by Greg Curtis
Someone in Billingsgate Lucius Scientific Industries – and there were three or four possible suspects – had transformed a number of luxury toys into spies and double agents. And as if that wasn't enough they'd found a way to use them to turn military bots into their own private army.
It was ingenious and perfidious, and something no one would ever have expected from a private commercial company. It was also effective, and because of it thousands of policebots, and who knew how many warbots had been taken offline and were in the process of being decommissioned. Even after the parts had been removed they couldn't be trusted. There was no guarantee that the bots hadn't been reprogrammed or that every last trace of the code had been removed.
Because of that she and her colleagues were being accompanied by an entirely new generation of bots, ones that didn't have any parts or software from Billingsgate Lucius. Aquaria's law enforcement and military budgets were going to be hit very hard this year as half the bots had been replaced – so she didn't expect the worn out office furnishings were going to be so much as looked at for the next decade.
A recall was also in place for the androids, specifically the type 23's and their newer cousins the type 24's. Many of them had become android companions and were currently on ships scattered across the universe. The Navy were gathering them up as soon as the ships arrived in port, but it would take many months before the last of them had been found and destroyed.
What would be the cost of that? To the Commonwealth itself? The deep spacers were a rare breed. In fact the Spacers Guild had been warning for decades, if not centuries, that they were running low on them. Most spacers cruised the established jump points. Deep spacers called them bus drivers. They didn't explore. Deep spacers did that. Those who had space in their blood. Those who would dare to jump blind. Exploration was dangerous and those who had its spirit too often didn't come back. So, many of those who did hear the call of space, never went exploring.
Even among the deep spacers themselves there were different groups. Many didn’t jump blind, instead going to areas someone else had already found – miners looking to take someone else's discovery to make a few credits from it. Scientists, interested in what had been found. So they would come, completely plot a system turning a new jump point into an established one, and then settle down to do their work. In the entire Commonwealth there were probably less than a hundred people who would jump blind. Doctor Simons was part of a very rare group, which was getting smaller every year.
But the Commonwealth needed explorers. It needed them to find new mineral strikes, new scientific wonders. It needed to make discoveries. It even needed new jump points to add to its map of the galaxy. And ultimately if there was another alien race out there with the translation drive, it would be the deep spacers who would find them.
The Spacers Guild understood that. They'd made dire predictions about the coming decline of the Commonwealth for centuries. The Navy and even the Commonwealth understood that. They supported the Guild and made specialist training available for spacers so that they had a better chance of coming home. But finding and encouraging people to take that risk, to go into the depths of the unknown, was far from easy. People were comfortable in their nice safe lives. And who would go exploring when every day there were fresh stories about deep spacers going missing? Getting spaced or killed? Why do it when even among those who wanted to go into space, there were good positions and healthy credits in running the established jump points.
Credits weren't enough. Explorers didn't do what they did for wealth or fame. They were mostly solitary people who would rather avoid the holo recorders. Often they didn't even report where they'd been simply to avoid the limelight. Not unless there were enough credits to keep them jumping. It was for that reason that the Guild had commissioned BLS to build the android companions. If they couldn't attract new explorers then they had to keep the ones they had running longer. Now they had a whole new crisis on their hands. The very device designed to keep the deep spacers laser-guided on their work, might be dangerous. But what happened when that information hit the deep spacers?
Most of them were emotionally dependent upon their companions. The androids had been designed to become a crutch for their owners – something that Annalisse hadn't realised until she'd researched the specs on them. The degree of psychological manipulation and control the androids could exert on their owners was shocking. It verged on brainwashing and was probably illegal. Each companion was designed and built specifically for its owner, and matched to his or her deepest desires and most secret needs. Programmed to practically indoctrinate them.
And now someone at the plant had found a way to reprogram them. While no one knew which ones had been affected, the law was clear. Once a life-threatening defect was discovered the entire line had to be scrapped. No repairs, no fault-fixing – a new line would be built.
But how many of those spacers would willingly give their companions up? Sharding few she suspected. They just wouldn't do it, even though they were going to have to.
But that was a problem for the Navy and Spacers Guild to deal with.
As far as the police were concerned, everything was on track again. The stars were shooting as straight as they said. And she hoped when this take down was over, the threat would be ended. But the one aspect Annalisse couldn't figure out was the why – she had part of the who. One of the factory owners or a cabal of them. Who else would have the knowledge or the access to the androids? Or the credits for that matter? And they had the how, but what was their motive?
Everything else made sense, like going after the police and the military. They were simply attacking their enemies before they were attacked themselves. Killing Barclay Hamilton and attempting to murder Carmichael Simons were also understandable acts. If they’d succeeded in killing the doctor none of the rest would have happened. It would have been case closed. His survival had destroyed an almost perfect plan. There was also probably a good reason why android duplicates of those two specifically had been created to carry out their missions. It was convenient. They both had type 23 BLS androids to betray them. And Doctor Simons sometimes carried off-world freight giving him a reason to be at the reserve. But the original bombing still made no sense and she hated that. It made her nervous.
Nevertheless when the order was given and they started to advance on the factory, she put all questions out of her mind. The only thing on her mind was what they would face.
Annalisse was expecting a battle, hopefully a short one. After the disastrous take down of Hamilton the Navy had stepped up its involvement. They had two battlecruisers from the main Commonwealth worlds in orbit above them, both armed with weapons trained on the building. Even if the operation went horribly wrong, they’d still win. They’d retreat, give the order, and a few seconds later the factory would be no more. Annalisse approved.
On top of that the warbots were some of the most powerful combat units ever built, of which they had a small army leading the takedown. Not much would be able to stand against such a force. And, because none of them had any connection to Billingsgate Lucius, there’d be no repeat of the soil reclamation plant debacle.
In spite of that, she was worried. She knew they were expected. Even if they hadn't spotted the small army on the periphery of the complex, their enemy had had two weeks to realise what they'd discovered. If their opponent was as connected to their databases as it appeared, he'd probably known about being identified almost as soon as the information about the androids had been entered.
Annalisse tightened her grip on her laser while she followed the warbots in. It was a plainly inadequate weapon for what was coming, but it was all she had.
The raid started as uneventfully as they could have hoped for. Security officers stationed at the checkpoint took one look at the dozen hulking warbots and gave up instantly. Even from as far back as she was Annalisse imagined their eyes must have bulged in shock at the sight. And when she checked through her person
al comms they looked extremely pale. They didn't resist at all. But why would they? They weren't even armed with lasers – only shockers. And a shocker wouldn't make a warbot even flinch.
The three security men were disarmed and led away in restraints immediately and their securitybots were disabled with electrostatic bolts. Then the warbots advanced on the building itself.
A couple of visitors in the floater park were quickly taken into custody while the warbots surrounded the building. None of them worked for the company and all of them were happy to be led away when they noticed the small mechanical army advancing on them. They couldn't leave fast enough.
Once they were in position and the building was completely encircled the Commander made an announcement over a megaphone.
“Attention. All those inside the Billingsgate Lucius Scientific Industries building, this is the Commonwealth Navy. You are all being taken into custody. Drop whatever weapons you have. Please exit the building, walk calmly to the waiting officers, and surrender.”
His words were greeted with silence. But that was expected. A megaphone could be heard through concrete and steel walls because it used them as amplifiers. People couldn't do the same.
But heads quickly appeared at windows, looking every bit as shocked as the security guards had been. Some of them even wandered out on to the balconies to stare at them. None were running and none that she could see were rushing for weapons. Most of them probably had no clue about what was happening.
For a while Annalisse dared to hope that the take down would go smoothly. Especially when everything was public. The media, while being kept out, were hovering nearby in scores of floaters, as were any number of citizen reporters. If this all went south, it would be public within microseconds. She prayed it wouldn't.
The employees left the building, coming out one by one with their hands in the air, and walking cautiously towards the waiting soldiers. Annalisse felt a real feeling of satisfaction as she watched them being restrained, read their rights and led away to the waiting transports. There was no trouble. But none of them were the owners of the company. She, like every other officer, checked their faces on her personal holo against the list they had. Still everything was going exactly according to plan.
But it couldn't last. After thirty or forty people had been led away and more were lining up to surrender, events changed unexpectedly. Someone shouted “roof”, alarm in the man's voice and her blood chilled.
Annalisse looked up, froze for a nanosecond, and then threw herself to the ground. Some heavy bots had taken the high ground and were preparing to fire down upon them from the roof. Bots armed with what looked like military weapons.
After that the peace shattered into chaos.
The enemy bots had heavy pulse weapons, their high energy blasts hitting the ground and exploding all around. A high-pitched buzz was heard each time and then grass, dirt and even rock would detonate in huge sprays of flaming ash. If the beams hit the warbots’ heavy ablative armour plate, it was less spectacular but the sonic boom was deafening. Meanwhile the warbots, not to be outdone, possessed heavy lasers that quickly turned the enemy bots into bonfires.
That didn't stop the fighting. The enemy bots exploded and burnt but kept firing randomly, destroying everything they hit. Land, bots, people and even the distant floaters of the citizen reporters. Each bot's attack would only end after it was pushed off the roof by a bot behind it which would take its place. The falling, flaming wreckage would then smash into the concrete in a ground-shaking burst that sent fireballs streaking into the air. To add to the confusion those workers who’d been surrendering panicked and started running around in terror, screaming.
Meanwhile Annalisse desperately looked for shelter, but there was none. The bots were up high, having the advantage of being able to see everything going on. The only thing protecting her was that the BLS machines were concentrating their fire on the warbots. Not everyone was so lucky though: there was screaming all around and bodies exploded, sending body parts flying.
Eventually she crawled behind a shrub, hoping it would at least hide her. Others were doing the same. It was the only thing to do. They'd brought the warbots with them for a reason. To do the fighting. And as far as she could tell they were winning. The enemy bots were falling off the building and exploding in droves while only a few of the warbots had been incapacitated.
The stars only knew what the citizen reporters were doing. Some of them had stupidly entered the battleground, and some had failed to survive the experience. She noticed several floaters fall out of the air, trailing smoke and fire, their holo recorders bizarrely following them down. If only they'd stayed behind the lines. But citizen reporters often didn't do as they were told and anyway it wouldn't have helped.
Then, without warning, a beam streaked down from above and the entire roof of the building vanished, along with most of the third floor. There was fire and dust, and a small hurricane of burning rubble scattered in all directions, and she prayed to all the stars that none of it came near her. But after the rubble had finished crashing down there was nothing. There was only silence.
Their opponents had been destroyed.
When she saw that Annalisse felt a sense of relief that it was over, and disbelief that it had happened at all. There was shock and confusion too, plus an overwhelming need to keep checking herself to see that she was alright. Other than a ringing in her ears, though she was intact. She also wondered how many people had been killed and how much of the dirt and filth she was covered in contained human remains?
It took her a while to come to terms with the reality that scores of people had just been killed. Innocent civilians simply incinerated by the Navy. It wasn't just them either – military officers had been blown apart by enemy fire. Factory workers too had died, those who hadn't made it to the transports. She could see their bodies – actually body parts – strewn across the gardens, so many of them that they looked like blood red wild flowers. The medbots weren't going to be as busy as she might have hoped – their enemy's pulse weapons hadn't left injured people, only corpses.
The gardeners were going to be busy she thought bitterly. The grounds were pockmarked with craters and littered with bloody pieces of meat that had once been people. But the nutrients were probably good for the plants.
It took a while to process the carnage. It was worse because Annalisse was right in the middle of it, surrounded by bodies and dismembered limbs. The smell of burning flesh and blood assailed her. Dirt covered her, while survivors cried out or screamed. But the worst was that unlike the first attack in the ALEB station she’d done nothing. She hadn't even drawn her weapon. It wouldn't have helped. She knew that. But she hadn't even tried.
At some point Annalisse got to her feet and looked around, her ears still ringing, wondering what she was supposed to do now. She felt she had to do something. Plus the enemy still had to be caught. Her mind hadn't gone so far dark side that she would believe he'd gone up with the top floor of the factory. The bomber was not the sort to be where the action was. He liked sending out others to do his dirty work while sitting somewhere safe and observing from a distance.
The chances were that he wasn't even in the building. He'd quite likely run off earlier, sending out his own security bots as another piece of the game. Even if he couldn't win he could still cause harm. That, she realised, was part of the fun for him.
Still they needed to secure the building, and arrest anyone inside who was still breathing. And if the ringleader hadn’t fled, he had to be caught. If he wasn't it was essential that his identity was uncovered. That information would presumably be somewhere inside the devastated building, buried under tons of rubble.
Others obviously had the same idea and, after the wounded had been taken away, lines were reformed and the warbots once more advanced on the factory. She followed at a cautious distance. It was time to take the fight back to the bomber.
The first of the bots reached the f
ront entrance and tore it out of the building before marching inside. That was a pity: the building's front was a glass-walled atrium full of elegant stone columns supporting a frieze. However it wasn't quite tall enough to let a warbot move freely – and they didn't crouch.
Soon a river of heavy steel armour flowed into the factory, and they wouldn’t be stopped. They tore their way through the reinforced concrete, shooting anyone and anything that didn't surrender instantly. Occasionally they were met by opposition, but when they did they won through quickly.
Annalisse and the other officers held back, waiting until the sounds of battle had grown fainter. They simply weren't sufficiently armed or armoured to face whatever was inside. Besides, the building was so badly damaged that she worried it could collapse at any moment. Plus there was so much smoke that it was difficult to see. Mechanical senses were much better at piercing smoky haze than human eyes. It was better that the bots handle it and mopped up any resistance.
Unexpectedly there were quite a few survivors inside. Annalisse hadn't expected that. The fighting up ahead was violent, but here and there they came across people lying on the floor or cowering behind furniture, desperate to surrender. And where they were found they were rescued, charged, restrained, scanned and escorted outside to be taken away. Innocence and guilt would be worked out later. For the moment they needed to be removed.
Her main task though was to look for certain people. She had a list of four names and faces: Maximilian White-Jones, Indira Lucius, Ingrid Schmidt and Tobias Coulter, all owners and directors of the company. Logically it could only be one of them who was behind the conspiracy. Or it could be all of them working together. If they were caught the four would be spending a long time being interrogated. And, if she had anything to do with it, she would be one of those interrogators.
