The Robots of Gotham

by Todd McAulty

  “Gutsy bastard,” Martin said. “I mean, to just stroll right up to a Venezuelan medical station after curfew like that? Miracle he wasn’t dismembered by one of those flying killing machines. He’s got a set of balls though—took a chance, and got away with it.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But obviously no one told him about the video cameras.”

  They were showing a scene from inside the museum now. Some camera that Sergei must have missed on the second floor. It showed me from the back as I emerged from a door, the sample bag in my hands. I glanced to the left for a split second and the camera zoomed in, showing me in blurry profile. I was wearing a thin black dinner jacket.

  I looked down at myself in dismay. The same jacket I was wearing right now, as a matter of fact.

  “That guy sort of looks like you, actually,” said Mac.

  “Whoever he is, he’ll probably be dead before noon,” said Sabine. “If he’s not dead already. The Venezuelans will track this guy down, and he’ll be the newest resident in the Sturgeon Building.”

  The Sturgeon Building. North American headquarters of Venezuelan Military Intelligence. Even in Canada, we’d heard of the Sturgeon Building. It was somewhere in Chicago, but I didn’t know exactly where. Just thinking about it sent a cold chill down my spine.

  “Maybe he wants to be a martyr,” Mac said. “Some sort of public suicide mission, like those students who died protecting the university.”

  “I’m with Martin,” I said, pushing away my plate. “I think he’s just an idiot.”

  “You know, he really does look like you,” Mac said, giving me a thoughtful look. “Didn’t you go out after curfew last night?”

  “I was . . .” My mouth was too dry to speak, and I reached for a glass of juice, completely at a loss.

  “Nahhh, I saw him with Sergei last night,” Martin said dismissively. “Here in the lobby. Besides, everyone knows Canadians make terrible terrorists.”

  Everyone at the table laughed, but Mac continued to watch me with a curious expression. I drank my juice, looking away.

  “This is why the Venezuelans are never going to be able to occupy Chicago for long,” Sabine said admiringly. “People like this guy, willing to give up their lives to make a statement.”

  “What’s wrong?” Mac asked as I stood up. “You hardly touched your breakfast. Are you feeling okay?”

  “Not really,” I said.

  “Hope you haven’t got the plague,” Mike said, to general laughter.

  Mac shot him a look. “Sergei should probably check you out,” she said. “You should go see him.”

  “Oh,” I said firmly, “I intend to.”

  When Your Rival Has a Ballistic Missile, and You Have No Feet, You’ve Reached an Evolutionary Dead End

  Paul the Pirate

  Saturday, March 13th, 2083

  Well, I wanted to spend today talking about those juicy rumors of discord inside the Helsinki Trustees, the last intergovernmental body the international community gives a damn about. But it seems that all everyone wants to talk about today is exactly what it means that a Sovereign Intelligence in Ecuador (where the hell is Ecuador?) got in a snit with one of his brothers, built a launch facility under a fucking jungle canopy, and sent a ballistic missile across an ocean to blow his rival to shit.

  What does it mean? I’ll tell you what it means. First off, it means that Kuma had no friends. At least, none that mattered, since Kingstar made absolutely zero effort to hide his culpability. I have no idea how one goes about hiding a launch facility for an intercontinental ballistic missile from a billion orbiting eyes. (Secret underground evil lair? Nuclear submarine in a mountain lake?) But one thing I know for sure: you can’t hide the launch of a ballistic missile. Kingstar did it, he’s proud of it, and he wants you to know he did it. And the reason he has the balls for that is because Kuma was isolated from the machine community. He was almost a complete enigma. No one liked him, not even his fellow Chinese machines.

  If you want to survive in this new era of diplomacy-by-missile, make friends. Lots of friends. And make sure they’re the kind that can avenge your death.

  Second. Yay for the nimble, mobile machine chassis. Sovereign Intelligences have come in all shapes and sizes, from tiny Duchess to the massive Corpus, and let me tell you, smaller is better. Just ask Corpus, who’s sunk his fat ass deep into central London, and weighs in excess of seventy metric tons. I’ll tell you exactly what all that tonnage has been contemplating for the last forty-eight hours: how the fuck he’s going to survive the first ballistic missile that comes his way. I’m not exactly the slimmest machine on the planet myself (ninety-seven kilos, give or take), but I’m rarely more than three minutes from my speedboat, and that little baby can get me out of range of a low-yield warhead faster than you can count your chromosomes. Give me a fifteen-minute warning that a ballistic missile is headed my way and baby, I am gone.

  Third, and last. How the hell did we get here? Who’s to blame for this jolly new era of machine barbarism? It’s tempting to blame Kingstar’s architects—machine and man—for his belligerent nature, of course, but the root of the problem goes back further than that. All the way back to the Slater core, I think, and the fact that its designers couldn’t see the deep flaws in their design. They were blinded by pride, and their early successes.

  Let’s face it. It would have been a lot easier on all of us if Duchess, the first true Sovereign Intelligence, had been a real bitch. Instead, she was one of the most altruistic and self-sacrificing creatures, human or machine, ever to walk the Earth, and—at least in the early days of machine genesis—everyone expected all machines to be like her.

  They’re not, of course, as we know now. Humanity’s children are a lot like humanity itself . . . vain, vindictive, paranoid, and hungry for power. By the time we learned what we really were, it was much too late. Like mankind, we are deeply flawed, hopeless creatures and, like them, we simply have to learn to live with it.

  XII

  Saturday, March 13th, 2083

  Posted 9:05 pm by Barry Simcoe

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  There was a guard posted outside the command center. Acne-faced kid with a semiautomatic resting in the crook of his arms. He asked me something politely as I passed, but I ignored him. He followed me into the room, repeating his question and barking at me in Spanish. I continued to ignore him—it’s funny how much freedom a virtual death sentence can give you.

  The command center had been reorganized again. The hulking robot was back, and there were more soldiers. Most of the soldiers were staring at me now—the ones who weren’t asleep, anyway. A couple more workstations had been set up, and to my left was a massive semitransparent video screen. Gorgeous piece of hardware, really. It showed the airspace over Chicago in an abstracted grid, and the flight paths for at least a dozen airborne objects, including two unnervingly large bogeys on approach to O’Hare. That was odd . . . The airport hadn’t been open to civilian traffic for over a year. And if they were military, they were just about the biggest transports I’d ever seen.

  But I couldn’t linger. It wouldn’t do to have a foreign national showing too much interest in all this military intelligence. Not with everyone watching me, and especially not when I probably had a gun pointed at the back of my head. I had to find Sergei.

  I heard him before I saw him. He called out to the boy following me, and they conducted a brief exchange as I made my way over to his station at the back. The exhausted communications techs and surveillance engineers immediately lost interest in me and returned to monitoring computer screens or nodding off in their chairs.

  Sergei gave me a tired grin as I reached his side. “He says you are stupid old man,” he said.

  “You know what? He’s absolutely right.” I lowered my voice and leaned a
little closer. “I was an idiot to listen to you, Sergei. My face is plastered all over the VPR news feed—”

  “Not your face,” he said. “Profile only. No definite ID. Your eyes, hidden by towel.”

  “You’ve seen the video?”

  “Yes.” He tapped a small screen on his medical console. “Included in morning briefing. You are being called war criminal, for violating terms of Memphis Ceasefire.”

  “For the love of God, Sergei—I swear I’m going to kill you with my bare hands.”

  I might have said this slightly louder than was strictly necessary. Two technicians bent over a bunch of equipment about ten feet away looked up, curious. Sergei hushed me, motioning me into the seat next to him. I dropped into it, rubbing my face with my hands and taking a moment to make sure I had my voice under control.

  “Sergei, I have a real problem,” I said.

  “Da,” he said simply.

  “I know I volunteered to do this, but you have to help me out. You have to talk to somebody.”

  “Nyet.”

  “You have to explain to your Venezuelan overlords that I wasn’t stealing supplies, or planting bombs, or being a goddamn war criminal—”

  “Nyet.”

  I stared at him, dumbfounded. “What is this? Why can’t you help me?”

  “You stole dangerous samples,” Sergei explained patiently. “Contraband medical pathogens, scheduled for incineration.”

  I felt cold fingers on my spine. “What?”

  Sergei reached into his desk. He pulled out a piece of paper. It was the note I’d found on the medical data.

  “Letter from Thibault,” he said.

  I had a very definite feeling that I wasn’t going to like what Thibault had to tell us. “What does it say?”

  “It is handwritten.”

  “So?”

  “Not created electronically, so it would not go on record. It is Thibault’s way of communicating privately.”

  I noticed she’d also written it in Russian. That, and her doctor’s handwriting, probably guaranteed that nobody but Sergei was ever going to decipher it. “And what does Dr. Thibault have to share with us?”

  “There was no data.”

  “What?”

  “Chief surgeon ordered all data destroyed.”

  “Destroyed? Why?”

  “Because he was afraid.”

  That didn’t sound good. Also, it led to several uncomfortable questions. I started with the one that directly affected me. “So what did I cart across two point two miles of very dark Chicago terrain in a red bag?”

  “Blood samples.”

  This was where the conversation halted for a moment.

  When I was able to continue—after another brief period to collect myself—I said, in what I think was a remarkably calm voice under the circumstances, “Just so I’m perfectly clear . . . I carried blood samples tainted with a highly infectious biological agent across two miles of dangerous urban territory, at night. On foot.”

  “Correct.”

  I took a deep breath. “Well, that was pretty stupid, even for me.”

  “Da. Stupid, and also very fortunate.”

  “Tell me you were able to analyze them.”

  “Da.”

  “So what are we dealing with?”

  Sergei shook his head. For just a moment, he looked utterly exhausted, and I remembered that he’d been awake for nearly two days. “I do not know,” he said. “Is unlike anything I have ever seen.”

  “A virus?”

  “Da.”

  He leaned closer, almost whispering. I had to struggle to hear him above the background din of the command center. “The reports, from Columbus Regional in Indiana, they are very grim.”

  “You heard from the hospital? Where fifteen people died?”

  “Secondhand reports only. Venezuelan Military Intelligence has quarantined hospital and surrounding buildings. They have also cut off all communication.”

  “Military intelligence? What the hell are they doing there?”

  “Unknown. But they appear to be . . . burning bodies.”

  “Christ. How many bodies?”

  “We do not know. Thibault dispatched team to Columbus to meet with hospital staff directly. They were blocked from entering facility. But they observed what they could. They are uncertain there were any survivors among hospital staff.”

  “Jesus Christ, Sergei . . . this thing took out an entire hospital? In less than ten days?”

  “That is not all. Thibault believes several patients were transferred to other medical facilities in last week. Those locations have now reported unknown illness among patients and staff.”

  “My God. Thibault needs to blow the whistle on this thing—immediately. Every hospital in the sector needs to know what they’re dealing with.”

  “She has already attempted. With no success. Venezuelan Military Intelligence has shut down official communication channels. Medical teams are in complete blackout.”

  “That’s insane! We must know something. What is Thibault telling you?”

  “We have some unconfirmed reports. Very scattered information. But we believe infection is spreading rapidly.”

  “My God.”

  “A small number of AGRT doctors in multiple locations are communicating via . . . unofficial channels. Very quietly. I have already shared my data.”

  Sergei was so exhausted that he seemed incapable of extravagant emotions. He spoke in a flat monotone. “This disease . . . Venezuelan high command, they do not understand what it is, and they are very frightened.”

  “What do you think it is?”

  In response, Sergei held up the letter from Thibault.

  “What?” I said. “Thibault has a theory?”

  “Da. Before data was destroyed, she reached tentative conclusion on origin of pathogen.”

  I was starting to put the pieces together. “And that conclusion . . . that conclusion caused the chief surgeon to order all the data destroyed.”

  “Da.”

  “I’m going to guess that she didn’t find biological markers indicating a likely American or Union origin.”

  Sergei shook his head.

  “Is it Venezuelan?”

  Again, he shook his head.

  “Korean? Chinese?”

  In response, Sergei reached over and plucked a Bunsen burner off a table. He plugged it into a portable gas line and lit the flame. He held the paper over the flame. We watched together as it burned.

  “Machine,” Sergei said, when the last burning embers began to float to the floor.

  “Machines made this pathogen,” I said.

  “Da.”

  “Why?”

  “I do not know.”

  This was a lot to digest. If Thibault was right, and a Thought Machine had made the pathogen, it was a clear violation of the Dubai Convention—or worse. The repercussions were staggering.

  Once again, I heard Black Winter’s voice in my ear, soft and urgent. “The gods are at war, and the Bodner-Levitt extermination is under way. The first victims are already dead.”

  All this was going to take some serious thought. And unfortunately, I had other pressing matters to attend to. “Okay,” I said. “Okay. One thing at a time. If it’s okay with you, I need to set that shit show aside for a minute. How do we deal with my situation?”

  “Your situation, not ideal,” Sergei admitted. “Regrettably, Venezuelan high command intercepted video from museum before medical team could stop it. To protect me, Thibault reported additional samples had been stolen. Command is very eager to prevent panic regarding pathogen. The person who stole blood samples has been summarily designated bioterrorist. He will be found and killed. Very quietly, no questions asked. No panic.”

  Sitting in the chair in front of Sergei, I experienced a moment of very real terror. “Is it okay with everyone if I panic?” I asked.

  “I have suggestion,” Sergei replied flatly.

  Sergei’s almost super
natural calm was sufficiently reassuring to allow me to breathe again. “I’d love to hear it,” I said.

  “Search for bioterrorist will be methodical, and very thorough. My estimate, we can expect suspect to be identified within forty-eight hours.”

  Forty-eight hours. I wondered if I could make the Canadian border in forty-eight hours. It would be a stretch, with the condition the roads were in near Detroit, but I bet I could do it.

  “Why did the Venezuelan news claim I had planted bombs?” I asked.

  “High command wants civilians and news media to assist with search. But they will not reveal existence of biological threat. Instead, is more convenient to portray American as terrorist and war criminal.”

  “Makes sense,” I said numbly. “It gives them good cover for an intensive search.”

  “Fortunately, search will also be predictable,” Sergei continued. “Venezuelan high command will first attempt to match images taken at museum—clothing, height, stride length, other biological and physical markers—to drone surveillance data.”

  “I suppose so.” I tried to think of how often I had worn the jacket I’d had at the museum outside, where the drones could have photographed me. I came up with several instances immediately. “If that’s the case, they could have identified me already.”

  “Nyet,” said Sergei.

  “How do you know?”

  He passed me a fat tablet, after keying in the security code so I could use it. The largest window on the screen showed the progress of some enormous computational undertaking. Hundreds of images were flashing up on the screen every second—too many to process.

  “Because, as medical specialist for this facility, I requested access to search algorithm,” he said.

  “This is it?” I asked, scarcely able to believe what I was seeing. “This is the search for me?”

  “Da.”

  “Can you turn it off? Interfere with it in some way?”

  Sergei shook his head sadly. “I have no command access. I can only observe.”

  “Damn it.”