Part Three: War Toys
1
December 30th 2018.
Matt Burke:
They let us out of Langley with surprising ease. I’d expected at least a little uneasiness from the suits running the show. Especially Henderson, but he just smiled and said “Have one on me,” and signed us out.
Out into the world…
They even gave us a pool-car (though I’m sure it’s jacked). The only conditions were that we wear basic body armor under our clothes (for “security,” but I’m sure they’re jacked too, with RFID tags so they know where we are), and keep our company cells on us (jacked again—which means we’re tagged at least five ways between the two of us, and that’s just what I can think of off the top of my VR-burned, beer-starved brain). Oh, and the “have one on me” included company plastic to pay for them.
Still, I’m happy to get the hell outside after almost two months entirely spent below ground.
I’ll go ahead and assume Michael is, too, though he hasn’t said much since we checked out. I expect it needs time to sink in: real sky, real streets, real city. And I can safe-bet he wasn’t at all sure that he’d be seeing daylight ever again.
He looks… better. Really. Out from under the whole chemical-interrogation ride for weeks now, just pumped full of rebuilders to finish healing up the shot leg and new the face and put some more meat on him. Add a handful of weeks of intensive PT. He’s filled out, got some color (pale color, but color).
He crashes back in the passenger seat, content to let me drive, not arguing with my music choices, just letting the view of the free world cruise by.It makes me think of a fresh parolee, right out of the prison gates. Then he stretches, and his right hand suddenly jumps off his thigh and he’s looking down at himself, like he’s fascinated with his own empty hand.
“What?”
“Nothing. First time I’ve been anywhere without gun. In a while. You know.”
“Yes, I do,” I tell him. “Nice change.” But I don’t tell him they insisted I carry a compact SIG in my waistband, hidden under my baggy sweater, “just in case.” Just in case what, I have no idea and don’t want one.
Then we’re there:
“You’ll like this place.”
McGrath’s. Irish pub. Lots of polished oak and copper, walls lined with old celebrity pictures. It’s still pre-happy-hour, so it isn’t too crowded. I aim him for a reasonably secluded corner-booth and flag the waitress. We sit, and he easily agrees to a round of Guinness.
“So, what’s with the ‘Captain’ thing?” I have to ask because yes, it is bugging me.
“Credibility, I guess,” he comes back like he thinks it’s a bad joke, then tells me stuff I know (but maybe he doesn’t know I know): “They’ve actually put me through their VR versions of Boot, Special Forces Assessment and Selection, select evolutions of Ranger School, and the highlights of OCS. Fed it to me as fast as I could take it, and apparently I could take it pretty high-band. Humping the obstacle and endurance tests with the hole in my leg was extra-special, but then I’m not sure they get many candidates who’ve made a lifestyle out of doing that kind of abuse recreationally—I think I freaked out the experienced evaluators by making it look like I was enjoying it.”
I keep playing like this is all news to me, let him talk.
“Anyway, they insist my commission is legitimate, even though I’ve never served in an actual unit, much less in command of anything,” he gets back to the essence of my question. “They apparently consider their sim-world’s as good as the real thing.”
Thankfully, the Guinness shows up pretty promptly. He takes his and savors it like fine wine, or something even more precious. And we sit like that, two seriously fucked-up excuses for human beings, until Doc shows up, about ten long minutes later.
“Had trouble finding the place,” he excuses. But he looks nervous, squirrelly. And I notice he makes it a point not to sit next to Michael. “Major Burke. Captain…”
“Ram,” I feel like I have to make it a formal intro. “Like the Porn Star. Mike Ram, this is the infamous Doc Becker…”
“No, not like the porn star,” Doc sputters out, sounding unusually edgy about it. “The name: ‘Ram.’ Datascan picked it.”
“You’re kidding…” I try not to bust up.
“It’s an acronym. R-A-M.” He looks around and lowers his voice.
“It’s okay, Doc,” I tell him. “You’ll notice a lack of cell and WiFi activity in here. Check out the ceiling. That’s old copper. It’s in the walls, too. The owner is retired DOD, started in Navy Signals before getting into scarier shit. I think it made him a little paranoid. Anyway, the place is tsujed to ‘raq most of what can come in and out over the airwaves. Not total, but enough to give us some privacy. Check your link—it’ll be all ‘No Service’.” I let him digest that—though he takes my word rather than pulling out any gear—while I work on my stout. I catch Michael’s half-grin over top of his own pint. But that brings me back to topic: “So what’s a RAM—I mean, other than a sheep with balls and truck that’s too big to find a parking space for?”
“Something I saw in the Manticore files,” he gets into it with TG urgency. “Theoretical project objective, what they think they want in a Tactical. One of the Company psychs—Fredericks I think his name is—started using the term in his research…”
“You want one of these?” I cut him off quick when the waitress comes back to check on us, pointing to my quickly evaporating Guinness. He wrinkles up his nose and asks for a Newcastle.
“I have a thing about beer I can’t see through,” he wimps. Then gets the hint and stays chill until she’s gone out of earshot. “Anyway. R-A-M. ‘Reactive Activation Manticore’.”
“Which is a what?”
“You,” he comes back with that uncomfortable squirrelly. “And you,” he tells Michael, though a bit more gently. “Especially, I think.” He waits for his ale and takes a long drink off of it before he wades in deeper.
“There are gigs worth of studies and reports in the backfiles—a lot of expensive time went into this over the last several years. Apparently the existing psych screening tools weren’t adequate, because what usually made a good special operator wasn’t what they wanted—it wasn’t the skills, it was more about the personality. Or a particular set of personality traits. Fredericks called it the ‘Manticore Personality Profile’.”
“But a Manticore is a monster,” Michael says it like it should be obvious. Then apparently thinks the look on my face means I need a lecture. “It’s Persian for ‘man killer’. Body of a beast, head of a man. It can even be mistaken for a man, at least when it walks upright. It’s how it gets close to its prey. At least until they notice it has a ridiculous number of very sharp teeth. But then it’s too late.” He takes a drag off his stout, shakes his head like he’s confused. “Its personality is merciless and relentless: once it targets, it doesn’t stop. No prey has a chance of getting away. It’s often considered the deadliest monster in the mythical bestiary.”
Suddenly it sounds like he’s talking about himself.
I need another pint.
“Henderson told me they didn’t want assassins,” I deny, waving for the waitress with my empty glass.
“Because they’re sociopaths,” Doc apparently heard the spiel too, or maybe read about it in those files he found. “But that’s not you.”
“So I’m a different kind of monster?”
“But still a killer,” Michael readily indicts us both.
“But it’s why you do it that makes you a Manticore,” Doc tries to make it better. “Reactive Activation means they set you off, you go and don’t let go until you’re done. They don’t want stone killers, but they also don’t want loyal jarheads just following orders, doing their duty. They want real-live heroes with righteous passion, out to avenge the innocent. They want it personal. Look at the scenarios they’re using: they’re meant to piss you off. They flood you with heartbreaking atrocity, then
send you out for ‘justice.’ You’d think it’d be the last thing they’d want, because you’d be uncontrollable. But they figure they can program it, tune your triggers so you’ll go off when they want and in the direction they want—all they have to do is show you dead babies or something.”
“Why?” I have to ask. Then we have to sit and chill while the fresh beer gets delivered.
“I don’t know,” Doc drops to an intense whisper. “I’d thought it was just Datascan wanting to reduce human factor variables: Tacticals that would hesitate, stop following the mission prompts, question their orders. But it goes way beyond that. There’s gigs of dry theory and research talking about public perceptions and ‘ideological warfare’. Like it’s more important than the tactical victories. And then there’s Henderson: he keeps throwing out this catch-phrase of his, talking about being in a ‘Ratings War.’”
“What?” Really lost now. But Michael isn’t: I see him grin that ugly grin of his like it’s all falling neatly into place.
“It’s info-war,” he insists in with that spooky venom coming on, then drops another lecture: “It’s because the terrorist strikes on two fronts: The first is the actual damage he does. Usually, this is minimal, localized, at least when you think about the real damage. But the terrorist specifically picks his targets so the media coverage he gets spreads the impact world-wide, terrorizing entire populations, paralyzing economies, humiliating governments, and bolstering his own recruitment in the process. And the media does it all for him: It becomes less about incurring large numbers of actual casualties than about grabbing the headlines, and he can because of the big ratings that fear and atrocity stories get. We might get a headline or two for hitting back, but a terror story hits a hell of a lot harder than a victory story, and lasts longer. Why?”
And I’m running through my head: A hundred headlines that scare and outrage (and it only takes one before getting on a goddamn airplane requires a prison-grade body search) versus a handful of little celebrations: a plot stopped here, a dead terrorist leader there. He’s right.
“So we need to do what the terrorist does, only back at him?” I try.
“Counter-terror,” Michael muses darkly. “In the literal sense. Overshadow the latest terror-attack news with a hotter story about us hurting them.”
“And it isn’t even about how bad we hurt them,” Doc volleys back.
“It’s about how it looks. And how it feels. It has to pack that emotional punch. Catharsis. Revenge. Satisfaction. Enough to counter the fear and outrage.”
I’m remembering this guy has a psych degree. Glad he’s putting it to good use.
“Henderson was saying the plan was to turn every Tactical into some kind of public hero,” Doc fills in more disturbing details. “They get a fake bio to cover their families, but they’re selecting personality types they think will grab in the media.”
“So the public goes along on the same emotional ride you do,” Michael puts together easily. And I’m signaling for another time-out.
“So they think if they can put—what?—super-suit camera-friendly fantasy heroes in the field, they can put a Hollywood spin on the Bushwar?” I don’t think the beer is helping yet. “What? Us? Look at us: Tactical Team One. A Wiseass Burnout, a Cowboy, and an international assortment of Trauma-Case Nutjobs. And you. How is this a good idea?”
Michael shakes his head. Softens. Raises his glass with a tired chuckle to tell me: Chill, Matthew, I agree with you. At least when I’m not pissed off—when I am, it’s the programming talking.
So I look at Doc, who’s looking very uncomfortable again behind his beer.
“Straight with me, Doc: Your baby-Hal threw out a net and came up with us? On purpose?”
“Something like that,” he cautiously agrees. “Candidates that fit the profile didn’t fit with their units. So the invested players picked operators they were on the verge of dumping, levered them our way. Nothing to lose.”
“So I was screwed from go,” I complain. Then I look across the table. “What about him?”
Doc looks shook. “I… I don’t…”
“You built the thing, Doc,” I nail him. “Why did Dee pick him? And I’m sorry, but I don’t buy the happy accident shit.” I need to know more than I care about sensitivity. Doc’s eyes go down into his beer, and he won’t answer until I push again. “Why him?”
“I… I, uh… I think that was my fault.” He won’t look at us. “When they set Datascan to track… well… the Grayman… It wouldn’t. I thought it was fucking up. I was under a lot of pressure to prove the system, my work. Myself. Then I caught it: Directive Violation. Datascan is set up with these idiot safeties—they wanted to make sure it wouldn’t turn on them, so they ingrained base protocols so that it could only initiate counter-ops against what they defined as a ‘terrorist’.”
“Like they don’t throw that word around to mean just about anybody that they want an excuse to dex.” But then I shut up because I’m ruining it.
“But they did. They set a definition, real basic, safe: It’s anyone who directs violence specifically against civilians for political or economic leverage. But Grayman… uh… you, Captain…” And he finally manages to make eye contact with Manticore Number One. The chilly eyes just look back, giving him nothing. “You didn’t fit that profile. So I… I, um, panicked a little. I told it to reclassify you as an operative, to help you, so we could get the tracking.”
He smiles. Shakes his head.
“Explains a lot…”
“No. It doesn’t.” I jump on it, past conversations clicking hard in my otherwise beer-addled brain. “Henderson sounded like scoring him was the plan from as soon as they locked on him, which I’m betting was Wiesbaden, before you did your little CYA. Which means your precious Hal told Henderson and his cronies what it had before it bothered to tell you—probably had orders to if he’s as wired-in as he seems to be.” Which makes me wonder what else it’s been keeping from you—but I spare him that bit of paranoia. Still, he gets pale, looks like he’s all locked up, grips his beer like it’s the only thing keeping him from running away.
“So who is Henderson?” Michael wants to know, like he’s studying a potential target.
“Official title: JIC Director of CT Ops,” Becker offers.
“Which means what?” Michael presses. “And why does that give him Datascan?”
Doc still looks vapor-locked, so I give it a go:
“What do you know about Joint Intel?” I ask. “About the whole intel structure?”
He shrugs. I order round three, settle into my own lecture-mode.
“History lesson: US Intel is a cluster-fuck. No secret. Has been forever. You got your civilian organizations: CIA, FBI, Treasury, State Department, Energy. Then there’s the military side: NSA, DIA, SATCOM, and then all the different service branches. Now technically, CIA ran the show, but they had no real leverage over all the other players, who kept their own prizes and played jurisdictional pissing-contests for appropriations and glory and shit. So we had huge holes, or we had the intel and it just didn’t go beyond the local office because of the bullshit turf and ego politics. 9/11 showed us how bad it was. And Iraq. So the 9/11 Commission said we needed a Joint Intelligence Coordinator. We had one: the CIA’s Director of Central Intelligence.”
“We even had a supposedly unified data-sharing system,” Doc unlocks and cuts in with the tech report. “Two, in fact. There was ICMAP on the CIA side. That was basically an archiving tool for everything every analyst or ops office produced. The military side had SIPRNET—they tried sharing with the Company, but the infrastructure was a bureaucratic nightmare. So they finally banded together and had DARPA start going through supercomputer contractors for a single system that could actually pull together all the source bits and make cohesive sense—something that would make Joint Intel really joint intel.” He pauses for a drink. “But the way tech evolves in a competitive market, the hardware kept becoming obsolete before they could get i
t past appropriations. So they got smart and demanded something designed to evolve—to be easily upgradeable, or better: self-upgrading. Our Datascan Project met those criteria.”
Doc stops rambling to check who’s in earshot again, then leans tight over the table. There are about a dozen small clusters of casuals and suits warming booths and barstools, apparently self-absorbed. I don’t see anyone I know.
“After we passed DARPA review, Henderson’s office won taking point on field testing. But that was supposed to be it: just target tracking. Then suddenly, in Athens, he’s got instant approval to use Dee for a high-risk live-op—that’s a major fast-forward on the proposed timeframe. Now he’s running it like he owns it. And the timeframe keeps jumping forward.”
He’s making his beer disappear impressively fast.
“He’s got really big names behind him—us—SecDef Miller, General Collins from the Joint Chiefs. I sat in on a major webmeet after your Beslan game. A dozen international players: Russia, China, Israel, Iraq… Japan is in too: they provided almost two-thirds of the components for the core mainframe. And the British, of course. Australia. Germany. Greece. India. Spain…”
“You said your Hal was for US Intel.” I think I’m realizing why he’s so bent.
“Somewhere along the line, when they saw what Dee could do, the plan got changed. That’s why we have the international candidates: We’re not just selling them their own teams in the spirit of cooperation. They’re now proposing a single unified global CT network. One central command, all plugged into Dee. They say they can’t do this thing right unless everybody plays.”
“I remember this speech: ‘You’re either with us or with the terrorists…’”
“But it’s not just a coalition,” he protests. “They were talking about the entire UN. Remaking it into some kind of global army.”
I can barely contain the urge to laugh—I have to remind myself we’re in a public place.
“They think they can pull that kind of leverage? They can’t even keep a Coalition together, even when a dozen major powers are all getting whacked by assorted extremists. That ‘Spirit of Cooperation’ thing only seems to be good for a week at a time…”
“Depending on the headlines,” Michael slides in evilly.
“The tech is the lever to sell it,” Doc comes back edgy. “That’s what the tests are about: it’s like the ultimate infomercial for the military contractors involved. The SENTAR Corporation alone stands to make trillions off this deal. Their Japanese and Korean component producers will get a big piece of that. And the Chinese nanomaterial industries. This is going to be world-changing huge. The visible part—the selling face—is the Tactical gear. The suits, the guns, the interface—that’s what got the international players interested. But that’s the catch: it’s all interface gear.” He pulls his key-cell out of his pocket and tosses it on the table. “Like this phone, it’s gotta-have-hot, but it’s useless junk without the access service. Without Datascan, all SENTAR is giving them is some clunky body armor—the weapons and gear have to be linked to operate. And for the foreseeable future, we’ve got the only AI that can run it all. On top of it, it’s the AI that lets us pull off the amazing bullshit that we put on for show: an army with Tactical gear couldn’t have made that Beslan sim work like it did.”
“But—no offense, Doc—there’s a half-dozen supercomputer developers that do nothing but out-evolve each other’s hottest AI every year or two,” I try to bring him down. “This year, you’re superbrain is smarter than God. Next year, it’s ancient crap.”
“No, Major, you aren’t getting it,” he protests in a manic-spooked way that makes me think of that Frankenstein guy from the old Hammers. “Datascan is a hybrid. It’s both software and hardware. The software is built to evolve into bigger and faster gear. It can even design the upgrades for its own systems. And the mainframe isn’t the physical limit—the same viral spyware it uses to hack and gather allows it to slave. It can expand into anything it can reach. It’s designed that way to prevent competitive obsolescence as well as practical future-proofing. Even if they gave each participant a separate clone system, as soon as they went online, they’d merge.”
“I lost you in the big words, but I’m thinking that sounds scary.”
“That’s why the DOD insisted on the dirt-simple prime-directives: they’ve seen those movies, too. Besides the terrorist-targeting parameter, there’s a list of thall-shalt-nots to keep the system from going SkyNet: No usurping legal political authority, no targeting noncombatants, no ‘prophylactic’ operations against profiled groups; no actions that would destabilize or overthrow any legal governmental system…”
And I have to point out the toaster-illiterate obvious: “Probably all just vague enough that something that thinks as fast as your baby could figure out a way around in a bazillionth of a second if it wanted to.”
“It’s not alive, Major,” he tries, but his delivery sucks. “No self-determination going on. It will only do what it’s programmed to. It’s just going to be a long time before anything else can compete or replace it, and that means whoever runs Datascan is going to run the Terror War. Everywhere, if this plan sells.”
“Assuming they don’t fuck up and get caught—what is it?—directing violence against civilians on purpose? Not that upstanding democratic governments like ours and the ones we do business with would ever do such a thing, but…”
That’s when I catch Michael, descending behind his beer into full-on dark, half-grin twisting until he looks like the devil with a great joke to tell. He shakes it off when he catches me looking at him, but I think I know exactly what he’s thinking.
Nobody talks for the remainder of our beverages. And it’s getting a little too crowded to safely continue this discussion.
“I think we need food…”
Grayman Book One: Acts of War Page 33