Maison did not look impressed. “But what hard evidence do you have? You have not shown me a single voice recording, email, document or anything else that implicates them. There are plenty of reasons why three rich boys who share family and society links would meet up. And the least convincing of all is the lack of an apparent motive. Disagreeing with the government in a democracy is not an act of sedition, Ms Walsh!”
“I know all that, ma’am...We suspect all communications are taking place using their implanted computers and we have simply been unable to hack into the networks they’ve been using.”
“Look. Coup d’états haven’t been attempted seriously in Western democracies for well over a century and for good reason. This country has a loyal military tradition stretching back centuries. They’d need to get half the officer corps on board, not to mention the men. The level of autonomy even the grunts are allowed to exercise makes a coup nigh-on impossible,” countered Maison.
“But, things are different now … the robot army…” replied Sophie, desperately trying to recover her position.
“Yes, yes, the robot army. But how on Earth would three men and a few lackeys control a quarter of a million robots that have been built from the bottom up to be manually controlled?” Maison pulled a scroll tab from her handbag and pressed the on button. The paper-thin device unfurled and locked rigid. The screen came to life and she navigated to the report she was looking for. She turned it around to face Sophie and Ashley. The title of the report read, ‘Implications of the United Kingdom’s New Robot Army.’ It came from the Royal United Services Institution, the oldest defence and security think tank in the world.
“Have you read this?” asked Maison.
Neither of them had.
“Well, I have read it and I believe it to be correct. Correct when it concludes that the new robot army is not capable of being controlled by any fewer than one operator per robot. So in this way, you see, you would need a vast army of operators hidden somewhere. Now wouldn’t we have noticed if Hardcastle and his chums were hiring hundreds of thousands of people? The army are doing it right now and have built three massive operation centres for the job, three ops centres protected under major army garrisons. The RUSI report concludes that if you trust the army with tanks and guns then it won’t be any different with the Centurions and Sentinels. So unless Zane, Hardcastle or Becker have links with the Russians, I’m not interested in them.”
“Do we have permission to continue with the limited surveillance operation, ma’am?” asked Ashley, sheepishly.
“Let me sleep on it and give you an answer in due course. I just want to add one more thing. I have met John Hardcastle and worked with him when he was Secretary of Defence. In fact, I know his family well. There is just no way that patriotic man would even consider the hair-brained scheme you are suggesting. Now I want you to know that I’ve had Deputy Director Usherwood and the SLT vet my decision here for conflict of interest reasons—we all agree that this theory is unfeasible and no longer a main line of investigation for us.”
After several attempts to argue their case, Sophie and Ashley could see they were discrediting themselves in the eyes of the director-general. They left dejected and feeling that perhaps Maison was right—they couldn’t see the wood for the trees.
***
Monday, April 4th, 2044 7:15pm: Outside of Thames House, Central London
Sophie and Ashley had compared notes with Green and Pardew after the contrasting reactions from Director Maison. The long workday was finally ending as the four passed security together near the Millbank entrance.
“Would kill for a pint,” said Ashley, needing to unwind and not yet ready to face the wife and kids.
“Me too,” agreed Sophie, looking to Green and Pardew.
“Not for me, guys—got an early start tomorrow,” said Green, his operation now pushed up the priority list.
“Same here. Better get home,” said Pardew.
Ashley was secretly pleased—more time to chat to his attractive colleague in non-work surroundings.
“Oh well, your loss.” Sophie smiled.
Beautiful smile, thought Ashley, his heart pounding a little faster than before. Lord, give me strength, he thought to himself.
They proceeded down the steps, under the limestone arch and onto the pavement of Millbank. The traffic of electric auto-pods was rolling efficiently in both directions, each car just metres from the one in front. The only sounds they made were the roll of tyres on tarmac and the quiet hum from their electric motors. The sun was low in the sky, casting its warm orange light onto the facades across the river. Green and Pardew said their goodbyes before dashing across the road towards the bus stop a hundred metres to the south.
“King’s Arms?” asked Ashley.
“Sure. It’s a nice night, let’s walk.”
They started walking south towards the nearby pub, making small talk. They passed the bus stop opposite, where Green and Pardew waited. Green smiled at them and waved. Then his head exploded in a red mist of blood, brain, and bone fragments. Sophie and Ashley’s faces turned to horror as Pardew too took in what had happened. Milliseconds later, half his head was gone, his body already slumping lifelessly towards the bloody corpse of Green. The shots registered nowhere nearby, but seemed to be coming from above. Everything slowed down for Ashley. He grabbed Sophie and bundled her towards the nearby doorway, sheltering from the menace he suspected was overhead.
There were no further victims that night. As the search for the sniper began in earnest, it was clear no one was safe from whoever had done this.
PART TWO
9
In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good.
Sun Tzu
Monday, February 13th, 2045 7:45am: BDS Manufacturing Plant, Doncaster, England
Victor Zane looked down from the upper floor window towards the five huge warehouses and the hustle and bustle of the on-going operation. The hangar-sized depositories of battle bots looked like they belonged at a major international airport rather than here. The sun had apparently risen behind the grey blanket of cloud and drizzle, somewhere beyond the muddy farmers’ fields and the skeletal trees, which punctuated the background. Droplets of cold February rain ran down the floor-to-ceiling panes of his corner office in the manufacturing plant in which he stood. He traced the line of double security fences around the visible part of the site. There were two watchtowers, to the left and to the right of his view, and a third whose top was just visible beyond Warehouse #3. This week would be the busiest logistical exercise of the company’s history as it loaded out the main complement of robots to its customer, the British Army. Over the course of the next seven days, the warehouses would be emptied of their Centurions and Sentinels.
Each machine had undergone rigorous function testing and quality inspection—in all, 249,650 Centurion-Mk2s and 17,895 Sentinel-Mk2s were ready to go. He found the seemingly choreographed movement of the yellow stock-picking bots and the remotely operated loaders hypnotic. No sooner had a stock-picker emerged holding a short rack of hanging Centurions than a loader zoomed up to it to take its load. Each rack carried forty-eight Centurions or six Sentinels. The racks were a black, frame-like construction and carried the Centurions lined up in two rows of twelve atop one another with the same on the other side. Forty-eight humanoid killing machines, capable of operating on far away shores while their operators sat safe and sound in Blighty.
The Centurions’ bodies looked just like the metallic terminator Zane had seen in the recently remade movies of the same name. The head was somewhat less scary with no requirement to look like a human skull or to have menacing red, glow-in-the-dark eyes. He found it remarkable how reality often followed the science fiction of previous generations. Although it did have cameras and sensors in recessed sockets, roughly where human eyes were, they didn’t look like eyes at all. The head was rounded but it w
as broader at the base and had an almost non-existent neck. The head had no ‘nose’ or ‘ears’ but did have a vertical mid-line front and back and a crestal line along the crown. Sloping curves joined the three lines to form a shape like a domed Norman helm of the Middle Ages. Survivability drove the shape, in the same way that sloped armour on tanks increased the likelihood of a glancing blow rather than a perpendicular one.
The same racks were used for Sentinels, but, due to their bulk and height, only six occupied the space. Like large forklifts, the loaders carried the racks to the side of the waiting trailers. The country’s largest haulage company, United Logistics, had to be fully employed; such was the scale of the load-out.
The fact that Zane had a sixty percent personal stake in the firm was a nice sweetener for him. It was a highly profitable business and was one of the few that had not succumbed to the rollback of AI machines with the AI Limitation Act, seven years before. Autonomous cars and trucks were simply too embedded and too vital for the national economy to go back to majority manual operation. Thinking back to his younger years, he considered what a ridiculous waste of human talent the mind-numbing task of operating a vehicle was. In his view, manual driving was not engaging enough to be interesting, yet needed enough attention so one couldn't do anything productive. He doubted if he could even drive safely, now with the constant stimulation and access to information his ICS gave him. It had become part of him and hadn’t gone offline for many years, such was its reliability. He knew that it even invaded his dreams, his mind accessing distant computers with their images, voices, and written words while he slept.
He watched as the black concertina siding of a trailer slid from front to back, closing in its valuable cargo. The auto-truck trailers were largely the same shape they had been for many decades—just a long, cuboidal container. However, there was no cab, the front just sloping downwards into an aerodynamic nose, something like a high-speed train. Inside the bottom, part of the nose was the electrical power section, which provided motive force. Below that was a set of two steerable wheels, complemented by the set at the rear of the trailer. They worked in unison to provide a far tighter turning circle than would otherwise be possible. Once the fixed inner wheels were allowed to pivot—as they were during low-speed operations—the truck could manoeuvre sideways into very tight spaces. Once on the open highway, platoons of up to two dozen trucks could power along just metres from one another. The lead truck would be in constant communication with all of its followers. Should the lead need to brake then there would be no more than a few micro seconds delay before the trailing truck acted too. This largely did away with the infuriating human-induced stop-start traffic. The auto-trucks needed only a small bank of batteries because almost everywhere was now within range of the power beacons that had been installed alongside all major roads. As vehicles passed them, they transferred electrical power through the air using induction. The system had markedly reduced the cost and weight of vehicles and has ushered in the age of the mass electric vehicle use. Now, over a hundred auto-trucks waited in long lines for their turn to be loaded. They’d planned more than a thousand truck journeys over the coming week, distributing their loads to military bases all over the country. The army had paid for its new toys and now it wanted to use them. Several hundred robots had gone out in the preceding months, as pilot testing continued mainly at the three operational command bases—Colchester, Catterick and Aldershot garrisons. Now they’d conduct full scale testing and exercises as a prelude to offensive action overseas. The assault against the Islamic Caliphate was a long time in the making, but when it came, it was expected to change the face of the region and rid the world of their menace.
He checked the time with his ICS. It was nearly eight o’clock and still no sign of the useless coppers. He walked out of his office and over to his PA’s desk.
“Yes, Mr Zane?” asked the young, dark-haired woman, with the distinctive French accent that was music to his ears.
“Pascaline, please call our friends at cop shop HQ and remind them of their duties this morning. We’re paying them to escort our goods and not a single car has turned up yet. When they say they’ll be ready at eight then I expect them to be here. Thank you, my dear.”
“Certainly, sir.”
He wandered back into the office and silently contacted Becker via ICS. They had a short dialogue using only thoughts and the securely encrypted network that connected them. He and his 2 PARA Company of six hundred men would soon depart for exercise in Wales. Everything was in place. He contacted Hardcastle next and received another confirmation that all was on track. Zane finally contacted another key person next. Another green light for The Plan. Not long now before the world changes forever, he thought as the first Armed Response vehicle arrived as escort for his wares.
***
Monday, February 13th, 2045 12:45pm: Colchester Garrison, Essex, England
Warrant Officer Class 2, Danny Dyer, had a long history with military robots. Fifteen years earlier, he was contemplating capture, torture, and beheading at the hands of IC in Iraq. And then they had come, like guardian angels dealing out fire and death to the extremists and saving his life and those of three other squaddies. Now, a decade and a half, one marriage, two kids and five promotions later, he was appointed as Sergeant Major Instructor of Remote Weapons Systems. Today was a big day for him, his trainees, and the army. He’d seen what these new Centurions and Sentinel could do and he’d already helped train hundreds of operators. Many more were going through training—mostly using simulators. Although some advanced testing had been conducted using the limited number of bots sent so far, he could hardly wait for what was about to arrive. Now that the ops centre below him was fully functional, he just needed the full complement of machines before full scale testing and training exercises could begin in earnest. He was glad the rain had stopped as he strolled over to the guardhouse at the main gate. The first road-train was a few minutes away and he needed to be there to check it into the base and ensure it went to the right place. After exchanging small talk with the soldiers manning the guardhouse, Dyer took out his scroll tab and unfurled it in preparation for checking off the arrivals. He had a few moments to kill so decided to read the news. He scrolled through the first few stories; general election news dominated the headlines. He was tired of hearing about it. The BIP were almost guaranteed a second term according to the polls and he’d already made his mind up to vote for Faraday and his lot. Best of a bad bunch, he concluded cynically.
Twenty-four auto-trucks arrived three minutes later with two Police Armed Response vehicles—one at the front of the convoy, the other at the rear. One of the two cops in the front car motioned as if to say, All yours now, mate, and did an abrupt U-turn, heading off in the same direction as the trailing ARV. Here we go, Dyer thought as he looked down the line of cargo stretching down the approach road all the way back to the junction.
“Guess they’re not sticking around for traffic duties,” pointed out the shorter of the two soldiers manning the guardhouse. The first autonomous car queued behind the trailing truck stationary on the main road.
“No, quite... Probably think it’s below them now they’ve got guns to play with,” replied Dyer, referring to the armed cops who had just made a hasty departure.
Five thousand seven hundred and sixty Centurions ready for delivery. The first truck had stopped before the barrier and awaited inspection. Dyer walked up to the curved front of the dark, cuboidal auto-truck while the guard looked on. He slid the panel on the right hand side upwards revealing a display inside. After a second or two, the screen came to life with the face of the logistics coordinator sitting in United Logistics headquarters.
“Afternoon sir, I’m, Alicia,” said the blonde woman in a black corporate blouse. “There should be twenty-four trucks in this road train. Here are there registration numbers...” She read them out as Dyer checked them on his scroll tab. All checked out as planned.
“We’ll need to do s
ome spot checks before they’re allowed on the base,” he informed her.
“Okay, no problem. Please tell me which ones you’d like a look inside and I’ll open them up for you.”
Dyer was in a bit of a bind. The rear three trucks had started a minor traffic jam on the main road, yet the other twenty-one vehicles took up the approach road. Last thing he needed was grumpy locals contacting the garrison’s CO.
“Private, open the gate. We’re gonna have to let in the first three trucks or that main road’s gonna be chocker.”
Dyer spoke to Alicia and she instructed the convoy to advance, the first three trucks pulling into the lay-by just inside the base’s dual security fence.
“Right now we’re ready to inspect the following trucks. Registration numbers…” He read out five and Alicia duly obliged, opening the sliding sidings. The four privates he’d called to help with the inspection had just arrived and between the five of them they spot-checked the five trucks of Centurions resting in their racks. Each truck carried five racks of forty-eight robots and everything checked out: robot type and count, serial numbers and visual condition. Unlikely a ride in a delivery truck could damage battle-ready HIUs like these, thought Dyer.
He walked over to the guardhouse, clearing the trucks’ entry into the enormous tarmac area that had been cleared for them. He then walked to the lead truck and the display where Alicia waited patiently.
“Everything looks good. You can send them to the final destination.”
“Ok, sir ... confirmed. After that, we’ll switch them to manual so you can move them around the base as needed. Once you’re all done with unloading, contact us here at United HQ and we’ll instruct them to drive back up north.”
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