“No, that’s the problem. Following your demolition procedure, almost all were. SWAT teams blew their heads off, then used shaped charges on the chests. But a number of them avoided capture. Others use that brain escape mechanism to get away. And some are probably still in place because they were alone when the signal was sent. Nobody saw their arms go up. And there’s something even more worrisome.”
“That’s hard to believe,” said Blake.
“There’s one instance just reported where a robot had its arm raised, and then it lowered.”
“So?” asked Blake.
“Shit!” Declared both Mencken and Garry simultaneously.
Mencken explained: “That means somehow the arm signal got programmed out of the skills algorithm. Some programmer—”
“Hell, it was Ainsley,” interrupted Garry. “I’m sure he found the code and deleted it. That means we’ve got no more signal. We can’t detect replicas.”
“That tears it,” said Patrick. “Captain, we’ll need a full-scale assault on the factory.”
Casem began contacting other National Guard units and passing orders to his own. “We’ll be at battalion strength,” he said to Patrick. “My colonel has given the okay.”
“We’ll have really big bang-bang, eh?” said Blake, grinning and testing the movement in his bandaged arm.
• • •
“Nothing,” said Patrick, shaking his head in puzzlement.
He peered across wide open lawn from their position on the road skirting the sprawling, windowless building complex that housed the Helpers, Inc. factory, R&D lab, and master computer. He could detect no movement at all.
The SEALs had arrayed themselves around the complex, each one embedded with a National Guard platoon. Captain Casem had given Patrick operational command because of the SEALs’ experience with the neuromorphs.
“Nobody home, it looks like,” said Blake over their comm line.
“Yeah, we know what that means,” said Flash Cranston.
“That means they’re waiting for us,” said Patrick.
“So, let’s not disappoint them,” said Cranston, ever eager to be the first through the door.
“No breaching yet, Flash,” ordered Patrick.
“Yeah, all right, Cap,” said Cranston morosely. Patrick could see him making his best disappointed face and hunkering down behind the Stryker armored vehicle, ready for whatever order came next.
“Goddamn, Flash, you put on a TALOS, you think you’re fuckin’ invincible,” cracked Blake.
“Yeah, near about,” agreed Cranston.
The SEALs and Guardsmen now wore Tactical Assault Light Operator Suits—powered, armored suits that were common issue for SEAL team operations. The TALOS-garbed men could have easily used their power to tear through the steel building walls. Or, the walls could have been breached by any of the dozen Strykers. But there was a problem, which Patrick emphasized.
“First of all, there are people in there . . . maybe hostages . . . maybe Leah,” he said. He had stationed himself and his platoon across from the main entrance. “Second, we need the master computer operational, at least until Garry can figure out what’s going on with the software. And until Mencken can assess the hardware.”
Behind him crouched Garry and Mencken, both fidgeting uneasily at the prospect of being in a firefight.
“I know what the ‘morphs’ defenses were when I left,” said Mencken. “But they may well have added new capabilities, using the human engineers.”
“And reprogrammed,” added Garry.
“Captain Casem, looks like we’ll be doing a tactical assault,” said Patrick to Casem, who stood beside him. “Seven teams taking the objective from seven directions.”
“Yeah, we’re in sync,” said Casem. “You’ve got a go.”
“Okay,” said Patrick, relaying the plan to his team. He dispatched Pitbull, to personally brief each team, to make sure they had the right ordnance and technique to precisely breach the walls or doors without damaging the building interior.
“Cap, I’m not liking this,” said Blake over the comm, from his position with his platoon on the other side of the building. “The natives are not restless. Still no sign at all from the building. Do we have the right address?”
“Yeah, but we haven’t knocked yet,” said Patrick. “Captain, your men ready?”
“I’ll do a final check,” said Casem, ducking into his armored command vehicle to check on the data coming in from his troops’ exosuits, and the surveillance from attack drones overhead. Satisfied, he emerged and gave Patrick a thumbs-up, moving back inside to continue monitoring.
On Patrick’s command, six of the teams rushed across the multi-acre field toward the building, set the breaching charges, and slid back along the walls to be clear of the blasts. Patrick led the seventh to the glass-fronted entrance, leveling their assault rifles, prepared to shatter the glass to gain entry.
Six precisely coordinated blasts thundered from around the building, ripping six gaping holes in the walls. At the same time, Patrick and his platoon loosed a fusillade of fire at the entrance, reducing the glass wall to a pile of glittering shards.
All seven groups, their weapons on full automatic, prepared to battle their way into the building against whatever neuromorphs had been arrayed against them. But the plan suddenly changed.
The command vehicle containing Casem erupted in an ear-shattering explosion, large chunks of smoking armor arcing into the air. Three other armored carriers suffered the same fiery fate, the men beside them blasted away like limp, broken dolls. Some remained whole; others were torn apart into limbs and torsos, each arcing away on a different trajectory.
From over a nearby hill came a looming six-legged Arachnimorph Defender, launching three more of its missiles at the Strykers, shattering them into charred wreckage. The Defender then unleashed a withering burst of rounds from its chain gun, shredding into unrecognizable bloody flesh the soldiers who had fled the vehicles’ destruction.
Curses and screams filled the comm line as men died and vehicles were reduced to smoldering piles of metal.
“INTO THE BUILDING!” bellowed Patrick, as they heard the characteristic chop of an Aeromorph’s rotors overhead, its own guns taking out the Guard drones, sending them spiraling to earth. With a whoosh, it launched one of its missiles, the explosion reducing yet another Stryker to rubble.
“WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?” he heard Blake yell over the comm line. “I THOUGHT THESE FUCKERS COULDN’T JOIN THE ‘MORPHS!”
As the billowing smoke brought the stench of scorched vehicles and dead men, a quieter, cold answer came back over the comm.
“Apparently, somehow they did,” said Mencken.
Crouching in the scant shelter of the entrance, Patrick and the Guard soldiers fired at the marauding Arachnimorph, which stalked through the ruins of what had been three companies of soldiers and vehicles. Periodically, it would stop, aim its guns at a wounded soldier, and kill him.
“We only got popguns compared to that thing,” said Blake over the comm line.
“Yeah,” agreed Patrick. “Deploy a Gatling.”
“On its way, Cap,” said James.
He and Harmon appeared at the corner of the building, with James hefting the ponderous six-barreled Gatling and Harmon hauling a crate of ammunition. They reached the smoldering ruin of a Stryker and set up the Gatling, Harmon snapping the ammunition belt into its chamber.
“Aim it and get the hell out!” commanded Patrick, as the Arachnimorph turned toward the building. Its cameras scanned back and forth to identify targets. Abruptly, it swung its armored body around, aiming its guns at the entrance.
“Bet your ass we’re out, Cap!” exclaimed James. He aimed the Gatling at the Arachnimorph and switched on its targeting computer. The gun’s camera emitted a rapid train of beeps, followed by a steady tone, as it registered the Arachnimorph as a target. Its barrel began to track the giant war machine as it strode across the ruined landscape toward the building ent
rance.
James set a short time-delay, pulled the trigger, and he and Harmon raced away, just as the Arachnimorph abruptly halted and switched its attention, bringing one of its Gatlings to bear on the fleeing SEALs.
But before it could fire, the SEALs’ own Gatling erupted to life with the loud metallic whirr of a hundred depleted uranium bullets spewing from its rotating barrels. They slammed into the Arachnimorph, sending it staggering back under the onslaught. Then it recovered and leaned into the hurricane of slugs.
“Slowed it, but not killed it,” declared James from the shelter of the building’s corner.
“How the hell is that thing even here?” asked Patrick. “The Helper neuromorphs aren’t supposed to be connected with the Defenders.”
“Uh . . .” he heard Garry from behind him. “. . . I think I can find out. I can contact one of the Defender programmers.”
“Do it.”
Garry retreated into the depths of the building and slipped on his googles to make a call.
After an excruciatingly long wait, a voice answered. It was Al Felton, the Defender programming director.
“Felton,” he said tersely.
“Al, this is Garry LaPoint. Remember, I came out to see if we could get the skills algorithm for the new Helper line?”
“Yeah, and the answer is still no.”
An explosion shook the building, perhaps another missile from the Aeromorph.
“What was that?” asked Felton.
“Are you missing some Defenders?” asked Garry. “An Arachnimorph, an Aeromorph?”
“Well, there’s a live-fire exercise going on today. Those units, plus a squad of Infilmorphs are deployed. So?”
“Listen, Al, you’re not going to believe it, but they’re attacking us at the Helpers factory. Killing people. Blowing stuff up.”
“What the hell? That’s not possible!”
“Yeah, well, it is. The Arachnimorph blew the shit out of vehicles and soldiers! And the Aeromorph is launching missiles at us.”
“Ohhhhhhh, shit,” he heard Felton mutter.
“What?”
“Well, Melvin Blount and a new guy came in to oversee the exercise. He was from the top administration. They had the CEO’s authority. The new guy was named Landers. Just a minute.”
“Shit-shit-shit,” whispered Garry to himself. He called to Patrick. “Somehow Blount and Landers got themselves into the Defenders control facility.”
“Keep working on stopping them,” said Patrick. “We’re in deeper shit now.”
Outside, the Arachnimorph had taken damage from the Gatling gun, its armored skin pockmarked, and with three of its cameras now smoking holes in its hull. But it had recovered enough to fire a missile at the SEALs Gatling, blasting it into useless junk.
“Cap, we need the ME12s,” Patrick heard Cranston shout over the comm. “We need to cripple the motherfucker.”
“They’re in the truck,” said Patrick. “We can’t—”
“Gotcha, Cap, I’m gone, baby, gone!”
“Flash, goddammit—” began Patrick. But Cranston had already launched himself into a dash for their munitions truck. He leaped from the safety of the building and with his characteristic gangly stride, sprinted toward the vehicle, which had been parked far enough from the Strykers not to have been destroyed.
“Goddamnit, Flash!” repeated Patrick. By now it was too late. One of the cameras on the Arachnimorph picked up the movement, and its Gatling was already swiveling toward the running Cranston.
“Draw fire!” commanded Patrick, and the SEALs and remaining soldiers leaped from their cover in the building and began peppering the Arachnimorph with their assault rifles. Overhead, another whoosh marked the launch of a missile from the Aeromorph, and it blasted a crater right behind the running Cranston.
He reached the truck and plunged inside.
The Aeromorph hovered overhead, preparing to launch another missile. But it erupted and careened downward, crashing in flames.
“Don’t you just love these little gadgets!” Patrick heard James exclaim. He had managed to target the Aeromorph with a mini-Stinger missile, giving Cranston a brief reprieve.
The Arachnimorph turned to face the gunfire, momentarily distracted from its concentration on Cranston.
He used that time to haul out a green metal trunk and flip it open, pulling out six disk-shaped metal Mobile Explosive charges. One by one, he grabbed a charge, flicked a switch to aim its laser target, and sailed it as far as he could away from the truck.
As each charge landed, it unrolled from a disk into a snake-like robot that reared its head and zeroed in on the target point on the Arachnimorph it had been designated to. Each began slithering rapidly toward that target, across the asphalt of the parking lot, over the wreckage of the ruined vehicles, and even over the inert bodies of the dead soldiers.
Cranston managed to launch all the MEs before the Arachnimorph returned its attention to him. He dove for the cover of the truck, but it was too late. In an instant, the Arachnimorph had trained a chain gun on him and fired. Keshawn “Flash” Cranston died instantly from a hail of bullets shredding his body, which collapsed in a lifeless heap.
Patrick fell to his knees, watching the horrific scene through welling tears, as the SEALs spewed curses over the comm.
He took three deep breaths, his SEAL training taking over, remembering the mission and the lives that depended on him. He let his rage drive him. The Arachnimorph again swung around to aim its missiles and guns at the building. But strangely, it paused.
The pause gave the first explosive-carrying snakebot time to reach the Defender and rapidly slither its way up the leg, its metallic scales glimmering in the bright desert sun. The Arachnimorph did not recognize it or the other approaching snakebots as threats. They were not part of its programming.
The first ME reached its target, a leg joint, and curled itself tightly around the armored appendage. It detonated its shaped charge with a resounding crack.
The Arachnimorph’s twenty-foot metal leg erupted away from its body, falling to the ground, causing the robot to stagger slightly, but recover its balance using its remaining five legs. But by now another ME had reached its targeted leg, detonating and blasting that leg away. Yet another charge exploded, severing another leg. Now, the Arachnimorph’s targeting ability had degraded, as it attempted to maintain its balance using only three legs.
The three remaining MEs slithered up the robot and curled around its legs. Their blasts separated the three final legs. The Defender slammed to the ground with a massive crash, now only a hulking body, still trying to bring its guns to bear on its targets.
Garry reported on the phone call to Felton, “The Defenders programmer said that the operators are being held hostage in the control room by Landers and Blount. They’re forcing them to send the Defenders after us.”
“Tell them breaching the control room won’t do the job. They’ve got to take out the whole center.”
“But—”
“I know. It’ll kill the people inside, too. But they’re dead anyway. The ‘morphs will kill them, once they’re no longer useful.”
Patrick willed himself not to dwell on the deaths of the Defender controllers or on Cranston’s. Later would be time for mourning, doubts, and recrimination. He furrowed his brow. “Did you notice that at no time did the Defenders fire at the building itself?”
“Yeah, they could have blown it to hell,” Blake answered
“And we’ve had no attackers from inside the building.”
“Nope,” said Lane.
“That means the Helpers want this building preserved.”
“It means that the big fucking spider and the flying fucker were directed not to attack us as long as we stayed in the building,’ said Blake.
“Yeah, but those guys can come after us,” interrupted James, who had a view of the fallen Arachnimorph. Trap doors had popped open from the Arachnimorph’s body, and from those doors scurried two doz
en smaller versions of itself
“Shit! Infilmorphs!” exclaimed Menken. “The Arach’s mission was to destroy all the surrounding forces, then let these smaller units loose to neutralize the rest of us without damaging the factory or lab.”
The Infilmorphs skittered rapidly away from their fallen host, to encircle the building. From their armored bodies sprouted the barrels of assault rifles and grenade launchers.
A rifle shot rang out, and abruptly one of the small Defenders staggered under the impact of a sniper around, and began to wander aimlessly.
“What the hell!” exclaimed Blake.
Harmon’s voice came over the comm. “Thought you’d need a sniper, so I made it to the roof. I’ve got armor-piercing rounds. I could use company.”
“On my way,” said James.
Harmon continued targeting the approaching Defenders, but his shots became less effective, as the robots learned to rapidly zig-zag their way toward the breaches in the building, where the SEALs and soldiers had taken cover.
“They’re swarmbots with a skills algorithm,” declared Garry. “They coordinate with one another. When one manages to evade the sniper bullet, it immediately, teaches the others how to. And when you kill one, the others automatically adjust their attack to compensate.”
The Infilmorphs began to return fire with deadly accuracy, the impacting bullets driving the SEALs and soldiers farther back into the building. But the SEALs’ conventional rounds from their assault rifles had little effect on the robots, ricocheting off their armor.
The Infilmorphs launched grenades precisely aimed to detonate just inside the building walls, forcing the SEALs to retreat even farther.
“Can’t see ’em anymore,” reported Harmon from the roof. “They’re out of range, coming into the building.”
“Fall back,” ordered Patrick, as they retreated from the entrance into the factory. “Find cover where they’ll damage the factory if they direct fire at you.”
He was answered by more and more groans over the comm, as soldiers in the building were hit.
“Garry, what’s happening at the Defenders op center?” demanded Patrick.
Garry queried Felton. “They’re about to breach,” he answered.
The Neuromorphs Page 21