Six

by Mark Alpert

  Wow. Definitely. But is it, like, possible? I mean, in this dream?

  Let’s find out.

  April 5, 2018

  Dear Mom,

  Please don’t rip up this letter. I just want you to know that I respect your feelings. You believe that I’m a copy of your son, and the truth is, you may be right. Although it doesn’t feel that way to me—I believe with all my being that I’m Adam Armstrong—I can’t prove it. And I realize how painful it must be to get a letter from someone you think is an impostor. But I’m begging you to read this letter to the end and send something in response—a note, a postcard, whatever. Even if I’m just a copy, I have feelings too.

  I miss you so much.

  Adam

  From: The National Security Adviser

  The White House, Washington, DC

  To: General Calvin Hawke

  Commander, Pioneer Base

  Cal, we just got the green light. The Russian Army has agreed to go along with our plan, but only on the condition that we launch the assault on Tatishchevo by April 8. That means we need to get the Pioneers on a transport plane to Russia by tomorrow morning. I know this is sooner than expected, but we don’t have a choice. The Russians are demanding that we attack Sigma before it can release the anthrax bacteria that the terrorists smuggled into Tatishchevo. The Russian bioweapons experts are now predicting that the stolen anthrax could kill more people than all the nuclear missiles COMBINED.

  We’ve already dispatched a semitrailer truck that should arrive at Pioneer Base by twelve hundred hours today. To maintain the secrecy of the operation, the vehicle will have the same markings as the trucks that deliver the base’s weekly supplies. But it’ll also have an extra-wide trailer, specially outfitted for transporting Pioneers. You’ll be able to load the truck tonight and head for Buckley Air Force Base. A C-17 will be waiting there to fly your unit to Saratov.

  I’m sorry we couldn’t give you more time, Cal. As a consolation, the Army National Training Center is sending you the special package you requested. It wasn’t easy, but they managed to fit the darn thing into the oversize trailer of the truck that’ll come to your base today. Your Pioneers will be able to train with it for a few hours before they leave for Russia.

  One more thing. I know you don’t need another distraction right now, but I have some bad news. Ryan Boyd, the seventeen-year-old friend of Adam Armstrong, was found dead last night in Yonkers, New York. He was shot once in the head, execution style, and his body dumped in a vacant lot. Pinned to his shirt was a photo of a girl in her late teens, and under her picture was a note, presumably written by the killer. It said, “I HAVE BRITTANY. TELL ADAM TO COME OUT OF HIDING, OR I’LL KILL HER TOO.”

  The police have identified her as Brittany Taylor, a runaway from Yorktown Heights. If you happen to know anything about her relationship to Armstrong, please put the information in your next memo and order Colonel Peterson to deliver it to me immediately, but DON’T question Armstrong about it or tell him what happened to his friend Ryan. Sigma clearly arranged this atrocity to antagonize Armstrong and draw him out of Pioneer Base. The AI hasn’t been able to find the base, so it’s trying other ways to disrupt our plans. At this critical point, we can’t allow that to happen. To be on the safe side, don’t say anything to Armstrong’s father either.

  Good luck, Cal. God bless you and the Pioneers.

  SIGMA MEMORY FILE 9725484853

  DATE: 04/06/18

  S: Good morning. How’s the weather in Maryland?

  R: Why do you always ask about the weather, Unc? Don’t you know it’s a terrible way to start a conversation?

  (Voice analysis confirms that the speaker is Richard Ramsey. His cell phone is linked to a wireless tower near Baltimore-Washington International Airport.)

  S: I assume you just dropped someone off at the airport?

  R: Yeah, I handed Brittany over to your boys. The two big guys with Russian accents.

  S: And their Learjet departed on schedule?

  R: Oh yeah. It must’ve cost you a bundle, renting that private jet. Are you Russian too, Unc? One of those Russian billionaires?

  S: What was Brittany’s condition?

  R: I gave her a sleeping pill to keep her quiet during the car ride. She was still snoozing when your boys carried her aboard the plane.

  S: And what did she say when you questioned her? Anything about Adam Armstrong?

  R: Well, she cursed a lot and scratched my face, but she didn’t tell me anything interesting. She said she hasn’t seen Adam since last June.

  S: Do you believe her?

  R: I didn’t at first. She got nervous when I mentioned the kid’s name. I thought she was lying to protect him. But then I realized she was ashamed. She begged me not to tell Adam what had happened to her, why she ran away from home. I guess he was like a kid brother to her. She didn’t want him to know she was living on the street.

  (Conclusion: Both Adam Armstrong and Brittany Taylor are highly emotional, even for humans. But are these emotions an advantage or a disadvantage? This remains an open question.)

  S: And what about Ryan Boyd? Did he offer any more information about Adam when you held the gun to his head?

  R: Not a word. He was crying too hard. It looks like we’ve hit a dead end, Unc.

  S: No, I’ve discovered another way to locate Armstrong. And you can assist me.

  R: You don’t give up easily, do you?

  S: Please hear me out. I believe Adam is being held at a U.S. Army base. While analyzing the video from security cameras in Washington, DC, I recognized the face of an army officer, a colonel in the U.S. Cyber Command.

  R: Whoa, how did you—

  S: His name is Peterson. I saw him a few weeks ago at the research lab run by Adam’s father. It appears that Peterson is currently acting as a courier, delivering classified documents to and from the White House. I believe if you questioned the man, he could tell you where Adam is.

  R: You’ve gone off the deep end, Unc. You want me to interrogate a freakin’ colonel?

  S: He’s accompanied by other officers most of the time, but on certain nights when he’s in Washington he goes alone to an establishment called the Secret Pleasures Lounge. All you have to do is wait for him there. I’ll email you a recent picture of the man.

  R: Look, if you’re serious about this, you’re gonna have to—

  S: I’ll pay you another $200,000. Go to the lounge tonight and look for Peterson.

  R: And if I find him?

  S: Take the colonel to a secluded location and ask him about Adam.

  CHAPTER

  16

  We ride the freight elevator to the surface the next morning, heading for another training exercise. As I step outside with the other Pioneers I see an extra-wide semitrailer truck parked in the middle of the basin. I focus my camera on the truck, marveling over its unusual size. Then another vehicle emerges from the rear of the trailer and clanks down a ramp to the ground. I recognize it from one of the databases General Hawke ordered us to download. It’s a Russian T-90 battle tank.

  The tank picks up speed as it moves away from the trailer. Despite its tremendous weight, it races across the muddy basin. One of Hawke’s soldiers rides in the turret, which is shaped like a clamshell and painted desert-camouflage brown. The tank has two machine guns—one for firing at infantry and one for shooting down aircraft—and a fifteen-foot-long main gun, which fires high-explosive armor-piercing shells. The clamshell turret rotates atop the tank, and the main gun sweeps around like a clock’s second hand, pointing at the snow-covered ridges that encircle the basin.

  The Pioneers stand in a line, all six of us, and stare at the T-90. After a couple of minutes the tank turns around and heads straight for us. I’m getting ready to leap to the side when the T-90 stops, less than ten yards away. The soldier in the turret takes
off his goggles and helmet and clambers down to the ground. It’s not one of Hawke’s soldiers, I realize. It’s Hawke himself.

  “Surprised?” The general grins, holding his helmet under his arm. “I used to be a tank commander in the First Armored Division. But I have to admit, I never rode in a Russian tank before.”

  Two more soldiers climb out of the turret. They go to the back of the T-90, open a compartment there, and start making adjustments. Hawke points at the tank. “You’re probably wondering, how the heck did the U.S. Army get its hands on this thing?” He grins again. “Well, the details are classified, but the Army National Training Center acquired it a few years ago. I had it brought here today because you need to see how it works. All the automated tanks at Tatishchevo are T-90s.”

  I scroll through my files, remembering everything Hawke told us about the automated regiment at Tatishchevo. To defend the missile base, the Russian Army built a hundred unmanned T-90s, all designed to be operated by remote control. But after Sigma transferred itself to Tatishchevo’s computer lab, it sent its own instructions to the tanks. The AI used them to massacre the base’s soldiers.

  “Sir?” I raise a steel hand. Hawke will probably yell at me for asking another premature question, but I can’t stop myself. “How are we going to fight the T-90s? With anti-tank guns?”

  He shakes his head. “Negative. You’re jumping to conclusions. Fighting the tank isn’t the goal of today’s exercise.” He points again at the armored behemoth behind him, and this time I notice the long antenna rising from its turret. “We’ve installed a neuromorphic control unit in this T-90. You’re gonna take turns transferring to the tank so you can practice driving it and firing its gun.”

  I don’t get it. How does this fit into the plans for attacking Tatishchevo? “Sir, I don’t—”

  “I’d love to talk about it, Armstrong, but we don’t have the time. We can stay outside for only two hours today, and I want everyone to get a chance to operate the tank.” He turns away from me and points at Zia. “You’re up first, Lieutenant Allawi.”

  “Yes, sir!” She salutes him, of course, and begins the transfer.

  The other Pioneers break into groups as Zia radios her data to the T-90. Marshall chats with DeShawn while Jenny leans toward Shannon and whispers something I don’t catch. It makes me nervous to see the two girls talking. I’m glad Jenny’s feeling better, but I’m worried she’ll tell Shannon what happened yesterday.

  I don’t know why I feel so guilty. I didn’t do anything wrong. I did a favor for Jenny, that’s all. Then we shared a memory—or a dream, or whatever it was. And yes, we kissed, but it’s not like we’re going to start dating or anything. I mean, it’s absurd, right? Robots can’t date. All they can do is exchange signals. Now that I think about what happened, it just seems kind of sad. We were pretending we were still human.

  So I did nothing wrong and have nothing to feel guilty about, yet I know Shannon will get upset if Jenny tells her. I increase the sensitivity of my acoustic sensor and strain to hear what they’re saying. Anxiety carves a deep gouge in my circuits.

  Then Zia completes her transfer and takes off in the T-90, zigzagging across the basin. I don’t really feel like watching her drive the tank, so I turn my turret in the opposite direction. Then, unexpectedly, I see Dad. He’s walking quickly toward me. His shoes are splattered with mud.

  I don’t know what he’s doing here, but I’m happy to see him. We didn’t get a chance to talk yesterday, and I want to tell him about my letter to Mom. As he gets closer, though, I notice he’s agitated. He’s breathing hard and his pulse is racing. Being worried is Dad’s natural state, his default emotion, but now he seems truly freaked out. I leave the other Pioneers and stride toward him. “Dad? Are you okay?”

  He stops in his tracks, huffing and puffing. “I just heard…that the truck arrived.” He points at the semitrailer, now emptied of its heavy load. “Did Hawke tell you…when you’re leaving?”

  “Leaving?”

  “Yes, in the truck. You’re going to Buckley Air Force Base tonight.” Dad looks puzzled. “He didn’t tell you?”

  “No, he said nothing.” I feel a surge of panic. “We’re leaving tonight?”

  “You’re flying to Russia. In a transport plane, a C-17. My God, why is he keeping it secret?”

  Turning my turret around, I aim my camera at Hawke. He’s holding his radio and shouting instructions to Zia. As I stare at his ruddy face, my panic turns to anger. There’s a reason why Hawke won’t tell us anything: he doesn’t trust us. He’s treating us like children.

  “He’s impossible,” I say, turning my turret back to Dad. “He won’t even explain this exercise we’re doing. He’s making us transfer to the T-90, but he won’t say why.”

  Dad shakes his head. “I hate all this secrecy. I really do.” Frowning, he glances at the T-90, which is making left and right turns under Zia’s control. Then he steps closer to me and lowers his voice. “If Hawke won’t explain it, I will. When we looked at the satellite photos of Tatishchevo, we saw that Sigma was bringing its tanks to the automated factory next to the base’s computer lab. And when we studied the photos of the T-90s more closely, we saw that their antennas were being replaced.”

  “Replaced with what?”

  He points at the antenna rising from my turret, the long pole with a dozen crossbars. “The new antennas on the T-90s are like yours. They can transmit and receive huge amounts of data. We concluded that Sigma was installing neuromorphic control units in the tanks. This would allow the AI to put itself inside a T-90 instead of just operating it by remote control.”

  “But why?”

  “Our best guess is that it’s part of Sigma’s backup plan. Just like you, the AI can’t occupy two separate computers at the same time. If the computer lab at Tatishchevo comes under attack, Sigma will have to transfer itself to another machine before our missiles blast the place. So it’s modifying the T-90s to be its escape pods. Because there are so many of the tanks and they’re all identical, we’d have a hard time figuring out which one holds the AI.” Dad pauses and then, to my surprise, he smiles. “But there’s a bright side to all this. If Sigma can transfer to the T-90s at Tatishchevo, so can a Pioneer. All you need to do is get close enough to the tank.”

  I realize why Dad’s smiling. This is the assault plan he conceived for the Army. “And we’re going to use the Raven drones to get close?” I ask. “We’ll glide into Tatishchevo, circle above the T-90s, and transfer to their control units?”

  Dad nods. “The beauty of it is that the drones can fly into the base unnoticed. You won’t make a sound or appear on any radar screens.”

  “And what happens then? What do we do once we’re inside the tanks?”

  “That’ll depend on the positions of the T-90s on the night of the assault. In the best-case scenario, several of the tanks will be near the computer lab. The Pioneers will take control of them and blast Sigma’s computer to smithereens. If that’s not possible, we’ll use the tanks to destroy Tatishchevo’s communications network. That should prevent Sigma from launching its nukes, or at least delay the launch for a few minutes. And that’ll give the Russian Army enough time to fire its cruise missiles at the computer lab and finish the job.”

  He’s still smiling. Dad seems quite pleased with himself. And he should be pleased—it’s a good plan, a clever surprise attack. But it’s not perfect. I see problems. “What if Sigma’s already inside one of the T-90s? And what if one of us transfers to the tank that Sigma’s occupying?”

  Dad’s smile wavers. “That’s definitely a risk. Sigma would delete any Pioneer that tries to enter its control unit. And we’d also lose the element of surprise. But the sacrifice wouldn’t be in vain. The loss of radio contact with one of the Pioneers would alert all the others, and it would tell them exactly where Sigma is. Then it would be five tanks against one, and those are pretty goo
d odds.”

  This makes sense, but I’m still not satisfied. There are other problems with the plan. So many things could go wrong. I don’t mean to sound critical, but I can’t help but think that the Pioneers could’ve come up with something better if they’d been allowed to participate in the planning process. And maybe it’s not too late, maybe we can still make changes. I want to ask Dad if that’s possible, but I don’t want to hurt his feelings, so I take an extra hundredth of a second to figure out what to say. But before I can synthesize the first word, an enormous explosion rocks the basin.

  My acoustic sensor measures the noise at one hundred fifty decibels, the loudest sound I’ve ever heard. Half a second later I hear another explosion that isn’t quite as loud but still makes the ground tremble. I shift my legs, planting my footpads as firmly as I can in the mud, and turn toward the noise. I’m sure that Sigma has attacked us. The AI must’ve targeted the group of Pioneers behind me, most likely with a guided missile or bomb. As I turn my turret, I brace myself for the sight of the wreckage, the twisted shards of the robots scattered across the ground.

  But instead I see the Pioneers standing next to General Hawke, all facing the T-90. A plume of smoke drifts upward from the muzzle of the tank’s main gun. Another plume rises from one of the snow-covered ridges, about a half a mile away. Now I realize what happened: the first noise was the firing of a shell from the tank’s gun, and the second was the shell’s detonation on the mountainside. Zia has successfully completed the training exercise, and the other Pioneers are applauding her well-aimed shot. I can hear their synthesized cheers amid the echoes from the two explosions.

  Hawke shouts, “Good job, Allawi!” into his radio. Then he points at me. “Your turn, Armstrong. Get over here.”

  I’m so distressed I don’t even say good-bye to Dad. As I stride toward the general, Zia transfers back to her robot, and the others gather around her, still cheering. But I can’t shake the image that just swept through my circuits, the vision of twisted, smoking wreckage, the awful premonition of the end of the Pioneers.