by Jon Land
“Your work goes well, I understand,” Takahashi said to him.
“You called me here to compliment me?”
“Hardly. You recall I said there were ninety-six targets?”
“Sure.”
“There are ninety-seven. I left one out—one that requires special attention.”
Takahashi slid a file folder toward the killer. Weetz took it, eyes never leaving the Japanese until the folder was open on his lap. Takahashi watched those razor-sharp eyes narrow.
“I see what you mean,” said Weetz.
“Yes.”
“So why me?”
“This is your specialty, I believe.”
“It also entails more risk than the other sixteen kills combined.”
“Can it be done?”
Weetz smirked. “Look, mister, hide a man down in a mine shaft and I’ll shoot him through the air hole. We’re talking levels here.”
“This level requires your expertise.”
“Won’t come cheap, boss.”
“Name your price.”
“Five million.”
“Make it seven point five. That’s what I was prepared to offer.”
“When?”
“You’ll have forty-eight hours notice. You will not act until given the word.”
Weetz gazed back down at the folder in his lap. “Hits like this take time to set up.”
“You’ll have to make do,” said Takahashi.
“Seven point five on completion, right?”
“You’re well worth it, Mr. Weetz.”
Chapter 13
PROFESSOR RESTON AINSLEY lived in a brick house enclosed by a narrow yard on the outskirts of Georgetown. Virginia Maxwell had arranged a car for McCracken, and he squeezed it into a space just beyond a tow zone. The Ainsley residence seemed well kept, if undistinguished. The first of the fall leaves had already been swept off the walkway and stacked in piles, waiting to be bagged. Blaine climbed to the porch and rang the doorbell.
“Ainsley residence,” a mechanical voice responded through a speaker. “Good afternoon. What can I do for you?”
“I’m here to see the professor. He’s expecting me.”
“State your name.”
“Blaine McCracken.”
“Yes, he is expecting you.”
There was a click, then the solid wood door swung mechanically inward. Blaine stepped through and heard a soft whirring sound an instant before a hulking mass of steel and wires approached from the right. He tensed as the robot drew directly up to him.
“Professor Ainsley is waiting for you in the study. Please follow me.”
The robot’s head was an opaque oblong attached to a flexible steel neck. The words emerged from a plate just above a host of flashing diode lights in its chest. Its midsection was chiseled into the form of a man’s, and its arms were lifelike as well, albeit connected by visible wires and fittings instead of sinew and tendons. Its hands ended in steel pincers. Its torso and legs were covered with wires and what looked like Kevlar tubing. The thing actually walked like a man, right down to a slight flex in its metallic knees. Its feet pads were rimmed by steel pods that flattened out as it lowered its weight. The thing could look Blaine in the eye at six-two, and it seemed incredibly nimble for a machine.
“Mr. McCracken to see you, Professor.”
“Show him in, Obie One,” responded a nasal human voice, and the robot extended its hand outward to bid Blaine on.
“Thank you,” he found himself saying.
“You’re welcome, sir.”
Blaine eased past the robot through a pair of double doors that led into a den cluttered with machines. It had the feel, strangely, of a child’s playroom, where the toys had been left out long after the boy or girl was finished with them.
“Drat,” came the nasal voice again, and McCracken watched as a man seated near the window dumped the contents of his lap onto the floor. Professor Reston Ainsley spun his wheelchair around and rolled toward McCracken, crunching bits of previously discarded materials beneath his wheels. “I see you’ve met Obie One, Mr. McCracken.”
Blaine remained fascinated by the robot. It was advanced far beyond anything he thought science had achieved.
“Actually, we haven’t been formally introduced.”
“Then, allow me,” offered the man in the wheelchair. Ainsley’s wild white hair made him look like a first cousin to Einstein. His right ear was totally concealed by jagged curls, the left uncovered. “Blaine McCracken, this is Obie One, short for Operational Ballistic Droid.”
On cue, the robot extended its right hand and opened its steel fingers all the way.
“Right.” Blaine met the robot’s grasp with his own. “Likewise, Obie One.”
The robot gave him enough of a squeeze for McCracken to feel its incredible power. It could have crunched his bones had it wanted to.
“Would you like me to remain, Professor?”
“That won’t be necessary, Obie One. But please inform Obie Three Mr. McCracken and I will require some refreshments.” The old man turned his wild eyes to Blaine. “Some lunch, perhaps?”
“Just a soft drink will be fine.”
Ainsley looked back at Obie One. “And I will have my usual, Obie One.”
“Yes, sir.”
McCracken watched the robot swing around on its heels and stride away noisily.
“Now, Mr. McCracken, what can I do for you?”
“Incredible…”
“Excuse me?”
“I was just admiring your work. Obie One, I mean.”
Ainsley accepted the compliment with a faint smile. “At one point I envisioned an army of them; resilient, indestructible. Not subject to the effects of nuclear fallout or chemical warfare. Impervious to pain. Capable of sight, hearing, even smell a thousand times more sensitive than a man.”
“Developed as part of the Omicron Project.”
Ainsley’s shoulders flinched as if he’d been shocked by a thousand volts. His features tensed. “Developed as the Omicron Project, Mr. McCracken.”
“Blaine, Professor.”
“Please, why don’t you sit down?”
McCracken searched around for a spot. Every chair or sofa was covered with manuals, computer printouts, and fragments of things waiting to be built. Tools littered the floor; computer floppy disks covered a desk built into the farthest wall. Seeing Blaine’s problem, Ainsley spun his wheelchair around again and motored toward a leather armchair. A single sweep of his arms brushed its contents onto the Oriental rug.
“There,” pronounced Ainsley, and he backed up his wheelchair in order to face Blaine from a comfortable distance.
McCracken took the chair. “Am I wrong or does modern science say a robot like Obie One won’t exist for another generation?”
The professor smiled boyishly. “No, you’re quite right, Blaine. In fact, so far as the scientific community knows, Obie One and his brothers don’t exist yet.”
“Brothers?”
“Six, to be exact, though only three are currently functional. All prototypes for what I foresaw would become an extended family. Alas, though, the family extends only as far as this house. No more were ever produced. Omicron stands today where it stood three years ago.”
“Why was the project scrapped?”
“Lots of reasons…Mostly lack of vision on the part of the check writers. They are creatures of extremes. Well over two billion dollars went into my work during the initial four years that produced the Family. But there were problems in the testing end. Nothing I couldn’t have handled, you understand, but they had lost their patience. Suddenly it was over. No more checks. No more production facilities. The problem in the end, I suppose, was money. They looked at what Omicron was supposed to do, and less nimble minds realized they could operate fifty thousand men for that price. Only problem was a corps couldn’t pull off what the Family could.”
“The Family,” Blaine echoed.
“Obie and his brothers,
of course. You understand the basic concepts of Omicron, I’m assuming.”
“Limited entanglements in a confined arena. Maybe the first attack wave in less than desirable arenas. The counterinsurgency of the future.”
“Yes, as opposed to past war-zone strategies. The global arena has been reduced to minor microscopic grids, and that is where the battles of the future will be fought. Israel’s West Bank, the center of Beirut, the Kuwaiti desert, a terrorist seizing of a school or an oil field. Rapid deployment forces aren’t really that rapid at all—and once they get where they’re going, they’re really too bulky to do much about most things.”
“Hence the perfect rationale for the Family.”
Reston Ainsley looked appreciative. “Very good, my boy, you’re catching on. All of the droids I developed under Omicron had a specialty, a key part of a greater whole. Strategies could be developed along any number of scenarios, relying on these specialties to a greater or lesser degree.”
Just then McCracken felt something graze his leg. He looked down, expecting to see a cat, and froze when what emerged from beneath the chair was what looked like a huge steel snake. “There you are,” said Ainsley, beckoning the thing toward him. “Come right over here now, you scoundrel.”
The snakelike thing continued to emerge. It was as long as a boa constrictor and at least as wide. It was silver in color, and McCracken could not see how it propelled itself.
“Another of the Operational Ballistic Droid series, obviously,” he concluded.
“Obie Four, to be precise, Blaine.”
The thing reached Ainsley’s wheelchair and nudged his leg. Then what McCracken had perceived to be an eyeless head rose like a cobra’s and looked the old man in the eye.
Ainsley stroked its head as if it were an affectionate pet. “Obie Four’s specialty is reconnaissance. He can burrow under any surface and disable mines en route to his target area. His antennae can pick up conversations while buried a good ten feet underground, and he’s also equipped with a camera that can transmit video signals when appropriate.
“And he likes to wander.”
“You noticed.”
“I hope he’s housebroken.”
Ainsley laughed at that. “How much do you know about artificial intelligence, Blaine?”
“About as much as you just told me.”
“Let me give it to you in a nutshell. Artificial intelligence is simply programming machines to learn from their mistakes and make logical choices when presented with a series of options.”
“Nothing simple about that, Professor.”
“Depends on your perspective. For the Obie series to have any chance of succeeding in the kind of encounters it was designed for, the droids had to be able to make their own decisions. Their instinctive decision-making had to be on a par with that of seasoned troops. All input had to be weighed in the blink of an eye, the correct alternative selected.”
“Like I said, nothing simple.”
“Let me finish. The options a man is confronted with in a situation of crisis are exceedingly small in number. You of all people should understand that.”
“Me?” responded McCracken.
Ainsley smiled. “Obie One,” he called out, in a conversational tone. Seconds later the humanlike droid was standing in the doorway. “Tell Mr. McCracken what we learned about him before he dropped by for a visit.”
The robot’s voice emerged in a droll, electronic monotone, as if it had no interest at all in the information it was relating. “Blaine McCracken. Following graduation from high school, started basic training in September of 1967 at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Transferred from there to Fort Polk, Louisiana, for Advanced Individual Training and infantry training. Volunteered for Jump School at Fort Benning, Georgia, where he was accepted into Special Forces training with highest GT score ever recorded. Remained at Benning for Pathfinder and Ranger schools. Upon completion, subject was sent to Camp Mackall at Fort Bragg for Special Forces Qualification course, followed by graduation with honors from Recondo training. Assigned then to Fifth Special Forces Group and sent to JOTC at Fort Sherman Canal Zone. Entered Vietnam in 1969 at Lang Vei, where subject was recruited by CIA for the Phoenix Project. After five months in field, received field promotion to captain following death of—”
“Very good, Professor,” Blaine interrupted.
“Thank you, Obie One.” The robot turned and took his leave. “I do believe he’s jealous, Mr. McCracken.”
“Tell him the feeling’s mutual.”
Reston Ainsley seemed ready to bounce out of his chair. “You’re getting the idea, I can tell! You reached the level you did—and survived at it—because you chose the correct options when confronted by crises.”
“Sometimes I got lucky.”
“But the point is you responded without thinking. Well, technically machines can’t think, either. But teach them to recognize and choose options, and basically you take the guesswork out.”
“So you just drop your Obies into a given entanglement and let them do their thing.”
“We’re talking about two billion dollars worth of machinery here, Blaine, not simple robots.”
Before McCracken could respond, a new whirring sound drew his attention to the door of the study. Passing over the threshold was yet another of the professor’s OBD series, this one a boxlike, waist-high contraption with multiple arm and pincer extremities emerging from slots in its top. It was carrying a plate containing some sort of sandwich and a pair of soft drinks. The sandwich was perfectly layered and cut. The soft drinks were still fizzing over four ice cubes.
“Meet Obie Three, Blaine.”
“An excellent delivery boy. If Domino’s had a few of these, they’d be able to guarantee delivery in fifteen minutes.”
“He didn’t just deliver my lunch and the drinks. He also prepared them.”
Blaine was astonished.
“His pincers and hand extremities are a hundred times more agile and precise than our paltry fingers, Blaine. Imagine him wiring explosives…or dewiring them.”
“Then this is your explosives droid.”
Ainsley nodded. “His hull is composed of titanium steel alloy with Kevlar coating on the outside and an inside layer of copper to reduce heat. His shell allows for the storage of sixteen cubic feet of explosives, supplies, anything.” The old man removed his sandwich from the droid and placed it on his lap. “Now take Mr. McCracken his drink, Obie Three.”
With no hesitation at all, the droid rolled six feet forward and spun so the soft drink was conveniently within Blaine’s reach.
“Thank you,” said McCracken.
“I’m afraid this one doesn’t talk.”
“Each one’s a specialist, kind of like a George Lucas version of The Magnificent Seven. If one of them looks like Yul Brenner, I’m leaving.”
“No, you won’t, because clearly something important has drawn you here. It’s been two years since anyone in the government’s come to see me for any reason other than to check if I’ve finally gone round the bend. They’re not crazy about me keeping the droids, but they know it’s the only thing that keeps me happy…and quiet. So when a man like you shows up on my doorstep with two hours notice, I can only conclude that somewhere something has gone very much awry.”
“In a word, yes.”
“I’m not a violent man, Blaine. But I understand violence, and I understand the need for it. I lost the use of my legs in a car accident when I was twenty. Maybe the creation of these droids is my subconscious way of working out the physical limitations thrust on me by fate.” Ainsley pointed at Obie Three and then Obie Four. “Each represents a different device my handicap has torn from me. They each carry a part of me in them, you see.” He smiled. “I know you, Blaine, better than you think. God made man in his own image, while I made my droids in images I cannot touch. But you are as close to one of them as I ever could have envisioned.”
“Obie One?” Blaine asked.
“Not quite,�
� Ainsley responded.
He pressed a button and a set of bookshelves built into the right-hand wall parted to reveal a darkened compartment. The old man hit another button and the compartment was instantly alight. Blaine’s eyes bulged at the steel-gray shape revealed within.
“Obie Seven,” the professor said.
The final entry in the OBD line was nearly as tall as the eight-and-a-half-foot ceiling. Its head was a globe dominated by a pair of red glowing lights. Its midsection was rectangular, a pair of arms extended forward, ending with open holes. Its bottom was a pod that widened into a housing for wheels or treads. Maybe both.
“Klatu barata nikto,” was all Blaine could think of saying, struck by the robot’s likeness to Gort in the science-fiction film, The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Professor Ainsley was gazing forward with intense pride. “You are looking at a simple killing machine. Perhaps not as fancy or elaborate as some of the other Family members, but equally effective in its own right. Those arm assemblies are fitted for Vulcan 7.62-mm miniguns—”
“I know Vulcans,” broke in Blaine, “but comparing me to this guy is a bit disconcerting.”
“I was talking in terms of effectiveness, and I meant it as a compliment. You’ll have to forgive me. I don’t have guests often, Blaine. What I’m trying to say is how much I enjoy meeting with someone who can appreciate what I’ve done.” The old man took another bite of his sandwich and spoke between chews. “And now that you know what Omicron was, you can tell me what it has to do with your coming here.”
McCracken’s eyes lingered briefly on Obie Seven before turning back to Ainsley.” What if Omicron wasn’t abandoned? What if the project was started up again after your work was squashed?”
“Under whose auspices?”
“Good question. I’m going to tell you a story about a different legion, Professor. Finish your sandwich…Maybe even have Obie Three make you another. This may take a while.”
In the end it took just over an hour, McCracken leaving nothing out and becoming especially explicit in his retelling of what happened after he and Wareagle had reached the Amazon. Ainsley’s reaction evolved from trepidation to befuddlement to a fear that set his hands trembling with Blaine’s depiction of their encounter with the Wakinyan.