Steelheart

by William C. Dietz

  The synthetic gestured to the room. "How 'bout this?"

  The Junkman shook his head. "You're worth more than all this junk put together."

  Sojo made one last attempt. "What if I told you that I'm a scientist—working on something that could bring summer back. What would you say then?"

  The Junkman raised an eyebrow. "I'd say you were a lying, no-good pile of shit."

  "Could I send some data before I die?"

  "Nope."

  "Why not?"

  "Because I don't have time for this bullshit." The girl had heard the noise before, but it still made her ears hurt. A hole appeared between Sojo's eyes ... and castors rattled as the impact pushed him across the room.

  Doon slid his hand under the duster, felt the Skorp .44 leap into the palm of his hand, and watched the low-light target grid appear. The boy glowed green as he stepped over the body. The synthetic made his way around the old woman, checked her jugular, and slid along the wall.

  A woman with a baby in her arms stepped out into the hallway. She saw him and backed into her cubicle. The android heard three bolts slide into place—and hoped she had something more substantial than locks to defend herself with.

  Smoke from the explosion eddied down the hall, found its way into Doon's nostrils, and was automatically analyzed. The demo charge had contained Guild-manufactured Hiplex 4.2. Good stuff. .. and the sign of a pro.

  Doon didn't know what human fear was like—only that it was unpleasant. His fear stemmed from the tension between his survival programming and the dictates of his conscious mind. All of which was rather interesting, given that the original sequence of activities stemmed from a desire to replace his missing arm, and thereby improve the odds of survival. He eased his way forward.

  Sparks fanned the air and a blade/screeched as Sojo's head wobbled, hung from a handful of cables, and fell free. It bounced and rolled until the plastiflesh nose got in the way. The Junkman hated this part of the job. Not because of the butchery, but because of the time it took, and the fact that he was vulnerable. Damn Jak anyway ... it was just like the miserable little bastard to get himself killed and leave someone else holding the bag. The Junkman glanced at the girl, assured himself that she was looking out into the hall, and returned to his work.

  Doon heard the saw, knew what it meant, and eased his way forward. The girl couldn't possibly have heard him, not with all the screeching, but turned anyway, as if warned by some sixth sense. A strange concept from the synthetic's point of view, since he had eight senses, and considered humans to be somewhat handicapped. He rounded a corner.

  The girl didn't match his files. Identity screened? It hardly mattered. Her eyes widened with fear, her finger tightened on the trigger, and Doon wished he still had the nonlethal stun gun that went with his missing arm. But that was gone now ... broken down for its component parts, or on display in an Antitechnic church. There was no choice.

  Doon squeezed the trigger slowly, regretfully, knowing he couldn't miss. He saw the first slug hit the center of her scrawny chest—and the second take her between the eyes. Half her torso disappeared, followed by the top of her head. Blood fanned the wall.

  The Junkman saw the girl die out of the corner of his eye and turned to meet the threat. Most people would have taken Doon for human—but the Junkman wasn't most people. He recognized the synthetic for what he was and tried to beat the machine's computer-fast reflexes.

  Doon stepped through the jagged hole, raised the .44, and saw his vision split in two. The left side of the display showed a perp with weapon in hand, and a partially dismembered corpse lying at his feet.

  The other half of the frame clicked through a series of digitally reproduced stills. There were twenty-six mug shots altogether, each a little older than the one before it, culminating in a picture taken two weeks prior to the Cleansing. Thanks to the disparity in reaction times, there was plenty of opportunity for a warning. Doon heard himself give one. "Police! Hold it right there!"

  The Junkman fired, saw a hole appear in front of the synthetic's boots, and knew the next shot would hit his opponent's left knee. That would bring the sonofabitch down— and the rest would be easy. Maybe he could hire some locals to carry the body parts ... maybe he could...

  The first shot hit the Junkman's chest with the force of a sledgehammer. It flattened itself on his body armor, threw the bounty hunter backwards, and drove the air from his lungs. He was processing that, attempting to breathe, when the second bullet exited through the back of his head. The body smashed into some shelving, fell and was buried under an avalanche of printouts. The Junkman was dead.

  Doon shook his head sadly, looked around, and marveled at Sojo's quarters. All that stuff... and for what? Knowledge for the sake of knowledge? Or something more? There was no way to tell.

  The synthetic spotted Sojo's blood-spattered right arm, considered taking the torso as well, and decided against it. It was too much to carry, especially in a fight, and there was something more as well. A vague sense of guilt—as if he were at fault.

  Doon took the arm, wiped most of the bounty hunter's blood off it, and left the way he had come. Eyes watched through holes in the walls, and ears tracked his progress. The residents would miss Sojo, but that wouldn't stop them from looting his apartment, or selling what remained of his body. They wanted to survive—and so did Doon.

  The boy, and the woman who had killed him, were just the way Doon had left them. The smoothbore had disappeared. The synthetic stepped over the bodies, peered out into the night, and scanned for heat. He saw three small blobs, rats most likely, scurry along a wall. Warmth, the product of a well-hidden campfire, leaked through an upstairs window. He stepped out into the sleet. The temperature registered on his sensors but caused no discomfort. His boots left marks in the slush.

  Home—if that word could be used to describe the cold, half-flooded utilities vault where he passed his nights—was about a mile away. The arm made a bulge under his duster. A bulge that street thieves might find interesting. No one bothered him, though—which was just as well.

  Doon slowed as he approached his temporary home, checked to ensure that none of his carefully arranged telltales had been disturbed, and lifted the cover. Metal squealed as the lid swung upward—and squealed again as darkness closed over his head. The hinges could have been oiled— but why bother? Especially when they functioned as a burglar alarm.

  The crypt—for that was how Doon thought of it—was little more than a precast cable vault. He found the battery-powered lamp and turned it on. Heavily armored three-inch fiber-optic cables squirmed in from the sides, mated within the privacy of a connector box, and went their separate ways.

  The space was dark, cold, and damp. Not uncomfortable really, but depressing, since the parameters that provided Doon with a sense of well-being had been set to match those common to humans. Why? To help synthetics fit into human-dominated society? Or to limit their ability to compete? As with so many other things, there was no way to know.

  Doon sat on a ledge, his back to a corner, and arranged the arm across his thighs. He stroked the limb lovingly, thought about the pleasure it would bring, and felt guilty about the manner in which it had been obtained. What if the bounty hunters had missed Sojo? Would he have committed the same crime that they had? The synthetic winced internally and reached for the lamp. Darkness would do little to lessen the pain—but there was no reason to watch.

  Doon had experienced the subroutine twenty-three times before and felt nothing but dread. The first sensation was similar to what a bio bod might have described as an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach. That was followed by a distinct lurch as his thought processes locked up, his body became rigid, and the video started to play.

  Doon saw the girl, saw his bullets hit her, and wanted to scream as the robotic equivalent of pain racked his body. The girl died, fell, and died again, over and over until the synthetic knew her features by heart, and would dream about them for years to come. Becaus
e androids do dream—at least the Creator's did, according to algorithms he had devised.

  Then it was the bounty hunter's turn to punish the creature who had ended his existence, and what the synthetic felt was no less painful than all the lives the Junkman had taken, or the one he had wasted.

  It was the same price all synthetics paid if they took a human life—even if they killed in self-defense, or to protect another. Some said it was the Creator's idea, a way of ensuring that his creatures remained subservient. Others claimed he had opposed it, and been forced to agree. Not that it made much difference to Doon.

  The synthetic watched the Junkman die for the tenth time, felt pain lance through his electronic nervous system, and clutched the arm to his chest. Darkness was his only friend.

  2

  an' gel / n / a ministering or guiding spirit

  The sentient spy sat SS-4A, also known as Michael, looked down from the heavens via a relatively old fashioned optical imaging system. Not because he didn't have more sophisticated options, but because it pleased him to do so. Clouds covered most of the planet's surface, 76.2% of it to be exact, but that did nothing to lessen its beauty. Zuul looked like a lustrous gray pearl floating on a pool of jet-black ink.

  Michael gave the mental equivalent of a sigh, checked his side scanners for any sign of danger, and made his daily journal entry.

  "Some might consider it ironic that I can do little more for my creators than document their slow, inexorable deaths. Still, I have studied their history, and understand them as well as any machine can. I will maintain this journal for as long as possible, but evil roams the sky, and my days are numbered."

  The satellite read the last line over again. Was it too dramatic? Too filled with self-pity? Not that it mattered much, since there was very little chance that anyone else would have the opportunity to read it. Not unless his favorite fantasy came true.

  Michael allowed himself to drift, to imagine how the ship would drop into orbit, how they would find his badly battered body, and retrieve his memory mod. That's when the captain, a female android of exquisite taste, would read his journal and weep. Well, not weep perhaps, but wish she had known him.

  An alarm went off and sent fear-bearing electrons racing through the satellite's fiber-optic nervous system. A pair of micro sats, both manufactured by the self-styled Eye of God, were closing on his position. There had been four Angel sats to begin with... and Michael was the only one who had managed to survive. He armed himself for battle.

  3

  Sa mar' i tan / n / a person who comes to the aid of another

  Mary Maras awoke to the sound of rapidly clacking teeth. She reached out, ran her fingers over the smooth metal skull, found the button, and pushed it down. The noise stopped. The cranial unit, long separated from the spiderlike body for which it had been fabricated, blinked, and the numbers 0645 appeared where the droid's scanner unit should have been.

  The roboticist groaned, lay back, and felt the computer-controlled work surface conform to the shape of her body. She didn't want to leave the confines of the warm sleeping bag but knew it was necessary. A column of Zid had arrived two days before—and that meant information from beyond the mountains. Information that would be weeks or even months old, but could contain some hint, some mention of her daughter and ex-husband. How were they? Where were they? She thought of little else.

  The last time Mary had spoken with her family was two days before the quakes, when George called to say that Corley had arrived, and while home sick, was otherwise fine.

  Of course, both of them might have been killed during the quakes, or in the unrest that followed. Mary knew that, but didn't believe it, and was determined to find them, no matter what the cost. The repair shop, and the activities that it screened, were the means to that end.

  The roboticist sat up, broke the bag's seal, and shivered as the air hit her skin. She swung long, skinny legs over the side, squinted against the motion-controlled lights, and waited for her pupils to adjust. Unlike the intentionally spartan room where business was conducted, the workshop was filled to overflowing with makeshift shelving, junked robots, and the large, somewhat bulky nano farm. So much stuff that it was hard to move.

  The security system's scanners had been stripped from a wrecked land crawler, and the CPU had been cobbled together from reconditioned spares. A portable heater clicked on as she entered the bathroom. The roboticist addressed the mirror: "Security ... the last seven hours, please."

  The voice was male and reassuringly crisp. "There were two class one intrusion attempts—both unsuccessful."

  "I know that," Mary responded irritably. "I'm alive, aren't I? Tell me something useful." A class one attempt amounted to someone trying the doorknob—a frequent occurrence, given the number of homeless people who roamed the streets.

  The security system waited through the irrelevant vocalizations and continued its report. "The being previously designated as 'Clamface' continues to watch from the other side of the street."

  Mary winced as she wiped herself with page 47 of the Pro Loader 8700 Tech Manual, stood, and flushed the toilet. The water swirled, albeit reluctantly, and disappeared. "Now? He's still out there?"

  "Affirmative."

  She stepped out of the John. "Video, please."

  The system obliged, and a monitor flickered to life. A greenish blob appeared. Clamface had positioned himself well inside the burned-out storefront on the far side of the street. There was no mistaking his staff or the characteristic IR signature. Like the rest of his race, Clamface packed a higher core body temperature than a human would have, which, combined with an extremely efficient circulatory system, gave him a cold-weather advantage.

  Mary sighed. She'd have to move. Clamface, along with a pair of Zid she called Gimpy and Fatso, had been watching her place for more than a week now. Everyone knew how the system worked. Clamface, or another of the Church's agents, would identify a "sinner," place the subject's residence under surveillance, follow him or her around, and interview the neighbors.

  Then, having intimidated the neighborhood, and accumulated the evidence of "crimes against God," the agent would share it with his superiors, a judgment would be rendered, and a punishment assigned. "Dispossession" meant that a residence or business would be trashed or destroyed in an unexplained fire—and "expiation" translated to a sentence of death.

  Whatever punishment was deemed appropriate would be meted out by a "mob," which appeared to form spontaneously but was actually organized in advance, and led by Agents of the Church. Scientists, mechanics, and technicians were favorite targets and frequently slated for "expiation"— a fact that was at least partially responsible for the fact that most things didn't work any more.

  All of which was made even worse by the fact that so many of her own kind had joined the Antitechnic Church that seventy or eighty percent of the mob would be human. The thought of their blank stares and hate-distorted faces sent a shudder down Mary's spine. She turned toward the bathroom. "Keep me informed."

  The security system processed the request, realized that it was redundant to basic programming, and made no reply.

  The roboticist opened the tap, waited for the brownish flow to begin, and squeezed toothpaste onto her brush. Not much, just a smidge, since it was hard to come by. The face in the water-specked mirror stared back as she worked the brush back and forth. She had black hair, mocha-colored skin, large, some said intense eyes, slightly flared nostrils, generous lips, and a softly rounded chin.

  It was the kind of face that went from pretty to beautiful when she put on makeup—something she rarely did, except for faculty parties when George insisted. "Give 'em something to look at," he used to say. "When they see how pretty you are, they'll know how smart I am."

  Mary knew George didn't mean it the way it sounded, but resented the implication. Just one of the things that led to the separation. She frowned and spit toothpaste into the sink. The water caught the stuff and pulled it down. Mary use
d a sweatshirt as a towel, closed the tap, and considered a shower.

  Nothing could beat the pure comfort of being both warm and clean at the same moment. The problem was that it took lots of power to heat the requisite amount of water, and that, combined with the rest of her activities, could attract the wrong sort of attention. Still, why protect something she was about to abandon? That, plus a whiff of her own body odor, forced a decision.

  The shower didn't take long, not with only five gallons of water to draw from, but made Mary warm. After that it was a simple matter to don three layers of reasonably clean clothes, and feed the nano farm.

  The ritual required the roboticist to pour carefully measured amounts of powdered manganese, tungsten, chromium, carbon, nickel, cobalt, vanadium, molybdenum, aluminum, sodium, and titanium into the correct intake ports. Those were some, but not all, of the basic materials that enabled the tiny robots to replicate themselves and—if she ordered them to do so—to create custom strains.

  Though classified as robots, nano were different from sentient machines in a number of important ways. The first was size. "Nano" means "billionth," and, as the name would suggest, they were very, very small. Powered by static electricity, micromotors less than .0001 of an inch across drove machines that incorporated gears, shafts, and belts etched into silicon chips using X-ray lithography and were controlled by atom-wide carbon rod "push—pull" computers.

  Nano were different in other ways as well, including the fact that unlike their larger sentient cousins they were "modular," "adaptive," and "dynamic," meaning mat while they carried very little onboard intelligence, they were collectively quite smart.

  That particular architecture, sometimes referred to as "self-organizing," required minimal computing power and enabled machines that were faster, cheaper, and more reliable than "stand-up" models.