Drones

by Rob J. Hayes

  “Shhh.” Kendall’s voice is a hiss as she approaches the door to the stairwell. She kicks the door open and ducks through, pistol in hand. After making sure there are no sneaky guards waiting to ambush us, she holsters the pistol and plucks her rifle from its sling. She glances down the stairwell for a few seconds and then shakes her head.

  “Maybe they’ve all evacuated?” Milly asks.

  Kendall draws in a deep breath, frowning at Milly. There’s a bang, and a bullet embeds itself into the ceiling above us. We all take a rushed step backwards as another couple of shots ring out.

  Milly looks nervous. She clutches her PD to her chest, the gun tucked into her trousers forgotten. Kendall looks energized, like a predator on the hunt. She points at Milly.

  “Get me the camera feed,” the assassin whispers and points to her own PD.

  Milly nods and taps away. Kendall’s grin gets even more savage. She presses her back against the wall, further away from the drop down the stairwell. She flips up a little attachment on her rifle and then taps on her PD. I see a screen on the attachment flash to life. As she points it down towards the stairwell, the image of the screen changes. It appears to be a representation of the layout in dark green, the security below show up in bright yellow. Kendall starts down the stairs, using both the display, and her own eyes to watch the corners ahead. I follow slowly, careful to step as quietly as possible. The gunshots may have stopped, but the security guards are still down there.

  Two floors down, Kendall stops. She holds up a hand to us then crouches down and leans slowly around the corner, staring down the barrel of her rifle at the next set of stairs. She waits. Milly and I crouch behind her. She seemed so insistent on hurrying earlier. Now time is running out fast and Kendall is waiting. It’s frustrating, but then I can’t see what she does through that rifle attachment of hers.

  Kendall’s breathing slows and I see her finger slide onto the trigger. Easy and slow. She waits. I hear the scuff of feet on a stair somewhere below us and Kendall squeezes the trigger twice. The guard doesn’t even manage a scream, dead before his body thuds to the floor. Kendall leans back behind the bend in the stairs and stands. She steps forward and aims down the drop.

  I can’t see anyone down there, but she’s definitely aiming at something. Another two squeezes of the trigger and her rifle lets out two more rounds. The bullets go straight through the wall two floors below us and I hear a short shout followed by silence.

  Kendall moves the rifle around some more, tracking down stair wells. Then she looks past me towards Milly. The Sanctitist looks caught between terror and the need to throw up again.

  “Any more?” Kendall’s voice is a harsh whisper in the silence.

  Milly looks at her PD, swiping her finger across different feeds. Then she shakes her head.

  “Then let’s move. Quickly. Behind me, Robot.”

  “We’ve got company.” Milly somehow manages to go even more pale than before.

  “You just said…”

  “Not up here. Ground floor. They look military.”

  Kendall glances at me. I can see the look in her eyes. We’re on a timer now. We can’t hold the military off forever. We need to get to the server room and hook Milly in. From there she can lock down the doors and turn off the cameras.

  “Move,” Kendall growls and sets off quickly down the stairs. She keeps her rifle up, keeps checking corners and stairwells. Doesn’t completely trust the surveillance. I realise Kendall is a better soldier than I ever was. Only she’s an assassin. Makes me wonder where she learned the trade. For all the trust we’re placing in each other, I don’t really know anything about her. I know even less about Milly.

  We creep past the bodies of the dead security guards. Thick red blood leaking out in a pool around them, staining the floor. Precise shots. Aimed to kill, not wound. Kendall doesn’t even look at them.

  I’ve never been able to kill without conscience. Another reason I became a Drone. It was easier to give away the guilt. The disgust. The strange embarrassment. They were feelings I could never quite come to terms with. Emotions I struggled with the entire time working for Langdon. I gave them all away, sold them to Pascal for him to sell on.

  I didn’t kill these men, but I share as much blame for their deaths as Kendall. I don’t think she feels the guilt, so I’ll feel hers for her. I get the feeling there will be more death before we’re through. More weights on my conscience.

  As we approach the tenth floor down, sprinklers come to life. A fine spray of water leaks down on us from above. Kendall curses and closes the attachment on her rifle. She slides up to the door.

  “The crash must have shorted the fire detection on the top floors as well.” Milly is tapping at her PD again. “The fire must have reached a floor with working electronics. It’s spreading.”

  Fire above us and armed troops below. We’re definitely up against the clock now. Somehow I doubt the sprinkler system will do much to prevent the fire. They might have other systems in place in the more sensitive areas. Gas designed to deprive the fire of oxygen, maybe. Works just as well on people.

  Kendall looks through the doorway to the ninetieth floor. “Looks clear,” she whispers. “And dry.”

  “If it is the server room, they won’t have water sprinklers in there.” Milly gives a reassuring nod, not that Kendall sees it.

  “If?” Kendall’s voice is a growl. “On me, Robot. Moving in.”

  Kendall pushes through the door with her shoulder, silently slipping into the corridor beyond. I slide in behind her, pistol raised, covering her as we move forwards slowly. Milly follows last, a few feet behind us, quiet as a mouse.

  The alarm is quieter here, distant. A loud electrical hum echoes around the corridor. Rooms off to the left and right show conference areas, a lounge with a television and a pool table. We check each room only briefly, making sure they’re clear before moving on.

  There’s a glass door at the end of the corridor. No signs on or above it, but through the door I can see a bank of computer servers, taller than I am with a number of blinking lights.

  “That it?” Kendall asks in a whisper. She doesn’t look back. The barrel of her rifle is steady.

  “Yes.”

  A keycard lock sits to the right side of the door. We move towards it, feet scuffing on the green carpet beneath. We’re so close to our destination now. So close to warning everyone of Me.com’s plan. So close to saving the world. The thought brings a smile to my face. Maybe I can be the hero Summer thinks I am. Much more likely I’ll be painted as a villain though. That will be more accurate at least.

  As we move closer to the glass door, I hear Milly let out a strangled squeak from behind. I know what I’ll see before I even turn around. We didn’t clear the rooms well enough.

  “Don’t move!” the security guard shouts. I turn slowly to find a tall man with short blonde hair and piercing blue eyes with a gun to Milly’s head. He looks young. Inexperienced. He’s standing behind her, as if the smaller woman might shield him. “Put your guns down.”

  This is no trained soldier. This is a day to day guard. It’s likely he’s never fired his pistol at anything other than a target at a range. He doesn’t know what it’s like to take a life. That might mean he’ll hesitate before squeezing the trigger. It also might mean he won’t. It might mean he doesn’t understand what taking a life means.

  We can’t risk losing Milly. So much of the plan hinges on her. All of it actually. I shift the grip on my own pistol, holding up in my hand.

  “OK. Just… don’t shoot.” I say. Pointless words. They won’t stop him if he’s decided to kill Milly. A real professional would probably just have shot us all in the back. It’s what Kendall would do. It’s what I would have done when I was his age. He’s had some training at least, trigger discipline. His finger isn’t on the trigger.

  I bend my knees, aiming to put my pistol on the ground. I hear a bang from behind. The report of Kendall’s pistol echoing around the
corridor. Milly gasps and goes rigid, a splatter of blood on her cheek. The tall security guard topples backwards and hits the carpet with a meaty thud. One shot right in the forehead. I glance behind to see Kendall standing there, pistol in hand, rifle at her side. She must have shot over my head. The bullet probably missed me by a hair.

  Milly collapses against the nearby wall and lets out a strangled sob. Her eyes are wide. Panic. Fear. Shock. We need to snap her out of it. I stand up and rush to her side, picking her back to her feet.

  “You’re alright,” I say in a calm voice. I hear Kendall snort. “Hey! Are you with us?”

  “She could have shot me!”

  Kendall lets out a savage chuckle.

  “No,” I say with a smile and a shake of my head. “Kendall is better than that. You were never in danger.” It’s a lie. Quite a big one. Some lies are worth telling. Some lies are needed.

  Milly nods. She’s shaking. Badly. I hope she can think clearly enough to do what’s needed. Another time emotion harvesting tech could be used for good. Remove the fear. The stress. The shock.

  “Can you… I dunno… hack this lock?” Kendall is at the glass door now, staring at the slot for the keycard.

  Milly takes a couple of steps forward. She peers at the lock, making sure to keep a fair distance between her and Kendall. “Uh… yes. I think.”

  “You think?” Kendall shakes her head and steps back. She aims her rifle at the door and fires three times. The glass shatters. She turns to me with a grin. “I know my key works.”

  Kendall steps over the shattered glass into the server room and disappears from view. I turn back to Milly and nod towards the door. She nods back and steps in after Kendall. I take one last look back at the corridor. It has rooms on either side and the stairwell is a straight line from the server room. It’s a defensive position. Of course if they just decide to flood the place with tear gas, we’ll be in trouble.

  I can’t see Kendall in the server room. But then there’s plenty of places for her to hide. She’s probably stalking around, making certain the room is clear of any more guards. Milly is already at one of the servers. She’s pulled out a terminal and is busy typing away on the keyboard. As I watch, she curses, puts the terminal away and moves to another.

  It’s a large room, disappearing far into the back. The servers are lined up in rows, pathways leading between each. Blocks of servers, more than I care to count. It’s loud too. The hum of electrics, the whir of drives. The tapping of fingers on a keyboard.

  There’s a small office, walled with glass, to my left. I move over and check it. Inside is a desk with a computer and three monitors sat on it. There’s a couple of motivational pictures on the far wall. A rock climber standing atop a mountain, staring out at a sunrise. The caption reads “You Can Do It.”.

  Opening the office door, I step through and approach the little table sitting in the corner of the room. I smile down at the coffee machine and press the button. It whirs to life.

  “We’re clear in here,” Kendall shouts from somewhere towards the back of the server room. “You found the security server yet?”

  “Working on it.” Milly sounds less nervous now she has computers to work on. People are like that. Things always seem easier when they have something to take their mind off the peril. Something familiar. Fear is overwhelming, paralysing. But fear is also easily distracted from because people want to be distracted from it.

  The coffee machine dribbles hot coffee into a cup. I take a look at the desk. It’s messy. A stress ball, a number of pens, some paper with equations or formulae written on it. It means nothing to me. All three monitors show a number of running processes that mean just as little as the formulae. There’s a camera embedded into the middle monitor, but it’s off at the moment. I wonder who usually works here. Where they are now. The coffee machine beeps.

  “We’re in!” Milly says loudly, her voice full of cheer. “And they’re out.”

  I take the cup of coffee and walk back into the server room. Milly puts away one terminal and moves servers, pulling out a terminal on another and again typing away furiously. Kendall appears from behind one bank of servers and walks towards the door. She’s staring down at her PD and grinning.

  “Ahhh. They look so lost now they can’t see what we’re doing.” She stops and sniffs the air. “Where did you find coffee?”

  “The office.” I thumb behind me. “You want it? I’ll make another.”

  Kendall nods and takes the cup from me, sipping at it right away. “Ah! Hot.” She stalks towards the door and places the cup on the floor, sitting her rifle down beside it. “We’re not gonna have long before they’re up here. Do what you need to do, Milly.”

  “How long do you think we can hold?” I ask, taking up position on the other side of the door.

  “We?” Kendall shakes her head. “You’ve got a message to deliver, Robot. You’ve got a whole world to tell about what Me.com is trying to do.”

  I shake my head. It’s futile though. I already know it is. Simon was supposed to do the talking. He was supposed to be the one to convince the world to make a stand. Simon is dead. Milly needs to be attached to the servers. She has to keep Me.com out of their own network long enough for the message to go out. Kendall wouldn’t do it even if she were the only choice. Besides, she’s better here, keeping the soldiers out. I’m the only choice for the job. I’m not a good choice. But I’m the only choice.

  “Only just realised it, huh?” Kendall shoots me an understanding look. “I’d offer you some words of wisdom or something… But… well to be honest I’d rather sit here and hold off the whole UEA than do what you have to.”

  “Thanks.” I take a deep breath and let it out as a ragged sigh. Kendall shakes her head and sips at her coffee again, wincing at the heat.

  “I’ve shut down the elevators,” Milly shouts. “It should buy us some time.”

  She’s not wrong. There’s ninety floors for the soldiers to run up. It’ll take them time and it’ll tire them out.

  “Good work. Find the global broadcast frequency.” I step over to Kendall and look down at her PD. The soldiers are already on their way. Some are trapped in the elevators, others are moving quickly up the stairwells. They’ve a long way to go, but they’ll be on us in no time.

  “I am!” Milly sounds harassed. I decide rushing her further would only serve to slow matters down.

  Tension. Anxiety. Nervous butterflies flitting around in my gut. I know what I have to do. Know I’m the only one who can. But I have no idea what I’m going to say. No idea how I’m supposed to convince the world that Me.com, the social media giant embedded into every nook, corner, cranny, and interaction of their lives, needs to be stopped by any means necessary. I stumble back into the office in a daze, trying to think of what I might say. I press the button on the coffee machine again and sit down on the little table, lost in my thoughts.

  My mind goes blank. Fear. Frustration. Doubt. Stress. So many emotions all warring for what little attention I have to give them. This is how normal people feel everyday, all the time. I wonder if Me.com’s plan isn’t actually a little piece of mercy. Stamp out half of what people feel and what’s left is clearer, more poignant. The world would probably work better. People would likely get on more. Or maybe less.

  I think back over my past four years as a Drone. I was more productive. Worked harder. Played less. Actually I didn’t play at all. I didn’t really enjoy anything and anything I did was manufactured that way to sell. Living a life of excess and I didn’t enjoy a bit of it. I didn’t see my family. My only friend was the man who sold my emotions. Four years of… nothing.

  Something hot touches my leg. Burns me through my trousers. I leap off the desk with a yelp. I forgot to put a mug in the machine. Molten coffee is leaking all over the desk.

  “You alright?” Milly from the doorway. I turn to find her looking serious. Her hand hovering over her PD.

  “Fine.” I nod. I’m not sure I am fine. I�
�ll fake it though.

  “You ready?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  Milly shakes her head. “Pretty much now or never.” She points at the middle monitor on the desk. “Take a seat.”

  “Ten floors below us.” Kendall shouts.

  I move behind the desk and sit down in the office chair. It’s uncomfortable so I rearrange the back rest. It’s still uncomfortable.

  “You know what you’re going to say?” Milly asks me.

  I laugh and shake my head.

  She stares at me for a moment. “Good luck.” I see her tap the screen of her PD and the camera on the monitor turns on.

  Chapter 30

  Hope.

  I sit there for a few moments. Silent, staring at the camera. I still have no idea what to say. How to convince the world. If Milly has done her job right, and I have to assume she has, my face is currently being broadcasted to billions of people. Pretty much the entire population of Earth. Maybe a fair portion of people on the Moon as well. Right now they’re all watching me over their PDs, maybe trying to get rid of the feed. But they can’t. The devices have been overridden. Until either we stop broadcasting, or the soldiers storm us, I am all any of them will see. They’re all waiting on me. Waiting for me to speak. To explain. I have the whole world’s attention.

  Milly waves frantically and points at her mouth. I swallow nervously. My mouth is dry. I desperately think of something to say to the world.

  “My name…” I cough.

  “My name is James Garrick. I am a citizen of Earth. I live in New York. You’re probably wondering why I’m speaking to you now. You’re probably also wondering how. My associates and I have broken into the Me.com headquarters and activated the emergency broadcast to give you all a message. To tell you how much danger you’re in. To warn you. That Me.com is planning to steal your emotions.” It sounds a bit silly when I say it out loud to eight billion people.

  I glance up at Milly quickly. “Data package is sending. Convince them.”