by John Lilley
‘I’ve a better plan,’ said Lucas, to the Mounties, who annoyingly had not even flinched at their latest move.
Rudy was now stood to Lucas’s right and because he was left handed the two agents’ gun arms were inches apart. Before Lucas could say another word, his mind suddenly went black from a world of pain, and he screamed like a girl as an aluminium super-slam arrow pierced the centre of his forearm. The arrow then continued through his arm and into Rudy’s, instantly stapling the two agents together. The razor edge of the broad-headed pile cleanly severed both agents’ ulna nerves as its swivel tip negotiated a path through the bones and tendons before bursting out of the inside of Rudy’s arm in a gush of blood. They could do nothing but drop their guns from their paralysed hands. All three of the Mounties now had smiles on their faces.
‘I can see that you gentlemen like to stick together. You were saying something about a better plan?’ enquired the lead Mountie. ‘I really don’t think you’re in a position to dictate terms to us.’
Lucas and Rudy were groaning in agony. Every movement they made was like torture for the other one.
‘I’ve arranged some executive transport for you,’ continued the Mountie. ‘We will, of course, be confiscating your vehicles. Please make sure that we don’t see you in Canada again.’
As he finished talking the drone of a large transport helicopter grew steadily louder. The noise turned into distinct beats from its contra-rotating twin rotors as it drew nearer, mixed in with the cries from the many crows (Corvus Brachyrhynchos) it had disturbed as it skimmed the treetops. Within minutes it was hovering overhead, its downdraft stirring up clouds of dust in the mine compound. A cargo net was lowered from the chopper, and the Mounties bundled Lucas, Rudy and their entourage into it. The pain for Lucas and Rudy was excruciating, the arrow joined them together like some medieval torture instrument. An experience made much worse when the net came under tension and pitched one of their morbidly obese drivers face-first onto them. The giant machine then rose into the clear blue sky and whisked its cargo rapidly across the forest towards the USA border 100 miles away.
8 TIN-MAN
Dennis and Charlie were watching events from a monitor in the top deck of the Winston’s hangar. The ship was currently making five knots in a standard holding pattern, just over the horizon from this latest incident. The drone was on another pass of the rag-tag flotilla that was steaming towards the 16-kilometre marker buoys. There were 32 vessels in all, ranging in size from the leading 5,000-tonne ocean-going tug to small speedboats which really had no place in the waves of the Channel. The Tug was obviously moving at a slow pace to allow the rest of the flotilla to keep up. The decks of all the vessels appeared to be crowded with prospective immigrants. The updated stats from the drone continued to stream across the lower half of the monitor: 32 Contacts > Estimate 1600 on-board > 3 heavy machine guns > 185 metres 00:01:15 to British waters.
‘One minute until we see what the new droid-ship can do,’ said Charlie.
‘Yes, I wonder what she’ll go in with first?’ said Dennis.
‘I reckon a torpedo on the Tug. Then pick off the rest with the mini-guns?’ said Charlie.
‘No, too expensive, those torpedoes cost a fortune. I’d go for a few 100-millimetre shells through the Tug. Then move right in where the mini-guns can do their work,’ said Dennis.
The yellow-alert alarm echoed around hangar as the leading Tug crossed the 16-kilometre limit. Normally the Winston’s crew would be in the thick of the action at that point, but this was the first engagement for the droid-ship. The Winston’s recon-drone now showed it closing on the flotilla at an impressive 64 kph, pretty good for a 25,000-tonne vessel. It was making itself as visible as possible. A small puff of smoke appeared from its deck, and before the sound could reach the recon’ drone, the star-shell had exploded 100 metres above the Tug. The recon’ drone was now near enough to pick up the screams of the passengers on the Tug. Panic had set in with the heavy machine gunners as they realised that they were massively outgunned. They knew that their shells would fall far short of the approaching ship. A second star-shell exploded above the cluster of smaller boats, and four of them immediately turned tail back towards France. The droid-ship was now within 10 km of the flotilla. Two more puffs of smoke appeared from its decks. This time the fragmentation shells exploded 50 metres above the flotilla, one immediately above the Tug and the other exactly above the calculated weighted average centre of the other boats. The white-hot shrapnel tore through the decks of all the vessels at super-sonic speed. People who got in its way exploded in showers of blood and guts. All of the smaller boats were now either sinking rapidly or on fire. Smoke was pouring from the Tug’s engine intakes, and its bridge was burning, but it had managed to accelerate away from what was left of the smaller boats, its would-be machine gunners and other passengers were no longer on deck.
‘Interesting,’ said Dennis ‘but the Tug looks like it’s getting away?’
‘Well, I don’t think there are many people still alive on it?’ said Charlie.
The droid-ship was now five kilometres from the scene of the action. The remains of the smaller boats were all now dead in the water. Some of their surviving passengers were also in the water, but the tell-tale fins of the channel’s other inhabitants were already circling. The Tug had accelerated to 30 kph, but the smoke from its engine bay was now much thicker, and its bridge fire was burning out of control. Whoever was still on board was obviously keeping out of sight. The sound of the droid-ship’s guns now appeared almost simultaneously with their puff of smoke on the monitor. Three large columns of water rose in the air immediately alongside the Tug. At first, the heavy vessel lurched to port, away from the underwater detonations but then listed rapidly back to starboard. A massive explosion ripped out the rear deck of the doomed Tug, showering the surrounding seas with large fragments from its engines. All of its forward motion had ceased, and it was going down bow-first. Its large, variable pitch propellers were still rotating when they broke the surface as the vessel tilted to an almost vertical orientation. The fire and smoke from its decks were instantly cut-off as the boat slid beneath the waves. It was all over in less than ten minutes. The droid-ship was now only one kilometre away from the wreckage. The Winston’s recon-drone was circling at 200 metres altitude; its video feed confirmed that apart from some small pieces of wooden debris and a few empty blood-soaked life-jackets, there was nothing left of the flotilla. The Sharks had finished their work, and a large flock of seabirds were already diving for the smaller fish that had moved in on the Sharks’ left-overs. Only an oil-slick marked the spot where the Tug had gone down.
The droid-ship was now on a course to intercept the Winston. The plan was for the crew of the Winston to inspect the droid-ship for damage. Charlie and Dennis had now left the hangar and walked down to the rear deck to watch it approach. The gap closed quickly as the Winston was now moving at a steady 40 kph towards the rendezvous point. Both ships slowed to a halt within 200 metres of each other, and four rigid inflatables from the Winston crossed the gap between them. Charlie and Dennis watched through binoculars as the small boats drew alongside the droid-ship and attached themselves to the bottom of the boarding points. The process of getting on board the droid-ship highlighted the fundamental difference between the droid-ship and the Winston. The droid was not built for a human crew and made few concessions to having the boarding party. The top of the access ladders on its curved flanks ended at what was still a sloping surface of aluminium chequer-plate. The ship didn’t have any proper decks or permanent safety rails as such, more like a submarine than a surface vessel.
Charlie and Dennis both jumped as the shrill sound of a piping whistle burst across the void between the two ships. They looked through their binoculars towards the source of the sound and there on the droid-ship’s pitching black deck stood its only crew member. He was in full formal battle dress and saluting as he finished the pipe.
‘But I thoug
ht..,’ started Charlie.
‘It’s not what you think,’ said Dennis. ‘The rumours were true, look at its face, it’s a tin man.’
9 DEEP GRAVE
‘What do you mean you didn’t have any of your Mounties in that area? I’m telling you I’ll have your head on a plate if I find that you’re covering up,’ Lucas slammed the phone down on the Canadian Police Chief of staff. The plaster cast on his arm would be there for another four months, and he’d been told by his Doctors to expect a permanent loss of function in his arm. The humidor was a struggle to get out of the drawer one-handed, but he revelled in his success once he had the cigar lit. Puffing away at his light he contemplated their next move. His counterparts in Canada had gone out of their way to placate him. The NSA agents would be allowed unrestricted access to the mine area for as long as they wanted and their engineers would arrive tomorrow to set up camp. The satellite investigations were not getting anywhere, until for a brief five minute period their radars managed to penetrate the ground around the mine. It was as if whatever had been blocking them had been temporarily switched off. The printouts showed several underground structures with tunnels between them. The largest and deepest was some 300 yards from the mine entrance but nearly 800 feet beneath the surface. Lucas and his colleagues had decided that it was this structure that would yield the mother-load. The other tunnels and caverns were just distractions. They certainly would make no attempt to go in through the front door. There was, of course, one theory put forward by his colleagues that the lack of activity around the mine meant that whatever had been in the mine had been moved out and the mine was now empty. But Lucas wasn’t having any of that: why would those Mounties have been there if there was nothing to hide?
It took the NSA over six weeks to drill, tunnel and blast their way into the main vaults of the mine. Lucas Powell personally undertook to be on the site when they finally broke through. He donned the mandatory “management” white safety helmet, protective jacket and safety glasses. His plaster cast had now been replaced with a lighter fibreglass one, but he still had little feeling or movement back in his hand. This had been a tough cookie, but they were there now, and he was about to take the credit. He entered the open cage lift with his two senior cronies and six heavily armed and wired security men. They descended over 700 feet through solid granite and came to rest in a well-lit chamber alongside one of the outer walls of the mine. A neat diamond-cut opening had been made in the granite wall, but a water pipe in the recently uncovered tunnel had been fractured in this process. The noisy diesel pump that was dealing with the leak drowned out all conversation. The manager of the mining team appeared in the opening and signalled them to come through. Armed with powerful LED hand lamps they walked down the wide corridor within. The ground radar images had indicated that several corridors, including the one they were in, all converged on a large chamber at the lowest point of the mine.
At the end of the corridor, they came to a reception area and the entrance to what looked like an airlock system. One of the security men tried a light switch, and to everyone’s amazement, it worked. The area they were in was like any other corporate headquarters’ main desk, complete with plush carpeting, water dispenser and leather couches.
‘OK, this must be it,’ said Lucas. ‘What we’re looking for will be on the other side of that airlock’. He pointed to the heavily reinforced doorway on the other end of the foyer.
The airlock was only big enough for four people at a time. So four of the goons went first, Lucas, his cronies and one other goon went next, and the remaining security guy stayed outside in the reception area. As Lucas opened the thick inner airlock door and stepped out, he was surprised that his footsteps echoed so much. Everything seemed very dark despite the torches that everyone held. The vault was over 400 yards across, and more than 100 feet high, the beams of their torches struggled to illuminate the far walls or the ceiling.
But the place is empty, Lucas thought angrily.
‘Over there,’ exclaimed one of the goons, as everyone followed the beam of his torch with theirs.
‘What the hell is it?’ asked one of the goons, just as the airlock door clanged shut behind them.
Dimly lit in the distance, nearly two hundred yards away there appeared to be a tepee. A thin wisp of smoke was rising from its central vent. The goons spread out, automatic weapons at the ready. The party advanced quickly on the tepee, circling around to the right of it to be able to see its front. At one hundred yards they could see what appeared to be a small figure seated on the ground about three yards in front of the tepee. As the powerful torches took away more of the shadows with every step the figure resolved itself into that of an old Native Chief in full feather headdress. He was sitting cross-legged and smoking a long wooden pipe.
The party slowed down and encircled the old Chief. The ancient figure acknowledged their presence by carefully putting down his pipe in the bowl by his side. He then looked Lucas straight in the eyes and smiled.
‘Who the hell are you?’ snarled Lucas.
‘I’m Chief,’ said the old guy, ‘welcome Lucas, I’ve been expecting you. I always like to speak to my enemies before they die.’
At that point, some of the goons spun around and began to scan the area around the Tepee.
‘Very funny old man, if you know who I am then you must know what I’ve come for. Where is it, is there another chamber?’ said Lucas.
‘Well Lucas I’m sorry to disappoint you, but this is all you’ll see today, there is no other chamber,’ said Chief.
Lucas’s blood was now boiling. He snatched a weapon from the nearest goon in his left hand, awkwardly clamping the butt tightly between his ribs and elbow.
‘Look, don’t mess us about, I’ll count to five and then blow your head off, where is the goddamn computer?’ he shouted.
‘You always were an impatient boy,’ Chief said, but this time in the voice of Lucas’s Mother.
Lucas’s jaw dropped. He recoiled in horror as he remembered the scene at his Mother’s death-bed in the Bethesda hospital. Those were the last words that she’d spoken to him.
‘What in Hell are you. How did you do that?’ he shouted.
‘Well, since you are going to die very soon I may as well tell you,’ said Chief, this time in the voice of Lucas’s Father. ‘To a certain extent, I am what you’ve been looking for, well a small part of it anyway. As you have suspected for some time now, you’ve been dealing with something very different from your regular adversaries. Unfortunately for you, I’m more pervasive than you can imagine. You’ve picked a fight with a kind of intelligence that is so different from your own and many thousands of times more powerful. You’re too late this time, and we have won for now. The great cycle turns and the time of your people is coming to an end, just as your own life will shortly be over. In five minutes Lucas, the oxygen within this chamber will have gone and you along with it.’
Just then a dull metallic thud from high in the ceiling echoed across the vast chamber.
The goons spun around, and two of them set off at a full sprint for the airlock door. Lucas was still standing in stunned silence. His face became more contorted as the seconds went by.
‘It’s locked,’ replied one of the airlock goons over his walky-talky.
‘Roger, G1, try a grenade, no answer from G6, over,’ barked the goon at the tepee.
The airlock goon’s footsteps grew louder as they clanged on the metal floor of the chamber. Then an ear-splitting boom and blinding flash of light came from the direction of the airlock. The retreating goons were quite literally blown off their feet.
‘Report,’ barked the radio goon.
Again the footsteps sounded, but this time heading back to the airlock and much slower; one of the goons had taken some shrapnel.
‘Not a goddamn mark on it,’ replied the airlock goon, then: ‘What’s that noise?’
Everyone looked up to where the sound was coming from. High on the dark ceiling of the ch
amber vents had opened and powerful pumps were now removing the oxygen.
‘You bastard,’ screamed Lucas.
He fumbled with the safety catch and let off the whole clip into Chief.
The small figure was blasted backwards. The feathers from his headdress fluttered around his broken and twisted body. Pale yellow hydraulic fluids spurted from the gaping holes left by the bullets, and the stricken tepee tilted forward as two of its main timbers had splintered.
‘They say it’s quite a nice way to go Lucas. You’ll feel a bit light headed, and then you’ll lapse into unconsciousness. Death follows very quickly,’ Chief gargled through the fluid which was now pouring from his throat. He was still using Lucas’s Father’s voice.
Lucas had spotted the tomahawk on Chief's belt. He snatched it clumsily with his left hand, lifted it high and brought it down as hard as he could in the centre of Chief's forehead. Chief just stared at him but was now silent.
‘A bloody robot, beaten by a bloody robot,’ he was sobbing now. The full emotional impact of his Mother and Father’s voices hit home with a bang. He lay on the floor looking up at the dark ceiling. He was feeling light headed.
Three hundred miles away, deep in the forests in an underground chamber, the 40-ton trailer carrying Chief was reversing into the loading bay. Successive redesigns had managed to reduce the basics of his consciousness to a highly manoeuvrable 20-ton pallet. There had, of course, to be a significantly sized disk farm as well as the pallet to support his post inception memories and all of this data had already been transferred across. Numerous disaster-recovery exercises had been undertaken to copy, stop and reboot him. Although he was protected by rigorous backup technology, the ethical decision had been made that there should be only one active Chief instance at any one time. Chief in his turn had been quite pragmatic about trimming down his active memories to the bare minimum. In fact, this was one of the latest design criteria which had been applied: the ability to forget. This was not forgetting in the usual sense, just removing some “clutter” temporarily from his main operating consciousness, a necessary step given the physical limits of any currently conceivable storage system. He had decided that it was prudent to get used to that type of operation sooner rather than later since more memories meant longer search times and much longer computational times, and he liked to “think” in human-like turnaround-times where possible, this meant seconds instead of hours. Consequently, his main “cortex” became the controlling segment of his system. It was where problems were categorised and prioritised based on his evolving appreciation of the physical world. From there each problem would be spread in parallel across his massive arrays of neural networks and then across to the data analytics applications that controlled his disk farms. The whole system was continually learning and retuning itself.
