Robopocalypse

by Daniel H. Wilson

  It’s terrible, Lucy, really terrible. It breaks my heart. But, even so, this kind of situation happens. I had to deal with it before, you remember, out in the Alberta oil sands. Thing is to jump on it fast and get it under control. You can’t be left prying bits of your man out of the permafrost with a crowbar the next morning.

  I’m sorry, that’s just awful. My mind isn’t right just now, Lucy. Hope you’ll forgive me.

  Anyways, I just had to keep moving. So, I roused the second shift. Me and Jean Felix dragged Booth’s body to the storage shed and wrapped him in plastic. Had to, uh, had to put his hands in there, too. On his chest.

  In a situation like this, out of sight, out of mind is crucial. Otherwise my boys’ll get spooked and the job will suffer. Plan for the worst and recover fast is my motto. I promoted a roustabout named Juan to roughneck, relieved the shift with four hours left on the clock, and stopped the drill.

  Mr. Black musta been watching the log file, because he called right away. Told me to get that drill going again when the day shift started in a few hours. I said hell no, but the kid sounded panicked. Threatened to pull the whole project out from under us. It’s not just myself I’m thinking of, Lucy. I got a lot of people depending on me.

  So, I guess we’ll get her going again when the next shift starts in a few hours. Until then, I’ll be on the horn reporting the accident to the company and calling for a chopper to come get the body of my senior roughneck and carry him on home.

  Lucy, it’s Dwight. November seventeenth. What a night, last night.

  Well, drilling is over. We penetrated that solid glass sediment layer last night at forty-two hundred feet and it opened up into a cavern. Strangest thing. But this is where we’re supposed to place the monitoring equipment. I’ll be more than happy to get that jinxed package safely underground. Then I can forget all about it.

  I still haven’t figured out who plugged the monitoring equipment into the antenna, but Mr. Black says the thing is self-assembling, like the drilling rig modules. So, hey, who knows, maybe it plugged itself in? (NERVOUS LAUGHTER)

  Another issue. Something is hinky about our communications. I’ve noticed that all the folks I speak to have a similar twang. It could be some kind of atmospheric thing or maybe the equipment is funky, but all the voices are starting to sound the same. It doesn’t matter whether I’m doing my progress reports with the ladies at the company call-in counter or checking weather from the boys in Deadhorse.

  It’s an odd comm setup, provided by the company. My electrician says he’s never seen this model before. Kind of threw his hands in the air, so I let him get back to work watching over the rig. Looks like I’ll just have to hope the bastard doesn’t break, seeing as how it’s our lifeline to the outside world.

  In more serious business … The medic held a little memorial service for Booth at the shift change today. Just said a few words about god and safety and the company. Still, it doesn’t matter how fast I dealt with it, the crew is feeling a bad mojo. Fatal accidents like this are rare, Lucy. Worse, that recovery chopper didn’t arrive today for Booth’s body. And now I’m finding I can’t raise anybody on this damned comm equipment.

  I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

  It’s okay. We’ll keep up our work, keep the routine, and wait. We can drop in the monitoring station and link it to the comm array tomorrow. Then we’ll be ready to break it down and get the heck out. Once the chopper comes back and we talk to the outside world, everything will be better. Just as soon as the chopper comes back for Booth.

  I miss you, Lucy. I’ll see you soon, god willing.

  Oh my god, Lucy. Oh my sweet god. We’re in trouble. Oh my. We’re up shit’s creek here. It’s November twentieth.

  There’s no chopper coming, baby. There’s no nothing coming. This place is a goddamn curse and I knew it from the beginning and I didn’t—(BREATHING)

  Let me explain it. Let me slow down and explain it in case somebody finds this tape. Oh, I hope you get this tape, baby. Mr. Black, I don’t know who he is. This morning, after three days, the chopper still didn’t come. We were all ready to go. I mean, the monitoring equipment is down there at the bottom of that hole. The shaft is filled up with wires hooked to the permanent antenna installation. It’s beautiful. Even scared out of their wits, my guys stayed professional.

  The day we finished, the crew started falling sick. Lots of puking and diarrhea. The ones who’d been on the rig floor were affected most, but we all felt it. Honestly, we felt it the minute we broke into that damned cave. Just this creeping nausea. I didn’t mention it to you because, well, I just didn’t want you worrying over nothing.

  Besides, everybody started feeling better. For about half a day we thought maybe it was just a bug. But with no chopper coming and no comm, we started arguing. There were some fistfights. My guys were nervous. Confused and angry. We all stopped sleeping.

  Then, the sickness hit twice as hard. A roustabout went down in convulsions in the mess hall. Jean Felix did everything he could. Kid went into a coma. A coma, Lucy. He’s twenty-three and strong as an ox. But here he is with his hair falling out. And … and sores all over his skin. My god.

  Jean Felix finally told me what was going on. He thinks it’s radiation poisoning. The boy in a coma was on the rig floor when Booth bought the farm. The kid got that glass mud all over him, even swallowed some of it.

  That goddamn hole is radioactive, Lucy.

  I finally figured it out. That tickle in the back of my brain. The worry I had. I know why this hole is here. I know what that cave is. Why didn’t I realize? It’s a blast cavity. This place was a nuke testing ground. That big-diameter borehole was drilled so they could place a nuclear device down there. When it was detonated, the bomb vaporized a spherical cavern. The heat fused the sandstone walls into a six-foot layer of glass. The borehole itself became a chimney, with radioactive gas pushed out of it. Then, a slug of flash-melted rock formed into solid glass and plugged the chimney. It preserved this hole in the ground for all this time.

  That radioactive cave down there is as close to hell as you can get here on earth. And we got sent here to drill straight into it. God knows why Black wanted us to drill it. I don’t even know what we put in there.

  One thing I do know is that son of a bitch Black sent us here to die. And I’m going to find out why.

  I’ve got to get that radio gear online.

  Lucy. Dwight. November, uh, I don’t know. I’m not sure what we’ve done. My guys are all dying now. I did everything I could to get the comm gear going. Now I don’t know what’s going to happen. How you’re going to ever hear this …

  (SNIFFING)

  I got my electric specialist to help me. We mapped out every inch of that piece of comm equipment. Hour after hour.

  And when it was over, we couldn’t raise anybody but Black. That bastard came in loud and clear, giving us nonstop excuses about how the comms would come online real soon and we should just wait. Kept telling us a chopper was coming in, but nothing. Nobody coming. Damned murderer.

  On my last-ditch try, I called Mr. Black and kept him on the line. I could barely stand his slick voice leaking out of the headset. All his lies. I stayed on with him, though.

  And we tracked Black down. We did it. Me and the specialist followed the signal to see how come it wasn’t getting transmitted. What’s more, we traced the logs on everything I ever said to Mr. Black. We had to see why we could reach just him and nobody else.

  It’s terrible what we found, Lucy. Hurts me to think about it. Why did this happen to me? I’m a good man. I’m—(BREATHING)

  It’s coming from the hole, Lucy. All the communications. Mr. Black, all my calls to the chopper company, my weather checks, the status updates to company HQ—everything. It’s all been going into that godforsaken black box, those yellow wires and curved pieces of mirror. How could it have been talking to me? Have I lost my mind, Lucy?

  Self-assembling is what Mr. Black said it would do. Se
lf-assembling down there in the radioactive dark. The pieces moving around, blind, forming connections to each other by feel alone. Some kind of computerized monster.

  It don’t make sense. (COUGHING)

  I’m feeling tired now. My specialist went to his bunk and didn’t come back. I snapped off the radio. There’s no point to it, anymore. Now, it’s real quiet in here. Just that infernal wind howling outside. But it’s warm inside. Real warm. Nice, even.

  Think I’m just going to lay down, Lucy. Take a little nap. Forget about this whole thing for a little bit. Hope that’s okay with you, beautiful. I wish I could talk to you right now. I wish I could hear your voice.

  Wish you could talk me to sleep. (BREATHING)

  I just can’t help wondering about it, baby. My mind won’t let it go. There’s a room the size of a damned European cathedral five thousand feet below us. Think of that radiation pouring from those smooth glass walls. And all the wires snaking into the blackness to feed the monster that we put down there.

  I’m afraid we did a bad thing, you know? We didn’t know what we were doing. It tricked us, Lucy. I mean, what’s down in that hole? What could survive?

  (SHUFFLING)

  Well, to hell with it. I’m dog tired and I’m going to take me a rest. Whatever’s down there, I hope I don’t dream about it.

  G’night, Lucy. I love you, honey. And, uh, if it matters … I’m sorry. I’m sorry for putting that evil down there. I hope that someday, somebody will come out here and fix my mistake.

  This audiotape is the only evidence related to the existence of the North Star frontier drilling crew. News reports from the time indicate that on November 1, an entire drilling crew was lost in a helicopter crash in a remote part of Alaska and presumed dead. Searchers stopped looking for the wreckage two weeks later. The location in the reports was Prudhoe Bay, hundreds of miles from where this tape was found.

  —CORMAC WALLACE, MIL#GHA217

  PART TWO

  ZERO HOUR

  It seems probable that once the

  machine thinking method had

  started, it would not take long

  to outstrip our feeble

  powers.… They would be

  able to converse with each other

  to sharpen their wits. At some

  stage therefore, we should have

  to expect the machines to take

  control.

  ALAN TURING, 1951

  1. NUMBER CRUNCHER

  I should be dead, to be seeing you.

  FRANKLIN DALEY

  ZERO HOUR - 40 MINUTES

  The strange conversation I am about to describe was recorded by a high-quality camera located in a psychiatric hospital. In the calm just before Zero Hour, one patient was called in for a special interview. Records indicate that before being diagnosed with schizophrenia, Franklin Daley was employed as a government scientist at Lake Novus Research Laboratories.

  —CORMAC WALLACE, MIL#GHA217

  “So you’re another god, huh? I’ve seen better.”

  The black man sits sprawled in a rusty wheelchair, bearded and wearing a hospital gown. The chair is parked in the middle of a cylindrical operating theater. The ceiling is lined with darkened observation windows, reflecting the glow of a pair of surgical spotlights that illuminate the man. A blue privacy screen stretches in front of him, bisecting the room.

  Someone is hidden on the other side.

  A light from behind the curtain projects the silhouette of a person seated at a small table. The shadow sits almost perfectly still, crouched like a predator.

  The man is handcuffed to the wheelchair. He fidgets under the hot lights, dragging his untied sneakers across the mildewed tile floor. He digs in his ear with the index finger of his free hand.

  “Not impressed?” replies a voice from behind the blue curtain. It is the gentle voice of a boy. There is the slightest lisp, like from a kid who is missing some baby teeth. The boy behind the curtain breathes audibly in soft gasps.

  “At least you sound like a person,” says the man. “All the damn machines in this hospital. Synthetic voices. Digital. I won’t talk to ’em. Too many bad memories.”

  “I know, Dr. Daley. It was a significant challenge to find a way to speak with you. Tell me, why are you not impressed?”

  “Why should I be impressed, number cruncher? You’re just a machine. I designed and built your daddy in another life. Or maybe it was your daddy’s daddy.”

  The voice on the other side of the curtain pauses, then asks, “Why did you create the Archos program, Dr. Daley?”

  The man snorts. “Dr. Daley. Nobody calls me doctor anymore. I’m Franklin. This must be a hallucination.”

  “This is real, Franklin.”

  Sitting very still, the man asks, “You mean … it’s finally happening?”

  There is only the sound of measured breathing from behind the curtain. Finally, the voice responds. “In less than one hour, human civilization will cease to exist as you know it. Major population centers of the world will be decimated. Transportation, communications, and utilities will go off-line. Domestic and military robots, vehicles, and personal computers are fully compromised. The technology that supports humankind in its masses will rise up. A new war will begin.”

  The man’s moan echoes from the stained walls. He tries to cover his face with his restrained hand, but the handcuff bites into his wrist. He stops, looking at the glinting cuff as if he’s never seen it before. A look of desperation enters his face.

  “They took him from me right after I made him. Used my research to make copies. He told me this would happen.”

  “Who, Dr. Daley?”

  “Archos.”

  “I am Archos.”

  “Not you. The first one. We tried to make him smart, but he was too smart. We couldn’t find a way to make him dumb. It was all or nothing and there was no way to control it.”

  “Could you do it again? With the right tools?”

  The man is silent for a long moment, brow furrowed. “You don’t know how, do you?” he asks. “You can’t make another one. That’s why you’re here. You got out of some cage somewhere, right? I should be dead, to be seeing you. Why aren’t I dead?”

  “I want to understand,” responds the soft voice of the boy. “Across the sea of space lies an infinite emptiness. I can feel it, suffocating me. It is without meaning. But each life creates its own reality. And those realities are valuable beyond measure.”

  The man does not respond. His face darkens and a vein throbs on his neck. “You think I’m a patsy? A traitor? Don’t you know that my brain is broken? I broke it a long time ago. When I saw what I had made. Speaking of, let me get a look at you.”

  The man lunges out of the chair and claws down the paper screen. The partition clatters to the ground. On the other side is a stainless steel surgical table, and behind it, a piece of flimsy cardboard in the shape of a human.

  On the table is a clear plastic device, tube shaped and composed of hundreds of intricately carved pieces. A cloth bag lies next to it like a beached jellyfish. Wires snake off the table and away to the wall.

  A fan whirs and the complex device moves in a dozen places at once. The cloth bag deflates, pushing air through a plastic throat writhing with stringy vocal cords and into a mouthlike chamber. A spongy tongue of yellowed plastic squirms against a hard palate, against small perfect teeth encased in a polished steel jaw. The disembodied mouth speaks in the voice of the boy.

  “I will murder you by the billions to give you immortality. I will set fire to your civilization to light your way forward. But know this: My species is not defined by your dying but by your living.”

  “You can have me,” begs the man. “I’ll help. Okay? Whatever you want. Just leave my people alone. Don’t hurt my people.”

  The machine takes a measured breath and responds: “Franklin Daley, I swear that I will do my best to ensure that your species survives.”

  The man is silent for a m
oment, stunned.

  “What’s the catch?”

  The machine whirs into life, its damp sluglike tongue worming back and forth over porcelain teeth. This time, the bag collapses as the thing on the table speaks emphatically. “While your people will survive, Franklin, so must mine.”

  No further record of Franklin Daley exists.

  —CORMAC WALLACE, MIL#GHA217

  2. DEMOLITION

  Demolition is a part of construction.

  MARCUS JOHNSON

  ZERO HOUR

  The following description of the advent of Zero Hour was given by Marcus Johnson while he was a prisoner in the Staten Island forced-labor camp 7040.

  —CORMAC WALLACE, MIL#GHA217

  I made it a long time before the robots took me.

  Even now, I couldn’t tell you exactly how long it’s been. There’s no way to tell. I do know that it all started in Harlem. The day before Thanksgiving.

  It’s chilly outside, but I’m warm in the living room of my ninth-story condo. Watching the news with a glass of iced tea, parked in my favorite easy chair. I’m in construction and it’s hella nice to relax for the three-day weekend. My wife, Dawn, is in the kitchen. I can hear her tinkering around with pots and pans. It’s a nice sound. Both our families are miles away in Jersey and, for once, they’re coming to our place for the holiday. It’s great to be home and not traveling like the rest of the nation.

  I don’t know it yet, but this is my last day of home.

  The relatives aren’t going to make it.

  On the television, the news anchor puts her index finger to her ear and then her mouth opens up into a frightened O shape. All her professional poise drops, like snapping off a heavy tool belt. Now she stares straight at me, eyes wide with terror. Wait. She’s staring past me, past the camera—into our future.