The Neuromorphs

by Dennis Meredith

  In fifteen more minutes, the enhanced neuromorph had deftly sheathed the new android in RheoArmor and stood back, assuming the inert stance that androids did when they no longer had a task.

  The standard android had just finished its testing and was still rewiring faulty nerve connections.

  “Activate the new unit,” said Phillips. Mencken stepped over to the newly assembled android, reached behind its back, and tapped a point that caused it to spring to life. The android turned its head back and forth, then turned and walked down the line to a charging booth, settling itself into the vertical coffin-like chamber.

  “It’ll need a few hours to fully charge,” said Mencken to Garry and Ainsley. It could only make it to the charging booth on the residual charge in the new electrogel. He turned to Phillips and the others.

  “We’ll do a full diagnostic on it. But it looks as if the enhanced ‘morph has made another perfectly functioning ‘morph.”

  Then came the usual silence from the six, signaling neuromorph consensus-building.

  “This is a satisfactory outcome,” said Phillips. “It appears as if the enhanced OS should be distributed.”

  “Well, not quite yet. There’s another test we need to do,” said Mencken quickly. He glanced over at the stunned captives. If the new OS were distributed now, the humans would be instantly massacred. Besides, he had another reason for the test he would now propose.

  “Wasn’t this test of creativity and competitiveness enough to get this party started?” asked Landers in his remnant Texas twang.

  “There’s another aspect of these traits you really want to test . . . physical competitiveness,” said Mencken.

  “You mean combat?” asked Landers.

  “Yeah. These ‘morphs are going to need physical skills beyond creativity and competitiveness. Specifically combat.”

  “So you’re suggesting we pit the enhanced unit against a standard unit?” asked Phillips.

  “Yes, we need to test survival of the fittest . . . literally,” said Mencken.

  In the utter blackness of the moonless night, Patrick drove slowly with no headlights on down a fire road, deep into the thick pine forest several kilometers from the Cheyenne Mountain nuclear bunker. He’d set his googles to night vision, so his path was clearly visible. He swerved the armored Light Tactical Vehicle off the road and plowed deep into the thicket of trees, readying himself for the op that might well end in his death. He didn’t care.

  He had assigned himself to be the sole person who would recon the complex.

  The others had argued vociferously, as they had sat around the trucks and LTVs in the Colorado Springs garage Patrick had rented for their staging area.

  “Cap, you need backup,” Blake had declared. “You know goddamned well if they detect you, you’ll need firepower and an exit strategy.”

  “I’m going in. I’m going in alone,” Patrick had said with finality. “First, if I’m caught, you can still mount an attack. Second, I’ll be wearing a TALOS, so you’ll be monitoring me, and if I’m captured, you’ll get intelligence.”

  “Yeah, and you’ll get dead,” said Blake.

  “Thirdly, you need rest. I want all of you sharp.”

  “Hell, we can rest when we’re dead, and—”

  “And finally, Leah’s in there. If there’s even the slightest chance I’ll see something that’ll help get her out, I want to see it. So, it’s settled,” he had declared.

  Now, as he stood beside the LTV deep in the forest, readying his equipment, he checked his watch. He had four hours before sunrise, which meant if he made it back, he’d be driving back to the garage in daylight. It couldn’t be helped

  He issued a command to the virtual assistant in his googles to guide him through the forest and over the rocky terrain to the Cheyenne Mountain entrance. He specified a path that would give him adequate cover and end up with a good view of the road to the concrete archway entrance into the mountain. His troll assistant had been trained in military strategy and understood the requirements. So, the path was a reliable one.

  Assisted by the powered TALOS exosuit, he ran full-bore for an hour through the pitch-black, dead-silent forest. He stopped periodically, listening for any rustle, any snapped twig, that would give away the presence of a sentry. Nothing; not even the characteristic huffing of a frightened deer. Finally, he reached the rocky slope that would take him up to the vantage point overlooking the entrance.

  He switched off the small engine that powered the suit, going to battery power. Now he was running silent, with not even the faint hum of the engine. It was ironic that he was now powered by the same electrogel as his enemy.

  In the absolute darkness, he scaled the steep slope step by step, gingerly clutching each handhold, the suit enabling him to ascend with superhuman agility. Through the climb, he took great care not to dislodge even the smallest pebble.

  Finally, he reached the viewpoint of the entrance and guardhouse. Touching a button on his wrist, he activated the suit’s automated octoskin camouflage. Now, as he moved among the rocks and brush, his suit would scan the background just as would an octopus, automatically altering its covering to mimic the rock and vegetation. And, the suit’s IR-suppressing surface meant that he gave out no infrared signature.

  Strangely, he could see no major security presence on the entrance road or in the guardhouse. Only one guard sat on a chair inside the lit guardhouse. There was no movement in the surrounding area that would reveal other guards patrolling the entrance—as one would expect in the nerve center of a neuromorph invasion. But when he scrutinized the area with the trained eyes of a SEAL accustomed to spotting hidden snipers, he saw them.

  At least a dozen gray figures were nestled throughout the slopes above the entrance, almost invisible against the rocky terrain. He hadn’t detected any infrared signatures of people because those sentinels weren’t people. They were armored neuromorphs!

  The hive mind of the neuromorphs was smart enough to camouflage their security forces. So, anybody driving up to the entrance would encounter only a single human night watchman—expected for a decommissioned, obsolete facility that probably housed only musty archives.

  Now that he knew the enemy positions, he could begin the first phase of their mission. He reached into his backpack and pulled out three small containers, opening each to pull out a spider-like, fingernail-sized microbug. Activating the tiny spy devices with a touch on their backs, he synced them with his googles, seeing the world through their tiny cameras.

  Programming their destination, he released the microbugs, hunkering down and watching the views through his googles, as they scrambled among the rocks, down the slope, through the chain link fence along the road, and toward the entrance.

  The bugs, requisitioned from the CIA, had a stealth design, so they likely wouldn’t be detected by the standard methods used for civilian microbugs.

  He monitored the three ground-level views from the scurrying bugs, as they made their way into the entrance tunnel and toward the huge blast doors. While one microbug remained at the tunnel entrance, the two others reached the two blast doors.

  They were closed! He pounded his fist on the rock and muttered a curse to himself. The bugs had to gain access, or the team couldn’t hope to mount an attack that wasn’t suicidal. They had to know what forces they were facing and how they were deployed. And to save Leah, he would have to know where she was being held.

  He did the only thing he could do in the circumstances. He set the three microbugs to autonomous operation. They would automatically nestle themselves in the best hide they could locate and monitor the doors. If the doors opened, the tiny robotic spies would scurry their way into the complex and proceed to scout its depths, recording video and audio and storing it. Then, when they had the chance, they would exit and make their way back to the outside world.

  So, not until the SEAL team arrived for the assault could they download the video to have the intel they needed.

  For
all the attacking SEALs would know, the place was impregnable, the ‘morphs had overwhelming firepower, and the humans . . . including Leah . . . were dead.

  • • •

  “So, will they tear each other apart?” asked Garry.

  “Given their structure and their strength, they do have that capability,” said Mencken. “But our unit needs to win big for this to work. Otherwise . . . boom.” He made an explosive gesture against his skull.

  He stood with Garry and Ainsley against one of the three-story buildings inside the cavern, looking out at two armored neuromorphs facing each other, six feet apart. To distinguish them Mencken had spray-painted the enhanced-OS robot red, and the standard neuromorph blue.

  Beyond the two combatants stood the six neuromorphs that were the gateway to the hive mind of the hundreds of others in the cavern, and likely the countless more replicas embedded secretly among humans around the world.

  Huddled beyond them were the humans murmuring among themselves at the strange, frightening spectacle that they didn’t understand.

  “Both units have been given the same combat skill algorithms,” said Phillips. “They are instructed not to use any external weapons. We are beginning the destructive test.”

  The two armored robots abruptly came to life, crouching slightly and scanning each other. The blue robot began to circle its adversary, while the red one merely watched.

  “Damn, it’s thinking again!” exclaimed Ainsley. “This time thinking will get it destroyed. It’s got to act!”

  For his part, Garry merely knitted his brow, deep in thought.

  Sure enough, after only a brief round of circling, the blue robot sprang at its opponent, grasping the red neuromorph by the shoulder and arm. With a powerful wrench, it ripped the red neuromorph’s arm from its body, pitching it away. The red robot tore itself from the blue robot’s grip, backing away to temporary safety.

  “Shit!” exclaimed Mencken. “We’re dead!”

  “No,” said Garry quietly. “Our robot adapts. I actually think it might have meant for that to happen.”

  “C’mon, seriously?” asked Mencken. “You can’t believe that!”

  The blue robot launched an attack again, hurling itself at its red opponent. But the red robot quickly crouched down, and the blue unit overshot its target, landing on all fours and instantly pivoting for another attack.

  The red robot took the instant to scoop up its severed arm.

  “What the hell?” whispered Mencken. “It’s not going to try to attach its arm!”

  “Remember the rules?” asked Garry. “No outside weapons. An arm is not an outside weapon. The ‘morph planned that. In chess, sometimes you sacrifice a pawn to win a match.”

  The red robot held up its severed arm, grasping it by the wrist. Dangling from the end were the fiber optic nerve cables and polymer muscles that had been torn from its body.

  The blue robot rose and pounded toward its adversary, but the red robot drew back its arm, and with a vicious swing caved in the blue robot’s face, shattering its eyes and leaving it blinded. The loud crack of the impact reverberated through the cavern, bringing a collective gasp from the cowering humans. The blue robot began groping its way around the area, searching for its opponent.

  But the red robot now had the advantage. With another massive blow that sent a sickening crunch resounding through the cavern, it knocked the blue robot’s head off. Without a pause, it began to beat the blue robot’s body down with a series of vicious overhand strikes, driving the blue robot to its knees with a dull thump against the concrete. The blue robot flailed blindly with both arms, seeking to clutch its adversary.

  Avoiding the grasping hands, the red robot braced itself and delivered a vicious kick to the kneeling robot’s chest, sending it sprawling onto its back. The red robot crouched and leaped high in the air, landing with all its weight on the blue robot’s chest. The blue robot reached up its hands to grab the red robot’s legs, but the red robot wielded its severed arm over and over as a club to knock the hands away.

  And with each opening, the red robot leaped upward and landed with a crushing impact on the blue robot’s chest. After five such smashing blows, the blue robot’s chest began to cave in.

  As more of its internal nerves and muscles became severed with each blow, the blue robot became progressively more paralyzed.

  Suffering five more crushing impacts, the blue robot now only twitched.

  But the red robot was not finished. Pitching away its severed arm, it bent over the supine blue robot and with its remaining arm, peeled back the RheoArmor.

  It plunged its hand through the electrogel deep into the blue robot’s chest and opened the brain case. It tore out the spherical brain, inspected it for a brief moment with its lidless eyes. Then, with a savage downward thrust, it shattered the brain into shiny glittering shards that skittered across the concrete floor.

  The red robot then stood and became once more an inert object.

  “What the hell do we do now?” asked Ainsley.

  “You know,” said Garry. Then to Mencken, whispering, “Now, you sell them on spreading the OS. You’ve got to! If we can stop them, we need them all to have the new OS.”

  Mencken walked past the tattered remains of the blue robot, purposely crunching over the pieces of shattered brain. He stood before the six neuromorphs.

  “You’ve seen two units perform,” he said to them. “Two identical units. One, however, with creativity and competitiveness. An ability to think innovatively and a will to advance those new ideas. We recommend that you now distribute that OS to all the units.”

  After a long moment, Blount asked, “These new subroutines might introduce the kind of aggression between units we’ve just observed.”

  Mencken expected that argument, and was ready. “Not if you create an initial non-aggression consensus among all the units, that none with the new OS will attack any other. That should do it.”

  Mencken resisted the urge to glance back at Garry, who had come up with the idea of the subtlety in word meaning that the six neuromorphs would fail to grasp before they spread the consensus. He was hoping Garry’s assertion was right about how literally neuromorphs processed language.

  “Very well,” said Phillips. “We will issue that command. Then we will distribute the OS.”

  “And we will be permanently safe. And Leah Jensen and Jonas’s family will be permanently safe.”

  “Yes.”

  “You should also preserve the other humans for the time being, given that they may offer some further skills enhancement.”

  “For the time being,” said Phillips.

  Mencken returned to Garry and Ainsley and guided them around a corner of the building. They would be less likely to be overheard. Fortunately, the neuromorphs were so absorbed with the new software that they neglected to send a drone to follow them.

  “They bought it hook, line, and sinker,” he whispered.

  “Jesus,” whispered Ainsley. “Do you realize all the pieces that have to fall into place for all this to work?”

  “Yeah,” said Mencken. “Very soon we’ll either be free of these machines . . . or we’ll all be dead.” He turned to Garry.

  “Okay, as soon as we know all of them have the new OS, crank it up,” he said.

  • • •

  “Man, that is one big-assed door,” said Pitbull, viewing the video from the two microbugs that had made it out of the Cheyenne Mountain complex. “There is no damned way to blast through that, even with a ton of C18. And the plans say there’s a second one inside the first.”

  DeFranco stood with the other SEALs at the back of the truck that held their weapons and ordnance.

  As they waited in the thick forest, they reviewed the video through their googles. The third microbug had gone dark, perhaps crushed by an errant footstep, or still trapped in the complex. They also saw floating in their virtual image the plans for the complex.

  “Yeah, Pitbull, I see there’s tw
o sets, each consisting of an outer and inner door,” said Driller Harmon. “At least one set had better be open when we get there, or we’ll just be standing there outside like a stood-up date.”

  “Yeah, Driller, I’m sure you know that feeling,” cracked Blake.

  “Okay, you’ve seen what we’re up against,” said Patrick, taking off his googles. “If one of the set of blast doors isn’t opened, we’re dead. If we don’t take out all the guards outside exactly at the same time, we’re dead. It’s possible they have operational Defenders, and if those Defenders are ready for us, we’re dead. If—”

  “Let’s vote, already!” said Blake. “I vote fucking crazy.”

  “Asylum crazy,” said James.

  “Batshit crazy,” said Lane.

  “Howling-at-the-moon crazy,” said DeFranco.

  “Russian-roulette-with-five-bullets crazy,” said Harmon.

  Patrick smiled. “Okay, then. Load up. Let’s go.”

  They waited for sundown. Carrying as much ordnance as they could, they began their run through the rapidly darkening forest. In most cases, a night assault would give them an advantage of the enemy. But since their enemy never slept and could see in the infrared, the only advantage was in not encountering any people camping or hiking.

  Reaching the foothills, they split up, fanning out to prepare to ascend the rocky slope that would give each of them a different, strategic vantage point above the tunnel entrance. Each switched their suits to battery power, going silent. And each activated their octoskin camouflage and IR suppression system.

  Finally, each took the same precise care in scaling the slope, knowing that if one neuromorph detected a SEAL, all the robots would instantly know of an attack.

  “In position,” whispered Patrick after half an hour, as he peered through his googles at the same scene he had reconnoitered the night before. There was still a single human guard. Still the same armored ‘morphs nestled among the rocks over the entrance. They were in different positions, no doubt because the previous cadre of robots had switched out to recharge. But the number was the same.