The Robots of Gotham

by Todd McAulty

“Then what?”

  “Device places identical picture of you in network, with label ‘dog shit.’ Network tells drone, ‘Is nothing, just dog shit.’ ”

  “Literally, dog shit?”

  Sergei shrugged. “I cannot tell what it uses as substitute from my quick visual analysis. But that is idea.”

  I sat quietly, absorbing everything he’d told me. “It sounds impossible,” I said after a moment.

  “Not impossible. Just very, very difficult.”

  “How does the thing intercept the picture, and then place the same picture of me in the Venezuelan network, before the probe can ask?”

  “I do not know.”

  “It would have to have high-priority network access.”

  “Da.”

  “And how does it know what image library it’s going to query? It would have to place my picture in every network simultaneously—American, Mexican, Venezuelan, probably even the Union.”

  “Yes, correct.”

  “How can it do that?”

  “I do not know. Did you walk back from Continental last night?”

  “Yeah.”

  Sergei nodded. “Then the device did these things.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “Da,” Sergei agreed.

  I turned the gadget over in my hands. “So it affects robots the same way?” I asked, thinking of Black Winter.

  “Possibly. Machine intelligences are sentient, unlike drones. Most will likely draw on the same image libraries. But likely not all.”

  “Black Winter says he can’t see this thing—even when it’s turned off.”

  “Not surprising. Likely image of disk is permanently planted in libraries. Robots and drones will be unable to resolve it.”

  “There can’t be very many of these things, then. If there were, the AGRT would eventually detect them. And if the AGRT knew they existed, it probably wouldn’t be too hard to counteract them.”

  “It will find out, eventually.”

  “Yeah. But until then, this thing is pretty useful. I wonder who made it.”

  Sergei glanced away. He pursed his lips.

  I followed a hunch. “You know who made it.”

  “Nyet.”

  “Then you must have a pretty good idea. Come on, I’ve shared with you. Out with it.”

  Sergei’s look soured, but he yielded. “There are no components that definitively identify the maker—but that in itself is a clue. It is not Venezuelan or Russian. They have no reason to operate covertly. It is not Chinese.”

  “So what is it then? American? Union?”

  “Nyet. Was made by machine.”

  “Machine? Why would a machine make a device to avoid drones?”

  “I do not know.”

  That didn’t make sense. Why would machines make a device that knocked out machines with a single touch? And why would they have given it to Machine Dance?

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “Da.” Sergei looked at me, his gaze level. “Where did you get it?”

  “You have time for me to tell you a story?”

  Sergei leaned back, putting his feet on the desk. “For this, I make time.”

  IX

  Friday, March 12th, 2083

  Sharing is set to PRIVATE

  Comments are CLOSED

  No Entry

  An empty blog is a dead blog! Why not contract to CapSTAR Media for lively, topical content, custom-tailored for your audience? We have packages for every budget. Contact our friendly sales reps today!

  X

  Saturday, March 13th, 2083

  Posted 7:19 am by Barry Simcoe

  CanadaNET1 Encrypted, Sponsored by MatriMONEY.

  For a fabulous wedding, always under budget.

  Sharing is set to PRIVATE

  Comments are CLOSED

  The Field Museum is not an easy place to get into after midnight.

  For one thing, there are guards. The drone jammer did a fine job keeping the drones blind. I still didn’t understand how it worked, but I had my doubts it would do anything against flesh-and-blood soldiers. With real guns.

  “Sergei,” I said. “There are soldiers. With real guns.”

  “Wait,” said Sergei in my earpiece.

  So I waited. It was overcast and very cold, and I stood in the shadows by a clump of bushes about three hundred yards from the north side of the building, hopping up and down and shivering.

  I had been concerned about going at night, but Sergei said we had to act while the War College was empty. I was concerned about walking 2.2 miles in a nearly deserted city without a flashlight, but Sergei said flashlights would draw drones, gadget or no gadget. I was concerned about running into Venezuelan soldiers, but Sergei told me he could handle that.

  “You sound awfully confident,” I’d told him. “Why don’t you go? I’ll stay behind and listen to you get shot on the radio.”

  “Stop complaining,” said Sergei. “You are like little boy.”

  I went. Sergei gave me a medium-range GSM unit that fit in my ear. I left shortly before 1:00 a.m., when there was just a skeleton crew in the command center and Sergei was confident he could man the drone station without anyone questioning him.

  I hadn’t confessed this to Sergei, but part of the reason I was willing to undertake this little journey was to try out the drone jammer again. After what it had proven capable of Wednesday night, I was anxious to give it a real field test.

  According to Sergei, the AGRT tracks where everyone is, at all times. Soldiers, civilians, robots—anyone and everyone. They do it with a complex network of fixed cameras, aerial drones, and remote biometric sensors—a massive automated system that would put Big Brother to shame. The network is everywhere, and virtually inescapable.

  But that doesn’t mean it’s unbeatable. The weakness of the system isn’t in its coverage. Part of it (again, according to Sergei) stems from the fact that it’s cobbled together from multiple spy networks. And most importantly, since it can’t always see indoors and thus can’t keep track of you at every moment, the system assumes you’re in your last known location until it learns different.

  That means locational glitches—people popping up where they’re not supposed to be, like I did when I turned the device off Thursday night—aren’t all that uncommon. They’re flagged for investigation, but usually not with any operational urgency. To help avoid future problems Sergei did some magic on my profile in the system, flipping a bit that indicated I’d already been investigated once and found harmless.

  “That will log inconsistencies in your incident record as low priority,” said Sergei. “In theory, that means they will be investigated when other tasks are completed. In practice, it means they will never be investigated.”

  “I like the sound of that,” I said.

  The first half of the trip to the Field Museum wasn’t so bad, once I made it lakeside. Sergei’s voice in my ear kept me company, guiding me through the tough spots. The hardest part was Lower Wacker, which, with all the streetlights out and the concrete vastness of Upper Wacker overhead, is very, very dark. Twice I tripped over obstacles in the middle of the road, and the second time I almost broke my neck.

  As I was getting painfully to my feet, grateful my head had missed a dark chunk of concrete by inches, a voice from the shadows said, “Man’s gotta watch where he’s going.”

  I peered into the darkness, digging the gravel out of my palms. A pair of figures was squatting on the curb, almost invisible in the thick shadows. The closest one was wearing a tattered parka, and was clutching something in their hand.

  I’d heard the Venezuelans had made an effort to clear the homeless off the streets, sending them south into one of the DP camps. But obviously they’d had no more success than Chicago’s mayor, the war, or the pitiless Chicago winter at discouraging those who made the streets their home.

  “Yeah,” I said. “You got that right.” I started moving again, picking my way a little more carefully through the dar
kness.

  The one in the coat turned to the other. “He talkin’ to you.” His voice was deep and raspy. He passed the thing in his hands to the other seated figure.

  “He ain’t talking to me,” said the other, taking a drink from the carton in her hands. She was the one who’d spoken first. “He just talkin’ to hisself.”

  I left them arguing in the shadows. About half a mile later, I came out under Lake Shore Drive, climbed over a concrete barrier and a sagging fence, and made it to the lake.

  “You will need to get wet,” Sergei told me.

  That sounded like no fun at all. The water looked very cold and very dark. “Why?”

  “You will see.”

  “Damn it, Sergei. This isn’t a mystery movie. Spoilers are welcome. Why do I need to get wet?”

  “There are barricades.”

  He was right. There were concrete and metal barricades scattered on the sand. Hundreds of them. It looked like goddamn Normandy beach on D-Day. I climbed over the first few, but there was some kind of razor wire strung between the larger ones, almost impossible to see in the dark, and I ripped my pants in the first few minutes.

  I gave up, padding into the surf. “I’m in the water,” I told Sergei.

  “Very good,” Sergei said.

  Fortunately I didn’t have to go out very far to work around the obstacles. Only a handful were in the water, and I could get around most of them without going in deeper than my hips.

  I cursed suddenly, then plunged my hand into the water, groping in my pocket. I pulled out the drone jammer, watching with alarm as water dripped off it.

  “What is wrong?” asked Sergei.

  “I forgot about the jammer. I left it in my pocket. You think water will muck it up?”

  “Perhaps it is waterproof.”

  “Not after you cracked it open, it isn’t. Goddamn it, I should have remembered it.” It was probably too late, but I pressed the button in the middle of the device.

  “I turned it off,” I said. “At least until it dries off.”

  “That is risky,” said Sergei.

  “Let’s hope that magic you did with locational glitches in my record works,” I said. I glanced out over the black water. “Besides, it’s not like I popped up out of nowhere. Maybe they’ll assume I surfaced out of the lake.”

  “Perhaps. Still, you should move quickly.”

  I did exactly that, pushing through the gentle lake surf. Damn, the water was cold. “I can’t feel my toes,” I said after a few minutes.

  “You are like baby,” said Sergei.

  “Get your lazy ass over here and say that.”

  Fortunately, it wasn’t completely dark. The lake was active today. Every few minutes an explosion of flame, like a nuclear fireball, erupted out of the center of Lake Michigan, casting a red glow over the whole city. A towering column of steam and ash climbed into the sky overhead, and dancing bolts of lightning flashed from deep within its constantly boiling depths. Looking up at the churning pillar of smoke and fire gave me a sense of vertigo.

  The great machines, lit from below by firelight, seemed tiny against that huge volcanic cloud. From here the massive swooping rails they rode on looked like they were made of solid gold. I watched as one machine inched along a rail, disappeared inside the seething cloud. The dig was nearly fifteen miles offshore, but I could still feel heat on my face.

  “Why is the water so damn cold when there’s a live volcano in the middle of the lake?” I complained.

  “Is not volcano. Is controlled magma vent.”

  “If you say so,” I said as I sloshed through the water. My gaze was drawn back to the beach. “Since you have an answer for everything, can you explain why there are barricades on the beach?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Seriously. Somebody in the Venezuelan high command thought it was a good idea to put a couple thousand tons of concrete and steel on this beach. It had to be for a good reason. Were they expecting the Americans to try to retake Chicago by sea?”

  “I do not think that likely.”

  “Yeah.” I glanced at the monstrous plume of fire and steam on my left. “Maybe they’re afraid of the dig.”

  “I do not blame them.”

  “What do they expect to come out of the water? Lake monsters? Lava people?”

  “All of these are possible,” Sergei admitted.

  “That’s reassuring,” I said.

  I found a break in the obstacles, and it led me to a route off the beach. It turned into a worn footpath, curving south. I trudged along, leaving wet footprints. As I made my way across the sand and scrub, it occurred to me that the lake would be a good place to bring Croaker. She was still a little skittish around people, but it wouldn’t be long before she started to need real exercise. Assuming I could find an open section of beach that wasn’t covered in razor wire and concrete barricades, of course.

  “You’re not going to forget to check on my dog, are you?” I said.

  “Nyet.”

  “She needs water every few hours. She’s starting to walk around now.”

  “That is good.”

  “She’s been eating the paste. She may leave a surprise by the front door, so be careful when you step inside.”

  “I will not forget,” said Sergei.

  “She’s a good dog.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “Coming up on a landmark,” I said. “Give me a minute.”

  The path climbed to higher ground, cutting through scrub brush. The landmark was a bright communications tower on the left, at least a hundred and fifty feet tall, at the highest point on the route.

  There was activity around the tower. The base was awash with harsh lighting, and I could see half a dozen shiny machines working. A short crane was lifting a tight bundle of chicken wire, and I glimpsed the painfully bright glare of an arc welder.

  The path brought me within sixty feet of the base. A half-complete fence circled the thing, and the crane was busy expanding it, its versatile metal grip unpacking the bundle of wire and adding to the fence. I passed a tall machine that looked like part of an automobile assembly line on my right; it was deftly constructing a wireless grid antenna. The air was abuzz with flying objects, and now that I was closer I could make out a host of small aerial units ferrying parts to and fro and hovering alongside the tower, tuning the equipment.

  “What do you see?” Sergei asked.

  “Robots. They’re building a—”

  That’s as far as I got. The moment I spoke, the assembly machine on my right swiveled toward me. The top of a four-foot stamping unit pivoted in my direction too, and I saw two shiny robot eyes regarding me. One of the flying things diverted in mid-flight, heading toward me.

  This caught me off guard, to say the least. I was quite suddenly the focus of numerous unblinking machine eyes.

  “What?” said Sergei.

  “Can’t talk,” I said, as quietly as I could.

  All nearby work stopped. A four-ton piece of construction equipment, busy laying concrete pipe, froze in the act of reaching for a new section of pipe. Its great squat head turned slowly toward me, fixing me in a spotlight. I was momentarily blinded, and raised my arm to block the light.

  I could hear the aerial unit. It buzzed past me, flying low and close, but I couldn’t make it out in the gloom. It was too small to be a high-end drone. It was probably a cheap commercial unit. I wanted to pull the drone jammer out of my pocket, try turning it on, but even if it worked, vanishing right in front of a few dozen construction drones probably wasn’t the best way to avoid notice.

  The only way out of this was straight ahead. Get past all these drones and try turning the device back on when I was out of sight. I kept moving, jogging along the path. Ahead was a skinny object I thought was a utility pole, until a tight circle of metal spun around near the top, revealing a single robotic eye. It tracked me as I ran past.

  “Are you okay?” Sergei asked. There was concern in his vo
ice.

  “Just a second,” I whispered.

  I wished Black Winter were with me. Not just because he’d probably know what all these things were—and how to talk to them—but because of his unflappable calm. It was much harder to do something like this solo.

  I was on the far side of the tower now. I glanced back over my shoulder. The assembly robot had returned to hammering metal, and the construction machine, although it still had me in its spotlight, was back to laying pipe again.

  I faced forward again, and almost ran into one of the hover drones.

  It was dead ahead, in the middle of the path, floating off the ground less than ten feet away. It fixed me with two small optical units.

  It didn’t appear to have any weapons, but the sight of a flying drone this close still creeped me out. I didn’t want to get any closer, but the prairie brush on both sides was too thick to go crashing through it without a machete. I could backtrack, look for another way around, but had no idea how long that would take.

  Instead, I ducked under the thing. Keeping a nervous eye on it, I stooped low, passing through the cold wash under its rotors and straightening up as I got clear. The machine spun effortlessly in the air, keeping its optics pointed at me. I didn’t take my eyes off it until I was thirty feet away.

  “Where are you now?” Sergei asked.

  “Getting clear of an obstacle,” I said. “I think I’m okay.”

  “South of beach, you will find relay tower under construction,” he said. “Many machines. I suggest you avoid. Construction machines, not accustomed to human visitors.”

  “Man, you are the worst tour guide in history.”

  A few minutes later, I found myself in the relative cover of a narrow dune valley. I hunched down behind some dead grass, fumbled in my pocket for the drone jammer, and turned it on.

  “The device is back on again,” I said. At least I thought it was. It wasn’t easy to tell if it was working or not.

  “Good,” said Sergei. “Find an open area, please.”

  I accommodated him. “How am I looking?” I asked, when I’d moved south about five hundred yards.