Sliding down the power window on the passenger’s side, he aimed the gun at the driver shooting at him from the right side of the car. The guy dropped the gun and held up his hands. “It’s just been a huge misunderstanding, man. It was my partner’s idea. He wanted to branch out to BMWs. I told him to stick with Accords. Accord drivers are far more amenable to being carjacked.” Agaton lowered the gun as the man was no longer a threat, and pulled away from him. He saw the man sigh and lower his eyes and shake his head through his sideview mirror. Then he saw the car hit a pothole and flip over because the man had forgotten to return his hands to the steering wheel and his eyes to the road. The flipping car took out a Boxer being walked at the end of a long leash dispensed from a reel by a man at the side of the road. The dog owner reached into the car, pulled out the driver and started rearranging his face with his fists. He heard the driver say, “It’s all a big misunderstanding, man. I just wanted to steal a car, that’s all. I swear to God. I love dogs.”
Fist-to-Head continued rearranging the driver’s face as if possibly he hadn’t heard the explanation, or hadn’t understood it. Rearranged Face’s speech was admittedly a bit garbled for having his tongue half bitten off for a human with unaugmented hearing and voice analysis algorithms to make much out of.
Agaton accelerated the BMW, putting the latest incidents out of his mind, making a mental note, Replace Car with least-hijacked model.
At the train station, he didn’t feel like waiting for the line so he went to the turnstile marked “out of order” and ripped it out. He handed it to the stunned policeman on the other side, who said “thank you.” The cop’s hand reached for his gun, but then he stopped. Threat averted. Agaton pressed on, quickly forgetting him.
He stepped onto the train tracks and in front of the oncoming train. The train hit him and took a while to stop after the impact. The overwrought driver leaped out onto the tracks to investigate, whereupon Agaton snapped his neck. He remembered voicing an apology.
Catching a glimpse of himself in the dead train conductor’s eyeglasses, Agaton noted the slug trapped in the side of his neck, a remnant of the aborted carjacking, the bullet’s back end flush with the skin’s surface, and the burn mark and grill impression from the train on his forehead. He decided enough people had strange piercings and tattoos these days that he could afford to ignore both.
Agaton climbed into the control car and got the train moving again. He would have to drive it fast to catch up with the train with Serena in it. Faster than allowed. He started messing with the computer on the train to clear the tracks ahead of him, and keying in the codes that would override central control, making irrelevant whoever was monitoring traffic on the tracks.
The whole time he was overriding headquarters, all he could think of was he already missed his life as a science geek researching holographic memory. Now his replacement, probably a superior model of robot, and working for him without his knowledge, would step in for him, earning the right to do so with some breakthrough without which they couldn’t further the project. He hadn’t forgotten Luderman’s and Bateman’s conversation on the value of loyalty at the morgue though. All Agaton could do was hope against hope that any signs of his homicidal mania regarding putting Serena down that made it into the public eye would be spin-controlled by his makers. Possibly he could still work on the holographic memory project from a jail cell, or from a secret lab buried in either Luderman’s or Bateman’s buildings.
***
Gorman was typing in his review for Dean C. Moore on his iPad for Goodreads. “Compelling action, stirring characters, unorthodox blend of genres, whole thing seems to hold together with duct tape, but a definite page turner.” He wanted to say something more, but he was distracted by the speed chess he was playing on the train opposite The Fat Lady. She took up most of the double-wide seats for four opposite him, save for the petite girl, maybe eleven or so, riding alone, and wedged into the remaining space. The Fat Lady said she was with the circus. His voice stress analyzer suggested that was a lie. But he had been perhaps a bit offensive with his, “My God, you’re fat,” line. Once he became embroiled in the chess game with her, without being the least bit invited, she seemed to soften her defensive stance and had even become chattier.
“Here,” she said, handing the box of doughnuts to him. “Would you feed my mouth, so I can keep both hands free to search the internet for best moves for this chess board configuration? You’re a much better player than I anticipated.”
“Certainly,” he said, stuffing the first doughnut in her mouth.
“My last boyfriend was a feeder. Your inclinations wouldn’t run in that direction, would they?”
He had to datamine the internet via the wireless connection in his brain to find out what she was talking about. Apparently some folks became romantically attached to fat people, enjoying playing the role of “feeder” as part of their erotic arousal.
“I’ve never tried that,” Gorman said, “but I’m down a wife. And I do enjoy attending a woman’s every need. Best if they do absolutely nothing for themselves as it helps to mask my ADHD.” She seemed to brighten at the news. Though the confession saddened him. He’d been born a DARPA military robot; killing was easy to him. But assimilating as a human, being domestic, holding down a job, wasn’t. And he’d hoped to prove himself in those areas. Now the mission he was being sent on, to extinguish Serena, meant that his makers weren’t happy with him, and in all likelihood, had a better replacement model. And yet he knew his only chance was to remain loyal to them, hope that in continuing to show his flexibility and utility, he would prove himself once and for all. All the more so as undercover work for the company remained the best test of his humanity. If he could pass anywhere, then he was part of the human race.
Though Gorman was within sight of his target, it was only fools who rushed in. He figured it couldn’t hurt to get a better sense of her first. So, while keeping his eye on Serena just a few seats up, he continued listening in on the conversation between two nearby unrelated parties.
“I think we should attend the sexaholics anonymous meeting in Ontario,” the teen said, from the seat directly across from Gorman. His jeans were tight and holey. His boots came up to the knee; they were girl’s boots. His hair was dyed five different colors. His nose and his tongue were pierced.
His girlfriend rubbed one of her legs up against his. She was twenty-one according to the information stored on her on her smartcard in her wallet which Gorman was able to read from where he was sitting. She wore a Catholic school girl outfit and no panties, which Gorman assumed was meant to keep the boyfriend in a constant state of heat. “I’m sorry, but I have no interest in recovery,” Tie-dye boyfriend said. “It’s the only escape I have from my dull life.”
“I know, I feel the same way. That’s why I think we should go. I don’t think life’s supposed to play like one extended orgasm. It’s not realistic. Maybe there’s something wrong with our brains. Will you come with me to the psychiatrist’s at least? Maybe we can get on some meds. Something that’ll make the rest of life feel more intense, more real.”
“I might go for that.”
Gorman started to play charades with the eleven year old seated opposite him, currently zoned out to some rapper tune on her iPhone called “Public Enemy” and bopping her head. Despite having her earphones in, the volume was up so loud even the Fat Lady could hear the lyrics, and her hearing was nothing like his. The girl was enjoying the charades game. “Kiss!” she shouted after he finished painting up his face with her different lipsticks in her purse. He clapped for her. The Fat Lady was getting a little frustrated with the slowing of the conveyor belt of doughnuts to her lips until Gorman managed to pantomime more in between her chewing on the doughnut and swallowing and less during the time she was waiting for another tasty morsel.
Soon it would be time to move on Serena. He’d been assessing her the entire time the other stuff was going on. She was engrossed in her iPad, possibly ass
essing her own target’s movements, or wirelessly interfacing with the internet, collecting more intel on them. He couldn’t be sure as her signal was encoded using quantum-based ciphers, which were unhackable even by his kind. Her eyes hadn’t left her PDA, suggesting she didn’t feel threatened and so didn’t need to maintain her guard. Interesting. He wasn’t sure what to make of that. Possibly she wasn’t aware anyone was chasing her. Perhaps she was in a position not to care. He lowered his kill confidence rating from 94% to 76% accordingly, based on other telltale signs. Namely, whatever shielding was lining her body, it prevented any body scans. Not a good sign. It was possible her maker just didn’t want to telecast vulnerable areas suitable for targeting. It was just as possible she didn’t have any vulnerable areas. Her head was cooler than the rest of his body; he’d been able to detect that much. Another bad sign. It suggested her brain was super-cooled, which in and of itself was no big thing. But it could also mean that her mind was super-conducting, running at rates well past what was possible with copper-wire signaling, or even close-proximity transistors. There was nothing more to be gained from waiting. He made his move.
***
Serena was tracking the activity around her targets, the real Mike and Jane, on her iPad. She was only able to do it because someone was in the area who’d created a workaround for the off-grid site they were currently located at, high up in Alaska. A hacker with a jacked up super-cooled laptop, rocking the equivalent of 80 parallel-arrayed P-6 chips, and a repeater able to redirect the closest satellite to doing a fly-over; he was quite good, possibly as good as her.
She was questioning the decision to take a transcontinental train across Canada to get to them, considering the slowness of the approach. But what she’d just seen on her PDA screen suggested slow wasn’t such a bad way to go. All of the Russians that had Mike and Jane surrounded suddenly went offline, drones and cyber-enhanced agents both. No explanation, at least none that she could see. They certainly hadn’t retreated.
The Chinese were moving in now, and their drones and agents weren’t faring much better. Lights kept going out on her screen. She even swore she saw a pattern in the lights flickering out as if there was a hidden message on it directed straight at her. The hacking algorithms she’d sicced on the cipher so far, though, if that’s what it was, had failed to come up with anything. They would continue running even as she felt the cold hand around her neck. Too cold to be an unupgraded person, even if the hand was human.
She gazed up to find the man choking her wasn’t even looking at her. He appeared distracted by the woman beside her, reading Fatal Mistake by Cliff Roberts. “I did a review of that book, if you want to check it out on Goodreads. But honestly, I think this guy I’m reading now, Dean C. Moore, is better.”
Serena was not sure what to make of the robot with ADHD; she just snapped his neck and flung him to the back of the train. His head crashed through the train doors. “Don’t mind her, honey,” The Fat Lady said to the broken robot, “not every woman appreciates the touch of a fine man.”
The teens flanking the robot to the other side of The Fat Lady regarded the robot with wide eyes and astonished faces. “Whoa! I think he’s a robot,” the male teen said.
“Gee, what made you think that?” his girlfriend asked, eying the exposed gears and mechanisms sticking out of his peeled back scalp.
“Gorman, sweetheart,” The Fat Lady said, eying the same exposed robot gutting, “This is by no means a relationship killer. You tell robo-snob back there,” she said, eying Serena acidly, “Wires and gears do not a phony make. I know a phony when I see one.”
Gorman peeled himself off the floor, combed his scalp back over, and shoved his head, which was leaning against his shoulder back into alignment. He didn’t seem deterred, though he did seem distracted. He made a move on the chessboard and stuffed a doughnut in The Fat Lady’s mouth. He played charades with the eleven year old. “I, Robot!” the girl screamed. As he smiled at her, she clapped with glee.
He handed her his PDA. “Could you finish my book review for me for Dean C. Moore? Next line: The unexpected plot twists just keep coming.”
Straightening his collar, he took another step towards Serena. Serena didn’t feel particularly threatened, so she let the fight play out at Gorman’s speed, while continuing to assess her real targets, Mike and Jane, in the back of her mind. The Chinese, which had them surrounded, had dropped to half strength, which didn’t make sense. Even a weaponized Michael should not have been able to stand up to that much pressure for that long. Unless… She ran through the possibilities in her mind, as Gorman gut-punched her and sent her flying to the other end of the train and crashing through those doors.
Some of the humans were tossing their beneath-seat baggage onto the seats and crawling under the seats. One man kept filming with his video camera. He grabbed Gorman’s arm. “Could you sign this, please? It’s a release.”
Gorman complied, using the pen the cameraman handed him. He continued marching towards Alicia.
“Could you open this for me?” the old lady said with the bottle of marmalade whose cap she couldn’t budge. Gorman assisted her, and she went back to spreading jam on her toast. “Oh, don’t let me stop you from beating up that rude lady,” she said. “She refused to talk to me to where I had to find another seat. That’ll teach her to treat old people like that.”
Serena had rerouted the wireless internet feed from her PDA to the back of her mind, now that drawing attention by looking up and to the side for prolonged periods was no longer a consideration. She noticed a couple of the lights coming from the Chinese combatants closing in on Mike and Jane, still over a thousand miles away from her, flared before going out. Was it possibly due to the nano? Could they actually work against attackers even when not part of Michael’s body? How did they survive and proliferate outside of him, unless… More troubling indicators that would take a while to sort out.
She had waited too long to return her attention to Gorman. He picked her up and hurtled her out the window.
Serena landed hard from the train doing in excess of a hundred miles an hour. When she picked herself off the ground, she realized she was inside some old woman’s house. The old woman held out the bottle of mustard in her hands she had been struggling with to her. “Could you open this for me, please?” The octogenarian seemed to take no note of the hole in her house. Perhaps she was too nearsighted to see much past the jar in her hands.
Serena ignored her, and headed toward the hole in the wall. The old lady put on her glasses. “This is the second time now that something’s fallen out of the sky and landed on me. It’s not fair. First the satellite debris, now an actual alien. Miss!” she said, raising her voice. “If this is an invasion, could you please just not screw with my social security?”
Reacquiring the locomotive with the aid of her scanners, Serena calculated how fast she needed to run. She then sprinted toward the train until she caught up with it and hopped back in the window.
The people crawling back from under their seats, at the sight of her, exchanged places with their suitcases again. One old couple, staring straight at her didn’t budge. “God damn it, Henrietta. I’m hungry. When’s the dinner theater over so we can eat?” The ancient Henrietta dragged her doddering husband under the seat with her. “I told you we should have gone with the Alaskan cruise. Too damn cold, you said. As if it’s any less chilling in here.” She finished disappearing under the seat.
Enough was enough already. Serena was using this situation to test her patience, to make sure she kept her cool under pressure, unlike the last time, when she melted down and took out her entire team. Now that she’d proven to herself that she couldn’t be provoked, she pulled the ADHD robot, Gorman, apart and left him in a heap at the back of the train car.
The Fat Lady leaned over and examined the pile of body parts. “No worries, Sugar. My brother can fix anything. Saw him put a crashed plane back together once. Cheap bastard could afford a new one. That’s
just the way he is.”
“Could you still play charades with me?” the eleven year old said to the robot remnants.
Gorman’s head, situated atop the pile of debris, smiled at her and made goblin-like faces. “Ghostbusters!” the girl screamed and clapped with glee.
“Folks, please return to what you were doing before,” Serena said. “If anyone leaves, I’ll be forced to kill everyone on the train. Once I reach my intended destination, you can tell the authorities whatever you want. They won’t believe you.”
She returned to her seat and picked up her PDA, putting Gorman out of her mind, and shifting her attention to where it needed to go. Just what the hell was going on with Michael’s weaponized nano? Was it possible for them to evolve outside the body? Or were these simply slaved to him as the ones she’d been studying previously? She was going to need a lot more analysis if she planned to fare better than the Chinese and the Russians.
TWENTY-SEVEN
The Chinese definitely had their own style of fighting; Cronos, who’d advised Mike and Jane of as much, had proven to be prescient once again. Michael and entourage hadn’t stepped far from the cabin before a Russian drone fighter, shot down by a far more maneuverable Chinese drone, crash-landed into it, blowing it to hell. Both were flying so low they were well under the radar, explaining how they could have gotten into the country without anyone knowing. The Chinese drone was flying so fast Michael couldn’t get a bead on it, even with his nano-assisted nervous system.
He just visualized whoever was wielding it being eaten alive by the same “army ants” as before and prayed he was within range of the nanites which were maintaining a protective perimeter around them. Of course, he was operating on the assumption that even self-piloted drones could be taken over by humans wishing to operate them remotely to get around whatever shortcomings the enemy had identified with the drones’ autopilot algorithms. Soon afterward the hyperkinetic drone crashed into the frozen tundra. Nothing like a little wishful thinking once in a while, he thought.
Nano Man Page 24