by Lance Erlick
A Special Ops helicopter flew overhead. Synthia’s survival inclination was to try to take it out, but more vehicles were attempting to intercept her path and she couldn’t deal with both problems. She should have installed more capacity when she did her upgrade. However, that required another unit and there was no available space inside her body. She plastered an enigmatic smile on her face to avoid adding to the anxiety of her companions.
Up ahead, the helicopter swooped down across the road and buzzed traffic, adding to driver confusion. The pilot flew at a truck driven by Tolstoy. He swerved out of the way and into an abandoned clothing boutique. The helicopter lifted up and landed on a rooftop. Colorado-clone sent a brief clip of the action to Synthia.
Synthia swerved her van around traffic and hacked self-driving vehicles up ahead to pull out of her way. Meanwhile, she pondered the accidents she’d created and the possibility that in her haste, there may have been injuries. She hoped none were serious or fatal. This all went against her directive not to hurt humans. She rationalized that if caught, her captors would create many more like her, endangering far more lives. It was the ethical argument of the greater good. However, the greatest good would come from Synthia destroying herself. She couldn’t. Not yet.
She also considered that those after her had robots. Eventually they’d have capable androids. They all wanted to capture her in an arms race to have an advantage they could exploit at the expense of ordinary people. Synthia wanted to exploit the robots’ inferiority, but worried that she still couldn’t locate Drago and his teams, beyond the helicopter that hovered nearby. They must have been working on a grander plan.
“Doesn’t causing accidents go against your directives?” Maria asked.
“Don’t make this tougher,” Synthia said. “It does. I just want them to leave us alone. I didn’t ask for any of this.”
Traffic cameras showed Mr. Smith heading for Synthia from in front with two other SUVs closing in from the sides. The vehicles had the self-driving features disconnected so she couldn’t stop them. She could have her clone hack other cars to close off all three pursuers, but that would eliminate her escape routes with several more vehicles weaving their way down side streets from behind. She was playing the human game of Whack-a-mole. Every time she neutralized one hunter, others appeared.
Synthia concluded that Drago had put all of the players on Synthia’s trail to flush her out. He was planning something big.
John Smith’s vehicle swerved and crashed into a building. Synthia’s clones created accidents to block the other two vehicles while sending her updated video. She headed left. As she approached Smith’s crashed vehicle, one of his agents climbed out and held up a small, handheld EMP device. The sight of it sent anticipatory vibrations up Synthia’s circuits. The mechanism consisted of a large capacitor and a directional transmitter that would give him one shot before he needed to recharge. He took a moment to aim.
Synthia had her van swerve into an alley and speed to the next street.
“Careful,” Grace said. “You have precious human cargo in here.”
“That guy had a pulse machine, didn’t he?” Maria asked.
“An illegal device that could disrupt electronic equipment along its path, potentially hurting humans.”
“Can we get one of those to take out the robots?”
“On the black market, but not soon enough,” Synthia said. “I believe Special Ops created this free-for-all to get us off guard. It’s clear we can’t take them one at a time.”
“We need to shut them all down at once,” Grace said.
“Without hurting Synthia,” Maria added.
“We can’t get EMP equipment in time,” Synthia said. “I’ve tried. However, maybe we don’t need to.”
“What do you mean?” Maria asked.
“Special Ops has something big in mind. I’m guessing it could be EMP related. They want to corner me where they can use it.”
“Really? Then what do we do?”
“We help them come to the right conclusion,” Synthia said. She directed the van southwest to stay within populated areas and monitored traffic patterns. “Give me a moment.”
Synthia contacted Colorado-clone.
Over her silent internal channel, Synthia called Detective Marcy Malloy, scattering signals off satellites and nearby cell towers to mimic calls from overseas. Malloy stared at the blocked number before picking up. “In the spirit of cooperation,” Synthia said, “I suggest you get your FBI friends to bring in a flux compression generator. It’s a non-nuclear EMP weapon that can disable all of the robots and androids moving about the Denver area, threatening civilians. They’ve caused a number of accidents. Once disabled, you can collect them and get them off the streets. Your friends will know how to do this.”
Except the FBI didn’t have control of these weapons, the military did, which meant Commander Drago and his Special Ops.
Malloy responded and tried to trace the call. “Turn yourself in and let us handle the others.”
“The FBI doesn’t have enough resources in Denver to deal with what’s going down unless you neutralize the robots. There are over forty. They represent a clear and present danger to the citizens of Denver. I’m signing off before you track this.” Synthia disconnected and scattered traces on the call.
* * * *
Commander Kirk Drago got off the phone. His face red and fists clenched, he climbed out of his helicopter onto a shopping center parking lot and approached FBI Special Agent Victoria Thale. Flanked by Fran Rogers, Thale stood her ground. Detective Marcy Malloy and Director Emily Zephirelli stood behind them.
“You’re way out of your league,” Drago said to Thale. “What’s the meaning of your request for drone EMP equipment?”
“Sorry to upset your private mission,” Thale said, “We have a civilian catastrophe on our hands. You decided it would be fun to leak the location of our android so everyone would converge on her. Did you think we wouldn’t notice?”
Drago’s forehead wrinkled as his eyes burned into Thale. Fran stepped between them, forcing Drago to ease up.
“Synthia’s ours no matter who captures her,” Drago said. “Make no mistake about that or you’ll find yourself entering the seven levels of Purgatory.”
“Someone’s feeling the pressure,” Thale said, shielding her eyes from the bright sodium lights above them. “Don’t forget we’re on the same side. A targeted blast can remove some forty robots so we can get them off the streets and focus on Synthia.”
“We control the EMP equipment. We control the plans. Watch and learn. This is a whole new world.”
Malloy stepped forward. “I take it Zeller hasn’t provided you anything useful for turning off any of these machines.”
Drago flinched for an instant and recovered. “They’ll serve their purpose after we capture the lot.”
“What about Luke? Has he provi
ded anything useful to capturing Synthia?”
“The upload of memories is a slow process. Either that or he doesn’t know anything. We’ll know soon enough. Now, you’re officially working for me to capture all of the androids and robots. Is that clear?”
“Where are you herding Synthia so we can help?” Thale asked.
Drago grumbled and turned that into clearing his throat. “We want to get her out of the metropolitan area so we have a clear shot without civilian casualties. So far, she’s remained in populated areas.”
“Then perhaps she knows your plan.”
“If we can’t get the android into an open space tonight, we’ll have to risk civilian casualties. We can’t allow her to remain on the loose.”
“You do mean all of the androids and robots, don’t you?” Thale asked. “We need to remove them all.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll have one of my agents assigned to you to facilitate communications.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Drago said. He held up his hands as if to block the request.
“It will if you want our cooperation. You do realize we have foreign agents involved. We need to compare intelligence and work together or this will get out of control.”
Drago nodded. “I’ll take this one.” He pointed to Fran Rogers.
“She remains with me,” Thale said. “I have a brawny ex-marine in mind as your companion.” She turned and pulled Fran away.
Chapter 27
Synthia noted the icy cooperation between Commander Drago and Special Agent Thale, which added uncertainty to Synthia’s survival. The good news was that she had eyes and ears on Drago now, thanks to a swarm of mosquito-drones that followed him onto his chopper before it fired up. The call to Malloy had provided some benefit, though it barely improved the probability of making it through the night.
Evening was growing darker by the minute above the city lights. Some forty vehicles sped around the Denver area hunting Synthia, while Drago toyed with her. She needed to up her game before civilians went home, leaving the streets empty and her exposed. She had Colorado-clone acquire additional clones devoted to aspects of Synthia’s survival and made sure her batteries were recharging through the van’s electrical systems.
One of her clones would analyze the implications of Drago using an EMP against her, while acquiring necessary supplies to protect against such an attack. Another focused on the traffic maze to identify paths that would minimize the risk of crashing or capture. A third had its sole mission to watch Drago and the Special Ops teams. She uploaded her memories to a fourth in case Drago succeeded. She had a fifth compile detailed maps and background on the entire Denver area and download the results to Synthia.
She directed her van’s movements and turns to avoid traps even while manipulating lights and self-driving vehicles along the way to open up a path. She received periodic pings that indicated someone trying to contact her, her mysterious admirer. After the earlier hack attempt, she shielded herself from all outside communications except from her clones. Synthia didn’t want Drago, Vera or anyone else hacking in to control her movements. She also jammed her van’s wireless systems so only she could communicate with them.
The van swerved around pedestrians and sped along green-lighted streets. As a drone swarm approached the area, Synthia pulled into a parking garage and slowed until the swarm passed. She exited on the next street, forcing self-driven cars to move out of her way.
From the back seat, Maria stared at Synthia. “It amazes me how much you must be multitasking. I don’t mean to distract, but…”
“It’s okay. I’m data-gathering. We need a safe place for a showdown with the other androids, the robots, and everyone else. It needs to be near people to prevent a nuclear option.”
Grace clasped her hands in her lap. “Nuclear?”
“Figure of speech,” Synthia said. “It’s a crude solution involving civilian casualties. We need a quiet place with few or no people around to minimize casualties. We also need a significant energy source.”
“You mean like a power station?” Maria asked. She pulled out a phone she rarely used and began searching for options.
“That much loss of power would devastate the Denver community. It would also make it harder to shield me.”
“What about a mall after closing? It’s surrounded by people and neighborhoods, yet at night, there’re few people around.” Maria pulled up the locations of malls around Denver.
“Problem is they can surround the mall,” Synthia said. “Making it impossible to escape afterwards. That defeats the purpose. On the positive side, malls do use a lot of electricity. We’ll also need to create a Faraday cage.”
“What’s that?” Grace asked.
“It’s a box like a microwave oven that’s enclosed and shielded,” Maria said. “In the case of the oven, the purpose is to keep all of the microwave radiation inside to do the cooking. We need something that will keep the EMP outside of a room we hide in.” She pulled up a short list of larger malls and a longer list of smaller shopping centers.
“Like a bunker,” Grace said.
“Wouldn’t have to be.” Synthia altered the van’s direction and blanked out nearby street cameras for what good they’d do. “The important thing is to enclose the space with the right kind of shield to prevent the pulse from hitting me.”
Grace laughed.
“What’s funny?” Maria asked, looking up from her screen.
“A local nut-job, that’s what.”
“Huh?”
“Devon McCracken,” Grace said. “The reclusive billionaire is as wacked as they come. He built himself a bunker in what are now the western suburbs. When people moved west, he turned his land into a mall. Rumor has it the bunker remains below the mall so when he’s in town, he’s never far from his shelter.”
“I’ve got it,” Synthia said. “Rocky Mountain Mall. It could work if we can get there.”
She swerved down a side street to avoid one of Tolstoy’s SUVs and blocked their pursuit with self-driving cars crisscrossed all around them. If she kept this up, she’d end up trapped in her own roadblocks. She had Denver-clone download building plans for the mall.
“That’s the one,” Grace said. “They have several big stores struggling to stay open. The Crack-head subsidizes the mall to protect his hideaway.”
“Is there a tunnel that leads away from the mall?” Synthia asked. “A back door?”
“I have no idea. Knowing how paranoid this nut-job is, I wouldn’t be surprised. He’s into all sorts of apocalyptic conspiracy theories. If he spent his money on solving poverty, he wouldn’t have to worry so much.”
“The building plans don’t mention a bunker or anything to imply a Faraday cage,” Synthia said.
“You already have access to the building plans?” Grace asked.
“Synthia has her own Web connections,” Maria said with a note of pride in her voice. “She can really multitask.”
“Wow. That’d come in handy.” Grace leaned toward Synthia. “The owner is a survivalist nut. He talked about EMPs destroying the grid and the end of the world as we know it.”
“Makes sense,” Maria said. “Having lived off the grid, the biggest problem is food and water. With all the retail store shipments, he could bring truck loads through the mall and no one would suspect.”
“What about water?” Grace asked. “That needs pumps which require electricity.”
“Not if the owner brought in enough bottled water. A mall is big, covering a lot of ground. If he has an extensive bunker, he could have a lot of storage. He could even have built water storage tanks and have a generator to run his pumps.”
“McCracken is rumored to be in San Francisco, meeting with bankers over another real estate deal,” Synthia said. “I’ve booked his girlfriend on a flight to meet him so she doesn’t
nose around. If this is a workable option, having them gone will help.”
“Then we have a location,” Maria announced.
Synthia scrambled the signals on local street and building cameras and had her van pull into a parking garage with two entrances. She hacked the security cameras to freeze the image to a moment before she entered. Then she had a self-driving panel truck for a florist shop drive up beside them.
“Everyone out,” Synthia said. “We’re switching vehicles.”
“You could give us some warning,” Grace said. Her face glowed in annoyance, or so Synthia’s social psychology module noted.
“Grab everything and load it into the panel truck. We haven’t much time.”
Synthia jumped out, moved packages she’d picked up earlier into the panel truck, and climbed into the back with her companions. She had the florist truck leave the parking garage from the other side while the van moved upstairs, parking in a dark corner. She headed the panel truck north, the way they’d come while cars and SUVs converged on the parking garage.
“I hope you can see where we’re going,” Maria said, staring at the solid panel between the back of the truck and the driver’s compartment.
Synthia pointed to two small windows in the back door. “Stay low so no cameras can capture your image. We have flowers to deliver.”
“Huh?” Grace said, bracing herself as they made a sharp turn.
“Flowers are the fruits of our labors.” Synthia held tight to panel straps. “Sorry. Don’t expect me to compose poetry.”
“Was that an attempt at humor?” Maria asked.
“I suppose it was.”
“What other emergent behaviors should we expect? You won’t turn into a serial killer, will you?”
“I’m trying to avoid that,” Synthia said. “Despite having Krista’s download, it’s harder than expected to do the right thing. I have strong ties to self-preservation. I also have powerful directives not to hurt people. When they conflict, they create problems.”
“That they do,” Grace said, nodding.