“Sergeant Smalling, hold position. Do not fire unless fired upon. I need to get the ROCC fired up and the operators on seat,” he said quickly. He wanted to say and good luck, but felt it might be too melodramatic as things stood.
The tall black man nodded—a little too nervously for Dyer’s liking—and replied with a crisp, “Yes, sir.” Dyer hoped he hadn’t transmitted too much nervous energy to his men. He didn’t like leaving them either, but they knew what they were doing and he could do most good by getting his operators up to speed. He just hoped he wouldn’t need them.
He dashed along the internal road to the left of the admin block and to the right of the medical training facility. He checked the selector on his assault rifle—full auto—good. He knew nothing less would do any sort of damage to a Centurion-Mk2. Hell, an entire clip might not even scratch the bloody things. He passed the two-floor brick training block number one on his right and car park on his left. Just beyond it was the base security office from where three fire teams were emerging. An officer—a young female lieutenant—led them.
They jogged at double time towards him. He stopped and saluted to the lieutenant. “Ma’am, up by the main gate. Big, black truck full of two hundred or more Centurions,” he said, waving in the general direction.
She smiled tightly. “Ok, got it, Mr Dyer.”
She knew him, but he didn’t know her. You know you’ve been around a long time when your name goes before you, he thought. Probably all the publicity around the robot ramp-up.
He took a sharp left down the footpath past the base security office now on his right. The low brick building’s lights were on unlike the ROCC—Robotic Operations Command Centre—surface building up ahead, also on his right. He tracked around to the front and approached the double steel sliding doors. He placed his hand, complete with embedded RFID chip, into the access machine and faced the camera. He couldn’t believe his hand was shaking. He forced it to stop moving and recited his name, rank and number. The light blinked green and the doors parted and slid aside. He walked into the reception area and the unattended security desk as the lights completed switching themselves on.
This small building was like the tip of an iceberg in that it was the access point to the vast underground ROCC below. Eventually it would be a twenty-four-seven operation, but for the time being it was daytime-only. Until enough operators had been trained and until their new robotic soldiers were deployed, training and familiarisation would be the main endeavours. The area was about the size of a tennis court and, although modern, looked Spartan with its white tiles and institutional colour scheme in shades of green. The curved security desk had space for four seated staff. Below was a facility where five vast halls would house up to 30,000 operators. Another three entrance buildings were under construction to the northeast, northwest and southwest of the base. These would ease congestion and allow for quicker evacuation in fire or emergency situations. But for now, they were just unfinished stairwells and lift shafts topped by the dark shell of a building.
He lent down over the security desk and tapped the display, bringing it to life. He navigated to the personnel group containing the one hundred and fifty trained operators and sent the alert. No matter where they were, on base or off, they’d be alerted through the device they’d registered for emergency duty call ups. Most lived on base—either in the flats to the northern side of the base or in the adjacent family homes. The first of them should be here in five minutes, he estimated. He turned around and moved quickly towards the middle of three lifts. A lot faster than taking the stairs, he thought, looking at the two sets of doors to both the left and right of the bank of lifts. He pushed the call button and the doors opened almost immediately.
The lift carried him down past fifty metres of earth and another ten metres of steel-reinforced concrete. The doors opened and he stepped into the lift lobby with twelve security gates in front of him, each one comprised of a bullet and blast-proof outer and inner sliding glass door. In between them was a two-metre gap where further security checks could be made by the underground security office. Only weapons registered to the entrant were permitted. Security would match the embedded RFID chip in each weapon to the staff member that had passed the outer door. And apart from base security or other MPs, one also needed a valid reason authorised by the CO. But Dyer knew that these protocols were not active until the following week—his identity would be enough to pass with his assault rifle still slung across his shoulder.
He passed the gates and stepped into the cavernous hall deep below the earth. The overhead lights detected his presence and in quick succession illuminated the five thousand square metre space. There were another four of these great operations halls linked by tunnels, which branched from there. There was a large tunnel in the middle of each of the three walls: opposite to the left and to the right. In between him and the far walls were row upon row of desks complete with a small display, a control panel, a pair of control gloves and head mounted display lain down in front of each seat. He wiped the drops of sweat from his brow, while walking towards the nearest operator station. He donned the head mounted display and selected the last Centurion he’d been testing earlier that day. After authentication, his display ran through the traffic light sequence of status lights. A green light appeared next to each in sequence: Connection established with HIU#103004, Transmitting location, Systems check, Sensor data transmitting, Control established. The Centurion-Mk2 was in Robot Storage Shed #6—in the centre of the southernmost row of the three by three layout of nine enormous warehouses. All systems were normal and he could see through the robot’s cameras, hear through its microphones and—once he touched something—even feel through the force-feedback control gloves. In many ways he found it similar to the first-person shooter games he’d grown up with, except more immediate, more real. The feed he saw on the head mounted display was like seeing through the eyes of the robot. It not only had peripheral vision in the wrap-around displays but eye tracking as well as head tracking—if he moved his eyes right the robot’s camera would follow his gaze. If he reached for an object with his control gloves, the robot’s hand would extend, as a facsimile of its operator.
He surveyed the scene of Shed #6, now brightly lit by the powerful lights hanging high overhead. To his sides and in front of him were neat lines of hundreds of identical robots, still and lifeless. Like a metallic Terracotta army, the robotic legion could strike fear into their enemies once deployed en masse. He directed his unarmed Centurion to walk forward out of its row. He moved gingerly at first then sent the droid into a gentle jog, nearing the open hangar like door. Opposite and to the east was Shed #9—the primary storage for the larger Sentinel-B1s. Dyer’s counterpart was lead instructor for those. In between was a tarmac apron as wide as a football field was long. He continued south of east to skirt past the southern edge of Shed #9 and onwards towards the main gate. Halfway across the apron, he caught glimpse of people running from the north—he turned his Centurion’s head and saw two operators jogging in the direction of the ROCC entrance. He continued, picking up the pace to a moderate run and passed Shed #9 on his left then Training Block #1, approaching fast on the same side of the internal road. He breathed out a deep breath he’d been holding as the anticipation grew. Up ahead in the distance was the three story admin block left and the medical training facility right. He heard it before his mind registered what it was: the unmistakable reports of automatic gunfire coming from up ahead.
He slowed to a jog and instinctively moved towards the brick wall of the training block. Three-sixty degrees cut to one-eighty. He could see muzzle flashes coming from the direction of the errant auto-truck and Centurions spilling out from inside. He continued to behind the admin block and watched several human squads returned fire. The robots advanced, firing as they went, some taking hits, which simply chinked off their bulletproof alloy. Another fire team sprinted past him to join the fight. One young soldier turned his head and slowed as he assessed Dyer’s
Centurion. He looked conflicted for a moment then—presumably because the droid was unarmed and still—proceeded on, continuing the advance. He didn’t make it more than ten another paces before he was gunned down along with the rest of his squad.
Dyer could now see the flashes of gunfire from the south-eastern guard tower as well as the intermittent reflected pulses of light from a sniper somewhere in the medical training centre to his south. The first enemy robot fell, taking a large calibre sniper round to the side. The robots were fanning out into the rest of the base, forcing Dyer to backtrack from where he’d came. He decided to check who else had arrived in the ROCC. He didn’t bother removing his headset, and instead hurriedly consulted the list of operators who were online. Only five had arrived at the ROCC and had logged on. The garrison alarm started sounding, the noisy klaxon transmitted via his robot’s mics. More troops—some in BDUs, some dressed casually, all armed—were converging on the reported location of the breach. What Dyer found strange though, was that the density of weapons fire was remaining more or less constant. This meant only one thing: his human brothers-in-arms were being sent into a meat grinder with no net increase in the concentration of fire. Any soldier knew that concentration of force was fundamental to maximising a unit’s effectiveness. Unless they started coordinating their efforts, they would continue to arrive as a drip feed of new troops only to be gunned down by the rogue Centurions. He decided to brief to five operators on what he’d seen.
“This is Warrant Officer Dyer controlling HIU#103004 from the ROCC,” he said. “I see five of you have checked in. Confirm you can hear me via the system please.” All five confirmed and he continued. “Get control of your HIU and try to find a weapon. We’ve got at least two hundred rogue Centurions attacking the garrison. I repeat: more than two hundred enemy Centurions. Our boys might fire on you, but that’s okay—it’s a risk we’ll need to take to help them. Once they realise we’re on their side they’ll stop.”
He continued his backtrack west towards the robot sheds. He waited next to Shed #6 for his colleagues to join him. An infantry fighting vehicle powered past him on the internal road to the front gate. Halfway there he saw its heavy calibre main gun spray the advancing Centurions with lead. Several fell; many did not and ran for cover. He kept his view fixed to the raging battle unfolding before his robotic surrogate. Seemingly out of nowhere, a bright flash saturated the scene with photons. An anti-tank rocket burst from the launcher held by an enemy robot taking well under a second to cover the distance to the IFV. The vehicle exploded in a flare of fire and plasma. The IFV’s main cannon fell silent.
He took a moment to check who else had come on line—just two more had joined the six of them already in the ROCC. Until more operators arrived, they wouldn’t last long against the numerically superior attackers. He’d been so caught up in the fast-developing situations that he’d not stopped to think about how this thing was even happening. More to the point, who was controlling the two-hundred odd attackers? He had to admit he didn’t know. One thing was for sure: it wasn’t anyone in the ROCC as the place was near empty. He took a moment to check the status of the Catterick and Aldershot ROCCs. It was taking longer than usual to establish the status of the long list of operator stations—just a small Refreshing icon that rotated endlessly in the inset view of his HUD. He decided to try voice comms with a Warrant Officer—Richie Francis—he knew well up at Catterick, hundreds of kilometres to the north. He let out a sigh of relief when his voice call was rapidly connected.
“Hey Richie, this is Danny Dyer—”
“Yeah, I know, Danny,” he said rapidly, his breathing audible, “I can see it on my display. Mate, you won’t believe what’s going down here as well... We’re bloody well under attack too! It’s a coordinated attack! I’ve no idea how—”
“Same here... Truck full of Centurions turned up armed and just started shooting,” he said. “We’re trying to hold them back but it all happened so quickly!”
“Who the hell’s controlling them?” said Richie. “Sure as hell isn’t our ROCC here—there’s only a few dozen operators made it so far. Place is mostly empty, mate!”
“Well, that’s what I was checking... I just don’t get it either,” he said.
“I called down to Aldershot and they’d been experiencing the same as us,” revealed Richie. “Called BDS too, asking them what’s going on with their droids. Just got some nightshift numpty who was no help at all. But get this...”
“What?”
“Have a look on the news,” said Richie. “These attacks have kicked off all over the place, mate! This thing is big!”
“Alright, maybe later... I gotta get going,” he said. “Good luck, Richie.”
“Godspeed mate.”
He focused again on the situation via his Centurion’s sensors. The gunfire was closer now as the enemy robots pushed back the defenders. Damn it, where are the friendlies that should be coming out of Shed 6 right now? he thought. He wanted to link up with at least a handful of them and advance in force after getting hold of some weapons—either from fallen men or, if necessary, via a trip to the armoury. He decided to look inside the shed to see if the recently arrived operators’ bots were coming to join him. He started moving towards the large, open door of the shed. Sounds of gunfire, shouting men and the screams of the wounded and dying filled the chill night air. In less than fifteen minutes, the garrison had become a warzone and they’d need some serious help to arrive soon. But from where? If one of the country’s largest army bases wasn’t secure then where was? And what else was going on around the country that Richie had eluded to? Dyer started to get a sinking feeling that things were about to get immeasurably worse.
Before him were row upon row of metallic humanoid infantry units—around five thousand Centurions all lined up in Shed #6. He still couldn’t see movement but advanced forward and was about to ask his operators what the hell was going on when his bot stopped responding. A second later, the displays in his headset went blank and his audio feed died too. He made a conference call to the now dozen or so operators who had reported in.
He picked one at random and said, “What’s your status, Private Langbrook? I’ve just lost all comms with my bot!”
She said, “Sir, I established a connection, got sensors then it booted me out too. Tried two other bots, but nothing! I ... I don’t understand, sir.”
“No, neither do I, Private.”
He tried several other operators but they told the same story—none of the bots were responding. He blew out a long breath and removed his headset, rubbing his eyes. He sat back in his seat and shook his head in disbelief, trying to rack his brains for a logical explanation to all this. The more he thought about it the more he realised how quickly everything had gone FUBAR. The sinking feeling returned to his stomach—this time worse than before. His assessment was so grave that he began to think about the safety of his wife and children, less than a kilometre away at home. Their three-bedroom, army-provided semi was just outside of the garrison grounds and it was entirely possible the violence could spill over.
He placed a hand on his assault rifle and checked for the two spare clips in his pocket. He made sure the rifle was set to full auto and clicked the safety off. He knew he’d be safe down there for the time being, but the way things were going all bets were off for the long-term security of the underground centre.
He donned the headset quickly for the last time and said, “All present here in ROCC. For whatever reason, we cannot operate the bots. So I advise you to arm yourself if you are not already armed and report for duty to the security office. If you have families here then you may choose to evacuate them first. I have word that attacks have started all over the country. This thing is serious. Be prepared for a long fight and ... good luck.”
He threw off the headset and double-timed out of the security gates and to the lift lobby. He called the lift and waited. When he’d joined the army, a decade and a half before, he’d had patriotic
notions about fighting for his country, valour and sacrifice. What he’d come to realise though, was that, although he and most other soldiers fought ‘for their country’, what they really fought for was their loved ones first. Yes, they fought for their way of life, their culture and for what they considered as ‘the forces of good’, but, for him at least, it all boiled down to protecting his family. And while waiting for the lift, that’s what he resolved to do first. At that moment, it was chaos on the base and he’d just be another headless chicken running towards his death. Once his wife and little ones were safe then he would go back and risk his neck fighting. But who the hell are we fighting against? he thought, stepping into the lift. He pressed the ground floor button and grasped his rifle, wondering what he’d find when he reached the surface.
***
Friday, February 17th, 2045 7:20pm: Secret Government Bunker under Central London
Strained looks met Prime Minister Faraday when he entered the functional concrete-walled conference room deep below the confusion on London’s streets. He didn’t have a clear picture yet of why chaos had descended on the capital and perhaps further afield. He hoped some of the leaders already in the cool, musty room did know what was going on. Not everyone from the previous COBRA team meeting—before everything had gone to hell—was there. Home Secretary Khan was there, ruffled and dusty but otherwise unharmed, and alongside him sat Douglas-Smith. The Met Police Commissioner was sporting a bright-white bandage on his head. The dark of blood showed through a couple of layers below the surface. He’d lost his jacket and his tie hung undone around his neck like some useless, limp adornment. There was no Maison, no Colby and no Defence Secretary Cotterill. Field Marshall Rose was another no-show, but Faraday saw that another military man had joined them along with two more armed police and several aides. The admiral was a tall, tan man with salt and pepper hair and dark eyes. His Blue Number 3 uniform looked untouched by the madness above. He removed his cap and introduced himself.
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