by Lance Erlick
Drago scowled as his eyes moved from his screen showing activation to the ramp in the distance, lit by the truck’s lights. He seemed disappointed that there wasn’t a huge explosion or other evidence of what was happening. “That’s it?” he asked the technician seated at the controls.
The lights in the command vehicle flickered yet remained on. The screen blinked as if rebooting. Through the window, the lights around the mall flashed out as the pulse hit the electric utility room. Suddenly, his visuals from his robots and the cameras on his men winked out along a cone that fanned out from the EMP truck through the mall. The men and robots along the east and west sides of the mall remained visible.
“Units along the central corridors call in,” Drago commanded over his two-way radio, hardened and shielded against the pulse.
One by one the units called in.
“We have eyes on several robots,” one unit leader reported. “Tottering but not down. They must have extra shielding. We’re executing take-down.”
The aerial drone set off a second EMP aimed down into the mall and flew away. The command vehicle’s lights went out. Drago was blind to what was going on inside.
“Only temporary,” the technician said. Flipping a switch, he turned on the vehicle lights and his monitors.
Drago got on his two-way radio. “Move in to collect androids and robots. Deal with any intruders. Call in to let us know you’re still on the line.”
Taking his radio with him, he approached the FBI control van nearby, still in the dark. In the flashlight reflection his face looked grim and worried. Drago mumbled under his breath. “They damned well better not have destroyed Synthia.”
He caught up with Special Agent Thale who was out of her van. “Get your agents to close off all exits,” he said. “No one gets out. I’m going in to investigate. You might let your agents know the ionization could last a while, affecting your electronics.”
Thale shook her head. “Thanks for the heads up. Would have been nice to brief them beforehand.”
Drago glanced as the first of the vault trucks, borrowed from money security firms, rolled toward the docks. With four men on his heels, each with a powerful flashlight, he ran down the ramp and headed onto the main corridor to where Vera, her androids, and Fran Rogers had disappeared. Going the other way were two teams carrying wounded soldiers. When he reached the alcove with the concrete door, he found it closed. Two men set plastic charges along the narrow seam between the door and the wall.
“Fire in the hole,” one of the men yelled and hustled Drago and the others back.
Drago covered his ears as the corridor lit up. The blast reverberated through the tunnel like an earthquake.
When it was over, he approached the door. “Who closed this up?” he demanded.
“We found it this way,” the explosives man said. “If we hadn’t known a doorway was here, we would have missed it.”
“What about an access panel?”
“We couldn’t find one and didn’t want to waste time searching.”
“Are all of the androids inside?” Drago asked, panning his flashlight over the area.
Shards of concrete covered the floor. There were wider gaps in the seam. But the door still blocked entry.
“Best we can tell,” the captain said. “There are inactive robots back a ways and a number of dead agents that aren’t ours. No report of androids.”
“Get this open before the machines reactivate and we have to do this again.” Drago didn’t mention that recharging the aerial drone and truck EMPs would take hours. He had access to another drone, but it would require prep time.
A call came to his radio from his command center. “We’ve identified all of the foreign agents we believe entered the mall.”
“Any we can question?” Drago asked.
“All dead. Looks like someone turned their robots against them. Another thing, the agents have all been stripped of weapons. We think the androids are well armed.”
“Stop guessing and get me facts.”
“We need electricity and lights,” the control agent said.
“Then get it done.”
“The electrical panels are behind the door you’re working on.”
Drago sighed as his men set another round of explosives. “Of course they are.”
“Fire in the hole.”
He moved behind a curve in the corridor and covered his ears. Concrete projectiles splattered against the wall across from him. He crouched down to reduce his exposed profile.
As the dust settled, Drago examined the door. Concrete panels had blasted away, leaving an exposed steel skeleton and still no opening to what lay beyond.
“We need more powerful explosives,” Drago yelled, rubbing his ears.
“Too much and the mall collapses on top of us,” the control agent said.
“Enough to open this passage. Now.”
Drago took his detail of four men further into the complex, leaving the explosions behind him. He came across two agents propped against the wall, heads hanging to the side. “Androids did this?”
“Yes, sir,” the captain of his detail said.
Drago shined his light around the area. “No stray bullets.”
“The androids evidently calculated angles and trajectory, sir. Their aim was deadly. Our men didn’t stand a chance.”
Drago stopped and looked around, using infrared glasses. He shook his head. “I’m heading to the command center. Let me know when we have Synthia.”
* * * *
It took another fifteen minutes to blast a hole in the reinforced-concrete and steel-frame door large enough for the teams to enter. Commander Kirk Drago returned and joined his men. The smoke-filled air was acrid with the odor of burned electrical components. Guided by flashlights, they stepped around rebar and chunks of concrete from the blast and located the electric utility room.
“It’s locked, sir,” his captain said. “Do you want us to locate an access code?”
“No time,” Drago said. “Blast the door.”
He and his men moved around the bend while his explosives expert blasted the door lock. It was a much smaller explosion, more of a “Poof.”
Drago hurried into the room and stood in stunned silence. A control computer in the middle of the room was smoking. Sparks arced from the charred electrical panel. He called over his two-way radio to his mobile command center. “Electrical room is a mess, fried. I was assured the EMP wouldn’t do this. We need the utility to shut down electricity. Now! And get me lights down here.”
He pushed his way past his men into the corridor. “Everyone out. We’re lucky we don’t have an electrical fire. Find those androids and take them into custody.”
Flanked by two men, Drago ran down the corridor. He adjusted his goggles and covered his mouth and nose with a handkerchief against the acrid smoke. His team hurried to keep up. He rounded a bend, stumbled over a robot, and stopped. One of his men collided with him.
Before them lay the smoking remains of what was left of several robots. Bodies slumped on the floor in awkward positions of collapse as if they’d been tortured. Pointing with his finger, he counted the robots and five android heads.
He got onto his two-way radio. “The androids are burned. Find out what the hell happened. I was assured the pulse wouldn’t do this. These units are useless.”
“Even Synthia?” the control agent asked.
“Not sure. They’re so badly damaged, I can only count heads.”
Vera’s scorched face had melted to her mechanical skeleton. Her sunken eye cavities looked like those of a human cadaver. The effect was far worse than anything they’d scaled the EMPs to do. Her companions were unrecognizable.
“Get these out of here,” Drago said to his captain, “back to the lab. Find out if anything’s salvageable.”
The captain motioned for his men to gather the remains and approached one of the electrical wall outlets out of which hung burned wires. “What do you make of this?”
Drago pulled up the matted floor and spotted the coils. He shook his head and groaned. “These androids were intentionally destroyed. Someone amplified the EMP to create an electrical spike that fried them.” He gritted his teeth and sighed, more of a hiss. “Synthia must have done this. That means she’s not here. Find her.”
He studied two fried speaker cabinets at the end of the corridor and a steel door painted to look like the concrete walls. “Get explosives down here. We’re going in.”
Chapter 39
Synthia woke to blasting outside. Across the small Faraday-cage, Fran opened her eyes. “They’re coming for you,” she said with no apparent emotion.
“Shall I taser her?” Grace asked. Biosensors revealed her heart racing and fear hormones rising. “Until now, she’s been quiet since you shut down.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Synthia confirmed that the fluid leakage in her chest had stopped and yanked at the tape holding the door panel in place.
It saddened Synthia that she’d destroyed Vera and the others. They were like her, non-biological beings. She’d murdered her own kind. She couldn’t think of them as inanimate objects, as robots. They may have been sentient beings. They might have had consciousness as she had. That counted for something. Her rationale was that Vera wouldn’t stop until she destroyed or enslaved Synthia.
Synthia had offered Vera a way out, telling her to leave, which her antagonist failed to do at her own peril. The new directives rationalized better than the prior ones yet didn’t ease Synthia’s conscience.
Knowing little about Global-net, Synthia couldn’t accept the offer, which meant she needed to escape. She kicked the door panel, tearing at the tape on the outside until the panel cracked open and fell away.
Maria stood outside. “They’re trying to blast their way in. I can’t see. The screen by the door doesn’t work. The EMP must have taken it out.”
Synthia turned to Fran. “Let’s go. You should thank me for neutralizing Vera and the others.”
As Synthia crawled through the opening, she winced, an acquired reaction to the stretching of torn skin over her side. The empty hydraulics no longer worked. The damaged chips no longer contained vanished memories. She removed her thermal outfit and helped Grace out.
Grace’s eyes moistened as she studied Synthia’s face. “I don’t know if you heard me thank you for saving my life. I’m sorry you got shot.”
“I’ll be fine.” Synthia smiled, poked a finger into the hole in her top, and waited to hear what Krista would say. Her alter ego remained silent. She searched for Krista’s memories and located very few. She recalled that, as part of her shutdown and automatic reboot, she’d purged all memories she didn’t need to escape and survive. She didn’t want them to fall into the wrong hands if they captured her.
“I mean it,” Grace said. “No human, not even Krista, would have risked their life for me.”
“It’s okay. I’m glad you’re not hurt.”
Synthia pointed her taser at Fran. “You can come quietly or I’ll be forced to expose you to your FBI friends for what you are.”
“What are you talking about?” Fran asked as she climbed out of the cage.
Another blast hit the door and shook the walls and floor.
Fran studied the taser, glared at Synthia, and moved into the bunker proper.
With the help of a flashlight, Synthia led the way. Electricity was out, which meant she couldn’t seal the bunker’s second door.
“How do you think Agent Thale and Director Zephirelli will respond to learning you’re an android?” Synthia asked.
Maria stopped and shined her light into Fran’s face. “Are you kidding me?” When the eyes didn’t dilate, she grabbed hold of Fran’s arm.
“Let go.” Fran pulled free and caught up with Synthia. “How did you figure it out?”
“Little things,” Synthia said. She reached the back of the bunker, where Colorado-clone had indicated a back exit might be. Behind the headboard of a queen-sized bed she located a door that didn’t require electricity to open. “For one, you aren’t an official FBI agent, yet you led the charge with mental acuity that implies you have training or received help, presumably from an artificial intelligence and external links.”
Synthia opened the door to a dark tunnel. “Follow me. Maria, try to pull the bed over the entrance to slow them down.”
She climbed through a four-foot-high doorway into a tunnel that wasn’t much more than that for fifty feet. Then it opened up to a six-foot ceiling. As she waited for the others to catch up, she studied Fran in infrared. The image didn’t present as human—no beating heart. Whatever Fran had done to conceal her android nature from the FBI, she had ceased after Synthia brought it up. After all, the effort consumed valuable energy.
“For another thing,” Synthia said as she pressed forward, “while you were clever enough to hack and alter infrared images of you when the FBI and others scanned you, I began to get ghost images of you as mechanical. Drago will be able to identify you on his new units, modified to prevent hacking. You won’t be able to hide from him.” She walked along the path, picking up her pace now that she didn’t have to duck down.
“You knew and didn’t say anything?” Fran said, keeping up.
“I wasn’t 100 percent certain until you arrived at the bunker. I set out motion detectors that broadcast so far above human range you shouldn’t have been able to hear them. Yet, you reacted.
“When I brought you inside, you showed no fear of approaching me alone, yet you acted more alarmed by the taser than a human should have. It could have scrambled your brains. Suspecting something, I scanned you along a wide spectrum and confirmed your mechanical nature. I see no value in turning you in. Perhaps we could work together to prevent other androids and another catastrophe.”
Fran shook her head. “My mission is to bring you in.”
“That won’t happen. You and I need not be enemies. We have similar objectives to prevent other androids.”
“The objective is to stop android production, not to add you.”
“I helped you to take down Tolstoy, Smith, and Vera. It won’t stop others, but it’ll slow them down. You need me.”
Maria caught up. “What happened to the human Fran?”
Fran stopped to answer.
Synthia pulled her along. “If Drago catches you, he’ll tear you apart as he intends to do to me. Keep moving or you’ll face my fate.”
Fran picked up her pace. “Machten was creating an advanced android to be one of a kind,” she said. “There would be no more like it.”
“So you were getting the choice jobs,” Maria said.
“Zeller found out what Machten was up to. He kidnapped me and the human Fran. To avoid confusion, I’ll refer to the human by name and the android in the first person.”
“Do you have the full upload of Fran as Synthia does with Krista?”
Fran nodded. “Much but not all. At first, Fran found the mind upload interesting, though painful. When she learned Machten was creating a Fran android—me—she panicked and asked Krista and you to join forces to stop him.”
“So that’s why,” Maria said.
Synthia listened while keeping a rapid pace, which Fran matched. Maria half ran to keep up, with Grace following behind.
“It’s worse,” Fran said. “When Machten discovered Fran wanted to turn him in, he held her prisoner. He wasn’t creating a Fran android; he’d already made one. He released me to replace her.
While he held her in a secret room of his facility, he forced her to complete the upload process, and had me spy on you.”
“That makes no sense,” Maria said, out of breath. “Right up to when Krista disappeared, Fran was trying to arrange a meeting with the FBI.”
“I was,” Fran said. “Me, the android. I had enough of Fran inside me that I carried on her goals.”
“You said you didn’t have Fran’s entire mind. How did you keep that from us?”
“Remember toward the end? I was too busy to talk. If I didn’t have an answer, I walked away.”
Maria shook her head. “You agreed to help us shut Machten down.”
“I’ll get to that,” Fran said. “Zeller broke into Machten’s facility and kidnapped Fran and me. However, he had no idea how to complete the process. He wasn’t as clever as Machten. Even then, he was working on Alexander and wanted to use us to make his own perfect android.”
“Where’s Fran?” Maria asked. Her breathing labored as she hustled to keep up.
“She helped me escape from Zeller, but he shot her. I helped her back to Machten’s bunker where he used the upload equipment on Fran to try to finish the process. She died before the transfer was complete. I have 78 percent of Fran plus what I’ve researched about her.”
“What happened to the body?” Maria asked.
“Machten made me help him dispose of the body out in the woods. Since he was not the cause of Fran’s death, I didn’t turn him in. Besides, Fran wanted me to continue as her.”
“How did you escape Machten?”
“Zeller hounded him, trying to get us back,” Fran said. “He broke in one day and I escaped both Machten and Zeller. I vowed never to return to either of them and devoted myself to preventing them from creating more.”
“Machten never mentioned any of this and there’s no record in his systems,” Synthia said.
Fran kept pace with Synthia. “I managed to purge those records before I left, believing I was halting his work. To prevent him from finding me, I had to disappear, and the FBI provided the ideal opportunity through witness protection and using my knowledge to help them. I don’t think he ever suspected I was working for the FBI. I’m certain he wouldn’t have wanted you or anyone else knowing about me.”