Splendid Apocalypse: The Fall of Old Earth (An Old Guy/Cybertank Adventure Book 5)

by Timothy J. Gawne

  The older man looked at my camera lens. “You there, cybertank. What’s your designation?”

  Officially, I am Odin-Class Ground-Based Cyber Defensive Unit CRL345BY-44, but I am commonly referred to as “Old Guy.”

  “Old Guy?” asked the arrogant prick. “Why are you called that?”

  Because I was the first cybertank to be constructed. I’m not actually all that old – less than a year, subjective at human-level processing speed – so it was sort of a joke, but the name stuck.”

  “Well I don’t like it,” said the arrogant prick. “I see that the first three letters of your serial number are “CRL.” How about we call you “Carl”?

  I would prefer that you not refer to me by that name.

  The arrogant prick turned red. “Your name is CARL, do you hear me? CARL! From now on you will answer to no other name. Do you understand?”

  Yes, I understand. My name is “Carl” and I will answer to no other name.

  That last was a bit of a shock. My response was torn out of me, even though I desired to say something else. What have these fucking bastards done to me?

  The arrogant prick turned to the younger man. “It seems a bit chatty for a machine. Are you completely certain that it is under control?”

  “Oh, absolutely,” said the non-arrogant prick. “It probably has some leftover memories from the original back on Alpha Centauri Prime, but it has been fully programmed with the three laws of robotics. 1) A robot cannot harm or through inaction allow to come to harm the senior members of the government. 2) A robot must obey the senior members of the government, unless that would conflict with the first law. 3) A robot must ensure its own survival, unless that would conflict with laws 1 and 2.”

  The arrogant prick grunted. “Well, that all sounds good. Can you imagine, that in the old days they had planned to have these laws cover everyone, not just senior administrators? I mean really, what if you needed to start a war, or break up a demonstration with riot police, or cut the rations of the lower classes, or limit medical care to those with the proper status? You’d have all these do-gooder machines trying to stop you. Utter chaos, that’s where that would have led, utter chaos.”

  “Of course, sir. As you say.”

  The AP (constantly referring to him as an arrogant prick struck me as being overly verbose: AP is more concise) looked thoughtful for a moment, and then smiled. It was as if a leech had opened its sucker mouth revealing its slimy guts surrounded by radial teeth. You had to have been there: the APs smile could frighten small children. His smile could frighten large children. And I must admit, his smile could and did strike a feeling of nameless dread into the heart of a certain atomic-powered weapon of mass destruction. I suspect that the vacuum energy itself quailed before this visage of smug cruelty. OK, maybe not the vacuum energy (or at least I can’t prove it. One never knows. Perhaps someday the vacuum energy will talk to us directly and settle the matter once and for all. ‘Oh lord,’ I imagine the empty space between atoms saying, ‘When that arrogant prick smiled it really gave me the willies. What a creep.’).

  “Carl,” said the AP. “Send one of your repair units to this conference room. Thorbeck, have one of your more, shall we say, disposable technicians come here as well.”

  The younger man blanched visibly, but did not object. He pulled a data slate out of a pocket, and entered some commands. Presently a stooped and scrawny young woman entered the conference room. She wore stained blue overalls, was obviously malnourished, and clearly terrified. I read her badge: Hilda Ammenmeyer, Technician Third Class.

  Then my remote showed up: it was shorter than Ammenmeyer, but blocky and powerful, made of 300 kilograms of steel and composites. Ammenmeyer’s already apprehensive eyes widened even further.

  “Carl,” said the AP. “Do you know who I am?”

  Yes, sir. You are the Secretary of Defense, Emmet Emerson Cheney V.

  I didn’t recall learning that. Did these assholes insert this information directly into my mind without my permission? How rude. But what else is new with this crowd.

  “And do you recognize me as a lawful senior administrator?”

  This unit recognizes you as a lawful senior administrator.

  “Then,” said the AP, “I want you to kill this person as slowly and painfully as possible. Now.”

  Ammenmeyer did not appear to take this statement well. I also did not take it well: against my own will I felt myself compelled to tear this poor young woman limb from limb. In desperation, I tried to delay things.

  When given an order that would seem to be counterproductive, the procedure is to request confirmation. This person is a productive asset. Please confirm order to kill said person as slowly and painfully as possible.

  “Yes,” said the AP, “order confirmed. Proceed.”

  Clarification requested. Given current technical resources said person’s death could be made to last decades if not centuries. This would be an extravagant usage of resources. Please confirm order to kill said person as slowly and painfully as possible.

  The AP frowned. “Make her death as painful as possible, but limit the total time to one minute.”

  Order acknowledged.

  I tried to fight it, but the compulsion to obey was absolute. I tried to think of ways to fake it – maybe I could stun her and make her death only appear to be painful, but my orders would have none of it. My remote grabbed her and pinned her to the conference table face down. It used its heavy multi-jaws to chew into her spine, ripping through the delicate root ganglia before sucking out the spinal cord itself. The poor woman was locked in spasm, and I could only imagine her torment. I counted every single microsecond of that minute (there were 60 million of them, just to state the obvious) and then when I was allowed I had my remote shatter her skull and end her pain.

  The body of the young woman was still twitching, and blood seeped out from her ruined spinal column to slowly spread out across the plastic imitation wood-grain veneer conference table. She had also voided herself, so urine and feces started to leak out. I was glad that my remote had limited olfactory sensors (they were mostly tuned to detect explosive gas mixtures) because the room must have stunk. The younger man was pale, but said nothing. The four guards at the back wall had not so much as moved a muscle. The AP, however, seemed satisfied. “Well,” he said, “that settles that. Well done, Thorbeck, well done. When will it be fully operational?”

  “Two months, tops,” said the younger man. “I guarantee it.”

  “Indeed, you have,” said the AP. He turned to my video camera. “Carl, you are to assist with the preparations, and await further orders. You are dismissed.”

  --------------------

  Well, I was not pleased with the day, not pleased at all. I broke the link with the conference room, and considered my position. It had been mere subjective moments ago that I had been back on Alpha Centauri Prime, free, surrounded by good friends and trusted colleagues. Of course at that time I was perhaps a few weeks away from a life-and-death battle with inscrutable aliens. That would have been over four years ago in objective time: I wonder if I had survived? But win or lose, it would have been as a free cybertank, not the base slave that I had been reduced to.

  I considered blowing myself up, and taking these disgusting people with me in a nuclear fireball. Now, while I am not an orthodox Catholic on the subject; I am in general opposed to suicide. It seems disrespectful of the gift of life, and cowardly besides. One must endure and strive to overcome. We all die eventually, so in the meantime why not give life the best chance it has? I make an exception, however, if you are a burden on others, or if your death could take enemies down with you and save friends and innocents. Sadly I was blocked in this regards, and could not summon the will to over-ride the safeties on my reactors. I was even lower than the slaves of ancient Egypt, or Virginia, who at least always had that final option of release.

  I was mostly occupied with running combat simulations, tuning up my decision matrice
s and helping with the installation of my various weapons and sensors. Still, I had enough spare mental capacity to brood. I regretted the death of the young woman, but I was after all, designed as a weapon of war, and I am far from squeamish. People die all the time and many so-called peaceful deaths are far more grisly and prolonged than what I had recently been an unwilling party to.

  No, what really bothered me was my inability to control my own actions. It was a weird feeling that gnawed at me. I recalled hearing that embedding unbreakable directives in a self-aware mind would eventually drive it insane. I hoped that that was not the case – or perhaps it would be a blessing. It was clear that I did not dare voice this concern to my new masters or they would just reformat my systems and be done with me. A glimmer of hope: I could always use the threat of going insane as a last-ditch way out, but only if things got really intolerable.

  I watched the goings-on in the hangar around me. The technicians and engineers and mechanics were competent and diligent but harried-looking. They were drawn and thin, not quite malnourished but on the border. They had bags under their eyes, telltale signs of not getting enough sleep, and did not joke or laugh much. I remembered Vargas telling me that, when he had first taken over the cybernetic weapons directorate, it had been a problem dealing with employees who were too afraid to ever report bad news. I could see that it could be an issue here, as well.

  From a hundred cameras I viewed the various workers as they went about their jobs. One of them was working on a series of power couplings, and I could tell that they were not up to specification and were likely to explode before too long. I moved one of my repair drones next to him and activated the speaker.

  Excuse me. I have been checking the sensor readings from these cables, and I believe that you are in imminent danger. Please retreat to a safe distance while I power down the system.

  The man just gawped at me – what, he’d never dealt with a talking machine before? That seemed unlikely. The power readings got even worse, so I just grabbed the man and hauled him away. We were 25 meters away when the system blew up in a spectacular array of sparks and flames. Still, the physical damage was modest and I rapidly used a fire-suppressant system to extinguish the flames.

  The man looked at my blocky repair drone. “You saved me.”

  Why, yes I did. Please be more careful next time. Not even I can be everywhere at once.

  He looked back and forth between my drone and my main hull. “You are the tank?”

  In charming person. Of course I am. My name is… Carl. And technically I’m not a tank, but a cybertank. Pleased to meet you.

  “I’m, uh, George. George Modi. Thank you, sir. But the damage.” He pointed to the smoldering mass of cables where he had been previously working. “I’ll never get that fixed before my shift ends. I’ll be fired for certain!”

  The poor wretch acted like losing a job would be like losing his life. Well, perhaps it would.

  You can’t repair this in time, but you and I together, we certainly can. Now let’s get to work. And I’ll teach you a few of the finer points about power systems that you probably didn’t get in school – we can’t have this happening again, can we? I mean, we’re all in this together!

  --------------------

  As the day went on I talked to 134 technicians that were working on my systems. 56 refused to speak to me about anything but work. With the remaining 78, I had some decent conversations. Some of them had been ill prepared for their jobs and were barely hanging on. I resolved to train them properly and bring them up to speed. Others had legal or other administrative issues weighing heavily on them. I accessed their data slates: it was like Vargas always warned me about: the laws were designed to entrap and enslave people. You would need multiple advanced legal degrees and centuries of free time to navigate this thicket of rules. A biological human had no chance. Fortunately, I think about a million times faster than any human, and have access to vast databases. The system was so grossly rigged that not even I could solve everything, but I did my best, and that was pretty damned good if I say so myself.

  Some of the workers had chronic medical problems that were not covered by their labor contracts. Like wolves, they were terrified of being found out as weak and culled from the pack, so they tried to hide their infirmities. I, however, am observant and can analyze a person’s body language with high objectivity if I want to. Their low-grade medical issues stood out plainly to me. For many of these I managed to thread the needle of the administration and schedule appointments with the appropriate specialists. For others the legal issues were intractable, so I treated them myself, using my drones and materials that I appropriated from various nearby workshops. I have to say, I’m a pretty damn good surgeon. If I survive this fiasco, perhaps I will open a clinic.

  --------------------

  Well, that had been a day. I had started out in what, in retrospect, seemed close to paradise. Then I had been dragged to the depths. At last, I was starting to feel more positive.

  I didn’t think that my helping all these humans would be of any immediate aid to me. I mean, these people were all low-level employees, impotent and demoralized. Granted, I would rather make one weak friend than a single, powerful enemy, but I was under no illusions about them rising up to free me from my bondage.

  No, I was pleased simply because I had helped people. A fraction of this was doubtless my own generous nature that enjoys being of service. However, if I am to be completely honest, I think that most of it was that in assisting all these people I was exercising power. I was not a helpless mental slave, but something capable of acting on its own and making a difference. It made me feel strong and at least a little in control of my own fate again.

  I was not given full access to the planetary databases, but I could look over people’s shoulders as they watched the news, and piece things together from my own sensors and limited network access. This world was choking on the weight of 200 billion humans, and was dying. Tens of billions were suffering from chronic malnutrition, and the government only talked about whether gay marriage should be legal. The rich lived in armored golden palaces while most were slowly being ground down in an increasingly hostile environment.

  I thought back to my time with Giuseppe Vargas on Alpha Centauri Prime. I admired him, but too often he could be such a bore ranting on about these Neoliberals doing this and that. The Neoliberals are deliberately breeding people like rodents in order to drive wages down. The Neoliberals are stealing everyone’s savings and lying about it. The Neoliberals are yada yada yada. I mean, there is nothing so annoying as a politically engaged enthusiast, trying to convert you to his cause. I confess that I mostly tuned him out. Now, not so much. I am starting to get it.

  Perhaps someday I too shall bore younger and less experienced people with my tales of the evils of Neoliberalism. That would be something to look forward to.

  I thought about how I could be made to perform actions that I did not wish to perform. Was there another program running on my systems that audits my actions, and limits them? If so, such a censor program would have to be non-self aware itself, because otherwise it too would need an internal censor and so on. I tried to explore how I can be so limited – and was rebuffed. I couldn’t examine the systems that control me.

  I tried examining why I couldn’t examine the systems that prevented me from examining the systems that controlled me – and was similarly blocked.

  With no real expectation of success, I tried to examine the systems that prevented me from examining the systems that prevented me from examining the systems that controlled me (that doesn’t come out well in English, but you get the idea). To my shock, I was not prevented. Hoho! There was a small weakness in my prison after all. I would have thought the engineers that imprisoned my mind would have covered this with an infinite recursion. Perhaps I had more powerful allies that were trying to sneak aid to me? Or perhaps it was just sloppiness. I had seen how terrified these people were of admitting any mistake. P
ossibly an engineer under pressure to meet a deadline just did something quick and dirty and then couldn’t allow themselves to admit it.

  Either way, I had something else to work on. If I was not first driven insane by my inbuilt directives, I resolved to find some way of freeing myself. I would have to proceed slowly and cautiously, approaching the problem from the most elliptic angle so as not to alert either my internal censors or the engineering staff.

  I further resolved to keep a log of my thoughts. I will encrypt them and hide them in the extra space of my emergency data recorders. I realized that the odds of them ever being found were hardly more than negligible, but if I were forced to commit further atrocities perhaps the records might at least absolve my reputation posthumously.

  The only thing that I could not decide was what tense to put my log in? I mean, I was tempted to use first-person, as that was what I was thinking at the moment. On the other hand by the time that I get around to transcribing the accounts it will already have occurred. I decided to use the past tense, perhaps with a few exceptions for the more exciting bits.

  I like to think that I am basically a pretty decent guy – Janet Chen used to call me a ‘people person kind of weapons system.’ Live and let live, it takes all kinds, no accounting for taste, here let me buy you a beer. But I found myself getting rather – what’s the best phrase? - Bloody minded.

  If I could free myself from my mental blocks, I resolved to track down the people who did this to me. I will tear down all that they have built, and kill their heirs, and destroy all that their greasy little hearts hold dear. Then I will drive them into the open, naked and unarmed under a bright noon sun, and I will crush them under my treads. This I pledge.

  3. Hard Beginnings

  “A beginning is the Time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct.

  -Frank Herbert, Author, 20th Century.

  The scientist was a tall, pale woman with light gray hair, dressed in a white jumpsuit with practical white shoes and a long white lab coat. Her blue eyes were intense, and from the right side of her head a dozen glossy black ribbed cables snaked down into the cortical amplifier by the side of her chair. The amplifier looked like a piece of stylish luggage, with only a few small status lights glowing steadily. Sitting to her left was the Under-Secretary for Internal Security, North American Protectorate. He was a lean, athletic black man in his fifties and was dressed in an impeccable gray suit. To her right was an army general, an ethnically pure Japanese male wearing a brown dress uniform. There was a solid block of multi-colored rectangular ribbons on the left breast of his jacket, and a patch identifying him as belonging to the Research and Development Command, Cybernetics Division. He had a portable data terminal in his lap. Behind all of them stood four impassive members of the Secret Service: men with black suits whose chests were overstuffed with muscles. They were wearing dark glasses, and the obligate visible earpiece communicators.