He took the device and held it up.
“So what does it mean, doctor? If this thing had an AI predecessor then there isn’t a need for an operator, correct?”
“Correct,” said Prospero. “Under normal circumstances the drone would have an operator uplinked to a satellite or a plane, or perhaps a ground spotter. As the operator received intel he would direct the flight-plan or drive-plan of the drone. Our latest generation has better optical systems, including the Ariel series of airborne cameras. They’re too agile to be hit by most conventional weaponry and too small to appear on radar.” He paused. “I released twenty of them when I went out into the desert for our test.”
Flash, who was still an invisible audience to all this, murmured, “News to me, boss. I never spotted them.”
Flint did not acknowledge the voice in his ear, but he knew that the rest of the Joes heard it. None of them would like the idea of tiny spycams flitting around.
“There was nothing in your quarterly reports about these Ariel units, Dr. Prospero.”
Prospero shrugged. “The Ariels are biomimetic units―small drones designed to look and behave like insects, birds, or animals. In the case of the Ariels, they look like fireflies. They’re new.”
“So new that you have working prototypes in the field since your last report, which was―what?―six weeks ago?”
Prospero dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “I’m sure they are in the report, Chief. They’ll have had a number-letter code. The nickname ‘Ariel’ was picked recently.”
Although that was probably a legitimate answer, Flint was not leaping to accept it. His skepticism must have shown on his face, because Prospero bristled. “You don’t believe me?”
Flint looked at him, then down at the still smoking machine and the carpet of spent shells. Then his cold eyes refocused on Prospero.
“Right now, Doctor…I don’t trust anyone who didn’t come on the chopper with me. That means if you’re not a Joe you’re a suspect.” Prospero turned livid and opened his mouth, but Flint beat him to it. “If you don’t like it, Dr. Prospero, then that’s just too damn bad. Before you explode all over me take a second to remember whose name is going to be on the report that goes to NATO and the President. If you want me to sign off on a positive report, then dial down the pompous attitude and try working with us. That means full disclosure. No more of this ‘oh, I forgot to mention it’ crap. You’ll tell me everything and you’ll God damn tell me up front and when I ask for it. Is that understood?”
“That’s outrageous. This is blackmail, it’s—”
“The word you’re fishing for is ‘extortion.’”
Silence crashed around them and Scarlett thought she could feel the temperature of the room drop about forty degrees.
“Very well,” Prospero said eventually, but it looked like speaking those two words was more painful that having teeth pulled without Novocain.
Flint studied him, and then gave a curt nod.
“Then tell me about this thing.” He held up the AI processor. “Does this require any real-time human assistance?”
“No. That replaces the need for spotters of any kind. Kong’s field within artificial intelligence was learning computers and their tactical uses.”
“How advanced is this thing?”
“It has generational memory and has an extrapolative assessment hunter-killer subroutine based on established predator-prey behavior models.”
“Oh boy,” murmured Doc. “I’m not a computer expert, but even I can tell how bad that could be.”
Prospero sniffed. “Well, it is designed to replace individual soldiers in the field. The whole purpose of such weaponry is to reduce human assets and—”
“We know,” said Flint. “So are drones. But what you’re describing here is an autonomous killing machine.”
“Ahll be bahhk,” Law repeated in his ear.
Flint winced.
“Don’t be naïve,” said Prospero. “Computers and robots are only as autonomous as we allow them to be. Humans program them, and every AI system that exists or ever will exist will have override commands and failsafe systems.”
“You’re sure about that? Are there limits to the autonomy in self-learning systems?”
“No. Autonomy is a word we deliberately misuse. The autonomy goes only as far as the parameters written into the operational software.”
“They can’t evolve beyond that?”
“Absolutely not.”
Flint looked at Scarlett. She gave the tiniest shake of her head. She wasn’t buying Prospero’s rant either.
“Then that leaves us with only one option,” Flint said. “And I think you already know what that is.”
“Impossible,” Miranda said under her breath.
“A saboteur within the Island,” Prospero said flatly.
“Yep. Either an infiltrator, in which case your security isn’t as good as it should be—”
“Impossible,” snapped Prospero.
“—or one of your people is working for the bad guys,” concluded Flint.
Prospero was already shaking his head. “No, no, no, no…”
“Got to agree with him, Flint,” said Law in Flint’s ear. “Like I said, there are safeguards on the safeguards on this stuff.”
“No.” Prospero said it a final time and without the possibility of contradiction. He folded his arms and stared at Flint, defying him to argue.
“We need to keep an open mind,” began Scarlett, “because any—”
That was as far as she got.
Something small flitted past her face―a tiny fluttering thing that glimmered like polished steel. She waved at it in annoyance. There was almost no sound. Just a tiny pop!, like a bubble bursting―and then Scarlett uttered a soft cry and fell forward. Tiny bits of metal debris fell like glittering dust.
Flint reflexively stepped forward and caught her.
“Hey, what’s—?”
Scarlett’s eyes were wide as saucers and filled with terror and pain. She opened her mouth to say something but instead coughed bright red blood onto Flint’s shirtfront.
“I…”
Her eyes lost focus and she went totally limp in his arms.
Then the lights went out again.
And the gunfire started once more.
-10-
The Ice House
The Commander poured himself another glass of wine. The big central screen displayed a shaky green and black image from a hovering night vision camera. He watched Scarlett fall, saw her blood seed the air like drops of black oil.
Other monitors showed different views of the Island compound. Inside and out.
Small devices flew or rolled or scuttled through the darkness toward the Joes.
It did not matter to him if the Joes lived or died. There were some tactical advantages either way.
It did not matter to him if Prospero or Destro won this round, because there was no way for a completely clean win. However it played out, it would shave millions off of the asking price of anything they brought to him.
He smiled.
This was real entertainment. This was an entirely new spin on the concept of a ’price war,’ and he was delighted.
-11-
Observation Room
Once more the darkness was absolute except for flashes from gunfire.
Except this time the flashes were not the rapid-fire growl of a minigun firing from a fixed position. Instead they were smaller, almost delicate pops that seemed to appear randomly from different parts of the room.
“What the hell is this?” bellowed Doc as he fumbled to find Flint and Scarlett in the dark.
“Sprites,” yelled Professor Miranda. “Oh my God…someone launched Sprites at us. Get down…get down!”
At the same time Prospero hissed: “Don’t move…freeze! They’re motion trackers.”
But something did move in the dark.
“Flint…I saw Scarlett, is she—?”
There
was another pop!
“Ah…God!” and in the tiny muzzle flash Flint saw Doc stagger as something hit him between the shoulders. He collapsed against Flint and drove him and Scarlett to the ground in a tangle of too many arms and legs.
Pop! Pop!
Doc’s body trembled as he was hit twice more and then he lay totally still.
Flint was buried under Doc’s solid weight and the muscular heft of the unconscious Scarlett. He was also afraid to move.
He was wearing BDU’s but he wasn’t in battle dress. No Kevlar, no spider-silk weave in any of his clothes. He had a sidearm, but from what he had seen in the flash the machines were tiny, about the size of a chicken’s egg.
“Keep perfectly still,” said Prospero slowly in the uninflected way a person does when he speaks without moving his lips. “They can only track movement.”
“Heat…infrared…?” demanded Flint.
“No. They’re prototypes.”
“Drones?”
“Drop and Pops,” whispered Miranda.
Flint’s heart sank. Drop and Pops were a covert anti-personnel device that had been in development years. Small, self-contained units with tiny filament wings, a motor, and a barrel loaded with a single shot. The bullets were low caliber hollow-points. Deadly if they hit the head or chest cavity, potentially crippling everywhere else. They were intended to be dropped by a fixed-wing drone over a mass of troops. Each device―Sprites, as they were called―would seek out the first moving target, close to within a meter and discharge its round. As it fired it would use gunpowder boosted by a single discharge of all juice left in the battery. They were single use and disposable. And they were supposed to be at least eighteen months away from practical field testing.
He listened to the darkness and heard a swarm of them overhead.
Christ.
Warmth was spreading over his throat and chest and with horror he realized that Doc and Scarlett were both bleeding, their blood seeping into his clothes. Just the thought of it burned him like acid.
Lying there, immobile and helpless, was maddening; but he knew that even with the lights on the tiny hunter-killers were too small to bring down with small arms fire.
“What’s the battery life on these things?” he whispered, keeping his own lips from moving. He didn’t know if the Sprites were really sensitive enough to pick up on the movement of lips, but if Prospero was being careful than so damn-well was he.
“Less than five minutes,” answered Prospero.
Five minutes could be four minutes too long if the Sprites had clipped an artery in Scarlett or Doc. Worse if one of them had a head wound.
At the same time the thought of lying still for five minutes felt like a life sentence.
How long had it been already?
Twenty seconds?
Thirty?
Certainly not much more than that.
“Law—?” he whispered.
The voice was right there. “What the hell’s going on, Flint?”
Speaking very slowly and softly, Flint told him.
“God! Monster and Pet are inbound to your twenty. One minute.”
Flint almost yelled for him to stop them. Then he had an idea.
“Frag the doorway.”
A pause, then Law said, “Copy that.”
Time dragged and Flint’s nostrils were filled with the sharp coppery smell of fresh blood.
Come on, come on, he said to himself, willing the two Joes to get here, and willing Doc and Scarlett to hold on. No Joe dies on my watch, damn it.
A booming bass voice yelled from across the room: “Frag out!”
And a second later the double doors leading to the main corridor blew inward as a fireball shattered wood and twisted metal and threw pieces fifty feet into the room.
A split second later the air was filled with dozens of Pop-Pop-Pops! The Sprites blasted the flying debris, each round creating more flying debris.
Pop-Pop-Pop!
There was a second big explosion as another fragmentation grenade struck the wall by the Coke machine. The soda dispenser seemed to leap into the air and pirouette and before it landed there were more small shots.
Pop-Pop-Pop!
Then silence.
-12-
The Island―Security Office
Christopher M. Lavigne―‘Law’ to the Joes―was trapped in a black box.
When the main lights all through the Island went out, so did every electrical system in the security room. Order, a muscular shepherd, stood somewhere in the inky nothingness to his left and barked steadily. Deep-chested warning barks.
Law fumbled at the gadgets on his vest until he found his flashlight and he turned it on, dialing the lens from beam to full blaze so that the security room was suddenly filled with pale blue-white light.
“Hush,” he snapped to the dog and Order instantly obeyed. The shepherd’s eyes were as black as a desert demon’s in the gloom, their pupils reflecting pinpoints of light.
Law tapped his earbud.
“Law to Flint, over?”
There was a burst of static, then a sound like a fragment of an explosion and part of a yell, then more static. He dialed through a dozen command and team channels and got nothing but white noise.
“Screw this,” he said and grabbed for the door handle.
It turned an inch and stopped.
Locked.
He knew from his analysis that the security ops room was essentially a modular vault built into one corner of the Island facility. It had a GSA Class 5 vault door capable of withstanding up to sixty minutes of penetration delay against battering attacks, and intense and concentrated hand tool attacks, and being able to withstand both 7.62mm and 5.56mm multiple shot ballistic attacks without penetration. In short, Law wasn’t going to force it open or shoot off the lock. There was supposed to be a failsafe system for emergencies of this kind, allowing trapped security officers to open the door using a special day code.
Law had the day code, but the touchpad on the inside of the door was dark. Even with the backup generators out, that shouldn’t be possible. The touchpad was operated by batteries.
“Uh oh,” he said. “We are in deep doo-doo.”
Order barked again. The sound was loud and the echoes banged around inside the vault with nowhere to go and no way to escape.
-13-
Observation Room
Flint turned at the sound of running feet and the jiggling beams from two gun-mounted flashlights. Hands reached out of the dark and suddenly the oppressive weight on Flint’s chest eased as Monster pulled Doc off of him and then Scarlett. Teacher’s Pet kept watch, moving his weapon in perfect time with the alert back and forth turn of his head.
“I think we’re clear,” he said under his breath. “Gimme some good news, Monster.”
“Oh…man. Doc’s bad. Count two…no three wounds. Two are through and throughs, upper back and love handle. Those aren’t the problem. He’s got a third hole off center of his spine, right between the shoulder blades and no exit wound. Let me work.”
He had his first aid kit open and his big hands were busy. All of the Joes were qualified as medics. In their line of work it was crucial.
Flint crawled over to Scarlett. Pet kept looking over his shoulder at her, his expression a mixture of anger and alarm.
“Boss?” called Pet. “How’s—”
“I’ll live,” growled a female voice.
“Scarlett?” Flint grinned as he put the light on her face.
She was awake and her eyes, though glazed with pain, were clear.
“Where are you hit?”
She grunted and then hissed. “Left thigh.”
“You went out…”
“Something hit the back of my head. Crap…I think I bit my tongue.”
Flint examined her scalp. There was a bloody groove across the middle of the occipital bone. “Good thing you are the stubbornest woman I ever met.”
“What?”
“Hard hea
d. Bullet creased your skull. You were out for almost five minutes.”
Five long damn minutes, he thought.
Scarlett cursed, then a wave of nausea hit her like a punch and she turned aside and threw up.
“That’s attractive,” Flint said, and Scarlett replied with a particularly obscene gesture.
Monster was still busy with Doc Greer, so while Scarlett was still wiping her mouth, Flint flicked out his lock-knife and slit her pants leg, cutting it from boot to upper thigh and tearing the flaps back.
“Don’t fall in love down there,” Scarlett said, giving him an evil glare.
“I’ll restrain myself.” He set down his knife and tentatively probed the wound. “Missed the artery.”
“Halle-freaking-lujah,” she said then snarled and bared her teeth. “Damn, Flint, why not just hit it with a God damn hammer?”
“Stop being such a girl.”
Scarlett picked up his knife and tapped him on the upper thigh with the tip of the blade. “You’re one flick of the wrist away from being a girl yourself, mister.”
“Noted.”
“Chief,” said Teacher’s Pet in an urgent whisper.
“Busy.”
“Chief…you better look.”
Flint turned and shone his light. Professor Miranda was sprawled in a heap a dozen feet away. She seemed to float in a lake of blood. Nearby Prospero was staring at her, his eyes wide, mouth hanging open in an almost comical expression of complete shock. Then he turned to Flint and there was such a deep sense of helplessness and need in his eyes that it struck Flint to the heart.
“Please…” Prospero whispered. “I don’t…I…I don’t…”
“Go!” said Scarlett, pushing his shoulder.
Flint scrambled over to her, knee-walking through the blood. Miranda’s brunette hair lay spread around her, her glasses on the floor by her cheek. Flint pressed his fingers into her throat, found a pulse, but it was weak and thready.