A.I. Battle Station (The A.I. Series Book 4)

by Vaughn Heppner

  “No problem,” Walleye said.

  A slim individual appeared from behind the hatch. The individual raised an eyebrow upon seeing Walleye. The operative wore a red patch on her uniform, indicating she was in the Intelligence branch.

  “Lieutenant Walleye?” the operative asked.

  “That’s me.”

  “Would you open your coat, sir?”

  “Not a problem,” Walleye said. He unbuttoned the buff coat and opened it as if he were a flasher.

  The operative patted him down and even felt the coat. She paused for a moment. It appeared as if she felt something in the coat.

  The operative glanced sharply at Walleye.

  The mutant didn’t change expression.

  “What’s this?” the operative finally asked.

  “A stick,” Walleye said.

  “Hidden inside your coat?”

  “Would you like to see it?”

  The operative made a signal that most wouldn’t have noticed. Walleye noticed, of course. He also noticed the sentry put a meaty paw on the butt of his sidearm. The marine appeared to be a quick-draw artist.

  Walleye approved, but he felt there should have been more security… Ah. He noticed two other sentries standing inside the hatch.

  With his small hands, Walleye unzipped an inner pocket and withdrew a seven-inch stick. He handed the slightly heavier-than-normal stick to the Intelligence operative.

  The woman turned it over in her hands. She seemed perplexed.

  “What’s it do?” the operative asked.

  “Remind me of Earth.”

  The operative’s head snapped up as she scowled at Walleye.

  “That a joke?” the operative asked.

  “Not to me. I grew up—”

  “I know exactly where you grew up. On Makemake. You’ve never been to Earth. Your parents never lived on Earth and neither did your grandparents or your great-great grandparents.”

  “You’re well briefed.”

  The operative waved the stick under Walleye’s nose.

  “This doesn’t remind you of Earth,” the operative said. “You’re a killer. This is a weapon.”

  “Right,” Walleye said. “I can use it to poke out an eye.”

  “Why was it hidden inside your coat?”

  “You don’t have any lucky mementos?”

  The operative tapped her teeth together as she studied Walleye. When that seemed to have no effect, she reexamined the stick.

  “I can’t find a switch to this thing,” the operative said.

  “Imagine that,” Walleye said. “A stick from the Black Forest in Old Germany has no other use than sentimentality. I’ll have to ask for a refund.”

  “Is that a joke?”

  “Apparently not,” Walleye said. He held out his left hand.

  The operative slapped the stick into the palm and jerked a thumb over her shoulder.

  “Just doing my job, sir,’” the operative said.

  “I have no problem with that,” Walleye said. He stuffed the stick back into the inner pocket and zipped the pocket shut.

  Walleye wasn’t surprised that the Intelligence operative hadn’t been able to find the stick’s trigger. Walleye had devised the weapon himself. It had more heft than it should. That was because a specially treated stone sliver rested in the middle of the stick. If he pressed the stick correctly, the thin sliver of stone would pop up like a switchblade, giving him a stiletto, a stabbing weapon.

  That meant this wasn’t much of a weapon. It was an assassin’s tool, meant for a surprise attack. Walleye had used it before, walking up behind a target in a crowd. He’d stabbed the target from behind, the sliver of stone punching through skin to puncture the target’s heart. That time, he’d coated the tip with poison.

  As a rule, Walleye disapproved of poison. There were too many variables to trust poison to kill a target quickly or certainly enough. Still, in a pinch, Walleye used poison if other options proved too narrow.

  That was the problem with Hawkins’ increased security. A practiced poisoner could use all sorts of subtle approaches to kill his mark. For instance, Walleye’s fingernails were specially hardened with a lacquer and sharpened to a razor’s edge. He had a fun slash-trick he could perform, making it seem like an attack by a great cat. If he envenomed the edge of his fingernails…

  Walleye buttoned his buff coat as he headed for the conference chamber. The stick had one other purpose. It kept the searcher from finding the more valuable weapon hidden behind the stick.

  Not that Walleye planned anything deadly. He wasn’t an assassin for hire anymore. The old life had died when the robots invaded Makemake. He’d paid a bitter price for their invasion. He didn’t hate the robots for that, though. That wasn’t Walleye’s way. But he certainly didn’t care for them, and he approved of the plan of finding and eliminating them. He had first-hand experience with robot arrogance. The AI machines believed that mankind was dirt beneath their chrome heels, made for stamping.

  Walleye did not like getting stomped. The best way to make sure no one stomped you, was to stomp them first. To him, that’s what this mission was about. They needed to find ways to stomp out the AI menace…forever.

  -18-

  Walleye thought the conference meeting took too long. He was having a hard time keeping from yawning by the end. He wasn’t particularly tired, just bored by some of the arguments among the various frigate and destroyer captains.

  Hawkins let them argue. Maybe the commander liked hearing different opinions strongly reasoned against others. Maybe Hawkins didn’t really know what they would do once the Nathan Graham dropped out of hyperspace. The commander wanted to hear ideas until he found a good one. He’d told the assembled captains the mentalist’s suggestions. And the captains had listened to the giant Sacerdote opine. Now—

  Hawkins stood up, raising a hand.

  Voices dwindled until only two captains were still arguing. Finally, one of the other captains elbowed a talker in the side. That got both arguers’ attention.

  At that point, something odd occurred. The hatch slid up and a marine sentry with a knife sticking in his throat back-pedaled into the chamber. He struck the conference table with his back, gurgled and slid almost bonelessly to the floor. There, he twitched and spasmed.

  A hollow-eyed man followed the sentry into the chamber. He stank like carrion, as if he were carrying something rotten on him. The jerky way the man moved—

  A shock of recognition struck Walleye. He’d seen people move like that before on Makemake. Those persons had walked eerily like puppets because they had AI conversion units embedded in their brains.

  Walleye’s thoughts moved at hyper-assassin-speed. He got it. The gunman had taken the pistol from the sentry and killed the man, forcing his way into the conference room.

  One of the captains had more courage than the rest. He charged the gunman. The gun boomed, obliterating the charging man’s face, knocking the man onto the floor.

  Most everyone froze. Surprise had a way of doing that.

  “Jon Hawkins,” the gunman said in a robotic-sounding voice.

  Hawkins stood at the head of the table. Hawkins seemed just as surprised as everyone else.

  For Walleye, time seemed to slow down. It seemed as if he watched the gun reposition, the finger twitch and the trigger move back. The big marine gun bucked in the shooter’s hand. The bullet—

  Hawkins tried to duck. The bullet slammed against one of Hawkins’ shoulders, spinning the commander onto the floor and out of sight behind the table.

  The gunman began striding for the head of the table. Another captain moved in his way, grabbing the gunman.

  The gunman put the barrel of the gun against the captain’s head and boom—gore and bone flew like a fountain from the back of the captain’s head.

  The dead captain dropped to the floor.

  At that point, captains and others began shouting in fear. Most shrank away from the shooter. A few leaped over the table
to get away from him.

  Walleye made himself seem even smaller as the gunman lurched crazily toward him. As the intent gunman passed Walleye, the former assassin reached into his buff coat, grabbed the stick and squeezed it so the rock-like seven-inch pick appeared.

  The gunman used his free hand to swat at Walleye. The mutant ducked the backhand blow, moved in behind the attacker and stabbed the stone pick into the kidney.

  The gunman should have howled in pain and doubled over in agony. Instead, the gunman snarled, twisted around and lowered the gun so the barrel pointed at Walleye’s big head—

  Walleye dropped as the gun boomed. The bullet missed, smashing a chair instead. Walleye lay on the floor, and the weird gunman ignored him now as he resumed his march toward Hawkins’ position.

  As silently as he could, Walleye scrambled to his feet, ripped a single-shot derringer from a specially hidden location on his chest and debated in that microsecond on the best place to shoot.

  It was possible the robot-controlled human did not have a vital spot in the normally accepted manner. The man might already be dead—the reason he stank. Could the robot device—

  Walleye fired. The bullet struck the gunman in the back of the head. The bullet smashed through skull bone and struck something glitteringly metallic embedded in the brain.

  The gunman halted, swayed crazily and spun around. The gun rose until it pointed at Walleye.

  Hawkins emerged from hiding. Despite the shoulder wound, he began to fire one shot after another. Clearly, the commander had a gun. The bullets riddled the gunman. The human even staggered several times as blood gushed from wounds.

  In an even weirder display, the gunman jerkily turned toward Hawkins—

  “Shoot him in the eyes, in the forehead,” Walleye shouted. “There’s a robotic unit controlling him.”

  Even though his face was twisted with pain, Hawkins aimed and fired. He must have done something right. The gunman dropped his weapon, staggered back and thumped against a bulkhead. He still did not go down, though.

  The gunman opened his mouth, tried to speak, and finally the body knifed forward and hit the deck face-first with a thud.

  At that point, the hatch to the conference chamber slid up and several armed marines charged inside.

  Everyone watched them as the marines surrounded the twitching, bloody body.

  “Look,” one of the marines said in a hushed voice. “There’s something sparking in his head. What is that?”

  “A control unit,” Walleye said.

  Everyone stared at the mutant with a derringer in his stubby hand.

  Then Gloria Sanchez entered the room at a run. She looked around swiftly, seemingly taking in everything at a glance. A second later, she began to issue orders.

  -19-

  Walleye found himself in detention. At the mentalist’s orders, marines had taken his derringer, the stone pick-knife and his buff coat. An Intelligence officer had frisked him thoroughly. They’d found a few other knick-knacks. What none of them had discovered were his lacquered, sharpened fingernails.

  The fingernails weren’t particularly dangerous at the moment. He could cut some substances with them, but very shallowly. They were only really deadly if coated with poison.

  Walleye was glad he hadn’t had to explain the fingernails. He wasn’t sure any of them would have understood.

  He was an assassin by trade. Old habits died hard, that’s all.

  The hatch to the cell opened. The mentalist entered. She came alone.

  That stunned Walleye. Then he thought he got it. He was short, only a little taller than the Martian. That was one of his specialties. He seemed harmless. He wasn’t big and strong like a marine. But didn’t they realize he was the only one other than Hawkins that had done a thing to stop the robot-controlled human?

  “In case you’re wondering,” Gloria said, as she pulled out a chair, sitting down across from him. “Two marines are watching you from murder holes. One of them has a laser rifle fixed on you. If you should do anything unbecoming…”

  Walleye shook his head.

  She canted hers questioningly.

  “What does your head shake mean?” she asked.

  “You shouldn’t have told me about the sniper laser,” he said.

  She frowned, her mentalist brain attempting to come to the logical reason for his statement.

  She looked up at him.

  “If you know a laser is trained on you,” she said. “You now know to duck first before you attack.”

  Walleye said nothing.

  “Is that correct?” she asked.

  “There’s no other reason why it would be a bad idea,” he said.

  She stared at him as if he were a unique insect.

  Walleye found that slightly daunting, which was unusual. Little daunted him. The extreme intelligence in her gaze actually gave him pause.

  “Do you understand why you’re in detention?” she asked.

  “I had weapons,” he said.

  “They were illegal weapons.”

  Walleye said nothing.

  “Why do you carry a single-shot derringer?” she asked.

  “Are you serious?” he asked.

  “Please, just answer the question.”

  “It’s for emergencies.”

  Her head canted the other way.

  “What made you suspect there would be an emergency today?” she asked.

  “Black swans,” he said.

  She gave him that look again.

  “There are no black swans in existence, only white ones,” she said.

  “How many black swans would it take to make your statement false?”

  She thought about that. “One,” she said.

  “There’s your answer.”

  “Walleye—”

  He sighed.

  “A black swan is a surprising event,” he said. “It is the one thing you don’t anticipate. Sometimes, a surprise event can be terribly deadly. Today would be a good example. Since I had the derringer, I could put a bullet in the thing’s head. That saved the commander’s life…among other things.”

  “You also had a stiletto.”

  “Yes.”

  She stared at him.

  “I stabbed him in the kidney,” Walleye said. “He barely reacted. I think he might have already been dead. Well, I thought that until I saw him bleed. The control unit likely dampened any pain sensations. That allowed him, or it, to do things—”

  “I’m not interested in any of that,” Gloria said, interrupting. “I want to know why you think you can flout our regulations without consequences.”

  “Habit,” he said.

  She stared at him harder.

  “I used to be a hitman on Makemake.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “I know. I wanted to keep it that way.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “I calculated that my being a hitman might make me seem less trustworthy to you people.”

  “That you didn’t tell us beforehand is what makes you seem less trustworthy.”

  Walleye shook his head.

  “I’m going to have call bullshit on that,” he said. “You don’t like me because I came armed to the captain’s meeting. In case you don’t know, it’s always good to carry arms where you’re not supposed to. That’s often the most dangerous place to be. The thing likely chose the conference room because it calculated we’d all be unarmed, easy prey for it.”

  “You’re pretty proud of yourself, aren’t you?”

  “I’m a realist,” Walleye said.

  “Is that why you’re so good at pretending you’re not scared, despite being in detention?”

  Walleye didn’t answer that one.

  “The Centurion believes we should have you shot,” Gloria said.

  “What does Jon Hawkins think?”

  “I imagine you believe Jon is grateful for what you did for him.”

  “That’s how I’d feel about me if I were in h
is shoes,” Walleye said.

  Gloria’s eyes narrowed. “I have altered my opinion about you. You’re dangerous.”

  “Good thing we’re all on the same side then.”

  “Are you on our side?”

  Walleye displayed his teeth in what might have been a smile.

  “I’ve proven my loyalty on several occasions,” he said. “I want Commander Hawkins to succeed. He’s a doer, an attacker. I like that. I’ve studied him—”

  “Why study him?” Gloria asked sharply.

  “Pure admiration on my part,” Walleye said.

  The mentalist pursed her lips as her eyes narrowed once more. She seemed to calculate, to gauge—

  “I have come to a decision,” she said.

  Walleye nodded.

  “I’m going to suggest we put you under house arrest for a time,” she said.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “You’ll be confined to your quarters until further notice. If you leave your quarters for any reason—I think that would prove the Centurion correct about what to do with you.”

  “That sounds extreme considering what I did to save the commander’s life.”

  “Maybe,” she said in a clipped manner.

  Walleye realized with a jolt that she was testing him in some manner.

  “Do you agree to the confinement and the stipulation?” she asked.

  “I do,” he said.

  The mentalist studied him a moment longer. She stood abruptly, faced the hatch and snapped her fingers.

  The hatch opened, revealing three big marines standing outside.

  “They’ll escort you to your quarters,” the mentalist said without turning around to glance at Walleye.

  “Great,” Walleye said. “Let’s go.”

  She turned then, regarding him.

  “This is a serious matter,” she said.

  Walleye nodded, waiting.

  Did he see disquiet in her eyes? Or was that disappointment? Walleye didn’t know. When he didn’t know something, he liked to play it out, give it rope so he could see which way the rope stretched.

  Without another word, the mentalist walked out of the cell. She moved past the big marines, and was gone.