The Storm nf-10

by Clive Cussler

  “Tax man, my friend,” Marchetti said. “The IRS, the various European equivalents and members of one particularly irksome South American country that seem to think I owe them something.”

  “Internal Revenue Service,” Kurt said. “Why would you be worried about them?”

  “Because they don’t seem to get the idea that I have now become external to their world and thus am not part of their revenue stream or in any way, shape or form interested in any of their so-called service.”

  Marchetti put a hand on Kurt’s shoulder and ushered him forward.

  “This is my domain. A billion dollars’ worth of effort so far. Terra firma of my own. Only it’s not firma,” he said, stumbling over his words, “it’s aqua. Terra-aqua. Or Aqua-Terra, actually. But you understand what I’m saying.”

  “Barely,” Kurt deadpanned.

  “Tax man calls it a ship. They say I have to pay tariffs and registration fees and insurance. Comply with OSHA rules and inspections. They tell me that’s the bow. I tell them this is an island, and that right there is land’s end.”

  Kurt stared at Marchetti. “You can call it the planet Mars, for all I care. I’m not with the IRS or anyone else who wants to tax you or question your sovereignty—or your sanity, for that matter. But I am a man with a problem and good reason to believe you’re the cause.”

  Marchetti looked stunned. “Me? Problem? Those two words don’t often go together.”

  Kurt stared until Marchetti stopped fidgeting.

  “What kind of problem?” the billionaire asked.

  Kurt pulled a capped vial from his breast pocket. It contained the slushy mix of soot, water and microbots that Gamay had given him.

  “Tiny little machines,” he said. “Designed by you, meant to do God knows what, and found on a burned-up boat that’s missing three crew members.”

  Marchetti took the vial and lowered the rose-colored glasses. “Machines?”

  “Microbots,” Kurt replied.

  “In this vial?”

  Kurt nodded. “Your design. Unless someone’s been filing patents in your name.”

  “But it can’t be.”

  Marchetti seemed positively baffled. Kurt could see he would have to prove it.

  “You have equipment on board that can look at this?”

  Marchetti nodded.

  “Then let’s go for a reality check and remove any doubt.”

  Five minutes later Kurt, Joe and Leilani had taken an elevator down to the main deck, which Marchetti called the zero deck because the decks beneath it had negative numbers and those above it had positive ones. They walked to a line of parked golf carts, climbed into an extended six-seater and drove off toward the front tip of the island. Matson was left behind, and Nigel remained on the helipad, pretending to work on the helicopter.

  Their travels took them across the island, an island that seemed almost deserted.

  “What’s your compliment?” Kurt asked.

  “Usually fifty, but this month we have only ten on board.”

  “Fifty?” Kurt had expected him to say a thousand. He looked around. The sounds of construction reached them from various spots, but Kurt did not see a single worker or even hear voices.

  “Who’s doing all the work?”

  “Total automation,” Marchetti said.

  He pulled to a stop beside a recessed section. He pointed.

  Kurt saw sparks jump where things were being welded, heard the sound of rivets being hammered and high-powered screwdrivers turning, but he saw no one. After a few more welding sparks, something moved. An object the size of a vacuum cleaner, with three arms and an arc welder on a fourth appendage, scurried to a ladder.

  The machine made the same sudden awkward movements as the robots on an assembly line, jerky but exacting. Robots might be precise, Kurt thought, but they still had no sense of style.

  As the machine finished the welds, it retracted two arms and attached itself to one post of the ladder. Gripping on with a motorized clamp, it began to rise. When it reached the deck a few feet from Kurt, it released itself and scurried on down the road.

  A smaller machine followed it.

  “My workers,” Marchetti said. “I have seventeen hundred robots of different sizes and designs doing most of the construction.”

  “Free-range robots,” Kurt noted.

  “Oh yes, they can go anywhere on the island,” Marchetti boasted.

  Halfway down the path, the robots were joined by several others, forming a little convoy heading somewhere.

  “Must be break time,” Joe said, chuckling.

  “Actually, it is,” Marchetti said. “Not like a person’s break, but they’re programmed to watch their own power levels. When they run low, they return to the power nodes and plug themselves in. Once they’re charged up, they go back to work. It’s pretty much a twenty-four/seven operation.”

  “What if they have an accident?” Joe asked.

  “If they break down, they send out a distress signal, and other robots come and get them. They take them to the repair shop, where they get fixed and sent back on the line.”

  “Who tells them what to do?” Kurt asked.

  “A master program runs them all. They get instructions downloaded through Wi-Fi. They report progress to the central computer, which holds all of Aqua-Terra’s specs and drawings. It also tracks progress and makes adjustments. A second set of smaller robots check on the quality level.”

  “Supervisor robots,” Kurt said, almost unable to contain a chuckle.

  “Yeah,” Marchetti said, “in a way, but without all that labor/management strife.”

  Marchetti restarted the golf cart, and moments later they were back on foot, three decks down, and entering his lab. The sprawling space was a mixture of plush couches covered in brightly colored patent leather, steel walls showing a bit of condensation, and blinking computers and screens. Everywhere screens.

  Soft blue light bathed the room, filtering in from a huge circular window, front and center. On the other side of that window, fish swam and the light danced.

  “We’re below the waterline,” Kurt noted, gazing at the huge aquarium-like view port.

  “Twenty feet,” Marchetti said. “I find the light soothing and very conducive to the thinking process.”

  “Apparently not conducive to neatness,” Kurt noted, seeing how the place was a mess.

  Junk lay piled everywhere, along with clothes and food trays. A couple dozen books were spread about a table, some opened, some closed and stacked precariously like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. In a far corner a trio of the welding robots sat dormant.

  “A clean desk signals an unhealthy mind,” Marchetti said as he carefully extracted a drop of water from the vial, placed it on a slide and took the slide over to a large square machine that sucked the slide in and began to hum.

  “That would make you one of the healthiest people around,” Kurt mumbled, moving a stack of papers from a chair and sitting down.

  Marchetti ignored him and turned back to the machine. Seconds later a representation of the water drop appeared on a flat screen above Marchetti’s desk.

  “Increase magnification,” Marchetti said, apparently talking to the machine.

  The image changed repeatedly until it looked like a satellite view of an island chain.

  “Again,” Marchetti told the computer. “Focus on section 142. Magnification eleven hundred.”

  The machine hummed, and a new picture appeared, this time it showed four of the little spiderlike things clustered around something.

  Marchetti’s mouth gaped.

  “Go in closer,” Kurt said.

  Looking concerned, Marchetti took a seat at the terminal. Using the mouse and the keyboard, he zoomed in. One of the spiders appeared to be moving.

  “This just can’t be,” Marchetti mumbled.

  “Look familiar?”

  “Like long-lost children,” Marchetti said. “Identical to my design, except …”

&nb
sp; “Except what?”

  “Except they can’t be mine.”

  “Here we go,” Kurt said, waiting for all the denials and talk of preventative measures that should have worked. “Why not?” he asked. “Why can’t they be yours?”

  “Because I never made any.”

  Kurt hadn’t expected that.

  “They’re moving,” Leilani noted, pointing to the screen.

  Marchetti turned and magnified the screen again. “They’re feeding.”

  “What do you mean they’re feeding? Feeding on what?”

  Marchetti scratched his head, then zoomed in again. “Small organic proteins,” he said.

  “Why would a tiny robot want to eat an organic molecule?”

  “Because it’s hungry,” Marchetti said. He turned from the machine.

  “Forgive me for asking, but why would a robot be hungry?” Kurt added.

  “Here, on my island,” Marchetti explained, “the larger robots get to plug in. But if you’re going to make bots that are independent, they have to be able to power up one way or another. These little guys have several options. Those lines on their backs that look like microchips are actually tiny solar collectors. But because the independent bot has other needs, they have to be able to get sustenance from the surrounding environment. If these microbots follow my design, they should be able to absorb organic nutrients from the seawater and break them down. They should also be able to process dissolved metals and plastics and other things found in the sea, both to sustain themselves and reproduce.”

  “This conversation is going from bad to worse,” Kurt said. “Explain how they reproduce. And I don’t need a lesson on the birds and the bees. I’ve just never heard of it in regards to a machine.”

  “Procreation of the bot is a fundamental need if you want it to do anything useful.”

  Kurt took a deep breath. At least they were getting answers even if he didn’t like the details. “And just what useful purpose did you design these things for?”

  “My original concept was to use them as a weapon against seaborne pollution,” Marchetti began.

  “They eat pollution,” Kurt guessed.

  “Not just eat it,” Marchetti said, “they turn it into a resource. Look at it this way. There’s so much pollution out there, the sea is literally choking on it. The problem is, even in places like the Pacific Garbage Patch, the stuff is too spread out to be economically cleared up. Unless the instrument that’s doing the clearing feeds off what it clears, turning the garbage itself into a power source that enables the cleanup.”

  He waved toward the screen. “To accomplish that, I designed a self-sustaining, self-replicating microbot that could live in the seawater, float around until it found some plastic or other garbage and chow down once it did. As soon as these things find a food source, they use the by-products and the metals in the seawater to copy themselves. Voilà!—reproduction—without all the fun parts.”

  Kurt had always been baffled by the world’s collective unwillingness to do anything about the pollution being poured into the marine environment. The world’s oceans created three-quarters of its oxygen, a third of its food. Yet the polluters acted as if this was a trifle. And until there was nothing left to fish, or no one could breathe, it was doubtful anyone would do anything about it because it just wasn’t economical.

  In a bizarre way, there was a certain elegance to Marchetti’s solution. Since no one wanted to do anything about the problem, he’d proposed a way to fix it without anyone actually having to lift a finger.

  Joe seemed to agree. “There’s some brilliance in that.”

  “There’s also insanity,” Kurt said.

  “You’d be surprised how often those traits coincide,” Marchetti said. “But the real insanity is doing nothing. Or dumping billions of tons of plastic and trash into the thing that feeds half the planet. Could you imagine the vociferous outcry, the wailing of epic proportions, if the amber waves of grain were choked with cigarette lighters, plastic bottles, monofilament line and broken bits of children’s toys? That’s what we’re doing to the oceans. And it’s only getting worse.”

  “I don’t disagree,” Kurt said. “But turning some self-replicating machine loose in the sea and just hoping it all works out isn’t exactly a rational response.”

  Marchetti sat back down, he seemed to agree. “No one else thought so either. So like I said, we didn’t produce any.”

  “Then how did these things get on my brother’s boat?” Leilani asked bluntly.

  Kurt watched Marchetti, waiting for an answer, but he didn’t reply. His gaze was locked onto Leilani. Fear flickered in his eyes. Kurt turned and he saw why.

  Leilani held a compact snub-nosed automatic in her hands. The muzzle was pointed directly at the center of Marchetti’s chest.

  CHAPTER 12

  “I SWEAR,” MARCHETTI SAID, PUTTING HIS HANDS UP INSTINCTIVELY, “I don’t know how they got on your brother’s boat.”

  Kurt stepped in between Leilani and the billionaire. “Put the gun down.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because he’s our only link to the truth,” Kurt said. “You kill him, you’ll never know what happened. And as sad as it sounds, I’ll make sure you end up in prison for it.”

  “But he built these machines,” she said. “He admitted it. We don’t need to go any further.”

  Kurt looked her in the eyes. He hoped to see fear, doubt, and nerves, but he saw only coldness and anger.

  “Get out of the way, Kurt.”

  “Tired of being alone,” he said, repeating her words from the night at the hotel. “You pull that trigger, you’ll be more alone than you can possibly imagine.”

  “He killed my brother, and if he’s not going to tell us why, I’m going to even the score,” she said. “Now please, get out of my way.”

  Kurt didn’t budge.

  “Listen,” Marchetti said nervously, “I didn’t have anything to do with your brother’s death. But maybe I can help you find out who did.”

  “How?” Kurt asked.

  “By tracking down those with knowledge, those with an understanding of the process,” Marchetti offered. “Obviously you don’t just pick up a screwdriver and a soldering gun and put these things together, it’s an extremely complicated endeavor. Someone connected with the initial design had to be involved.”

  As Marchetti spoke, Joe began circling in behind Leilani as quiet as a cat. “Keep talking, Marchetti,” Kurt said.

  “There might be nine or ten people who know major parts of the system,” he stammered, “but only one guy knows as much as I do. His name is Otero—and he’s right here on the island.”

  “He’s lying!” Leilani said. “He’s just trying to blame someone else.”

  As Leilani ranted, Joe pounced. He knocked the gun away and grabbed her arm, twisting it up behind her back in a half nelson.

  A loud bang rang out, and for a second Kurt thought the pistol had discharged. “Everyone all right?”

  Marchetti nodded, Joe did the same, Leilani appeared upset but unharmed.

  “What was that noise?” Kurt asked.

  No one knew, but when another clanking sound reached them Kurt caught sight of movement in the back of the darkened lab. The acrid smell of electrical discharges came next. The welding robots had become active. They were standing up on their feet, knocking items out of their way and discharging blue arcs of plasma from their appendages.

  Kurt turned to Marchetti. “Let me guess,” he said, “Otero’s your master programmer.”

  Marchetti nodded.

  “I have a feeling he’s been watching.”

  The welding robots began moving toward the humans. Two of them had small tracks like a tank’s to roll on. A third had clawlike feet that were scraping on the metal deck.

  Joe released Leilani. She turned to Kurt, apologizing.

  “I’m so sorry, I just—”

  “Save it,” Kurt said, his eyes on the menacing machines.


  Marchetti raced for the bulkhead door. He twisted and pulled the handle, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “Watch out,” Joe shouted.

  One of the machines had begun to zero in on Marchetti. It charged forward on its tracks with one appendage reaching for him and a second arm spouting blazing white plasma.

  Marchetti ducked and scampered to a new spot. The machine tracked him and began to close in again.

  Kurt looked for the gun and spotted it across the room. Before he could move, a fourth machine came alive and stepped in his path.

  He backed up, putting the couch between him and the walking machine. Joe and Leilani retreated as well.

  “How do they operate?” Kurt shouted as one of the robots reached the table and carved it in two with a circular saw.

  “Either autonomously or guided from a remote site,” Marchetti said. “They have pinhole cameras for eyes.”

  The machines lumbered toward them like sleepy animals. Each time they reached something solid, their actuators spun and their claws extended. A chair was flung out of the way, a couch set on fire with the welding torches.

  Kurt noticed that their movements were odd, only one machine at a time seemed to do anything out of the ordinary. “Could Otero be at that remote site right now?”

  Marchetti nodded. Kurt turned to Joe. “Now would be a good time for a suggestion.”

  “I’d say, let’s pull the plug,” Joe replied, “but I’m guessing they have batteries.”

  With that, he grabbed a chair and hurled it at the closest robot. It caromed off the lumbering machine, rocking it backward a bit, but other than that it seemed to have no effect.

  By now Kurt had been forced closer to where Marchetti stood. Joe and Leilani held a different spot. But the machines, or Otero, seemed intent on herding them together.

  Kurt made a break to the right, but a blast from a welding torch stopped him. He went the other way, relying on his quickness.

  The machine pivoted and released another blinding flash of plasma, but Kurt was already inside the machine’s reach. He felt the heat singe his back but not directly. He grabbed the first thing he could get his hands on and yanked until it broke off. Then he found another protrusion that looked like a camera and bashed it sideways.