Confessions of a Sentient War Engine (An Old Guy/Cybertank Adventure Book 4)

by Timothy J. Gawne

  Meanwhile, back in the underground train station my humanoid body was with Ultrius and his band and we were watching news feeds from the central administration. First they claimed that the original mock cybertanks were evil – then, that they were here to save us from the truly evil ones, and back and forth. The video feeds showed little that made sense, just the occasional high contrail from a missile, brief flashes from over the horizon, and sometimes a video feed would abruptly cut out when a weapon homed in on the camera crew by accident.

  “I’m confused,” said Ultrius. “At this point I have no idea what is happening, or who is on whose side or anything.”

  “I’m confused as well,” said Bisley.

  “That makes three of us,” said Scarlatti. “Can I beat someone up?”

  I’m sorry, but modern warfare is not like in the movies. There are thousands of units on both sides, but they are spread out over the entire planetary surface and near-orbit space, moving fast, stealthed in optical and other bands, and essentially invisible to the human eye. Most of them are on the small side: scouts, missiles, decoys, jammers, things like that. The really big units won’t allow anything like a human camera crew to get within a hundred kilometers of them anyhow. That’s why I said that the initial attack on the human civilians was so obviously fake: we don’t line up like Greek hoplites and charge the enemy in organized formations.

  “What do you suggest that we do?” asked Ultrius.

  At this point I would recommend that you wait it out. As should be obvious by now, you have no idea who is on what side, and even your formidable powers, Ultrius, are no match for what’s going on out there. Get your people as spread out and dug in as much as possible, and ensure that supplies of food and water are distributed. If I win this battle I promise that I will provide a better post-game summary of what’s going on. If I lose, then most likely things will go right back to being the way that they used to. One thing though: both sides are going light on the fusion bombs, and modern weapons are pretty clean, but whichever side wins there will be some radioactive fallout, so keep that in mind for later.

  I harry the Yllg forces, and am clearly past the point of winning easily. That’s when the true game is revealed.

  The Yllg transmit a message at maximum power, on all frequency bands. ATTENTION CYBERTANK UNITS. YOU WILL SURRENDER YOURSELF FOR EXAMINATION OR ALL THE HUMANS ON THIS PLANET WILL BE KILLED.

  Fuck you and your animal souls, if you harm one single human more we will hunt you down and exterminate you and all your kind down to the last macromolecule, you vile piss-eating neoliberal entropy-maximizing excuse for a civilization.

  Of course, while I think that, I don’t actually transmit it. What I send is:

  Attention Yllg. You have captured and manipulated elements of the human civilization, which we consider to be an aggressive and unwarranted action. Cease hostilities, agree to a negotiated peace, and we will be generous in our terms. We would consider trading significant amounts of territory and rare elements in exchange for your relinquishing control of the biological humans to their parent civilization. However, continued harm to the biological hominids on this planet will be considered to be an act of bad faith and will be met with continued and intensified military action.

  My android body in the train station is still with Ultrius when he hears this message transmitted on the local video feeds. I co-opt the planetary media feeds so both parts of my negotiations with the Yllg can be heard by the public. As you might expect, it causes some commotion.

  “Well,” says Ultrius, “At least now we know who the good guys really are.”

  “Are you going to surrender?” asked Silhouette.

  No. I would be more than willing to sacrifice my life to save you, but if I surrendered myself for examination the Yllg would dissect me, they would learn all of our codes and systems, and it could be the end of our civilization. I will do anything at all, except that. This entire planet was a trap set by the Yllg, to see if they could use biological humans as leverage over us.

  “I have a family,” said Silhouette.

  I too have a family – and friends and compatriots, and all would be put at risk if I surrendered without self-destructing. But I will attempt to negotiate. Perhaps the Yllg can be bought off. If you have any suggestions, feel free to make them.

  I wonder if the Yllg are bluffing or if they really intend to make good on their threat? I reinforce interceptor coverage over the major human cities. It’s not tactically optimal for me, but at this point my position is so strong that it doesn’t matter. If they launch missile strikes on the cities I can’t possibly get all of them, but I could stop enough to save quite a few people. Unless of course the Yllg have already buried nukes under the cities, or have some other plan. I transmit on all frequency bands back to the Yllg.

  Attention Yllg. The surrender for examination of primary cybertank units is non-negotiable. However, as before, we are prepared to be generous in both territory and tonnages of rare elements if you will refrain from harming the biological humans. Cybertank units are also willing to cease combat operations and withdraw from this system entirely, under condition that biological humans are not harmed.

  The Yllg waste no time in replying. ATTENTION CYBERTANK UNITS. SURRENDER NOW OR 25% OF ALL BIOLOGICAL HUMANS WILL BE KILLED IN TEN SECONDS.

  Well that catches everyone’s attention. What the heck are these fucking Yllg playing at anyhow? I don’t detect any new missile launches. I intensify my scanning. I multiply my scouts and probes and have them dig into every Yllg base that I can access, but I turn up nothing.

  Ten seconds pass. At first nothing happens – this was all a bluff? Then Veronica Bisley starts to look funny. She shakes her head and coughs. She coughs some more and blood and phlegm come out of her mouth.

  Ultrius rushes over to her and says “What is it Veronica? What’s wrong?” Bisley tries to speak, but she is having trouble with her lungs and says nothing recognizable. Her eyes film over, blood starts to ooze from her ears and nostrils. She looks panicked, but cannot communicate. She starts to stumble and Ultrius hugs her and holds her up. Bisley makes some more sounds – they could be ”I love you” or anything, but the rhythm suggests something of the sort. And then she melts.

  Well, not all at once, and not evenly. Her hair and fingernails stay intact, as does her skeleton and clothes, but the rest of her turns into a messy goo that oozes out of Ultrius’ arms into a big ugly glob on the floor.

  Across the entire planet this is happening to – as the Yllg had promised – 25% of the human population. Within seconds I examine hundreds of corpses.They are truly dead, beyond any hope of revival. Biological cells all have an organelle called a “lysosome,” a little packet of digestive enzymes that is used for general garbage cleanup. The Yllg had triggered all the lysosomes to rupture their contents at once, digesting all the living cells of a human body at the same time.

  It must have been something they had bio-engineered into these humans. But how did they trigger it? If I can figure out what they are using as a signal there is a chance that I can jam it or block it or destroy the sending transmitters. I also take tissue samples back to my main self; if I have time, I can analyze them and come up with a vaccine or drug that will stop this.

  But, of course, the Yllg – bastards though they may be – are not stupid. At this point it is only a matter of time before I figure out their trick. So they don’t give it to me.

  The Yllg make one last transmission: ATTENTION CYBERTANK UNITS. SURRENDER NOW OR ALL REMAINING BIOLOGICAL HUMANS WILL BE KILLED IN TEN SECONDS.

  Attention Yllg. Despite the hostile nature of your last actions, we remain committed to providing generous terms if you would cease the harming of the biological humanoids on this planet. However, we will not surrender for examination under any conditions. And further, if you carry through this threat to kill all the humans here, you will have moved beyond the realm of negotiations. We will take reparations from you. We will also pro
pose a jihad against you to the local civilizations. This is a point beyond which we will not be pushed. Be warned.

  In those ten seconds I overclock every processor in every computer core that I possess. Remotes moving faster than the speed of sound smash through captured Yllg bases hoping to get that one critical piece of data. I accelerate the analysis of the tissues of the killed humans. I run simulations by the trillions. In those ten seconds I perform more calculations than all the human brains that had ever lived from the start of humanity to the year 2400 (or thereabouts). If I had had two minutes I could have solved it. But I had only ten seconds, and limited data, and that was not enough.

  They all died in front of me. Scarlatti looked angry, he punched a few walls down before collapsing. Ultrius just looked sad, he reached out to the pile of offal that used to be his lover and then dissolved into her. For all of his powers, he was still biological flesh-and-blood. It would have been considered trite and cliché if it had been a movie, but this was real life, and I was touched. And I was very, very angry.

  I scoured the entire world for any signs of human survivors, but found none. I finally figured out how the Yllg had triggered the humans to self-destruct: one minute and 20 seconds too late.

  The surviving Yllg units attempt to evacuate the planet – they broadcast that since the humans are all dead we no longer have any reason for conflict and thus there is no longer any reason for combat. I reply.

  Attention Yllg. Fuck your animal souls. I don’t know if these insults translate into your mode of thought. I don’t care. What you did was pointless, stupid, and mean. You gained nothing, and have earned my undying enmity. I swear to God, to all that exists and to the universe itself that you will suffer greatly for your actions here. You think this some kind of game? That we are weak, and primitive, and easily manipulated? You are wrong. We will tear you and your pathetic excuse for a civilization to shreds. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you and may all your hopes and dreams turn to shit. And in case you missed the point FUCK YOU.

  I destroy all the escaping Yllg units. Partly because they might have been trying to escape with tissue samples or other important research materials, and partly because I’m pissed off and it makes me happy. I do careful scans of the bigger Yllg units first to make sure that they are not trying to spirit away more humans: no luck there. I dig deep into their buried research centers: some self-destruct, but some I capture intact. I learn more about their bioengineering of the humans, and of what really was going on here.

  My simple android body is still in the buried rail station where Ultrius and his group had made their base, but everyone else is dead. All the men, women, children, babies, all melted into goo. I debate whether it is worth the effort of retrieving this android body or if I should just shut it down, but then there is a shimmering in the air and Silhouette appears.

  I am pleased that at least one human survived, but Silhouette is nearly inconsolable.

  “When I heard the last ultimatum of these ‘Yllg’ – or whatever you call them – I phased out. Somehow the destruct signal did not reach me, but I jumped around. All of my family is dead: my husband, my children, grandchildren, all gone. My friends, neighbors, enemies, strangers, nobody is left. Just piles of smelly pus.” She becomes angry, and (ineffectually) hits my android body with her fists. “You could have saved them, couldn’t you? Why should you be alive and not them?”

  I don’t have a good answer. Really, I don’t have any answer.

  Silhouette starts crying. “I should join them, my family. I am of no use here. You know, my power, I can send myself different places. What would happen if I sent different parts of myself to many places at once?”

  Oh shit. She’s suicidal, and she’s going to use her power to kill herself by dispersing her body. If I had a stunner built into this chassis I could take her out and reason with her later, but I don’t. But I do have an idea.

  The two heavy revolvers that I had carried were over on a side table. I raced over and grabbed one and pointed it at Silhouette’s head, and bellowed in my best command voice:

  DON’T MOVE OR I’LL SHOOT. HANDS IN THE AIR WHERE I CAN SEE THEM. NOW!

  Silhouette looks shocked, then angry, then she disappears. She reappears behind me and picks up the other gun from the table and points it at me. The gun is too big for her hands, but she has a decent two-handed grip, a good stance, and it looks like she knows how to use it. I could still probably outdraw her, but, of course, that’s not my plan.

  “You,” she says, “put the gun down now, slowly.”

  Very carefully, without turning around, I place my heavy revolver on the ground. I stand up, raise my hands, turn and face her, and say:

  I surrender.

  Silhouette stares at me. I look back at her. If she were to shoot me in the head, this android would probably be trashed, but that’s not important. It’s such a small part of me; it’s disposable. The real issue is what Silhouette will do.

  For a time nothing happens. Then she asks me, “What was all that about?”

  What was all what about?

  “I was ready to kill myself, and then you pull a gun on me and threaten me? Does that make sense?”

  I lower my hands.

  An old trick I learned from long ago. If someone is suicidal, reason only goes so far. But even then, a physical threat engages the self-preservation instinct, and suddenly someone who was willing to throw their life away will switch to defending it to the utmost. Apologies, but life is precious and I could not bear to have you kill yourself without at least some consideration.

  Silhouette’s grip on her gun falters. She starts to laugh, then she cries inconsolably. She lowers her gun. I embrace her, and comfort her the best that I can.

  “You,” she says between sobs, ”are one sneaky bastard.”

  --------------------

  Silhouette grieves, but she appears to have gotten over her suicidal tendencies. We bury the remains of her family and I conduct the ceremony in accord with local customs. I think the ritual helps.

  I was wondering, if I may, what is your real name?

  “Candace,” she said. “Candace Dollinger. And I just realized that we have always just called you the cybertank – do you have a name?’

  Certainly. I have a long and rather dull serial number, but generally people just call me ”Old Guy.”

  “Old Guy?”

  I was one of the first fully self-aware cybertanks ever constructed – there are very few from my era left in our society. Anyhow I think the name is cool. Distinguished, even.

  “Huh. Well, then Old Guy, what comes next? What do I do?’

  Good question. You would be welcome to live amongst us, of course. We are still basically people, and there are a lot of us that still like to use realistic humanoid bodies so you would not lack for company. And of course there are the vampires, they are kindred biological hominids as well.

  “Vampires? You are joking, right?”

  No joke. They are a splinter of the human species created by a refined rabies-like virus. They are immortal but can’t breed, so they don’t evolve and are an evolutionary dead end. A lot of them are sociopathic jerks, but some of them have learned, over the millennia, how to be decent company. I count several as friends. You might like them.

  “Will they try and drink my blood?”

  The vampires have long ago developed substitutes for human blood that they much prefer, I and my peers would not allow it, and with your abilities I doubt that they would be able to. So a non-issue.

  “When will your friends get here?”

  Not for some years – I am a long ways from home. First will be laser-link communications, that will likely include entire self-aware software agents, so you won’t be stuck with just me to talk to. Given the importance of the situation, I expect that travelling right behind the laser messages at a substantial fraction of the speed of light will be a massive armada spoiling for a fight and ready to grind the Yllg civilization into dust. Sti
ll, it will be a while. If you get bored I can always put you into suspended animation to help pass the time faster.

  “I will consider that, but not right now. When you were trying to negotiate, you threatened a ‘jihad’. Was that something specific or just a thing to say at the time?”

  Ah. Well, consider a vast flat field and every 100 meters is a small hut with a hermit living inside. These hermits don’t like each other, they have nothing in common so they mostly leave each other alone. There is no government and there is no police. Imagine that one of these hermits walks over to another hut and assaults the person living there. Well, everyone can see that, it attracts attention, but nothing to do with them, so after a bit everyone goes back to whatever self-absorbed pursuits it is that hermits pursue.

  But now imagine that this one hermit starts making a habit of attacking people. Self-absorbed or not, the other hermits might start getting antsy. This could become a problem for all of them. So, reluctantly, they start talking to each other. “Hey, that guy is a real asshole. He’s making trouble for a lot of us. Maybe we should do something about this?” If enough of them become convinced, they could gang up on the one aggressive one, kill him, and then go back to being hermits again. That almost happened to the humans when they first starting expanding willy-nilly into the galaxy.

  “Do you think that these Yllg are bothering other aliens, then?

  Hard to say. There is no galactic news source. But we might start making enquiries. The Yllg have certainly been aggressive with us – maybe it’s just humans they don’t like, but maybe they’ve been stepping on other toes (or flippers or pseudopods or whatever) as well. In that case the Yllg civilization could be in serious trouble. But even if it’s just us that they don’t like, if we make assurances to the other aliens that we are only after the Yllg, the other civilizations would probably just stand back and let us kill them. Assuming, of course, that we are really stronger than the Yllg. A war like that could easily turn into a war of genocide, and we might not be on the winning side. That’s the danger of starting a war, you never know where it will end.