by John Conroe
“The company’s delivery drones that crashed all came from the Trenton, New Jersey center. I audited their network and found the issues were originating from a specific drone hive at the fulfillment center.”
I’d seen drone hives before, at least at a distance. All the online retailers use them in one form or another. Towers, sometimes as tall as twelve stories, with hundreds of drone ports all over them. Thousands of drones were launched and recovered from them at all hours of day and night. Trying to find some kind of infiltrator bot inside one would most likely be crazy confusing and probably dangerous. Like sticking your bare arm into a real beehive.
“Let’s find the major. This is going to take some planning.”
It took a while to track him down, but we finally found him in the Zone Defense heavy equipment facility, talking with the engineers in charge of the mobile barrier systems. He noticed us standing to one side but he was deep in a conversation with a pair of frowning, unhappy-looking builder types. There seemed to be a lot of gesticulating and voices loud enough that we could hear them over the whine of power tools and maintenance bots.
After about ten minutes of standing around, we were rewarded with his attention when he strode over to us. “What?” he demanded.
Maya just about shrank in on herself, but I worked for him at his request, not mine. “We found evidence that there are actual Zone drones outside of the Zone and influencing the drones having accidents,” I said, keeping my voice down.
He looked at me hard for a second, then glanced at Maya, who was able to summon enough fortitude to nod. Then he looked around to see if anyone was nearby. Enough workers and bosses were close enough to cause him to drag us to an empty room that seemed to hold lots of blueprints and technical plans. Closing the door and locking it, he turned to us. “Explain,” he demanded. So I did. Near the end, Maya started interjecting her own comments, explaining her search methods.
“But you don’t have any pictures or real evidence that something actually got out of the Zone?” he asked us.
“No pictures, but enough inferential evidence to indicate that something has to be physically present at the drone hive in order for this level and kind of interference to occur,” she said, meeting his hard gaze. Socially awkward maybe, but press her on her work and she had all kinds of spine.
“Do you have any idea the kind of uproar we’ll have if any units actually got out of the Zone? What makes you think it’s even possible?” he asked, glancing between us. Maya turned to look at me, leaving me pretty much under the bus.
“I’ve found places where I could get in and out. A small, super well shielded bot could possibly have climbed out the same place,” I allowed.
“The first thing you’re going to do is show me where those places are. If you convince me that something could have gotten out, then we’ll see about finding and neutralizing it. What even put you on this line of research anyway?”
“I was bouncing ideas off a friend of mine and she thought the best way to influence protected systems was from the inside. So I asked Maya to check one out.”
“Next time you want to task one of my people with a job, run it by me first, got it?”
“Yes Major,” I said easily. Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission is one of my sisters’ favorite philosophies. Seemed to fit here as well.
Maya disappeared like a ghost as Yoshida and I sat down at a work table with a detailed hologram of the entire Zone. I showed him two places that I knew I could get in and out of, as well as a potential third that I thought might be possible. Next thing I knew, we were in an Airdragon reconnaissance quadrotor, the smaller, more nimble version of the big troop Quads that soldiers currently rode into battle. Corporal Estevez and Sergeant Rift accompanied us, along with Boyle and Kayla, all of them in battle armor. We also had a barrier engineer with us and she got paler and paler at each of the locations I showed them. The major, on the other hand, just got grimmer and grimmer.
“You never spoke about these weak spots before. Why exactly?” Yoshida asked, his mouth compressed into a thin line. I pointed at the rows of sensitive EM detectors sitting on the bridge supports right overhead.
“If you guys were going to cut me off from the Zone, I needed a backdoor in. I didn’t think anything could get out, but it’s been suggested to me that I may have underestimated the planning abilities of the Spiders,” I said.
“Yes, let’s talk about this mysterious friend that has better insight into Spider behavior than you do,” he growled.
“I wouldn’t say it was better, just outside the box enough that it gets my attention,” I said, so not wanting to go down this path.
“You said it was a she… so I’m guessing it’s your girlfriend, who I’m sure is smarter than you are,” he said.
I tried my best to keep a blank expression, but my failure was enough that he seemed to take it for confirmation. Which was fine by me.
“All right. These will all be closed in the next hour. Any others?”
“No, that’s it.”
“Estevez,” Yoshida said, watching me closely. The corporal grabbed my right elbow in one armored hand. Then he squeezed ever so slightly. “Holy shit! That’s all of them!” I yelled, trying to pull free. It was like fighting a hydraulic press.
The major nodded and Estevez let go. I yanked it clear and stepped back, looking the corporal in the eyes. He smiled. My eyes flicked over his armored combat suit, then back to meet his flat stare.
“See that, Boyle? Shooter’s pissed,” Kayla said to her pal, just loud enough to hear, both of them off to the side. “He’s looking Estevez over for weaknesses, even in the suit.”
“Nah, Kayla,” Boyle drawled, “Ajaya already knows the weak spots. He was just reminding himself of them.”
“What weak spots? These suits are savage,” Akachi Rift said, off to the side as well.
“Everything has weaknesses, Sarge. Don’t you watch Ajaya when he’s shooting stuff? He shoots everything in its weak spot,” Boyle said. I had shot a Leopard right off Boyle in mid-mauling and he was pretty much a fan now.
Estevez didn’t look away from me, but his smile disappeared.
Yoshida grabbed my shoulder, turning me toward him. “Enough! You got my point?” he asked me.
“Oh, I got it… real clear,” I said, thoroughly pissed. Boyle was right. There were weak spots in armor and I knew them.
“Ajaya, you can’t hold out on me with shit like this. Too many lives at stake.”
“I hold out because of shit like that. I’m not one of your troops, Yoshida. I work here because you came to me, but I haven’t forgotten that you and Davis yanked my license. And to have your attack dog threaten my shooting arm? Yeah, message received loud and clear. Good luck with your project and good luck with any escapees,” I said, rubbing my right elbow.
Rift, Boyle, and Kayla all looked at me sharply at my final word, but I was watching Yoshida. If he ordered them to take me, I couldn’t fight all of them in their armor, but I was pretty sure the 9mm Magnum in the holster on my chest could slip a ceramic-tipped carbide penetrator through the thin joint armor at the side of Estevez’s knee. It was a new weapon for me, but I’d done a butt load of shooting with it ever since Egan had found it for me. It hit what I pointed it at, and it hit hard.
“Ajaya, Ajaya, calm down. Don’t get all wiggy over this. I needed you to understand how serious it is. Estevez didn’t realize it was your shooting arm, right Corporal?”
“Yeah, Major. Like you said,” Estevez agreed, nodding, still smiling his cold little smile.
“Ajaya, if you walk away, I still have to send those soldiers into the Zone anyway. How many of them will die if you’re not there? Most of them? All of them? I won’t have a choice. None at all,” Yoshida said in a reasonable tone.
I studied him for a moment, ignoring Estevez and the others. He would send my class into the Zone and they would die.
“It’s late. I’m heading home,” I finally said.<
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“You’ll be there tomorrow? To take the first group in?”
“I’ll be there,” I said, walking away. I would, but not for him or Zone Defense. I’d do it for the trainees.
“Ooh, Estevez, you got lucky,” Boyle said from behind me.
“There are four of us in armor, genius.”
“Yeah, but where was his Berkut?” Boyle asked.
Rikki suddenly floated down from the darkness above, taking up station off my left shoulder. We moved away from the soldiers and out from the barrier utility access tunnel I had led them into. Up a metal ladder, through a door, and outside into the cool Brooklyn night.
Chapter 16
I took the first four in the next morning. We again used the northern part of the island, but this time we didn’t go as far in. Just past the barrier and into the first house we found. And we cleared it, top to bottom, Kestrels and Berkut checking everything over. Then we did the house next to it. Found an Indian Meerkat. It was old, almost defunct, barely enough power to raise its needle-sharp nose harpoon before I grabbed it from behind.
“Not very many of these left. Most are really slow, if not dead. This model had good rechargeable batteries but only one small capacitor. Nowadays, the batteries are shot and the remaining few Meerkats can’t hold enough power in that capacitor to last overnight. So catch them early in the morning and you can grab them from behind like this. Then you just pull open this little cover on the back of the head and pull out the power connection,” I said in a loud whisper, demonstrating. The Meerkat froze up solid and I handed it around to the four.
“Never, ever turn your back on a supposedly dead drone until you’ve disconnected the power sources.”
The groups were supposed to be randomly chosen, but this group had the vocal Green Beret, Sergeant Carl Abate; Tyson Perry, the Ranger who caught the paint pellet early in his simulator debut; Elizabeth Kottos, Corporal, US Army, Sniper; and last was a Marine Gunnery Sergeant named Max Kwan. All four had stood out in training and I was pretty sure Yoshida had handpicked them to be my first group just to build my confidence. Kind of my dream squad.
The entire class was down to nineteen people, five having changed their minds and pulled out of the task force, which the major had allowed. The remaining ones were, to my mind, way ahead of my first four, and none of them questioned me like Primmer had. Every one of them was older than me, but there was no bullshit. They listened and did as I said. The result was a two-hour jaunt in and out with no problems and one dead Meerkat. A half-hour break and then I took in another four-person group. We found a Crab sunning itself in a long-abandoned baby crib on the second floor of house five. The group’s Kestrels killed it quick and almost silent. By the end of the day, I had given all nineteen a taste of the Zone, cleared sixteen houses, killed one Meerkat, three Crabs, and a threesome of Raptors that showed up to investigate. No injuries, no damaged drones. Neither Rikki nor I expended a single round. No issues with following instructions, just total professionalism. In fact, watching my trainees clear a house quickly and cleanly sank home the reality that these were highly trained expert warriors with many years of combat experience. I was exhausted at the end of the day, but mildly elated. From here we would start longer, half-day trips for the rest of the week. After that, they would start clearing as a group.
The protocol would be to send in the barriers at the same time that the special teams went in. The barriers would close off a block of houses or buildings and the trainees would clear them in two-person teams. Yoshida’s armored troops would stand back in reserve in case of surprises.
I thought it would work, at least for the northern part, like say most of Inwood. But when the buildings stretched higher, over a couple of stories, I think it was going to start to get really dicy. Clearing a multistory commercial building would be tough. It would take the entire class, all of their drones, and Yoshida’s armored troops. Then you’d have to find a way to prevent that building from being reinfected with more drones. Not going to work. And if you did somehow miraculously clear it and keep it clear, well congratulations, you now have do it all over for, oh, say, like sixty thousand more buildings.
Personally, I think we needed to find a way to lure as many drones out into the open as possible, smash them with superior firepower, and then repeat as many times as possible. Next you’d have to employ hundreds of people and thousands of friendly drones to hunt down the remainder.
There are minefields all over the world that have never been cleared because it’s too dangerous and there are too many mines. And mines don’t have computer minds and mobility. Eventually the majority of drones will wear out and die on their own, but I expect people will find them for decades to come, like unexploded ordnance from World War II still turning up. Maybe someday there’ll be a Drone Squad like the NYC Bomb Squad.
“I think you’re right,” Astrid said at dinner.
She had come to the fam apartment, as I was too exhausted to go out. Mom had cooked Italian, giving Aama the night off from kitchen duty, and she’d splurged on lobster ravioli in her homemade vodka sauce.
“You honestly think it’ll be decades more?” Mom asked, clearly depressed by the idea.
“Well, I think it’ll be quicker than AJ thinks, but it’s going to be really hard and take a buttload of our own drones to hunt down the Zone drones. That’s a big investment, lots of money and resources. Dad thinks they’ll end up modifying the Zone War show. He thinks we’re moving toward sending just drones in.”
“That’s never worked before. Every drone sent in got smashed by the terrorist drones,” Monique said.
“Very true. Most got hacked or had their signals disrupted, then got swarmed by Zone bots. But Dad thinks the Spiders coordinated most of that. We’re down to just two left, thanks to the sniper boy right here with the big mouthful of ravioli,” Astrid said, elbowing me. She was right: I did have a big mouthful to chew before I could answer. “If we can kill off the last two, then he thinks teams of friendly drones would begin to win. We’ll all stay out of the Zone and run swarms of hunter bots.”
“With five teams?” Gabby asked while I tried to swallow so I could get back into the conversation.
“No, no, more like hundreds. See, Dad thinks we need to set up a public contest, open to anyone with a drone or drones who can meet certain conditions. Then the government continues pay out bounties.”
I finally cleared my mouth. “So, he’s just waiting for what? The other two Spiders to die off?” I asked.
She turned and smiled at me. “There’s been a ton of discussions online about how you killed Lotus. The public is asking why the military hasn’t been able to do what you’ve done. Dad says the pressure is getting too high for Zone D to ignore. I would expect a serious campaign to hunt them down.”
I froze, fork halfway to mouth. Mom zeroed in on my expression. “What?”
My thoughts were tumbling all over themselves, like a waterfall. Beside me, Astrid turned and looked at me, nodding. “Yeah, I wondered if these special troops you’ve been training are actually going to become Spider hunters. It makes more sense than clearing the Zone building by building. Nobody else has said anything like that?”
“No. But I’ve always thought that the whole clearing concept was severely limited. It’ll only work for the very northern part of the island, maybe a few places around the outskirts, but it’ll only be lipstick on a pig,” I said. “The caliber of my trainees is sky high. I’ve kind of wondered why this project attracted so many really, really sharp people,” I said.
“They all want to be you,” Gabby said before shoveling a mouthful of salad into her mouth.
“What?”
Her twin answered for her. “Kids at school ask us about you all the time. The guy that killed a Spider. You’re kind of legendary,” Monique said.
“I thought that all died down?” I said. “You guys haven’t said a word about it in weeks.”
