by David Archer
Merrick said calmly into his comm unit, “Hastings, Burgess, grenades, now.”
Two of the SWAT officers rose slightly as they each lobbed a grenade into groups of the robots. Sam and the rest ducked down quickly, covering their ears, and the grenades took out almost half of their opposition. The same officers tossed grenades again, and they were down to only four of the robots still on their wheels. Denny let out a war cry and blasted them with the machine gun, and when they were all silenced, he aimed the gun he was holding straight down into its own base unit. The gun fell silent and he dropped it as he stepped off the still rolling robot.
Five people were down, including Darren Beecher, Pat Morgan, and Jade Miller. Darren had been struck twice in the leg, and one of the SWAT officers was applying a tourniquet. Pat was holding a hand against a wound in his right forearm, but blood was seeping between his fingers. Jade was grimacing as Summer rolled up her sleeve to reveal a deep gouge on her left upper arm. Sam looked around at the other casualties and realized that the other three included two police officers who were obviously dead and one of Rob’s men, who had taken a round through his right shin and was now missing his foot. Rob had secured a belt tightly around the stump and dragged him behind one of the toppled robots.
“That’s enough,” Sam said. He turned and looked at the mobile clinic, and started toward it. He heard his name called, and suddenly everyone but the wounded and dead were right beside him as he advanced.
“Orders?” Merrick asked.
“Shoot to kill,” Sam said coldly. “This ends, now.”
A diesel engine suddenly started up, and a large truck came out from behind the mobile clinic. Its large steel front bumper shoved fallen robots aside as it made its way toward the overhead door, which was quickly rising. The SWAT van sat just in front of it, but the big truck pushed it aside as if it were nothing.
Everyone opened fire on the vehicle, but it didn’t even slow down. It roared as it accelerated and hit the street in front of the building, and drove away rapidly.
Sam, Merrick, Albertson, and the SWAT team rushed into the mobile clinic, but all they found was the anesthesiologist, two nurses, and three orderlies. Joel and Daphne were gone.
“Where did they go?” Sam demanded, but all of them were cowering against the wall.
“I don’t know,” said one of the nurses. “He told an orderly to take him and the surgeon into the truck that was hooked to the back, and then it left. I swear to God, that’s all we know.”
Sirens were approaching, but it was only the ambulances Merrick’s people had called in. One of them drove right inside the building, and paramedics rushed to the fallen and wounded. The officer who had lost his foot was quickly loaded onto a gurney and rushed into the ambulance, while other paramedics from another ambulance outside rolled a second gurney in. Darren was laid on it after they checked him over for a moment, and he was rushed outside. The other officers were loaded on gurneys, as well, but Pat and Jade walked out and let paramedics look at their injuries. At Sam’s orders, they allowed themselves to be placed in the ambulances for the ride to the hospital.
Squad cars arrived a moment later, and Merrick instructed them to secure the scene, while he, Sam, and the rest climbed into the van. A sturdy vehicle, being pushed aside had not done it any significant damage, so Merrick leaped behind the wheel and started it up as everyone climbed inside. They held on to anything they could grasp as he threw it into gear and took off in the direction the truck had gone.
One of the SWAT team passed out fresh magazines, and everyone reloaded. The truck had a two minute lead on them, but Sam was hopeful that they would spot it. He took out his phone and called Indie, asking her for updates on Joel’s position.
“I’ve got a program running on my computer that shows me his position on the map,” she said. “At the moment, he’s about two miles north of his original position, on Great Oaks Parkway. His position keeps updating every few seconds, I guess whenever he sends a new command to the server.”
“Okay, just keep letting me know what he does. If he turns, I need to know immediately.”
“I’m watching, and I’ll keep you posted,” Indie said. “Sam, he’s got to be stopped. I’ve been going through files in the server, and it’s connected to literally hundreds of other servers scattered around the world. He’s gotten mirrored servers set up, so that even if we take one down, it won’t interfere with what he’s doing, but even worse than that is the defense computers he’s tied into. We’re talking missiles, drones, you name it.”
“If he’s got other servers set up, why is he still using that one?” Sam asked. “Surely he must know we’ve found it, wouldn’t he?”
“Come on, babe, you’re talking to me. Unless I write files to the server, actually add something to it, or try to change any of its code, he won’t have the slightest clue that I’ve gotten in unless he checks the administrative log. Almost nobody ever checks the administrative log on the server unless they think it’s been compromised, so I’m being careful not to leave any fingerprints.”
“Awesome,” Sam said. “Where is he now?”
“He just turned right onto G10,” she said, “but now he’s turning right again, he’s on the ramp leading to Highway 101. He’s going south.”
“Merrick,” Sam shouted, “he just turned south on Highway 101.”
“Hang on,” Merrick yelled. He slammed on the brakes and cut the wheel to the left, then floored the accelerator to break the traction on the rear wheels. The truck spun around in a bootlegger 180 and shot back toward the south. Two minutes later, he fishtailed the van to the right, running west on the east-bound offramp from the West Valley Forge Freeway.
“Only way to get to 101 from here in a hurry,” Merrick shouted as he reached the top of the ramp and made a hard right onto the freeway. He floored the truck again and hurried across the bridge and onto the southbound on-ramp for 101.
“Indie, we just got on 101 at West Valley Forge freeway. Where is he?”
“I’m checking, I’m checking, oh, Sam, you’re almost on top of him. He’s a half mile south of that exit, just ahead of you.”
“Half mile ahead,” Sam said to Merrick. “Can this thing go any faster?”
“I’m giving it everything it’s got,” Merrick said. “Brubaker, call it in. I want a roadblock on the 101 at the head of the ramp onto Bailey Avenue. Give them a description of the truck and tell them it does not get through, no matter what they have to do.”
The man in the passenger seat nodded and snatched up the microphone, calling in the orders to their dispatcher. Sam heard the dispatcher confirm, but kept his eyes on the road ahead.
“Steenburgen, you ready for action?” Merrick shouted.
“All set, lieutenant,” the SWAT officer replied. Sam glanced back to see him opening a box, from which he withdrew something that looked like an old-style bazooka. “RPG,” Steenburgen explained when he saw Sam’s quizzical look. “High explosive. I can turn that truck into confetti.”
Sam stared at him for a moment, thinking about the fact that Daphne Hu was also in that truck. He started to say something, but then the weight of the situation landed on him like a ton of bricks. Joel had to be stopped at all costs, and if the RPG was the only way, then Daphne and anyone else in the truck might have to be collateral damage.
Officer Brubaker turned to Merrick. “Roadblock on the way,” he said. “They’ll have to stop everyone, because they’re blocking the road with a fire engine.”
“Whatever they gotta do,” Merrick said. “I can’t imagine what would happen if this guy could turn killer robots like those loose in the world.”
“He could,” Sam said. “I don’t understand it all myself, but he must have had this planned for a while. If he had that many robots waiting for us, he’s probably got a factory somewhere turning them out. God only knows how many there are.”
“And he can really control them just with his mind?” Brubaker asked.
; Sam nodded solemnly. “He can. It doesn’t even matter where he is in the world. He could be sitting in the middle of the ocean and send them after somebody in downtown Chicago. And the next generation of them will probably have better armor around the batteries.”
“Then we gotta stop him,” Merrick said.
The lights and siren on the van were doing a decent job of getting traffic out of their way, and Merrick was holding the speedometer at just over ninety miles per hour, weaving around other vehicles like a race driver. He suddenly let off the accelerator partially, and pointed ahead.
“Brake check,” he said. “The traffic up ahead is coming up on the roadblock. Steenburgen, hit the hatch.”
Steenburgen stood and reached upward, and a folding ladder came down as the hatch opened in the roof of the van. Carefully holding the RPG, he went up the ladder until half of him was sticking out of the hole, then braced himself against a pad and hoisted the weapon to his shoulder.
Sam looked ahead and spotted the truck, stuck in the middle of several dozen cars that had come to a stop. Merrick brought the van to a halt just behind them, and then shook his head.
“There’s going to be trouble,” he said. “Cars are packed in so tight on that thing that a few of them are going to feel the blast.” He put the truck in park and got out of his seat, squeezing past Sam to look up at Steenburgen. “Do you have the shot?” he asked.
“I have the shot,” Steenburgen replied.
Merrick closed his eyes. “Take the shot, then.”
41
“Hold up,” Sam said. “Steenburgen, do not fire.”
Merrick looked at Sam. “We have the shot,” he said.
“I’ve got to try,” Sam said. He put the phone to his ear. “Babe, I’ll call you back.”
“Sam, what…” Indie was cut off as Sam ended the call and dropped the phone into his pocket.
He looked at Merrick again. “I’m going in,” he said. “If you don’t hear from me in ten minutes, go ahead and take your shot.”
He stepped out through the driver’s door and started walking through the stopped cars toward the truck. He left the MP 7 in the van, and kept his hands in plain sight as he approached.
The truck was designed like an armored personnel carrier, and Sam could see small windows scattered around it. A face appeared at one of them, and he recognized Daphne as she shook her head, trying to tell him not to come closer.
Sam kept approaching. He walked directly to the truck, then moved up its passenger side toward the cab. When he got there, he reached up and grabbed the handle of the passenger door, but it was locked.
“Open up, Joel,” he shouted. “I just want to talk.”
There was no response for a moment, but then the lock popped up on the passenger door. It swung open and Sam looked into the face of a frightened orderly.
“He says to come in,” the orderly said, “but keep your hands in plain sight.”
Sam climbed into the truck and stepped into the spot where the passenger seat should have been, and that’s when he realized that there wasn’t a steering wheel or driver’s seat. The truck was only another robot avatar for Joel to use.
Sam kept his hands in front of him while the orderly patted him down. The orderly’s face fell after a moment, and he removed Sam’s Glock from its holster on the back of his pants and took it with him as he moved into the large compartment of the truck. Sam turned and stood in the center of the cab and then stepped into the rear compartment. As he did so, he saw the orderly reluctantly hand the pistol to Joel.
He also saw the short, stubby robot. It looked like some kind of vacuum cleaner, except for the obvious gun, a stripped down pistol of some sort, that was aimed directly at him.
“Sam,” Joel said. Sam looked closely at him and saw that his face seemed to be slightly contorted in pain, though it was hard to tell because his eyes were closed. He was lying on a bed that was mounted to the floor, with equipment around him and an IV bag hanging off a hook above him. Daphne was strapped into a seat beside the bed. “Imagine seeing you here,” he said. “Do you think you managed to stop me? This little traffic jam is only a nuisance. This thing was built to plow its way through anything that can be thrown at it.”
“Including high explosives?” Sam asked. “There’s an RPG aimed at the truck right now, and I’m told on good authority that it can blow this thing to smithereens. If we don’t bring this to an end right now, they’re going to put that theory to the test.”
Joel chuckled. A camera mounted on the ceiling swung slightly to aim closer at Sam’s face, and the lens seemed to zoom in on him. “I sincerely doubt it,” he said. “I doubt that it can do us any real damage, anyway. This thing was built to withstand tank-killers and hellfire missiles, so I doubt that little RPG the guy on top of the truck is aiming is going to do much. I, on the other hand, have just launched a pair of General Atomics Avenger unmanned aerial vehicles from Travis Air Force Base, each of which carries two hellfire missiles. I estimate they will arrive on target in about six minutes. Unfortunately, Sam, that wouldn’t be enough time for you to get back to that truck and spread the word for everyone to get out of the area.” His head jerked slightly to the right, as if he had just noticed something. “Let me correct that,” he said. “They’ll be here in slightly less than five minutes. Now, while I might not want to blow up a lot of these nice people around us, my own survival is what is of the utmost importance to me. Because of the way this rig was built, I can blow every car around us off the road, and we can just drive away. You don’t want that to happen, do you?”
Sam stared at him. “Joel, you’re talking about at least a hundred, maybe two or three hundred people. You can just throw away their lives that easily?”
“Sam, I’ve done everything for one single purpose,” Joel said. “I've looked around at the world and seen just how insane it’s become. We’ve got lunatics running our countries, we’ve got people starving all around the globe, we are wasting money on deciding who can live where, when all the technology we need to solve all of these problems is just waiting for us to put it to work. You think I want to rule the world? No, Sam, I want to save it. I want to save the world from itself, from us, from the petty little humans who squabble over the tiniest bit of land or the least little bit of oil. There’s plenty to go around for everybody, but not until somebody says that’s how it has to be. I knew, the day they first put my chip into my head, that I was the one who was going to have to do it. Now that day has come, that’s all. Unfortunately, it means that I have to accept the possibility of collateral damage whenever I’m threatened by the people I’m trying to save.”
For a brief second, Sam was reminded of the fact that, only moments earlier, he had resigned himself to considering Daphne’s death nothing more than necessary collateral damage. Was he just as bad as Joel?
No, he thought. I can accept collateral damage when it’s necessary, but not on a scale like this.
“Joel,” he said slowly. “You’re forgetting one little detail. Nobody wants you to save them, so what gives you the right to decide how the rest of the world will live?”
“The Native Americans didn’t want the white man to shove them onto reservations,” Joel said, “but we did it because it would be good for them, or so we said. Their own tribal pride made them enemies of the white man’s way of life, so the only way to avoid having to kill all of them was to take away that pride. I understand that people are going to think I’ve taken away some of their freedoms, but now that I am in control, their lives are only going to get better. No one will go hungry, no one will be refused medical care because they don’t have money, no one will feel they aren’t as good as anyone else—that’s the way life should be, isn’t it?”
“No,” Sam said. “First off, what happened to the Native Americans was a tragedy on many levels, and one of the worst examples of human cruelty you could possibly think to emulate. That kind of thinking is what motivated people like Hitler.” Sam shook his
head in frustration. “Mankind was made as a predator, a hunter and gatherer who takes from the world what he needs in order to survive. Even today, the fact that men get up and go to work is nothing but the evolutionary evidence of that need to go out and hunt, and without it we are nothing. We don’t want to be fed, we don’t want all the answers handed to us on a silver platter; that would do nothing but destroy the creativity, the genius, the ambition that is the essence of being human. What you’re calling problems are the very things that have driven humans to overcome obstacles. We didn’t develop medicines because they seemed like a good idea, we developed them because people were sick. Today we’re coming up with ways to grow food that will produce many times what our grandfathers were able to raise on the same plot of ground, but not because we wanted to; it was because of famine and starvation. Even war—I’ll concede that war is terrible, but it’s been the mother of more invention and research than any other thing in history. While it might be wonderful if we can live in peace with our neighbors, the very nature of man says that it won’t last forever. We need conflict, we need competition; that’s how we thrive. And you want to take all of that away from us?”
“Sam, you’ve got less than ninety seconds before the Avengers get here. Are you going to clear my path and save all of these people, or am I going to have to do it myself?”
Ninety seconds. The countdown for the RPG still had at least three minutes to go. Sam stared at Joel’s face, and his shoulders sagged.
“I’ll call off the roadblock,” he said. “Give me a couple of minutes to get back there, and I’ll call it off.”
Joel nodded, his eyes still closed. On the ceiling, the camera bobbled up and down slightly. The stubby little robot just kept its gun aimed directly at Sam’s face.
“I’ve got the Avengers circling,” Joel said. “When you get out, you’ll hear them. You’ve got five minutes to have this traffic moving again, and if I see that truck following, I’ll take it out. You know I will, Sam. You know just a few of the things I’ve already done to make this happen.”