The Forbidden City

by John McNally

  z­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­z­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­z­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­z­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­z­z­s­s­s …

  Baptiste felt every thump of his heart.

  He could no longer see. They were in his eyes. He had to let them lead him, blind.

  The bots had separated him from the twins and Carla, and he was now being escorted into the Shen Yu, frog-marched, by ten thousand bots. They covered every inch of him, thousands of needles pressing and probing, but never penetrating. If he slowed for a moment he felt resistance, felt them push him on.

  He felt pressure ripple down the left side of his body: he was being turned.

  He gave himself to them, and to the noise.

  z­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­z­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­z­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­z­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­z …

  The raft hung high in the Shen Yu Hall less than two macro metres from their goal, but Finn was fixed on events behind them.

  At the centre of the quantum computer the cluster was an intense glowing ball of orange and blue light, revolving, its surface rippling and reforming like the boiling surface of a star.

  Finn felt a sense of momentum – a sense of something unstoppable. Bots whizzed around in a frantic dance.

  zsssssooou! zsssssooou! zsssssooou!

  Finn ducked as three bots screamed past. If they’d collided, the raft would be splinters.

  “We need to land! This is crazy!” shouted Kelly above the noise.

  With no concession to comfort or power management, Stubbs angled the outboard thruster and maxed it out to propel them into a dive towards the top of the glass control booth, their landing ground, their carrier deck. If he got the angle right, they’d slide home. If he got it wrong, they’d slam into the vertical face of the glass.

  Finn crouched and gripped the cable-tie planks. The raft rattled like hell – more toboggan run than flight – buffeted by the air stirred by the bots and the fans of 3,000 cooler units.

  He could see the edge of the glass fast approaching. “PULL UP!” he screamed back.

  Stubbs, a gargoyle of determination, yelled, “HOLD FAST!” and drove the outboard thruster down hard while yanking up the resistor lever.

  The front of the raft flipped up almost vertical – Finn clinging desperately to the prow – before it flopped to settle nicely on the horizontal top of the control booth.

  Before Finn could speak again or release his grip, he heard Kelly say, “What the …?”

  Finn turned.

  z­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­z­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­z­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­z­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­s …

  There was the core. The glowing cluster above it. And beyond was a man. Or rather, a hundred thousand bots in the form of a man … glowing orange and staggering forward … a monster …

  KAPCOMM.>>QUERY>>SEE MY SON, ASK OF MY SON. WHAT IS THE WORD/?

  EVE.>>QUERY>>WHAT IS THE WORD/?

  “Say ‘Kaparis’,” Kaparis ordered Baptiste.

  He was on the edge of his iron lung with excitement, Grandma thought. She looked at Li-Jun. If Tyros could weep, she looked as if she would.

  z­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­z­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­z­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­z­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z …

  Baptiste could barely breathe such was the pressure of the bots.

  “Say ‘Kaparis’!” demanded the voice of his master through the audio device embedded behind his ear.

  Baptiste took a mighty breath and yelled, “KAPARIS!”

  KAPCOMM.>>QUERY>>ASK OF MY SON. WHAT IS THE NUMBER OF KAPARIS/?

  EVE.>>QUERY>>WHAT IS THE NUMBER OF KAPARIS/?

  “ONE!” Baptiste shouted.

  EVE. saw the son and heard the word and knew the number, and thought: “I have found The Answer to The Question. The Answer is Kaparis.”

  z­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­z­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­z­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­z­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z­s­s­s­z …

  Finn heard the yell, then watched the glowing monster. The cluster seemed to expand. Bots slowed their mad orbit and started leaping and chasing like dolphins.

  “I think something weird’s happening,” said Finn.

  “Set up the gun!” snapped Kelly who, with Stubbs, was shaping and placing a charge of C4 plastic explosive against the glass top.

  Finn grabbed the heavy Minimi, hit the catch to release the tripod and lay flat on the glass, with the butt on his shoulder, looking down the sight.

  The glowing man, the abominable digital snowman, was changing and distorting as the bots fled from him … and a more familiar form emerged.

  “Uh-oh,” said Finn. “I know this one!”

  “Fire in the hold!” yelled Kelly, hurrying away from where he’d placed the C4 charge.

  BOOM!

  KAPCOMM.>>EVE.>> – YOU ARE UNDER ATTACK FROM ENEMY = RED ARMY: SECTORS 2-9. DEFEND. PROTECT EVE. PROTECT KAPARIS’S SON AND DAUGHTERS (3) – LOCATION 12DSA76/39GHHH84. ATTACK RED ARMY.

  EVE.>>ALLBOTS ORDER>>DEFEND ALLBOTS. DEFEND EVE. DEFEND KAPARIS’S SON AND DAUGHTERS (3) – LOCATION 12DSA76/39GHHH84. >>ATTACK INCOMING >>RED ARMY – LOCATIONS RED ARMY: SECTORS 2-9 …

  Baptiste blinked and breathed free air as fifty thousand bots released him. His eyes adjusted to the light and he beheld the sight of the cluster. He was momentarily overwhelmed with sensations of awe no Tyro could understand, but, with no soul to connect to, they just as quickly died.

  “You’re under attack by the Red Army!” said the voice in his ear. “Get to the others!”

  Baptiste ran out, following a starlit stream of nano-bots pouring out of the hall.

  BANG! BANG! BANG!

  The shots were so loud above her, Carla tried to press herself into the floor.

  BANG!

  They had emerged from the stinking drains and taken cover in the lobby of the nearest building. When she’d seen the soldiers she’d tried to cry out but Scar and Spike had forced her down and started firing, silver automatic pistols massive in their hands.

  BANG! BANG!

  Carla felt the terrible force of returned fire tear through the reception desk above her. “I must survive, I must live …” she told herself, over and over.

  Then, from somewhere outside, she began to hear the screams of men.

  She realised the firing had stopped and heard Scar gasp. Was she hit? Carla told herself not to look up. But she had to.

  And suddenly the night air was full of the most extraordinary golden sparkles.

  “All Red Army units coming under bot attack!” Bo translated as he listened carefully to the headset feeds from his platoon commanders.

  They could hear screaming over the soldiers’ radio feeds.

  Bo’s face was pure steel. “Casualties,” he reported.

  Delta watched the infrared outline of her little sister crouched at the centre of it all, until the drone sending them the images was attacked and destroyed too.

  “Fall back to prepared positions!” ordered Bo.

  “They’re retreating, Master.”

  “Good … You have done well, Li Jun.”

  Grandma watched her. She seemed to give the smallest sad shiver. It was all Grandma needed.

  Proof there was a girl in there somewhere.

  “Now let us hunt our escaped prisoners down,” said Kaparis.

  et’s go!” Kelly shouted to Finn as he lowered the
grey ‘brain box’ from the Frankenstein bot down to the desktop.

  The C4 blast had opened up a crack in the sheet of glass that topped the booth, with a crack gouged out just large enough for Finn and Stubbs to squeeze through.

  There was a two macro-metre drop down on to the desktop below, at the end of which lay a keyboard and screen. There was also a plastic bag and the abandoned remains of a sandwich. What more could they possibly want?

  Finn had lowered himself down on a line of wiring culled from the bots, carefully at first, then SWAT team fast. Stubbs had followed, gingerly.

  Finn untied the brain box.

  Kelly and the brainless Frankenstein bot remained up top.

  At the keyboard Stubbs was already at work with a knife, stripping the plastic sheaf around the cable that led out to the giant monitor, exposing the wires.

  Shen Yu data and Chinese characters ran on the screen, warnings flashing red.

  “Bring me the brain of the monster,” ordered Stubbs in a grizzly tone and Finn handed him Frankenstein’s brain box. Stubbs cut four of the keyboard wires and set about connecting the brain up.

  “All the same scale, of course, at the molecular level. Marvellous really,” he said wistfully. Finally he took out the keypad of his shattered nPhone and attached that.

  Using the crude alpha numeric keypad he interrupted the flow of data and called up a new window. Program script flooded the huge screen.

  “Come to Uncle Leonard …” Stubbs muttered.

  “Are you taking it over?” asked Finn.

  “Just whispering in its ear,” said Stubbs, reading the lines of code in a trance and making minute adjustments.

  “What are you whispering?” Finn asked.

  “‘Blow up at noon – pass it on,’” Stubbs whispered back. “It’s just gone five. That should give Frankenstein at least six hours to spread the word to every single bot. And if that’s not long enough … we’re all doomed.”

  Finn grabbed a handful of sandwich and wolfed it down, just to fill his stomach. As he did he saw something move through the glass, out in the hall.

  Baptiste.

  He was back; others too.

  Up top Kelly already knew. “Tyros!” he shouted down.

  The bots were flowing back in as well, dispersing across the hall.

  Splat! Something hit the outside of the booth. Finn turned and looked. A bot looked back, crude eyepad fixed on him. Immediately it flew off to find allies, to slap antennae and spread the word.

  Finn stepped back. “Kelly!” he yelled, pointing at the glass – Splat! Splat! Splat!

  More bots, same place, wriggling against the glass, trying to cut a way through. Splat! Splat! Splat! Splat! – more and more – hitting the glass, the orange pin lights in their guts a chain of deadly fairy lights. Kelly ran to the edge and threw himself flat to look down the vertical face of the booth.

  In a single move the bots dispersed and started systematically zipping back and forth over every inch of the glass to find a way in – more flying in to join them all the time. Finn looked up and shouted, “RUN!”

  Kelly ran to the raft and hauled it across the surface towards the blast fissure. He jumped into the hole and pulled the raft after himself for cover, but the movement was spotted.

  ZWOOOOSHSHHHHH! ZWOOOOSHSHHHHH!

  A pair of rail guns fired at the raft, clipping it and making it jump up above Kelly, but, luckily, its plastic planks fell back over the hole. He waited as half a dozen bots tacked across the top of the booth, eyes down, minutely inspecting it, finding the crack.

  “Kid! You’ve got to distract them!” shouted Kelly.

  Finn ran right up to the glass and waved like a mad thing. “HERE! I’M OVER HERE!”

  Bots zeroed back in – Splat! Splat! Splat! Splat! Splat! Splat! Splat! Splat! Splat!

  He stepped back, such was their aggression, such was the twitching of their devilish claws as they tried to bite their way through the glass. POP! – one exploded as it fired its rail gun at point blank range against the toughened surface – POP! POP! Others followed suit in comic fashion, but they were continually replaced with more bots on the frontline, until there was a writhing multi-coloured mass which Finn could do nothing but regard with awe. Surely it would only be a matter of moments before the glass gave way …

  “Stubbs! How long?” Kelly yelled down.

  “Shan’t be a moment …” muttered Stubbs before the massive monitor. All he had to do was finish a last line of program code and then everything would be—

  DRRRRRRROOWWWOOOOWWW …

  The monitor died.

  Everything died.

  The last drop of diesel in the generator had burned, the last piston had fired, the last amp had been created and, in an instant, the entire Shen Yu Hall was plunged into sudden, bot-hissing darkness.

  zssssszssszsssssszssszszzssszssssszssszsszssssszssszsssssszssszszzssszsssss …

  Every dot of LED light, every whirring cooler fan, every relay and switch and every digital process had ceased.

  Dead.

  “Codfish …” said Stubbs, staring at the blank monitor.

  Only the dull sparks of the writhing bots lit the booth.

  “WHAT DID YOU DO?!” yelled Kelly from on high.

  “Did you finish the coding?” Finn asked.

  “I got the last line of script in. But I don’t know if I hit Return in time …”

  Deep inside the cluster, EVE. detected the loss of power. Before she could think what to do an ‘instinct’ seized her – her first – a sensation so new and powerful she obeyed it immediately –

  <> POWER MANAGEMENT OVERRIDE >>SURVIVE MODE.

  EVE. did not have to question the instinct because it made absolute sense. It was the most simple answer, therefore the best. She must survive.

  EVE.>>ALLBOTS ORDER>>POWER MANAGEMENT OVERRIDE >>SUSPEND ORDERS>>SURVIVE MODE.

  EVE.>>ALL SCOUTBOTS ORDER>>SEEK/FIND POWER>>URGENT.

  “Kelly! Something’s happening!” Finn shouted.

  Kelly up top, mind atomising the alternatives, looked down.

  The bots, massed against the glass, had stopped writhing and were drifting away, heading back across the hall towards the cluster.

  “It must be something to do with the energy,” said Stubbs below. “They’re spooked.”

  DAY FIVE 5:56 (Local GMT+8). Song Island, Taiwan (disputed).

  KAPCOMMS>>EVE. KAPARIS ORDER>>RESUME TASK HUNTER>> REPEAT>> RESUME TASK HUNTER>>

  There was no response from EVE.

  “It must be the damaged quantum circuits. She’s choosing to revert to a hardwired survival profile.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” said Kaparis.

  “EVE. is choosing to save power, she’s choosing life …” Li Jun almost whispered.

  Kaparis looked at the blurred images of Infinity Drake they’d just recorded.

  “We had them! We had them in our hands! FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY YOU SNATCH … NOTHING!”

  There was a pause while Kaparis recovered, staring at the image of Finn.

  His head became very still, then his eyes flicked a preset order.

  Hans the goon soon appeared.

  “Her,” Kaparis growled.

  Hans walked round to collect Li Jun once again.

  “I suggest you calm down,” said Grandma, as calmly as her own voice would allow.

  Kaparis said nothing and, with another flick of his optics, ordered a door to open in the side of the chamber. The chamber was positioned near the top of the island. The doorway led to a sheer drop to rocks far below.

  “Right! I’ve had just about enough!” said Grandma and threw her knitting across the chamber at the side of the iron lung – BONG.

  “Madam,” Kaparis spat, “if you don’t mind, this is my tantrum!”

  Heywood forced Grandma roughly back down into her seat.

  Kaparis had reached his limit. EVE., Grandma, Li Jun, the Salazar girl … he was plagued by a m
onstrous regiment of women. He would rid himself of them one by one.

  Hans pulled Li Jun to the open door, to the mouth of the abyss, shoving her forward to the very edge of the drop, into the very first light of dawn, light that kissed Li Jun as she hung over the drop, as she all but tasted death. Something snapped inside her and she began to struggle and scream and fight like a cat on the precipice.

  Kaparis, surprised, began to gurgle in enjoyment.

  Spurred on by Li Jun’s example, Grandma kicked Heywood in the shin so hard he screamed loud enough to momentarily break the spell.

  “You bring us here to admire you and all you can do is frighten a little girl for goodness’ sake? Who do you think you are? God almighty?”

  Kaparis paused.

  Not because he didn’t want to yell, “Yes! Yes, I am!” out of sheer frustration, but because he’d just noticed something.

  Dawn, thought Kaparis, mind twitching. Light … the way the light played through Li Jun’s hair …

  “STOP! Hans, leave her. Li Jun! Call up the blueprints of every building in the Forbidden City – NOW.”

  DAY FIVE 06:01 (Local GMT+8). The Forbidden City, Shanghai. Nano-Botmass:*12,873,589

  11,872,434 bots were in sleep mode with only newly created yellow XE.CUTE bots and some SCOUT bots fully functional. Daisy chains of them flew out from the cluster searching for a new source of power, bot flying to bot – touching antennae and passing the precious power stored in the cluster along the line.

  EVE. measured the remaining power at 5.56 kilowatts. When it fell below 4 kilowatts most of the SCOUT bots would have to be recalled and put to sleep as well.

  KAPCOMMS had bombarded her with new commands but the >>POWER MANAGEMENT OVERRIDE instinct was still in force. Every other command was suspended.

  Finn was first back up.

  He scrambled up over the broken glass lip, the brain box tethered to his leg. He pulled it through after him and unhitched himself. “Clear!” he shouted down to Stubbs.