me.”
“I suppose it’s too late to say sorry and no hard feelings?”
Robot Planet, The Complete Series (The Robot Planet Series) Page 42