Six

by Mark Alpert

  No! Stop!

  The T-90 crushes the fuselage of DeShawn’s Raven. The treads shatter the drone’s fiberglass body and flatten the steel casing of the control unit inside. The circuits that held DeShawn’s mind are mashed to bits.

  NO, NO, NO! DESHAWN!

  The tank stops a few feet from me, its back end looming over my broken Raven. Then a second T-90 comes into view, moving in from the left. I feel a rush of pure hatred. Does Sigma really need two tanks to finish me off?

  I’m saying my final prayers and thinking of my parents when the first T-90 turns its turret to the left and fires its main gun at the second tank. The shell explodes against the T-90’s rear end, doing minimal damage to the tank but snapping off the top of its antenna. At the same time, I notice something odd about the first T-90’s antenna: most of it is gone. There’s just a stump of metal rising from the back of the tank.

  Then my radio starts working again and I hear DeShawn’s voice. It’s coming from the first tank’s stumpy antenna. “What are you waiting for?” he yells. “Get up here!”

  “DeShawn? What—”

  “Just transfer to the T-90’s control unit. Then we’ll talk.”

  Staring at the tank, I realize what DeShawn did. When he put his Raven in a dive, he aimed for the tank’s antenna. The force of the impact snapped off the antenna’s top half, breaking Sigma’s connection to the T-90. Sigma couldn’t stay linked to the tank if the antenna was too short, so the AI had to withdraw from the T-90’s control unit. DeShawn, on the other hand, could transfer to the T-90 via the shortened antenna because his Raven landed just a few feet away. Radio signals are much stronger if they don’t have to travel far. That’s basic physics.

  I turn on my data transmitter. Within six seconds, I’m inside the T-90’s control unit with DeShawn, who starts driving the tank forward. He’s moving as fast as he can toward the second T-90, which has stopped dead in its tracks.

  Nice going, girl. You ready to rock and roll?

  I can’t believe it. You’re amazing.

  Aw shucks. You’re making me blush.

  DeShawn leaves some space for me in the circuits by pulling back to the other side of the control unit. I’m not close enough to see all his thoughts, but I can sense his emotions in the messages he’s sending me. The boy has no fear. It’s remarkable.

  Okay, here’s the plan. I’m gonna pull real close to the T-90 I just fired at. The explosion snapped its antenna and broke its connection to Sigma, so now I’m gonna send my data to that little antenna stump and transfer to the tank’s control unit.

  And you want me to stay here in this T-90?

  Right, we split up. You fire your main gun at the lab while I take care of the other tanks.

  Sigma still has three T-90s nearby. You can’t fight them all.

  I think I got a chance. Something’s wrong with Sigma. Its tanks aren’t moving as fast as they should be. It looks like the AI is freezing up or something.

  Freezing up?

  Yeah, like a computer with software problems. Even an AI can’t run perfectly all the time, I guess.

  Or maybe it’s Adam. Maybe Adam is distracting Sigma somehow. But I don’t share this thought with DeShawn. I’m too worried.

  In a few seconds we pull up alongside the unoccupied T-90. Without another word, DeShawn transfers to the other tank. Then he steers it toward the southwestern corner of the lab and aims his main gun at a third T-90. He fires again and blasts the antenna off that tank, too.

  Meanwhile, I point my tank’s main gun at the lab’s front door. With a few well-placed shots I could take down the whole building. I could destroy every computer inside. But that would kill all the captured Pioneers as well as Sigma. I can’t risk doing that. Not even to save the world.

  Instead, I turn my T-90’s turret toward a small building next to the computer lab. Hawke pointed out this structure in the satellite photo. He said it held the communication lines connecting Tatishchevo’s headquarters to the nuclear-missile silos. I load a high-explosive shell into my main gun and aim it at the building.

  I hope this works.

  CHAPTER

  22

  Zia doesn’t say a word. I don’t think she even notices me. As soon as I open the inner unit of her cage, she barrels through the gate, knocking me aside. While I withdraw to unoccupied circuits in the far corner of the outer unit, I catch a glimpse of the wave of fury that Zia’s riding. It’s a tsunami of anger, a dark, roiling, monstrous surge. And it’s all aimed at Sigma, which entered the outer unit a few microseconds ago.

  Zia’s wave crashes into the circuits occupied by the AI. The impact is explosive, hurling data across the whole network. I shield myself from the electronic barrage, but a few of the signals get through, some from Zia and some from Sigma. Zia’s files are full of hatred. Sigma subjected her to the same test it put me through, forcing her to watch Jenny’s murder. But Zia’s response was stronger than mine, a hundred times stronger. The test triggered something terrible in Zia, a return of the anguish she suffered when she was a kid. That’s what makes her anger so powerful—it springs from her pain. Only a horrendously wounded person could feel such rage.

  I see some of Sigma’s files too. Mostly, they show the AI’s urgent attempts to analyze the situation and weigh its options. But in a few of the signals, I recognize the random noise of fear. This is surprising. I thought Sigma had no emotions. Did the AI already add some emotional responses to its programming? I don’t know the answer, but Sigma’s fear definitely seems like a logical reaction right now. Although the AI may be the smartest being on the planet, Zia is the fiercest.

  After a few more microseconds, Sigma calculates that its best option is retreat. It removes its data from the outer unit and transfers to another computer, then tries to cut the communication lines behind it. But Zia is too fast. She chases Sigma across the network, smashing into the AI as soon as it reaches the new circuits.

  I follow them, but there’s not much I can do to help. Zia is fighting so savagely, she’d probably attack me as well if I got too close. When I examine her signals again I see that she’s created a virtual-reality background for the battle. She’s picturing it as a knife fight in a dark, grimy alley. She sees herself as a tall, dark-skinned girl with a Mohawk, and she sees Sigma as a fat, leering teenage boy. I realize with a start that I’ve seen this boy before, in Zia’s memories. He’s one of the two boys who assaulted her when she was twelve years old. And now, in her mind, she’s cutting him to pieces.

  I can’t watch this. Turning away from them, I take a moment to examine the Tatishchevo network, checking the status of every computer and communications line on the missile base. Right away I see something amazing: the network has lost contact with the nuclear missile silos. It looks like someone just destroyed all the fiber-optic lines connecting the silos to the computer lab. Then I check the lab’s isolation cages. Marshall’s in one of them, but the others are unoccupied. Which means that Shannon and DeShawn are still outside the lab, probably driving a couple of T-90s. I bet they’re the ones who smashed the fiber-optic lines.

  With new hope I race to the occupied cage and open its inner unit. Marshall rushes through the gate and comes toward me. He seems rattled. His thoughts are ping-ponging everywhere.

  Adam! What’s going on? I thought you were dead!

  Nah, not yet. You all right, Marsh?

  A shudder runs through his circuits. I saw what happened. To Jenny. Sigma came into my cage and showed me.

  That explains why he’s so distressed. But there’s no time to talk it over.

  Okay, listen up. We got a chance to win this thing. Zia’s keeping Sigma busy, and Shannon and DeShawn have already cut the lines to the silos. But the dish antennas on the lab’s roof are still working.

  It’s funny, but I feel like a quarterback talking to one of his teammates. Marshall’s still ratt
led, but he’s listening.

  And Sigma can use those antennas to communicate with its satellites?

  Exactly. So we have to shut them down. I need you to overload their circuit boards. You know how to do that?

  Yes, yes. The instructions were in the databases.

  Well, go ahead and do it. I have to take care of something else, but let me know if you run into any problems.

  Then I head for yet another computer in the lab’s network, a machine located in the basement. Although I didn’t see all of Sigma’s memory files, I saw enough to know where Brittany is.

  • • •

  She’s asleep. The surveillance camera in her room shows her lying faceup in bed, her arms and legs strapped to the mattress. She’s changed a lot since the last time I saw her, almost a year ago. Her long, blond hair is ragged and tangled. Her T-shirt is stained and her jeans are filthy. But I don’t care about her clothes or her hair. I’m so happy to see her, I can barely stand it.

  She’s not alone in the room, though. A big, bearded man is kneeling on a prayer rug between the bed and the door. Luckily, there was some information about this guy in the Sigma memory files that I saw just a second ago. He’s a Chechen terrorist named Imran Daudov, one of a half-dozen fanatics whom Sigma hired to smuggle the batch of anthrax into Tatishchevo. Afterward, the AI decided it didn’t need so many human collaborators, so it ordered Imran to murder his fellow terrorists. The guy obeys Sigma without question because he thinks the AI is God. He actually believes he’s hearing the voice of the Lord when Sigma talks to him from the lab’s speakers. I guess terrorists aren’t the most stable people in the world.

  I hate to play the same trick on him that Sigma did, but I don’t have a choice. I download an English-Chechen translation program from the lab’s database, then connect to the speakers on the nightstand beside the bed.

  “Imran! I have new orders for you!”

  The guy jumps up from his prayer rug. “Yes, my Lord!”

  “You must free the girl. Then run away from this building and surrender to the soldiers outside the missile base.”

  “My Lord, I don’t understand—”

  “Silence! Just do as I say!”

  Imran bows low, clasping his hands together. Then he approaches the bed and unties the straps. Meanwhile, Brittany keeps on sleeping. This doesn’t surprise me. Ever since she was a little kid she was famous for being a heavy sleeper. After Imran undoes the last strap, he rolls up his prayer rug and bolts out of the room. Sigma’s servant is obedient to the end.

  Half a second later, a loud thud makes the walls shiver. I’ve heard this noise before—it’s a T-90 shell exploding somewhere near the computer lab. I don’t know who fired it, one of Sigma’s tanks or one of ours, but the odds are good that another shell will hit the building pretty soon. I need to get Brittany out of here before that happens.

  “Brittany!”

  Her eyes open at once. “Adam?”

  There’s no time for long explanations. In a hundredth of a second I come up with a decent lie. “I’m in another part of the building. I’m talking to you over the intercom.”

  Confused, she stares at the speakers on the nightstand. Then she notices that she’s no longer tied to the mattress. She sits upright in bed. “What happened? Where’s the jerk with the beard?”

  “The place is under attack, so everyone left. And now you have to leave too.”

  “Wait, where are you? I don’t know which way to go.”

  “Okay, it’s easy. Once you leave the room, you’ll see the stairway. Go upstairs to the lobby, then straight out the front door. Then get as far away from here as you can.”

  Another thud shakes the room. Brittany slides out of bed and takes a few wobbly steps. Then she stops. “Adam, I’m scared! Why can’t you come help me?”

  Her voice is heartbreaking. But there’s nothing else I can do for her. “Don’t worry, Britt, you’ll be all right. After you leave the building, keep going till you find some soldiers. Tell them to take you to General Calvin Hawke. Can you remember that name?”

  She nods, then looks at the speakers again. “Will I see you there? Will you be with this Hawke guy?”

  “Definitely. Now go, okay?”

  Brittany nods again and goes out the door.

  I keep looking at the empty room after she leaves. I have two reasons for feeling nervous. First and foremost, I’m worried about Brittany’s safety. I’m praying she gets out of the lab before it goes up in smoke. But I’m also worried about what’ll happen afterward. I don’t know how Brittany will react when she sees what I’ve become.

  Then I get a message from Marshall.

  Adam, we have a problem!

  What is it? Did you shut down the dish antennas?

  I was about to disable the last one when Sigma escaped from Zia and occupied the antenna’s circuits. The AI transmitted its data before I could stop it.

  Where did it go? To one of the communications satellites?

  No, this antenna wasn’t pointed at a satellite. Sigma modified the device so it could be used for wireless communications between the computer lab and the nuclear-missile silos.

  Sigma’s in one of the silos?

  No, it’s in the missile itself. And it just launched.

  SHANNON’S LOG

  APRIL 8, 04:43 MOSCOW TIME

  “Shannon? Are you in that tank in front of the lab?”

  It’s Adam. He’s using a dish antenna on top of the computer lab to contact my T-90. Over the radio his voice sounds thin and strained, but it’s definitely him. My circuits hum with joy.

  “I knew it! I knew we’d find you! I’m so—”

  “Shannon, there’s no time. Sigma just launched one of the nukes.”

  “What?”

  “Look to the northeast. That’s where the silo is.”

  I turn my T-90’s camera in that direction. A thick plume of flame is rising above the fields and woods. Within seconds it grows as bright as dawn, illuminating half the sky. On top of the plume is a tall dark column, its edges outlined in fire. That’s the SS-27 nuclear missile. It ascends slowly at first, fighting gravity, but soon it’s streaking upward.

  My joy vanishes. My circuits fall silent. The missile’s ascent is nearly vertical, but after a few seconds it tilts to the north, following a trajectory that’ll carry the nuke over the Arctic Ocean. Somewhere in North America, millions of people have less than half an hour to live.

  Adam’s voice cuts through the silence. He’s sending radio signals as fast as he can, trying to cram a whole conversation into a hundredth of a second.

  “Tell me about the interceptors, Shannon. The rockets that can hit a nuke in midflight. I saw two of them at the military airfield where your C-17 landed.”

  “How did you see them? You weren’t there.”

  “I saw them in Jenny’s memories. The rockets were on mobile launchers. They looked like they were ready to go.”

  I want to ask him what happened to Jenny, but I don’t. Something in Adam’s voice is telling me that I won’t like the answer. Instead, I concentrate on my own memories of the interceptors. “Hawke said they were upgrading the rockets because their electronics were vulnerable to Sigma’s computer virus.”

  “Upgrading? What do you mean?”

  “He wasn’t specific. His soldiers were carrying boxes of equipment from the C-17 to the launchers.”

  “Check your memories. What was in the boxes?”

  I reach into my files and retrieve an image of the airfield. I see the C-17 with its cargo door open and Hawke’s soldiers unloading the plane. And I see the boxes in the soldiers’ hands, the equipment they brought all the way from Pioneer Base.

  “They were neuromorphic control units,” I report. “Hawke said their circuits can’t be infected by the virus. That’s why the soldiers pu
t them in the interceptors.”

  “Bingo. I’m going to the airfield.”

  “Wait, Adam, what do you—”

  He breaks off radio contact. I turn my T-90’s camera toward the dish antennas on the roof of the computer lab and see one of them pivoting. Adam’s pointing it east, toward the military airfield. He’s going to transmit his data to the control units in the interceptors.

  Thirty seconds later Adam launches the rockets. Two more fiery plumes rise above the eastern horizon.

  CHAPTER

  23

  I feel like I’m walking on a pair of stilts. Except each of these stilts is fifty feet high and shooting upward with 200,000 pounds of thrust.

  I’m occupying both of the interceptors, which are ascending from the Russian military airfield. Using their powerful radios, I send streams of data from one control unit to the other, keeping me balanced between the two rockets. Each interceptor also has an amazing camera, designed to detect objects that are hundreds of miles away. I point my cameras upward and focus them on the brilliant plume trailing Sigma’s nuclear missile. It launched nearly a minute before I did, and it’s already twenty miles above me.

  To stop the missile, I need to slam into it while it’s still ascending. If I can hit it with one of my interceptors while it’s still rising, the impact will pulverize the nuke before it can explode. But once the SS-27 reaches an altitude of one hundred fifty miles, its rocket engines will shut off and the missile will release its nuclear warhead, which will coast the rest of the way to the target. At the same time, the SS-27 will release a dozen decoys that look identical to the nuke. So I have to hit the missile before it gets to that point, which will occur in three minutes. If I don’t, the warhead will slip past me, and I can tell from the missile’s path where the nuke’s going to land.