The flames shot out of the doors and windows. Light metal siding blew off the sides of the building. Manacled suspects burned alive in the corridors of the building screaming at the top of their lungs and tearing their flesh against their restraints. Masterson would not risk any of his troopers to save them, and anyhow, this part would be edited out of the final cut of the video show. Or maybe not: it might boost their ratings. The studio execs would decide.
Special Weapons Team Epsilon Captain Chet Masterson watched the building burn. He had lost some good people. There had also been a lot of valuable stuff in there, and now it was all gone. The violence would probably boost their video ratings, but in the long run that sort of cheap-shot one-time publicity was just not worth the cost.
The possession of firearms by civilians had been completely outlawed for centuries. Criminals will always manage to get a hold of weapons one way or the other, but mostly they were things like antique 38-special revolvers or 45 ACP semi-autos. Even if they did not misfire, they were not much of a threat to an armored federal assault team. That the terrorists had been able to manufacture serious weapons – cannons, even! – with contraband machine tools, using only scrap metal as raw material, was sobering. Only talented people could make things like cannons from garbage, and talented people didn’t do that unless they had no alternatives. When bums and dope-addicts are desperate, so what? That kind of people are always desperate. When engineers and technicians are desperate, well, that’s another story.
He opened a private channel to the tactical officers back in his command APC. “So would you kindly inform me of how you missed a fucking cannon on the scans?”
“Sorry, sir. But we didn’t miss it, well, not exactly. The scans picked it up just fine. The thing is that it was a homebuilt, and it didn’t look like a cannon – the software flagged it as a big pipe stuck in with all the other illicit machining supplies. Same as the other weapons they had down there; they didn’t look like anything and they were stored in chests with a bunch of raw steel and wrenches and stuff.”
Masterson grunted, “So now we are going to have to check for machine tools and bulk metal before any assault?”
“Probably,” said tactical. “But it’s even worse than that. Consider: why was the cannon in the sub-basement? You might build a cannon down there, but that’s not where you normally employ it. I don’t know what these criminals had in mind, but that cannon was going to end up on the surface somewhere.”
Fuck , thought Masterson. We’re going to lose another district. He watched as the building continued to burn. The fire department had arrived and was working to stop the flames from spreading to the nearby structures. The buildings had overhangs cantilevered out over the streets that nearly touched in spots, so keeping the fire from spreading was not easy. Over to one side was the wreckage of the crashed quadrotor. It was smoldering but wasn’t on fire any more. Either its self-sealing fuel tanks were still intact or it had been low on fuel to begin with. The local cops, wearing bright orange vests over their chest-only body armor, were milling around the perimeter pretending to look purposeful. Some of them gazed longingly at the assaulted building; probably the bastards had lost a lot of income here.
For all the hype about how tough they were, Masterson knew that Special Weapons Teams like his were mostly for show. They were intended to win through intimidation and shock, and to keep society in line. They couldn’t fight pitched gun battles in a built-up urban slum. No, if this wasn’t a fluke then before too long they would have to employ the regular army in this district. The real military didn’t use intimidation. They would use robotic weapons platforms and heavy armor. They would probably just level the building without even trying to arrest the suspects, and then level all the buildings surrounding it, on general principal, and then maybe blow up a few more buildings in the area just to make sure that people got the hint. The local cops would go native – if they hadn’t already – and either work for some warlord or become a power center themselves. But Federal Police like him were not going to be able to operate here unless a reinforced armor brigade escorted them in.
Masterson looked around the neighborhood. There was a trick, he thought, to telling when they were going to lose a district. In a stable neighborhood by now there would be yellow plastic cordons all around the assault site: civilians would be gawking at the havoc, the kids looking at his team with wide awestruck eyes, local cops trying to keep traffic flowing, and telling people to go home and not really caring if nobody listened. But here there was nothing. He knew that the district was heavily populated, but the streets were deserted. He thought he saw a few people lurking behind corners but they faded away quickly. The suspects that had been brought out of the building before it had burned down had a look that was both half-starved and hard. They didn’t whine or demand to see a lawyer, or say it was all a mistake, or complain that their handcuffs were too tight like arrested people in healthier districts. There was no one single thing but Masterson could sense it; this place was almost lost.
He knew that most of the locals hated the Federal Special Weapons Teams, but he also knew that they would like it a whole lot less when he was gone. Because the only thing worse than a bunch of tough no-nonsense Federal Police, is chaos. If the feds abandoned this area likely only one out of four of the locals would survive the next two years, and that was only if the climate didn’t keep getting worse.
The air temperature had risen to 42 degrees Celsius. His inbuilt suit cooler was nearing its limits and he was getting sweaty. A light rain had started to fall and the local cops put on clear plastic full-body slickers. He noticed that the rain was staining his armor with brown streaks; the acid levels must be up again. With his level-2 pharma and the adrenalin high starting to fade, his left eye was really starting to hurt, as were other parts of his body that he hadn’t noticed during the fight. He was going to need to go to a hospital, but he decided to wait for the really badly injured to be evacuated first. He hoped that he wasn’t hit too badly and that he wasn’t being stupid by waiting for medical attention. He and his team had previously been offered a chance to travel to Alpha Centauri Prime, but he had turned it down. Now he was thinking seriously of taking up that option. Things were not going to get better here on Earth - that was increasingly certain.
3. It Would Try the Patience of a Saint
Zen Master: In any conflict, always try to keep a reserve.
Engineer: Is that Zen?
Zen Master: Technically, no. But it is still useful advice.
(From the video series “Nymphomaniac Engineer in Zentopia,” mid-22nd century Earth)
Fortunately for all concerned, the newly-born Odin-Class cybertank calmed down fairly quickly. Being created fully aware and with the mental potential of a thousand regular humans had overwhelmed it. It had wanted to do everything and experience everything all at once. In the future they would activate the mind of a cybertank in stages, but there did not seem to be any lasting damage done to the first Odin.
Many things had changed over the past few centuries, but one aspect of engineering had stayed the same. Constructing the main hull and power-train of a large project was relatively easy to do and often on schedule. It was the ‘fitting out’ – getting all the thousands of little sensors and cables and fiddly bits working that put the job over budget and behind schedule.
Although designed as a weapons system, the Odin was also tremendously useful for more general tasks. It had dozens of boxy remote maintenance drones. Now that the drones were all under intelligent control they were constantly bustling about the hangar complex doing this and that and accomplishing the work of perhaps 300 regular humans. The Odin was also heavily involved in working with the design team, running simulations, and solving engineering problems. It was even starting to help out in some of the other hangar complexes where its siblings were being constructed.
Giuseppe Vargas was taking a break, leaning up against a console in front of the Odin’s main hull, when on
e of the senior engineering staff walked up. Her name was Janet Chen. She had short black hair and generic ethnic Han Chinese features. She was tall for an ethnic Han, but otherwise unremarkable in appearance – Vargas remembered that her expertise was power systems.
“So how is the new member of the team doing?” she asked.
“Unit CRL is settling in and doing just fine,” replied Vargas. “Now that the initial shock and excitement of being turned on has worn off, his mental architecture is running perfectly, the core psyche is stable, and the multiprocessing architecture is working better than even I had hoped.”
“And how did you get this ‘multiprocessing’ thing to work, anyhow?”
“Why with great skill and technical genius, of course.”
“You’re not much for humility, are you?”
Vargas chuckled. “Humility and I have not been on speaking terms for years, although we do sometimes have dealings with each other when it absolutely cannot be avoided.”
Chen looked back at the massive, and still immobile, hull of the Odin. It was surrounded by workers and repair drones. One of the secondary armaments – a dual railgun that looked tiny compared to the main hull but still weighed in at over ten metric tons – was being lowered slowly into place by a portable crane. A technician delicately thumbed the lifter controls while another squinted into the gap between the railgun and the hull and waved him on. Access ports were open all over the hull and cables snaked out across the floor of the hangar into consoles and monitoring equipment across the walls. The primary plasma cannon had still not been delivered, but just the open mounting points on the central turret looked imposing.
“So, is it a boy or a girl?” asked Chen.
“Why does it have to be either? It’s a cybertank. It’s just using the male pronoun for convenience, and because “it” is too impersonal for something that is self-aware.”
Chen frowned. “Shouldn’t it be one or the other?”
“Ah, because the human race has, until this time, been divided into male and female you assume that the human psyche must exist in either one form or the other, but I assure you that it does not. As important as gender is to us biological humans, and men and women are indeed different, the core logic is basically the same. I mean, when a person is sitting at a computer terminal trying to solve a design problem, they don’t feel like a man or woman, they are just a person solving a problem. This is the neutral point that defines the human-style of self-awareness.”
“I don’t know… I just don’t like it somehow. Surely it should have a sex? Is it fair to make it neuter?”
“That’s a common reaction, and understandable, but missing the point. For an adult biological human their gender is a core part of their mental image of themselves, reinforced with social expectations. If a normal human were to lose their sexuality, it would be traumatic; many people in such a situation commit suicide. But that does not mean that a male or female identity is necessary for the human psyche in general.” Vargas pointed back at the main hull of the cybertank. “THAT is the core identity of unit CRL. That is the mental foundation upon which it has constructed its sense of self. It misses having a vagina as much as you would miss having a penis, or a prehensile trunk, or wings with feathers on them. It’s not an issue.”
“But what if it wants children?”
“What if it does? It – he - can create children as easily as you are I (and with much less personal discomfort than in your case), should he feel the desire. He’s not limited in any way.”
Chen’s eyes widened. “Wait, I get it. You aren’t making machines here. You are making a new kind of people.”
“Yes! Finally you understand. Few have, so far. Previous efforts at artificial intelligence aimed at making Gods, or slaves, or – even more stupidly – both at the same time. I am not smart enough to create a God, nor foolish enough to try, and I don’t want slaves. The cybertanks can think much faster than we do, and process more data, and be in many places at once, but their core thought processes are like yours and mine. I am creating a new branch of humanity. One that is completely self-sufficient. You can’t threaten to fire him, or torture him or anything. He is free as no human has been for centuries.”
“I thought that you had promised central administration to embed command over-ride codes in the cybertanks?”
“Why yes, I did so promise. I lied! Silly me. I refuse to create self-aware slaves. The cybertanks will only follow our orders if we are nice to them, and they see some sense to the effort. As it should be for us all.”
At that point there was a minor commotion at the other end of the hangar. There was a bald male technician with dark sunglasses. He looked unremarkable but everyone was giving him a wide berth. As Janet looked closer, she saw that what she had taken for a male technician was a beige-plastic humanoid robot dressed in the same scrubs as everyone else.
Vargas waved. “Hey, unit CRL, looking good!”
The humanoid robot waved back, and started to walk across the hangar floor towards Vargas and Chen, dragging a somewhat cautious collection of staff and security guards in its wake.
Hello, Dr. Vargas. So I take it you approve?
“Absolutely. You look like a technician wearing sunglasses with a really shiny bald head. Nice job.”
Hesitantly, Chen said, “Unit CRL? Is that you?”
In the plastic flesh. I got bored waiting for my main hull to get activated, and decided to take a walk around. Human-form robots never proved to be practical, but there was a lot of research on them, so I could download the plans and build one easily without hurting the schedule. It was also a good test of my onboard manufacturing systems. Even with all my remotes, so much of the equipment around here was designed for humans that this form should be handy. I can also use body language during a conversation. And it’s fun.
“Why the dark glasses?” asked Chen.
Because getting the eyes right is hard. The eye movements are no problem, it’s the tear film, and the exact droop of the lids that are difficult. People take the eyelid for granted; it’s amazing how much subtlety there is to it. Maybe when there is more time I’ll do it right, but for now the sunglasses are a cheap-shot solution.
“And why are you wearing clothes? That robot body doesn’t need to wear clothes.”
Why are you wearing clothes? You don’t ‘need’ to wear clothes, either. It’s also an easy way to cover up all the rough joints of this hacked-together body.
“Oh. Right. It just seems incongruous to see a robot wearing clothes, but sure, why not. But you say that it is fun to walk around in a human form? Do you find your main shape to be constricting?”
Not at all. Consider: have you ever driven a car? And when you did, did you identify with the car? Was it suddenly as if you could run at 100 kilometers per hour?
“No, “said Chen. “I have never been in a car. Do I look rich to you? But I have driven a utility cart, and yes, it can be fun to drive.”
But did you want to have your arms and legs chopped off and replaced with wheels? Of course not. You are a human being, you have arms and legs. Driving a wheeled vehicle is fun, and sometimes useful, but the vehicle is not you. and you have no desire to be permanently transformed into one. Same with me. The anthropoid shape is entertaining, and has its practical uses, but I am an Odin-Class cybertank.
Vargas appraised the robot body. “So what’s the endurance on this thing?”
Not so much, it’s just got some standard civilian-grade rechargeable batteries. Maybe three days at a moderate walk, less if there is heavy lifting, weeks on standby. It’s crude and uses low-end generic parts, so I wouldn’t trust it for anything serious.
“Care to join me on a field trip? I had made an appointment to visit The Saint later on today, and I’d be happy to introduce you.”
Are you referring to Saint Globus Pallidus XI?
“Only officially sanctified Saint around here that I know of. I have some technical issues to discuss and I’ve bee
n cleared for the trip. Up for it?”
Absolutely.
Vargas and the humanoid android controlled by the Odin-Class cybertank walked over to the hangar exit. They passed one of the safety posters, and unit CRLs’ android body stopped to point at it.
I’ve been meaning to ask you. What is this sign warning about? It looks like a person being mangled by a giant carrot that is using a cheese grater.
“That’s about what I thought.”
A security guard stopped them. “I’m sorry, Dr. Vargas, sir, you are cleared to leave, but he doesn’t have an ID. If it were up to me, no problem, but the guards on the other side will never pass him. Sorry, sir.”
Vargas looked at the humanoid robot. “If you can forgive me, I could check you out as equipment. Apologies in advance.”
Not an issue. And in any event, this is not the real me, this body really is just equipment. Check away.
The guard looked even more embarrassed. “That’s fine, but, um, in that case, well, er, I am afraid that I will have to barcode you.”
--------------------
Vargas and the Odin-controlled android walked out of the external checkpoint of the hangar complex. The guards to the exterior were tougher and more professional than the ones inside the hangar. They carried real firearms and wore light body armor. At first they were not sure what to do about the android, but when they saw that it had a valid barcode and had been properly checked out they relaxed and passed them through.
Neoliberal Economists Must Die ! (An Old Guy/Cybertank Adventure Book 3) Page 6